Everything2 New Writeups

Catholic Fish Quiche (recipe)

2012-05-16T22:28:13Z

This is an original recipe that I pulled together at the last minute, from whatever was in my mother's refrigerator. Feel free to make substitutions or use your own leftovers.

1 pre-made pie crust, already rolled into a perfect circle, leftover from Thanksgiving, expired

2 individually frozen wild salmon fillets (remove plastic)

8 eggs, four white, four brown

organic Havarti cheese with mold scraped off

2 slices yellow American cheese (my Mother's cheese of choice)

approximately 2 inches or 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese

one-half cup of 1% milk, plus 4 dollops of fat-free cottage cheese

2 withered green scallions, cleaned up and sliced

Adobo seasoning, ancient dried parsley, and paprika even older

I could only find one small, shallow pie pan so I placed the pre-made crust in it and…

Newt Gingrich (person)

2012-05-16T20:53:28Z

Newt Gingrich ran for the Republican nomination for the Presidency in 2012, and after competing for three months, dropped out of the race.

Actively being seeking political office was something that Newt Gingrich had not done for some time. After leaving the speakership and congress in 1999, Gingrich worked as a political consultant and on the lecture circuit for the next decade or so. His entry into the nomination in the summer of 2011 was somewhat of a surprise, and some didn't think that his bid was a very serious one.

There are certain probabilities in dealing with Presidential elections (and nominations), and Gingrich was in some ways a bad fit. The standard positions before entering the Presidency were to be a Governor or a Senator, while Gingrich had been in the House of Representatives. He had been Speaker of the House, which is certainly a…

The Resistance (essay)

2012-05-16T17:47:54Z

Book #47 in the series Animorphs by K.A. Applegate.

Disclaimer: If you've heard of Animorphs and you're thinking "Aww, how cute," maybe you should read my introduction to the first book to see how wrong you are.

THE RESISTANCE

Animorphs #47
by K.A. Applegate

Summarized Plot:

A free Hork-Bajir has been captured, enabling the Yeerks to find the hidden valley where they live. Jake and the Animorphs are asked to help fight the doomed battle against what is sure to be an overwhelming Yeerk force. They form a plan to drive the Yeerks away with water harnessed from damming, but they also have to deal with a group of campers that are caught in the crossfire and face the fact that they may not win this battle. Interspersed with the story of the fight for the Hork-Bajir colony is the story of Jake's ancestor Isaiah…

Notes from an open mic night (poetry)

2012-05-16T17:07:39Z

An old man sat next to me and asked
Why don't you play an instrument?
You have fingers

I tried to explain that I play an instrument
But I couldn't figure out how to not sound awkward
When I explained that my fingers only worked
With letters not fretboards
But still with necks and bodies
Carving shapes into the skin
That I can only reach by tracing
The vibrations into moments like
Her perfume hanging in my mouth
Clouding the roof
Making each breath I take taste of lightning
Turning thunderstorms in my belly
As my teeth chatter like a child
Too nervous to ask a question
Which has a branch of responses
When he only wants to sit under the tree
And listen as the rain picks its way through

…

Love is Enough (review)

2012-05-16T16:08:08Z

I have someone very close to me who has recently had the self-awareness to admit they have an addiction to prescription pain medication; specifically, hydrocodone. Apparently this person has been functioning at a full-time job even while taking as many as 6 pills a day. I'm not sure how many mgs. that constitutes, but I know it's a lot and I know I'd be a zombie after taking that many of those. As a former junkie, I do not understand the attraction of this drug at all. They do not make me feel better when I've taken them; but that's beside the point. The point is this: This person has recently come to terms with the unsustainability of this habit and checked herself into a 30-day rehab program. She's been out now for a month and seems to be doing fine. She's going to N.A. Meetings and has a sponsor she likes a lot. I have hope that she's over this phase and can stay sober for the rest of her life.

I have another good friend who lost a lucrative…

ideas (fiction)

2012-05-16T15:02:08Z

The genesis was the onset of a very particular sort of academic madness that most failed to notice. She had been a normal enough girl, after all, growing up in a loving home and with a bright future. There were no signs that anyone on the outside that something was festering within her, a paradoxically commonplace yet rare and exotic affliction that was best known for its nearly universal infection of children but also rapid disintegration upon adulthood. In the end it would come to consume much of her and her life. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, and eventually years would all be sacrificed on the altar of time in pursuit of a human holy grail; teleology, perfected.

It began in her bedroom with stacks of books, Plato, Kant, Hegel, and then Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus. Names that jangled like bells on a string, chiming in and out of harmony as she read and thought. Always above her "level", as though she had broken an obligation to stay grounded in the interests of her…

May 16, 2012 (log)

2012-05-16T05:03:56Z

Okay. I said I would never be back. And I'm not, really. It's just I'm so used to coming to this place for comfort and this place has a kind of mutual understanding that faceless people offer, and you kind of become addicted to it.

Where am I in life? Who am I? This is kind of a teenage-midlife-crisis thing going on here, and most of you are probably already shaking your heads at my naivety. I'm scared, to be honest. I feel like I'm not ready for everything the world has in store, but at the same time I want to run and embrace everything there is.

For one, I am a bi-sexual female. Or at the very, very least I am bi-curious. I want to kiss and love other women, but I also have a preference for men. I don't know if that's conceited, having a preference when being bi-sexual in today's society denotes the idea that you love both sexes equally. I don't know.…

Prince of Darkness (thing)

2012-05-16T00:14:39Z

A John Carpenter Film

"The Prince of Darkness stinks." - the Washington Post

If you're a big fan of this film, please look away now.

I admit that I was bored and looking for something to jar me from lassitude, and found this little zombie horror puppy on Netflix. It was written, directed and scored by John Carpenter, who I have to say has made some pretty decent films (The Thing and They Live come to mind). The cast includes character actors Victor Wong and Donald Pleasence, and on that basis I thought it might be a good ride. This, sadly, was a puppy that was abandoned, run over and should have been put down. I could almost leave the review there, but I feel that you deserve to know why. No spoilers here; as I said in another review, this one comes pre-spoiled.

The story concerns a priest who finds a…

James McMurtry (thing)

2012-05-15T23:47:46Z

I'm not a big fan of country music. It's not that I don't like it, but after a while all the stuff they play on most country music stations sounds the same. and as a result I can't really distinguish between Reba Mcintyre and Tanya Tucker, or Clint Black and Garth Brooks. Well, okay, there's Willie Nelson and Bocephus. There's only three country bands I ever cared enough about to chase down their music, much less go to their shows, and one of those is James McMurtry.

You may have heard of his daddy, Larry; wrote a book that wound up as a popular TV miniseries once, and a bunch of others that didn't, but sold well enough. It seems Larry knew John Mellencamp and slipped him James' demo tape, and the rest, as they say, is history...at least in the sense that time passed and stuff happened, like Mellencamp co-producing James' debut album on Columbia, Too Long In The Wasteland. It's a good album. There's sad…

Sanshiki Round (thing)

2012-05-15T18:37:38Z

The Sanshiki round or Beehive was an anti-aircraft round used by the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. It was fired from the main 18-inch guns on Battleships like the Yamato, and combined steel flechettes with incendiary sub-munitions.

The round weighed approximately 3,000 lbs and contained 600 steel stays, not counting the steel fragments from the shell casing itself, and 900 incendiary tubes. The incendiary tubes were 25 x 90mm steel cylinders filled with rubber thermite. The round was detonated via a fuze set according to desired altitude. The steel stays and incendiary tubes were ejected in a 20 degree cone upon detonation. The steel bars created around 2,800 flechettes upon detonation, and the incendiary tubes, which ignited .5 seconds after detonation, burned for 5 seconds with 16 foot flames.

The Sanshiki round was not commonly used because the 18 inch guns, when set at maximum elevation, disrupted other anti aircraft systems.

The Deception (essay)

2012-05-15T18:17:48Z

Book #46 in the series Animorphs by K.A. Applegate.

Disclaimer: If you've heard of Animorphs and you're thinking "Aww, how cute," maybe you should read my introduction to the first book to see how wrong you are.

THE DECEPTION

Animorphs #46
by K.A. Applegate

Summarized Plot:

After a communication with the Andalite homeworld is inconclusive about whether they'll come to help, Ax and Marco's dad figure out how to interpret the Yeerks' plans by decoding their communications, and they find out where a big mission is about to take place--in the ocean. Visser Three has become Visser One, and Visser Two will be landing on the planet soon to help start whatever this plan is. The Animorphs, realizing they're going to have to start doing whatever it takes to win, steal a plane and morph fighter pilots. When they get to the aircraft carrier whose coordinates…

Texas High School Football (event)

2012-05-15T09:24:30Z

When you think of the word "football" what comes to your mind? Is it soccer, as the other countries call it; or is it the great American tradition we have all grown to love.

Being born and raised in Texas, male or female, you understood it is more of a religion than a spectators sport. Every Friday night when the stores were closed and nobody was home, you could always expect everybody to be watching the High School football game.

At the end of every summer, before Fall would roll around you can hear whispers of football talk. You could feel it in the air; everyone was getting ready for the start of another year, hoping, their team would be State Champions. Saturday throughout Thursday folks were either talking about last Friday's game or the one forthcoming. Not a shred of doubt, no matter how bad the town's team was; they were going to go to playoffs.

There was only one affair…

Hunting a Dreameater Spider (fiction)

2012-05-15T07:23:16Z

Dreameater spiders are, in no uncertain terms, a pain in the collective ass of humanity.

People see the 'silk' in stores and the fancy clothes made from it and don't realize what went in to not just making it, but harvesting it and carting it back to the manufacturer. Not to mention all the effort that actually goes in to processing the stuff. They just see the pretty.

There are two kinds of Dreameater spider.

Dreamweavers look innocuous enough, I'll admit. They're the ones who make the 'silk'.

Commercial weavers are kept in special silk harvesting facilities where everything is very safe and authorized and smiled upon by the health inspector. The ones not settled inside a nice, safe facility where I can't get to them will usually find…

...said the liar (thing)

2012-05-15T05:17:36Z

'...said the liar' was a popular tactic in playground lawyering from the afternoon of July 4, 1984 until around April 20, 1999. The tactic (as close fans of the TV show 'Psych' well know) consisted of immediately responding to a statement made by another person by appending to such statement the phrase, '...said the liar.' The implication of this appendation was that the person who had made the statement was in fact a liar, thereby tainting the statement itself as having been a lie. Interestingly enough, the tactic could be reflected back at itself by the maker of the statement (or another random person) repeating the phrase back to the original employer of the tactic.

Though apocryphal accounts record use of the phrase prior to July of 1984, it was on that date that one Robert Heeberman definitively established the tactic at a Junior Cub Scouts picnic, in response to an unknown taunt by Jason 'Snotty' Rogers. The statement which prompted this response,…

Gadje (person)

2012-05-15T01:35:18Z

Romany Word for a Non-Romany Person

"Mashkar le gadjende leski shib si le Romeski zor"
"Surrounded by the Gadje, the Rom's only defence is his tongue"

Pronounced "gah-jay" or "gay-djuh", the word Gadje (or Gadjo) is a Romany ("gyspy") word used to describe someone who is either not of Romany extraction, or one who has left the Romany life and is living outside the community and culture. The ethical code and philosophy of the Romany is fairly complex, and embraces spiritual ways, religion and cultural standards. One example of this is that they decline to excrete where they eat, hence will construct latrines outside the camp, and view anyone who uses an indoor toilet facility as unclean.

In the same way that the Amish describe their non-Amish neighbours as "English", it is used with regard to anyone outside their own culture. However, it means more than…

Among the Hidden (review)

2012-05-15T01:11:01Z

Among the Hidden
by
Margaret Peterson Haddix
Simon & Schuster Books, 1998

The first book in the Shadow Children Sequence (sequence being the author's choice of words; most of us might consider it a series). It is a children's/young adult science fiction novel, and significantly, it is a quite good one. It's targeted at kids from ages 8 to 12, although it is quite enjoyable for older folks too. It is easy reading and easy for kids to relate to, but it is also a good example of social-political science fiction; a rare breed indeed.

Twelve-year-old Luke Garner is a third - an illegal third child, an accident that the government has declared not only illegal, but a killing offence. He lives hidden in his parent's house, running to hide anytime a stranger approaches the house, unable to go to school or talk to anyone other than his parents and older brothers. Fortunately, his parents are farmers, so…

This is the city. Los Angeles, California. Sometimes someone gets the urge to pet a small furry animal. That's my job. My name's Friday. I carry a badger. (fiction)

2012-05-15T00:25:02Z

Tarja's a sullen bitch, but she answers the phone when I call. I'm one of the only ones who'll put up with her mood swings. Still, a good diviner is worth their weight in Columbian nose candy, and Tarja's nothing if not good - and well aware of it too.

"Tarja, I need the cards."

She spits on the other end. Long drag of a cigarette audible. "Cross my palm with silver, bitch."

I pause. Wait.

"Tarja."

"Silver." She's not budging. Usual Tarja bullshit.

"It's the twenty-first century, Tarja, and aren't you a Buddhist now? No one keeps silver anymore. You want a piece of flatwear?" If I can find one in the dishes. Hah, what you think I've got maid service? I'm busy, and this sink rates low for me.

"I'm Gypsy this week, you ignorant gadje." There's a long pause on the other end of the line. "Fine. Bring me a jug of milk, I'm out." She slams the phone down, and I'm left with dialtone.

After a few seconds, the white noise starts to…

The Revelation (essay)

2012-05-14T19:48:36Z

Book #45 in the series Animorphs by K.A. Applegate.

Disclaimer: If you've heard of Animorphs and you're thinking "Aww, how cute," maybe you should read my introduction to the first book to see how wrong you are.

THE REVELATION

Animorphs #45
by K.A. Applegate

Summarized Plot:

Shortly after finding out that his dad discovered Z-space at work, Marco finds himself caught in a nightmare. His father is kidnapped for infestation, and Marco is very close to not getting there in time to stop it. He has to fight off the Yeerks and get his dad to safety, and ends up having to let his dad in on the secret of the war he's been fighting. Soon his dad knows everything: that Earth is under attack, what the Yeerks and Andalites are about, what Marco's role is in all this, and the fact that his presumed-dead wife Eva is the…

The Chopstick Diet (how-to)

2012-05-14T19:32:07Z

Not only will this diet guarantee weight loss, the Chopstick Diet will improve your manual dexterity, induce a state of inner calm, and create new neural pathways in your brain!

Unlike the recently touted DNA Diet^TM, this diet is affordable! All you need is a willingness to try eating in a totally different way...and a pair of chopsticks.

"What about carbs? What about fats and protein and calorie-counting and the beloved Food Pyramid?" I hear your cries and say, "Worry not!"

If you're like me, perhaps you have a stash of leftover, unused chopsticks from years and years of previous nights of take-out, as well as fancy ones you purchased or were given as a gift in your Christmas stocking.

Using the chopsticks of your choice, begin the diet by simply practicing with your predominant hand, picking up one imaginary grain of…

Commerce Anxiety Disorder (idea)

2012-05-14T14:59:58Z

We've all probably experienced this eerie feeling a couple of times in our life. It usually occurs during those few seconds that it takes when you swipe your credit or debit card before the transaction is approved.

According to research recently conducted at the Harvard University Medical School approximately thirty to forty percent of the population under the age of forty suffer from some type of this condition at one time or another.

Back Round

In a blind study conducted during the height of the recent recession researchers sent people out to make purchases using both types of cards. The subjects were unaware of the true nature of the study and were informed that it was being conducted to monitor system response times to a new type of card. Some of the cards had a sufficient balance in order to complete the transaction while others did not.

In either case the study revealed that the subjects…

May 14, 2012 (log)

2012-05-14T11:37:01Z

I love you and will love you.
I cherish you and will cherish you.
The journey we've begun has no end:
I will be yours forever.
I will hug you first in times of joy
  and I will revel in your successes.
I will turn to you first in hardship or sorrow
  and I will always be ready to comfort you.
I will protect you from hurt
  and do no hurt to you;
I will support you in your choices
  and hold you foremost in my own.
I offer you all that I have and all that I am
  and what you entrust in me I will never betray.
My heart will be your shelter
  and your arms will be my home.
I love you and will love you always.

I said it seven years ago, bare and blue of foot, ringed by flowers and mountains and family, with her hands in mine and not a thing…

Meatloaf (idea)

2012-05-14T10:52:32Z

Solomon Grundy's Guide to Sunday Roasts

Соломон Гранди поможет вам в том, что совершенный и сочные воскресенье событие: жаркое.

— Vladimir Nabokov

If there is a Noble Tradition to mark the Sabbath Day in the main parts of Christendom, that must surely be the Sunday Roast—whether it be a brace of golden crispy chickens, a joint of beef, a saddle or haunch of venison,…

For Those Who Like It Rough - Chapter XI (fiction)

2012-05-14T10:15:47Z

Chapter XI:

Chinks in the Armor

I got a little turned around finding the public terminal. It was a private booth, which of course smelled like urine, so I called Conner's Place and asked Papi if there were any messages for Todd Williams.

"Oh, to be sure, I got something for ye." Papi said in his faux brogue. I could hear over the line the sound of him flipping through his call book while shouting at some rowdy patron to calm down.

"'Ere we go! Todd Williams. 'We have found a room at a hotel. The kid doesn't think we were followed, but I can't really understand him. I would feel safer if you were here.' An' thar's a number."

I decided not to mention how he completely dropped the accent when reading the note and asked, "No address?".

"Nay, jus' the…

Double Handed Hearts (how-to)

2012-05-14T09:06:39Z

Double Handed Hearts

Since the inception of Windows almost everyone is familiar with the game of Hearts. This is a firm favourite between my friends and we play a vast amount - up to the point where you can be expecting everyone to be, in some amount, counting cards, bluffing, and calculating odds.

One of the major issues with the game is that it requires four players. For a situation in which only two players are present we invented a variation where by each player plays the game with two consecutive hands. The rules are largely the same, and for an individual, each hand can be considered a player in its own right, just on the same team. From then on the rules follow as normal with a couple of exceptions -

There is an addition to the winning conditions. A player loses if ANY of his hands reach 100 points.
There is also a modification to shooting the moon. Upon shooting the moon both player hands receive no points, while each opponent hand…

May 14, 2012 (dream)

2012-05-14T07:07:23Z

I'm climbing the Sandias and She is with me. We've taken some sort of jackass with us and whoever this guy is (I don't know him, he might be one of Her friends) he knows an awful lot about the history of the area.

We're going to the south peak and are taking the brambly, deserty way up. We run into a house on a spire of rock and due to an adventure with a ghost there, we get separated. She goes on ahead while her friend and I get to play Scooby-Doo with the damn house. There's a ghost problem related to some guy who used to own the house and who killed his wife. The jerkass is happy to be my faithful companion dispensing helpful advice in large block-quotes as we solve the mystery.

I solve the mystery of the house only to discover that the jackass hadn't stayed behind…