Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

I ordered a TiVo today. If overnight shipping weren’t $50, I would have gotten it. As it was, ground shipping was free, even though I have to deal with UPS (which, by the way, sucks, as we all know).

I can’t wait!

Ok look, here’s the deal. Store-bought beef jerky costs around U.S. $25 per pound. Home-made is ridiculously simple and cheap. A dehydrator from Walmart is a one time cost of $40, or you can just use your oven. Three pounds of top round will yield about one pound of jerky, and will cost around $12 at the grocery store (and if you know a hunter or are one, just pop a cap in a deer for around $1 per bullet). The price for spices is negligible, and you probably have them in the house already. And store-bought jerky usually has nitrates or other preservatives in it. It’s insane to buy some when you can make it for half the price.

Mix all this stuff together to taste:

Worcestershire sauce (~2/3 c.)
soy sauce (~2/3 c.)
teriyaki sauce (~2/3 c.)
Liquid Smoke (~ 1 T.)
garlic powder (~ 1 T.)
kosher salt (~ 1 T.)
fresh ground black pepper (~ 1 T.)
onion powder (~ 1 T.)
red pepper flakes (~ 1 t.)

Slice thin top round beef, or bison, or venison, or emu, or turkey, or any other non-fatty meat. Keep thickness less than 1/4″.

Marinate the meat in the mixture overnight.

Put it in the dehydrator.

Check it after 3 hours or so. When it’s ready, it will crack instead of bend, and it will not appear at all moist. It probably won’t all cook at the same rate, so just take out pieces as they’re ready. Don’t immediately put them in a sealed bag, since the heat will cause condensation which will ruin the jerky.

Measurements are approximate – it’s your jerky; make it how you like it. If you want it sweeter, increase the proportion of Worcestershire. If you want it saltier, add more salt and soy sauce.

This has been Auntie Addlepated’s cooking lesson for the day. Perhaps later if you’re lucky I will give you the deep fried Twinkie recipe.

It’s a Southern thing.

The Peanuts tarot deck
You have the right to remain silent, and so do you, and you, and you.
Taxes for dummies
How to satisfy your craving for kittens.
Eye see you.
How to spruce up that boring urinal.
Dead babes!
How to tell that special someone that you care… in style.

Well, I got the baby to sleep at 7:30 this morning. Then the 3 year old woke up at 10, which surprised the hell out of me since she had firemen stomping around her room at 4 in the morning and looked really confused. I talked her into coming into bed with me but her poor nose was so stuffy (yes, still, thank you Santa-Claus-Line-Kid) that it kept us both awake.

OK, now look. If you’re reading this, you have a computer and internet access. This means three things:

1. Get a virus program and keep the definitions current! Update monthly, at the very least.

2. Quit opening attachments that you aren’t specifically expecting! Yes, that means that you need to stop looking at all your joke mail, unless you know what you’re doing and you’re sure that there’s no hidden executable-type extension after the “.jpg” or whatever.

3. If you must forward an email on to everyone in your address book, please, for the love of Pete, BCC it. Don’t CC it. This keeps random people from getting other random peoples’ email addresses. Not only is this considerate (would you go around handing out someone’s mailing address to people who didn’t know them?) but it helps keep viruses from disguising themselves as me and sending themselves to your boss. Or vice versa.

In case you couldn’t tell, I got another virus this morning. I’ve stressed virus programs so much to everyone I know that I get pretty annoyed this happens. It’s totally avoidable. Not that it affects me, since I run OS X, but I don’t need all this extra crap junking up my inbox.

The fire alarm went off at 4. The firemen came and couldn’t find anything wrong. Hub thinks we have rats. The baby’s all hepped up and refuses to sleep.

I got a hit on my site earlier for this:

in space no one can smell you pee

Uh.

Safari doesn’t display my site properly – there’s no image at the top. And it doesn’t support a post bookmarklet either. Bummer.

I’ve spent 2 hours on the phone with Time Warner’s lackeys in the last three days. Screw their DVR service. I’m getting Tivo. They’re running a special on a reconditioned Series 2 60 hour box for $149.

Damn, this venison jerky is tasty.

I deep fried a Twinkie the other day and ate it. We also made buffalo wings and fish and chips.

There’s a decadent aroma upstairs of jerky cooking. We’ve got a few pounds of well-marinated venison in the dehydrator right now. Yum.

My Tim Tam order came in today. I tore into one of the packages of Original flavor and tried one. I was totally underwhelmed. Then I dunked it into a cup of hot coffee. Now I see what the fuss is about.

I’ve been doing more Google Answers lately, Yesterday I called the guy who dod the box cover for Atari’s Centipede. I don’t know which of us was more impressed to be talking to the other – me, since I was talking to a guy who had designed U.S. postage stanps that I actually had sitting on my desk, or him, since he was talking to someone who was putatively associated with Google (even though I tried to tell him I was an independent contractor… I just sound impressive, even though I’m quite ordinary).

I watched the first half of Bowling for Columbine the other night and couldn’t bear to sit through the second half. First of all, it was really really boring. Second of all, the editing was so obviously done to make people whom Moore disagrees with look silly. Third, he doles out statistics without ever revaling their sources (and that, weirdly, completely disagree with the U.N. study that was done earlier last year about gun violence, naming the U.K. the worst nation for gun violence in the western world). Fourth, he shows stuff that’s completely patently untrue (I think it was supposed to be satire, but viewing it satirically beats up Moore’s points), and it’s depressing to think that people will soak it up and not wonder if it’s real or not (i.e. A Brief History of America… they didn’t burn witches, pilgrims didn’t sail to Africa to capture slaves, etc… and he claims that the Africanized honey bees never made it to the U.S., then the website links to a site saying they’re here… ).

Moore makes himself out to be an expert shot, that he “won” the junior marksman certificate from the NRA… want to know what the qualifications are? at 50 feet (about 16 yards) you have to make 25 out of 50 points on a target. Guess what? I “won” this “award” too, when I was 12. It took him until he was 16. And this is the kind of responsible film maker he is –

Q. Did Columbine High School give you permission to film inside the school?
A. No. So we just walked in and filmed the empty hallways. It is very easy for anyone to just walk right in to the school. There is virtually no security still at the school.

(from the Bowling for Columbine web site.

Uh, yeah, so anyway, the film’s boring. The best part I saw in the entire first half was the Marilyn Manson interview, which totally shocked the hell out of me. The guy’s actually articulate.

Oh great. I can’t take his money. I can’t print my own money. I have to work for my money. Why don’t I just lay down and die?