8th Annual Pumpkin Carving Spook-tacular!

Every year since I moved to Maryland I have carved pumpkins. When I finally bought a house I hosted a party to allow others to join in the fun. Besides the 4th of July I think Halloween is my favorite holiday. You can carve pumpkins, ask strangers for candy, and dress up in funny outfits. Besides all the kid stuff, I just really think it's cool that we can still trust people enough to go around and trick or treat. How sad that this tradition is fading away as we get more suspicious and fearful. I'm trying to keep the flame alive, and not just in the jack-o-lantern.

This year I decided to try to make pumpkin soup. Yeah, not so good. The recipe I tried asked for apple cider and apples in addition to pumpkins. You could taste more of the apples than the pumpkins. I knew it needed something, but couldn't figure out what it was. Oh well, I just added a dollop of sour cream and garnished with chives. Not horrible, but I think it needs to be modified if I try it again. If Mariko was here I'm sure she could have salvaged my poor attempt at soup.


Of course, soup was not the purpose of the party. We carved pumpkins! I provide the pumpkins every year. I even have the tools and templates for everyone to use. I got these cool plastic / cloth disposable table clothes that I spread out on the floor. Everyone goes at it, then I simply roll up the table cloth and throw it away with all the pumpkins guts tucked neatly inside. Brilliant!

This year was, in my opinion, the best. Everyone brought their "A" game for pumpkin carving. The jack-o-lanterns are simply amazing. Peter made a pumpkin with innards coming out of its nose. Janice spent hours working on her dragon, which I think wins this year's prize for best jack-of-lantern. See for yourself. You can also check out more pictures at Dav's blog: http://travelindav.blogspot.com/2008/10/pumpkin-carving-at-arronsphiladelphia.html


I have already decided what I'll do for next year in Australia. Let's hope they have pumpkins.

Woot... and snap!

A friend told me about this cool website called woot! Basically each day they offer some cool item for a discounted price until they sell out. They also must employ someone with a wacky sense of humor, because the descriptions of the items are pretty off-the-wall.

They've had enough interesting deals to keep me going back for more. If you happen to have a moment go and check them out. Maybe you'll find something you're willing to spend a few hard-earned bucks on.

Iron Chef Night

Let me start out by saying that I'd like to dedicate this post to Mariko. I look forward to reading her blog because she makes eating food seem both like an art and an event. I love how she loves food, and more importantly takes the time to enjoy it. Way to go Mariko.

This last Wednesday my friend Dav called me up to say he was in town. I randomly suggested that we have an Iron Chef night. I've done this a couple of times before, but in my version I find something in my kitchen that has been there for a while with no hopes of being used in the near future. Rather than waste food, the challenge is to find something to do with it. Dav agreed to the experiment and we raided the cabinets for the "secret ingredient."

I decided to modify the challenge a bit to further expedite the goal to consume aging food. We had to take an item from each of my shelves and then find a dish that would use all of the ingredients. This is what we came up with: diced tomatoes and peppers, couscous, chicken from a can, craisins, artichoke hearts, and parmesean cheese (from the fridge).


Now, these are pretty normal ingredients. We're not trying to make something from, say, fish eyes or pig hearts. I have two cookbooks that I got for last Christmas (thanks Grandma and Holly), and we have an internet connection. I set Dav and Peter on the internet to find recipes, and Dave and I grabbed the cookbooks to start our search. I found a recipe for a stew and some stuffing. In the end, Peter won with Onion And Wild Garlic Quiche With Parmesan In A Couscous Crust I was intrigued by the innovative use of couscous.

I sent Peter and Dave out to get a few ingredients we didn't have (i.e. onions, garlic, cilantro) and also some salad to go along with our dish. I made the couscous, and then the crust. Dav mixed together the rest of the ingredients, and BAM! We had a dinner. Dav was quick to point out that some of our ingredients, such as the mustard, were a little bit out of date. Come on, who hasn't used mustard that expired over a year ago. Does anyone check the expiration date on condiments anyway? Serious. Of course he had to post about it on his blog as well.

Here are a few extra pictures of the process:

The couscous crust (I doubled the recipe since there were 6 GUYS eating this:


The final product just prior to putting it in the oven:


The final product after cooking:


Dav commented that we could have done without the craisins. Peter also suggested that we minimize the use of onions, which after eating this was a bad choice. Chicken, couscous, and eggs don't have much flavor... so the onions would have helped it not be so bland. I didn't add nearly enough seasonings to make this work. More salt, more onions, and perhaps a nice sauce would have made this superb. I liked using couscous as a crust though, but be careful not to make it so thick it becomes the main part of the dish. I also thought salad went very well with the quiche.

Here is a side-by-side of our final plating of the Iron Chef attempt with the picture from the recipe. Notice the picture from the recipe shows way more onions and also tomatoes on top. I think more veggies in the quiche would definitely make a nice touch.

Ghetto Popeye's

My roommate told me to blog about this, so here I go. Tonight I picked up Dav from his house so we could hang out. He's not in Baltimore all that often and it's nice to see him when he's here. I decided that we should go play duck pin bowling in Towson. However, the first order of bui-ness was to get dinner. Dav said he had been craving Popeye's spicy chicken all day, so I was happy to oblige. We still had the Transmorphers movie we rented for my birthday shindig anyway and the Blockbuster was right next door.

When we finally pulled up to Popeye's there was note attached to the order kiosk that said the speakers were broken and to drive to the window to place the order. I had sat at the kiosk for about a minute or two before I realized there was a note with instructions for customers. I drove forward having decided on the chicken strips, and Dav opted for a 3 piece meal without the drink. We waited behind a truck for another couple of minutes before a female employee walked past the car to deliver food to another car waiting in the parking lot. She then stopped at our car to take our order.

We gave the nice lady our order, when she quickly interrupted me to inform me that they didn't have chicken strips. I counter-offered with chicken nuggets. Nope, none of those either. She then recited off a list of what else they didn't have. Pretty much no soda, and anything else I had wanted. They had Dav's 3 piece meal. I reluctantly agreed to get chicken with bones.

What kind of crazy chicken place doesn't have boneless chickens? You might think I am getting worked up over something not worth the effort. Nay, this is the 2nd time this has happened! I was at another Popeye's in Woodlawn when they told me they had no chicken! WHAT? I may be a bit simple minded here, but how does a chicken place not have chicken?

We quickly got our nasty bone-filled greasy chickens and headed home to fill our stomachs. I was disappointed to say the least. The buttery biscuits were quite good.

I know times are tough, but come on Popeye's... get some chicken!

Transmorphers: The best bad-movie birthday movie ever

I recently had another birthday. I seem to have them every year around this time. These last few years, though, I've made something of tradition of the annual celebration. I rally up the friends and head over to the nearest Fuddrucker's. In my family, the kid celebrating the birthday got to choose where to have dinner. I remember several times asking for the Fudd, mostly because they have diced onions. I'm not sure why I love diced onions so much, but I do. Enough questions already. Since moving to Maryland I have gone to Fuddrucker's for my birthday at least 5 or 6 times. I'd say the tradition is getting pretty well entrenched.

Several years ago I added another layer to the festivities. After consuming the tasty meat sandwiches we head to the homestead to watch a bad movie. Bad, in the sense that it has to be something you would not normally choose to watch (not porn, or anything you'd have to talk to a priest / bishop about.) Here's a list of what I can remember watching so far:

2002 - Killer Klowns from Outer Space
2003 - Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
2004 - Night of the Lepus
2005 - Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story
2006 - No movie
2007 - No movie
2008 - Transmorphers

So this year, after Fuddrucker's we took the trip over to Blockbuster Video to pick out a movie. On the spot I decided to let the others in the party join in the fun of the movie selection. We made a game of it. Everyone had to choose the one movie they thought was the worst in the store. After 5 - 10 minutes we would meet up again and determine which movie was worthy of the honor.

I selected A Day Without a Mexican, and Fronterz. Since it was my birthday I felt I got to pick two. Peter picked Son of Kong. Tommy picked some kind of biker chick movie. Dave picked one of the Thomas the Train series. All rightful contenders... but when Carlos presented Transmorphers, we knew we had a winner.

I can honestly say this was the worst movie I have ever seen. Had I not had the peanut gallery to make comments in MST 3000 fashion, I would have shriveled away in despair. About 20 minutes into the movie the soundtrack messes up, so the dialog is 5-10 seconds off. Add in a society of lesbian commanders and missing special effects and you get more of an idea what kind of quality movie this is. Some of the special effects (i.e. the radar graphics) were like watching some games I used to play on the Atari 2600. Not only that, but most of the acting was worse than a porno made by high school drama drop-outs. Uhm, I mean what I hear the acting in a porno would be like. I'm telling you, this was bad.

Of course, I had to own it. Today I was at the mall taking back some pants that were too tight, and getting some film developed. (What is this the 1980's?) I wandered over to the FYE to see if there was anything worth buying. Having seen Ironman twice, I knew I was going to buy it. Luckily, the movie was marked down to $19.99, and came with a $7 rebate. Not bad. I then thought, "If I'm going to get one movie I might as well buy Transmorphers." I looked around the store to see if they had it, and wouldn't you know it, they did. Tucked away behind the orphaned stacks of Transformers were two copies of this abysmal cinematic event. One was new, for $12.99, and one was used for $5.99. I obviously opted for the used version. I'm almost positive it wasn't viewed more than once.

What I didn't know, until I got to the check out counter, is that if anyone bought a sci-fi movie with Ironman they also got $5 off that movie. YES! You read that right. I got Transmorphers for $0.99. If you count in the rebate I'm getting, they actually paid me $6 to take the movie from them. How cool is that? I'll post a picture of the receipt as soon as I can get one on here.


When I was checking out the guy told me he had watched it as well. He said, "You know it's going to be bad when it is written, directed, and edited by the same person."

So if you can spare 85 minutes of your life to throw away on a good laugh, go check out Transmorphers... but please, watch it with your wittiest friends. After you do, make sure to join the Facebook group called "The Few, The Proud, Those who have survived Transmorphers"

Proposition 8 video

I seem to be on a political soap box lately. I'm afraid that this post is no exception.

I got an email recently that said, "Hey everyone please check out the link on this video. It is so disturbing, it was just shocking!!!!"

I was intrigued. What could be so horrifying. The email was a forward, so here are some of the other comments:

"This is a amazing video, it goes well with Proposition 102."
"Many of you may have seen this already.....it was sent to me by two different people. It is scary what will happen if we don't vote YES on Prop 8.......watch........"
"A friend of mine sent this to me and I thought it worth passing along."

So by this point I know it's a political forward, and it has something to do with Proposition 8, which isn't on the ballot in our State. Then I get to this part:

"Regardless of your personal opinion on same-gender marriage, this issue will affect your children, or the children of someone you love. Each of us should have the right to teach our children about moral issues in our own way, in our own families, without the State getting involved.

If Prop 8 fails, all schools, both public and private, may be forced to introduce homosexual behavior - in the name of diversity - as early as Kindergarten. Watch the video below to see a scenario we may all be faced with in the near future. Please vote YES on Proposition 8. Your vote counts!"

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. This is an anti-gay marriage video message. I don't normally look at political videos, but I figured I had nothing else going on so why not. I watched the video, which said the following:

Voting no on Proposition 8 will allow gay marriage to happen.
Other states (i.e. Massachusetts) have passed gay-marriage laws and are already experiencing the effects of it.
For example, if gay marriage is legal then schools will have to talk / teach about gay marriage.
Since Kindergartens are part of school, children attending them will be taught about gay marriage.
If kids hear about gay marriage they will be gay.
Parents who choose not to allow schools talk about gay marriage will be put in jail.
Schools hate parents.

This may be an oversimplification, but I think I got the message right. Here's my problem, there's a HUGE flaw in this logic. Proposition 8 says NOTHING about schools. You can check for yourself. I went and looked up the text of the Proposition. Didn't see school, education, teach, etc. once. I did see an amendment that says that marriage will be defined as a union between a man and a woman. Not only that, but this video is actually saying (without saying it directly) that schools are going to teach kids to be gay in kindergarten. Huh? Did I miss something here?

I'm not saying that Proposition 8 is right or wrong. That's for the people in California to decide. What I am saying is videos like the one I received are propaganda designed to scare people with twisted logic. And more importantly, one of the last comments says that if gay marriage is legal then you'll have to talk about it with your kids. Are you kidding me? When did teaching your kids about the world become a bad thing?

When did schools ever take away a parents' rights to teach their children? I think parents give up those rights when they FAIL to teach their kids. As the saying goes, "If you don't someone else will." Like it or not, in our age of information children are going to learn anything they want to, from school or other kids... or heaven forbid the internet. As a parent you can choose to talk about something and help your child to understand your experience and view of the world.. or you can cover your ears, close your eyes, and pretend nothing is bad out there. You can even tell schools not to teach your kids anything about the world, but don't be surprised when they find out someday, because they will. The question is, will they be prepared and ready to understand it when they do.

Videos like this upset me because they talk about everything except the actual issue. I think I'm probably just tired of politics and moral fundamentalists dreaming up scenarios about what could happen and not talking about what does happen. Maybe I'm too much of a scientist, but since when did we go freaking out because someone says the sky is falling? I want to see a piece hit the ground before I make a decision that the end is near. (Though hopefully the whole thing doesn't hit the ground at the same time so I have time to prepare.)

Why aren't reason and logic part of our political and moral discussion anymore? And when did talking about something make it a moral issue? I thought morals were more about actions than words. You don't kill, you don't lie, you don't cheat... all actions. Words themselves, or discussions about topics aren't moral.

I'm interested to hear your comments.

By the way, I'm not posting a link to the video on purpose. I was indeed outraged, but obviously because the message of the video was taking advantage of people who would think with their feelings instead of their minds.

Congress listened!

Well, they kinda listened. What a cool thing it was that representatives voted down a measure that was practically a sure thing because of the feedback they received from their constituents. Listening to the media, you would have thought they were cows being led to the slaughter. I've had it with the media. They are painting this to make it look like the general public doesn't know what we're talking about. We're the dumb idiots who don't realize the implications of our outrage at providing billions of dollars we don't have to people who took a chance and lost.

None of what is on the media gets to the point of anything. More money won't solve the problem. We are a nation of debtors. We rely on credit today more than we ever have. The whole idea of credit is pretty ridiculous. I'm reminded of Wimpy on Popeye. He was always pleading for "a burger today, that I will gladly pay you for tomorrow." Sometimes you have to suck it up and actually work for something. (Here's an article published almost a year ago, which is oddly foresightful about our current mess: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IK21Dj01.html)

Beyond the credit crisis is a deeper crisis of leadership. All of the financial markets are now victim of a thing called fear. I'm amazed that no one sees the correlation between what Wall Street thinks will happen and the prices of the stocks they trade. When the media says the Congress is going to dump a bunch of money into Wall Street, stocks go up. When the bill fails stocks go down. Why? Because people make decisions based on fear. Wall Street is no exception.

What happened to the days when the president came before the nation and said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Or "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Granted these sayings were both said by Democrats, and I hardly consider myself a staunch liberal. More to the point, both of these go beyond party politics. They reminded Americans that we are something more than the current crisis we face. We built this nation into what it is not by promising to make good on a debt sometime in the future, but by using every resource we had to make something work. We need a leader who will remind us that we can be better, that this too will pass, and that there is hope in our future. Most importantly we need someone who will do more than just pay lip service to our hopes and dreams.

I'm tired of the blame game and the currency of despair we face every day. No wonder people get discouraged by the news and politics. I think we all need to make a point to find something positive in our lives to remind ourselves that life is a beautiful thing.

Enough of my soap box. For those of you reading this, thanks for your patience while I have vented my opinions about these things.

Gunrichment

Yes, that's me with a gun. My mother would not be so happy. I wasn't allowed to have any type of gun as a kid. When I finally got a small Daisy BB gun that used a small pump you had to crank to build the pressure to fire the BB, you would have thought I had a semi-automatic unlicensed weapon. Never mind that I had injured myself riding an ATV and the BB gun was consolation prize. But that's a different story.

This weekend a bunch of guys from church packed up the cars and headed to Elks Neck State park in Maryland to fire some guns at a gun range. I haven't fired anything but a .22 at scout camp, and a shot gun once. I was looking forward to expanding my horizons. I brought along Peter, Tommy, and my roommate's brother, David.

All of the guns were provided by two guys, brothers actually. Now we're not just talking guns. One of them was a 50 caliber missile launcher of a thing. That's Tommy being the first one to man-up and fire the thing. You could feel the shock wave from 20 feet away. From what I heard, the gun has hit the target from up to 2 miles away, and was designed to take out engine blocks. How can you not feel a rush of testosterone after firing this thing?

Fortunately, the wildlife / engine block pulverizer wasn't our only option. I stood on the sideline for a while biding my time for the right moment. I was apprehensive about shooting these high caliber weapons of destruction, but eventually I stepped up to the plate. I'm going to loose some man points for not knowing, but I'm not exactly sure what kind of gun I was going to shoot. The guy loaded it for me, told me how to hold it and stepped back. I released the safety, took aim, and gently squeezed the trigger. Click! Nothing happened. Yep, the bullet jammed. I called the guy over and he took a look at it. I guess it's not a good sign when he says, "Well, I've never seen this before." Since I only pulled the trigger I'm pretty sure it wasn't my fault, but I felt bad for ruining this guy's gun. After that I wasn't too keen on taking another chance on either ruining another gun or having some other kind of mishap happen.

For the rest of the day I took on the name of "Jammer." Plus I got a few cool pics of me with a cool gun. Don't let the pics fool you though, I never got to shoot any of the guns. Dab nab it!

A letter to my US Congressional representatives

Rep. Sarbanes, Sen. Mikulski, Sen Cardin,

I have never before written to my representative about political matters. I feel I must write now to voice my opinion about the government bailout you are about to vote on. I, like many of those around me, feel this is an action that is taking advantage of the American people. While I do not want the economy to be worse for me or my friends and neighbors, I do not want to provide easy money to those who caused this mess.

This deal is bad all around. I'm sure you are already thinking about oversight of the spending, aid to average citizens, and salary caps for executives. Let me just add, that this money is coming from the people. When you vote please consider that you have been entrusted to speak for us. I realize you cannot speak for everyone, but as my representative I want you to know what I would like you to do... I urge you to vote against the bailout.

Thank you for taking time to listen to my voice. I wish you all the best as you work in Washington to make this world a better place.

What a crazy government we have!

I'm not sure if I can speak for everyone else in the United States, but the government bailout of the financial industry currently in the works is ridiculous. Our government is getting ready to give away our money (the government gets its money from the people through taxes) to a bunch of corporations. One report estimates the bailout may be as much as $700 billion!

Let's do some easy math. As of July 2008, the estimated population of the United States was 303,824,640 people. If we take the total money the government is planning to spend for the bailout and divide that by the number of people paying the bill...

700,000,000,000 / 303,824,640 = $2303.96

This is the amount each of us are paying for this! And where does this money go? To the same companies that are paying their CEO's and other corporate officers millions of dollars. What do we get out of this? Nothing, really. We will still have mortgages to pay, because the banks aren't going to suddenly decided that the money we gave them should go towards the debts we already owe them. We won't get cheaper insurance. In the end, we won't get any kind of financial benefit other than a "safer economy" based on the opinion of those spending our money.

How about the government gives us the money. I promise to go out and spend what they give me. I'll spend every last penny. The money will still go to the companies they are trying to bail out, but at least I'll have something to show for it.