Category: Life

Oh, you know, the usual…

More crossword weirdness…

Posted on by Dale

In my ongoing efforts to chronicle the absolutely weird coincidences between the New York Times crossword puzzle and what we laughingly refer to as “real life,” here are my notes from volume 17 of NYT Easy Crossword Puzzles. (I would like everyone to note that I have generally gone for the Sunday puzzles, but due to the brain fog caused by my recent health issues, I have fallen back on the easy stuff, as is evidenced by my ability to do two or three of these at one sitting.)

Here’s the deal: More frequently than is called for by statistics, I will be solving a crossword puzzle as we watch television, etc., and as I’m solving a clue the topic will be referenced either by the TV or by current events. Here’s the list from volume 17 with its 200 puzzles:

  • 4/11/26: In the day’s actual puzzle at the NYT site, 16A (_____ TOKARCZUK, 2018 LITERATURE NOBELIST: [OLGA]) was also a clue, and 27A (COUNTRY WHOSE NAME BECOMES ANOTHER COUNTRY IF YOU CHANGE THE LAST LETTER TO A Q: [IRAN]) was a bit on the nose given [[[Turmp]]]’s disaster
  • 6/30/26: We’re watching Second Chorus, and Burgess Meredith says, “Hit me in the lip” as I’m solving 38A (SASS: [LIP])
  • 7/4/26: We’re watching the original Ted Lasso series for the third time, and boom! — 45d (DOGIE CATCHER: [LASSO])
  • 7/7/26: The World Cup was going on, and I get 45A (ONLY PLAYER ON MORE THAN TWO WINNING WORLD CUP TEAMS: [PELE]); and the Current Administrations screw-up with the Reflecting Pool, 50D (POND SCUM, TYPICALLY: [ALGAE])
  • 7/7/26: That morning at Backstreet Writers Group, someone mentioned Throne of Blood as an influence, 14A (DIRECTOR KUROSAWA: [AKIRA])
  • 7/9/26: As I read Zardoz Speaks to You, about the making of the immortal Zardoz, 23A (CONNERY WHO PLAYED 007 SEVEN TIMES: [SEAN]
  • 7/13/26: Ginny scrolling through options to find something to watch; the preview for How to Get to Heaven from Belfast contained the phrase “You’re wearing pajamas” as I solve 57A (SOME CHRISTMAS ATTIRE: [MATCHINGPJS])
  • 7/20/26: The movie The Odyssey just opened, 2D (ODYSSEUS IN “THE ODYSSEY”: [HERO]
  • 7/24/26: Watching Ride or Die, in which Hanna Waddingham plays an undercover assassin, episode 4, 44D (UNDERCOVER ACTIVITY? : [SLEEP])
  • 7/25/26: 68A, both clue and answer, were in that day’s puzzle (BAD, BAD _____ BROWN: [LEROY])
  • 7/26/26: While driving to Atlanta earlier that day, my phone played “Rise Up!” 36A (“HAMILTON” CREATOR _____ MANUEL MIRANDA: [LIN]); and while chatting with my friend Zeff, I mentioned “acid” as I was solving 17A (LIKE HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS: [MINDBENDING])
  • 8/3/26: Cousin Anna Catherine texts that she came across a patient in the system with the last name of Shakespeare; Ginny asks if they are a descendant and I reference Hamnet as I’m solving 45D [GERTRUDE’S SON: [HAMLET])
  • 8/10/26: Ginny pulls up the new Ted Lasso just as I hit 60A (YOUNG GENIUS: [WUNDERKIND]), which of course was Nathan Shelley’s nickname from the first series.
  • 8/23/26: We’re watching Midsommer Murders, season 10, episode 3, “King’s Crystal,” which is a parody of Hamlet, and we have 4D (BREAKFAST PASTRY FOR HAMLET?: [DANISH])
  • 9/1/26: Rewatching The Crown… 48D (WILLIAM OR HARRY, E.G.: [PRINCE])
  • 9/1/26: Watching Grantchester — the eventual murderess had been rollerskating most of the episode, 53D (USE ROLLERBLADES: [SKATE])

And there you have the most recent couple of months of my crossword weirdness.

Courage!

Posted on by Dale

I’m the coach of the Backstreet Writers Group at Backstreet Community Arts here in Newnan, GA, and as it happened, this morning the writers were late showing up. This is not a problem, except I didn’t really have anything of my own to work on.

When this happens, I require myself to draw a card from a deck called Empowering Questions that sits on our table and write an answer to said question. Today, that question was:

What is the most courageous thing I’ve ever done? How did it make me feel?

Oh dear.

I’ve been racking my brain and I really cannot think of anything I’ve ever done as courageous. I’ve taken risks, certainly, but nothing that would require what I think of as courage.

Except… it occurs to me that deciding to go for my first kiss with Ginny Henninger at the University of Georgia fifty years ago was like jumping off a cliff — and fortunately, she kissed me back.

So I assume I don’t have to tell you how that made me feel.

Take Me Back to Manhattan — this time with SHARKNADOES!

Posted on by Dale

A while back, I blogged about the wonderfully terrible movie Sharknado and how I actually admired the craftsmanship that went into making a movie that absolutely farted in the general direction of what a movie is supposed to be.

Shortly after that, as we watched Sharknado 2: The Second One, I made more notes about how deliberately wrong the whole thing was, and that word processing document has remained open and unsaved on my laptop for over five years. Until now.

After saving Los Angeles in the first movie, our heroes Fin (yes really) and April have to save New York City. That’s all you need to know.

Like the first movie, this one simply ignores physics:

  • Standing atop some vehicle, Fin (Ian Ziering) slices through a one-ton shark as it flies overhead; he registers not even the trace of an impact.
  • Skye (Vivica Fox) slices through a giant shark (they’re all giant sharks) with a sword, again with little to no effort.
  • the Statue of Liberty’s head is struck by lightning and somehow gets from Ellis Island to … somewhere in Manhattan, where it rolls unimpeded and without apparent friction or damage on and on down the street (up the hill!).
  • How these sharknadoes, awesome as they may be, are able to (selectively) flood Manhattan is never examined.

Shitty camera work (deliberate, of course):

  • Our cast flees on CitiBikes, and the  camera keeps giving us shots of the tires, not of the actual (unflooded and dry) streets they’re fleeing through.
  • There’s a scene where our intrepid gang is fleeing up a flooded street, in which
    • Fin flings the rope, but there is no shot of it being secured
    • There are closeups of characters swinging over, and then low-angle, waist-up shots of them landed and reaching out for the next swinger, but no establishing shot to show where they’re swinging to — and the aerial of the cab in the water indicates that directly ahead of the cab is… the rest of the flooded street…

Situational danger:

  • Our heroes are in a flooding staircase (with sharks), but once they break into THE FIRE ESCAPE KENNETH (because a fireproof stairwell in a 65-story hotel is… what exactly?) and get to street level, it’s dry.
  • The location, direction, and speed of the various sharknadoes changes constantly.
  • Fin and his gang have their own personal cab that can do a Bullitt through the streets of Manhattan, but April and her crew have to hoof it from Battery Park to somewhere around 26th Street/5th Ave. This is after we’ve been shown scenes of a tidal bore (?) sweeping up the island.
  • Hurry, Fin, you only have eight minutes—who then takes another five minutes to have heartfelt discussions with his gang and make a St. Crispin’s Day speech atop a fire engine before somehow making it another dozen blocks to the Empire State Building and all the way up to the observation deck.

Again, no official governmental response:

  • We finally see a canopy tent some first responders have set up, and the Mayor OF NEW YORK CITY delivers a heartfelt statement of support for Fin, the ONLY PERSON who can jury rig the “freon tanks” on top of the ESB to explode and “freeze” the sharknadoes. Which of course he does.

This is merely a drop in the bucket ocean of hysterically wrong moments in this movie. I wholeheartedly urge you to start with the first one and then watch the entire series with guilty, oh-so-guilty pleasure. I may have to have a rewatch myself. I could use the laughs.

The Savoy Variations: the Pinky Cocktail, et al.

Posted on by Dale

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

Pinky Cocktail

[p. 125]

Easy enough: equal parts of gin and grenadine, frothed up with egg white. I hesitate to use egg whites per se; they’re messy, and what do you do with the yolks? Aquafaba is one substitute, and I’ve settled on Fee Bros. Fee Foam as easy, clean, and not as susceptible to making me sick with one microorganism or another.

Another pro tip: Do a “dry shake” of the ingredients to get the foam started, then add ice and shake before pouring.

It is a tasty, if sweet, concoction. I added a dash of hibiscus bitters, and that added a nice layer.

  •  1 ½ oz dry gin
  • 1 ½ oz grenadine
  • 4–5 dashes Fee Bros. Fee Foam
  • 1 dash hibiscus bitters

Ping-Pong Special

[p. 124]

I didn’t think this one would be good, and I was not wrong. Naturally, I did not make a batch for six people, but the recipe is easy enough: equal parts sloe gin and sweet vermouth, and then guess at the Angostura and curaçao.

It was gross. I didn’t even consider improving it. The sink wins this one.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

  • Savoy: 8
  • Dale: 3
  • Sink: 5

A small rant

Posted on by Dale

Isn’t that an interesting photo? Kind of like the minimalist stuff you would see in some of our tonier galleries, right?

But that’s not what I’m ranting about today. Do you know why I have these four paper bags?

I have these four paper bags because, in the state of Georgia, you cannot be seen leaving a store having bought a completely legal substance without concealing that substance in a paper bag. It’s kind of like Utah’s law that you cannot, as a bar, mix a cocktail in front of a minor.

These four bags came from Kroger, and of course they were placed in plastic bags — which apparently don’t sufficiently conceal my completely legal purchase.

What on earth is the purpose of this law? If I walk out of Kroger carrying a bottle of white Bordeaux, for example, is Carrie Nations going to rise from her grave and do the Bodysnatchers point-and-scream at me? Is a Baptist going to faint right there in the parking lot? Are little children going to rush the beer aisle and get snockered on IPAs?

Thanks to my paper cloaking device, though, none of these things will happen, I guess. Baptists will never know that I’ve bought a completely legal substance for my personal use, right?

If a callous sophisticate buys a bottle of booze and a Baptist can’t tell what he’s bought because of the paper cloaking device, does the callous sophisticate still go to hell?

Not to alarm you, any Puritans out there reading this, but your paranoia is justified: we are all out here, somewhere, having fun. It is not your job to stop us.

With eyes narrowed and eyebrows raised…

Posted on by Dale

… and with lips pursed withal, I need to express some dissatisfaction with ::waves hands:: all this.

And in particular, I call your attention to the old Brown Steel property on Lower Fayetteville Road, just before the bypass. You should understand that I had plans for that property should I ever win the lottery, and they were as follows:

  • First, buy the Brown Steel property and all the property down to the bypass.
  • Renovate the manufacturing structures there to become studio space for large-scale artists, particularly public sculpture artists. Build some tiny homes onsite to accommodate them. (Maybe some tiny homes for unhoused people as well?)
  • Fund artists with stipends and grants to create large art, which then is displayed in the art park we construct in the forested areas.
  • And then: Create a program for towns that would like to replace their Confederate memorials with something less treason-y. They select four neighborhoods/parks in their town, and then commit to spending $10,000 every two years for ten years. Every two years they get a new piece of public art (which they can choose however they like, subsidized by us) from the Factory, and after two years that sculpture is moved to one of the four parks. The fifth sculpture then is permanent.
  • Also, we have concerts, parties, and galleries onsite at the Factory.

What was not to like?

So it was with a sad heart when I saw the demolition of the Brown Steel plant facilities, and even sadder heart when construction fencing recently went up around that upper half of my art park.[1]

Curiously, there were signs on the construction fencing that had this message on them:

Not the exact sign, but the exact wording

Oh, I thought, that’s new, a construction business that actually preserves as much green as they can. That’s nice.

I knew this was incredibly unlikely, though, so I didn’t get my hopes up, and indeed yesterday I drove by and every single tree, shrub, and plant had been bulldozed.

I realized that I had interpreted the sign to mean:

…when obviously they meant:

My mistake.

And don’t get me started on what to do with the Brown Steel property downtown.[2]

—————

[1] Not to mention my not having won the lottery.

[2] You should absolutely get me started on what to do with the Brown Steel property downtown, Newnan City Council, if that is even your real name.

Tempus fugit

Posted on by Dale

I’ve been under the weather for the past week and a half, just pitifully unable to rise to any occasion. The only productive thing I’ve been able to handle is 1) going back through all my Liberal Rant posts and tagging the ones that need it with a new Propaganda Studies tag; and 2) going back through every post for the past twenty years and making minor edits where necessary. Also, just to recap the past 20 years of my life.

Well.

It’s been a journey for sure, as one project or another, one rant or another, one cocktail or another, bobbed to the surface and sank again. Some posts were very very depressing; others validated my existence. (Some of my Liberal Rants from the 2016 election have proven to excruciatingly predictive.)

I’ll do a little profiling of one or two posts that jumped out at me, but this one took me aback. Feel free to go read it, but here’s the gist:

Reality TV show called The Mimeograph Kitchen, in which three generations of a family are presented with a fairly unappetizing dish (see above) from one of those mimeographed cookbooks so beloved of church groups back in the 1950s/60s — each generation is then challenged to go home and update the recipe to their tastes, bring them back to the studio and compare notes.

Why producers weren’t shoving wads of cash at me for the rights to this idea is still a mystery to me, but you know what, producers? You blew it. It is no longer possible to make Mimeograph Kitchen.

I realized this with a shock as I read this paragraph:

So our reality TV show is called Mimeograph Kitchen, and it will feature besides its host three couples: 1) someone our parents’ age, 70-80, i.e., the generation that produced these things; 2) someone our age, 50-60, the generation that grew up eating this stuff; 3) someone our kids’ age, 20-30, who have never known what it’s like not to have fresh salmon with dill cream sauce and a side of roasted broccoli.  The recipe is presented and discussed by all three couples (reminiscences, reactions, etc.) , and a sample is provided for a tasting.

::sigh::

I wrote that post in 2014, eleven years ago. We are now the 70s–80s generation, and our parents are either no longer with us or are in their 80s–90s — none of whom could rise to the challenge of considering, adapting, and making a completely new recipe. So, no: Mimeograph Kitchen will never be.

So, producers, let that be a warning not to sleep on our other idea, Mama’s Stuff. That one will never die out, for lack of a better phrase.

About that Cardamom Peach Shrub…

Posted on by Dale

You will recall that back in December I invented a tasty cocktail called the Citrine and even updated it so that you could make it even if you don’t have a neighbor making plum vodka for you.

What I didn’t do was get around to providing a recipe for making the Cardamom Peach Shrub, so better late than never, as they say.

Cardamom Peach Shrub

1 lb peaches, chopped
¾ c cane sugar
1 c water
5 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
1 c apple cider vinegar

  • Combine the peaches, water, sugar and spices in a small pot and bring to a simmer. Cook over low heat until the fruit is tender and soft, about 15 minutes.
  • Strain the mixture (keep the fruit for ice cream or oatmeal, it’s not needed anymore). Combine the fruit syrup with the apple cider vinegar, and chill.
  •  The syrup should last in the fridge at least a week.

You may use canned peaches, of course. I cannot remember whether I rinsed them before using them; the sweetness of the packing syrup might throw the whole thing off. I rather think I did rinse them.

Once again, an idea worth billions

Posted on by Dale

Okay, people, this is the last time I’m going to share this idea with the universe. I’ve mentioned it to several of my acquaintances whom I thought capable of creating this world-changing service, but so far none of them have taken up the challenge of making themselves filthy rich (and by extension, via a miniscule royalty of 1% share of the profits, me).

Here’s the deal: For some time I’ve been using Cremo shave cream, Original formula. When I was about to run out, I put it on my shopping list. I ended up with a Sandalwood version — I love sandalwood, and this would make my twice-weekly shaving more pleasurable.

Or so I thought. The perfume was so strong that I could still smell it at the end of the day, which is not how I choose to express myself.

[Stick with me, you’ll see what I’m at in a moment.]

I returned to my regular Kroger. There was no Original, only Sandalwood.

I checked at Publix. They had only Citrus and some other perfumed cream.

I checked at Walgreens where, again, they had only scented creams.

Dear Reader, I ordered from Amazon. I know, I know, but what was I to do? Drive all around town and stop at every grocery store or emporium to see if they had what I wanted?

Nope, even though I really really want to shop locally. So here’s my idea: Start up a website/company that serves as an Amazon for local businesses. Make your inventory software interoperable with whatever major inventory software is being used by local businesses. They sign up to share their inventory.

I need Cremo Original formula shave cream. I go onto buyhometown.com [name TBD], input my zip code, do a search  — and poof! I can see who has it in stock and I head out the door to buy it.

More: Merchants get a report of what people have been looking for but couldn’t find, giving the merchants a chance to consider stocking the thing. BuyHometown sends emails to shops that haven’t signed on showing how more business is being shunted to those shops that have signed up; the latecomers sign up, rinse, repeat.

More: BuyHometown offers its own inventory system for merchant use.

How are you still reading this and not already putting together a prospectus??

Remember: 1% share of profits. Miniscule, I tell you.

P.S. Amazon, you are not allowed to use my idea. Unless you hand over a royalty of 5% share of the profits.

P.P.S. Once I am filthy rich, tax my filthy rich ass.

A serious question

Posted on by Dale

Back in 2015, our friends and we set out for Arizona. It started when one of our members wanted to experience the “thin places” in Sedona, and then my Lovely First Wife turned into a large-scale trip involving Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon and a sweltering raft ride on the might Colorado, Sedona, and squeezing in the Montezuma Castle National Monument on the way back to Phoenix. (You can read all about it here. And of course my world-changing Lyles REMS Scale of Woo. In both instances, scroll to the bottom and work your way up.)

THE POINT BEING that while we were in Sedona, we indulged in all the woo we could find, including having our chakras balanced at the Center for the New Age, and somehow my email got attached to my Lovely First Wife’s signing up for a weekly newsletter.

So yes, ten years later I check my “personal horoscope” from the Center every week. In my defense, I am an Existential Mystic [see: Lyles REMS Scale, linked above], so it’s always good to check in on what the Universe is up to, even if it is mere wooish mumbo-jumbo.

Occasionally, of course, said horoscope just offers up tantalizing visions of what could be. Unfortunately, they almost always involve my getting off my ass and putting in the work. How is this even fair, even? Why isn’t the Universe just handing to me if that’s what the Universe has in store for me? Can I get an amen?

Anyway, this week’s was rather upbeat, given the hellscape we are currently entering:

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Weekly Horoscope: for Taurus & Taurus Rising

House Impacted: 10th house (career, public image)
Themes: Dream big, act boldly.

Taurus, it’s time to turn your professional aspirations into action. Venus and Neptune in your career zone are stirring up creative visions of what’s possible, but daydreaming alone won’t get the job done. Jupiter stationing direct in your 2nd house helps clarify your financial priorities, while Venus in Aries on February 6 inspires you to work behind the scenes on your next big move. This isn’t about instant results—it’s about setting the stage for long-term success.

IRL Tip: Write down one bold career goal and take a small step toward it. Whether it’s scheduling a meeting or updating your portfolio, progress starts now.

I mean to say, how mean is this? For one thing, WHAT ONE BOLD CAREER MOVE SHOULD I BE WRITING DOWN?

That’s a serious question. How the fupp should I know?? I mean, really, how should I know what that one bold career move should be?

I am taking suggestions in comments.