Things I Liked Last Week 050210

01: Owls. As much as I fear and loathe squirrels, I trust and adore owls. Owls let you know when bad shit is afoot in yr back yard in the middle of the night. Owls also hunt and eat varmints like mice and voles. Some of the bigger owls eat squirrels. I love those owls the most. Now that spring is here, I've been sleeping at night with the windows open, and it would seem there is an owl living in one of the back yards on my block. I like this.

02: Scorpions: "Robot Man" [mp3] There's a theory floating around out there called "option paralysis", the idea that as we are given more and more choices, the harder and harder it becomes for us to make a choice, and that when a person is ultimately faced with unlimited choices, s/he is unable to make a choice at all. Now, I have a very large music collection on my hard drives, and with every passing month or year, with every new album folder of mp3s ripped or downloaded, it becomes harder and harder for me to choose what to listen to. Sure, new releases and acquisitions get a fair hearing or three, but in general, I have a hard time deciding what to listen to on any given day, and so often I just hit RANDOM on my MediaMonkey Player, and resign myself to the software's choices, rather than deal with my own brand of option paralysis. Anyways, last Wednesday the Scorpions' In Trance crossed my path, the first time I've heard the album in years. As much as the Scorpions began to disappoint me in the 1980's, their early years, those first five or six albums fucking ruled, and this one might be the best of the bunch.

03: My Alfredo Sauce Recipe: In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, add 1/3 cup BUTTER, 5 cloves MINCED GARLIC, 5 MINCED SCALLIONS, 1/4 cup FLOUR, 1/3 cup MUSHROOMS. Sautee until scallions are translucent and soft and any flour lumps are melted away, adding 1/4 cup wine (optional) in the last minute or so. Then slowly whisk in 2 cups HEAVY CREAM and 1 cup WHOLE MILK, 1/2 tsp NUTMEG, 1/2 tsp BLACK PEPPER. Continue stirring until everything is warm and smooth, then begin stirring in 3/4 cup grated PARMESAN CHEESE, and 1/4 cup RAY ROMANO CHEESE. Keep stirring until it's 100% hot and luscious. Serve with FETTUCINI, or my preferred SPAGHETTI noodles. I also like using this sauce with pan-seared SCALLOPS, and lately I've been throwing the dish (pasta, sauce, scallops) under the broiler in the oven at the end to make it absolutely golden.

04: Modern Family: In it's first season, this ABC comedy has been hitting on all cylinders from the very start. It has a wonderful cast of great characters, but my favorite has to be Cam (played by Eric Stonestreet), the flamboyant half of the show's gay couple. In this clip, he's trying out for the rock band led by his partner's niece's boyfriend, and it illustrates some of the great, understated comedy that runs throughout the show.

05: This. Sometimes, when I'm trying to work on Kieth The Perpetual Teen™ and I get stuck, I like to take other people's comic strips and write my own dialogue or captions, like I did with this Far Side™ cartoon. It's juvenile, yes, but I think it works.


06: This Jim Jarmusch quote [click to enlarge]: I've long been in agreement with Shakespeare that there is "nothing new under the sun", a phrase he took directly from Ecclesiastes in the Bible. I'm also reminded of Pablo Picasso, who once said "good artists copy, great artists steal".

Hotcha! Hank