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Taking a respite from computer modeling and fractography, I thought I’d work from home today, since all I need is a stack of papers and a buttload of coffee (oh, and will power). Unlucky for me and my hunger and my complete lack of anything interesting in my kitchen, someone in my building is baking cookies.

Really, really freaking good-smelling cookies.

WANT COOKIES.

So it’s only appropriate that the Politico should just post this from the AP wire:

“I don’t think they’re piling on because I’m a woman. I think they’re piling on because I’m winning,” Clinton told reporters after filing paperwork to appear on the New Hampshire primary ballot.

Apparently her campaign wasn’t aware of her position (assuming it was the same before today, which is perhaps a stretch), dropping the gender card to the chagrin of the non-Borg.

But then, in a linguistic pivot that leaves me reeling (time for even more coffee), Clinton seems to double back onto a gender stereotype (or is that just my man-centric perspective?) in the very next breath:

“I anticipate it’s going to get even hotter, and if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. I’m very much at home in the kitchen,” she said.

Unless, of course, it’s for baking cookies.

I’ve done the best I can to lead my life … You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession….

I’m going back to critical planes of virtual strain energy; those make more sense.

Happy Friday, y’all, I’m done. Wish I could go back in time and get stuck here, but the Vortex’ll do.

If you’re ever near Walhalla, SC, drop in for a dollar beer. And wear your flea collar.

• Local blogger and freelance video type Spacey Gracey has a new beat on Huffington Post’s “Off the Bus”, citizen journalism from those outside the campaign machinery. She kicked off the pilot episode this Tuesday at Manuel’s Tavern for the (somewhat disappointingly small) “Government in Exile” regular drinking gaggle. I got to hold the camera for a while and provide the closing monologue, and a number of other local bloggers (including Rusty, Amber, and James) chimed in, too — though the local old-school media could only think to call us “groupies.” (Must! mock! what! I! don’t! understand!)

  Hopefully this will become a (semi-)regular Tuesday appearance with minimal editing required, but considering how easy is ain’t to produce a decent video on a weekly basis and the amount HuffPo is paying its contributors (big ol’ goose egg), whatever feelings of jealousy I had for Spacey’s fancy new gig are melting away like a shaved ice in this summer heat.

• For those of us without our own beats, The Politico is soliciting ad hoc citizen journalism (though judging by a couple of the vids I’ve seen I don’t think they’re being all that rigorous with the filter) on their multimedia page, so go make some news. They accepted my Mitt Romney episode, but so far, they haven’t offered to fly me to Iowa.
• Georgia Blog Carnival includes the Mitt Romney flame war.
• And finally from the kitchen, for those of you fellow disgusting, cheap-ass, crap-cooking, beer-swilling bachelors who really wanted to do the mojito but couldn’t bring yourself to buy the fresh mint (you wouldn’t believe how fast that fragile crap goes nasty, even in the fridge), good news! My careful scientific experimentation has verified that a much more bachelor-friendly ingredient with an archeological shelf-life does quite well as a substitute!

  

  Teabag it, baby! Jam a teabag of straight spearmint tea down in there with your plastic lime juice and a little bit of the beer before you stir in your sugar, and you’re good to go.

  And you get to say, “Teabag it.”

You’d be amazed what you can do with cheap beer. And some green leafy crap you find near the plastic fruit.

Quicktime format.

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Tags: goat, muhammad ali, disgusting food

Now THAT’S a good night of drinking!, originally uploaded by shelbinator.

UPDATE: There’s nothing Happy about Sweetwater’s Ending. It’s got the distinct aroma of old, wet gym shirt, and that might explain the extra bitterness that lingers around the flavors of raw cocoa and rusty nail. Good thing I have five more of these.

Sure, I used to eat my vegetables as a kid. Broccoli in particular provided so many of the vitamins that went into the excellent health I have done everything in my power to undermine since I moved out on my own. Lots and lots of broccoli, just as long as, mind you, it was covered in a counterproductive amount of molten cheese.

Did I say cheese? Nay, I meant cheez. Cheez Whiz to be precise, a foodstuff so tasty it couldn’t possibly, or legally, be spelled the same way as that thing that comes out of a cow and is left alone with some bacteria. Or is it mold? Or a fungus amongus? Whatever. It’s just as disgusting as whatever it is in that jar of orange that post-war science made for a great nation like ours.

I’m starting to wonder if there were other unyielding demands I made of my mother as she nourished me with home-cooked meals that a normal person would eat with abandon but that a child must modify in some obsessive-compulsive way to make it edible. If there were, I officially apologize, though I’m sure it’s too late to clear my karma. The dog has adopted the same behavior pattern: every now and then, she’ll go for days without eating, at most eating her breakfast from two days ago at dinnertime before spending another 36 to 48 hours in anorexic protest. I used to ignore this — “She’ll eat when she’s hungry,” I figured — but you start to worry, you know? So I thought maybe if I just spruced up her food a bit….

And now the bitch has me trained. These hunger strikes come more frequently now, because she knows all too well it won’t be long before I’m drizzling a little bacon fat or dropping some leftover spaghetti in the bowl to turn the Nasty Dry Crap into the chef’s special. It’s not even necessary to actually alter the food in any way: it’s just getting me to dote on her that’s her goal. Oh, I know, some might say that it’s the smell that goes along way, but tonight, the magic ingredient was, without exaggeration, a crumb of parmesan cheese from my fingertip about the size of a grain of pretzel salt. I don’t want to hear any suggestions that suddenly her Bowl of Crap became a magical Bowl of Cheezycrap, this was solely a result of the satisfaction of her pathological need to be in charge. She watched me cook my dinner, she knew that it smelled better than hers, and then she saw me walk over to her bowl and flick 15 micrograms of People Food into her kibble. “I am still Queen. I shall now eat.”

Oh, I am well trained.

Interesting and fun to know fact #12: sweet potatoes do not want to be mashed and rolled up into little balls quite so easily as regular potatoes, so think twice and check your head before you get any ideas about making a Thanksgiving-themed papas rellenas appetizer with turkey-cranberry-jerk sauce picadillo. Just stop right there.

Two and a half hours till I leave for dinner and I still have no balls.

Six and one half minutes till I can start drinking with a mildly clear conscience.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It was already kind of a no-brainer for me to frown on vegans for not appreciating the many scrumptious applications of bacon and for generally looking like concentration camp prisoners and screwing up animal-eaters’ party menu planning. Now thanks to Mingaling I see they take the ridiculous to a whole new level:

In the UK beer (bitter) is also commonly fined using isinglass (made from the swim bladders of fish). Guinness is not suitable for vegans. Most spirits are vegan except for Campari (contains cochineal) and some Vodkas (passed through bone charcoal).

I know “Guinness is good for you,” but I’m not really sure where fish bladders fit into that; still, their retarded loss. And turning down a good Stoli martini just because its sugars once passed by the calcinated bones of dead animals? Holy ridiculous standards, Batman! I once traveled to the Soviet Union…does that make me forever a communist?

And if it does, can I still drink animal-flavored booze?

Stupid diet.