You Know You Want a Slime Bath
Remember the movie Poltergeist? I saw that movie so many times when I was growing up. There are so many things I loved about it: the incomparable cuteness of Carol Anne, the baby voice of Zelda Rubinstein beckoning "Come into the light," the man who peeled his face off (one of my first memories of being horrified and delighted by a movie), and so much more. Well, do you remember when JoBeth Williams goes into the other dimension to get Carol Anne? When she brings her back, they're covered in pink slime. The father and the team of paranormal experts help move them into the bathtub. The image of the slime-covered Mom and daughter in the bathtub stuck in my mind and it's the first thing I thought of when I saw this photo
from an advertisement for Gelli Baff (say it wiff a fick cockney accent), a UK product marketed to slime-lovin' children. Apparently, all you have to do is add a packet of powder to your baff to turn the boring old water into colorful slime (it comes in a variety of colors, of course). Even more remarkable is that when you're done sloshing in the slime (or playing Poltergeist), you can add another packet that turns the slime back into boring old colorless water! This is a seriously retarded product! Do kids really want to swim in slime? I guess they want what the marketers tell them they want. If I had some though I'd use it for practical jokes. It would be fun to put it in someone's coffee or in public toilets or in a hotel pool. There are dozens of fun places to put it! Maybe I'll buy some if I win the "Cloggiest Moment" contest. (Via Boing Boing).
2007-01-31 16:52:17 UTC
I'm Gonna Win $25,000!
This has got to be the greatest and strangest writing contest I've ever heard of. Scott Tissue is sponsoring a "Cloggiest Moment" essay contest in which contestants are invited to share their favorite clogged toilet stories. Once you've narrowed all your great "cloggy moments" down to the actual "cloggiest moment," you are challenged to tell the story in 250 words or less. Here's what the judges will be looking for:
* Creative description and inopportune nature of the situation * Emotional depiction of the reaction to the inopportune moment * The manner in which the moment was dealt with or covered up * Overall tastefulness and lightheartedness of the entry * Overall composition of the entry
I love these critieria! Make sure your poo story is tasteful! I hope they post all the entries. That'll make for great reading. My "cloggiest moment" is sure to win the top prize of $25,000! I re-worded it for the contest (to fit the criteria), but the basic story is here. I wrote it from the point of view of my six year old self. It packs a serious emotional punch. And it's very tasteful.
2007-01-30 17:22:32 UTC
A Mario-themed Valentine's Day
People often have sexual fantasies about celebrities. I know a couple who has agreed to allow each other to commit infidelity if, and only if, it is with their chosen celebrity. (She has chosen Johnny Depp and he's chosen Penelope Cruz). Bad sitcoms and movies make jokes all the time about how unsatisfied we are with the reality of our lovers. If you believe them, then it seems everyone is imagining they are having sex with someone other than the person they are actually humping, and that someone is usually a celebrity. So can I be blamed if I superimpose the face of another onto my husband's when we're in the throes of passion? No, I can't be. Everyone is doing it. It's totally normal that I picture Super Mario when I'm in bed with my husband. There's nothing weird about it. It's practically pedestrian as far as fantasies go. What girl hasn't had sexual fantasies starring Super Mario and/or his brother, (the no-less-super) Luigi? I've often played the role of the Princess in these fantasies, though once in a while I play the part of that Toady dude in the mushroom cap. Typically though, I'm the Princess. Sometimes I indulge in Super Mario 2 imagery and imagine I'm rooting vegetables (onions?) from the ground and tossing them at my enemies. (An onion to the head is no laughing matter). Then I float around for a while (because I can inexplicably float for brief periods) before I meet up with Mario for our post-battle date. We pretty much get right down to business and make sweet love with the Mario theme song playing in the background. All of the fantasies end that way: making sweet love to the Super Mario theme. Well, this Valentine's Day, I hope to bring those fantasies a little closer to reality. Noah and I are going to wear these costumes (available here):
Sexy, right? It's going to be so romantic. I'll make an authentic Italian dinner of Beef-a-Roni and frozen pizza. Then I'll unscrew a bottle of Boone's Farm to quaff while we indulge in some erotic video game playing. Then 
It will be the Valentine's Day of my dreams.
2007-01-30 11:10:18 UTC
News Flash: Red Lobster is Gross
Noah and I went to Red Lobster today since we got a gift certificate for xmas from my parents. Noah had never been there (or even tried lobster) and I hadn't been there since elementary school. I wasn't expecting much, but it was pretty gross. If quantity, rather than quality, is their goal, they have completely succeeded. It's impossible to leave there hungry. First of all, there's the bottomless basket of cheese-garlic biscuits that comes with every meal. They might as well put a salt lick on your table. Also, they serve the meals on platters that were made to hold small to medium sized turkeys. We ordered an "ultimate feast" of lobster, crab legs, and shrimp and a fried "feast" of shrimp, clam strips, fish, and scallops. They fry scallops. Scallops aren't supposed to be fried. They will fry anything there. There were a bunch of little fried bits on my plate that didn't even have anything in them. They were just fried bits of breading. It reminded me of being in high school and going to Long John Silver's with my best friend after an afternoon of shopping (and switching price tags) at the local thrift store. We'd go through the drive-thru and order waters, hush puppies, and "crispies," the fried bits of breading that fell off the food and collected in the fryer. The total always came to 37 cents or something like that because the "crispies" and the waters were free. I can't believe we ate that shit! Anyway, if what you're eating at Red Lobster isn't breaded and fried, it's most likely swimming in butter. They need to add a Pepto-Bismol based cocktail to their "Specialty Drinks" menu. Maybe Pepto and 7-Up with a little umbrella. The least they could do is pipe super-loud heavy metal music into the bathrooms so you wouldn't have to worry about other people hearing the embarrassing auditory effects of the explosive diarrhea you're likely to be afflicted with. So, if you are uncomfortable with the idea of having explosive diarrhea in a public place, you may want to eat somewhere else.2007-01-27 19:04:41 UTC
Top 5 Condiments
Presented in no particular order:
1. Aji: This is on every table in Ecuador. It's on the breakfast table, the dinner table, the coffee table, the Periodic Table, all the tables. Aji goes with everything. As many tables as there are, that's how many varieties of aji there are. Everyone makes it differently. It's basically a pepper relish with hot peppers (any and all kinds), lime, cilantro, water and salt. People sometimes add other stuff. It's especially good when it contains some tomate de arbol (tomato of the tree), which has a sweetish tomato flavor. The tomate de arbol is hard to find here though. We found one at Copp's one time and paid over $2 for a tiny Roma-tomato-sized fruit. That's the kind of thing that brings out the shoplifter in me. Aji kicks salsa's ass.
2. Creamy and Garlicky Blue Cheese Spread: I started making this to mimic the sauce on Monty's Blue Plate burger. It tastes just as good, if not better. It's just blue cheese mixed up with cream cheese and garlic and it's fantastic on burgers and steak sandwiches. Hell, I like to just eat a big bowl of it with a spoon.
3. Ketchup: When the revolution comes, I'll be with all the other ketchup-eaters fighting those snooty Grey Poupon spreaders. Ketchup is the condiment of the people! Which side are you on, man? (Don't tell the class warriors, but I actually love mustard; the seedier and fancier, the better. Does that make me bourgeois?)
4. Chipotle-Mole BBQ Sauce: Noah invented this and it's absolutely delicious. We've been eating a lot of BBQ Country-style Ribs lately because they're tasty and super-cheap. Usually I make a pretty good BBQ sauce loosely based on my mom's, but with extra heat (mom's wimpy) and tomato paste and vinegar instead of ketchup (not that I have anything against ketchup). Though I'm not a stick-to-the-recipe kinda gal, I am way more conventional in my kitchen-thinking than Noah is (though his inspiration has made me more adventurous). He comes up with some of the most surprising and delicious flavor combinations and this was one of them. I would never have thought to add mole (a Mexican sauce made up of chiles, nuts, chocolate, and spices) to a BBQ sauce. Chocolate and pork? That sounds like a Homer Simpson idea. In fact, I think I recall a "chocolate-covered bacon" joke. Chocolate-covered ribs aren't the goal; you want just a hint of the chocolatey flavor.
5. Pinjur: I just went to Trader Joe's for the first time last week and picked up a jar of this stuff. A condiment I've never heard of? I was intrigued. Plus it was really cheap and chock-full of roasted red peppers. Anything with roasted red peppers is usually expensive, which is understandable because roasting red peppers is a real bitch. But this stuff wasn't even two bucks for a whole jar. According to the label, pinjur is a "traditional Macedonian recipe" made from roasted red peppers, eggplant, and spices. It's just what I thought traditional Macedonia would taste like! According to most of the recipes available on the web though (example), eggplant is actually supposed to be the predominant ingredient in authentic pinjur.
They have a flag and everything!
Honorable Mentions: Guacamole, Raita (cucumber and mint)
2007-01-26 14:59:57 UTC