Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The Super Yummy Delicious Hour

Okay okay! So I like to cook. May might kill me in my sleep tonight if I don't put up my cooking feature post. We've actually been planning it for months now and she's been awesome enough to even plan ahead and take pictures of some of the various meals I've concocted throughout our time together. But me....well, I procrastinate. A lot. Really, I wonder how I ever get anything done.

But here I am and I'm writing something for the blog. I'm not exactly sure which recipe I'm going to put up, but I am sure that we'll both know it when I get there. ;)

I'm not so sure how I'm going to proceed with my feature yet, either. That's all part of my process, though. *Yeah, that sounds good...let's go with that* I'm thinking I'll just put out random recipes of things we've eaten lately. I know, 'sounds' super exciting...but I promise it will be! ;) We eat awesome stuff at the compound. In fact, you might say that our house has the best meals you can find in all of Compoundia. I frequently cook for the compoundian society's elite. ;p

I've been at a minor disadvantage, though. Our oven broke and, in protest, I've stopped using it. At first I wasn't so enthusiastic about the idea. I like to use my oven. It makes me feel warm inside. It makes me feel warm outside, too, but that's only good in the winter. I wasn't a stranger to my slow cooker, but up until now I'd really only ever used it to cook roasts & chickens, never anything complicated. I'd always mooned over the many recipes I have that require a deep fryer, too, but unfortunately I'd never owned one. But as circumstance would have it, right around the time my oven broke down my mom gave me her old deep fryer(*and when I say old, I mean it. I lived with this woman for 17 years and I never even knew we owned it!*). So that opened up a whole new aspect in cooking for me. I may be without oven at the moment, but I've used this experience to expand my cooking horizons by making better use of the tools available to me and not 'relying' on my traditional method of preparing food.

Recently, the governing body of Compoundia has been favouring my Home Made-Ish Taquitos. I made this dish in honor of Karloff's love of Mexican food and it has quickly become a national favourite, or "craze" if you will. It very simple to prepare and the recipe is very flexible. I say it's home made-ish because I'm not going to bother to cook a roast when I can buy one pre-cooked and because I'm not going to make flour tortillas (May does it better anyway). It's also nice if you can get a Tex-Mex shredded cheese mix. Like I said, though...the meal is very flexible so you could use any kind of cheese you'd like, I imagine. Just make sure to pick a cheese that will stand up to some melting and isn't going to go all weird if you heat it up too much.

So you'll need - that's right, you guessed it - a deep fryer for this recipe! I feel a little guilty inside right now because I think of all that time that I didn't have a deep fryer and wanting to try so many recipes that needed one and feeling crappy about it. I hope I'm not making anyone else feel like that right now. Awww! I'm sorry! Don't cry, I'll make you taquitos! I can send them to you by mail....

Okay, no really though...you start off by marinating the meat. It depends on what kind of meat you have, I guess. For beef I'd use some marinating steaks (y'know, the really thin ones) cut up into very thin fajita-like strips, poke some holes in them and let them sit in some kind of spicy marinade. I'd do this for a minimum of an hour before you cook them, but the more time they marinade the more flavour the meat will have. If you don't have a marinade you can add hot sauce to your meat once it's cooked. Of course, you can marinade cooked meat as well. In point of fact, I prefer to use shredded roast chicken in a Club House Tex-Mex marinade. It's just a spice you add to the chicken along with some oil and vinegar, but nineteen out of twenty Helens agree - it makes a big difference!

That's pretty much all the preparation you need. Turning on the deep fryer helps since things don't seem to cook so fast when it's off. Putting the taquitos together is easy. You put a little bit of meat and cheese and the edge of one of the tortillas, roll it into a tight...ummm...roll(for lack of a better word)...and keep it rolled tight by using some toothpicks. Don't put too much into the tortilla initially or it won't roll up tight. When you're done rolling the taquito use a little more meat to stuff the each end. That way all the deliciousness won't be localized at the center of the taquito and all parts of the taquito will be enjoyable. You won't loose any cheese when you put it in the deep fryer, either. Just make sure it's packed kind of tight or else it will come out when you cook it. When they're ready stick them in the deep fryer and cook them until they're golden brown then take them out and let them drain on some paper towel. I think I usually cook them at 400o, but I don't really trust the temperature gauge on my deep fryer so I always just turn it all the way up until I know it hot. Since I'm never actually sure of exactly how hot my deep fryer is, I can't judge cooking times so I always just have to watch it until it looks ready. Fortunately, deep fryers don't really take very long to cook anything, so it's never too much of a problem.

Once they've cooled you can cut them in half and serve them with various sauces for dipping. I like to have a variety on hand that includes salsa, sour cream, guacamole, and a chipotle-honey sauce that I like to make. Okay, okay...don't be such a bug, I'll tell you how to make it...
Take a bbq-sauce(pretty much any will do) and add some liquid honey, lemon juice, hot sauce, and chipotle powder. Ta-da! You can get creative and add garlic, onion, or Cayenne pepper, too. I never really worry about measuring things out exactly when making sauces, though. Add everything to taste! ;p

So, like I said..easy as pie. Actually, much easier than pie. Pie requires an oven.

So I can tell that the format for this feature is going to have to change somewhat. I'm sure I could somehow make this all look much better, but this is a start, isn't it?! :) *lol* I just realized that my first cooking feature doesn't have a picture! Funny considering how many pictures of my meals I happen to have. Oh well...I'm sure I can get one. You'll all just have to wait.

As a final side note, I have decided to name my feature The Super Yummy Delicious Hour. This is in homage to my favourite video game. *Wonder if anyone knows what I'm talking about?* I was initially going to call the post "Craptastic - Things I Make At Home!" but May and Karloff didn't think it would help our readership. *Maybe I was just in a bad mood* ;)

Thus Spake Spidey-boy

I was digging through some of my writing odds and ends and I came across these quotations from Spidey-boy, circa 2007 (age 4), that I'd jotted down:

Karloff: “He’s always afraid of pulling up his zipper.”
May: “Ya, well, he doesn’t want to hurt his willy, I can understand that.”
Spidey-Boy: “If I zip up my wiwwy, I’ll get a robot wiwwy.”

Some other time:

Spidey-boy: “I’m trying to decide which one of you will bring my lunch upstairs. Whichever you does it the fastest is the strongest.”
Karloff: “Uh, are you trying to fool us into bringing up your dishes?”
Spidey-boy: “Yes.”
Karloff: "..."
Spidery-boy: “You’ll win a prize pack!”


scarlet motivation

Inspired by Laurie's post over on Chimaera Contemplations, but with little time in my work day to follow any sort of structured rules or quibbling about making sense, I've decided to create my own religion-related motivational poster out of one of my favourite biblical passages:



Monday, April 21, 2008

Last Friday's Exchange


Brownorangestripe, his gnarled orangutan fingers shuffling along a supporting branch, ascended with his two doe eyed charges. The exchange had been brief and for the most part pleasant, despite the unexplained presence of Loudfartsmallturd, one of his brood mates.

Still, Speaksoffood lingered a moment watching the two little ones fade into the treetop greenery. Finally, placing a hand on her belly, swollen with a sibling for the adventuring youths, she began shuffling over the stony ground towards the river and the rest of her clan.

With a glance towards the canopy where Brownorangestripe had disappeared, Loudfartsmallturd brought himself to his full height and let loose a staccato series of grunts at Speaksoffood, ending in a jungle stilling shriek.




“Lupatria!” The interloper cried, stepping from the pillared courtyard, his toga flaring as he exited the arch’s shadow into the wind of the street.




The plain was empty, Jude’s yell having vacated it of even bird song. Marion braced on the wooden bench and held what grip she had on the horses, muttering in soothing tones as Penny worked at lashing their harnesses. Thomas turned a fierce eye on Jude, but at a word from Penny, kept his position in the wagon.

After a moment Jude moved forward and once again began his trumpeting.

“Ya’ll figure you can run this show?”

“I have no interest in this conversation, Jude.”

“You think you can just get what you want!?”

Penny’s hands goaded the rawhide into place.

“You hear me, harlot?”

“This ain’t going to make the judge see any different, Jude, and this sure ain’t helping Joseph in the least.”

“You keep this up, Harlot, and somethin’s gonna happen!” Jude shouted.

The horses bucked and a rag doll, which Elizabeth must have left on the wooden bench, tumbled to the ground. Jude moved forward, but Thomas, with a calming word to Penny, stood down from the wagon.





I step from the car and BabyDaddy’s brother slams the door.

“Thanks?” I say, bending over to retrieve the spilled Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.

Having collected them, I pull the door open against the resistance of the interloper’s thigh. Opopanax, having finished depositing the kid’s car seats in the trunk, returns and props herself within the door’s arc to prevent its closing.

“You think you’re so smart, you won’t get away with this, things are going to get a lot harder from here on, things are going to happen.” He rants.

Opopanax waves me into the car, but for a moment I beg off.

“What? What exactly is going to happen?” I ask.
After a moment without an answer, I re-ask.
Still no response, and at a second coaxing from Opopanax I take my place in the backseat of our two-door hatchback.

Opopanax settled in and closed the door while BD’s brother assailed us with a storm of “cunts”, still unable to come up with any sort of meaningful dialogue beyond shouting down a pregnant woman through her car window.

It is then that he realized that May had located Opop’s phone and was capturing the altercation on video. His hand shot through the gap, clutching for the phone, even managing to briefly ensnare it. Opopanax moved quickly though, snatched back the phone before it cleared the car and transfered it to her distant hand. Eventually she was forced to toss it into the back seat.

Realizing his losing battle, BD’s brother changed tact. Locking his fingers around Opop's wrist he attempted to drag her out the half-open window.

Wrenching free of his grip, she urged May to exit the driveway. Reversing to the outer most cusp, we were held by oncoming traffic. BD’s brother took position in front of the car, a chorus of adjectives stapled to his repeated mantra of “cunt” breaking up long verses of threat against our persons and property.



For a moment Marion considers cracking the reins.



Finally, there’s a break and we slide into the flow of traffic. Taking stock, we regroup and make our appeal to the authorities.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The 7th Compoundian National Address

Here is the next show for your listening pleasure!

And!

Included is our first ever audio comment! It's from our Interweb friend Bamboo Blitz. You should check out her blog. And look, I have provided you the said link for your viewing ease.
I can't get over the quality of her comment though lol! Great voice, great content, naturally entertaining. Yum! We need to put her on the payroll.

If you would like to send us an audio comment, please email your audio clips to paxcompoundia@gmail.com.

Also, for those of you waiting on Opopanax's cooking feature, you can send your audio complaints there as well. :p


the saddish future of youtubery


I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the future.

More information available where I originally found the video, on boingboing.

Monday, April 14, 2008

expelled

Expelled * Expelled * Expelled

Have you heard about that craptacular movie Expelled?
I'm just helping out with a little blogswarm.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Daisy's Doctor Doom Discussion

Daisy recently had a post collecting a number of opinions about Doctor Doom's bout of misogyny, and I thought I'd throw in a few random thoughts.

It's unfair to say that everything out of Victor Von Doom's mouth has been brilliant, far too many writers have shuffled him around for that, but: when the character goes off on a rant you should be able to expect the dialect of a modern caricature of an English feudal-era noble, not a fourteen year old The Hills junkie with mother issues.

Doom is a dick, sure, and growing up in the unenlightened nation of Latvia he may have picked up some antediluvian notions about women, but what if he'd said to Ms. Marvel:

"Slattern, I'll trade you to Azneka's Bordello for an afternoon ride if you do not heed my words."

Still misogynistic, but at least in character.

How about:

"Until recently you've only been remembered as the Shazam knock off whom Rogue stole her powers from."

Ouch. It hurts so much more because its true, and it doesn't have to descend into second-grader gender politics.


Doom's character hasn't stayed popular for forty years by lowering himself to useless invective or utilizing the mode of speech stylistic to the time, otherwise when he fought KISS you'd have gotten a whole lot of:

"Boss leather pants, jerkwads."

Lets face it, you can't take that villian seriously ten years later.

More info on Dr. Doom Vs Kiss, as well as the surrounding panels for the image I used, can be found at ferret press.

A Present From Nacho

I know very little about Von. Apparently he appeared on Maury, which, not having cable, I wasn't even aware was still on.



It may help if you occasionally mentally add "and meth."

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Egypt Sends Five Homosexual's To Prison

I was over at the Yahoo News, and I found an article detailing the sentencing of 5 convicted homosexuals. 4 out of these 5 were tested positive for HIV. It is insinuated that this is a ploy to crack down on those diseased, using homosexuality as the disguise. Not a very good one.

They have no law against homosexuality, just obscure jargon like, laws against obscenity and debauchery. Much is left to the discretion of the court.

In addition to their prison time, the men were sentenced to an additional three years of police supervision, meaning they will have to spend every night at a police station, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., the lawyer said.

Ramadan said the four HIV-positive defendants were shocked by their convictions.

"Two of them cried, screamed and shrieked," he said. "The other two, they remained silent, but I saw anger in their eyes for the injustice they have been exposed to."

Ramadan said he appealed the verdict to Egypt's Court of Cassation, the country's highest appellate court.

The convictions were confirmed by a judicial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists.


I can attest to Egypt's beauty and kind people (And their constant beeping horns). When religion rules a land, when tradition and law are more important than the civil liberties of it's people, they are completely missing the point. At least mine :)

New Shows for Download!

Here are the next two episodes of the Compoundian National Address

At the end of 6 I did something I little different this time. What do you think???

Send your audio comments to paxcompoundia@gmail.com

UPDATE: My apologies.. Karloff couldn't keep still and it was picked up on the mic. A new sound card is coming so the quality should get another hike up in clarity. Though, I can't promise anything in regards to Karloff's Restless Leg Syndrome.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Do, Re, Meme

Hey, so...wow! Bamboo Blitz tagged us with this meme quite a while back. I haven't been much of a presence on the site lately, so I've taken it upon myself to answer this challenge...

Here goes -

26-Random Alphabetical Facts About Myself

A - My given name starts with this letter (I've always chosen to use my second rather than first name)
B - I'm having a *baby* ;)
C - My cat's name is Cat
D - I hate our dog, Deliah
E - My little girl's initials are "eek"
F - I just designed a fairy-wing tatoo for my beautiful wife, May
G - I have *not so lovingly* nicknamed my monster *ahem*...mother "Gamera"
H - Havarti is my favourite of all cheeses (particulary the dill variety) ;p
I - Ice cream just isn't as good to me as it used to be :(
J - Jesus Christ Superstar is one of my favourite movies
K - KHAN!!!!!!
L - I'm a Leo
M - Mother is just smother without the "s"...
N - Ninjabox is a nickname Karloff & May gave me when I was moving out of my ex's place. My boxes were so inconspicously packed they were like ninja-boxes!
O - The name Opopanax came from Black House, a book by Stephen King and Peter Straub
P - My cat's middle initial. And yes, he does have a middle initial.
Q - I refuse to acknowledge this letter. It is dead to me.
R - This is how I always picture pirates talking. "Rrrrr! I do be a pirate! Rrrr..."
S - I single-handedly freed the Scottish people from their evil oppressors in a savage and bloody campaign against the foreign English crown. Okay...I made that one up.
T - Three heads are better than one!
U - The United States scares me just a little...
V - I'm terrified of moving at any great velocity.
W - I want to name my baby Wolfgang!
X - Marxxx - Triple X Communist Porn!
Y - Why not?
Z - Zoo TV was my favourite U2 tour.

So...that sums me up. Hope it was enlightening for everyone involved. I'd like to thank my family and Jesus for making this all possible.

I guess I'll tag Daisy, if she hasn't done it already.:)

Not Even Pseudo-Mormon

From an article entitled "Woman Describes Escape From Polygamy" on msnbc:

“I think it’s a form of pedophilia hiding behind a religion as a protection,” Carolyn Jessop told TODAY’s Matt Lauer from Salt Lake City on Tuesday. “There’s just a desire to control and manipulate and torture people, and religion is just used as the cover.”

As well as:

“Everything you did was monitored and controlled and everybody reported on everyone else,” she said. “It was a police state. You were not allowed to make decisions in your life. I had no power over my life or the lives of my children. It was a terrible way to live.”

The alleged control began in infancy.

“The method he would use with infants was a form of water torture,” Jessop said of her former husband. “He would spank the baby until it was screaming out of control, and then he would hold the baby faceup under a tap of running water so it couldn’t breathe. He would do this repeatedly. Sometimes, it would go on for an hour, until the baby was so exhausted it couldn’t cry anymore. This method he called ‘breaking them.’”



I have no idea what Carolyn Jessop, (who must be a very strong, brave lady to have escaped a bunch of demented control nuts,) actually thinks about polygamy, as she never talks about it in the article. She mentions torture, pedophilia and mental abuse under the guise of religious conformity, but doesn't mention polygamy, negatively or positively, once during the article.

Wouldn't a more honest phrasing have been
"Woman Describes Escape From Abusive Religious Sect"? Not enough shock value? How about "Woman Describes Escape From Pedaphilic Torturers"? If you don't like the adjectives in those, try it old school: "Woman Describes Escape From Cult".

Maybe I'm just being a bit sensitive, but it seems to me it might be just as accurate to have the headline read: "Woman Describes Escape From Typhlobasiacs".


Margaret Cho's Donut Pussy


For some women, having internal orgasm is next to impossible. Let's just say a friend of mine suffers from the same downer.

I found this blog entry by Margaret Cho and had to share it!

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

I had a new procedure called the "G-Shot," which is kind of like plastic surgery, kind of a body modification – but you don’t see it. It is on the inside. It isn’t something I would necessarily normally do, because I am very happy with my vagina the way it is. It is one of the finest in the world, and really needs little embellishment. It has served me well for many years and there are lots of miles left on it.

I got the G-shot as part of my new VH1 show, "The Cho Show," which I am filming right now and it is so fucking awesome you are going to just scream when you see it – I am so excited! Anyway, the G-Shot is an injection of collagen into your G-Spot that is supposed to enhance any kind of stimulation there. It is for women who have limited sensation in their vagina, which is me. My puss is more clitoral than vaginal. I am more into the outside than the inside. I am more about display than content. Whenever I go to a party, I tend to hang out on the steps rather than in the house and I never go into the backyard. And to keep the party analogy going, I don’t even have a G-Spot, per say, one place where the party is all centered, but there are lots of smaller events happening all over the area. Mine isn’t a G-Spot. More like a G-Block Party. My pussy is a lot like Coachella. There are a lot of bands hanging around waiting to play.

So I got it done at a fancy Beverly Hills gyno office and it was somewhat uncomfortable. First the G-Spot must be located. The poor doctor had to poke around in there for a long time, and it reminded me of this one guy who was looking for it many years ago, all thumbs in there going "Where’s your spot? Where’s your spot?" It didn’t feel good and I was like, "uh, I usually park on the street." The doctor came upon an area that felt more sensitive than the other areas (more partying going on there than elsewhere) so she shot up that region with an anesthetic – which was painful!! I needed anesthesia for my anesthesia! It was so prickly and hurting that she had to shoot me up twice with the numbing agent. Then they got the big needle out, which I didn’t feel but looked so scarily long that I thought the end might poke out through my back! OW!!!!

So since then, I haven’t felt any sexual enhancement at all. If anything it makes me not want to do it, which is incredible because I always want to do it – so it doesn’t work as any kind of aphrodisiac, but would be a good punishment for sex offenders. Now my vagina just feels like there is a gel insole in there. Like my cervix is wearing boot socks. I am totally asexual and I feel like I am sitting on a hemorrhoid donut all the time. I really feel kind of bad complaining about the procedure, because the doctor was so nice, and I am all about supporting anything that benefits women and their sexuality. I totally think that the spirit of the thing is cool. Women should feel good in their bodies and if surgery can enhance that, I am all for it. Unfortunately, the G-Shot just wasn’t for me, but it might be for you. There are lots of raves from women about it, and more often than not the results are supposed to be mind blowing, just not for me!


It lasts for four months so I will be at the convent until the swelling goes down.


Thoughts?