Hello, Oven? It's Phone. Now Let's Get Cooking!

My favorite headline of the month, so far, about a man whose cell phone kept turning on his oven, incinerating the stored contents. “……He laid the phone next to the stove. They dialed it. Suddenly, the electronic control on the stovetop beeped. The digital display changed from a clock to the word ‘high.’ As the phone was ringing, the broiler was heating up.”  Certain Maytag models are vulnerable. Thanks, NYT.

 

Man receives cornea transplant; can’t stop housecleaning. This fine Monday morning my RSS feed at work brings the following. “A British man who had a cornea transplant jokes that he must have received the ‘cornea of a woman.’ His partner used to pester him to do housework but he says, ‘Because of my new eyesight I now notice every speck of dust and dirt and immediately want to clean it up. There is a reason why men don't clean normally and I think it's because we just don't see the dirt. But since the transplant I now see it wherever I go. I'm always hoovering, dusting and washing.’ Dr. Mathew Raynor, consultant ophthalmologist at Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital where the surgery was done, puts it in perspective: ‘Organ donation really is the ultimate gift.’” I don’t know if the person who gets my corneas will be as inspired. Full story from The Sun. One of their other news stories of the day: Two couples went back to the Stone Age for double Flintstones-themed wedding. Weekly World News is back?

Blogger Boing Boing is more prolific than I. Still, I keep my favorite posts from time to time, as in this list (click to enlarge, or is that common sense).

To St. Vincent de Paul: 5 books, 3 pairs pajamas handsewn by my Aunt Nancy when she was watching the OJ trial (can't squeeze in), flavia coffee maker, 1 jacket, 10 t-shirts, 5 plates, 2 faucets, 1wooden candle holder from Holland Michigan, including 30-year-old cloves in drawer. From, for $5.50: paper-thin plastic (oxymoron?) plates; The Book of Common Prayer, A History of New Orleans, Brick Lane, The Bone People, The Kite Runner, Accordion Crimes, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water,The American Book of the Dead, and Ortho's All About House Additions (I wish). Not bad.

Chef's Survey

And it's 2 blocks from my office . . .

 

Ah, a cheeseburger, fries well done, and a diet coke: once a quarter, why not? If it's good enough for this guy, it's good enough for me: "It's the perfect example of classic American fast food. It satisfies my craving for meat, crisp fries, and their special sauce." — Thomas Keller, The French Laundry, Yountville, California and Per Se, New York City." Via Esquire

 

 

Mission Control

Thanks to boingboing.net, I learned that somafm.com, home of smooth streaming fm, has a Mission Control station. I, along with a hundred or so other listeners, was pulled in and attached all day to NASA Mission broadcasts and live shuttle coverage combined with electronic ambient music (donate! donate!). Quite the fuel for detailed work. Of course, one thing led to another (after work hours, naturally), and I began to randomly lose myself in web stacks to reach all kinds of NASA archives. For example, take Project Red Socks (Jet Propulsion Labs, 1957). The objectives of the project were "1) get photos, 2) refine space guidance techniques, and 3) impress the world" with a series of nine rocket flights to the moon. Didn't fly. You will have to search to learn more; it's all in the river of history that by now has reached some sort of sea. I love the project name, though. Image credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

August 1, there's French music in the background, Jean Sablon singing in the 30s about rhum and coca cola and ces petits choses, these little things. The flies are buzzing, and Huey likes to eat them. All is right with Huey.

I like my house. No, I don't want to sell it. But thanks for asking, in your handwritten and mailed note. But alas, I won't be calling.

When I work at home on Fridays (which is most Fridays) the radio that fuels my efforts streams from iranianradio.com. Traditional Persian sonati. There's just something about it . . .

My Sea Kitten, Sara

A new phrase entered my lexicon today, words that I'd not put together before: sea kitten. "Would people think twice about ordering fish sticks if they were called sea kitten sticks" inquires PETA in its campaign to associate our watery brethren with something less food-like. Admittedly, I don't contemplate eating lobster because I can't handle the prospect of quickly cooking them or slowly cooking them, while they're alive. Eating their fear, is how some circles describe it.

But my stance is unpredictable: I've eaten crawfish and langoustine, considered live bait in some circles. They're *smaller* than big 'ole lobster, afterall. Part of me thinks that if I indeed am going to consume fish, fowl or swine, I must be keenly aware of the consequences for that creature and myself and attempt to choose ones that I know have been treated humanely while alive, or that I've caught or raised and killed myself. (Just so you know, I haven't caught/hunted any critters that I can remember, beyond ants [heartless] and a sunfish or two. And the occasional snail: I tend to thrown them way out in the back 40.)

I keep buying vegan cookbooks like Vegan Soul Kitchen, but the reality is that I continue to eat all kinds of stuff and I am am capable of serious predation. I was enthralled with Babe, a mythic, filmic pig raised by sheepdogs, and then I have an ongoing relationship with bacon. Go figure.

Still, PETA has a site where one can build one's own sea kitten, like Sara here. Maybe I won't kill and eat Sara, but my kitty Huey would. No questions asked.

Can I kill and clean a chicken? Can you? My grandma May could and did. She was pretty happy when the A&P started bringing in packaged parts and 8 o'clock coffee...Does it count if you thank the creature for its sacrifice? Will the kale feel left out, on some level? It's quite the luxury to pick and choose one's food.