Coffee-Crazed Cookin'

How to cook a magical casserole all hyped up on coffee....

Step 1. Go out with a friend for coffee on a Sunday afternoon at 4pm in the afternoon after being off the drop for a few months. Be sure to order a tall.
Step 2. Arrive home buzzing with a caffeine frenzy that you *know* is not going to wear off before bedtime. Make the command decision to cook a casserole for next weeks lunches to burn off some of the energy.
Step 3. You are pretty low on traditional makings for casserole. Decide to not let a small thing like that stand in your way.
Step 4. Put on some water to boil for the pasta. Ferret energetically through the contents of the fridge and pantry cupboards to find ingredients with an air of creativity about you.
Step 5. Assemble the following ingredients;
The dessicated remnants of a big bag of spinach purchased approximately a month and a half ago
The last 3 mushrooms
The last tomato
An onion, the length of whose life-span it is important not to question
Approx 250g of random tube pasta
2 small tins of tomato and capsicum flavoured tuna
Step 6. Slice the mushrooms manically into slivers about the width of my chewed-down fingernails.
Step 7. Repeat the process for tomato, onion and spinach. Mash the tuna energetically.
Step 8. Throw pasta in the boiling water in an unceremonious fashion, splashing boiling water around the place, leaving your skin with that invigorated look.
Step 9. After pasta is cooked, drain haphazardly with some more slopping of boiling hot water.
Step 10. Throw in and stir in the shredded veges like your life depends on it.
Step 11. After realising that you haven't given any thought to what sauce to include in the casserole, randomly grab a tub of "El Paso Spicy Bean Salsa" from the pantry, and throw it in the mixture.
Step 12. Hurl the contents into the casserole dish. Heap generous amounts of parmesan cheese on the top of the casserole.
Step 13. Utter a brief but fervent wish that it turns out somehow, throw it into the oven that you don't quite recall having pre-heated.
Step 14. Approx. 45 min later, extract the lightly toasted casserole. Allow to cool, then freeze.

Defrost and serve a piece for lunch at work two days later.

Marvel at how amazingly tasty coffee-crazed cookin' is.

Sleep Is For The Weak

Rumfy, rumfy, rumfy. Sploobarb. Schneggurburglefahfer.

I get eloquent when I'm tired. Unlike those pathetic specimens, who, upon discovering evidence of tiredness within themselves, goto bed earlier, I have persistence. Despite being employed in such a fashion that requires my presence by 8:30am, I refuse to surrender my favourite late night TV viewing. For the information of readers, this viewing is, most of the time, of the pre-recorded variety. Jon Stewart, Colbert, Maher, Death Note and America's Next Top Model don't get watched while I'm at work. From personal experience, I can impart the special wisdom that it's quite a challenge to fit the viewing schedule of an unemployed person around an eight hour work day - but not impossible.

In conclusion, I might be a possum.

And the award for greatest contribution to the election goes to...

Some have said that Sarah Palin really won this election for Obama. The staggering statistic of 47% votes to Republican leads me to believe that she played no small part in his victory.

But the award for greatest contribution goes to....

My second cousin Malcolm!

How could anyone, even the most hard core right-wing gun-toting looney tunes say no to that face?



Good work son. You did it.

What the what now

I'm inspired by this piece of randomness I came across when attempting to solve a cryptic crossword online today. Despite the *cough* creative structure of the article, I agree with the substance of what they're talking about. Swearing has gotten really, really boring. And that's sad, because the language that we use is undeniably linked to the way that we think. Some linguists argue that we don't actually experience cognitive thought processes until we develop sufficient skills to be able to think in words. I don't completely buy it, but this idea is backed up by concepts such as "if you can't explain it, you don't understand it."

Howsoever, delicious linguistic-related tangents aside, I need greater turnover in my stash of swear words! My vocabulary has reached a stunted period in its growth, and I refuse to be stunted in the language that I speak, think and write with.

So, here are the swear words that I am phasing out of my vocab. Sayonara, overused profanities.

1. Fuck, fucked and fucking. See the article linked for a good summary of the reasons for killing this verb set.
2. Fuckjob, fuckknuckle, fuckfeatures, fuckwit and fuckface. As for 'fuck.'
   
3. Shit, shitty, and shitfaced. As for 'fuck,' see linked article.
   
4. Bloody. I mourn the loss of this word as a regularly used profanity, as it forms such a large and significant part of my culture as an Oz-tralian. However, the violent literal meaning of the word encourages me to find alternatives.
5. Crap and crappy. The arguments against the shit-related trifecta hold for these two terms.
   
6. Good god, oh my god, devil, damn, jesus, jesus mary and joseph, geez*, christ, hell, heavens, mercy and zeus's butthole. Stricken due to overuse and religious associations. No longer will I allow my language to be thus corrupted by a mythology that I haven't adopted, despite societal influences from the religious and non-religious alike.
7. Ass, tightass and assface. I wish to make a clarification on this. I reserve the right to use the term ass as a positive description term of someone's rear. For example, "Phwoar, his ass is hot" or "The shape of my ass is positively delectable." However, the use of 'ass' as a profanity or insult, e.g. "The CEO of my private health insurer is a horse's ass," is no longer on. Butts are beautiful people.
8. Slut, bitch, whore, cunt, wench, tart, tramp, skank, slag. I feel confident that giving up these terms in my day-to-day language usage will not be a hardship.
   

So, similar to any "out with the old, in with the new" situation, and getting back to the central issue of more creativity in language, replacements swear terms as follows;

1. Screamful. Descriptive, emotive - it has it all.
2. Ferret features. Not original, but, fjord it, the term works as an insult. Which brings me to...
   
3. Fjord! Why the fjord did this term ever go out of style as a great-sounding utterance? And whatever happened to Pinky and The Brain? (Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain!)
   
4. Republican. There are two reasons I want to get this word out in the profanity space. First the obvious, US Republican policies blow. Second, the systems of government that people often refer to as a democracy (e.g USA, Australia, England) are actually republics. Republican works as a profanity on so many levels. Oh, Republican.

That's all for the moment. Please add any contributions you may have in mind to my profane linguistic melting pot.


*Geez Louise may be a different story. I like the rhyming aspect of it, and its usage in this country is rare enough that I view its colour to be acceptable. The question is, is it a phrase that is divorced enough from xiananity, or is it really a thinly veiled attempt by god botherers to avoid the guilt of blasphemy? The jury's still out on that one.