The most boring Turkey Day report ever

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You know what’s interesting? Conflict, crisis, disaster, and unhappiness. That’s why this will be an incredibly boring post.

Everything I made turned out. My wife and son made an apple pie that was a little too wet, but it still tasted wonderful and the boy ate almost a third of it that day. The stuffing could have been more moist, but that’s my personal preference for clumpability; it certainly wasn’t dry by any standards. Our oven has been a little wonky lately, but the turkey was very nice and juicy. Even the last minute decision to make dinner rolls after all turned out beautifully.

My wife and I had Alton Brown’s sweet potato pie, which is fantastic for breakfast the next day, and made me feel like a Yankee. I’m going to have a lunch break in a few minutes, and a turkey/cranberry sandwich (on yesterday’s roll) is waiting.

It was a simpler year, with simpler recipes and a smaller spread. Even though we brought out the large plates (we usually eat our meals on small lunch plates to discourage binges) I took moderate helpings and left the table feeling full but not mistreated. And the giblet gravy was fantastic.

I even managed to do a little writing, play a board game with the family, and take a nice walk around the neighborhood to admire some of the fancier houses up the hill. I wish we could have more days just like it.

Today I’m at the day job, and things are very quiet. I guess everyone’s buying Lego Rock Band or whatever instead of refilling their meds. It’ll be nice to sit down with my lap top and get more writing done.

If you missed the Black Friday Leftover contest in my previous post, check it out.

Black Friday Non-Shopping and Leftover Contest!

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I’m scheduling this post for early Black Friday morning, when I’m going to be sound asleep. (At least, I hope I will be.) So I’m writing this just after eating a sizable but not gluttonous Thanksgiving dinner.

So! Have a friend who likes urban fantasy? Want to have a gift sent to them at no cost to you? You’re in luck: the prize for this contest is a signed, inscribed, giftwrapped copy of Child of Fire, which I will mail to your friend/family member/loved one/mortal enemy anywhere on the planet Earth.

I’ll inscribe it any way you like (within reason), and the gift wrap will be nice but non-denominational. I’ll also include a nice but non-denominational card, too, with “Do not open before [date you choose]!” written on the envelope. And don’t worry, my wife will do the actual wrapping; that ensures the package will not only look nice, but it won’t be sloppily cocooned in scotch tape.

This lets you cross someone off your gift list without spending a cent! How do you win the prize? Well, we have the remains of a 20 lb. turkey in our fridge, and we’re looking for recipes for the leftovers. Suggest something. You can give the recipe in detail, describe it in a general way, or just drop a link to something you like. On Sunday morning, my wife, son and I will look at all of the suggestions on my main blog, LJ, and Facebook, and together we’ll choose a recipe to try. If we choose yours, you win!

Helpful tips for folks thinking of entering: soups, sandwiches and pot pies will have to be really unique or special, since we make a lot of them already. Cheese will be a tough sell (we’re open-minded, but cheese and turkey?), and any sort of hot sauce or spicy pepper will get an immediate veto by the child. And, if we find two recipes that look great, we may have two winners.

At any rate, we’ll make the winner’s recipe and I’ll blog how it turned out.

You didn’t want to go shopping on Black Friday anyway, did you?

It’s late.

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The stuffing is in the fridge, the pies are cooling in the chilly part of our apartment [1], and my brilliant “starfruit only” strategy failed to win the “Last Stand” minigame in PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES.

Damn, I need to get to bed.

For everyone out there celebrating Thanksgiving in the morning, may you have a joyful one, and may you have twice as much to be thankful for next year.

[1]Which part of our apartment is the chilly part? The inside.

Turkey Day preparation

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The turkey is in the brine as of 6 am this morning, along with plenty of ice. The pork roast has been ground and mixed with spices for the sausage stuffing. The cranberry sauce is finished (with extra sugar this year to appeal to the boy–but not too much extra). I probably should have made the sweet potato pie last night, but the fridge had an awful lot of turkey in there and I was worried about the space. At least the dough for the crust is ready.

I’ll do today’s writing at lunch, then tonight I’ll make the pie and the stuffing. That leaves very little for tomorrow: taters, glazed onions, and whatever else I’m forgetting. My wife isn’t keen on dinner rolls, mainly because they take a lot of time, but we have the stand mixer now, and jeez, they make great sandwiches, so maybe I’ll toss those in the oven.

I have a lot of things to be thankful for this year, and maybe tomorrow I’ll make a full accounting. Today I’m just grateful that I seem to have stopped checking my Amazon.com sales ranking every 45 minutes.

Merry Oppressmas!

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SCROOGE WAS RIGHT! Libertarian professor tries to defend Ebenezer Scrooge’s miserlyness.

Scrooge is skeptical that many would prefer death to the workhouse, and he is unmoved by talk of the workhouse’s cheerlessness. He is right to be unmoved, for society’s provisions for the poor must be, well, Dickensian. The more pleasant the alternatives to gainful employment, the greater will be the number of people who seek these alternatives, and the fewer there will be who engage in productive labor. If society expects anyone to work, work had better be a lot more attractive than idleness.

Apparently, the professor thinks that people who lose their jobs and can’t find another should have their children taken away from them, just as they did in the workhouses. Hey, if the poor have children they can’t support, what’s it to him? He never forced anyone “to father children he is having difficulty supporting.”

It’s a pathetic display that gets worse as it goes along. Don’t read it. Seriously.

When he testified before Congress regarding Dr. Wertham’s claims about the supposed harmfulness of comics, William Gaines said: “It would be just as difficult to explain the harmless thrill of a horror story to a Dr. Wertham as it would be to explain the sublimity of love to a frigid old maid.” I strongly suspect that it would be just as difficult the explain the deep satisfaction of charity to that sad, stunted author of that post.

This is beautiful

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So expressive!

Randomness for

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1) Easy newspaper article, type 12: Carefully selected dumb student answers.

2) Author Jackie Kessler breaks down the problems with “Harlequin Horizons”.

3) Photos of a river of hydrogen sulphide in Mexico. via Jay Lake

4) Fish on Europa? via Jay Lake

5) A beautiful animated book trailer that fails to promote the book. Sound, people. If the image is a little out of focus or awkwardly lit, people will muddle through. But if the sound isn’t right, nothing’s right.

6) Smash putt!

7) Twilight: New Moon. “However, last year in the line, I did interviews, where I handed out a list of ten things and asked for which ones happened in the books. Seven or eight out of ten got circled. Then I pointed out that the list was ten warning signs that your partner is becoming abusive or controlling, and asked what they thought of Edward’s behavior in this new light.

Responses included, “I wish a guy loved me enough to treat me that way,” and, “But Bella needed it.”

This year I was behind a group of girls who briefly discussed Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. Each one pointed out that the other person’s champion was possessive and controlling/bossy. “Well, but she let him,” was the final word, on each side.”

Bonus 8)! Team Lipbite!

Early in the week

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It’s still early in the week, so I’m not online very much. I do want to say this, since I’m prepping for Turkey Day.

I will be brining my turkey, a la Alton Brown. I will also be baking an AB sweet potato pie. However, I don’t care what he says, stuffing is NOT evil.

Yeah, it adds cooking time, but I run potato skewers through it to bring heat to the inside of the bird. The slightly damp stuffing gives off steam that helps cook the bird from the inside.

Evil? I think not.

Well, it’s the weekend

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And being the weekend, I haven’t had a lot of time on the internet.

However, let me give you this: ClickPlay. If you’re at work, mute your computer before you click that link. You won’t miss anything except some pleasant jazz.

Thank you.

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A friend is working up a ghost/haunted house movie, and I’m going to collate everyone’s suggestions into a research list for him.

And WordPress is being a little over-zealous at labeling comments spam. Sorry for the delay. I’ll approve them as quickly as I can.