South California: Most Likely to Secede?

~ Laura ~ 20 Comments
Map of South California
The green part is South California (map created with the map utility at http://monarch.tamu.edu/~maps2).

You may have heard by now that a California county supervisor has proposed that several counties secede from California and create the new state of South California, based on the principles that taxes and illegal immigrants are bad and that state legislators should work part-time. It’s pretty clear that he didn’t really think this through: “South California” is a terrible name for the state he’s proposing, for a couple of reasons:

  1. Parts of regular California would be south of large sections of South California.
  2. Geography was never my strong suit, but I’m pretty sure there’s a state called South Carolina. People are always going to confuse the two, especially when addressing envelopes, since South Carolina already has the “SC” state abbreviation.

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This Is Not a Book Review (Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking)

~ Laura ~ 12 Comments

Recently, I’ve been hearing a lot about Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet. It sounds like a really interesting book, combining food science, photography, and recipes. In a radio interview, Myhrvold described new techniques for cooking classic dishes, like hamburgers (sous vide to cook the meat, then a liquid nitrogen dip to freeze the outer layer, then a final deep fry to form a crust without overcooking the chilled burger) and brisket (smoke, sous vide, liquid nitrogen, then deep fry). I began to wonder — why hadn’t I heard of deep-fried burgers before? Doesn’t that seem like something that would be popular at county fairs? And how would the sous vide + liquid nitrogen + deep fry technique work on other classics, like chocolate cake or Caesar salad?
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National Barbecue Day

~ Laura ~ 12 Comments

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to break with the culinary traditions which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the superior cooking methodology to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all meats are created uncooked, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain undeniable Characteristics, that among these are Flavour, Texture and the potential for Deliciousness.–That to attain this potential, Procedures are performed by Men, deriving their results from the application of heat, –That whenever any new Procedure for Cooking becomes more likely to achieve these ends, it is the Right of the People to adopt it.
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Dear Future Houseguest

~ Laura ~ 30 Comments
Welcome mat courtesy of mcclouds flickr stream

I’m so glad you’re coming to visit. For your convenience, I’ve compiled this list of things you should probably know to make your stay more comfortable:

1. The wiring in the guest room has one tiny quirk: you’ll get an electric shock whenever you touch the light switch. Also, when you turn the lights on, you might notice a faint burnt-toast smell that gets stronger over time. But the lights themselves work just fine.

2. An occasional indoor termite swarm is perfectly natural and not a cause for alarm.

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Twelve Things I Wish I’d Known About Insects

Moebius Strip II by M.C. Escher
~ Laura ~ 26 Comments
Moebius Strip II by M.C. Escher
Moebius Strip II by M.C. Escher
  1. Termites are endemic in California. Houses that are sold here are typically tented for termites during the period after the seller moves out and before the buyer moves in.
  2. Ants are endemic in California.
  3. Termites and ants are natural enemies that fight over territory. Ants living outside a house that has recently been tented for termites will move into the walls and feast on termite corpses, while you, the new homeowner, remain blissfully ignorant because none of the approximately three hundred people involved in the real estate transaction will have bothered to mention this simple fact to you.
  4. The gas used to kill termites has no effect on the ants that will later eat them.
  5. Eventually, the ants that move into your walls will either run out of termite meat or grow bored of their all-termite diet. At that point, they will begin to leave the walls to look for food sources inside the house.

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Too Much of a Good Thing

~ Laura ~ 27 Comments
Free to good home.

They say the housefly is nature’s cat toy, and it’s true: an occasional fly can provide a cat with food and entertainment for minutes on end. But a dozen flies inside the house, all at the same time, is just too much of a good thing — I know, because that’s what I woke up to last Sunday morning. It was just like Lord of the Flies, or what Lord of the Flies would have been like if it had been about actual flies instead of schoolboys and had taken place in a house instead of on an island, and if the characters, instead of turning feral, had basically just hung out in windows all day. Or maybe it was more like what Lord of the Rings would have been like if the Hobbits had been flies who, lacking fingers, were unfamiliar with the concept of wearing a ring and had spent the entire time hanging around in the Shire, which is well known in some academic circles to be an allegory for my house.
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My Son Keeps Seeing Bees But There Is No Bees

~ Laura ~ 33 Comments

I was looking at my search terms the other day to see if I needed to update my open letter to anyone directed here by a search engine, and I came across this:

MY SON KEEPS SEEING BEES BUT THERE IS NO BEES

Actually, WordPress always shows search terms in lower case, but I’m convinced that whoever typed this query used all caps. Either way, it’s clearly a cry for help, so I’m going to address the rest of today’s post to that person.
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Three Ways in Which You, the Readers of My Blog, Have Failed Me

birthday cake
~ Laura ~ 28 Comments

As I’m sure you know by now, I’m not one to complain, but there are a few matters I need to bring to your attention:

birthday cake
Wikipedia says this is a typical birthday cake. Note the traditional accessories: candles and a disembodied hand.
1. None of you sent me anything for my birthday, even though I provided convenient links to my Amazon.com wish list in several of my posts, including Looking Forward to Another Birthday, Only 30 Shopping Days Left Until My Birthday, Only 29 Shopping Days Left Until My Birthday, Today Is Probably the Last Day to Get Free Shipping in Time for My Birthday, There’s Still Time to Get Me Something for My Birthday If You Choose One-Day Shipping, and Better Late than Never: It’s Okay to Send Belated Birthday Presents, but You Should Probably Spend a Little More on Them.
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The Obligatory Osama bin Laden Post

~ Laura ~ 5 Comments

True story: Sunday night, I heard there would be a Presidential address about some as-yet-undisclosed topic related to national security, so I turned on the TV — and saw Obama at a podium, announcing that he’d agreed to the release of his birth video. This was just the local news program showing a clip from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, but for a moment I thought it was Obama’s address to the nation, and I thought it was hilarious that the White House and the news agencies had gone in on this joke together.

I’ll close with a quote that I stole from a friend’s Facebook status:

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Update: apparently it’s not an actual MLK quote. But I still like it. The original version, from Where Do We Go from Here: Chhaos or Community? is:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

My Decision to Discontinue My Participation in the Spring Valley Herald’s Weekly Caption Contest

~ Laura ~ 23 Comments

From: wordlover79@hotmail.com
To: ombudsman@springvalleyherald.com
Cc: captioncontest@springvalleyherald.com
Subject: Serious problems with your weekly caption contest
—
Dear Spring Valley Herald Ombudsman,

I’ve been a loyal reader of your newspaper for many years, and of the online version since you first launched your website. It is with great sadness, then, that I must inform you that I will no longer be participating in your weekly caption contest. Although I’ve made every possible effort to work things out with your caption contest editor, he’s been completely unreasonable, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
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