Saturday, April 26, 2008

Brass Bonanza

My buddy Pat got this song stuck in my head while we sat around looking for hilarious YouTube clips, drinking coffee, watching pre-NFL Draft coverage, and scratching ourselves, and now I'm going to punish all of you lucky Beastards with it, because that's just the kind of guy I am. Enjoy!

Duh

Gasoline thefts rise with pump prices - MSN Money

Surprise, surprise. When even smaller cars start costing $30 or more per tank, the less honest element is going to start looking for ways around it. If you let them just hit the cash button and start filling up without prepaying, you deserve what you get. "But I want to preserve the trust relationship with my customers!" Great--how about you let them trust you for a while until prices come down? They can trust you because you're not going anywhere, and if you don't hold up your end of the transaction, they can come back inside and kick your ass. Who pays cash for gas, anyway, in this day and age? Yeah, I want to stand in line behind someone who's manually picking out their $100 of Powerball numbers when I can just swipe my card through the scanner on the pump. This was probably the most useless fluff article posing as "financial news" I've ever read.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The Beast's Cookbook: Garden Pasta with White Wine Sauce

I'll upload a picture later.

This is a simple, relatively healthy meal, but you can cut back a bit on the butter if you're concerned about that sort of thing. It goes great with whole wheat pasta of any sort, not just spaghetti. The idea for the sauce started from a spinach recipe from my brother (a professional chef).

1 lb. spaghetti
9 to 12 oz. spinach, stems removed
4 medium tomatoes, chopped
4 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup white wine
1 tbsp. garlic
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. basil
Parsley, for garnish

In a large skillet, melt the butter and add the spinach until just wilted. Add the tomatoes, oregano, and basil; leave on the heat, stirring, for about 3-4 minutes. Add the wine and simmer for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the spaghetti according to package directions. Toss the spaghetti with the veggies and sauce. Garnish with parsley and top with parmesan cheese.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Potty Mouth

The Blog-O-Cuss Meter - Do you cuss a lot in your blog or website?Hat tip to milblog Op-For for this one. I'm actually surprised it's not higher given my twisted sense of humor and occasional lapses into coprolalia.

On a related subject, I was driving this afternoon and heard--on FM radio--Sublime's song "Caress Me Down". I was a little surprised that the more....descriptive....sexual content in English was left unmolested--fines have been levied for less. Even more amazing is that the outright Spanish cursing was deemed O.K. by the powers-that-be at this Philly rock station (that I'll leave anonymous). Apparently, only English "swear words" count. Now, who's going to have the stones to play Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" routine translated into Swahili? I'd even go back to listening to WYSP if they did that.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Chelsea and Monica

It's become the Question that Won't Go Away for Chelsea Clinton as she tours Indiana shilling for her mom: what about the Lewinsky thing? Her answer is always some variant of "none of your business," and the short answer is that it really isn't. Except...

There's no doubt that when the scandal first broke in early 1997 that Chelsea was the most innocent victim of the scandal--a teenage girl forced into the public eye strictly because of who her dad was. That's not the case any more. She's an adult now, and a willing participant in her mother's run for the White House. And when we're trying to choose a president, the private lives of the candidates are relevant. Character counts! The way Hilary handled a crisis in her own home is a reflection of how she can reasonably be expected to handle issues requiring character as the president, and as long as Chelsea is out there speaking on Hil-dawg's behalf, it's reasonable to ask about such a highly publicized situation when speaking to someone who was close to it. She has as much right to refuse to answer as anyone else has right to ask, but avoiding the issue doesn't do her mom any favors.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Viagra Has Finally Crossed A Line

I was sitting in a bar in the Broad Ripple district of Indianapolis watching the Fox baseball "game of the week" on Saturday when the Nashville country music version of the "Viva Viagra" commercial came on. (I wanted to embed the video here, but I couldn't find it on YouTube or Break.com. So if you haven't seen it yet, go to this page on Viagra's site and click the link for the video labeled "Nashville. Go ahead, I'll wait. And if you find a version on a video site that I can embed, tell me about it and I'll give you full credit.)

Of course this is a commercial that I've seen a hundred different times, given the sheer number of sporting events that I've tuned into, but for some reason, this viewing was disturbing. At first I thought it was because the bar TV's closed captioning was displaying the lyrics to the commercial while The Escape Club was playing on the jukebox over the speaker system. Then I realized that just as I was watching this commercial alone and uncomfortable, my lovely girlfriend having stepped away momentarily, this commercial is nothing but a bunch of men in cowboy hats singing about their love for tumescence. Let me repeat that: Viagra's new commercial is a bunch of guys in a darkened room singing about getting a rod. Not a woman can be found. If you thought watching sports with your family and friends couldn't get more awkward than Cialis's mentions of four-hour erections....think again.

Update: I just noticed that the "Nashville" commercial is similar to the "Roadhouse" commercial. At least in the latter, the singers all go their separate ways, presumably off to their women, once they've finished singing about their boner pills.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

My Bedroom Worth

bedroom toys

I'm no Ashley Dupré, but that's not too shabby. Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work. Click the graphic to see how you compare.

Hat tip to VodkaPundit.