AKA Abraham Bacoln

Overheard

“Did Matt call her or did her call Matt?”

@ The Dog House, 8/2/7

BAT!

Jared Diamond, in his book The Third Chimpanzee, gave me my first introduction to the concept of the Proto-Indo-European language. Of course I encourage you to find, buy, and read that book or at least look up some articles online. Wikipedia has some good ones [citation needed]. The easiest short version of today’s theme is that there are some words that share common roots across multiple languages, like the numbers, words for certain animals, etc.

Bat is not one of those words.

I know you all have been dying to hear how my bat words adventure worked out. In case you have forgotten (read: I know you have forgotten) I found myself fascinated by the difference in the English word for bat (bat) and the Spanish word for bat (murciélago). These are obviously not the same. I began to wonder just how different the name was across multiple languages, so I started asking classmates and random students how to write bat in their language. This is the final list, submitted for your approval. I make NO CLAIMS to the accuracy of these translations. I’m pretty sure the Hungarian is right on as I had it confirmed by more than one person. The Turkish? That could say ‘dog trolley’ for all I know, I didn’t look it up. There may even be bad words down there, gasp. That was part of the fun of it, I suppose. This was not science, this was an excuse for social interaction with strangers.

I only wish I could have gotten more. At least I got them from people that actually spoke these languages.

murci̩lago РSpanish
fladdermus – Swedish
vleermuis – Dutch
chauvesouris – French
yarasa – Turkish
denev̩r РHungarian
pipistrello – Italian
fledermaus – German
leÄ‘urblaka – Icelandic
netopýr – Czechoslovakian
летучая мышь – Russian
[koumori] – Japanese
sikspārnis – Latvian

Obviously Dutch, Swedish, and German have got some little thing going on. I think it’s a conspiracy. I also had many people confirm that the literal translation was ‘flying mouse’ which … you know, I’ve never looked at a bat and thought, “Oh, I see, a mouse with wings.” It’s a bit different than that in my mind.

I think I’m going to stick with BAT.

BAT!

*twiddles thumbs*

I rather don’t know what to do now.

I wrote and wrote and wrote every day or thereabouts while in Spain because you were all listening, and some of you – HI ANGIE! – actively encouraged more writing.

Now that I’m home I haven’t anything fascinating to write about yet I still feel in the habit of wanting to write. I’ve got a car with no destination and an empty tank of gas.

Too many of my analogies involve cars. Maybe I shouldn’t use so many analogies. I’ll try … um … metaphor.

Q: What’s a metaphor?
A: For sheep to graze in.

If any of you didn’t pass out from shock after receiving such a horrible joke I’m glad you’re still with us. For those of you just now tuning in you narrowly avoided a horrible fate.

I’m rather content right now because I just made a huge mess of my kitchen and then cleaned it all up. That means I had the triple satisfaction of cooking, eating, and (after cleaning which is not in itself a satisfaction-giving task) enjoying my kitchen being clean again.

You know, since my return a lot of people have specifically mentioned the food I talked about. I thought maybe I was overdoing it, but since it seems to be the first thing that anyone brings up I guess I wasn’t wrong to write so much about it. Since it’s not wrong, and baby does it ever feel so right, I’ll make a few more words right now. I’m done with the real writing, those of you who don’t read the food stuff. You can close your browser now.

Last night when I went grocery shopping I wasn’t in the mood for meat, so I hung out in the produce section for a while trying to figure out just what was good to eat. That’s why tonight I ended up thin-slicing some nice yellow potatoes (just say no to big white starchy flavorless potatoes! go find something tastier!) and frying them up in olive oil with a bit of dried basil and cumin. While those were cooking I cut some strips of poblano pepper and diced up a clove of garlic and lightly sauteed them in a separate skillet. Once cooked and drained the potatoes were salted – an action I typically avoid but what the hell if it’s fried it’s not good for you anyway right? – and peppered. I threw those three things ((what is) taters, garlic, pepper) all together and they were fantastic.

Salad was a roma tomato and half of a cucumber both cut into little fork chunks and splashed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and one grind from the pepper mill.

I missed fresh-ground black pepper a lot while in Spain. It goes on almost all of my food.

Oh but that wasn’t enough to kill the kitchen, no, that just got everything greasy. The rest of the kitchen wreck was from the preparation of a chocolate cherry cake. You remember the recipe, right? You have it memorized?

No?

Oh, well here it is again. Go make this. Right now. You will love me (and therefore my mom, who gave me the recipe) forever. I have posted this before in another place but I don’t feel like linking, I feel like cutting and pasting. Mom’s words:

Chocolate Cherry Cake:

1 cake mix, choc. or fudge generic is okay
1 can cherry pie filling (usually found in baking section somewhere)
1 tsp. almond extract (KEY INGRED.)
2 beaten eggs.

Break eggs into bowl, beat with fork, then add the cake mix and the pie
filling. It will look too dry, but don’t worry about it. Stir in almond
flavoring just before you pour it into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake @ 350 for 35 – 40 min. You will know it’s done when the edges just barely start to pull away from the pan. Don’t overbake–will seem a little soft in the middle.

WHILE CAKE IS BAKING:
Put these things in a saucepan turned on very low so they will start to melt together.
1 cup sugar
5 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup milk
(and later you will add 6 oz choc. chips and
1/2 tsp almond flavoring)

When you take the cake out of the oven, turn the saucepan up to “high” and stir the stuff constantly until it boils. Boil and stir for one minute, then turn off the burner. Put in the choc. chips and stir FAST until they are all melted and it looks smooth. Then put in the almond flavor, give a last stir and pour over the hot cake. Rubber spatula will get all the choc. out of the saucepan.

IMPORTANT: unlike most cakes where you mess with the icing until it looks right, you just pour this one on covering all the bare spots and leave it alone. Because it is a liquid that is going to get a hard shell as soon as it is exposed to air, it will get a shiny crust that will crinkle if you start to use a spatula on it. Just experiment with it–you can’t make a mistake ’cause it’s chocolate and people will eat it even if you have to scrape it out and put it into pudding bowls!

And that’s that. Now … now to go cry about the fact that the cake is a gift and I can’t eat any.

GOODNIGHT!
alternate ending:
GO CLEAN YOUR ROOM!

So what is it, like 3:00 AM here?

That’s exactly what it is, 3:00 AM and for some reason I just woke up. Well, not for “some reason” but because my body thinks it’s 10:00 AM and a perfectly valid time to be awake.

Having just woken up helped me put my finger on a couple of reasons why this feels so strange. It’s quiet. Very quiet here. I just spent a month and a half living on a very noisy street where I could hear the patrons at a bar across the way and cars and motor scooters drove underneath my window at all hours. I’ve opened my window here at home and all I can hear are a few crickets and bugs and someone’s A/C unit just kicked on.

My apartment itself is quiet. There’s only me here, not even my cat. She ran off some time yesterday (the day before? can’t remember) and hasn’t dropped back by yet, or maybe she has but I’ve been sound asleep for a few hours now. Anyway, the apartment is quiet because there aren’t four or five other people living here. Plus the floors are all carpeted which muffles even the sound of me.

There’s air conditioning, or at least there was until I turned it off so I could open my window. I know
horse -> dead -> beating
but I’d say I spent a total of four hours in weak A/C while I was away, so this just feels so so wrong. I’m supposed to be dying of heat right now.

But as with everything in life writing helps one realize what the problem is, organize it, and then the mind can deal a bit more efficiently. I’m sure by the time I wake up again everything will feel more normal.

Okay, I’m starting to feel a little drowsy, I hope, so I’m gonna … well, I can’t go back to bed because I’m already in bed, hooray for laptops. But I’m going to try to go back to sleep.

Oh, I took a picture of this for you when I was in the London airport. Just a reminder that I was in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT WORLD oooOOOOoOoOoOoooo spooky

One of the scariest things I tried during my entire trip. Blood sausage? No problem. Orange Coke? *shudder*

home, no place like

That’s me. Home. Sitting on my bed.

I am dying for sleep. If my watch hasn’t lost its mind I apparently left my house in Málaga 29 hours and 45 minutes ago. I’ve had about six hours of sleep divided between two airline flights and one airport bench.

I’m exhausted, but so glad to be home.

I really don’t like Top 10 lists …

… but I do so love the number seventeen, so today I decided to compile for you, in no particular order, seventeen of my favorite pictures from Flickr.

I’m not saying these are my mostest favorites, just the ones that really got my attention today. If I made the list tomorrow it might be completely different. Also I don’t claim to be a photography critic, these are just things I like. OKAY HERE GOES:

This untitled picture by Neckro is fantastic. At first glance it looks like he’s amazed that a ring has appeared on his forefinger. Then I notice the thumb on the right-hand side of the image, showing that both of his hands are up in the air, and his face takes the appearance of someone apeing being surprised at his own magic trick. Add to that this guy’s crazy look with the very pale eyes, skin almost as white as his shirt, the head pulled back a bit, and a hairstyle that makes him look like he’s traveling way too fast, and you get this wonderful sense of surprise.

Mom in the Car by Patrick Bean makes me smile every time. It has a fantastic retro look that isn’t retro at all because it’s real. The interior of the car, the hair, the clothing, the slide defect – it completely captures the essence of looking at another time.

single basket pour by king seven is a perfect example of “the kind of shot I would never think to take” that helped (helps) change how I think about my pictures. Aside from the composition the colors are rich, lush, and intense. The detail is fantastic.

Tell Me — Who’s That Writing? by _mpd_ is everything that I want to shoot some days: wood texture and natural light. You just can’t get any better than this.

095 by jens b. is a beautiful candid, or if it’s posed then this guy knows his stuff. The choice of crop at eye level and slightly off focus impart a tangible sense of anonymity while the body language is unmistakeable. I feel cold and uncomfortable just looking at this.

Snow Friend? by greenamp just charms me to no end. I passed by this image countless times until one day I really stopped and looked, and found everything perfect. The framing gives a fabulous sense of something missing, and her expression is a mix of curiosity, interest without being overly concerned, and something else I can’t put my finger on (or should that be “something else on which I can not put my finger”?).

Dave by candlelight by fast eddie 42 first came to my attention by way of some article discussing alternate lighting, in this case candles. Everything about this picture screams old-timey wizard until you see the Bic pen, spiral notebook, and pocket calculator.

Fight by Phil Sharp showed me that sports photography can be beautiful.

Morning by lockgruv catches my attention every time I flip through my favorites. I think it’s the way the clothing matches the dark stars while the shirt, the aquarium, and most importantly his eye keep you moving back and forth to the big blue star. His expression isn’t unhappy, but isn’t particularly glad either. It’s just … morning.

thebaby by ***blah just cracks me up. I have no idea what inspired this photo but it is so well done. The best part is that none of the cigarettes are freshly-lit. That would make it too obvious.

I [heart] coffee by *davidsαngle reminds me that though usually I don’t care one way or the other for high-speed photography of objects being dropped into liquid that there’s always an exception to be made. The use of the oblique single flash and otherwise jet-black set is phenomenal.

mum by B0GIE makes me feel like I’ve just done something wrong.

the bees by hackett is another reminder that though usually I don’t have strong feelings about a genre (in this case, flowers) there are stellar standouts that can sway my opinion. In this case the early March sky feels cold, not yet spring, and the addition of the bees really brings it home.

Joyful Ed by *cassiopeia* makes me smile every single time. I think it’s the playing cards on the floor that do it for me.

Butt Head by elo_001 gives me confidence that when I see someone with an interesting face I need to approach them to get their picture – mainly in hopes that I’ll capture something like this. I don’t know who this guy is but he looks like a lot of fun, and his face is supremely expressive. Elo’s choice to shoot against the open warehouse door really brings the subject out.

Cemetary outside Williams, AZ by CalamityJon is the saddest picture of a teddy bear that I have ever seen. If called upon to create a sad teddy bear picture with unlimited time and funding I could not top this image.

And finally,

lena….. by Hensdill is one of my earliest Flickr favorites. There is such an undeniable sense of motion in this picture that it almost makes me recoil. Sometimes I fear for that girl’s safety, as if she’s headed into the mouth of an angry beach beast … and other times I can see it for what it really is.

Heath vs. Skor

I realize this is incredibly dorky but this is also one of those things that I do for fun, which says a lot about me, I suppose. I have always loved Heath and Skor bars, and only today at age 30 (nearly 31, ugh) did I ever decide to compare the two. Usually I’ll just grab whichever one is closer to me when I’m in the candy bar aisle. Today I picked up both.

There’re a lot of discussions or debates on the internet about Heath vs. Skor online but this is my own interpretation, and hopefully a bit more condensed than some.

For starters the biggest surprise was that they’re both made by Hershey Corp. I had always assumed that they were two competing companies.

Physical appearance:
Both Heath and Skor have the same external appearance – almost exactly the same color of chocolate, same scoring pattern on the underside. Heath is ever-so-slightly thicker whereas Skor is thinner and wider. Without the two side-by-side it’d be hard to tell.

Heath is a much lighter color inside, with more visible almond chunks. Skor is darker and more homogenous.

Ingredients:
Heath:
milk chocolate; sugar; dairy butter; partially hydrogenated soybean oil; almonds; salt; artificial flavor; and soy lecithin
Skor:
milk chocolate; sugar; dairy butter (milk); almonds; milk; and salt

The sub-ingredients for the milk chocolate are the same so I didn’t bother to list them. My initial impression favors Skor for simplicity of ingredients. If you can make a good candy without having to use artificial flavors then do it!

Texture:
Heath bites with a more crumbly and sticky toffee whereas Skor is more firm and brittle. At first I preferred the Heath, but as time went on the Skor won out.

And finally,
Taste:
Here’s where the real difference was, and I didn’t even expect it. Having never tasted them side-by-side I just assumed they were basically the same, but no. Heath comes in with an immediate nutty kick, which leads me to believe that part of the ‘artificial flavor’ is solely to enhance the almondosity of the bar. Skor has a far richer toffee flavor, as if the toffee were cooked down longer, and has far less of an immediate almond impact.

So,
Overall:
Skor is the winner, hands-down. I know it’s ridiculous to consider the ‘healthiness’ of a candy bar but I still prefer simpler and fewer ingredients. The toothsomeness of the bar appeals to me – by the end of the Heath it seems a bit smashy-chewy, whereas the Skor retains crunch. Finally, the flavor of the Heath seems a bit manipulated whereas Skor comes across more natural yet at the same time more intense.

And now you know. That is, if you read this far.

I love you, Skor! I’ll never betray you again.

Well, you know, unless I need a Heath Blizzard from DQ or something.

Happy Mothers’ Day

My mom just got back from a little vacation to Florida. I was expecting her to return with a present for me, namely:
+ One Canon 80-200mm telephoto lens

But instead, she returned with, in ascending order of awesome:
+ One t-shirt with prints of old-timey kitchen implements
+ One coffee mug that fits my collection perfectly (I have the most hip coffee mug collection in town, ask anyone, no, seriously, it’s true)
+ One bottle of wine
+ One Canon 80-200mm telephoto lens
+ One bottle of Roddenbery’s Cane Patch Syrup
+ One jar of guava jelly (if you don’t know what this is you are missing out on life, and don’t come over and ask to try mine because I ain’t sharing with NO ONE)

And that, folks, is why my mom rules.

Okay, I can’t lie – my Dad had a big hand in choosing and bringing a lot of this stuff. Maybe I should have split this list in half and posted the latter portion on Fathers’ Day or something. Or maybe I’ll just make up something then and leave Mom out of it to make it even.

BUT ANYWAY my mom is probably way cooler and more awesome than your mom, but I don’t want to say that too loud ’cause what’s the point of making you cry on Mothers’ Day? That’s just mean.

How odd

I had my first intensely synesthetic experience today and it was fascinating – to me, of course, not you. You weren’t there.

The album Colony by In Flames had been in my car’s CD player for weeks. Yeah, I know that’s kind of messed up but I don’t drive often and so I don’t hear it with great enough frequency to get tired of it BUT ANYWAY it’s been in there for a long time. I must also mention that my copy of Colony is an audio CD that was made from rather poor-quality MP3s so it always sounds flat. The highs are always a bit muted, the lows never quite … there, if you know what I mean. I’m no musiconomist so cut me some slack on the proper terminology.

After weeks of listening to Colony on and off I was finally ready for a change. I opted for III: In The Eyes of Fire by Unearth. In case it’s not obvious I’m on a little bit of a metal kick. The first track on III does not mess around – there’s one single second of intense drums and then the whole of everything comes crashing in. I have to make mention that this is an honest audio CD, mastered correctly and sounding great as opposed to some crappy home rip. So as I’m being assaulted with this wall of ferocity and pleased at finally getting some depth in my music I literally think, “Ahhhh, this looks right.”

And I meant “looks”, not “sounds”, because at that moment my brain was completely taken over with the image of a perfectly-contrasted and balanced photograph. There was no distinct image, no picture I can relate back to you but all the same I saw it as clearly as I was hearing the music. The darks were jet black, the lights were brilliant white, and everything else in between was all of the appropriate shades and colors (though mostly muted or earthy green, brown, and blue-ish). I can’t begin to describe how surreal the experience was because … well, it was involuntary. See, I can make the analogy that Colony was that washed-out flat snapshot that I know all of you (and I’m included in this) have taken. III: In The Eyes of Fire was that image you see on the front of a travel magazine. There’s an obvious difference.

I didn’t consciously make an analogy, though. Apparently my mind chose to deal with that difference in purely optical terms. That’s why I’m making these claims of synesthesia – those wires felt crossed. The new music just looked right and it took me a full second or two to even understand why music looking right wasn’t the correct way to experience it.

I’m reminded of that Mitch Hedberg quote: “I was walking down the street with my friend and he said ‘I hear music,’ as though there’s any other way to take it in. ‘You’re not special. That’s how I receive it too… I tried to taste it, but it did not work.'”

I think it’s like when you try to breathe that water you’re drinking – I must have just tried to take it in the wrong way. I wish I could do it again.

And now welcome back to Food Talk with your host, Kevin O’Mara

Thanks! Good to be back. We have an awesome show for you today. First up is a little note for all you Cookeville people. Who here lives in Cookeville?

[ scattered applause and cheering ]

Great, I thought so! Well listen, if you like bread – and don’t we all – then you gotta visit the Mexican bakery here in town. It’s on Hickory between Broad and 1st Street in that old building that used to be a washateria. You know where I’m talking about? I saw a guy in there today with his tray piled a foot high with every kind of bread you can imagine and his total was only twelve bucks. They have normal bread, pastries, filled pies (or empeñadas if you prefer) and even a ham and cheese croissant. You gotta check this out! You know what? You’re all so awesome that you probably already have.

[ audience: awwwwwww ]

Secondly, I have another recommendation for you. You may think you’re adventurous. How many of you are adventurous?

[ wild clapping and hooting ]

Well DON’T BE.

[ crickets ]

At least not with regards to new Pepsi Summer Mix (tropical fruit flavored cola: great job). Be on the lookout for this bottle and avoid at all costs:

That is, unless you might have somehow thought that dissolving a handful of Jolly Ranchers plus half a bag of cotton candy into your Pepsi was a good idea.

[ audience: ugh, eww, etc. ]

Let it never be said that I won’t take one for the team. Dranktank, you can thank me later.

Alright, folks, that pretty much wraps up the show for today. I need to get to a hospital to have this sudden onset of diabetes taken care of. Goodnight!

[ applause, lights down ]