The Extraction Space

Just saw that Bob May, who was inside the robot on Lost in Space passed away. Somewhere in the mathom pile, I have a signed photo of Bob, in costume, fencing with Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith). A nice guy, and a perennial sight at L.A. area conventions. I'll miss seeing him around.

There are so many good reasons why I should shouldn't have anything to do with this. And yet I find myself strangely drawn to it.

I want somebody I know to make this, so I can have a taste, but not have to have the entire thing around the house taunting me with it's smokey, bacon-y goodness.

Here's the nutritional data for Chili's Spicy Cheese Fries with Jalapeño Ranch Dressing

2,070 calories
160 g fat
73 g saturated fat
73 g carbs
85 g protein
8 g fiber
3,730 mg sodium

Of the list I just saw of "The Worst Foods of 2008", though, the most insidious was the Macaroni Grill Seared Scallop Salad at 1270 calories, over 2 grams of salt, and 83 grams of fat. For a salad. And I'll bet it's not even that tasty.

The last time we were at the market, they had a sale on organic lamb shoulder roast. I'd been figuring on just doing a roast for Christmas dinner, but then I came across a recipe for a Moroccan Lamb Tagine on Allrecipes.com. I made a couple of minor changes to reduce the fat and sugar levels and halved the recommended serving size, then made it for dinner. Wow! (if I do say so myself)

( Moroccan Lamb Tagine )

My main substitutions were stevia powder for the honey in the original recipe, reducing the amount of oil used, and reducing the amount of meat. I highly recommend trying this recipe, but it does take a little work.

I found this recipe and we made these this morning.

( Low Carb Almond Spice Cookies )

Quick, tasty, and not something that spikes my blood sugar. What more could you ask from a holiday treat?

Founded by Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, the Center for Inquiry is a bastion of free thought, skeptical investigation, secular humanism, and rational ethical alternatives. It was with these lofty thoughts in mind that we went forth last night to the Center for Inquiry Los Angeles for an evening event called Cartoon Dump

Created by animation historian Jerry Beck and Frank Conniff (perhaps best known as "TV's Frank" from MST3K), it's a satire of a kid's show featuring some of the worst animation ever made and hosted by Compost Brite (comedienne Erica Doering) and Moodsy, the Clinically Depressed Owl (Conniff). The conceit of the show is that it takes place in a landfill where truckloads of crappy, unwanted cartoons are dumped. Cartoons are shown between comedy bits that focus on the dark underbelly of dysfunctional family life. It's fairly dark humor in spots (Moodsy: "I'm planning on celebrating a traditional Christmas" Compost Brite: "You mean overdosing on sleeping pills and having your stomach pumped in the emergency room again?" Moodsy: "Yes. It's the little things that bring continuity to life."), and can be quite biting. The cast is good at improv and went down a few entertaining bunny trails along to way. There was also a stand-up segment featuring Chris Hardwick (who G4 watchers may know from gadget reviews on "Attack of the Show"). The live action segments hit about a 7 on the hilarity meter (nobody in the audience wet their pants or fainted from lack of oxygen because they were laughing too hard, but there were guffaws).

Oh yeah, the cartoons... They were absolute crap. Mostly enjoyable in that post-modern cynical irony mindset, but really bad limited animation made as cheaply as possible. There was "Rocket Robin Hood" featuring an incredibly smarmy hero, Maid Marian in hot pants, a 'prehistoric monster', and a lust-ridden female ape of some sort. Then "Mighty Mr. Titan" featuring an extremely poorly animated, sexually ambivalent, muscle-bound cartoon gentleman leading children through a series of exercises. There was an episode of "Winky Dink", only sans magic screen and crayons (the "Winky Dink" gimmick was that they kids would draw on a plastic sheet - the Magic Screen - with crayons to help out the characters on screen. "Hey kids! Winky Dink is trapped on the second floor. Draw him a ladder so he can escape!" Winky Dink's catchphrase, used when he urged the kids to erase the previous drawing with the 'Magic Cloth' that was part of the playset your parents had to shell out for if you weren't going to draw all over the TV, was "Rub it, kids. Rub it hard!") Finally, there was a Christmas episode of the old "Baby Huey" cartoon which looked like classic Disney animation by comparison with what had come before. However, it still sucked.

All in all, it was a very pleasant evening, and I'd highly recommend catching a performance or two if you can summon enough of your stunted and twisted inner child to get in the mood. Cartoon Dump is on the 4th Tuesday of every month at the Steve Allen Theater at the Center for Inquiry West at 4773 Hollywood Blvd.

Things I've learned today:

1. Some gas stations use a not terribly secure wireless connection between their 'pay at the pump' system and the computers inside the station that process the card information and send information to and from the authorization center on teh intarwebs.

2. Some enterprising soul with a laptop and a wireless sniffer can park somewhere near a gas station.

3. Apparently many people, on gaining access to somebody else's credit card number, head straight on over to Blizzard Entertainment and buy a whole bunch of upgrades for their WoW stuff.

You may understand that despite having learned three (3) new things today, I would be hard to convince that this would make it a 'good' day.

My new motto is 'cash for gas'. I'll consider the extra steps it will take to and from the interior of the station simply an addition to my fitness regimen.

It seems that i09 is touting Kanye West as the 6th most influential person in science fiction in their Power List of movers and shakers in SF.

'scuse me? Kanye West? (shakes head in puzzlement) Does everybody who uses Autotune as an effect get to be on the list? Because I'm not too proud to lay down a track with some funky robot action. Really.

Then again, it's the time of year when everybody comes out with year end lists designed to boost their readership by making people sputter and point their friends at the website/magazine/whatever and say "Can you believe this stuff?" In which case I'm just helping them out by increasing page views.

I think I'll go listen to some Hawkwind now. At least they had Michael Moorcock writing lyrics for them.

As I'm sitting in the backed-up traffic at the on-ramp to the 101 at Reseda Blvd. this morning, waiting to get on the freeway, a card with a big Jesus fish and a vanity license plate that reads "WWJD316" zips around in the through traffic lane and cuts in front of everybody who's been waiting patiently to get on the ramp.

Los Angeles – home of cognitive dissonance.

Advice from Monk Advice to musicians (and others) from Thelonious Monk.

Ran across this and had to share. Words to live by.