Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Well, I should have never opened that box in the basement. Nothing horror like as my earlier post suggests. Just weird. I'll get to that in later. Right now, let me give you a little story about meeting people out of a movie - it'll sort of tie in later.

I think that "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is a great movie. What an amazing pilgrimage showing a weekend of going to Las Vegas and consuming LOTS of medications and other such. Regardless of what some might think of such movies, this movie does not glamorize pharmaceutical use or those who partake in such. What is glorious about any of those hotel rooms they consume in their madness? It doesn't seem glorious to be paranoid frightening people everywhere you go? Too honest, no glamor there at all.

As Duke says of Dr. Gonzo:

There he goes -- one of God's own prototypes --
a high powered mutant of some kind
never even considered for mass production.
Too weird to live and too rare to die.

So yeah, they're great in a movie. Hilarious in a movie. 'What did he just do!! He didn't!' in a movie.

But then there was the day we were outside of the Target and we saw Duke and Dr. Gonzo - or at least modern interpretations of them. There's a line of cars in the parking lot with the leading car waiting to turn left out of the lot. This is taking awhile. Perhaps a little too long.

A guy leans out of his car (Duke) and starts screaming - "Lets get going! What's the holdup here!!! We've got to get GOING!" The other guy (Gonzo) throws his door open and stumbles out of the car. Gonzo's got a wife beater on with full stomach showing just like his movie self. Can't see what Duke is wearing.

Gonzo starts weaving his way up the line of cars muttering something. Car waiting to turn left misses a chance to go. "Goddamnit! We got to get going man!!! What's wrong with those fuckers?" Duke screams. Gonzo's still mumbling to himself and stumbling up the line of cars.

Duke dry-heaves out of car window and then screams something incomprehensible. Other cars leave the line to find another exit of the lot. The car causing the holdup is still waiting to turn left. They miss another chance to go. We're thinking of not going into Target just right now. We'd have to pass them on the way in.

Duke screams.

Gonzo totters on.

Gonzo's almost to the car and the situation seems ugly. Duke lays on horn as he screams to Gonzo to get them to move. He's clearly got to get going. 

As Gonzo almost gets to the car waiting to turn left the driver FINALLY seems to notice the commotion going on behind them. Perhaps they even notice the dude in the wife beater lurching towards them. Perhaps they wonder why this man is hobbling towards them. They might wonder why another man is screaming out the window of his car.

At this point the driver now makes the decision to turn right. I think this was a good choice.

Mr Rush!

And now for a message for the wee ones from Mr Rush:

Treasure Part 2!!

No new pictures (yet), I'll just let you enjoy the original findings. But I did go through yet another box and found more teeth. I going to assume they are my wisdom teeth, not sure how they ended up in 2 separate boxes - one set in a jar and the other still in gauze. I'm starting to get a little scared of these boxes - what could the next possibly contain?

Almost make for a good horror story - we should never have opened the box in the downstairs closet. What were we thinking! We thought it fun. After having opened the 3 original boxes of 'Brian's Stuff' we naively approached the remaining boxes downstairs with aplomb. 'Oh what will we find now to put on the silly blog!' Funny those boxes. Hilarious the malodorous boxes the cat hissed at as we brought them down from that dull, dark closet. Amusing how the closet returned to its normal off white once the boxes were out of it. Never noticed that before. If only we had the sense to see the warning of teeth in the other boxes...

I may never go downstairs again! The fool still jests, but once I open those boxes...

Treasure!

I've had this couple of boxes in the bottom of the closet for some time now. My mother saved the stuff in these boxes for me for many years and finally gave these to me a year or so ago. Today I finally looked through the boxes. What treasure was found!

The boxes:

Picture 1 of treasure:
1 - Pro Wrestling Nintendo Game - don't have a Nintendo anymore though.

2 - Collection of rocks on fishing line. Very nice.

3 - Zippo lighter collector's guide - exciting shots of classic Zippo's inside.

4 - Detective's notepad.

5 - Broken watch. Unusable.

6 - Ice cream style eraser. Hard as a rock.

7 - The Card?

8 - Wire...

9 - Box of rock hard erasers and dice.

Picture 2 - the pacifier was not in the box:
1 - A Swatch. Cool.
2 - Teeth in a jar. Yes teeth, from the mouth. I assume they are mine.
3 - A mirror.
4 - Eraser with brush. Unusable.
5 - Empty Zippo box. I got excited for a second thinking I'd found a Zippo.
6 - Someone's glasses. Not mine.
7 - Camel cash. Wonder if it's still good?
8 - Gobot.
9 - Cigar case. What's inside?!?! A pen with refills.
10 - Cover of box for the Gift Unusual for Amigos, The Gracious Hostess, The Sportsman, The Shut-Ins.
11 - Very uncool sunglasses.
12 - Old address labels I will never be able to use unless I want returned mail returned to the wrong address. There were about 100 of these.
13 - Aerosmith CD.
14 - Quote about Pueblo being the trashiest place around and coupon for Scotch audio cassettes - expired in 1993.
Picture 3:
1 - Razor sharpener. OK...
2 - Bag for cat litter bags. No actual cat litter bags in the package. Huh?
3 - Receipt from 1997 for UFO ornament. I remember that, it was pretty cool.
4 - Broken watch. Not cool.

Picture 4:
1 - 3 facial tissues.
2 - Frogger box with Star Wars Empire Stikes Back back. Full of pencils.
3 - Single shoelace. Why just one shoelace?
4 - 5 Garfield bookmarks, 1 Jesus bookmark, 1 Hans Solo bookmark.

Sesame Street DVD - Adult-Only Entertainment?

Just when I was not going to have anything to post about I found something.

Firstly though, Zelma smiled today when I played the banjo. So it isn't just the fiddle that she likes. I'm sure some may hear my latest on the upcoming 2007 Christmas album. We usually practice for about an hour and record. Very professional.

Secondly, I saw mention that Sesame Street is coming to DVD. As ADULTS ONLY! Oh my.

Lookie at the New York Times or Slashdot. Apparently since Cookie Monster has a pipe in some of the episodes the volumes 1 and 2 of Sesame Street are for adult viewing only. Can't have a cookie addict smoking a pipe. Not to mention apparently he no longer eats just cookies. Also because Oscar is too sad. 

Its really amazing we all made it through childhood! My goodness! With Sesame Street destroying our young minds. We probably don't even know how traumatized we really are... I always wondered why I smoked and liked to eat lots of cookies, now I know. Darn you Cookie Monster!!!!

The most beautiful instrument

Some may know I play the banjo. The banjo apparently is the butt of many jokes, it gets no respect. I think it must be that people are jealous they can't play such an angelic sounding instrument.

Today Shoshanah says, "You've got to read this article in the Isthmus. Its about learning to play the banjo." I read the article. You can too. Wow, I didn't realize it was that bad!

Rather than as the author did, learning claw hammer first, I learned to play 3 finger picking style first. I remember times when I pulled out the banjo to learn how to play something and Shoshanah would go upstairs. "I'm sure it'll sound better with practice." she said. It probably did sound pretty horrible. I'm learning claw hammer now and it seems MUCH simpler than 3 finger picking, the blood pressure goes down and all it good. But three finger is so fun when you actually almost get a song out.

Now its been 3 years and I think I'm a little better. Not so horrible anymore, sometimes I can even get Shoshanah to do a little jig. I even played for dear Zelma last night and she looked at me with such awe and confusion. But she didn't cry or run away (not that she could since she can't even crawl). So she must have liked it, or at least could stand it. Then of course Shoshanah gets out the fiddle and starts playing and Zelma smiles and starts kicking her feet in excitement... 

Troglodyte - not just a funny sounding word

I've always found troglodyte to be such an odd word. It somehow seems very offensive. All it means is 'A person who lived in a cave.' I guess that has come negative connotation now a days. I mean who lives in a CAVE? Well, thinking of it, I guess some people we don't much like but let us not go there. We're here to talk about underground cities.

So imagine my surprise - and delight of an actual use for the word troglodyte - when I actually read of entire cities built underground. That is pretty unusual I'd say. A cave for shelter sure, an entire city underground - surely not. 

But yes! Apparently the Cappadocia region of Turkey is host to a number of underground cities. The rock is so soft there you can apparently dig through it with your hands. So take for example Derinkuyu, an underground city where they even build bars (as in drinking) and giant churches underground. It seems some motivation behind these cities was to provide defense against others. People says times are tough now, whatever. Those are some crazy hard times when you become a troglodyte for safeties sake... We've got it easy.

Pickled Peppers!

I like pickled peppers, mainly the jalapeno kind. We unexpectedly grew lots of serrano peppers this year. It was a shock to see we still had a 50-100 peppers still on the plants, what to do with them! Serrano peppers are 4 times hotter than jalapenos apparently, certainly can't eat them all tonight. 

Put these facts together and you get me making pickled peppers tonight. I've never done it before, but there is a great satisfaction of having done something old-timey and not having all my peppers rot. Of course my hand is still on fire from having sliced all those hot peppers, it even swelled a bit. Got me out of changing the baby's diaper though.

Here's the recipe I found randomly on the internets:

2 qts. Jalapeno peppers
2 cup white vinegar
2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon pickling salt
4 cloves garlic

Slice peppers or leave them whole. (To prevent bursting, cut two small slits in whole peppers.) Pack peppers tightly into clean, hot jars.
Combine vinegar and water; heat to a simmer. Do not boil. Pour hot vinegar over peppers, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Add pickling salt and and a clove of garlic to each jar then seal. 
Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Rather than garlic, I used onions. Its a shame we didn't have any carrots, those always seem to go well in pickled peppers. And rather than pickling salt I used normal table salt. Which according to Alden at Sonic.net, should you be worried, is perfectly fine. Now in a few weeks I can have my very own homebrew pickled peppers.