Tvindy

Good Desserts

Fruity Goodness

Unripe Olives

This is what an olive tree looks like. Below, you can see unripe black olives clinging to a branch.

And here are some olives I picked. Eating unripe olives is ill-advised.

Butter Bird

It's not often that you come across a bird made entirely out of butter. This was on the buffet table at the hotel restaurant. The funny thing is that I was looking for butter for my roll, and this was the only butter I could find. Strangely, there was no knife nearby, and I didn't want to be the first person to assault the bird, so I had to make do without.

Chicken Mythic

McDonald's was launching a huge ad campaign in Portugal for their new Chicken Mythic sandwich. I wonder if it will ever get to the US.

Extreme Bovine Productivity

Someone, please milk this cow!!!

Monkfish

I tried monkfish stew before I had an opportunity to see what the fish actually looks like.

Here's the stew:

3 Things

A few items I consider newsworthy:

• Bakerina has finally done it! She's set up an online store at BakerinaKitchens.com. Finally it's possible to taste her creations and not just read about them. Go there and buy something to show your support. With any luck she'll soon be able to quite her day job. (But then where will she get her boxes?)
• Dr. Who will start airing on SciFi this Friday. This is the new series that the BBC released last year and has already completed its first season in the UK. I made a point to download all the episodes when they first aired, so I'm already a year into it. If you're a fan of the old series, you're sure to love this one as well. (The whole gay controversy thing just makes it better.)
• Tivo is ending their lifetime service option, possibly as early as tomorrow (March 15th). If you  buy the cheapest Tivo box for $49 (after rebate) and the lifetime service for $299, you're only paying $348 for everything with nothing more to pay ever again. That's not a bad deal at all. I ordered mine yesterday. (Now I just have to get cable.)

Random Tidbits

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. For the past few weeks I've been experiencing some fairly severe back pain, and while my disk herniation nine years ago has taught me to be very accepting of chronic pain, I'm still not able to be very productive while experiencing it. Fortunately, my chiropractor expects that I'll make a full recovery. (He's about 80% sure.) In the meantime, here are a few unrelated tidbits to fill some space:

• I just finished reading Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson (one of my favorite authors). The notable thing about this book is that one of the characters is absurdly similar to Snowball's X. The parallels just go on and on. I laughed and laughed as I read his scenes, many of which could have been lifted directly from Snowball's blog. (Except, of course, she doesn't work in a secure government facility dedicated to studying an extraterrestrial in its native habitat.)
• Today I had what I refer to as a three-hour salad. I call it that, because it's so huge that that is the minimum amount of time it takes to consume it. (I go off my super low-fat diet every ten days or so.) Considering it filled a large mixing bowl, it was quite an ordeal, but I got through it okay.
• Today is Mardi Gras in Muncie (and some other places, no doubt). Apparently it's really big. There should be about 11,000 people there, and it's only a few blocks away from my house. I find it strange I haven't yet heard so much as a peep coming from that direction. Local churchgoers want to shut it down. I'll be heading over there is a few hours to do my part. If even a single booby is released in my vicinity, I will rush over and cover it with my hands to protect people from the offensive sight.

Ham and Eggs

'mouse has provided me with a couple of very interesting links. First is this one which explains how you can cook an egg using two cell phones and a radio. I'm a bit skeptical since nowhere in the article is there any kind of explanation for how this occurs. I'm not planning on trying it either for fear of damaging a couple of perfectly good cell phones. If true, this may be an even more extraordinary method of egg cooking than the one I discovered last month. I wonder if there are any medical applications. Perhaps a person afflicted with a brain tumor could put a cell phone up to each ear and melt it into oblivion.

The second link relates to my antique ham. Apparently there are even older canned goods in the world. Some British guy just ate a 50-year-old canned chicken. He and his wife received it as a wedding present whereupon he put it aside, promising to eat it on their fiftieth anniversary. He kept his promise. Interestingly, the article says nothing about whether or not he shared any with his wife. 'mouse thinks this fellow has me beat, but as I see it, he may have had a head start, but he's already dropped out of the race. Who's to say I won't eat my canned ham when it's 51 years old. Who knows? I may even eat it on my 51st wedding anniversary. (And I'm not even married yet!) I do have a bit of concern, though. Unlike the canned chicken, my ham can is a bit rusty (a result of being kept in an antique refrigerator for many years) and also bulges at the seams. Perhaps at some time in the distant future, I could just send it to Will and let him do the honors. (It's my understanding that if you send him a ham, then he will eat it. After all, he's already ingested far worse.

Thank you, 'mouse!