(do not fuck with) my cat

Bonnie M says: "Spray bottle? I fucked that spray bottle up."

things that are hot, things that are fermented

A little over a week ago dickumbrage and I took a trip to the Asia Market. It smelled pretty funny in there, and by funny I mean like rotting vegetables, but was packed with a variety of Asian foodstuffs, mostly East Asian like Chinese, Japanese, Thai...you have to go to a different store for the South Asian foodstuffs. A year ago I was inspired to purchase a variety of Asian sauces on the recommendation of a friend who spent a couple of years working in Beijing, who claimed to be feeding himself and his housemates on little else than rice and six different flavors of Chinese sauces.

A while back a bought a jar of Chili Garlic Sauce, which, let me tell you, is the goddamn shit. About a quarter of a teaspoon of the stuff is enough to make one bowl of rice and tofu pretty pungently hot. It's a fast, sharp burn that seems to be putting a hole in your tongue and/or stomach but doesn't make your throat suffer too much. They make sure to pack in the sodium, too, to satisfy that animal craving for as many NaCl molecules as can be consumed.

At Asia Market, along with a few packages of Pocky, which is like crack in cookie form, I bought a couple more sauces: Black Bean and Garlic Sauce and something called Tasty Noodle Sauce or something similar that I can't seem to find referenced on the Internets. Last night I cooked up some food with the Black Bean and Garlic Sauce, which is made from fermented black beans. It is sweet and gooey, and not spicy at all, but quite delicious and also packed with plenty of sodium to keep those synapses firing.

I haven't yet had the courage to try Finely Ground Shrimp Sauce. It is described as "definitely aromatic," which I take to mean "smells like a dolphin's butthole."

a proper drink

From a style guide at work:


Scot, Scots, Scottish, Scotch

A Scot is a native of Scotland.

Scots are the people of Scotland.

Scottish modifies someone or something from Scotland.

Scotch is a type of whiskey. When the two words are used together they are spelled Scotch whisky.

carfree day!

Tomorrow, September 22, is World CarFree Day. Or, if you live in Slovenia:



I'll be biking it for the day and participating in a group bike ride at noon in Small Southern Town to attempt to raise awareness of bike-friendly issues in the town.

Unfortunately, I won't be dressed as a velociraptor, like Vancouver's Dinosaurs Against Fossil Fuels. If you're not excited about carfree day yet, this video - nay, opera - describing their origin is amazing and will make us self-loathing Americans lust after west coast Canada even more.

But please, no naked bike riding. It's just not right.

the roberts hearing so far...

Senate Judiciary Committees opening statements thus far, in summary:

Leahy: I know this might be an exercise in futility, but I actually want to talk about things like protecting the rights of people who aren't white male landowners. Turns out someone made a big mistake and let them vote.

Hatch: Remember back in the days when a guy could get appointed to the Supreme Court without any questioning just based on the fact that he was a white male landowner? Those were the days. Also, I used the word "politicized."

Kennedy: I'm making many good points, but all anyone will remember is that I pronounced the word gender "gen-dah."

Kyl: Remember back in the days when a guy could get appointed to the Supreme Court without any questioning just based on the fact that he was a white male landowner? Those were the days. Also, I've just found out there is this thing called the "internet," and apparently it makes it even more annoying for white male landowners to get appointed without questioning these days. I've never seen this "internet" before, but it sounds like anyone who uses it probably deserves to be put on an FBI watch list.

things that piss me off

In order of severity of pissed-off feeling caused:

1. People who think criticizing the president, or other leader, in a time of crisis is wrong.

2. White people who think racial inequality isn't a problem.

3. The phrase "the blame game."

4. Scrapbooking

5. Gwen Stefani

trent lott's house

I heard this first a few days ago, but it infuriates me every time I read it:

''Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house," Bush said in Mobile. ''And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

(Quoted various places, like here.)

So, how long till the revolution? Or will the Visigoths simply take over while Bush and Lott drink mai tais?

aftermath and animals

Although it's been mentally consuming over the last week, I haven't posted much about the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina mostly because so many other people did it much better and I was more in an information consumption mode than information production. I mostly followed the Katrina-related posts of Big Whicker Ventriloquist, who did an excellent job keeping up with the news and issues.

Early on in the ordeal I got tuned into the plight of animals in post-disaster situations by a report on early animal rescues at CNN.com, then found out that The Humane Society has a disaster rescue team specifically for animals. Being an avid lover of all animals, and one who often prefers their company to that of people, I was really moved by what they do. So far they've rescued several hundred animals left behind in the fetid Superdome (evacuees were prohibited from taking pets on the buses out of New Orleans) and have started house-to-house rescue missions for pets stranded in houses. The HSUS needs financial support for their disaster relief operations, too, so if you'd like to donate:



https://secure.hsus.org/01/disaster_relief_fund_2005?source=drfhb4