How to...cook anything edible/eatably

How to cook anything and make it taste good:

Be me.

Sorry world. You're pretty much screwed, unless you can make these instructions apply in your life. Try it sometime. There's a word puzzle here.

I got my Oxford English Dictionary out of storage

Now I feel like a serious writer.

Tolerable Good Story

I have a story about the toil of generations overcoming adversity!

When I was five, my grandma had toy dinosaurs. The smallest was a bitty, rubber skeleton. The biggest of this set was a triceratops not much bigger than my hand; it was made of plastic, it had a gaping mouth, and it was completely hollow inside. And one day, I thought to myself, "That bitty skeletong would fit just right in that triceratops..."

And I was right. Unfortunately, little fingers couldn't fit into the triceratops' mouth. The bitty skeleton was well and truly stuck.

Naturally, I sought the aid of the mos' aged and experienced relatives. Mathematical dads, carpenter uncles, practically ancient grandfathers, armed with all manner of tweezing technology, found themselves defeated by this small dino-in-dino problem. But I, in my child-like orneriness, persisted. And for every visit to grandma's house, my goal was to carry this triceratops around and seek a new relative to try and extract the nuisance skeleton, which I had skillfully oriented face out, tail in, so it smuggly grinned out always.

But eventually...I outgrew my passion for playing with rubber dinosaurs, and forgot this dino-in-dino.

Some few months ago, my grandma decided that she'd just give my family a whole lot of the old toys. Dinosaurs among them. My little brother is five. Upon examining the dinosaurs, what discovers he? The bitty skeleton, still inside the triceratops, after some thirteen years. He bringeth it, most sincerely, to me and says, "This, sirrah, is not how it ought. Improve this inqualitous state, vassal!"

I then remember those early years, and the smuggly grinning skeleton. I know that the task cannot be done. I tell him the story of how the dinosaur became, and I give him back the triceratops.

But he is both persistent...and forgetful. And so he brings back this dino-in-dino another day. A day when I feel, fortunately, endeavoursome (take that, anti-archaism school of thought!). I think that not all toolage has been exhausted. There may be hope yet for the bitty skeleton...in hook technology.

Hook rug? Anyone? Anyone know what that is? No? Well, these things have these snazzy tools designed to...hook around things. I had one. I grasped small, smug skeleton--small pause for effect, pause over. Out it comes.

Thus, generations of toil solve bombad problem.

The End.

How easy you make that appear.

"My neural pathways have become accustomed to your presence,"--Data

I have discovered that I am, in fact, an android. I do not know what consitutes a good smell.

I have discovered, though, that lilac musk is highly stimulating.

Sparky

So once upon a time I was underwhelmed by Spartacus. I don't know what was going through my head. I must have been crazy at the time. I do know that I saw it first when I was like ten, which is, supposedly, before the age of reason. My point being that it may not have been too unreasonable for me to be unreasonable. Whatevs. Saw Spartacus today on DVD, and boy howdy what a spectacle.

It got me thinking...

There's an awful lot, I thought, about it that really isn't very dated. Much of the in Rome sub-plot and political runabout especially looked and felt and sounded as upbeat as the contemporary stuff that pleases me the most. And the scenes of the thousand zillion marching extras, and the battle maneuvers, in my eyes put recent depictions of the same to utter smallness. Even LOTR, with all it's scale, had computer generated extras. The most dated parts of it, I thought, were the music, and the performances of the two main leads, Kirk Douglas and Jean Simmons.

Another thing that struck me about the movie; the distinct, somewhat propagandist feeling, anti-slavery overtones. Part of the voice-over prolog saying of Spartacus, "A man contemplating the destruction of slavery two thousand years before that destruction would actually come to pass." Blah, blah, blah. The modernity would just creep in; the relationship between Douglas and Simmons especially.

I think that essentially half of this three hour movie was screen time with Kirk Douglas and Jean Simmons. Someone could make a lot of money if they editted them out, wrote a new soundtrack, and repackaged Spartacus as a completely different film only about Roman political intrigue.

Flippy Me and Them

So this thing happened where my mood was effected by the mood of the protagonist in one of my stories. I sort of felt the same things I was describing--his decline into a depth of numbness like he'd never felt before. I don't think I was quite as far gone as him. But I saw an clear and obvious connection between my mood and my protagonist's mood.

So, ever noticed this happening to you? Sort of driv me crazy for a couple days. My character really wasn't feeling so hot.