Atomic Nerds

Oh, this thing is still on? Hey, sorry about that*. So 2012 pretty well sucked crusty green donkey whangers, we’re all on the same page there, right? Well, a whopping two weeks in, ’13 is already a mixed bag but trending positively. LabRat has unfortunately spent the majority of the year thus far sick as a dog, hence a good chunk of the lack of content, but it has now been a whole couple hours since she attempted to hack a chunk of lung across the room, so we’ll take what we can get.

I know there have been some** requests for dog pictures as easy filler content. Good news! I have dog pictures! And you can just wait patiently for them because today’s story is about a pie.

See, during the Rama-mas-zwa-inox-ukah-years down time, longtime friend and part time dogsitter Indy was spending a good chunk of her grad student winter break here at Nerd Ranch. This meant that I had Help available in the kitchen. I know it’s odd, but LabRat and I mostly just get in each other’s way, despite many years of marriage, but Indy and I dance like Fred and Ginger*** in the kitchen for reasons unknown. So with little to do and help available, a recipe was floated before me leading to the phrase “Why not? It’s not like there’s anything else going on.”

If you ever hear me say that about a recipe again, just shoot a tranq dart in my neck right then and there and be done with it, mkay?

Now the actual recipe comes from the ambitious but excellent A Girl And Her Pig. The fact that the cover of the book pisses so many crybabies off is reason enough to buy it, but despite the aftermath of this particular misadventure there’s a bunch of stuff in there that still looks awesome and will be tried later. The culprit today, however, was “Beef and Bayley Hazen Pie,” a concoction of rib meat, blue cheese, and some other strong flavors.

Cutting to the chase, this is a multi-day cook project, involving a from-scratch crust and a couple hours of stove time and still a long bake. This is not a fire-from-the-hip recipe. Regardless, Indy and I set about it and made steady progress. Right up until the final step of putting the shell together. See, in the book the final product is supposed to look like this:

I’m sorry, no. I am not making a giant asshole pie. I don’t care that the woman uses the whole pig or if she gives to charity or what, I simply will not serve a giant sphincter. But you all know what a classy motherfucker I am. And it’s pie dough, not marble, so I’m pretty sure I can figure something out. And I did.
Slightly nsfw below the jump.
(more…)

I just voted and nothing you can say will make me feel any better, so just fuck off. I voted for assholes, and if you voted, so did you, and I’m so completely sick of the goddamn media orgasm over this non-decision over which way we get fucked for the next few years, I’m about up to spreading the mayo on my sandwich to take up in the clock tower for the afternoon, so here’s the deal:

We’ll find out tomorrow which asshole we’re stuck with. If you’ve been one of those poll-sniffing borderline gambling addicts, you are formally instructed to fuck right the fuck off. This goes for friends, too. If you’re naive enough to be wound up and excited for the outcome, I will flat out tell you to fuck off, and end the conversation right there. God help you if you’re some excitable dumb fuck working a phone bank calling to ask which asshole I voted for.

With regards to politics, for the next 48 hours you can either bring me whiskey, or fuck off.

Why are you doing this to me?! First you brought him a mace, then a blowgun, and now you turned his rifle into a stabbing gun?! *gestures at small holes in the drywall* What do you think is going to happen when you do these things? STOP STABBING THE CEILING!

So once again learning from the pros at Popehat….

Hey Atomic Nerds,

I have been following your blogs for a long time and I am a huge fan. Anyway, we just came out with a product that I think you both would get a kick out of. It is a baby outfit that is actually part mop that cleans your floors as the baby crawls – perfect for lazy parents. http://www.retardedshitanybodywhohasabraincanseeisdumberthanboiledfuck.com/dieinafire.html

Check out our site and let us know if you want anything. We would love to send you some samples of our products.

Your product is fucking stupid and if you think we’re endorsing anything baby related you’ve very clearly never read our blog.

I should’ve looked into the option for a pony. I could’ve named it Adhesive Intoxicant. Or Huffer Sparkle. It’s a glue joke, son, work with me here.

Right off, y’all are flat amazing. I want to deeply thank every one of you who donated. By hitting the $2000 mark, that’s four times my original goal, which based on last year’s efforts I thought was fairly ambitious. I am utterly blown away by this.

But there’s still 55 hours left in this to go. This party don’t stop until the cops come.

So if y’all are going to insist on blowing my mind every step of the way, then all right, motherbitches, it’s nightmare-hard mode time. If at 23:59 Central time on September 30, my fundraising total is higher than Jay’s, I will take my freshly waxed self over at Blogorado and Jay is gonna get a lap dance whether he likes it or not, and video goes up. Think of it as a victory teabagging after a come from behind win. I haven’t discussed this with him, so it could get interesting.

Donate here. You’ve got…fifty five hours and thirty minutes to kick the total up by another $2,890 as of current standings. Ambitious? Oh hell yeah. Let’s do this.

Ok, Jay has over 3 grand in his kitty, so barring a miracle I’ll cede first place to him. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still want to raise as much as I possibly can, because after watching my dad go through treatment, I’m convinced it’s a shitty enough experience that there are very few people I’d wish such a fate on.

So here’s the new deal. You want to hear the screams of agony and/or profanity? Get the bar over $2000 and I’ll call that close enough to first and it’s on. That’ll be a full order of magnitude more than we raised last year, with a little extra. Hitting the 10x mark as an improvement? Yeah, I’ll take it.

Donate now.

As best I can figure the standings right now, JayG has us pretty well monkeystomped for who has raised the most by roughly $1500, give or take a bit. Daunting, but surmountable with effort. Further, it’s still a damned tight horse race between myself and Evyl Robot- some days we’re swinging back and forth with just $5 separating us. I blame this on their dirty cheating leveraging of resources to offer their own prize packs for donors.

So with the task in mind of unseating Jay like a toddler not strapped in on a tilt-a-whirl, I’ve come up with my own notion for stuff to raffle off, naturally of much more questionable worth.

Let me preface this with two pieces of information. First, I have never heard the current earworm du jour “Call Me Maybe”. I’ve heard about 30 seconds of it being read by confused NPR staff before I said something along the lines of “this is stupidest pile of recycled felch-wash I’ve heard this month” and leaving the room. Second, the lyrical transcription I’ll describe momentarily was undertaken after a healthy dose of cough syrup.

So here’s the raffle. Anybody who donates $10 or more to the Prostate Cancer Foundation can forward their receipt to nerdsatomic at gmail dot com with the subject line “Raffle.” At the end of the month, I will record two mp3s, one of me singing “Call Me Maybe,” and the other of me singing Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” but with updated lyrics for the gun enthusiast community. “Shoot this way,” if you will. Like I said, there was cough syrup involved. Don’t judge me.

Two lucky, for a given value of the term, people will win, one mp3 each. And there’s no “please don’t spread it around” clause here either. Share it freely, or if the winner says so I’ll post it in the sidebar for the entire year for the world to cringe at.

A measly ten bucks gets you a chance on this. You’ve heard me on Vicious Circle in the past probably, so you know this’ll be comedy gold. If you’ve donated $10 or more already, yes I’ll happily accept those receipts as well, but each receipt you forward is another crack at the prize, so I’d donate some more just for good measure.

And lest we lose sight of what this is all really about, please, if you’re a male over 40, make an appointment with your doc and get yourself checked. Cancer sucks worse than my singing, I don’t want any of you winding up with the worst possible prize in this raffle.

The Bold Personal Challenge section of Kilted to Kick Cancer has apparently commenced. Ambulance Driver and JayG are at it again as they’re currently the top two fundraisers, just as last year. Jay has promised to shave his ‘stache if he wins, as he puts it “Who else puts their mustache on the line???”

Well, Kelly is stepping up. He’s promised to shave half of his ‘stache for Blogorado if he wins so we can all have a nice chance to take lots of pictures and so forth. Good on him stepping up.

But let’s be realistic. Millions of men shave every day. Applying a razor to the face is not a daunting challenge, even if you look a little silly afterwards.

So as it turns out, our gracious hostess Farmgirl’s best friend is a cosmetologist. And a good sport. So here’s where I see their bets, and raise. If I win and raise the most funds, I will wax my junk at blogorado, and record the audio stream of the process and post that up for you all to enjoy for the year. If you’re a regular around here, you’ve probably seen me get creative with the invective before, so take your favorite example from that and imagine what it would sound like with some motivation and inspiration.

Y’all know I don’t bluff. Donate now.

Honestly I’m kinda surprised this one took this long to crop up. From commenter George:

What’s the going rate for the Humungous picture from Blogarado 2?

I have to admit I’m a bit conflicted. As this was done for a private gathering of trusted friends, I’ve a strong impulse to keep the scope of exposure limited to that group. On the other hand, I genuinely believe in what we’re working towards with this fundraiser, and if people are crazy enough to want to see me in a banana hammock that showing my ass will help raise some awareness and funds for the Prostate Cancer Foundation, I’m fairly torn. If nothing else, the notion of that getup being used for good feels kind of like saving a drowning child with an inflatable sex toy. Sure, the kid is better off, but… um…. well maybe if it wasn’t so slippery and she’d been able to get a grip on it sooner…

Yeah.

So here’s the deal. Lord Humungus is on the table, but it’s going to be pretty steep. Additionally, this isn’t going to be a “Hit X and THE WHOLE WORLD SHALL JUST WALK AWAY” kind of set up. Forward a copy of your receipt for $75 or more to nerdsatomic at gmail dot com, and I will send you a tasteless selection of Lord Humungus photographs from Blogorado. For donations of $100 or more, I will additionally include video demonstrating that it is very difficult to aim a large .44 magnum with one hand with a colander bungee-corded to your face. I’d request that if anybody is crazy enough to pony up at these levels, to please not spread them hither and yon (besides, that kills the incentive for anyone else to donate at these “you’re kidding me” levels), but obviously that’s not something I’ll have control of. Basically if you’re philanthropic enough to kick in that kind of scratch, I think “don’t be a dick” is one that’d be pretty easy.

So. Any takers?