Atomic Nerds

The Emergency Medical Bock for the Kilted to Kick Cancer prize package went into the secondary fermenter today. Sneaked a little out while it was siphoning over, and by sheer luck discovered that there was one (1) bottle of the original mix left in the very back of the fridge. Well conditioned by now, I’m sure.

I gotta say, even un-carbonated, and before the second ferment and bottling, I think the new stuff is slightly better. Ironically I’m not really so much a fan of my own beers, but I’ll give the new stuff the nod here. LabRat says that if they carried this at the local brewpub, she would punch people if they ran out (I knew I married her for a reason).

So, if you missed that it’s entirely possible I’ll be doing a kilted greased pig chase, on video, along with courting frostbite, you’ve still got time to chip in to Kelly’s team.

And since, as MattG puts it, I have no brakes on my dare-car, y’all know what’s coming.

Get Kelly to an even thou, or KTKC overall to 15 kilobucks, and I’ll do the kilted greased pig chase while channeling one of my spirit animals. I mean, that almost looks like a kilt, right?

Click the link, pick team Ambulance Driver, and donate.
Get kilted. Get checked.

This clip is the greatest goddamn thing I have seen in ages. I honestly don’t remember the last time I had tears streaming down my face from laughing this hard. Go, watch now. It’s NSFW, but you knew that when you came to this site.

Discovered floating in the tubes:
The Naked Bike Ride In Portland Showed Everyone’s Vulnerabilities

More or less safe for work. I don’t really know where to start. Well, no. That’s not true. Let’s start with this: Pick a fucking message you goddamn hippies! By the time your point is this muddled, you’re not protesting, you’re just a bunch of streakers egging each other on.

Let me be clear. There is nothing wrong with being a bunch of streakers egging each other on, but please don’t try to tart it up as some noble crusade. Ok, oil dependence? The bikes make sense. Body image? The naked makes sense. Naked for oil dependence? You lost me. Bikes for body image? Are you saying people should stop being fatties and exercise more? Nice, hypocrites. (Yes, that’s in sarcasm font.) Being naked to show vulnerability on a bike, to the cold mechanical predations of cars? Well, ok, but you all put yourself in that position voluntarily. And what does being squishier than a chevy have to do with oil dependency?

Seriously people, if you’ve got a thorn in your ass over something, be specific! Look at anti-abortion protests. Sure, they suck, but they’re specific and focused and you don’t have to guess what they’re on about. If you have to explain what you’re protesting, you’re not only doing it wrong, but nobody will remember or give a shit five minutes later.

After you get enough groups in the tent, you’re just having a good time with vaguely like-minded people. Again, nothing wrong with that, just don’t expect to be taken seriously.

“I have a gun you know.”
“Well lah-dee-dah.”
“A?”

Ok, don’t get your hopes up that we’re coming back full time. I’m going to try to post more frequently, but those of you who still stop by have probably noticed that hasn’t been going so well. But tonight, tonight I wound up with a special snowflake I just had to share with everybody. As the title implies, I may have gained some inspiration from everybody’s favorite Texas cop LawDog (or he’s your second favorite and you prefer someone else, there’s room for differences of opinion).

Partway through this afternoon, my very own little close-enough-to-prepaid cell phone, FUT*, alerts me to an incoming text message.

Hola amor

Fine. It’s a wrong number, I will just ignore it. An hour or two later,

Amor I got a new number

Terrific, skippy. I guess you didn’t import your old phone’s settings. More ignoring. Finally, many hours later, as it grew late and I grew weary of a world of idiots,

Amor I got a new #

This was around 11pm. Thank you, but that’s enough. I engaged, and replied

Sorry, Mario. Your amor is at a different number.

Things did not improve from here.

Who is this

I’m the wrong number you keep calling amor. I know love is blind but this is pushing it.

But who r u

It’s a little early in the relationship to get that metaphysical.

What…I’m just asking who u r

At this point, it was late and I was bored. I popped the number into google, and came up with the president of a small tax business in Santa Fe. In the grand tradition of TV psychics, a theme that will come up again later, I ran with it.

I’m a thought experiment, Andrew. I’m the answer to the question “What if the wrong number is bored?”

What do u do
What r u doing

I have a very particular set of skills. Skills that make me a nightmare for people slow on the uptake. But I do my own taxes, so I’m good there if you’re looking for business.

What do u mean a nightmare for people slow on the uptake

I dug a little further on the info I’d found.

Well you’d think by 54 years old one would have learned a) what a wrong number is, and b) that Andres and Ray might appreciate a bit more technological savvy from a partner.

Andres and Ray were listed as the vice president and treasurer of the company.

Ooooo so what r u dedicated to

Wheeled performance analysis delivery. Everybody needs a hobby. Y’know, besides this.

What? I love derby reffing.

Besides what

See what I mean about “slow”? Crystal says good night. Take care, amor. I grow bored again.

I threw the net a little wider and found another probable hit on facebook, so I figured there’s nothing really for me to lose in this, let’s see if Crystal gets a hit.

Wait I don’t think we r done talking…What do u mean slow…and who’s crystal

Swing and a miss. Oh well.

You ever see those tv shows where psychics talk to people’s dead relatives, Andy? Do I really have to draw a map here?

Yea u do…I’m slow

Admitting it is the first step. You with me that we don’t know each other, that I’m not amor? Follow up, do you know what a “wrong number” is?

Nop

Those of you in NM hearing a sudden thunderclap with clear skies, that would have been the sound of my facepalm.

To which question? Specificity is the soul of good communication.

The second question

Jesus, really?

What is it?

Apparently an anachronism. It is a term which means you have (historically) dialed, or more currently, texted, a number that is not correct to contact the person you desire. It puts you in contact with an arbitrary stranger, who may just be bored enough to mess with you if “wrong number” is too complicated. Good night, Andrew, now go away.

At which point I put the number on ignore. Fifty bucks says this idiot votes, too.

*Fucking Useless Toy. It never works when I need it to, so functionally it is a toy.

“….why are you teaching the dog to not fear fire?”
“You make it sound so sinister when you say it.”

Having just rescued a daddy long-legs from drowning in the shower, and my general track record on spider-friendliness and rescuing and making pets out of the eight-legged little buggers, it’s going to be deeply ironic if LabRat and I are wrong on this whole atheism thing and it turns out spiders are god’s indicator of evil - those who squish on sight earn brownie points sort of thing.

Oh well. I wouldn’t want to share heaven with a bunch of arachnophobes* anyway.

*Spellcheck felt this should be Anglophobes. I don’t know why that tickled my funnybone so hard but I’ve been snickering for five minutes straight.

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…)

OH MY GOD THE DOCTOR DID IT! HE SAVED US ALL!

….wanker.

Little Debbie brand hot dog buns are highly fire-resistant, at least when stale.

Further experiments to follow.