Nerd Journal: Out of the Mouth of Real Friends

The following exchange transpired yesterday:

Me to Alessandra:  "Should I get a manicure?  I feel ugly."

Alessandra to me:  "You always look good.  But ... you would look even better with a manicure."

Me, laughing: "You should be a diplomat."

*proceeds to get a manicure*

Awesome Nerd News: Better World Books

Used books in good condition at really low prices plus free shipping!  Check out Better World Books, a link that La Parisienne --  that evil enabler! -- sent to me in the full knowledge that I would immediately lose my mind, go into a squealing bibliophiliac frenzy like a kid in a candy store, and buy 3 books in 3 minutes.  

Oh, yeah, you know that's exactly what happened. But hey!  The total was about what 1 book would cost new at a "normal" bookstore.  I.e., I just bought a copy of Ian McEwan's "Atonement" for $4 (after I balked at paying $8.45 for it new on Amazon, much less shelling out $15 for it new at Borders and Barnes & Noble ... and found it was checked out at both the university and local public libraries). 

MM in the Kitchen: LOVE ME SOME PIE.

It's apple season here in Nerdworld, and I love pie.  I loooooooooove pie.  Here's an easy recipe (you can cheat by buying ready-made pie crust).  This is going to make the apartment smell simply fantastic while also warming it up on a chilly autumn day.  Speaking of delicious, here's an added treat for La Parisienne and the Kamikaze Editor, in honor of our "Supernatural"-fest last night.  Here's a shout-out to those early days of the show when it captivated us.  (It just might be captivating us all over again -- here's hoping.)

Oh, I can't help myself.  I have to have a soft spot for a show that, ostensibly about cute, quippy guys killing monsters, has a long-standing love for food in general and pie in particular.  Sometimes, pie even appears as part of the plot.  Remember this episode?

"I hope your apple pie is freakin' worth it!"

Nerd Journal: Evil Enablers Gonna Enable!

Haters gonna hate; enablers gonna ... enable.  La Parisienne and I don't believe in keeping our personal obsessions to ourselves.  We believe in SHARING.  Besides, we only obsess about things worth obsessing about, right?

So recently I got a conspiratorial text from the lovely lady (fresh from a previous triumph) saying that she was going to inflict "Farscape" on Count Chocula.  That same day, I got a text from Count Chockula telling me that he had gotten sucked into "Farscape."  That Parisienne doesn't waste any time!  Dang, girl!  And "Farscape" was a great sci-fi TV show -- and gone before its time, much like the late, lamented "Firefly."

As for me, yesterday I was busy enabling Foxtrot and Ladybird and Alessandra to watch "Doctor Who" (before and after the World Cup match -- a roomful of friends with HDTV and premium ice cream and a soccer championship and the TARDIS ... Do Sunday afternoons get much better?).  So, yeah, I'd been catching some flak from Alessandra for my Who obsession, but I had them all watch the two-parter "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead," and that did it for these neophytes to the Whoniverse!

The tipping point: The furious Ten confronting the alien predator Vashta Nerada:  "Don't play games with me! You just killed someone I like; that is not a safe place to stand!  I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the Universe. Look me up."

Don't mess with Texas  Ten.

And then the murderous monster retreats.

Me: "Admit it.  That's hot."
Alessandra, grudgingly: "All right, that IS hot."
Me: *dance of triumph*

Well, then!  Besides that, the narrative is fun, and watching the ladies respond to it was even more fun.  You could nearly have heard the gears whirring in their heads as they were processing it.  It's a thinking woman's show. We all had a great time.  (And more fun, I dare say, than we had watching the Netherlands-Spain game, which was mostly -- as one of my soccer-loving Nerd Lords said -- "lousy.")

Then we did a selection of different episode intros, and to finish it off with a comedy chaser, we watched the delightful episode from the latest season, "The Lodger."  Yes, I'm the Typhoid Mary of Who obsession, and so is La Parisienne.  We share our obsessions because we want you to have as much sci-fi fun with them as we do!  

Nerd Journal: La Parisienne and I Are A Force To Be Reckoned With

For the record, as Evil Enablers, La Parisienne and I are pretty darn good, even if we do say so ourselves! Right on the heels of me mercilessly inflicting "Doctor Who" on the Cine-Sib and forcing him to acknowledge the excellence of my beloved Doctor, I got some triumphant news from fellow Whovian La Parisienne.

This time it wasn't about "Doctor Who," but about Count Chocula, who is a famous skeptic about science fiction and who has always laughed at us for our sci-fi fixations. Or perhaps I should say "was" a skeptic. The lady announced that she had just gotten him hooked on ... yes ... "Battlestar Galactica." KUDOS!

As she then texted me, "WE RULE." We do indeed.

So, to commemorate our double victories, I give you this little visual comment that I just made:

Nerd Journal: Gleefully Addicted to TV

Apparently unsatisfied with her complicity in getting me hooked on "Supernatural," the evil enabler known as La Parisienne has made silly pop-culture TV lightning strike me twice by getting me hooked on "Glee."

It happened yesterday via Hulu. I had marathonned through 3 episodes before I even realized what was going on. It's addictively fun. Try it! It's like "High School Musical" -- only it's actually good. And it's contributing to this semester's Nerdworld Soundtrack.

Oh, my. I'm suddenly reminded of a brief, long-ago involvement with the high school choir when I was just a young soprano-singing schoolgirl and not the over-educated venomous harridan that I am today! (I didn't last too long in choir, though. I ended up in speech-and-debate instead, which I have to admit did suit me a bit better for my current -- and Sue Sylvester-ish --station in life, ha!)



Oh, and for La Parisienne, here is a song that's relevant both for "Supernatural" and "Glee." Savor your victory for now. I shall live to plot my revenge another day! (Oh, and Count Chocula? I'm gonna get you too, honey, don't you worry.)

Medicinal Eye Candy for La Parisienne

La Parisienne had a really tough day at work today, so I'm posting some medicinal eye candy for the good lady. Here is Henry Cavill as Charles Brandon the Duke of Suffolk from the Showtime TV series "The Tudors." (Well, La Parisienne DID get me hooked on it in the first place. It's basically a soap opera wearing Tudor-era costumes. But it's such guilty fun!)

Hello Kitty Monstrosity of the Day: 35 Years of Kitty Madness

Smoothie King just tried to kill me by sending me this link. I emailed him back and said that the website made my eyes melt into pools of flaming blood. With friends like these, I don't need enemies!

What's going on? A horrifying photo gallery of Hello Kitty's 35th birthday, that's what. Look if you dare! She is currently being honored with a huge exhibition in Hong Kong. (Click there only if you have a strong stomach.)

Will no one rid us of this turbulent mouthless cartoon cat and her global tyranny of cuteness? Her empire forges on. (At the HK exhibition, you can apparently get Hello Kittified identification papers. How terrifying is that, especially for history students?)

Movie Madness: More "Iron Man 2" Preview Eye Candy

This is for La Parisienne who, while enjoying the fun of "Pony Stark," opined that the toy equine cuteness just isn't the same thing as the real thing.

So I went scrounging online and found this courtoom scene. Just mentally airbrush Gwyneth out and replace it with your own self, mademoiselle!

(Oh, and "eye candy" is now an official blog tag.)

"Mr. Stark, you are charged with grand theft cardiac."

Nerd Journal: 1 Paper Done, Taking a TV Break

*cue the Hallelujah Chorus!*

I finished one paper today! It's 32 pages long, including footnotes but not including the bibliography (which I'm still finishing). Still, the hard part -- the writing -- is done!

I'm feeling celebratory, so I've been playing on the blog a little more today than my 3-posts-per-day limit, and I'm about to take a big break to watch tonight's new episode of "24."

The Cine-Sib will be watching it too, halfway across the country. Monday nights are Sibling Nights, shared with phone calls during and after "24," while Thursday nights are Girls Night Out with "Supernatural," the Evil Enablers, and text messages. See, TV can be interactive and sociable!

So, since I rule the TV, I give you my latest homemade demotivator poster. As usual, click to enlarge.

Nerd Journal: MM in the Kitchen and a Progressive Dinner, Part 3: A Devilishly Decadent Dessert

Here is the conclusion to the dinner that Il Barista, La Parisienne, the Cine-Sib, and I made together recently. I posted about the chicken-pancetta sausages and the fresh pasta and pesto. Now it's time for dessert! You have 3 guesses what we made, and the first 2 don't count.

Yes, gentle reader, we made . . . Flying Shrapnel Death Pie! This dessert has become a legend on MM Blog, so -- really -- what else could we possibly make for dessert?

(The actual name is Banoffee Pie, and here's the recipe we used. We substituted a graham cracker crust for the pie crust, though.)

First things first:

Take the 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk, pour them into a pan and cover it with aluminum foil, and then put the pan into a bigger pan of water. Pop it into the oven and let it "bake" until the milk turns into a dark brown caramel sauce. Observe:

Let the molten sugar lava cool, and then pour it into your 9-inch graham cracker crust. The lava becomes a thick pudding-like toffee cream. Your dentist will have nightmares. Your taste buds will have parties.

Onto the next bit: slice up two bananas and arrange the slices on top of the toffee cream.

Then it is time to gild the lily and turn the dessert into a calorie storm of Old Testament proportions. Make some homemade whipped cream and sweeten it with brown sugar. Pile the delicious cloud on top of the bananas and toffee. Oh, man!

This dessert will make you a legend among your friends and family if you make it for them. That's an ironclad guarantee. It's easy, delicious, and beautiful. You do have to careful with the caramel napalm when it comes right out of the oven, surrounded with a moat of superheated water. Other than that, it's not quite as dangerous as the original recipe calling for boiling the cans of milk for 3 whole hours (!). Hmmm, maybe you can call yours Caramel Napalm Pie . . . Serve with some good coffee!

I leave you with a photo of Il Barista proudly displaying our homemade Flying Shrapnel Death Pie. Awesome. It looked lovely -- for about 5 seconds before all of us tore into it and turned it into crumbs.

TA-DA!

Nerd Journal: MM in the Kitchen and a Progressive Dinner, Part 2: Fresh Pasta with Homemade Pesto and Porcini Mushrooms

Part 1 consisted of Italian-inspired chicken-and-pancetta sausages. So what did the Cine-Sib, Il Barista, and La Parisienne serve with such meaterrific linky love? Pasta! Here's the tale:

That's the Cine-Sib, sorting out the fresh strands of pasta. The crew and I had made it from semolina flour, eggs, and a bit of water, and then we tried out a new kitchen tech-toy: the pasta extruder attachment of Il Barista's Kitchen-Aid. Handy!

Then we tried our hand at making our own pesto sauce. We had fresh basil, pine nuts, and a goofy-looking kitchen tool called a mezzaluna. It looks odd, but it worked fabulously! It chopped up the basil and nuts into bits, and then we turned into a gorgeous dark green sauce with some extra virgin olive oil. (Please, nbobody say "EVOO" -- we hate Rachael Ray with an unreasoning rage.)

Next on the agenda: chopping up porcini mushrooms into tiny dice and then sauteeing them with olive oil. The green stuff is a bit of baby spinach.

That's the finished product -- fresh pasta speckled with homemade pesto and porcini mushrooms. It was divine! Of course, in the cooking process, we managed to speckle the entire kitchen with porcini bits too, but oh, well!

We then outdid ourselves by making a sinfully delicious dessert (3 guesses what and the first 2 don't count), but that's for another post!

MM and Friends Wave Goodbye to 2008 and Hello to 2009

Auld lang syne time, baby.

Well, it's been one heck of a year, and it's New Year's Eve for 2009. I think I'm quite ready to wave goodbye to 2008! It's certainly been an . . . interesting year.

So I'm off: the gang's all here to celebrate the New Year! Some of my buddies live here in town, while others have come from far away. Regardless, tonight we're getting all dressed up to go to a nice dinner (we made reservations -- and started saving pennies for a splurge -- long ago), go to a party being hosted by another group of friends, and then we're planning to stay up until midnight playing Wii and other games while hanging out at Ladybird's house and then watching fireworks from around the world on TV. Yep, we just might be wearing silly party hats and playing with noisemakers and -- I hope -- sparklers. I love sparklers!

Plus we all almost never get a chance to get dressed up for an evening out with old friends, so this should be fun! We only ever get to do this maybe once a year -- and not always then either. After this, the fun's over, and I'm back to Nerdworld.

The rowdy guest list for tonight? Some of the regular guest stars you've come to know and love on MM Blog: Foxtrot, Ladybird and her husband, Alessandra d'Ambrosio, Il Barista and La Parisienne, and -- of course -- the Cinema-Mad Sibling and others.

So, gentle reader, let me wish you all a cheerful end to 2008 and a great beginning to 2009. I leave you with JibJab's musical cartoon of 2008 in review!

Nerd Journal: MM in the Kitchen and a Progressive Dinner, Part 1: Chicken-Pancetta Sausage

I love the holidays! I'm away from Nerdworld and back with my peeps in my native climes. I am socializing like crazy, because as soon as I go back to campus for the spring term, I'll be in nerd-exile and near-solitary confinement again.

Carpe diem and all that, right? So last night, the Cine-Sib, Il Barista, La Parisienne, and I got together to make a gorgeous dinner together, with the cooking being as much fun as the eating. So . . . I am food-blogging, one post per dish.

First things first: Il Barista and I decided to try our hand at homemade sausage -- with a recipe of our own invention. Here's the process and the product!

We decided to make a chicken sausage using about a pound and half of chicken breast (i.e., 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into large dice). A good sausage needs a bit of fat in it, so we included half a pound of diced pancetta. We then added kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, chopped basil and parsley. Next: chill the entire mixture and then grind it up (we used the grinder attachment on Il Barista's beloved Kitchen-Aid stand mixer). The result:

Now came the rather nasty bit: stuffing the sausage mix into natural casings. I didn't bother taking a photo of the casings themselves because the long, slimy strands were -- frankly -- disgusting. Run water through them to clean them, and they puff out into bumpy coils of membrane.

"EW, YUCK!" La Parisienne and I yelled. "They look like alien guts! Barista, YOU can do this part; we're going to the living room to watch Supernatural DVDs." (The chivalrous response: "WUSSES!") All of us ended up working together with the Kitchen-Aid to fill the casings, and we finished with this:

From this, it was an easy matter to make the long sausage rope into individual links. Don't they look lovely? They look darn near professionally done, don't they?

Well, then there's nothing left to do but cook the sausages to a golden brown state of deliciousness and eat them all up!

So how good were they? Il Barista and I looked at each other across the table, grinned, and agreed: "We still have it. We're awesome!"

Nerd Journal: Laughter Is the Best Medicine

Poor Il Barista is ill, and La Parisienne has just gone to see Dr. Feelgood. Her souvenir? A diagnosis of bronchitis. If I lived closer, I'd rush over and make you both a big steaming pot of silkie chicken soup.

So for my poor companions and for everyone else who needs a little medicinal amusement, I give you the following:

TGIT: Entertainment For My Evil Enablers

You all are . . .

Nerd Journal: Typhoid Mary's Got Nothin' On Me

I will have you know, gentle reader: on recent weekends, I have had the great good fortune of being visited by two dear old school friends -- first Foxtrot and now Alessandra d'Ambrosio.

They both heard about my Stupornatural addiction, and I warned them -- fair and square -- that I would inflict some "Supernatural" on them. We've been having lots of fun with the DVD player!

Should you be surprised or not that both these fair ladies have enjoyed "Supernatural" -- or that currently Alessandra and I are having a hilariously good time baking pies (FYI, one pumpkin and one key lime -- no bottled juice, please), eating caramel apples, cooking carnitas, and hanging out while having a "Supernatural" DVD marathon? We're going to finish season 1 in 2 evenings, and we've been having a great time talking about it.

(OK, La Parisienne and Kamikaze Editor: the score is so far 5-0 in favor of Dean being the preferred brother because he's more complex and interesting. Oh, we all like Sam too, but Alessandra stated flat-out that he is the more corruptible of the two and therefore far more dangerous. Hm.)

As for the title of this post? Indeed, Typhoid Mary's got NOTHIN' on me when it comes to infecting others. I'm spreading the "Supernatural" addiction like a cheerfully entertaining plague. FYI, I also inflicted the Ackles "Eye of the Tiger" video on the Cine-Sib, who called me and shouted out, "LOL!"

With friends like me, you don't NEED enemies, sweetie!

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get some pie. I LOVE ME SOME PIE.

Nerd Journal + Friday Fun: A Visitor!

Dear old school friend Foxtrot is coming to visit for the weekend! I'm going to the airport to meet her later tonight. I'M SO EXCITED!!! That's more than enough "Friday Fun"!

I'll probably be offline for most of the weekend as we ladies go have some fun. I'm thinking maybe we'll go do some silly seasonal activities like pick apples or get lost in a corn maze ("maize maze"? amazing maize maze? OK, I'll stop now) . It's autumn here in Yankeeland, and the leaves are changing color. Foxtrot did ask me to make her a pumpkin pie, so that will be a delicious side to the season. I'm going to forget all about Nerdworld for the next 2 days.

Oh, and I told Foxtrot that I was going to try my level best to get her hooked on "Supernatural." (Yes, I am evil. And evil loves company.) Hey, at least I told her so flat out so she can take countermeasures if she wants to!

UPDATE: And yes, she liked those Winchesters!

Nerd Journal Confessions of an Entertainment JUNKIE: "Supernatural" Addiction + "Iron Man" DVD Tomorrow!

When it comes to entertainment, it is my great vice and my great pleasure. I don't even bother denying it anymore. (Did I ever bother?) The Nerd Lords would be horrified and disgusted if they only knew. What I am doing, indulging in pop culture? I should be buried in research! Well, I *am* buried in research. But that doesn't mean that I can't multi-task.

The "Supernatural" addiction is in full evil flower now, and I devoured the season two box set in about 2 days. (It is indeed worlds better than season one.) Also, I'll have you know, Il Barista called me to report that La Parisienne cackled with sheer Schadenfreude when she read my blog-confession. She's a shameless, cheerfully energetic enabler of my vice in general and "Supernatural" in particular -- hey, what are friends for, right? All my resistance has completely crumbled. I'm not even trying to hold back now. In the current absence of any Joss Whedon shows, I guess "Supernatural" is filling the void. And I might as well have fun with it, right? "Buffy" or "Angel" at their best could run rings around silly "Supernatural," but "Buffy" and "Angel" aren't on the air anymore. And I just gotta get some vampire-killing and demon-hunting because -- quite frankly -- it's cathartic. (Plus, the music is fabulous.)

I have to say, though, that I'm not sure what's worse: the fact that I've fallen from grace here or that I have to endure the teasing of my friends and Sibling. I guess a little humorous humiliation keeps me from becoming too snotty and self-righteous! But now I think back to the (recent) past when I made fun of people who liked "Supernatural," and I just want to cringe -- and then I'll rush off to watch "Tall Tales" again because that episode is simply hilarious. HEY, I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM! I CAN STOP ANY TIME I WANT TO! OHMANPASSME ANOTHERDVD--NOW!!!

I'm now on the cusp of adding more fuel to the fire of my entertainment junkie-hood, because tomorrow is September 30: that long-awaited day when "Iron Man" comes out on DVD! YES! That 2-disc edition will finally be mine!

I'm doomed. Perhaps another way to look at this is to say that I'm in clover. I have a soft spot for smart, sassy, humorously quippy heroes who look darn good while firing weapons and cracking jokes, and I'll have no shortage right now.

Oh, don't worry about my nerd responsibilities. I just turned in a massive paper today (it was nerderiffic and 30 pages long -- not counting the bibliography), and I'm working on another two papers even while I'm teaching my hordes of undergraduates. I'm a diligent nerd most of the time. And it's nobody's business that I'm crafting my perfectly footnoted papers while watching DVDs about demon-hunting brothers or playboy genius industrialists who can fly. Why the heck not -- nearly all of my previous papers were written in the dead of night accompanied by DVDs of one type or another.

But lest anyone be mistaken: I am NOT a role model. I am a VERY BAD EXAMPLE of a nerd, so for your own sake, DO NOT DO AS I DO.

PS: Yes, La Parisienne and Kamikaze Editor, I used the word "devour" deliberately.

MM in the Kitchen: Cardamom-Orange French Toast

SATURDAY! No more school for 2 days!

I'm looking at this nice-looking recipe for a special breakfast. A dear old school friend (hi, Foxtrot!) is coming to visit soon, and she loves French toast, so . . .