Big Fat Ostrich

So yeah, Mike and I decided to take this Bobbipins thing to the next level. Here’s this, it’s the first one. Read it.

This week’s Household Deathmatch Double Extreme is a fight to the death for comfort supremacy between my duvet and my old comforter! Both are bitter enemies and have been so ever since that incident back at the manufacturing sweat shop. Finally, they meet again, this time in a public arena. Only one can emerge victorious.

The Matchup:

Attributes:

Weaknesses:

The Battle:

The Duvet opens up to its full size and mocks the Comforter, beckoning it closer. The Comforter gives the Duvet the finger and gets a warning from the referee. They meet at center ring and the Duvet makes an attempt at covering the Comforter but the Comforter is fast and twists away, spreading fluff in the Duvet’s eyes. The Duvet calls for time out, but suddenly realizes that there’s no time out in Household Deathmatches. The Comforter takes advantage and tries to cover the Duvet. The Duvet recoils at the Comforter’s awful smell, and the Comforter advances closer. In a brilliant move, The Duvet climbs the ropes and reverse body slams the Comforter! It doesn’t have to smell the Comforter this way! But the Comforter squeezes out from beneath the Duvet and crawls towards its corner, followed by the Duvet. The Comforter throws its corner bucket on the Duvet! The Duvet is soaked and is now collapsing under its waterlogged weight! It…it..it falls on the Comforter! The Comforter can’t breathe! It’s trying to get out! 9….8….7…it too is soaking wet now, but feels comfy and starts to doze! …4…3…2…1! And the Duvet has won the match!

The Conclusion:

The Comforter’s desperate attempt at disposing of the Duvet set the stage for its own demise.

Match time:

3 minutes.

Fido. They called me today to see if I was interested in spending my well earned Fido Dollars (240$) on one of their overstocked crappy phones.

“You have enough Fido Dollars to get yourself one our Nokia handsets!”

A Crappy Nokia 2720

“But I have a phone.”
“You can use it as a spare or hold onto it for when you replace your current phone!”
“Yeah, but it’ll be outdated by then!”
“Did I mention that this phone has FM radio?”
“…” Wow.”Well no thanks.”
“Well have a nice day.”
“Oh wait, oh hey! Does Fido have any Android phones?”
“Uh…what’s that?”
“Android. You know. Google’s OS?”
“Haven’t heard of it.”
“Ok, well, good luck pushing those Nokia 2720′s”

So yeah Fido, stop trying to offload your shitty phones on me! I know you have a LOT of them due to people not buying them the first time around.

Yeah! Welcome to another edition of “Let’s Throw Money Away on Something That’s Gonna Be Obsolete In 1 Year!”

That’s right. I’m talking about buying a 24k gold-plated iPhone for 19 grand and storing it in a real Ostrich Foot carrying case!

Man, did the word “Bargain!” flash in your brain? It did for me, because nothing screams bargain like “get a free Ostrich Case” when you spend 19,000 dollars on an iPhone.

Softer Than An Ostrich's Butt

Anyway, just look at the thing! Pretty fucking audacious, but not as bad as the Diamond Encrusted iPhone.At least the damn thing is unlocked.

There's Gold In Them Thar iPhone!

Look at all that pasta! Look how it tilts crazily towards you! It’s mesmerizing and that’s what happens when Dan, Mike, and a bunch of food ingredients hang out.

The plan was like last time: cook dinner, and come up with a new Bobbipins storyline. And you know what? I’ll save you the goddamn suspense and just say that the plan worked, ok? Three times in a row we get together with the idea of eating and brainstorming, and all three times we came away with gold.

So yeah, if you want your dinner to look just like that delicious, succulent bowl of pasta over there, this is what you gotta put into a saucepan on medium high:

a few teaspoons of olive oil
1 diced small onion and 2 cloves of crushed garlic (when these guys are golden brown, add the following)
1 red bell pepper
some mushrooms (sliced)
half a fresh tomato
pepper (use your intuition)
salt to taste

Now about the salt…well, I don’t have any! But under the pressure, Dan grabbed a handful of salted cashews and crushed them into the mix. It was a close call, but supper was saved!

So while all this was going on, there was a big pot of fusili pasta on the boil. It’s really boring to talk about, but it happened, ok?

Now that your mix of vegetables and onions and shit are nice and cooked, here’s the best part: stir a few heaping tablespoons of quality sundried tomato pesto. The one we used was called “pesto rosso”. Yeah really. If you can’t find that specifically, just use a quality pesto and you can’t go wrong.

And you know what? You just made a sundried tomato veggie sauce that’s ready to be mixed into your fusili, which is ready now if you timed it right! Did you time it right? DID YOU?

Now eat it. It’s delicious.

Once again, if you don’t laugh, it means you’re normal.

Bob: Need to see you in my office.
Bill:Coming right away!
Bob:*faarrrrrt*
Bill: Oh!
Bob:*faarrrrt*
Bill:OMG!
Bill: You weren’t there!
Bob:…I know…

Hey, remember that big Amarok vs Songbird showdown that I wrote about last year? Well you know what? It was all bullshit! There I was, trying to find THE best goddamn music player, to just PLAY MUSIC. So what happened, you ask?

2 things happened:

a) Amarok turned into Amarok 2, which was a giant digital turd. End of story
b) Songbird turned into Songird for Windows with no more Linux support. That’s right: NO MO!
c) Songbird for Linux became Nightingale (which hasn’t really gone anywhere yet)

Fine, so that was 3 things.

Anyway, all this time something was right under my nose, and that something was Rhythmbox. And yes, Rhythmbox comes installed on Lucid Lynx by default. Also, you know what it goddamn does? It goddamn detects my iPod. And you know what else? It plays music right off my iPod! That means that I can take my iPod to any computer that has Rhythmbox installed and it will play my collection. Without me having to do any stupid synching or anything.

I know I know. Someone’s going to tell me that this existed in the 1620′s or something, but I don’t care! It’s news to me!

Also, in the last version of Songbird I couldn’t get the guitar tabs to work in 64-bit Lucid Lynx. If you want to use them in Rhythmbox, do this:

1. $ sudo apt-get install python-lxml
2. $ tar -xvzf tabsearch-0.1.tar.gz
3. $ cp -r tabsearch/ $HOME/.gnome2/rhythmbox/plugins/<—create the folder if it doesn’t exist!
4. Launch Rhythmbox and activate the plugin

It’s summertime and time for salad!

But you know what? Your salad is nothing without a good dressing. Nothing! Which is why we’re here to tell you how to spruce up your bowl of greens and stuff with a kick-ass dressing that will make you wish you had never bought that crate of Renees Sweet and Sour Hog Sauce.

So let’s get started!

You’ll need:

Mayonnaise
Half a lemon (squeezed)
2 Garlic Cloves (finely chopped)
A handful of red seedless grapes (quartered)
3 pickled banana peppers (diced)
Ground Black Pepper (the more the better)
A touch of lemon zest (use the same lemon!)

Preparation:

Chop up the garlic cloves real fine like, and do the same thing to the pickled banana peppers. Diced, chopped, whatever. We’re not really sure what the difference is, so just make sure they’re fine and mushy. Then get a bowl and slog in a few healthy dollops of mayo and squeeze in the half lemon. mixing it all together with your favorite fork. You can mix in the peppers and the garlic too, and while you’re at it, chop up those grapes in quarters, or halves. Now mix it all together some more. Don’t stop! Keep mixing!

Now for the pepper.

You can use your own judgment and add a sprinkle, or a teaspoon. Or, you can be like us and open the pepper without looking and start shaking it generously into the bowl, only to realize after 2 seconds that the ‘big hole’ side of the pepper thing was open, effectively dousing the mix with ALOT of pepper. Too much pepper you say? You might say, but you’d also be wrong. The amount of pepper that poured out was actually ideal. Tangy, peppery, and just right once mixed into the salad. In fact, it was a perfect compliment to the arugula.

So yeah, this dressing was a total success. The grapes were like little forgotten pleasures of grapeness that popped up when we least expected it. The peppers added some zest and were not overpowering in the least. Overall, a good creamy tangy dressing to get you ready for summer!