things were more exciting in the 70s

Ha ha, you almost fooled me with that one! That's the Sixties!

the cow says, "Moo"

Pardon the bad grammar:

When your dog have been spending a lot of time with the cows this is what you get 😂🤣😂 pic.twitter.com/HqCmo8Q8qH

— Rubi (@RubiRubidoooo) April 6, 2026

at a time when you're being bred into nonexistence...

 

two more quizzes done!

Having gotten through quizzes for verbs and verb tenses, I am now turning my attention to—gasp—grammatical mood. The first two quizzes of a six-unit section are now done: Mood, Part 1 and Mood, Part 2. Below are sample questions, one from each quiz.

From Grammatical Mood, Part 1:

Question 5

The five grammatical moods are:

indicative, interrogative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional.declarative, illustrative, demonstrative, palliative, and modal.indicative, interrogative, ordinative, subjunctive, and conditioned.declarative, interrogatory, imperative, subjunctual, and conditional.

REASONING: The relevant lesson (which is for paying subscribers—Grammatical Mood: Intro + Indicative Mood) starts with an overview of the five main grammatical moods, so at this point, you either know them or you don't.

1st possible answer: Yes. These are the five moods. Note that conditional is both a tense and a mood. As a tense, it's the would tense, often referring to a hypothetical, unreal, or imagined future: I would tap dat ass. As a mood, it refers to if-then sentences (NB: The subordinating conjunction doesn't have to be just if—it can also be when, as in When the wolves howl, my scrote howls in response.), i.e., sentences that show how effect Y proceeds from cause X.

2nd possible answer: No. The word modal has appeared in my lessons in the context of modal auxiliaries. The word palliative is used in the field of medicine to refer to the easing of pain and suffering, usually via drugs. So palliative has no place in a grammar lesson. If you thought illustrative was a mood, then you really weren't paying attention. And demonstrative adjectives appear in the adjectives unit (Adjectives, Part 5).

3rd possible answer: No. While indicative and subjunctive are indeed moods, there's no such thing as an ordinative mood, and conditioned is just wrong: There's a conditional mood. This answer is designed to see if you're a random-guessing moron.

4th possible answer: No. We use declarative in contradistinction to interrogative, but declarative isn't a mood the way indicative is. The other words are all bullshit terms except, of course, for imperative and conditional. If this answer seduced you, I hope you feel shame.

From Grammatical Mood, Part 2:

Question 2

The question “How long are you planning to hack up centipedes?”...

...becomes a Wh- question when you remove the “How long.”...is considered a Wh- question....is a type of choice/option/alternative question....becomes a yes/no question when you remove the “How long.”

REASONING: Hack up in the sense of cough up, not chop up. This unit explicitly discusses how Wh- questions (which include How... questions) are basically yes/no questions with a Wh- element tacked on. Example: For a question like Why did you do that?, if I strip off the Why, I'm left with the yes/no question Did you do that?

1st possible answer: No. If you remove the How long, you're left with Are you planning to hack up centipedes?, which is a yes/no question. See more below.

2nd possible answer: Yes. As explained above (see the brief parenthetical in the REASONING section). How... questions (i.e., questions beginning with How, How much, How long, How many, How often, etc.) are basically Wh- questions. Think of it this way: The word How contains both a "w" and an "h." (Being a Yank, I say an "h" because I don't pronounce H as "haitch" the way some people in the British Isles do.)

3rd possible answer: No. An example of a choice/oprion/alternative question would be Eddie Izzard's Cake or death? That not the type of question shown.

4th possible answer: Yes. As explained above. How long are you planning to hack up centipedes? becomes Are you planning to hack up centipedes?—a yes/no question—once you remove the How long.

la philosophie de Guillaume

Basically, the philosophy is: Be a dick to your closest friends. And to everyone else.

Johnny Somali: a possible appeal by the prosecution

Korean jurisprudence is pretty limp-wristed. Johnny Somali's minimum sentence, according to LegalMindset's assessment of the law, should have been four years. The prosecution, also modest, was asking for only three years (confused? welcome to Korea!). The final sentencing, though, was for only six months, and we all know that Somali will leave prison with a huge, obnoxious, unrepentant smile on his face. The prosecution has seven days to appeal the sentence and request more jail time, and that may be happening. Watch the video below for details. I'd recommend a good ten years, but Somali will never get that. Two or three years at most. No one will be taught any lessons.

the world's edgiest goats

imminent passing

Just got news from my brother David that my aunt's health is going downhill, and she'll be gone in a matter of days. While I'd like to visit her, I don't know if I have the funds to cover such a visit (she's in Texas). 

This aunt is my mom's big sister, so we've always called her by her Korean title, Emo or Imo (이모). So for the moment, it's just a matter of waiting for the news of her passing. 

cervid life forms

hoofed ruminant ungulate

Proto-venison.

the best method

I figured this one out. Can you?

Hint: You'll never solve the problem in two weighings if you weigh two groups of four balls. This is your chance to channel your inner Spock. Logic!

who will carve the carcass?

Guga et le thon:

spot the (t)error

Seen on a YouTube thumbnail:

She wants to become a YouTuber, which as a comedian makes me furious.

Did you catch the problem(s)? 

How would you rewrite the above to avoid the grammatical fuckup(s)?

if you know the story, this makes sense

Hybrid vigor, baby!

my Blogger "followers" list

I deleted my Blogger "followers" list from my blog's sidebar long ago—not that anyone would have noticed since no one bothers with sidebars. But the list still exists "inside" of my blog's editing tools as something that I can re-display if I ever decide to. I was looking over that list a few minutes ago and noticing all of the dead people on it—people who had listed themselves as followers of the blog, but who have since passed on. Out of 33 followers (i.e., not many), three of them—1 out of 11— are dead. And I can't quite bring myself to remove their names from the list. What's funny is that, in every case, these are people I'd never met in person.

you can mix together only so many things

Words of wisdom from Dr. Vallicella, from "Tribalism and Diversity":

Tribalism is on the rise while classical liberalism is on the wane. Given this fact, does it make sense to admit into one’s country ever more different tribes? A piety oft-intoned by leftists is that diversity is our strength. An Orwellianism, that, if tribal diversity is at issue. For that would amount to the absurdity that the more domestic strife [there is], the stronger we become. It is plain, after all, that different tribes do not like each other, and do not see themselves in the other. Tribal identification is other-exclusive. There is no comity without commonality.

I am against tribal identification. I realize, however, that I am sawing against the grain of the crooked timber of humanity. People will continue to identify themselves as members of groups. Classically liberal ideals such as toleration are no match for the ingrained tendency to revert to the tribal. So the realist in me says that immigration policy must favor those who are assimilable to our values and principles and must exclude those who aren’t.

Add enough meatballs to your salad, and it's no longer salad.

(Also: Did you spot the error in the lower half of the first paragraph?)

what being a life-partner means

Aside from the repetition of the word "point," this is hilarious.

 

elle aime bien les mecs

Le féminisme, ce n'est pas mon truc. Moi, j'aime bien les mecs.

Legal Mindset's official take on Johnny Somali

Verb Tenses, Parts 4 and 5—now done

The quiz for Verb Tenses, Part 4 is now done. Go see for yourself. Verb Tenses, Part 5 is also now done. Here are sample questions, one from each quiz, with reasoning laid out. 

From Part 4 first:

Question 3

Before my best friend died,

he will have had many chances to deepen our friendship.I have forgiven him for cheating with my wife.he had given me the best advice for living life.I had lost focus in my own life.

REASONING: Part 4 is about tense contrasts. Before my best friend died refers to an event in the past and hints (through the word "Before") that another past event happened before the death, so while my best friend died is in the preterite (simple-past or past-simple) tense, we're looking for the past-perfect tense, i.e. had + past participle—the tense used for past events that come before other past events. Do you see it among the answer selections?

1st possible answer: No. The phrase will have had is in the future-perfect tense, which is used for completed actions in the future.

2nd possible answer: No. The phrase have forgiven is in the present-perfect tense, which is also the wrong tense. Not what we're looking for.

3rd possible answer: Yes. The phrase had given is in the past-perfect tense. It's called PAST perfect because the helping verb have is in the past tense (had).

4th possible answer: Yes. Again, had lost is in the past-perfect tense. Both of these answers are therefore correct. Check two boxes and move on.

From Part 5 next:

Question 5

By number, identify the independent clauses in the following sentence.
(1) Before you were born, (2) your dad and I talked about naming you Augustus, but (3) after we stopped laughing, (4) we both agreed (5) that it would be a pretentious name for you.

3, 42, 31, 52, 4

REASONING: If you've been a lazy shit and still can't recognize what a clause is, this question will be impossible for you. Not only must you know what a clause is, you must also know what an independent clause is. A clause is a group of words with a subject and a related predicate (predicate = verb + the rest of the sentence). Luckily for us, the hard work of identifying all of the clauses is already done: They're all numbered. Which means we need to know what an independent clause is. An independent clause is a clause that can stand on its own (i.e., independently, hence the name). It's a complete idea in and of itself even if it's part of a larger sentence. If I write Glenn sharted, you already have a clear idea of the action and a sense of clear-cut completeness. But if I wrote When Glenn sharted, you're left hanging, wondering what happens next. The When makes the clause dependent, i.e., it depends on an independent clause to complete the thought. The When is what we call a subordinating conjunction. Other subordinating conjunctions are if, before, after, although, unless, etc. So—dependent clauses are introduced by subordinating conjunctions. Independent clauses don't have a subordinating conjunction. So let's look at the clauses one by one:

(1) Before you were born—I see a Before there. Subordinating conjunction, so this is a dependent (or subordinate) clause. The question is asking us to look for independent clauses.

(2) your dad and I talked—No conjunction, so this is an independent clause.

(3) after we stopped laughing—After is a subordinating conjunction. This is therefore a dependent clause.

(4) we both agreed—No subordinating conjunction, so: independent.

(5) that it would be—The that is a subordinating conjunction. Dependent clause.

So...

1st possible answer: Wrong. 4 works, but 3 doesn't.

2nd possible answer: Wrong. 2 works, but 3 doesn't (as above).

3rd possible answer: Wrong. Neither works because both have subordinating conjunctions (before, that). That leaves us with only one possibility...

4th possible answer: Right. Neither of these clauses has a subordinating conjunction, so they're both independent clauses.

Which of the clauses below is/are independent (able to stand alone)?

1. she ruined her life with drugs
2. shit was flying everywhere
3. before the meteoroid made its final approach
4. as Biting Sylvia has requested
5. would hippos actually do that
6. as long as you remain my bitch
7. he avidly licked the sauce off his plate
8. once the foul work was done
9. until the dirty job was finished

Can you figure it out? I've only written about this same topic a gazillion times.

poofy flapjacks (US flapjacks, I mean, not UK)

why are people such idiots?

I've done some dumb things in my life, and I still do dumb things, but I at least know how to behave around cops. If a cop has been having a bad day, you really, really don't want to piss him off further. Watch the classic Chris Rock video on how to behave in front of the police if you still don't get it. Save yourself an ass-kicking, jail, or ventilation-by-firearm.

I've gained another paying subscriber on Substack

Well! I guess that means my paying-subscriber roll has grown by 33.333%! I feel guilty about how it happened, though: I had mentioned my Substack in an email to a former student as part of Stuff I've Been Doing Over the Past Year, and I insisted that I wasn't trying to sell him on anything... yet he subscribed anyway. I then apologized for the vulgar, immature, un-PC nature of my humor (which I hadn't exposed him to back when I was his teacher), but since he now reads this blog on occasion and hasn't been driven away by its content, then I guess he'll be fine with my Substack content.

Thanks, Nathan, and welcome aboard.

Johnny Somali's sentencing: disappointing

Well, South Korea chose not to take the strict route, thus opening up the door for more nuisance streamers to come into the country and spread mayhem. Great job, South Korea! Johnny Somali (real name: Ramsey Khalid Ismael) was sentenced to only six months' prison plus a little extra. He's been branded a sex offender, a label he probably has to carry back with him to America. I imagine that, as with Vitaly and his short sentence, Somali will emerge happy and unrepentant, and I can absolutely see him coming back to Korea to taunt the populace once again. He should've gotten at least ten years. Win this fight and all of the future fights. Instead, he's getting a bit more than half a year. Legal Mindset hasn't put up his assessment yet, but here's Atozy's:

Then there's this American fuckhead in Japan:

🇯🇵 A tourist from New York was captured spray painting graffiti in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo. This type of behavior should get you immediately deported from Japan. pic.twitter.com/uOpRcWowEV

— 鈴森はるか 『haruka suzumori』 🇯🇵 (@harukaawake) April 14, 2026

I saw the above embedded tweet at ROK Drop, with the title "Make Caning Great Again." I don't think modern Japan has a history of caning vandals (does it?), but I agree with the basic sentiment. If you go to a foreign country for the purpose of fucking things up, you should be fucked up by that country before you get sent back, minus a couple limbs, to whatever shithole—American or otherwise—you came from.

toe update

Toe wound! There's still a lot of weeping going on, but I think I can try walking my 9.5K route as of this weekend. Once I start walking again, I believe healing can continue as long as I do my Epsom-salt soaks more often (lately, it's been about once per week). I've switched from applying iodine to the toe wound to just using my good ol' first-aid cream. This wound is taking longer to heal than my previous wound in 2024, which was arguably worse. I'm guessing this is because I didn't bother seeing the doc this time and getting my usual complement of antibiotics. Not that it matters now: I'm past the danger zone for infection.

April 13, 3:53 p.m. and looking a lot better than last month

As for long walks: I've decided to wait until fall to try the route again. I need to do some serious rethinking and research to re-plot the route. As to when in the fall the walk might happen... I don't know. If I've got a university job by that point, I'll have to work around whatever my schedule is. Whatever the case, the walk will happen in the fall.

(This post is also up at Kevin's Walk 10, this year's walk blog, which I'll be reusing in the fall instead of creating a new blog and tee shirt.)

teh krayzee

Of course, this is old news for those of us in South Korea.

lack of self-awareness

 

'bout to have a chase, baby!

this guy's good

I should ask my UK friends what they think, but from where I sit, this guy's good—an American who can legitimately sound British, and not just generically British (if such a thing exists and isn't offensive), but British with a specfic accent (just don't ask me which accent it is). Would my UK peeps agree, or is he just another American poser?

and another quiz done

Verb Tenses, Part 3: Perfect Tenses, the quiz, is now published and ready for you to try out. Here's a sample question:

Question 1

Name the verb tense seen in the following sentence:
Next year, we will have been camping in these bear-infested woods for five years straight.

simple-future progressivefuture-perfect continuousconditional-perfect progressivefuture-perfect progressive

REASONING: The relevant verb is will have been camping (from to camp). You know that perfect tenses have some form of the auxiliary have, and you can see that have is in the future tense—will have. And progressives have some form of be + verbs with -ing. So this is the future-perfect progressive. But wait—the progressive is also called the continuous.

1st possible answer: No. The simple-future progressive is will be camping.

2nd possible answer: Yes. As reasoned above.

3rd possible answer: No. That would be would have been camping.

4th possible answer: Yes. Because progressive and continuous are two names for the same aspect.

Johnny Somali's sentencing

Backpfeifengesicht

Ramsey Khalid Ismael, a.k.a.  Johnny Somali, gets his dumb ass sentenced tomorrow. I hope he gets at least the minimum of three years, but I really hope he gets ten years for his lack of remorse, his constant and consistent anti-Korean racism, and for just being an asshole (the maximum possible in his case is twelve years, but it's doubtful he'll get the maximum). 

Sentencing him for a long time sends a message to other obnoxious streamers that Korea will not tolerate such behavior. As Ender says in Ender's Game, he brutally beat the bully not just to win that fight but to win all of the future fights, too. The Korean justice system needs to show some backbone and sentence this shit for a decade as a message to future nuisance streamers. Even that won't be enough, frankly. Guys like Somali (who isn't really Somali) never really learn. Fifty years might be enough to take the sap out of him.

If it were up to me, I'd burn off his hands and feet, burn his face, break his shins, break his knees, cut out his tongue, remove his eyes, remove his nose, remove his dick, then keep him in prison until he either dies of infection or somehow heals from his "treatment." After he heals: Release him back into Korean society with the injunction that no one is to help him get out of Korea. He can figure it out on his own.

Good thing it's not up to me.

Something like this might be nice. And no medical help after it's done. Heal on your own.

'nuther quiz

Verb Tenses, Part 2: Progressive Verbs is now out. Give it a whirl, and please report back if you find any problems (formatting, logic, "gameplay," etc.).

Sample question:

Question 1

Change to the past-perfect progressive:
Samson always wins.

Samson did always win.Samson was always winning.Samson would have always been winning.Samson had always been winning.

REASONING: The past perfect is a past tense used for past events before other past events, as in: Before my mother died, she had told me about some hidden treasure. So with the past perfect, the helping verb is in the past tense: had, not have. Any progressive tense is going to have an -ing ending on the verb since it indicates activity that takes time. So, you're looking for a had + participle + -ing.

1st possible answer: No. That's a form of the simple-past tense, also called the preterite tense.

2nd possible answer: No. That's the past-progressive tense.

3rd possible answer: No. That's the conditional-past (or conditional-perfect) progressive tense.

4th possible answer: Yes. You see the [had + participle + -ing] formula—had...been winning. Simple. Easy. Once you know which clues to look for.

One more quiz coming tonight.

bringing order to chaos

parsing/diagramming

Do you ever think about sentence parsing/diagramming? Probably not. I think my generation might've been the last generation to even bother with the exercise. I recall that we did diagramming (I didn't hear the term parsing until I was in college*) in the 8th grade, in Mr. Gray's English class. I had no fucking idea what was going on or—as many kids of that age might wonder—why this activity was useful, or what purpose it served. I don't recall that we ever did any diagramming in high school.

Diagramming is a form of analysis, and analysis is a mental activity in which you break something down into component parts, then study how those parts interrelate. An analytical approach can take a myriad different forms. For example, if I were to analyze a dog, I could analyze it in terms of its body parts and their functions. I could also analyze any individual dog in terms of its various behaviors. I could also do a cross-species analysis of dogs in terms of their physical attributes, their behaviors, their life spans, etc.

Analysis doesn't matter to most of us until we really need it. Let's say you're driving down a road when you get into an accident. Maybe you've run into a tree, or another car has crashed into yours. There's the blinding flash of impact, and when you wake up and orient yourself, your car is a crumpled mess, and you've got long shards of metal poking through the meat of your body. Who's more likely to survive such a situation with a minimum of problems later—someone who's never analyzed the human body, or someone who's got some analytical knowledge of how the body works? And whom would you prefer to see rescuing you from your wreck—an untrained civilian or a trained first-responder? Analysis matters.

Analyzing, or parsing, the parts of a sentence can be beneficial, too. You take the major parts of the sentence and break it into smaller parts. In English, parsing proceeds a certain way:

There are tons of resources out there that show you how to parse. I admit I'm not very good at the procedure anymore; I tend to "analyze on the fly," going from large elements of a sentence (e.g., subject, predicate) to smaller elements (article 1, simple subject, prepositional phrase, article 2, preposition, simple predicate, verbal object, etc.). It's more of an instinctual thing. But while I'm not following any orthodox procedure, the analysis still helps.

Example: Knowing what a clause is and what rules apply to which types of clauses can be a good way to avoid certain embarrassing fuckups. Of course, if you're linguistically dim, you won't even know you've fucked up, so you won't have the decency to be embarrassed. Taking pride in one's self-expression has been an ongoing theme on this blog and on my Substack. Those who don't take any pride are, as I've said before, like the litterers at a park—the slobs who go, "Bleh... someone'll come along and clean that up." Good self-expression means clarity and logicality of thought, and it at least implies a certain level of mental self-discipline, a quality that slobs don't possess.

Dr. M. Scott Peck argued, in his The Road Less Traveled, that the greatest, most fundamental human sin is laziness—not rebellious pride or arrogant conceit. Laziness is the inertia that keeps one trapped at one's current level, dog paddling in the shallow end of the kiddie pool when a whole ocean is just down the way. Learning how to think analytically is a good first step to moving beyond where one is. (And don't confuse laziness with contentment, which is a much more profound thing.)

__________

*Pedantry alert: Diagramming, as the term implies, is more visual in nature, like what you see in the above graphic. Parsing refers more abstractly to the analysis of a sentence's parts. It's the analytical thought process behind the creation of the sentence diagram. So I guess what I do "on the fly" counts more as parsing than as diagramming.

you've heard of the "heart attack on a plate," but now, there's...

...heart attack on a plane! It's a sad story, too.

Porscha Brown, 33, a safety specialist at the U.S. Army’s Fort Belvoir, Va., died March 29, 2024, of acute cardiac failure, according to the lawsuit filed March 27 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

She was traveling with three companions on Korean Air Flight KE94 from Washington Dulles International Airport to Incheon International Airport when the incident occurred. According to the lawsuit, Brown began experiencing distress about 12 hours into the 15½-hour flight, clutching her chest and saying, “I can’t breathe.” The complaint alleges Korean Air personnel “failed to properly administer oxygen” to Brown, claiming the airline’s crew “alternated between panicking, observing, and taking notes” as her condition worsened.

This is the kind of event that I never used to think of as personally relevant.

My, how things change.

it always comes back to the tits

When I was 13, I hoped that one day I would have a girlfriend with big tits...

When I was 16, I got a girlfriend with big tits, but there was no passion, so I decided I needed a passionate girl with zest for life.

In college I dated a passionate girl, but she was too emotional.…

— 🇨🇭🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿InLucysHead🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇨🇭© (@InsideLucysHead) April 9, 2026

It feels strange to read prose from a guy's point of view, but in an X account that seems to be run by a woman. This produces an odd sense of disjunction in me noggin.

haw haw

electrify all surfaces or cover in acid

When there are no consequences for stupidity, stupidity will continue.

Literally pic.twitter.com/mYkNzJI8hW

— Giga Based Dad (@GigaBasedDad) March 26, 2026

another quiz done and ready

The quiz for Verb Tenses, Part 1 (Simple/Compound Tenses + Affirmative, Negative, Interrogative) is now up. Try it out and contact me if you see any problems.

Sample question with correct answers and reasoning:

Question 2

The conditional-past tense

is also called the conditional perfect.can be seen in a sentence like Would she have driven so fast had she seen the curve?uses would have + participle.is visible in the sentence Marcel will have finished his painting by next week.

REASONING: The question is asking about the conditional-past tense, so you obviously have to know what that is. The conditional tense uses the modal auxiliary would + the bare infinitive. So I would go is in the conditional tense. The conditional-past tense uses would have + participle. So I wouldn't have done that is in the conditional-past tense, a tense used for a hypothetical/unreal/alternative past.

1st possible answer: Yes. For completed actions where the helping verb is some form of have, this can also be called a type of perfect tense.

2nd possible answer: Yes. You can see that Would... have driven fits the formula for the conditional-past tense, which, as mentioned above, is used for a hypothetical or unreal or alternative past.

3rd possible answer: Yes, as explained above.

4th possible answer: No. The will have + participle tense is the future perfect, used for a completed action in the future. This is a form of future tense. Example: By next Friday, we will have destroyed 30,000 of Hillary's files.

NB: Why do I put so much emphasis on terminology? The terminology is important because it becomes a shorthand for the already-explained grammar point, thus saving me the need to re-explain the same grammar point repeatedly. It also allows me to stack knowledge upon knowledge, which is fine as long as the student is actually studying and internalizing the terms in question as we move through the curriculum. If the student makes no effort to remember any of these terms, it's going to become increasingly hard for him/her to keep up with later lessons, and as the terms accumulate, future lessons will become a lot more information-dense. So if you're a learner, my advice to you is: Keep up! And don't ever become mentally lazy. There's a reason why sloth is a mortal sin in Catholicism.

the cellar rat, le scélérat

Got-damn-a-Bama!

This video about one way to prep Alabama barbecue chicken reminded me of Joe McPherson's awesome but short-lived resto. 

Man, I wish that place had succeeded. Hard to believe that our visit happened ten years ago. That place is still fresh in my memory as one of the best-ever Western-style eating experiences I've ever had, and it still feels as if it had happened yesterday.

Babish ranks chocolate

Lindt Lindor truffles will almost always be #1 for me. There are better chocolates out there that can make me forget my love of Lindt, but those chocolates are few and far between.

indecision

Imagine you're thoroughly washing your bum when you look at your hand and see a chili flake from the keto pizza you'd eaten over the weekend. What's your reaction at that point? Is it, "Well, hello, there!" or "Aaaaaaagggghhhh!!"?

got it where it counts, kid

with martial arts, you can kick some ass

Man Judo Flips a Donkey pic.twitter.com/qfFRgzp3Mi

— BEST CLIPS ON X 🎥 (@BestClipOnX) April 4, 2026

just puttin' this out there

I’m in love with this sentence:

“The degree to which a person can grow is directly proportional to the amount of truth he can accept about himself without running away.”

— Reads with Ravi (@readswithravi) March 27, 2026

assholes and bleached assholes

Admit it: My title is apropos given the thumbnail.

keto pizza, Day 2

Second day of eating the best keto pizza I've ever made. Three slices yesterday, three slices today. I made it even better by carefully sawing the crust in half, thus making it half as thick as before. Of course, I didn't waste the slices of "bread" I'd taken off each piece of pizza: I whipped up a tiny batch of my Middle Eastern-inspired spiced oil—the one I use for everything from Moroccan-inspired chicken to beef-lamb gyros/shawarma.

Today's experiment proves that, the next time I make this pizza, the only thing I need to change is the thickness of the "dough." And I'll do that by using the method I'd described: I'll glop the "dough" onto parchment paper, put another sheet of parchment paper on top, then roll the "dough" out paper-thin, cut it down to size if need be, place it in my baking tray, and bake that puppy most of the way to doneness. The baking will ensure that the parchment paper peels away fairly easily. I'll then load the pizza up the way I did this time, bake the pizza the rest of the way, and voilà.

This was, otherwise, a meat-and-shroom pizza. Ingredients were as follows:

crust "dough"
arrabbiata sauce (I like it because it's a little spicy)
pepperoni (real pepperoni, not the nasty Korean analogue)
salsiccia (Italian sausage, made locally)
button mushrooms
oyster mushrooms
low-moisture mozzarella
regular mozzarella
Parmigiano reggiano

chili flakes (garnish)
parmesan (garnish, shitty green bottle)

Mushrooms were cooked down with a mixture of butter and olive oil for the fat. At the beginning of cooking, I added salt and pepper. Once the shrooms had been cooked down, and much of the water from the shrooms had evaporated, I added the powdered garlic at the end to prevent burning. The salsiccia was already herbed and seasoned right out of the package; the pepperoni already had its own character. I didn't fancy up the cheese with any extra herbs and seasonings, and I think that helped: this was a case of less is more.

The crust recipe can be found here. When you mix everything together, the baking powder begins reacting immediately, so if you want your dough to rise at all, you can't wait too long. Based on what I discovered, though, a rise is not the most desirable thing: in reality, you want the dough to be thin. When baked, the crust will not behave like a regular wheat-flour crust, i.e., it will probably break apart if you try to lift it, so I hate to say it, but you're going to have to fork-and-knife your pizza. Prepare to pull a De Blasio/Bloomberg and to offend the entire city of New York by eating your 'zza with cutlery.

same pizza as yesterday, but with a thinner crust

Using that keto-baguette recipe turned out to be a great idea. Today's pizza was even better than yesterday's. And the "toast" I created from the cut-away crust was also delicious. Man, I love that Middle Eastern-ish spice/seasoning combo. What a great lunch.

So I now have viable keto recipes for both hamburgers and pizza. And the "carnivore"-bun recipe can apparently also be used to make hot-dog buns. Well, we'll see about that.

"Disney never gave us this stuff"

And there's an interesting discussion of "AI slop" and whether this slop has any value. Based on the video quality, I'd say animators still have a long way to go, but massive progress in AI-driven animation has happened just over the past year. And progress tends to be exponential.

I'll second that

"Cooking only sucks if you're a lazy little fuck."

beef short-rib lasagna

questions that only D&Ders can appreciate

Here's some D&D-nerd stuff for you.

I could feel my brain slowly expanding, pushing against my skull as I kept listening to this.

dat's naysty

job ads are coming back

Dave's ESL Café's Job Boards page just put up its first university ad in a while, but it's for doctoral-level research fellows. Despite looking up what exactly a "research fellow" does, I'm still not sure what "research," these days, might involve. I can only imagine that the word means different things in different fields. Scientific research, for example, could involve lab experimentation, observation, surveys, and other empirical forms of data collection. In my field of religious studies, it could involve many trips to the library or to official/prominent storehouses of ancient documents or to religiously significant sites. As with science, it could also involve data collection in the form of surveys and interviews. Anyway, that ad probably isn't aiming for someone like me since I don't have a Ph.D. in anything. But if this ad is the first drop of water in what will become a torrent over the next month, then a man can hope.

Hanyang YK Intercollege - Now Hiring Special Researchers

Recruitment Notice for

Doctoral-level Research Fellows at the
Hanyang Intercollege Advanced Practice Support Center

Hanyang Intercollege, which operates the School of General Studies at Hanyang University Seoul Campus, is recruiting research fellows to support the operation of the integrated foundational curriculum and the development of educational content.

1. Recruitment Overview

• Position: Full-time Research Fellow
• Number of openings: Several doctoral-level positions
• Common requirement: All duties are carried out in English

2. Positions and Responsibilities

Position	Preferred field	Main courses and duties
Liberal Arts Research Fellow	Literature, Philosophy, History, Education, Anthropology, Liberal Arts	Course: Global Critical Anthropology, Life Project, Global Research Immersion • Interdisciplinary Content: Developing activities for critical thinking and global awareness • Facilitation: Leading discussion-based workshops • TA Management: Coordinating teaching assistants and learning environments

3. Qualifications

• Holder of a doctoral degree in a related field
• High proficiency in English (able to teach and communicate in English)
• Capability and interest in educational content development and student tutoring

4. Working Conditions

• Contract period: 1 year (extendable up to 6 years for doctoral-level fellows, based on evaluations)
• Working hours: Mon–Fri, 08:30–17:30 (shortened hours during vacations)
• Salary: In accordance with Hanyang University regulations
• Expected start date: Early May 2026 (negotiable)
• Note: Teaching opportunities may be available with extra allowance

5. Screening Process

• 1st round: Document screening
• 2nd round: Interview (individually notified)
• Final results: Notified individually after interviews

6. Required Documents

• Curriculum Vitae (English, free format)
• Statement of Purpose / Cover Letter (English, free format)
• Other documents proving experience (optional)
• Copy of Alien Registration Card (for foreign nationals in Korea)

It's kind of a relief to see a university ad that doesn't require apostilled documents from the US—stuff like one's criminal record, college/grad-school transcripts, etc.

Anyway, since I lack a doctorate in anything, I guess I'll keep looking.