"The Blackest Black"

Do you have a favorite monster? Mine is the one in the thumbnail.

Thanksgiving food prep

Almost everything is ready to go except the turkey and the pie.

sweet-potato "casserole"... looks like peanut butter or baby poo

candied cashews and pecans to top the sweet potato

green beans with ham and mushrooms 

mashed potatoes

creamed corn

cranberry sauce

glazed ham

gravy, congealed and looking like pumpkin pie

a big tray of stovetop stuffing—made in a bokkeum-paen, then baked

I'll ferry the stuffing, gravy, and ham over to the office on Tuesday. I'll bring the frozen turkey breast back to my place on Tuesday as well. I'll make the pie Tuesday night and bring it in on Wednesday so I can stare at it longingly. On Thursday morning, I'll sous vide the turkey breast and bring it in warm Thursday at lunch. I'll reheat the gravy on that day, and the crew can make plates without turkey, gravy, pie, or cranberry sauce. They'll microwave their plates, come back to our team's office, and get their turkey, gravy, and cranberry sauce. Hopefully, my Korean coworker won't try to do anything strange with his food. He might be good at baking scones and bagels, but he's got no common sense otherwise. 

Here's hoping it's a good meal. I cooked most of it on Saturday without tasting a thing. As a result, my Sunday-morning blood sugar was 90. Sunday, though, I sampled food as I cooked, so I'm not expecting good numbers Monday morning. 

Which reminds me: I'm off to Immigration. Wish me luck. I hope to pick up my new visa card sometime this week, but the website says processing time is usually around 10 business days. 

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Well, it's Pam Bondi now.

religion quiz (coded by ChatGPT)

Religion Quiz

I can get ChatGPT to add explanations (which I write), to show what the correct answer should be, etc. I've only begun to explore the quiz possibilities with this AI, so if you have features you want added to the quiz, feel free to write me a comment. As you might imagine, now that I'm embarking on this path, grammar, mechanics, and spelling quizzes (plus, maybe, more religion-related quizzes) will dominate 2025. Next year, this might be a very different blog.

Per my book, I'm not a fan of multiple-choice questions, but they are undeniably easy to score. I asked ChatGPT to randomize the order of the multiple-choice answers every time the screen is refreshed. Just to make life a tad more difficult for people who think they can "ace" the quiz simply by memorizing the letters of their answer choices.

Brett Cooper explains the 4B movement (Korea + US)

Read about the 4B movement, a feminist movement from South Korea, which ensures that the already-low birth rate in South Korea will go even lower. After Trump won reelection, leftie American women glommed onto this movement and decided that it was for them as well—no dating, no sex, no marriage, no kids (the no, in this case, comes from the Chinese character 非, pronounced bi/비, one of several Chinese characters used for negation along with other characters like bu/bul/不/부/불, mi/未/미, mu/無/무, etc.). In the video below, conservative commentator Brett Cooper (who is dogged by remarks that she looks like Ben Shapiro's sister... she does, actually) explains 4B as it came from Korea and settled among the distaff American left. I didn't realize the Korean girls who are sticking it to the patriarchy are nevertheless being funded by their own fathers. No sense of irony or self-reflection there!

the end of the leftist mainstream media?

The end of the MSM? I think that's a little optimistic, but watch the video:

Cenk tries to argue that Trump is a fascist

To be fair, Konstantin and Francis let Cenk do all the talking in this segment largely without interruption, allowing us to see the lack of substance in Cenk's claims that Trump is a fascist.

UPDATE: Cenk, in a seeming turnaround (this is happening a lot lately), has apparently made Pentagon budget-cutting proposals that he wants MAGA to hear. Trump has praised this despite all of Cenk's fascism talk.

today's agenda

I took a load of food to work and got back almost an hour ago. I have photos, too, which I'll be showing off later today. Now, it's time to work on most of the rest of the food: the gravy, the glazed ham, the stuffing... and I guess I'll start working on the pumpkin pie. The purée softened during the night, but incredibly, it's still cold, sitting on my table. I'll make the filling and prep the crust (a Biscoff crumble crust instead of a standard pie crust). The turkey breast is sitting frozen in my office's fridge; I'll take it home tomorrow and sous vide it on Thursday morning. I'll bring the gravy, ham, and stuffing in to the office on Tuesday; Tuesday night, I'll bake the pie; Wednesday afternoon, I'll bring the pie in and let it just sit. Ideally, the turkey ought to be warm when I cart it over to the office on Thursday; I'll keep the bird in a warm-water bath until my boss gets to the office. (He's entertaining his brother and his sister-in-law, who are visiting Korea for the very first time.)

Why nothing on Monday? Because I'll be going to Immigration on that day. These visa renewals tend yo stress me out, and Immigration is more than halfway across town from where I live, which means I'll be late for work and will have to work late. The boss doesn't actually care about the hours I put in, but I do.

Jonathan Majors redux: he's beaten most of his charges

Is this, as Charlie mentions, a Johnny Depp-like situation?

At this point, I guess I wouldn't blame Majors at all for being sour on Marvel (which dropped him). Full disclosure: I've written less positively about Majors before. In my defense, much of my negativity had evidence to back it up in the form of a transcript of some audio of Majors being abusive. He might be largely innocent, but he still has problems.

cooking basics with Joshua Weissman

Kermit gets down and dirty

stuff I got done for Thanksgiving

It's been a bona fide Saturday cookathon. With ten items on the Thanksgiving menu for this coming Thursday, and only one item not being at all prepped by me, I've got a lot of work to do. Today, the priority was to work on the dishes that can be fridged or frozen, taken to the office, then broken out on Wednesday (if frozen) to thaw, or broken out on Thursday (if fridged) to be heated in the microwave. As much as possible, I want to minimize the need to heat anything up via my gas stove in the office; if anything, the only item needing the gas-stove treatment ought to be the gravy, which will be fridged and congealed until the blessed day, then reheated on the spot for best results. My ten menu items are (and depending on how you count them, there might be more than ten):

1. turkey breast + gravy
2. glazed ham slices
3. stuffing
4. mashed potato
5. sweet-potato "casserole"
6. creamed corn
7. green beans with ham & shrooms
8. cranberry sauce
9. dinner rolls
10. pumpkin pie

Today, I made the green beans, sweet-potato "casserole," mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and creamed corn. I won't be making the dinner rolls; those will be purchased from the nice bakery at the B1 level of the building where I work; they'll go very well with butter: they're large, puffy, and of a size to be used for hamburgers in the future. Still to be made or otherwise prepped: gravy (easy enough), turkey breast (sous vide on the day of), glazed ham (easy, and to be done Sunday), and stuffing (stovetop this time—no custard and no baking, just classic panko, meat/veg, and chicken broth). Finally, there's the pumpkin pie. I have a 2-kilogram block of frozen pumpkin purée that's been thawing for the past few hours. I'll do the stuffing, ham, and gravy tomorrow; the pie will done done later in the week (probably Wednesday), and so will the turkey breast, which I'll need to get up early to prep in my sous vide.

So as of today, Saturday night, more than half of the Thanksgiving meal is ready to go, and it ought to last just fine in the office's fridge/freezer for the next few days. Because there's no room in my fridge right now, I need to create room by (1) ferrying over to the office the dishes I've already made and (2) storing them in the office's two fridges. My team's office fridge doesn't have much room in it right now, but the large fridge in our kitchenette is mostly empty. so I ought to be able to store almost everything there. I'll bring the nicely heated turkey breast and the pumpkin pie on Thursday. Most of the dishes can be microwaved (ham, stuffing, regular taters, sweet taters, creamed corn, green beans); after microwaving, the dishes can then have the (still-warm) turkey, (reheated) gravy, (fridged) cranberry sauce, and (freshly baked) pumpkin pie added to them. I'm wondering whether the pumpkin pie might benefit from a shot of whipped cream. I can also just make whipped cream myself, but buying the canned stuff from downstairs might be easier. We'll see.

Expect photos soon.

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a plateful of Chris Chappell

China is attacking the US while the US does nothing.

Why did "fascist" Trump win by a landslide?

With stocks falling, China's freaking out in the US-election aftermath.

Dems want social media to "moderate" (censor) election reactions.

China's military posturing on Hainan Island.

Come on, CCP! It's only a swarm of bikers!

Taiwan must do this to prevent its fall.

Turnabout: Democrats whine about election shenanigans.

What's to become of Trump's criminal cases now?

China is nicely plugged in to the US telecom system.

Car rampage in Zhuhai kills 35, but the CCP censors it.

how do you know you don't have ADHD?

final foot update

I'm a bit disappointed not to report complete healing, but I'm 95% there. Take a look. 

design-trend failures

what really happened in that Titan implosion

Sounds like one huge argument for government regulations. Then again, Stockton Rush comes off looking like an arrogant prick unconcerned for the safety of his passengers.

a deep dive into English with JJ McCullough

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Hollywood = Loserville

how to know someone's not a local

In 2008, when I walked from the US-Canada border to Blaine, Washington, and beyond, I encountered a lot of native and non-native city and town names, each with its own idiosyncratic pronunciation. Twisted pronunciations might be annoying, but they're a good way to know who's local and who isn't. From my part of the country: how do you pronounce Appalachian? Is it leytch or latch? Technically, either is fine, and personally, I've said leytch all my life, but if you're from around there, you know that everyone says latch. When I was out west, one region close to Blaine was called Semiahmoo. I thought it was pronounced suh-MIGH-uh-moo, but the locals corrected me: seh-mee-AH-moo. I also saw a French-looking city name as I passed through: Touchet. Knowing French as I do, I pronounced it too-SHEY, but the locals said no: it's TOO-shee. Made me think of a hick trying and failing to pronounce tushie. And that's how I betrayed myself. 

Ohio, I just discovered, has its own set of fucked-up names:

Chillicothe

Scioto (river)

Olentangy (river, tributary to the Scioto)

I dare you to pronounce those. (Pronunciations are all on Wikipedia.)

"Joe Biden has never looked happier"

Maybe Biden is happy he got his revenge, what with Kamala losing. Maybe he's relieved to be done presidenting (well, pretending, anyway). Who knows? Here's Link Lauren with his habitually hilarious take:

Gaetz goes down, Pam Bondi goes up

I don't know enough about the Matt Gaetz problem to comment on his guilt or innocence (he's been accused of sexual indiscretions, at least one act of which involved a minor), but when he withdrew his candidacy for Attorney General by saying his candidacy had become a "distraction," I'm pretty sure I was hearing guilt-language. Conservatives are saying that Gaetz still has a path forward in the Trump presidency, but as we all know, once you've got that scarlet letter, your brand is forever ruined (unless, as was the case with Brett Kavanaugh, it turns out your accuser is a publicity-craving liar who can't recall major specifics when grilled).

Enter Pam Bondi, the new nominee for AG. With Karoline Leavitt tapped for press secretary, Trump appears to be immuring himself behind a wall of young blondes. I saw the humor in this and left the following comment at Instapundit, couched in mythological terms:

Pam Bondi... Karoline Leavitt... Trump is surrounding himself with Valkyries. I hope this means Ragnarok is coming. And with Hindu folks like Tulsi and Vivek, the Valkyrie front line is backed by formidable kșatriyas. I really do hope this gets apocalyptic.

Pam Bondi, maybe some years ago...?

Back to Gaetz. Significantly, CNN says this:

The Justice Department closed its investigation of Gaetz last year after prosecutors recommended that no criminal charges be brought against him. The House Ethics Committee revived its investigation of the Florida lawmaker once DOJ concluded its case and is facing mounting pressure to release its final report.

Allegations against Gaetz also have surfaced as part of a civil dispute in federal court in Florida. The deposition from the woman who was 17 at the time remains under seal, but her allegations were described during another deposition that is public record. At one point, attorneys recounted that she had testified having sex with Gaetz on an air hockey table at the house party while the homeowner watched.

An attorney for the woman who was a minor at the time of the sexual encounters has called for the ethics report to be released “immediately,” noting that his client was a high school student at the time and saying there were witnesses.

Joel Leppard, an attorney who represents two other women who were witnesses in the House Ethics Committee probe, said one of his clients testified that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a minor. Leppard said his client told the committee she did not believe Gaetz knew at the time that her friend was underage.

So is Gaetz as guilty as sin, or is this another stupid attempt at a Christine Blasey Ford?

Either way, good luck to Pam.

UPDATE: I can see one angle of attack against her: a decade ago, she was on record as being "against lesbian divorce," as this article puts it. Much ado about nothing? Has Bondi perhaps changed her stance? Is the article deliberately misinterpreting her stance? I'm sure we'll all find out soon enough.

UPDATE 2: DeVory defends Gaetz in this video from before Gaetz's withdrawal.

Skallagrim on that fight scene from "Blade"

Wren and the glass-orb eclipse

Would a moon made of transparent glass burn the surface of the earth like a magnifying glass? The answer isn't quite what you imagine.

I like it when Wren does these science-y presentations. He should do more.

Dan Bongino possibly to head the Secret Service? hell, yes

Headline:

How CNN Framed Trump's Potential Secret Service Pick Is Beyond Ridiculous

President-elect Donald J. Trump is reportedly closing in on a familiar name to helm the United States Secret Service, which has been marred by controversy regarding its serial failure to protect the incoming president during his July rally at Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was shot during that assassination attempt. The incident led to the resignation of director Kimberly Cheatle, Jill Biden’s gal pal, for the incompetence that was unearthed, which led to bipartisan outrage. That’s why Mr. Trump is eying former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino to helm the agency. And yes, the headline for the CNN piece about this pick was outrageous (via CNN): 

“Trump eyes right-wing personality Dan Bongino among current and former agents for US Secret Service director.” 

Bongino is a straight talker, and if he fucks something up, I imagine he'll do the honorable thing, both making the situation right and falling on his sword. Bring the concept of honor back into the Secret Service, Dan. I hope you get the job.

Aside: I love how these nominees are making leftie heads explode. I fervently hope this means the left will start to suffer real consequences—consequences that hurt—for its rhetoric and actions. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of creatures.

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This exchange needs a hyphen and an apostrophe.

They told us never to say "the reason is because."

And, mony, you can't punctuate. A lot of idiots aren't understanding that education is to revert to the states.

I guess that, if you're confronted with your own stupidity, you're too stupid to know it.

A buddy of mine is apparently proud that his wife works/worked for Fauci.

Yes! The 1% will save you! Long live the 1%!