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You have to view the page to appreciate it. Go ahead, it won’t hurt. I promise.

My “banned” list keeps growing, and you inconsiderate bastards keep coming back. Well, nice work, jackasses. I no longer allow comments on old entries, so you’ve lost that (and valid posters are now unable to comment there, either). I will continue to ban any comment with “casino-dumbasses.com” or whatever anywhere in the comment, even if you’re just sticking it in your info hoping for the proverbial reach-around. I have also disabled all HTML in comments, so please quit filling my logs with “so-and-so, a banned IP, tried to post…”

If I wanted to advertise your crap, I would. I don’t. I won’t. But I’m sure you’ll continue to virtually masturbate all over the internet, this site included. Sad, sad bastards.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

If you’ve never read the novels by C.S. Lewis, you’ve missed out. No fear, you have till December to http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0064471195/qid=1116739013/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-8974531-8756951?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 get them and start reading. While they’re written at a children’s comprehension level, they’re a good read at any age. From the trailer (follow the link above), it looks like they’re doing the stories justice.

I can’t wait!

DVD on TV… generally a pretty fun way to watch a movie – they offer commentary and show “bonus” clips from the DVD. Well, today’s offering is “Dude, where’s my car?”, which I have somehow managed not to see until now. I hadn’t missed much.

What prompted me to post about this was something that really highlights the idiocy of the world today, or as others put it, the “dumbing down” of America.

There’s a scene in the movie where the two starring idiots discover they’ve each gotten a tattoo on their backs. One says “dude”, the other says “sweet”. They spend what seems like hours asking each other what their tattoo says, each responding and asking the other. What’s mine say? – Dude! What’s mine say? – Sweet! What’s mine say? and so on, and so on, ad nauseum. It was amusing for about 5 seconds, then it was just stupid.

The scene itself was bad enough, but the idiot blonde hosting “DVD on TV” makes the comment that that scene is destined to become the new http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor4.shtml “Who’s on first?”. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click that link… that’s real comedy – and definitely click the audio link on the left – the words alone don’t do it justice (turn it up, the quality of the recording isn’t very good, but it’s the real thing from Bud and Lou themselves).

Now if two morons saying the same thing over and over again comes anywhere close to the level of hilarity of Abbott and Costello’s classic humor, it’s time to hang it up and go live in a shack on a mountain. There’s no hope for the world.

So I was at the store yesterday, and came across a great looking round steak marked down because it was nearing it’s “sell by” date. Yeah, I’m a bargain hunter like that… It was about 2 lbs and selling for under $5, how could I pass? Anyway, it had beef stew written all over it (I don’t care for the cut-up stew meat they sell, as it’s generally a rather poor cut of beef).

Here’s what I did:

2 lbs beef, cubed approx 1″
2 large white potatoes, cubed approx 1″
1 onion, chopped
2 cans cooked carrots
1 can sweet corn
2 cans spiced tomatoes
pepper (fresh ground, don’t ask me how much, just twist the mill till you have enough)
1 cup of water (approx)

All that went into the crock pot. After about 7 hours, I had what looked a lot like vegetable beef soup – but that wouldn’t do! I wanted stew! So I mixed a couple of tablespoons of corn starch in about 1/2 a cup of water, poured that in, and let it cook for another half hour.

During that last little cooking session, I made a pan of corn bread – and when it was all done, I had a huge slab of corn bread on a plate covered in the best damned stew I’ve had in ages.

Yeah, it may not sound very exciting, but it was delicious. Considering it was the first time I’d ever tried to make stew, I am very pleased with what I ended up with. I’ve already had seconds, froze about half a quart, and the rest won’t likely last more than a couple of days.

When you have a day to spend nothing to do, and nothing seems very interesting, sometimes you just need to sit down and watch a good movie. Or two.

Now prison movies aren’t usually a big thrill for me, but here’s two that I highly recommend – both about prisons, both starring Robert Redford, but otherwise very different.

I watched Brubaker the other day, I think TNT ran it… damned good movie – and this morning, while RoadRunner was flogging itself and denying service to its customers, I watched The Last Castle. Excellent, moving, and heroic – and that goes for both of them.

If you haven’t seen these movies, or haven’t seen them lately, do yourself a favor and go have a look. Well worth your time.