Like everyone else in my office, probably 80% of my lunches are those little microwavable frozen dinners. I stick with Stoeffer's and Zatarain's; other people are devoted to Budget Gourmet or Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine or whatever. One guy I work with eats nothing but Bird's Eye frozen vegetables in sauce, every single day.

After years of eating these things, they've become routine - so much that Mrs Cleek and I just call them "frozens" - "Don't forget to buy some more frozens!", "Had another stupid frozen for lunch", "So sick of frozens", "Which horrible frozen should I have today?" etc.. They're so routine and boring to me that it's hard to believe everyone doesn't feel this way. Well, Defective yeti finds that this lack of enthusiasm for the frozen lunch in it's black plastic tray isn't universal.

That's an HE-219. There may be only one left in the world.

This is my all-time favorite fighter. Gotta love that twin fuselage.

Well, not me. but this guy did.

Be sure to read point #9.

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Could anything have been more predictable ?

Believe it or not, I didn't remember today was the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, until at least a half-hour after I'd posted that Japanese Zero picture, below.

Belle Waring shares a recipe for Pulled Pork (ie. Carolina BBQ). Sounds good. I'm positively Pavlovian just thinking about it - and now I have no choice but to go get some for lunch.

Since I'm smack in the middle of NC, I have access to all the BBQ I can handle; I'll never have to make any of it myself. But, all you N.E. Blue Staters are faced with the sad choice of either hopping on I-95 for a 12 hour drive to the Carolinas, or getting out the smoker and applewood and cooking pork butts for 15 hours. A dilemma. Well not exactly, because there's always PJ's in Saratoga Springs, NY, which serves "Saratoga Style" BQQ - Carolina style pulled pork BBQ on a western-NY style Kimmelwick/Kummelweck roll (a crusty roll with caraway seeds and coarse salt on top) - a truly excellent variation.

But, as good as PJ's creation is, the true use for a Kimmelwick roll is in the western NY classic : Beef On Wick, which puts all other roast beef sandwiches to shame. Really. After a good Beef on Wick, any other hot roast beef sandwich might as well be Arby's - good for filling up, but not something you'd spend 5 minutes writing a lame blog entry about.

And, speaking of western NY... As soon as the warm weather returns, I'm going to order a few dozen Zweigles white hots, and introduce my Carolina friends to the best hot dog ever created.

Salon has an article on TV chefs that don't bite, namely, Food Network's Alton Brown and Christopher Kimball (who I've never seen).

Along the way, the writer makes a point that I thought was excellent: most cooking shows are fantasies. They aren't about teaching us how to make a veal liver souffle, they're about making us think we can. They make it look so easy (by skipping steps, using ingredients we'll never find, glossing over subtle techniques, etc), that you convince yourself, "Sure, I could do that, if I wanted to." It's the same as those carpentry shows or The Joy of Painting; sure, I could make that bookcase, and I could paint that picture! I saw how easy that was, no problem at all. Get me, I'm smart!

Well, I really can't build that bookcase, paint that picture or cook that souffle - even if I had the equipment. And it's not because I'm retarded, but rather that I don't have the techniques down to know what to do to correct things that don't go exactly the way the instructions say, and I don't have enough experience to even know when things need correction; and I'll never put in the time to learn. But I watch these shows and see that it looks so easy (it only took 10 minutes!), and then I pat myself on the back for being so clever.

• Went to Target yesterday to buy some office/computer supplies. I wandered down the aisle where they keep the flash memory (ie. digital camera 'film') and noticed that they package their little 2"x1" Sony Memory Sticks in these huge 10"x14" clear plastic clam-shells - reminds me of this.
• After civilization destroys itself, one of the ways future archeaologists who come across our landfills will be able to mark off our years is by counting the layers of turkey carcasses that we laid down every fall (or by finding the layers of brightly-colored paper we laid down every winter).
• A 15 pound turkey is a lot of turkey, for two people. Four days of nothing but turkey for two meals a day is just about enough. And even though roast turkey makes really good enchiladas, it'll probably be weeks before I open the two bags of frozen turkey I put away.
• We watched a lot of VH1 this past weekend. We saw their 100 Absolute Least Metal Heavy Metal Songs (Europe's: The Final Countdown), their 100 Absolute Least Dirty Dirty Songs (I forget what #1 was), their Top 100 One Hit Wonders (The Macarena), and started their Top 100 Most Cheesetastic Video Tricks (Didn't make it past the first three). Conclusion: VH1 is the nostalgia network; everything they do is backwards-looking.
• Christmas starts way too early, lasts way too long, and the pressure to consume is far too much. I look at pictures of lines of consumers who get up at 4AM the day after Thanksgiving to go stand in line for the latest consumables at the local big box store and feel nothing but disdain; why must we devote 50 days each year to the act of shopping ?