Coupl'a Things V

Since I have been feeling like death warmed over, I am not in the mood for a long diatribe about all the silliness in the world. Thus I will focus on a few short silly things.

1) The new format for the St Louis Post Dispatch on line edition www.STLtoday.com is horrible. Just like news papers in general, it is full of ads and hard to navigate. But someone paid tons of $ for it, so they will do what they have to do to justify it. I think it sucks.

2) Just took a gander at the garden and it seems to be doing well. Every thing is growing, corn has been planted, my peppers are up, the squash is booming. And at home, the herbs are sprouting as well. I finally found some rosemary so I am complete. Mr Pettit is giving me tongue in cheek flack for taking some of his mint for my peas, so I have forbidden him to have any of my oregano. Herb Wars, here we come.

3) I was considering taking out my full cable and just going with the basic deal when I discovered that a channel I would lose is showing the original Iron Chef Japan. Best and funniest cooking show ever. The premise is 1/2 cooking show, 1/3 comedy and 1/3 game show. The head of the Gourmet Acadamy, Chairman Kaga, has "realised his dream in a form never seen before" and specially constructed a cooking arena called "Kitchen Stadium" in his castle. There, visiting chefs from "around the world" would compete against his Gourmet Academy, led by his three (later four) Iron Chefs. specializing in Japanese, Chinese, French and Italian cuisine. Chairman Kaga himself is a peacock, always dressed right out of an International Male catalog.

I mean really, how fun is a show that features squid ink sorbet, $1,000 worth of lobster used to flavor asparagus. or yogurt and shark fin stew? Where else can you hear such lines as "the sweetness of the fish liver mixes well with the bitter chocolate... I like it" or "the pleasant bitterness of the eel dances in my mouth and then I enjoy the bright flavor of the pineapple... such a pleasure". Indeed the campy English dubbing gave the show some of its charm and dare I say humor. Of course the Iron Chefs usually won. I may reconsider for a while and keep the dang cable.

4) This just in, Boy Gov, increasingly irrelevant, is socking it to the taxpayers and taking his wife and kid on a 3 day vacation to promote Missouri state parks, via a RV. Thanks Boy Gov, I sure would like a State vacation. He'd tell me to shove it.