All the Books: Recipe #9 – Crispy Roasted Potatoes

All the Books: Recipe #9 – Crispy Roasted Potatoes

I want to tell you a story, a story about overwork, a story about depression, a story about cooking potatoes, and story about overcoming difficult odds to triumph over evil. I started this project for two reasons – One: I had too many unused cookbooks. Two: I needed to remember how to write again. After about ten years I was coming out of a depressive slump from which I almost didn’t escape. When you’re wrapped up in problems, and your brain is working against you, things can quickly go from bad to worse. We won’t go into the problems, but let’s agree that I was not at what you would call my fighting condition for such a set of circumstances to arrive. Over the last, let’s call it two years, I have been able to work my way out of the situation. Also, quite frankly, the question “What’s the worst that can happen” was pretty handily answered. And that, my dears may darlings, is a lovely and freeing feeling. Once the three worst things that can happen, have already happened, what else can they do to you?


This pic of pitching wizard is merely here to fill space. Please ignore him.

This releasing of tension coincided with a new found ability to cope with situations and a slightly lower disaster to good day ratio. The reason I bring all this up, is that there are still some times when I slide back and just can’t. Just cleaning the table to make a corner of the kitchen look presentable is too much. Finding a recipe is too much anxiety, and the effort to photograph and edit is more than I can bear. The result of all these things is that sometimes you don’t get a post for a week or three, because even though I made tonight’s dish a while ago, there simply was too much else to do and I had as couple of weeks at work that were a little rough due to training and people leaving and such. So, that’s why this is late and some others will also be late.



So, a while ago, I was at one of those little gift stores you sometimes get. They sell magnets and aprons with the name of your state of them. They smell vaguely of lilac and always seem to be run by the same middle aged woman. She sells candles, and the sort of blank cards with photographs on them, as well as (sometimes) books like this one. Now, one may ask why I bought Sheet Pan Suppers, by Molly Gilbert when I already have (by my own admission) too many cookbooks. I would reply that I live in a house with a bunch of enablers. Just today, the day I write this, my father bought me French Cooking: Classic Recipes and Techniques because I didn’t have a single French cookbook. Nice, but... you know? Like I don't have enough cookbooks to work through? So I bought a copy of this book, on my own recognizance, because I thought it might be interesting. Now, fair dues to Molly Gilbert, I had seen this recipe and thought “Oh, okay, when I make something ELSE from this book, I can make that as a side and get a nice two-fer.” There are 120 recipes in this book and many of them look like they would be good things to cook. However, when I found myself rushed and in need of SOMETHING to cook so that I would have a post ready for the next week (when I still thought this was going to go up on September 10th) and I sort of had some potatoes on hand already soooooooo....



Having made this the way the recipe said to (with a slight adjustment in the kind of potato I had on hand), the result was pretty good. I feel sort of bad, like I’m rendering a disservice to poor Molly Gilbert, because all her hard work and effort to write an interesting book, and I’m spot lighting a fairly simple side dish. I’m pretty sure if she ever reads this she’ll be glad to know that the dish turned out well and was rated as pretty good. Still though. Listen, find this book, buy it, pay the full list price like I did and make something more interesting. While you’re at it, overcome your anxiety and depression and start a food blog where you don’t actually talk that much about the food, don’t actually share the recipe, but talk about yourself a lot and generally give the impression that this whole thing is some kind of Post-Dadaist Neo-Absurdist stab at being the sort of artist that really annoys the squares. You could do that, but someone else probably has beaten you to that idea.

All the Books: Recipe #7 & #8: Hungarian Goulash and Egg Dumplings

So let’s talk about The Great Meat Cookbook by Bruce Aidells with Anne-Marie Ramo for a moment. Just got this book a couple of weeks ago, there is a new bookstore in town and cookbooks are the only physical books I still buy. I don’t trust my tablet in the kitchen with me, I just don’t. The cover price of the book is $40, but I didn’t pay that. I won’t tell you what I did pay, but suffice to say the cost was dear and some people will never be the same. One day, those poor people may learn to forgive.



It’s rare that you can look at the cover of the book and be able to think “I bet there isn’t a single vegan friendly recipe in there.” And yet, there are a couple of sauce recipes that fit that term, so there you go. As far as a book calling itself The Great anything, I am a believer in the old adage that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Well, the book is over 600 pages long, and has a range of recipes that go from simple little one pot meals to more complex things like home cured bacon and handmade sausage. This may just deserve the "Great" moniker. There are also a good amount of information on how to buy meat, which is something people take for granted. If you’re going to cook seriously at any level, you get to a point where you need to be selective, you need to know what cuts of meat look like, how they react to different cooking methods and so on. Even if you’re cooking vegetarian, one tomato is not as good as another and avocados are leather skinned beasts of mystery. There is more to this than simply grabbing meat and throwing it at the oven. You need to turn the oven on too.



Now, I have made goulash before, because I am a man of the world and have done many things. I won’t go into the many things right now, because there is a question of appropriate time and place. However, you can rest assured that I am a man who knows a hawk from a handsaw. I had not made it quite like this though, and I had not made the error I made this time before. The mistake still haunts me, to this day. One day, I will strip off my clothes and stand naked before The Gods and ask them to forgive this fallen shell of flesh, but it is not this day.



See, there is a thing in some cookbooks call The Optional Ingredient, and I have always said not going for what they put on the page is the act of a coward. I am a brave man, and thus I put the hot Hungarian paprika into the dish. And lo, I was brought low by my hubris and have been humbled. I put the spoonful into my mouth and Toyo-Uke-Bime herself appeared before me and demanded an explanation as to what exactly I had done. Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite that much, I mean... it was just a little too spicy. It was otherwise good, just a little too hot. Point is, you can skip the hot paprika and go for the normal stuff.



So let’s talk about those dumplings. There is a great quote about dumplings and I think it would be appropriate to share it here... “Real dumplings, proper dumplings when they are properly cooked to perfection, proper dumplings should not bounce!” -- David Lister. I did not make proper dumplings. I had forgotten the face of my father and I overworked my dumpling batter. This time it was Hestia who turned up with a stern “Dude, what the hell?” because... dumplings are also water and flour... and thus bread? I don’t know. Listen, when you talk to them later, you can ask each of these gods why they chose to turn up and berate me for my cooking. So basically, they tasted pretty good, but my dumplings were stones that had super hot spicy stuff poured over them. Needless to say, it was not my finest hour, but I got by and lived to tell the tale.



And of course, if I hadn’t said anything, you would never know. Because it looks fantastic, and that’s all you’ll get on the internet. If you hung out with me, you could eat this sort of thing, but you don’t so you can’t. I am not responsible for your poor life choices.

All the Books: Recipe #5 & #6 Broiled Steak with Pizzaiola Sauce and Stuffed Baked Potatoes

It was a birthday this week? I made two things and photographed them on the same plate without thinking and went with it? It’s summer and we need a Giant Sized Issue like the old Marvel system? This is one of those things. That’s the introduction, that’s the whole thing, that’s all I got. If only Jack Kirby were here to draw the cover. We could use it, because I forgot to photograph the cover for Cooking School Italian, which is no great loss because it’s just a nice, but somewhat basic, photo of some ingredients. You’d be able to see that if you clicked the link. It’s not a bad cover, it’s actually a very good photo, it’s just not something you’re going to want to frame and point to and tell people that picture changed your life. Or maybe it will, I don’t know what changed your life. I tell you what? Here's a link to the cover. Did it change your life? Well, did clicking that link waste a lot of your time? So there you go.



Cooking School Italian was actually bought at about the same time, if not the same trip as Cook's Bible, which goes for fourteen cents on Amazon and has a two star rating. I get it, the book is a little basic for a thing purporting to be a bible. Although a bible (small B) is technically a book that is made up of other books, edited for content. The Soup Bible from a couple of weeks ago is a proper bible, but as it is not religious is probably not a Proper Bible. Unless Soup is something you take so seriously as to be religious about it. Where was I? These are both from a company called Love Food, which is itself an imprint of Paragon Press. I only mention this because it appears these are original books to Paragon, because as we will see in the following weeks and months, several of these books get bought of up and reprinted by numerous companies over time.



I wanted a steak and some potatoes for dinner that day, so I chose the two dishes in the title. I also chose to photograph them very dramatically because it was that time of day and the light was good. Now the steak was steak, and I very much liked the Pizzaiola sauce, but Syd is rarely impressed with tomato sauce. I didn’t blend the tomatoes, preferring the chunkier look we have in the photos. The Stuffed Baked Potatoes are just twice baked with a fancy name. They did call for blue cheese, which I had never tried in a combination like this, but will do again. The recipe asked for either cheddar or blue, but I went half and half, and that worked well. I also put the ham bits on top instead of working them into the potato and that worked less well because they got a little burned. Not so burned so bad we couldn’t eat them, but more than is preferred.



Now I am going to talk a moment about steaks. I like medium well to well done, depending on my mood and the cut of meat, I will even take medium some times, but I rarely like rare. That’s my thing and as I’m the one that has to eat it I would rather cooked to my liking. One too many cheap steaks were served to me at a formative time of my life and chewing disgustingly raw meat like it’s bubble gum will put you off rare for life. True story, I didn’t eat steak for three years because bad cooks and atrocious cuts convinced me I just didn’t like it. This is one of the reasons I generally cook my own food, and why I rarely order steak at a place I’ve never been to before.



I have since learned how to pick a good steak at the store and what cuts are probably going to give the best experience and how to spot a place with good steaks and can sometimes even go for a flat medium. Sadly, it would take longer than I have, and more diagrams and photos than I want to link today to explain the process. One thing I have found over the years is you can make a good steak by rotating more than once. Don’t listen to the one side and then the other guides. Do two minutes a side and then flip, if you want well done, just do it more times. This has always worked for me. Additionally, if you are cooking for people who like well done and people who like rare, put the rare steak on the heat last. That way, everyone’s food will be done at the same time. I know this sounds like really basic stuff, but you’d be amazed the people who have treated this like a bolt of inspiration, so I thought I’d mention it.

All the Books: Recipe #4 – Lamb Shanks Rosemary

There is a book that I inherited when my mother died called The New Complete Book of Cookery, and it comes from a company called Tee Vee Books. Wait... what? TeeVee Books? What the hell is that? Can’t find a hell of a lot on the internet about this. There is literally no author, there is a forward that only mentions The Editor, like they’re The Mysterious Package Company or something. The copyright is to a Paul Hamlyn PTY LTD, which is in Australia and... that’s about all I know. Book was printed in Japan, I’m out of fun facts about this book. Seriously, Unless you want a link to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, I am pulling the ripcord on the factual part of this paragraph and diving into Speculation Bay. The name makes me think this was ordered through a TV commercial. Order now, operators are standing by, but wait, there’s more, sort of thing.

The internet seems to think there was once a slip cover to this book, but that’s gone long ago and all we have is this red leatherette. Something that bugs me about this book... the title on the spine is upside down. LISTEN! When you place a book on a table, with the cover facing up, the title on the spine should be situated so you can read it. Almost all books get this, why can’t The New Complete Book of Cookery? Answer me 46 year old book! This is also one of those books where there are a total of ten glossy pages so there are very few pictures of the food,. There are also very short recipes. That shot? That’s the whole thing. Nothing in life will prepare you for a four sentence recipe. I’ve found more detailed instructions in recipes from the back of soup cans.

So I had these four lamb shanks, and I had NO idea what to do with them. Now some of you, the cynical ones, are thinking I began grabbing books at random and frantically pawed through them. I just want to you know I am deeply disappointed in you and your cynicism is destroying us from within. No, I grabbed this book at random, opened the book at random, and my eyes landed on this recipe. Because when I go to pick something at random, I roll a Natural 20. If you’re nerdy enough to get that joke, you’re too nerdy to give me shit about dropping such a nerdy joke. Choke on it.

So, here’s the thing. I was going to let this sit in the crock pot while I went to work that day, because I multi task, you know? But that did mean I would need to have juniper berries... on hand... or would have to get them at 9:30 at night when I decided to set up my mise en place. Juniper berries are apparently contraband. I went to three different places, but none of them are the damn international shops that closed at 9. However, after the Gazpacho Disaster, I said we’d play Calvinball and so we shall. Gin works in a pinch and you KNOW that I had some of that on hand. Don’t judge me. Also I was cooking in a crock pot so I was already faking my way through.

So I quick seared the meat in the oven in the morning, put it in the pot with all the pre-cut, pre-weighed, pre-selected stuff. And then I left for like 9 hours with driving time included. Now, I don’t know about you, but my crock pot has two settings. They aren’t even low and high, they are just dots on the surface. I went for number two and hoped. The only problem turned out be that the meat slid from the bones like... oh... I am trying to come up with a metaphor that doesn’t ring as just total filth. Point is, there was no shape or form left to these to be plated, so I did what I could with what was left. This is why the plating is so bad. Harsh language would have caused these little guys to fall apart. Then I made some gravy and potatoes and we were all set. You will noticed mashed potatoes and not rice as the recipe says. Screw you The New Complete Book of Cookery, your title is upside down on your spine and I’m playing Calvinball!

Also, I am aware the plating looks ugly because brown meat on a brown plate is less than appealing. I am doing something about the brown plates. You’ll soon see.

All the Books: Recipe #3 – Gazpacho Soup

All the Books: Recipe #3 – Gazpacho Soup

So I have a copy of a rather large cookbook called The Ultimate Soup Bible, and again I believe it to be an amalgam of other cookbooks that have been gangbanged into existence by smashing multiple cook books into each other, Large Hadron Collider style, and then excising everything not soup. As a result of such thins, we are going to have the occasional error, like a DNA molecule that hangs on and still causes us to have an appendix long after the usefulness has gone. Like an appendix, sometimes the whole thing gets infected, and then swells, and explodes, and kills you. Errors occur, things lurk, horrors exist in racial memory like the understanding of weird gods the world forgot. I don’t blame Consulting Editor Anne Sheasby for the recipe, only for its continued inclusion.

I’ve used The Ultimate Soup Bible before, and have made gazpacho a fair number of times, so I know both of those things are good. It’s this one recipe, actually it’s down to one step. After I had cut the ingredients down to small pieces and deposited them into the container, the crazy bastard who wrote this recipe (credited as A. Alhazred) then required it be dumped into a blender or food processor and then blended until “well combined but still chunky” and at that point it basically became a nameless horror from beyond the void. The colors were off, the texture and flavors were off, it became a bowl of fail. Had I simply stepped away from the precipice, had I only looked into the abyss and not let the abyss look into me, had I but resisted the madness. But no, when they came for the bowl of gazpacho, I said nothing because I was not a bowl of gazpacho. Syd said it tasted fine, and maybe it did, but you can’t prove it by me. She agreed that it was wrong, but she ate it anyway, because she is beyond concepts like good and evil.

I cannot express the level that blending the mixture turned what could have been a good soup into a horror show. Even pop music couldn’t save us. I haven’t done a lot of editing on these photos, the pale looking mess is not a result of bad photography. Do not adjust your set, the soup controls the horizontal, the avocados control the vertical. Yeah. There is also something about avocado salsa, but we’re not even going to talk about THAT walking nightmare. I have not yet mastered the art of picking an avocado, ‘nuff said. So go ahead and skip this one, maybe go for one of the other 399 recipes the book boasts. Of course, at this point, who can tell if one of those others isn’t also an eldrich horror? This, my dears, my darlings, is why faith still exists.

Do not let an error dissuade you from experimentation my friends. A single dark demon from the dungeon dimensions is not the end of the world. Do not despair my lovelies! Let not one set back hold you down. It’s not over! Nothings over until WE say it’s over! Was it over when the marshmallows had been undercooked and I was left with nothing but a mess of green goo that tried to eat a child? NO! Was it over when the two turduckens just wouldn’t cook through? NO! Was it over when... oh hell I don’t even know. There have been a lot of errors in the past. This time though, the error was in following the recipe and not my heart. The idea was to follow the instructions though... and that failed us. Okay, let’s go full Calvinball!

I had to bribe Pitching Wizard into the photo through the use promise of booze.

All the Books: Recipe #2 – Sweet Corn Cakes.

So this week’s cookbook is “The Best of Waffles & Pancakes” By Jane Stacey. A friend of mine named Suze gave me this book one... Birthday? Christmas? Arbor Day? VEWPRF? Halloween? Some gift giving time. She’s a wonderful person and there was a time when having a personal brand seemed important for reasons that don’t make sense anymore when I try to think of them. There was a time when I would talk about waffles like they were a holy item. There was nothing more spectacular to me than a plate of waffles. But something changed you guys, something died inside me and I try to pretend that it’s just maturity taking root, but the reality is that I would give almost anything to get idiotically excited about a plate of waffles again. Since my ancient branding involved waffles, it was of course natural that someone would get me a cookbook. Well, Suze did.



It’s a pretty good cookbook, and has a fair amount of recipes that you can shift and adapt. It’s just... well... here’s the thing. They aren’t messing around when they tell you this is a best of collection. This is a super slim volume, as you can see in the photos of my two co-hosts. Yes, we have Pitching Wizard, we will always have Pitching Wizard, but there is also a bottle of Zombie Killer from B. Nektar, which I quite enjoy. The point is, that is not a thick volume, it comes in at just under 100 pages. There is a catch all crepe recipe, and a base pancake and waffle recipe that can be adapted for any purpose though. They didn’t waste time, space or paper in the production of this book. Recipes are well laid out, and this one has separate list of ingredients for the relish that goes with the cake. Had I paid a little better attention, I wouldn’t have made my fatal mistake.



I try to make things to the book the first time I make them. If I am trying a recipe out, I will make it exactly to how the writer said, so I can judge if it’s good or not. If you ever want to adapt, that’s fine, but the first time make it to the book. The reason is, if you don’t love it, then you know it’s not because you substituted sour cream for heavy cream and threw the balance of liquids off. Speaking of throwing off the balance and making the dish go wrong... I put balsamic vinegar in the cake, rather than in the relish. I lost focus for that one fateful second. I let my mind wander. I have no excuse and can only throw myself on your tender mercies. I noticed I had made the mistake, so the relish got it’s vinegar, but so did the cake. The result is that my cakes were not a crisp on the outside or as light as they should have been. I am not a down-home cook, I don’t think I ever made a fritter in my life before this experience. However, I have eaten some and “chewy” should not be the adjective that leaps to mind. So I screwed up a little, but that’s on me.



The resulting dish tasted good though. There was a good balance between flavors, and the relish worked quite nicely with the steaks we had along with the cakes. So not a perfect effort, but probably the next time I make these I’ll do better. When will I make them again though? In a year or two? I have a lot of cookbooks to go. That’s sort of going to become a problem . If the family likes something, when will we ever get to eat something twice? I guess I’ll worry about that later, for now the case calls to me and I must go and pick another book. Another recipe must be made and another photo shoot and post written.



Witness me.

All the Books: Recipe #1 – Chicken with Herb Crusts

All the Books: Recipe #1 – Chicken with Herb Crusts


Let’s make this simple, I own a lot of cookbooks. Like a lot of people who cook, I would just buy them and put them on my shelf and go on my merry way not noticing that books would rather pile up. Oh, how they pile up, I have given a few away, lost a few, had a few appear without my ever have remember obtaining them, and now have about 55 or so. I say or so, because we are still finding new books. The other day, Syd came to me with a cookbook I had never seen before. Here is a look at most of them, more books have been discovered since this photo was taken. Yes, the damn things have been multiplying since this weekend.



The real tragedy is, many of these books have never rated even a cursory glance from me. That all ends today. Today, we cook! Well, this week we cook. Yesterday. I cooked this yesterday. I’m getting ahead of myself. Years ago, a friend of ours decided they would have to cook at least one dish from each of their books. Today (yesterday) we begin this challenge. We begin with a simple chicken dish taken from the following book. The rules are very simple, I tell you what the book is, how I got it, a brief overview of the recipe and how I found it. Points will be handed out at the whim of the judges. Whoever had the most points at the end will be declared both the winner and the King of Christmas in July. That will either lead to human sacrifice, or me kissing a girl’s hand saying “Fifty Watts per channel, baby cakes.”



Chicken in Herb Crust, from Chicken: Over 400 Fabulous Recipes For All Occasions Edited by Simona Hill. We got this book in about 2006, when Holly was still around and the idea of buying what amounts to a compilation of all the cookbooks Barnes & Noble was publishing made sense for $10. They basically took all the chicken recipes they had, and found the imaginative title of Chicken, because otherwise you might mistake it for a series of lamb dishes. It’s actually a good cook book, and laid out exactly how I like them. A good, representative color photo of the dish, ingredients down one column and relatively easy to follow instructions. I don’t turn my nose up at a book without illustration, but it helps to be able to look at a photo and see how badly you’re screwing up.



This is pretty easy as recipes go. I made it without deviation, hesitation or repetition save for one minor bit and I’ll mention that. You spread some mustard onto some chicken breasts, you press bread crumbs into the mustard (they should be herbed crumbs, but I bought Italian bread crumbs which come pre-herbed, because I only have so much time in my day) and then you drizzle butter over everything to make a nice crust and pop it into a 350 oven for half an hour or so. Or if you’re me, you put it in at 425 for 25 minutes. I find speeding chicken along seems to get me less loss of juice. I say seems, because I have never broken out the Bunsen burners and done a real scientific test.

And you get this...



The chicken was moist and yummy, and the rice was certainly a side dish. That’s a little mess of my own, I cooked some bacon and put it in the rice cooker with the rice. I then put in the remainder of the peppers and tomatoes from Sunday’s omelet. It went with the chicken pretty well, but it wasn’t much of a player on the plate. I won’t say it did nothing, but it... could have done more. If it wasn’t just some thrown together mess, if I’d planned just a little better, it could have been a contender... it could have been somebody.



And so we ate, and everyone agreed it was good. Next week, there will be another book and another recipe, unless I hit one before then. This was going to be a weekend project, when I would have time to cook and photograph. But I was here, the chicken was here, the bread crumbs were here. I figured I could talk my way out of this one. We shall see. And next time, there will be photos with a better camera than my cell phone. But hey, at least The Pitching Wizard approves.

The Memory Palace (Pros and Cons)

The Memory Palace (Pros and Cons)

The other day, I was giving someone my phone number. Not an everyday occurrence, but it should have been simple enough.

I was all “Hey Brain, can I have my phone number”
And brain was like “Phone Number! Right! Coming up!”

And what did I end up writing down? 810-228-3... BRAIN! That is a number that stopped being relevant in 2002! You might remember that year, it was the one when we moved out of my parent’s house and no longer needed that neat Cobra cordless phone!

“You wanted a phone number.”

“YOU HAD ONE JOB!”

And thus the fundamental flaw inherent in the Method of Loci is revealed.

Let me back up a second, because this requires some explanation. If I ever write a book for helping parents understand challenged kids based on my own experiences, I will title it “A Fistful of Learning Disabilities” and if I write a sequel for people challenged by sleeplessness I will write it “A Few Sleep Disorders More” because that’s how the movies went! If it bugs you did I didn’t go with “A Fistful of Sleep Disorders” you can read all about my feelings on the subject in my blockbusting, best seller follow up “The Good, The Bad, And the Fuck You, That’s Why” but I digress.

Dyslexia makes digesting words really hard, ADD makes reading a huge pain in the ass to begin with. If you’ve ever had your eyes just drift over the words, but not take them in, it’s kind of like that, only the book sometimes seems to have been translated by someone who only speaks English as a third language and never actually learned Centari, but figured they could translate the book based on the pictures. Now make it three times more frustrating than that, because your basic ADD sufferer is actually paying attention to every signal entering their brain, but I digress.

So while I was still young, and they thought that I was either what was still being called retarded or possibly a next level “Professor X is going to show up any day now” superbeing, suggestions were made. I honestly have no idea what side of the ledger Memory Palace came from, but it was one of the things I had explained to me. I distinctly remember by father told me about a method called Roman Room, or Journey Method. Now, I love my father very much, and he was doing his best, but can we all agree Memory Palace is a way more badass name and move on?

So a quick breakdown, if you haven’t read any of the links I presented...

Imagine that you are trying to remember your grocery list, a long and complicated list that would require a lot of work. Instead of writing it down and reading the list, you remember the list by walking through your home and look at a series of object you placed there earlier. You place them in the imaginary version of your home, not the real one. The idea is you remember your home pretty darn well, so you would remember the things you place in it. Now, either you place the actual physical steak you want, or you get symbolic (or even resort to puns) and maybe just leave a wooden steak imbedded in the floor. You’ve got a flower blooming in the window (get flour) and a bird sitting on the flower pot (eggs... probably?) and so on. It’s more complicated than that, way more complicated.

It can become hyper-complicated and even fractally complicated. Quick example, I’ve got a wing of the palace dedicated to each person I know. I walk down the wing, and each door has some notice explaining what that particular memory is about. I close in on the door and instead of just zooming in, I get as much information as my attention can hold. I enter the room, and the curtain has my mental notes about the meal we had together that day. I close in a little, and I can remember what each of us has, in a little further how it tasted, in a little further and how each morsel felt, in a little further and each drop of water that condensed on the glass and in a little further and I’ve suddenly lost five hours because staring that deep at the curtains takes time and energy and should only be done at leisure or because of a serious need. There is also the minor issue of other people, and for that the connections between them are connected by portals, themselves acting like hyperlinks to someone else’s story, while all existing in the same room. I said it got complicated.

The other problem is, numbers don’t work. Numbers are this... thing. That’s where my dyslexia goes into overdrive, numbers are not and will not ever be my friends. I can’t even trust them to enter my head in the right order (I don’t swap letters around much, but ho-boy does 12 turn into 21) how can I trust them to behave when they get there.

So here’s the thing, I do have these lavish wings where I put events. Things that happened to us, conversations we had, they are woven into the carpets and sensations are embedded in the grain of the wood that makes up the furniture, but stuff like names and labels, we have to go to the library for that. And you’re thinking “Hey, no problem, dewey decimal, microfiche, computerized records... google. No prob, I totes got this.” AND I just laugh and laugh and laugh.

See, my mind isn’t set up like a modern library, nothing so easy. My mind operates like a medieval library, and the three of you who know what that means are cringing and clutching their teddy bears. See, we’re talking parchment scrolls, and vellum books with no note on the spine about what’s in them. Books were so expensive that if there were thirty pages left over at the end, you’d just write thirty more pages worth of stuff to fill those pages. Piles of scrolls and manuscripts often shoved into cubby holes and possibly only the head librarian knew the contents and location of each scroll and book. Possibly, sometimes you had to just read through and see if you could find anything.

And that’s how the other half of the palace exists. One half, an opulent palace, as the name suggests, on the other half a cold cloister, half library and half warehouse (Because there are stacks of banker’s boxes stuffed full of “Old Business” that I don’t wish to clutter up space) and while the librarians are often quite helpful they will sometimes just blindly grab into the cubby that says “Phone Numbers” and hand me any old scrap that their fingers happen to grasp. Normally, it happens to be the piece on top, but I find I tend to run at full speed through the place when I’m dreaming and things can get disturbed.

The sheer amount of information my brain has decided it can hold onto it also a problem, since we haven’t a Bing Search but a Brother Bernard a Brother Darryl and another Brother Darryl. The problem is that the person who put everything in place, and who knows where everything is, was Father... Ted(?), and Ole Dad Teddy ain’t be seen round these parts fer some time now. This means that Bernard, Darryl and Darryl have exactly zero idea where to find anything beyond the basic labels.

As a result, I got the wrong number.

Etiquette: Dealing with a Drunk

A well-mannered person knows full well they should never become inebriated themselves, but we do not live in a perfect world and others still over indulge. Still, the rules for handling a friend who has over imbibed are fairly simple.

If the drunk in question is a douche, or has behaved in a douche like manner to people in the past, the protocol is simple. Steal everything you can, including their clothes, and leave them somewhere embarrassing. Feel free to commit credit fraud with their cards, give huge amounts to children’s charities so they’ll feel disinclined to try to recoup the losses when they sober up. If one is feeling particularly vindictive, leave that person in a farmer’s field near the cows with a dildo shoved somewhere rather too rude to discuss here. When asked, plead ignorance.

If the drunk is an actual friend who has seen you through a few bad turns, take them home and make sure they get to bed. Hold their head while the vomit, help clean them up and always take photos or video with your phone to remind them later how they looked. If a photo album of their drunken sobbing doesn’t wise them up to the idea of not getting so drunk again, e-mail it to their mother. It should be stated though that interventions like that are for people who refuse to change after ample chances.

If one is given custody of a female friend who has had too much, DO NOT RAPE HER! In fact, no molestation of any kind should happen as long as you have your strength. If she comes on to you, simply rebuff her. Even if she becomes angry at your denial of her favors, remain strong. She’ll thank you when she sobers up and has full control of her faculties. Under no circumstances should taking advantage of the situation even enter your mind. In fact, if you hear of someone taking advantage of a female friend, using her inebriation as the wedge to open her legs, that person should instantly be regarded as a douche. You are then clear to wait until he is drunk and follow the first section of advice. Really, if anything, you’re more required by the rules of polite society to slip that person a micky at the first possible chance and beat them to a pulp before leaving them in that farmer’s field.




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Interesting Facts: King Arthur

King Arthur was not actually a king, nor was he named Arthur. His real name was Steve Davis, but he decided to change it because he wanted to avoid confusion with the snooker player. Instead of being the king of England, he was actually Dog Catcher for the Rutland area. He was a very good dog catcher though, one worthy of legend. As his legend grew, so did the rank.

Strangely, as his legend grew, it also went back in time. Steve was a dog catcher in 1941, but the legend now claims that Arthur was around just after the fall of the Roman Empire. Story Logicians claims that by 2136 the legend of King Arthur will have taken place during the Cretaceous Period and will be about a velociraptor named Kent.

The Geek World is Not My World

I’ve often said this to people, but probably not enough. I am not actually a geek. Some people think I might be, because I know a lot of stuff. Useless, pointless, meaningless stuff, but more stuff than almost anyone else they know. Of course, every once in a while, they’ll need to actually know something and I’ll still have the answer to that. However, you just need to meet me for a few minutes on a good day to know I’m not a geek.
On a bad day, I’m so withdrawn that I might be mistaken for one, or I could be a mountain dwelling goblin unused to all the fresh air and sun light.

Now I know what you’re going to say. “Weirdo, you’ve got geeky interests. You’ve got lots of geeky friends. You only sleep with geeks as far as I know. How can you not be a geek?” Well, I only sleep with bisexuals or people with strong bi-curiosity as well. Does that make me bi? I used to hang out with a lot of black people, does that make me black? Most my friends are women, does that make me a woman? The thing is, there is something I’ve often noticed about the geek world, or rather geeks as people. It’s one of the things that keeps me out of their world.

Geeks aren’t very smart, or at least not smart in the right ways.

People who are part of the geek world cling to their intelligence like a life ring in a storm. They have a nasty tendency to act like they’re the only smart people in the world, and are unable to understand why the rest of the world regularly dumps on them. Of course, the rest of the world knows why they dump on geeks, and it’s got nothing to do with the glasses or liking Star Trek.

Lots of really cool people wear glasses these days. Doctor Who is pretty close to a mainstream interest and Star Trek has been mainstream for decades. Everyone knows Star Wars, and lots of people like Wil Wheaton, not just geeks. Wil might be seen as a cool geek among geeks, but he sort of left geekery back in the dust sometime ago. He became a cool person, who has geeky interests. Here is the thing, Wil Wheaton is smart in two ways. He’s smart in Cool Person ways and he’s smart in Geek Ways. He’s good with rules that can be written down and rules that cannot be written down.

Social Rules can never be written down because the way you understand them is by smell and feel. People who understand the rules understand there is no way to write them down because the information can’t really be written down. There are too many fiddly bits, too many complications, too many factors that adjust other factors and too many factors that adjust because the other factors have adjusted to the adjustments made by other factors that are always adjusting because why the hell not? You have to feel your way along, you have to read tiny subtle signals and you have to adjust constantly.

What I've mainly noticed about geeks, is that they're not very good at Social Rules because those can't be written down.

Computers aren’t like this. The rules of computers can be written down, and easily understood. The thing is, computers are far less forgiving than social situations. If you screw up with a computer, you kind of have to stop and start again from the beginning. Socially, you rarely really have to do this. You aren’t regularly cast from and entire circle of friends, having to start with completely new people just because you failed to use a slash when you were supposed to use a backslash. You’re not required to find that one damn slash and turn it into a backslash before anything else can move forward.

This is one of the reasons people who are good at Social Rules freak out on computers. They don’t understand why we can’t just forget that one error and move on. If it were a social situation, they’d take a little shit, and then we’d all move on. In the Geek World however, a mistake is a big thing that must be corrected. It must be documented, it must be categorized, it must be fixed before we can move on. This has crippled more than one geek before they even start. They see that they’ve made an error in a social situation and try to apply computer rules to it. They think they can’t fix it, because everyone else has ignored it, and think they’re being shunned. This is a problem because in reality, they fix it by ignoring it.

Geeks make a Social Error and flip out because they think it’s like a Computer Error and worry they won’t be allowed to fix it.

Of course, one problem is that Social Rules are a constantly shifting ice flow of contradictions and hierarchy. People who play that game badly think it’s about pushing those around you down lower so they can be higher. People who play the game well know it’s about raising people so that you can stand on their shoulders and you’ll all go up together. People who play the game abysmally, think it’s about making yourself like the guy you want to raise you up. And then you have the fear that one person will get raised and you’ll be ignored. That was, greatly speaking, the point of my last post.

The game has no formal rules though, because if people could read the specific rules, with each little detail there for them to see, they would start acting differently. Once they were conscious of their behavior, they would strive to change it. Try this as an experiment sometime, make mention of someone’s little verbal tick. Mention that they say “Exactly” a whole hell of a lot. Then watch as they strive to cay “Certainly” or “That’s Right” instead. When a normal person realizes their behavior can be tracked and predicted, they will start doing something else. This is another part of the rules, but one that can be written down because it’s large enough not to be specific. You can have the big unspecific rules written down because they don’t help much anyway.

No part of the Social Rules may be written down, or the rules cease to work. Including this one.

This is why I can’t really be a geek, or part of the Geek World. I can’t be part of the Normal World either though, in case you’re wondering. I understand both sets of rules and play each world with a combination of rules from both sides. I feel my way along in computers and science, and I use the strict written rules as a wedge to get into people’s heads. I understand enough about both worlds to float around and be a strange, quixotic character for either group, mainly by playing opposite strengths around each group while demonstrating an understanding of the rules of the current group.

Mind you I also have paranoia, A.D.D. and social anxiety disorder to work with here. So it’s very possible that my mind is cracked in just the right way that I can both exist and not exist in whatever world. I understand the rules quickly, but have a totally inability to really play by any of those rules. I don’t belong, but I can be here as an observer. I am accepted everywhere I go, but not really a member of any group.

I am, socially speaking, Schrödinger's Cat.

Which proves that maybe it wasn’t such a dumb idea and that things really can exist in two forms at once. But probably not, I suspect Schrödinger was right and the cat would either be alive or dead.

New Cocktails: Sparkfrost

Sparkfrost is a person, and as such, we had to produce it with her in mind. Originally, this drink had absinthe in it, but the anise flavor over took all the other flavors and the drink ended up so strong that it knocked people over just on the way from the bar to the table. One T-Totaller simply looked at a glass that had once contained the drink and became a raging alcoholic as a result. At least, that’s what he claimed in his lawsuit. You can add an equal amount of absinthe to the party if you want an authentic experience. We tend to go with La Fée but most anything good will do.

This is a drink to be served as cold as cold can be, to produce the proper amount of frost. The menu says it’s “A cold, but sparkling drink, it refreshes and surprises the drinker.” which is odd, because we don’t actually have menus in this place, just a black board where the names are written down. This recipe actually makes two drinks, because I only drink it with the real Sparkfrost.

4 measures Irish Whiskey (preferably a blended Bushmills)
4 measures white brandy (preferably Christian Brothers Frost)
1 measure Sour Mix
2 measure tonic water



Place a martini glass and the bottles of booze into in the freezer for a few hours before making this drink. It is important that all parts of the drink be as cold as possible. Remember, that sour mix and water will freeze solid, so keep that in the fridge. Put all into a Shaker with lots of ice. With a bar spoon, stir seven times clockwise and then strain into the frozen martini glasses.

Etiquette of Hiding a Body

Hiding the corpse of a recently killed person can be time consuming and difficult to perform on your own. The best idea is to have a friend to help dispose of the body. Of course, the optimal situation is to have your friend implicated in the killing so that there’s as much interest for them as there is for you. If that can’t be done, a true friend will still help you in this task.

The question then becomes, how to do you properly thank a friend for helping you dispose of the body? It greatly depends on the level of help your friend has given you. If you’ve inadvertently shot someone in the face and you’re just keeping your car in his garage while you clean out the back seat, then you need no more than a six-pack of domestic beer. If you’re friend is helping you throw a body off a bridge in hopes that the river might wash it away, then a few bottles of nice imported stuff is called for.

If your friend has given even more help, such as actually dismembering and burying the body then a few bottles of fine old whisky, scotch or bourbon is called for. These liquors should be of considerable quality and have spent between 15 and 20 years in the cask. If your friend doesn’t care for whisky, then Brandy of V.S.O.P. or X.O. varieties will be acceptable.

If a friend simply shows up, takes the body and makes all problems simply vanish while telling you not to worry, something special is needed. Such a friend, if they ask for no other favors, is the truest friend you could ever have. In these cases, a case of expensive Champagne or Hors d'age Brandy along with a box of fine imported chocolates is required. One should also always remember to keep such a friend on any and all holiday card lists one might keep.



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Interesting Facts: Silver Banksia

The plant that became the Silver Banksia of Southern Australia was first imported by American tobacco merchants in the late 1790s in hopes of destroying Australia’s burgeoning tobacco market. The plan unfortunately worked too well as most of Australia was turned into a desert by the plant’s destructive nature.

Since that time, Australians have always hated America and as a result only smoke cigarettes made from Chinese tobacco. Sadly for them, Chinese tobacco is actually a euphemism for the hardened and dried droppings of rabbits that roam the steppes of Mongolia.




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So I Might Be Responsible for Hipsters

So I Might Be Responsible for Hipsters


About... 15... 20 years ago? Maybe? I read an article about how art works. That’s the point. It was in a magazine, either Maxim or Playboy, it was of that tone. It was how a guy who had been in the New York Art scene noticed how art worked and how poseurs actually had greater success than the actual artists. He described a couple of artists who he thought were doing really great and original things, but they barely sold any work. However other artists, the poseurs according to the writer (he included himself in that category) who used elements these two were using had great success. He complained that there were deeply held reasons why the first artist used blue the way he did, but the copy-cats just knew what would sell and faked it. Either way, their stuff sold and the people who influenced them didn’t. The point of the article was more about how selling paintings in the art world is less about the actual art and more about how well you can bullshit art patrons at a show, but the intro will hold long enough. Incidentally, this happens all over the place. The first time I’d ever heard of Motorhead it was in the context of “These guys influenced every guitar heavy band of the 80s from Metallica to Megadeth to Guns N Roses of all people.” Any art/entertainment world has their version “This person/group were never really mega-stars with the public, but everyone in the biz knew they were awesome and borrowed from them liberally and went on to mega-star success.”

Now, my generation grew up in a post-modern world. Even though we didn’t understand it at the time, we were being raised by a generation who themselves were reading articles in popular magazines like Time and Newsweek that had titles like “What Does It Mean To Be Cool?” and other such nonsense. The Baby-Boomers had sort of lost track of cool, to be perfectly honest, and spent much of the 80s in discussion about what fit in the Monolith of “Cool” where Arthur Fonzarelli is the perfect form of cool. Yeah, just dropped 2001, Happy Days and Plato all in one sentence. Where’s your god now? The problem of course was the belief that cool as a rule was a single ideal that could be achieved if only you understood all the graces. Except Fonzie was more of a yūrei than a human, if yūrei is indeed the word I want. Jeeves would know.

There is a great Calvin and Hobbes comic that exemplifies this idea.


So having said all that, let me tell you a story about a kid named Tim. Tim might not have been his name, but it was so long ago that I can’t honestly yank his name from the files and I’m going to give him one instead. Now Tim was a freshman when I was a senior and his growth spurt was still three years off. As such Tim might have been all of four foot eleven. I remember him being shorter than me by a considerable distance and I’m not that tall now. Tim developed what can only be called a “Man Crush” on yours truly. A part of this was probably that I actually knew the kind of music he liked (kid was a huge fan of classical) and didn’t give him shit for not knowing who Nirvana was. Side note: When that band came out, I was the only person in my class that knew it was a state of mental awareness and not just some dirty guys from Seattle thrashing away at instruments in post-punk-rock-beat-combo rage.

Now, a note about me in high school. I stopped wearing jeans as soon as I started picking out my own clothes. I never found them comfortable, I never liked them. So I wore sweatpants or dockers. I wore t-shirts and flannel shirts because of comfort, to this day a cable knit sweater at Christmas receives a hearty “Have you actually met me?” And over that was a grey trench coat and a fedora to top it off. Not a trilby! A fedora is a felt hat that looks sexy as fuck. A trilby is a douche flag worn on the top of a douche to give instant identification of docheiness. As you might have noticed over the years, I ran out of fucks three days before my fifteenth birthday. I had quietly used up a life time supply, and from then on it was me and Honey Badger for life. I didn’t choose the honey badger, honey badger chose me. Although, the honey badger is not my spirit animal. My spirit animal is a two slice toaster, which is fitting when you think about it.

I didn’t listen to popular music, I listened to old Jazz, new Jazz, Prince, Mannheim Steamroller, Blues Traveler, Narada and Windham Hill collections, classical music, Irish folk music and so on. I threw some popular stuff in there, but it would get lost in so much else that no one could say with any regularity what was going to come up next. By the time I was a senior, everyone knew that trying to start shit with me was a one way ticket to Scaryville. Since I never beat a person, but rather grabbed their pressure points and explained to them in a soft, calm voice that despite what they thought, it didn’t actually hurt yet, but I could make it hurt. The last time someone had decided to snatch my hat as a gag, they were unprepared for how fast I turned, grabbed them by the throat and smashed their head down into the lunch table. This happened in the cafeteria in front of about four hundred thousand witnesses. When I didn’t beat the hell out of the guy, but simply explained “You don’t ever touch my hat, understand?” and wouldn’t let him up until he agreed that he understood and was very sorry and could he please run away forever now... that story was blown all out of proportion if you’ve heard it from another source. I didn’t even hit the guy, much less kill him. Point is though, no one fucked with the hat after that.

Except girls, who all wanted to be allowed to wear it, which I still don’t understand. It didn’t fit them and I could only tell they were winking because their cheek twitched, since the brim covered their eye, what did they want? Seriously? What was that all about?

So here is what Tim saw “That guy, THAT GUY! He walks around wearing a hat from before the dawn of cool. Mutha’ fucka’ is like proto-cool. He’s so cool that cool would have to chill out before it was as cool as him. And he doesn’t give people shit about not liking popular stuff, he even knows about classical and prefers Satie's Gymnopédies to Pachelbel’s Canon which I didn’t even know was allowed and maybe it isn’t, but dude ran out of fucks to give in 1982! I mean... just... holy shit dude!”

Now Tim missed a lot, having only seen the end result. He didn’t see the questioning, the bullying, the struggling, the second guessing, the fact that I had like, five friends total, or the fact that I was kind of sticking with the hat and coat at that point out of sheer bloody-mindedness. At least, I think I was, hard to tell at this stage. I need a new hat, and I very much need a new long coat. This isn’t important. Tim only saw the fact that the coolest dude in the room was a guy who didn’t much care, and did what he wanted to do and nobody could touch him. Hard for a very short 14 year old not to see that as a thing to be looked up to.

So Tim bought a hat and a coat. His was a wider brimmed chocolate brown fedora, and he got a brown London Fog trench coat. I was sporting a black hat and grey coat, so he wasn’t copying me completely, but he was super-proud of getting his shit together like I had. I told him it was cool while internally going “No, this is my look, get your own.” but not saying it because he was super-proud and I was clearly his hero. Heroes can’t just shit on somebody who announces “I’m gonna grow up to be just like you!” because... well you can’t! If I were older, I might have been sitting there having a two-word story “Skinsuit? Skinsuit!”

Now, is Tim a hipster? No, Tim is just a kid who wants to achieve something. He knows the hat is important, and the not giving even a percentage of a fuck, and the coat seems to play a roll. No, I think the third kid in this line, the one who has a man crush on Tim, who only hears “I don’t give a shit, don’t listen to anything mainstream, get a hat.” I think maybe he’s the hipster. He never saw the original cool person (Mike) or the original long haired hippy (Neil) or even the angry punk (Vivian) he only saw the enthusiastic kid who was still trying to figure it all out (Rick) and was wearing a hat not because Dana Andrews and Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant (who I will crush on forever) wore the hat, but because one he knew in school wore it. That third kids saw the hat, found actual fedoras hard to come by (Seriously you have no idea how hard it was to find a fedora in 1990’s Michigan) and just bought a trilby because you could still get those at Sears. He didn’t know that the not listening to mainstream was less because I got off on other things, and thought it was because there was something inherently wrong with mainstream. Which is wrong, there are good songs and bad songs, and while I rejected some popular music I listened to stuff that was on the charts as well.

The fourth kid in this line? That kid is TOTALLY a hipster, and probably a real douche-canoe too. His connection to this idea of cool is totally lost, he doesn’t even know that the guy who wore a fedora and sweatpants ever existed, but the hat and the coat remain as a sort of racial memory. With no understanding at all about the original cool, and with elements having dropped off over time, he thinks not caring is the key. So he has to make sure you understand how much he doesn’t care, and how very much he doesn’t listen to mainstream music. He’s going to tell you these things, because in reality he does care and he does listen to Mylie Cyrus, but thinks that’s not cool. He’s lost the fact that the original cool person thought I Love Your Smile was actually a great little song.

And that’s what happened, a person does a thing, a second person decides the first person is a Cool Person® and copies that person. Perhaps a little ersatz, but an acceptable step in self-production. A third person admires the second person, and makes a copy. Now we have a copy of a copy. What made the first person so super-cool that he was constantly covered in liquefied oxygen (the sense of confidence needed to wear sweatpants with a fedora) has been lost in translation. The copies are more and more inferior, and the idea of cool has actually been splintered in a rather glorious way.

The Internet has ensured that there will never be a Monolithic Fonzie Model of Cool ever again. Cool has become like beauty, in the eye of the beholder, but we all know what the identifiers are. If we sat down and did some sciencey shit, we could probably say that this, this and this are part of the cool formula. Problem is, I was part of the, drugs, sex and self-harming Art Team. I couldn’t be doing with the writing shit down and taking measurements Science Side. Now it’s all down to what you like, what you think is cool, and who has the confidence to pull off whatever it is their doing. Probably some sort of honesty is in there too, but my brain is starting to hurt and I need some drugs or sex or something.

I never thought of myself as cool, until it was pointed out to me through the fact of someone wanting to look like me so much he went out and bought parts of his wardrobe to mimic parts of mine. It was around that time that I started to think, “Heeeey”

As a result, I’ve begun to think that me, and people like me, might be responsible for Hipsters. I’m not sorry, but I will admit I could have been a better steward of The Cool.

A few tales...

Remind me sometime, to tell you about the time I stole fire from the gods and blamed some guy for it. I wonder whatever happened to him. Eh, doesn't matter.

Speaking of guys that I forget what happened to them. I was once asked to be the savior of mankind, but I didn’t like the hours. Ended up getting some other guy to do it. Don’t know what happened to him either.

I might also tell you about the about the summer I spent in a convent, pretending to be a nun for tax reasons.

Strict Bastard

What Nietzsche always failed to tell anyone, was that being the ubermensch is actually super hard work. It's actually much easier to have simple concepts like good and evil, to have back in your head to tell you what is "right" and what is "wrong". It's not better, but it is way easier than coming up with your own standard of morals to live by.

Much easier to let someone else decide and then live by what they said. Particularly if you intend to live as a person who is good and decent to others and not just a selfish jerk. When you are making up your own system if values, the only person you have to justify yourself to is your future self, but knowing how I am with my former self, he's likely to be a strict bastard.

Interesting Facts: Pac-Man

Despite what some might think, Pac-Man does have an end game cinematic. All one must do is clear the 257th maze. Upon winning one will find a surprisingly detailed cinematic, explaining Pac-Man’s back-story, and chronicling his attempt to re-enter society after bingeing on so many power pellets. The fact that only four people in history have actually seen this cinematic has not dissuaded the makers of the game to put it into every version of the game that has ever been produced.

With the cut scenes in place, the story becomes a symbolic retelling of Satan tempting Christ. Inky is Satan, Blinky is Beelzebub, Pinky is Leviathan and Clyde is (as always) Clyde. The power pellets are actually communion wafers, and they reflect the real life aspect that anyone who eats one can then devour a ghost, but that power only lasts for 30 seconds.



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New Cocktails: Premature Ejaculation

An adaptation of one of the two Screaming Orgasm recipes I found. I think the name explains what you're going to get here. A drink for women who need to think about the guy they’re considering going to bed with.


1 measure Vodka
1 ½ measures Irish Cream
½ measure Coffee Liqueur
1 measure Amaretto
½ measure milk
½ measure cream
6 measures tonic water.

Blend all but the soda with ice. Strain into disappointingly small glass and add soda to fill the glass completely. Watch as the drink foams over and spills onto the bar before you get to enjoy any of it. Contemplate the truth within this drink, consider your partner and try to choose better next time.

Light Bulb

Thomas Edison did not actually invent the light bulb. What Edison actually discovered was a new method for stealing inventions from college students. Sadly he got away with it as the youth of America had no way to fight back, being deprived the advantage of inventive revenge. Wacky schemes and the all important rock montage would not be developed until the late 70s and would not become widespread until the Teen Movie explosion of 1981.

While light bulbs are plugged into electrical outlets, they actually run on fairy magic. The fairies make the filament glow while sucking electricity through a straw. The Electricity is just a front from the powerful “Keep Magic Secret” lobby.

The light bulb is probably a Chinese Invention, everything else seems to be.