The beaver is a proud and noble animal

Lindsay, 22, has a certain confidence in her step now — compliments of what's in her shirt. “I've just always wanted them. I think breast implants are super sexy.” How much did her new breasts cost her? Not a single dime. Total strangers footed the bill for her new breasts. She explains, “Currently on our web site there is 20,297 guys willing to donate to boob jobs. I think that's incredible. I love the Internet.”

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• You’re like an exothermic reaction, you spread your hotness everywhere!
• I wish I was your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves.
• You’re like a dictionary, you add meaning to my life!
• If I was an enzyme, I’d be helicase so I could unzip your genes.
• I’m attracted to you so strongly, scientists will have to develop a fifth fundamental force.
• Be my queen and mate me with your knight moves.
• You make my floppy disk turn into a hard drive
• Do you think we can make it a step more serious and disable network sharing?
• I don’t have a library card, but do you mind if I check you out?
• I’ll treat you like my homework — I’ll slam you on the table and do you all night long
• I wish I were your second derivative so I could fill your concavities.
• Did you just combust?? Because you’re HOT!
• What do you say we go back to my room and do some math: Add a bed, subtract our clothes, divide your legs, and multiply
• Every time I see you, my cardiovascular system gets all worked up
• I wish I were adenine because then I could get paired with U.
• What’s your sine? It must be pi/2 because you’re the 1
• If my right leg was Christmas and my left was Easter, would you like to spend some time between the holidays?
• Want to meet up so I can excite your natural frequency?
• You know.. it’s not the length of the vector that counts… it’s how you apply the force
• If I move my lips half the distance to yours… and then half again… and again… etc…. would they ever meet? no? Well in this specific case I am going to disprove your assumption.
• If I was an endoplasmic reticulum, how would you want me: smooth or rough?
• Our love is like dividing by zero…. you cannot define it
• Let me be your integral so I can be the area under your curves
• Let’s discover our coefficient of friction
• You’re so gneiss I’ll never take you for granite.
• I less than three you….. (i < 3 you)

The Japanese Kodo drummers are touring Europe next year. Unfortunately, they're only doing one show in London.

On a Tuesday.

This sucks.

Benford's Law: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available. (Gregory Benford)

Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. (Arthur C Clarke)

Dilbert Principle: The most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management. (Scott Adams)

Ellison's Law: The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. (Harlan Ellison)

Fisher's Fundamental Theorem: The more highly adapted an organism becomes, the less adaptable it is to any new change. (R A Fisher)

Godwin's Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. (Mike Godwin)

Hanlon's Law: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. (?Robert Heinlein)

Heisenbug Uncertainty Principle: Most production software bugs are soft: they go away when you look at them. (Jim Gray)

Lister's Law: People under time pressure don't think faster. (Timothy Lister)

Murphy's Law: If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it. (Edward A Murphy)

Occam's Razor: The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct. (William of Occam)

Parkinson's Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. (C Northcote Parkinson)

Pesticide Paradox: Every method you use to prevent or find bugs leaves a residue of subtler bugs against which those methods are ineffectual. (Bruce Beizer)

Spector's Law: The time it takes your favorite application to complete a given task doubles with each new revision. (Lincoln Spector)

Congratulations Eric, you win. I'm tired of arguing with you. It's very hard to try and have a rational conversation with somebody who keeps going “LA LA LA LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!!” all the time. Your method of arguing by repeating the same moronic arguments over and over again justifies your existence yet one more time.

I'm fed up of dealing with your autism. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. If I continue to argue with you, it makes you feel important and gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside while you crusade to prove me wrong. If I stop arguing with you, it makes you think you're right and justifies the whole waste of time and energy. At this point, I declare you the winner, if only because I have more important things to do than to deal with you and your shit.

You know the impostor moggie that was wandering around the house on Saturday? He came back in last night while we were watching TV. Tolstoy happened to be downstairs when it happened. He was not amused, but only growled and rumbled his displeasure. We had to politely escort the offender outside ourselves.

The Laws of the Pie

An authentic steak and ale pie must have a shortcrust pastry lid and come in an oven-proof porcelain or ceramic dish. To truly impress, it must contain the largest amount of actual meat ever seen in a pie. It must always be piping hot when received and stay that way, thanks to the heat-conservation properties of the dish. A truly authentic pie must also arrive accompanied by a selection of potatoes and seasonal vegetables to give balance to the whole meal.

Pie Facts

There are several factors that influence the outcome of an outstanding steak and ale pie:

• The Dish – You need one that holds heat well, so use a shallow ceramic crockpot or traditional pie dish.
• The Meat – You need a good cut of beef, well-trimmed and suitable for long, slow cooking. A quality stewing or braising beef works best.
• The Ale – For the sake of authenticity, this must be a traditional ale, even a stout will work, but if it is too bitter, you will need to tone it down with a dash of sugar. Some have been known to use cider or porter, and these are acceptable as variations on a theme. The ale provides a marinade base, into which you need to place your prepared, trimmed and cubed beef for at least two hours prior to cooking.
• The Pastry – A truly traditional pie will be lovingly topped with a homemade shortcrust pastry. However, there are not many who will go down the route of preparing the pastry from scratch for a single pie. Enter the supermarket knight on its trusty steed carrying the ready-made packet of pastry. Buy it. Making it is a pain.

Seasoning

Salt and ground black pepper are the king and queen of seasoning and nutmeg is the prince. You massage the nutmeg and pepper into the meat before cooking and can add them to the marinade as well. However, keep the salt well away until the meat is cooked! Salt will pull the moisture out of the meat, making it tougher.

This dish needs a little more than just salt and pepper though; it needs a kick. You may think chilli would do it but you would be wrong. Think British, think authentic. That leaves you a choice of two items: mustard or horseradish. You pick, but don't overdo it this is comfort food after all.

Making the Pie

Ingredients:

a ceramic or porcelain dish a packet of ready-made shortcrust pastry 1kg lean braising or stewing steak, trimmed and cubed 2 large white onion, peeled then chopped finely 250g white mushrooms, cut in large chunks 250g frozen peas 1 tbsp plain flour 500ml local ale salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste 1 tsp thyme 2 bay leaves a dash of English mustard or grated horseradish 1 tspn vegetable oil for frying an egg I used Strong Suffolk Vintage Ale, make by Greene King. It has a very dark colour and almost-burnt caramel-y taste without being overpowering. I strongly recommend it.

Method

1. Place the beef in a non-metallic dish, having rubbed the meat with nutmeg and pepper, then cover with the ale of your choice and set aside for a couple of hours. You could do this the night before and place the dish, covered, in the bottom of your fridge.

2. When you are ready to begin the cooking process, bring out your dish of marinaded beef and set it aside. Place a pan on medium heat, drizzle some oil into it, chop the onion finely and drop it in to sautée gently. When the onion is a pale golden brown, take out your beef, piece by piece, dust with flour and drop into the pan to brown gently. Whisk the rest of the flour, the salt, the thyme and mustard or horseradish into the marinade mixture left in the dish. Once you have browned the beef sufficiently, slowly add the marinade mixture, the bay leaves and the mushrooms then leave to simmer and reduce.

3. While waiting for the liquid to reduce, roll out your pastry on a floured board. The stew needs to be moist but not wet when cooked, bearing in mind that some evaporation will take place in the oven. When it is ready, add the frozen peas and mix well. Ladle the stew into your dish (remove the bay leaves) and drape the pastry over it. Using a knife, trim the edges and make a hole in the top. Fold in the edges of the hole and use your knife to press into the pastry around all the edges and make a scalloped pattern – for a really professional look, you may decide to cut out little patterns and add them around the edges of the hole. Brush the top of the pastry with a little whisked egg yolk to glaze.

4. Place in a pre-heated medium oven at about 200for about 30 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and crisp. You should expect some variation in cooking from different ovens. Some hold moisture in, some allow it out, some distribute the heat with a fan, others insist on charring the top or bottom of your creation. The time and temperature offered here are in the way of a generalised pointer. If you are uncertain how your oven will perform, keep your eye on proceedings and use the colour of the pastry as a guide. Golden brown and crisp is your aim.

 
 

Sweeping the Clouds Away
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

Sunny days! The earliest episodes of Sesame Street are available on digital video! Break out some Keebler products, fire up the DVD player and prepare for the exquisite pleasure-pain of top-shelf nostalgia.

Just dont bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, Sesame Street: Old School is adults-only: These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of todays preschool child.

Say What?

Katy and I had a very productive weekend. We'd both taken Friday off to go into town and finish up the last of our xmas shopping. People look at us like we're insane when we mention that all our shopping is done. It's not our fault – we were forced into it. And think, Katy's folks' shopping is not only done and completed, but also already all gift-wrapped. Scary!

I'd managed to book myself an appointment at my optometrist on Friday afternoon. The good news is that my eyesight is stable and as good as they can make it and my eyes are in good shape. The bad news is that my eyesight is just about borderline to drive. As in, it would probably come down to the DVLA eye exam to determine if I can drive or not. Not the news I wanted to hear, really. I'd hoped they could have tweaked my prescription just enough to allow me to drive, but that's not possible. Meh. I'll see if I start taking driving lessons anyway in the new year and hope for the best. Coming back home was a nightmare. We were stuck in rush hour Cambs traffic for well over an hour (for a journey that normally takes about 20 minutes) and then we finally made it home in time for Donna and Will to come over for dinner.

On Saturday, we went to Saffron Walden to go have a look at the new Adnams Wine Cellar that opened there. It's not as big as the main one in Southwold, but it was still interesting enough to pick up a few bottles of wine. We also stopped by the butchers there and couldn't resist walking away with 4 kilos of prime Scottish beef. Half of that is in braising steak form and the other half of that is cubed (and already marinating to be turned into a steak and strong Suffolk Ale pie tonight – watch this space!)

I took some pictures of the pussy cat.

   
 

He's such a grumpy animal, it's not even funny. This morning, even, he bit me while I was trying to get some stinging nettles and other flora seed pods out of his fur. He's also a crap guard cat. When we came back from grocery shopping on Saturday, I opened the front door and heard a cat bell jingling about upstairs. Nothing unusual about that. Except that the cat that was jingling about wasn't ours, but some unknown black & white spotted cat that we've seen before in the village. He'd simply wandered in using the cat flap and was having a mosey around the house. He seemed a bit shocked to see us because he bolted out the front door as soon as he saw me :)

We had to go into Cambs against our better judgement to go meet a friend of Katy's who was in town for a College dinner. Even taking the Park & Ride, it was insane. It was so crowded as to be unpleasant. It'll only get worse for the silly season. In that sense, I'm glad we don't need to go into town again for shopping. Our trip into town threw a bit of a spanner in our dinner plans and we ended up eating at 8pm. Not good. We'd planned to make nachos and pizza again but – gasp! – I'd done something silly and bought flavoured tortilla chips instead of the plain ones we needed. That wouldn't have been so bad if the flavoured ones didn't have garlic in them. Our food crisis was thankfully solved by a quick trip to the Sawston Budgeon's (we called to make sure they had some. They had, yay!). Homemade nachos? They rock.

Sunday was a slob day. We decided to take a break from the gym and spent as much of the day dressed down as we could. We decorated the house with xmas lights and put up our “tree”:

   
 

I'm also inordinately proud of the fact that I finally fixed the damn lock on the front door. The thing was getting so loose that the whole cylinder was wobbling when we were trying to lock or unlock the door. I had to take the backplate off and tighten all the screws holding everything in place but, thanks to that and a bit of WD40, it feels like a new lock. This makes me happy. It'd been getting on my nerves for weeks now.

We did the usual weekend stuff (dishes, laundry, tidying up, etc) and we also did something that I hope will become a staple of our weekends: we played a round of cribbage :) I've been teaching Katy and her parents how to play. Katy's a natural. I keep (jokingly) commenting that she's picking up the game too quickly for my liking.

You remember a few days ago when I said that I had a few dozen comics lying around my laptop HD waiting to be put online?

Turns out I had 180.

180 new comics are now online, WOO!

Go forth and procrastinate: http://www.flubu.com/comics