I can understand how a 50 year-old Cognac or a 50 year old whiskey is expensive, after being aged all those years in a charred oak barrel, but now we see aged salad dressing!
It seems like anything that you age for 50 years gets pricey, even if it’s only balsamic vinegar.
I saw this in a store window in Europe, and this has got to be the most expensive salad dressing in the world, about $250 for a pint of 50 year-old balsamic vinegar!
For the less stupid, you can get the 30 year-old salad dressing for only about $80, and seeing these prices makes me wish I had started aging stuff when I was younger.
What’s old is new again, and the Roaring 20’s “Gatsby” look is back!
Every generation has teenagers who try to be shocking to their parents, and the roaring 20’s was no exception, with their shocking funky hats, spats and greasy hair helmets.
My Dad was a teenager in the 1920’s, and he once showed me how to use Pomade (Bear grease), wax paper and an “iron”, to melt this sticky crap into your hair, creating a super-shiny hair helmet that outraged the parents of the day.
The 1920' look is coming back into fashion!
I like the new Gatsby hats (sometimes called ”newsboy” hats).
I just got a really nice Gatsby hat from Stetson, the Rolls Royce of hats sold by haberdashers. It cost me a C note, but it’s real 1920’s stylin:
Are spats next?
Janet and were in Monaco recently and I noticed an odd fellow in a Monte Carol casino who was wearing spats!
Janet in front of the Monte Carlo Casino
Even the movie stars are wearing spats now, it looks like 1920’s fashion is coming back into style!
Spats are not just for French people and homos anymore
You don’t see people wearing spats much anymore, except in military color guards.
Maybe it’s time to bring back the timeless elegance of spats.
Nothing says more about your personality than your choice of shoes, and I’ve noticed that the “Gatsby hats” are back in style, so why not spats?
On summer nights in NC It’s always fun to send the young’ins out into the woods at night with only a burlap bag, a flashlight and a sharpened broomstick.
When you shine the flashlight on ole Mr. frog, he will freeze-up, and you can stab him til he croaks.
In just a few hours your kiddies have a bagful of tasty treats, fresh frog legs that still move for hours after being killed!
Cooking croak monsieur
Frogs legs are great fun to watch because they dance in the frying pan when you cook them, but if you want some real fun, just drizzle some salt water over the frog legs before serving and watch them twitch on your dinner plate!
Making little kids eat frogs is hard, and anything that you can do to make it fun is appreciated, especially when they can see their frogs legs move on the dinner plate! It’s like eating the frog alive!
Kids just love this trick, try it and listen to them squeal with glee:
Every country boy learns how to dress a rabbit. Dad takes them hunting and they learn to kill them, peel the skin from their bodies and spill out their steaming guts, great fun for the whole family.
It's sad that the skill of dressing a rabbit has been lost on today’s youngsters, and the problem is with our tree-hugger society.
If you took your 7 year old child hunting and forced him to kill Thumper, the PETA hippies would be outraged. And if you made junior gut him and peel the skin off of his fuzzy face, you would probably go to jail for child abuse. It’s kinda sad.
I was at a market recently where you could buy rabbits live, dressed, or ready to eat, your choice:
Folks still eat these things
My parents knew how to milk a cow, how to pluck a chicken and how to dress a rabbit, but after thousands of years, mine is the first generation to lose these essential survival skills.
The interweb is weird; you get bizarre images like these when searching for how to dress a rabbit:
Some people are too weird, dressing their rabbits:
Designer dresses for rabbits? That’s sick:
And this perv below, dressing his rabbit replete with a gay hat. If you look closely, his hands appear like he is also molesting the poor rabbit:
But this is what a real dressed rabbit looks like:
I also saw some dressed goats at the market:
Dressing a rabbit is easier than it looks, it’s really easy to get the fur off with a few hard tugs and after you slit the throat and open-up the belly, the innards slide right out!
I was in Funchal recently and I saw a poster with this picture on a poster proclaiming how Francisco Albuquerque has won many awards for his fortified wines.
Albuquerque is named “fortified wine maker of the year”
Albuquerque is quite proud of his fortified wines, and they are quite different from American fortified wines:
American fortified wines are not for the gourmet
American fortified wines have classy names like night train, T-bird and wild Irish rose.
They are classified as “bum” wines, maybe because they taste like ass?
Bum wines: taste like ass
Albuquerque wines are made from local grapes, and there are vineyards everywhere:
Madeira vineyards
They were giving away free samples, and since American fortified wines cost less than gasoline, we did not have high expectations.
We are not “winers” (oenophiles), but we know what we like, and we did not care for Albuquerque’s wine, and while we don’t agree that Albuquerque sucks, the Albuquerque wine was sweet and left a mighty nasty aftertaste:
We work with computers, so if we had to choose a fortified wine, I would go with one that has a high-tech name, like this one:
USAF pilots can now fly aircraft remotely and kill our enemies from the safety and comfort of bases in America, and we are now seeing remote surgery technology that promises the ability to perate on soldiers in combat while the surgeon is continents away from any danger!
East Carolina Cardiologist Randy Chitwood recently gave a presentation demonstrating an amazing new surgical technique, a remote surgery device.
ECU's Cardiologist, Randy Chitwood
The amazing new surgical device can be positioned by a layman or military medic, allowing a surgeon thousands of miles away, to perform the delicate and precise surgery, right on the battlefield.
Medical Surgery robot
The implications for the military are obvious, as Army medics could be used to attach a field devices allowing surgeons to save lives without even coming into harm’s way.
It's great to see the the scientists at ECU are working to help our men in uniform . . .
With all of the deep sea exploration, we are getting amazing photos of these deep sea creatures who live far below the surface of the seas, in the perpetual darkness and crushing depths of Davy Jones locker:
Edible fish of the deep ocean
Now, after seeing these amazing pictures like these you are probably thinking:
“What do these deep ocean fish taste like?”
Well, I went on a search to find out. There are two place that do deep ocean dishing, off the coast of Japan and off this islands of Madeira.
Madera is a lovely island in the mid Atlantic where the ancient volcanoes soar a mile above sea level, and conversely, plunge to depths of almost two miles deep.
On the island of Madeira they have learned how to fish for this deep sea delicacy, a fish that dwells more than a mile below the sea.
They are called “scabbard fish” (or Espada in Portuguese), and they are super ugly, sword-shaped with giant eyes and teeth:
Fishing a mile below the water is not a trivial matter. As a scuba diver, I know that the pressure increase 3x for every 100 feet, and I enjoy the three atmosphere “squeeze” that you get at 100 feet below the ocean (it makes you feel great afterwards!).
I don’t feel fat when I'm underwater!
But humans cannot survive the 150x atmosphere squeeze, a crushing squeeze that the scabbard fish take for granted.
At a mile depth, it takes a half hour to reel-up the fishing lines. Like a spaceman loosing pressure from rapid decompression in space, as scabbard fish are reeled up into the sunlit world, the Espada literally explodes from the pressure reduction. Their bold boils, their muscles rupture, making for some mighty tasty meat. The decompression also oxidized their bright silver scales, turning them to a jet black color.
Eating delicacies from the deep ocean
Madeira is a wonderful place, warn and friendly, with remarkable seafood. Their seafood might make some Americans squeamish, since when you eat seafood in Madeira, you get it “on the hoof”, as I learned when I ordered sardines:
Fresh Sardines in Madeira
You can get scabbard fish in many of the local restaurants, and I made sure to get ours sans head, filleted and battered. Below, the serve it Madeira style, with bananas, a major Madeira export:
Scabbardfish served-up Madeira style
Scabbardfish is a flakey white fish, pre-tenderized from the decompression (not firm flesh) and mild in flavor, not unlike halibut. We absolutely adore Madeira, especially when the snow flies at home:
Whether you call it intolerance, loathing or despising, role models need to set an example, especially today when young people have confused tolerance with tacit approval, and they have completely forgotten how to despise and loathe people.
I discovered this when I was discussing the capture of Roman Polanski, the fugitive child rapist who was allowed to escape justice in France for decades.
I was thrilled to hear that we finally re-captured Roman Polanski for his disgusting drugging and rape of a 13 year old child. I’m also disgusted that France would not have a problem sheltering a pedophile rapist.
Numerous studies have shown that child molesters can never be reformed, and I have to wonder how many French kids Polanski raped while fleeing from justice?
I was not surprised to hear on CNN that fellow child diddler Woody Allan has come out to support Polanski.
Pervs of a feather flock together
Why all good Americans despise France
Americans hatred of France is nothing new, it began in the 1960's when France hoarded American Silver Certificates and demanded that President Kennedy exchange them for real silver, an attack that was designed to destroy the American Economy.
In response to this French attack, President Kennedy responded that he would be glad to exchange the notes, as soon as the French cowards re-paid their war debt from WWII!
“The French lost WW II to the Germans in about 20 minutes.
Along with the British, we got into the war and had about 150,000 guys killed getting their country back for them.”
Today, France helps give safe harbor to fugitive American murders, rapists and pedophiles.
France is committing an act of war against America, and we need to respond in-kind.
Nuke 'em till they glow
Since the French like child molesters and killers so much, I propose that we empty our prisons of sex offenders and dump them on the beaches at Normandy, where they will assimilate and improve the bloodlines of the indigenous French guttersnipes.
Why can't American's agree on what is Evil?
Last week, President Obama said in his Nobel Prize speech that “evil does exist in this world”. I’m really glad to see that Obama has recognized the nature of evil, but Obama was quick to say that while al qaeda and the taliban is evil, true Islam is a peaceful religion.
This statement prompted a strong response from the right wingers, and on CNN I saw the Reverend Billy Graham’s son saying that true Islam is a “wicked” religion, citing that Islam cannot be practiced in America since polygamy, beating your wives and conducting honor killings are all criminal offenses.
That's just what America needs right now, a second Crusade . . . .
Some Christians say that true Islam is evil
I don't know whether Islam is evil or not, that's not my point. The point is that today's young people are not recognizng evil when they see it.
I recently had a chat with one of my employees who is attending graduate school, a most enlightening experience, since college kids know everything about everything, and I always come-away learning something new from these highly educated neophytes.
I became alarmed when my young charge informed me that even a 13-year old girl can flaunt her goods and “ask for it”. Never mind that she testified at Polanski’s trial that she was drugged and savagely raped by Polanski.
I have a healthy disrespect for Polanski, but I wondered, how has society taught this young man to be tolerant of child molesters and rapists, and if so, how does this happen?
If we don’t teach our kids to despise perverts, where will they learn it?
I have a theory that parents do not set a strong enough example and children never see their parents openly despise people.
In order for any civilized society to enforce its social mores, it’s not enough just to talk about despising perverts and criminals; we must openly despise them wherever we find them. Of course, it was no surprise that fellow pervert Woody Allen has come-out in support of Roman Polanski.
I’m happy to see that some people still know how to despise perverts:
Let the punishment fit the crime
Personally, I want child molesters locked up for life, and I would like to see Woody Allan and Roman Polanski tossed into the general population of any state prison without any possibility of parole. I’m sure that somebody will give these pedophiles a taste of what it feels like to be raped! Don’t bend over in the shower, Roman!
And I had to wonder, have I become too tolerant of despicable people? Read here why we must teach our children how to despise those who violate social norms.
Janet and I have been vacationing on the island of Madeira, an equatorial island off of the west coast of Africa, a tropical paradise where the mountains thrust thousands of feet into the sky:
I was passing a building and I noticed something unusual, a dog walking on a rooftop!
I whipped out my camera but I almost missed him, but I did get a good view of the south end of a north bound roof dog:
But when I zoomed back on my camera I noticed a strange saying painted on the roof, saying:
Does this have something to do with Barrack Obama?
Now you must admit that Barraca Abana sounds a lot like Barrack Obama, and I wondered if they are related!
I Asked a local and they said that the saying is a “joke” and Barraca Abana has nothing to do with president Barrack Obama. Rather, it means “shaky shack”, something to do with a commentary of today’s tough economic times!
Anyway, it’s sunny and warm, and we love it here, definitely coming back to paint some of these gorgeous landscapes:
