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R was still on the futon when I left this morning -- as if I thought it would be otherwise -- so I left a post-it note on the door that if he does go out could he please make sure that at least the knob was locked, and that he was welcome to make himself some toast or finish the last of the leftover pizza. Hopefully Ratpacker will bring him his keys today, or else I'm sure I will come home to find the milk GONE and PBS on the television. I have no objection to PBS, they are made possible with support from Viewers Like Me, but oh my god some of their talk shows are boring.

Last night R survived about three minutes under the harmonica ban before he fired up Tobacco Road. I can't really blame him -- he likes to play himself to sleep with the harmonica, it's his thing, and when you have habits like that it's hard to remember not to engage. I never minded when we were living together because he had his bedroom and I had mine and the walls were thick. It's just that my flat has no doors, and I can't cope with harmonica at 11:30 at night. So I got up and made him put the harmonicas in the freezer, so he couldn't forget and do it again.

Relatedly, and this is going to make me sound like the biggest headcase ever, R makes better ice than I do. We had an ice machine in the freezer at his place, so it isn't something I found out until I moved somewhere with no icemaker, but it's true. He always uses up at least a tray's worth of ice when he's at my place (man has no conception of putting cold drinks in the fridge) and when he refills it, it's just better ice. It's more uniform. All the cubes have that little tag so you can pry them out of the tray, but none of them are so thick you pry out four at once. Every single time.

I've discovered his one true culinary gift. And it's ice.

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Quote of the day for Vending Machine Jim...

I remember when a coin in a slot would get you a stick of gum or a candy bar, but in these dining palaces were vending machines where various coins could deliver handkerchiefs, comb-and-nail-file sets, hair conditioners and cosmetics, first-aid kits, minor drugs such as aspirin, mild physics, pills to keep you awake. I found myself entranced with these gadgets. Suppose you want a soft drink; you pick your kind -- Sungrape or Cooly Cola -- press a button, insert the coin, and stand back. A paper cup drops into place, the drink pours out and stops a quarter of an inch from the brim -- a cold, refreshing drink guaranteed synthetic. Coffee is even more interesting, for when the hot black fluid has ceased, a squirt of milk comes down and an envelope of sugar drops beside the cup. But of all, the hot-soup machine is the triumph. Choose among ten -- pea, chicken noodle, beef and veg., and insert the coin. A rumbling hum comes from the giant and a sign lights up that reads "Heating." After a minute a red light flashes on and off until you open a little door and remove the paper cup of boiling-hot soup.

It is life at a peak of some kind of civilization.

-- Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck, 1962

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So I'm working on a review post about Travels With Charley (big shock) and one of the bits I marked in the book is his talk about how everything is Cheese in Wisconsin, down to the Swiss Cheese Candy. And I thought, I have to know how that is made.

Apparently it is a recipe lost to the ages, because when I googled I came across grocery lists ("Swiss cheese, candy corn, apples") and ebook copies of Travels With Charley and a sports blog ("now I have to deal with another 50-80 slap shot letting swiss cheese candy ass goalie") but no recipes for Swiss Cheese Candy*. Is it made with Swiss Cheese? Does it look like Swiss Cheese? What's the deal, John Steinbeck? I could probably invent one -- I've seen recipes for chocolate-covered cheese -- but I have to at least understand the concept first if I'm going to do this in the true spirit of Wisconsin.

* If you have a recipe, send it on. I will test-kitchen the hell out of that shit.

On the other hand, I discovered Delicious Corpse. It's a meme of a sort -- you tell it to generate a menu and it creates a multi-course randomised meal, including foods like:

polish quail cream
wasabi fondant
raisin-braised canadian bacon
salt-roasted King Crab rangoon salad
potato-poached mint and short ribs biscuits
romaine lettuce and champagne pie

I definitely want to invent a dish called champagne pie. The potato-poached mint and short ribs biscuits sound pretty delicious too.

But not until I conquer Swiss Cheese Candy. This is going on my culinary goal sheet, right under "fry a turkey".

Pints and Aliens

I swear to God, Gwen made me hang these posters all over Cardiff this morning.



Wait. I can explain.

A few years ago, a group of Zezz touched down in Cardiff and declared their intentions of invading Earth. Standard Saturday-afternoon fare, really. Jack was all for some serious face-shooting, but I wasn't around yet to cast my shoot-them-in-the-face vote and Suzie beat him to the punch by suggesting that instead of invading and getting eradicated, like you do, why not come down to her local and have a round on Torchwood?

She might have been crazy -- actually she definitely was crazy -- but the Zezz decided yeah, they'd rather have a pint than go to all the trouble of subjugating humanity.

The Zezz are about our size, humanoid, and green. Gambling that one sees stranger things than a crowd of green people in a Cardiff pub on a Saturday night, she took them out and showed them a good time. A really good time. Good enough that they come around every year, about this time, and insist on Torchwood taking them out for drinks in exchange for not invading.

It's become a bit of a local event. I think the rest of Cardiff thinks it's some kind of flash mob situation. Every year for one night only a random pub is invaded by green men(?) who don't speak any English. They're always gentlebeings and pay their tab promptly, then disappear. A sexy period-costume enthusiast is known to tag along occasionally.

It's a nice night out and it's pleasant to save the world by drinking a lot instead of almost dying, but apparently Gwen and Rhys used to look for the Green Guys every year and now that she knows when they're coming (we just picked them up passing into the solar system) she insists on publicising the event. Apparently this year we're invading Salt Bar. They do a very nice paella.

That piece of smiling sushi is not a literal interpretation of the Zezz. She does love her clip art, does Gwen.

She also wants to dye Max green. I told her she would have to shoot me first.

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Phoow, I am tired. Nothing particularly tiring happened at work today, other than the tiresomeness of New Guy, but wow. *falls down*

In other news: I never pass up a chance to link to waywardradish, who in addition to being a fantastic artist runs one of the leading online journals against Attachment Therapy (aka Rage Reduction, aka institutionalised child abuse). She's currently being e-harassed by Ronald Federici, one of the leading proponents of Doing Dangerous Things To Children (you can read my sporkage of his bizarre and froth-laden letter in comments).

But! She took time out of being an insane queer atheist scientologist, or something, to do a gorgeous illo of the Fire Man ritual from Nameless and pimp the book a bit. Thank you, Pieflinger! :)