Poor Kids

Back in April a couple from New Zealand was told that they could not name their child "4Real", and were quite upset about it. They opted instead to put "Superman" on his birth certificate and continue to call him 4Real around the house. When asked why they named him 4Real to begin with, "Mr Wheaton said he came up with the unlikely moniker after seeing the baby for the first time in an ultrasound scan and realising their baby was 'for real'."

Yeah, some people should not breed.

In July, New Zealand was in the news again for weird baby names. A nine year old girl named, no kidding, "Talulah Does The Hula From Hawaii" was scared of being teased by her classmates and asked to be called "K" instead. She had her name legally changed, but the Judge, Rob Murfitt, attacked the trend of weird names and was able to cite several examples of both allowed and banned names.

The banned names included Fat Boy, Fish and Chips (twins), and Sex Fruit. The allowed names were not much better and included Violence, Number 16 Bus Shelter, and a set of twins named Benson and Hedges.
As I stated when this article first came out, the only reason I can imagine for a child being named Number 16 Bus Shelter would be if they were conceived there. And if that's the case? Ewwwwwwww....

Also? Twins named Fish and Chips are way less trashy then a set named Benson and Hedges. Just sayin'.

Anywhoooo, this week Americans decided to get in on the weird baby name trend. Though in the case of this New Jersey couple the names were more offensive than strange. The Campbell family of New Jersey was very upset when a local establishment refused to write their son's name on a birthday cake. Their son's name is Adolf Hitler Campbell.

I'll let that soak in for a minute.

They said that they named their son that because it was original and they liked the name. It has nothing to do with the fact that they are insane racists! Of course not! If they were insane racists would they have named their second child JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell? I think not! (No, seriously, they really named their daughter that.) Would they give their third child a middle name that sounds suspiciously like Himmler? Of course not!

I'm really hoping this whole thing turns out to be a hoax.

Can we start manditory IQ testing for breeding rights? Because this is getting ridiculous.

Thanks to Geekologie for all the tips! ♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves

"Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it."

I was looking in my spam folder on gmail the other day when I noticed a link at the top of the page, one of those ads that are supposed to have something to do with what you're reading, and it said "French Fry Spam Casserole."

Excuse me?

I clicked on the link and was greeted with one of the most disgusting recipes I have ever encountered. Behold:

Title: FRENCH FRY SPAM CASSEROLE
Categories: Main dish
Yield: 8 servings

1 pk Frozen french fry potatoes,
-thawed (20 oz)
2 c Shredded Cheddar cheese
2 c Sour cream
1 cn Condensed cream of chicken
-soup (10 3/4 oz)
1 cn SPAM Luncheon Meat, cubed
-(12 oz)
1/2 c Chopped red bell pepper
1/2 c Chopped green onion
1/2 c Finely crushed corn flakes

Heat oven to 350'F. In large bowl, combine potatoes, cheese, sour
cream, and soup. Stir in SPAM, bell pepper, and green onion. Spoon
into 13x9″ baking dish. Sprinkle with crushed flakes. Bake 30-40
minutes or until thoroughly heated.

Holy shit.  What do you do if someone serves you this?  And do you think there is a
set of rules somewhere that says you must live in a home with wheels in order to cook this?

The Recipe Source has some other gems as well: 

1. Cantonese Sweet And Sour Spam

2. Dipped Spam Swiss Sandwiches

3. Classic Spam Potato Salad

4. Vegetable Spam Stuffed Acorn Squash

5. Deviled Green Eggs And Spam

6. Spam Breakfast Bagels

7. Hearty Spam Breakfast Skillet

8. Spam And Egg Brunch

9. Elegant Potato Spam Casserole

10. Double Cheese Spam Bake

11. Spam-Mac Casserole

12. French Fry Spam Casserole

13. Spam Cheesy Broccoli Bake

14. Speedy Spam Quiche

15. Quick Spam Quiche

16. Speedy Spam Quiche

17. Cricket's Spam Quiche

18. Spam Strudels With Mustard Sauce

19. Spam Vegetable Strudel

20. French Fry Spam Casserole

21. Savory Spam Crescents

22. Spam Swiss Pie

23. Spam Vegetable Soup With Cheese-Topped Croutons

24. Spam Meal In A Bundle

25. Creamy Spam Broccoli Casserole

26. Spam Hot And Spicy Stir-Fry

27. Spam Hot Vegetable Salad Sandwiches

28. Spam Veggie Pita Pockets

29. Vineyard Spam Salad

30. Spam Ala Gary

31. Spam Stew With Buttermilk Topping

32. Spam Breakfast Burritos

33. Spam Confetti Pasta

34. Spam Primavera

35. Spam Broccoli Pecan Salad

36. Spicy Spam Kabobs

37. Healthy Spam Peppers

38. Coconut Beer Batter Spam with Raspberry Horse

39. Spam Denver Biscuit Souffle

40. Spam Fajitas

41. Spam Hashbrown Bake

42. Spam Vegetable Casserole

43. Spam Ala Gary

44. Spam Primavera

45. Spam Hashbrown Bake

46. Delicious and 'Good For You' SPAM Salad

47. Spam-Bolaya

48. Easy Spam Triangles

49. Gingered Spam Salad

50. Spam A La King

51. Spam-Mac Casserole

52. Spam Salad Cones

53. Spam Skillet Casserole

54. Spam Stuffed Potatoes Florentine

55. Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches

56. Spam Western Pasta

57. Spam Fettuccini Primavera

58. Spam Hawaiian Pizza

59. White Spam And Garlic Pizza

60. Hawaiian Spam Pizza

61. Spam Reuben Sandwich

62. Spam Pizza Pockets

63. Dipped Spam Swiss Sandwiches

64. Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches

65. Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches

66. Maui Spam Muffins

67. Mondo Spam Deluxe On Rye

68. Bone Hunter's Spam Delight

69. Spam Carbonera

70. Super Spam Cheeseball

71. Spicy Spam Party Dip

72. Spam Meat Spread

73. Spam Fiesta Dip

74. Spam Western Bean Soup

I've bolded the important recipes.

Number 9, Elegant Potato Spam Casserole.  Right, because anything including Spam is going to be elegant.

Number 68, Bone Hunter's Spam Delight.  The name caught me off guard, but the recipe is even better:

Recipe By     : James I. Kirkland Ph.D.
Serving Size  : 1    Preparation Time :0:00
Categories    : Meats

 Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
--------  ------------  --------------------------------
  1      can           spam

Open can. Take a green branch from a Utah Juniper. Sharpen the point. Plunge it
through the Spam. Hold over a low fire of Juniper wood. Turn slowly. Roast for
about 15 minutes. May be eaten off the stick or sliced onto some hard tack.

                  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 NOTES : This is a delightful meal eaten often by underfunded paleontologists in
  the field.

WHAT THE FUCK. I was always under the impression that if you had enough money and brains to get your PHD you would have absolutely nothing to do with canned meat. Apparently I was mistaken.

And finally, my personal favorite, number 38: Coconut Beer Battered Spam with Raspberry Horse.

Horse is apparently a typo for Sauce, as it is not mentioned in the recipe at all. The raspberry horse is made from "raspberry sauce or jelly" and horseradish sauce. I've been on the verge of throwing up all night and this might actually push me over the edge. I also hate coconut, which doesn't help matters.

Spam, ladies and gentleman, it will blow your mind.

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HA HA HA

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NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM

The Tigerlily introduced me to the awesomeness that is Angelo Pietro Sesame Miso Dressing ages ago. She was so excited about the stuff that she blogged about it. Now I am doing the same because HOLY SHIT, this stuff is amazing.

Seth and I recently started shopping at this Japanese supermarket in the East Village which, if you're in the area, I totally recommend. They have great prices on fish and sell large pieces of sashimi for ridiculously low prices. I am in love. They also carry all sorts of awesome Japanese snacks, udon noodles, lots of frozen dumplings and an awesome candy selection. On top of all that? More salad dressings, soy sauces, and oils than you can shake a stick at. Oh yeah.

Sunrise Mart
4 Stuyvesant Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003
212-598-3040

So, back to the salad dressing. While shopping at Sunrise Mart last week I saw that they sold the miso-sesame dressing and promptly bought a bottle after calling the Tigerlily and checking that it was the correct flavor. Seth looked at me like I was insane. "Five dollars for a bottle of salad dressing?" I tried to explain the awesome to him, but he still thought it was too expensive. The next night he tried it for himself while eating dinner at my apartment. The day after that I got a phone call. "It's the sesame miso one right? I want to make sure I get the right flavor."

So now Seth has been converted and you will be too. I've started to dream about this salad dressing. I'm considering bringing a bottle to keep at work. I'm obsessed.

In other NOM related news - Seth has trained himself to make an awesome key lime pie. He tried the recipe for the first time on Thanksgiving because he knows that I will do anything for key lime pie. ("What would you do for a Klondike Bar?" Absolutely nothing. Replace "Klondike Bar" with "key lime pie" and I will follow you to the ends of the earth.) Anywho, he had a couple of extra limes and a cupcake tray lying around and decided to make key lime tarts. Which he has been feeding me for dessert the last two nights. He also made bangers and mash with a mushroom gravy which kicked my butt.

Basically, I love him a lot.

And food. I love food a lot. ♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves

Spoons is very serious business

My father's side of the family has a long and painful tradition of playing Spoons. Never played Spoons? Here's a quick list of rules from familyfun.com:

Spoons Card Game

Few cards serve up the kind of excitement that are part of every game of Spoons.

WHAT YOU NEED:
	Deck of cards
	Spoons (one less than # of players)

HOW TO PLAY:
1. The object is to collect four cards of one kind (four twos, four kings and so on) and not to be the person left without a spoon. To begin, place the spoons (one fewer than the number of players) in the center of the table within grabbing reach of all players. Each player is dealt four cards. The dealer keeps the deck.

2. The dealer picks a card from the deck and then discards one card from his hand, sliding it facedown to the player to his left. That player takes it, then picks one card from his hand and passes it to his left.

3. Each player in turn does the same, as quickly as possible. Each person should have four cards in his hand at all times. The player to the right of the dealer places discarded cards in a pile to his left to be used by the dealer when the original deck is used up.

4. Play continues until one player has four of a kind, at which time he takes a spoon from the pile. He may steal the spoon surreptitiously, continuing to pass cards until someone else notices. Or he may grab his spoon, creating a mad rush for spoons at the table.

5. The player left without a spoon has lost the round. If you like to keep score, that player is given an S. As players spell S-P-O-O-N, they are out. The player left at the end is the winner.
----------------------------------------
We play with two decks of cards, but other than that it's the same. Do you have a general idea of how the game works now? Excellent.

My family gets very very serious about it. When I was eleven years old I witnessed my aunt and uncle wrestle each other to the ground over a spoon. A week and a half after their wedding.

Seth and I went up to visit some of my family up in Boston this past weekend and because it was absolutely FREEZING outside, I suggested we all play on Saturday night. Seth had never played with my family before, so I thought it would be a good learning experience. It was also the first time that the baby of the family was allowed to play with the adults.

A list of injuries:
-A small chunk of my right index knuckle is probably still somewhere on their kitchen table.
-My uncle ended up with quite a bit of table under his fingernails.
-I lost the feeling in my pinkie for about an hour after pulling a spoon out of my uncle's hand.
-Baby cousin (who was also the first to get S-P-O-O-N), kept getting her fingers smashed.
-A bruise on my shin because I accidentally hooked my leg around my chair.
-Etc.

Who knew a card game could involve so much pain?

Also? I love my family. ♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves

Oscar The Sometimes Cat

My roommates and I have acquired a sometimes cat. By "sometimes cat" I mean "stray cat who lives behind our house who is kind enough to catch our mice and poop outside as long as we feed him regularly." Basically, Oscar does not live with us all the time. Only when he's hungry or in the mood. Most of the time he is behind our apartment doing whatever it is that outside cats do. (Whatever it is it involves screeching and coming home with large scratches across the nose. We think the other outside cats might be jealous of our Oscar.)

Before Oscar was Oscar he was just some random cat who meowed at our window from time to time. We made the mistake of feeding him once and then he wouldn't go away. (Of course not, would you?) My roommate Michael decided to let him in one day (this was after said roommate had dubbed the outside cat "Oscar") and he immediately not only killed the one mouse we had in our apartment, but took it outside so we wouldn't have to deal with it. That was when he became our sometimes cat. Dude earned it.

Meet Oscar:All together now: "Awwwwww"

Oscar is friendly, well behaved and pretty much awesome. His main problem is that he's filthy. Live in a garbage can (Oscar, get it?) and you're bound to be. His other problem is that he makes the other outside cats very VERY jealous. I kicked him out the other day because he was being a nuisance, and immediately heard one of the worst cat fights I have ever heard in my life. On top of that, this was the scene outside of my (VERY VERY FILTHY) window recently:
One cat all up in our business, and one cat waiting to pounce. Awesome.

Our other problem with Oscar is that we're not sure if we're allowed to have cats or not. We need to check with the landlords on that. We also need to check with the landlords about our broken sink, toilet, and door, but those are other issues. If it turns out we're allowed to have cats we're going to have Oscar fixed, bathe him, and keep him inside. If it turns out we can't...

Well...

Anyone want a cat? I'll pay for the balls being chopped off! ♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves