Charlie Bradbury (Felicia Day)

The body Meg the demon was using was cute but nothing like the original Meg.

Meg (Rachel Miner)

But the guys… mmm…

I know most  fans go for Moose & Squirrel.

Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki)

Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles)

Me, I am pretty fond of the bad guy. Killer accent.

Crowley, King of Hell (Mark Sheppard)

And the reformed vampire was mighty fine for the episodes he was around.

Benny (Ty Olsson)

And a confused, misguided, well meaning angel.

Castiel (Misha Collins)

Not a bad season. I do like that they’ve let the Winchester boys get more and more messed up psychologically as the seasons go on.

YMMV – it has a heavy religious theme this season and some of it may not sit well with everyone. I mean, the whole show is about heaven, hell, angels and demons, especially after the first season, so it may not be to everyone’s liking.

—————-

So the other night I found this over at Dpud:

Colorado: Guy loaded shotguns into trunk of cab and went to a gun show. Cab driver calls police – foreigner with weapons, OMG! Police arrested Italian manufacturer of pretty shotguns in parking lot of gun show. Dude has 2 lawyers who get him released. Likely to sue.

So I relate story to OAM, saying that while I don’t have a problem with cab drivers being part of a line of defense, this seems pretty dumb and one would think the cops would have thought the better of it upon arrival at the scene.

He counters that he has a HUGE problem with cab drivers being part of a reporting stratagem. Firstly, any yokel can be a cab driver. No special training is likely received on what kinds of things to report. All it does is lead to harassment and suppression of neighbor by neighbor. Which is pretty much what “see something say something” does as well. His final argument against it:

I see what he means.

Me:

Looked it up after I laughed and had a good snark about it and found that yes, it can apply in the way the NPR reporter used it.

Institutionalize

verb (used with object)
1. to make institutional.
2. to make into or treat as an institution.
3. to place or confine in an institution, especially one for the care of mental illness, alcoholism, etc.

So I learned a lesson on connotation today. I would have used:

Institute

verb (used with object)
1. to set up; establish; organize: to institute a government.
2. to inaugurate; initiate; start: to institute a new course in American literature.
3. to set in operation: to institute a lawsuit.
4. to bring into use or practice: to institute laws.
5. to establish in an office or position.

They do mean different things and both could apply.

Words are pretty fascinating.

Rock Time earcuffs

All I do lately is reblog and post pictures and links. :)

Just don’t have much to say lately. Work is life, weather is just lately getting nice enough to go do interesting things. I have been reading a lot but nothing good enough to recommend or discuss, really. I mean, the books haven’t been bad, per se, but they haven’t been great. Maybe I should do a Mediocre Books post. :)

I found a “European” grocery down by work the other day. Turned out to be a Russian grocery. They had meats, sauces, canned goods, spices, etc. I grabbed some bulk candies, what looked like vanilla cookies and a dark chocolate bar.

The candies were, with only one exception, absolutely horrible. No flavor, just sweet. The cookies were like eating hard tack – with just as much flavor. The chocolate bar was actually pretty decent.

I also bought a slice of cherry cake. The clerk said it was made in a local bakery that only makes pastries for their store. I think that was code for “in my Russian grandmother’s kitchen.” It was more like a dessert than a cake. Long pastry tubes filled with dried cherries that I think were probably macerated in a liqueur and the pastry tubes were stuck together in a triangle by some kind of creamy something. Not really cream cheese, not really whipped cream. Looked really cool. Again… not much flavor and the texture was extremely dry.

If I lived in Russia, I’d be skinny as hell. Convenience tasty is what makes me fat. When convenience is not tasty… My laziness often outweighs my desire for tasty things that I have to make.

Kind of an extreme diet plan, I’ll admit…

Only difference is that one of them is eaten at the circus, right? Right?

OAM: Would you care if I shot a hyena and had it stuffed to put in the living room?

Me: Not as long as you eat the hyena.

So last week I was wandering around the web and found a recipe for “The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever” and the “Best Frosting I’ve Ever Had” so naturally I had to try them out. I mean, those are practically dares. And since Laura was so tempting with her cupcake post from yesterday, cupcakes were on my mind today.

I followed the suggestion from the second link and made the cake into cupcakes. I scoffed at the idea that this could be the Best Chocolate Cake. Ever.  It mixes up pretty quickly and easily. Once the cupcakes came out, I had to try one warm. Holy cats. This is the Best Chocolate Cupcake. Ever. And I’ve had a lot of cake in my life. I could probably be called upon in a court to give expert testimony on cake. If you can bake a cake mix, you can make this cake. And you seriously should. If you own an oven you really need to make this cake. And eat it. All. Warm, with butter.

The frosting is okay but not the Best I’ve Ever Had. It’s not too sweet, but it will also not set up like true buttercream will. I think this is very similar to something my mother made for almost all of our cakes when we were growing up. She called it Flour Icing and I think her version had some shortening as well as butter.

The other thing I made today while waiting for the cupcakes to cook was some homemade cherry limeade. The only thing missing from this is the cachaça to make it a cherry limeade caipirinha. Man, I need to go back to Em Chamas… drool worthy meat and awesome caipirinhas.

I am not good at taking pictures of beverages…

The only comment I’d make about the cupcake version is that I’d suggest either using high quality, thick, waxy cupcake liners or skip them and grease your cupcake pan. (Edit: Greasing the pan works well. I didn’t buy any better liners to try out. Yet.) There is a cup of melted butter in this cake recipe and I think that does make it somewhat difficult to get out of cheap paper liners. Oh, and it makes about 30 24 cupcakes (Edit: I made 30 yesterday but didn’t really fill the cups 2/3 to 3/4 full like you should). Bake for only a little less the same time than the recipe calls for with the original size cake.

If you posted a link on your site that led to the icing recipe, sorry, I forgot where I saw it or I’d give some linkylove. I owe you a cupcake, though, if you did.

———————–

I had despaired of ever wearing sandals again after the plantar fascitis and resulting physical therapy diagnosis of stretch every day and never go without orthotic inserts. Then I saw a post over at Dustbuy wherein CGHill opined upon a recent sandal purchase. (Sorry, I know that post is ancient in weblife but it took me awhile to work up to a purchase) So I went to Zappos and started looking around. Searching with “orthotic” and “sandal” led to these:

The Orthaheel Porto III Slide

The reviews seemed favorable enough to outweigh the assumption that has to be made with any consumer reviewed product – namely that most reviewers will be complete idiots. So I gulped hard at the price, closed my eyes and ran up the credit card debt.  (I really hate wearing socks and shoes in the summer.) So far, I wore them to work yesterday and my feet were fine. I’ve stood up quite a bit today in the kitchen and outside doing some plant repotting and my feet are still pretty good. They are comfortable, though they do make the bottom of my foot warm. My reservation thus far is that because they are made of plastic, I have the feeling that if I wear these every day all summer long the arch support will break down and I’ll need another pair next year. So maybe I take it easy and alternate with socks and shoes (blech).

This woman’s accent just slays me. And I have always liked Kilmer. I do agree with some of the commenters – I thought he made a very good Bruce Wayne. The movie he was in was wretched though.