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December 12, 2011: Your typical football feast! Snow Monkeys poised! John Denver’s Japanese roots?

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Ah, yes.  Nothing says Sunday afternoon football with the guys like macarons, pastries, pecan pie and ice cream:

Am I right?

Mike Dopud ended up bringing a case of beer last weekend.  What was he thinking?  For that kind of money, he could have picked up a linzer torte or a tompouce or even a croquembouche.

Poised!

Yes, my Snow Monkeys are poised to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, set to topple the once-mighty #3-ranked I Have No Imagination.  We’re down 97.28 to 96.94 in R.I.P. Stargate fantasy football league playoff action and need a meager half a point from the Seattle D to win the weekend and move on to the semi-finals.  Of course Tio, aka Popular Vote Petunia (who I’ll be playing next weekend should I advance), reminded me that he was in this exact same position last year – with the exact same teams – and ended up losing when his Defense racked up a less than impressive -3 points.  That’s negative three points!  I’m not worried though.  I think I’ll wrap up my win before the end of the first half and then it’ll be smooooooooooooth sailing!

Hmmmm.  Seems I’ve hit run a bit of a skid on the old comic book ride.  As many of you know, I’ve been working my way through most of the titles out there to find out what interests and what doesn’t.  I give a book three issues and if it still fails to intrigue, I move on.  I was batting about .400, which I thought was pretty good.  Until the past couple of days when seven successive titles didn’t make the cut.  Justice League Dark, The Avengers, Captain Atom, Deadpool, Batman the Dark Knight (!), Avengers 1959, and The Savage Hawkman – simply not my cup of tea.  Maybe there’s hope on the on-deck circle: Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Wolverine: The Best There Is, Deadman, Ultimate X-Men, and Suicide Squad.

Yesterday, Akemi tried to convince me that John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads is actually a Japanese song.  She was mighty convincing, belting out the Japanese lyrics (conspicuously minus any mention of West Virginia) and then informing me the song originated from Ghibli’s Whispers of the Heart.  Well, I looked it up (Thank you, wikipedia) and had to break the bad news to her: a Japanese composer actually covered the song for Ghibli.  And John Denver was NOT Japanese.

Off to watch the game!  GO SNOW MONKEYS!!!

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18 responses

  1. Deni Avatar
    Deni

    Those pastries are making me nuts right about now! That Napoleon would have been mine had you invited me, and the macarons would have been toast! Daughter arrives from London in a week, and we’re off to Miami for 3 days to eat!

    Reply
  2. JeffW Avatar
    JeffW

    That Pecan Pie looks delicious!

    Please tell me it used the dark syrup…I was thinking about making one for an open house this weekend; that was until I saw the price of papershells.

    Dang, now I need to go make one.

    Reply
  3. dasndanger Avatar
    dasndanger

    1. Go Sea Monkeys! 😈

    2. Today I picked up Taza Mexican chocolate – one with cinnamon, and two with Guajillo Chili. This is Mexican style chocolate – just cacao beans and sugar (with either the cinnamon, or chili). It’s very good (a bit ‘gritty’ as traditional Mexican chocolate is), and the one with chili makes an excellent hot chocolate a la the type served in Chocolat. I know what I’m doing this winter! 🙂

    3. Tomorrow night look for the Geminid meteor shower in the NE sky! Should be a good one, but gotta catch it before the moon rises.

    4. I wonder why I like this video… 😉

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3O7q4SGzYw

    Gotta run!

    das

    Reply
  4. dasndanger Avatar
    dasndanger

    Here’s a link to Taza’s site:

    http://www.tazachocolate.com/

    das

    Reply
  5. Debra Avatar
    Debra

    LOL, tell Akemi it’s okay, John Denver’s love encompassed everyone.
    I saw the title and thought it said POISONED. Yeah, I need to go to bed. Glad the snowmonkeys are POISED not POISONED.

    Reply
  6. Mike A. Avatar
    Mike A.

    Well, Joe, I’m sure you were quite happy after the first few minutes of the game, then! I also needed just a few points from Steven Jackson and he ended up having a great game. It’s nice to win in style, isn’t it?

    Just as I thought, I lost in my free league and won in my money league. Overall, I’m happy, but in my free league I had a few guys just not show up, points-wise. It’s a shame because going into this week, I scored the most cumulative points during the regular season. I had that lead pretty much all season, too. It’s tough going down in flames like that.

    Oh well, my money league is the one that matters most in the end and in that one, my guys look to have some pretty stellar matchups next week! Big points, here we come!!

    Reply
  7. jonathanquirk Avatar
    jonathanquirk

    I’m sorry you’re not enjoying some of the latest comics offerings; may I recommend “Atomic Robo” from Red5 Comics (I don’t know how widely they publish compared to the bigger companies). A robot built by Tesla is an action scientist (its like a regular scientist, but with bullets) who battles all manner of craziness: Nazis in mechs, a psychotic talking dinosaur, the spirit of Thomas Edison… and sometimes it gets REALLY weird (the Lovecraftian monster in volume 3 springs to mind).

    Five mini-series have been published so far, and the sixth is being released at the moment, “The Ghost of Station X” (the first 3 issues are out, and possibly the 4th by now, I wait for the TPB myself). I’ve been following “Atomic Robo” since Brian Clevinger, the creator, first made the jump from webcomics to publishing his very own “proper” comic, and I haven’t been disappointed yet.

    You can check out their 2009 Free Comic Book Day offering on Brian’s website, it’s a good taste of what Atomic Robo is all about:
    http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/07/24/free-comic-book-day-2009/

    Gritty and dark, it ain’t. But it’s a fun read, and I hope you enjoy it.

    Reply
  8. Gforce Avatar
    Gforce

    The food looks amazing. And fattening.

    Go Snow Monkeys!

    Reply
  9. Tam Dixon Avatar
    Tam Dixon

    Oh my! Those desserts look so good. When I make a pecan pie, I like to put in a cup of mini-chocolate chips in the filling. Pecan pie is awesome anyway but with the chips…it just takes it to a new level.

    I wish they had macarons around here.

    Reply
  10. JimFromJersey Avatar
    JimFromJersey

    Good luck Joe! GO SNOW MONKEYS!

    Reply
  11. Maggiemayday Avatar
    Maggiemayday

    All your pastries are belong to mah belly.

    And here I’ve been buying chocolate in the Mexican markets. We have at least seven I know of in town, and we’re not that big of a town at all.

    Reply
  12. SiSi Avatar
    SiSi

    So did your Snow Monkeys win? Based on the score of the last night’s game, looks like the Seattle defense came through for you.

    When Take Me Home, Country Roads first came out, I had a friend from West Virginia who hated the song with a passion. She might like it better as a Japanese song with no mention of West Virginia!

    Reply
  13. Sue Jackson Avatar
    Sue Jackson

    Good Luck to the Snow Monkeys!! 🙂

    Reply
  14. Lisa R Avatar
    Lisa R

    Loved the dessert pictures. Great job, Snow Monkeys!!!! I’m sure the people I grew up with would have been surprised if John Denver had been Japanese, LOL. (I’m a native of VA and WV) But it is a cool song. 🙂

    Have a great day!!!!!

    Reply
  15. Maren. Avatar
    Maren.

    Hey Joe!

    I havent written in a looong time. Being rather busy during the last year or so I settled for reading only. Well I do admit that I don’t read every blog becaus I just dont have the time anymore. That in itself is sad but my lack of time as a very good and wonderful reason 😀
    But skipping across your blog I stumbled upon the Asterix-comics in your “recently read”-list. I am myself absolutely fanatic about them and I was surprised to see them there. After all they have never been published in english language, have they? But then as you are fluent in Fench, not all that suprising, I guess. Being not so fluent in French, I own them all in German. I remember buying one of my first comics at the age of 12 or so. I was soooo excited and yet so scared of going to the cashier as I was dead shy. When I put down the comics at the counter I wasn’t able to get out a word. She told me the price…. and I must’ve hesitated just for a second too long and my eyes must have been a little too big so that the cashier thought I wasn’t agreeing with the price. She summed up the price of the two comics TWICE! (even with a calculator) until I felt able to give her the money I had in my hand all the time without saying a single word during the whole ‘conversation’. But it was worth the trouble in the end as one of them was my still favourite comic of the series: “Obelix GmbH & Co” (German title).

    I don’t know why I’m telling you about it. Just thought you might enjoy it 🙂 Do you have a favourite and have you ever seen one of the movies which in my opinion are just plain brilliant?

    Have a lovely day,

    Maren

    Reply
  16. Shiny Avatar
    Shiny

    The weirdest thing about John Denver is that he was from West VA and not Colorado. I love John Denver, I liked to harrass my sister with Sunshine on my Shoulder, but now my fave is You Fill Up My Senses, which is not called You Fill Up My Senses and is in fact called “Annie’s Song;” see? Denver was the ultimate contrarian.

    There used to be an old fashioned bakery a block from work but it’s gone. So now I will have to scope out the coffee shop and pray they have pecan pie.

    Beer and torte, perfection. I see Mike Dopud will be in BSG Blood and Chrome, can’t wait.

    Reply
  17. DP Avatar
    DP

    Could it be that learning what you needed to know to write a comic has ruined your ability to enjoy them for a time?

    There’s a saying over at TVtropes.org that tvtropes.org will ruin your life. What it means is that being aware of the ingredients in the entertainment and why they are there causes you to not enjoy it in the same way. I went through something similar after reading too much about writing. I am just now getting back into the swing of enjoying fiction the way it was meant to be enjoyed instead of using my left brain too much.

    Reply
  18. Jovanna Avatar
    Jovanna

    Pastries… nom nom nom.

    Reply

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