The True History Of GRITS
What Are Grits?
Nobody knows. Some folks believe grits are grown on bushes and are harvested by midgets by shaking the bushes after spreading sheets around them. Many people feel that grits are made from ground up bits of white corn.
These are obviously lies spread by Communists and terrorists. Nothing as good as Grits can be made from corn. The most recent research suggests that the mysterious Manna that God rained down upon the Israelites during their time in the Sinai Desert was most likely Grits. Critics disagree, stating that there is no record of biscuits, butter, salt, and red eye gravy raining down from the sky, and that God would not punish his people by forcing them to eat Grits without these key ingredients.
How Grits Are Formed:
Grits are formed deep underground under intense heat and pressure. It takes over 1000 years to form a single Grit. Most of the world's grit mines are in the South, and are guarded day and night by armed guards and pit bull dogs. Harvesting the Grit is a dangerous occupation, and many Grit miners lose their lives each year so that Grits can continue to be served morning after morning for breakfast (not that having Grits for dinner and supper is out of the question).
Yankees have attempted to create synthetic Grits. They call it Cream of Wheat. As far as we can tell, the key ingredients of Cream of Wheat are Elmer's Glue and shredded Styrofoam. These synthetic grits have also been shown to cause nausea, and may leave you unable to have children.
Historical Grits:
As we mentioned earlier, the first known mention of Grits was by the Ancient Israelites in the Sinai Desert . After that, Grits were not heard from for another 1000 years. Experts feel that Grits were used during this time only during secret religious ceremonies, and were kept from the public due to their rarity.
The next mention of Grits was found amidst the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii in a woman's personal diary. The woman's name was Herculaneum Jemimaneus (Aunt Jemima to her friends.)
The 10 Commandments of Grits
I. Thou shalt not put syrup on thy Grits
II. Thou shalt not eat thy Grits with a spoon or knife
III. Thou shalt not eat Cream of Wheat and call it Grits, for this is blasphemy ..
IV. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's Grits.
V. Thou shalt use only salt, butter, and red-eye gravy as toppings for thy Grits.
VI Thou shalt not eat Instant Grits.
VII. Thou shalt not put ketchup on thy Grits.
VIII. Thou shalt not put margarine on thy Grits.
IX. Thou shalt not eat toast with thy Grits, only biscuits made from scratch.
X. Thou shalt eat grits on the Sabbath for this is manna from heaven.
How to Cook Grits:
For one serving of Grits:
Boil 1.5 cups of water with salt and a little butter. [Use milk and they are creamier!)
Add 5 Tbsps. of Grits.
Reduce to a simmer and allow the Grits to soak up all the water.
When a pencil stuck into the grits stands alone, it is done. That's all there is to cooking grits.
How to make red eye gravy
Fry salt cured country ham in cast iron pan. Remove the ham when done and add coffee to the gravy and simmer for several minutes. Great on grits and biscuits.
How to Eat Grits:
Immediately after removing your grits from the stove top, add a generous portion of butter or red eye gravy (WARNING: Do NOT use low-fat butter.) The butter should cause the Grits to turn a wondrous shade of yellow. (Hold a banana or a yellow rain slicker next to your Grits; if the colors match, you have the correct amount of butter.)
In lieu of butter, pour a generous helping of red eye gravy on your grits. Be sure to pour enough to have some left for sopping up with your biscuits. Never, ever substitute canned or store bought biscuits for the real thing because they cause cancer, rotten teeth and impotence.
Next, add salt. (NOTICE: The correct ration of Grit to Salt is 10:1 Therefore, for every 10 grits, you should have 1 grain of salt.)
Now begin eating your grits. Always use a fork, never a spoon. Your grits should be thick enough so they do not run through the tines of the fork.
The correct beverages to serve with Grits is black coffee. (DO NOT use cream or, heaven forbid, Skim Milk) Your grits should never be eaten in a bowl because Yankees will think it's cream of wheat.
Ways to Eat Leftover Grits:
(Leftover grits are extremely rare)
Spread them in the bottom of a casserole dish,
Cover and place them in the refrigerator overnight.
The Grits will congeal into a gelatinous mass.
Next morning, slice the Grits into squares and fry them in 1/2" of cooking oil and butter until they turn a golden brown.
Many people are tempted to pour syrup onto Grits served this way. This is, of course, unacceptable.
BLESSING BEFORE EATING GRITS
May the Lord bless these grits,
May no Yankee ever get the recipe,
May I eat grits every day while living,
And may I die while eating grits.
AMEN
Thursday, April 25, 2013
The True History of Grits...
Via cousin Mike D.:
Limnanthes douglasii
Common name “poached egg plant” or “yellow and white Douglas' meadowfoam”. Native to northern California and Oregon, and occasionally further south. My dad and I saw this in Lassen National Park about six years ago, before the big fires there. Via BPOD, of course...
Bad News About Grandpa...
An elderly man had a massive stroke and the family drove him to the emergency room.
After a while, the ER doctor appeared wearing a long face.
“I'm afraid Grandpa is brain-dead, but his heart is still beating.”
“Oh, dear God,” cried his wife. “We've never had a liberal in the family before!”
Obamacare is for the Little People...
The little people like you and me. Our betters don't want it, that's for sure. Will they have the gall to pull this off? Wouldn't surprise me one bit.
Note that both parties are talking about this.
Rope.
Tree.
Congresscritters.
Some assembly required.
Speed may be of the essence.
Note that both parties are talking about this.
Rope.
Tree.
Congresscritters.
Some assembly required.
Speed may be of the essence.
Parable of the Stones...
Here's a story about Steve Jobs that I hadn't heard before. Read through the italicized part for the parable.
That parable resonates strongly with me. Ideas are worth very little by themselves, and they're not the hard part of creating a product. It's the execution that's hard – all the myriad of things that have to happen for a great product to be shipped. Generally speaking, when you look back at the totality of what it took to ship a great product, the original idea for the product will seem like an insignificant part of the overall effort. The parable is about the team that takes an idea to a beautifully executed product...
That parable resonates strongly with me. Ideas are worth very little by themselves, and they're not the hard part of creating a product. It's the execution that's hard – all the myriad of things that have to happen for a great product to be shipped. Generally speaking, when you look back at the totality of what it took to ship a great product, the original idea for the product will seem like an insignificant part of the overall effort. The parable is about the team that takes an idea to a beautifully executed product...
Out of Your Password Minder...
This is very funny, and though it's about a technical subject, it's presented in a way that would make sense to anyone. Via Bruce Schneier...
She says that Password Minder is a real product, but I couldn't find it for sale online. I did, however, find an obsolete link for a product named "Password Minder" to a page on the TeleBrands site, so I suspect they've pulled the product after they realized what a dumb idea it was...
She says that Password Minder is a real product, but I couldn't find it for sale online. I did, however, find an obsolete link for a product named "Password Minder" to a page on the TeleBrands site, so I suspect they've pulled the product after they realized what a dumb idea it was...
17 Shakespearian Insults...
Boston Marathon Bombers' Mother...
First, listen to this interview with her:
Then read Rachel Lucas' reaction. She says it ever so much better than I could.
And yes, my hand did involuntarily levitate...
Then read Rachel Lucas' reaction. She says it ever so much better than I could.
And yes, my hand did involuntarily levitate...
You Just Never Know...
Yesterday I was working under our offroad vehicle (an FJ Cruiser), installing some protective metal (a “lower link skid” over a vulnerable part of the rear suspension. On my back, on the ground, wrenches in hand and working over my head, I heard an unlikely munching sound – much louder than I'd expect to hear from a rabbit or ground squirrel. So I squirmed around until I could look in the direction of the munching, and what do I see? Three goats and a llama, calmly munching away on one of our shrubs, not 20' away from me.
Good grief!
These animals weren't familiar to us, though we do know about one place about a mile away that has llamas and sheep, and maybe goats. No tags were to be found, though the larger nanny goat had a fancy spiked collar that could have had a tag. So I left a note in the mailbox of the known llama-keeper, and I put up a sign ("Found: 1 llama and 3 goats") at the intersection of Lawson Valley Road and Rudnick Road. As of this morning, we got one call from someone whose pygmy goat was lost a couple months ago. She was disappointed to hear that we didn't have her pygmy goat, but she offered to take these guys off our hands if we couldn't find the owner. If the owner doesn't contact us by this afternoon, she and her kids are going to suddenly have an abundance of ornery animals!
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Just When...
Just when you feel like it's time to give up on humanity (or maybe just Americans), along comes a story like this.
I feel better now...
I feel better now...
Shameless...
The little people in California are being screwed again. No surprise there, really, though this is a little more blatant than usual. Consider:
– California, under Jerry Brown's “leadership,” decides to build a high-speed railroad. Not between two cities that could conceivably need such a thing, as California has no such pair of cities. Not even between two large cities, as we can't possibly raise the gargantuan sums required to do this. No, instead we're building a high-speed “demonstration” railroad that has no intent of actually making sense. It's just a way to muster the political will to get this turkey started.
– The job is put out for bid under a set of rules designed to balance technical merit and price. Fair enough. But the initial set of rules would have eliminated the California-based firm Tutor Perini, along with a Swedish firm. So the California High-Speed Rail Authority quietly, secretly changed the rules in mid-process, to allow Tutor Perini's bid to be considered.
– Tutor Perini was declared the winner. Their bid was the lowest price (by a wide margin), and also scored the lowest on technical merit (also by a wide margin). Something to note: Tutor Perini has been frequently accused of “lowballing” their bids – deliberately submitting unreasonably low bids to win, then finding ways to jack up the price as the job proceeds. In fact, they have been remarkably successful at doing so.
Now the part where we get screwed: the principal owner of Tutor Perini is Richard Blum. If you don't know that name, you will most likely recognized the name of his wife: Diane Feinstein, one of our California Senators. The political operators would say here that the optics look bad. I say something else: there's no way this happened without corruption, however subtle and soft.
Rope.
Tree.
A whole bunch of politicians.
Some assembly required.
– California, under Jerry Brown's “leadership,” decides to build a high-speed railroad. Not between two cities that could conceivably need such a thing, as California has no such pair of cities. Not even between two large cities, as we can't possibly raise the gargantuan sums required to do this. No, instead we're building a high-speed “demonstration” railroad that has no intent of actually making sense. It's just a way to muster the political will to get this turkey started.
– The job is put out for bid under a set of rules designed to balance technical merit and price. Fair enough. But the initial set of rules would have eliminated the California-based firm Tutor Perini, along with a Swedish firm. So the California High-Speed Rail Authority quietly, secretly changed the rules in mid-process, to allow Tutor Perini's bid to be considered.
– Tutor Perini was declared the winner. Their bid was the lowest price (by a wide margin), and also scored the lowest on technical merit (also by a wide margin). Something to note: Tutor Perini has been frequently accused of “lowballing” their bids – deliberately submitting unreasonably low bids to win, then finding ways to jack up the price as the job proceeds. In fact, they have been remarkably successful at doing so.
Now the part where we get screwed: the principal owner of Tutor Perini is Richard Blum. If you don't know that name, you will most likely recognized the name of his wife: Diane Feinstein, one of our California Senators. The political operators would say here that the optics look bad. I say something else: there's no way this happened without corruption, however subtle and soft.
Rope.
Tree.
A whole bunch of politicians.
Some assembly required.
Saved!
Try to picture this: a woman is being mugged on the front porch of her house. She hollers for help, and the help comes running. A 47 year old man whips out his 29 inch long Samauri sword and comes after the mugger – who hightails it out of there, eyes big and round, and later turns himself into police. Probably afraid for his life!
Now who would you expect that savior to be? Perhaps a truck driver? A construction guy? Some salt-of-the-earth type, right?
How about a Mormon bishop? Yup, for real.
I know several Mormons, and count several of them amongst my friends. I cannot imagine any of them behaving like this, so I suspect this isn't some pattern, some result of their awesome religious training. But still...I can't help but think that someone who would run into battle with a sword would find tough going in most other religious hierarchies :)
Now who would you expect that savior to be? Perhaps a truck driver? A construction guy? Some salt-of-the-earth type, right?
How about a Mormon bishop? Yup, for real.
I know several Mormons, and count several of them amongst my friends. I cannot imagine any of them behaving like this, so I suspect this isn't some pattern, some result of their awesome religious training. But still...I can't help but think that someone who would run into battle with a sword would find tough going in most other religious hierarchies :)
Perception of Motion...
Here's some interesting new science results investigating how we perceive motion. As is often the case, the research leans on optical illusions (new to me) for the investigation.
The more I learn about how our visual perception, the more amazed I am at our brain's ability to derive vast amounts of information from relatively crappy sensors (our eyeballs). None of us would be happy with a camera that performed as badly as our eyeballs do – and yet, our overall visual perception (brain included) is better than anything we know how to make...
The more I learn about how our visual perception, the more amazed I am at our brain's ability to derive vast amounts of information from relatively crappy sensors (our eyeballs). None of us would be happy with a camera that performed as badly as our eyeballs do – and yet, our overall visual perception (brain included) is better than anything we know how to make...
Oh, Nooz!
Via reader and (former) colleague Doug S., this disappointing news: a major retailer (Williams-Sonoma) has decided all on their own to stop selling pressure cookers. But only in Massachusetts. And only in brick-and-mortar stores. An employee says “It's a temporary thing out of respect.”
Well, I have some self-respect, too. And it tells me that I won't be buying anything at Williams-Sonoma anytime soon, as I'm not interested in lending even the slightest support to such craven posturing...
Well, I have some self-respect, too. And it tells me that I won't be buying anything at Williams-Sonoma anytime soon, as I'm not interested in lending even the slightest support to such craven posturing...
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Oh, My...
Via my mom, this impossible-looking contortionist. While watching her perform, I found myself wondering if this video had been manipulated – but a little googling shows that Nina Burri is for real, a Swiss contortionist, dancer, and model:
Monday, April 22, 2013
Best Earth Day Rant Evah...
George Carlin says what I'd like to say, but in a far more entertaining manner than I ever could:
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