RANDOM THOUGHTS #72
Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself.
1. I continue to enjoy (and be frustrated by) the AMC series WALKING DEAD, which is about apocalyptic zombies. The people continue to show a singular lack of curiosity about how this mess started. Nobody seems to think of finding a ham radio and just broadcasting to see if anybody else (say, a surviving military unit) is alive. They found a zombie in a well and decided to get him out before they killed him so that the water would not be polluted by his smashed brains. So why did they lower Glenn down on a rope and then try to drag the zombie out by a rope around his neck (resulting in half of the rotting corpse dropping back into the well)? Would it have not made more sense to find a ladder and let him climb out? Also, if the zombie reached the bottom of the well by some underground route, does that not mean steps have to be taken to seal off this well from further intrusions? (Not to mention establishing a twice-daily check to see if zombies found underground routes into the other four wells.)
2. I love TERRA NOVA but the plot loopholes are laughable. We have a meteor that creates an EMP burst. (I am not aware of anything saying that could happen.) Then we discover that every microchip in the colony has fried, including the one chip that is needed to make more chips. (But somehow, that chip can be fixed by a bartender.) And yet, the database computer is shielded. (Why did they bother to shield that from EMP and not shield a stockpile of reserve chips and the chip needed to run the chip maker?)
3. I like gravy, specifically, cream gravy on chicken, turkey, biscuits. Leanna won't eat gravy, so she has no idea how to cook it. When she cooks chicken or turkey, I scoop a cup of chicken stock out of the sauce pan she used and stir in flour and maybe butter. That's that. I never knew that I was doing it wrong.
Leanna has been on a kick of making biscuits, and decided one Sunday to make them from scratch. I decided to make gravy. She looked it up on internet and had me read it. You mean, you're actually supposed to COOK gravy on heat in a pan, not just stir flour into pan drippings? Who knew? She found a 29-cent pack of gravy mix in the cabinet and said "have at it" and so I put a cup of milk into a sauce pan, warmed it up, and stirred in the packet. Hmm... too thin, watery, soupy. Walked across kitchen, got flour canister, returned, opened canister, got scoop of flour, sprinkled in some, tried to stir, noticed that the heat had thickened the gravy to the point of perfection and I had just dumped flour on top of perfect gravy. Yetch! Tried to stir in the flour, but it just went all lumpy. Who knew you actually COOK gravy? And, from my experience on Thanksgiving, you can apparently overcook gravy as mine turned (with about a minute too much heat) from a nice creamy texture to a thick pudding that would not flow out of the gravy boat.
4. My psychiatrist gave me a book on how to deal with women who want to Gibbs me. He suggested that I hold it over the back of my head whenever I decide to do something stupid.
5. There are many causes for failure. In one recent episode of RESTAURANT IMPOSSIBLE, we noted that the place had lost business over the last few years for several reasons. First, increased competition meant that their old way of doing things (cook in the morning and then scoop it onto plates all day) could no longer compete. Second, the general manager had left five years earlier and had never been replaced, leaving no one in charge. Third, the decor had not been updated in two decades.
6. I continue to love the show GOLD RUSH and refer to it in conversation by a disparaging name. I saw on TV that the guys on the show were unhappy with being portrayed as idiots and just wanted to say that they obviously have good hearts, but are also obviously still learning how to do that stuff and really needed to hire someone who knew what they were doing. If I win the lottery, I will drive to their mine site and cook lunch and supper for them just to show that I really am a fan of the show (even if just to watch them make mistakes). Hey, if we cannot laugh at our own mistakes, we can at least laugh at theirs? Right?
7. I look at BONES and see two people in love, but she is unable to admit it. I look at CASTLE and see two people who are in love but both are afraid that the other one is not there yet and don't want to scare them away. Reminds me of when I met Leanna. I fell in love very fast, and really wanted to get married TODAY about three weeks after I met her. I was terrified that she could not possibly be falling in love as fast as I was and I didn't want to scare her away. (She felt the same way, and fortunately we both decided to just take a deep breath and get our feelings out in the open. After that, engagement followed on our 31st day of knowing each other.) I guess maybe that wouldn't make as great a television show as this tension thing does, but the tension thing on both shows (and several others) has really gotten way beyond the point of being annoying.
1. I continue to enjoy (and be frustrated by) the AMC series WALKING DEAD, which is about apocalyptic zombies. The people continue to show a singular lack of curiosity about how this mess started. Nobody seems to think of finding a ham radio and just broadcasting to see if anybody else (say, a surviving military unit) is alive. They found a zombie in a well and decided to get him out before they killed him so that the water would not be polluted by his smashed brains. So why did they lower Glenn down on a rope and then try to drag the zombie out by a rope around his neck (resulting in half of the rotting corpse dropping back into the well)? Would it have not made more sense to find a ladder and let him climb out? Also, if the zombie reached the bottom of the well by some underground route, does that not mean steps have to be taken to seal off this well from further intrusions? (Not to mention establishing a twice-daily check to see if zombies found underground routes into the other four wells.)
2. I love TERRA NOVA but the plot loopholes are laughable. We have a meteor that creates an EMP burst. (I am not aware of anything saying that could happen.) Then we discover that every microchip in the colony has fried, including the one chip that is needed to make more chips. (But somehow, that chip can be fixed by a bartender.) And yet, the database computer is shielded. (Why did they bother to shield that from EMP and not shield a stockpile of reserve chips and the chip needed to run the chip maker?)
3. I like gravy, specifically, cream gravy on chicken, turkey, biscuits. Leanna won't eat gravy, so she has no idea how to cook it. When she cooks chicken or turkey, I scoop a cup of chicken stock out of the sauce pan she used and stir in flour and maybe butter. That's that. I never knew that I was doing it wrong.
Leanna has been on a kick of making biscuits, and decided one Sunday to make them from scratch. I decided to make gravy. She looked it up on internet and had me read it. You mean, you're actually supposed to COOK gravy on heat in a pan, not just stir flour into pan drippings? Who knew? She found a 29-cent pack of gravy mix in the cabinet and said "have at it" and so I put a cup of milk into a sauce pan, warmed it up, and stirred in the packet. Hmm... too thin, watery, soupy. Walked across kitchen, got flour canister, returned, opened canister, got scoop of flour, sprinkled in some, tried to stir, noticed that the heat had thickened the gravy to the point of perfection and I had just dumped flour on top of perfect gravy. Yetch! Tried to stir in the flour, but it just went all lumpy. Who knew you actually COOK gravy? And, from my experience on Thanksgiving, you can apparently overcook gravy as mine turned (with about a minute too much heat) from a nice creamy texture to a thick pudding that would not flow out of the gravy boat.
4. My psychiatrist gave me a book on how to deal with women who want to Gibbs me. He suggested that I hold it over the back of my head whenever I decide to do something stupid.
5. There are many causes for failure. In one recent episode of RESTAURANT IMPOSSIBLE, we noted that the place had lost business over the last few years for several reasons. First, increased competition meant that their old way of doing things (cook in the morning and then scoop it onto plates all day) could no longer compete. Second, the general manager had left five years earlier and had never been replaced, leaving no one in charge. Third, the decor had not been updated in two decades.
6. I continue to love the show GOLD RUSH and refer to it in conversation by a disparaging name. I saw on TV that the guys on the show were unhappy with being portrayed as idiots and just wanted to say that they obviously have good hearts, but are also obviously still learning how to do that stuff and really needed to hire someone who knew what they were doing. If I win the lottery, I will drive to their mine site and cook lunch and supper for them just to show that I really am a fan of the show (even if just to watch them make mistakes). Hey, if we cannot laugh at our own mistakes, we can at least laugh at theirs? Right?
7. I look at BONES and see two people in love, but she is unable to admit it. I look at CASTLE and see two people who are in love but both are afraid that the other one is not there yet and don't want to scare them away. Reminds me of when I met Leanna. I fell in love very fast, and really wanted to get married TODAY about three weeks after I met her. I was terrified that she could not possibly be falling in love as fast as I was and I didn't want to scare her away. (She felt the same way, and fortunately we both decided to just take a deep breath and get our feelings out in the open. After that, engagement followed on our 31st day of knowing each other.) I guess maybe that wouldn't make as great a television show as this tension thing does, but the tension thing on both shows (and several others) has really gotten way beyond the point of being annoying.
posted by Federation Commander at 9:30 AM
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