From Sheesh To Shining Sheesh

SO THIS IS-- HA! HOO-HOO!-- this actually IS today's lunch! The picture doesn't do it justice, but this is basically a big pile of incompatible components, black bean soup, Italian sausage, fake Mexican cheese, chopped shallot, and sour cream. In a way it is an approximation, an analog, if you will, of the classic Cuban black bean soup we used to get at the famous restaurant outside Saint Augustine in Florida, but, really, nahhhhh. I know better, and I have been doing it for years, This time I went too far-- shallot? Really? (It'd be yellow onion in the classic configuration.) But man, is it good.

The title comes from an exchange the Wifey and I had earlier today on her realization that, almost a week later, there are STILL people she's having to hide on Facebook because they're all up in a snit because the bland, pasty-faced, businessman-liar they wanted to be president of our fine land didn't get elected, the country instead being duped into voting for a Kenyan-born Muslim terrorist-socialist who obviously kidnapped and drugged that nice middle-class black lady and her two adorable kiddies!

This is why I don't do politics.

Anyways, the conclusion we reached was we had this to look forward to for some time to come. From sheesh to shining sheesh. My mother, drunk or sober, and quick, somebody hide the damn keys.

This was the weekend movie, which after a week of disaster recovery in lower Manhattan (the Wifey's job, not mine-- I just mourned, quietly and excessively), and the election, and whatnot, whatnot including, for my part, at least one fool's errand involving a good hour and half's travel time, and one thoroughly justifiable errand into one of this city's worst and most heinous traffic areas, it was incumbent upon us to order some Chinese take-out from our favorite local joint, come home, sit the hell down and watch what happens when people let Joss Whedon play with their comic books.

And it was good. There was a little more character building and conflict setting in the front end than I might have liked, and while certain aspects of The Hulk didn't make sense (The Hulk never makes sense), when they got into the action in earnest, say about halfway through, this thing just sizzled and sang and ripped along like no body's business. (And Captain America, the world's lamest major super hero, didn't come off as a total doof in the end, which is its own minor miracle, in a way.) And then it was over, and it didn't really matter much, but this pile of inappropriate ingredients went down just fine. It'd be easy to say "just add cheese," but I don't think that was the case at all. You just have to put the thing together without worrying too much whether all these things really belong in the same bowl to begin with.

So do I recommend it? Never hit Manhattan with a hurricane. It just can't take it. I'd have to throw out some guidelines-- the soup is Progresso, the Italian sausage came from our Harris Teeter, but other than that, rules are suspended-- but yeah, this is something you can do that isn't really Cuban black bean soup, but is at least as good, and in some ways better-- CHEESE!-- than the real thing. Almost anything Whedon gets his hands on is likely to turn out good. You can watch it once, at least, easy.

Sh*t Our Sherrif Says

TODAY, election day, voting day, here in Charlotte, North Carolina, is once again cold, dank, overcast. I made it out relatively early, got in line with the senior citizens and a couple of community college kids mid morning, and cast my vote. Against. Against all the racist assholes who are absolutely RABIDLY opposed to the entire notion of having a black president. He's RUINING THE COUNTRY! By being . . . SOCIALIST! Yeah, THAT's the ticket.

(But for the president, too, really. He didn't do that bad. But, lest you think my support is unconditional, let me offer you one word: weatherstripping. You watch your ass!)

Anyways. A cold, dank day is a good day for stew. With cheese. And hey-- you recognize that bread? By my count, this makes FIVE meals this loaf of bread has come to the aid of. Your work here is done, my friend.

This is something that cropped up at a media review site I frequent, and looked like it might be pretty good. It ended up getting stuck into the machine one night, rather late in the game, actually, after we had exhausted the last episode of Fringe season four, and I just couldn't find anything else on. And it was alright. There were some interesting relationship notes in it, the acting was all reasonable, and the plot worked well enough in the end. It's been touted as a comedy-horror, which is fair enough, but, honestly, I didn't find it all that funny. I mean, funny enough. And the actors! Specifically: Karen Black! And Barry Bostwick, always welcome, especially here, where he played the local sheriff as a cross between Bob Dole and Bill Shatner. Wacky, a little out of it, but authoritative and cocksure. Fun stuff. Oh, and the murder scenes were nicely over the top. But when they finally fingered the fiend, eh. Not that big a shock, and not that good a reason for all the vengeance. Kind of like seeing who, in your local region, ended up joining the Tea Baggers.

So do I recommend it? Not really. Voting is over-rated. People used to say-- some still do!-- that we get the government we deserve, but that fails to realize that there's this giant set of political machinery set up to make sure that we NEVER get the government we deserve, whether that means we deserve a good one or a bad one. I mean, I had to vote for a woman whom I know, for a fact, to be a blithering idiot, just so we had a better chance of not electing a homophobic racist. This stew came from a can. You ought to make your stew from scratch, really. But this was good enough for me, on election day. And there was cheese! Lots and lots of cheese. Some Guy Who Kills People was good enough, certainly. But it didn't quite live up to its title. Oddly enough.

Last note: the labels are what came up as possibilities whan the spell checker didn't like "baggers." Happy election day.