EdipisReks1

I realized, reading this thread, that I have watched zero NBA games, this season. I love basketball, but it has become similar to baseball, for me: I follow along via stats, watching highlights, until the post-season.

My best friend gave me a sealed Pilot Kakuno pen, for my birthday. This is the one that's really made for children, and has a smiley face on the nib. It's adorable, in its packaging, but I finally wanted to use it, so I dug into my pen box to find the CON-50 converter I knew I had. I found the converter, but I also found my 1977 fine nib Long Murex. I swear I sold this, last spring. I guess not, since I have the pen but don't any bad ratings on eBay. I had dropped it, at some point, and a plastic piece inside the cap (which keeps the cap from spinning, when the pen is closed) had broken. I'm thrilled to find it, as I didn't want to sell it. It goes off to the pen hospital at Pilot in Jacksonville, Fl tomorrow. My guess is that it ends up going to Japan, but I've waited this long on a pen I didn't even know I still had! The Kakuno writes much better than it has any right to. Better than my Waterman Kultur Phileas, and about on par with my Lamy All-Star (which is my benchmark for inexpensive fountain pens).

That looked like my 6th grade Intramural team. I was not a good shooting guard. They should have had me at power forward.

I'm fairly confident, on this one.

Thanks!

That looks damned tasty, Al!

You'll live

Probably more socially acceptable than velvet.

So does my local Asian grocery store, and it's heaven. I have consumed many a gallon bucket of the stuff. Kimchi on a steak would probably be delicious.

Surely there is a vegan, no-meat, no soy, alternative product available for the ethical blowjobist.

Well, keep in mind that I became a vegetarian for ethical reasons. The health component has been a bonus. I still eat seafood sometimes (scallops and other sessile filter feeders, primarily), but I've had very few cheat days. My diet is a lot more varied than it used to be, and I've introduced a lot of really delicious ethnic food to my diet and my home menu.

That's part of the fun! You should watch the series Red Riding, which is set in the North. I have no clue what is said about 50% of the time, in that, and I watch an awful lot of British TV.

cheese, kimchi, and booze.

My blood pressure and general cardiovascular health would strongly disagree with you.

You need to make sure that the grill (or pan) is scorching hot, and you have to make sure the surface of the meat is dry. One way to ensure the latter is to liberally salt both surfaces, which sucks moisture out, and then brush the excess salt off, before cooking. You won't be able to get the steak house charring in just a hot pan (I use a Searzall in combo with a pan), but you can with a grill. Hardwood lump charcoal burns very hot. I would suggest getting a baking steel or a cast iron Plancha, as you want continuous surface area, for a perfect crust (this is why a scorching hot pan works so well, but pans are unwieldy on the grill). One way of achieving the crust on a grill is the Alton Brown Chimney method: light a blazing fire in a chimney starter, and set that over your steak. Flip and repeat (flip the steak, not the chimney starter, unless you like your hair to be on fire). Attached are pics of one of the last steaks I did. Notice that while the crust is deeply caramelized, there is very little in the way of a grey ring, and the center is perfectly rare (this was probably in the water bath at 118 for several hours). If it were a prettier cut of meat, this looks like what you would get from a really good steakhouse. You can see remnants of salt from where I salted both sides to dry them out. I sear in a combination of butter and olive oil. Add the oil and butter right before you add the steak. It still makes plenty of smoke, but it should. The butter helps add that deep caramel color of the crust, but it's not strictly necessary. Now I want a steak.

Colin remains the only person on H-C, other than me, who sears a steak properly. Of course, I'm a vegetarian, but still. A crust and deep caremelization is the goal.

OLED has definitely matured. I still think the 60" Samsung Plasma I got for $238, in early 2015, is hard to beat.

It's called the Gaytona.

Like Brent and Dusty say, the LG OLED stuff is very, very good. If I were buying a new TV, it's what I would get. I wouldn't get a curved one, though.

I've watched the first three Episodes. Really good! Tom Hardy is great, as usual, and the cast is excellent.

He was a bright spot in everything he was in, from the sublime to the schlocky. He was one of my favorite actors, and I'll miss him a lot. It always put a smile on my face when he popped up in something I wasn't expecting him in.

Mary Tyler Moore. Goddamnit. Her core career was as bit before my time, but I certainly caught a lot of it in re-runs.

Fuck that; lard.

Sad!

Deep frying the ribs seems obvious.