Carol Rutz’s Annexe

From the Consumerist and the nanny-riffic bowels of the Center of Science in the Public Interest, here is a video on how eating a Quarter Pounder is much better than eating at Olive Garden. Then again, anything is better than the Olive Garden.

Now a special story: It was months after my deaconess internship did not pan out, and I got an invite from my former classmates to dine at the Olive Garden. Yes, the Phoebes still love me. So I went and we ordered our food. One ordered a steak rare…but it was well done, and with lots of oil. It looks like grey carcass. How hard can it be to sear steak and cook it rare?! The food tasted like a pre-cooked microwave meal. I went home with a stomach full of FAIL.

One thing that I treasured is my Dad’s spaghetti sauce recipe. This Mexican-born man who has lived in the States more than half his life knows how to cook. He learned it when he was a cook at an mom-n-pop restaurant. The man who taught my dad has a penchant for horse racing and the Rat Pack. And my dad taught me that recipe. It was that dish that I first cooked for my Prediger whilst courting. He told me that he had not have spaghetti that good since his boyhood in Denver. Decades-old childhood memories, before my own existence!

Now…here is something to consider. I used very lean ground beef and made my stuff from scratch. What type of ingredients and preparation methods do these chains use before serving? The cost of my materials could be bought for under 10 bux and serves 6-8 servings.

Do yourselves a favor…learn to cook pasta with your own sauce.

It has been 10 years since attending my first Reformation Day service at Concordia-Irvine. I told Professor Hartmann on that day that I need to learn more about the Lutheran faith, as it means many changes in how I view the Christian faith, the Law, the Gospel, Church and State matters, and what role the Christian plays to keep holy.

My word, how much things happened within 10 years!

It used to be What Would Jesus Do? Today, it’s What Jesus Has Done!

It used to be “What does this Scripture mean to me?” Today, it’s “What does this Scripture say?”

It was “I must pray more, must do this less.” Today, “It is finished!”

It used to be following the Theology of Glory. Today, it is about the Theology of the Cross.

From Fark and the Daily Kos…an article from Fast Company about a guy that made the automakers in Detroit hoppin’ mad.

Johnathan Goodwin has hacked his cars to be more gas-efficient than what the automakers has set up. Ya know that there is this site that featured people flipping off Hummers for its wasteful uglyness. If you see what Goodwin had done, you’d be giving his biodiesel H2 two thumbs up.

And here is his souped-up Impala, pwning a Lamborghini.

Today’s Fark featured an article on suicide pacts in Japan, and someone mentioned this episode of Paranoia Agent. Entitled “Happy Family Planning”, this is about three people who tried to off themselves, but somehow their efforts were thwarted.

We have a broken-hearted gay man, a seriously ill old man, and a precocious young girl. Both men tried so hard to avoid her as she is way too young to consider such a decision, but she remained with them despite their efforts. And since this is Halloween, I would say that the twist ending is worth seeing.

Paranoia Agent

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There is a great thread at Fark.com, and it’s about the joys of the humble yet comforting Macaroni and Cheese.

From 60-cent bargain boxes to $20 gourmet lobster and mac, it brings us the fats, the starches, the warm feeling and the filling in the stomach. And the methods of making mac and cheese vary from individuals, families, regions, and circumstances. Nowadays, that is an occasional treat since it’s loaded with fatty goodness.

Growing up, I remember the old school Kraft Dinner boxen, with the powder. Here the States called it “Kraft Macaroni and Cheese”, but I prefer the more accurate Canadian interpretation of “Kraft Dinner”. I love that sooo much. I admit that today I follow Whammer’s approach of making KD:

Okay, you Kraft sinners. Admit it.

How many of you just cook the macaroni, then stir in the dry cheese powder WITHOUT the milk and butter?

Once you do it that way, and get the full, sharp flavor of the dry cheese melted into the macaroni, you can’t go back. The milk and butter just ruin it. They make it gooey, and take away the edge.

One package. 800 calories. All yours.

My family preferred the Deluxe version with the squeezable cheese packet. Meh, unless you want to eat the cheese by itself. The pasta would mess up the edge of the cheese. We also ate Stouffer’s, and that’s the closest my family had encountered to homemade mac and cheese.

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Was checking around for stuff on the Florida debate when I’ve stumbled onto this video:

Eisegesis much? If any, it’s quite telling that this video provides a window into American Evangelicalism. No cool-headed proactive calmness, just knee-jerk quick-tempered emotionalism. What’s the matter, you frustrated horndog– can’t find the “Close Window” X button? And looks like it’s way overdue for IT to install a filter. Are we supposed to destroy everything that tempts us to sin? Might as well that one eats a bullet to ensure that we sin no more.

To quote the Large Catechism regarding Baptism:

The saying is: Abusus non tollit, sed confirmat substantiam, Abuse does not destroy the essence, but confirms it. For gold is not the less gold though a harlot wear it in sin and shame.

In this case, I’m reiterating what Jesus has said in Matthew 15:18 and what St Paul has written in Titus 1:15, that the heart is the source of wickedness. What really matters is the interior of a person’s soul and its approach to outside circumstances. The computer is not intrinsically evil so that you have go Office Space on it.

That destroy-the-computer action also echoes the Evangelical solution to culture: reject and retreat into a parallel world where (supposedly) there is not much temptation and sin. But all that external behavior will not solve the internal struggle of saint vs sinner.

Thanx to Andrew Sullivan for my daily dose of lulz and WTF.

So why Fox News pooh-poohed the results in regards to Ron Paul…AGAIN?

How can the votes get stacked when the polling is set up that it rejects multiple votes from one phone?

Oh, those silly neo-CONS!

Spread the 3VOL!

Tonight my mother will call me and ask me how to walk through accessing the Internet via DSL. This reminds me of Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie’s cartoon Keep Your Parents Off the Net.

Which also means that I will have to teach her that forwarding glurge chain letters are a bunch of Bovine Scatology and that Bill Gates won’t send you $1000 for forwarding e-mail. If she ever mentions about helping out some Nigerian official with a business deal, I will have to tear out the DSL cable and she will have to communicate via smoke signals.

5) For being a theologically conservative person, I adopt a live and let live attitude. I uphold wholeheartedly the Scriptures and the Book of Concord. The Two Kingdoms theory allows me to serve my God and love my neighbor– no matter the color, religion (or lack thereof), gender, social class, orientation, or anything else. I can’t stand jerks, BTW.

6) Portland, Oregon is my kind of town. It fits my mood and level of weird. All it needs is a Confessional Lutheran congregation and I’d be white on rice.

7) I’ve been known for noogies. Several past members on the Board of Regents at Concordia-Irvine, some profs from the Sem, and some of the Council of Presidents of this Synod can attest to that.

Lutheran Lucciola tagged me for the “Seven Things” meme, so here it is:

1) I have very flat feet. As a result, I am unable to wear high heels or stilettos. It was hard to find shoes that fit as a kid. I totally sympathize with Mike Royko’s complaint. Thank goodness that there are great products available for me.

2) Sir Winston Churchill was my patron saint. (At least in my childhood.) The Prediger and I are planning to visit England about several years from now and I’ll be visiting Churchill’s grave with a bouquet of flowers.

3) First meal I cooked for Preggie was spaghetti, using Dad’s recipe. He told me that last time he had great pasta like mine was over 45 years ago in Colorado. To this day, I make him his favorite dish often.

3.1) Yes, you have read correctly, 45 years ago. I would recreate the recipes and dishes Prediger remembered as a kid.

4) I wish that there is a Mike Royko reading club, in which his columns are recited and digested. I would cut out his columns and shared it with my teachers. My favorite column was when he recalled his days in which he was bullied. What changed all of that was that an alderman almost ran over him. The alderman gave Mike cash and cigars to shush him up, and Mike used that to bribe the neighborhood hooligan to pounce upon Mike’s bully. Major pwnage and hilarity ensued.

I believe that in order for a Royko column to be read aloud at its best, you need a firepit, chairs, lots of Chicago style dogs and pizza, and beer.