Tag Archives: humor

No sodium catchup substitute better than catsup

sweet pepper and bells

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.  I’m sitting here dipping home-made no sodium catsup substitute in Art’s & Mary’s no salt homestyle potato chips.

So shoot me.  Fact is, this catsup substitute tastes so much better than catsup a person might as well call catsup a substitute for whatever this como se llama delicious concoction is.  And it’s so damned easy to make they ought to put grocers in jail for carrying the original salt-bomb Hunts, Heinz, you name it catsups on the shelves.  Killing people slowly.

 sweet pepper and bells in blender

What you need to make Como Se Llama?   Sweet peppers and/or Bell peppers of various colors.  A blender.  3/4 cup apple cider vinegar.  A cup of sugar, or however much less you prefer.  A tablespoon of black pepper.

sweet pepper and bells blended

Blend it until it’s all liquid, adding the sugar and vinegar while it’s blending.  I use unground peppercorn and let the blending reduce the grain size with everything else.

sweet pepper and bells ireducing

Once that’s done all you need to do is put it over medium heat and bring it to a boil, then let it simmer until it’s reduced approximately 1/3, but mainly is the thickness you prefer in a Como se Llama.  Keep it in mind you’re using it for a dip.

If it gets so you’re on the road or for come other reason can’t make Como se Llama, you can always stop into a grocery store and buy a bottle of catsup for a temporary substitute.

Old Jules

The best and the worst

A significant percentage of US voters believe Ronald Reagan was the best president in US history.  Despite Iran/Contra, arms for hostages, and trickle-down economics.  History is not the long-suite among high school graduates in the United States.

A significant percentage of US voters believe Ronald Reagan was the best president in US history. Despite Iran/Contra, arms for hostages, and trickle-down economics. History is not the long-suite among high school graduates in the United States.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Yahoo News conducted a poll of +-1400 voters and asked who was the worst president in US history.  The results were that 33% believe the guy in the White House now is the worst.  28% believe the guy who was in there before him was the worst.

The pollsters used subtle methods for determining what percentage of the voters believing the guy in there now is the worst did so because he was black.  They concluded +-5% simply could not stand the thought of a black man serving in the White House except as a shoe-shine boy.

Which leaves the question among non-racist voters precisely equal:  56% of US voters believe one of the last two US presidents was the worst in US history.  28% Bush, 28% wossname.

All of which should raise some alarming questions in the minds of everyone else.  When did they quit teaching children US history in school?

Sheeze! The freaking Civil Freaking WAR was fought during the watch of one US president!  Two were impeached!  One was responsible for the Trail of Tears and moving the aboriginal tribes east of the Mississippi the-hell anywhere west of the Mississippi and stealing their farms, barns, equipment, animals, crops for white people.  Even though those Cherokees and some other tribes were already doing their best to BE white people.  Hell, a few years later they even had a Cherokee general commanding troops during the Civil War.  Chreeeeeist!  They even owned slaves!  What the hell do you have to do to be civilized?

Then there’s Lyndon Johnson, faked the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and used it to justify carpet bombing of North Vietnam, had South Vietnam President Diem assassinated by the CIA, and did the Great Society.

There’s John freaking Kennedy, son of a damned bootlegging smuggling NAZI supporter during the pre-WWII years.  Responsible for the Bay of Pigs, among other fiascos.

Hells bells, there’s Clinton for Christs sakes.  Got a blowjob in the Oval Office.  No Jennifer Oneal, her, either.  Shot up Ruby Ridge, murdered a couple-score Branch Davidians outside Wacoi, and smuggled huge amounts of coke and crack into Arkansas on CIA aircraft.  Got almost impeached because of shady real estate deals he and the little woman were up to their asses in.

These two guys now and just before him are pikers.  Except where deficit spending and fruitless military adventures are concerned.  These two couldn’t find their asses with flashlights when it comes to real corruption.

Old Jules

Sumptuous low sodium avocado sandwich

Once again readers, you’re hearing it here first.

  • 2 slices low sodium [85 mg per slice] oatmeal bread
  • 1/2 avocado mashed to paste
  • handful of bean sprouts
  • 14 leafs fresh spinach
  • 1 green onion, chopped
  • handful of chopped fresh cilantro
  • no other seasoning

Count’em:  190 mg of sodium, total.  And it melts in your mouth.

Old Jules

Cops don’t have to put up with being sexually harassed by dogs

Hi readers.  If you own dogs and live inside the United States it’s time to train your dog not to screw anyone’s pantsleg.  Today there’s an excellent chance cops will be kicking down your door.  If you don’t want them to kill your dog, train him not to sexually harrass police:

http://youtu.be/B9Com08ILgQ

“We don’t have to put up with this sort of treatment from dogs,” declared Bracey Goodman, Police Chief of Anal Springs, KY.  “During carefully timed and planned raids setting up citizens for drug busts our officers cannot risk being distracted by sex.  One dog causing an officer to pause waiting for it to finish could cost the  lives of other officers.”

Goodman further explained that police go to a great deal of trouble taking confiscated drugs out of evidence lockers for planting on targeted households.  If not intercepted in a timely manner they might be destroyed by suspects, or stolen by officers during the confusion of the bust.

“Anyone who owns a dog is responsible for seeing the animal will not use the leg of a police officer to urinate, or simulate sex.  If we kill your dog it’s your own fault.”

Old Jules

 

 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declares during the “so called Rape of Nanking” Chinese women were “asking for it”.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

As part of an ongoing general reappraisal by Japan about its involvement in WWII, Japan’s Prime Minister Abe announced the Japanese government has confirmed Chinese women present at Nanking during the invasion, “Wanted to have sex with multiple Japanese soldiers,”  A recent study, Abe says, found that, “Those were healthy Chinese women who had never encountered men such as our soldiers.  There was no Rape of Nanking!  Sex between consenting adults is not rape.”

Chinese women,” Abe recalls his father and grandfather telling him, “Really like it rough!”  He shrugged.  “I’ve seen it myself on my diplomatic missions to China.  The more you force a Chinese woman the better she likes it.”

Abe went on to explain the myths of forced comfort girls from occupied countries was also consensual.  “Everywhere Japanese soldiers went the local women naturally wished to have sex with as many as possible.  During the post-WWII years this was misconstrued as forced servitude and sexual exploitation.  But in fact, the backward peoples all over Asia were the exploiters.  They wished to incorporate the superior genes of Japanese men into their local populations.  They gladly volunteered their wives, daughters, sisters and strange women for this task.”

 Japan is currently formulating a proposal for Asian countries where it enjoys a close familial relationship resulting from Japanese occupation.  “The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere didn’t end because it wasn’t a valid concept,” Abe explained.  “It was an idea before its time.  Today Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Burma, even North Korea would almost certainly welcome Japanese leadership in a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

Once Japan reevaluated the Post WWII Constitutional Provisions forbidding wars of aggression whole new avenues of thinking became possible.  “What went wrong with WWII?”  Abe rolled back his eyes and lifted his arms above his head.  “The Battle of Midway!  Guadalcanal!  Bad luckWe should have followed Pearl Harbor with an overwhelming attack on the west coast of the United States!

Old Jules

 

“If those Japanese could have held out through one more atomic bomb we wouldn’t be eating this crap!”

Hi readers.  Here’s wishing you a fulfilling independence from having the British for your bosses ordering you around and making you drink their damned tea.  If our ancestors hadn’t won their independence from the British we’d have had to fight on their side during WWI and WWII, the way their other colonies did.

Anyway, that WWI museum got me thinking about what GIs used to eat.  There was a long shelf of displays of their mess kits, carved fancier than a POW would do.  Beautiful designs and artwork produced while their feet were rotting off in trenches between having the bejesus shelled out of them and being sniped at across no-man’s-land.

 In Korea, at least in the First Cavalry Division, what we ate in 1963-1964 whenever we were on field rations was all left over from WWII.  1945ish WWII.  K Rations.

Breakfast Unit  Canned meat product Biscuits Compressed cereal bar Powdered coffee Fruit bar Chewing gum Sugar tablets Four cigarettes Water-purification tablets Can opener Wooden spoon

Breakfast Unit
Canned meat product
Biscuits
Compressed cereal bar
Powdered coffee
Fruit bar
Chewing gum
Sugar tablets
Four cigarettes
Water-purification tablets
Can opener
Wooden spoon

Camp Howze, Korea, had an enormous bunker chock full of K Rations of the nostalgic variety dating from before the Japanese surprised us with a surrender while we still had an atomic bomb and one-hell-of-a-lot of K Rations left.  I can testify from personal experience the US Army was patriotic and continued eating those rations 20 years after the premature and cowardly surrender of Japan.

Dinner Unit  Canned cheese product Biscuits A candy bar Chewing gum Powdered beverage Granulated sugar Salt tablets Cigarettes Matches Can opener  Wooden spoon

Dinner Unit
Canned cheese product
Biscuits
A candy bar
Chewing gum
Powdered beverage
Granulated sugar
Salt tablets
Cigarettes
Matches
Can opener
Wooden spoon

 Our quonsot hut had a corner filled with Ks still in the cartons so we could fill those long winter nights with partying song, beer, and anything worth eating in a crate of Ks.

Supper Unit Canned meat product Biscuits Bouillon powder Candy Chewing gum Powdered coffee Granulated sugar Cigarettes Can opener Toilet paper Wooden spoon

Supper Unit
Canned meat product
Biscuits
Bouillon powder
Candy
Chewing gum
Powdered coffee
Granulated sugar
Cigarettes
Can opener
Toilet paper
Wooden spoon

The cigarettes in ours weren’t Chesterfields.  Ours were Lucky Strikes in a Green package.  As in the old radio WWII jingle, “Lucky Strike green has gone to war!”  Lucky Strike changed colors after the war to red and white, but Luckies kept right on fighting in green until all those damned Ks were consumed by GIs.

Ahhh.  Nothing like sparking up a Lucky out of a carton of Ks, working fast to inhale a little tobacco smoke before it burned down to your fingertips.  Those smokes were 20 years old and we never found a way to add enough moisture to keep them smoking instead of burning.

And the chocolate!  The godforsaken chocolate turned white with age.  We didn’t care.  Everything in those Ks got tried and nobody ever died from them.  And I never heard of anyone getting drunk from them.

Fact was, a person with extra money could go to the PX and get crackers, but if he did he’d have to share with the whole hooch.  Same with sardines.  And we had KATUSAs in our hooch.  Four of them.  Korean Augmentations to the US Army.  And those bastards could go through a case of crackers, cans of sardines, quicker than you could make a grab for a can before they were gone.

But even the KATUSAs couldn’t make remarkably short work of a case of Ks.  There was always enough for everyone, along with some leftovers to munch on guard duty.

Damn.  These modern all-volunteer military guys are spoiled.  Except maybe in Korea.  Hell, in Korea they might still be eating Ks and wishing to hell the Japanese had gutted out another atomic bomb.

Old Jules

Wasting your life on something important instead of trivialities

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Once it became obvious the Olathe Medical Center Cardiac Physical Therapy folks weren’t opening the doors on Independence Day, I knew I was in trouble.  Felt the pressure building, depression setting in.  Scurried around searching under things for anti-depressant drugs, then remembered I’ve never had any of those.

Hell, here the colonies declare themselves free to select their own masters instead of the British ones who’d been turning up their noses for so long, and the hired help start wanting holidays to celebrate having a different set of masters. 

And here my old ticker I’m trying to persuade to kick up the ejection to, say, 20% instead of 10%-and-some-change is whining and complaining that I’m not lifting a finger to help it along.   Heart muscle giving winks and nods to the defibrillator, whispering to the lungs and arteries that I’m a lazy, no-good-for-nuthun slacker wastrel.

Obviously I couldn’t sit still for that.  If I’m ever going to climb any more mountains, if I’m going to find the Lost Adams Diggings, damn me, I’m going to have to do physical therapy whether the hospital is shut down, or whether the whole bunch is out there eating hot dogs and popping fireworks.

So I joined the Olathe Community Center gym for a month.  Went down there early this morning, walked around acting like real people, mounted a walking machine and walked the hell out of things.  Wandered over to the weight machines and humped my upper body a while whoopteedoo.  Walked around the track looking down on pee-filled hot tubs and swimming pools, looking out windows into the parking lot, at pictures hung on the walls. 

Sagged to my knees and breathed a while, telling the bastards who were asking if I was okay to mind their own damned business.  Piss me off.

Feeling pretty groovy, all things considered.

Old Jules

When life mimics the ‘imitation of life’: dark comedy and cops

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Back before Rodney King started it all and cameras everywhere, combined with YouTube as a venue for rendering it public, we all had an excuse.  Almost an obligation.  The function of society required we believe in the United States police corruption, aggressive, illegal behavior, planting evidence, blindered pursuit of targets without regard for evidence to the contrary, was rare..  Drug use on duty and unprovoked violence against suspects rare exceptions.

We can still believe that if we wish, but it’s more difficult today.  YouTube is out there catching the law enforcement community in the act of being itself.  Damning the whole with the broad brush of individuals performing every breach of minimum behavioral standards expected for public employees of any sort.  But especially those where public trust is a necessary ingredient.

How can a jury unanimously agree to send a defendant to prison if every word a law enforcement officer utters under oath is suspect?  Might as well as not be pure falsehood?  If every piece of evidence presented stands an equal possibility of having been manufactured or planted by investigating officers?  When juries become aware police are as prone to bald faced lying as they, themselves [jury members] are prone to self-serving falsehoods, convicting anyone of a crime without prima faci evidence is troublesome.

 But I’ve digressed.  It’s happening everywhere, and while the movie industry used to treat the subject with sinister frowns in Serpico and hundreds of other cop corruption movies, eventually Naked Gun 2  and ilk was inevitable.  Airplane made it so.

Naked Gun 2 was a fun piece of work, but the US movie industry was too long-delayed in following it up with replacement of all those solemn, straight-faced cop movies with something nearer reality: farce.  But outside the US the movie industry wasn’t shy.

Along comes Torrente.  Unless you understand Portuguese you’ll have to read subtitles, but it’s a laugh a minute.

Torrente 3: El Protector 2005NR 93 minutes, In order to facilitate a political assassination, a corporation arranges for the target’s security detail to be headed by incompetent Det. Torrente. More Info , Starring: Santiago Segura, José Mota
Director: Santiago Segura.
 
Evidently there is a whole string of these coming out of Portugal.  And with a bit of searching, probably elsewhere.
 
Nothing much is sacred anymore.  Real life bought the ticket out of idealistic delusions and wishful thinking.  Thus far it isn’t standing in the way of filling up the prisons with testimony from these Keystone Kops, but that’s just habit and gut feel working.  Who the hell needs credible testimony and evidence to convict some tattooed freak or arrogant black kid for whatever someone said he did?    Someday that will fade.
 
Old Jules

Asian dark slapstick – Charlie Chaplin wrestles Adolph Hitler for laughs

Hi readers.  Hilariaous movie — not sure which Asians made it. 
 
But incredibly, one of the early bit characters appears to be the identical great-grandsonish twin of the guy who plaiyed Steve McQueen’s assistant in the engine room of the Sand Pebble.  The guy who got captured by the angry revolting Chinese and was strung up being tortured when Steve McQueen shot him with a 1903 Springfield from the deck of the Sand Pebble.
 
Anyway, you’ll recognize him in the early scenes dealing with the monster fish until that final one when the fish gets him.  Same look of agony as his final moment in Sand Pebbles.
 
Streaming on Netflix:  Journey to the West 2013PG-13 109 minutes, Chen Xuanzang, who fights evil with love and nursery rhymes, clashes with Duan, a showy female warrior who’s in it for the thrill of the hunt. More Info Starring: Qi Shu, Zhang Wen Director: Stephen Chow
 
Heck of a fun movie.  If blood and guts bothers you, just remember it’s only a movie, after all.  Chinese these days aren’t making their lampshades out of human skin, so even if the Asians who made this movie are Chinese, the blood and guts isn’t necessarily real.
 
Old Jules
 
 

WWI Museum, KC

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Yesterday I rammed my way through physical therapy and came away feeling like a million bucks a hundred bucks.  When I arrived back at Jeanne’s house I had life left in me I hadn’t squandered yet, so we decided to brave the heat and visit the National WWI Museum.  The day was warm, but a lot cooler than the average first week of July would have a person expecting.

 Anyway, that museum is impressive.  Didn’t attempt to dream up any serious rationale for that war having been justified in any way.  On the part of any of the parties involved.  Didn’t do any more flag waving than old propaganda posters high enough on the walls so’s a person had to stretch the neck to view them.  And some were in French, German.

Sure, they did have a copy of the Zimmerman telegram on display, translated.  But nobody trying to keep a straight face saying it justified the US entering the blood bath.  Too much has happened since then to allow any rosy cheekism on that score.  Been far too many Zimmerman telegrams written in US English over the century since.

What they did do was display roughly a thousand small arms, hand grenades, field artillery, aircraft, mortars, vehicles and several thousand photographs.  Firearms were redundant and soon became a blur.  A home made reproduction of shell crater 20 feet deep with a lot of war debris in it was graphic, made for a nice demo.  Peep holes into trenches watching men doing war things in trenches also.  The kids visiting loved it, and I didn’t think it was the worst way to get across a concept that is WWI.

Reminded me vaguely of a cross between the Empirial War Museum in the old Bedlam Hospital for the mentally ill in London, and the Admiral Nimitz Museum of the Pacific War in Kerrville, Texas [before Texas Parks and Wildlife took it over and ruined it].  Which puts it up there head and shoulders above most museuems I’ve ever visited.

No RARARAH we’uns won flagwaving Hurray for the US patriotic idiosyncracies, no hint any lives given weren’t entirely in vain, was pleasant.  And there were maps on the walls allowing you to examine how many countries all over the world were dragged into the bloodbath by the mere misfortune of being part of the British Empire.  How many because they were part of the French Empire, etc etc etc [in the manner of the King of Siam].

Seems to me the yardstick that fit best serves is that repeatedly inside in front of displays and later as we left, Jeanne remarked.  “This was worth it.  I’m glad we did this.”  Jeanne has zero interest in wars, WWI, anything of that sort.

It was worth it.  I’m glad we did it, too.

Old Jules