Chili Taste Test: Empress Chili

I haven't had much time to post lately since I've been working on Mavericke, my bio-opera about John McCain.

But I did begin my canned chili/cheese coney taste testing this week. For some reason I've had cheese coney pangs the past few weeks. I got cans of Empress, Skyline, and another one I can't remember right now. And then, thinking that I could do better than an ordinary hot dog, I bought smoked metts.

Important: do NOT make coneys with metts. It does not work.

So I went to IGA to buy a pack of the highly regarded Hebrew National dogs but they don't carry them. But I ran into a friend outside and talked with her so it wasn't a wasted trip. I'll try Kroger later today.

Even thought my coney was fundamentally flawed because of the mett, I did sample Empress chili after many years and liked it. It's very similar to Skyline. I will definitely stock a few cans for late-night chili fixes following Monday Night Football.

Long-time Cincinnatians may remember the Empress Chili parlor in Mt. Lookout Square many years ago. It was in the space now used by Ramundo's (or maybe Ruthai's). I also remember buying a 1-gal container of Empress chili from the grocery store several years ago and taking it back to Chicago when I lived there. I wonder if they still sell that.

Is It Really Organic?

Here is what I've learned about "organic."

My understanding is that there is no official national standard to qualify something as "organic." I think basically anyone can call their product "organic" and it seems fairly obvious that many producers do exactly that as a marketing tactic.

The USDA doesn't even have the resources to carry out it's current mission, let alone monitor national and international foods for organic qualification. To do that it would need more money, which means more taxes, which will kill Jesus. But they did the next best thing, which is to accredit other organizations which do the job of certifying whether producers meet "organic" standards.

So there are certified and uncertified organic foods, and this is what to look for. Certified organic products will say "certified by XXXX" on the product whereas uncertified products will not, although they may be described as "organic" on the label.

It's not a perfect system. There are many, many certifiers and their standards may differ. Furthermore, there are certifiers who have not been accredited by the USDA but still certify products unofficially.

The database of accredited certifiers is here, if you want to go the whole nine yards and keep the list on your PDA for ready access while shopping.

Other than that just do the next best thing and look for "certified by XXXX" on the label.

Seen This Week Around Town

Over the weekend I saw something I've often dreamed existed but never seen: a tricked out Rolls Royce. It was in the West End, two blocks from home.

Returning from a meeting yesterday morning, I saw a girl-- maybe a teenager but no older than early 20s-- on an OTR corner. She was standing, her body and head spastically jerking back and forth and side to side almost like being sporadically juiced by electricity. While doing this she was kind of rotating but somehow not losing her balance. She was completely detached from reality. She looked baaaaad. We guessed meth and probably two or three other things.

I saw a Prius on the highway with the license plate "HIGH MPG."

WKRC Sucks Donkey Balls

It's true. WKRC, instead of televising the US Open finals like a normal CBS affiliate, chose to air a "special" broadcast of weatherman Tim Hendrick performing-- and I am not making this up-- science experiments for kids. So instead of watching one of the year's biggest sporting events and the only major tennis tournament in the U.S., one in which Roger Federer made history by winning his fifth straight title in spectacular fashion thus becoming the only man to win five straight titles in two different majors, I got to see a weatherman do tricks for kids.

Whomever made this decision is a maggot-infested heap of fetid, putrescent flotsam.

The Election Year Drinking Game

The quadrennial drinking game Americans know as "the presidential election" can be a lot of fun if one has an equal commitment to intoxication and country. "Beer First!" as the Clark St. Blog delegates like to say.

When a candidate makes a promise... drink! Don't worry about getting too drunk and missing some promises, they'll repeat them again in the next election just like they did in the last election.

Here's a comparison of McCain's convention speech with Dubya's as only Jon Stewart can do it. The magic starts at about the 4:30 mark.





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U.S. Open Final Weekend

The Olympics were great, got me all goosed up for sports. Then the Bengals news started coming, one crazy thing after another. The U.S. Open came by just in time. There's so much to watch I can barely keep up. Thankfully we live in the age of DTV.

Based on what I've seen, I'd put Nadal as the odds-on favorite. Federer is just not the same player he was from 2003-2006. He's not moving as well and he's not hitting his shots as aggressively, especially when returning serve. He has serious problems with his return game. His backhand, which was a total joke at Wimbledon, still has problems.

I haven't yet watched the Djokovic-Roddick match so I don't know the result. But historically Federer always steamrolls Roddick. Djokovic could be a tougher opponent, especially if he starts going to the net. If he plays well he could definitely beat Federer.

Murray is playing very well but I expect Nadal to beat him and get to the final. I hope Federer makes it because I'd like to see how he handles (or fails to handle) Nadal in this slam final after two previous losses.

On the women's side I'd like to see Jankovic win a major. That would be one for each of the Serbs, icing on the cake of their great life stories.

Thank You, Maria Bartiromo, for Making Me Laugh

Maria Bartiromo on Sarah Palin:

I don't think she would describe herself as a feminist, I think she would describe herself as a champion of women.

Thank You, GOP, for Wasting My Time

You know, I'm convinced that the best thing that can happen to the GOP is to have massive, humiliating defeats in every election at every level. Because that is probably the only thing that will lead them to fix their own house. And they need to fix their own house.

When I watched the Dem convention, I was impressed. It was not only watchable, but delivered the goods pretty well. Maybe it was because my expectations were so low, I figured.

After watching the RNC last night, I know my expectations of the GOP were too high. I expected something special. After all, they've got hurdles to jump: they have to follow a Dem convention that hit a home run, and they have to overcome a complete loser of a VP pick (you don't have to take my word for it).

And what did they offer? The same, tired old bullshit rhetoric they've been regurgitating for three decades. Unfuckingbelievable. To be fair, they did a good job of doing it; Giuliani was particularly potent punch of peppery pungency and Huckabee was a nice dollop of folksy white cream. But when you've been giving the same speech for 30 years, you get pretty good at it.

So if you missed it, here's the recap: the liberals control everything and if we don't fight them they will tax us to death and make everyone work for a European-style socialist government that will take away your guns and babies and give them to the UN. Anything you hear otherwise is misinformation from the liberal media. Also, DRILL NOW!!

Thank you, GOP, for wasting my time. Since your rhetoric is the same as the last 8 years, I'll assume your plans for governing are also the same.

What is Campbell Brown Up To?

Sorry, English instructors... I meant to write "To what is Campbell Brown Up?"

Anyway, she must have done something because the number of hits my blog gets as a result of Campbell Brown searches has spiked this week. I presume it has something to do with the RNC.

Campbell Brown is by far the #1 search item that reaches this blog. This is a result of my posts, Campbell Brown Exposed and Campbell Brown Exposed, Pt. II.

Here's what surfers want to know about Campbell Brown; most of these searches have been repeated over and over in various forms over the past 15 months:

campbell brown's husband
campbell brown is she jewish
campbell brown republican
campbell brown sexist
support campbell brown

I don't know what she said, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it was something other than incisive wisdom. She-- like most of her mainstream media talking head colleagues-- is on TV only because she says what her producers tell her to say and looks cute doing it. Once either of those two things ceases to be, her marginal relevance as a news figure will subside into occasional appearances on daytime TV as "special correspondent."

Anyway, if someone out there reaches this post and wants to tell me what she said this time, that would be great.

Oberlin: Carbon-free Commencement

Wow, talk about going the whole nine yards...

...Oberlin is trying to surpass the standard. Beginning last spring, students, faculty and staff joined together to form the Green Commencement/Reunion committee, which has reinvented the mentality surrounding the weekend.

...a highlight of the 2008 Commencement is a $5,000 donation from Bon Appétit, the food services management company for the College, to offset the carbon emissions for the entire event.

Purchasing carbon offsets has become popular in recent years, though the mechanics of the process still mystify many. Basically, when an individual or an institution acts in a way that creates carbon emissions, they can pay an organization such as Carbonfund.org — Oberlin’s site of choice — and the money will go to projects that reduce atmospheric carbon, such as wind farms, solar fields and reforestation efforts.

Danielle Young, the interim executive director of the Alumni Association... designed a rideshare website where visitors can post their travel information and find carpools either from the airport or across several states... In addition, Young set up an online reservation system with the Cleveland Hopkins Airport, so as to avoid sending College vans every hour as she has done in the past.

The College is also renting hybrid cars for those who need assistance getting around campus during the event-filled weekend.

...the College will serve 25 to 30 percent local food on compostable corn plastic bioware. Diners can mop their lips with non-toxic paper napkins without any colored dyes. Thirsty visitors will notice that the 1,300 plastic bottles of water usually present at Commencement have been replaced with pitchers and glasses.


Pretty impressive. Gotta tip your hat to that kind of effort. But the best line in the article: "If we can make Commencement carbon neutral, the next step might be doing the same for Parents Weekend, Safer Sex Night and Drag Ball.”

No, mom and dad! That was last weekend! This is Safer Sex Night and I... um, made plans.