Jeckles wants to get rich so he doesn’t have to work or something like that. I suspect he really wants to get rich so he doesn’t have to deal with stupid people at work. Fucking people.

So, jeckles needs a life plan to get rich. I’ve come up with several ideas for him to make massive amounts of money from the stupid people he so loathes. It seems the most fair that way.

1. Shitty Porn Club – This would be a subsidiary of the Shitty Blogs club. Charge $5.95 a week to access the site (because stupid people would assume it is $5.95 a month as that is what most things charge by.) This site would have cheap, shitty porn on it. You would get people into amateur and through the wonders of the search engine, the fecal-philiacs. He could get nekkid pictures from the shitty bloggers who already seem to have the desire to bare all for him. Having the power of his shitty minions to back him up, he could take everything as profit.

2. Silly eBay tricks. There was someone who sold his soul on eBay for $50 grand. What the fuck right? There is another guy who started by selling a paper clip and traded this item up and is up to a house from said paperclip. This is my silly eBay trick for jeckles: make a box. Paints it black and put a shiny question mark on it. People like black things with shiny bits on them, it looks sleek and cool. Take some random items from around your house and put them in said box. Sell said box on eBay as “Super Fabulous Mystery Stuff from the Shitty Blog Master”. (People like Mystery and chance, it’s like gambling. They also like anything that says “Master” on it, it makes it feel important.) Watch the auction spiral out of control and rake in profits. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

3. Start a “Psychic” hotline. Hire people who have cool accents to work for you. Charge $3.25 a minute for people to give cryptic and vague advice. Hell, hire people with fake funny accents and hand them a deck of tarot cards and a little booklet. They can read right out of the booklet to numbnuts who call the line. Put a hook on the “Psychic” hotline – the psychics are also science geeks and therefore credible.

4. Same as a above, but a “Geek Sex” hotline. You can charge more for this. Plug it as “Geeks with Huge Tits who are Hot 4 l33t g4|v|3rz”.

5. Sign up to be a reverend at Universal Life Church. Offer your services to do “Star Trek” and other sci-fi themed weddings. You can have the wedding party provide costumes and travel expenses. Bask in the geekiness and the cash that comes rolling in. Anyone can be married by Elvis, but how many people can say they’ve been married by a Vulcan?

6. Create a religion. (Or Cult. Whatever.) Televangelists can make 20mil a year and only work on Sundays. Imagine what you could make with a religion that doesn’t have guilt. You could preach being shitty to stupid people. Stupid people being everyone who doesn’t hang on your every word and take it as fucking gospel.

Well, those are my suggestions for jeckles.

Be Proud. Be Shitty.

Yesterday I was driving home from work and I saw something odd that struck me as beautiful. While sitting at a stop light, I looked to the sidewalk and saw a girl. She was probably about 20 or so, maybe a bit younger. She was beautiful, but she was cute and had a quality about her that made it seem like she didn’t care about anything. She was walking down the street playing a banjo. It struck me as odd, but at the same time, it made me smile because it was beautiful.

She just walked down the street completely uncaring about anything around her. I couldn’t hear what she was playing over the din of the other cars, but I’ll bet it was something nice.

I wonder if I could ever be that unconcerned with the world around me.

I know I don’t have the power of Webkittyn to get people to do things for me. But, my goal is to get at least three people to do something for me. It is a shitty thing. A thing to do if you are full of hate toward the bloggin cliques.

A while back I was part of the Best of Blogs thing. I was nominated for best overall blog because some people were on the crack cocaine and thought that my blog was good. (It’s not a good blog, it’s a shitty blog. All blogs are shitty, but mine much more so than others.)

I lost the Best of Blogs. Probably quite badly. But, people are awesome and cheated for me in the votes which made me happy. I may have a shitty blog, but I’m cool enough to get people to rig the vote for me. Having people cheat for you is a sign of being shitty.

I want to prove that I am ultimately shitty.

Anyway, this is a round about way of getting to the Shitty Blog Survivor thing. The Best of Blogs was run (sort of) by Genuine Jim. I suspect because I have an officially shitty blog, I had about a 1/1^n+1 chance of winning that thing.

however, I am shitty and therefore I have a fairly good chance of winning The Shitty Blog Survivor contest.

To pass the next criteria, I get to harass Genuine Jim himself by sending my minions friends to his blog (which you can find here: http:// http://www.genuineblog.com) and leave a message that says:

Utopia sent me! Be proud! Be Shitty!

Do it! If I had people willing to cheat for me, then by god there are people out there willing to harass other bloggers for me.

You guys fucking rule.

Wuyi Mango Chicken with Mushrooms

¼ cup sesame oil (or extra virgin olive oil)
½ cup strong Wuyi Oolong tea
1 cup diced mango
2-3 cubed chicken breasts
1-2 cloves crushed garlic
¼ cup chopped green onion
1 cup sliced portabella mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil in a large pan, making sure the oil covers the entire area of the pan.
2. Add crushed garlic and green onion. Cook until softened.
3. Add cubed chicken to the oil and brown all sides.
4. Pour off extra oil and fat.
5. Add Wuyi Oolong tea and cover. Simmer the chicken on low heat until tender.
6. Add mango and portabella mushrooms and cook for 10 minutes before removing from heat.
7. Salt and pepper to taste.

Well then, I will be making this recipe tonight and hopefully have pictures as well. It is a modification of Taiwanese Mango Chicken. Instead of soy sauce, I thought Oolong Tea would make a lovely substitute. First off, it will be much less salty as soy tends to be a bit over bearing on chicken and mango. The Wuyi Oolong also has an earthy, smoky flavor that I think will compliment both the chicken and the mango.

It is a very simple recipe and should cook in about a half hour. You can buy pre-diced mango and sliced portabella which will cut the preparation time down to nearly nothing. I decided to go with a simpler recipe because that is what people tend to prefer cooking. There is no reason to make things overly complicated if they don’t need to be.

To modify this into a more complete meal, you can serve it with a side of rice or possibly some pan fried lo mien noodles. If you want a lighter meal, you can serve it atop a bed of lettuce or fresh spinach as a salad. You won’t need dressing because of the nice sauce the mango and oolong will make.

This weekend I will be gaming. I will be gaming all day, all weekend. It is the Game Fest. It happens every four months or so here in Atlanta. A bunch of smarmy dorks like myself get together in the ballroom of a cheap hotel and play board games all weekend. There is also Game Day. This happens between the Game Fests.

I haven’t been to a Games Fest yet, but I have been to a Games Day. I am looking forward to this one. It will give me the chance to unwind a bit and lay waste to unsuspecting gamers in various strategy games. No one ever suspects me as being good or liking those games. Hopefully I will get off of work in time to make it back to the other flipping side of town where I live (and basically where Games Fest is) and get in on a Diplomacy game or something similar.

I like Diplomacy. I first played back in High School. We played in English class after reading “Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun”. We also played this game where we were trying to build the biggest tower out of the other groups. My group won in both cases. I did all of the wheeling and dealing for both games.

In general, people believe the things that fall out of my mouth. I suppose it helps being a stoic in those cases. It also helps to have keen observation skills. I’ve found that most people don’t. I’m fairly good at finding compromise in situations and then manipulating the “compromise” into my advantage and smiting my enemies. My enemies, of course, being everyone else.

In the Tower Building game back in High School, we were given two “bombs” with which to use at any point in the game and “blow up” another team’s tower. I convinced other teams to blow up other people’s tower’s for me so I could save my bombs until the very end and blow up any who might possibly beat me at the end of the game. I also traded items between groups to form such “alliances”. My alliances were all lies.

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

I think perhaps I was the only one who read that book. Maybe other’s read it, but I don’t think they actually understood it. I suppose the key is being able to think on your feet and turn any situation into your advantage.

I am looking forward to letting out a bit of aggression this weekend. I wonder what games will pop out of the woodworks for me to play.

Sometimes I hear people talking about me behind my back. I have rather good hearing, though I can block things out. I know I am not the most expressive person in the world. To be frank, I feel ill at ease around most people. I often feel like I am separate from them, looking on from the fringe. Smiling when I should smile, nodding when I should nod.

So, I heard people talking about me behind my back. They didn’t say anything I didn’t already know about myself. They said I was cold. They said I was expressionless. They said I was something like a Noh Actor.

Often times I feel like a Noh Actor; safe behind my mask of stoicism. I don’t cry in front of people. I don’t yell in front of people. I rarely tell anyone how I feel. I don’t betray either sadness or happiness to them. I don’t betray the uncertainty I often feel. I think it is my own pride that makes me put up this mask. I am fairly certain that it is.

I use my pride to hide away all of my weaknesses, my flaws. So, I wear my unexpressive mask and people think I am strong. Noh masks are fragile porcelain. My mask keeps people away. I think in the end I want to keep people away from me. I want to be some strange untouchable thing.

I know I seem cold. I know I seem arrogant. I know I seem strong and balanced and sure.

I also know I am a coward.

I’m not ashamed of that.

Behind my mask I can weep.

I enjoy the physical act of writing. I always have. I am obsessed with paper, pens and other writing implements. Strangely, I also hate making the first mark on a new journal. I can’t really explain why. I suppose I feel like I’m ruining the page … like I’m taking something pure and making it dirty. I have many empty journals. They are beautiful and clean … untouched, unspoiled. They are so full of potential. I fill composition books with my useless blathering and thoughts. I write page after page into this blog; I won’t even mention how many pages of type I fill and then delete after they’re written…

…but these beautiful books remain empty and clean.

I am always in search of the perfect pen with which to write in these journals, as if having the perfect pen will suddenly make it alright to spoil them. Each journal must have it’s own pen because the paper in every journal is different. Some papers are rough and unrefined so they need a more lovely pen. Other papers are smooth and crisp so they can have a rougher pen.

So, I search for the perfect match.

I think we all are searching for some sort of perfect match.

Hablo español y íngles. Claro! Es un problema en mi corazón. No soy una poeta en español pero intento. Mis palabras no son hermosas o líricas. Debo pensar en las palabras apropiadas. Nunca sé si correctos.

But, then again, I have to think about my words in English as well.

Temo palabras.

Yes, I am afraid of words.

So, Jeckles says our next contest is to sing. Fucker. I'm sure he did this to spite me, specifically. I can't sing. It's sad and wretched and will make his ear fucking bleed. But, I'll do it, because now I HAVE to win. I'm a cunt like that. I would apologize to jeckles and the judges, but well, fuck it.

Anyway, a preview of the lyrics. They ae subject to change. Maybe, if I feel like it.

The Ballad of Shitty Blog Isle
(with sincerest apologies to George Wyle and Sherwood Shwartz)

Just plop right down and you'll here some shit
some shit of a shitty crew.
That started as a reaction
to prove that blogging blew.
Jeckles was a mighty cunt,
an asshole to be sure.
he made us join this shitty thing
To be the survivor... to be the survivor.
First it was clever yarn
and then he did get cross
If not for the whining of our dear crew
The SBC'd be lost, the SBC'd be lost
So, three contest gone and a bluff, here the rest do stand
With Webkittyn and YummY! too
Rilah and Mrs Gus,
Utopia, Deb-Jen-Rose and Monty
And the McAwesome crew.

So this is a tale of our Shitty Blogs
we'll bitch in song and rhyme.
We know that this contest is
a total waste of time.
With Jeckles and the shitty crew
we'll do our very best
to put the other shitty blogs
to shame in this contest.
No style, no dough, no content here
No time for quality.
Like cheap romance novels
We're shitty as can be.
So vote for me this week my friends
you're sure to get a smile.
From Utopia the rabid cunt
here on Shitty Blog Isle!

I am thinking about starting a cooking blog. I realized that I post quite a few recipes here and a good many of them sort of get lost in the fray of my useless banter and misanthropic prattle. I also noticed that I post mainly bread recipe here. I actually can make things other than bread and I’d like to branch out a bit more.

So, I think a cooking blog/webpage is the way to go. Of course, I don’t know what to call it or have any other details planned out. I don’t have a catchy theme like 30 Minute Meals or Frugal Gourmet. I usually forget to take pictures of my food so people just have to take my word for it that it turned out nice.

Ah well, I have an idea what sort of page it will be. In my head I picture something akin to Fried Green Tomatoes or Like Water for Chocolate. Stories to go along with the recipes. To be honest, I don’t cook often anymore. My cooking remains confined to the weekends when I have time. Of course, I probably could cook after I got home from work, but don’t tell my husband that. I do so like being pampered and not having to worry about it. It’s one of the few things that makes me smile during my day. Knowing that when I get home, my husband will have made me a meal that we can sit down and eat together.

So, instead, I am now Utopia … The Weekend Warrior Chef. Yesterday I made a nice porter marinated roast with portabellas and potatoes. It was pretty dang tasty. I’m going to add some of the remainder to my Odon Soup for lunch today. It ought to prove tasty.

Well, I should go back to ruminating over my cooking blog idea and finish coding the pages for “I say Fuck” and YummY! I am honestly working on them, I just get lazy. Very lazy.

1. Golf was created on a bar bet by manly, drunk Scots.

2. The potato is one of the Earth’s best and most versatile foods.

3. Very large breasts on a very small frame make you three times more likely to have porn star like qualities.

4. J-Lo, Britteny Spears, and Madonna can’t sing, however, their fine asses make it impossible to discern this fact due to the strange hypnotic quality of their rotational shaking.

5. Oranges have less flavor than they used to.

6. The pandas are going to eat you, the pandas in Central Park.

7. Married people either love weddings or hate them. They love them because of the hot sticky sex they’ll be having later on in reminiscence of their own wedding or they hate them because of the lack of hot, sticky sex they’ll be having in reminiscence of their own wedding.

8. There is a conspiracy to make jeans fall below my ass crack. I blame this on the strange hypnotic quality of the rotational shaking of asses mentioned above.

9. Pre-packaged breakfast foods have the highest caloric density out of all foods.

10. Crack and bacon must have the same addictive chemical floating around in their gnome.

I am now an official Tea Chef! This means that I am being sent a free sample of this month's tea which is Wuyi Oolong with which to make a nice recipe. Last month's tea was Gunpowder tea,. There are some interesting recipes posted from that. The slow cooked chai looks pretty interesting and I might actually try that.

I am in a tizzy right now waiting for my sample to arrive so I can get into the mood to cook something. I figure I'll whip out my tea sampling set and taste it, then go from there. An Oolong might go well with chicken. Maybe I'll try something with an Oolong teriyaki glaze. I don't know yet.

I am really looking forward to this. I will post my recipe with pictures when I'm done. Perhaps I'lll win... perhaps I won't. But I look forward to it as it should be fun.

1. I have low blood sugar and low iron. This makes me get very woozy when I don’t eat. It also makes me very, very, very cranky. I hate being cranky, so I eat many times during the day so I don’t fall into a woozy, cranky coma. Maybe I should add sugar to my diet, but I just don’t like sweet things. I’ve tried to make up for this by eating lots of fruit. It doesn’t always work.

2. I think I’ve killed my bonsais. They are still green, but sort of wilty looking. I gave them some sun like the instructions said and I’ve kept them watered as per instruction. Damn you black thumb… damn you. I also plan to buy a kit for Ginger because she can't find the cheap on at her Borders/Walden books.

3. My error analysis book has the picture of a wrecked train on the front. My Quantum book had a picture of a live cat on the front and a dead cat on the back. My Quantum Field Theory book is bright fucking yellow. I love wacky book covers on text books. They make me happy.

Well, WebKittyn asked for a cheesy bread recipe. I have tons of these. If I had to choose only two foods to eat for the rest of eternity, they would be cheese and bread. To combine these two foods into one is a near orgasmic experience. At least it should be. However, many people do not really understand the art of a good cheese bread. Many people simply top the bread with cheese. While this is all well and good, you may as well go to the store, buy a loaf of bread and some shredded cheese and place it in a toaster oven for five minutes. Bah I say, BAH! (I don’t mean this in the cute sheep way of baaing; I mean this in the angry, crotchety old man way.)

So, in the spirit of my my Ricotta Garlic Bread, I bring you a very special cheese bread recipe. I just made it up today. It is a special present for WebKittyn because she won the Blog Thunderdome. She showed claws and the power of being a Blog Whore. This is a power I do not possess. I do however possess the power of fuck and the ability to bake a damn good loaf of bread. (Let me polish my ego a smidgen for you all to look at here.)

So, using my meager powers, I present WebKittyn with the following:

WebKittyn’s Wicked-Awesome Wheaty Potato Cheese Bread
(I know WebKittyn like alliteration, so I tried for a bit of it in the name of the bread.)

Ingredients
1 package yeast
½ cup warm water
2 large egg
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 cup room temp mashed potatoes (instant are fine, but fresh are better)
1 cup milk
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil (or olive oil is fine… extra virgin)
2 “healthy” Tablespoons honey
½ cup finely grated parmesan romano cheese
½ cup finely grated mozzarella cheese
2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
4-6 cups all purpose flour
extra cheesy awesome

1. In a large bowl, mix together yeast and sugar.
2. Add warm water to yeast and sugar and allow it to sit until it’s frothy.
3. Add in mashed potatoes, milk, honey, eggs, oil and 1 Whole Wheat flour.
4. Blend together until no lumps remain.
5. Add in grated cheeses and mix until blended all the way through.
6. Add in remaining Whole Wheat Flour and mix.
7. Add in All-Purpose flour until a stiff dough is formed that easily pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
8. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead vigorously for several minutes. (Or knead in a Kitchen Aid, but kneading by hand is therapeutic and you have more control over it.)
9. Shape the dough into a ball and place into a greased bowl. Cover and allow to rise until double in size.
10. Turn dough out onto floured surface and punch down. Knead vigorously again.
11. Split dough into two even portions.
12. Shape dough as you wish. I like shaping cheese bread into rings by rolling out the portions into long ropes and braiding them together. But round loaves or even pan loaves would work. Bread sticks might also be nice.
13. Sprinkle the top of the loaves with assorted cheesy awesome before you allow them to rise. You can also sprinkle with herbs if you wish, but I think it might be overkill.
14. Bake for approximately 40 minutes at 375°F or until the loaf is golden brown on the top and sounds hollow when you thump the top.

So, there is it. A special recipe for a winner. Hooray for WebKittyn.

If this is too complicated, I'll post a simpler cheesy beer bread.

I have been bad about posting lately and I don’t really care. I’m unmotivated to really write of late. I’ve been trying, but everything that I type winds up sounding cliché, whiny or just plain boring. So instead of anything of use, I’m going to post a recipe for Bannock. It is sort of like a Scottish scone… except, not a scone at all. Like scones, they go great with tea. I like tea greatly, so this recipe makes me very happy.

I talked about it on my radio show on Sunday, giving out the recipe. If you missed it, or it went by too fast for you, here is a run down.

Bannock

2 cups oatmeal
2 cups flour
½ cup softened butter (that’s about 1 stick of real butter… no fake butter crap)
3 Tablespoons sugar (no fake sugar like Splenda either…ick)
dash of cinnamon
1 Tablespoon baking powder
¾ cup warmed milk

1. Mix together all your dry ingredients.
2. Cube in your butter.
3. With a fork or clean hands, mix the butter in with the dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly and sticks together slightly when you squeeze it.
4. Slowly add in milk, mixing gently with your hands until a ball is formed that doesn’t fall apart.
5. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough until about ½ inch thick.
6. Cut out shapes with a cookie cutter. (Makes about 20 or so, depending on the size of the cookie cutter.)
7. When there is no more room for shapes, reroll dough and continue.)
8. Place evenly on an ungreased cookie sheet.
9. Bake at 450°F for about 15 minutes. They should turn a golden brown on the top.

These are best served warm and with a bit of jam. I think they’re especially tasty with blackberry jam. But, some say blueberry is better and others argue for strawberry. I like to eat them with milked, unsweetened tea. Despite the fact that they are made with real butter and sugar, they are still fairly healthy.

I will also be posting a recipe for cheese bread in a bit for WebKittyn.

37 days until the world goes bloody wacky for soccer (or football, futbol or any other derivation of the name you wish to take). I am in a tizzy trying to keep up with all the games that are leading up to the big game. It’s especially tough because I don’t have cable. This means I have to watch clips online and read up on the games instead. To be honest, reading up on it just isn’t the same, but catching the clips is always fun. You can get pretty good clips from http://www.soccerclips.net/, but you have to know what you’re looking for which can be frustrating. You can also scour the sports pages of various news networks. if you can read Spanish, it’ll be easier, but Britain has a few good pages as well. Just google it.

Well, my choices for Group B just got a bit of a shake up. I am going to have to side with Brongar now. He’s convinced me … that and I saw some of the English game the other day. Combine this with the fact the Rooney is out for the count with multiple foot fractures and I think Paraguay will be able to advance now. I think the injury with Rooney will throw off England’s balance and really give them trouble. But, who know, they have 37 days to pull it together. I think they’ll be hurt if they keep him on the roster. Of course, the British guy in the office across from my cube disagrees, but he agrees that it’s a hitch for them in World Cup.

Anyway, I am excited. I probably won’t be watching many games as they air because of the whole TV issue, but I will be trying to download as many as I can to watch all in one fell swoop. And I’ll have the news … dry as it may be.