Home Depot Fails Again

A while back I broke down and ordered a Ridgid sliding miter saw on the Home Depot site. Chinese tools (i.e. nearly ALL tools) are getting more expensive, and they were offering it at a price over a hundred dollars lower than a Bosch. I have some jobs I need a miter saw for, and as much as I love my Ridgid 10″ non-sliding saw, I have found that it’s just too small for a lot of projects. If you never cut anything wider than a two-by-six, this is your dream saw. Otherwise, grit your teeth and get a slider. Or try to find a way to cut long boards to length on a table saw. I am not willing to fool with that.

The new saw was backordered, and damned if Home Depot didn’t cancel on me. I am so mad. In the stores, the saw costs $50 more. And I have been waiting for it so I could fix more things an idiot contractor ruined. Honestly, you can scream at a lying boob and get nowhere, you can waste your time in small claims court, or you can buy materials and follow behind these pinheads and move on with life. I choose the third option.

I guess I’m going to have to pay the extra money, unless I want the rain to continue pouring through the two-year-old doors Mr. Professional Contracting Genius built.

But homeowners who do their own work are jerks. Remember that. Contractors say so, so it must be true.

You Can’t Help Others Without Helping Yourself

Got several things to talk about today.

First of all, let me apologize to all the people who have patiently tried to make me part of their Facebook and Myspace experiences. I just can’t seem to get into social networking. I don’t get it. Maybe there is something wrong with me. I will log in today and try to catch up.

Second, someone emailed and asked about good gun shops in the Miami area. I can’t recommend any of the local places all that highly. I’ve bought guns at Garcia’s National Gun, and they’ve given me good prices and competent service, and I have nothing critical to say about them, but I wouldn’t say the experiences were inspiring. Bass Pro Shops has a store in Miami, and the gun area is pathetic, probably due to the yankees who still exert a disproportionate influence here. Their Hollywood store, however, is much better. I think I’d consider going there, if I needed advice or smithing as well as a good price.

Third, happy Fourth of July! Enjoy your burgers and don’t even mention Cinco de Mayo.

Fourth, I saw an interesting guy on Fox News today. He’s some kind of shrink. He was talking about the heartbreaking Brooke Bennett story. This young girl was apparently lured into the hands of murdering perverts by another girl who is only fourteen. And that girl had stated that she wanted to see Brooke suffer.

Megyn Kelly asked the shrink how a girl that young could have that attitude, and the shrink said that people from abusive environments learn to shut off their feelings in order to avoid feeling pain. Then later on, the same trick prevents them from empathizing with the pain of others.

I had never heard it put that way before. I had heard the phrase “cycle of abuse,” but it always seemed like a platitude. Now I see how it could make sense.

I had a miserable childhood, and I learned to put off feeling things that upset me. I’ve written about this before. After I became an adult, I realized I was not responding properly when I was presented with the suffering of others. For example, I remember watching footage of Nazi concentration camps. I disapproved of what I saw, but I didn’t think of each person–each body in the mass graves–as a human being with a name and relatives and a history and so on. I thought maybe television and movies had desensitized me. That was probably true, but I now wonder if the defense mechanisms I used as a kid were also to blame.

When I realized I wasn’t feeling the distress a healthy person should feel, I started making a point of trying to think more deeply about other people’s suffering. Today, for example, if I’m watching the History Channel and I see that old concentration camp footage, I look at the faces and I wonder about the lives of these dead individuals. I wonder if they were married. Whether they had kids. What their achievements had been. And what I feel is much more appropriate. The other day I saw a show about the B-29, and they showed footage of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs going off. I thought about the people burning under those clouds, and the fact that the gas was partly composed of human beings.

It’s a better way to live. Not as comfortable, maybe, but more likely to lead to constructive thoughts and actions. I find it helpful as I try to improve myself. For example, many times in my writing, I’ve said things that were unbelievably stupid and seemingly cruel, and I’ve been trying to pick up on these things as they appear, instead of being bitten in the ass by them later.

I was thinking about this today, and I realized that I knew of a way other people could protect themselves from becoming jaded and insensitive. Charity. I think this is one reason God demands that Jews and Christians give money to charity and take care of the needy. It’s not just to help others. It helps the giver as well. When you decide to give, and you start looking around for a good opportunity, you will find yourself presented with a burdensome smorgasbord of human misery. Babies with worms. Jews trapped in Muslim countries. Girls forced into prostitution. The list is virtually endless. And when you try to decide where to send your aid on a given day, you can’t help but feel empathy for the people you try to help.

If you, too, feel as though you’ve become calcified from movies and television and Internet rage, and maybe from the bad things that have been done to you during your life, consider charity as a way to heal yourself. You might try the links on the left side of my blog. World Vision and the IFCJ are especially good; they will present you with specific opportunities that may touch you in special ways. You might buy a family a few chickens or help a Jew leave a squalid camp in Ethiopia.

The Internet is making all of us less sensitive and civil. Maybe charity can help you fight back.

Final note: Russ Emerson put up a review of my book, Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man – The World’s Unhealthiest Cookbook. Thanks, Russ. Your loyalty means a lot to me. Hope the physical therapy is going well.

Short and Sweet

I kept trying to think of a good domain name for a site for the cookbook. It has to be short and easy to remember, and it has to be descriptive. Codebluecooking.com isn’t that great.

After Googling to see what has already been taken, I am thinking I’ll just make it ManlyGrub.com.

Thoughts?

Ethiopian Ambrosia

Dan from Madison lost his mind and decided to try a recipe from Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man – The World’s Unhealthiest Cookbook. And it wasn’t something everyone seems to like, such as brownies or blueberry cheesecake. He chose doro wat, which is Ethiopian chicken stew.

Ethiopians cook very spicy food, and they dump it on giant sour pancakes and use them to pick it up and eat it. You really have to try it. I corrupted it by putting sour cream on the side, but you can be more orthodox. Dan ate his doro wat with rice, and nobody arrested him.

Dan took it easy on the peppers, and he couldn’t get fenugreek. I think buyin fenugreek over the web is worth the aggravation. It has a unique flavor. But as Dan will tell you, doro wat is fine with or without it. It looks like he did an excellent job.

Here’s the first part of his two-part doro wat photoessay.

Positive Review

I am getting excited emails from a reader who is trying my doro wat (Ethiopian chicken stew) recipe. He didn’t bother making injera or rotis, and he was not able to get fenugreek, but you can always cheat and eat it over rice, so that’s what he’s doing.

Rather than bloviate about how great I am, I will wait for him to post a review. So far it sounds favorable.

I think I had to go to Penzey’s to get fenugreek, and the seeds are so hard, I used a coffee grinder to grind them. I have one grinder I only use for spices. Fenugreek is pretty neat, but oddly, it’s not essential.

He’s using chicken thighs with the bones still in them, and I think that’s a good choice.

Gun or Walking Stick?

I have a question. The Smith & Wesson 27-2 is pretty cool. And it seems like the model with the 8 3/8″ barrel always sells for less than the shorter-barreled models. I have never been tempted to buy a revolver with a barrel that long, because my guess is that the balance would be awful. And it would be awkward to carry and store.

So what I want to know is, what is a barrel that long good for? I think 4-5″ is perfect. You can carry guns that size if you have to, and they have a decent sight radius for accuracy, and they’re not hideously ugly, like snubnoses. I suppose you could say the longer guns are for hunting, but that doesn’t make sense, because you’d use a scope, which would work just as well on a 4″ gun.

HOI Approved

I had to cook some thick pork chops the other day, and I didn’t know what to do. I decided to rely on a recipe from my book.

If you have the book, you’ve noticed the stuffed pig recipe. It has two parts. First, a recipe for stuffed pork chops. Then a recipe for an entire pig. I cannot recommend these recipes highly enough. You won’t believe them until you try them.

I didn’t stuff the pork chops I cooked recently. Instead, I took one idea from the recipe and used it. I have sage growing in the yard, so I grabbed a handful. I poured about a cup of apricot nectar and a cup of Marsala (Florio’s sweet) in a pan. I shredded the sage into it and added salt and pepper, I added two tablespoons of butter, and I reduced the liquid until it was thick. I had already salted the chops and set them aside to absorb the salt. I brushed the liquid on the chops and baked them at 350 until they hit 170 degrees on the inside.

They were excellent. You should try it. I think they would be much better if you soaked them in the nectar and Marsala for a day before reducing it. And if you want to be a complete perfectionist, brine them in a baking soda solution for a day before that.

They’re better with stuffing, but this version has the benefit of not killing you as quickly.

If you use the recipe in the book, make sure you use a thermometer instead of relying on time. Jam it in the middle of the stuffing. When the stuffing is cooked, the pork is definitely safe.

I think peach nectar would be good, too.

Wonderful Feedback

I am receiving more priceless celebrity endorsements for Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man – The World’s Unhealthiest Cookbook.

Okay, they’re not from celebrities. But they’re still pretty good.

Good afternoon, sir! I’ve been a longtime reader of your blog and have bought all three books. It’s really nice to see someone with good values (I’m very impressed by your religion posts) and connections to my part of the world get ahead in life. (I’m an Eastern KY __________ from __ County.) I really have enjoyed all of them, but the cookbook is a masterpiece. I read three chapters, then promptly drove three counties over to buy a griddle. 🙂 Made the steak and potato recipe last night… I thought I’d died and went to heaven. Keep up the amazing work!

Wow, I’m glad someone tried the griddle idea. There are no bad recipes in the book, but some stand out, and my steaks are so good, I no longer have any interest at all in steakhouses. I have been criticized for frying steak, which is what happens on a griddle, but what you get is a beautifully charred piece of meat, more than worthy of an expensive restaurant. My steaks are better than Ruth’s Chris et alia, so who cares if they’re fried?

Sometimes I think it would be fun to make beef gravy on the griddle. It would be sickeningly good. The griddle adds a lot of flavor.

Shipping it today. Very nice job. We making the pizza tonight. You didn’t mention the redneck lamb box thro…

I’ll post a review… althro I didn’t see the comment about the librarian and the leather belt soaked in cinnamon oil from the first one. I loved Adam, Satan and Petunia thro. A better story than the Lilith one.

I can’t say it enough. The pizza recipe justifies buying the book. I have to warn you, though, Mike is right. Once you have the power to make real pizza at home, you’ll make it over and over and over. He said it took him five years to stop. That is not a joke. If you’re fat, it may be a real problem.

Thanks again, all.

Upstream

Haloscan has gone insane again. This is why you are unable to comment.

A Fine Trade for Innocent Lives

I was just reading about the Muslim nutwad who stole a front-end loader and used it to kill and injure a bunch of innocent people in Jerusalem.

This vicious, deluded individual went on a rampage, throwing cars and doing as much damage as he could do. What finally stopped him? Firearms. The best solution to random violent crime.

The first shooter was an off-duty soldier. The second was an anti-terror officer. For some reason, it took two guns to take this moron out and send him to hell, where he did not find the virgins he was promised. By the time he was dead, a large number of people had become victims.

Israel now has bizarre, suicidal gun-control legislation. When I lived there, you couldn’t walk down a street without seeing two or three automatic rifles. Now the populace is disarmed, except for a lucky few. Diane Feinstein would have fit right in, when she had her precious elitist gun permit. Chuck Schumer still has one; maybe he should emigrate.

Would this fool have tried this twenty years ago? I doubt it. When I was there, a bunch of inbred “freedom fighters” attacked a public square, and they were immediately put in their place by armed Israelis. When questioned, they said they would not have attacked, had they realized people were armed. Duh.

It seems like we now have a strange and asymmetrical situation in Israel. In “Palestine,” i.e. the bits of Israel the Jews gave away to thieving squatters, it’s okay to have a shoulder-fired rocket. In Jerusalem, you’re not allowed to have a pistol. How can anyone think that’s a good arrangement?

Arm your people, Israel. We know from experience that they don’t use weapons to commit violent crime. And we know what happens when they can’t fight back.

If You Don’t, the Vultures Will

What a morning.

Over the last ten days, I have been hearing a lot about my great uncle, whom I will call Bill. He’s my grandmother’s brother. He’s 89, and he never married, so he has no kids. The family somehow lost track of him, and recently, his great-nephew contacted my aunt and asked her to pay his nursing home bill.

It looks like the great-nephew and his wife convinced Bill to sell his house, buy another one, and put it in their names. And he has Social Security and a pension from the company he worked for all his life. And he has Medicare. Yet somehow, he owed money to a nursing home. Where is the money going? See if you can guess. Unless my aunt and sister and I are badly misled, these miscreants have been cashing his checks and waiting for him to die. And they apparently thought no one would be alarmed if they showed up and asked for thirteen thousand dollars to pay his bills.

My aunt got into gear and located him, and she got a power of attorney, and now he’s in a nursing home in her town. By all accounts, it’s a decent place. The family is getting him things to make his life more pleasant. And it looks like the great-nephew and his wife are about to face a grand jury.

Honest to God, where does trash like this come from? We should have kept tabs on him, and that is our shame, but what kind of low life would put an old man in a home, take his money, and then ask other relatives to pay his bills?

I don’t know why he turned to these losers instead of us, but that’s water under the bridge now.

Don’t let this happen in your family. If an older relative wanders off and you lose touch, find out what’s going on before it gets this far. When an older person seems strong and capable, it’s easy to think he can take care of himself. Sometimes they can, and sometimes they can’t.

Eastern Kentucky must have unique soil, because the trash that grows there is a wonder to behold.

Coulter, Buchanan…What’s the Difference?

I meant to mention this the other day.

While Fausta was in Miami, we happened to discuss Ann Coulter. And boy, did we turn out to be on the same frequency. Fausta mentioned one of Acidman’s buddies, and I said I feared I had alienated some members of that crew by criticizing Ann Coulter’s slurs. There are a few men on the web who idolize Coulter and feel they have to defend her at all costs, and they are probably too dumb to understand that you can’t do the GOP any good by calling people “total fag,” “faggot,” “camel jockey,” or “tent merchant” in the national media. That is not going to win us converts or votes.

Before I could fully explain my thoughts, Fausta started telling me how she went to CPAC and signed a petition trying to get Coulter’s “official speaker” endorsement revoked. She said she was watching TV with some other bloggers, and they saw Coulter call John Edwards a faggot, and immediately, the petition materialized. I believe that’s what she said. And when Fausta told me her opinion of Coulter, it was like listening to my own words. The basics? All she cares about is selling books; the GOP and the United States can go pound sand. And Coulter raises a hell of a lot of money for Democrat candidates.

Glad to hear I’m not alone, and that a lot of other conservatives have reached exactly the same conclusions I did, with no input from me.

I know what it’s like to say something stupid and over the top, but I also know how to admit it, and that appears to be a lesson Ms. Coulter will never learn. I have never seen her apologize or admit fault in the slightest degree, and I’ll bet I never will. That is one of the most serious character flaws a person can have, and it’s enough to prevent me from taking her seriously, regardless of how good the bulk of her writing is. It puts her in the grey area between “pundit” and “sideshow act.” And that is a waste.

But she’s rich, so Mission Accomplished, I guess.

She’s like Pat Buchanan. Brilliant guy, but he hates Jews, so to hell with his books. I can’t believe they still put him on TV panels.

I guess everyone knows Victor Davis Hanson recently handed Buchanan his own ass, brutally and decisively. More like, Hanson lifted Buchanan’s ass over his head and used it to hammer him into the ground. As Critical Bill might have put it, Hanson:Buchanan as Godzilla:Japan. It just goes to show that brains are worthless if you can’t see past your own biases.

More

I found a blogger who has written up the CPAC story. Even watery old Glenn Reynolds signed the petition. His signature was probably the longest piece of writing he had done in a month.

Here’s the entry.

I did not realize Coulter had used the word “raghead” at CPAC in 2006. I have to revise my opinion of her, downward. The woman is an utter idiot.

CPAC rejected her this year, based on her atrocious past behavior. The toothless mullet-wearers who hate me for criticizing Coulter need to start insulting CPAC, too.

Whoops

I think I forgot to mention this. Kevin over at Technogypsy put up a link to my book, Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man – The World’s Unhealthiest Cookbook.

Thanks, dude!

More

Also a gracious link from Bill Quick, at Daily Pundit. Thanks, Bill!

More

Claire dared to tamper with my peach cobbler recipe! If she improved it, I’ll sue!

She thinks there may be a misprint, RE vanilla extract. Unfortunately, I can’t remember.

More

Here’s one from…Captain Cryptic?

More

Damned if Helo hasn’t chimed in.

More

Did I already mention Kim’s review? Can’t remember, so I’ll put up a link.

More

ACK! Here comes Heather!

Not once, but twice!

More

Steve Gigl, who has threatened to cook every recipe and blog it. God help him.

Where are the Smelly Protesters?

I am an amazing human being. I built a platform for the pool pump.

I was going to use concrete, but I had a lot of scrap wood lying around, and some of it was pressure-treated, so I figured it would be okay to put it in a humid place where it might get water on it occasionally. I got out the miter saw and the impact driver and the socket set, and before you know it, I had a platform Michael Moore could sit on without crushing it instantly into a quantum singularity.

Note I said “instantly.”

It took me an hour to build the platform, and when I got it out to the pump area, the damn pump was leaking. The “out” fitting was the problem this time. This is another fitting I stupidly used tape on. I had to saw a piece out of a pipe, create a splice out of a male fitting and a female fitting, put the “out” pipe back in with pipe dope, and cement everything together. I hope it doesn’t leak this time. I know I can fix it, but still.

I am now the Apostle of Pipe Dope. That stuff rocks. Explain again why anyone would use Teflon.

The mosquitoes seem really angry. The were forming a cloud over the pump. My guess is, the constant leakage out there found its way into a cavity somewhere, and I have been breeding bugs in it. Now that cavity is drying up. All this time, I blamed the trashy neighbors with the green pool and the crappy cars under stained canvas covers. Oh, well.

I still wish they would move.

A miter saw is an incredible tool. You leave it sitting in the garage on a Workmate, and when you want to saw wood, it’s just THERE. Waiting. And this experience confirmed my indisputable need for a 12″ sliding saw. I had no trouble cutting four-by-fours, but I had to turn the two-by-eight over.

I have decided Ridgid has the optimal 12″ miter saw. It gets reviews nearly as good as Makita and Bosch, and it’s a lot cheaper, and they have that eternal warranty. And my other Ridgid tools seem great. I don’t know how Home Depot ended up with a good product line, but I have no complaints. Today I got an email advertising their weird little 6 1/2″ circular saw, and it looks like that’s a pretty sweet tool, too. It’s very small and light, but you can do a 45-degree bevel in a two-by-whatever.

My 10″ saw gives me a thrill every time I use it. Today I discovered I can get perfect cuts–no fraying–if I saw a little slower than usual.

I wish I could write a book on learning to use tools. Big subject, though. And I’d say something stupid and cause idiots to cut their fingers off.

You Need It

I’m about to mention something wonderful, but supposedly, the site where it originally appeared has some sort of adware on it, so instead of linking to that site, I’ll link to the site where I found it.

Luckily for everyone, that site belongs to Sondra K.

It’s a T-shirt you really need. And I hope the design is also going on thongs and such.