A couple of weeks ago the front page of the local paper announced that $15,000 in iPods had been stolen in a wee-hours smash-and-grab burglary. The article went on to talk about how iPods were a hot target for burglars and thieves, and so on. It wasn’t so much a news article as it was a FUD article — fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Make us scared, make us worry, make us buy tomorrow’s paper.

A week later the same paper buried an article describing how police tracked down the burglars and recovered all but two of the stolen iPods. The perps are in jail or juvie awaiting trial, and the stolen property is back in the hands of those to whom it rightfully belongs. But that article isn’t SCARY enough, so it’s back in the “police beat” section of the paper.

*sigh*

–Howard

I mentioned fried chicken a couple of entries ago. Here’s how I do it:

Recipe behind the cut

I learned an important lesson a few years back when my sister-in-law Rebecca brought piles and piles of variety to our shared Thanksgiving table. We already had turkey, mashed potatos, stuffing, gravy, rolls, and maybe a side of green beans, but with her contributions the “dish-count” sprang to something like twenty.

For me, the turkey was the important part. For her, it was the “spread.” There had to be lots of variety, such that you could never hope to eat more than a spoonful of everything without bloating.

I’ve since seen the light, myself. Turkeys are hard to cook correctly*, but a cornucopic feast is actually pretty simple if you plan ahead, and invite contributions from the invited guests.

So… what do YOU think?

–Howard
*NOTE: Don’t give me this “oh, but it’s so simple” crap… if you cook the whole bird at once, then by the time the dark meat is cooked to perfection, the white meat is dry and awful, unless you perform some serious thermodynamic voodoo. I have very high standards for the meat I eat, thus, “hard to cook correctly.”

I came downstairs to write about how much fun it was to make fried chicken, and ended up working instead.

That’s okay. The work needed to be done, and you guys can figure out how to make fried chicken on your own. Mostly I think this is a cool triumph of my easily-distracted nature. Instead of being distracted AWAY from work, I got distracted TOWARDS it.

more behind the cut