Absolutely Rotten Mango

Earlier this year, I bought a bottle of Absolute Mango vodka for Dr Desert Flower.  She wanted Citron, and Total Wine was out of Citron that day.  We both love the taste of mangoes, so I thought, "why not?" The Mango Absolute was a mistake.  Our bottle carried a pungent aftertaste reminiscent of what a kitchen garbage can smells like the day after you throw away a bunch of orange peels.  There's a acrid, revolting, intrusive scent and acidic lingering taste that took a great deal of cranberry and stevia to over-power.  It's never a good idea to drink something whose taste you need to "over-power" or "over-whelm".

I won't be making the same mistake again, of buying or drinking Absolute Mango.  If you enjoy the biting taste, stinging scent, and lingering "ewwwww" on your tongue that is similar to rotting orange peels, then this beverage may be for you.

Stevia Delivery Methods

Trader Joe's provides many different ways to deliver real, organic, healthy stevia into your diet.  I've tried each one, and have found that my favorite is the liquid version.

The liquid version uses ethanol as the carrier.  Three or 4 drops from the eye dropper make a cup of tea or coffee as sweet as a heaping teaspoon of sugar, but adds zero calories.  And it is organic, so there are NOT any residual fertilizers or pesticides on the leaves used to make it.  Good stuff.

My next favorite form is the organic stevia extract 1 oz. (28.35 gram) bottle.  It comes with a tiny little 45 mg spoon, that has the same sweetness to it as the 3 or 4 drops in liquid form.  The only minor downside, is that in a low humidity environment (like S.CA or Arizona) the liquid can dry out around the eye-dropper cap can make it harder to open if your fingers are weaker.  Again, it is organic.

The powdered stevia extract in packets is "convenient" for traveling, as there is no mess, no spillage, and it travels well.  Sadly, they use lactose to add bulk to it, since the 45 mgs would be so small, most Americans would feel they're being shorted, so something powdery and sweet is added - which sort of defeats the purpose of using the stevia to avoid sugar intake.

The least favorite stevia delivery method is the GIANT 276 gram "Stevia Extract" (see above on the right).  It is not organic, and it is LOADED with useless lactose.  Sure, it is cheaper than the bottle that is 1/10th its size, but instead of using 45 mg per serving, you're supposed to use a whopping 876 mg!  Almost 20 times more, and most of that is lactose masquerading as stevia.  Bleh!

Of course the first three of these Trader Joe's stevia offerings are better than the Sam's Club and COSTCO distributed stevia packets that contain either sucrose, lactose, phenylketonurics (aka nutrasweet), with just enough stevia content to dupe purchasers into assuming they're really buying something natural and sugar-free.  The 276 gram Trader Joe's cylinder is probably made by the same manufacturers who push their big-box store diluents.

US Craft Beer Map - 2013

I am happy to be in the heart of genuine Craft Beer land, even if it is still < < 5% of total world beer production (it is the best part of the global production).  Coverage at ilovecharts, here.

Peregrine Vs Pelican, Like A Desmosedici RR Vs Lincoln

Earlier this week, I was at the Dana Point Land Conservancy Headlands around 3pm, with my Nikon binoculars, hoping to see some raptors.  On my way down to the cliff side look-out areas, I spotted a juvenile Peregrine Falcon soaring around the north side cliffs, so I thought i might be in luck.  There are no migrating whales to spot this time of year at Dana Point, but there are no shortage of avian species to  see.

One of my friend Nancee's awesome Peregrine images

I spotted a juvenile Peregrine Falcon soaring over "the Hotel" at the north end of the Land Conservancy.  Her brown speckled chest, large beak, signature streamlined aerodynamic shape, and non-flapping wings distinguished her from the crows who struggled to get any altitude, the seagulls who actively avoided her air-space, and the Much Larger pelicans who glided through the air over the cliffs.  I watched her soar, and delighted to see such a majestic aerial display, when she went from almost motionless to beginning to veer in a Southernly direction quite rapidly.  She had spotted something...  but the limited field of vision of my binoculars I could not see what.  Then, she FOLDED her wings, and she Shot Down, plummeting and accelerating rapidly, trying to attain the +260 mph vertical dive speeds for which Peregrines are famous.  It was very cool to watch.  (for more images, see here: link)

Then all of a sudden...  BAM... She STRUCK the tail feathers of a lone soaring pelican who was also headed in a Southernly vector!  The massive pelican, more than 3 times the size of the Peregrine, lost at least one tail feather, hit a stall, pulled up it's wings, turned it's massive head until it's beak was in-line with it's left raised wing, and looked behind it with one eye to see W.T.F. had just happened!?!  It recovered from the stall, and the minor tail injury, and headed on towards the Dana Point harbor.  The Peregrine steadied her dive into a more shallow angle and plunged down below the Southern cliff face and out of site about 200 feet in altitude loss later.

Now, to give you an idea of what this might look like, if you've never seen a Peregrine falcon in a dive attack and harass a pelican, picture an incredibly fast motorcycle....  say a Ducati Desmosedici RR, piloted by a driver who knows that he (or she) is the best, fastest, top-of-the-food-chain predator in the world, capable of speeds, maneuvers, and lethal strikes that involve multiple Gs of deceleration (often used to snap the vertebrae of their targets) diving towards a Lincoln Town Car, and then punching out one of the Lincoln's taillights, or tearing off the leviathan's license plate with a sharp boot kick, not crashing, and heading away at +100 mph unscathed shrieking a "yeah, I own this airspace" parting cry.

I don't know what the pelican did... probably nothing, just had the bad luck to be gliding 100s of feet below a hunting Peregrine on Wednesday... but I am sure that it will actively avoid getting anywhere near a Peregrine again.  And I had heard that the juvenile Peregrines would fly at a pelican or a large sea gull to "practice" their flying skills, but until you see it with your own two eyes, those are just words, and it doesn't really make an impression.  Truly remarkable, beautiful creatures.

Run Away! Flea!

One of our house cats has been acting strangely lately... hanging out in parts of the house she usually doesn't, jumping up on things that she usually doesn't (like the entertainment center), getting under-foot uncharacteristically, sitting and staring on a cool tile floor in the middle of the kitchen or hall... being weird.   So this morning, Dr Desert Flower picked her up to see what's the matter with her, and to DDF's horror, found the cat's entire stomach crawling with fleas!   Pretty disgusting, yep.

Our cats never go outside, are always inside cats, and we've had very few visitors here in California.  But we do live on a corner, and everyone and their brother walks their dog on our block and around our corner, and the previous owners of the house used to have at least one (if not more) dogs...  so if the flea eggs were in the carpet, or on the sidewalk, they were now infesting our 16 year old cat.

Our morning was spent getting flea shampoo, expensive back-of-the-neck-applied Frontline flea medicine (we had a single dose of Oct2012 expired Revolution, that also kills heart worms, but DDF thought buying a new $50 pack of 3 month OTC Frontline was a good idea, and I don't disagree with her on biological issues), flea killer spray, vacuuming, washing blankets & sheets & rugs & comforters on the "sanitize" cycle, bathing cats, calming cats, gently blow drying cats (so they don't get pneumonia), bleach-wiping down all the dining room chair plastic covers where the cats have been sleeping lately, and trying to generally de-flea our home.  Neither DDF nor I have been bit by fleas here in California - when we lived in South Carolina back in the 90s our apartment became flea infested when the neighbor's dog had them and we shared a common entry way - I remember seeing the dern things jump from the carpet to my hairy legs in Greenville (ew!).

Flea (RHCP variety)

The washer is on it's third "sanitize" load now... with one more to go to complete the day (at 2 and a 1/2 hours per cycle).  The Frontline "plus" will continue for the rest of the spring and summer.  The nice Laguna Niguel pet store lady said that "in spring we see alot of people's inside pets getting fleas".  Same thing in South Carolina, where the winters were mild, there was grass and vegetation for the fleas to hide in, and lots of moisture.   In Arizona, it was far too dry, there was almost no grass (only rock) and most people didn't walk there dogs - keeping them penned up in their back yards or homes instead.

So when / if you come to visit us, don't worry.  You won't get fleas.  The Frontline Plus kills the fleas that bite the cats, and prevents the fleas from being able to lay eggs.  Eggs that hatch and try to feed on the cats will then die.  We'll have 95% of the infestation gone by tonight, and the remaining 5% will die out over the next week as the Frontline takes effect.  Then, at the beginning of July, we'll apply a 2nd dose to both cats, and a third at the beginning of August to get us through the summer with a three sigma confidence level of flea mortality.

Mucus & Sputum Are Your Friends

I heard this on San Diego Public Radio today, and was delighted to see how easy it was to look up:  the mucus in human noses and throats (and elsewhere in our bodies) helps to protect us from bacteria by harboring viral phages that prey upon bacteria (bacteriophages).  You can read about it here in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science of the United States of America (link), or here, in the Journal of Immunology (link).

Those pesky scientists...  testing theories...  using scientific method and publishing peer reviewed articles... taking up tax payer funded government grants...  what do they know?  Shouldn't they just be reading their fundamentalist religious texts and trusting everything to the creator in which they should be placing their faith?  =)

I am glad that Jeremy Barr, Rita Auro, Mike Furlan, Katrine Whiteson, Natasha Talago, Lauren Paul, Marcella Erb, Joe Pogliano, Aleksandr Stotland, Roland Wolkowicz, Andrew Cutting, Kelly Doran, Peter Salamon, Merry Youle,  and Forest Rohwer DID test their theories, and used rigorous scientific methods to show that the phages symbiotically help protect the underlying epithelium from bacterial infections.  Considering the massive amounts of soap, Purell, and bleach I've personally used in the last 2 weeks both at MUSC and at my son's home, and the active upper respiratory infection I was sporting throughout my trip that was causing me to cough and blow my nose whenever a nurse was not present, I am happy to hear that all that mucus was laden with viral phages that were actively working to kill off any bacterial invaders who tried to gain entry.

I wonder how much the phages liked the generic guaifenesin (Mucinex) I was taking?  Old old family allergist, 20 years ago, used to say guaifenesin acted like a 'super highway' making mucus long and stringy, more stretchy, and mobile, less "sticky".  He said that initial trials of guaifenesin with women who were trying to get pregnant helped to thin out and elongate the uterus mucus so that sperm could swim more easily up the walls and get to the fallopian tubes and the precious eggs they were seeking (definitely an "off label" use).  Keep that in mind the next time you cough up some sputum...  lol!

Karma Seems To Keep Working

I went down to the headlands at Dana Point this afternoon, to see the raptor chicks who have fledged and who are flying about, following their parents around, learning to hunt and fly and do all the things avian apex predators are supposed to do in nature.  I had the good fortune to notice a wispy plume of rendered white feathers, blowing in the breeze, and upon further observation, saw one of the chicks tearing apart what appeared to be a sea gull, from the webbed pinkish foot that was sticking out, as large as the raptor chick's head as she rendered her lunch with her beak and talons.  A moment later, her mother and one of her sisters came flying past, with a chorus of shrieks and cries.   It was good to see them flying again, after getting back from South Carolina.    I heard another stationary chick's cries, high up on the cliffs, but could not locate her, so I continued all the way to the headlands at high tide.

I looked all around the far end of the headlands, saw no flight or perching activities, and headed back along the rocks at high tide, in a very slow parkour, to keep my binoculars safe in one hand.  About 100 feet from the main point or the tide pools, I spotted a chick high up in an old crow's nest on the cliff face, eating something white and feathery.   I marveled at her through my Nikons, until she literally saw me watching her from several hundred feet away.  She stared at me, and then took her lunch further back in the nest, away from the edge, to dine more privately, out of sight.

That's when I saw the teenagers, with Coors Lite silver bullet cans in their hands, trying to be secretive in the caves at the base of the cliff.  They obviously didn't like it that some old guy with binoculars was looking up, but they were busy trying to scurry with their cooler out of site too.  They just happened to be directly underneath the first of the chick sister's dining cliff... which really annoyed me, that they were drinking, underage, oblivious the beauty of nature around them.  I mean, I did some stupid stuff too when I was in High School, and I would have cut them some slack... but they were littering their empty silver cans all over the most pristine and best preserved tide pools in all of Orange County.  Had they just quietly carried out their empties in a discreet trash container, I would not have texted the park ranger and describe the 5 teens to him.  He would not have had to hike down to the headlands, and that nice ranger would not have then had to make all 5 of the teenagers collect every single piece of trash along the 1/2 mile rocky coast line from the headlands back to the parking lot.

I reflected back on the dumb things I did in High School as I began to compose this posting.  Littering was not one of them.  Making a fool of myself in front of adults and law enforcement occasionally did happen, but not all that often.  In fact, I was so opposed to littering, that once, while in Munster and waiting at a light on Ridge Road, I saw the car ahead of me open it's driver's door and put an entire brown paper bag of garbage on the street.   When the light turned green, I opened my door, picked up the garbage bag, and followed the litterer to the next light at US6 and US41, where I then got out of my car, walked up to their vehicle, and laid the garbage bag on their hood and windshield, telling the surprised driver "Excuse me, you dropped this back there. Don't litter anymore" before getting back into my car, and driving away.

I try to make it a point to not even spit my gum out, and instead throw it in the trash, as it seems that every time I've spit my gum out in the last 40 years, I wind up stepping in someone else's gum a day or two later. When my son and I hiked "off trail" in Arizona, we carried garbage bags with us, and collected discarded trash along the way... both to help the environment and improve the natural beauty, but also to serve as an alibi if a ranger said "hey! why are you off the marked trail?" Invariably, we'd have a large bag of trash in hand by the time we got back to the parking lot.

I do hope my son's leg recovers fully and he is completely ambulatory before he visits us here again in California.  There's so much beauty to see and things to do in this amazing state.

A Week At MUSC

Well, the last week I've been on an unplanned trip to Charleston SC, to attend to my son in the MUSC hospital, after a nasty knee infection took over and got him admitted to the hospital ER & ICU.  He's recovering now, and will be out of the hospital now and back to his home by the weekend, and I'll be on a flight back to California before Memorial Day.  While I've been able to spend ALOT of quality time with my son, I do with it was under better circumstances.

View from the room, looking NW

I've become very familiar with the one-way, non-linear, and confusing roads of the Charleston peninsula, between my hotel, the MUSC campus, and my son's home.  Next time I travel, I need to remember to pack extra underwear and socks, just in case the trip gets unexpectedly extended, as this one did - then I won't have to do laundry every 3 days.

From the 10th floor observation desk looking north towards the Cooper River bridge.

I wanted to share these lovely vistas of Charleston, as most people who have visited the city have not been 100 ft above the city on the 10th floor of the teaching hospital.  Only the Francis Marion Hotel and Sgt. Jasper Apartments (built in the 50s) are taller than the MUSC patient towers.  

First California Outdoor Grooming

I groomed our 19 year old cat this evening, outside.  There was almost no wind, so her combed hair didn't blow far in the wind.   I filled up an entire tissue box full of 19yr old American Short Haired fur.   It took over an hour.   Dr Desert Flower and I bought a package of Curad surgical face masks at Target, which helped to keep the fur out of my lunch and face.  A trio of purple finches were annoyed that I was grooming a potential predator near the hummingbird feeders from which they were determined ot drink nectar... and a dozen or so neighbors on the footpath behind our home noticed me in gauntleted gloves, long sleeves (it was over 90F today), long pants, and a face mask combing and petting / spanking our old cat.   No one has called the ASPCA yet....  I will be sad when she eventually expires.

Stone Espresso Russian Imperial Stout

I just enjoyed a Espresso Stone Brewery Russian Imperial Stout with 1.5 lbs of ground Angus Beef from Trader Joes.  The rectangular packaging made grilling it easy, with 2 3/4 patties, about an icy thick.   Dr Desert Flower is working late, so more protein and beer for me.

From the Stone Brwery Page (also printed on the back of Every Espresso Russian Imperial Stout:)
assic Release

"Stone Imperial Russian Stout

Stone Imperial Russian Stout is so thick, rich and well, sinful, you might worry that you'll be doomed to the fiery pits just for thinking about a sip. Rest assured, however, that even though this seemingly pernicious brew is indeed as black as sin, we guarantee that no actual sin was committed in making it... you'll have to add that on your own. This massive and intensely aromatic beer abounds with notes of anise, black currants, coffee, and roastiness, and its heavy palate is nothing to be trifled with!  

2013 Odd Year Release
Stone Espresso Imperial Russian Stout

Like the classic version, this Odd Year edition was brewed in the authentic, historical style of an imperial Russian stout, but with the addition of several hundred pounds of espresso beans from our friends at Ryan Bros. Coffee. Layers of flavor and complexity augment an already enigmatic brew, leaving this darkly delicious libation positively brimming with deep, rich espresso flavors that meld beautifully with the roasty bitterness of the dark malts."

Really fantastic stuff.  I know I've tried giving up craft beers, but Trader Joe's sells this for $5 a bottle, and it's So Damn good, I can't resist it.  And hamburgers and beer is an American tradition, much more than hamburgers and wine.    I highly recommend you try it in 2013.   They won't brew it with espresso in 2014.  =)

Delicious!

Watch Today's Solar Eclipse LIVE (now)

http://events.slooh.com
link here

I think this is VERY cool!

I've never seen a live solar flare before....   sweet.

10E-35 to 10E27

This is very cool. http://htwins.net/scale2/  (link here)

And considering the speed of light, makes a "6000 year old Universe" hysterically laughable.

Beautifully done.

Get the kids.... open up the link...  and have teachable moments.  Many teachable moments.

My Yard, Home To Rufous Hummingbirds

I am happy to announce, that after years of trying, I was finally successful in hosting a viable hummingbird nest in my yard.  At first, I thought it was an Anna's hummingbird, but then upon closer inspection and observation I found the female was a Rufous hummingbird, native to Southern California.

not zoomed in

The nest was in a low hanging branch, about 8 feet off the ground, and less than 15 feet from my hot tub.  I noticed it one evening while enjoying an adult beverage during a hot tub soak before dusk.  I couldn't figure out at first, why there was a female hummingbird nervously watching me soak, and then sheepishly ducking into the dense tree foliage and not re-emerging.   She had already built the nest, out of spider webs and bits of plant matter.  I was delighted to see her sitting in the nest when I got out of the hot tub.  She sat there each night, and intermittently through the day between feedings, for the 16 day incubation period.  When the chicks hatched, I was out of town, but upon my return, I was amazed to see two young hummingbird chicks As Big As Their Mother, sitting motionlessly in the nest, waiting for mom to return.

Mama Rufous hummingbird trying to be a decoy "Don't Look to the left, there's no nest there!"

Close observation through my 10X binoculars from inside my home, I could watch mom come and go and regurgitate nectar and small insects into her children's open mouths and throats.  The whole nest is no bigger than a small tea cup - one Cartman would perhaps use for a tea party with Polly Prissy Pants and Clyde Frog.  Smaller around than a baseball, mom would fill the nest when she sat on it.  After hatching, the 2 chicks dominated the nest as they grew so quickly.  Mom could barely perch on the side of edge of the nest to feed them before they finally fledged.

Dr Desert Flower and I were heading out of the house in late April, when I saw a very small and young Rufous female sitting on our driveway in the sun.   I was concerned that some predator would come and devour the resting hummingbird, so I grabbed a post-card sized piece of paper, and gently slid it under the little female, to pick her up and place her on a higher branch of a palm about 5 feet above the driveway.   About 6 inches above the driveway, she got enough energy to fly away on her own, off the paper, and perched on a deciduous tree about 20 feet in the air.  I was glad that she was sticking around the house where she had just fledged.

I hope she continues to visit the 4 feeders I have out, and next mating season she and her sister and mom can each build nests of their own in the foliage around my yard.

The Anemone Is Not Your Enemy

My lovely wife, Dr Desert Flower, used to say to me "The anemone is not your enemy"... but anemones can pack a painful sting, and do eat things that are smaller than themselves.  Not your enemy, if you're bigger than a crab and are smart enough to stay far enough away from them to not get stung. Ok.

The Headlands tide pools at Dana Point have no shortage of anemones,  Big ones, little ones, all sorts of sizes and shapes.   I've seen them in the water, as well as exposed to the air at low tide.   Fascinating creatures.

No (R)egrets, No Longer

On Friday, after a 60 hour work week, I checked the tide time tables, packed up my Camelback backpack, and headed on down to Dana Point on my bike to parkour across the rocks, look in the tide pools, get closer to nature, and try and decompress.  My first 50 feet into the boulder hopping, I saw this stunning egret, and I paused to take a few photos. (not far from the star fish I saw here)

While the egret might not look too large, keep in mind that each one of those rocks ranges in size from "as big as your head" to "as big as a 1960's wooden framed RCA television".  I tried to stay a good 15 to 20 feet away from the hunting egret, but the bird was rather skittish.

And kept flying westward as I tried to parkour past it.  Not far from where I first sighted the egret was a female rufous hummingbird snatching gnats out of the air, flitting about, chir-chir-chirping in rapid stacco as I approached a mass of rotting seaweed that was host to 100s of gnats and flies.  I've seen egrets before (in SC, AZ [near the Roosevelt canals], and in CA) but never this close, and never this tolerant of my presence and photography.

It was very cool to see, and an experience I will not soon forget.

I am not sure exactly what the egret was hunting, as I've never seen any fish of an appreciable size in the tide pools.  Yes, there's all sorts of fry, and tiny immature fish, and no shortage of barnacles, hermit crabs, seaweed, and mussels, but actual fish that would satisfy an egret?  I've not seen them.  I don't have visual acuity as keen as an egret's though  =)  ...and if it was larger crab that the egret was patiently hunting, then I am sure that at high tide that was a happy hunting ground, as violently as the surf was crashing onto the rocks.

Gotta Hand It To Nikolaj

If you're a follower of Game Of Thrones, and you did not watch last week's episode "Walk of Punishment", then STOP READING THIS NOW, and come back after you have had a chance to catch up on your DVR-ing or DVD-ing.

If you have watched last week's episode, and you enjoyed the end of it as much as I did, then perhaps you'll enjoy this post.  Il faut voir.

So you see, in the world of the fictitious Game of Thrones, there's "Seven Noble Houses" who are vying for control of the world.  The Lannisters, who most people love to hate, are the insanely wealthy 0.01% of the top 1%, but even they have been borrowing from over-seas to pay for the running of the kingdom.  Their poster child of wealthy arrogance, is Jaime Lannister, played by Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.  Straight women and many gay men swoon over Jaime Lannister, and I frankly never understood the appeal, but I am as far to the right of the Kinsey scale on heterosexuality as a person can be perhaps.  I've just never been a fan of the pretty boy who gets everything he wants, never having had worked a hard day's labor in his life, and who everyone thinks is the most awesome, most amazing, most desirable human specimen ever.  His little brother Tyrion, played by the little person Peter Dinklage is far more interesting, intelligent, cunning, and likable.

So when the men of House Tully make sure that Jaime can never become "the hand of the king" (so to speak) I thought it was a great ending of the episode.

And immediately after this 'truncated' scene ends, the credits roll with a Loud playing by "The Hold Steady" of the folk song "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", which earlier in the episode, the Tully men were singing on horseback as they rode through the woods.  I found this to be a fitting ending, as Karma can be quite rough sometimes.  It'll be hard to handle a sword with just his left hand, in future episodes.

No Squared or Quartic Options?

On the fridge in the house we're renting, there's these options on the freezer door:

No Squared button, nor Quartic button?  I've never had a freezer door water / ice dispenser before, growing up or as an adult, so this new technology confuses this modern Neanderthal.

There's also no "slow ice" button, so whether I am in a hurry, or taking it at a leisurely pace, crushed, cubic or "quick ice" are the 3 available options.  Ironically, the "cubic" are actually rounded secant segments from the ice maker, and are in no way, shape, or form, cubic in shape.  Unless the fridge manufacturer was trying to differentiate it from hexagonal ice structure and instead make sure it was crystalline "cubic ice"... but I Highly doubt this is the case.  At least it is not Ice Nine.  =)

Science Is Cool

Comedy Central: A Hit, and a Miss, and a eh, sorta hit

This programming season (whatever the hell that is, now that there's no longer a Spring, Fall or any other TV season), Comedy Central put out three new shows.   The Jeselnick Offensive.  The Ben Show. And Nathan For You.   Jeselnick is abrasive, offensive, harsh, insulting, similar to "The Burn", but more caustic in a sense that Don Rickels would be proud.  Jeselnick is VERY cocky - "Welcome to another perfect show".  And he thinks he's better than he is, but he is very funny.

The Ben Show, is just dumb.  It's random, and has people read things off of papers handed to them out of the blue.   It has stupid rap liaisons and vignettes that appeal to those who like Workaholics and other inane shows.  Dr Desert Flower and I tried to watch it, and were annoyed.   We will not be watching it again and wasting another minute of our lives.  We are not the target audience, obviously, and I hope The Ben Show goes away quickly.

Nathan For You is a mixed bag.  Partly funny, partly painful, he sometimes beats a dead horse way more than SNL could ever beat a dead horse.  I don't think painful comedy is funny, I just see it as painful and hard to watch.  When Nathan is on his game, he's very funny.   When he's pummeling a premise and painfully trying to guide someone he is "helping" it is more than cringe-worthy, it is just wrong and painful.

So Viacom has a mixed bag.  One very funny, very caustic, very intelligent show - The Jeselnick Offensive.  One dud aimed at duds - The Ben Show.  One mixed bag - Nathan For You.

From the Comedy Central commercials I was forced to watch in the gym this evening, without a DVR, I see that Gabriel Inglaises (Fluffy) is coming back, and he is very very funny.

Frozen Seat 29F, 757-200

I flew 4 hours on Tuesday afternoon, in row 29, seat F, in a 757-200.  It was a Delta aircraft.  Well, I cannot recommend anyone sit in seat 29F who are not Heat Miser, or who have both their legs and feet.  If you're Heat Miser, you'll do fine.  Lemme explain.

On a Delta 757-200 rows 27 and 28 are the exit rows.  Row 26 and 27 have limited recline, and I had HOPED that row 28 would also have limited recline, but the enormous caucasian man who sat in 28F insisted on Fully Reclining his Exit Row seat to impinge upon my much more limited space - but that's fine.   Not everyone can be a good person and be respectful of others' space around them.  So I was somewhat 'crammed in' with the seat in front of me fully reclined into my space.  I opened my "Philosophy of Stephen Colbert" book and read quietly, through loading, taxi, and take off.

After we reached 30,000+ feet, I noticed my feet getting very cold.  No matter what position I placed my feet under the 28F chair, they were freezing cold.  I could see the edge of the emergency exit door even with the arm rest of 28F, but that was Not where the cold was originating.   The cold was coming form under the floor.  When we began our approach to land, and the main landing gear was extended, I could hear and Feel it move under the floor beneath my feet.  The land gear doors must not have been sealed well, and the -20F to -40F air at 30,000 feet conveniently refrigerated my feet.

How cold were they?  Well, 2 hours after landing, walking, and driving, and walking some more, I was just above to start feeling my big toes again.

So if you are Heat Miser, or you suffer from Chronic Near Flammable Feet Syndrome, then seat 29F on a 757-200 is The Seat for you.   As we were disembarking, I asked the man sitting in 29A if his feet were cold, he was shocked, and said "Yes! freezing!" - nature loves symmetry (as does Boeing).