You can cook corn on the cob in the microwave!

Did you know this? It reminds me of some kind of crackpot idea from one of those microwaving cookbooks that almost, I say almost, seem like a good idea. It sounds right up there with making brownies in your microwave. Sure, I can make something akin to what you get with a Swanson’s Hungry Man dinner but why would I want to cook something in the microwave that was merely passable at best?

No, no it’s not like that though. Cooking corn on the cob in the microwave is actually as good or better than being boiled like you’re used to. Alisa’s family has been doing it for years. I’ve always thought you had to boil corn. That’s just the way it was. But here are instructions with pictures. I’m told you don’t even need to do the water soak. Crazy stuff.

My daughter loves the corn on the cob. I got her going with it over the 4th holiday and it’s her favorite vegetable format of late. At least she’s been suggesting it at a lot of meals since.

So I made some in the microwave again the other day. One whole ear for each of us. She ate row after row as much as a 3-year-old can and then declared she was finished and handed it back to me.

And just at that moment, with her handing her remaining ear of corn to me, I had this full circle flash in my head of handing my corn to my dad when I was little. Because that’s one thing that dads do. Dads finish your corn. It’s part of the dad code you know.

Minorthird’s Copycat Quarter-In-The-Jukebox:

The Hollies - Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress
The video on You Tube. I’ve always liked The Hollies but had no clue the lead looked like this. Yeep.

Men At Work - Overkill
A video of Colin Hay singing this acoustic on a cable access show. What’s with ’80’s legends taking their songs and making them all sentimental and acoustic? Also, why can’t more lead vocals sound like Colin Hay?

Mungo Jerry - In The Summertime
Surprisingly, Mungo Jerry on You Tube. Nice helmet Mungo… er… Jerry… er… Mungo Jerry. Also watch for the guy on keyboards. He’s very happy it’s summer and he can play his keyboard!

Phil Collins - Against All Odds
Alisa and I duet this song like old pros. Alright, no we don’t. Yet. And what a weird song to duet it out to because, well, you know. Here is Phil doing his thing. I saw the start of this movie years ago, I think when I was too young just yet, but I distinctly remember it not being very good. Has anyone seen it in recent history and can verify that the 12-year-old me was correct in that conclusion? Here is a version on You Tube by the Postal Service that was apparently featured in a Josh Hartnett movie that I thought I saw but apparently didn’t but, even though I don’t remember any of the clips, I still seem to think I’ve seen it.

Huey Lewis & The News - Stuck With You
I always liked the Huey Lewis videos with their hijinks and The News. Oh, The News with their antics!

Whoa, I was talkie talkie this time. Right click and save as for a limited time only. Leave a comment to say how-do or to shout out at Mungo Jerry’s hair helmet.

So I make this cake for my daughter’s 3rd birthday (with my assistant on scales application duty and excess cake piece disposal). I show it to her the next morning:

Her: A fish!
Me: But what kind of fish?
Her: It looks like Rainbow Fish.
Me: Looks like? It is Rainbow Fish!
Her: Yeah, it is Rainbow Fish.

Like it’s something I’ve convinced myself into. If ever there was a Rainbow Fish in cake form, this is it. Come on now.

The problem presented by making a cake in the shape of a fish is where is it appropriate to begin the first cut? The natural place is before the top fin so it kind of looked like I was chopping off Rainbow Fish’s head in front of the children. They didn’t notice but it still felt weird.

At one point, I unknowingly asked if anyone wanted “a piece of tail” and immediately received snickers from the parents. Come on now.

A few weeks back, I had this memory I couldn’t get out of my head. Sometime around 1983-ish, my family had this game thing that my sister and I loved to play all the time. It involved a ball and pegs and guiding the ball to where it was supposed to go. The best I could think of it was that it was some kind of pachinko machine but cheap and all plastic. I didn’t really remember what it looked like. Strangely, I asked Alisa about it and she remembers having one too.

I spent a good hour looking for information on the mystery thing I was trying to remember and finally came up with something on an Ebay search. American Pachinko. When I saw the pictures, I immediately recognized the thing.

Any information I’ve found has told me that Pressman made this thing in the early seventies. So, maybe my dad picked it up at a garage sale or the company made it into the eighties.

I would be interested to know, dear Innanet reader, just how popular these things were. If you had one too, leave a comment.

So what were we excited about with this thing? Oh, a good ol’ fashioned Americanized and stripped down version of Japanese gambling. Wheeee!

It’s an interactive feature! My daughter wants to tell you the joke she’s been perfecting with me over the past couple of weeks. I think it is ready to unleash on the world:

Her: Click Here
You: Respond accordingly.
Her: Click Here
You: Respond accordingly.
Her: Click Here
You: Laugh accordingly. Now. You will laugh at my daughter’s joke.

I recently got my daughter a little wallet with a built-in change purse, bill fold, and photo holder. She loves it and carries it everywhere. I gave her two dimes and a nickel to get her started with her change purse part of the wallet and she put them away and ocassionally checks on them to make sure they are there.

So I’m sitting on the sofa the other day and she comes up to me and we have this brief exchange:

Her: “Daddy I need more money for my wallet.”
Me: “Oh yeah?”
Her: “You give me more money?” Reaching for my pocket and squeezing.
Me: “I don’t have any more money right now.”
Her: “Oh, you get more money.”

So this is how it starts then?

I’d love to have the time to do some kind of statistical analysis on the Miss Universe contestants but, instead, I’ll just have to say it’s fun to look at their last online interview question: “What makes you unique and different from the other contestants?”

Most of the contestants are divided between (1) saying they believe their personalities set them apart while telling us that they are sure the other women are also unique and (2) saying that their desire to reach their goals sets them apart. In other words, the same garbage that they think everyone wants to hear - proving that shoveling it is truly universal.

Personally, I’ll be cheering for Miss Croatia and Miss Guyana.

Miss Croatia provides two of life’s requirements, food and shelter, on her own! She cooks and currently has her own apartment! Awesome!

I love Miss Guyana: “I possess the uncanny ability to read and write upside down (opposite directions, reverse direction).” I looked at every contestant and I’m pretty sure she’s the only one that identified having a weird talent and that rocks.

I’m supposed to be all about cheering for the USA but Miss USA wants us to know that she’s real. What does that even mean? That’s what sets her apart? She’s the only contestant to have used that phrase too which, I guess, must be a USA thing to say.

The alpine slide, to a soon to be 3-year-old, has to be the best thing in all the world. Take what most kids consider to be the best part of any playground and then double, quadruple - no, let’s multiply it by oh like 500 or something - and let ‘em loose. It’s a year’s worth of playground sliding bundled up in one minutes-long span.

I envision my daughter just sitting on playground installations now, staring off into space, telling other kids that the 10-foot descent “just doesn’t do it for me anymore.”

I took this picture of a bumper sticker on someone’s tow-behind trailer over the weekend:

I hate to tell you, man, but your God is kinda lame. Our God though? Our God is an AWESOME GOD! Join us, I think your God will understand.

For some reason, I envision Will Ferrell saying “Our God is an AWESOME GOD” and it cracks me up.

Apparently, it’s a common phrase in the Christian bumper sticker world because here it is as something more flowery. The scripty font doesn’t do it for me though. It needs to be more rockin’ yet hijinxy like the one I took a picture of. I’ll bet that’s exactly what they said when they made it.

Christian Marketer 1: “We’re going to make an Our God is an AWESOME GOD bumper sticker and we are going to sell it and make millions.”
Christian Marketer 2: “OK, I like your thinking on this one but can we make it implied that our God is more rockin’ than theirs?”
CM1: “Hell yeah! I knew I hired you for a reason! But how do we do that?”
(later in the Graphics Department of Christian Bumper Stickers LLC…)
Christian Graphics Guy 1: “How the hell - forgive me Lord - do they expect us to ‘make it rock’ more?”
Christian Graphics Guy 2: “Lose the dove and change the font?”
CGG1: “Hell yeah! I knew I hired you for a reason!”

Minorthird’s Copycat Quarter-In-The-Jukebox:

Lightning Seeds - Pure
And here’s the video on You Tube. Yee doo!

Electronic - Second Nature

Ub40 - Here I Am (Come And Take Me)

Big Audio Dynamite II - The Globe

Beth Orton - Don’t Wanna Know ’bout Evil

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