That is about all that has been going on lately.. At the end of February Janise had her gall bladder removed, and she has been on bed rest since. She doesn’t get to go back until the end of March. I didn’t forget about you, Internets.
Rivals mock as American stores prepare to shut to give staff lessons
Contact the Business editor
business.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday February 26 2008 on p29 of the Financial section. It was last updated at 01:44 on February 26 2008.
Beverage cups featuring the logo of Starbucks Coffee. Photograph: Stephen Chernin/Getty
Americans will have to cope without blended Frappuccino and blueberry coffee cake for a few hours today as Starbucks shuts its 7,100 company-owned stores for a nationwide barista training session.
Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz has ordered the unprecedented three-hour afternoon closure as part of an effort to improve coffee quality and revive the chain’s flagging fortunes.
It has prompted frenzied action by competitors hoping to snatch Starbucks customers. Dunkin’ Donuts has declared Tuesday a cut-price coffee day with prices slashed to 99 cents (50p) so that “no coffee lover is denied a delicious espresso-based beverage”.
During the session, Starbucks’ baristas will get a “hands-on espresso training experience”. In a letter to staff, Schultz said: “Starbucks partners will have an opportunity to connect and deepen their passion for coffee with the ultimate goal of transforming the customer experience.”
Schultz, the architect of Starbucks’ growth during the 1990s, returned to hands-on management last month after shareholder unrest triggered the departure of chief executive Jim Donald.
The company’s shares dived 42% last year on signs that consumers were falling out of love with Starbucks. Investors were alarmed by figures showing a 1% fall in the average number of transactions per store.
In a raft of changes aimed at restoring momentum, Starbucks is cutting 600 jobs, introducing free wireless internet connection and axing hot breakfast sandwiches, which were criticised for interfering with the aroma of coffee.
Shultz says he wants to restore an “emotional connection” with customers. But the shutdown is being mocked by independent coffee stores that have long suffered under the shadow of Starbucks.
Coffee Klatch, a small Los Angeles outfit, said it will offer free coffee to all customers while its bigger rival goes dark.
“I’m not sure why it’s going to take them three hours to learn how to press a button,” said Coffee Klatch’s owner, Mike Perry, who described his own beverages as “expertly crafted” in contrast to Starbucks’ machines.
Britain’s Starbucks outlets will not be affected by the closure. The chain’s international stores are faring better than those in the US. Phil Broad, UK managing director, said: “The business continues to perform well with five consecutive years of high single-digit growth in comparable sales.”
30 lb. roasted Turducken
Sausage-stuffed Turducken cut into quarters to show the internal layers
A Turducken is a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The name is a portmanteau of those ingredients: turkey, duck, and chicken. The cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are filled with, at the very least, a highly seasoned breadcrumb mixture or sausage meat, although some versions have a different stuffing for each bird. Some recipes call for the turkey to be stuffed with a chicken which is then stuffed with a duckling. It is also called a chuckey.
The result is a relatively solid, albeit layered, piece of poultry, suitable for cooking by braising, roasting, grilling, or barbecuing. The turducken is not suitable for deep frying Cajun style (to deep fry poultry, the body cavity must be hollow to cook evenly).
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Turducken is believed to be Cajun in origin, although it may also have originated in eastern Texas or northern Louisiana. To date, no one from Texas nor North Louisiana has provided proof of this claim, though one business owner has publicly marketed and sold the turducken since 1985. While such elaborate layering of whole animals, also known as a farce, from the French word for “stuffing”, can be documented well back into the Middle Ages of Europe, and are even attested in the Roman Empire (e.g. the tetrafarmacum), some people credit Cajun-creole fusion chef Paul Prudhomme with creating the commercial dish. However, no one has ever verified this claim. In the middle of the last century noted Tulane Medical School surgeon and urologist Gerald LaNasa was famed for his use of a scalpel in deboning his three birds of choice also know as turduckhen. His efforts in preserving a Louisiana culinary tradition were noticed by emerging local chefs in New Orleans.
The November 2005 issue of National Geographic magazine in an article by Calvin Trillin traced the American origins of the dish to Maurice, Louisiana, and “Hebert’s Specialty Meats”, which has been commercially producing turduckens since 1985, when a local farmer whose name is unknown, brought in his own birds and asked Hebert’s to prepare them in the now-familiar style. The company prepares around 5,000 turduckens per week around Thanksgiving time.[1] They share a friendly rivalry with Paul Prudhomme.
Turducken is often associated with the “do-it-yourself” outdoor food culture also associated with barbecueing and shrimp boils, although some people now serve it in place of the traditional roasted turkey at the Thanksgiving meal. Turduckens can be prepared at home by anybody willing to learn how to remove the bones from poultry, instructions for which can be found on the Internet or in various cookbooks. As their popularity has spread from Louisiana to the rest of the Deep South and beyond, they are also available through some specialty stores in urban areas, or even by mail order.
In addition to the aforementioned chuckey, some enthusiasts have taken it a step further, and come up with the turduckencorpheail.[dubious ] This is a standard turducken, which is then stuffed with a cornish game hen, which is then stuffed with a pheasant, and finally stuffed with a quail. Still others have pushed the envelope even further with the turgooponducheasanishuail[dubious ], which includes both a goose and capon, in addition to the component birds of the turduckencorpheail. In recent years, another version called the turgooponducheasnishuaichuffguihagaga[dubious ] has been growing in popularity. It has all the properties of the previous two versions listed, but also includes beef, pork, lamb, and frog. The turduckencorpheail, turgooponducheasanishuail, and the turgooponducheasnishuaichuffguihagaga are not for the faint of heart; both are extremely time consuming endeavors, as birds of the proper size must first be obtained, and then prepared; removing extremely fragile bones from a bird such as a quail without breaking the skin is impossible for most.
Chef Paul Prudhomme brought renewed popularity to the Osturduckencorpheail[dubious ] with his own Osturduckencorpheail recipe. There is a similar dish in South Africa called the Osturducken[dubious ], an ostrich stuffed with turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken.
Some barbecue aficionados have been known to enclose a turducken in a whole hog, and slow-smoke or pit roast it for large gatherings or festivals. Kansas City Pitmaster “Schedule Peter” Pookie Thornhill was credited in 2006 with the invention of the turdbutt, a pork shoulder (or Boston butt), inside a duck, inside a turkey. A further variant is the gurducken, where the external bird is a goose, which is stuffed with a turkey, then a duck, then a chicken. Some chefs “dress up” their turduckens, adding a vest of baby back ribs and/or a bowtie of bacon. The Turducken has also inspired variations, such as the hotchken. A hotchken, known as “the poor man’s turducken,” is a chicken stuffed with hotdogs.
In the UK the Turducken is commonly known as a three-bird roast. English chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall expanded this into a ten-bird roast (a turgoduckmaguikenantidgeonck[dubious ] - turkey, goose, duck, mallard, guineafowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon, woodcock) [1].
The largest recorded nested bird roast is 17 birds, attributed to a royal feast in France in the 19th century: a bustergophechiduckneaealcockidgeoverwingailusharkolanbler[dubious ] (originally called a Rôti Sans Pareil, or “Roast without equal”) - a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an Ortolan Bunting and a Garden Warbler. The final bird is small enough that it can be stuffed with a single olive; it also suggests that, unlike modern multi-bird roasts, there was no stuffing or other packing placed in between the birds. This dish probably could not be recreated in the modern era as many of the listed birds are now protected species. [2] [3].
A (possibly apocryphal) dish of camel stuffed with animal and plant foods in layers is whole stuffed camel.
One important note to those considering making one of these variations is the fact that when small things are placed inside of larger things, it becomes difficult to slice the end product in such a way that all things end up on your plate. Some claim that as much as 90% of a Turducken sliced from the turkey’s neck backwards contain meat from all three birds, though if you attempt to serve an Osturduckencorpheil for a family meal (it will serve around 30 people), many people will be unhappy because it is impossible to slice the entire product such that the innermost quail ends up on everybody’s plate.
Serving Size: 1/12 of a recipe[2]
Servings Per Recipe: 12
Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.[3]
In a 2007 episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, Andrew Zimmern tried the turducken at “Hebert’s Specialty Meats” and expressed enjoyment. In another instance on the October 18, 2007 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart correspondent Aasif Mandvi commenting on the proposed invasion of Iraq by Turkey said that Turkey, the Kurds and Iraq should all form one country and call it turduqen, pronounced the same as turducken.[4] In Season 4 of The Dead Zone (TV series) in the episode titled “A Very Dead Zone Christmas”, Johnny takes out a turducken for Christmas dinner and Bruce calls it “Colonel Sanders meets Frankenstein” thing. The turducken is also mentioned on The Wendy Williams Experience during the Thanksgiving season. Wendy usually mentions it along with her restaurant/catering service of choice; 2 Fish, 5 Loaves. John Madden, now of NBC Sunday Night Football, often references the turducken around Thanksgiving time as it is his favorite dish over the regular traditional turkey. While working for Fox in the mid to late 1990’s, Madden would show his own turducken on TV during the Thanksgiving football games. Some of the players of the winning team would actually get to eat some of it.
In other media the turducken is mentioned such as Taylor Antrim’s novel, The Headmaster Ritual (2007), one of the protagonists, James, and his mother order a turducken for Thanksgiving dinner. In the machinima fictional series, Red vs. Blue, Sarge explains to Private Dexter Grif and Church that they are getting a turducken for the Thanksgiving dinner. Sarge exaggerates the turducken and what is put into one. The turducken is also frequently mentioned on The Ron & Fez Show on XM Satellite Radio and was the subject of a song written by show contributor Perrynoid in 2002. In preparation for the 2007 R&F Thanksgiving, Hosp was unable to come through with the turducken he had promised to deliver.
I like short work weeks. It plays with the whole idea of what a week is.
Monday is really Wednesday
Wednesday is really Friday.
It messes with people’s interpretations of time.
More to come soon.
Hello all. Today I am here to talk about PRF or Pre Recorded Friends. I am obsessed with this show. The guys are funny as hell, cleaver and up on current Pop Culture. The podcast lasts about an hour and half on average and is updated on Monday’s. They also a Mid week mailbag, which they affectionately refer to as the “Mid Wife Mailbag” These guys:
Doog
Joe
Billy.
Are awesome. If you have a chance, check them out:
http://www.prerecord
e
dfriends.com
http://www.doogtoons.com
http://www.myspace.com/joebresler
and
http://www.verytasteful.com
Thanks for the laughs, guys. =)
Yep, we are are back to Monday.
Hope you all are doing well.
Tomorrow I will be doing a video game review!! It’s going to be great, I am really excited about this.
Today I was going to write a blog about Rosie O’Donnell:
But I thought, “Why would I do that?”
Then I said, “Hey Pierre, you should write about Star Jones:
But then I thought better and said, “Why would I do that to myself or my readers?”
After I thought long and hard about it, I figured I would talk about the most logical person to talk about:
That’s right, Linus Torvalds.
If you don’t know who this man is, read his Wikipedia entry:
| Linus Torvalds | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 28, 1969 Helsinki, Finland |
| Residence | United States |
| Known for | Linux |
| Employer | Linux Foundation |
| Occupation | Software engineer |
| Spouse | Tove Torvalds |
| Children | Patricia Miranda Torvalds |
| Parents | Nils Torvalds, Anna Torvalds |
| Relatives | Ole Torvalds (grandfather) |
| Website | www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/torvalds/ |
Linus Benedict Torvalds pronunciation (born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer best known for initiating the development of the Linux kernel. He now acts as the project’s coordinator.
Linus Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland, the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds,[1] and the grandson of poet Ole Torvalds. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority (roughly 6%) of Finland’s population. Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the American Nobel Prize-winning chemist, although he claims he was named after Linus in the Peanuts comic strip. In the book Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Torvalds is quoted as saying, “I think I was named equally for Linus the peanut-cartoon character,” noting that this makes him half “Nobel-prize-winning chemist” and half “blanket-carrying cartoon character.”[2] Both of his parents were campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s.
Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki from 1988 to 1996, graduating with a master’s degree in computer science. His M.Sc. thesis was titled Linux: A Portable Operating System. From 1997 to 1999 he was involved in 86open helping to choose the standard binary format for Linux and Unix.
His interest in computers began with a Commodore VIC-20.[3] After the VIC-20 he purchased a Sinclair QL which he modified extensively, especially its operating system. He programmed an assembler and a text editor for the QL, as well as a few games.[4] He is known to have written a Pac-Man clone named Cool Man. In 1990 he purchased an Intel 80386-based IBM PC and spent a few weeks playing the game Prince of Persia before receiving his MINIX copy which in turn enabled him to begin his work on Linux.[2]
Linus Torvalds is married to Tove Torvalds (née Monni) – a six-time Finnish national Karate champion – whom he first met in the autumn of 1993.[5] Torvalds was running introductory computer laboratory exercises for students and instructed the course attendants to send him an e-mail as a test, to which Tove responded with an e-mail asking for a date.[2] Tove and Linus were later married, and had three daughters, Patricia, Daniela, and Celeste.[6].
After a visit to Transmeta in late 1996, [7], he accepted a position at the company, where he would work from February 1997 through June 2003. He then moved to the Open Source Development Labs, which has since merged with the Free Standards Group to become the Linux Foundation, under whose auspices he continues to work. In June of 2004, Torvalds and his family moved to Portland, Oregon to be closer to the consortium’s Beaverton, Oregon-based headquarters.
Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation. In 1999, both companies went public and Torvalds’ net worth shot up to roughly $20 million.[8]
His personal mascot is a penguin nicknamed Tux, which has been widely adopted by the Linux community as the mascot of the Linux kernel.
Unlike many open source icons, Torvalds maintains a low profile and generally refuses to comment on competing software products. Torvalds generally stays out of non-kernel-related debates. Although Torvalds believes that “open source is the only right way to do software”, he also has said that he uses the “best tool for the job”, even if that includes proprietary software.[9] He has been criticized for his neutrality by the free software movement, specifically for having worked on proprietary software with Transmeta, and for his use and alleged advocacy of the proprietary BitKeeper software for version control in the Linux kernel. However, Torvalds has since written a free-software replacement for BitKeeper called Git. Torvalds has commented on official GNOME developmental mailing lists that, in terms of desktop environments, he encourages users to switch to KDE [10] and he explained why.[11]
| Linux | |
 |
|
Linus Torvalds originally developed the Linux kernel as a hobby OS for the Intel 80386 CPU, incorporating elements from MINIX, although with entirely new code.[12][13] Initially Torvalds wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of “free”, “freak”, and the letter X to indicate that it is a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP server where the kernel was first hosted for downloading, named Torvalds’ directory linux.
About 2% of the current Linux kernel is written by Torvalds himself [6]. Since Linux has had thousands of contributors, such a percentage represents a significant personal contribution to the overall amount of code. Torvalds remains the ultimate authority on what new code is incorporated into the Linux kernel.[14]
Before I begin this I would like to say that I do NOT do drugs at all of any kind. Yes, I do drink, but I was not drunk when I came up with this crazy idea in my head….
Last night, we watched Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, (HAKGTWC) for the first time. I have had several people tell me I needed to see this movie and that I would think it was the best thing ever. I did enjoy it, but there was something more disturbing that I wanted to point out; John Cho looks like what John Mayer would look like if he was Asian.
Think I am crazy? well take a look at this:
I know what you are thinking… “Wow, this guy must be high” but look at the photographic proof:
And Lastly, the biggest piece of evidence I could find: They look like they could be twins:
I don’t know what it going on here, but I wanted to bring it to the people’s attention.
Separated at birth? Long lost brothers? Or just a strange coincidence?
You decide, you be the judge.
That is all.
Tonight, we are going to see Loreena McKennitt at the Fox. I am very excited about this concert for a few reasons; She was someone who I have loved listening to since I met Janise, and was not touring for the longest time, and we didn’t think we were ever going to get to see her play live.
Then in March, we heard that she was going to be playing at Radio City Music Hall in April. So, off to NYC we went to see her for the first time. Amazing concert, amazing everything. We had such a great time.
Now, within the same year, it turns out that she is coming to Detroit!! So tonight, we get to see her perform again, and we don’t have to leave the state to do it. I am really excited about this. I am looking forward to seeing the beautiful set that she uses, plus the AMAZING musicians that she plays with, as she refers to them as idling Porsches…. I am happy right now.
So today, I thank you, Loreena McKennitt, for your beautiful music, and for coming to our hometown!
