Category Archives: Family

the joys of summer: bbq game time!

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Well by now we might all be getting tired of the barbeque. It’s been a long, hot summer and it is a fact universally acknowledged that a young person possessed of some nice, red steaks and a barbeque must be in want of a pitcher of Sangria and some friends bringing salad.

I wish I knew more people like that; I’m gifted with salads.

In any case, there comes a point in any activity, even barbequeing delicious foodstuffs, where boredom sets in. People start playing with the controls. Reversing the polarity. Putting sparklers in the coals. Anything to make it different. That heat-up period’s somehow not the anticipation-filled pause that it was back in June; it’s become the unendurably tedious waiting period before you can actually cook some goddam food, goddammit, the very reason we invented indoor stoves in the first place.

We present the following leisuretime activity, highly recommended for fending off bbq boredom, if also highly recommended for pissing off the person who has to clean up after you.

via BlogBling, ladies and gentlemen, CHEESE RACING!

I <3 Cheese Racing!

WARNING!! Cheese racing can be dangerous – the makers of this website CAN NOT be held responsible for any accidents or injuries that may occur. Practice safe cheese racing by following these simple guide lines.

  • Do NOT attempt ‘indoor cheese racing’. This is strictly an outdoor sport. (This includes tents!)
  • Be sure to ingest large quantities of alcohol and/or other chemical relaxant before (and during) play. This will relax the body and nervous system, thus minimising the pain of any injury and enabling you to play on.

Having said that, the sport does have an impressive safety record with zero fatalities so far…

Q: What do you think happens when you throw a slice of processed cheese (without removing the plastic wrapping) onto a lit barbeque?

The plastic melts giving off highly toxic fumes and you are left with a pretty grim cheese/plastic mess welded on to your BBQ, right?

WRONG!

Unbelievably what actually happens, as discovered by the pioneers and inventors of the sport way back in 1997 (read their account of that historic night on a campsite in Osmington here), is that the plastic pouch does not melt – even when the cheese inside eventually boils! Even more incredibly, as the cheese melts and the strange chemicals found in processed cheese turn to gas – the plastic pouch inflates until eventually all four corners lift off the BBQ and the pouch is fully inflated! Now under this pressure you might think that the pouch would eventually burst – but no – most of the time the seal remains intact!

Quite why processed cheese manufacturers choose to use such industrial strength, heat proof plastic to encase their products is something of a mystery – as is why NASA don’t use this material instead of those expensive heat proof tiles on the space shuttle? Such important questions no doubt occurred to the first observers of this phenomenon on that night in Osmington, but that didn’t stop them from coming up with a brilliantly simple sport based on it.

Washington Hockey Cheese Racers

The official CRASS rules of cheese racing

  • All players must place their cheese on the BBQ at the same time.

  • Cheeses must not overlap.

  • After the initial throwing of the cheese onto the barbecue (the “cast”), one poke of the slice (the “poke”) is permitted in cases of accidental overlap when the offending cheeses must be repositioned as quickly as possible. No further touching of the cheese is permitted. 

  • No blowing/fanning the flames under your cheese.

  • The winning cheese is defined as the one whose reaches a fully inflated stage first. Fully inflated means that all four corners have raised off the BBQ and the plastic is taut (distinctive “stretch” marks which appear on the sides of the parcel). This state must maintainable (i.e. it does not count if the bag is pulsing up and down due to springing a leak).

  • Note that springing a leak does not automatically mean you have lost – it is possible for the hole to become sealed with melted cheese and the bag to fully inflate anyway – such is the excitement of cheese racing – it’s not over till it’s over!

  • In the event of a draw. The tied cheese owners will race again.

  • Deliberate breaking of any of these rules will result in your cheese being disqualified and removed from the BBQ.

Okay, so when I use the “Singles” tag here I’m just being a smartass. Sue me.

Cirque de Calder

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Alexander Calder, circus master. What’s particularly amusing about this is that he sounds so drunk I’m having an easier time understanding his French than his English. Perhaps it’s cognac?

Alexander Calder’s Paper Circus, via BoingBoing. Endure the slow lead-in, because the circus itself is worth waiting for.

Carlos Vilardebo‘s 1961 film of Alexander Calder’s “circus,” an intricately assembled performance piece played out by handmade characters including jugglers, sword swallowers, clowns, and animals. These figures, crafted from a collection of “cork, wire, wood, yarn, paper, string, and cloth,” were each assigned a series of movements and manipulated by the artist to perform specific circus acts. With performances held at various locations in Paris and New York through the mid 1930s, Calder’s circus helped to establish him in avante-garde circles. Jean Cocteau, Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Le Corbusier, Thomas Wolfe, and André Kertész were among those who saw the celebrated Cirque Calder over the years.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Canadian jingoistic jingle

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from those chart-toppers, Ren & Stimpy. May we present: The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksman‘s theme…

White People Food

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From the archive
Date: Tuesday, September 03, 2002

When you live in Chinatown there are very few places to get white-people food. T&T Supermarket has some, a little, hell, a token amount, tucked between the Darlie (formerly Darkie) toothpaste and the shrimp chips. Sunrise market has some, in between the vat-o-tofu and the sambal oelek (overpriced) and when you get your bill it says something like “produce $1.23, chinese $4.25, english $1.10,” looks like a report card. You know, I’m sure there’s some PC-ite who’d be offended by the till receipts at the Sunrise, even if their change worked out right.

Anyway, you can get whitey foods at the Italian place on Main street, but apparently not if the guy there doesn’t like you. He won’t open the door. He doesn’t care for women, being…er…of the kind who doesn’t care for women, but like really, really doesn’t.

My friend Carinthia tried several times to get buzzed in, but he just ignored her until she had the bright idea of using my extra-cute friend David as a door decoy. He buzzed David in right quick, and Carinthia darted in before the door could close. She bought enough olive oil and feta that he wasn’t too sorry he’d let her in, even if she was a chick.

But he won’t let her back.

Anyway, mark II: I go to Benny’s Italian Market. And does Benny sell Italians, you ask? Smartass. Benny (and what appears to be his entire extended family, or at least old friends, old enough that they have broken through the politeness barrier and speak entirely in in-jokes) anyway, as I was saying, Benny sells fresh veggies that you never have to pick over because they are all good, cheeses and deli meats, imported foods like artichoke hearts and specialty stuff like blueberry juice and Aqua Libra. And lots of Italian foods. And eats plenty of it, too, by the look of him, not that anyone’s complaining.

So there I was today buying my greek salad fixins, as it is well known if you can’t get to a Greek shop (and you can’t, at least not between here and Kits) as I couldn’t, you are permitted to make your purchases at an Italian shop, as long as they don’t try to sell you any baklava. No, they can’t do the baklava: it’s something to do with a grocery treaty from the seventeen hundreds, I dunno. So that’s okay, as I was not today at least shopping for baklava, and when I do it is always at a Greek shop.

When Hostess comes out with Baklavettes you can bet your Scott Bakula I’ll be staying well away; that’s just asking for trouble.

So there I was, and beside me was an elderly Chinese gentleman with a cane who was having some difficulty doing his shopping. The young fellow who works there whose name I don’t know so I will call him Li’l Benny to differentiate him from Big Benny, was helping him with his lottery tickets. It’s ten million this week, which is not to be sneezed at or passed up because you got confused in the grocery store, so the old guy was being very careful and double-checking everything. And Li’l Benny was triple- and quadruple-checking, just for good measure. Finally they agreed on the number of tickets, the jackpot, and whether the old fellow needed a bigger bag (this required a consultation with the woman I imagine is Mrs. Big Benny) and the fellow left, slowly and with his cane leading the way.

Li’l Benny turned to Mrs. BB with a concerned look and concerned tone and said, “That man, he’s had a stroke, you know.”

She turned to look over her shoulder at the old man as he disappeared. Her brow furrowed. “I know, yeah, I know. That poor man.” And everyone in the store paused a second and looked after the old man.

Which was nice, you know?

Hand shadows 101

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via both BoingBoing and Fark. Some of these are pretty spiffy. I’m relatively sure I used to have these in a booklet; probably a Girl Guide camping manual of some kind, cuz gawd knows I had all that shit. raincoaster was all about the Girl Guiding, until she got into horses.

Is that Peter Cook?