Zombie Lapdance

Over the years, you’ve seen many inventions that have popped out of my brilliant mind. Machines like the CryoBev3000 or invaluable tools like the beyboard.

Now, I have created my most terrifyingly brilliant invention yet, the RoboLather.

You know how difficult it is to make a shaving lather, what with all the tedious brushing of the shaving mug? I have eliminated much of that needless labor by attaching shaving brushes to an electric mixer.

Now, all you have to do is wet the mug and the RoboLather does all the work!

Here’s a youtube video of the RoboLather in action.

There has never been an easier way to generate a shaving lather. Go now, you’re all free.

In these grim economic times, we should take a look at what culinary opportunities await us at the dollar store. Everything in this Food Frakker entry cost exactly ONE DOLLAR!

What’s the best thing about mechanically separated chicken? The labor savings it has over he tediously hand-separated chicken.

It’s a rare dollar store that has a freezer section.

The one dollar cheeseburger is at least the equal of a dollar cheeseburger from a fast food chain.

At first glance, the BBQ rib sandwhich gets honesty points for a box with a realistically disgusting photo. But then one gets a closer look at the actual product.

The French toast bites are a quick and easy cubical variation on a food that is already about as quick and easy as a food can be.

The instant chow mein is ramen noodles by another name.

The frozen hashbrowns aren’t terribly different from what I would make with fresh potatoes. Here I have jazzed it up with some of my frakker condiment backlog, Jufran banana sauce from the Philipines (which tastes like particularly vivid ketchup) and Lizano salsa from El Salvador (which tastes like a cayenne steak sauce):

The pretzels taste good with melted cheese and diced tomatoes. Think of it as pretzel nachos.

People just can’t leave those vintage movies alone. Just after watching Alien Trespass, I thought I would check out The Lost Skeleton of Cadarva, a less respectful and far funnier spoof on the 50s sci-fi flick.

I watched a lot of Bruce LaBruce back in college. You know, back when I was curious and experimenting with underground cinema. It’s been a while since I’ve heard of him. His new film is an English language German production of a gay zombie arthouse porno spoof. Considering the mishmash of genres, it’s not surprising to see that Otto; or, Up With Dead People has a motherfucking semi-colon in the title. If you’ve ever watched 90s era guerrilla-style cult movies, you know what to expect with this flick. If you just happen to be browsing zombie movies on Netflix instant view, you will probably be a bit shocked to run across a movie with some pretty damn squicky gay-zombie hard-core explicit sex scenes.

It’s less a zombie movie and more a love-letter to homeless gay crusty punks.

If you had read my previous review for Bikini Blood Bath, you would probably not be surprised that I deliberately hunted down the sequel, Bikini Blood Bath Carwash

It took Netflix about a month to get this DVD to me, which is entirely unacceptable. Like it’s predecessor, it’s amazingly stupid (more like stupid-funny), the sort of movie that Troma used to make before they started taking their Tromaness so seriously. Debbie Rochon has a much larger part in this movie (despite dying in the previous one) and she steals the whole show. But let’s not forget there’s also plenty of bikinis.

I caught Watchmen just before it left the theaters.

Meh.

Tokyo Zombie looks like a Takeshi Miike movie, and has all the same actors and quirkiness, but it is not.

Tokyo Gore Police spills more blood and guts than the entire nation of Japan has seen in the past fifty years combined.

There’s no point telling you what the plot is. The plot simply facilitates over-the-top violence.

You can’t findSanshiro Sugata on DVD. You have to hunt down an independent video store and go up to their Akira Kurasawa collection (which every independent video store has) and rent the VHS. A little while ago I watched a truly amazing Hong Kong judo epic called Throw Down that made frequent and intimate reference to Sanchiro Sugata, which is the grandfather of all judo epics.

It’s been one of the best kept secrets in film that Jean Claude van Damme is a damn fine actor. In the foreign arthouse flick JCVD he finally gets to show that to the world, by playing himself.

The Netflix instant view version is dubbed, which is a crying shame. But it’s a meta-movie about breaking the fourth wall, so I’ll allow it just this once.

I would like to draw your attention to Mark Ward’s Integrity Protects the Works of Man, recently posted fiction.

You need to read this now, before it stops being topical. This is a fast and stylish story that tackles the culture of Wall Street straight-on. Think Gordon Gekko with mirror shades.

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There I was at the HEB, shopping while hungry, when I realized that I’d been holding this fillet of salmon and gently stroking its tender red flesh through the cling wrap for quite some time. So I figured I’d committed to a purchase. After fried in olive oil with a crust of salt, I then baked it onto English muffin halves with cheese and tomato.

Yeah, I know. I didn’t have any fresh basil handy.

Ethnic snacks are a staple of my diet. Here’s a Korean corn-puff snack with an insulting caricature of an Indian. Man, those Koreans are so racist, I just hate them.

The corn puff things in back taste vaguely like crab. And grease.

I realized this week that it’s been a long time since I’ve had mochi.

Most of you don’t know that mochi was a dough-covered ball of ice cream before it was the deadly lizard-penguin Mocchi from Monster Rancher.

There’s a convenience store near 14th and Cedar that sells gizzards in one dollar increments.

Not as big and fleshy as previously frakked gizzards, but they’re not as chewy either. The Budweiser Clamato tasted more like tomato and Bud than like clam. Go figure.

A convenience store in Elgin sold me this pickled egg from the big jar next to the register.

You will notice that it was packaged in a paper bag identical to the brown paper bag that tastefully concealed my Clamato.

Pau Bhaji from those Indian MREs tastes like a cross between veggie chili and veggie sloppy joes.

But in a good way.

My frakking deputy and I visited Lucky J’s, a food cart which is essentially the only way to get fried chicken and waffles in this town.

I did not literally take my camera on the trip, but after eating the chicken and waffles, I felt that I had no choice but to blog about this singular food combo.

So I drew a picture.

I was pretty skeptical about chicken and waffles. It sounds like a stupid IHOP promotion.

But after loading up my fork with a bite of spicy and crunchy chicken, and a bite of sweet and spongy waffle, I can only say . . . it . . . is . . . damn . . . good.

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The X recently gave me her aquarium. It’s mainly the same fish I was taking care of last summer, but she upgraded to a much larger tank.

This put me in a conundrum. Exactly how elaborate and expensive should I make this aquarium setup? It’s one of those things where there’s an unlimited reservoir of complexity accessible to the hobbyist.

Case in point, the natural aquarium movement, as pioneered by Japanese Aquarium artist Takashi Amano.

His tanks employ a zen garden aesthetic, which favors asymmetrical framing and an implied sense of depth.

Now, the plants themselves aren’t too expensive, but they don’t grow that way by themselves. If I were to try and replicate something like that (and I’m not saying I won’t) I would need four times the wattage of light that I’m currently using (at least) and a CO2 drip apparatus. Much of this equipment can bought through the SF Bay area retailer of Amano materials. Not only do they sell the CO2 apparatus, but they also sell the necessary fertilizer, aquarium filters made from blown-glass, and German surgical steel pruning scissors that cost about $100 a pair.

So, no, I don’t figure I’ll be dropping $500 on a really neat fish tank anytime soon.

Instead, I created a reaction to Amano’s natural aquaria style, what I call unnatural aquariums. It cost me about $7 at the dollar store.


My housemate said that the aquarium is now the nicest thing in the house, which is surely an exaggeration, but damn if those fish aren’t engrossing.

In a previous hotdog roundup, I reviewed the Weinerschnitzel dog, and had little good to say about it. Well, I was passing by there recently, and seeing a sign advertising a fishstick dog, I thought I would give it another chance.

Well, they didn’t have the fishstick dog. Then I had my disappointment compounded yet again when I ordered their BBQ dog.

Weinerschnitzel managed to nail every single possible shortcoming. The meat was bland, the bacon hard, the bread stale, and they served the whole thing lukewarm. As the final feather in the failure cap, they called it a "BBQ" dog because it was covered in the nastiest treacly paste that anyone who has spent more than twenty minutes in Texas would never stoop to calling a barbecue sauce.

Weinerschnitzel BBQ Dog: Grade D minus

It’s almost futile to review the Mexican foodcarts. They’re as ephemeral as cottonwood fluff, nameless and transitory. If you happen to be in the neighborhood of the Yellow Rose Gentleman’s Club (and as a gentleman I’m sure you frequent it frequently), take a look a block or two north on Lamar and see if you can spot a little trailer that specializes in Mexican (Choby?) hotdogs, Mexican hamburgers (which contain pina or pineapple), and the ever-present breakfast tacos.

As you might expect, the hotdogs are wrapped in a coil of bacon.

The dog is loaded with more condiments than any two chicago dogs, crema, pico de gallo, and fried onions. It quickly devolved into a dripping mess that disappeared into my mouth too soon.

And on top of that is the ambiance. A picnic table in the Texas sun, surrounded by cavorting children. Certainly a pleasant change of pace from a hard day in the murk of the Yellow Rose.

Mexican Taco Cart Dog: Grade A minus

Here’s some places I’ve stopped while biking around town.

Sparks park at 38th and Grooms is so new that it isn’t even updated on google street view. This is how it looks now, all artified:

The other day I was passing by one of the new commuter rail stations while a train was passing by, so I jumped up to take a look. This is how it would look if Austin was kinda competent and got the trains running on time.

There’s been some more bumps along the podcast front, but all my feeds are up and running without a serious break in the continuity of my stories.

Here’s the podcast lowdown:

* Decoder Ring Theater is coming out with a new Red Panda episode every month or so, and the Red Panda still rocks.

* The Internet Archive has a huge selection of old timey radio, including sci-fi programs from the golden age. There’s a lot of Ray Bradbury that found its way onto the airwaves apparently.

* Democracy Now (RSS) has a daily podcast feed so you don’t have to search for that weird station transmitting out of someone’s garage to hear Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky talking about how disappointed they are in the radically conservative Obama administration.

* "Making the Cut (RSS)," the Metamor City podcast novel is in its lasts legs. It’s been a little while since I’ve been caught up with "Making the Cut." There’s been some pretty raunchy S&M bits that only seem to happen when the boss walks into the room. The novel is pretty cogently summarized by my co-worker Jeremiah’s comment: "I forgot there were vampires in this."

* Wormwood (RSS) is one of those things that’s too good to share with my co-workers. There’s a balance that has to be reached between podcast content quality that is listenable, but not so awesome that you’re afraid to walk into another part of the bakery because you might miss something. Wormwood bears a close resemblance to Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff’s "Shadow Falls" which in turn bears a close resemblance to "Twin Peaks." In short it’s a fully-dramatized production about a mysterious small town.

I’ve burned my way through all the available podcatching applications, and I’ve turned back to Miro, the open-source internet TV viewer. Miro is still a bloated and buggy beast of a program, but I’ve found out how to get it to download audio podcasts (and incidentally how one could, in theory, use Miro to consume porn, which I only bring up because it’s an essential ability for any new media if it wants to gain a foothold with the public).

Along with the audio I’ve taken to following some of the internet TV feeds (although I spend barely more time watching internet TV than normal TV).

* TED Talks (RSS-HD), in a zillion varieties are cluttering my harddrive. There’s the tech theme (RSS) feed, the tales of invention (RSS) feed, the TED Talks Africa (RSS) feed, etc. etc. The talks range from the mildly awesome to the mildly asinine. I like the way that anyone who demonstrates a new yet intuitive way to interact with a computer system gets a round of applause.

* Public domain movies show up on a number of feeds (RSS). I’ve actually removed these channels because they use bittorrenting that chokes up a whole lot of bandwidth, all to give me the sort of movie that you find in the dollar store DVD bin. I saw a War-Era British comedy by a forgotten seven person comedy team called "The Crazy Gang." The movie was called Gasbags and involved Hitler-related hijinks and a subterranean super-weapon. I also saw Horror Express, a movie that looked exactly like a Hammer film but was apparently a Spanish production. It starred Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as English scientists on the Orient Express while a primitive fossil man sucked the brains of their fellow passengers out of their eyes. Telly Savalas has a bit part as a Cossack.

* The Onion News Network (RSS) is frequently kinda funny. It’s impressive how closely they replicate the look and feel of cable news networks with such a small budget. It’s probably the best criticism of our smarmy, hysterical 24-hr news cycle out there.

* College Humor is funny about one time out of ten. College just isn’t that funny, dudes.

* Science Friday videos (RSS) are a supplement to the weekly radio program. They appear to be edited together by their intern, but it’s still pretty cool.

* Channel Frederator (RSS) has all the short cartoons that I crave. Might be the only funny independent animation outlet out there.

* Make Magazine (RSS) has a vodcast. They actually spent twenty minutes telling me how to put LEDs on my clothes, which is about as much of an unintentional self-parody as you can get.

* Hubblecast (RSS) totally rocks my world. The host is a weird German guy with an Adam’s apple the size of a European football, bu all the programs are about the jaw-dropping discoveries made by Hubble and any other telescope that suits their fancy. It’s like watching the universe itself.

* Nova’s vodcast (RSS) is best when it has Neil deGrasse Tyson as the host. He’s a goony man, and a lot more likeable than that raving jackass Brian Greene who I hope auto-erotic asphyxiates himself with his own string-theory.

I found this instant Indian food product that replicates various street-vender fare.

You just boil the package until it’s warm. Sort of like the Indian version of an MRE.

It doesn’t look quite like the box, but it actually tastes relatively fresh. Not to mention eye-openingly spicey.

Here’s also some hipply packaged cans from the Amul Kool line of milk-based beverages.

I made some more lefse, this time filling it with the cream-sauce pickled herring.

It’s what we call up north a "Norwegian burrito."

Speaking of the old country, I’ve been making rhubarb pie at the bakery. Apparently, people down south haven’t had a lot of experience with this sour, celery-shaped vegetable.

But people have been buying it. The theory is that they all heard the recurring sketch that Garrison Keillor does about rhubarb pie, and they want to know what all the fuss is about.

Here are the pies setting up, before I slather them with whipped cream.