Zombie Lapdance

More visitors to the porch light.

I feel a little like a cheating spouse, contributing to another blog, but I was recently invited to write for No Fear of the Future. For those of you who aren’t familiar, No Fear of the Future is a group blog of science fiction writers that includes RevSF’s very own Jayme Blaschke and Peggy Hailey. I won’t list everyone else who is a contributor, but suffice it to say, they are all legends and it’s an honor to be ranked among them. I’ve been following this blog on my Google reader and it’s neat to have my name on the posts.

The content of No Fear of the Future tends toward the weightier end of the blog spectrum. Jess Nevins posts fascinating nuggets from the archival depths of his research into pulp history, and Chris Nakashima-Brown writes semiotic screeds delving into pop culture and geo-politics.

For those of you who maintain multiple blogs, you are familiar with the dilemma I now face. Which blog gets which post? For No Fear of the Future I’ll be shooting for one post a week, emphasizing cultural and political curiosities. For Zombie Lapdance I will continue to shoot for an entry every other day, or more. Of course the food frakking will stay here, as will the self-pimping.

Already I’ve posted stories at No Fear for the Future about the murderous Austin lawman Ben Thompson, UFO enthusiasts I met in Hyde Park, and the foxes at Highland Mall. Actually that last is the sort of thing I would post here, but I had video of the foxes, and No Fear of the Future has video-embedding capabilities.

Let us be honest with ourselves. There are plenty of weird foods made by and for the pale of skin. This food frakker will address those particularly American or Caucasian things I put in my mouth over the past month.

This dollar-store cheese spread has the outline of Wisconsin on the back.

However, it tastes like petrochemicals from Houston.

As someone who has once been to Mexico and seen Italy on a map, I find the "Mexican Pizza" from Taco Bell deeply offensive.

It tastes exactly like the four ingredients that Taco Bell always uses.

Last month, at the height of the frenetic efforts to get Space Squid published, I stopped at Wendy’s to eat their "Double Baconator Meal."

I downloaded the nutritional PDF and discovered that this meal contained 1670 calories. God bless you, Dave Thomas.

Sometimes the Highland Mall foodcourt is much better than it has any right to be. Case in point, the sushi counter also has a fish and chips meal. Made with flounder.

I attended the championship game of Austin’s Alternative Softball League (the less said of SXSW’s domination of Waterloo Records the better). So of course I had a hotdog.

I assure you that the Lonestar tallboy in the picture is just to demonstrate scale.

My friend from Germany brought me a bucket of gummi candies in shapes iconic of the German national soccer team.

The German team colors are black and white. Apparently their taste is banana and licorice. Blech.

The word on the street is that the Pronto, one of the last independent gas stations in town, has been sold. So I made a point of eating their highly American sandwiches last week: On the left, peanut butter and jelly; on the right, baloney and American cheese.

Did you know there was a Big Peach softdrink?

If you had your eyes closed, I doubt you could tell the difference from Big Red.

At work we are gearing up for bread production. So I made some sourdough for the first time in years.

Soon these will be available to the general public.

Guess the flavor of this ice cream sandwich.

Key lime. Why isn’t more food key lime flavored?

We’re going to be optimistic and assume that the next Space Squid issue will come out in March. This is the general time frame for our favorite local zine expo Staple!, as well as the Austin incarnation of World Horror.

To that end, the Space Squid editorial team would like to announce a special emphasis on horror stories for the upcoming issue. You like horror? You got something horrific just lying around that seems particularly Space Squiddy? Then send it our way! You’ve got a slightly better chance of getting into the issue than normal.

Disclaimer: We also want to see your non-horror stories too.

Still catching up on the food-frakking of the past month. This entry, we talk about the food of Mexico and parts south.

There are so many ways that I love the Torta Bus.

At the Torta Bus I got this torta with egg and ham. You would think it was a breakfast torta, but I had it in the middle of the night! Isn’t that outrageous?

And as much as I love the Torta Bus, I also love Bimbos.

The frosted toast was a particular treat. Imagine a piece of cake baked crisp as astronaut icecream, and then smeared with crisco and sugar.

The fruit cup store near my place has a cup of granola and strawberries that float in a sweet, creamy sauce.

Through a total accident, I ended up with a friend at a taco stand near South Congress and Stassney. Like all truly premiere taco stands, this one sat in the parking lot of a Tejano music club. My friend had the quesadilla, something I’d never thought of trying.

They stuffed the melty cheese with suadero steak! I got a taco filled with campechano, a meat I’d never heard of before.

I believe that campechano is al pastor mixed with chorizo, but I could be wrong.

These things are billed as "liquid candy." You squirt them on your tongue like little sour-sweet syringes.

One flavor is called "chamoy", and the other "tamarindo." A team of experts agreed that although there was a subtle difference in taste, they pretty much both tasted exactly like tamarind and chili.

Just when you forget that the best snack foods in the world come from El Salvador, that’s when you find yourself buying their nachos in a bag.

Crispy and fried, with jelly in the middle.

If only all food could be exactly like that.

A foray to La Michoacana grocery on East Seventh meant a sampling of Mexican sodas. The green bottle on the far right looked the best, but actually tasted like apple, something of a disappointment.

The tortas at La Michoacana were astonishingly cheap. I got this "huarache" (the same word for sandal, it’s the usual ingredients piled on top of a sandal-shaped flap of flour) for a mere $2.70.

The taco lady couldn’t tell which steam tray of meat I was pointing at, so she asked if I wanted the "borrega" (mutton), and yes, I decided that was exactly what I wanted. The borrega was super-delicious. Flavorful and tender the way that only an adult sheep can be. The only drawback was the amount of stray organ and skeletal debris. In my huarache, I found a complete vertebra. My friend found some tissue that could have been tendon, could have been nerve tissue, or possibly could have been intestine.

Nevertheless, it was all quite good, and well worth the $2.70.

It’s been a big month here at Space Squid central command. Our clay tablet edition earned not one, but two writeups on Wired.com. Which in turn inspired some meming all over the interwebs, including this blog post that seemed to think that molten lead would be an easier casting method than plastic resin (I actually have some lead sitting around, but I’m saving its melting for something really awesome).

So if you got memed by the Space Squid clay tablet issue, my apologies and nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah.

There’s still four clay tablets that haven’t found owners yet, but I figure they’ll keep, so I’ll find something to do with them later.

During the research and development phase, and the frenetic lead-up to Armadillocon, there were three tablets that ended up broken to some degree. I have decided that their shards need to be scattered throughout the Austin area for the benefit of future generations of archeologists. So expect more photos on this subject.

The less that is said about the Space Squid room party at Armadillocon the better. For legal reasons.

Meanwhile, I put in an order for the replacement parts that should get Sanjay2, our beloved photocopier working. Then I will fill the sci-fi community with more Space Squid than anyone can handle.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a food frakker article. Well, don’t fear. It’s not because I’ve stopped putting weird stuff in my mouth. I’ve just been busy with Space Squid and preparations for Armadillocon for the past month. So I’m going to divide the frakking into three parts, east of the border, south of the border, and north of the border.

Today, we explore some of the samplings of the last month that have a connection to the greatest continent (by land area) of all: Asia.

I’ve mentioned fish snack sticks before. They are like a Korean version of Slim Jims, except gooey and pungently fishy.

But did you know that you could use the fish sticks as an iPhone stylus?

You have to make contact with the screen with the metal sausage-snap at the end.

It works pretty good too! If you don’t mind leaving a thin residue of fish goo on the iPhone screen. And since I don’t own an iPhone, I don’t.

There seems to be an unending supply of Korean frozen treats. For instance, this novelty ice cream cone is called the "meta hurricane."

Is it "meta" because the subject of hurricanes is re-referenced through the medium of swirling chocolate ice cream?

I’ll allow it this once.

The cones also come in strawberry flavor.

But what makes these cones truly a marvel, what proves the unrivaled supremacy of Korea in frozen treat technology, is that extra engineering touch of a plastic cup at the bottom of the cone to catch the drips.

I’ve been singing the praises of DK Sushi up on North Lamar. It has great quality sushi and a relaxed atmosphere. The last time my food frakking deputy Julia and I were there, we had the escolar, an oily fish that can cause gastric distress in large quantities. But the two bites of sashimi we had were quite delicious and well worth the risk. DK also comped us a couple of pieces, presumably a new invention which the waitress assured us had no name.

Tied on top of the sashimi cuts were strawberry slices. And between the strawberries and the fish was exactly the right quantity of shredded jalapeno. The sweet and the hot of the pepper blended with the juice of the strawberry and the rich oil of the fish. It was more mouthful of flavor than I’ve had in a long time.

From Tam Deli I bought this plantain and rice treat.

I was given explicit instructions. Microwave the cakes for 45 seconds, then split down the middle and cover with the coconut sauce. Do not eat the banana leaf!

I am glad that I followed the instructions explicitly. It was the best plantain dish I’ve ever had.

During a break in Armadillocon, a bunch of folks drove all the way out to First Chinese Barbecue. A couple of the people in the group were regular readers of the food frakker (Hi, Patrice and Melissa!), so there was a discussion about what I should order that would most benefit the food frakker blog. It was decided that the weirdest thing on the menu was "pig blood and leaks."

It was actually a little weirder than I had anticipated. The actual pig blood had been gelled somehow, into cubes of wiggly blood in a puddle of blood sauce. With leaks. It can best be described as slightly meaty-flavored flan.

As you may know, I’ve done a fair amount of research on the Wisconsin horror writer Helmut Finch, and I wrote a retrospective of his work that appeared on Pseudopod last year. So you can imagine that I took a personal interest when it came to light recently that the writer C. Deskin Rink had discovered a new Helmut Finch story on a property of his near Chippewa Falls.

There hasn’t been a new Helmut Finch story discovered since I unveiled "The Mind Worms" at BoneCon a few months ago. Which made me suspicious that Mr. Rink had forged a Helmut Finch story to steal my thunder. But the story has been verified by Dr.Gentz and Torrek Bestlonic, the two greatest Helmut Finch scholars of our age (even greater than me!), so it must be authentic.

The story that C. Deskin Rink has found is called "What They Consumed" and follows the fall of a prestigious Wisconsin family into a psycho-sexual madness spawned by the cruelties of a young rake against his wife, and the utterance of twelve powerful words. You can find the story produced by the promising new horror podcast "Cast Macabre" and read by the super-extremely awesome Alasdair Stuart.

For the devout fans of Helmut Finch this is a must read (listen). For fans of horror, this is a terrifying descent into madness.

Okay, everything has more or less come together. I think the internet meme of the clay tablets has died down a little. The eBay listings have gone up, but there’s still a deal on clay tablet #14.

The clay tablets at the Armadillocon art show haven’t any bids yet, so you can definitely grab them still for a bargain. You should also look into the great illustrations up for sale by Space Squid artists like Chris Friend and American Wife.

It’s good to see everyone in the sci-fi community I only see in person once a year.

Speaking of which, here’s a photo of me taken by the lovely Lawrence Person, as I was on my way to the art auction.

As I write this, I am in the hotel room that will become party central for Space Squid! Woooo! Lots of booze and poorly photocopied versions of issue 9! Woooo! Be there!!!! Tonight!!!!!! Woooooooooo!

Within moments I will have completed my huge list of things to do before Armadillocon. I get up early in the morning to help out with the writing workshop, so this is my last chance to prepare before everything goes nuts.

For instance, I have prepared all the materials for the Armadillocon art show. Space Squid will be selling the clay tablets you’ve been hearing about, and since we have a table at the show, we’re selling some of the original artworks produced for the illustrations. We have some beautiful work by newcomers Morgan Wilson and Baylor Estes, as well as familiar artists like American Wife and Chris Friend. All the illustration sales (minus the con commission) go to the artists, so support these talented people who let Space Squid exploit their abilities.

At the last moment, as I was packing things together, I also decided to put up on the art show the resin cast that was used on the backside of the clay tablets. It’s a gag seal that depicts a man defecating.

The cuneiform around the edge of the seal may or may not spell out the words "Mikal Trimm."

And you know how people participating at cons post their itinerary on their blog ahead of time? So that people who don’t immediately have access to the con grid schedule will know where to find them? Well, I’ve gone and done them one better. I’ve declared my programming schedule a programming track.

Or maybe a con in its own right. It’s hard to tell exactly how vain I’m being at any one time.