Poem of the Week

Girl-Watching

By Dan Brown

In the years I’ve been at this

(Lots, not to be precise)

You’d think that once or twice

At least I would have seen

Some anomalies. I mean

Some major ones. As in

Not feet but little wheels,

Or crests like cockatiels’.

Where are they keeping the girls

With a chrome exterior,

Or an extra derriere?

Apparently nowhere.

Assuming my sample’s valid,

The pool is limited

To the standard types I’ve tallied;

Such variance as there is

In the usual congeries

Of   physiognomies —

And yet enough of   it

To be worth the looking at.

The walking by, for that,

Of   the same girl over and over

Would be no cross to bear

If   it were that one there.

***

Found this poem a little while on my poetry spinner app. Read it, then listen to this. Then you can thank me for having the rest of a good day, cuz I guarantee you will.

Although whether that will be due to the great song or the absolutely epic white-people-dancing, I can't tell.

Poem of the Week

Dulce et Decorum Est

By Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

***

Chances of you having read this poem in high school are pretty good. What impresses me most about Pwen's poem is the way he decries the supposed "glory" of war without vilifying the soldier. After all, the soldier is just doing what he sees as his duty, and is far more likely to suffer the ill-effects of war than the civilian poet who protests the war or the politician who sends him out to die. Sadly for Owen, he was both a poet and a soldier, and he lost his life in the war.

Cooking with Braddy: Ravioli Skillet Lasagna

Some days you just want to come home after work and cook a nice, simple dish. No fancy ingredients, no crazy techniques... Just a couple of frozen raviolis, plenty of cheese, and some bottled marinara sauce... So why for the love of pesto do I make things so complicated?

See, the above recipe (thank you, Pinterest) is really not that difficult. I thought it wouldn't be "cool" enough to just buy some marinara off the shelf, though, so I decide to go and make my own (roughly based off this Food Network recipe). Trouble is, the recipe for the sauce has a prep time of about an hour, and I just didn't wanna wait that long for my din-dins. Oh, and I replaced all those nice, convenient canned and frozen foods with fresh alternatives without really adjusting the directions at all.

Now, I've been trying to steer clear of a lot of canned foods ever since I finally looked at the nutritional facts on a can of Mandarin oranges (Daily Nutritional Value: None Percent), and, even after last night's failed experiment, that's a practice I plan to continue. Fresh is just better. More expensive, true, and sometimes more time consuming, but better.

All that said, the final result wasn't too bad. True, the tomatoes didn't break down quite like I wanted, so I wound up with a sauce far chunkier (and far less saucy) than I'd hoped for. The cheese mixture worked out pretty nice, though, and the raviolis and spinach cooked just right. If I were to go back and modify the recipe some (allow more time for the sauce to cook, and probably use more tomatoes), I think I'd have a real winner. As is... well, it's REALLY HARD to make frozen ravioli completely inedible, so at least I have some half-palatable leftovers to last me a little while.

At The Kid's Table

I need more single friends.

There's nothing wrong with being married... probably. But when you're a single guy, and all the people you're used to hanging out with get hitched, you start to feel a little left behind.

I guess I just don't get why people have to go and reproduce. Now, more often than not, when I get together with my married friends, I find myself spending a lot of time with my friend's children because - and here's the scary part - I have more in common with the kids than I do with the people I've known my entire life.

See, my friends all get talk about their families, their spouses and children (and I don't think I have any of those). When we go beyond familial stuff, we tend to focus on the same boring topics of conversation: work, how much mileage my car gets, mortgage payments... It's really kind of a drag. When the kids are around, though, it's always, "Whose your favorite pony? Mine's Rarity!"

And, sadly, I know more about the latter subject than any of the former.

Sometimes, though, when I'm with my friends, we don't say anything at all. I'll admit there's actually something comforting about that - the ability to spend time in near complete silence with people I've known for so long can be almost as cathartic as laughing about that one time in high school when we all went to Homecoming with someone else's girlfriend (Fun Fact: That was a bad idea).

And, sometimes, when my friends are all off having grown-up conversations, I get stuck with the kids, and I find that the conversation there tends to dry up, too. Of course, THEN it's usually because the kids are too busy trying to keep hold of my legs as I desperately try to kick them off.

I think I'd be fine if I never get married. I probably would need to get new friends, though, since I'm pretty much just going to be shunted off to the kid's table from here on out. Of course, the kid's table DOES have macaroni I and cheese...

Adventures in Animation: Kim Possible

Kim Possible was never really my show. I mean, I did like it, but it was really something my friends obsessed over more than I did. I caught an episode every now and again during my college days - pretty much whenever I wanted something fun and inoffensive. How does it hold up now?

Yes. Yes it does.

I mean, it's a super-dated experience now. Just listen to that theme song - totally early 2000s pop music. Plus, who the heck wears belly shirts anymore, Kim.

Beyond that, though, there's a real solid premise here. Spider-Man proves that teenage heroes are quite the viable property, and Kim's super-spy aesthetic isn't that far off from the spandex genre. Kim balances all the usual concerns of a teenage girl with the more weighty issues of saving the world week after week.

Admittedly, a lot of those "usual teenage concerns" are a little on the cliche side - cute boys, make-up, skin care, cheerleading practice... It's a very Disney princess sort of thing. Still, Kim kicks a lot more butt than most Disney princesses, so it works out pretty well.

Plus - and this is important - this show is funny. A lot of the comedy comes from the performance of Will Friedle, mostly known for playing the older brother in Boy Meets World. He did a bit of voice acting once that show ended, and he's always got this high-energy delivery that brings a lot to the character.

Beyond that, there are some surprisingly great action pieces. A big highlight is any time Kim Possible faces off with her femme-fatale rival, Shego. They could have easily gone with the petty catfight route, and while the two adversaries usually snark about the other's weight or complexion during their duels, they both swing hard. It's actually some of the best fight choreography I've seen in animation.

Now if only Disney would actually put out an affordable DVD collection. My buddy managed to snag his copy through the Disney Rewards Program, but for me to buy it on my own would set me back $60 a season.

And, yeah, I'm actually a little tempted.

Project 21: If Only You Had Been There

While walking down the street
The other week or day,
I saw a speeding car
Coming the other way.
And in that car, a crooked driver -
Her hair was thin and gray.

Then, from the yellow guiding lines
Her car began to stray!
That other lane was empty -
A relief, I'm sure you'll say,
For any lonely passer-by
That car would surely slay.

But now that relief has left us,
The truth I must convey.
The thought I had - most ghastly! -
With guilt I now relay:
I wished that you had been there
To stand there in her way.

This poem... is a lot darker than I anticipated. So's the picture. I lost interest in the whole thing about halfway through, but I didn't want to completely abandon it. It's done now.

Next project will be better.

Knight Baby and the Nefarious Vampire

Momma told me I could grow up to be whatever I want. I say, "Why wait?"

I'll admit it - this isn't one of my finer drawings. See, I meant to draw a baby with a pacifier in his mouth, but my roommate pointed out that it looks more like a moustache, and now that's all I can see.

Although, truthfully, I think I like it better as a moustache.