Here's the Fetus

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Look, if we're going to turn this blog into some kind of Gawker Twitter feed, I say, full fucking turkey.

Swedish Meatballs

Wow, talk about blog post explosion today. I must be crazy busy at work! Anyway, 'Pockets and I not-so-recently took up residence in a little section of Oakland that we like for many reasons, but one of the weird blessings/curses of our neighborhood is that we're about a five-minute drive from Ikea. This is a blessing because when we suddenly decide we should keep our pasta in tall air-tight, glass jars instead of the broke-ass boxes pasta comes in we can cruise on down to Ikea, grab a couple of hot dogs from the Ikea restaurant, and pick up said jars--maybe a stop at Trader Joe's, and still, we're back in time to watch Runway.

But proximity to Ikea is a curse because the convenience of it is slowly killing us. I wanted a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge to hang in our bedroom (needless trivia about us: the first time we met we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge to go to a party at a loft in DUMBO! ZOMG! Talk about capturing the wayward, early-20-something zeitgeist...)--anyway, like I was saying, I wanted a picture of the Bridge to put in our bedroom, and when I saw a nice one, framed, and affordably priced at Ikea, I bought it. Didn't think twice, and now I look at it, and I realize not only did I commit a crime against real art and sound principles of interior design, I've gotten sucked into the consumerist, domestic semi-consciousness Keanu Reeves warned me about. Do I deserve to blog still? Will the Internet forgive me?

Anyway, this was all a round-about way of saying that Ikea will either kill us all or put together a mercenary army of Viking carpenters, a ragtag bunch who'll be our only hope against the coming Chinese domination that I have warned against in these pages time and again. No, no. That's not the point. The point is this is a really interesting article about the founder of Ikea. Did you know he's cheap? He goes to bad restaurants? Drives a 15-year-old Volvo? Put together his Ikea furniture himself? Is worth $15 billion? Started Ikea when he was 17? Used to be a drunk? Probably is still a drunk? And, um, was a Nazi sympathizer? Anyway, fascinating stuff.

Update -- HOLY SHIT! I WAS JUST MAKING A JOKE ABOUT IKEA FIGHTING CHINA, BUT ACCORDING TO THIS SELF-DECLARED FAKE BLOG, WHICH LINKS TO A DEAD REUTERS PAGE (GENERALLY, NOT CONSIDERED A FAKE SOURCE OF NEWS), THE IKEA GUY REALLY DOES WANT TO FIGHT CHINA (AND HE ALSO MAKES IKEA EMPLOYEES WRITE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE PAPER). OMFG!?!

don't have a cow, man

c4ts, sugarpockets, avert your eyes: this post focuses on pork. well, david chang, who specializes in making pork-related korean-esque dishes. in the interest of full disclosure, i've been to momofuku noodle bar and i think the pork buns are fantastic. it's fine if chang isn't trying to make authentically korean dishes or whatever and that's not what annoys me. people fall all over themselves praising the noodle dishes, while i find them to be...lacking. what can i say? there is a korean word that describes the taste, which can only be translated to, uh, "meaty." there is nothing offsetting the overwhelming pork-y flavor and the noodles lack the nuance and balance that i think a good meat-based dish should have. i haven't tried his ssam bar because, well, it's pretty impossible to get a seat there.

anyway, chang's a skilled chef and he has some innovative ideas on how to run a restaurant, but holy cow is he overrated. in his new yorker profile last week, he came off somewhere between earnest/likeable and psychotic/self-important. i'm sure he's some of both, as most people are.

apparently he's a james beard award finalist? and proving that bloggers know nothing, listen to this ignoramus's opinion on who should win:

Steve Plotnicki, Opinionated About Dining: “Chang: I'm torn between him and Dufresne, but Chang's Bo Ssäm, which could be the single greatest casual dish ever invented by an American chef, tips it in his favor”

hey moron, korean people have been eating the dish for years and it's offered by many other korean restaurants. chang didn't "invent" it, he just made it that much pork-ier.

while we're on the subject, frank bruni managed to make it out to park slope to try out moim, a korean restaurant. he wrote a fairly glowing review, but the menu made me pause: what kind of self-respecting korean restaurant charges for banchan? $4 for kongnamul! my mom would weep. not to mention, what are these "korean desserts" they serve?

fat bitch

i was looking on imdb to find an apt headline for this post, but i think "batman or fatman" pretty much does it for me.

or how is "iceman eateth?"

what is going on with val kilmer? okay fine, i'll give him the benefit of the doubt. maybe he is gaining weight for a movie role. but then why does he look so sheepish?

but most importantly, what the hell is this? and why is val kilmer so obsessed with playing moses?

Grand Ole Party

So, with the field of GOP hopefuls looking about as presidential as a fresh turd with a "Support the Troops" bumper sticker on it, now comes word of a new movement afoot. A brigade of lobotomized zombies hopes to draft Fred Thompson--former Senator from Tennessee, and, more important, Jack McCoy's boss over at Law and Order (jobs, by the way, which at one point he held simultaneously)--into making a quixotic stab at Bush's LaZBoy. The actor-cum- statesman-cum-irrelevant-lunatic fled Washington a couple of years back, frustrated by all the pork barrel spending, which, it should be noted, inspires no argument here. My feelings about the fruit of the swine are well-documented in these pages, but seriously, a grassroots movement for the guy from Aces: Iron Eagle III? This must be the hubris born of winning a fictional election for Manhattan District Attorney in spite of a Tennesse drawl.

So, now, let's recap. Here're your other hopefuls:

• There's the guy who fought terrorism by looking at the burning embers of the World Trade Center in front of television cameras on September 11th;
  
• The decrepit guy whose face looks like its melting off in slow motion--the same one who's hoping that primary voters in South Carolina have forgotten he adopted a brown baby;
• The gay-loving Mormon: fabulous and decaffeinated;
  
• The dude who wants to be President because he thinks the guy mowing his lawn's plotting to kill his grandchildren;
  
• The Ferris Bueller of the United States Senate;
  
• The guy who fought a savage war against Bill Clinton for favors received from Monica Lewinsky while cotemporaneously receiving the very same favors from his own mistress;
• And the dude who refuses to pay $667 in back taxes on a house some lobbyist bought him in exchange for his soul.
  
• Oh, and probably Chuck Hagel, but Cheney'll off him soon--a little scattershot to the face maybe because, you know, Hagel hasn't had enough of that.

So, that's it, Mr. Gore. Go get 'em.

WHOA

i'm insanely jealous.

The Doodie Family

In reference to the whole murderous, diapered astronaut story that blogger E brought to my attention, our friend Nadine noted the journalistic predilection for strange euphemisms ("maximum-absorbency garments," sayeth CNN). That being the case, what gives, BBC? Has your well run dry? This article--which sister of cold4thestreets brought to light--uses a COMMON AND DEEPLY OFFENSIVE SLUR rather gratuitously, and pretty obviously for laughs. Apparently, said slur, in addition to being a term for a bundle of sticks, is also in Britain the name of a disgusting fruit-of-the-swine-based dish.

I share the article not because I find the repeated use of the term funny. Far from it. This isn't one of those unfortunate examples of earnest journalism turned to putty in this reader's dirty mind. It's evidence that the western world's most revered news institution can be very cheeky in an uncomfortable sort of way, is totally oblivious to how its readers will interpret what it offers as news, or is totally lacking in propriety. I mean, we can't chalk up my qualms to just cultural differences--there is something seriously weird going on here, right? The article is meant to be funny not just because the Doodie family is totally batshit, but because of the word itself and its myriad of meanings. Or am I being too sensitive?