After camping out on a squirrel hunting trip I got poison ivy on my willy. A couple of days later I had relations and it was incredible. Almost too intense and all too brief. I wouldn't recommend it but it was an amazing experience. Sensitive area.

Albania. Albania. You border on the Adriatic...

Nobody?

I have some gloves around here somewhere (Dad was a dentist) but I never remember to use them. Must have been a tiny bit lodged under a fingernail because I washed my hands but I still felt it. Those chipotles add a wonderful level of flavor to a pot of chili.

My other secret is to simmer whole Italian sausages in the sauce. Brown those suckers first and then throw them in once everything comes together. They add a level of sweetness on their own so I never have to add a little sugar. My version is usually a meat sauce with ground meat and lots of vegetables (onion,…

Note to self: Don't go rubbing your eyes after you've just been fiddling around with putting chipotle peppers and adobo sauce into ice cube trays.

Neat. Let me recommend yet another good book. Eastward To Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus by Robert Kaplan.

Damn. Why didn't I think of that? I've got half a can of those in a little tupperware container in my fridge right now waiting to go bad. I use them in my chili recipe but you can't use a whole can or it'll melt your balls off. Thanks.

It's anchovy paste. Try it. Makes all the difference. And vodka. I'm not kidding.

My dad told me about freezing pesto in ice cube trays. My plant last year turned into a frigging tree. I already use ice trays to freeze chicken stock and coffee (iced coffee!) into convenient sizes so why not?

Two good ones. Some of those books took me years to find. Nearly all of them purchased cheaply used. I found the DVD for 52 Pick-Up at Big Lots a few months ago for $3. It's not bad. Very sleazy, with a great performance by John Glover.

I'd like to. I'm cheap. Real cheap. Can't justify the expense with what I am already paying for cable/internet. AT&T ran a fiber optic line in my neighborhood and they called trying to get me to switch over. I tried to get the lady to give me a deal on a package but she wasn't going for it. One day. I'm happy…

I listen to every Cardinals night game on KMOX-1120 down here in the Deep South. I even bought a badass CCrane radio so I could have better reception in the city. But I sure do miss Jack Buck.

Wishing him well. Seeing all those paperbacks all I had to do was turn my head to the right and...

Watson Brake in the northeast part of Louisiana are the oldest mounds in North America.

Serpent Mound

This reminded me of a book, Wobble to Death by Peter Lovesy, about six-day endurance races in the late 1800s called "wobbles". One of the contestants ingested strychnine as a performance enhancer and this figured into a murder. While trying to find a good link on the subject I found it has been covered.

It's warm even.

I was driving through dark country roads one night during a meteor event and it was pretty crazy. They were everywhere. I've gone out to watch a few times when I was away from city lights and I've seen one really good one. It was huge and streaked across from horizon to horizon. Beautiful.

The character of Lippy in Lonesome Dove had a stomach wound that never healed.