Karen Maple.  I should be starring in really wholesome Canadian porn.

I participated in a 5K this weekend (note: I did not say "ran"), and after a massive organizational debacle that culminated in having to walk another hour after the race back to the car, I figured I'd earned eating half a bag of cheetos.  God, those things are so good, and so restorative; I've never felt fitter than…

Melvins - "The Horn Bearer (Part 2)"
Mark Lanegan - "House A Home"
Melvins - "Best Friend"
Stephen Jones - "Under The Rainbow"
Odd Nosdam - "Kill Tone"

After towering success with a Smitten Kitchen recipe last week for spicy slaw, I went back to the well this week and tried her one-pan farro with tomatoes.  I added some swiss chard to the recipe, and oh my god was it good.  And was a fantastic way to use up the cherry tomatoes that are starting to accumulate into…

Real tomatoes are the best.  We're just creeping into tomato season here now, and I'm dying for my first BLT of the summer.

Happy birthday!!

Last summer I used up a glut of watermelons in this cocktail.  Starting from a watermelon juice/simple syrup/lime(ade)/gin base, it's got a lot of directions it can go in, and does it ever go down easy.

That's sort of hard to comprehend.  Martini glasses are totally not-girly — I mean, shouldn't they be associated with James Bond and FDR and aristocratic manly-men?  I'm outraged on the martini glass's behalf.

Congratulations!  Your party tour definitely sounds like the way to go, too — I wish more people did that.

I'd forgotten all about "Ignoreland", after so many years of immediately skipping it when it came up on CD, and then being able to drop it completely when moving on to listening on an iPod.  That's really not a very good song, and seems even worse by comparison to the rest of the album.

My company strongly encourages August vacations, and is actually trying to make it a standardized thing that everyone take off the last two weeks of the month.  Which, dudes, come ON.  You're saying everyone else would be out of the office for two whole weeks?  That means ten straight work days of not having to do a…

No, but that one was epic.  It's going to take a lot to top it.

This weekend I stumbled across some strawberries in my freezer that aren't earmarked for anything else, so you better believe we'll be drinking those on Friday afternoon.

Oh god, pudding pops.  Damn you!  I hadn't thought about them in YEARS, but now I desperately want one!

When I graduated from high school my grandparents took me on a trip to Europe, where we did a bus tour of Switzerland.  This was in June of '94, and I brought my discman and, from how I remember it, only one CD — Ill Communication.  (Honestly, I can't remember listening to anything else on that trip.)  I drifted away…

Another assistant here, and my boss is also traveling (although I support a bunch of other people who are not conveniently also out).  Life is grand!  It's for this reason that I take my vacations at odd times of year — no point wasting vacation time in, like, August when everyone else is out of the office.

"Take A Chance On Me" is never not a welcome presence in a shuffle.

MadLove - "Left With Nothing"
Tomahawk - "God Hates A Coward" (aww!  Starting the day off with a one-two little Mr Bungle half-reunion!  Nice work, iPod.)
NIN - "Pilgrimage"
Dolly Parton - "I Still Miss Someone" (last week I got a Melvins-to-Dolly segue, and this week this?  Questionable work, iPod.)
Kaada/Patton - "Pitie…

Aw, boo!  It seems like colds shouldn't exist when the weather's hot.  Feel better soon!

@avclub-d542a3419c3ad57206a96bcc86155ebc:disqus Yeah, the whole thing is awfully sketchy.