What Would Jane Austen Do?

Oh, haaaaay .  Did you know I had a blog?  Because I kinda forgot. Watching  I liked this much more than I thought I would.  It's a good thing to watch (late) on Sunday nights to keep the existential doom at bay.  Can't decide if I like Jason Schwartzman in it, but Zach Galifanakis is funny in a subdued way, and Ted Danson , y'all!  Watching I'm not proud.  Pretty much what you'd expect: superlative bimbos. My favorite is Josie Stevens.  I have no idea who her husband, Steve Stevens, is, but Josie has "worked on Cinemax film projects ."   photo via E!Online   Reading Decorno posted three times yesterday.  Shhh!  Don't startle her or she might not post any more.  But doesn't she look nice in this outfit?   ADR photo by Juergen Teller/ W Magazine

photo: Wikipedia Firefox/Chrome nerdiness ahead: The Camelizer is my new favorite Firefox extension.*  You can use it to track price changes in items at Amazon.  Let's say, for example, that you are interested in purchasing one Rapunzel Fairytale Tower .  You need it in time for Christmas, but you still have a little time to wait for the best price.  With CamelCamelCamel** you can 1) see the price history of the item, and 2) sign up to receive an email notice when the price drops by a certain amount or percent (you set the parameters).   You could also use it for mundane things like diapers: take advantage of sales by pouncing when the price drops below a certain level.  Cool, huh?    An even cooler feature with CamelCamelCamel is that you can import your entire Amazon wish list to the site and track price changes for all of the items on it.  The people behind CamelCamelCamel also have extensions that work for Back Country , ...

The internet was all excited about some .gif with Natalie Portman's butt today.  [Least exciting butt EVER.]  Anyway, it's in the new Danny McBride movie!  This is going to be awesome.  And awesomely NSFW.

My friend Cayce just found this, and it is genius: an online sign-up sheet .  Click on that bad boy to see it in its full glory.  Never again have five versions of Taco Soup at your soup swap!  Never again chase down parents to paint faces at the fall festival!  And I think my favorite part is that you don't have to log-in or even register in order to use it.   Yo, it's a free service; nobody's getting paid to pimp it.

My grandmother passed away last Thursday.  She hadn't been well, and I'm glad she's not suffering any more.  Of course, I still miss her very much.  She was a great lady . The funeral was yesterday afternoon, and all weekend long people brought food over to my parents' house.  My Lord how we ate.  Ham, potato salad, fried chicken, heros, ham, rolls, cole slaw, pork roast, ham, gumbo, smoked chicken (OMG so good), meatballs, ham, chili, pasta, dirty rice (the best I've ever had) ... not to mention chocolate cake, brownies, molasses cookies, tea cakes, hummingbird cake, pumpkin spice cake...  If grief can be cured with food, or even just ham, we are well on our way.

[Posted in response to Sarah , with apologies in advice: this turned out to be a damn dissertation.] Usually I'm put off by bloggers who post recipes saying, "OMG this thing I made was the best thing EVER!"  So I won't claim that this chili was spectacular, but I can tell you that I tried a new method this year and was pretty encouraged by the results. I had always used ground beef for chili, because that's what my mom used, because that's really the easiest thing.  But lately I've converted to the Church of Chunked Beef, and I'm not looking back.  I also added a secret ingredient this year, which will be revealed below. Since you didn't ask: I am unfamiliar with the use of any kind of produce in the making of chili.  Fresh onions, tomatoes, etc. have no place here.  And I will not even discuss beans.  If you want to move to Russia and pledge allegiance to Stalin, that's your business. So yeah, the recipe: 2 lbs. pot roast (i.e. chuck ro...

My parents' Halloween costumes.  You should know that 1) my dad is an engineer, and 2) my mom has never worn nail polish, ever, in her entire life.

Happy birthday, Nonnie!

I'm home with a sore throat.  Yesterday I watched Gangs of New York .  I've wanted to see it since at least a year before it came out; the history of New York is one of my little mental hobbies.  But, yeah, GORY.  I only saw about half of it; the other half I watched from behind my hands.  Not ideal sick-day viewing.  [Still, holy cow, Daniel Day-Lewis is something else, isn't he?] via Today I was looking for an old black-and-white comedy, possibly with William Powell.  Ta-da: My Man Godfrey .  Now that's more like it. public domain

via Our buddy Mir tells us that all orders at Piperlime today earn a $25 gift certificate, in honor of Piperlime's anniversary.  Oh, and use the promo code TREAT4U for an extra 10% off.

Pinata Fail :-( , originally uploaded by houston mamacita . I tried to move the pumpkin pinata and the whole outer layer came off in a sheet.

See every outfit Mallory wore during the seven-year run of Family Ties .  1) The clothes are gorgeous, and 2) the comments are awesome.

Here's Chris Elliot as Skink the Bounty Hunter. (6:34) It's Tuesday.  Slow down with that "productivity" business already.

Houston Bulb and Plant Mart , originally uploaded by houston mamacita . The Garden Club of Houston is having their annual Bulb and Plant Mart . Got lots of good stuff -- a Republic of Texas orange tree for Aunt Winnie, a Pink Salt Marsh Mallow for mom, a Dobashi Beni satsuma for me, plus plenty of amaryllis and paperwhites for the holidays. Some bitch in front of me got the last key lime tree, though. If it weren't for the presence of so many tortoiseshell headbands I would've cut her.

In all honesty, I can be convinced of a lot of ... alternative theories.  I read my horoscope sometimes; I definitely believe in feng shui; I'd probably go to a tarot card reader (if you went with me); and I would even visit an herberia but I don't really speak Voodoo Spanish.  So anyway, my point is, I'm willing to at least try and believe. And there is this blogger I really like named Jules .  She had a guest post here about her favorite "crazy hippie" foods like Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar, which I like, and coconut vinegar, which is certainly intriguing.  And then she talked smack about microwave popcorn, which I can understand, because that stuff in the bags leaves a weird film in your mouth, and that ... probably is not something food should do, I think.   But in the comments of that post she revealed that she has an objection to using the microwave for anything because it "changes the structure of the food."  And here's where I say, ...

home row, yo , originally uploaded by houston mamacita . I tried this nail polish, and I like the color. Sometimes it looks brown, sometimes gray. You know, greige . It's by Essie and it's called Merino Cool. Men seem to hate it, which is a sure sign of its coolness. And no, I can't straighten my middle finger. It's crooked like that all the time.

I do hope you've had a beauty of a day on Talk Like a Pirate Day.  We celebrated, as ever, with a piping hot bowl of Pirate Pasta.   Pirate Pasta  has been a favorite of the wee mateys ever since my friend Angela told me about it.  It's one of the two things they actually request for dinner (the other is Chicken Milanese). It's called Pirate Pasta because it combines small meatballs (cannonballs!) with penne (spyglasses!) and marinara sauce* (uh ... marines!). * Okay, nitpickers, it's not technically marinara sauce if there is meat in it.  But you put it together as a marinara, then add meat to it ... whatever WALK THE PLANK. Pirate Pasta Meatballs: In a big bowl combine ground turkey and Italian sausage .  Add an egg and/or dry breadcrumbs to hold it all together.  Oh, and you'll need salt and pepper and what not.  So mix all that together with your hands and form small meatballs.  I make these in big batches and freeze the...

...(A)ll I have is an Eagles Palace plastic laundry bag with spare underwear, a toothbrush, and a bottle of Ambien. Well, if Dr. Thompson replaced psychotic paranoia with gingivitis.

Amazon is running a contest for Best (Magazine) Covers of the Year .  You get to vote in several categories; you're eligible to win a Kindle just for voting.  There was some good competition, but I think that one above is my favorite entry.  [Yes, it's three covers.  I didn't make the rules, y'all.]

double rainbows on hwy. 290 , originally uploaded by houston mamacita . My heart is cold and small, but even I was unable to resist the double rainbows on Hwy. 290 yesterday afternoon. Living in the flatlands means that you sometimes get to see the two endpoints of the rainbow. No leprechaun sightings, though.