Cicada Ice Cream

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The restaurant patron called his server over and asked, "Waiter!  What is this fly doing in my soup?"  The waiter looks down and replies dryly, "The backstroke, sir."  Yeah, I know it is an old joke, but it helps set up this post.

I hate the thought of any kind of insect in my food.  One time, while drinking a glass of wine, I felt something in my mouth.  A fly had landed in the wine and when I took a swig, it ended up in my mouth.  Needless to say, I could not finish that particular glasss of wine.

Now, I know that in some parts of the world, some insects are considered a delicacy.  I have heard of folks eating chocolate covered ants.  Grasshoppers and crickets can be prepared a number of different ways.  The thought has no appeal to me and to be perfectly honest, grosses me out.

Back in February, I talked about an ice cream shop that had created an ice cream recipe made from human breast milk.  The thought of having ice cream made from breast milk didn't exactly make me want to give it a try.  However, given my prediliction against insects in my food, this next ice cream variety may top it in the gross out factor.

Sparky's Homemade Ice Cream shop in Columbia, MO has developed a variety of ice cream made with cicadas.  The cicadas were boiled and then covered in brown sugar and milk chocolate and then added to a brown sugar and butter ice cream base.  The first batch sold out the first day.

Sadly for Sparky's their success is over before it ever got started.  A local health department official has asked them to no longer use the cicadas as an ingredient because the food safety guidelines do not have any rules regarding how to safely prepare cicadas for consumption.

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• Sparky's First And Only Batch Of Cicada Ice Cream Sold Out (neatorama.com)
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Weiner's Weiner

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I had a really bad day yesterday.  I was heading in to work and just about to get on the exit ramp for the Beltway when my car started to lose power.  Fortunately I was able to pull off on the shoulder before it stopped completely.  It was a little disconcerting sitting in the car waiting for the tow truck watching cars whipping down the exit ramp driving on the shoulder and wondering if they would avoid hitting me.   About the only good thing about where I ended up breaking down was that it was conveniently located to my mechanic. 

I really did not want to end up taking the day off from work because I have a lot going on in the office, but I had to get the car taken care of.  I have known my mechanic for several years now, and he has always been a straight shooter.  He once told me that I should consider getting rid of one car because of the things going wrong with it, and he once saved me a lot of money on a break job on my wife's car by finding the best price possible on new brake rotors.  In the end, I needed to get the fuel pump replaced, taking a sizable bite out of my bank account.

As bad as my day was yesterday, at least it wasn't as bad as Congressman Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) day.  I didn't have to get up in front of television cameras to be broadcast nationwide and admit that I am a liar and a pervert.  It probably wouldn't surprise you that I am not a fan of Weiner.  I had seen him a few times on television, and I have always felt like he was a petulant and arrogant asshole.  I once tweeted, and I am sure that I am not the only one to say this, but that I felt that Weiner certainly lived up to his name.  Little did we know.

When the news broke about the pictures being sent on Weiner's Twitter account, and he claimed that his Twitter account  had been hacked, I thought that it could be plausible.  Of course the more he put himself out there talking about the incident, the less I believed him, especially when he said he could not confirm nor deny that the photo was not him.  It was reported that there were more revealing photos that had been sent and to be released, so I guess he decided to come clean and admit his indiscretions.

Since I happened to be home yesterday due to the car problems, I was watching the local news when the press conference came on.  Even though I am no fan of Weiner, I didn't take pleasure in watching his sobbing confession.  In fact, a small part of me actually felt a little sorry for him, though I got over it quickly.  It astounds me when people like him do this sort of thing thinking they won't eventually get caught.  It is the height of stupidity and arrogance.

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Music Monday-Jimmy Buffett "Take Another Road"

I feel like a little beach music on this first Music Monday of the month of June, and there is nobody that does beach music better than Jimmy Buffett.  This one is from the 1989 CD "Off to See the Lizard" back when Jimmy still had most of his hair and hadn't started to look like a grandfather. 

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. Rules are simple. Leave ONLY the ACTUAL LINK POST here and grab the code below and place it at your blog entry. You can grab this code at LadyJava's Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!

John Edwards Indicted

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Long before John Edwards showed us all what a piece of human fecal matter he is by cheating on his terminally ill wife Elizabeth, I did not like him one bit.  There has always been something about him that has rubbed me the wrong way.  If I could describe Edwards in one word, it would be "smarmy."

Last week, Edwards was indicted on six felony counts of illegally using campaign donations to cover up his affair and illegitimate child with Rielle Hunter.  For his part, Edwards admits that his actions were despicable and that he hurt those closest to him.  He also maintains that he did not break any campaign finance laws.

I have mentioned before that I often listen to part of Mark Levin's show on the radio when I am in the car.  On Friday night's program, Levin discussed the indictment of John Edwards.  Levin, who is obviously no fan of Edwards, says while he deplores what Edwards did, he thinks that the indictment handed down by the Justice Department is bogus and could lead to a slippery slope.

Before becoming a radio talk show host, Levin made his mark as a constitutional lawyer and served in the Reagan administration.  He also serves as president of Landmark Legal Foundation, so his legal chops are much more solid than other radio talk show hosts.  His feeling is that the Justice Department is taking a great deal of liberty in interpreting what constitutes a campaign contribution versus helping a friend cover up an illicit affair.  He also warns other candidates that it opens other things up to a wide range of interpretation.

Now I will defer to Levin for the legal interpretation here.  After all, he is a well qualified legal mind where I don't even pretend to play one on TV.  However, I will not shed any tears if Edwards happens to be convicted of some or all of these counts.  If there is any such thing as karma, Edwards will get what he deserves in the end.  

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Pew Research News Quiz

I like to take quizzes on line, especially if those quizzes allow me to see how I compare to the public in general.  I have always been a somewhat competitive and intelligent person.  It was important to me to perform well on tests and to do better than those around me.  I wasn't so competitive (at least not always) that I had to be the best or perfect, but I always wanted to be, at the very least, above average.

So this morning, while I was looking over my Facebook feed and playing some mindless games, I saw a link posted by Red State.  It was a link to a political IQ quiz at the Pew Research Center that features eleven questions on current political news.  Of course I immediately clicked on the link to take the quiz and leave Farmville alone for awhile.

Before I brag on myself and tell how I did on the quiz, let me say a few words about the general results of the quiz.  I will not reveal any of the specific questions or how many people got each question correct.  At the end of the quiz, you can check to see a complete breakdown of how many people answered each question correctly, and a breakdown by demographics such as age, education, and gender.

On a quiz like this, it probably will not come as a surprise that the older and more educated a person was, the more answers that were answered correctly.  For example, college graduates on average answered 7.4 questions correctly, while those who had a high school education or less answered only 4.9 questions correctly.  Those 50 and older answered 6.4 questions correctly but those in the 18-29 age range answered only 4.8 correctly.

Only 6 of the 11 questions were answered correctly by at least half of the respondents, which is pretty sad when you think of it.  I hope you will take the time to take the quiz here and let me know if the comments how you did.  My score?  I answered 10 of the 11 questions correctly which is better than 90% of the population in general.  Then again, I am in all three of the demographics that performed the best on the quiz; college educated, age 50 and over, and male.

Related articles

• Are You An Informed Citizen? (fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com)

Blogger App for Android Update

Image by kuribo via FlickrThis morning, I was looking at the apps that I have on my Android phone and noticed that I had several apps that had updates available.  One of the ones that needed to be updated was my Blogger app for Android.  I had not used the Blogger app for a few weeks, but I went ahead and updated the app.

One of the reasons that I had not used the app for so long was because of my first experience using it.  I had started writing a blog post using the app, saved it as a draft, then finished it on my laptop when I got home from work.  I then published it from my laptop.

Unfortunately, the next day when I opened up the Blogger app on my phone, the post reverted to my saved draft and I lost the finished post.  I wrote about that incident on this post that I wrote completely on the app.  Since then, I have used Google Docs whenever I have wanted to start a post on my phone and finish it on my computer later.

After I downloaded the update, I checked to see what included in the update.  One of the features that it the update contained was that it contained a full sync feature.  I think that this will fix the issue that I had with the post reverting back to the version that was saved as a draft on my mobile app.

The first time I used the Blogger app, it only showed blog posts that I had started or published from the mobile app.  It did not include any previous posts.  Now, since the update, the mobile app shows all of my previous posts.  I am looking forward to seeing whether or not this new feature will allow me to start a post on my mobile device and finish it on the computer later.   

Southern Maryland Blue Crabs

My son went back to school today after being home for the long Memorial Day weekend.  He was actually supposed to go back to school yesterday, but my wife and I could not get him out of the house.  He has this uncanny ability to know exactly which day we intend to take him back to school.  My wife thinks that when I stay home from work, other than the weekends, he knows that means it is time for him to go back to school.  There is probably some truth to that.

I have mentioned here before how much my son loves going to sporting events; Bowie Baysox games in particular.  Minor league baseball is just so much fun for our whole family.  There is always something going on prior to the game and between innings to keep the kids entertained.  Unfortunately, this season, the Baysox schedule and my son's long weekends and school breaks do not sync up very well.  Memorial Day weekend being a prime example as the Baysox were on a roadtrip and not scheduled to play the entire six days he was home this weekend. 

He comes home again for a longer two week break at the end of June, and there are only three games scheduled.  That has been one of the tougher things with him being away at school is not being able to go to Baysox games as a whole family.  So it has been a major disappointment for us that the Baysox do not play very often when he is home. We have a few major things lined up for when he has his two week break at the end of June.  I will be taking off one weekend from delivering pizzas so that we can go to all three games scheduled during his break.  At one of those games, I believe that one of the front office staff will arrange for him to throw out a ceremonial first pitch.  You can guarantee that will be a blog post.  We also have tickets for the 4th of July, the day before he goes back to summer session.

Thankfully, during the Memorial Day weekend, we did have an option available to us to attend a minor league game.  There are actually four more minor league teams in the state of Maryland besides the Baysox.  There are the Hagerstown Suns and Frederick Keys in Western Maryland, the Delmarva Shorebirds on the Eastern Shore (we go to those games when we vacation in Ocean City), the Arbutus Ironbirds up near Baltimore, and the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs in Waldorf.  All of the teams are affiliated with the Baltimore Orioles with the exception of the Suns (Washington Nationals) and the Blue Crabs (unaffiliated).

The closest of the teams to us besides the Baysox is probably the Blue Crabs.  They have been in existence since 2008 and began their 4th season this year. Since we spend so much time at the Baysox games, we had not had the opportunity to attend a Blue Crabs game. The Blue Crabs happened to be in town during the Memorial Day weekend so we decided to make the 45 minute drive down to Waldorf this past Sunday so my son could see a game while he was home.  We all had a good time, but to be honest, the Baysox games have a whole lot more going on during the game (as do the Shorebirds).  Still, if the opportunity presents itself, we will probably attend a few more Blue Crabs games in the future with their mascot Pinch..