"They scored? That's so cute." - My wife, on hearing that Jacksonville scored their only points (a field goal) in their loss to New England during the NFL Playoffs.

1970s: Won .715 percent of all games played

1980s: Won .586 percent of all games played

1990s: Won .513 percent of all games played

2000s: Won .479 percent of all games played

Now, I was in Charlottesville with my Mom so she could enjoy some Sammy time as my nephew Bill taught Sam how to properly blow a raspberry, so I missed the game, which was on ESPN. I never knew if Anthony got any screen time.

Well, NFL Films did one better, and ran their Game of the Week, which was the Oakland / New York game, since it was also the game in which New York locked up their division. I TiVo'd the show, and lo and behold...

About 20 minutes in, right after Jay Feely kicked a field goal giving the Giants 30 points to Oakland's - um - much less... Standing in row three, right behind two very obnoxious female Giants fans was... Could it be?

Let's see... Raiders tee? Check. Raiders hat? Check. Beer? Check. Arm pumped in the air pointlessly? Check. Abe Lincoln beard adorning a broad chin? Check.

Holy crap, our boy is now immortalized in the vaults at NFL Films!

And I've now got it burned to DVD. And one for you, Ant-man.

(Actually, I know why she wanted the Colts to win: Coach Tony Dungy had lost his eldest son just a couple of weeks before, and the last thing he and his son had talked about was being on the sidelines together at the Super Bowl. I think everyone in the NFL wanted Tony to win just for that reason alone.)

Um. Not so much there, Ray. That's how you make chocolate milk. Chocolate is actually made by grinding cacao beans into a bitter paste, seperating the oils and powder, and then processing the powder to make it workable. Then, if you want actual chocolate, you add cocoa butter and temper the cocoa powder to make it into dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is a completely different critter from that.

So, not only are you showing a complete lack of knowledge of the chocolate industry (which would have been a good idea before you made the comment), but you insult those people who do know about chocolate that live - or might want to live - in New Orleans. Think about it: wouldn't even the most progressive of folks be a little skeptical, or maybe even pissed, about comments like that coming from a mayor whose town is in such a state of dissaray?

I understand your desire to create a tighter community in your city, certainly one that is better equipped to help itself should such a tragedy befall it again. However, you should realise that it is not the fault of the white people who got out early that everything hit the fan. Nor is it just the predominantly white Federal Government.

Nope. Thanks to your comments I can tell that you aren't all right upstairs yourself, which tells me that all three levels of government were at fault for the aftermath of the storms. Which tells me that since you're a little bit chocolate yourself, you've got a little bit of a rocky road ahead.

Religion is such an important part of daily life that religious leaders are usually our beacons of truth and sage advice.

The Reverend Herbert Lusk of the Philadelphia Exodus Baptist Church (which hosted the event) had the most sage statement of the event, which spoke of the entire event's ability to honestly and with conviction speak to Alito's deservedness to be the next Justice:

"I don't know enough about him to say I actually think he's the right man to do the job." Yep. Apparently in an interview with the New York Times during the aforementioned weekend, Lusk admitted that he knew very little about Alito, but as long as he was not an abortion guy, that was enough.

1. What time is it:     - Hammer Time! (Although, in our house, "Howdy, Doody!" is also appropriate.)
2. Name:     - My name is Jose Jimenez.
3. Nicknames:     - Just confuse things, honestly.
4. Piercing:     - Would probably hurt.
5. What is the most recent movie you've seen in the theater:     - With the exception of Goldfinger and Citizen Kane, each movie I've seen in a theater has been a recent movie.
6. Eye color:     - ...with krayawns.
7. Country you most want to visit:     - Might get me arrested if I said...
8. Favorite NEW food:     - I tend to only eat new food, as old food tends to be furry.
9. Ever been to Africa:     - Not that I recall.
10. Ever been toilet papering (rolling):     - No. I have a hard enough time unrolling it, I would hate to try getting it back on the roll.
11. Love someone so much it made you cry:     - I do, yes, but I'm not sure I get the whole dual-tense of this one...
12. Been in a car accident:     - I can't say I remember. I might have amnesia.
13. Croutons or bacon bits:     - Usually only in salads.
14. Favorite day of the week:     - Involves my kid, my wife, and a long nap.
15. Favorite restaurants:     - Usually don't last long.
16. Favorite Flower:     - Cauli.
17. Favorite sport to watch:     - World Scrabble Championships on ESPN. Load up the cooler.
18. Favorite Drink:     - Usually water based.
19. Favorite ice cream:     - Generally follows a dose of lactaid.
20. Disney or Warner Brothers:     - Warner Brothers. Safety in numbers.
21. Favorite fast food restaurant:     - Is an oxymoron of terms.
22. What color is your bedroom carpet:     - That depends on whether you would include the various new "baby spittle" flecks as colors.
23. How many times you failed your driver's test:     - Every time I get behind the wheel.
24. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail:     - I haven't received my "last" email yet...
25. Which store would you choose to Max out your credit card:     - I would rather max out my own card, rather than let some building do it for me.
26. What do you do most often when you are bored:     - Nothing. I'm usually bored at the time.
27. Bedtime:     - Okay. 'Night.
28. Who will respond to this e-mail the quickest:     - Depends on when I check my email, really.
29. Who is the person you sent this to that is least likely to respond:     - My wife, since she is the first one to send this to me.
30. Who are you the most curious about their responses to this questionnaire:     - My wife. We now have a few things to talk about.
31. Favorite TV shows:     - Always tend to get cancelled.
32. Last person you went to dinner with:     - Paid.
33. Ford or Chevy:     - Ford. He always has a towel. Chase never knows when to shut up.
34. What are you listening to right now:     - clicketty-click of my keyboard. That, or the voices. Anything to keep from hearing the NSA listening to me.
35. What is your favorite color:     - Blue. No, Red! AAAAHhhh!
36. How many tattoos do you have:     - Of my own?
37. How many pets do you own:     - Do frozen shrimp count?
38. Which came first the chicken or the chicken egg: - It depends on whether or not either one has premature ejaculation, I think.
39. How many people are you sending this e-mail to:     - When the NSA gets back to me with how many in their offices read it, I'll let you know.

Really? I realize that being from New York would color one's perception of the South, but I'm fairly certain that there's no "Cornbread Peach Parfait" in Charleston Receipts (yeah - he really made this). And I also seem to recall that when you make pulled pork from a large pork butt, it should take a lot longer than 90 minutes.

I wish I was kidding. This numbnutt started his pork butt with a spice rub (since spice rubs are subjective I won't quibble with his, but it had lots of salt, no sugar, and was heavy on coriander, so it was not exactly "Southern"), and then let it rest in the fridge for a while. He then placed the cold roast in a 500 degree oven for 45 minutes to develop a hearty, crisp crust. Crust? Southerners like crust for pie and grandparents, Not pulled pork!

Lieberman then removed the roast (which was now swimming in about one and a half cups of it's liquid thanks to the overly high heat) from the oven after 45 minutes and threw in some garlic cloves and a bottle of beer to braise the roast at 325 for another two and a half hours. What?!

Gah! This isn't a recipe for pulled pork, it's a do-it-yourself charcoal kit!

And people wonder why Southerners hate Northerners. This is a start. If I ever meet this twit, it's going to be really hard to avoid slapping him.

(By the way, he made barbecue sauce to accompany his pulled pork by taking the liquid and fat from the braise and adding a lot of ketchup, brown sugar, and worcestershire. Not an improvement.)

It came close.

Now, I love pasta. Most of us do. I also acknowledge that it's a minor pain to wait a few minutes for a gallon of water to come to a boil to boil a pound of pasta. However, we all know that a gallon of water is required for a pound of pasta. Boil any less and you get boil-over or remarkably underdone pasta, or a clump of gummy nastiness. Or Bush's brain.

So, of course, along comes laziness to make a convenience tool to replace sense and sensibility!

The Pasta Express is basically a length of heat resistant clear tubing that you are supposed to be able to put a pound of pasta (any pasta!) in. You then pour in boiling water to cover, snap on the two lids (one is a straining lid, the other a "thermal lid" that covers the strainer lid), wait 8 minutes, and voila! Perfectly cooked pasta every time!

Really? Then why does the finished product look like a tissue sample from CSI?

Pasta is flour, water, salt, and sometimes egg. When cooked, pasta has this nasty habit of expanding as it absorbs the water in which it is cooking. This is also why you add copious amounts of salt to your cooking liquid - that salt is absorbed by the pasta, thus seasoning the pasta. This is also why you need so much water to boil pasta in the first place. Not only does the pasta absorb more water than you expect, but the pasta also needs to move around while it cooks. While watching the advert, you could practically hear the pound of Spaghetti screaming "help me!"

They also claim that this device is perfect for cooking veggies to avoid washing away all the veggies' nutrients. Not so much, considering you pour boiling water over the veggies, then pour out the water. Where did the nutrients go? The water. What did you do to the water?

Yep. Same problem.

And I won't even begin to talk about the "perfectly cooked shrimp cocktail." (One word: bounce!)

(An aside to the idiots making these infomercials: Stop. If you really want to sell these stupid products, you don't need to waste time by showing us idiots at the beginning that don't know how to do something basic. The next time I have to watch some dip fry an egg in ten gallons of fat while cooking a pancake with no fat, or deliberately missing the collander when draining pasta, or flipping over a fish filet with a bowie knife, someone's getting smacked.)

If you really want to make pasta cooking easier, why not perfect the general methodology, rather than creating some ridiculous tool that will make us feel like a tool for buying it?

Julia Child used an electric charcoal starter to get water boiling faster - why not start there? How about making a better pasta pot with insert? Aluminum is light but lousy at heat conduction when it's that thin. How about a double-layer pot of steel-aluminum with an aluminum insert that is almost completely snug-fit to avoid that inch and a half of dead space that renders most pasta pots useless? Add an extra thin disc of steel or aluminum on the bottom and the wait time for water boiling is cut by nearly 60 percent.

And make it for under $100 so it will actually sell, too.

I have often said that I consider myself pretty lucky because I can count my friends on one hand. (Friendship is another show...)

One of those friends is Wendy over at, well, several sites. (Check the links page and start from there, really.) Wendy and I have known each other for a very long time, and as strange as it sounds I can't remember exactly when we first met. See, I remember when she worked at the theater I used to go to, and she sort of remembers me from our old stomping grounds in Richmond. However, it was Suncoast where our friendship really blossomed. (True story: she and I were the only two people to answer the question "who is Judy Garland's child?" off the norm the same way on the training quiz. Our boss, Chuck, when he graded my quiz, simply shook his head and muttered, "lord... Only you and Wendy.") Being an only child, Wendy is the closest thing I have to a sister, and she is the woman responsible for my marriage, having set me up with my wife (and stop denying it was a setup, Wendy!).

For many years, Wendy was married to Paul, a handsome young man who was as eclectic and quirky as Wendy. If not moreso. In fact, Paul and I had a few similarities which made my friendship with Wendy so strong. Paul and I both had a great love for classic films, classic video games (give me Pole Position over Final Fantasy any day), and a definite preference for 80s music. Paul leaned towards Devo, whereas I was more a Peter Gabriel guy, though. And when I say "leaned," I mean Paul fell over and into full on immersion.

Where Paul and I differed however was a far more powerful obstacle to deal with.

Some time ago, Paul came out of the closet, and revealed his homosexuality.

At the time, Wendy and Paul were parents to a young daughter who can only be described as unique (in a good way). Their little girl, now anything but a typical teen, is an amazing mix of their personalities and temperments that will grow up into a rather unstoppable woman.

Paul's declaration made little or no difference to Wendy, who has since also come to understand that she is herself bisexual.

A couple of years ago Paul decided that a real change in his life had to be made, otherwise his entire life really would be a lie.

Paul had to become a woman. This was not simply a cosmetic "becoming," where Paul would spend a lifetime dressing up as if he were performing a role for an audience. Paul had actually done this for some time, and not just for Halloween. Paul was not a typical "drag queen," and was also not a "diva." As an observer, Paul was someone dressing up as a woman to simply audition the next life for comfort. It was as if the next decision was inevitable, and Paul was just running through a few trial runs to be sure. "Testing the waters," if you will.

Surgically changing one's gender is a dramatic and daring decision, and requires an amazing amount of courage and thought. For such a decision to be made, this was clearly something Paul did not take lightly. Paul felt certain that the key to lifelong happiness was going to be changing his body to what he believed he was supposed to be, a woman.

After months of training, exercises, estrogen therapy, and planning, Paul left with Wendy to have the final surgeries done.

Paul was placed under anaesthesia and departed, and emerged as Cassandra Nichole. Cassie was born (just a few days after Sam, ironically) and she is dramatically happier, freer, and full of life.

And while I have admittedly not been as close to Cassie as I have been to Wendy, I feel very proud of Cassie. Such a step is hard to take, and I'm not sure I would have the courage to make it.

What makes it all the more wonderful is that not only has Cassie emerged as a more complete person, but her marriage to Wendy is actually stronger, thanks to Cassie now being a more complete person. Some have wondered how Wendy could stay with Cassie through all this, which actually bothers me. Why not? Last time I checked there was more to a happy marriage than the outer shell of the person you married. In fact, I'm pretty sure that you're joining souls when you marry someone, and Cassie's soul didn't change.

It just got stronger.

And as much as I normally hate the phrase...

You go, girl.

One night, we were feeding her some bananas (which we cannot feed her without singing "Hollaback Girl," thanks to Gwen Steffani). Sam would not let me get the spoon into her mouth without her grabbing the spoon first. My wife thought she would help by giving Sam an empty spoon to play with to keep her a little occupied between spoonfuls.

Not so much.

When Sam put the empty spoon into her mouth (I was getting the "real" spoon ready), Sam's face contorted as she realized very quickly there was no food on it. She shot me a look that would have frozen Medusa in her tracks. Clearly, my daughter is no idiot.

Since then, we have had a bit of trouble keeping her from attacking our food, and we just keep a handy supply of wet paper towels handy when feeding Sam her food.

Luckily, she now has two teeth coming in. Well, "luckily" is a relative term, as she still likes to kiss Mommy and Daddy by latching on to our noses and giving us a loving nibble. When she latches on with teeth, all I can say is "YOWTCH!"

Enjoy the Sam Buffet, as Sam begins her latest foray into the solid food world, beginning with...

Carrots? Not likely.	But I have a cunning plan.
This is mine, right?	I'll take it anyway.
Hrmm? Well, posession is 9 tenths, right?	MMmmmm... Biscuits...
Thumbs up for those fine Southern quickbreads!	Oh, noble chicken, your sacrifice will not have been in vain.
Maybe a Frosty to wash it all down?	Gotta be a better way in there...
Sorry, Shakes, I'm in the mood for oxtail!	Hey! Not bad!
Ooh! Sushi!	Sam turns to a Food TV Celeb for ideas.