Useless Facts

Update: After two days of self induced torture and half a box of band-aids, the floor tile is done. I have to grout and replace the base shoe yet, but I have a rest period while the tile sets up.

Ps. I'm beat.

 

Looks good @NobodySpecial .

 

The house I lived in for 13 1/2 years had a round dimmer lightswitch thing in the dining room. I didn't realize that's what it was until after I moved.

 

Don't feel too bad. I have a set of three light switches in a back room; the center switch turns on the ceiling fan. The other two...no idea and I've been here ten years.

 

But the next door neighbor goes crazy when that light in the hallway turns itself on and off...

 

Ooooh! Spoopy.

 

I came in here to post a random fact I learned while researching Russian artists who defected from the USSR but it ties in with your post, so I'll quote you.

Mikhail Baryshnikov had nightmares every night for years after he left Russia. Every night he woke in a cold sweat, having heard footsteps running after him. Source was various Baryshnikov interviews.

From what I've been reading, this was not uncommon.

@Link the Writer, I hope by now you're well-rested and not so pissed now, whether angry or drunk. ;-)

 

New Jersey grows about two thirds of the world's eggplant crop.

 

Cannot do eggplant

 

Iceland has the right idea. The Icelandic Psycological Defense Act bars American televangelists from the country; they aren't allowed to be televised on TV, broadcast of the radio, or even set foot in the country.

 

Dieselpunk is the strangest, and yet most interesting genres of music I have ever found.

 

I've grown it, but I never learned how to successfully cook it. Other people I know both rave and rage about it, though. Eventually I just used the space for more tomatoes. Fried green tomatoes are my jam.

 

Cook it? Dude, you don't cook it. You hatch it, and out comes a chickenplant.

 

And then you cook that.

 

After it's crossed the roadplant, of course.

 

Silly me, how could I forget?

 

So this is how you feel?

 

Except for the lighting, that looks like my nephew a few years ago in his Halloween costume in the back seat of his mom's car.

 

I concur, provided the fryer of said eggplant observes correct frying temperature...No soggy eggplant, please!

For the fryingly impaired, I vote Ratatouille. It's really hard to mess that up...Actually, I take that back. When I was looking for recipes just now, I found one that uses 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon of olive oil and another that layers parmesan cheese in it.

Caponata, anyone?

(Edited because the smilies did something funky...and because I misspelled smilies.)

 

Preferably with Robert Plant.

 

I think this was my basic problem. That and for some reason it always seemed to taste like I breaded a sponge. Maybe I'm just not an eggplant person.

 

Properly done, eggplant prepared per @Homer Potvin 's method can be poetry on a plate...(Said by someone who always picks the eggplant out of stir frys.)

When I make ratatouille, I cook the hell out of it 'til it's practically melted...gets rid of that spongey thing. Then I pour it over pasta or zudles (spiral zucchini).

Edited to include @Homer Potvin

 

Eggplant and most varieties of squash literally (archaic: with the meaning of each individual word given exactly, in a completely accurate way) trigger my gag reflex.