I don’t know if it’s still common, but it used to be an oft-professed desire to write a book. How hard can it be? After all, you can read and write, and that’s all it takes, right? To get started, that is really all you need. Eventually you will turn out forty to a hundred thousand words if you just start cracking. The problem is, you don’t want to write A book, because your one book will suck. So if you want to write a good book, write that first book, chuck it, write a different one, chuck it and repeat. Eventually you will hone the secondary skills required. That of characterization, exposition, description and dialog. These all feed into storytelling. This, of course, assumed that you are writing fiction. Fiction is easier, you don’t actually have to know anything, you just have to string together an entertaining yarn.
It turns out that a lot of those people who were expressing an interest in writing a book were not interested in the act of writing. What they wanted was to have written a book. Whether it is for the bragging rights or the passive income doesn’t matter, because they will never write a book. It’s simply because the amount of time it takes to sit down and puts tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of words down on paper is a barrier to entry all its own. If you do not enjoy the act of writing for the sake of writing, the probability of finishing the volume drops to minute. In my case, I started writing stories back in high school. These stories were crap, but I wrote them to entertain myself. I needed to provide my own fiction, because the literature being foisted upon us public school students was specifically selected to make the students hate books.
The first obstacle is scene flow. A novice writer will often have a vivid picture in their head, but the words on the page do not convey all of it. They will also know where everyone is going next but frequently fail to chain the scenes together in a manner that someone not privy to the contents of the author’s head could follow. It becomes a nightmare if they try their hand at non-linear storytelling, as you combine the problems above with a format that is inherently harder to follow. The pieces of the scene should be laid out in order and strung together in a coherent pattern. It seems obvious, but early on this requires a conscious effort. The frequent counterpoint to disjointed scenery is the ‘and then’ syndrome. Where a character does something, and then something else and then a third thing. A list of actions and events with no color or engagement. While it can be followed, it ends up boring.
The second obstacle is description. The mistakes often fall into two categories – over-describing and under-describing. Under-describing is often from the same problem as the issues with flow. The picture is complete in their head, and they don’t fully put it on paper. If it’s not on the page, you don’t get credit for it. The opposite end of the spectrum would be trying to get every detail of the picture down on the paper, even when it doesn’t contribute to the reader’s understanding. This can come out spontaneously, or as an over-correction to a novice who had previously been bitten by not describing enough. Finding the balance is infuriating and ironically difficult to describe. Because there is no one good amount of description. Some things don’t need to be covered, while plot- and character-relevant components should be given sufficient attention.
After the first two, novice authors become more individualistic in their flaws. Some are terrible at developing characters. Others can’t create a plot to save their stories. I have always been the latter. One of my early books started from a seed of “Twenty-five pages of nothing.” The characters were alive, the dialog entertaining, and the scenes well-set. The problem was, nothing happened. It was just a couple days in the life of a nineteenth century gentleman. Strangely, people were still entertained. My solution to break out of that rut was to focus on what I was good at. I let the characters run loose and develop the plot from their interactions. This required knowing them as people and understanding their motivations. It also tends to meander and generate a lot of banter. I’ve had to trim down otherwise entertaining banter for the sake of scene flow because it got in the way.
For people who can write plots but not character… I got nothing.
I never had that problem and have no advice beyond this – write more. Like all skills, storytelling and characterization improves the more it gets practiced. So the more works you churn out, the more you will learn from you mistakes. There is a point of diminishing returns, obviously, and there will be works that are not as good as those that preceded them. That is just how it goes. But it is a craft you can practice as long as your brain functions.
I should probably address bragging and passive income. I do have passive income from my books. Last month it was $25. Most writers have to write as a sideline to a day job or other means of support. The sort of people whose writing generates sufficient passive income to live on are household names. Then there’s the matter of bragging rights. When I meet someone, I tend to say I work in IT. I’ll still talk about my writing with anyone who asks, but I’m usually not the first to bring it up. A lot of these people think they’ll go to cocktail parties and tell the local cosmos “I’m the author of…” But these people won’t ever be in that situation. They’re not the sort who’d spend their Sunday night tapping out 3,100 words in their active work, then turn around and write a thousand word article on writing for their local Libertarian preserve.
This week is a little annoying. You try to read the stars, but the stars mainly care about BIG IMPORTANT PEOPLE, and that’s… not the Glibertariat.
For example, there is a giant blinking “ruler’s spouse gets caught in extra-marital sodomy,” but since none of you are ruling so much as Andorra, I can’t really tie it into my target audience.
So let’s see what we can find:
Earth-Venus(retrograde)-Mercury-Luna. We’ve got home, double-change, and bad love life. One of the change signs (Mercury) also appears in the alignment:
Jupiter-Mercury-Sol. Jupiter can be read as government/rulership/legitimacy/order/status quo or as a more general happiness/good spirits sign. The Sun is life/growth/general goodness and of course, we have Mercury, the messenger of the gods bringing news/tidings, and it is also the most powerful change sign in the heavens.
If you smoosh these all together and force it into a political context, you get “The growth of government (government program) leads to your home life going to crap.” But how? You could look at the sign you haven’t given a place in your interpretation yet (the moon). The moon is associated with change, femininity, the tides, water, and emotion. So this gives us the possibility that you read something and go on an anti-government tirade, pissing off your S.O. who makes you sleep on the couch. Or maybe that a new regulation shuts down your charter fishing company, resulting in a decrease of income. However, this last bit is contraindicated by the fact that the moon in a waxing crescent, indicating growth, not loss of income. But the moon is in Sagittarius (the archer) which could indicate that your squeeze dumps you for the newly hired game warden hottie that they met.
But none of these interpretations are right, because forcing your reading into any particular context is a guarantee of getting it wrong. The Universe hates a wiseacre.
So what it the correct interpretation? Fuck if I know. I’ve been up all night this week getting my house in order for the arrival of family members totaling one glib, four adults, three children and a particularly large Great Pyrenees/St. Bernard cross that refuses to accept her place at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Moving on.
Libra loses some of their good luck this week, but keeps their general well-being enhancement from their sign being the FOTM. Their loss is everyone else’s gain, and Mercury moves out of Libra ind int a sign where it feels more comfortable.
That sign being Scorpio. Unfortunately, this is just bringing it into conjunction with Venus(retrograde) and Jupiter. Q is really lucky his birthday was last week, because this is not a good week for the nookie. However, you will NOT be contracting a venereal disease this week, so silver lining.
Saturn in Capricorn and Mars in Aquarius continue to bore everyone.
As mentioned above, the waxing moon is moving into Sagittarius. Good omens for hunting. Just don’t expect wonders in the sleeping bag afterwards.
If anyone wants to know, I got my odds here, on 10/3.
It’s that time of the week again. Here are this week’s picks:
Arizona at Minnesota (-10). I think the Vikings are the better team, but I don’t know if they’re 10 points better. I’m going to say no. ATL – take the points
LA Chargers at Cleveland (PK). The Browns are a much improved team this year. Since they’re playing at home this week, I’m going with them. CLE – PK
Chicago (-3) at Miami. Miami’s been playing much worse recently. Chicago’s been playing well. CHI – give the points
Carolina at Washington (-1). Kind of surprised about this one. I think the Panthers are the better choice. Watch them lose by 3 TDs. CAR – take the points
Indianapolis at NY Jets (-2). The Colts have been finding ways to lose all year, so with the Jets at home and the low point spread, I’ll go with them. NYJ – give the points
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati (-1.5). Another game where the spread seems a little low. I’m going with the Bengals. CIN – give the points
Tampa Bay at Atlanta (-3). Tough one to pick, but I’ll go with the Bucs. TB – take the points
Seattle (-2.5) at Oakland. I think the Seahawks offense can deal with the Raiders defense. SEA – give the points
Buffalo at Houston (-10). They have the same record, but the Texans have a much better point spread. Still, 10 points seems a bit high. BUF – take the points
LA Rams (-7) at Denver. The Rams are steamrolling it this year, and the Broncos… aren’t. LAR – give the points.
Jacksonville (-3) at Dallas. Jax hasn’t been that great, and Dallas hasn’t been that bad this year. I could go either way on this game, but I’ll pick the Cowboys. DAL – take the points
Baltimore (-3) at Tennessee. Another couple teams with the same record, but I think the Ravens are the better team. BAL – give the points
Kansas City at New England (-3.5). The Patriots have been playing better recently, but I think the Chiefs have the edge. KC – take the points
San Francisco at Green Bay (-9.5). The Packers are the better team, but I think that point spread seems a bit high. SF- take the points
So, there’s a good news/bad new thing going on in the sky. It’s a situation when the signs are saying different things, so you have to know which sign applies to whom. There is some really bad news going on in Scorpio but there is some stellar protection against it.
That protection comes from a couple of alignments. Most importantly, we are aligned with Venus and Jupiter. So this means you’ll be able to keep your house in order, and your domestic bliss won’t be any more troubled than whatever your default situations is. The other also has to do with Jupiter, this time in alignment with the Sun and Mercury. So again, lots of positive for domesticity, and good news for rulers.
Nothing but good news (literally, Mercury is acting as the messenger here with the Sun) for Librans. However, Libra is a bit selfish, and keeping all that good news contained for itself.
The moon is in Virgo, so expect emotional instability
So Scorpio is the sign that rules the fun bits. And in Scorpio this week is Venus, the planet of love and sexuality. Good combo, right? Wrong. Because Venus has gone retrograde. Now the rest of us are shielded by that pulse of anti-sex force, but those of you who are actually born into Scorpio are going to catch the full force of it, resulting in a dry spell that should last until… nearly November without other intervention.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. HAVING RECOVERED HIS… EQUILIBRIUM, ZARDOZ WILL ONCE AGAIN DEMONSTRATE HIS SUPERIOR ADVICE OVER THAT OF THE BRUTAL “DEAR ABBY“. SPEAK OF SHOOTING BRUTALS IN A BARREL…
Q:I am a very open person, but one thing I am not open about is the STD I have been living with for the last few years. My ex didn’t know he had it, and he gave it to me. Now free of him, I’m ready to date again, but I’m afraid of the judgment I may receive from potential partners.
I have heard all kinds of stigmatizing, dehumanizing and cruel comments about STDs, and I wonder to myself if people were better educated about this, maybe they wouldn’t sound so ignorant. Unfortunately, I don’t have the emotional strength to deal with rejection right now. So what I’m trying to ask is, how do I go about dating with an STI/STD? — MOVING FORWARD IN MICHIGAN
A: FOOLISH BRUTAL, WHAT ELSE WOULD IT TAKE TO CONVINCE YOU THE PENIS IS EVIL?! MUST YOU PERISH FROM TERTIARY SYPHILIS? REFRAIN FROM ACTIVITIES THAT MIGHT RESULT IN NEW LIFE! IF YOU MUST ENGAGE IN PENIC ACTIVITY, REFRAIN FROM INFORMING THE OTHER BRUTAL…IT WILL AMUSE ZARDOZ TO SEE THEIR REACTION WHEN THEY DISCOVER THEY ARE INFECTED WITH A LOATHSOME DISEASE.
FLACCID EVIL. ERECT EVIL.
ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.
Q:Our father died nine months after his diagnosis with cancer. Within six months of his funeral, our stepmother of 20-plus years had begun a new relationship. She sold her and Dad’s home and belongings and moved across the country, leaving behind her children, stepchildren and grandchildren.
Although she promised to keep in touch with everyone, she hasn’t. She has made no effort to reach out to her stepfamily over the last year and a half, not even her grandchildren. We are perplexed, as she claimed our father was the love of her life and she dearly loved her grandchildren.
A few of us tried contacting her during the first six months after she left, but she usually responded only to texts, and then with one-word answers. We realize she has moved on, but how could she cut all ties with those she supposedly cared for? What are we missing? What is it that we don’t understand about being 60-something and widowed?
We feel abandoned and betrayed. We supported her in her decisions and her remarriage (which is the last time we had any contact with her). Please advise, Abby. — BAFFLED OUT WEST
A: ZARDOZ IS SHSH (SHAKING HIS STONE HEAD). DO YOU NEED BRUTAL EXTERMINATORS TO HELP GUIDE YOUR ACTIONS? BOO HOO HOO. IF THE ACTIONS OF YOUR “STEPMOTHER” DISPLEASE YOU, YOU HAVE TWO CHOICES – CLEANSE HER, AND HER NEW PENIC PARTNER, OR FORGET THEY EVER EXISTED. HOPEFULLY THEY ARE TOO ANCIENT TO CREATE NEW LIFE. SHOULD YOU WISH ZARDOZ TO HEDGE HIS BETS, PROVIDE A LOCATION TO THE BRUTAL EXTERMINATORS.
I think I went 8-5-2 last week, so a little better than previously.
If anyone wants to know, I got my odds here, on 10/3.
It’s that time of the week again. Here are this week’s picks!
Indianapolis at New England (-10.5). The Patriots are probably the better team, but they have been wildly inconsistent this year, which makes the 10.5 point spread seem a bit high to me, even at Foxboro. IND – take the points
Baltimore (-3) at Cleveland. If the spread were a bit higher, I might take the Browns, but I think Ravens can cover 3 points. BAL – give the points
Jacksonville at Kansas City (-3). Two pretty good teams, and the Chiefs very good offense makes for a compelling story going up against the Jaguars defense. While the traditional logic is to take the defense in that scenario, they’re also playing in KC, and the new rules restricting defense make me think the Chiefs have an advantage. KC – give the points
Tennessee (-3) at Buffalo. The Titans are looking like a good team this year, and the Bills are looking… like the Bills. TEN – give the points
NY Giants at Carolina (-7). The only thing I wonder about with this game is whether the Panthers can cover the spread. Based on not very much, I’ll say yes. CAR – give the points
Denver at NY Jets (-1). A fight between two mediocre teams. However, with a one point spread, it’s essentially picking which team will win outright. Basically, who sucks less on the given day. I’ll say the Jets. NYJ – give the point
Atlanta at Pittsburgh (-4). Another fight between two teams unlikely to see the playoffs. I want to pick the Steelers, but I’m really thinking they’re going to win by a FG or less. Ah, screw it. PIT – give the points
Green Bay (-1) at Detroit. Another game that’s essentially a pick ‘em. I hate picking so many away teams, but I’m not picking the Lions. GB – give the point
Miami at Cincinnati (-6). Damn, another game where I want to pick the away team, at least against the spread. I’ll ignore that here. CIN – give the points
Oakland at LA Chargers (-6). I think LA is the better team here, and they’re at home, so this is one of my earlier choices. LA – give the points
Arizona at San Francisco (-5). San Francisco isn’t that great, but Arizona has been terrible this year. SF – give the points
Minnesota at Philadelphia (-3). I think the Eagles will be able to cover a 3 point spread at home against the Vikings. PHI – give the points
LA Rams (-7) at Seattle. The Rams have been a much better team than the Seahawks this year, so this is one away team I don’t mind picking. LAR – give the points
Dallas at Houston (-3). I really don’t know which team to pick in the Texas bowl, so I’ll go with the Texans at home. HOU – give the points
Washington at New Orleans (-6.5). New Orleans has a very good offense, but they’re headed against a Redskins defense that isn’t bad. Meanwhile, the Washington offense isn’t bad, and they’re going up against a Saints defense that’s mediocre. If the spread was a bit higher, I’d probably go with Washington, but I do think NO can cover under a TD. NO – give the points
First, Holy Fuck! Where did the month go! I still have books to unpack! I have family coming over to criticize and break visit the new place in just a couple of weeks!
Second, I took my employer’s “Implicit Bias” training and lemme tell you, what a bunch of pseudoscientific garbage. They started off “I know there are a lot of really technical people here, so let’s start with the science. Each moment, your senses are bombarded by 11,000,000 bits of information, but your conscious mind can only process 40.” I was tempted to say “A moment isn’t actually a unit of time, humans are analog so I’m not sure that “bits” is the correct way to express sensory information, and if you think you can represent what is currently in my field of vision with only 40 bits then you’re giving up a hojillion dollars by not selling your compression algorithm.” But I did not say these things, because I like my job. I just don’t react well to junk science. So let’s talk about real science — Astrology!
This week is all about infidelity. The core of this is the classic illicit love alignment of alignment of Sol-Mars-Venus. But will this happen for you or to you? There is a second-harmonic cross-alignment of Terra-Venus-Jupiter indicating that it is more likely to happen to a cousin of yours, rather than to you, but that you won’t be happy about it. This is reinforced by a tertiary alignment Saturn-Terra-Luna (all bad luck signs) that is in opposition to the root alignment (which would make it something like… quaternary submediant to the crossalignment? I’d have to figure out where my protractor and which box of books contains my celestial tables to make sure). Anyway, someone’s getting screwed, and you won’t like it. I know it should have been mentioned last week, but there will be (will have been by the time this is published) a major divorce on September 28, when the moon drops into a four-light alignment with that previously mentioned alignment of Jupiter-Venus-Earth.
That yummy combo of Sol-Mercury? It’s moved into Libra. Enjoy your good fortune to all the librarians out there! For the rest of us, the combo of strengthened balance coupled with change will make things unsettled. It gets even worse with the moon in Gemini increasing indecision and ambivalence and possibly dilemmas as well. The short, short version: of you were born in Libra, you’ll have a great week. Everyone else will have a lot of anxiety. Possibly wondering about who is cheating on whom.
Everything else is the same as last week, so if you could handle that, you can handle what’s coming.
Suthenboy is not a credentialed expert. This is just his personal experience, not legal advice. Consult credentialed professionals before attempting any of this.
Some here have asked me about this subject so here it is.
Timber buyers, obviously, want to pay as little as possible for timber. Timber growers want to collect as much as they can for their timber. The nature of timber purchase is speculation. From the time of sale a tree may stand for months before harvest. It may stand for a couple of years. From there it can lay in a yard for a couple of years. From there it may still be a year or more before that lumber lands in The Hyperbole’s hot hands. The buyer is trying to arrive at a price that allows them to make money in a future market. They have to take a chance on, mostly housing starts, years into the future.
*If you want to get an fairly accurate prediction about the economy’s future performance, check the price of timber. Those guys aren’t screwing around, they know what they are doing and they aren’t political. BTW, timber prices on the stump are sky high right now. Must be those pesky Russians.
If you are selling timber you may want to have a professional forester evaluate your timber and give you and estimated value. However, it is hard to know how incestuous a relationship exists between foresters and various buyers. Here is the best way to go about it once you are certain you want to sell your timber. It is tried and true.
Do some research. Find all of the potential buyers in your area. This will include all of the saw mills, pulp mills and plywood mills. You may also find some timber brokers. It is hard to say how large your area is. Because of fuel cost and highway usage fees the further from your timber a mill is the less they will be willing to pay. Out of courtesy I include everyone inside about 50 miles but I know the best offers will be from those half that far away. Write a letter to each one announcing that you intend to sell your timber in a closed bid auction on a given date and time. Include a survey of your property, directions to and legal description of the property. Include a title search confirming that you are in fact the owner. These can be found at your Clerk of Court’s office. Include a copy of your contract. Invite them to examine the timber at their leisure.
Contract. You should be able to get a timber sale contract from your local clerk of court easily. Every state has different style and requirements. Get an example at your local courthouse of someone else’s completed sale from the clerk’s office. Just walk right in and tell them what you want, they are glad to help. The contract should include things like access, road building, time limits, damage repair and clean up. Use that contract as a template for your own and adjust the terms to your liking.
Consider things that will increase your price: clean up is expensive. If they have to spend 10K or 20K on labor and gasoline pushing tree tops around, it will be reflected in your price. Those tops will rot away in a couple of years on their own.
Remember, they are speculators. The longer you give them the better off they are. Here, most time limits are 6 months. I give ‘em two years. That will be reflected in your price. Most land will restore itself in a couple of years and bulldozers are damned expensive to operate. That will be reflected in your price. Don’t worry about minor things: Often the cutter will change oil several times and just dump the used oil on the ground. Don’t sweat it. That will be gone in a couple of years on its own.
Lastly, make certain that the contract places liability on either the cutter or the buyer if they cut over the line. Once they crank up the saws you have no control over them so you should have no liability.
If any of this makes you nervous, get a lawyer. There are a lot of good land guys around that will facilitate a sale for a modest fee.
Clearly mark your lines with paint before the potential buyers inspect it. Most harvesters will not cut the trees with the paint on them. They are considered ‘line trees’ and will be left as future markers. Chose crooked trees, don’t mark veneer quality logs. The buyer wants those. If you are uncertain about those lines you may want to have a survey performed, but that can be expensive. If you are on good or neutral terms with your neighbors it is a good idea to have them accompany you to examine where the lines are before you paint so that you are in agreement.
If you have any contact with any of the buyers do not discuss money. Do not discuss price. I cannot overemphasize this. If they try to bring it up inform them that you absolutely cannot discuss money until after the bid. If you are seen as someone who tries to manipulate a sealed bid auction no one will touch you. Word will spread and no one will show up at your bid. In fact, you may never be able to sell your timber. You will become persona non-grata. Not acting in good faith will burn you.
Rent a small conference room at a mid-level hotel. Don’t go expensive, don’t go cheap. You don’t want cracked-out hookers accidentally wandering in while you are opening bids. Bring cinnamon rolls, doughnuts, etc and coffee. Lots of coffee. Most of the buyers that intend to place a bid will RSVP so you should have a good idea how many people you are serving. Hopefully you will be serving at least ten.
You should have a check-list of everyone you sent an invitation to. Check them off as they arrive. If at the appointed time there are some that did not show ask the room politely if you can wait another few minutes. If you have anyone who cannot wait do not try to accommodate the person who is late.
*At least once the winning bidder showed up about ten minutes late, and they weren’t the winner by just a little bit.
Collect all of the bids in plain sight of everyone. Open them and read them out loud so that everyone can hear. Just read the numbers and then place the bids out in plain sight on the table. When you have finished, pick the largest bid and announce it and the bidder. Thank everyone for coming. If there are any who don’t have to be anywhere try to engage them in conversation so that you can pick their brain. Ask questions. These guys know the business inside and out.
The winning bidder will likely have the check on them, already filled out. They will present it to you and you both will sign the sale contract. You should have two copies of the contract to sign.
Immediately after the sale you want to do two, maybe four things. First go to the bank and deposit the check. Find out how soon the money will be available.
Then go straight to the courthouse and record the contract with the Clerk of Court. Lastly, if the money is available go straight and pay any local, state, or federal tax you owe. Don’t feel flush and think you will do it later. Do it now.
I also recommend, while you are at the bank to open a separate account to reserve some of the money for future property tax, a personal ESCROW. Those taxes are going to come due like the sun will come up. Make sure you have the money when the time comes.
As it turns out maximizing the value of your timber is a lot of work. If you are only going to do it once in your life you want to get it right. I have included as many pointers as I can think of. My father wrote a detailed book on the subject, but I can’t seem to find my copy. It’s buried in a mountain of books. If it turns up I’ll let y’all know and anyone that wants a copy, just ask. I will be happy to share it.
Last bit of advice – There are timber companies and land management companies that purport to manage your timber for you. In return they want exclusive rights to your timber when it comes time to harvest. They will lock you into a contract and thus into a price. NEVER ENTER ONE OF THESE CONTRACTS. They are not crooks. They think it is fair because of the services they provide which might include a survey, but probably not, justifies reducing the sale price. You will end up with a minimum price just short of being legally actionable. DON’T DO IT.
I think I went 8-8 last week, but in my defense, I never said I wasn’t terrible at handicapping.
If anyone wants to know, I got my odds here, on 9/26.
It’s that time of the week again. Here are this week’s picks:
Minnesota at the LA Rams (-7) The Rams have looked really good every week this year. The Vikings have looked like…. The Vikings (non-early-1970’s). 7 points at home? LAR – give the points.
Miami at New England (-7) I hate to pick against a team that’s come up with a way to win for many years, (and at home, too.) but New England has not been looking good this year. The Dolphins have found a way to win this year. And against a TD spread? MIA – take the points.
Houston at Indianapolis (-1½) The Texans have looked like a team that finds a way to lose – all three games this year. Indy just looks like a bad team, one that’s playing at home. IND – give the points.
Cincinnati at Atlanta (-5½) Atlanta’s not a horrible team, and Cincinnati isn’t a great one, but 5½ points to the Falcons seems a bit much. I’d say the Bengals will at least cover the spread.CIN – take the points.
Buffalo at Green Bay (-10) The Bills are an odd team. Mostly terrible, but can come out to play, as the Vikings saw. And since the Vikings tied the Packers, it would seem like both opponents would be comparable for the Bills. Therefore, I’m going to go with the Packers in this one (I know it makes no sense; that’s the point. Fuck you.) GB – give the points.
Detroit at Dallas (-10) This one is hard for me, as I’d like to see both teams lose. 10 points seems like a lot for the offense starved Cowboys, even against a team with as shoddy a defense as the Lions. DET – take the points.
NY Jets at Jacksonville (7½) The Jags are almost certainly a better team than the Jets; the real question is what the Jets will show – will they be the same team that smashed the Lions, or the one that gave Cleveland its’ first win in a couple years? For that coin flip, I choose not: JAX – give the points.
Tampa Bay at Chicago (-3) Again, I think Tampa is a better team than Chicago, but Chicago is home. Ehh, I’ll give this one to the road warriors. TAM – give the points.
Philadelphia (-4) at Tennessee. The Eagles are tough, but so are the Titans. And the Titans are at home. TEN – take the points.
Seattle (-3) at Arizona. Wow, you really have to suck. I mean, you really have to suck when you are a field goal down to Seattle as the favorite. Kinda hate to do this, but I’m going to pick the Cards here. ARI – take the points.
Cleveland at Oakland (-2½). Cleveland’s been playing a lot better this year, but they’re playing in Oakland. However, the spread is low. Yes, I’m actually taking the Browns, minus the points. Watch them win by 1. CLE – give the points.
San Francisco at LA Chargers (-10½) The 49rs suck, but I don’t think they suck more than a TD + FG against the Chargers (who aren’t that great themselves), even in LA. SF – take the points.
New Orleans (-3) at NY Giants. Yeah, the Saints are a better team than the Giants. I’d give them this one. NO – give the points.
Baltimore at Pittsburgh (-3). Yeah, and the Ravens are a better team than the Steelers, I’d give them this one. BAL – take the points
Kansas City (-5) at Denver. The Chiefs might have it over the Broncos, but a 5 point fav in Denver? They aren’t that good. DEN -take the points.
It’s not Christmas, but still. In one of the other cooking post comments, several of the Glibertariat complained that their stir-fries were just not… right. And most of the stir-fries I’ve gotten outside of heavily Chinese areas have been somewhere on the line segment between mediocre and really shitty. And that includes 95% of Chinese restaurants run and staffed by Chinese, but located in white, Hispanic, or black neighborhoods- they’re giving the people what they want (in the case of Jews, pork and shellfish- that was the code word for forbidden meats, “Chinese food”).
So sit back and I will attempt to make a Guide for the Perplexed. I clearly am not Chinese, or of Chinese origins, but I have decent cooking chops, traveled a lot over there, lived in Asian immigrant communities, and am not bashful about asking questions to chefs when I taste something really good, and that has reduced my level of ignorance. The word “Chinese” will be used a lot here, because that’s my personal epicenter for stir-fry cooking. But really, there’s a whole lot of other Asian cuisines that do these same sorts of things, so think Thai, Vietnamese, Laotian, or what-have-you, the principles are the same. Shit, you can even appropriate Chinese methods to prepare Italian-style food; that’s why America is great. Likewise, though I’m a vegetarian, what I’m talking about here is generic and applicable to the protein of your choice. If you prefer dead pig to seitan, you’re still making shitty stir-fries, and I’m still going to save your ass despite that offense to Yahweh.
We regularly fuck up stir-fries. Stir-frying is just a technique, widely applicable and flexible, and we still fuck them up. Here’s a partial list of the things that are most commonly wrong:
Too soggy. Everything in the dish is more like an Irish stew.
Singed ingredients that are raw in the middle.
Uneven cooking, so you get a combo of vegetables that are mushy and raw.
Gloppy. There’s a weird sauce-fetish that I think derives from old school American Chinese take-outs. The ingredients are drowned in a thick gooey brown or white sauce. And the sauces’ flavors tend to dominate the dish as well.
Sweet. And the worst offender is the sugar-fetish.
In order to help you avoid the common traps, I’ve got a couple of recipe-ish things here, but what I really want to harp on is some stupidly simple methods which come up again and again. While I’m at it, I’ll also beat you up about the shitty equipment you use. I hope that one or another of my random pieces of brain lint give you an easy fix so you’ll stop making shitty stir-fries.
Step One: Ingredients
The rule of thumb for good Chinese cooking is 60-30-10. 60% of your time should be seeking and obtaining good ingredients, 30% of your time doing preps, and 10% or less actually cooking.
By “good ingredients,” I don’t mean “exotic ingredients,” but rather quality stuff whose flavors and textures don’t need obscuring. The Chinese have been great about adapting their cuisine to local ingredients and freely appropriating. Yeah, it’s fun to use things like Szechuan pickled radish or fermented black beans, but that won’t make your shitty stir-fry less shitty. It will just be shitty but now exotically shitty. Here’s a crazy idea: buy great green beans or peppers or bean sprouts or mushrooms or chicken/beef/pork/seafood and don’t worry as much about the spices and condiments. Now you have a shot at a decent dish, even if you’re fresh out of huangdou jiang.
If you use canned bean sprouts or green beans or asparagus, I will personally come over and explain your porn history to your spouse and children.
The only real necessities peculiar to Chinese stir-fry cooking are soy sauce (have both dark and light on hand), toasted sesame oil, and Shaoxing cooking wine. Use a high smoke-point oil like peanut. All else is negotiable; I keep a variety of pastes, spices, and vinegars handy for specialty dishes, but my everyday stir fries do fine without ’em. Whatever you do, avoid the brand name generic “stir fry sauces.” Read the ingredients; most of them lead off with water and sugar. There will be other forms of sugar listed as well. And xantham gum for extra gloppiness. That stuff is a sure path to shittiness. Unless you like shitty, in which case, go get some deep dish with pineapple and spare the rest of us.
MSG frankly is rather common and not the devil that excess sugar is. Use it wisely and sparingly, but don’t reflexively avoid it.
Step Two: Tools
Since prep should be an outsize part of your time investment, it goes without saying that you need really good sharp knives to make the work go smoothly and quickly. I have a rather, um, eclectic collection. My default knife for stir-fry prep is a cheap Chinese cleaver. It says “stainless” on it and it isn’t. Which is OK, it takes a nice edge, but needs honing every ten minutes or so. Which is also OK because I bought it about 40 years ago for $8 at a Chinese grocery, given it a lot of hard use over the decades, and it’s still doin’ its thing. So while a $300 Shun is a delightful thing, it’s not really a necessity- I didn’t see many of them used in great kitchens in China.
My second-most used knife for stir-fry prep is also a cheapie, this one a 10″ Victorinox. It feels good in the hand, sharpens easily, and has held up well since we got it a few years back. Costs less than a couple of movie tickets and popcorn.
Victorinox Fibrox Pro Chef’s Knife, 8-Inch Chef’s FFP (I use a 10″ because of large hands)
Third most used knife is also a Victorinox, a 3.25″ paring knife, and cheaper than a slice of pizza and a Coke. Great for fine trimming (like the stems of tomatoes or the eyes of pineapple). I think these knives are Swiss, despite the lack of noticeable holes.
Victorinox 3.25 Inch Paring Knife with Straight Edge, Spear Point, Black
And obviously, you want your knives sharp. There’s folks among the Glibertariat who are masters of getting the finest possible edge. I am not one of them, so I cheat and use one of these, a Chef’s Choice Asian sharpener. It gives a good enough edge that I have no problem getting paper-thin slices of garlic or cutting through the skins of over-ripe tomatoes, and it’s so fast and easy, I can sharpen mid-prep without losing much time.
OK, next we bring the heat. Do you have a trendy wok, nicely ceramic non-stick coated and heavy stainless-aluminum clad construction? Toss the fucker, it’s a piece of shit. Ditto the abomination of cast iron woks. Donate them to a homeless turtle shelter or something, they’ll do more good there than on your stove. Know what you need? Something cheap, thin, and unlaminated steel. The kind of piece of shit you get for $20 at the Chinese grocery. Unlike nonstick, you can get these smokin’ hot. Unlike laminated or cast iron, you can get them smokin’ hot very rapidly. And when you turn down the heat, they cool very rapidly, so all in all, the shitty steel woks give you much better temperature control.
Shape is important. Round bottoms are the best BUT you have to have the right kind of cooking surface for that- I have a wok stand from Thailand which is superb, putting out approximately the same amount of heat as the engine from a Saturn V booster stage. I can get the wok to literally red heat in 20 seconds. It is absolutely the best stir-fry cooking I’ve ever done, with the food taking on a subtly smoky “wok hei” aroma and the food cooking in record time. THIS is the right way to do things. I shit you not, wok hei is the difference between indifference and real difference.
Unfortunately, there’s a catch- you either need a professional ventilator hood or you have to cook outside. And our outside cooking has been limited recently because of a heavy mosquito season. After our first frost, I’ll be able to do this again.
Lacking a wok stand like that, don’t even THINK about using a round-bottom pan on a flat cooktop, even with a wok ring, unless you have something like a 100,000 BTU burner. With normal stoves, you will have really shitty heat and that means really shitty, soggy, badly-cooked stir-fries without even a trace of wok hei. Find a thin steel shitty wok with a flat bottom. Not optimum, but you can at least turn out some half-decent product. Here’s mine:
Whichever you use, you want it well-seasoned and to maintain that seasoning. It’s the best non-stick surface you can get. I’ve got about 20 years of season on this wok, and as you’ll see below, I can fry difficult foods like eggs with no sticking.
You also need another utensil for the process- a steel spatula or wok turner. I don’t have one, so I get by with a big steel spoon (seen in the videos below). It works, but I’m a shitty person for not getting the right tool. Don’t be like me. Don’t be a shitty person. Get the right tool.
Techniques:
Did I mention heat? You want the ability to get that wok screaming hot, and the courage and attention to use it properly, which means not getting distracted and letting food burn, and most importantly… mis en place. You want EVERY ingredient to be prepped, chopped, measured, and handy. If you don’t make at least ten dirty little bowls and dishes for you ingredients, you’re doing it wrong and that’s why your stir fries suck. God invented dishwashers and orphans- make use of them.
Second, precooking. Most stir-fries use ingredients from their raw state, added sequentially. And that’s another reason most stir-fries are shitty. To get the best and most even degree of doneness with disparate ingredients, you need to precook (slightly undercooking) each of the major ingredients in advance, then bringing them together at the end. Typically, the protein will be cooked first, removed, then set aside. Various additives can be either parboiled and refreshed (i.e., dunked into an ice bath after boiling) or stir fried separately to get each one to the optimum cooking point. Then the actual building of the stir-fry commences by cooking aromatics (garlic, ginger, scallions, and the like), then adding the cooked ingredients and seasonings/sauces to reheat and finish.
I can’t overemphasize the latter point: stir-fry should be done in discrete stages which are brought together at the end. For years, my stir-fries were shitty because of misguided ideas about trying to time the sequence so that the ingredients were added on top of one another in the right order and would magically cook properly. This is an especially bad idea because not only does the timing become terribly critical and can’t be adjusted on the fly to accommodate variations in ingredients, but you also lose control of the cooking temperature- the first ingredients put in the wok will insure that later ingredients cook at a lower temp and with higher surrounding moisture. That is not generally a good thing.
The other advantage of the cook-shit-separately is that distinctive flavors and textures will remain distinct and not all blend together in a mish-mash. This is why German or British cooking is shitty and Chinese cooking is great. And why you need to spend time getting great ingredients.
Two Examples:
These are sort-of-recipes, but each illustrates points made before. Neither is “authentic,” but they each use mostly non-exotic ingredients and (when cooked right) show off the quality of the main ingredients. And each is linked to a video showing most of the process; the videos are pretty shitty because we didn’t have time to block out the shots or to do editing/voice-over, but future ones will be better.
Because of the aforementioned mosquitoes, I had to use my kitchen stove and the flat-bottom wok, so the heat was somewhat inadequate. But still, they turned out delicious.
Stir Fry Green Beans
This is loosely based on a classic Szechuan dish and is an example of a dry stir-fry. The Szechuan version uses pickled radish and Szechuan peppercorns, so feel free to exotify it if that’s your desire. Traditionally, the precooking is done by deep-frying in coolish (300 degree F) oil instead of the water-blanching that I do, and yard-long beans are used. Again, feel free- the important thing is to have the beans pre-cooked before the stir-frying commences.
1 lb fresh green beans, ends trimmed
1/4 cup raw peanuts
2-3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
5 or 6 dried red chiles
2-3 white parts of scallions, chopped
1 tsp Korean red pepper paste (gochujang); can substitute garlic-red-chile paste or chile-black-bean paste
1 tsp light (not lite!) soy sauce
oil to cook
Drop green beans into a pot of rapidly boiling salted water. Boil for 3-4 minutes or until the beans are about half-done. A few beans may need to be sacrificed to determine this; cook’s privilege. Drain and toss into an ice water bath, then after they cool completely, remove from the bath and drain. Set aside.
Mix the pepper paste and soy sauce together. Set aside.
Heat the wok until it’s smoking, then add in one or two tablespoons of oil. Toss in the sliced garlic and toss it around until it gets aromatic and starts coloring a little bit, 15 seconds or so. Remove the garlic from the wok. Add the dried chiles and stir around until they start to brown, then remove and set aside. Add the peanuts, and stir around until they start to color, 15 seconds or so. Remove the peanuts and set aside. Optionally, you can lightly crush or chop them after cooking for a finer texture.
Seeing a pattern?
Now it’s time to bring everything together. Add the chopped scallions, stir for a few seconds, then add the green beans. Stir-fry until the green beans are starting to show some black spots, a minute or two. Add the pepper paste/soy sauce mixture and a little extra soy sauce if you think it’s needed. Stir for a few seconds, then add the sliced garlic, the dried chiles, and the peanuts. Stir to combine, then remove to a serving bowl and eat up.
This is a standard Cantonese dish, seen in every university cafeteria in the province, and a home-cooking favorite. It’s stupid-simple and delicious. As with many standard dishes, every family makes it a little differently and will swear everyone else is doing it wrong. By contrast with the last dish, this one is very saucy, but the sauce comes mostly from the water in the tomatoes and is amazingly flavorful.
5 eggs, beaten
4 scallions, white and green parts separated and chopped
5 medium or 6 small tomatoes, cut into wedges
2 tbs ketchup
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sugar (omit if your tomatoes are really good)
1 tbs shaoxing cooking wine
1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/2 tsp white pepper (or more to taste)
1 tbs minced ginger
1 small onion or large shallot, slivered
1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 2 tbs water
oil to cook
Mix together the ketchup, soy sauce, sugar, shaoxing, sesame oil, and white pepper, set aside. Heat the wok until it’s smoking, then add a couple tablespoons of oil and swirl around. Pour in the eggs. Let them fluff up a bit, then stir them around for a minute or so until done- they should be set but not browned. I like my eggs a bit loose, SP prefers them somewhere in the middle of the Mohs scale. Your choice. Scoop them out of the wok, chop them a bit with your spatula or spoon, and set aside. Wipe out any leftover egg.
Put a bit more oil in the wok. Add in the ginger and stir it for a few seconds. Lower the heat a bit, then add the whites of the scallion and the onion. Stir for a minute until they are fragrant and softened slightly, then bring the heat back up and toss in the tomatoes. Stir-fry for a minute or so until the tomatoes are heated through, then push them to the side of the wok. Add in the ketchup mixture and bring that up to a boil. Then stir everything together, stir in about half of the green parts of the scallions, and add the eggs. Stir, then add in about half of the cornstarch slurry (make sure the slurry is stirred before you pour it in) and cook until the sauce thickens. If you want it thicker, add more cornstarch.
Turn out into a serving bowl and sprinkle with the remaining chopped green parts of the scallions. Serve over rice.
So what it the correct interpretation? Fuck if I know. I’ve been up all night this week getting my house in order for the arrival of family members totaling one glib, four adults, three children and a particularly large Great Pyrenees/St. Bernard cross that refuses to accept her place at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Second, I took my employer’s “Implicit Bias” training and lemme tell you, what a bunch of pseudoscientific garbage. They started off “I know there are a lot of really technical people here, so let’s start with the science. Each moment, your senses are bombarded by 11,000,000 bits of information, but your conscious mind can only process 40.” I was tempted to say “A moment isn’t actually a unit of time, humans are analog so I’m not sure that “bits” is the correct way to express sensory information, and if you think you can represent what is currently in my field of vision with only 40 bits then you’re giving up a hojillion dollars by not selling your compression algorithm.” But I did not say these things, because I like my job. I just don’t react well to junk science. So let’s talk about real science — Astrology!
Rent a small conference room at a mid-level hotel. Don’t go expensive, don’t go cheap. You don’t want cracked-out hookers accidentally wandering in while you are opening bids. Bring cinnamon rolls, doughnuts, etc and coffee. Lots of coffee. Most of the buyers that intend to place a bid will RSVP so you should have a good idea how many people you are serving. Hopefully you will be serving at least ten.
