Today's refined nugget of joy

Mmm, Twin Independent Variable Cam Timing...

Manifest

Hip hop loses a giant; Keith Elam, aka Guru, succumbed to cancer at age 47 (or 43?).

Once upon a time, music in general -- hip hop included -- used to be this good.

Pretty in pink

And orange fishnets. And rollerskates. Yummy Jordan Carver is putting the humps into Humpday.

Found on Hollywood Tuna.

Breakfast Granola for 4/21/10

Today, we break our fast in Hungary. Unfortunately, Kovacs Zsofia is making me quite hungry.

Found via Funtasticus on Busted Coverage.

Speaking of tasty snacks...

Bacon peanut brittle? WHAT. UP.

Made with bacon, peanuts, maple syrup, spices, and herbs, >Bacon Peanut Brittles ($17/3-pack) are the latest pork-infused addition to the Uncrate break room. Salty, smoky, and delicious, they're great for snacking, and may cause a minor disturbance if left out at your next gathering.

Found on Uncrate.

Breakfast Granola for 4/20/10

Heretofore unknown ore Dana Lemore is what's good to eat on this soggy Tuesday.

Found on Holy Taco.

Breaking shields

Andrew Bawidamann's brother, Ben, is in the cutlery-making business. Behold, the RANDGRIDR, my latest want.

Today's trivia: in old Norse poems, or eddas, "Randgríðr" was the name of a valkyrie, and one translation of her name is "Shieldbreaker."

Healthy body image

Kim Kardashian has curves, and that's all right.

Found on F-listed.

Breakfast Granola for 4/19/10

I never did like Family Circus, especially the dumbshit kid(s) who wanders around the neighborhood. Oh, how I wished for kidnappers or runaway cement mixers...

Well, along comes Robert Sinclair to say what I'm really thinking. That's right, you little asshole, go and find that poorly-covered well!

Found on Boing Boing.

Bakesale Betty's Two-fer?

Yes, it's true! The Mine had back-to-back supply runs for Bakesale Betty's.

To reiterate, the chicken sammich is two big breasts on a roll. Image unrelated.

Giada de Laurentiis and her delicious cleavage were found on a purposeful search of the intergoogles.

Speaking of keyboard tricks...

...I could use these.

Found on Funtasticus.

Breakfast Granola for 4/16/10

I know plenty about Macs, all the way down to some obscure tricks and keyboard shortcuts, but some of them are rarely used and need to be refreshed with visits to the Help menu or Google searches. However, this trick from Lifehacker is one I hadn't heard, yet something I'd so commonly use that I'm surprised it's not better documented:

Fine tune volume in OS X by holding down Alt(Option)+Shift then pressing the volume adjuster buttons. Also if you hit the volume down button till it shows the mute sign then hit the mute key it will play very quietly.

The first Saint of Simmslam?

No, it's not Big Daddy Kane, but FMD Nevub claims to have a third miracle in the works, so I figured it was about time to start filing the paperwork and figuring out trappings and trinkets. Chief among them will be some kind of badge, likely in the form of a multifinger trunk ring.

Later, there may come an 80s Lincoln Continental with chandelier headlights.

Speaking of distractions...

I wish I had Jordan Carver waiting on my desk for me this morning. Nope, I got work instead. Dammit.

Found on Hollywood Tuna.

Breakfast Granola for 4/15/10

Damn Tax Day! Meanwhile, it's easy to get distracted when it's cold...but distracted isn't always so bad.

Found on Funtasticus.

Improv from Jim and Frank camera test for Muppet Movie

I hate cilantro for a reason

The NY Times tells me something I already knew:

What is it about cilantro that makes it so unpleasant for people in cultures that don’t much use it?

Some people may be genetically predisposed to dislike cilantro, according to often-cited studies by Charles J. Wysocki of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. But cilantrophobe genetics remain little known and aren’t under systematic investigation. Meanwhile, history, chemistry and neurology have been adding some valuable pieces to the puzzle.

[....]

Modern cilantrophobes tend to describe the offending flavor as soapy rather than buggy. I don’t hate cilantro, but it does sometimes remind me of hand lotion. Each of these associations turns out to make good chemical sense.

Flavor chemists have found that cilantro aroma is created by a half-dozen or so substances, and most of these are modified fragments of fat molecules called aldehydes. The same or similar aldehydes are also found in soaps and lotions and the bug family of insects.

Soaps are made by fragmenting fat molecules with strongly alkaline lye or its equivalent, and aldehydes are a byproduct of this process, as they are when oxygen in the air attacks the fats and oils in cosmetics. And many bugs make strong-smelling, aldehyde-rich body fluids to attract or repel other creatures.

The published studies of cilantro aroma describe individual aldehydes as having both cilantrolike and soapy qualities. Several flavor chemists told me in e-mail messages that they smell a soapy note in the whole herb as well, but still find its aroma fresh and pleasant.

Found on the newstubes.