Tweet of the Day, Merry Christmas! edition.

It was a very nice day with family, both today and yesterday. Prime rib again today, and oh my but it was as good here as the one my mom made. See?

Alas, no mushroom sauce for it today. No room in the kitchen. For that matter, no mushrooms.

Merry Christmas, folks.

Merry Christmas!

The first wave of presents (my side of the family) has occurred. Dinner was prime rib, with a nice little mushroom sauce that I put together, to the shocked expressions of my sisters (they remember my cooking). Now everybody else is drinking salted caramel vodka martinis and I’m dragging my stuffed butt to the Chromebook to wish everybody a safe and merry Christmas. God bless you all, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Moe Lane

PS: Half a stick of butter, slice up the mushrooms and saute them on medium heat until they’re nicely browning and producing liquid. Salt, pepper, garlic, onion to taste; then take some beef broth infused with au jus mix, combine, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer once it thickens a little. It’s not difficult, but you have to stir it regularly.

Book of the Week: Lammas Night.

Katharine Kurtz’s Lammas Night is what you get when a talented writer decides to combine World War II, modern occultism, and an uncritical willingness to take The Golden Bough more seriously than it deserves.  Well worth reading if you like that kind of literary blending.  Which I, of course, do.

I’m going to have to update the sidebar later.  This Chromebook gets less responsive every year.

Item Seed: The Apotropaic Ambulatory Groundcover Swamp Beet.

Apotropaic Ambulatory Groundcover Swamp Beet – Google Docs

Blame this.

 

Apotropaic Ambulatory Groundcover Swamp Beet

(Beta vulgaris subsp. palus daemonium occisio)

 

This particular cultivar should be distinguished from non-magical variants of cultivated beetroot. It shares a common ancestor (the sea beet, or Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima), but was specifically bred for reasons besides taste.  In fact, while Swamp Beets are edible they are not palatable; the leaves and root both share an unpleasantly meaty taste and texture.  The juice is also both unpleasant smelling, and tasting — and cooking does not improve the flavor or smell.

Continue reading Item Seed: The Apotropaic Ambulatory Groundcover Swamp Beet.

Early night tonight.

Car ride tomorrow.  Two sets of in-laws, which means that the toys will probably permeate the entire carspace and then get put into the overhead soft carrier bag.  Or whatever that’s called.  Bottom line is, the car will probably be riding low on the ground on the trip back.

This isn’t ‘see you next week,’ but in case it is: see you next week.  And Merry Christmas for those of you who celebrate it, and enjoy the winter break for those of you who don’t.

Amazon Music to end third-party uploads of music by 2019.

Well, this is theoretically rather unfortunate.

One feature of Amazon Music allows users to upload their own MP3 files from other sources, but that service is shutting down over the next year or so. According to a help page on Amazon’s website, the company will end its Amazon Music Storage subscription service in January 2019. An official date hasn’t been released, but once the storage service ends, users won’t be able to play or download MP3s they previously uploaded.

Continue reading Amazon Music to end third-party uploads of music by 2019.