The Daily Mull - Ken Watts

The Encyclopedia Galactica says that alcohol...

Ken — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:50:21 +0000

The Encyclopedia Galactica...says that alcohol is a colorless volatile liquid formed by the fermentation of sugars...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

It says the effect of drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.

The Guide also tells you on which planets the best Pan Galactic Gargleblasters are mixed, how much you can expect to pay for one and what voluntary organizations exist to help you rehabilitate afterward.

Douglas Adams [read more]

Glögg

Ken — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:49:49 +0000

(Originally published 11/23/2006 - 2:49 pm)

Glögg, with a dieresis over the "o," and unpronounceable until imbibed, is a Swedish mulled wine drink that has been served in my family since the dawn of Creation.

Boiling removes the alcohol, altering the fabric of Time/Space, wasting everyone's time.

I am told that "Glögg" means "glow" and comes from the traditional way of heating it by plunging a glowing poker from the fire into it.

Like Reality, Glögg is constructed, and like Reality, mutable from one iteration to the next.

The origins of the recipe are lost in the fog of Swedish woods, but this is how it goes today: [read more]

Both bands and tribes elicited...

Ken — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:39:36 +0000

Both bands and tribes elicited a predictable political reaction when they were discovered by early explorers or ethnographers. These small local groups had no leaders with any real authority; in contrast to the societies of their discoverers, every individual seemed to come and go just as he or she pleased. It became clear that when people live in small, locally autonomous groups, they are almost always "equalitarian."

Christopher Boehm [read more]

Spirituality and Patriotism: Part 2

Ken — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:21:20 +0000

It's been a while since I added to this series, primarily because the election drew my fire for some time. But now things are back to normal it's time to pick up where we left off.

In the previous post, I called attention to an emerging spirituality in the United States—a spirituality that is appropriate to a democracy, as opposed to a dictatorship, or kingdom.

As you may recall, I had made the point that formal religion, as we know it in the West, at least, had its roots in the need of kings to create a common world-view for their subjects—both to tie their kingdom together, culturally, and to separate it from other kingdoms. [read more]

Lamb's Wool

Ken — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:26:47 +0000

The first entry to the 2008 mull-off:

Lamb's Wool

10 baking apples, cored (the more tart, the better)
1 12 pack of strong ale (your preference, but I like Newcastle) 4tbs brown sugar ½ ts cinnamon ½ ts ground ginger ½ ts nutmeg
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tbs whole cloves
Several bowls of assorted nuts (in shells) [read more]

But she was finding it increasingly easy...

Ken — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:00:14 +0000

But she was finding it increasingly easy to believe that God, if there was a God, and if it was remotely possible that any godlike being who could order the disposition of particles at the creation of the Universe would also be interested in directing traffic on the M4, did not want her to fly to Norway either.

Douglas Adams [read more]

The Dead: Book 16 (frag. 2)

Ken — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:38:30 +0000

THE POLICEMAN APPROACHED her again.

"They're about to start, Ma'am. You should step a little farther back."

She nodded, absently, remembering why she had returned to the house in the first place.

The cookies.

She had baked them for Mary's class, and then, true to her tradition of mishaps, had left them this morning on the kitchen table.

"Ma'am? You have to move. The roof could collapse when they start to pull."

She had a vision, then, of the cookies, left uncovered on the kitchen table—the ceiling caving in, plaster dust and dirt from the attic cascading over the cookies, sticking to the chocolate chips...

She strode toward the house.

"Ma'am! You can't go in there!"

"I'll just be a minute. I have to get something."

The policeman had been caught by surprise. She made it to the door before he could move, but no one else saw her. [read more]

Tragedy is when I cut my finger...

Ken — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:41:50 +0000

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.

Mel Brooks [read more]

The Dead: Book 16 (frag. 1)

Ken — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:28:40 +0000

"LIFE," BEVERLY THOUGHT, "gets more bizarre every day."

She stood by her car in the driveway, staring at her house, and wondering how she came to be so unbelievably unlucky.

Now that she actually thought about it, it wasn't just the last few days—getting run over by a semi, losing her boss's keys, knocking a glass of water all over the keynote speaker at the conference.

No. It had been going on her entire life . The time she found her lottery ticket two hours—two hours!—after the deadline. The time she was the only person at the party who ate the shrimp. The time her brother got the measles just before her prom.

And this.

The odd thing, the thing that broke the pattern now she thought of it, wasn't that everything, always, went wrong. That was the ground, not the figure.

The Daily Mull - Ken Watts

The Encyclopedia Galactica says that alcohol...

Glögg

Both bands and tribes elicited...

Spirituality and Patriotism: Part 2

Lamb's Wool

But she was finding it increasingly easy...

The Dead: Book 16 (frag. 2)

Tragedy is when I cut my finger...

The Dead: Book 16 (frag. 1)

I'm handin' out wings...