She will eat your brain!

Wait a sec, Rob Schneider fills in for Regis Philbin on his talk show??? What have I been missing in this awesome world of daytime TV? Man, the things you see on a half-day vacation…

My pal Neil runs one of the top ten sites devoted to black cheerleaders, or at least, that’s what people who click-through from Google believe. Funny how an odd phrase like “black cheerleaders” can get you lots of traffic. I’m hoping to steal some of that thunder now. After all, they’re hot, ready, and WAITING FOR YOU. I also have some Britney Spears nudes if you’re interested.

Today is already little Zoe’s one-month birthday. Crazy. What was I most unprepared for? The soreness of my stomach and ribs due to the incessant kicking of them by a baby that insists on being held upright so she can look around. Ow. Check out her preferred t-shirt here.

Another excellent review of Half Mast, courtesy of The Boox Review.

Received this interesting resume in JPG format from someone who thinks… well, I’m not sure what he thinks. You tell me.

I enjoy Big Night more each time I see it. After years of seeing the film over and over on cable, I decided to make the fabled timpano, a drumlike pastry filled with “all the good things in life,” per the film. It’s so impressive in the movie that you can’t help but salivate over the thing.

Here is the (five-page) recipe I followed.

Here is what the end product looked like:

And here are the (substantial) changes to the recipe I made; if done “the right way” the estimated time expense is about 10-12 hours. I spent 2 in preparation, and 2 in the baking (not really working). The end result: very delicious, but far too much food for two people! I highly recommend trying it out when you have a lot of free time. I wonder how the remaining half will keep ’til tomorrow…

NULL’S TIMPANO STREAMLINING

- First off, I don’t have a “timpano bowl,” so I used a smaller, deep, round casserole — a real timpano serves 12. Mine (thank God!) only serves 5-6.

- I didn’t make my own dough. I rolled out frozen Pepperidge Farm puff pastry sheets, which gave it an interesting crunchiness and, well, a little “puffiness” too. A Godsend vs. rolling your own!

- My “little meatballs” were not so little. Do you know how long it would take to fry that many 1/2-teaspoon meatballs!? Mine ended up being 1- to 2-tablespoon sized out of laziness. They were fine.

- I used sweet Italian sausage in the meatballs instead of ground beef.

- I (sad to say) did not make my own ragu. I used various Barilla jarred sauces, added red wine, fresh basil, and fresh oregano. It was fine.

- Did not need nearly the 3 pounds of ziti (I used rigatoni) called for. My half-size timpano needed maybe half a pound. Why waste all the room on pasta!?

- Skipped the hard-boiled eggs.

- Could not find a non-sliced salami, so I used sliced salami.

- Oddly, could not find provolone cheese of any kind. Used Sonoma Jack, which turned out very well I think.

- Otherwise, followed the recipe pretty much exactly, halving all the ingredients and cooking it for the same amount of time as a regular timpano. (Only cooled it half an hour.)

Rave reviews from the tasting board!

Chris Seibold provided a very thoughtful review of Half Mast for MyMac.com. So thoughtful in fact that he wrote a multi-page addendum (which he sent to me, deciding that the book is indeed literature) after reading the book a second time… alas, MyMac appears not to have published the second part of the review. C’est la vie.

filmcritic.com gets the ultimate geek symbol of approval! Woo hoo!