You Can Tune A Piano, But You Cannot…

Something that’s been stuck in my mind the last 24 hours:  Last night, The Civee and I were watching The Office when Michael said he “had a dream where [he] ate a peanut butter and tuna fish sandwich.”

This has disturbed me all day.

Not the idea of a peanut butter and tuna fish sandwich.  Sure, that’s got to be nasty.  But not disturbing.

Rather, it was the use of the phrase “tuna fish.”

We don’t say we eat turkey fowl for Thanksgiving (not that I would).  Nor do we grill steak meat during the summer time.  So why do we say “tuna fish” when referring to that gray stuff that comes in a can?

I have a feeling I will now be fighting this crusade for the rest of my life.

By the way, fresh tuna is much better than anything that comes in a can.  Case in point, this is one of the Civee’s favorite recipes (for someone who didn’t like fish before we got married):

Tuna Sticks in Pepper Sauce

  • 1 tuna steak per person
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1/2 cup sesame seeds
  • 1 jar roasted red peppers
  • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • Pinch of salt

Cut the tuna steak(s) lengthwise, turning each steak into 3-4 “sticks.”

Cover each side of each stick with the sesame seeds.

Place garlic, red peppers  and salt into food processor. Blend until peppers form a sauce.  Add 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and pulse to mix.

Heat a pan on high, adding the remaining olive oil.  Cook the tuna sticks for a minute per side.

Remove sticks from pan, plate and cover with the red pepper sauce.

Ben Linus Would Rather Be Dead [Is Dead]

I’m sitting here, 20 minutes after the ending of tonight’s episode of Lost, Dead Is Dead, wondering what to say.

As with any episode of Lost featuring Ben or Locke, it was a solid episode.  Throw in some exposition about Ben’s past along with hints at some longtime island mysteries, and you have an awesome episode.

I was on the edge of my seat all night, and before I knew it, this episode was over.  And I couldn’t really think of anything to say about it.  So I’ll start with this:

If, like Ben, at the end, we’re judged by the hairstyles we had earlier in our life, I’m in trouble.

And if you’ve ever seen the Superman curl that I had earlier in life, that’s big trouble.

But enough about me. Back to Lost…

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Jonas Hodges. On The Balcony. With The Whiskey Bottle.

Throughout tonight’s episode of 24, I kept on waiting for some action.  More specifically, some action involving Jack Bauer.

Sure, we had Special Agent Larry Fine’s staredown with the Starkwood security team.  And we had Tony sneaking into the bunker with the help of Doug something-or-other (played by the guy who was Hank Jennings).  But the first 40 minutes of tonight’s episode was pretty light while Jack Bauer stood around in FBI headquarters suffering from the early effects of Mad Cow disease.

But then [My Name Is] Jonas Hodges went to go have a little talk with Doug and things picked up considerably.

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It's That Time of Year Again

I know I’m almost late with this, but happy Days of Greatness everybody!

Since 2005, WrestleMania and Opening Day (for the Yankees, at least) have been within 24 hours of each other. And if that isn’t cause for celebration, I don’t know what is.

Caught WrestleMania last night- it was an entertaining event, with 40-somethings Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker stealing the show in an epic battle.  With only eight matches, it felt a little light, especially considering the 20-minute “concert” after the first match.  Luckily, that gave us time to call for a pizza.  Also, the event was padded by recap packages, which helped those of us who don’t watch Raw on a weekly basis anymore catch up.

Coming up in an hour or so is Opening Day for the Yankees.  Unless it’s about Hideki Irabu or my trips to Yankee Stadium, I don’t really write much about baseball (although maybe I should).  But I am looking forward to this season and I’m happy with the moves the Yankees made since October.  If anything, baseball is a reminder that the days are getting longer and the weather is getting more bearable.

Like I said, if that isn’t cause for celebration, I don’t know what is.

The Reyes-Straume Roundtable Will Address Whatever Happened [Happened]

Hurley and Miles prepare to discuss the news of the day.Usually, when Lost throws a Kate episode out there, I get very bitter afterwards, wishing the episode had focused on someone more integral to the show’s overall mythology.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think there are plenty of other characters on the island (everyone but Sun) who has a more interesting story and who is more integral to the Lost saga.  But at least tonight, after Whatever Happened, Happened, I’m not bitter.  For a Kate episode, it was not that bad.

There are a few reasons for this; The continued self-assertion of Sawyer as leader of the survivors.  DHARMA.  The continued downward spiral of Jack into the biggest idiot on the island.  The Others.  But most of all, the two conversations between Hurley and Miles discussing time travel and whether they’re living in their own future or their past. (And by the way, Miles is right, he just doesn’t know why.  I think)

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We're Number One!

The Kingdom hasn’t been this popular since a picture of my foot ruled the Chinese version of Google.

Today, I noticed an increased amount of traffic resulting from Google searches for the words Jack Bauer Mad Cow.  So I did a little googling of my own, and the number one site for those four words is the Kingdom (specifically, yesterday’s review of 24).

So for at least today, we here at the Kingdom are the number one in the world for something.

He's Our You [All Everybody]

I don’t know about you, but if someone told me they were from the future,  I’d listen to what they had to say.  I’m not saying I’d believe them, but I’d let them talk.

And if even they happened to talk about things (I think) they weren’t supposed to know about and get a few details right and then end their rambling with an omnious preminition along the lines of, oh, I don’t know, “You’re all gonna die,”  I’d let them keep talking.  I’d maybe even take some notes, ask a few questions.  Again, I wouldn’t believe them outright, but I’d listen.

Well, in tonight’s episode of Lost, He’s Our You, the DHARMA Initiative proved why they didn’t stick around on the Island all that long.

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A Waste Of A Great Supervillain Moment

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that this season’s villain [My Name is] Jonas Hodges could be the best yet bad guy we’ve seen on 24 because he is similar to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, nemesis of James Bond.

Well the comparison stays apt, because one of the few interesting scenes in tonight’s episode of 24 showed Hodges acting in a Blofeldian manner, even if (forgive the pun) the execution wasn’t all the same.

It’s possible that there were things about tonight’s episode that I wasn’t seeing, but for the most part, I found it boring, especially in the White House scenes.  All of that drama was between the President, the Sherri Palemeresque First Daughter and the (soon to be former) Chief of Staff.

Jack and Tony met up with lucky to be alive security guard Karl before taking on a team of Blofeld Hodges’ lackeys over a shipping container full of Sentox Nerve Gas a mystery chemical or bacterological agent.  That action, taking place in the last 15 minutes of the hour was interesting.  Although, I was befuddled as to why Jack and Tony didn’t take on team terror right away.  Or at least make it look like Karl killed the goon (hey, it could’ve happened!) so as not to arouse suspicion that they were on the case.

Other than the final scenes involving the shootout and Jack’s theft of the big rig, the only other interesting part of tonight’s episode was Hodges’ meeting of SPECTRE the Starkwood Board of Directors.  Hodges was quite animated during this meeting, even taking some time to deal with a dissenter on the board who looked like Bryan Cranston (the guy who played Dr. Tim Whatley on Seinfeld).  The one thing that surprised me about this scene was we didn’t see the Whatley wannabe die–either in front of the rest of the Starkwood Board or during their private moment together.  Even after Whatley accused him of murdering Senator That 70s Show, Hodges kept his cool and didn’t have Whatley walk over a gimmicked bridge that fell into a shark pit.  Hodges makes a great villain, but that was his moment to shine, and he dropped the ball.

One other thing about this episode- at the end when Jack was on the horn with Special Agent Larry Fine, I was wondering- is Jack now off the hook?  You think that Larry would call the White House and clear up the situation.  But then again, this is Larry we’re dealing with.

I leave you tonight with an image of a man and his truck.

What did you think?

Namaste, Aloha and the Muppet Show

In the realm of Lost, as well as the rest of TV, I enjoy episodes that are either action or mythology-oriented. For the most part, I lose patience with episodes centered around emotions and relationships.

Even though I’d call tonight’s episode of Lost, Namaste, emotional, my reaction was different.  I enjoyed it.  It was a lot like a ‘set-up’ episode of 24, where characters and devices are introduced so the plot can shift into the next gear for the next episode.  Even though that’s usually a recipe for a so-so episode, that didn’t happen tonight.

First of all, things started off pretty quickly.

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