In a Funk? Chess

When you’re in a funk, it’s good to have chess. It’s very, very good to have chess. I would liken it to piloting a 747 . . . there are no forgiving parameters. Either you’re flying or you’re not.

Chess just makes you have to concentrate. You have no choice. Chess with real people is great, but it’s hard to find a good match . . . the only few times I actually played chess online with real people, I was demolished . . . this one dude just came out with his queen and rampaged all over me. I couldn’t quite understand what had happened, it was so merciless and brutal and quick. And very surgical . . . I want to be able to do that.

Now, the computer is more stealthy, but equally merciless.

But like I say, when you’re in a funk, chess makes you calm down. You’re immediately immersed . . . why that pawn, there? What’s the bastard getting at? Fuck that bastard . . . he has a plan and you don’t!

You look at games, say, between Kasparov and Deep Blue, and you say “Huh? What? Why the rook there . . . now?” It’s almost as if your opponent is just fucking with you (which she might be!) to provoke a hasty, panicked response.

I know I’m preaching to the choir, but chess is that perfect game, the perfect human skill that requires very little chance . . . poker is for schtrunzes.

Anyone for a game?

Poor Freddie

Poor Freddie Mercury. I didn't particularly like Queen when I was younger (I was more into jazz, but my band played at least ten Queen songs) but in retrospect, look around you! Who the fuck has that kind of talent any more?

Eminem? Carrie Underwood? Fitty-cent? (not a typo). GIVE ME A FUCKIN' BREAK.

You get my drift.

He did not deserve to be extinguished so soon. But I guess he's with John Lennon, and misery loves company, no? And what better company?

Freddie was a true virtuoso and a master of his craft. Rare, rare

It wasn't your fault, Freddie . . . you didn't "go wrong", dude, you made life a bit more bearable for the rest of us.

Thoughts on Being Handsome

I like to think of myself as a very, very savvy traveller. After all, I’ve been flying on planes constantly since I was one month old. I’ve possibly travelled on planes in the thousands of times . . . but these days, you can’t just be savvy, you have to be crafty.

Look at this article

They got a few things right, but waiting till the last minute to board a flight for a chance in First is a recipe for disaster.

As a general rule, It’s not difficult to wangle a first-class seat. You just have to know a few things in advance . . . first, your shtick is not always going to work. You won’t get it when you most want it, and you will when you’ve already given up.

I’m really, really reticent about telling you peasants how to get First (my loving peasants . . . toil, and I’ll reap!) but in this case I really don’t think you’re going to be on my flight to France next week, so I’ll crack open the Vault just this once.

Hear ye, hear ye:

Ya gotta be a human being. Just like it makes sense to commiserate with a harried waiter to avoid a plateful of spit, you have to identify with the worker behind the counter. Fuck, they came into work today at 6:30 and it’s a bad day . . . don’t mouth off and complain . . . about anything. Because then as sure as snow in Montreal you’re going to your destination and your bags are going to Mexico City . . .

It’s really easy. They’re just me and they’re just you. They want to be treated as such! So just follow a few guidelines and you're there, in the rare air.

1. Don’t be an asshole. Talk to the ticket agent as if he/she is your new friend. Banter. Bantering is good. It helps if your knowledge of her trade comes through. Don’t say “Is the plane full?” Say “What’s the situation on the equipment? Full?” Just right there, although you will not get an acknowledgement, you will be in in her book. “Oh, not just some asshole customer who has me in his sights today,” will be the thinking. Trust me on this: she WANTS to make someone happy, to maybe even freak them out by putting them in business class . . . why? Because she's kind and maybe her day is not going so well, and by imparting this small amount of power to making someone else's day better, she also feels better. The only bad thing (that I always regret) is that when you're sitting in business class because of her few keystrokes you know you'll never see her again to tell her how happy she made your day. . . (or he! They're all such cool people).

2. Don’t look desperate. Be honest and be nice . . . isn’t that the way we should all be? Just get in that tiny extra nod that makes her know you’re both in on the same game. She’s working, you’re flying . . . it’s no extra step for her to switch a couple of seats — it’s just a couple of keystrokes — and there, you are flying First class to Osaka. But bear in mind, it’s not a predator situation . . . if she thinks you’re angling, you’re fucked. But it’s not so hard to be nice, is it?

3. It ain’t going to happen every time, and you’d better not expect it. But it doesn’t hurt to dress well. No, you don’t need a tie or a slinky dress and a fur coat, but look casually elegant, as if you knew you were travelling today and didn’t want to look like a schtroumf . . . which is what 99% of the travelling public looks like. Think about it! Shorts? Fuck. Six bags? Fuck. Baghdad! Fumbling for your passport because you can’t remember where you put it? Fuck. Ya fuckin’ schtroumf . . . you deserve the aisle seat in 36 c . . . you will always be a schtroumf and now is the time to get out of this game.

4. BE NICE. This is what will get you the Seat 99% of the time . . . like I said, their husband just got laid off yesterday, the drive in was hell . . . what are they going to think when you push your toffee-nose into their world and start demanding? You might not get the first class, but at the end of the day you’ll know you made one person’s working life a bit better. And isn’t that every reason to try?

5. Realize you are dealing with real people. They are not machines, constructed by the airline industry for your convenience. They really coudn’t give a shit, nor should they, that your flight is late, you have a connection blah blah blah. They woke up this morning just like you, made breakfast for their kids, drove to the airport . . . as SOON as you bear this simple theory in mind you will be on your way to Business class. Or better. Trust me . . . after 5 or so years of travelling constantly to San Francisco and Japan (and France) from Montreal, I know whereof I speak. 50% of the time being in first class just because I look handsome may not be the real reason, but I like to think so . . .

See you in 1B.

Groove

It's the B3, Stupid . . .

Can You Speak Love?

You live in Montreal. Well, maybe not. But your lover is the native speaker of a different language. What language do you speak to her in? (Her for the sake of this post, throughout, but it obviously could be he — you get the pic).

I find that I can’t speak French to my lover. I speak it pretty well, but telling her “Je t’aime” is just too ersatz, somehow. Or any other words of love, such as when I’m murmuring in her ear when, umm, you get the picture. Why is this so? Is it lingual chauvinism?

In my case it kind of is . . . I know I can’t possibly hope to compete with her legacy of French-speaking lovers -- more frighteningly in her case, Spanish-speaking lovers as well. They will have had all the language of love down pat, years of experience before me. But it’s not that I don’t WANT to speak her language, it’s just that I’m on safer ground if I don’t. No cultural slipups, if you will.

And a definite admission that she speaks my language way better than I speak hers. But then again, what language does your hand or eye or lips speak?

Dans ce cas là I rest my case . . .

Bass

Wow, I was a pretty good bass player
when I was 26 . . .

I love the bass. It must be the most misunderstood instrument on the planet.

Zaïre part 2: the Military and a Horror

“All Along the Watchtower” was playing in my brain when all of a sudden, a small group of soldiers began heading towards us from across the small park. It was very, very scary. They all held machine guns and of course were dressed in the latest military gear with berets and camouflage uniforms. At 1 o’clock in the morning on a street in the capital of Zaire, Kinshasa, yes: it was very, very scary. We had been smoking marijuana and we knew that if they wanted to take us in, we wouldn’t have a prayer. My adolescent brain was sizing this possibility up, but I was actually wondering if they would just shoot us to save themselves the trouble.

We had no choice but to stand our ground.

We were very lucky in that my elder brother Chris was in a wheelchair; the result of muscular dystrophy. Probably, none of them had ever seen one before. This novelty alone broke the ice. There must have been a leader; I can’t remember now. But as fast as you could say “Execution,” cigarettes were lit by all parties and banter was started. These guys were barely older than ourselves; most in their 20s and it was quite obvious it wasn’t part of their training to come across a small group of white adolescents smoking dope in a city park at one o’clock in the morning.

After the initial tension and apprehension everything mellowed out and there were a few laughs on both sides. But I couldn’t help feeling that it could have gone the other way.

Once, when I was in school in England, the military police (were they soldiers or policemen? It was one and the same) had heard my elder brother Chris (he of the wheelchair) practicing with his band one rainy afternoon. This meant drums and bass and amplifiers and noise emanating from the front room of the house.

Neither of my parents was home, and a group of soldiers barged into the house, terrifying the servants, flashing their machine guns, and began threatening Chris and his horrified bandmates, right within the very bedroom in which they were practicing. Again, Chris’s bargaining skills and a few cigarettes calmed everything down, but it must have been tense.

But that was not the worst feature of downtown Kinshasa. The military were a constant threat, but the packs of wild dogs were downright frightening. They would roam, eight or ten dogs at a time, through the streets, in a pack. It is unimaginable to me now, but it was like a horror movie in slow-motion then. Instinctively, you knew that you had to get to a safe place where they couldn’t get you, behind a wall or something, but occasionally you just had to freeze in place and hope they didn’t notice you.

And one night our luck ran out. We were listening to music in the house when we heard the terrible yelps and screams of many dogs in a struggle. I raced outside onto the terrace and witnessed a horrible scene: at least five mangy, ragged dogs were attacking our dog, a six-month-old razorback/Alsatian we’d named Santana. The sounds were hideous. I will never forget them.

Then, after what seemed an eternity, our frightened human yells drove the attacking dogs off the terrace and back onto the street. Every single one of us, Santana included, was shaking like a leaf.

And that was that, I thought. But that was not that. About ten days later, we had a party. It was the usual affair for the time; a whole bunch of high school kids from the American high school, and our African and Belgian pals would come over and we’d party on the terrace and listen to music. I was doing speed at the time — one could freely buy it, as a 15-year-old kid, directly from a pharmacy — thus, it was commercial-grade, not trafficked — so I was wired to the gills.

And we — everyone — noticed that Santana was actingly strangely. He’d wander up to you as if to lick you, as he always did, but then upon getting close would suddenly shrink and growl.

It only became noticeable in hindsight. Two days later, when my sister and I were ready to go to school, smoking a joint on the front porch and waiting for the driver, Santana came up the steps. And, for a 6-pound, tiny tyke of a dog, he was downright frightening. He wasn’t the Santana we knew. He would whine, as if reluctant, saying to us “I don’t know what I’m doing but I don’t want to hurt you!” He wanted desperately to be patted but at the same time was growling, his eyes focused at us as if he wanted to bite us and was thinking of the best way to do it.

Laurie and I were under no illusions. Adolescents though we were, we suddenly knew he had rabies.

The house immediately went into lockdown. My elder brother Geoff tried at one point to capture Santana so that he could be taken to the vet, but was bitten. That day remains etched in memory. The American doctor became involved. This was a big deal in semi-colonial Zaire. Geoff had to undergo the first of several rabies shots — the old kind, the ones in the stomach. Just after the shot, he collapsed. Allergic reaction. Only a major shot of scotch (an old-time remedy) would be effective enough to “bring him around”.

And it only got worse: all of us would have to have the shots, and all of the people who had been at the party as well. And we had to tell them! The shots themselves were no big deal. The fear of contracting rabies was a very big deal: I combed the Encyclopedia and asked the doctor what the symptoms were but he refused to tell me, fearing I would psychosomatically develop them. It was okay; I knew every one of them by heart by now and was already analysing my difficulty in swallowing. It was an incredibly stressful time . . .

Santana got worse and worse. Rabies is a very, very nasty thing. And to watch it unfold in an animal is a terrifying ordeal, especially when he is your beloved pet.

We had to lock him in the garage. We had to let him die because the doctor told us we couldn’t put him to sleep because they had to let the rabies manifest itself so that they could diagnose it, and that was only possible if he died of it.

The next two days were easily the most harrowing of my young life, and, I’ll warrant, the worst for everyone within a mile. Santana, trapped in the garage, not being able to eat or drink and ravaged with the rabies virus that had attacked his brain, began to howl. A hideous, constant howl that went on, hour after hour, with no cessation, all through the day and all through the night. For two days. We could hardly imagine what this, our darling, happy dog was going through. We took peeks through the slats of the garage door but could never dare to go in. We had to watch our dog starve and thirst to death . . . in Surround Sound.

And finally, he died. He’d wandered into a drain on the side of the garage and been trapped there for many hours. They took him away and cut off his head and put it in our freezer for the autopsy.

Needless to say, he had rabies.

That evening, there was a bizarre yellow sky . . . I’ll never forget it. And, just after we had adjusted to the sudden silence of no more howling, we learned that our cat had just been hit by a car on the street in front of our house. We consoled each other with the fact that she would have had to go through the rabies injections and that maybe she was better off . . .

This is a true story. No one, certainly not me, could make it up . . .

So Much Easier

Amazing thing about languages. If you’re like me and want to learn every single one on Earth, it’s really frustrating to see someone just rattling away in the target language. They just rattle away—zero effort! And you feel so stupid that you can’t do it like them. After all, they’re human, like you. You can speak, possibly pretty damned well, so why can’t you speak their language as well as them? It’s all illustrated by a favorite line I came up with years ago . . . “Milton Nascimento: Why does He Sing in Portuguese? Doesn’t He Realise that English is So Much Easier to Understand?”

I’m quite pissed off that my 6-year-old son speaks far, far, FAR better Japanese than me in the twenty years I’ve been speaking it. And what’s with the girlfriend’s French? Okay, you may be French and have spoken it fluently since birth, but what’s the deal with using it daily with vendors, merchants and close friends? Why not just use English? It’s so much easier to understand!

(Check out my $400/hr seminar in irregular verbs!)

If One Day . . .

. . . an asteroid hit the earth, and somehow — bear with me, this is not Time Tunnel — all the cuisines of the world were eliminated, except one.

Which cuisine should it be? Which would be the cuisine that would nourish humanity back from the brink of extinction?

Although I don’t fully support even my own hypothesis — frankly, I’m not a huge fan of large parts of the cuisine — in my mind there is only one.

And that would be Chinese. I wonder what you think . . .

I will tell you why I think this next post.

Tintin's Moon

Okay, so it was the sun that was eclipsed in Tintin's "Prisoners Of the Sun" (what was Tintin's first name, anyway?) but I stand here on my balcony at fifteen below and witness the magical spectacle of the moon turning orange . . . then brown . . . and then (almost) winking out altogether.

Fear not, Prisoners of the Inca! A scrap of newspaper will rescue you.

Kitchen Myths

My sister emailed me a link to an NY Times article on kitchen myths and I thought it was intriguing enough to cast a few observations on it, though I wish someone would do a “Mythbusters”-style assault on this subject. Obviously I can’t cover all of them, but here is what I’ve observed. And what’s so scary about this whole thing is that a tiny bit of common sense alone is sufficient to debunk some of the myths—a degree in physics is not required:

1. Oil in pasta water prevents it from sticking

The few times I did this I noticed a few things; for one, the pasta stuck no matter how much oil was in the water, but only because I didn’t stir it. Figure it out: pasta is made of flour. If you mix flour and water in the right concentration, you have a pretty good glue (I did when I was little). If you put two strands of pasta together in hot water and they’re touching, the first thing that’s going to happen is that the gluten on them is going to swell in the water, becoming sticky, especially in the first few seconds of cooking. Since they’re next to each other, the strands are going to bond unless they are physically separated and water is allowed to come between them. This is the also the reason that one is taught to use lots of water to boil pasta. If you use less water, you can still make decent pasta, but you are going to have to be a hell of a lot more attentive to keep it from sticking because of the larger quantity of parts per million of gluten particles.

What I found out from adding oil to the water is that it helped to keep the water from boiling over (probably by interfering with the bubbles’ ability to explode quite so vigorously on the surface).


2. Throwing a piece of spaghetti on the wall will tell you if it’s done

After decades of making pasta I’ve discovered some things. First, never go by what they tell you on the label about how long to cook the pasta. Second, never walk away and leave while the pasta is cooking. All you have to do to make sure you make perfect pasta is to have plenty of water, salt it as much as the sea, stir it vigorously until the water has regained enough boil to mix it up by itself, and keep tasting the pasta after the 6-7 minute mark (depending on the thickness of the pasta). Then, drain it while it’s still quite a bit underdone and don’t for god’s sake rinse it in cold water (unless you’re going to bake it in the oven later) and without shaking it completely dry just deposit it in a container. And this is only if you’re not serving it immediately (which few of us do). The pasta will continue to soften in the next few minutes by the steam generated by its own heat and will be perfectly al dente by the time you serve it.

Of course, the old wall myth is kind of tortured, so I won’t even dignify it here.

Note that all of the above does NOT refer to fresh pasta (almost a totally different species).

3. Peeling and removing the seeds from tomatoes make for a better sauce

Okay, I’ll bite: maybe. But not peeling and not removing the seeds makes a perfectly decent sauce that only a Cook’s Illustrated taster would moan about.

4. Searing the meat seals in the juices

Okay, this hoary old wives’ tale is admittedly long in the tooth, but it stands to reason that no matter how brown it gets, there is no magic “force field” that is going to develop that will prevent it from losing its juices. And one thing that I am still skeptical about is the theory that if you let meat “rest” it will reabsorb its juices instead of letting them all run away by carving it immediately. Have you ever seen a steak that has “rested” for 5 minutes? There is more juice on the plate than ten seconds after it came out of the pan . . . I believe the more rational reason is that the heat can redistribute itself through the cut and possibly finish warming the last inner holdouts in the case of medium rare. Otherwise, I really don’t think that resting the thing, unless it’s a large roast, is strictly necessary.

5. Don’t wash mushrooms

One word for this theory: bullshit. Maybe for Adrian Ferra—not for the rest of us.

6. My personal pet peeve: Microwaves cook food from the inside out.

Absolute unmitigated horseshit. How many of us have tried to thaw a huge frozen block of something only to find that the outside is boiling hot but the inside is still happily glacial? There is a severe lack of knowledge among cooks about how microwaves work. I won’t pretend to be a physics expert, but I do know that microwave ovens ONLY HAVE ONE SETTING: HIGH. Yes, you read it right. All those stupid little buttons on the microwave panel that say “Defrost” or “Baked potato” are a royal crock of shit. The only setting you can mess with is how long the microwave delivers its burn. In other words, imagine boiling a cup of water. If you put it in for two minutes on maximum, the microwave will just blast away with no break for two minutes. If you put it on four minutes with Medium, the microwave will blast in precise increments, on/off, for exactly half the time. Blast, rest. Blast, rest (just listen to it one day!) The water will boil, but at twice the time.

So, there is NO “low power” microwave setting. The key ingredient is time.

And what about that myth about the ant surviving the microwave? It’s not a myth.

7. A sharp knife will prevent accidents.

Oh, how gloriously true. Witness for the prosecution: a green pepper. Witness for the defense: a dull paring knife that Grandmother used. Verdict: Emergency.

8. Let the food come to room temperature before you put it in the refrigerator

Don’t.

I’m sure you have your own kitchen myths. Post ‘em in Comments and let’s see if we can’t debunk them!

Artifiction?

It would seem that way, what with the exploits of these crooks . . .

I'd like to think that these bozos somehow stumbled across my rant a couple of months ago and somehow a dim (very dim) bulb went off in their heads. (Think Yogi the Bear discussing an idea with SpongeBob).

In Memory of Elizabeth Reed

I hate to make this space as much one for music as for food (I made a “Burmese” curry last night: details to follow) but could this possibly be the finest ensemble performance in rock history? What’s more amazing is that it’s live . . . The groove, the feel, the rhythm guitar, the organ, the drums, the bass . . . it’s like a single organism driving down a musical highway.

Don’t you think?

Bordeaux

In this perfect storm of snow (and rain today? the Horror!) one's mind casts back to the vineyards of Bordeaux in summer.

St. Valentine’s Chronicles

(Okay, that’s an obscure mashup of Robert Silverberg’s sci-fi opus “The Majipoor Chronicles”).

But Valentine’s day is the loneliest night of the week
sometimes, especially if you’re without your honey. And I’m without Taishi as well.

So there’s only one remedy: Masako.

Only I was dismayed to find that the co-proprietor, Rebekah, was in China for treatment for a tumor. Her husband, the itamae-san, was stoic. “I don’t know when she’ll be back.”

They’re both angels, so it was particularly piquant to consider how far she was away from him on this particular day.

On Valentine’s night it was buzzing, at this, the place I consider to be the best sushi in Montreal, so it was especially lonely to see all the happy couples having so much fun. But I was not at a complete loss. I made a happy couple of the Eye of the Dragon and Spicy Salmon (with extra tobiko!) to go, and inhaled a couple of Hakutsurus while I waited.

So, a Montreal Valentine’s evening of a Japanese dinner made by Chinese in a French/English city watching a German movie (“Das Leben der Anderen”).

Omedeto qing ren jie félicitations Alles Liebe zum Valentine’s!

Zaïre, Part 1

The thing you most noticed about Zaïre was also the first thing you noticed: the hammer blow of stepping out of the airplane door and onto the ladder.

The air made you stagger slightly, as if you had just plunged into a hot river and were involuntarily inhaling a lungful of it. The thickness of it, the absolute, drenching humidity of it, was simultaneously oppressive and uplifting. It bore upon it the myriad scents of an unknown land: of jasmine and lianas and red clay and thunderstorms.

As you walked down the ladder and struggled to breathe, you felt a pervasive strangeness that would eventually become part of you and then disappear into familiarity: the sweat began to ooze in every pore of you and your clothes drank it in as though parched until they were sticking to every pressure point, becoming laden and heavy and clinging.

And then you noticed the greenness, the sheer untrammeled growth of life all around you. The airport was seemingly carved out of the jungle itself, calm and placid and grey in an ocean of green.

As you shuffled along the tarmac towards the terminal, the sun hung in the sky; hung, because that is the only word that describes it. It hung reluctantly, brassily beaming through a languid halo of haze without clouds, and reflected up from the concrete into your eyes with implacable determination.

Like participants in an ant trail, you and the other passengers slowly shuffled across the tarmac, blinking and bewildered, not wanting to think about what was coming. But before you could summon the reconsideration of the wisdom of this whole affair you were inside the terminal building and in the line with the rest. Fans sprouted like snapdragons as the line shambled towards the dilapidated booth that housed the lone customs officer.

This fellow, his blue-black face covered with a fine sheen of sweat just like everyone else, made a grand show of examining each passport carefully, licking his forefinger as he leafed through each page, then looking up imperiously, his left hand hovering over the only stamp on his desk. “Vous restez combien de temps?”

When it came your turn you murmured and the hand made a well-practiced grab of the stamp and the sound of it on the pad and then onto your passport echoed thuddingly throughout the dim room.

You were in Zaïre.

There were always people hanging around behind the customs booth, seemingly scouting out the new arrivals for their potential reward quotient: taxi drivers, luggage touts, a loose rabble that had the faint air of organization, of inevitability, as if every one of them had done this exact thing yesterday, the day before and the day before that, going back into antiquity. They were dressed with a shabby elegance, their odd print mix-and-match collared short-sleeve shirts faded but meticulously creased, as if they might be going to a wedding later that afternoon, after taking your bags to the taxi.

Since you invariably needed a taxi, you would select the guy who managed to push all the other guys out of his way and muscle up next to you and he’d grab your bags away from the other hands that were tugging at them and lead you, smiling as if he knew what he’d be doing with the few notes you’d be paying him with, later on, and you’d accompany him to his slightly battered Peugeot and he’d slam the bags in the back while you gratefully slid onto the vinyl seat and lit a cigarette.

You were particularly grateful that morning because you were going home.

Kinshasa from the air was quite beautiful, especially at night, which is the only time you flew in from Brussels. And you always flew in from Brussels.

Orange streetlights cast limpid circles in a patternlike grid, criss-crossing the capital city as you approached the airport, but ominously, from the vantage point of several thousand feet, the lights ended abruptly at many points all across the horizon, like some sort of military perimeter. Past that, there was only a complete velvet darkness.

But from your taxi, the Kinshasa from the ground during daytime was a wonderland of life.

On the ride from the airport you mainly zipped through developed areas, ones that involved concrete. There were no mud huts. Mobutu had seen to that. Kinshasa on the surface evoked a small European city, complete with wide boulevards that bore revolutionary names—the central Boulevard Trente-juin, among others—and on the ground you would have felt that you might be in any small city of Belgium, except that the inhabitants were all black and most did not not wish to participate in this grand illusion.

Indeed, as your taxi swept past the banks of trees on the highway you felt as though all this was temporary, as if this human encroachment were merely the whim of a laughing god that had, for whatever reason, decided to permit it . . . for the time being.

And then, finally, there was home on Avenue Lippens. The taxi pulled into the drive of the white colonial mansion and you gazed at the decaying building that was where you lived while you put out your second cigarette and fumbled for the local currency, aptly named Zaïres, worth about two dollars each at the time, to pay the waiting driver.

And then you walked from the car, dragging your two small suitcases, up to the steps that led onto the terrace. There, under the portico in their easy chairs, smoking and reading the newspaper, were your parents.

Barkitecture

I loved Paris: the whole Napoleon III/Haussmann hallucinatorium. Unfortunately, Paris is also the possessor of (easily) the most hideous architectural mistake on the planet.

I’d never previously been made queasy just by looking at a building, but in this case . . .

The architects should have been guillotined on the spot.

World's Most Expensive Cookbook?

My eyes almost popped out of my head when I looked at the price on this 144-page cookbook.

$402.17 from amazon.de! (that's the currency exchange if you do a search for "The Food of Burma: Authentic Recipes" on bookfinder.com). Apparently it is one of only four available on any Amazons anywhere.

Considering that others from the same series are going for as low as $4.99, this must be one hell of a cookbook.

Something You Should Know Before You Get One

If you strapped the engine of an F-14 to your family car, you could go from zero to 140 miles per hour in one second.

Cozy Little 4-bedroom Starter Home? I'll Take it

Construction: Wood Framed
Foundation: Stone
Square Feet: 1530+/-approx.square feet
Lot Size: Double
Roof: Shingle
Siding: Wood
Beds: 4
Baths: 1
Heating: Gas Hot Water
Water/Sewer: Village
Garage Size: 14 x 24
Number of Floors: 1 1/2
Age: 75+

What's your guess? $250,000? $300,000? $750,000?

Try $39,000.