A couple things I can’t wait to find out:

Will Agent Olivia Dunham keep that horrific new cut and color or will she come to her senses? (Just say NO to those bangs, honey. They don’t suit you.)

Yes:

No:

Will Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) continue to be brooding and hot?

Will the sight of him in jeans continue to mesmerize me? (It’s especially nice from, er, behind, but I couldn’t find a suitable picture.)

Will the black characters on the show continue to be allowed to have personalities, or will they be shoved into the background again?

Will Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo) take off his shirt again??? (Couldn’t find a pic of that, either, but here he is anyway.)

UPDATED: Thanks to Craig, here’s a shirtless pic!

Will September (Michael Cerveris) continue to be the best and awesomest of the Observers? (He’s second from the left. Of course, because he’s visibly better and awesomer than the others.)

Producers and writers of Fringe: I know you’ll make the right decisions. (And if you can’t figure out what the right decisions are, contact me. I’ll set you straight.)

No, you can’t get shitfaced drunk, either!

Or high.

Or make broccoli-butter pasta at midnight and eat too much. AGAIN.

Stop looking at me like that. Bambi eyes will get you nowhere.

Stop!

Oh, all RIGHT. I can never say no to you. Where’s the bourbon and Coke?

Bring broccoli cooking water back to boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Drain, reserving a ladle-full of the cooking water. Mix pasta, mashed broccoli, butter, salt, (pepper) and Parmesan, adding enough reserved cooking water to allow the sauce to nicely coat the pasta. Serve warm.

After ditching Mormonism and then Christianity and finally theism altogether, I was still in that mindset. If people only thought about their beliefs, they’d realize they were logically untenable and they’d abandon them! This also rarely (never) worked.

I am an atheist because there’s no reliable, reasonable evidence for the existence of any kind of god, and there’s plenty of evidence against the existence of specific gods. That’s logic. But it’s not convincing to someone who relies on the warm fuzzy feeling in their chest to decide what’s true.

So I’m done doing that. I’m still gonna blog about what I believe and what matters to me, but no more trying to convince people. Because you know what? I’ve stopped believing that I can touch the center of people who rely on faith for decision-making. That I can reason them out of their belief. Because a belief that isn’t supported by evidence cannot be based on logic, and can’t be reached by reason.

There you go. I stayed up thirty-six hours straight over the past couple days watching an addictive and remarkably illogical TV show called Fringe so I’m not really strong on “reason” or “argument” right this second anyway.

After I calmed down a bit I did the math myself, and it turns out Heather Armstrong was born in 1975, which makes her a little less than five-and-a-half years older than me. It doesn’t seem possible that someone who was born in 1975 would be turning thirty-five this year. I mean, 1975 is RECENT and thirty-five is OLD.

In other, related news, a couple days ago I called home and spoke with my dad about possibly coming home in November so I could be there for my birthday, his birthday and Thanksgiving.

“Do you guys have anything planned for then?” I asked, meaning “Do you have any (i.e., out-of-town, not-going-to-be-home-for-a-visit plans) for that period?”

And my dad looked at my mom’s big calendar where she writes down absolutely everything and he was like, “Nope! The only thing on here is

And then he asked what that horrible strangled, kicked-in-the-gut noise coming from my end of the line was.

Which is all a long way of saying

Some of my older friends (i.e., the ones who are in or past their thirties and are not too happy with my moaning and gurgling that thirty is “the edge of decrepitude”) have tried to reason with me, saying that their thirties are/were their favorite age—not a kid anymore, but not yet an old fart.

My problem isn’t really that thirty feels “old.” I don’t think thirtysomethings are decrepit (or at least I wouldn’t say so to their faces) and I don’t think I’m immediately going to start experiencing joint pain and stiffness and hair loss (who am I kidding? I suffer from all of those already) immediately after my birthday.

But thirty does feel like the end of my life as a kid. I’ve been a kid for years, it seems. Avoiding responsibility, playing and goofing off whenever I wanted to, eating unhealthy food, spending my money on random shit. Thirty-year-olds don’t seem like old fogeys, but they do seem like ADULTS.

And I don’t know if I’m ready to be an adult yet.

[Updated because I apparently cannot do arithmetic of any kind. Like that's a surprise. I'm OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD.]

But it’s home. And that’s something.

P.S. Hey, what do you arty types do with delicate-ish sketches that you don’t want to throw away but don’t want to frame? Like, the pastel drawings that are currently littering the table in my entryway. What would you advise me to do with them? How do I store them? They need to be AWAY. Off the art table. (I specifically need suggestions that won’t cost much. I’m poor.)

P.P.S. I’m a little drunk and I love you guys. OKAY? I LOVE YOU GUYS. LEMME JUST GIVE YOU ALL A HUG OKAY

A note: if your comment ever fails to appear on the site—or if the CAPTCHA malfunctions and you can’t leave a comment at all!—the best thing to do is email me at sean@aloneandunobserved.com and ask me to look into it.

The main rule of thumb of an amazing red sauce is: Simpler Is Better.

Tip #1: Don’t mix garlic and onion. A red sauce is all about clear, clean, distinct flavors. A garlic/onion mix is too heavy and complicated for such a simple sauce.

Tip #2: Olive oil or butter? This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but garlic generally goes best with olive oil and onion goes best with butter.

Tip #3a: Don’t brown the garlic. If you’ve decided to make a garlic-based sauce, begin by placing the minced garlic and the olive oil in a cold saucepan. Gently warm them over low–to–medium-low heat until both are fragrant and the garlic is turning translucent. Add the tomatoes or tomato sauce immediately to keep the garlic from browning and turning bitter.

Tip #3b: Onions are more robust. Melt the butter in the saucepan over medium-low heat, then add the onions and a little salt and cook until soft. Then add the tomatoes or tomato sauce.

Tip #4: Use canned tomatoes or tomato sauces that taste fresh and delicious right out of the can. Red sauce is all about the bright, zingy tomato flavor, which means it’s especially important to choose the right tomato base for your sauce. While there’s no way to know if canned tomatoes or tomato sauce are good without opening the can and tasting them, you can at least improve your chances by looking for brands with short, uncomplicated ingredient labels. Tomatoes, water, salt and citric acid are fine. Sugar, spices and other vegetables are not.

Tip #5: Don’t add sugar. Don’t ever. Just don’t.

Tip #6: Go easy on the herbs. Red sauces are SIMPLE. You do not need more than one herb. Basil, oregano and marjoram are all perfectly good and each will make a red sauce with a particular character, but will cover up the clean flavor of the sauce if used in combination.

Tip #7: Go SIMPLE. You can leave out all of the ingredients except the tomato sauce and the olive oil/butter. That’s right: if your tomatoes are good enough, you don’t need garlic, onion or herbs. Put the tomato sauce in a saucepan, drizzle in some olive oil or plop in a tablespoon of butter, and heat to a simmer.

Tip #8: Go light on the Parmesan. If your pasta is fantastic and your sauce is amazing, it is a crime to drown that flavor under a mountain of salty cheese. That doesn’t mean no Parmesan or Romano, but a light garnish should be plenty.

Go to the Salsa Rossa recipe. Also check out the companion piece, Eight Tips for Cooking Fantastic Italian Pasta for help getting your pasta dish to come out right every time.

Tip #1: Start with high-quality dried pasta. Barilla is always a good bet, but there are other inexpensive imported pastas that are as good or better. Dried pasta keeps for a long time, so don’t be afraid to stock up when your favorite pasta is on sale.

Tip #2: Use a pot that is large enough, and use lots of water. The secret to pasta that cooks evenly and doesn’t stick together is not adding unnecessary ingredients such as olive oil to the cooking water, but simply having enough water for the pasta to move around freely. I try to aim for three times as much water by volume than pasta.

Tip #3: Salt your water liberally! The secret to a flavorful pasta dish is flavorful pasta—and the secret to flavorful pasta is salt in the cooking water. Fill the cooking pot with water, salt it liberally, and then put it on the heat. Once the water is warm (but not hot) and the salt has dissolved, taste it. If it’s not pleasantly salty (like a nice broth), add more salt. You’ll need at least a good handful of kosher salt for a five-quart pot of water, if not more. (Be careful: granulated salt is much more potent than kosher—it’s easy to over- or under-salt recipes if you switch back and forth between the two.)

Tip #4: Cook the pasta at a high enough temperature, and leave the pot uncovered. The other secret to pasta that doesn’t stick together is cooking it a high simmer or low boil. If the water is in motion, the pasta will be, too, and will not be able to stick to the bottom of the pot or to itself. However, if you cover the pot at this temperature, it is guaranteed to boil over. So leave the lid off.

Tip #5: Have your sauce ready before the pasta is done. In the perfect kitchen, every part of the meal comes out at exactly the same time, is assembled in seconds and is on plates and on the table like magic. Do have this as your goal, but realize it will rarely happen this way. It is much easier to keep a sauce warm for a few minutes than it is to keep your pasta from overcooking while the sauce finishes.

Tip #6: Don’t trust the cooking time on the package. Pay attention to your cooking pasta. When you stir it, watch its color and its pliability. Uncooked pasta is stiff, leathery and opaque, while cooked pasta is evenly translucent and flexible. As soon as it starts acting and looking more like cooked pasta than uncooked (so approximately two to three minutes before the shorter cooking time on the box) scoop some out with a fork or a slotted spoon, BLOW ON IT CAREFULLY, and taste it. Continue tasting it every minute until it’s ready to drain.

What is al dente pasta anyway? Perfectly cooked Italian pasta is firm and has a consistent, even texture. It is not crunchy or hard even at the center, but it is also not at all mushy or soft. When you take a bite from a dish of al dente pasta, each strand or piece of pasta will be distinct and will hold up in your mouth as you chew it instead of immediately mushing together into a single mass.

Tip #7: Drain your pasta BEFORE it is al dente. Pasta continues to cook in the colander and the serving dish, so if you drain the pasta when it’s the perfect consistency it will be overcooked by the time you serve it. When you taste your cooking pasta, you are looking for a consistency that is *almost* right, but is still slightly too firm. It shouldn’t be crunchy, but it should be more than al dente. (NOTE: If you are planning on using the pasta in another recipe where it will be cooked further—fried pasta, lasagna or pasta al forno—you should take it out a full two minutes early, when it’s even firmer and more undercooked.)

Tip #8: Use pasta sauce, not oil, to keep your pasta from sticking together in the serving dish. If you plan on dishing out the pasta at the table and then ladling the sauce over it on the plates, you will need to do something to keep the pasta from fusing into a giant mass before you can serve it. Some people toss the pasta with olive oil, which gives it a pretty sheen, but I strongly recommend using a small amount of the pasta sauce instead. Olive oil simply doesn’t work very well for the task, since it is absorbed so readily by the pasta. Also, drizzling cold olive oil on the warm pasta is counterproductive. Instead, ladle a small amount of the pasta sauce into the pasta serving dish and toss it thoroughly. It’s not quite as pretty a solution, perhaps, but it works much better.

Check out the companion piece, Eight Tips for Making Amazing Red Sauce, for more information on making a truly Italian pasta dish.