7-Layer Nachos

Ingredients:
3 cups shredded iceberg lettuce
1 16 oz. can vegetarian refried beans
1-1/2 cups prepared salsa
1 cup prepared guacamole
8 oz. low-fat or fat-free sour cream
1 Tbsp. mild chili powder
1-2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
sliced black olives for garnish

Instructions:
Spread lettuce in an even layer in a deep-dish pie plate, gratin dish or serving bowl.
Spread refried beans over lettuce. (Hint: To make the beans easier to spread, transfer them to a microwave-safe container, and heat on high for 20 seconds.)
Top with salsa, then guacamole.
Stir together sour cream and chili powder. Spread over the guacamole layer.
Sprinkle cheddar cheese over the sour cream layer. Dot with sliced black olives.

Serve with tortilla chips.

(Recipe is an adaptation from a dish my Uncle Brad regularly brings to family get-togethers. It rawks!)

Even a deadly earthquake in Haiti didn’t stop the world from learning that Conan got the shaft from NBC. He didn’t get a fair shake and no one was oblivious to this; at the very least, NBC should have stuck to their original deal of giving Conan et. al a year to establish themselves in their new time slot. Jay Leno’s ratings started shaky when he took the reins from Johnny Carson in 1992, and it took several months before his show hit its stride. Why did NBC give Jay a chance and not do the same for Conan?

Well, think about it. Jay Leno took over The Tonight Show after 30 years of Johnny. Of course Jay was going to start off with crappy ratings, regardless of how good those early shows might have been; He succeeded the King of Late Night, for cryin’ out loud! Letterman would have struggled just as much – and so would have anyone else, for that matter. No one can (and ever will) fill Johnny’s shoes.

Conan didn’t face the task of following a comedy legend as big as Johnny. Despite that, it is notable that Jay still held his own in the 17 years he hosted the show. He kept NBC happy by leading Letterman in the ratings and holding the numbers steady until the very end. Jay may not be a comedy legend in my opinion, but he is good in his own rite. I see Jay as the ultimate general audience comic. He has just a little something for everybody and therefore his audience range is broad. In other words, even if you don’t completely like the guy, he’ll still pull a laugh out of you before the night is over.

In contrast, Conan is edgier with a more risque style of comedy. This appealed to people in my then-teenage and early twentysomething generation because we were growing up in the mid ’90s – an “anything goes” era, as I remember it – and the crazier you were, the better. The fact that Conan wasn’t quite as mainstream of a comic as Jay was part of his appeal to people my age, and we couldn’t help but fall for characters like the Masturbating Bear and Gaseous Wiener. We couldn’t get enough out of the live via satellite “interviews” with topical characters and the “If They Mated” skit. We ate it up! We stayed up late just for our nightly dose of goofy shenanigans.

So when it was announced in 2004 that Conan would inherit The Tonight Show in 2009, I was ecstatic. I figured he would rock the house down every night (and he did on his last show, as a matter of fact). And yes, I thought Conan would do a better Tonight Show than Jay. But I was (and am) a fan of Conan. Not everyone is. And Conan’s appeal is to a more specific crowd than Jay. Add this to nervous NBC execs, and you get a shitty spur-of-the-moment decision, which as we all know was exactly what happened.

Conan’s come out of this a hero. Whatever he does next, it will be revered. It’s Jay who looks like the bad guy. He’s been the butt of countless jokes and now faces the task of reigniting The Tonight Show after a widely unpopular decision. Take note that it wasn’t Jay who made this decision, but the execs who have let Jay take all the blame. Strangely enough, Jay seems okay with this, and I think it’s his absence of standing up to the bigwigs that is pissing people off. Why would Jay be so agreeable with these assholes if he hadn’t wanted The Tonight Show back all along? That greedy bastard.

Because, people, it’s not just about him.  It’s part of the reason why Conan didn’t leave quietly. Jay could have settled his contract for a hefty sum, just as Conan did. The thing is, Jay has more longevity on his side. Buying Jay and his staff out of their contracts would have cleaned NBC out. NBC knows that and Jay knows that. By moving Jay et. al back to The Tonight Show, Jay’s staff isn’t left scrambling for work, NBC isn’t bankrupt, and NBC feels that it has a chance of winning its loyal audience back.

That, unfortunately, is where NBC is wrong. They set themselves – not Jay – up for failure. No matter how good The Tonight Show is when it returns on March 1, it will not win back all its fans. Too many people are pissed at the way this whole fiasco happened. NBC will ultimately have to own up to its poor decisions by suffering in the ratings – the very thing that started all this shit in the first place. Jay will pay in the short-term either with eventual failure himself or waiting out a turbulent period of criticism and poor viewership until this series of unfortunate events is erased from the short-term memory of the American public. Either way, Jay is just another pawn – much like Conan – in NBC’s game of lousy management. The thing is, Jay knows this and that’s why he’s putting up with it. It’s business. Regardless of the end result, Jay will also come out of this a winner – either in the form of a second long reign of hosting The Tonight Show, or going down with a sinking ship and taking NBC for all it has when they fire him, too. It’s NBC that’s screwed, not Jay. If you wanna point a finger, at least point it in the right direction.

Ingredients:
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 whole egg (or egg replacer equivalent)

Instructions:
In a medium bowl, beat peanut butter and sugar together.  Then add the egg and mix until completely blended.

Roll dough into 12 1″ balls and place them on a nonstick or greased cookie sheet. Optional: Create a crosscross pattern with the tongs of a fork and sprinkle the tops of the cookies with sugar (see picture).

Bake at 350°F degrees for about 12-15 minutes or until golden brown at the bottom.

(Recipe from cooks.com)

Today…

- It is January 1, 2010.
- I am twenty eight years old.
- I am a full-time student at work part time at UW’s Student Media.
- I drive a 2004 Honda Civic.
- I live in Laramie with my guys, Patrick and Teddy.
- Barack Obama is president of the U.S.
- I am happily married.
- I was actively eating disordered from early 2001- late 2005. It’s been in remission since, but the thoughts never disappear. I suspect they never will.
- I drink diet soda, and lots of it.
- The war in Iraq has been making headlines almost daily since 2003 – and it’s still going.
- I don’t think I could live without cable Internet and WiFi.
- I have seen several Avalanche games, the most notable being game 7 of round 2 of the 2001 Stanley Cup playoffs and the night the Avs retired Patrick Roy’s jersey in 2003.
- I have flown several times, most recently to Phoenix in December.
- I feel dumber, slower and less decisive than I did at about half of my current age. I miss that fearless feeling of knowing that somehow, everything will be okay because I can handle whatever comes my way. The more I live, the less sure I am of that, and yet the challenges are greater.
- I own an iPhone and think it’s the best techy gadget I’ve bought…maybe ever.
- The Internet would be much less exciting without multiple logins on Facebook throughout the day, amusing YouTube videos, and Twittering useless details about life.
- I have one cat, Sir Teddy H. Bear. Misty died in 2006. Lilly is still kickin’, but she lives with my mom, dad and sister.
- We have endured 9/11, economic decline, President George W. Bush, and horrible top 40 music in the last decade, but we’ll be picking up the pieces from these events for some time.
- Let’s not forget the men and women that have left us over the last decade.
- I rang in the new year with Patrick and Teddy. We had a quite and somewhat uneventful celebration, but it was still wonderful.

Here’s to the next 10 years!

In celebration of this glorious new beginning, I offer this graphic. Pause for a moment and take in that amazing artistry. No? It’s okay, I didn’t, either. Click the image for a full-size version that will make lovely wallpaper for your desktop.

Cartman’s interpretation is a little different.

So this is how Santa got his kiddie porn back in the day.

Speaking of creepy perverts, here is a classic from Mr. Garrison.

And now for a little nostalgia: Christmas commercials from 1983. I particularly like the AT&T “phones of the future.”

As a child of the ’90s, I remember far too many of these. Take note of how many of these ads are for fucking McDonald’s.

Nothing says “Merry Christmas” to your friends and loved ones like a good smoke.

What would Christmas be without overdone (but completely awesome) light shows?

The info for this video says,

Our LauderdaleChristmas.com 65,000 LED Christmas lights display, shot with my Canon Vixia HF10 using my own custom settings. Our display is energy saving 100% LEDs, with 144 channels from 9 computerized lighting controllers. I act as orchestrater, tell the lights when to turn on or off, fade, twinkle, etc. An MP3 player inside the controller plays the music and controls the lights according to your programmed orchestration. We transmit it to people’s cars radio via a low power transmitter on unused 100.9 FM.

I can’t tell if these people are awesome or complete douchebags.

And finally, a classic. This was one of the first YouTube crazes back in the day, and it still kicks loads of ass.

to you and yours, including the relatives you can’t stand from the moment you see them.

For the cupcakes:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 teaspoons Ener-G egg replacer powder
2 tablespoons water
1 3/4 cups nondairy milk (I used Rice Dream)
1/2 cup water, divided
1/2 cup nondairy butter, softened
1 1/2 cups vegan cane sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2  cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Farenheit. Lightly grease standard muffin tins or fill the muffin cups with cupcake liners.

In a food processor or by hand, whip the egg replacer powder and water until it’s smooth and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the nondairy milk and 1/4 cup of the water.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and the remaining 1/4 cup water, and beat well to thoroughly combine.

In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add this, along with the egg replacer/milk mixture, to the butter/sugar combination. Beat until combined.

Fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Make sure the cupcakes have cooked completely before frosting.

For the icing:

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons vegan shortening
1 tablespoon vegan butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons nondairy milk
3/4 cup to 1 cup powdered sugar
Optional: food coloring

Instructions:
In a bowl or measuring cup, combine the shortening and butter. Add the vanilla and nondairy milk, and mix well.

Slowly add the powdered sugar until it reaches the consistency you want. Add food coloring if desired.

If you don’t have a cake decorating bag, you can put the frosting in a plastic Ziploc bag and cut a tiny hole in one of the corners.

(Cupcake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. Icing recipe from VegWeb.com)

How nice that you stopped in Laramie once again during your Winter 2009 tour. I’m sure some people appreciate that, but I’m not one of them. See, a major holiday called Thanksgiving is coming up – surely you have heard of it – and my husband and I will be among the millions around the country traveling before the big day so we can spend it with family and friends.

Making it home this year is so important to me that I’m willing to compromise, even though I’d rather harm you with physical violence. Sound good? Here’s the deal. You have all the fun you want with my region of the world today, but just for today. You wreak as much havoc as you like and make everyone’s lives miserable, but only today. After that, I expect temperatures warm enough so that the roads melt in time for Thanksgiving travel. YOU WILL NOT FUCK THIS UP FOR ME, GOT IT?

Now go forth, have your fun, and then play somewhere else.

Sincerely,

Charlynn

President of Winter Haters, LLC.

Repeat ad nauseam.

Rude gum chewers are my greatest pet-peeve of all time.

If I can see you chewing your gum, you’re being rude. WTF are you, a cow? Close that mouth and pretend you’re civilized!

If I can hear you chewing your gum, again, you should probably close your fucking mouth. I don’t wanna hear the sounds that come from your mouth as you manipulate your gum into bubbles that everybody within a five-mile radius can hear as you snap.

Why is this so hard for so many people? And why must my ears be tuned so that I hear every single one of these fuckers wherever I go? If I ever end up killing someone, don’t be surprised if the person I murder was chewing gum just before the time of death.