Mr Furious Heartily Endorses…

ARCHER FARMS™ APPLE STREUSEL PANCAKE MIX
Run, don't walk, to Target and buy a box of this mix and whip up the greatest pancakes you've ever tasted. I'm not kidding around. They make my customized Bisquick apple pancakes taste like a damn joke. So good they don't even need syrup. I divided the mix and we split the box over two mornings...

"FAST GLASS"
In the parlance of photography that means a lens with a wide aperture that allows for a faster exposure and also gives you a really shallow depth of field. I bought one as an early Xmas gift for our trip to Disney last month, and I have been going crazy with it. The pancake shots are taken with it. I love the look of the focus rapidly falling away and having things in the background blurry...Great for still-lifes and portraits in particular. If you have a Nikon or Canon digital SLR you can buy a 50mm f/1.8 fixed (non-zoom) lens for about a hundred bucks. Best photography-related money you'll ever spend.

WHITE TRASH
The most addictive snack concoction known to man. Our neighbors have made this and delivered a bag every year—until this year. I was really looking forward to it, but it failed to materialize for some reason*...so we took matters into our own hands. We made our own. A double batch. When we had eaten approximately nine pounds each in about an hour, we decided we better get rid of it. So, we brought a tin to Christmas dinner at Mrs F's brother's (where Mrs F and myself proceeded to devour almost all of it) so when we returned home we bagged up the rest and left on neighbors' stoops.

Mrs Furious has the recipe in the comments here.

* when Mrs F delivered our bag to the neighbors who introduced this crack to the 'hood, they confessed that they had made it, but eaten all of it before they could give it away—You cannot fucking stop. It's that good.

USING A PET-SAFE ICE MELTER
This is a no-brainer if you are a dog-owner, but even if you aren't, one of your neighbors probably is. If you put salt down on the sidewalk it can burn a dog's paws, or sicken them if they ingest it. Plus it's bad for everything—plants, grass, kids, water runoff... Ditch the old-school salt for SafePaw™, PetSafe™ or similar products.

Happy Thanksgiving

“Thanksgiving—Conversation” by the incomparable Chris Ware. The full series here.

Holiday Linkage:

Rickey’s Tips for Having a Keen Time This Thanksgiving "Most importantly, don’t get weird with the stuffing. Cornbread stuffing is stretching things far enough. If you venture into the realm of potato latke stuffing or oyster stuffing, then you, friend, are a jackass. You know what kind of stuffing Rickey likes? Normal fucking stuffing. The kind that comes in a plastic bag and says “Pepperidge” on it."

Digby reminds us of what happened on Nov 22 a long time ago... Something tells me that if this happened today, we'd be under martial law by sundown.

Via BoingBoing, get creative when peeling your potatoes today...

Tacoby Bellsbury

You better believe I was collecting on the free taco. Thanks Jacoby!

Resting On My Laurels

So, here I am feeling all good about myself for riding my bicycle to work, and losing ten pounds, but the truth is, I'm really have another ten to lose, and I've been stuck in the mid-170s for probably a month or more. And now we head straight into the toughest stretch of the year: cold weather (less biking) plus Halloween, birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas (more chowing) equals return to Huskyville...

The state of my complacency was brought to vivid light with this morning's bit of trivia from Mrs. Furious: with her steady erosion down to a fantastic 113 pounds, I now weigh more than the rest of my family combined.

By one pound.

Did I mention I have two kids? At least it doesn't include the dog.

Future weigh-ins will take place at the playground. On the see-saw. Mrs, Kid and Baby F on the other end...which way does it go?

BONUS: Searching for the photo yielded this funny post.

->sniff<- I Am So Proud!

My better half has joined the blogosphere... Introducing Mrs. Furious.

Rachel wouldn't tell me anything about the blog (name or even subject matter), and it took me the whole day to find it. God, and it was SO obvious! So much for my career in Computer Forensics or Private Investigations. Hell, so much for rudimentary deductive abilities.

Rookie Mistake: "I'm hoping NOT to spend as much time on this as Matt spends on his..."

We'll see.

Mr Furious Heartily Endorses...

Neal Pollack I've stumbled across Pollack before, but in his new "cool guy struggling with fatherhood" persona, I've found a soul mate. Not that I think I'm so cool or anything, just that I find his blog absolutely hilarious, and Mrs. Furious and I are taking turns slogging through his book "Alternadad." Funny enough that I actually can't read it while holding a sleeping baby without waking her up. Thanks a lot, Neal.

Whole Foods 365 Everyday Vanilla Sandwich Cookies Quite simply the finest sandwich cookie ever baked. Or assembled. Whatever. Just the right consistancy, cookie/filling ratio, with the slight saltiness that ensures you eat like five at a time. More, if you have milk.

Iced Coffee Nectar of the gods. We've finally mastered the process of having it constantly available at home (which means me remembering to brew a pot, sweeten it while it's hot and put it in the fridge before I go to bed), and Michigan seems to finally have caught up to the East Coast and you can actually find it on the menu(board). For the first few years we lived out here, people behind the counter would look at me like I just asked for a glass of dishwater, and thusly confused would offer to "put some ice in the coffee?" No, jackass. That just results in a watery, melty coffee-ish broth that sucks. Iced coffee is brewed strong (accounting for ice meltage) and served cold (or room temp) over ice. And if you are a place as good as Naidre's you offer Simple Syrup as a sweetener. Few things make me miss Park Slope more than iced coffee...

This Thermal Mug I don't remember the manufacturer, but that link tells you where to get it. I am astonished how well insulated this thing is. I come back to my car after hours in the summer sun, and there is still ice in the thing. Around the house, your aforementioned iced coffee stays cold and not-watered down forever. Fantastic.

Taco Bell Grilled Steak Taquitos Is there such a thing in Mexico? Who knows and who cares. These suckers are good, cheap and relatively healthy for fast food. They are a lunch standard for me when I run out of the office. In fact, look for me in the Taco Bell parking lot in about ten minutes...

THE JURY'S STILL OUT...
Bose TriPort OE Headphones I got frustrated finding a place that had the Sennheisers I wanted, and just bought these at Target when we had a coupon, and while they are worlds better than the buds that came with my iPod, they don't seem as good as the Bang & Olufsens I returned at Christmas... These cans are a bit too heavy in the bass, and the controls for that are tough with the iPod. Yesterday the exceptionally-produced "Diamonds On the soles of Her Shoes" by Paul Simon came on and they sounded great, but at other times things get muddy. they look great, are collapsible and compact, and I love the cloth cord which is much less prone to tangling, but I still can't give them a total thumbs up (or down) yet.

Mr. Furious Heartily Endorses…

Ecover dishwashing powder. Freaking fantastic stuff. I am in charge of the dishes in the Furious household, and I've used just about every kind of dishwashing product both for washing in the sink and using the dishwasher*. In most cases, using the ecologically-sound product involves a compromise of some measure. Not with this stuff. Not only is it the best "green" dishwashing product I've used, it's the best dishwashing product period. Better than anything else I've tried.

Seventh Generation diapers. Just about as good as Huggies (and for the record, Huggies kick ass on Pampers). We still wrap Charlotte's butt in a Huggies for the overnight, [UPDATE: We were just using up the Huggies, it's now all-7th Gen all the time.] but for all-day use? Go with the unbleached, earth-friendlier Seventh Generation diapers.

Triple Delicious Pie Finest dessert ever created. Made for me annually by Mrs. Furious in lieu of a birthday cake. Luckily, my birthday (this past Monday) coincides with the rhubarb season. Topped with vanilla ice cream, accompanied by a cold glass of milk…this pie might be the food event of the year for me. I savor it all week.

Coming soon: Headphone recommendations. My birthday items (one a gift, one a purchase) include a pair of upgrade headphones for use with the iPod, and a pair of wireless headphones for watching tv on the treadmill—which after this week's pie-fest, will come in handy. I am in the midst of auditioning contenders for the coveted spots in the Furious musical and television-viewing empire.

* What Mr. Furious does NOT endorse is the ridiculous "AnyWare™" silverware basket in his otherwise-excellent Whirlpool. A nice idea on paper, the best place to put it is hanging precariously on the front of the main rack, waiting to get ripped off by anyone but me who opens the washer. And it's convenient opening side is much too loose and tends to release my clean silverware on the floor on it's way to the drawer...