Out For A Few Days

Hey guys, if you're wondering why there hasn't been any new posts in the past few days, I'm getting ready to head out. So unfortunately, there's not going to be any new posts for a week or so.

For the new people stumbling upon here, JUST BOOKMARK and check back in a week. We'll have some fun stuff up to read and oogle over.

-Thomas

Comical Crista Flanagan In Playboy

It's For Dad Female of the Day: Crista Flanagan

You probably recognize her from comical roles or various nurse roles. She's known mostly from the various character skits on MAD TV and is currently staring in Mad Men as Lois Sadler.

Crista isn't normally considered the super hot bombshell that you would go out of your way to check out, but she's got kind of a nice girl look about her. Someone you can just walk up to and have an unpretentious conversation. Someone like that is usually the type where you have the most fun with.

The cover is a remake tribute to an old April 1969 cover with Sharon Kristie on the cover. The new Playboy is out now on stands. Go take a peak.

Give Her Your Old Underwear Briefs For A Sports Bra

You know times are tough now with the economy and unemployment is around the 10% mark. Money is a little tight, so you got to get creative sometimes. Your wife/girlfriend/sister wants to keep working out and stay in shape. Recycled items for gifting are the green thing to do these days. So dig in your underwear drawer and give them the gift of your old underwear and show them this video.

iPhone DSLR Camera Lens Mount

I enjoy my Canon DSLR and it's a fun hobby of mine that I enjoy. Since DSLRs are big and bulky, I have my backup pocket camera to carry when I want to go light. I don't use my pocket camera as much anymore since my Android phone doubles as an excellent camera. Since I have my phone with me all the time, I have my camera too!

So why would someone need this? Doesn't it defeat the purpose of getting a DSLR to begin with? Yes and no. I can see the practical side of it, and the new iPhone has an excellent camera. Sometimes you just need that extra zoom telephoto reach. However because of the bulk of it, you're really not saving much space if you bring along the camera body as well. You just save the weight of carrying it and save yourself the fear of damaging the camera body.

If someone thought it would fill a purpose they needed, I'm sure there's others out there that can see the benefits of it also.

Check out his blog for more information on iPhoneDSLR

Different Meat Week - Frog Legs

image zorbs

Today we are going to eat Kermit's little legs...well, actually not his legs, but frog legs. Finding frog legs in the city isn't so hard, because I know they carry them in the Asian grocery stores, and most major cities have a "Chinatown" even if it's not necessarily only Chinese stores there.

I picked up a few packs of frozen frog legs the same time I grabbed the rabbit that I covered a few days ago. They came in a vacuumed sealed tray like the picture above. Again, given the choice, I wish I could get fresh frog legs, but I doubt they would have any around here. I'd probably have to go to the Southern states and I'm sure there would be fresh frog legs I could get. There's got to be frog farms around there.

I have had frog legs many times, and the last time I had it was at a Chinese buffet restaurant about 2 years ago where they had them battered and deep fried. I could've just eaten skinless battered chicken wing drumlettes and had a similar flavor.

Since deep frying will probably just hide the natural flavor, I threw a few in some boiling water and tried it that way. I have to say it's not very great, but not overly bad. Initially it's just bland light chicken with a soft texture, but then you can detect a wet grassland essence. Probably a better description would be steamed carp taste, and to repeat I said "carp" like the fish, not crap! :-)

I brought some frog legs to my friends BBQ earlier in the year just to try them out and see how they do on a grill. Some of the guys became squeamish little girls, and the other half were curious to see how they turn out. They don't BBQ well, because the meat is lean and delicate, and the heat dried out the meat and the legs shrank. Maybe that's why it's not offered grilled over an open fire!

image jauladeardilla

One of the tried and true ways is to put a light batter or flour coating and throw them in the oil. I've had it this way many times, so it's kind of a no-brainer to cook it this way. Added some zesty herbs and mild crushed red peppers, coated it with flour, and that was it. Fried them up in my Presto Cool Daddy electric fryer and had some awesome frog legs.

image Dionysius

I enjoy sauteed frog legs just as much as fried frog legs. Choosing one over the other is when I'm feeling a little more gourmet dinning is in order. Frog meat lends itself to sauteing very well, as it's a light meat that can pick up the flavors of whatever you cook it in. You can still detect the natural flavors of the frog meat, but unlike deep frying which changes the flavor, sauteing is more like adding or enhancing the flavor of the frog meat. A quick simple way to cook them this way is just to cook it in butter, add some cooking wine if you prefer, and basically sprinkle any herbs, spices, salt/pepper. It's the basics and then add whatever you feel like adding, like fruits or veggies. I even tried some with ground cinnamon and apricots.

You may hear it all the time that frog legs taste like chicken. It initially does, but you'll soon detect the delicate frog taste. Most of the packages I've seen state they are all farm raised, however if you get your hands on some wild frogs, it's going to taste pretty strong like whichever lake or swamps they came from. In short, it's swampy chicken!

Kermit says: Bon appetite!

image purpleslog

Pink P!nk - Saucey Singer

It's For Dad's Female of the Day: Alecia Beth Moore aka Pink (or P!nk)

I thought her first few songs were okay and she was pretty cool looking with her pink hair. I like spunky girls with a little attitude. Although the act got old and annoying quick.

She's not that sexy (anymore) and honestly, I think she's a little on the manlier facial features. Maybe it's the jawline or nose, or the combination of the two. I don't know.

So why am I picking her for my Female of the Day? Well, with the previous post of her getting flung into the metal railing during her concert in Germany, she deserves some praise and recognition for trying to continue for her fans. That's very admirable!

Now this picture makes her look like Avril Lavigne with those smokey racoon eyes. I don't really like see girls posing in an autoshop. Maybe it's just my association with grease and the stench of automotive fluids. I use to love working on cars, but I was always dirty and covered in oil. So to see girls there, the automotive grime isn't very appealing with trying to match it up with a hot picture of a female. However the picture above works for me!

You can check out Pink's official website at Pinkpage.com

Singer Pink Falling Off Stage

Pink or P!nk, or however it’s spelled, had an equipment failure and from what I can tell, her stupid stage dancers that was suppose to strap the harness on correctly simply didn’t do it right and launched her into the metal railings. LOL. Idiots!

Sorry if I’m offending anyone, as I’m not a fan of hers and couldn’t tell you what her latest songs are. I do however commend her for her brave fan service act that just didn’t go according to plan. I’m sure it would’ve been cool to see her sail above the fans. I also commend her for her for trying to continue the performance for her fans!

iPhone 4 Band-Aid Fix

So this is their solution to the iPhone 4 reception problem? Everyone gets free iPhone bumbers or cases? I was never a fan of cases and see my phone as a disposable item, albeit an expensive disposable phone device, so I really hated the cases they offered for all the phones I've had.

I'm naturally extremely careful with my phone and never had issues with ruining it, dropping it, or scratching it. It's a tech device afterall and it's basically junk in a few years. How much would someone pay to buy my old Motorola Startac? I might actually have to pay them to take it!

However if you are one of those people that protect their phones with bumpers or cases, then this is good win for you. I really think Apple and Steve Jobs knew about it and was hoping to make a few extra bucks off you and EXPECTED you to buy their bumpers or cases. Unfortunately the backlash was too much and it didn't go their way. Oh well.

Free cases for everyone, so go get it before the September 30th deadline!

Different Meat Week - Venison

image sifu renka

It sucks living in the city sometimes. The drawbacks if you are an adventurous meat eater is you won't usually find fresh wild meat. The last time I truly had fresh wild game meat was when I was in my early 20's. My Mom's friend went hunting and gave us a few cuts of the deer he shot. It was great while it lasted, as our fridge and freezer was filled with deer meat. That's what I'm going to cover today, deer meat, or more commonly called venison.

All I can find is frozen stuff that was most likely farm raised and lack any really natural and raw taste of wild meat. Got it at my local specialty store, and it was just frozen venison medallions tightly sealed. Yuck! But that's the trade offs when you live in the city. It's very pricey and comes out to around $15 a pound.

Thawed that piece of venison in the fridge two days before before I cut it open. Nothing really initially special about it other than the smell of thawed meat with a stronger smell of minerals. No noticeable marbling of the meat, but that is to be expected as venison is a lean meat. That's why you usually see bacon or some other dark sauce accompany it to give it some fatty taste.

I cook it in one of my favorite quick ways and it's to pan fry it in a cast iron skillet. Sear that baby up, hear the sizzle with some grapeseed oil and a little dash of salt and we're good to go. It gives a nice flavorful outside, while keeping the insides medium rare for the most natural flavors.

image mezzoblue

I ate one of the medallions without adding anything other than the salt and oil I sprinkled on it. It's actually very good and has a slight noticeable difference that you know it's not beef. It's got a more robust and stronger taste, so it's easy to eat this and pair it with a strong drink like red wines or dark ales. The taste isn't gamey or minerally like a wild deer that Uncle Rufus just shot, so it's not like you licked a penny, but maybe like the smell of a few pennies on the dinner table if that makes any sense.

The other medalions, I just sliced and poured some wine and fruit jam glaze over it. The rosemary added a nice sense to the dish and was a nice compliment. Amazing how much more effort I will put into the presentation when I spent a lot of money for an expensive piece of meat. I'm sure a dish like this at some upper mid-end restaurant would easily charge me $25.

I keep mentioning being a city person, because my friend Eric would tell me stories of how his dad use to shoot deer all the time when he was a kid. Notice I said shoot and not hunt. He lived in the backwoods area and they had deer just walking around the front of their house many times, and back then it, you could shoot them without much thought. They had venison all the time!

The question right now is, would I spend this much again to get the same quality I got? Most likely not, as I would just get a nice fresh beef cut and enjoy it more, and have a bigger serving. Like any novel dish for a city person, it's just one of those things you have to try occasionally.

Soooo....do you need a little venison snack? I'm kidding :)

Oksana Grigorieva - Mel Gibson Is Yelling At

It's for Dad Female of the Day: Oksana Grigorieva

She's the one you've been hearing in the news lately about Mel Gibson's yelling and scolding her, and unfortunately was beating her up (allegedly).

Oksana Grigorieva is a pianist, singer and songwriter. She was the one Mel Gibson was cheating with when he was married to his former wife. Mel Gibson and Oksana have a child together, which she had late last year. It's a daughter named Lucia.

I'm not sure what the hell is up with Mel Gibson, and supposedly he's always been some ranting angry guy yelling racial slurs to everyone around him. Who knows really. When shit happens, it happens and it all comes out. Puts new meaning to the his movie Mad Max.

Well enough of him! Oksana the sexy pianist is our Female of the Day!

Droid X Phone for $150

The new Verizon Droid X from Motorola phone came out yesterday at $199.99 with a new 2 year contract. LetsTalk.com has the phone slightly cheaper at $149.99. I'm not sure long the promotion will last, but if you are going to get the new Droid X, might as well save a few extra dollars. The deal also comes with free shipping!

LetsTalk.com Droid X

Different Meat Week - Rabbit Meat

image scaredy kat

"Wascally Wabbit!" The infamous words of Elmer Fudd who wanted to eat Bugs Bunny so badly, he did anything and everything he could possibly do. I still remember the one episode that Bugs Bunny felt so bad that he ended up dinning with Elmer Fudd. Ahhh...the childhood memories of Saturday morning cartoons.

Well, today, we are going to eat rabbit! The bad news is I have to eat frozen rabbit, as there is no way to get fresh rabbit in the city unless I go to the pet store and pay effectively $30 for a little bunny. The rabbit I was able to find was at a large Chinese grocery store. They had a few in the frozen section. It was just wrapped in cellophane and was about $5 a pound. Kind of expensive if you ask me, but it's such a novelty, as there isn't many places to find rabbit already butchered.

I let it thaw overnight and the meat stayed pretty much in the same shape as they wrapped it, which looks like the picture above. I split it down the middle, so I can have one side cooked one way and the other side cooked in a stew. Elmer Fudd really wanted some rabbit stew, so I'm going to do it the same way.

The meat looks like chicken, and is a white meat, but it's much leaner than chicken. There isn't a strong smell, but that's not a fair assessment as I didn't get it fresh. I was told the wild rabbits, have a much gamier smell and woodsy taste, just like any wild animal. I could eat chicken from the store, or eat wild pheasants and it's a very noticeable difference. *sigh* growing up and living in the city does have it's downsides.

The first half of the rabbit, I just cooked it on the BBQ grill on low heat. Put some oil on it, sprinkled some salt and pepper when it was cooking and that's it. I wanted to preserve the taste of rabbit in it's most natural form. The reason I cooked it on the grill is to kind of mimic all the movies where you see the guy catching a rabbit then cooking over his campfire. It's cooked at it's most basic form.

image jaywood

The rabbit I got must be farm raised rabbits. Not sure if they could sell wild rabbits in the stores. There isn't much of a wild gamey flavor. The texture is soft and also a little stringy. It's like chicken and turkey thighs. I'm trying to ignore the BBQ grill taste, and it's very much like chicken, but there is a sweetness to it.

The other half of the rabbit, I just made a stew, like how you would make chicken soup, but thicker. I tried not to overpower the flavors with too much herbs and spices. Maybe that's where I went wrong, and should've made it thinner like a chicken noodle soup. I honestly couldn't tell if I was eating just regular chicken at $0.99 cents a pound or rabbit at $5 a pound as far as taste is concerned. The only thing to give it away was the chopped pieces of rabbit, and how you had to work a little bit more to get it off the meat.

Next time, I'm just going to set up a campfire when I go camping, pull out my frozen rabbit, and try to get the full effect of cooking it over an open fire for the full city slicker in the woods effect. I'm sure it will be so good and flavorful!

image madeline

Different Meat Week - Goat Goodness

image David Blaine

Goat, chevon, mutton, billy, kids or whatever you call these animals, it's a very good meat to try when the cost of lamb might be out of your budget. Goats that a less than a year old, are known as "kids". So if you get a young goat to eat, you can tell your friends you eat kids!

I don't recall seeing these at the general supermarkets, but I know these can easily be found at most ethnic stores or commonly found in grocery stores that cater to the Spanish or Mexican buyers. Rather than waste time driving around looking for some goat meat, I just headed to my local Mexican carniceria meat market. Got some fresh goat! Woohoo!!! Although looking at goat steaks, it kind of reminds me of pork chops as you can see from the picture above.

The meat is a pretty lean meat and much leaner than chicken, and has a higher protein content than beef. I got mostly what I think was shoulder cuts. Not sure what I was really getting other than I asked the Mexican guy behind the counter, who didn't really speak English, if I can get some "chivo" which is Spanish for goat.

Goat can have a really gamey smell sometimes, and I'm not sure if that's because it's older meat, or the diet the goat has been eating, or if it's the section of the goat where the meat is cut from.

Gamey meat doesn't bother me, and I pan fried one of the pieces and just added a little salt and pepper. I wanted to get the flavor of the meat at it's most natural state and this was one of the quickest ways to do it. It was a little tough to chew, but not overly chewy. Sometimes, I thought I kind of look like the goats themselves as I was chewing the meat. The flavor is a strong flavor of gamey lamb and beef, and might be too strong for some people.

image alvxyz

The rest of the pieces of goat, I threw them into a stew. It was more like a tomato based stew. I'm sure there's a name for that type, but it escapes me at this time. I just know how to make it, and call it "stew". I decided to try it this way to see if I can get some of the strong flavors out and tenderize the meat. The meat was able to break apart with just a spoon, but the meat by this time wasn't anything that really stood out. I think the tomato acids and the herbs canceled most of the distinct flavors out, although slightly still detectable to tell you that you aren't eating beef.

I think goat is an excellent meat to try. I do recall now seeing this labeled as mutton in the major grocers, but they weren't very appealing looking and seemed dried out. Definitely a pass. If you have an ethnic store or Mexican grocer, I would try them first. You're most likely going to get fresher goat meat.

New Droid X Commercial Teaser

Yeah, I know it’s a day late, but it’s still a cool commercial. Whoever Verizon hired to do the marketing and advertising for the Droid phones deserves awards left and right. It’s a little abstract and obscure, but it’s just coolness that appeals to the target male market.

Verizon Droid X Available Today!

Finally this bad boy Android Phone is being released today. With all the problems the iPhone 4 is getting, I'm sure people will want to jump all over this. My friend Juwan is going to be there at the stores tomorrow when they open, and happily ditching his Blackberry. Who can blame the guy?

I would get one too, but unfortunately, I still have another year to go on my phone before my contract is finished. So in the mean time, I'm going to live vicariously through him as he gleefully will unbox it in front of me to make me envious. Bastard!

Here's some specs:

- Carrier: Verizon
- Available: July 15, 2010
- Networks: CDMA 800/1900, EV-DO Rev. A
- Display: 4.3 inch WVGA (854 x 480) touchscreen display
- Camera: 8.0MP autofocus camera with Dual LED Flash; 720p HD video capture, HD Playback via HDMI or DLNA
- Operating system: Android 2.1; updated to Android 2.2
- Input: Virtual keyboard with Swype technology
- CPU: 1GHz processor
- Memory: 8GB onboard memory
- Memory card: microSD/microSDHC
- Storage: 16GB microSD pre-installed
- Connectivity:Wi-Fi, DLNA, A-GPS, HDMI port, 3.5mm headset jack, Bluetooth 2.1with EDR
- Battery: 1540 mAh battery
- Talk Time: up to 480 minutes
- Standby Time: up to 220 hours
- Dimensions: 127.5 x 65.5 x 9.9 mm
- Weight: 155 grams
- Other: WebKit based browser (HTML5); Google Maps with free navigation; 3G Mobile hotspot functionality with support for up to 5 devices, 2GB cap, $20 monthly fee; Adobe Flash Player 10.1

Verizon Wireless Droid X