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Thursday, July 4, 2013

Fringeville #94, July 4 2013

Get Stuffed for the Holiday
A long time ago, in a blogosphere far, far away I used to post the occasional recipe. I came across this one recently while reviewing old files and decided to make this "Big Ass" sandwich recipe for my niece's July 4 shindig. Here's the recipe from my old website. (Happy July 4, all, and don't blow yourselves up! You'll need all your fingers to eat these.)



Big-Ass (B.A.) Roast Beef-Turkey-Bacon Sub Supreme


This may be the best sandwich you ever sink your teeth into (though getting your mouth around it might be a challenge)! Just because this is a Big-Ass (B.A.) sandwich, however, doesn't mean it's not full of good things. Light food? No ...but you'll be surprised how well some of the "lite" ingredients round out this creation. Looking for a calorie count anyway? Divide a bazillion by two, and you're in the neighborhood.


What you need: 

Sandwich Essentials


One long loaf of French bread (In paper...not plastic...so the crust is firm!)

½ pound thinly sliced deli roast beef (so thin it almost melts in your mouth)

½ pound thinly sliced cracked turkey breast (the cracked pepper is a tasty touch)

½ pound thinly sliced provolone cheese (Also from the deli. Packaged stuff is too thick)

3 oz. fresh, washed baby spinach

½ cup very, very thinly sliced Vidalia onion (thick slices of onion overwhelm folks)

8 slices crispy (but not overdone) maple-cured bacon

Roasted red peppers (as many or few as you like!)

½ cup fat-free Italian dressing in a bowl (works very well for a B.A. without closing off your major cardiac arteries)

IMPORTANT => One bottle of high-quality beer


Sauce Essentials (Mix and set aside until needed)


½ cup "light" mayo (We use "light," but regular "infarction in a bottle" mayo is fine!)

2 tsp. honey

Dash of fresh ground pepper


What to do:


Mix together the "Sauce Essentials" in a bowl and fridge it till you need it.


Open a beer. Taste it to be sure it's not flat. Place the can in front of the sauce in your fridge.


Cook up that bacon ...so many good things start with pork fat!!


Cut the loaf of French bread in half, then carefully split each half (don't separate the top and bottom, you want to be able open the bread up like a big, tasty book!)


Use a pastry or bar-b-que brush to brush Italian dressing on the bread top. Fat-free Italian is great here!!


Next, open the fridge. Check the beer, to make sure it's still delightfully effervescent. Carefully place the beer back in the fridge. It is a crime to spill an open beer.


Grab your B.A. sauce. Use a spatula to spread the sauce evenly across the bottom halves of your B.A. (*REMINDER: If you're reading this recipe aloud, it sounds better when you stick to the abbreviation!)


Layer the provolone cheese across the bottoms of your B.A., followed by the very thinly sliced Vidalia onion. Pile on the bacon!


It's Popeye time. Give that baby spinach a home on your B.A.!! (...yes, you could use lettuce here...but then it's just another ordinary sandwich.)


Well....here's the beef. If it's very thinly sliced, you can really pile on even layers of hearty flavor!


Now lay on the cracked turkey breast and roasted red peppers. Carefully close your B.A. Sandwich. (You may need to lay the flat of a long bread knife across the filling while you pull the top down. This sucker is stuffed full of goodness and might not close easily!)


Cut each B.A. sandwich half into thirds and arrange on a platter.


Go to the fridge after noticing the beer you opened was not used anywhere in this recipe. No self-respecting B.A. Sandwich eater lets a beer go flat. Take a piece of the B.A. and the beer to the table and stuff yourself silly. Immediately after eating, assume the usual position in your recliner and wait for the calories you just ingested to take full effect.

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Fringeville #93, July 4 2013




The Unanimous Declaration of the
Thirteen United States of America 
 
In Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops  among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

WE, THEREFORE, the REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

JOHN HANCOCK

New Hampshire
JOSIAH BARTLETT,
WM. WHIPPLE,
MATTHEW THORNTON.

Massachusetts Bay
SAML. ADAMS,
JOHN ADAMS,
ROBT. TREAT PAINE,
ELBRIDGE GERRY

Rhode Island
STEP. HOPKINS,
WILLIAM ELLERY.

Connecticut
ROGER SHERMAN,
SAM’EL HUNTINGTON,
WM. WILLIAMS,
OLIVER WOLCOTT.

New York
WM. FLOYD,
PHIL. LIVINGSTON,
FRANS. LEWIS,
LEWIS MORRIS.

New Jersey
RICHD. STOCKTON,
JNO. WITHERSPOON,
FRAS. HOPKINSON,
JOHN HART,
ABRA. CLARK.

Pennsylvania
ROBT. MORRIS
BENJAMIN RUSH,
BENJA. FRANKLIN,
JOHN MORTON,
GEO. CLYMER,
JAS. SMITH,
GEO. TAYLOR,
JAMES WILSON,
GEO. ROSS.

Delaware
CAESAR RODNEY,
GEO. READ,
THO. M’KEAN.

Maryland
SAMUEL CHASE,
WM. PACA,
THOS. STONE,
CHARLES CARROLL
of Carrollton.

Virginia
GEORGE WYTHE,
RICHARD HENRY LEE,
TH. JEFFERSON,
BENJA. HARRISON,
THS. NELSON, JR.,
FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE,
CARTER BRAXTON.

North Carolina
WM. HOOPER,
JOSEPH HEWES,
JOHN PENN.

South Carolina
EDWARD RUTLEDGE,
THOS. HAYWARD, JUNR.,
THOMAS LYNCH, JUNR.,
ARTHUR MIDDLETON.

Georgia
BUTTON GWINNETT,
LYMAN HALL,
GEO. WALTON.

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Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Fringeville #92, July 3 2013

Chicken Wing Sex
Geneva, Switzerland (UPI-Oh-Kiyay)

After hours of crunching web traffic data, Swiss researchers have announced the results of the genuine imitation scientific research compiled at Fringeville on sex and chicken wings.

Dr. Amos Behavin, lead analyst of the crack team of scientists who analyzed the website traffic, announced the stunning conclusions to his study.

"There were three web posts," the researcher explained. "The first was an image about sex. This was our baseline image. The second image was all about wings. The third image was a carefully crafted visual message combining the first two elements. The results were completely unexpected. The first post confirmed that people like sex. This was no surprise. But the second post showed that chicken wings were 33% more popular than sex. We were mildly surprised. But what we truly did not expect was that a combination of sex and chicken wings would be twice as popular as sex alone."

These were the images used in the Swiss research:
Image #1 - Baseline
Image #2 - 33% increase over baseline
Image #3 - 100% increase over baseline
The source of funding for the study is a closely guarded secret, but Hooters, KFC and Dan's Keystone Grille in Plains all deny any involvement in the controversial study.

A spokesman for Dan's said it's possible a nearby resident has "way too much friggin' time on his hands."

In support of that claim, WikiLeaks asserts most of the nearly three dozen website hits used in the study came from an IP address on Ridgewood Road in Plains Township. A local chicken wing fanatic on Ridgewood Road refused to answer the door for reporters, but several incredibly loud belches were heard inside the residence. Plains police promised to investigate the disturbance after lunch.


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Thursday, June 27, 2013

Fringeville #91, June 27 2013

... in this all-important third phase of this unscientific experiment, I have combined the elements of sex and chicken wings to determine the impact on random web traffic. (In other words, yes, trolling for hits.)

The full report, issued by the North American Institute of Wingology, will be released as soon as all the data is compiled (immediately after cleaning wing sauce off my fingers with a moist towelette).

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Fringeville #90, June 26 2013

...the second phase of a three stage experiment. (Still shamelessly trolling for hits.)

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Fringeville #89, June 25 2013




...a little experiment. Chicken wings are next. (I'm just shamelessly trolling for hits.)


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Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Fringeville #88, June 19 2013

Da chi mi fido, mi guardi Dio, da chi non mi fido guarderò io.

One night years ago, when I still had the moolah for HBO, I was in the kitchen getting a snack when my wife called me into the living room.

"Watch this show with me. It looks good" she said.

It was the first episode of The Sopranos. I never stopped watching.

With the stunning loss of James Gandolfini at age 51, any possibility of a Soprano's project is sleeping with the fishes. The one irreplaceable character on The Sopranos was Tony. Livia: Expendable. Junior: Ditto. Even losing Carmela would probably not have doomed the show. But Tony was the center of the wheel around which everything revolved.

Gandolfini was absolutely perfect as Tony Soprano. There is no one who could have done the role better, just as no one but William Shatner could have turned the trick of being Captain Kirk on the original Star Trek series.

I'll leave you with some of my favorite Tony Soprano lines:

“If you can quote the rules, then you can obey them.”

“Those who want respect, give respect.”

Janice Soprano: What'd you do with him?
Tony Soprano: We buried him... On a hill overlooking a little river, with pine cones all around.
Janice Soprano: You did?

Tony Soprano: C'mon Janice, what the f__k? What do you care what we did with him, huh?

Tony Soprano: What is that?
Irina Peltsin: "Chicken soup for the soul".
Tony Soprano: You should read "tomato sauce for your ass", it's the Italian version.


"What happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type. That was an American."

Rest in Peace, James Gandolfini.

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