Just finished snow blowing from last night’s storm, and now today’s storm is here in full force. There is no denying that it is beautiful, but there is also no denying that snow blowing, shoveling, and trying to drive in the stuff is the pits.

I saw on the news that we might get as much as 18 inches of the stuff. I suppose for you Buffalo and Minnesota folks, this is child’s play, but when we get that much in the most densely populated state in the country, it makes getting around a major pain in the ass. Good thing it’s Saturday. I’ve done more than my fair shares rush hours in this kind of weather, and it certainly can be exhausting.

Update: I was just out with Ken, one of the Usual Suspects, (he loves to drive in this shit) to do a couple errands, and now you would never know that my driveway and sidewalk had been cleared a couple hours ago. Screw it. I’m gonna have a cocktail and chill out.

Update: Well, it appears that the snow has just about stopped, except for some flurries. Now, the blizzard-condition winds can just blow the stuff all over the place into mondo drifts. Tomorrow morning should be a real treat.

As you probably have seen on the news, we are in the middle of an early snowstorm –two of them, actually, back to back. My normal 35-40 minute ride home from work turned into two nerve-jangling hours. No point in dealing with the snow tonight, as I will just have to do it again tomorrow. I’m way too tired anyway.

So, with that, I figure that this is a good time to do a little tidying up.

I have removed the “on hiatus” note next to Peppermint Patty on the blogroll, because she is back. She obviously has had a full plate over the past couple months, and Life 101 often has to take precedence over blogging. I’m glad to see her back.

Lori and Maripat, the two lovely ladies at Right We Are, have closed up shop. That’s a shame, as they ran a first-class operation. I will leave Right We Are on the blogroll for a while, just in case they change their minds. You can still find Lori over at Downtown Chick Chat. It’s a nice site. Check it out.

David, of Sketches of Strain, also has decided to pursue activities other than blogging. He made a brief re-appearance on November 29, so I’ll keep his site on the blogroll for a while to see if he sticks with his decision not to blog anymore.

Rachel Lucas, who announced a while back that she is packing it in, made a Thanksgiving appearance. She hasn’t blogged regularly for some time now, and she still gets more than 1,200 hits per day, and I am sure that each visitor checks in hoping that Rachel has decided to jump back into the blogosphere. I know that I do.

Finally, I have added Wizbang to the blogroll, something that is seriously long overdue. As it happens, I see that Kevin, the proprietor of the site, was just laid off. Losing a job is always traumatic, and losing a job in the midst of the holiday season makes it all the worse. If you have a job and have a couple bucks to spare, perhaps you would consider hitting Kevin’s tip jar.

Ketchup – Americans have a love affair with the stuff. In fact, you can find ketchup in 97% of the kitchens in America, and the average person consumes about three bottles per year. It is usually thought of as THE condiment of choice for burgers (although I’ve seen California folks put mustard on burgers, which is just wrong). And, except for the few people who prefer vinegar on fries, most people would not think of eating fries without ketchup.

However, its use is hardly limited to burgers and fries. Richard Nixon ate ketchup on cottage cheese, and the Japanese eat it on rice. It’s eaten with steak, eggs, and on or in meatloaf. I had a friend who poured ketchup on pancakes, and if my friend Bill’s grandson had his way, he would eat ketchup on hot dog rolls for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One company even allegedly experimented with ketchup-flavored ice cream, and another sells ketchup-flavored potato chips.

A word about ketchup on hot dogs. Putting ketchup on hot dogs is OK for children, who might find the taste of mustard to be too sharp, or who may think that mustard looks unappealing (no further comment necessary). However, adults should know better.

While we are familiar with the most common brands of ketchup (e.g. Heinz, Del Monte), there are hundreds of brands and varieties of ketchup that are less well known. Ketchup World has a large selection of international ketchups, “hot n’ spicy” ketchups and ketchups that are described as “rich and luscious.” One that caught my attention was “Ass Kickin’ Ketchup,” which contains habanero peppers, which would surely add zip to a burger. Even Heinz (which sells 50% of the Ketchup in the United States) is not insensitive to innovation and, as such, it offers several varieties, including green ketchup for kids, and “organic ketchup,” (which is probably just ketchup made with dirty tomatoes and which, I’ll bet, tastes lousy).

Today’s ketchup lover would not recognize the stuff that started it all back in the 1600’s, when Dutch and British sailors, brought back from China a salty pickled fish sauce called “ketsiap.” Over time, others toyed with the recipe, including the British, who added mushrooms, anchovies, oysters and walnuts.

The first printed recipe for ketchup appeared in 1727 in a publication called “The Compleat Housewife.” The ingredients included anchovies, shallots, vinegar, white wine, sweet spices, pepper and lemon peel. Later, Americans began including tomatoes in their ketchup recipes.

Jonas Yerkes was the first person to sell ketchup nationwide in the U.S. He used what was left over from the tomato canning process (i.e. skins, cores and tomatoes too green to can) and turned it into ketchup, which he sold in quart and pint bottles. Ketchup hit the big time in 1872 when HJ Heinz included ketchup in his line of pickled products, using a formula that has not changed since.

I know that some of you are thinking, “Yo, Jimbo, this is all very interesting, but I still need to know where I can buy a ketchup costume, and why is that ketchup is sometimes called “catsup?” These are both good questions.

First, you can indeed buy yourself a ketchup costume here, although I do not recommend that you wear it to work, unless, of course, you work in a burger joint, or in certain parts of California or New York City, where it would go unnoticed. Second, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, the name of the condiment was first recorded in English in 1690 as “catchup.” Later, in 1711, it became “ketchup,” and later still, in 1730, the word “catsup” appeared.

“Ketchup” and “catsup” both survived into the twentieth century until 1981 when the Reagan administration drove many people nuts by classifying “ketchup” as a vegetable for purposes of federal food programs (presumably because 4 tablespoons of ketchup have the nutritional value of an entire ripe, medium tomato). Del Monte, fearing that it would not cash in on federal food dollars because its product was called “catsup,” changed the name to “ketchup.” However, by the time Del Monte changed the name, the Reagan administration had changed its policy. The result is that it is not often that one finds “catsup” in the supermarket.

So, the next time that you pour, spoon, shake, or squeeze the King of Condiments onto you burgers, fries, steak, cottage cheese, rice, eggs, or whatever, remember that it started out as a salty, smelly, fish sauce and that you learned all about it here.

Pass the ketchup, please.

Every day between now and Christmas, Jeff at Side Salad will be posting a picture of a “Disturbing Santa.” I am four days late in linking to this, but this link (for the fourth day) contains the links for days 1 through 3 as well. Great stuff. Go look.

It’s not a good year for Detroit. It turns out that the City of Detroit has topped the Morgan Quinto annual list of the 25 most dangerous cities in the United States for the second time. This is based on the city’s crime rate for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. To be considered, a city must have a population in excess of 75,000, which, of course, means that there may be smaller crime-ridden burgs out there that were not considered.

It looks like I’ll again be postponing my planned summer vacation in downtown Detroit.

Lest I even consider gloating, I should point out that two – count ‘em – two New Jersey Cities are in the top 25 of the most dangerous. Camden, New Jersey is number four (behind Detroit, St. Louis, and Atlanta), while Trenton, the capital of the Garden State, checks in at number 15. Isn’t that special?

I recall being in Camden several years ago for a hearing in the federal court. I had to fax a copy of the judge’s order back to the office, so I asked one of the employees in the Clerk’s office if I could use the fax machine. I explained that I was willing to pay for the use of the machine. She told me that lawyers were not permitted to use the fax machines. I then asked the employee whether she could direct me to a local candy store or drug store where I might be able to send a fax. She burst out laughing and said, “Obviously, you are not from here. This is Camden. There is nothing around here.” Sadly, she was right. There are parts of Camden that look like Dresden after World War II.

However, the news is not all bad for New Jersey, as three Jersey cities are among the top twenty-five of the safest cities in the U.S. Brick Township was number 2 (behind Amherst, New York, which has been the safest city for four years running),with Hamilton Township and Edison Township being numbers 22 and 24 respectively. (Note to Craig at mtpolitics: Billings is number 23).

For a small state, we seem to have it all, from horse farms to tank farms; from pine forests to sandy beaches, from backwoods roads to choked highways, and from the safest to the most dangerous cities.

We cover all the bases in Jersey.

Here is a small sample of the joys of living in the Garden State.

Former State Trooper Alleges Conspiracy to Obtain Confidential State Police Records for Political Advantage.
Vincent Bellaran, a former lieutenant in the New Jersey State Police, who in 1997 was the first black state trooper to win a lawsuit against the State Police for discrimination, alleged that in February 1999, he had been recruited by another State Trooper, “Tommy” DeFeo to take part in a scheme to obtain and use official state police records to discredit then Governor Christie Whitman and to advance the gubernatorial aspirations of then candidate Jim McGreevey. Bellaran further charged that the person orchestrating the effort was former State Senator John Lynch, a mentor of then candidate, now Governor, Jim McGreevey.

The records (which numbered in the thousands and which were obtained from locked State Police offices in the evenings and copied) were used in connection with two politically charged legislative hearings concerning allegations of racial profiling by the State Police. DeFeo has conceded that he entered State Police offices at night and copied thousands of documents, which would then turn over to Bellaran, who, in turn would funnel information and documents to State Senator Lynch for use at the hearings.

Bellaran said that, with time, it became clear to him, that the real purpose of the activity was not to end the alleged practice of racial profiling, but rather was to help win the election for Jim McGreevey and a promotion for DeFeo.

According to Bellaran, the documents were also used outside the hearings. In one instance, they were used to discredit the son of a former advisor to Governor Whitman, and in another instance, they were used to discredit Governor Whitman’s preferred candidate for the job of superintendent of the State Police.

Lynch and DeFeo deny any wrongdoing and insist that their only motive in obtaining the documents was to remedy what they saw as racial profiling by the State Police.

It is interesting to note that, prior to Governor McGreevey’s taking office on January 15, 2002, DeFeo was a lieutenant. In two years, he was promoted to the rank of major, then to lieutenant colonel, and recently has been made “deputy superintendent.”

Governor McGreevey, through his spokesperson, denies having anything to do with any of this.

Former Governor Whitman is hopping mad about it all and has called for a Federal Investigation into the matter.

In my view, this has a very bad smell. In 1999, Governor Whitman’s Republican administration was taking a lot of heat over allegations of racial profiling on the part of the State Police (I’ll save the issue of “racial profiling” for a future post), and candidate McGreevey could only benefit from the heat being turned up. I am certain that both legislative investigative bodies had subpoena power and could have directed the production of State Police personnel records.

As such, DeFeo’s entering into locked State Police offices in the night to copy files and then deliver them to the home of Bellaran (who was out of work on “stress leave” during this time, after having won a half million dollar judgment for discrimination) for ultimate delivery to a state senator (McGreevey’s mentor) to be used for questionable purposes seems highly irregular, if not downright illegal. One can also not help but notice how DeFeo’s career has skyrocketed following Jim McGreevey’s election.

Bellaran has been contacted to the State Attorney General concerning his story.

Stay tuned.

Another Jersey Mayor Jailed.
Former mayor of the Town of Irvington, Sara Bost, reported to a West Virginia federal prison camp, after having lost her request for bail pending the appeal of her conviction for witness tampering in a corruption investigation.

Corruption? New Jersey? No way!!

A New Problem for the New Jersey Bear Hunt.

New Jersey’s black bear hunt, the first in more than three decades, which was set to begin on December 8, has run into another roadblock. Animal rights groups, which have vigorously opposed the hunt since its approval in July, have filed an action in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. to prevent the hunt from taking place on the 67,000 acres of land in the state that make up the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

The environmentalists argue that hunting would violate federal environmental laws because no environmental impact study of the hunt has been done. If the suit is successful, it will remove approximately twenty percent of the area in which the hunt was anticipated to take place.

In my view, this has little to do with a concern for environmental impact and everything to do with blocking the bear hunt by any means necessary. The hunt has been studied to death by State Fish and Game Counsel and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. I am not a hunter, and I wish there was a better way to reduce the bear population, but there really isn’t.

I think there is a fair chance that the hunt will not happen, and, even if it does, I expect that the anti-hunt groups will be out in force next Monday trying to thwart the hunt. If they decide to run around in the woods among the pissed off hunters to scare the bears away (or herd them into the Delaware Water Gap), I hope they wear very bright colors.

New Jersey…Only the strong survive.

Blogging notwithstanding, I have managed to watch all eleven episodes of the HBO Series “Carnivale,” the freakishly disturbing and yet oddly addictive show about a pathetic group of “Carnies” traveling around the Dust Bowl and the Southwestern U.S. in 1934. I have even watched several of the episodes at least twice, which is often necessary, given the darkness of the show and the quick paced and often strange dialog.

Unfortunately, at the end of each episode, I remain relatively unsure about what I had just seen and completely confused about what some of it means. We are treated to parallel stories, with mysterious and other-worldly connections between certain characters in the parallel stories (i.e. the minister and Ben), along with bizarre twists and turns within each of the parallel stories, which are all set in the dusty, dirty, and downright pathetic world of a traveling carnival in the throws of the depression.

Sunday night marked the final episode of the season, and I had hoped that some of the more puzzling aspects of the story would be brought to closure. It did not happen. The final episode of the season closed amidst of collection of loose ends.

Here are just a few of the many loose ends that come to mind at the moment. (Pictures of the characters can be found here.)

Ben
He is the main character, who we thought was fortuitously discovered by a passing carnival just at the moment that he was trying to bury his recently deceased mother in the dusty soil surrounding the shack in the middle of nowhere that he and his mother had called home. As it turns out, we learned that his meeting with the Carney was not exactly accidental, although we’re not sure why he was plucked from his dusty surrounds by this band of misfits.

What is the deal with his dream sequences? Are they past lives? If so, Ben appears to have been in the crusades, the Civil War and World War I.

Why is it that Lodz (see below) seems to be in some of the dreams?

Why do he and the minister seem to share the same dream, and yet neither knows of the other?

What, for Chrissake, is the deal with Ben’s father, “Scudder?” He apparently was a Carney (a geek) in the past, who may or may not have killed a man or many men in a town called Babylon.

What is/was the relationship between Scudder and Samson? Between Scudder and Lodz? Between Scudder and “Management?”

Why does Scudder continue to torment Ben? What does he want Ben to do?

What was the relationship between Ben’s mother and the Carnivale?

What is the murder he supposedly committed that resulted in his being chased around by a sheriff?

Samson
What does this vertically challenged troop pusher of the Carnivale know about Ben, Scudder, Ben’s mother, Lodz, and “Management” that he has not told Ben?

Lodz
What does he know about Ben? What does he know about Scudder? What is his relationship to “Management?” To Samson?

What is that stuff he drinks that looks something like an Alka-Seltzer and which puts him in some sort of trance?

What is his relationship, past and present, with Apollonia, the seriously weird catatonic woman, who is the mother of Sophie and who appears to be the brains behind Sophie’s Fortune telling gig?

Was Lodz killed in the final episode? It sure as hell looks like it, but one never knows?

What the hell does he “see” (he was blind until the final moments of the final episode) in that dreadful bearded lady? What the hell does she see in him, particularly since he appears to be abusive to her?

Sophie
What is the deal between her and Apollonia, her catatonic mother?

What was her past relationship with Jonsey?

Will she survive the fire in the trailer that ended the final episode?

Apollonia (Sophie’s mother)

What caused the mother to be catatonic?

Is the mother catatonic because of what appears to have been a rape in her past?

Who was the rapist? Might it have been Lodz?

Why did the mother become ambulatory only to walk up to Ben and utter something I cannot now remember?

What message did she transmit to Lodz in the final episode, when he placed his hand on her head and exclaimed, “How long have you known?”

Why did she start the fire in the trailer that ended the final episode?

Will she survive the fire?

Jonesy
How did he screw up his leg? A baseball injury?

Is it really over between him and Rita Sue, the Cootch dancer and hooker?

Will he come out of the burning trailer at the beginning of the new season?

Rita Sue

Have she and Stumpy reconciled for good?

Will Sophie get even with her for hopping in the sack with Jonsey and pretending to be her friend?

“Management”
What the hell?

Is “Management” a real person or some evil spirit?

If he/she/it is real, why doeshe/she/it remain behind a curtain?

Ruthie
Will she, as it appeared in the final episode, be brought back from the dead by Ben?

Before she decided to do the nasty with Ben, why the hell didn’t she demand that he take a farookin’ shower?

Justin, The Ministe
What’s the deal with him coming here from Russia?

When he came here from Russia, why was someone trying to kill him?

Is he really a demon?

Is he now or has he ever been in an incestuous relationship with his sister? (One doesn’t put a lip lock like that on one’s sister, and one doesn’t peek at his sister in the shower.)

Iris (The Minister’s Sister).
Is she also a demon?

Will she end up in the rack with the radio guy?

General Questions
Can any of the characters possibly be more skuzzy?

Is there a bath in Ben’s future?

Why did the writer decide to put the “e” at the end of the word “Carnival?”

I’m sure there are a zillion more questions, but those are the ones that come to mind. I am amazed to think that someone sat in front of a keyboard, started out with a blank screen and ultimately dreamed up “Carnivale.” How does that happen?

Oy!! When does the next season start?