UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

Quick-hitters:

- Despite getting some really really sweet (read: icky!) tomato sauces last night, I threw a few cans together with my usual mix of ingredients: one onion, chopped and browned; a few cloves of garlic, ditto; some olive oil; a bit of black pepper; some dried basil and oregano; and ground turkey meat–I was out of beef–the sauce came out pretty damn good.

(Drat! I forgot to put spinach in the sauce! Oh well, it’s not too late!)

Anyway, why do some tomato sauces insist on putting corn syrup in their product???

- Speaking of corn syrup: I forgot how awesomely good MexiCoke (Coke imported from Mexico, sweetened with sugar instead of that high fructose corn syrup crap) is! It tastes crisper than its American sibling, and it seems to go down a lot smoother as well.

I bought a couple bottles yesterday ($1 each), thinking I was getting 20oz bottles. It turns out that I bought 12oz bottles instead. Oops! Still, even at $1/bottle, it was kinda worth it.

Why, oh why, must we Americans suffer with HFCS-sweetened sodas?

(Don’t answer that; I’m aware of, at least somewhat, the reasons why.)

- I’m not sure of all the facts surrounding the whole Michael Vick/dogfighting indictment situation, but here are my quick thoughts on the situation.

• I don’t know if Vick deserves to be kicked out of the league indefinitely, as some people have suggested. Yes, an indictment spells huge trouble, but last I checked, he hasn’t been convicted yet. Don’t forget, a felony conviction will take care of Vick’s NFL career anyway.
• Should Atlanta take this opportunity to cut Vick? I say yes! Ignoring this entire legal situation, Vick is nowhere near worth the huge contract he signed a few years back (I believe the contract is in the vicinity of $130 million over seven years). Yeah, he’s probably the most electric QB in the league, and yes, he’s easily the most popular athlete in Atlanta today. But he’s not producing, and does Falcon fan really think Michael Vick can lead them to a Super Bowl title? Yes, the Falcons’ options after Vick are crap, but I hear there’s a QB on the market that was recently released from Miami…
• I wonder what Vick’s teammates think about the whole situation. If I were a player, I don’t know if I could deal with the distraction of Vick’s indictment during the season. All the questioning that is bound to happen, all the “what ifs?” surrounding Vick’s fate during the season…and what about the fact that Vick may have to leave his team during the season to stand trial?

You’ll have my thoughts on the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event tomorrow.

Happy blogging!

by Peter
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Quick-hitters, Grocery Store edition:

- I really hate leg injuries. I always find myself compensating for the leg injury by stressing out my left leg, and, of course, I end up hurting my left leg as well. It didn’t help that I had to carry a five-gallon bottle of water from the parking lot to my place.

Oh, the humanity! Maybe I can find a wheelchair I can commandeer. Or a Radio Flyer.

(Actually, I’ve always wanted a Radio Flyer, for those trips to Costco. Have I ever mentioned that Costco was evil?)

- In my continuing quest to find the perfect canned tomato sauce to use in my spaghetti sauce recipe, I dumped about four different brands of sauce into my shopping cart.

(Tangent: I realize that “perfect canned tomato sauce” is a probably an oxymoron. You’d be surprised, though; with a few added ingredients, even a crap can of tomato sauce can be made edible. Adding some $1.99 Chuck Shaw white wine–yes, from Trader Joe’s–also helps to add a distinct flavor to otherwise crap sauce.)

Anyway, the problem with some of these crap tomato sauces is that they add corn syrup (!!!!!!). Why on Earth they’d do that is anyone’s guess. I found some decent Hunt’s tomato sauce a few weeks back, and that actually made quite a good sauce; unfortunately, I couldn’t find that exact sauce today.

One of these days, I’m going to find the perfect canned sauce!

- Limes were on sale at three pounds for a dollar, so I got a whole bunch of limes to make limeade. My recipe:

• One cup lemon or lime juice (about 4-5 lemons, or closer to 10 limes)
• Simple syrup: 1 cup cold water and 3/4-1cup sugar, heated slowly until all the sugar is dissolved
• Cold water (6-8 cups will do), ice, and lemon or lime slices, if desired

I’ve got some frozen strawberries in the freezer, and some ice as well. Maybe I’ll make myself a strawberry limeade.

- I saw this article a couple days ago, and am still laughing about it today. What do you do when you’re dissatisfied with your cellular phone service? Commandeer a military vehicle and destroy cell phone towers, of course! No word on whether or not he was let out of his existing contract.

Then again, the article made no mention that the guy even had cell phone service. Maybe he was high, and he was one of those tinfoil-hat wearing conspiracy theorists who think cell phones are a means for the government to spy on citizens. Or maybe he really really hates the Verizon guy.

(Yes, I realize this incident happened in Australia. Sorry, but I don’t know what the mobile phone carriers are there.)

Here’s my question: how the hell did he get a hold of an APC in the first place?!? Did an army soldier leave the keys in the vehicle when he stopped to get some coffee? Did the driver leave the emergency lights on to go into his apartment really quickly, because he forgot something? Or is Australia that dangerous, that people are now buying APCs to protect themselves?

Well done, sir.

by Peter
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