Random Musings

First off, thanks for all the birthday wishes yesterday. You made this old queen feel like an old queen and it was lovely.

As for my age [Anne Marie] I think the little graphic up top should clear things up, though the arrow should be a little closer to death and a little further from forty.

Oy.

Now, on Tuesday Carlos came home from work early, and when I arrived home there was “something” on the kitchen counter. In the distance — well, at least as far as the home office down the hall — I heard Carlos say,

“I did something bad.”

I said, “I know. I see it. What is it?”

Well, it was a birthday cake, only when Carlos came home and began making said cake, he failed to check and see if we had any eggs before he began; we did not. So he tried to make a no egg cake and, well, as my friend Amanda said when she saw it:

“Is it a meatloaf or a cake?”

Well, is it … ?

PS Carlos is a MasterBaker™ and usually makes fabulous cakes … with eggs though.

Speaking of cooking … nice segue, Bob … there’s a new cooking show on Bravo called Recipe for Deception. The premise is that there are two rounds, in which two chefs try to create a dish using a secret ingredient that they don’t know except for a random clue from their competition … hence the deception … in the guise of Three Questions about said ingredient.

It isn’t until the last few minutes of cooking that they learn what their secret ingredient is and then, if they haven’t already figured it out, they need to incorporate it and make it a feature before a panel of judges.

Yes, it’s quite convoluted, and really not all that interesting except that the first episode featured Jordan Andino who turned my oven to high.

Just sayin’.

A co-worker came in carrying his keys and he had a breath-spray thingy attached to his key chain. Now, I’ve seen folks with store discount cards onm their keychains; baubles on their key chains; wee flashlights on their key chains. But breath spray?

I asked why and he said,

“Well, I only like to carry my phone and my keys in my pocket … “

And he went on and on and on about pockets and keys and phones and checking to see if he had these things and several minutes later … no lie, it was several minutes later … when he finished speaking he looked at me quizzically and I said:

“I’m sorry; I stopped listening after the word ‘keys’.”

I think Variety hit the nail on the head with this issue … and I'm hoping it's addressed often, and seriously, during the show.

We had a light snowfall in Smallville last weekend which disappeared in a couple of hours when things warmed up into the mid-30s. This coming weekend, and into next week, it’s going to be in the 70s.

What’s all this talk about climate change??

Still, on the chilly days Tuxedo likes to use MaxGoldberg as a pillow.

Some new hotties on TV last week … starting with [clockwise from the top] Tom Ellis, a British actor, who stars in Fox's new Lucifer ... yes, he's the Devil. Ellis is adorable, and hot, and quite devilish, but this is, without a doubt, the worst show I’ve seen in a long time. He deserves so much better because, well, as I said, adorable, hot, devilish, British.

There’s also a new show called The Magicians, which features Hale Appleman — love that name — who is just fine, and I mean foine and Jason Ralph, so adorkable, as fledgling magicians. The show also features levitation sex.

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Random Musings

So, we have a new season of Food Network Star upon us and since I like to cook, and fancy myself a star, I’m gonna use this weekly posting of Randomness to talk about the show.

First up: it’s the same every year. I mean, the names of the contestants change, but here’s always a Sassy Black cook—Hello Lovely … Yes, she calls herself Lovely. And there’s always the nice guy, this season it’s Chad, and the Latino, Daniela, who went home this first week because, well, she can’t cook.

Each season has it’s Model-cum-Chef, this year it’s Danushka, who is also playing the part of Angry Chef. She scares me. Then we have the Rock’n’Roll Chef, and this year a pie baker, too, in Rodney Henry, and the formerly overweight, now svelte cast-member, Andres Guillama. Chris Hodgson plays the part of nice guy who thinks he’s funny but isn’t, while we have another wacky Southern girl in Damaris Phillips. Stacey Poon-Kinney—and don’t get me started on what I can do with that name—will play the Obnoxious One, I’m thinking, judging by Week One, while Nikki Dinki is the Know-It-All Veggie Chef who, I’m guessing, we’ll find out can’t really cook.

Russell Jackson is the Daddy Chef, while Viet Pham is the Ambiguously Gay chef.

Just like last year but with new names. Plus we have Giada DeLaurentiis, the Networks’ It Girl, Bobby Flay, Smug Self-Centered Tool, and Alton Brown, Hot Not Gay Nerd.

Like I said, I see myself as a pretty good cook, so let’s see what happens this season and who sets the house on fire and who fails at risotto.

So, we bought the riding mower and have been using it, and loving it, regularly.

The first week, I mowed some and then Carlos mowed some, and then we repeated it.

The next week, because when I say I’m gonna do something, I do it, I got up, ate breakfast and went out to do the lawn. Carlos bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t use it.

The next week, again, because when I say I’m gonna do something, I do it, I got up, ate breakfast and went out to do the lawn. Carlos, again, bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t use it.

The next week, I said, ‘Why don’t you mow the lawn after breakfast?’

Carlos said, ‘Sure, make me do all the work.’

I.Cannot.Win.

I first posted about this back in March, 2012, when the Indiana Youth Group [IYG], an LGBT youth support group, was told that the Bureau of Motor Vehicles had revoked their specialty license plate for violating "state law and Indiana Administrative Code" by giving donors low number plates. Indiana’s asshatted legislators—Republicans, mostly—had wanted to backdoor....and I'll let that pun just lie there and do nothing like an Indiana state legislator....legislation targeting the group's specialty plate, but their constituents wanted no part of it.

So, they, um, listened to the people who put them in office? No. Republican State Senate President Pro Tempore and Grand Poobah Asshat, David Long, found a new "solution" by demanding the BMV revoke the plate on contractual grounds.

But, while it lasted a year, the good news is that Indiana Youth Group is celebrating a big win because a judge ordered their specialty license plates to be reinstated.

Suh-nap, GOP.

IYG is the only not-for-profit agency that is solely dedicated to serving LGBTQ youth in Indianapolis and the only agency with a full-time staff in the state. "The youth we serve often have nowhere else to turn and the money we raise goes directly toward supporting disenfranchised youth and toward putting a stop to needless bullying and violence in our schools."

Yet the GOP tried—and now failed—to stomp on it.

I loves me a happy ending.

Apparently, Real Housewives of Atlanta star, Nene Leakes, took a page out of an old Carol Burnet Show script this week when deciding what to wear to Kash Kow Kardashians baby shower … let that sink in, Nene and Kash Kow, friends?

Anyway, it seems as though Nene could find nothing she liked so she took the bed skirt and made herself a party dress.

Inventive?

I know that all the SCOTUS rulings can sometimes be confusing—I sometimes think it’s planned that way—and when I found his handy graph to explain what will happen when The Supremes rule on Prop 8 to be quite handy.

Here’s hoping for the right ruling.

I love me a good LGBT ally, and when he has a sense of humor, well, I love him all the more.

Marriage equality ally and Oakland Raiders punter Chris Kluwe was invited to this year's LGBT Pride Month reception at the White House but unfortunately is unable to attend because he’ll be training with his team instead. So, Kluwe sent his regrets, like this:

Followed by a little joke:

"p.s. - if you really wanted to, I'm sure I could make a late supper if an F35 were to pick me up at the field right after practice. Just saying....

p.p.s. - Please don't do that. Then I'd be "that guy" on the team. You know. "That guy". (Plus it also seems like an extremely unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars."

Madonna appeared at a concert this past week to preview her new music and her new face. I’m hoping the music is better than the face.

HOT MAN OF THE WEEK

Justin Baldoni, who has created a video for a song written by Zach Sobiech, a 17-year-old who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. Given only months to live, Zach turned to music to say goodbye and his song "Clouds" spread across the country.

Baldoni asked some famous folks to 'sing' with Zach and they did.

So, Justin. Yeah, he's hot, and has abs you could bounce a quarter off of, and a big heart, too.

Hot and compassionate; a winning combination.

Carlos considers himself a Masterbaker, and if he had his way, he’d be masterbaking morning, noon, and night; he lives to masterbake.

So, last week he made these little walnut balls and they were little bite-sized tastes of goodness. After dinner, he asked if I wanted to try his balls again, and I said, 'Only if you dust ‘em with powdered sugar first.'

I’ll leave you to your imaginations as to what Carlos did next. Oy.

TWEETS OF THE WEEK

The Advocate magazine website ahs what they call a Blanche week, where they ask Twitterers to Twat, AKA skewer, an LGBT celebrity. This week’s choice was Husband-In-My-Head, Anderson Cooper and here are The Blanches:

Which is your favorite?