A Palinode Around The Web

Hello, my butter chickens! I'm all over the web today. I should be represented visually by one of those lawn seeding machines that men in madras shorts and old boots push around suburban lawns on summer afternoons. Put on a shirt on, you weirdos.

"Fill me with your seed, suburban retiree."

Okay, let's start with some stuff. On mamapop.com:

What The Hell? Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Corey Monteith Are Out Of ‘Glee’?

Isn’t Glee the story of Rachel, Finn, and Kurt? Sure, there’s Sue Sylvester and the guy with the obnoxious curly hair and the pregnant girl and the bisexual cheerleaders and some kids who sing things—but they’re not the show. 

Or maybe they are. After all, Lea Michele’s Rachel is something of a one-note (zing! except not really, because her voice is pretty good) character who never seems to grow with the story. Her character embodies some of the writers’ worst impulses, going this way and that as the plot demands. Finn, meanwhile, is so bland that a comparison escapes me. Oh no, he’s worried about his abs. Look out, there’s a baby or something that’s not his. Hey, listen to him sing, it’s almost as good as David Cook, yay.

And then there's prairie dog magazine, where I write my various things, scribble scribble.

A Tipple Manifesto, or Your Guide To Creating a Cocktail Scene in your Community

How dreadful it is, then, when cocktail culture kicks us so rudely out of its bed the next morning. Regina is full of bars that serve cocktails, but if it's full-blown cocktail culture you're after, with a taste of antebellum torpor or '20s Berlin decadence, then you're going to be disappointed. Sure, you can enjoy a really nice mojito on the roof of the Rooftop Bar or a Havana cocktail at La Bodega - not to mention places like Skara or Habanos - but a place that serves cocktails is only a part of a proper cocktail scene.

Something Different: A New Gastropub Boldly Eschews the Tyranny of Menus

Chain places don't offer great food, but they're so predictable it's like playing a recording of a meal: the same flavours and textures, note for note. Sure, it's lousy food that sort of jabs at your pleasure centers like a mugger on Vicodin, but you know it's going to be lousy. In fact, you're banking on that lousiness to get you through the lousy experience of eating that meal.

When McDonald's hands you a cold Big Mac - as happened to me once on the outskirts of Weyburn - it's not a disappointment or an insult. It's so shocking it's like the world just tilted off its axis.

Food Notes On Food

Nothing ruins a group friendship quicker than a standing weekend brunch date. Everything starts out hunky dory, but fissures eventually begin to show. Someone never pays, someone else spends their time complaining about the choice of venue, and then there’s the person who combines those habits (“Can someone get my brunch this week? This place has the worst eggs. Buffets just suck in general. Do you have a smoke?” I’m pretty much transcribing myself from 1995). And eventually somebody sleeps with somebody else’s boyfriend/girlfriend/stuffie.