For the first time in, geeze, it must be close to 20 years, if not 20 or more, I have prepared a Beef Wellington for a holiday get-together tomorrow.  It's sitting in my fridge right now, wrapped and ready to go into the oven tomorrow, and even though I know that the recipe I used tonight was more complicated than the one I used to use it seemed to be so much simpler.
Oh, and this is the recipe:

While I have a print version of the recipe, I did have this running on the tablet in the kitchen as I worked.  I will note that the "blitzing" of the mushrooms and the drying of the mushroom mix took a bit longer than it appears on the video, but everything else (other than the "wait x minutes" bits) was practically real time.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I imagine their won't be much traffic here over the actual holiday period so I'm posting this early although it is set on Christmas eve.
The story has been around for years but no one ever seems to know the original source.  Despite the religious website, the story itself is not excessively religious.  If you can watch Its a wonderful life or read Bob's "Doug meets Jesus" fic then you shouldn't have any problem reading this.  I lost my original link and this was the first new link I found that looked decent without having to disable no-script.
http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/con ... ation.html
Enjoy
Mark

Because they - NASA - just did, launching the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System from an aircraft at 40,000 feet.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/16 ... ss_launch/
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

(I haven't written a Thibor story in years and am somewhat out of practice - I remember a bit in one of the Lethal stories about her first curse being at age five - it seemed a good launching point for a Christmas story.  Knocked out in a few minutes for fun.)

“Santa Claus is real!” Liesel
slammed a foot down and stared up at her brother; her little hands
balled up into fists and she took a threatening step forward.

“There's no such thing as Santa
Claus” Doru chuckled, he was two years older and nearly two feet
taller than his little sister. “All those presents come from Mama
and Papa.”

“NO THEY DON”T!” Liesel shouted
back, raising a fist.

“Both of you stop.” Thibor lowered
the report he had been reading. “What is rule about fighting in
house?”

“No fighting in the house.” Both
children echoed. “All fights are to be held outside with an adult
supervising.”

“Good.” Thibor got up, and scooped
two year old Harry off the floor. “Outside now.”

It was a perfect Christmas eve, a thin
coating of snow on the ground, around the house, several pine trees
sparkled with lights. As a general rule, werewolf households did not
put trees in the house, despite Doru whining about how nice it would
be to having an indoor bathroom. Thibor peeled off Harry's diaper
and placed the squirming child on the snow. As his bare feet hit the
snow, he howled, then he dropped to his hands and shifted into a
large, fluffy, puppy and went scampering to the far corner of the
yard designated for those things. Cammy had originally appalled at
classical werewolf toilet training techniques; but at the end of the
day, had been even more appalled at the contents of diapers, and the
classic techniques survived to another generation.

“For Santa!” Charging forward,
Leisel slammed a tiny shoulder into her brother's midriff. The blow
slammed him backwards. Rather than wait for him to let up, Leisel
was on him, pinning his arms to the ground with her knees as she
slammed tiny, hard, fists into Doru's face. Being two years younger,
two feet shorter, and not a hereditary werewolf, Leisel had learned
early and well that there was no such thing as a fair fight. It
warmed Thibor's heart to see that she had taken his lessons to heart.

Doru, his nose flattened and pushed
crookedly to one site, let loose a growl and tossed Leisel aside, he
flipped to his feet, gaining another foot in height and fifty pounds
of muscle as he took on his werewolf aspect. His long muzzle,
crooked and smashed, straightened with several painful sounding
cracking noises as the damage Liesel had caused was healed.

“There ith no Thanta.” Doru
growled, stalking towards her. He hadn't fully learned how to talk
with the long muzzle. “You are a thilly girl Lethal!”

“YES THERE IS!” Liesel didn't give
an inch. “I BELIEVE IN SANTA!” A dark purple light glowed
around her briefly and then shot towards Doru. It slammed into him.
He paused for a moment and then his eyes grew very wide.

“Hurrrrgggh” Doru bent over and
started vomiting, wriggling garter snakes forcing their way out of
his mouth to splat unhappily into the snow. The snakes and Doru were
equally horrified by the situation unfolding before them.

“Lethal” Thibor said. “Go get
your Nanna Roxy.” He loped off the porch and snatched Harry out of
the snow before he started playing with the slithering mass of
unhappy snakes.

* * *

“You're such a clever girl” Evil
Aunt Marta patted Liesel's head. “Your very first curse! Snakes
are difficult, I'm so proud of you!” Lethal beamed up at her aunt
and accepted another cookie, which she gravely placed on a plate
along with several fat orange carrots.

“Do no encourage her Marta.”
Thibor growled, he looked over to where his eldest child was sitting
at the table, a bowl in his lap, his face an ashy green. Doru's
throat flexed as he leaned down with a choking gurgle, and vomited
another snake into the bowl.

“I would not be surprised if you find
coal in your stocking tomorrow.” Nanna Roxy said, fishing the snake
out of the bowl and giving it's head a sharp, fatal, rap against the
counter. “You should not tease your little sister like that.
Fortunately the curse is unpleasant, but not dangerous; you'll feel
much better in another hour, and then you can have a nice mug of
snake stew.”

“So Santa is real Nanna?” Liesel
asked.

“Of course he is.” Evil Aunt Marta
said with a warm smile. “But if you want the really nice presents,
you should leave out beer and some of Great Grandfather's special
magazines for Odin.”

Quote:backofthebookshelf:

Quote:deducecanoe:

Quote:historical-nonfiction:

Benjamin Franklin helped to create Impeachment Clause of US
Constitution. He realized that if a president were to “render himself
obnoxious,” then people would logically consider assassination unless
there was a legal way to get rid of the president.

Just obnoxious. Not treasonous or acting outside
of the best interests of the American people. Just really really
fucking annoying.

Ben Franklin understood people

The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/12 ... ock_music/]Men! If you want to win at board games this Christmas, turn off the rock music – scientists

tl;dr: Guys suck at playing games if they're listening to heavy metal at the same time.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

As a result of Japanese cultural nitpicking by Helen last week, I find I need to determine the general area in which the Tsukino home is located a lot earlier than I had thought I'd need to.  Although I will be doing my own research, I thought I would crowdsource a bit here -- does anyone know of a fansite or other resource that has proposed a reasonable location for Usagi's home more specific than "Azabujuban"?
For anyone who cares to brainstorm on the subject themselves, we know this from its appearances in the anime:  It's a good-sized upscale house, two stories tall with a carport and a fenced off driveway.  It's got a sunroom/greenhouse area on one wall on the ground floor, a couple balconies on the top floor, at least four bedrooms, and has a couple trees on or near its grounds.  At least two different apartment buildings three or four stories tall (minimum) loom over it, on two different sides,  It's Western, almost European, in style, and has an L- or T-shaped footprint. 

We also know the Azabu market street, which runs for a few blocks west from the Azabujuban train station is probably within walking distance, otherwise Usagi probably wouldn't be spending as much time at the McDonalds Crown video arcade as she does -- she's a bit too lazy to go too far for her fun, and there's no evidence she takes a train or other mass transit to get there.

I'm not all that interested in pinpointing an exact location, just finding a neighborhood where such a house can sit on or near a wooded lot and be in the shadow of a couple apartment buildings.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

CBC: Scientists explore why time flies when you're having fun

Apparently, there's a "group of neurons" in the brains of mice that control how time is perceived subjectively. Add some superscience and boost that effect Up To Eleven - do you get combat-hype?

The Register: Going underground: The Royal Mail's great London train squeeze

tl;dr: The Royal Mail operated an narrow-gauge electric train system to move mail under London from 1927 until 2003. The system still exists.

How does this apply to the Drunkard's Walk? Well, imagine a Borrible or two mailing themselves across town... without paying postage, of course.

The Canadian $10 bill, that is. We're changing the images on our money reasonably soon, and the $10 is going to Viola Desmond.

"Who?" She set an example that, nine years later, Rosa Parks would follow.

--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012