holy shit, are penguins the best thing ever, or what?

and is morgan freeman narrating over a montage of penguins EVEN BETTER?

i think we all know the answers.

And while I'm on the subject, I should mention that Charles has recently been outed as a blogger. He's there in the blogroll as of a couple days ago -- or you can click here. Give him a visit, why doncha, and larn yourself somethin about music.

Charles has been adding to his impressive array of musical talents by learning the piano, and he has his first recital tonight. Coincidentally, Jeff's younger brother Henry goes to the same teacher; he'll be playing at the recital, too.

Mercy is for the weak, Charles.

just today i published a DCist.com interview with local band The Alphabetical Order. unfortunately, the entirety of the piece was too long to post on DCist, so i decided that i'd put the whole thing here for anybody else interested in checking it out. they're a smart, good local band and i highly recommend checking out their web site. the interview is behind the cut...

This unpleasant looking root is a yucca. Well, not really -- it's a manioc, but everyone calls it yucca, despite yucca actually being something that's not only completely different, but also inedible.

At any rate, this weekend I think I'm going to try to fry up a few of these suckers ala Crisp & Juicy. But the internet is oddly silent on how to go about this. Everyone seems to agree that I should peel it, but I could pretty well figure that out on my own. There's a fibrous inner core that some sites say to remove and about which others say nothing; some folks say to boil it before frying, others seem to think you can plop it right in the oil.

In fact, the only clear information I can find is Google's persistent suggestion that I "oven fry" it. I won't dignify that with a response.

So the pictured vegetable is an experimental root. I'll let you know how it goes.

This or this?