If you’re going to see one movie this year about a former US president slaughtering vampires with an axe, make it Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

1. This is awesome.
2. This concept, in four minutes, makes more sense than He-Man or She-Ra, both of which four-year-old Bree adored.
3. Awesome 80s power rock soundtrack. With bonus keytaur!

This was created by Dutch animation students for a competition. I sure hope they won. (My Youtube hits alone may make this thing go viral…)

(via the Ubyssey)

I’m… not really sure what to make of this.

Recently I started poking around with Flickr’s photo editor (of course, four months before the service will be discontinued), and churned out these two retouches:

Red Light

Broadway and Ash, at twilight. Used Piknik’s 60s filter.

Green Light

Same as above, using the lomo filter.

The originals (best seen big)

versus

versus

… I love it so much.

Twin Peaks is up next on the list.

The ability to “pause” and pick up again the next time, might be the most interesting part of the Netflix process for me. I can see this being v. useful to me, as I have the attention span of a bumblebee.

The downside (besides losing days of my life to this thing) is the lack of selection, sometimes even within the same completed universe (Stargate stands out). I’m not sure of the rhyme or reason behind what’s available….

Anyway, brb, watching the hilariously campy Dark Shadows revival (the tv show that turned me on to vampires back when I was all of 11.)

Then the 12 seasons of Murder She Wrote…. never sleeping again

My immediate reaction was complete empathy. I’ve been there, friend. Over 10 years ago, but I’ve been there. Try having to write a science exam with essays, that was hard.

And then I realized that now, 10 years later, I do that on a weekly basis. Not write three essays a week, but there are days in a week when I do hammer out the equivalent of three essays in two hours. And unlike school (where I paid for the privilege), these ones are graded by the public and are a precondition of my paycheque.

Honestly, it’s one of the best skills I ever developed and one of the only thing that I’ve carried from the degree (outside of a healthy skepticism toward media reports on scientific research) So thanks, UBC.

Kheema with turkey and spinach

Ingredients

•  300 g ground or diced turkey
• 2 tbs canola oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tbs fresh ginger, diced
• 2 tsp ground cumin (I prefer to buy whole cumin, toast it in a cast iron pan until browned, then crushed in a mortar. It tastes a million times better than what you get in stores)
• 1 tbs coriander seeds, crushed
• 1/2 tsp chili flakes
• 1-1/2 cups hot water
• 1 cup frozen peas
• handful of baby spinach, shredded
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tbs garam masala
• Juice of half a lemon

Steps toward delicious

1. In a cast iron pan or heavy wok over medium-high heat, heat 1 tbs of oil. Drop in the turkey and cook until it it just cooked. Be sure to break up the turkey as it cooks.
2. Remove the turkey from the pan, tamp out the moisture. Add the rest of the oil to the same pan, then add the onion. Cook until the onion is soft.
3. Add the garlic and ginger. Cook until the onion is browned.
4. Add the cumin and coriander and chili flakes. Stir stir. You may decide to add more oil at this point, but it’s up to you. Turkey can be a lean meat.
5. Add the turkey, giving it a stir to coat everything with spicy goodness. Then it’s time to add 3/4 cup hot water (I use water just off the boil from the kettle). Bring to a boil, then reduce to medium-high, cover, and cook for 20 minutes.
6. Remove cover. Stir it up. At this point, the mix should still be plenty moist.Add the salt, garam masala, lemon juice, and remaining water. Stir, re-cover, cook for another 10 minutes.
7. Uncover. Taste. You may decide to add more salt at this point.
8. Add the peas and the spinach. Crank the heat up to high, stirring constantly. At this point, you want to accomplish three things: heat up the peas (already cooked in the freezing process), cook the spinach out, and get rid of the rest of the water.
9. When that’s all done, serve over rice or quinoa.

Most recipes call for ground lamb or beef, but I prefer poultry myself. It’s even better the next day.

Mmm, Hasselhof is a side sleeper

Wok This Way

And while I’m at it…

Brussel Sprouts are really, really freaky