The struggle is real. The outside world teems with feral people.
.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
How many times has this happened to you? You’ve been scrupulously minding your own business when suddenly you acquire a country, a province, or a city. How did you end up with such an expanse of land and the people, economies, and nuclear weapons that go along with it?
Perhaps you inherited it. Did you think to ask your parents, “Will you be leaving me a country?” I suggest people do so.
Perhaps you own stock in a large corporation, like Amazon(tm), for example. Amazon is growing by leaps and bounds all the time, so it’s plausible to assume that they might buy a small country or parts thereof, to help lower distribution costs.
Perhaps you simply saw the deed to the country on a sidewalk and picked it up.
So, there you have it. You’ve yourself a new country. But won’t the once old country be angry at you? You betcha! Won’t they be chomping at the bit to diversify your retirement portfolio be regainging their independence? Absolutely. Can they do it? Yes, if they ally with some powerful nation, or huge hedge fund, and attack you.
That is the nightmare scenario. The only way to stop this coalition from forming against you is to fool the world into thinking your country isn’t new; that it’s really part of either an old and peaceful nation or portfolio. How do you do this?
Simple, pick a flag that looks like the one from another country, province, or city. How do you do that?
May I suggest limiting the colors of your new flag to calming green and white? There are simply scads of wonderful countries that use only green and white in their banners. Here are my favorite green-and-white flags in order of coolness and usefulness. And you know the saying, “Cool flags, cool people.”
The North Causian Emirate had flag sported a white happy face on a green background. It was the coolest green-and-white flag ever.*
Was.
Unfortunately this Islamic stated existed for less than a year during the Russian Revolution of 1919 to 1921. Then communists forcibly absobed the North Causian Emirate into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with their boring-hammer-and-sickle-on-an-endless-red-background flag. Friggin’ commies.
Pakistan has a green and white flags in the world. It possesses nuclear weapons. So if you acquire Pakistan, from playing poker perhaps, you also get its thermonuclear capability. That would come in handy when confronting medical insurers who refuse to bill you correctly. Oh, and bothersome neighbors.
Saudi Arabia flag also uses a green-and-white flag. The Arabic inscription says, “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” The sword at the bottom will deter people coming to your house to sell a tree-trimming service. And what kind of monster comes unannounced to your front door, anyway?
Norfolk Island’s flag causes excitement wherever flaps in the wind. (Pretty much just on Norfolk Island.) You just can’t get around ithe green tree in the middle of its flag. They could have put a spoon, a bug, or an advertisement in the middle, but they didn’t. Well done, Norfolk. Your neighbors will never doubt your commitment to Go Green when you run this flag up your flagpole.
The Nigerian flag is the same as Norfolk Island’s, but with no beautiful tree in the middle. The theme of “simplicity, simplictity won out in the nationwide competiton.
The city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands has its own flag. It is the Nigerian flag rotated 90 degrees.
Siberia’s green-and-white flag boldly dispensed with the boring rectangles prevalent in so many of the world’s flags. Yes, it had two triangles, which I like to think pay hommage to the Pythagorean Theorem. The green triangle represents Siberia’s vast forest. The green triangle stands for the White Russians who fought for the Tsar’s and against the Communists. I prefer to think it stands for the snow that blankets Siberia. At any rate, the green-hating Communists, Philistines everyone of them, threw this flag away in favor of their dreary red banner.
The down-to-Earth inhabitants hailing from these lands went with simple white rectangle on top of a green one and left it at that. Unpretentious, you bet.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
This is what happened.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Gloomy Man and Happy Man got into a flour fight while making cookies.
Wouldn’t it have even neater if I could have found a picture of Edgar Allan Poe writing at his desk. He’s just penned the words, “Once upon a midnight dreary.” A woman is looking over his shoulder and says, “Okay, gloomer.”
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
The world is harsh and terrifying. Sometimes it seems that the forces of evil will soon overwhelm us entirely. But no! All is not lost. We have tacos. Lots and lots of wonderful tacos. Tacos are tasty. Tacos are good. You need to see three tacos to boost your morale and resolve. Let the tacos’ counteroffensive against evil begin. Excelsior!
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
INGREDIENTS
½ pound dried fava beans
3 cups water
3 tablespoons olive oil
1¼ teaspoons cumin
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1¾ teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ teaspoon cayenne
¼ teaspoon harissa* or paprika
* = Harissa maybe found in Middle Eastern supermarkets or online.
SPECIAL UTENSIL
blender
Serves 2. Takes 1 hour 50 minutes plus soaking for 10 hours or overnight.
PREPARATION
Add fava beans to large mixing bowl. Add water to cover beans with 2″ to spare. Soak for 10 hours or overnight. Drain beans. Remove their skin. Add fava beans, 3 cups water, olive oil, cumin, garlic, 1¾ teaspoons paprika, and salt to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally to prevent burning. Cover pot with lid. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour or until fava beans become tender. Stir occasionally to prevent burning.
Add contents of pot to blender. Puree until smooth. Add lemon juice. Puree briefly until well blended. Garnish with cayenne and harissa. Goes well with flatbread.
TIDBITS
1) Doesn’t that look like an eye? The Urberqian hominids of modern-day Morocco thought so. Not only that they, along with the entire prehistoric world, believed that anything that looked like an eye but wasn’t, would steal your spirit. No one wants that. So, the Urbeqians wouldn’t eat soup. Then Abim, a really clever hominid, noted that getting cayenne in your eyes blinded you for a bit. So, sprinkling cayenne on soup would blind evil spirits dwelling in soups. Early people could now eat soup. Early people now had energy to explore the world. The Urbeqians did just that, 10 years before Lucy led her clan of Olduvai Gorge. We don’t know about the Urberqians achievement because, you know, prehistory. But this is why we garnish soups with cayenne pepper, and pepper.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
The world out there is crazy. It can be depressing. You need to soar above it all, if only in your mind. You need to daydream that you can fly.
There you go, up among the clouds
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Paul De Lancey, circumnavigating
On September 8, 1519, Ferdinand Magellan and 238 seamen of various ranks left Spain to circumnavigate the Earth. It was a long ocean voyage! Just over two years. Only 30 of the 239 returned home. Then out of those 30, twelve had spent some in a Cape Verde prison.
We can draw two conclusion from this.
1) You are more likely to survive sailing around the world if you go to prison en route.
Survival rate, no prison sentence = 7.9% (18 sailors out of 227)
Survival rate, prison sentence = 100% (12 sailors of 12)
Noting this, NASA plans to equip all long-range spaceships with prisons.
2) It takes a lot of time and a lot of people dying just to get back to the spot where you started. I mean, what the heck? If getting back to the same spot is circumnavigating, then I’m doing it right now. And no one’s dying, either.
You too can go around the world. Just stand still and say, “I’ve gone around the world.”
Congratulations, you world traveler, you.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Love soccer? Lover a shorter game? Love mud? Head on over to Finland and Scotland.* The last Swamp Soccer World Championship (SCWC) I could find took place in Finland. It might have even been held in Hyrynsalmi, Finland At any rate, the SCWC is usually held in Finland in the middle of June (Sorry, you missed it this year.) 200-to-300 teams from all over the world compete. The SCWC which has been organized by the so-called Swamp Barno Jyrki Väänänen** since 1998. There are five different ways to compete: men’s, women’s, mixed, men’s hobby, and Masters of Swamp.
The Soccer World Cup is usually held in Scotland on the last weekend of June, just after the World Championship in Finland.. There are rumors of it being held in China, India. and Turkey.
Six players are on each side. Each half lasts for 12 minutes. There are no offside penalties. This is fantastic for all those who never understood the rule in the first place. Other little rules abound. As of about 2018, no Polish team had ever competed.
For my Italian readers, these four sentences translate as Ami il calcio? Ami un gioco più breve? Ami il fango? Dirigiti verso Finlandia e Scozia.
For my English speaking readers, this translates as Swamp Baron Jyrki Väänänen who got the whole thing started. Yay Jyrki!
Swamp soccer arose from the practice of Finnish cross-country skiers to train in swamps.
Mud soccer is lots of fun. Be sure to register for the next Swamp Soccer madness, whether in Finland, Scotland, or whenever. Let me know how it turns out.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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