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I decided, kinda-sorta on a whim, to make some pulled pork the other day. Now, in the past when I’ve had the taste for pulled pork, I’ve bought it already-made at The Store, either our own make of it or a brand like Lloyd’s, which comes in a tub and just needs to be heated up. But while I used to love Lloyd’s products, over time I’ve come to find them too saucy and too sweet, and I’ve further learned that pulled pork is basically a very cheap hunk of meat, cooked until it shreds, and then simmered a bitDown the rabbit hole….

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My home away from home!, originally uploaded by Jaquandor. Well, it’s not a crash cart, obviously, but it’s my tool cart at work. If Batman had to push around his best weapons in a Rubbermaid cart, maybe it would look like this. Or something like that. OK, the Batman thing’s a bad metaphor, but this is the cart I use at The Store as I roam around, fixing stuff. Most of the tools I tend to use on a daily basis are here, plus some I use a bit less frequently. On the top shelf, there are three main items.Down the rabbit hole….

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Straw and Hay, originally uploaded by Jaquandor. I made this dish for dinner a couple of nights ago, using a recipe from a Christmas-themed cookbook by the Frugal Gourmet. I’d always wanted to make it, but I always forgot about the recipe when not in the Holiday season, because that’s the only time I tend to peruse this particular cookbook. (He gives the Straw and Hay recipe in honor of the donkey ridden by Mary to Bethlehem.) It’s called “Straw and Hay” (Paglia e Fieno in Italian) by virtue of the two colors of pasta involved. I served it withDown the rabbit hole….

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On New Year’s Eve, we decided to do something we’d never done before: we went to downtown Buffalo for the annual Ball Drop and the ringing in of the New Year. Now, we’ve watched the Ball Drop on teevee a lot over the years; here in Buffalo, Channel 7 (our ABC affiliate) airs split-screen coverage of Buffalo’s Ball Drop with the big one at Times Square, as part of New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. Now, I can’t lie — judging by what we’ve seen on teevee, I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about being downtown for our Ball Drop. For one thing, itDown the rabbit hole….

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Yesterday I had several hours in the afternoon during which I was alone: The Daughter was elsewhere, and The Wife was at work. So I decided to go back to Chestnut Ridge Park, where we spent some time last week. It’s a place that deserves to be nearer and dearer to my heart than it is, because it’s so beautiful and close and yet I don’t get there all that often. Chestnut Ridge is a park run by Erie County in the “Southtowns” region, where the terrain starts becoming more hilly as one moves away from the flatlands that surroundDown the rabbit hole….

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Chestnut Ridge (5), originally uploaded by Jaquandor. The other day we took a trek up to Chestnut Ridge Park, a county-run preserve in the hills south of Buffalo. We don’t get there all that often, for reasons passing understanding, since the park is about fifteen minutes from Casa Jaquandor, and that’s if you hit all the red lights. The place is gorgeous in winter, and was the scene last weekend for an annual Christmas-themed event, with crafts and cookies and hot chocolate and Santa and sledding and “hayrides” (involving a big passenger wagon pulled by a big pickup truck). AfterDown the rabbit hole….

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The USS New York sails down the Mississippi River through the Port of New Orleans in New Orleans, La., Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009. AP Photo Bill Haber, originally uploaded by ussnewyork. May the service of the USS New York be long and proud. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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optimised family, originally uploaded by Birmingham News Room. This kind of thing thrills me deeply: a guy in England has discovered the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found. There’s so much of interest in a story like this, even beyond the amazing nature of the find itself (and one of my life goals is to go to the UK someday and go to lots of museums to see all these old Anglo-Saxon relics). The guy who found the gold is referred to as a “metal detectorist”. There is an actual, official definition of “treasure” in the UK, and whetherDown the rabbit hole….

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This weekend saw my local library’s quarterly Used Book Sale, and as always, I was there when the doors opened to rush in and grab my fair share of the booky goodness. While this iteration was spectacularly unsuccessful from the standpoint of bolstering my SF collection — I didn’t see a single SF volume at all amidst the offerings, whether it was something I wanted or not, and I can almost always count on at least seeing a few Star Wars or Star Trek novels floating about — I did grab some nice items, as pictured below. Going from theDown the rabbit hole….

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"Double dumb-ass on you!", originally uploaded by Jaquandor. So I was watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home last night, and one little detail caught my eye during the scene where Kirk and Spock are riding the BART bus over to Sausalito so they can visit the Cetacean Institute and plot their rescue of two whales. This very brief shot comes right after Spock nerve-pinches the rude punk-rocker. Why did I screengrab this? Because if you look close, you can see that a rider over on the left there, a couple of rows in front of Kirk and Spock, isDown the rabbit hole….