substitute

While finding a place to eat out on Thanksgiving, I noticed that all of the local high-quality restaurants included braised beef short ribs on the menu along with the obligatory turkey and a couple other items.

This may be a food trendy thing, not sure. In any case it's good recession markup food. Do a decent job with a very, very cheap cut and 3) profit!

In that spirit I suggested to salome_st_john that we start an All Oxtail Restaurant for the next few hard years. We came up with some specialties:

"Okay sir, that's two of the Mesquite Chipotle oxtails and three Buffalo Oxtails. Would you like some of our oxtail poppers to start?"

"and for dessert: flourless warm oxtail!!"

"This oxtailini..."

oxtail ganache and an oxtail coulis!

mango jalapeno jello oxtail salsa!

oxtail reduction on a bed of ox foam!

oxtail micropearls frozen in liquid nitrogen!

and reconstituted in lukewarm oxtail "broth"! with an aroma of oxtail "smoke"!

The 2005 average income in my zip code was $258,733.14.

Oh the hell with that, time to start stealing from the neighbors. There's no way they'll notice.

The "health" "plan" from my last job has still not paid any of the claims from February to March of this year.

Today I got a bill from a collection agency for an $800+ charge, now with added interest.

A month ago I spoke to a "rapid resolution expert" at the health plan who was shocked, shocked at the lack of payment and pressed lots of buttons and told me it would be resolved in 30 days.

Nothing was done.

Today I spoke to another "rapid resolution expert" who was even more shocked and promised me a written response in 48 hours and resolution within ten business days. He gave me a magic string of digits which supposedly will make the collection agency back off.

Once again let me observe that I am at the very top of the privilege ladder here, and I'm getting reamed really hard.

Zeroed out balance, they were crap ghetto credit, goodbye.

1) HSBC. Polite and pleasant operator transfers me to "win-back" guy. He talks too fast reading the script and is hard to understand due to an accent, but very nice. After two attempts to sell me back, including a fairly pathetic 2% cashback offer and waiving the membership fee, he folds and agrees to cancel it and send me written confirmation.

2) Juniper/Apple Credit. Same type of operator transfers me to win-back guy. He is a "relationship manager" which makes me think of Dr. Neil Clark Warren. He doesn't try to give me any deals. Instead he first tries to sell me on how great the card is, and is not chagrined at all to learn that I have 8% less interest and ten times the limit elsewhere. Then he issues a warning: if I cancel the card, it could have an adverse effect on my credit rating! He says this once and I point out that closing the account after paying it off is probably not a minus. In a more ominous tone he asks me to reconsider because it could seriously be a negative MARK on my CREDIT RATING if i canceled. "Oh no you don't," I say. "Enough with the threats; that is not cool. Immediately cancel the account and send me written confirmation." He folds too.

Nice bullying, Juniper/Apple!

When you're tired of fraud, you're tired of capitalism.

Where is a good local body shop? I have enough money to pay for something that isn't broken or cheesy, but not enough to go to the Insurance Disaster places with the big fish tank and the statuesque receptionist.

best,

The guy with the dented front end

Bonus points for the url: https://walkthelinecard.com/

Seriously singing the Folsom Debtors Prison Blues here. Also, of course it's a prepaid card.

According to the Register, a Mr. Joseph Garcia is currently in jail here on a million dollars bail for rape and sexual assault of at least three women. Mr. Garcia's M.O. was to go on a date, take her home, and jump her. This is apparently not recommended in that he could get up to 45 years if convicted. And where did he get his dates? One just at the post office, and the others at MillionaireMatch.com!

Don't worry, gals. Not all of the local real estate millionaires are rapists.

Edit: From the millionaire dating service site itself: "If the site is slow at this moment, come back early morning or late night. It may be due to the recent publicity about a major Hollywood celebrity having found a match here." Yes, or...

Register story is here:

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1328764.php

It has come to my attention that I need a vacation. Alone. In the desert or up the Central Coast. I usually do this twice a year and it's one of the things that keeps me from completing my transformation into Howard Beale.

It doesn't have to be long or cost a lot of money. A long weekend, two overnights in a cheap motel, and a digestible series of patty melts will do if the scenery is okay. That's great news, because I'm completely broke, too.

The Fix My Damn Brain project ate everything for a year, starting with my time. Neurofeedback, which ends at least temporarily on Tuesday, will have lasted almost 11 months straight with no breaks, twice a week with some extra days. Forty-seven weeks! No leaving town or taking time off. Plus shrink lady once a week and doctor once a month. Plus doing enough of my job that I didn't get fired. I'm a little surprised thisl happened at all.

And it ate all my money too. In theory I'm getting reimbursed for some of this stuff at least, but out of pocket for the period since NFB start includes

Neurofeedback: $8930 <- !!!!!
Shrink: $6815 <- !!!
Drugs: $2200 (est) <- !

Oh hey look, it's almost $18,000. No wonder I'm in the hole. Must defeat ADD and get that paperwork done. If I can get even half of that back...

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares. [...] The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap? — Diedrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

From the Register article I cited yesterday about the "SWAT Team" kids preaching on the beach. Photo credit to Andy Templeton for this excellent piece of photojournalism. The other pics with the article are good also.

The perfectly scrubbed whiteness of these people — even when they're not white — is alarming. They exist in a perfect bubble of privilege and cultural isolation. Their friends and family are all like them. Their ideal world is a kind of 1903 Tennesse where everyone is inexplicably 2006 "cool": chastity, whiteness, conservative politics, extreme sports, rock 'n' roll music, TV, great new snacks, and women in their place, obediently following behind their husbands even while surfing some massive waves.

The place where dogmatic evangelical religion and cluelessly neotenized teenage privilege meet is the best-gilded turd you'll ever see. But you'll smell it, too. Smell is pretty strong around these parts.