public book double feature

Good evening, everyone. I am pleased to present tonight's Free Public Book Double Feature. The first book is a youth fiction following Amy Tan's journey to the store and back. It may also be used as the key to an alphanumeric cypher using the search and replace function of a basic text editor, which will generate a long, unreadable message. I might write a guide on how to do that later.

The second book is a political thriller. It's great, you'll love it.

--
AMY TAN GOES TO TOWN
Amy Tan needed to go to the store. What did she buy there, and what did it represent symbolically?

• Apricot-- resolution
  
• Banana-- iniquity
  
• Carrot-- misfortune
  
• Date-- resolution
  
• Eggplant-- generosity
  
• Fig-- shame
  
• Ginger root-- gnosis
  
• Halibut-- birth order rights
  
• Iodine-- necromancy
  
• Jam-- mastery of horses
  
• Kerosene-- dissatisfaction
  
• Lemon-- victory
  
• Mandarin-- tradition
  
• Nectarine-- progress
  
• Orange-- catastrophe
  
• Plum-- mystery
  
• Quails' eggs-- indignation
  
• Radium-- radioactivity
  
• Salmon-- certainty
  
• Terrycloth-- duplicity
  
• Umbrella-- class warfare
  
• Valium-- consternation
  
• Wort-- hope
  
• X-rated films-- mortality
  
• Zany mice [SELECT]

Amy Tan needed more zany mice. She went to the store to buy some. It was a fine and fulfilling day.




--
POOCHY
The Dog That Became President

Nobody paid any attention as Poochy slipped into the Oval Office. He had gone over it countless hours prior to falling asleep each evening. The location of the President's Hat. Yes, he kept it here, off and to the left as you go in, behind a special case that contained an exact holographic replica of the President's Hat in order to fool people. Suddenly, he heard footsteps. Poochy made a mad dive towards the President's Hat, which was glimmering against the background. The hat slipped on with assurance.

Two men stood framed in the doorway. One of them moved to speak.

"Mister President,"

Poochy looked up slowly. "Yes that's right. How may I help you gentlemen?"

"Mister President. . ."

Poochy drew out a long, level smile. The hat had done its work. "Yes, gentlemen, what is it?"

" . . .You look fantastic."

--

SorryBike for Mariel Mentink

(more information)

café drawing + SAUCE IS NOT PASTE

I met this guy at a café because he had my friend Pris' old number. I showed him how to make spaghetti sauce because I thought he might like to know how to make it from scratch, but I accidentally bought tomato sauce instead of tomato paste. It's a big mistake, never make it. He wasn't really that interested in it anyway.

EDIT: If you accidentally use sauce instead of paste, don't worry, you can still eat it. It just won't be as good.

Well, this is my recipe for spaghetti sauce.

spaghetti sauce (olive oil, butter, onion, garlic, tomato, tomato paste, fresh basil)

1. Dice the onion and mince the garlic. You can use either 1 or 2 onions or cloves of garlic, depending on how much you like either one.
2. If you cannot cube a tomato quickly, cube 2-3 tomatoes now.
3. Heat a skillet (I prefer iron) on medium heat. When a drop of water will sizzle and pop
   immediately after being dropped, you are at the correct temperature.
4. Add enough olive oil to cover the minced garlic. Allow the oil to heat, then add some butter. Stir in the garlic. Stir enough to keep the garlic from burning. First the garlic will become yellow and sticky, then it will start to brown.
5. Once the garlic begins to brown, mix in the onions.
6. You don't have to stir as much as you did earlier, just keep sautéing until the onions become translucent and soft.
7. Add the tomatoes. Sauté until they become soft.
8. Add enough tomato paste to cover the vegetables.
9. Turn the burner to low.
10. Cut up the fresh basil into thin strips, then add them to the mixture.
    
11. Simmer on low until ready.

I want to try making a batch of this without butter and compare it to the same recipe with butter, but I'd need a group of people for it to be scientific.

;)

Turing Test Comic for Aaron Diaz

Hi guys, Aaron Diaz of Dresden Codak hurt his hands recently, which is sad because he is an extremely talented artist and a nice man. Let's hope he gets well soon, but in the meanwhile, here is a comic about a real, live robot that I hope will cheer him up.





And... notes!

the news is dumb.

Here's a new comic for you guys. This one is in two parts, it's pretty big. I almost left the last panel out because it's pretty creepy, but then I decided to leave it in for the same reason.

By the way, the part about mailing to China is true. Well, it happened when I was like 5 and not today, but still. My dad got really mad at me for wasting all those postage stamps.

Someday I'll color these.

another comic

I just finished a comic based off the Ring of Gyges in Herodotus, except I replaced the characters with characters from Stargate SG-1. If you don't watch Stargate, Daniel Jackson is a scientist whose wife is kidnapped by aliens at the beginning of the series. In this particular episode, an aquatic alien kidnaps Daniel Jackson to help find his mate. Enjoy!

comic

Hi guys, I've been working on comics. I really need to get some drawing paper, because this computer paper isn't working out at all. I tried to get rid of most of the smudges, but I don't have any good image editing software on this computer.



The quote is from The Brothers Karamazov.