If Captain America Wasn't Dead, This Would Kill Him

This is just so, so wrong:

Captain America Arrested With Burrito In Pants

MELBOURNE, Fla. --
A Brevard County doctor dressed up in a Captain America outfit was arrested with a burrito in his tights. What he allegedly did at the police station got him into more trouble.

Doctor Raymond Adamcik, 54, would probably rather forget about the weekend when he was arrested on charges of battery, disorderly conduct, drug possession and trying to destroy evidence. It's not what you would expect from a doctor or Captain America.

The Palm Bay family physician was at On Tap bar as part of a pub-crawl with other medical professionals. It was a sort of costume party on a bus that would take them around from bar to bar.

Everything was fine until, witnesses said, Captain America started getting too forward with a burrito he kept tucked inside his blue tights, a burrito that ultimately landed him in jail.

It's certainly not the Captain America from the comic books. This one is accused of sinister deeds more fitting of a villain than a superhero.

On Saturday night, when a costume party full of medical professionals stopped at On Tap Cafe, police said Adamcik had a burrito stuffed below the waistband of his costume and was asking women if they want to touch it. When one refused, he allegedly took out the burrito and groped her.

The woman called police and, when they arrived, the officers wrote in their report "there were so many cartoon characters in the bar at the time, all Captain America's were asked to go outside for a possible identification."

The woman pointed out Adamcik and the burrito was found in his boot. He was taken to the police station. There, while in a holding cell, police said, he asked to use the bathroom and tried to flush a joint, also hidden in his blue tights, down the toilet.

"The officer observed him try to flush something into the toilet. He tried to flush it. The officer was able to reach inside and grab part of what he tried to flush," said Jill Frederiksen, Melbourne Police Department.

The doctor wasn't in when Eyewitness News went by and didn't return calls. He may now have to rely on a lawyer instead of his superpowers to get him out of the jam.

"This is definitely an unusual situation. We don't usually arrest people in costume," Frederiksen said.

No super powers got Adamcik out of jail. He needed $2,000 cash bail and then, once he got out of jail, he still stopped to pose for pictures on the way out. It is unclear right now whether the doctor could lose his medical license if he's convicted.

This is the sort of thing I tend to call "secular blasphemy". With great costumes come great responsibility; if you dress up as Captain America, then damn it, you need to act like Captain America.

He should have dressed up as, oh, maybe Lobo.

IPSTP Day: A Message From The Man In The Moon

I tend to press deadlines to the last moment (I got my taxes done in time last week, but it meant I went to work on three hours sleep), and posting something for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is no exception.

Without further ado:

A Message From The Man In The Moon

Luna's far side is covered
with boundless forests of trees,
immense and towering, tall.
Redolent with usefulness.

Wood, easily cut and shaped,
hardens to stonelike toughness.
Sweet fruit, zero calories,
antivenom to cancer.

I am chainsawing them all,
and burning the logs and limbs
to open the space required
to begin the strip-mining.

For fist-sized nuggets of gold,
head-sized flawless white diamonds,
boat-sized caches of amber.
And did I mention the oil?

Earthside's secret caverns
cloak shadowed lands and oceans,
brimming with fauna thought lost
in your own prehistory.

Sabertooth and giant sloth,
plesiosaur and T. Rex,
trilobites and armored worms,
and gasping mud-crawling fish.

The slaughterhouses open
the beginning of next month,
staffed with abducted children
wielding the keen-edged knives.

(Sixteen-hour shifts should leave
the kiddies worn and sexless.
But abortionists stand by,
if procreation proceeds.)

Hey, the topside slaves must eat
while they etch Nazca lines
of vilest pornography
on Tranquility's broad plain.

And by the way, one more thing
you all should probably know:
I am -- I am -- stockpiling
weapons of mass destruction.

If any of this upsets you,
if any of this angers you,
if any of this alarms you,
why don't you just come on up here

and stop me?


A list of other participants in IPST Day (plus a long list of additions in comments) can be found on Jo Walton's LJ site here. And still more listings at the International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Live Journal site. (Thanks to John Scalzi at Whatever for the links.)

A Few Links

Some links of interest:

LowerManhattanite opens a can of whup-ass on the Keyboard Commandos who think Virginia Tech students should have disarmed the man shooting bullets into them with their bare hands.

Via The Inferior 4, a moving message from Michael Bishop on viewing the body of his son Jamie (one of the VT shooting victims).

On a lighter note, Jennifer Crusie passes along the secret of The Glittery Hoo-Ha.

And over at Angel Station, Walter Jon Williams discusses various "Robins Hood" he has known. (Speaking of which, the first 13 episodes of the 1980's Robin of Sherwood tv series he mentions is now available on DVD; I recommend it very, very, very highly, even if it didn't catch Walter's interest.)

Snarkaption Nation #3

"Researchers announced today that with the

proper application of electroshock, drugs, and

waterboarding, even the most diehard Bush

supporter can be converted into a relatively

benign Chicago Bears fan."

The entire Chicago Tribune photo-series of Bears fans can be found here. Well worth a look.

This Is Just To Plausibly Deny

If you're going to commit parody, parodize the best:



This Is Just to Plausibly Deny
by William Karl Williams

I have deleted
the emails
that were in
the server

and which
you were probably
subpoenaing
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were dangerous
so sweet
and so cold

Topic I

Because there just hasn't been enough talk and discussion about Don Imus lately.

Background, if you've been living under a rock: Last week Imus, on his talk show, referred to the Rutgers University womens basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's". Much upset resulted. Once it was realized how much upset, Imus apologized, and his parent company suspended his show for two weeks.

The sincerity of Imus' apology is suspect. His career has been mostly built around being rude, insulting, in-your-face offensive.

But what made Imus famous wasn't that. It was something called "1,200 Hamburgers To Go." 1200HTG was a classic prank phone call Imus made from his radio show way back around 1970. At the time, there were numerous university and college student demonstrations against the Vietnam War, not always peaceful; in a number of instances, National Guard units were called out to preserve order on campuses (not always successfully; see Kent State).

One such NG unit was called out for such purpose in Imus' home city. Imus called a local MacDonald's burger joint, and pretended to be the National Guard commander, who explained to a hapless clerk that arrangements for feeding the NG members had fallen through, and that he needed to order twelve hundred hamburgers to go. An extended conversation later, roping the MacDonald's manager in, and the MacDonald's had agreed to provide the twelve hundred hamburgers.

"Okay," Imus said, "We'll need two of those with pickle and ketchup, no, make it three with pickle and ketchup, and---" At which point the MacDonald's manager finally realized he was being put on and hung up the phone.

It was funny. It was classic. And... it was benign. It didn't put anyone down, or belittle them, or insult them. It just played a joke, and a good joke. It got airplay everywhere, and repeatedly. It made a local radio host into Don Imus, National Celebrity.

Flash forward a few years, to 1978, when a fellow named Dave Klause was staying with Hilde and me for several months following the Phoenix Worldcon.

Dave was a big fan of 1200HTG, and somewhere he came across a tape of Don Imus performing as a standup comic at a private club. He brought it back to our place, and eagerly popped it into our tape player for a listen.

It was... ugly. Imus' performance was racist, vulgar, scatological, way way over the edge of acceptability. And none of it, none, was even the least bit funny. It was just ugly, and hateful, and... literally... disgusting. After listening to about ten minutes worth, Dave turned off the tape player, a shocked look on his face, and said "Uhh, I guess we won't listen to any more of that."

You see, when Imus is on the public airwaves, no matter how much you think he's rude or offensive, he's actually behaving himself.

Because the real Don Imus is the man who slipped and called a group of black women athletes "nappy-headed ho's", the real Dom Imus is the man we heard on that tape from 1978.

Imus has described himself as "an equal-opportunity bigot"; he hates everybody. I don't think that's a joke. I think Imus is a man deeply poisoned by hatred and anger and bigotry; he just (usually) keeps himself (barely) on the acceptable side of behavior. I think he is a deeply ugly, bone-ugly, soul-ugly individual.

I said above that 1200HTG is a "classic" piece of comedy. It is. I wish it had been the product of someone who deserved the credit.

[02/29/2012 -- A rude, petty, and irrelevant endnote removed.  My apologies, Dave.]

Snarkaption Nation #2

"What? What is it? Why are you all laughing? C'mon, guys, let me in on the joke."

Add your own caption in comments.

Easter...

... the one day of the year when tentacled monsters from outer space suck the brains out of your pet dog:

Original here.

Snarkaption Nation #1

Roxanne over at Rox Populi decided to close up shop there (she's now a contributor to Pandagon) a few months ago, which meant my favorite source of "Write Your Own Caption" contests dried up and blew away.

As the saying goes, when your supplier vanishes, you have to become a dealer yourself.

So I'm going to try posting occasional news photos here (I'll try for about weekly), with my own snarky, mean-tempered captions attached, along with an invitation for readers to contribute their own captions in comments. Like so:















"This is my personal suicide vest. Political suicide."



Add your own caption in comments.

Co-In-See-Deenk?

In the news recently has been the story of Matthew Dowd, political advisor to the White House, a VIP in the election campaigns of 2000 and 2004, who in an interview with the New York Times, announced his deep disaffection and disappointment with the Bush administration.

There was one section of the NYT article, written by Jim Rutenberg, that I particularly noted:

"In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. " [emphasis added]

Hmmm. Does this sound like what I think it sounds like?

That, in short, if you have children in the military, as long as you're a "loyal Bushie", they won't be sent to a combat zone? (Dowd's son joined the Army in late 2004, two-and-a-half years ago.)

Mea Cuppa

Over at Whatever, John Scalzi recently explained why he doesn't drink coffee:

"Coffee tastes like ass."

For most of the subset of caffeinated beverages known as coffee, Scalzi's correct. Most coffee, especially black, unsweetened coffee, doesn't taste good.

Some coffee's are spectacularly bad. There's a local deli chain, Miracle Mile, that makes one of the best Ruebens sandwiches in town. But their coffee is bad. Bad, bad, bad. Harsh, bitter and burnt. It is so bad that every time I go to Miracle Mile, I order another cup, because traumatic amnesia has wiped the last experience from my mind. (And, perhaps, I'm living proof that hope springs eternal, for surely MM's coffee must have improved since my last visit. Sadly, no.)

But there's a lot of coffee that's merely bad. Coffee shop coffee, usually, for some reason or another. Hotel coffee shop coffee is almost invariably bad.

Nonetheless, I've been a regular coffee drinker since 1981. Didn't like coffee before that. But then I had some home-brewed coffee while Hilde and I were visiting Diana Paxson and the other folk at Greyhaven... and it actually tasted... good.

Here's my secret method to making coffee palatable:

Use HALF the amount of ground coffee called for in the brewing instructions.

Some people have called my coffee "wussy-ass-wimpy". Yeh, yeh; these are the same type of people who drink Everclear straight.

You can make it stronger if you want, but don't use more than 2/3rds of the recommended grounds. Past that, and you get too high a concentration of the bitter oils that Scalzi so evocatively describes.

(Why do makers' coffee instructions invariably call for a larger amount? Gee, could it possibly be that using a larger amount of coffee means that you'll BUY MORE COFFEE, MORE FREQUENTLY?)

There's also light roast vs. medium roast vs. dark roast. I use the light or medium. The dark roast coffees have a burnt taste to me. If I wanted that, I could suck on a charcoal briquet.

One of the ways I judge a pot of coffee is by holding the glass pot up to a light and checking the color. The ideal pot, with the light shining thru, should have a dark red color like a good piece of cherry amber.

Also, clean the pot occasionally, wiping out any accumulated oils on the inside of the pot. Otherwise, you can end up with something like the break room at my postal station, Home of the World's Filthiest Coffeepots. (I'm not kidding about those coffeepots; we should open up a sideshow and charge the public to look at them.) ("Small children and pregnant women are advised against seeing this show.")

Yes, I use sugar and creamer. Yes, I'm not a Real Man. Tough.

How Do YOU Spell R-E-L-I-E-F?

Been meaning to post this since last week:

When I was sick with a respiratory crud back in January, my doctor ran some bloodwork on me. It showed some unexpected results:

I was anemic, several points below the minimum normal range. [mild alarm] So my doctor had me do a stool sample card.

Which tested positive for blood. [moderate alarm]

So I got scheduled for a colonoscopy and endoscopy at the Scottsdale branch of the Mayo Clinic. (I'd had both procedures previously in 2004, with negative results, but had been figuring it would be 2009 before I was due for a repeat exam.)

Two polyps were found in the large intestine, snipped, and sent for biopsy.

The good news: The polyps were benign.

The bad news: They were the type of polyps that can turn cancerous if left alone for five or ten years. The endoscopy of the esophagus also showed a small patch of Barrett's Esophagus tissue, which can also turn cancerous over time, at the entrance to my stomach.

So: Relief that my anemia wasn't from cancer. (Best guess is that the anemia was caused by irritation from the aspirin and ibuprofen I'd been taking fairly regularly; I've switched to Tylenol, and the bloodwork readings have improved, though not quite to normal range yet.)

But a certain measure of annoyance that, damn, something else to have to keep an eye on. (The doctors recommended a fresh endoscopy every 2-3 years, and colonoscopy every 5 years.) After having fretted most of my life about my family's wretched history of cardiac problems, now I have to keep a cancer-watch too? Damn.

Dead President Walking?

I was listening to Air America Radio this afternoon while driving around on errands, and a clip was played from a recent speech by George Bush.

It wasn't remarked on by the radio host, but I was struck by how dead Bush's voice was. He was clearly reading words off a paper given to him. His voice was flat and effectless. He paused, inappropriately, numerous times, as if having to re-focus on the words he was reading.

It was the voice of a man tired. Exhausted. On the point of collapse. A man who has lost hope. A walking dead man.

Earlier in the week, Bush had given his "angry" speech, accusing Democrats of partisan politics in their investigation of the DoJ/US-attorneys-firings scandal. I put "angry" in quotes, because my reaction to that speech was that it wasn't an angry man making an angry speech, it was a man acting, or trying to act, like an angry man. It was blustering, not anger; it was bad acting, and horribly, horribly unconvincing.

And it didn't work. The investigation continues; subpoenas for White House insiders are looking more and more certain. Damaging emails, and more evidence of systemic White House dishonesty, keep coming forth. Bush's administration seems, finally, to be beginning an accelerating slide to public disgrace and repudiation.

It's always been pretty clear that one of the main psychological dynamics driving George Bush has been the drive to out-do his father.

And it's pretty clear now that he's failed in that drive. He won't be remembered as a great President. He won't be regarded as a great warrior, or a great diplomat, or a great leader.

That's been clear to a LOT of people, for a LONG time. And now, maybe, it's become clear to George Bush too.

People have an amazing capacity for denial, for rationalization, for self-justification. Alcoholics, drug addicts, abusers, all can deny the wreckage they've made of their lives and the lives of people around them, for years and for decades. A lot of them go to their graves never admitting their own weaknesses and failings.

But maybe George Bush is reaching his own personal "tipping point". Maybe it's finally become undeniable, UN-deniable, that he is a failure as a President, as a leader, as a human being. Maybe he's looked into mirrors one too many times, and is finally starting to see a true image of the man he's become, and the legacy and reputation he will leave behind him.

It's not a pretty sight. It's the face of failure.

Everything he wanted, he will not have. Everything he hoped for -- fame, adulation, success -- he will not get. And he is only now truly beginning to realize this, only now beginning to KNOW this, to know it within his mind, and his heart, and his soul. The denial no longer works, the rationalizations no longer work, the self-justifications no longer work.

This is a very uncertain period. If my speculations above are anywhere close to reality, there are several ways events might proceed from here, all of them with a certain amount of danger attached. But if my reading of Bush's voice during that speech is accurate...

...then I think we may actually see a President leaving office via suicide -- Bush reportedly keeps Saddam Hussein's gun in his Oval Office desk -- in the next few weeks or months.

King & Kin

For about the last year, I've been hearing buzz about a new writer named Joe Hill in the dark fantasy/horror field. He's been getting awards nominations for his shorter work, and his new novel, Heart-Shaped Box, has gotten onto bestseller lists (and onto the book tables at CostCo, which is an even surer sign of success). I haven't read any of his work yet, but I've been wondering about this hot new writer with the same name as the famous union organizer.

Turns out "Joe Hill" is, sort of, a pen name.

Recent news has included articles on the forthcoming comics adapatation of Stephen King's Dark Tower saga. An excerpt:

King, 59, lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, Tabitha. He has three grown children: Oldest Naomi King is a Unitarian minister and is working on a nonfiction project; Joseph Hillstrom King recently wrote "Heart Shaped Box," under the pen name Joe Hill; and youngest son Owen King published a novella in 2005 entitled "We're All in this Together."

I suppose this bit of information might have been mentioned before, but I hadn't encountered it until now.

The most likely reason a famous writer's son might decide to write under a pen name is to show that he can do it independent of his parent's celebrity. But in the case of Stephen King, if it were me in Joe Hill's position, I'd make the same decision for a different reason:

His monstrous bevy of fans, however, are unfazed by literary criticism. At the release of the first "Dark Tower" book, thousands poured into a conference room at the Comic-Con summit to hear him speak. After a lengthy standing ovation, they stood in awe, photographing King and repeating over and over, in a tone much too casual for someone they've never met: "You are a genius," and "You are my hero."

I first saw Stephen King in 1981, at the World Fantasy Convention in Orlando, California. Now, WFC is a convention oriented towards professionals, so the majority of the attendees tend to be writers and editors themselves. People who, you'd think, would be pretty blase' about another writer, even one famous, sucessful, and at the top of the bestseller lists.

Not with Stephen King. Virtually every time King showed himself in public, he'd be surrounded by other WFC attendees holding out books for him to sign.

That is not a lifestyle I would like to live. I'd like to be a more productive writer, a more successful writer, a more widely-read writer.

But, man, I would not want that level of success, where fame and celebrity become dominant elements in one's life. And I wonder if Joe Hill didn't have some thoughts in that same direction when he chose his pen name.

LowerManhattanite Updates The Classics

Over at The News Blog, guest posters are filling the gap while host Steve Gilliard is recovering from major surgery. (Get well, Gilliard!)

Among the guest writers is LowerManhattanite, a frequent commenter on TNB who's garnered a reputation for a savage wit, a "ripping yarn" style, and a general regard as The Non-Blogger People Most Want To Have His Own Blog.

In one of his recent guest posts, LM updates a classic comedy routine for modern times.

If you can read it and not laugh out loud, you're unhinged!

Bro Ken Cur Ses

I just wanted to note for the record that my oldest brother, Gary, had his 60th birthday a few weeks ago.

Why is this particularly notable? Because he reached that milestone without having had a major heart attack, or dying from one.

In my paternal family line, no male has reached the age of 60, going back to at least before WWII (when my dad's father died at the age of 41), without a major heart attack. In fact, only one of my uncles lived to age 61, and that was only after several bypass surgeries.

How did the family curse finally get broken? I think mostly because of 1) recognition among family members that cardiac problems really ARE a chronic and major menace to males in our line, and 2) that medicine has progressed to where early warning signs can be detected and steps taken for prevention and treatment. (I think all four of us brothers are taking Lipitor daily.)

It's nice to think that when I retire (current plans are aiming at early 2010, when I'll be 57), I might actually have more than just a couple of years to enjoy retirement. (Considering how many books I've bought over the years, and never found the time to actually read, I'll need every moment I can get.)

Traffic Grumping

On my way home from work earlier this week, I'm passed on the road by a group of three motorcyclists riding shiny, new-looking, colorful (red, blue and yellow) Suzuki sport motorcycles.

They get ahead of me, and we're all toodling down the road, when the guy on the yellow motorcycle puts his left foot out and lets it drag along the asphalt. Great way to destroy an expensive pair of boots, I think.

And then... he swings his right leg over the bike, and he's standing/sliding/surfing on the asphalt as he's dragged along by the motorbike, holding on by the handlebars. After about five or ten seconds, he swings the right leg back up onto the bike, then picks up the left and resumes riding normally.

Watching this was terrifying. One ripple or dip in the asphalt, a bit of road debris, and I'd have had a human being bouncing and tumbling along the road in front of me.

This kind of stunt riding is something that, if it needs to be done at all, should be done (like the fine print on auto commercial stunts says) on a closed track by experienced drivers, where the road conditions have been pre-checked carefully.

If the rider's intention was to make the white-bearded geezer in the minivan driving behind crap his pants... well, it came pretty damn close.

- - - - -

The above is the post I meant to write Tuesday evening right after it occurred. Stuff happened, and I put off writing the post.

Friday afternoon, I'm on my way to the grocery store, and see that the traffic in the opposing lanes is restricted to one lane as police direct traffic around an accident site. Fire engines, ambulance, flashing red & blue police lights.

And, laying in the road on its side...

Oh, yeh. You got it. I don't really need to say it, do I?

...a bright yellow Suzuki motorcycle.

The cynic in me wants to say "Evolution in action." But the better part of me is wondering if there's a family doing a hospital-bedside vigil, or having to make funeral arrangements.

How I Spent My Evening

My brother-in-law and his wife are off camping at tyhe SCA's Estrella War this week, so they asked me to stop by and feed their dogs each day while they were gone. They have five large dogs and about four four-or-five-month old puppies from a recent litter.

So I get to the house this afternoon and go through the side gate into the back yard, and find...

...that the heavy unused metal-barred room divider that had been leaning up against the storage shed had been pulled over (presumably by one of the larger dogs) and had fallen on top of one of the puppies.

The pup was pinned tightly across its hindquarters, and it was crying and struggling to get out. It had also crapped itself, spectacularly, probably from a combination of pain and terror.

I lift the gate off the pup (trying to ward off half a dozen dogs and pups trying to jump on me and lick me), and it crawls under a nearby old car, dragging one leg like it's broken. Aw shit, and I realize I need to take the pup in to the vet.

So I find an old empty planter large enough to hold the pup, get it out from under the car and put it into the planter; it doesn't cry out when I move it, which is encouraging -- maybe the leg isn't broken after all -- but it's still shaking and trembling, and I'm worried about shock, so it's off to the vet's anyway.

Which, between drive time, waiting room time, and exam room time, takes up the next several hours. The doctor finds nothing broken, though the pup is limping fairly strongly and probably had some deep bruises under its fur. But no apparent permanent damage. They take the pup into the back room and give it a bath to wash the puppy crap off, for which I'm quite grateful. (Sorta like the old gas station offer, I guess: Fill up your tank and get a free car wash.)

So I take the pup back to its home and put it back with the other dogs. By this time, it's fully dark, so the next half-hour spent trying to find my cell phone is fruitless. (I'd called home from the backyard after finding the trapped pup, to tell them I'd be late getting back, then realized on the way to the vet's that my cell phone was no longer on its belt clip. Somewhere between the back yard and the car, it had come off, possibly when one or more of the large dogs was trying to jump up on me. I'll go back in the morning, when it's light, and try to find the phone again. Hopefully it hasn't been used as a chew toy.)

I don't know if my in-laws have named the pups yet, but I think if ti was up to me, I'd name that puppy "Panini".

And that's how I spent my evening.

A Reader's Moral Quandary

Over at Duchy of Burgundy Carrots, hostess Queen of Carrots fights temptation:

This week I had a library book that was so absolutely and forlornly lost, even after six weeks of searching, that I simply had to up and pay for it. Fortunately, it was only four dollars. Unfortunately, it wasn't one I particularly would be thrilled to own, if it ever does turn up. But the occurence did put a thought in my head. Suppose I find a book at the library that I really, really want to own. Suppose further that this book is rare or out of print, and even further that it looks like something the library is going to ditch soon in favor of more shelf space. Of course, the chances of me happening across it at just the right library sale are very slim indeed. How evil would it be to, ah, "lose" the book and pay for it, and then "find" it again but decide not to bother about getting my money back? Evil, evil, evil. I blot the thought from my mind.

Let's recast this scenario into science-fictional terms:

If you had a time machine and could go back to the Library of Alexandria just before it was destroyed, would it be wrong to grab as many texts as you could and jump back into the present with them?

Would that be "stealing"? Or would that be "preemptive salvage"?

(That very old, very decrepit, one-return-away-from-discard former library copy of an UNKNOWN collection sitting on one of our shelves has nothing to do with this discussion. Nothing, I say.)

Bananas Foster Bread Pudding

I had some whole-wheat rolls that had been in the freezer too long, and figured a bread pudding would be a good way to use some of them up.

I found a recipe for a whole-wheat bread pudding at the Land O' Lakes Butter website, and decided to do some fiddling around with it. (Original recipe here.) Another recipe I'd browsed had used bananas as an ingredient, and when I combined that thought with the melted butter in the LOL recipe, my mind immediately thought, "*ding!-ding!-ding!* Bananas Foster!"

So I substituted brown sugar for white, and cinnamon for nutmeg, added bananas and some rum (I kept the original raisins; it's not a bread pudding without raisins), and increased the proportion of eggs and milk. (Hilde likes an eggier bread pudding, one with a custard kicking and screaming to get out.)

Hulk say, "Puny human do good":

Bananas Foster Bread Pudding

1/4 C. butter
4 C. cubed whole-wheat bread or rolls
1/2 c. raisins
1+1/2 ripe bananas, cut into small chunks
3 eggs
2+3/4 C. nonfat milk
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
2 Tbsp. rum (I use Myer's)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a 2-quart casserole, melt butter. Add cubed bread, raisins and bananas to butter; toss to coat.
3. Combine and beat other ingredients. Pour mixture over bread & fruit; stir to coat evenly.
4. Bake 45-55 minutes, until knife comes clean.

Can be eaten straight, or -- for that extra measure of decadence -- top warm pudding with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

cautionary note: This recipe is a dietkiller. It is a stone cold dietkiller with a dead man's eyes. You will want seconds. And thirds. Eat responsibly.