Am I to understand from this gibberish that the little bastard has actually gone?
Three things:
(1) It's incredibly amusing that you had this on tap like a newspaper waiting for a famous person to die so they can run that obit they've polished across many a slow news day.
(2) This post is just enormously gay. It is gaynormous. Squirrels laughing and "rassling?" Oh, honey. That picture of Aaron What's-His-Batch is nice, though, right underneath that.
(3) The world was a better place before YouTube.
dsquared I certainly hope you'll be picking up the slack, swimming-post-wise.
this gibberish
I knew I should have dumbed it down for the Welsh commenters. Sorry, dsquared.
The world was a better place before YouTube.
She has lots more videos, too!
I have to wait until I get home with a fast internet connection to follow all the links. Hopefully by that point I'll also be capable of graciousness, but right now I'm all like "abandoning your friends again? Ingrate."
I give him 37 days.
They removed the cancer, Hamilton.
So long, Ogged. I hardly knew ye. Seriously, I hardly did.
Having clicked on every link in this post, I feel like I just spent five minutes inside apostropher's back pocket. And then he farted.
I can say "fart" now that Ogged's gone, right?
So, merely coincidence, or is there more going on behind the scenes than the lowly commenters know?
A collective outbreak of sanity, perhaps?
We talk like lions, but we sacrifice like lambs? Do ya know? What I mean?
Guru Rassa desperately needs a better fitting bra.
I don't get why anybody would "quit" blogging when you can just fail to ever post anything.
16: some people live for the farewell accolades.
18: Sure, but there's lots of precedent , here.
the whole place will go to hell now. Already, there's a link from apo, apostrophised "that would be gross", which is perfectly safe to follows.
16: Unlike most blogs, Unfogged has a system of expectations and obligations in place for its bloggers. If Ogged had gone through an annual performance review after a long period of not posting, he may well have been fired. He certainly wouldn't have wanted a termination for cause to be on his resume.
Are there other stupid time-killing hobbies that people quit with pomp and solemnity? Like, "as of today, no more watching Survivor, ever again."
you quit the habits you've got, Sifu.
Guru Rassa desperately needs a better fitting bra.
If you film yourself doing the dance in a well-fitting bra, I'll put your video up instead. In the meantime, Rasa dances to Otis Redding and delivers her lecture, Stop Masturbation, Start Enemas.
other stupid time-killing hobbies that people quit with pomp and solemnity?
Smoking.
You make an interesting point, apo.
23: Some people might argue that the existence of real, live people on the other side of the time-killing hobby of blogging makes an announced farewell a polite courtesy, and so makes the watching-Survivor analogy inapt.
I supopse the analogy ban is now gone.
28: no, no, you're all imaginary.
Well, okay, Blume is real.
25: No.
26: Speaking of, I had my last cigarette (again!) earlier. Now that I've showered, smoking would give me away to PK when I arrive home in the wee hours.
23: Are there other stupid time-killing hobbies that people quit with pomp and solemnity?
As my experience of late has been that the current offerings have not exhibited sufficient novelty for me to achieve an adequate level of frisson, I am hereby quitting the viewing of porn and will be devoting myself to my new organization Pilates for Baby Pandas.
Covers Brock's objection in 28 as well.
Like, "as of today, no more watching Survivor, ever again."
Here, Sifu demonstrates using a completely outlandish example to drive home a point.
"No more Survivor." Heh.
other stupid time-killing hobbies that people quit with pomp and solemnity?
Graduate school?
</auto-banned with extreme prejudice>
I'm still working up to that one, MAE.
Did Ogged actually exist, or was he a creation myth for the blog, whose posts were concocted by the other bloggers to provide an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing myth (I mean, Bob! -- and Unf!)?
Perhaps Apo killed Ogged off (as George killed off his and Martha's son), because he felt that the other Unfogged bloggers were becoming too invested in this imaginary character. The recent invention of BPL (necessitating creating comments from her, too), perhaps was thought too much.
Or, perhaps, he simply wanted an excuse for this remarkable post.
I should have logged this on the predictions blog.
Knecht, last week: "Expect to hear Barack Obama doing some Cosby-lite on the stump about how inner city kids must grow up learning respect for their elders."
Obama, this week:
"How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child? How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom? How many are sitting in prison when they should be working, or at least looking for a job? How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty or violence or addiction? How many? Yes, we need more cops on the street. Yes, we need fewer guns in the hands of people who shouldn't have them. Yes, we need more money for our schools, and more outstanding teachers in the classroom, and more afterschool programs for our children. Yes, we need more jobs and more job training and more opportunity in our communities....But we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child - it's the courage to raise one."
Don't eat the wild potato seeds, Ogged (or are you now calling yourself Cyrus Foreigner or somesuch?).
We could start a pool on when Ogged will realise that his blogging jones will not be denied life is incomplete without the gentle verbiage of the lunatics those charming folk who frequent this calm, intellectual corner of the multiverse. He will, I am sure, miss the cock jokes friendly badinage and return to B's titties his bosom e-family in due time.
BPhD@30 - congratulations. I'm just starting week 2 of no smoking and I haven't yet killed anyone. Yet.
Most eloquent toast, apostropher.
I raise my Moonshine Mohito to you, Ogged. May the flying spaghetti monster bless you and keep you.
We should throw ogged a theme party.
46: Oh my god. What could that possibly look like? Must we all don unibrows? Shave ourselves? (That would be interesting.) Adopt a serial killer face? Wear Northface clothing and 5-toe shoes? Try as hard as possible not to hum ... whatever that band is that he likes? Journey. While wiggling our toes. Or have the party amid rocky cliffs.
That's a tough one.
Everybody dress in your personal style, and then we'll plan some activities around the bonfire, so everybody can have fun.
47: Play softball and yell at ogged when he makes mistakes.
48: Then play some children's games.
I think ogged likes mutual punching each other on the arm.
Face it, people, it's hopeless.
46: We should throw ogged a theme party.
Maybe a party where everyone has fun but he doesn't show up. Maybe you can have it in the past.
It's a real shame Ogged couldn't have been at my Black & White Ball.
and then we'll plan some activities around the bonfire, so everybody can have fun.
At the risk of sounding intolerant, I do think we should set some limits. I personally would object to a bookburning. Someone else might draw the line at an auto-da- fé. I'm sure we can all agree on s'mores, though.
S'mores are gross. Sorry, man. Also, I would willingly burn several hundreds of books already on hand, but that was rhetorical on Mary Catherine's part, so.
I suppose there would be dancing around this bonfire. Jesus.
S'mores are best made with apple slices in lieu of graham crackers.
57: Gourmet s'mores, only at Unfogged. Geez, I bet you guys don't even bring Pop Tarts when you go camping.
Apples do not go with chocolate. get out of here you fish.
Real gourmet smores, there is a whole section at Trader Joe's, with special vanilla-imbued marshmellows. White people love them.
Apples are gourmet, now? That's just how I always had 'em, and sure enough, they're better.
Me: I'm sure we can all agree on s'mores, though.
Parsimon: S'mores are gross.
Beefo Meaty: S'mores are best made with apple slices in lieu of graham crackers.
I stand corrected.
57: I accept Sifu's amendment. How you keep that from melting all over the place, I don't know. Intriguing! Pleasing!
Canadians still live in the Seventies. Leisure suits, s'mores, eyc.
I bet you guys don't even bring Pop Tarts when you go camping
I bring lentils. Is that bad?
S'mores are best made by microwaving marshmallow peeps & chocolate from your easter basket and then scooping it up with the graham cracker.
57: wrong. who are you, Richard from top chef?
60: Apples are gourmet, now?
Fuckin' A they are, for s'mores. More evidence of New England stereotype B2.
(I don't know maybe they're commonplace.)
64: I bring lentils. Is that bad?
Only if you use them in s'mores.
The preceding brought to you by the Bring Everyone Down to My Level Police.
This isn't like some crazy nouveau thing, people. S'mores with apple are a long-accepted alternative. I refer you to the Girl Scout Handbook of 1940. Also, they're better.
Smores are best when made with ras al khannout-flavored marshmallows, pearls of snap-frozen cocoa powder suspended in agarose, and graham foam.
68: Turns out Tweety is authentic.
The 1940 Girl Scout Handbook has a recipe for one "Some Mores" that calls for "4 squares plain chocolate (thin), 2 graham crackers, and one marshmallow. This recipe may be varied by using slices of apple (cut cross-wise) in place of the graham crackers; by using pineapple slices or peanut butter in place of chocolate."
I like indoor s'mores, where you toast your marshmallow over a candle or your gas burner, faute de mieux.
Or, I guess, nihilistically, over the cinders of your former home.
63: I cannot deny that Canada is a backward country. So backward, in fact, that I never had s'mores until I grew up and moved to America. We would just boil the marshmallows in the kitchen, of course. And we didn't have Hershey bars when I was a kid, though we did have this wonderful chocolate bar called Caramilk.
Apples instead of graham crackers does sound better than pineapple instead of chocolate but still weird.
69: shouldn't the marshwallows be smoked in ras el hanout?
We would just boil the marshmallows in the kitchen, of course.
What?
I remember the first time I was served s'mores with graham crackers. "What the fuck is this," I thought, "where's my apple slices?"
The flavor was much less compelling, with no tart freshness from the apple to balance the sugar.
Yes, that's where the flavor comes from.
You could also use a syringe and smoke them later depending on your smoking setup.
boil the marshmallows
You are freaking me out.
Jeez, hasn't anyone ever just gently roasted skewers of cubed apples basted in butter & cinnamon over a fire (or grill)? It's like apple pie, without the pastry.
I figured Mary Catherine was referring to homemade marshmallows rather than dunking store-bought ones in boiling water.
77: What do you mean, "just"? That's more complicated than smores. It involves basting.
79: By "baste" I mean "roughly smear and then sprinkle." Sorry. Is good, though.
We were roasting marshmallows for s'mores once, when I was a kid, using green switches over the fireplace. My mom's caught on fire; in an attempt to save it from complete ruin she pulled it quickly out of the fire. The switch was very flexible, and the burning marshmallow whipped back and hit her smack in the middle of her forehead. Try explaining that burn mark at the office.
77: I have done close to that, but using pie irons (so you do get the "pastry"). But then God invented Pop-Tarts, mocking our puny efforts.
I read 82 as being to 81. Try it!
83: now that'd be really painful.
82: "This mark, boss? It's Orthodox Ash Wednesday"
"Yes, we use pie irons to make the ash FROM our very foreheads.."
What is a pie iron?
But whatever it is, surely it's too complicated. We're talking threading cubes of apple on a stick and, you know, holding them over the fire. Unless you want to get all gourmet and shit.
84: But at least you get "pastry".
87: it's important to have somebody around to wake you up every hour or so the night after you've gotten "pastry", to make sure that the "pastry" isn't leading to a "coma".
86: What is a pie iron?
Oops, meant to link.
Very simple, some manner of bread and then stuff inside (apples w/butter & cinnamon for instance) and into the fire.
It's like, 'Oh, Ogged's leaving, now we have to tell stories of self-mutilation.' Which beats actual cutting!
max
['If he resumes blogging with tales of his divorce miseries, I'm going to die laughing.']
I'm totally kidding about boiling the marshmallows. We only boiled meat, potatoes, and anything that looked like a vegetable. The idea was to boil the hell out of the food, until every last nutrient had been leeched out of it. Raw cucumbers were a summer treat, and always served in a bowl of vinegar.
92: Oh, I thought you made marshmallows to use up all the gelatin you had left over from slaughtering the horse.
89, 91: Yes, so I imagined.
max: no, actually, it's Into the Wild: A Toast.
Don's Square Pie Sauerkraut This is a favorite recipe of our Cleveland based sales rep Don Schuller.
--2 slices white bread Leftover mashed potaoes (tip - when making potatoes substitute mayo for milk) --Sauerkraut --Shredded cheddar --optional ingredients - Leftover spareribs, deboned & chopped into 1" strips.
Place slice of bread, buttered side down, into cooker. Fill with ingredients, cover with remaining slice of bread buttered side up. Close cooker, latch handles and grill until toasted.Aiee.
96: And if you don't use white bread it really doesn't work. (And wear "Parma socks" when you make it.)
It's just not camping without a deep fryer.
Hey, pieiron.com has a link to dailykos!
"Fastry"? There's just no good way to spell that.
98: And to circle back, another item they seem to make is a "s'more maker", which consists of top and bottom hinged grids between which you place an already constructed s'more and then cook.
97: Parma socks? What is this thing you speak of? Are you from Cleveland, JP?
This is a great post. How else would I have learned about this fair city?
This is a great post.
That's what I'm talking about, yo. Listen to crocodilopolitan, y'all.
Haven't you lot ever made bannock over a fire? With fresh jam that's better than, well, just about anything.
105: Thereabouts. Which if you had read and clicked through towards the end of the High School thread you would have discovered. Not that I mind.
108: we're not all scottish, here.
104, 98: Sheesh. Pathetic. I bet they don't know what a switchblade swiss army knife is.
110: we're not all scottish, here.
Only where it counts.
Haven't you lot ever made bannock over a fire?
Is this yet another Scottish term for beating the shite out of one another?
110: Obviously, but still. Bannock. It's really really good.
I'll make bannock over yer "pastry", Gonerill!
109: I never click through when Apo's around. I'm a delicate flower.
"Fascisti"
On to "bannock", it is one of those Anglo-Saxon words that calls up absolutely no mental image to someone who has never heard it before. It could be a kind of plant, an office in the Scottish government, a type of fabric, a plot of land, or a verb meaning anything at all.
Turns out normal people call "bannock" "fry bread", and under that name it is indeed delicious.
It's just not camping without a deep fryer.
Beefo Meaty loves to dine out on a certain blue-blooded Boston mystique, and has been very successful at marketing this Yankee brand. When in fact, in some parts of the country he is better known as Fry-Daddy.
Bannock? Well, of course. And I'm not even Scottish, except insofar as I'm Canadian.
I think actually that while some people do call fry bread "bannock," it also refers to a flat dense oatcake kind of a thing.
It's just not camping without a deep fryer.
You need your transfats after a long day of paddling through Class V rapids in a canoe full of ironmongery and gallon tins of Crisco.
The cast iron canoe works better if it's lubricated and the walls are less than a millimeter thick. Unless the sun is shining, then it gets uncomfortable.
121: depends who you're asking, according to Wikipedia. Even in Scotland things are, apparently, confused. I wonder if the variously construed bannocks have fiercely allied fans, who do battle in the streets for the greater honor of their chosen bread? Presumably yes.
123: just remember to line your canoe with wonder bread butter side out.
a flat dense oatcake kind of a thing
Which does indeed sound delicious with jam.
That's why I insist in La Creuset canoes.
117: I never click through when Apo's around
Well here's one from our mutual heritage.
128: Dude, you can't trick me into watching Dorothy Fuldheim scat porn. That's just gross.
My Scottish grandmother made bannocks, and had a special griddle (amusingly called a girdle) for that very purpose. They were pretty much what we in Australia would call pikelets - small sweet pancakes.
A little harmless reminiscing about my dead granny, and Unfogged dies. Perhaps it was not meant to live.
Nakku, ogged left, and things will probably be a little ragged for a little while.
I mean, it's probably not your granny's fault. Her griddle cakes, that is, bannocks, were presumably wonderful.
131: No, no, Scottish baking is all to the good, and Scottish grannies even better.
As I've probably mentioned before, I used to work at a nursing home where there was this 104-year old Scotland-to-Canada lady who was mostly deaf and mostly blind by the time I ever met her. Whenever I walked into her room, she would say "Oh, is that Mary?" So she left off the other half of my name, but, you know, she was 104 years old and mostly deaf and mostly blind: I never could figure out how she even got the first half of it. She had all these Queen's Jubilee pictures on her wall, and she had once owned a tearoom in Maniwaki. Sharp as a tack, she was, which is how anyone must be who lives to be 104.
Without ugged or onf, the very name of the blog is a hollow shell.
Could it be reborn as "Parsimonakku" or something?
Or, I guess, nihilistically, over the cinders of your former home.
If you're willing to burn your home down for the sake of s'mores, that ain't nihilism, honey.
Wouldn't cooking lentils while camping require a lot of water, relative to the amount one would presumably like to carry?
A lot of the time there is water in the woods already, depending on where you go.
Each moment the new posters remain unintroduced is a moment their thoughts or ideas go unbelittled in the comments.
136: Wouldn't cooking lentils while camping require a lot of water, relative to the amount one would presumably like to carry?
This is wrong in a different way for every kind of camping other than backpacking in the desert.
This is wrong in a different way for every kind of camping other than backpacking in the desert.
As if anything else deserves to be called "camping".
OT, but I know all y'all are gonna want a pair.
on topic, to 140, I wouldn't call backpacking "camping".
Wouldn't cooking lentils while camping require a lot of water, relative to the amount one would presumably like to carry?
I might not do it if I were hiking-camping, having to carry the water. But driving and camping, or in a situation in which I knew I could get fresh water every day or two ... I actually haven't been camping for a few years now, but I seem to think that my rule of thumb was 2 gallons of water per day per person. I may be misremembering?
That works fine for lentils, which really don't soak up that much, don't boil off much water since they don't take long to cook, and so on. I'd set up camp, put them to soak mid-afternoon, and cook them up with added water and various added stuff later. Not really that much water.
Related to 141: I ordered an Obama sock monkey over the weekend; I then corresponded with the proprietor of the company (a very nice and racist Utahn); he promised me that my order would ship today; and then today I got a refund! I shed a tear for my collection of racist camp.
I see I'm partially pwned by some of the references to backpacking.
As if anything else deserves to be called "camping".
Well, "camping" is highly unnatural, of course (see Mr. Knightley in Jane Austen's Emma, objecting to the "naturalness" of al fresco dining) unless you happen to be a voyageur, or some sort of trapper.
And hey! speaking of lentils...did you know the Hudson's Bay trappers used to drink the dregs of pease porridge as a poor substitute for coffee? They didn't even mean to be organic or "whole foods" or anything, that's just all that they had to drink when they were "camping."
the dregs of pease porridge
It better have been nine days old! Or everything I learned as a child is a lie.
Now all we need is someone to come along and say backpacking is not trekking.
Isn't backpacking what young white people like to do in Europe etc? That's not trekking.
147: Pease porridge hot/Pease porridge cold/Pease porridge in the pot/Nine days old.
Of course! No worries.
"Backpacking" apparently means different things in different contexts.
I hope Ben will explain his 140.
What's to explain?
Backpacking is how white people get to racist camp.
In observance of National Aboriginal Day afew years back (coming up June 21st) the BC Forestry Service prepared this site on Bannock Awareness as a bridge between cultures (includes a number of different bannock and bannockyt recipes).
1. First Nations and non-First Nations people are here to stay and;
2. Both parties prefer negotiation to litigation or confrontation. We can do our children a favour by learning about the history of the current conflict over rights to the land and celebrating some of our common interests, such as the love of a freshly deep-fried piece of bannock.
used to drink the dregs of pease porridge as a poor substitute for coffee
Yeah, I wouldn't throw that stuff away, if seeking something a step up from water -- hard to keep it from going bad pretty quick anyway. Use it or toss it, pretty much.
Voluntarily, even eagerly, challenging oneself against the elements is SWPL, for real. Formerly, you built a cabin to defend yourself against those elements, all defensively-like, and always had a shotgun at the ready.
That's not how you make Navajo fry bread at all.
What's to explain?
Ben seemed to suggest that nothing short of backpacking (in the desert, even) counted as camping. This just puzzles me. I don't have a big stake in it; what you do when you're setting up camp in the forest for several days or a week is very different from what you do when you're backpacking.
155: Sounds like Canadian bannock is both damper and bush bread.
159: He's a White Person, if that helps.
That's not how you make Navajo fry bread at all.
So, how do you make Navajo fry bread, teo?
Also, "backpacking" and "setting up camp in the forest for several days or a week" are not mutually exclusive.
So, how do you make Navajo fry bread, teo?
With Bluebird flour and Snowcap lard, of course. It's pretty simple.
I suspect ben is making a joke.
I wouldn't want to cook lentils while camping because boiling water would be a pain over a fire or a portable stove, and lentils always seem to take a long time simmering to get done over a regular stove.
165.1: Ben knows just where my gullible points are.
165.2: This confuses me. Lentils take like 20 minutes, max, on the stove, certainly if you've soaked them. Over a portable stove, should be roughly the same -- a propane stove, right? Over a fire, a little more challenging, with the attention needed to when you put it on, whether the fire is a nice hot blue, or a dirty yellow.
158: That's not how you make Navajo fry bread at all.
Not wishing to doubt your insider Knowledge here Ben Jr., but recipes I am finding all seem to be variants of the one on the linked page.
48: Everybody dress in your personal style, and then we'll plan some activities around the bonfire, so everybody can have fun.
"Kumbaya" is going to be the new comity on the post-ogged Unfogged. (If we ever reach it again.)
167: I don't believe you.
y'all, this blog is no worse than it has been. Chill out.
Not wishing to doubt your insider Knowledge here Ben Jr., but recipes I am finding all seem to be variants of the one on the linked page.
The main concerns I have with the recipe are the use of oil rather than lard and the addition of milk to the recipe. The latter may just be my lack of detailed knowledge, but I'm quite sure about the former.
Okay.
157: Voluntarily, even eagerly, challenging oneself against the elements is SWPL, for real.
Oh, Mary Catherine. This is so wrong.
On the contrary, parsimon. Such things are charming and fun now that they're wholly optional.
I thought that thread also discussed chicken-keeping, but I guess not.
We can discuss chicken-keeping now, if you'd like.
Er. Ben, good point I expect. All depends on the referent for "oneself" I guess.
I don't think I've seen that thread before and am disinclined to read it at the moment. The quick skim gave me a bad taste.
Is it possible to keep chickens before they're hatched?
The quick skim gave me a bad taste.
Well, that's bizarre.
Lentils are bad camping food because a sleeping bag is the absolute worst possible place to fart.
Why carry your own water when backpacking? Propane bottles and iodine tablets are enough. But anybody wanting to lose weight should try it. A week long trek will do much more for you than a long diet. Horrible freeze dried food plus tons of exercise equals the transformation of any fat you might have into muscle.
Well, that's bizarre.
I am on to you, dumbass.
It was all about how making your own jam would cause you to be disowned, or however that went. Stupid. Don't make me talk about the difference, if any, between persons on-blog and off-blog. Why this blog feels a stake regarding SWPL escapes me.
TO THE RAMPARTS WE MUST DEFEND SWPL!!!
157: Voluntarily, even eagerly, challenging oneself against the elements is SWPL, for real.
When I go out to the woods, I go to a friend's fully-heated cabin with cable and running water and we drink beer and go jumping off the docks and stuff. I'm pleased to note this is the Afrocentric camping option.
181: Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
About the title of the post, I am not looking forward to the day when they find Ogged's emaciated author function decomposing at the bottom of some broken-down Washington Monthly thread. But we should all prepare ourselves for that anyhow.
Best wishes, ogged, you lousy quitter.
When I go out to the woods, I go to a friend's fully-heated cabin with cable
At what point do you not get to call it a "cabin"?
When white people move in next door. Then it starts gentrifying.
When it stops having some visible wood on it.
185: Goddamnit, you people get all the good stuff.