"So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."

Because I confused the movie Spaceballs with Meatballs, there's a Spaceballs quote for a post about cooking meatballs. Please join the line to the left if you'd like to file a complaint.

Related: Reading quotes from Meatballs when you were thinking you were reading about Spaceballs leads to much confusion. Quite a different tone to the movies!

Anyway, meatballs. After being unable to make them with the Blue Apron stuff, I was determined to do them on my own. How hard could it be? Meat. Balls. I can do both!

Dangerously, I worked without a recipe. The Blue Apron one had been so easy (meat + bread crumbs + spice, then fry), I figured I could do it myself just fine.

And for once I was right!

Hamburger meat + some Panko breadcrumbs (only kind I had) + salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Italian spices, then into what was probably a too hot pan. On one hand, it smoked worryingly, on the other, my meatballs were nice and crisp on all sides.

Because I was making them myself, I could make them how I like them. I hate big meatballs. And the giant ones? Ugh! To me, the crisp outside is the best and the inside is blah, so why not make them basically all outside? So I did! Nice and small little meatballs, crisp and good.

My only mistake was that I ate them all in one sitting. I had had two small hamburgers worth of meat, so it wasn't terribly excessive, but I had intended to save some for later. I'll probably make them again this coming weekend to use up the last of the (currently frozen) meat.

On an unrelated note, I hope I'm not getting sick. I haven't slept more than 3-4 hours a night since Saturday (bad sinuses, noisy neighbors all night and at 4 AM, and the damned birds chirp nonstop from 4:45 on). Now my throat hurts and my eyes burn. I hope it's just allergies. Knowing my medical record so far in 2014, if I get sick it'll likely be the Plague or Smallpox or Anthrax or something.

Advice needed on two things

Two totally different topics, advice needed on both.

1) I love Chinese spareribs. They were my favorite food as a kid, I ate them as often as my parents would let me. However it's been years since I've had them as an adult since it's just silly how expensive they are. I stumbled upon this recipe today, and wow that looks easy. I don't know if I could find St. Louis-style pork ribs, but I'm sure I could substitute some other pork rib. Could they be that easy and be like the kind you get in a restaurant?

2) This is a sad one. When the Loki comic book first came out (three months ago), I ventured into the comic book store to get a copy. The staff was really nice and helpful, and they now reserve a copy for me each month. However, I find I'm just not enjoying the comic anymore -- I don't like the storyline, the price is too high, and I don't like getting just a tiny bit of the story once a month. However, I really, really don't want to go tell them face to face to stop holding a copy for me. I looked for an email address, but there isn't one (heck, oddly there's no website at all for the store). Think it would be horribly rude of me to just not go get it? They have my phone number, so I suppose they'll call me and remind me they have it, but it's just that they're really nice and I'd like to support their store, but I just don't want the comic anymore. (And yeah, them being really nice should make it easy to tell them I don't want it anymore, but I hate to disappoint them, and I know they wouldn't get angry at me or anything, but I just don't want to do it in person.)

I suppose maybe I could find a phone number and call them to tell them not to. Maybe that might be a good compromise...