cactus i.v.

By TY FREER
ty_freer(at)yahoo.com
I don’t care what sport you played, how long you participated, or how good you were: if you have ever played in any competitive sport, you have prayed for God’s help in determining the outcome, whether it be, “God, help me hit this free throw” or “Please don’t let me play please don’t […]

I’ve been very fortunate here at the cactus to have two incredible food writers. Lanie, and before her Michelle, kept my mind filled with recipes that — don’t tell them — are sometimes out of my league.
I can get Lanie’s butter column this week, but usually I read the recipe and just wonder and hope […]

By LANIE PIMENTEL
petunia5045(at)gmail.com
Two words. Compound butter. Much like the lesson taught in first grade where the children would go around the classroom naming compound words such as classroom, campground, and playground, the lesson of making a compound butter is the same as the word. Taking things that exists separately, and merging them to make a […]

BY DA SOUTHERN
dasouthern(at)gmail.com
Funny how sometimes you have to step back and look what is being imported to the good ole USofA from the Motherland… you know the one we fought for our independence? Well, if you don’t know history, just watch HBO’s John Adams that I wrote about a few weeks back.
No, I am talking about BBC […]

By BEN SZMANDA
A biography is the attempt to recreate the life of a subject. But this is a doomed project: There is no way to capture the complexity of a life without excluding other, possibly contradictory facts. As near as I can figure, this is the central point of Julian Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot, where we […]

By CATHY S.
Sokocathy(at)gmail.com
The group of six was asked to sing Broadway hits written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The judges called it “the toughest night of the season.”
Syesha – One reader thought she had the best outfit of the night but was disappointed that she wore the same earrings she had worn once before. We […]

By TY FREER
ty_freer(at)yahoo.com
I loooove the NBA playoffs. Love ‘em. For me, watching the highest level of basketball on a nightly basis is about two-and-a-half steps shy of Heaven (although hogging the TV until June watching sports might make me single again… good or bad thing? Just joking, hun. No, really, it’s just a joke. Crap. […]

By DA SOUTHERN
dasouthern(at)gmail.com
The Blogosphere has been buzzing about the “Bubble” shows and the suits at the Networks will be deciding which shows will be back next season and which ones will be fast-tracked to the MIA network.  Here is what seems to be the consensus for the shows in limbo.  I hope you’re favorite is […]

By BEN SZMANDA
It’s hard to think of another writer that has the stylistic control of John Banville. His descriptions, which are always laced carefully together, create lush moods that color the scenery with exactly the emotion he wants to portray. Banville puts his talents to extraordinary use in his 2005 novel The Sea: a startling, […]

By JIM MONTANA
jim.montana(at)gmail.com
Ann Coulter author of such hits as Godless The Church of Liberalism, How to talk to a Liberal (if you must) and If Democrats had any brains, they’d be Republicans, needs our help. Anyone who has read a Coulter column or listened to the Conservative goddess knows the she has lost her ever-loving […]

The group that is left are all technically good singers so we are starting not to judge by who sang the best, but who we enjoyed the most (or the least.) This week we all agreed with Simon who said “The guys won the night.” The judges did comment though that the girls […]

By JAMES “TATTOO” CHAPRACKI
geocities.com/tattoospinstriping

By Ty Freer
From this past Friday to Monday I was in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, I had mixed up the dates for AdultCon, rendering my anticipation-filled trip meaningless.
(Just kidding, Yeg). 
The real reason I was in L.A. was not only to see my sister (the aforementioned Yeg) but to take in the Spurs/Lakers game on Sunday. […]

By LANIE PIMENTEL
petunia5043(at)gmail.com
The artichoke, according to Wikipedia.org< is a perennial thistle originating in southern Europe around the Mediterranean. The flowers develop in a large head from an edible bud about 8–15 cm diameter with numerous triangular scales; the individual florets are purple. The edible portion of the buds consists primarily of the fleshy lower portions […]

By DA SOUTHERN
dasouthern(at)gmail.com
There are some interesting happenings in TV land this week to chat about, besides the shocking elimination of Michael Johns at American Idol. Come on, we all thought Syesha Mercado was on her way out. Well, if nothing else, no one can say Idol is predictable.
But enough of that, there are […]

By BEN SZMANDA
I am not a giant fan of pop radio. That doesn’t mean, though, that I think Justin Timberlake is an agent of the Queen of England. Likewise, I despise George Bush, but I don’t think he is a reptile from space. (Link note: Do whatever you like on Icke’s site — he’s nutty […]

By ROXY RETAIL
cactusiv(at)gmail.com
I was talking to Cathy S. about American Idol the other day, and I asked her why Michael Johns always wears scarves. Certainly it can’t be cold in Hollywood in April.
She told me that scarves were in.
Really?
I know a few winters back, long scarves were all the rage. I had quite a few. […]

By CATHY S.
sokocathy(at)gmail.com 
In the spirit of Idol Gives Back (I hope many of us did give), the hopefuls were asked to sing a song that was inspirational to them. Most of them picked songs that they felt were an inspiration for them to work hard and never give up their dream of winning this year.
Syesha – […]

By JIM MONTANA
jim.montana(at)hotmail.com
A National title and nomination lost
Greetings cactus readers. Despite what many people in my office thought, I did not throw myself in front of a bus after the Memphis Tigers lost to the Kansas Jayhawks in the NCAA championship game. By the way, maybe Ty can answer this question: What the Hell is a […]

So we must crown a new winner in our NCAA pool. This year, I, your former champ and e-i-c, hand the crown over to Ben Szmanda. He uses a dartboard technique to pick, but it sure paid off. Here’s how things went down after yesterday’s championship game.
1. Ben Szmanda, 114 points, 43 of 63 correct
2. […]

By JAMES “TATTOO” CHAPRACKI
geocities.com/tattoospinstriping
…You’ll be happy that’s not your boyfriend’s leg.

By TY FREER
ty_freer(ay)yahoo.com
Call me a bad, bad man, but around 6.8% of me enjoyed watching Chris Douglas-Roberts toss up those two bricks towards the end of the NCAA championship. However, it wasn’t because I was rooting for Kansas. (I traveled to Memphis over Thanksgiving so I felt a slight nonsensical connection to them, plus for […]

By DA Southern
dasouthern(at)gmail.com
OK, one word… Battlestar Galactica. 
So, it is two words, who cares.  Maybe you have been living under a rock for 4 years, I don’t know.  At any rate, “What the frack, man.”  If you have missed the beginning of the end for one of the greatest Scifi shows on the air…ever, then you […]

By BEN SZMANDA
In his well known 2001 essay “Tell me how does it feel?” James Wood derisively called  Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth an example of “hysterical realism,” which he defines as “not exactly magical realism, but magical realism’s next stop. It is characterised by a fear of silence. This kind of realism is a […]

By Cathy S
Sokocathy(at)gmail.com
 
The only Dolly Parton song I know is 9 to 5 from the movie also named 9 to 5.  I thought so anyway.  Who knew Dolly Parton wrote and recorded I Will Always Love You?  You learn something new every day I guess.
 
Ramiele – was everyone’s guess for the one to go this week. (We’re […]

By JIM MONTANA
jim.montana(at)hotmail.com
This week I decided to take a step back from the world of politics and talk about an issue that is a current event, and that is the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. Forty years ago this week Dr. Martin Luther King’s life ended at the Loraine Motel in Memphis. Odds are […]

By TY FREER
ty_freer(at)yahoo.com
I’m gonna say it. I’m just gonna throw it out there. I’m gonna have it written in the public domain without any measure of deletion:
This NCAA tourney has sucked.
And I mean sucked. Homer Simpson once said, “I’ve seen some sucks before, but these are the suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked.” Seems […]

By JAMES “TATTOO” CHAPRACKI
geocities.com/tattoospinstriping