The Steve-Dave Reality Tour

Classic TV 101: Little House on the Prairie

Little House on the Prairie was a western drama TV show, starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, about a family living on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s.

The show was an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books.

It was the first example I was exposed to of a show where I watched the characters grow up, get married, have children, and die in the same story arch. 

The show's central characters are Charles Ingalls, farmer and patriarch, with his wife, Caroline, and four daughters, Mary, Laura, Carrie and Grace, later adding adopted children Albert, Cassandra  and James.

Other essential characters included the friendly Nels Oleson, proprietor of the town's general store, Oleson's Mercantile; his malicious, gossiping wife, Harriet; and their two spoiled children, Nellie and Willie; and later, their adopted child, Nancy.

The series began on the NBC network on September 11, 1974, and ended on May 10, 1982 for a toal of 203 episodes, plus five TV specials.

The show was known for it's guest stars, which it had in abundence, from Johnny Cash to Sean Penn. However, my favourite was when the Colonel himself, Harland Sanders, showed up for an episode. He pitched the idea to the local store owner, Oleson, of opening a restaurant franchise that focused solely on fried chicken, an idea to which he balked at and quickly dismissed.

The show also had a number of more tragics moments such as one of the Ingall daughters going blind and (years later) her baby is killed in a fire.

Another memorable episode focused on women's rights such as voting. Little House explored many themes and every episode was filled with family values, love, friendship, and faith. Adoption, alcoholism, racism and blindness were portrayed in the scripts. Some plots also included subjects such as drug addiction (i.e. morphine), leukemia, prejudice, and even rape.

I watched this show in syndication on a fairly consistent basis. The story was very addictive.

The entrance music, written and conducted by David Rose, is very comforting piece of music that brings back memories around this show. Enjoy.

Here's the ending theme:

Natural Harvest - A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes

This hidden gem I was introduced to on Plus One Per Diem:

Price: $24.95

Ships in 3–5 business days

Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants. Despite all of these positive qualities, semen remains neglected as a food. This book hopes to change that. Once you overcome any initial hesitation, you will be surprised to learn how wonderful semen is in the kitchen. Semen is an exciting ingredient that can give every dish you make an interesting twist. If you are a passionate cook and are not afraid to experiment with new ingredients - you will love this cook book!

Best Comments:

1. By Josh Stillhouse

"A gastronomic adventure with pig sperm"
After buying this book, I decided that I need way more semen than I could possibly produce myself, so I purchased some from Prairie State Semen. It's from one of their award-winning Chester pigs. His name is "Vendetta" - here's a picture of him: http://shrunklink.com/bifc (you can see why I chose him). 

Anyway, they sent me enough of his semen to create a couple of the recipes in this book. I made Lime Aoili and poured it over my pork chops (it's only fitting after all). It was edible, but not as good as I had hoped. However, the Tiramisu Surprise I had for dessert was absolutely divine! So rich and creamy. 

2. By Ken Kaniff

I just started cooking with this book, And I think it is the most unique book in my large erection. I soon mentioned it to a few close friends and got them quite "involved" (if you will). I found it rather hard..... to keep up with tugging one out every time I want a pan cake. So my friends and I decided to add a new spice to the spice rack. Now i can cook with seaman all the time. I wonder if other seaman has different flavors. Elephant, Crocodile, Dogs, hrmm... What about races? ooohhh.... Indian curry jizz chicken sounds decadent or Asian Cock Suey mmmm... delectable.

3. By Jenny mcnorson

My kids love these recipes. Big hit on the dinner table every evening. It's wonderful that my whole family can participate in the preparation in making a meal together and this is as natural as it can be. Since purchasing this book, I've seen such great improvements in my childrens learning abilities and overall health besides just mine and my husbands. Semen is a wonderful source of nutrients. I even add my own breast milk to some of these recipes instead of cows milk (which I'm opposed to how dairy cows are treated). It's a shame when semen is wasted by people just flushing it down the toilet or throw in the garbage. Throw it in the sauce! I would highly recommend this to everyone, and your family. Next time you have guests, serve one of these at the table and see the surprise and amazement on ones face when they ask for the recipe. Semen with ranch and a little lemon is great on hambugers :)

Via www.lulu.com

Anthem

Seeing as I have a certain amount of time on my hands these days I've been reading a fair amount and have recently read some really fascinating books. The one that sticks out in my mind the most is one called "Anthem" by Ayn Rand. It's a brilliant novella that only took me a couple of days to read. The plot is of a future society that has fallen into the dark ages. This society decides it is better to stay in the dark ages as technology isn't beneficial to mankind as a whole but rather only benefits individuals. Because of this they teach that any thoughts or actions of progression are immoral and against the law.

The beginning of the book was difficult to figure out because the narrators use of "us" and "we" leads you to believe there are several characters in the mysterious cave. However, after reading further into the book I discovered that there are no words referencing the individual and plural words that include all of the "brotherhood" are the only ones known in this world. The brotherhood refers to fellow humans within the city and more inclusively of all of mankind.

The analogy in the story becomes clear when I realized the journey of the narrator was reminiscent of an extreme communist society. It reminded me of 1984 by George Orwell with themes of intense government control and manipulation and so at this point I wanted to do some research on Ayn Rand and whether George Orwell was an inspiration to her works. In fact, Anthem was written 12 years before 1984. I also learned that Ayn Rand was Russian American which confirmed my thoughts about the Communist vs. Capitalist themes in the novella. She apparently was passionately against communism in any form and believed capitalism was the only way to go. There were some extremist beliefs she had that I don't agree with at all but this story really hit home for me.

I think that in this time and age my generation is far too passive for it's own good. If rights were taken away from us, would we fight it? An even scarier thought is would we even notice? I'm not sure we would. So why is this?

My theory is that in the '60's (a time known highly fir revolutions and fighting for rights) it was much more obvious what needed to be fought against. Racism was incredibly prevalent and war was everywhere. These are obviously bad things that people would come together to abolish but now a days, for some reason, the enemies are harder to spot.

Don't get me wrong, there are many wars happening right now and as much as it may not be as bad as it was, racism is still rampant but people are being terrorized by the people in power so they are too scared to do anything. The government and media may not be as extreme as the examples in Anthem but they are still manipulating citizens into focusing on the fear of "what if?". They use this to make people worry about there own lives and not see the bigger picture of what is happening to our neighbours but also to our world. The more they can keep us focused on being afraid, the more we are pushing them into a stronghold of power.

The media especially is appalling to me. News propagates hate and fear and does it in an incredibly biased way. When are there news stories about the good things that happen in our world? When are the everyday people who accomplish great things talked about? There's no room for these stories and it's really sad. Even stories of happy events are sensationalized to the point of excess.

It's a hard world to navigate and I'm not sure where it's headed from here but I really strongly believe the most important way to fight against these challenges is by breaking down ignorance. Ignorance is not bliss, it's an affliction.