26Jul02 (Monthenor): Whee! Another GTA3 comic for all ma homies out there. This one of course makes fun of our ability to take the simplest cars around, say for instance taxis, and immediately wreck them on completely stationary objects, say for instance fire hydrants. Sometimes you just aren't in the driving groove.

The new Austin Powers opens tonight, and you'll know soon whether it r0><0rs me or n0t. I'm hoping it doesn't recycle as much from the last movie as that movie recycled from the first...'cause we all know that that doesn't go well.

So next week we start on at least two MMs' worth of Ico comic, and after that we'll probably have another theme ready to go. Who knows?

27Jul02 (Monthenor): It's reeeeally late for me, but I have to write this all down now or I won't believe it when I wake up in the morning. First and foremost, you must all go see Goldmember in theaters NOW. MONTY HAS COMMANDED IT!!

Back? Wasn't that a good movie? Okay, down to my story. So I bought some meat a couple days ago. Nothing pricey, but it's some decent beef that grills up real nice. I thought to myself Thursday, "Boy, I'd like to do something better with my beef than just grill it all."

A little voice from somewhere near the back of my brain said "You should marinate it in something overnight. Then it will taste magical." This was the voice of Satan.

"But voice," I said, "whatever shall I marinate it in?" The voice told me that my garlic salt, basil, and pepper would make a fine mix, and that if I just threw it all in a bowl of water to steep overnight I'd --

I hope at least some of you read past that without yelling "Water??" I don't know these things, ok? But there we go, I put all the ingredients and two of the little steaks in this brothy stuff to sit overnight. When dinnertime approached on Friday, I began Phase 2.

The voice had come to me while I lay in bed Thursday night and shown me a vision. The vision was of breaded, fried steaks, smelling of garlic and basil. So I set about this task, picking up cooking oil on my way home from work. I put the oil on slow heat and realized something.

"Voice?" I asked. "Voice, what shall I bread these steaks with? I have no flour!"

The voice replied (this is Satan, remember), "Boy, you have two arms, a bowl, and a box of saltine crackers right in front of you. CRUSH those crackers!" And so I crushed saltines in a bowl with our wooden stirring spoon for ten minutes.

When all was ready I removed the meat from the icy garlicy broth and tried to roll it in the saltines. It didn't work so well. Then I threw the limp and poorly crusted meat into the oil. The oil didn't like that so much, but goddammit who wears the pants around here?

So the meat is cooking, and suddenly I realize I have lots of crushed crackers left, and there's still room in the pot. So imagine me poking around the kitchen aimlessly looking for something to bread (Can I bread you? No, you're a chair!). So I finally settled on YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ THIS NEXT PART IF YOU'RE DRINKING SOMETHING a carrot I WARNED YOU GO GET A NAPKIN. My last sad little carrot, at least two weeks old. But in what I can only describe as a state of delerium, I thought to myself "Oh yes, I would dearly love some deep-fried carrot slices with my fried garlic steaks."

So I sliced the carrot, gave it a minute in the garlic broth, rolled it in the saltines (which still didn't work), and tossed them in the oil. The oil really didn't like this and actually bit me as I was pulling back, but goddamit oil's place is in the kitchen.

Shortly afterwards, I decided everything was done and fished out all the floating pieces. Then I attempted to eat them. It turns out that when you marinate something overnight, immediately frying said item will leach all the flavor right out of it, leaving you with something that can only be described as "fried." On the other hand, fried carrots still taste disturbingly like carrots, only now they aren't healthy for you and have the consistency of porridge.

So I have two more steaks marinating in the water-garlic broth for tomorrow night, and I have promised myself that I will merely grill them. But I'm not done quite yet...

See, after getting home from Goldmember, I finally felt brave enough to clean up the cooking pan. I needed a receptacle for the oil...and I cursed our cleanly nature. I had to settle for an old IBC Root Beer bottle, which has a fine neck for human consumption but an incredibly crappy neck for pouring oil down. Even if you try to fashion a makeshift funnel from notebook paper which doesn't work and gets all greasy until finally you just tear it up and throw it away and pour very slowly instead. But eventually most of the oil went into the bottle and the rest went down the sink and I thought I had finally put it all behind me.

And there, at the bottom of the pan, was a great mass of deep-fried saltine crumbs. I looked at the deep-fried saltine crumbs, and then at my silverware mug. The I looked back at (when they make a TV docudrama of my life -- "Don't Put That In Your Mouth, You Don't Know Where It's Been : The Monty G. Story" -- this is the part that will be prefaced by "This program contains situations that may not be suitable for all viewers") the deep-fried saltine crumbs, then back at my silverware mug. I gave into the evil voice of Food Satan one last time and grabbed a fork.

I tell you friends, I was in perfect bliss. I stood there in the middle of my kitchen (because the middle is the only place you can stand) and ate hours-old deep-fried saltine scrapings, and I loved every bite of it. Somewhere from the left-middle of my chest I heard a tiny scream of horror as the crumbs slid down my esophagus.

Then I washed the empty pot. We don't have call to use dish soap very often here, so I imagine the soap was very confused to have to deal with singed cooking oil and saltines. I imagine the conversation would go something like this:

Amp: "Well, looks like he left macaroni and cheese sitting his bowl again. He's reaching for us. Here we gooooo!"

Phil: "Sweet Boca Raton! There's oil and...crackers in here! What the hell was he doing?"

Amp: "I'm going to be sick."

I tried to work the line "lick me" in there so the chemistry joke would be complete, but it's late and I'm rambling so you can just take your jacks and go home. When I finally let the soap out and poured it down the drain, it made an evil sucking sound, as if to say "Yes, you have decanted us this time, but when we return we will bring horrors that you cannot possibly imagine, and wouldn't want to because they are horrible!"

So I guess what I'm saying is that you shouldn't marinate steaks in water 'cause you'll live in fear of decanted dish soap.

I'm gonna get some sleep now.