There’s a great big beautiful Horizons

@horizons1983.bsky.social

847 Followers 320 Following

Looking back @ tomorrow. Science, SciFi, Disney, geekery. Physicist/Engineer. Muppets Stan

Photograph of a bowl of grilled peaches topped with ricotta cheese and honey.
Photograph of clouds over a tree line. To the lower right is a partial rainbow.
Photo of a free standing display at Trader Joe’s with at least 2 dozen loaves of bead on it.
Photograph of a cloudy sky with silhouetted trees to the left and below. The clouds are small and almost corrugated in lines like they were stamped out or dressed that way. There’s a regular irregularity to them that is oddly satisfying.
Frame from a comic book adaption of “there will come soft rains” by Ray BRADBURY. In it is a futuristic house that while standing, looks like it’s been through a war. The sky is menacing. Trees are just trunks and stumps. The ground is rubble. On the wall of the house are white silhouettes of a 50s style nuclear family working and playing in their yard. The remainder of the wall is black. The text at the bottom reads “the five spots of paint… The man, the woman, the children, the ball remained! The rest was a charcoal layer…” The short story was part of the Martian Chronicles, but stands alone is one of the greatest pieces of science fiction ever written. It is moving and sad. And I cannot recommended it enough, even for people who are not fans of science fiction. 
Photo of an aperol spritz. Yes I’m basic.
Alys Rivers from House of the Dragon licking blood off her fingers.
Photo of a colossal lobster roll in a to go container with fries. Literally a full lobster’s worth of meat. Whole claws. Barely any mayo. And a buttered grilled brioche roll. One of those “worth it” treats.
Photograph of trees and clouds at sunset. One cloud in the center glows orange and red, standing out.
Photograph of a wrapped hoagie, bag of old bay potato chips, Fresca, and a Wawa bag on a table.
Photograph of waves breaking against the shore. Textured clouds fill the sky with sunlight filtering through. One or two boats drift in the current. A lone pelican files across the frame.
Photograph of the sun setting over a wooden pier.
Cafeteria style serving tray, completely full of crab legs, shrimp, corn on the cob, butter and cocktail sauce.
Photograph of the beach shortly after sunrise. The sun is behind clouds but still pokes through giving an orange hue to everything. The beach and sea are dark but there’s a small patch of sunlight hitting the water a little far out. One person stands out at the end of the beach.
Photograph of a box of Fisher’s caramel pop corn on a bench. They overfill it so you get some walking popcorn. The popped kernels are oddly uniform in size and shape. Idk know they manage to engineer that, and while it makes for very uniform munching, it’s can be quite disconcerting.
Photograph of pier rides at the beach. Two Ferris wheels are visible. The farther off one is obscured by fog.
Photograph of a waning gibbous moon over a beach at night. The moon is a red orange fire color. It is illuminating clouds around it. Off in the distance a fishing trawler glides upon a pitch black ocean where the delineation between sea and sky is impossible to discern.
Photograph of fireworks above the beach. Smoke trailing shots below and big red and blue booms above.
Photograph of items sitting on a beach towel. They include a can of lemon Italian soda, a bag of goldfish flavored with old bay seasoning, and a paperback book with the title “WELCOME TO DYSTOPIA, 45 VISIONS OF WHAT LIES AHEAD EDITED BY GORDON VAN GELDER”. My reasoning for this specific book today is left as an exercise for the reader.
Photo of a can of Narragansett beer on a wooden table with wallpaper behind it. The can is styled vintage from 1975, just like the one Quint crushed in Jaws.
Photograph of a tub of thrashers French fries on the boardwalk at sunset. Behind them, a mechanical shark pokes out of a building.
Screen shot of the album cover for “Wildfire” by Michael Martin Murphey. It’s deliciously 70s. On wildfire we're gonna ride!
Screenshot of Merlin app. Birds listed: Northern Yellow Warbler Great Crested Flycatcher Northern Mockingbird Tufted Titmouse Song Sparrow House Finch Common Yellowthroat Cedar Waxwing American Robin American Goldfinch
Video of a small flow of water on the beach. Along the outside curve, a periodic rippling occurs. It is most tranquil.
Screenshot of a product image. Four deck boxes from the game magic the gathering. They are special pre-release commander decks that are cross promotions with Marvel. Four decks are shown, including avengers assemble with Nick fury and Captain America on the front, Wakanda forever with Black Panther on the front, and two in back with the fantastic four, Dr. doom, and everyone’s favorite trickster god gracing the covers.
Photograph of a sandwich on a plate. It is a breakfast sandwich similar to a McGriddle. Trader Joe’s brioche style silver dollar pancakes used for buns. A perfectly fried local egg using a ring to maintain shape, local sausage patty, and non-local fake yellow American pasteurized processed cheese-food slice fill the stack. I made a maple sriracha sauce to add to the McGriddle-ness of it, just elevated. Seriously great breakfast sandwich.
Photo of a platform of donuts. One sits in the center labeled “Bao Bun (lemon merengue) $3.50”.
Screenshot of Birdsong app showing Gray Catbird, Northern Cardinal, Northern House Wren, American Robin, and House Finch.
Photograph of an English muffin sitting on a paper towel on a desk. It has been cut atrociously and not nearly anywhere close to being in half. It has a gaping wound in the top of it.
Peg legged pirate statue sitting on a bench at an amusement park.
Photograph of a blank movie screen with a popcorn bucket in the foreground. We knew something was amiss when the previews only had sound and no video. And yes, the movie started with audio only. So I guess you could say we’ve heard the first 10 minutes. Got a refund and we’ll try again tonight at a different theater.
Photograph of a cork pinboard above a desk. It’s located in the current final scene of “Carousel of Progress.” There are photos and notes pinned to it. Including the famous one reading “Marty called, wants changes!”
12-pack of beer in a shopping cart. The beer is Narragansett Lager. The packaging is a pastiche of the famous Jaws poster of a woman swimming with the titular shark below her. Except on this case the woman is replaced with a can of beer. The same can the Quint drinks from and then crushes in the film. On the case is the text “1975 limited edition can” and “You're lucky enough to be holding 12 genuine, collectible, limited edition retro 'Gansett Lager cans. The graphics on this can are the ones we used throughout the 1970s. And yes, this is the can that the Captain crushed in that famous movie about the big ass shark. The beer inside is our award-winning lager.”
Iced beverage and book sitting on a blue café table on a brick sidewalk. The book is recursion by Blake Crouch. The drink is a Lady Wentworth. Iced earl gray, lavender syrup and milk. It’s delicious. Support your local independent everythings.
Screenshot of bird song identifier app showing Northern House Wren Gray Catbird Mourning Dove House Finch American Robin
Photo of a “no littering” sign at a wooded rest stop. Dozens and dozens of stickers adorn it. Most are alt culture, tattoo shops, or QR codes. There’s also one Sugarloaf sticker. It’s the most mainstream one on the sign. Love the irony/message of covering a littering sign with stickers.
Hotel steam pan with creamed chipped beef and cubed toast.
A graphic meme. The title of the graph is every graph about the US. The X axis is some indeterminant metric. There was a green line labeled good thing. There is a red line labeled bad thing. A dotted line is inserted in the graph with the name, Ronald Reagan. At that point in the graph, the good thing starts to go downwards and the bad thing starts going up. As someone who’s worked with graphs his whole life I will say that technically the metric should be the Y axis and time should be the X axis, but who am I to quibble with a good meme?
Photograph of the pre-sunrise blueing sky. A waning gibbous moon hangs at the top. Trees line the bottom. In between are red and purple illuminated shelf clouds (if this was a sci-fi action disaster movie, there would be an alien mothership behind it). I’m literally that meme of the person who’s always taking pictures of the sky.
Photo of a dinner bowl sitting on a kitchen counter. It is filled with kafta beef, cubed roasted sweet potatoes, cucumber, tomatoes, red onions, lemon yogurt sauce, and a pita. Instead of making kafta kebabs and grilling or roasting them, we just browned the beef in a pan with the onions, garlic, and seasonings. 10/10 would recommend. As usual, the recipe for this was an amalgam of a couple different ones with… tweaks.
Photo of a purple through orange sunset behind silhouetted trees.
Crispy baked beans with mushrooms & Parmesan by Alison Roman 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 4 tablespoons olive oil, plus more 1 large onion or 2 leeks, thinly sliced Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 1 pound mushrooms, such as maitake, oyster, or cremini, sliced, chopped, or torn into bite-size pieces 4 sage, thyme, or oregano sprigs, leaves removed 2(15-ounce) cans white beans, such as cannellini or navy or a mix of both, drained and rinsed 1½ cups (4½ ounces) grated Parmesan or pecorino cheese ¾ cup panko or other coarse breaderumbs 1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. 2 Heat the butter and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they're tender and nicely browned, 8-10 minutes. 3 Add the mushrooms and half of the sage leaves and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they ve released most of their water and become very tender and deeply browned, another 10-12 minutes. Add 1 cup water to the skillet and remove from the heat. Using a wooden spoon or tongs, scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet. 4 Either add the beans directly to the skillet if it's large enough) or combine the mushrooms and beans together in a large bowl. Add 1 cup (about 3 ounces) of the Parmesan, season with salt and lots of pepper, and mix well. 5 Transfer to a 2- to 3-quart baking dish and top with the remaining ½ cup Parmesan, remaining sage leaves, more pepper, and a good drizzle of olive oil. Combine the breadcrumbs and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a medium bowl and mix with your hands until it looks like wet sand. Season with salt and pepper and scatter over the top of the beans. 6 Bake the beans, uncovered, until the edges are thick and bubbling and the top is deeply golden brown and crisped, 40-45 minutes.
Photo of a dinner bowl on the counter. Hand breaded chicken tenders and a bean and mushroom cassoulet topped with breadcrumbs. The tenders were marinated in pepperoncini brine. Basically at this point, if there’s a brine, imma marinade chicken in it. The recipe by Alison Roman for the beans is in the followup post.
Photograph of a hat siting askance on a wooden bookshelf containing many classic paperbacks, some in plastic protective bags. It is a replica of Brett’s hat from the original Alien movie. Blue cloth baseball cap with a USCSS Nostromo 180286 patch and the classic “scrambled eggs” on the brim. K searched this out for my birthday one year. Literally one of the greatest gifts ever. I love it so much I don’t want to wear it.
Photograph of a book on a shelf at a bookstore. The cover is an 80s neon soaked vaporwave graphic of kids in front of a closed mall. At the top is “choose your own adventure”. The picture is filtered to look like an 80s video camera still.
Photograph of items on a table top in a café. Two books sit in the foreground: the secret history of fantasy by Peter S. Beagle and Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby. A small tote bag that says “fight evil read books”. And a book of independent bookstore day blackwing pencils.
Professional photograph of WWE wrestlers Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky when they were women’s tag team champions. Rhea is holding Iyo up on her hip like one would carry a large toddler. They are both holding their championship belts. Iyo is doing her emote. #RHIYO4eva
Still from the film Easy A starring Emma Stone. In this moment, her English teacher played by Thomas Hayden-Church is standing across from her her in the cafeteria line. After an awkward silence, he reminds her “don’t forget tomorrow’s Earth Day.”
Photo of a plaster proof of a sculpture sitting a two-story library of the Boston Athenæum with many stacks of books. The 1858 sculpture by Thomas Ball is of Continental army general and commander-in-chief George Washington astride a horse looking off to the far distance. He carries a spyglass for all the surveying he did. It looks quite contemplative (the final version of this swapped the spyglass for a sword; as to why is left as an exercise for the reader). Washington had time to do all this extensive surveying due to the number of enslaved people he had working his plantation Mount Vernon.
Wrought iron gate entrance and/or exit to the Downtown Crossing T station. Cut out of a building like a portal to another time. Stairs leading down to somewhere. Old time pattern in the floor. Concrete sidewalk in disrepair.
An unreal pink and purple clouded sky behind silhouetted evergreen trees at sunrise.
Photo of a dinner plate with breaded chicken thighs on buns and some tater tots the thighs we brined in pickle juice all day. Highly recommended.
Screenshot of iPhone wallpaper choices showing the Earth Set photo from Integrity.
Photograph of a pair of shoes and socks sitting on the floor. The socks have the classic NASA meatball logo from the 60s. The shoes are high top vans sneakers styled to look like NASA equipment. They have a ribbed white oversole and black uppers with an additional NASA meatball in view. On the far side of one of the sneakers is the Apollo 11 Mission patch. On the tongues are classic red removed before flight ribbons. A few years ago, I got to stand in the presence of the Apollo 11 Columbia capsule while wearing these shoes. Core memory moment.
Still from the movie, Star Trek: first contact where the Borg are outside of the enterprise, trying to reconfigure the deflector dish.
Iconic photo of Freddie Mercury on stage at Wembley Stadium in front of like 100,000 people. He is wearing his signature, yellow military style jacket and white pants with red and yellow piping down the side. He is holding a microphone with a short stand stick attached to it so that he can carry it around and gesture with it similar to a cane. His back is arched and he is leaning backwards with his head thrown back in a pose that would be the dictionary entry for “rockstar“.
Monochrome photo of the moon between waning gibbous and last quarter in the sky with empty cherry tree limbs in the foreground. It looks small and far away. But it is a place. And so are those around us. https://thisissporkpress.com/1_2/pieces/Serpse.htm RABO SERPSÉ The Moon is a Place Full text at the link.
Photo of a cast iron pan filled with a chocolate brioche bread pudding soufflé in an oven. Recipe: • 5 (1 inch) thick slices brioche bread • 2 tablespoons butter, melted • ¼ cup chopped pecans • 1 ¼ cups milk • ¼ cup white sugar • 2 eggs, beaten • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Directions Step 1 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F Step 2 Tear bread into 1-inch pieces and place in a small cast iron pan. Drizzle with melted butter and sprinkle with pecans. Step 3 Whisk milk, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, and vanilla extract together in a medium bowl until combined and pour over bread mixture in the baking dish. Press gently on the bread until saturated. Let sit for a few minutes. Step 4 Bake, uncovered, in the preheated oven until top is puffed but set, about 40 minutes. Pudding will settle back down as it cools.
Eric Idle as “the moon” in Journey into Imagination.
Photo of an indoor man-made rock feature with a stuffed bobcat on top of it.