Banana Bread with Streusel Topping

banana7The recipe is an amalgamation of two recipes. The banana bread recipe comes from here at Recipe Zaar. It uses sour cream. I already had another banana bread recipe, but I wanted to try something new. I adapted the recipe a bit to include chocolate chips. And because there were a lot of nuts in the streusel topping I was going to add to it, I reduced the chopped nuts from 1/2 to 1/3 cup.

The streusel topping is from The Pioneer Woman Cooks! If you go to check out her recipe, you’ll see that The Pioneer Woman also knows how to take a darn good looking photo. I cut her recipe in half – and that’s what I have here – but I still found it was just a bit too much streusel, and I didn’t use all of it. However, in retrospect, when I added the streusel to the top of the bread I really could have pushed it down further into the bread mixture and thus added more, OR I could have made a centre “layer” of streusel in the middle of the bread. I regret not doing this extra layer. I have put it as an “optional” step in this recipe, but I really would recommend it. If you do add this middle layer, you may want to reduce the chocolate chips in the bread. Or use cinnamon chips. Or anything else you can think of!

I also modified the streusel recipe by replacing some of the flour with ground up walnuts, and I replaced the pecans with walnuts, just because for a banana bread I think walnuts go better than pecans. The bread was delicious. I used it to make banana bread french toast. (Which was also fantastic.)

Banana Bread with Streusel Topping Recipe

Banana Bread

  • 1 stick butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1.5 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup mashed banana (about three medium ones)
  • 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 2/3 cup chocolate chips

1. Grease a large loaf pan.
2. Cream butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
3. Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture, then bananas, then nuts and sour cream. Mix until well combined.
4. Add the bread dough/mixture to the loaf pan.
5. Add the streusel topping (see below). Don’t be afraid to push it down a fair bit into the bread, since the recipe here gives you plenty of streusel.
6. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour.

Optional Middle Layer: When adding the bread mixture to the loaf pan, only pour in half at first, then add some of the streusel topping to this first half of the mixture, not quite letting the streusel reach to the edges of the pan. Now pour the other half of the bread mixture on top of this, and then finally the rest of the streusel.

Close up of streusal

Streusel Topping Recipe

  • 1/2 stick butter (1/4 cup) (melted)
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 5 tbsp white sugar
  • 6 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup walnuts, ch0pped
  • 1/4 cup walnuts, ground up

1. Combine all the dry ingredients. Melt the butter.
2. Add the butter a little at a time to the dry ingredients, mixing it in each time until small clumps form.
3. Add the streusel to the top of the banana bread in the pan (or to the centre, too) as per above. Using a fork, mix up the very top of the banana bread with the streusel, just so that not all the streusel falls off loose when the bread is done.

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Don’t change your printer’s toner when it tells you to

Two months ago my printer (an HP-2170W Laser Printer) told me it refused to print anymore pages. It told me I was out of toner and I had to replace the cartridge. But it was lying to me - there was plenty of toner left.

In fact, since that time, I have printed hundreds and hundreds more pages. All I had to do was trick my printer into believing that it had more toner than it thought. A bit of Googling told me about this trick, which works on a bunch of printers, not just the 2170W.

First, I opened up the printer to take out the toner and its cartridge.

Printer

I pressed down the little green thing to release the toner (left) from its cartridge (right). I found the little window that the printer “looks” into to check the toner levels:

Window

I put a piece of duct tape over the window and used a sharpie to darken it.

Duct Tape Over Window

I put the toner back in its cartridge:

Putting the toner back in its cartridge

After putting the toner and its cartridge back in the printer, I was done.

I print out a lot of paper (sorry, Earth) because I find reading academic articles on my computer screen to be extremely painful. I practically doubled the amount of printed pages I was able to get out of this one toner cartridge, and only just recently had to shell out the $50 for more toner.

Even after my printed pages started getting visibly grayer, I got an extra hundred and fifty or so pages by shaking up the toner and its cartridge before I printed things.

There is something very satisfying about tricking technology and saving money at the same time.

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Coconut Chip Cookies

Coconut Chip CookieThese are adapted from a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe in The Colossal Cookie Cookbook. I was basically going for something kind of like my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookie Mix Cookies without the oatmeal. I still like my cookie mix cookies better, I suppose because I’m a big fan of oatmeal, but these were really good too.

I can’t think of anything specific I would change about the cookie or its recipe, except to say that more coconut and the addition of oatmeal would be closer to my own subjective tastes. (But that wouldn’t make them objectively better in the same way that a cookie without any sugar or sweeteners at all would be objectively terrible.)

These were very soft, and the coconut taste wasn’t too strong, but definitely there.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Coconut Chip Cookies

  • 1 stick butter
  • 2/3 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup sweetened coconut
  • 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips
  1. Beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in egg, then vanilla extract.
  2. Sift flour and baking soda. Add to the wet mixture.
  3. Mix in coconut, then chips.
  4. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
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Soft and Chewy Oreo Cookie Cookies

Oreo Cookie CookiesA long time ago I came across this Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookie Recipe at Two Peas and Their Pod. The recipe was good, but it was mostly a chocolate chip cookie with a few chunks of Oreos in each cookie (which, indeed, is a perfectly fine idea for a cookie). But I wanted an entire cookie that had a kind of Oreo taste, yet maintained the chewiness of a regular chocolate chip cookie throughout. I find the chunks of hard Oreos (a relatively dry cookie) don’t fit well with an otherwise soft and chewy cookie.

It occurred to me that one way to create my chewy Oreo cookie would be to grind up the Oreos and add them to the batter. The result is this recipe. I also added some cocoa. And as for the Oreo filling, I found that if you separated the filling from the cookies, put it in the fridge awhile, you could then cut it up and shape the pieces into chip-sized… chips.

The recipe worked; the cookies were delicious, and did indeed taste kind of like big, soft, chewy Oreos. My girlfriend thought they were just a bit sweet. Next time I might drop a bit of the sugar.

Oreo Cookies on an Oreo Tin Soft and Chey Oreos

Soft and Chewy Oreo Cookie Cookies

  • 1 stick butter
  • 6 tbsp sugar
  • 6 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1.25 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp cocoa
  • 6 Oreos
  • 1/3 cup white chocolate chips
  • 1/3 cup chocolate chips

1. Separate the Oreo halves and the Oreo filling. Grind up the cookie portion of the Oreos, and put the filling in the fridge. Set the Oreo crumbs aside.

2. Beat butter and sugars until creamy. Add egg and vanilla.

3. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, Oreo crumbs and cocoa. Add this to wet mixture. Fold in chocolate and white chocolate chips. Put the dough in the fridge.

4. Take the Oreo filling out of the fridge and cut it up or shape it (whatever way works for you) into a bunch of little chip-sized chunks.

5. Take the dough out of the fridge, and drop tablespoon-sized cookies onto bake pans or sheets. Add the filling “chips” to the tops of the cookies.*

6. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 8-11 minutes.

* shaping the filling into little chip-sized chunks isn’t that easy. Next time, I might consider just mixing the filling in with the dough, and adding more white chocolate chips.

Row of Oreo Cookie Cookies Oreo Cookie Cookies

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Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies (thin and buttery)

Oatmeal CookiesIt took me a surprisingly long time to find an oatmeal cookie recipe that I wanted to try (like, 10 minutes on Google). I just wanted plain, thin, and buttery oatmeal cookies. I finally adapted a Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies recipe from All Recipes, and in the end it worked pretty well.

I ended up baking them one tray at a time. The first tray is what you see pictured. The cookies spread out a bunch (’til they touched each other) and were very flat. While the first tray was in the oven I put the remaining dough in the fridge to cool. When I dropped the chilled cookie dough onto the next tray I also used smaller portions, and the result was a batch of slightly thicker cookies. So if you want thicker cookies, chill the dough first. And don’t flatten the cookies with your fork. I prefer the thin versions, however; you just have to be careful to let them cool before you lift them off the tray, else they’ll fall apart. Anyways, these are great if you like your oatmeal cookies thin and buttery.

In other news, my Ph.D. applications are finally all done, and I just sent the last three (of six) application packages off this morning using Xpresspost. It’s odd that of the schools I applied to, the advantages that each one has varies quite a bit. One has a professor with research interests more similar to my own than any other. Another is the home of one of my favourite journals. Another is one of the few schools doing research into digital media and new literary mediums. Then there’s the one with the crazy library resources. We’ll see what happens, I suppose.

Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies Plain Oatmeal Cookie Pile
Plain Oatmeal Cookies Recipe

  • 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
  • 1 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1.25 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 cups quick-cooking oats

1. Cream butter and sugars until smooth.
2. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until smooth.
3. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl, then add this to the wet mixture. Fold in the oatmeal.
4. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 11-13 minutes. Let cool on the pan for awhile, unless you want them to fall apart on you (especially if they are very thin).

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Simple Blondies

BlondiesI mentioned in my Simple Brownies post that I was more of a blondie man than a brownie man. And that made me want to bake blondies.

This blondie recipe is simple and pretty much impossible to screw up. I don’t really try other blondie recipes (much), because this is all you need. It’s from Smitten Kitchen’s blondies. If you check out the URL there, you can see “blondies-for-a-blondie,” which is what I used to type into Google whenever I wanted the recipe.

I’ve tried many things, but my standby with this recipe is to just throw in a bunch of chocolate chips or chopped up semi-sweet milk chocolate. In the pictures for this post, you can see I used chopped up chocolate – those smaller specks are the tinier bits I didn’t bother to throw out.

To conclude: this blondie recipe is very fast and very easy. It tastes like a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie in one. You can also use these blondies, with some ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce to imitate Moxie’s White Chocolate Brownie dessert. I usually just dip my blondies in milk, like a chocolate chip cookie, because that’s how dreams are made.

Blondie Pile Blondie Blondie
Blondies Recipe

  • 1 stick butter (melted)
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 cup  flour
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

Directions

  1. Mix melted butter and brown sugar. You don’t need an electronic mixer. I use a fork and stir really fast.
  2. Add egg. Mix it in. Then vanilla. Mix it in.
  3. Sift salt and flour together, then add this to the wet mixture. Throw in the chocolate chips or whatever ingredient you’d like.
  4. Pour the batter into an 8×8 square bake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Err on the the side of underbaked. I pretty much take them out right at 20-21 minutes.

Substitutions / Additions:

  • Add 1/2 cup of walnuts, pecans, white chocolate chips, or anything, really, either in addition to or in place of the chocolate chips.
  • Add in a mashed banana.
  • Add in a few tablespoons of peanut butter and some peanuts.

These blondies are pretty much a blank slate for anything you want to try. But I like ‘em simple.

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Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and Real-Life Trial by Combat

The Black Knight and Friar Tuck enjoy some delicious pie

The Black Knight and Friar Tuck enjoy some delicious pie

I’m studying Ivanhoe right now, and I came across some interesting articles about the book and its connection to a real-life trial by combat. So I thought I would blog about the details, because though I think it is interesting it will probably never make it into a paper. And the advantage of the blog post format is I can just present a bunch of neat details, rather than arguing something revolutionary.

Anyways…

The Ashford v. Thornton case of 1817 was the last case of a trial by combat challenge in Britain. It came at a time of rising interest in medieval England, chivalry, and romance. The problem is that the case outraged most people: the early nineteenth century wasn’t a time when trial by combat was actually considered anything other than absurd and barbaric. Most people thought the case had allowed a guilty man to get away with rape and murder… through his willingness and ability to commit another murder.

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott was published two years later, in December of 1819. It includes a trial by combat, and a few scholars have argued that the case of Ashford v. Thornton was popular enough (it inspired numerous pamphlets and plays) that both Scott and his readers would have been very aware of the case during the climactic final scene in the novel. Scott indeed mentioned the Thornton case in his private letters (Letters; click “Vol. IV”).

Details of the Ashford v. Thornton case (1817)

In 1817 Abraham Thornton was accused of raping and murdering 20-year-old Mary Ashford; her body had been pulled from a pit of water outside a very small village several miles northeast of Birmingham. Thornton had boasted earlier that night, at a party he and Mary both attended, that he’d already had Mary’s sister and would also have Mary. He later told police that he did have sex with Mary that night, but that it was consensual. Although we will never know for sure, I must say that Thornton does not come across as a very sexually appealing fellow, based on his rude sexual boasting and his appearance. While covering the trial, the London Times noted that Thornton’s “natural thickness is greater than common, but his excessive corpulency has swollen his whole figure into a size that rather approaches to deformity.”[1] In the initial trial, Thornton was found not guilty after a 12 hour trial which was followed by about 5 minutes of jury deliberation. Based on the details available today, it is impossible to say whether he was guilty or innocent.

Mary’s brother William Ashford was allowed by English law to make an “appeal,” such that Thornton was called upon again to plead. Well, upon the advice of his attorneys, he pleaded “Not guilty, and ready to defend the same upon my body” (qtd. in Dyer 386), at which point he threw down the proverbial gauntlet—in this case a yellow leather glove. William, being a frail teenager, did not accept the challenge to fight a man whom he thought had already had some experience in the killing business. And so Thornton was free. (The weapons of the fight, by the way, were to be “oak clubs.”)

The public at the time was shocked, given that it was the first trial by battle since 1638. The right of the accused to demand trial by battle was a law that had basically been forgotten about, and so never repealed. People thought Thornton had basically gotten away with murder, though the details of the case certainly don’t make it clear whether he was guilty or innocent.

One of the most shocking things about the case, for the English public, was that Thornton had basically turned the chivalric code upside down. Chivalry asks men to use their power to defend women. Thornton used the chivalric code to get off the hook after supposedly raping and killing one. William Ashford, who actually was trying to defend a woman, was out of luck because he was a weak teenager.

Ashford v. Thornton and Ivanhoe

"Combat de chevaliers dans la campagne" by Eugène Delacroix

"Combat de chevaliers dans la campagne" by Eugène Delacroix

Ivanhoe’s trial by combat surrounds a woman (the saintly Jewess, Rebecca) who has basically been threatened with rape by the Templar knight Sir Brian Bois-Guilbert. There are a few obvious differences between the case of Ashford v. Thornton and Ivanhoe’s trial by combat. In the novel, trial by combat is demanded by the threatened woman, Rebecca, not the villain (though it is Bois-Guilbert who secretly suggests it to her). The combat also does not let someone get away with murder; it saves Rebecca’s life. Indeed, the real villain, Bois-Guilbert, even though he is never on trial, ends up killed in the combat, and justice ends up actually getting served.

Bois-Guilbert dies in the combat, even though Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, who arrives wounded and just in time to fight as Rebecca’s champion, barely hits Bois-Guilbert with his lance. The narrator tells us Bois-Guilbert “had died a victim to the violence of his own contending passions,” though the Templar Grand Master and Ivanhoe both claim it was God’s will. Bos-Guilbert’s contending passions would have been his will to win the fight and serve his ambition towards eventually becoming the Templar Order’s next Grand Master, and losing the fight to save Rebecca.

The two main scholars to take on the similarities of the case and Ivanhoe are Gary Dyer and Mark Schoenfield. Both argue that Scott is attempting to rescue chivalry in some way, even if he realizes it’s not at all feasible in the modern day world.

I think the idea of rescuing chivalry in a world in which it’s not feasible is a pretty important aspect of Scott’s Ivanhoe. Part of romance involves a kind of lost golden age we can never go back to, and despite the subtle narratorial critiques of it in Ivanhoe, I think that the world we are introduced to is indeed a romantic golden age. And it’s not that we can’t go back to it, it’s that it just doesn’t work anymore, even if it is a part of who we are now and where we have come from. In Schoenfield’s words, for Walter Scott, chivalric institutions (such as the trial by combat) “rendered modernity intelligible” (81).

[1] I saw part of this quotation originally in Mark Schoenfield’s article, and he cites it as 9 August 1817. But I could only find it in the 11 August paper. It’s in regards to a Friday trial, which is why it appears three days after, on the Monday instead of Saturday.

Cited Stuff:

Dyer, Gary. “Ivanhoe, Chivalry, and the Murder of Mary Ashford.” Criticism 39.3 (Summer, 1997): 383-408. Print.

Schoenfield, Mark. “Waging Battle: Ashford v. Thornton, Ivanhoe, and Legal Violence.” Prose Studies 23.2 (2000): 61-86. Print.

Scott, Walter. Ivanhoe. Ed. Ian Duncan. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Print. Oxford World’s Classics.

- – - . “The Letters of Sir Walter Scott E-Text.” The Walter Scott Digital Archive. Edinburgh University Library. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.

“Warwick Assizes, Friday, Aug. 8. Trial of Abraham Thornton For The Murder Of Mary Ashford.” The Times [London] 11 Aug. 1817, Law sec.: 3. The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985. Web. 3 Jan. 2010.

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Simple Brownies

brownie-no-walnuts-plainI am more of a blondie man than a brownie man, myself, but my girlfriend likes brownies. So here are some brownies.

I got this brownie recipe from Cookie Madness. My criteria when searching for this recipe was that it had to use an 8×8 or 9×9 pan, it had to be relatively simple or quick, and it couldn’t advertise itself as particularly “cakey.”

The recipe I used said to use pecans, but I used walnuts. I just sprinkled as many as seemed reasonable on top of one half of the brownie batter once the batter was in the bake pan, and just pressed down on ‘em a bit. The brownies also came out of the oven after 33 minutes, which is the minimum time in the recipe, because the gooier the better. Also, I used a microwave instead of a saucepan on low heat to do my butter and chocolate melting. I think I’ll save the saucepan for the fancy brownie recipe, when I want to spend more than 10 minutes in preparation. I changed the ratios, too, of the sweet vs. semi sweet chocolate, based on what was in my cupboard. There were certainly no complaints about too much sweetness, though. In fact the official verdict was, “Perfect,” so huzzah.

If you are hungry I recommend you consume brownies. brownie-plain2 Brownies

Simple Brownies Recipe

  • 1 stick butter
  • 3 oz semi sweet chocolate
  • 1 oz unsweetened chocolate
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup well packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • Some walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8 or 9 inch square bake pan with non-stick foil.

2. Melt most of the butter in a microwave. Add in the chocolate, and continue melting, but take it out and stir it occasionally. Don’t melt it all the way in the microwave – there should still be a few small chunks of chocolate that will finish melting from the residual heat of the butter and the other melted chocolate. Let cool.

3. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl. Add in and mix salt, both sugars, and vanilla. Add and mix in chocolate. Fold in/mix in flour until just combined.

4. Pour batter into bake pan. Sprinkle walnuts or pecans on top if you want. I like to press down on them a bit so they don’t fall off the finished brownies.

5. Bake for 33-35 minutes, until the top just seems to start cracking. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

Cut into individual sized brownies, as small or as big as you want. But bigger brownies taste better.

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Banana Bread with Walnuts and Chocolate Chips

Chocolate Chip Walnut Banana Bread

I still haven’t discovered anything worth putting on a good banana bread. Butter, peanut butter, Nutella–all of these fail to improve upon that which is perfect. Although I have found that Banana Bread is a good bread for French Toast, even if it is a quick bread without all that fancy yeast. I’ve seen others do this online, but when I mentioned it to people in real life they thought I was just weird. So be it.

I like my banana bread with tons of walnuts and chocolate chips. Some people prefer it with none of these extra ingredients. These people are crazy, but that’s okay, because these people don’t get any walnuts and chocolate chips.

In the ingredients here I’ll go with 1/2 cup each of walnuts and chocolate chips for the bread. I like to use more (and in the pictures here, certainly, there are more), but I’ll stick to what most people I think would enjoy. It’s also what was on the original recipe I had, at some point. But I forget where it is from, and I forget what I modified. However, this banana bread recipe is moist, delicious, and awesome. And it can pretty easily be doubled or tripled.

I’ll also note that every banana bread recipe I read always says, “the riper the bananas, the better.” I guess it releases sugars or some such thing. Anyways, I don’t ever plan ahead enough to have three ripe bananas, so I buy bananas as ripe as I can find them, and then leave them in a bag for a few hours, which helps a bit. People also freeze them, but then they’re hard to mash up, so I generally don’t do that.

banana2

Banana Bread with Walnuts and Chocolate Chips

Ingredients

  • 3 medium bananas (the riper the better)
  • 1/4 cup melted butter
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1.5 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup walnuts

1. Butter/grease/spray with Pam a 9″ loaf pan. I also like to add a long strip of parchment paper across the center and long sides of the pan so that you can lift the entire loaf using the paper when it’s done.

2. Mash up the bananas. Beat in with butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla.

3. Mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; add this to the wet mixture. Throw in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

4. Pour mixture into loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the banana bread comes out clean.

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Two Victorian gentlemen enjoy the effects of opium

GENTLEMAN 1: What! What! Eh – eh – oh, by God! By God!

GENTLEMAN 2: Dear me, man, my face is positively melting!

GENTLEMAN 1: By… God!

GENTLEMAN 2: (pointing) So is yours!

GENTLEMAN 1: By… God!

(Outside, an over-dressed fop with a brightly coloured overcoat walks past the window.)

GENTLEMAN 2: A peacock! Whoooaaaa!!!

(He topples over on his expensive leather chair.)

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