We both hate the Dentyne ad. And "The Surreal Life." And "CSI." See? Now I have to like all that junk just to be contrary to the American Taliban's gentle arm.
Frankly, I can't disagree that there is something really unsavory about these programs, but who is letting their kids watch "South Park" and "CSI" and not knowing what is going on?
And, for truly disturbing TV, find one of those plastic sugery shows on cable. Saw a guy looking at getting pec implants. He asked if they came in bigger sizes. Want a manseire much?
Is it just me or does Jacko look a lot like the Joker?
Monday, February 28, 2005
Sunday, February 27, 2005
You are what you are
Let others watch the Academy Awards. Here I am glued to a PBS documentary on Liberace.
What a character. Moreover, the gilding was the lily with him. His piano skills, even to my tin ear, were meh. His clothes were too much. His jokes, too corny.
And, oh man, I can't believe how totally gay he was. It was so writ large and just out there. But there was this total blindness to it; I wonder if part of it was because so many of his middle-aged and older fans from middle america just didn't know what to look for when it came to queer culture. Even the bits they might have known (green on Thursdays, perhaps?) were so overblown it was almost ad absurdia. Especially over the years, his outrageousness grew. It was almost like he was daring people to realize he was gay, and when they didn't, he was just like, "Look! It's a gold lame suit with sequined shells and a cape in pink with frothy paillets and pearls and embroidery and a collar shaped like a shell! That doesn't phase you? I don't know how much more obvious I can be, people."
Part of me wonders if, in twenty years, people will look incredulously at the Michael Jackson's fans who proclaim his innocence because by then, more information about how child molesters operate will be common knowledge. Because, let's face it, the signs are there, and are also writ so large as to be absurd.
Boy, these people really think the Oscars are important, don't they?
What a character. Moreover, the gilding was the lily with him. His piano skills, even to my tin ear, were meh. His clothes were too much. His jokes, too corny.
And, oh man, I can't believe how totally gay he was. It was so writ large and just out there. But there was this total blindness to it; I wonder if part of it was because so many of his middle-aged and older fans from middle america just didn't know what to look for when it came to queer culture. Even the bits they might have known (green on Thursdays, perhaps?) were so overblown it was almost ad absurdia. Especially over the years, his outrageousness grew. It was almost like he was daring people to realize he was gay, and when they didn't, he was just like, "Look! It's a gold lame suit with sequined shells and a cape in pink with frothy paillets and pearls and embroidery and a collar shaped like a shell! That doesn't phase you? I don't know how much more obvious I can be, people."
Part of me wonders if, in twenty years, people will look incredulously at the Michael Jackson's fans who proclaim his innocence because by then, more information about how child molesters operate will be common knowledge. Because, let's face it, the signs are there, and are also writ so large as to be absurd.
Boy, these people really think the Oscars are important, don't they?
Doctors and email
Why don't doctors or their offices ever have email? It would just make sense for them to. Sure, I can see how they might get swamped, but they, as well as my alleged insurer, would be so much easier to contact than using a phone menu and no service all weekend.
I know I answered my own question. But why isn't health insurance held to the same standard that freaking Wal-Mart employees are???
I know I answered my own question. But why isn't health insurance held to the same standard that freaking Wal-Mart employees are???
My bad
It was California Blue Shield.
Sure is unholy, too.
Re-looking over the bill it seems that the deductible of $106.97 wasn't even applied to the whole total. I am so angry about this. I am thinking of writing a note for inclusion in my medical files that says "do not run tests on Callie until her insurance will pay for any portion of them. She can't afford it. Don't assume any tests are covered."
No cholesterol, no strep, no nothing.
Even the numa numa dance can't make me happy.
Sure is unholy, too.
Re-looking over the bill it seems that the deductible of $106.97 wasn't even applied to the whole total. I am so angry about this. I am thinking of writing a note for inclusion in my medical files that says "do not run tests on Callie until her insurance will pay for any portion of them. She can't afford it. Don't assume any tests are covered."
No cholesterol, no strep, no nothing.
Even the numa numa dance can't make me happy.
I hate Blue Cross Blue Shield of California
I have had to pay for every single fricking medical test I have taken since I started with these bastards. I just thought I was getting reamed regular-style until I got a bill for nearly $400 today for tests associated with my annual physical. I am so mad I could scream. At them. With abundant profanities.
If their explanation of benefits book had ever said "none" I could understand. But this, I am not getting at all.
What the heck am I paying out of my check every two weeks for if not a check-up once a freaking year? What would happen if I got in an accident? What if I contracted a horrible disease? I don't even get a decent subsidy on prescription medicine from these bastards.
Socilalized medicine now!!
If their explanation of benefits book had ever said "none" I could understand. But this, I am not getting at all.
What the heck am I paying out of my check every two weeks for if not a check-up once a freaking year? What would happen if I got in an accident? What if I contracted a horrible disease? I don't even get a decent subsidy on prescription medicine from these bastards.
Socilalized medicine now!!
Saturday, February 26, 2005
My date with Mister Clean
I went to a promotional event for the clean gay pirate and his bathroom swiffer. How cheesy is that.
I was curious, though; not so much about the product but who would drop by a wealthy Seattle suburb for tips on cleanliness. I thought I would have more snark to share, but I don't. I was put through a PR gantlet that has broken me down, people. I think that might have something with the fact that I was given a Magic Reach — basically a flexible swiffer for the bathroom that has a detachable head so you can use it on a pole or in your hand. It has two different types of scrub pads to attach and throw away. It has been researched and branded within an inch of its life (why not release under P&G brand swiffer? Because that brand is associated with quick n easy — the big gay muscleman throwback is associated with cleanliness, which is the operative word for bathroom sanitation). This, in other words, is a clever product.
Also, I was told I would get a gift pack that ought to include a nail polish by Cover Girl with the monniker "I love Mr. Clean." Which is cool.
Ladies love Mister Clean. Or, at least, the muscled, five percent body fat tanned bald dude that was playing him. I was a little freaked out by the white mascara on his eyebrows. He wasn't the cartoon character I've come to love. It's a little tough to see one of my idols brought all too literally to life.
But what the women were there for were the free manicures. If you are in PR and you want the ladies to turn out, offer free manicures. They are quick, hiring a manicurist or two is probably pretty cheap, but these ladies wanted to save $25. Insanity. And the women that were coming to this event were coming from the richest place in the state. For Pete's sake, Microsoft was across the street from this health club. I'm pretty sure most of these women, a lot of whom were coming to the health club for a Saturday morning workout, have figured out how not to do the intensive housework and their Saturday mornings were pretty much their own.
There was also the obligatory breast cancer awareness table.
What is it with the breast cancer awareness? It is the weirdest thing. I was pondering this at the event. There are a lot of women there, it makes sense. But there is something else going on with the breast cancer stuff. On my way back, I saw a car with three overlapping magnetic ribbons — one pink, which said "fight breast cancer," one yellow, with the slogan "support our troops," and a flag one that said "God Bless the USA." And I was thinking, what is the connection between these causes? Because logically, one of these things is not like the other. It's an add-on. It's like one more additional ribbon it's really hard to argue with. Support the troops, love the U.S.A., cop a feel for health.
There was an article in the NYT about all the color ribbons out there, and how some colors relate to several causes. How did the pink ribbon get as big as the yellow ribbon? Why not the one that is against autism (the scary uncontrollable baby disease that is so blamed popular)? Why not the one against Lou Gerihg's Disease? I mean, I stand nominally opposed to these unavoidable diseases that need more research in the fight against them. I'm every bit as willing to pay $2 to buy them as the other ribbons (in other words, I'm not that inclined). Are people just big ole joiners? If I put up a polka-dot ribbon fighting chicken pox would people buy it??
I was curious, though; not so much about the product but who would drop by a wealthy Seattle suburb for tips on cleanliness. I thought I would have more snark to share, but I don't. I was put through a PR gantlet that has broken me down, people. I think that might have something with the fact that I was given a Magic Reach — basically a flexible swiffer for the bathroom that has a detachable head so you can use it on a pole or in your hand. It has two different types of scrub pads to attach and throw away. It has been researched and branded within an inch of its life (why not release under P&G brand swiffer? Because that brand is associated with quick n easy — the big gay muscleman throwback is associated with cleanliness, which is the operative word for bathroom sanitation). This, in other words, is a clever product.
Also, I was told I would get a gift pack that ought to include a nail polish by Cover Girl with the monniker "I love Mr. Clean." Which is cool.
Ladies love Mister Clean. Or, at least, the muscled, five percent body fat tanned bald dude that was playing him. I was a little freaked out by the white mascara on his eyebrows. He wasn't the cartoon character I've come to love. It's a little tough to see one of my idols brought all too literally to life.
But what the women were there for were the free manicures. If you are in PR and you want the ladies to turn out, offer free manicures. They are quick, hiring a manicurist or two is probably pretty cheap, but these ladies wanted to save $25. Insanity. And the women that were coming to this event were coming from the richest place in the state. For Pete's sake, Microsoft was across the street from this health club. I'm pretty sure most of these women, a lot of whom were coming to the health club for a Saturday morning workout, have figured out how not to do the intensive housework and their Saturday mornings were pretty much their own.
There was also the obligatory breast cancer awareness table.
What is it with the breast cancer awareness? It is the weirdest thing. I was pondering this at the event. There are a lot of women there, it makes sense. But there is something else going on with the breast cancer stuff. On my way back, I saw a car with three overlapping magnetic ribbons — one pink, which said "fight breast cancer," one yellow, with the slogan "support our troops," and a flag one that said "God Bless the USA." And I was thinking, what is the connection between these causes? Because logically, one of these things is not like the other. It's an add-on. It's like one more additional ribbon it's really hard to argue with. Support the troops, love the U.S.A., cop a feel for health.
There was an article in the NYT about all the color ribbons out there, and how some colors relate to several causes. How did the pink ribbon get as big as the yellow ribbon? Why not the one that is against autism (the scary uncontrollable baby disease that is so blamed popular)? Why not the one against Lou Gerihg's Disease? I mean, I stand nominally opposed to these unavoidable diseases that need more research in the fight against them. I'm every bit as willing to pay $2 to buy them as the other ribbons (in other words, I'm not that inclined). Are people just big ole joiners? If I put up a polka-dot ribbon fighting chicken pox would people buy it??
Chaff, pre-culled
That's my take on Hannidate.
Poor Barbara, the self-described green-eyed minx on Hannidate.
Some money quotes:
"I have a very close-knit, loving family. ALL Republicans! lol "
"I am seeking an honest, intelligent, politically savvy man, who believes in Republican values and is seeking a LTR ... Please, no drug users, cheaters, liars, womanizers, or heavy drinkers."
Contradiction? Apparently Republicans have learned to live with it for a while.
From Nashville's Christina:
"Who I'm looking for: Someone who has definitely been Hannitized, a committed Christian and someone who doesn't have children already (unless they are grown)."
From Greg:
"Most importantly, I am a conservative. I live in Pittsburgh and there appears to be a ratio of 4 men to every woman. Plus, most women in 'the burgh' are liberal"
This one, from Rob, is so crazy it deserves to be quoted in its entirety:
"A conservative U.S. Army veteran, living on the left coast. I like walks on the beach, Ann Coulter and standing up to outspoken liberal "experts" who claim to know what's going on in Iraq. I love my country, my president, my family and my dog, Fonzie. I'd go back to Iraq in a second but I've suffered a shoulder injury that won't allow me to play G.I Joe anymore. I'm looking for a strong minded conservative woman to take to dinner in a San Francisco restaurant. One who's smart enough to wait until we are served before delighting in the discussion of liberals, their flaws and their feeble attempts to hide them. I'd like to hold out for Ann, but I'm a realist. Though, I could see the two of us having the most delightful conversation: one simple, passionate conservative; one sophisticated, radical conservative...Man, I'd love to have dinner with Ann Coulter! If she's not available, I'd be happy to meet someone who identifies with her political id."
This is hot: From Dave:
"All I want from this is to kill deer with Ann Coulter someday"
If you dudes want Ann Coulter, write her or something!
From Bill:
"To describe myself I'll put the most important thing first: I LISTEN TO THE SEAN HANNITY SHOW!!!!!!!!! (Rush, too)"
What a winner.
All of these eejits are from the randomly selected Page 10. I am so glad all these NDs are stuck in one spot.
Also, may I direct you to newgrounds.com? I would recommend watching the Numa Numa guy. I know he's really embarrassed, but it's kind of a cute little video of him lip-synching to a Romanian pop song.
Poor Barbara, the self-described green-eyed minx on Hannidate.
Some money quotes:
"I have a very close-knit, loving family. ALL Republicans! lol "
"I am seeking an honest, intelligent, politically savvy man, who believes in Republican values and is seeking a LTR ... Please, no drug users, cheaters, liars, womanizers, or heavy drinkers."
Contradiction? Apparently Republicans have learned to live with it for a while.
From Nashville's Christina:
"Who I'm looking for: Someone who has definitely been Hannitized, a committed Christian and someone who doesn't have children already (unless they are grown)."
From Greg:
"Most importantly, I am a conservative. I live in Pittsburgh and there appears to be a ratio of 4 men to every woman. Plus, most women in 'the burgh' are liberal"
This one, from Rob, is so crazy it deserves to be quoted in its entirety:
"A conservative U.S. Army veteran, living on the left coast. I like walks on the beach, Ann Coulter and standing up to outspoken liberal "experts" who claim to know what's going on in Iraq. I love my country, my president, my family and my dog, Fonzie. I'd go back to Iraq in a second but I've suffered a shoulder injury that won't allow me to play G.I Joe anymore. I'm looking for a strong minded conservative woman to take to dinner in a San Francisco restaurant. One who's smart enough to wait until we are served before delighting in the discussion of liberals, their flaws and their feeble attempts to hide them. I'd like to hold out for Ann, but I'm a realist. Though, I could see the two of us having the most delightful conversation: one simple, passionate conservative; one sophisticated, radical conservative...Man, I'd love to have dinner with Ann Coulter! If she's not available, I'd be happy to meet someone who identifies with her political id."
This is hot: From Dave:
"All I want from this is to kill deer with Ann Coulter someday"
If you dudes want Ann Coulter, write her or something!
From Bill:
"To describe myself I'll put the most important thing first: I LISTEN TO THE SEAN HANNITY SHOW!!!!!!!!! (Rush, too)"
What a winner.
All of these eejits are from the randomly selected Page 10. I am so glad all these NDs are stuck in one spot.
Also, may I direct you to newgrounds.com? I would recommend watching the Numa Numa guy. I know he's really embarrassed, but it's kind of a cute little video of him lip-synching to a Romanian pop song.
Hottest thing I saw today
Though I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean it ironically.
I was driving down 6th Ave. headed for a party at Fire Engine #9, a local brewpub, and saw a big old dude (he was what those in the euphamism business call "apple shaped") waiting for the bus. He was wearing gray sweats that were held up with suspenders.
Do Stacey and Clinton realize what they are up against?
Seriously, I'm pretty sure they are only interested in clothing those who are going somewhere besides on the bus to the halfway home. Which is kind of a pity.
Did karaoke again tonight. After two beers, an apple martini and two rum and cokes it's a lot easier to do. Nancy, who is the wife of Mark the fitness instructor, said I was bringing in people from other rooms in the bar. I think they were trying to get a drink. I am really a terrible singer. Denise, who has too much pep to be believed and is quite the extrovert, is adamant that she won't karaokify in front of people. This is a woman who spends hours each day encouraging people to follow her lead as she does lunges, squats, legovers and jumping jacks. Seems to me like a three minute song would be the easiest thing in the world after leading a cardio session.
Shawn, a fellow traveler in the Y exercise realm, sang some songs too. His wife, Diona (not sure I'm spelling that right) is a scream. Funny English prof. Julie and Pat got back from hanging out in southern Mexico. Linley kicked Ben's (Denise's hubby) you-know-what in pool. Wyatt and his wife Sarah are cool, too. I am fortunate to be in a class with such interesting, genuine people who do not think I'm a total freak, even though I was explaining to Ben and — Robert? I'm so bad with names — the addiction I have to Frosted Miniwheats. Seriously, they dominate my life at this point.
Although today promised to rain with some clouds, it turned sunny and clear. Everyone is concerned about the weather and what it means for electrical rates and water usage this summer. Last time there was an energy crisis out here it was partly manufactured, but because Enron got away with it, there was some real suffering. People are planning out their energy usage and getting ready to let their lawns croak. I'm sure there's an angle here for a story for me to write ... or two or three.
I was driving down 6th Ave. headed for a party at Fire Engine #9, a local brewpub, and saw a big old dude (he was what those in the euphamism business call "apple shaped") waiting for the bus. He was wearing gray sweats that were held up with suspenders.
Do Stacey and Clinton realize what they are up against?
Seriously, I'm pretty sure they are only interested in clothing those who are going somewhere besides on the bus to the halfway home. Which is kind of a pity.
Did karaoke again tonight. After two beers, an apple martini and two rum and cokes it's a lot easier to do. Nancy, who is the wife of Mark the fitness instructor, said I was bringing in people from other rooms in the bar. I think they were trying to get a drink. I am really a terrible singer. Denise, who has too much pep to be believed and is quite the extrovert, is adamant that she won't karaokify in front of people. This is a woman who spends hours each day encouraging people to follow her lead as she does lunges, squats, legovers and jumping jacks. Seems to me like a three minute song would be the easiest thing in the world after leading a cardio session.
Shawn, a fellow traveler in the Y exercise realm, sang some songs too. His wife, Diona (not sure I'm spelling that right) is a scream. Funny English prof. Julie and Pat got back from hanging out in southern Mexico. Linley kicked Ben's (Denise's hubby) you-know-what in pool. Wyatt and his wife Sarah are cool, too. I am fortunate to be in a class with such interesting, genuine people who do not think I'm a total freak, even though I was explaining to Ben and — Robert? I'm so bad with names — the addiction I have to Frosted Miniwheats. Seriously, they dominate my life at this point.
Although today promised to rain with some clouds, it turned sunny and clear. Everyone is concerned about the weather and what it means for electrical rates and water usage this summer. Last time there was an energy crisis out here it was partly manufactured, but because Enron got away with it, there was some real suffering. People are planning out their energy usage and getting ready to let their lawns croak. I'm sure there's an angle here for a story for me to write ... or two or three.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Something funny
Hannidate. Oh man, thank you Think Progress for pointing this out. What a rogues gallery of NDs! (That's Callie-slang for "not datable," which, in spite of my using it literally cross-country for the past eight years, has failed to catch on. Well, maybe this blog will help. Probably not.) I particularly got a kick out of Alton, the divorced guy in the Adidas shirt (c'mon! you're looking for Luv, Republican style!) on page 3 or so who is a cargo pilot. Here's what makes him such a keeper:
"If the relationship blossoms into love, marriage will definitely be on my mind. If the she has children that is fine. I had 4 with my ex but she is moving to Richmond, VA and I will miss mine dearly. My visits will be cut to 4-5 times a year. I would be open to more children in a loving marriage. I do want a person who is open to exploring our sexual sides together in a sharing manner."
So he's beyond ND. He's more bunny than elephant. I don't even want to know what that last sentence means.
I shouldn't mock. The liberal in me, that weird Christian influence in me as well, reminds me that we're all a pack of bumbling losers in this crazy world, looking for connections with nature, fellow man and God. None of us has that much more insight into our own failings than bunnyman does; none of us has much more of a clue than bunnyman does, either. In my own way, I'm as big a dope as bunnyman.
OTOH, because we're all a bunch of bumbling losers, it's nice to be able to make fun of each other. It's not the better angels of our nature, it's the humor of the macabre.
"If the relationship blossoms into love, marriage will definitely be on my mind. If the she has children that is fine. I had 4 with my ex but she is moving to Richmond, VA and I will miss mine dearly. My visits will be cut to 4-5 times a year. I would be open to more children in a loving marriage. I do want a person who is open to exploring our sexual sides together in a sharing manner."
So he's beyond ND. He's more bunny than elephant. I don't even want to know what that last sentence means.
I shouldn't mock. The liberal in me, that weird Christian influence in me as well, reminds me that we're all a pack of bumbling losers in this crazy world, looking for connections with nature, fellow man and God. None of us has that much more insight into our own failings than bunnyman does; none of us has much more of a clue than bunnyman does, either. In my own way, I'm as big a dope as bunnyman.
OTOH, because we're all a bunch of bumbling losers, it's nice to be able to make fun of each other. It's not the better angels of our nature, it's the humor of the macabre.
I ate methadone FMW
Well, fellow people, I did something I didn't want to do, but after a few Frosted Miniwheat-free days I couldn't take it anymore and I went to the store.
Ever since the low-carb thing gripped Americans I've been in carbohydrate hog heaven and entirely too accustomed to seeing discounted namebrand cereals (especially the healthy ones) every time I shop. Well, not the other day. And there is no way I'm going to pay $5 for a box of cereal. I just refuse. So I searched my purse for a coupon, but no, not at all.
However, I noticed that the private label brand was on sale. You know, the kind that isn't actually FMW, but is "Bite size Frosted Shredded Wheat." I knew it would not be as good as FMW (what is?) but I didn't know if it would be as bad as the private label grape nuts, which are horrible, and I think are called "crunchy nuggets," which aren't nearly as evocative a title as "Grape Nuts." But for $2.50 for 20 oz, I was willing to take a chance.
What I got was the methadone of FMW. They did not get me high like FMW does, that is to say, I did not get the big satisfaction payoff while eating them, but it did curb my crazy crazy cravings for the hard stuff.
The private label brand had some issues: it was toastier tasting, which wasn't too bad and sometimes was really nice; it had a slightly different texture and puffier build, which was not too bad either but wasn't really ever really nice; and it had a MUCH less even distribution of frosting on individual bits. Some bits had a whiff, others had a thick, thick coating. This was an interesting element, to say the least. Usually when I eat FMW I try to keep the most-frosted ones in the bowl until the last five or six, where I eat them in ascending order of frostedness (I am a freak, I have gotten over it, I don't make a big public deal about this eating order normally, but I'm telling a story here). With the varying levels of frostedness, didn't have to do this. Instead, I just pretty much ate the superfrost bits at my leisure until I reached the last three or four. I even could eat a Superfrost with a Nofrost to balance a spoonful out (however, it was a mouthful). Now, this had the effect of being an insane relief to my OCD'd manner of eating the stuff — I could just let go and enjoy the faux FMW — but it also kind of irked me because with regular FMW, you may — MAY — have one megafrosty bit in the whole bowl, so if you do it's a real treat. With the faux FMW, there was no special Skinnerian payoff. It wasn't just gambling without risk, it was gambling without the chance of intermittent letdowns.
I guess this experience with the fake FMW has taught me that I don't always want to be a winner. OTOH, maybe this experience does not have that much to tell me about myself except that I eat like a freak.
Yesterday I went to Safeway for lunch (considered the sushi, went with a grilled panini — Philly cheesesteak, sad to say they didn't have marinara behind the counter, which would have perked it up a notch — and didn't get hungry until 10 p.m.) and saw FMW on sale, $3 per 24 oz. So I bought a couple boxes, but I'm still planning on finishing the fake box first. Because I'm cheap and because I have adjusted a little; perhaps even brought a little sanity to the whole FMW consumption, with the methadone box.
Ever since the low-carb thing gripped Americans I've been in carbohydrate hog heaven and entirely too accustomed to seeing discounted namebrand cereals (especially the healthy ones) every time I shop. Well, not the other day. And there is no way I'm going to pay $5 for a box of cereal. I just refuse. So I searched my purse for a coupon, but no, not at all.
However, I noticed that the private label brand was on sale. You know, the kind that isn't actually FMW, but is "Bite size Frosted Shredded Wheat." I knew it would not be as good as FMW (what is?) but I didn't know if it would be as bad as the private label grape nuts, which are horrible, and I think are called "crunchy nuggets," which aren't nearly as evocative a title as "Grape Nuts." But for $2.50 for 20 oz, I was willing to take a chance.
What I got was the methadone of FMW. They did not get me high like FMW does, that is to say, I did not get the big satisfaction payoff while eating them, but it did curb my crazy crazy cravings for the hard stuff.
The private label brand had some issues: it was toastier tasting, which wasn't too bad and sometimes was really nice; it had a slightly different texture and puffier build, which was not too bad either but wasn't really ever really nice; and it had a MUCH less even distribution of frosting on individual bits. Some bits had a whiff, others had a thick, thick coating. This was an interesting element, to say the least. Usually when I eat FMW I try to keep the most-frosted ones in the bowl until the last five or six, where I eat them in ascending order of frostedness (I am a freak, I have gotten over it, I don't make a big public deal about this eating order normally, but I'm telling a story here). With the varying levels of frostedness, didn't have to do this. Instead, I just pretty much ate the superfrost bits at my leisure until I reached the last three or four. I even could eat a Superfrost with a Nofrost to balance a spoonful out (however, it was a mouthful). Now, this had the effect of being an insane relief to my OCD'd manner of eating the stuff — I could just let go and enjoy the faux FMW — but it also kind of irked me because with regular FMW, you may — MAY — have one megafrosty bit in the whole bowl, so if you do it's a real treat. With the faux FMW, there was no special Skinnerian payoff. It wasn't just gambling without risk, it was gambling without the chance of intermittent letdowns.
I guess this experience with the fake FMW has taught me that I don't always want to be a winner. OTOH, maybe this experience does not have that much to tell me about myself except that I eat like a freak.
Yesterday I went to Safeway for lunch (considered the sushi, went with a grilled panini — Philly cheesesteak, sad to say they didn't have marinara behind the counter, which would have perked it up a notch — and didn't get hungry until 10 p.m.) and saw FMW on sale, $3 per 24 oz. So I bought a couple boxes, but I'm still planning on finishing the fake box first. Because I'm cheap and because I have adjusted a little; perhaps even brought a little sanity to the whole FMW consumption, with the methadone box.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Newsweek, the tragedy of
Babies and Autism. There must be a sort of in-built audience for this story, because there have been so many scary scary articls about it. Thermasol (sp?), which is to say mercury, in vaccinations (it's not there anymore — but try telling that to crunchy moms across the country!). Asperger's syndrome with its chattier, but almost equally disconnected little victims. Temple whatsername, who made the kinder cow chutes for slaughter houses and has autism. Autism is scary stuff for this world of would be Skinners.
I don't think the baby autism thing is interesting because people don't want their kids to catch it — although that's certainly part of it. I think it's another symptom of this world of irrational fear we Americans live in. It's scary to think there are things that are completely out of your control that can go wrong — having an autistic baby, losing all your money in a stock market crash, sitting on a dirty toilet seat and catching Ebola — in America more than any other country. Why? Because although this country is wealthy, it is fundamentally extremely dysfunctional with its money. It forces individuals to look out for themselves. You are very much on your own out here if something terrible happens to you or your family and you don't have health insurance, or a gun to defend yourself, or a personal cash cache under the bed. Having an autistic child in a society that demands you carry the burden of the financial responsibility and emotional responsibility (which can be mitigated with finances, natch, to varying degrees) yourself has got to be terrifying. It creates a series of choices that must be heartwrenching for any family of modest means; moreso for a single mother.
And people try so hard to have the perfect kid. Now that babies are virtually guaranteed to survive the first five years of life, each one has a different kind of value attached to it than 100 years ago. Which is a good thing in so many ways. But it puts a lot of pressure on these little creatures to be perfect; there aren't seven or eight backups coming through.
An interesting item about Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz. They were sweeties, doncha know. You wouldn't have learned it from the NYT's obit, and this was a fairly raging debate on Romenesko about three months ago, when Sontag died. Way to be on top of the ball, there, NW. Well, it was motivated by a fairly recent meeting of LGB reps with NYT people, who said they couldn't get any confirmation that the two actually had a relationship. I would have thought plenty of NYT staffers would have gone to the illuminary-filled parties Sontag and Leibovitz were known to swan about at. What's the point of being a NYT staffer if you don't get to go to the cool parties?
On to the last sentences that made me groan:
"If AT&T can hang up, anything is possible." Hey, didn't you guys crib from 1908's "Looks like the era of rail travel has, well, run out of steam" when writing about the internal combustion engine in the Model-T?
"It contained questions: about life, about suffering, about the nature of God." That's reading a lot into an elderly and ailling pope's not making it to the Lenten retreat.
"Putin needs to be coaxed out of his shell — gently." I like it when they give advice. Especially advice that makes it sound like this cagey and totalitarian man is a) introverted and b) a shy widdle cwab.
"If Bush wants to get Europe's help, he needs to talk not just to its rulers but to its people." Ah, Fareed? This might have been a good time to mention this. However, don't think Fareed is being soft on Bush. This is actually a piece that catalogs how bad certain policy failures have been and how he thinks some, like this whole Lebanon-Syria thing, should be addressed. But it would have been nice to mention that Bush is afraid of being confronted by real people.
Laura Bush: "We don't actually get invited to that many dinner parties." Interesting.
"And, for a growing number of users, HIV." Because the quote didn't include it, and that's the angle on the gay sex and meth connection, and by God, NW has to get its moral on extra sledgehammery!
"... he could use all the friends he could get. Especialy ones with deep pockets."
Killer detail in the autism article: an autistic girl, who has written and is featured in an Oscar-nominated film based on her "awakening," says she knows she looks "retarded" carrying handfuls of spoons, but can't help herself. That's awesome. Worth the whole baby autism scare, almost, really worthy of a good McSweeney's piece. This chick has a David Sedaris quality but she'll never "pass." She's edgy.
However, the last sentence is: "A fleeting moment, a developmental milestone — and, if all goes well, a new world of possibilities for a sweet little boy with dimples." Sugar rush!
"The group reached consensus on one thing: more research is needed." Drinking wine, that is. Insert Beavis laugh here. It's not the worst last sentence. It's just so flipping formulaic.
"If and when the NHL resumes play, it may find that all that is left is scratch." Wag that finger, NW.
"'Project Runway' shows how ugly fashion can be — and that's a good thing." Do they have a machine that spits this stuff out? Tragically, the rest of the article is about as illuminating. Although I, too, stood behind Jay (especially once Kara Saun did that stupid conflict-of-interest thing with the shoes), I wouldn't go touting him as my favorite in the magazine. I also wouldn't have given in to Wendy Pepper's delusions. Those almost ruined that great show for me, please, please be careful because with NW I'm already on the edge.
"When you leave the pooch alone, it lets out a yelp and heads for the doghouse. WIth practice, your spouse might do the same." Meow! I never get tired of spouse-training jokes. Sike.
Also noticed:
When quoting "Zagat's" "selectively," "sometimes" the words can be "read" in "an all-too-ironic" way that is "counter" to the "way" they "were meant to be read."
On the "The Technologist" page, I've noticed NW has a little grafcito here called "Blog Watch." They want people to read Jerry Brown's blog, at least, they put a clever graphic next to it that looks like a blue computer key marked "Save." Here's a sample of Governor Moonbeam: "It is curious how people perceive platitudes and extremism on my part when I perceive the same thing in them. Schopenhauer said that extracting truth from oneself required putting one’s mind on a rack and subjecting it to relentless interrogation—so prone are we to delusion and denial. Of course, the ideologues know nothing of such anguish because they rarely leave the refuge of their own tightly held identities. (paragraph) Bloggers are a force. The established order of politics (EOP) and the MSM face a big challenge from this fearless army. Tragically, in some countries, the challenge is met by enforced silence."
Bleh. Even this pile o crap blog is more lively than that. Boy, NW, you need to be careful about what you pimp!
Also, once again a letter writer, David L. King of Geneva, NY, proves to be a more insightful questioner than the person who wrote the article about "The New Game of Retirement." I think restructuring the entire Social Security Administration — one of the best and most popular programs in the history of the nation — demands a level of "WTF???" questioning. Also, a letter writer from the FBI, the fetchingly named Cassandra M. Chandler, notes that the email that was compromised was handled by a private firm, not the FBI. Which begs for an article about the effects of privatization on federal security. How much of our govt security is in the hands of private firms? In Iraq, Afghanistan, and here in the US? What does it mean when the technicians and the smartypants all are employed by contractors? Where are they coming from? Alas, like her namesake, I fear NW will not heed this clarion call for an investigation.
Oh, thank God a week of NW-free time awaits! Hallelujah! Bring on the New Yorker! I need it intravenously! Stat!
I don't think the baby autism thing is interesting because people don't want their kids to catch it — although that's certainly part of it. I think it's another symptom of this world of irrational fear we Americans live in. It's scary to think there are things that are completely out of your control that can go wrong — having an autistic baby, losing all your money in a stock market crash, sitting on a dirty toilet seat and catching Ebola — in America more than any other country. Why? Because although this country is wealthy, it is fundamentally extremely dysfunctional with its money. It forces individuals to look out for themselves. You are very much on your own out here if something terrible happens to you or your family and you don't have health insurance, or a gun to defend yourself, or a personal cash cache under the bed. Having an autistic child in a society that demands you carry the burden of the financial responsibility and emotional responsibility (which can be mitigated with finances, natch, to varying degrees) yourself has got to be terrifying. It creates a series of choices that must be heartwrenching for any family of modest means; moreso for a single mother.
And people try so hard to have the perfect kid. Now that babies are virtually guaranteed to survive the first five years of life, each one has a different kind of value attached to it than 100 years ago. Which is a good thing in so many ways. But it puts a lot of pressure on these little creatures to be perfect; there aren't seven or eight backups coming through.
An interesting item about Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz. They were sweeties, doncha know. You wouldn't have learned it from the NYT's obit, and this was a fairly raging debate on Romenesko about three months ago, when Sontag died. Way to be on top of the ball, there, NW. Well, it was motivated by a fairly recent meeting of LGB reps with NYT people, who said they couldn't get any confirmation that the two actually had a relationship. I would have thought plenty of NYT staffers would have gone to the illuminary-filled parties Sontag and Leibovitz were known to swan about at. What's the point of being a NYT staffer if you don't get to go to the cool parties?
On to the last sentences that made me groan:
"If AT&T can hang up, anything is possible." Hey, didn't you guys crib from 1908's "Looks like the era of rail travel has, well, run out of steam" when writing about the internal combustion engine in the Model-T?
"It contained questions: about life, about suffering, about the nature of God." That's reading a lot into an elderly and ailling pope's not making it to the Lenten retreat.
"Putin needs to be coaxed out of his shell — gently." I like it when they give advice. Especially advice that makes it sound like this cagey and totalitarian man is a) introverted and b) a shy widdle cwab.
"If Bush wants to get Europe's help, he needs to talk not just to its rulers but to its people." Ah, Fareed? This might have been a good time to mention this. However, don't think Fareed is being soft on Bush. This is actually a piece that catalogs how bad certain policy failures have been and how he thinks some, like this whole Lebanon-Syria thing, should be addressed. But it would have been nice to mention that Bush is afraid of being confronted by real people.
Laura Bush: "We don't actually get invited to that many dinner parties." Interesting.
"And, for a growing number of users, HIV." Because the quote didn't include it, and that's the angle on the gay sex and meth connection, and by God, NW has to get its moral on extra sledgehammery!
"... he could use all the friends he could get. Especialy ones with deep pockets."
Killer detail in the autism article: an autistic girl, who has written and is featured in an Oscar-nominated film based on her "awakening," says she knows she looks "retarded" carrying handfuls of spoons, but can't help herself. That's awesome. Worth the whole baby autism scare, almost, really worthy of a good McSweeney's piece. This chick has a David Sedaris quality but she'll never "pass." She's edgy.
However, the last sentence is: "A fleeting moment, a developmental milestone — and, if all goes well, a new world of possibilities for a sweet little boy with dimples." Sugar rush!
"The group reached consensus on one thing: more research is needed." Drinking wine, that is. Insert Beavis laugh here. It's not the worst last sentence. It's just so flipping formulaic.
"If and when the NHL resumes play, it may find that all that is left is scratch." Wag that finger, NW.
"'Project Runway' shows how ugly fashion can be — and that's a good thing." Do they have a machine that spits this stuff out? Tragically, the rest of the article is about as illuminating. Although I, too, stood behind Jay (especially once Kara Saun did that stupid conflict-of-interest thing with the shoes), I wouldn't go touting him as my favorite in the magazine. I also wouldn't have given in to Wendy Pepper's delusions. Those almost ruined that great show for me, please, please be careful because with NW I'm already on the edge.
"When you leave the pooch alone, it lets out a yelp and heads for the doghouse. WIth practice, your spouse might do the same." Meow! I never get tired of spouse-training jokes. Sike.
Also noticed:
When quoting "Zagat's" "selectively," "sometimes" the words can be "read" in "an all-too-ironic" way that is "counter" to the "way" they "were meant to be read."
On the "The Technologist" page, I've noticed NW has a little grafcito here called "Blog Watch." They want people to read Jerry Brown's blog, at least, they put a clever graphic next to it that looks like a blue computer key marked "Save." Here's a sample of Governor Moonbeam: "It is curious how people perceive platitudes and extremism on my part when I perceive the same thing in them. Schopenhauer said that extracting truth from oneself required putting one’s mind on a rack and subjecting it to relentless interrogation—so prone are we to delusion and denial. Of course, the ideologues know nothing of such anguish because they rarely leave the refuge of their own tightly held identities. (paragraph) Bloggers are a force. The established order of politics (EOP) and the MSM face a big challenge from this fearless army. Tragically, in some countries, the challenge is met by enforced silence."
Bleh. Even this pile o crap blog is more lively than that. Boy, NW, you need to be careful about what you pimp!
Also, once again a letter writer, David L. King of Geneva, NY, proves to be a more insightful questioner than the person who wrote the article about "The New Game of Retirement." I think restructuring the entire Social Security Administration — one of the best and most popular programs in the history of the nation — demands a level of "WTF???" questioning. Also, a letter writer from the FBI, the fetchingly named Cassandra M. Chandler, notes that the email that was compromised was handled by a private firm, not the FBI. Which begs for an article about the effects of privatization on federal security. How much of our govt security is in the hands of private firms? In Iraq, Afghanistan, and here in the US? What does it mean when the technicians and the smartypants all are employed by contractors? Where are they coming from? Alas, like her namesake, I fear NW will not heed this clarion call for an investigation.
Oh, thank God a week of NW-free time awaits! Hallelujah! Bring on the New Yorker! I need it intravenously! Stat!
In yo face, Ernie!
Ah, the blogging of personal retribution begins.
No, seriously, folks. I had a wrong put in perspective for me by a professional in my field. Which makes it a little sweeter than hot cocoa and hugs from mom. Although those are always great.
Today, out of curiosity, I called a journalism ethics line to address a small problem that cropped up. I can't disclose what it was, that would be unethical, but suffice to say, although I had pretty much figured out what I was going to do to address it, I thought I'd call this advice line I'd gotten a flyer for a few weeks ago from my editor. I'd tell you what it was, but it wouldn't be ethical.
At any rate, it wasn't terribly consequential, but I had some q's about the hotline and this was as good an excuse to chat to a Chicagoan as any.
Well, Jim Burke, ethics dude and strategic management professor (and PhD) of Loyola U in Chicago (a Jesuit University — so they know from ethics and thinking deeply), and I conferred and he said my approach was right.
Anyway, we got to talking and I asked him about the hotline and what sort of calls he got (he couldn't be specific — ethics, you know) and I told him the story of my One Big Ethical Failure.
Back in the day — 1998 — I was a business clerk at a certain statewide daily that shall remain nameless. One of my duties was to type in all the bankruptcies. Oh, lord, that was a depressing job. I would like to know if there are any Scroggins in Arkansas that have not actually filed for bankruptcy, because that was a name that came up with astonishing frequency. They ran in what is known as "agate," pron. short A-ghit, the small type of information compendium stuff. Stocks, sports scoreboards, obituaries, community events all are examples of agate.
One day I got a phone call out of the blue from a slightly hysterical woman who told me she was filing for bankruptcy and I could not run hers. She said she was divorced and didn't want her ex-husband to know where she was living because he would kill her.
Now, whether or not this was the truth is debatable. But I'd been doing this insane compiling task for about a year and she was the first person to ever call with such a story. So, I give her credibility on that front. Also, who am I to make her do the lie detector test? And, for another, any offended party that will be looking for her particular bankruptcy will likely not do it through the newspaper. Credit agencies and banks and so forth use either their own missives to bankruptcy court or learn from the defendent him or her self.
I also knew that sometimes there are bankruptcies that will never make the paper due to the way the system worked (at least at that time). It was all copied paper information that was on shelves by the clerks' desks. I was certain cagier bankrupt people knew to steal their public paperwork. For those clerks who dealt with case numbers — that is to say, people who worked at the Daily Record, an all-agate paper that specialized in long lists of court judgments and docket numbers and God knows what else — they knew to ask for the missing case numbers. Not so clerks where I worked. And, with skyrocketing poverty, you wanted every break you could get. Also, cases often got held up in processing so they would not be filed publicly until days later. It was one of those all-paper deals where you had to look very hard to find what you wanted, and that was only if you knew to look for it.
Basically, I figured there was ample room for leniency here. So I didn't run the bankruptcy and I didn't tell my boss about it.
Now, you might be wondering, "Who gives a rat's tootie about the bankruptcies?"
Well, in Arkansas there is a vibrant community of nosy busybodies. Apparently. They have nothing better to do than judge people and gossip about them. Some of them are reporters. Oh! Rim shot! But seriously, with so little to do in that state and so much Blood of the Lamb judgmentalism, some people will reach for any source of smug satisfaction they can find.
I did tell him later, when I was approached by an employee of the paper and asked to keep her bankruptcy hush-hush. Now this, I thought, was completely different. I did not think it was fair for the paper to have this sort of perk for employees. Moreover, it could get out and I'd not even have my conscience to fall back on. Or more people would want such a perk for themselves or their friends or family. And that's a sticky wicket.
I had to confront my boss, Ernie. I also leveled with him that the way I did bankruptcies, there was no telling if I managed to get in every single one filed each day. That was a shocker to him, because he had never seen how things were done. God knows he had enough to do with the work and the stress and the heart attacks.
Of course he went semi-ballistic. I didn't think, at the time, that the woman who asked me would be punished, but she was. And, since it was being put on leave without pay, I thought it was a particularly crappy punishment for someone who was filing bankruptcy and trying to get her life together. I was really naive. I was 24, tops. To be fair, I think the decision to punish the woman who asked was not altogether wrong; a message had to be sent that you can't ask editorial for favors. It was unfair of her to put me in that position.
I don't remember being punished, although I probably was. Which really meant this reporter who had to do my stupid work was the one who was punished.
I didn't expect him to disagree with me about the divorced woman, however. The fact that I leveled with him about this shows the absolute depth of my naivete in the business world. I only wanted to do the right thing at all times. I did not think about lying or covering my ass. To this day, I marvel at my insane liberalism of spirit and yet feel really proud of it. I never wavered from wanting to do right, even if it ended up being my head. Today I am a little wiser. And I don't do bankruptcies, either.
Ernie, my boss, who is long since gone, told me we *had to* run the bankruptcy I didn't run a few weeks earlier. I refused and I ended up sending it in an e-mail to him and said if he wanted it in the paper, fine, he could insert it himself. I didn't want to be a party to it because if violence resulted, I didn't think I could stand it. I was crying and possibly throwing a bit of an emotional fit. This is just who I am, little miss Quaker schools.
I went to my folks' home and cried some. Mom told me if this was the worst ethical mistake I ever made I should be glad as she cuddled with me and stroked my hair. Dad just laughed about it and pointed to this being one of the most ridiculous tempests in a teapot he'd ever heard of. If I lost my job over it, he said, I should be grateful to not have to work in such a petty environment. This was like microethics, as he described it, look at the stakes; how could the reputation of this big paper be smeared by something so tiny as one woman in a rural community's bankruptcy and a clerk? Was the uproar worth what had been uproared about? Ultimately, had I not shown judgment between protecting a possibly abused woman and covering for a fellow employee? For comment on this particular paper's macroethics — the kind that refer to its content, its business partnering with Wal-Mart and Dillards, its Clinton-bashing and more — I would refer you to the alternative weekly, Arkansas Times.
They were right, and I was right, and Jim Burke agreed. He told me I sounded like a "very ethical journalist." He read from a guideline book that said journalists must be compassionate above all things (we're the preistly class, I guess).
Frankly, this sort of professional vindication was something I needed. I probably could have stood to hear it then, so that I could realize how much more idealistic I was than the environment I was in. And this is something that is happening to journalism everywhere, this creeping lockstep of rules and agendas and believing that treating everyone the same way is the same as treating our community ethically. I am yet an idealist in the face of all this. And I just got some professional, third-person recognition of this.
That was nice.
No, seriously, folks. I had a wrong put in perspective for me by a professional in my field. Which makes it a little sweeter than hot cocoa and hugs from mom. Although those are always great.
Today, out of curiosity, I called a journalism ethics line to address a small problem that cropped up. I can't disclose what it was, that would be unethical, but suffice to say, although I had pretty much figured out what I was going to do to address it, I thought I'd call this advice line I'd gotten a flyer for a few weeks ago from my editor. I'd tell you what it was, but it wouldn't be ethical.
At any rate, it wasn't terribly consequential, but I had some q's about the hotline and this was as good an excuse to chat to a Chicagoan as any.
Well, Jim Burke, ethics dude and strategic management professor (and PhD) of Loyola U in Chicago (a Jesuit University — so they know from ethics and thinking deeply), and I conferred and he said my approach was right.
Anyway, we got to talking and I asked him about the hotline and what sort of calls he got (he couldn't be specific — ethics, you know) and I told him the story of my One Big Ethical Failure.
Back in the day — 1998 — I was a business clerk at a certain statewide daily that shall remain nameless. One of my duties was to type in all the bankruptcies. Oh, lord, that was a depressing job. I would like to know if there are any Scroggins in Arkansas that have not actually filed for bankruptcy, because that was a name that came up with astonishing frequency. They ran in what is known as "agate," pron. short A-ghit, the small type of information compendium stuff. Stocks, sports scoreboards, obituaries, community events all are examples of agate.
One day I got a phone call out of the blue from a slightly hysterical woman who told me she was filing for bankruptcy and I could not run hers. She said she was divorced and didn't want her ex-husband to know where she was living because he would kill her.
Now, whether or not this was the truth is debatable. But I'd been doing this insane compiling task for about a year and she was the first person to ever call with such a story. So, I give her credibility on that front. Also, who am I to make her do the lie detector test? And, for another, any offended party that will be looking for her particular bankruptcy will likely not do it through the newspaper. Credit agencies and banks and so forth use either their own missives to bankruptcy court or learn from the defendent him or her self.
I also knew that sometimes there are bankruptcies that will never make the paper due to the way the system worked (at least at that time). It was all copied paper information that was on shelves by the clerks' desks. I was certain cagier bankrupt people knew to steal their public paperwork. For those clerks who dealt with case numbers — that is to say, people who worked at the Daily Record, an all-agate paper that specialized in long lists of court judgments and docket numbers and God knows what else — they knew to ask for the missing case numbers. Not so clerks where I worked. And, with skyrocketing poverty, you wanted every break you could get. Also, cases often got held up in processing so they would not be filed publicly until days later. It was one of those all-paper deals where you had to look very hard to find what you wanted, and that was only if you knew to look for it.
Basically, I figured there was ample room for leniency here. So I didn't run the bankruptcy and I didn't tell my boss about it.
Now, you might be wondering, "Who gives a rat's tootie about the bankruptcies?"
Well, in Arkansas there is a vibrant community of nosy busybodies. Apparently. They have nothing better to do than judge people and gossip about them. Some of them are reporters. Oh! Rim shot! But seriously, with so little to do in that state and so much Blood of the Lamb judgmentalism, some people will reach for any source of smug satisfaction they can find.
I did tell him later, when I was approached by an employee of the paper and asked to keep her bankruptcy hush-hush. Now this, I thought, was completely different. I did not think it was fair for the paper to have this sort of perk for employees. Moreover, it could get out and I'd not even have my conscience to fall back on. Or more people would want such a perk for themselves or their friends or family. And that's a sticky wicket.
I had to confront my boss, Ernie. I also leveled with him that the way I did bankruptcies, there was no telling if I managed to get in every single one filed each day. That was a shocker to him, because he had never seen how things were done. God knows he had enough to do with the work and the stress and the heart attacks.
Of course he went semi-ballistic. I didn't think, at the time, that the woman who asked me would be punished, but she was. And, since it was being put on leave without pay, I thought it was a particularly crappy punishment for someone who was filing bankruptcy and trying to get her life together. I was really naive. I was 24, tops. To be fair, I think the decision to punish the woman who asked was not altogether wrong; a message had to be sent that you can't ask editorial for favors. It was unfair of her to put me in that position.
I don't remember being punished, although I probably was. Which really meant this reporter who had to do my stupid work was the one who was punished.
I didn't expect him to disagree with me about the divorced woman, however. The fact that I leveled with him about this shows the absolute depth of my naivete in the business world. I only wanted to do the right thing at all times. I did not think about lying or covering my ass. To this day, I marvel at my insane liberalism of spirit and yet feel really proud of it. I never wavered from wanting to do right, even if it ended up being my head. Today I am a little wiser. And I don't do bankruptcies, either.
Ernie, my boss, who is long since gone, told me we *had to* run the bankruptcy I didn't run a few weeks earlier. I refused and I ended up sending it in an e-mail to him and said if he wanted it in the paper, fine, he could insert it himself. I didn't want to be a party to it because if violence resulted, I didn't think I could stand it. I was crying and possibly throwing a bit of an emotional fit. This is just who I am, little miss Quaker schools.
I went to my folks' home and cried some. Mom told me if this was the worst ethical mistake I ever made I should be glad as she cuddled with me and stroked my hair. Dad just laughed about it and pointed to this being one of the most ridiculous tempests in a teapot he'd ever heard of. If I lost my job over it, he said, I should be grateful to not have to work in such a petty environment. This was like microethics, as he described it, look at the stakes; how could the reputation of this big paper be smeared by something so tiny as one woman in a rural community's bankruptcy and a clerk? Was the uproar worth what had been uproared about? Ultimately, had I not shown judgment between protecting a possibly abused woman and covering for a fellow employee? For comment on this particular paper's macroethics — the kind that refer to its content, its business partnering with Wal-Mart and Dillards, its Clinton-bashing and more — I would refer you to the alternative weekly, Arkansas Times.
They were right, and I was right, and Jim Burke agreed. He told me I sounded like a "very ethical journalist." He read from a guideline book that said journalists must be compassionate above all things (we're the preistly class, I guess).
Frankly, this sort of professional vindication was something I needed. I probably could have stood to hear it then, so that I could realize how much more idealistic I was than the environment I was in. And this is something that is happening to journalism everywhere, this creeping lockstep of rules and agendas and believing that treating everyone the same way is the same as treating our community ethically. I am yet an idealist in the face of all this. And I just got some professional, third-person recognition of this.
That was nice.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Why I'm bitter below
I had a day that really brought motherhood and class issues to the fore for me. I talked to a woman — self-defined as working poor — whose son was killed in a terrible accident. Although the accident killed him, he was stuck under the car where he was not found for five hours (there are all kinds of other issues here I'm going to gloss over). Those were the worst five hours of her life. She didn't know where to find her son. She's self-defined working poor and that, combined with her emotional distress, probably didn't help with her communication.
Her husband had a broken leg and was supposed to start a job recently. She's got three other kids and has taken in a friend of her oldest son's.
So when I hear upper middle class women with two incomes or one that is big enough to support a family of whatever — where their stresses are totally ones that they can manage, stresses that any person in the world in their right mind would be thrilled to have — ballet lessons, soccer lessons, daycare to get the kids to, kid-proofing the kitchen to do because it's stocked with chemicals that keep linoleum floors and granite countertops sterile, finding time to sex up the hubby because they don't share a hut with the kids, fretting that buying take out food means they're a bad mom — it all seems so tiny and unimportant. Moreover, it perpetuates the middle class woman as reveling in imminance, ala Bouvoir. All those stupid things to think about, all cultural constructs that encourage consumer consumption and competition.
And there is so much pain out there, so many problems, that could be solved if these women felt secure enough about the future of their children to not pass them through this mechanized childhood machine to prep them for success. Maybe they would feel more secure about the future of their children if they all applied their political will and brilliant creativity towards making the world safer for all of us. Whether that is via economic, medical or political means.
Anyway, that's just my rant for today. I was really upset by this woman's story. I see it in a larger, upsetting context, too.
Also the guy from Niger, where I saved the village, as no doubt you've read before, dropped by today to present the Gateway with a wonderful carved elephant and me with a beautiful carved woman with a baby on her back and a water jug on her head. Basically, it reminded me of how much there is here and how ungrateful this society can be. And how the media don't always cater to our better angels.
Her husband had a broken leg and was supposed to start a job recently. She's got three other kids and has taken in a friend of her oldest son's.
So when I hear upper middle class women with two incomes or one that is big enough to support a family of whatever — where their stresses are totally ones that they can manage, stresses that any person in the world in their right mind would be thrilled to have — ballet lessons, soccer lessons, daycare to get the kids to, kid-proofing the kitchen to do because it's stocked with chemicals that keep linoleum floors and granite countertops sterile, finding time to sex up the hubby because they don't share a hut with the kids, fretting that buying take out food means they're a bad mom — it all seems so tiny and unimportant. Moreover, it perpetuates the middle class woman as reveling in imminance, ala Bouvoir. All those stupid things to think about, all cultural constructs that encourage consumer consumption and competition.
And there is so much pain out there, so many problems, that could be solved if these women felt secure enough about the future of their children to not pass them through this mechanized childhood machine to prep them for success. Maybe they would feel more secure about the future of their children if they all applied their political will and brilliant creativity towards making the world safer for all of us. Whether that is via economic, medical or political means.
Anyway, that's just my rant for today. I was really upset by this woman's story. I see it in a larger, upsetting context, too.
Also the guy from Niger, where I saved the village, as no doubt you've read before, dropped by today to present the Gateway with a wonderful carved elephant and me with a beautiful carved woman with a baby on her back and a water jug on her head. Basically, it reminded me of how much there is here and how ungrateful this society can be. And how the media don't always cater to our better angels.
The tragedy that is Newsweek 2/21
Oooh, a doubleshot of NW dissing! Coming straight to your pc from the internets like a laser beam!
I can't do radio talking. Oh, do yourself a favor and go to Slate.com and click on the Surfer Girl page, follow her link to the one to the FCC and scroll down to read the part she suggests, which are case studies in what is considered obscene. It is hilarious. Unless you are easily offended by rap lyrics. Honestly, I can't understand three-quarters of the lyrics in songs anyway, I had no idea. Well, a little. I was listening to "The Next Episode," a classic by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg from "The Chronic," and laughed pretty hard when he comes to the part about gettin' his drink on, and his smoke on, and takin' somethin' home for him to poke on.
I mean, really, stripped of its incomprehensibility, a lot of rap becomes 99 percent less threatening to honkies.
Aye. The cover of this NW is the mother as Shiva. She's white, of course, and doesn't look particularly like most American moms (i.e. she's groomed and hot). This is part of the "perfect mom" thing, I guess. Which just goes to show it's a total myth. Anna Quindlen will apparently be declaring that moms shouldn't be martyrs. But then what would moms have to guilt trip their kiddos with? Moms that are martyrs — no, make that every one who is a martyr — eats that stuff up. They love martyrhood. If they didn't they'd take some control and go, "I'm sick of being a martyr around here. I'm not going to do x" and then leave it at that.
Interesting. According to editor Mark Whitaker, Society editor Lisa Miller, a recent mom, found herself "privately appalled" (well, up until now!) about the competitiveness of other mothers. She came across the manuscript for the book from which the excerpt runs on her desk (among "tons and tons of mail") and "dipped into it and fell in love." Turns out author Judith Warner is a stringer for NW. Sure you did, Ms. Miller. Sure you did.
Now, right here I have to break and say, haven't I read kind of the same story every 10 years from NW? Mothering — the secret thing no one talks about but is so bloody difficult women are almost killing themselves over it. Well, sheesh, I'd go into why it's self-indulgent pap but this chick at this page has done a really great job herself and she's a mom so she has moral authority to boot. It seems like every once in a while the media rediscovers this story. And, simultaneously, manages to let the men in the picture off the hook for all manner of responsibilities. Which is just too white, too upper-class, too riche to contemplate who they're talking to.
Also I don't think the occasional sentence referring to men in such an article means that they do not get off scot-free. Although I have friends who would argue the opposite. Look, the problem is that the women are protrayed as the engines of everything in their families and the men basically are a passive unit they need to manage. Which is possibly true for my mom and dad in some ways and some of my extended family. The articles pretty much accept, however, that this is the default parenting position.
Also that children must be catered to. I remember block parties where the kids had to fend for themselves while the adults got buzzed. That is the kind of future parent I wouldn't mind being. Not negligent, but not hovering, not worried and fearful of the neighborhood I live in. I never see block parties anymore; when I see anything that vaguely resembles them, it's all about catering to the kids. Whose fault is this?
Anyway, this is the popular sociology angle that hasn't been attacked in the mainstream press. How did we get to be so fearful? What does our social fixation on child competition say about us as a culture.
Also, a friend of mine has been reading some books and is convinced this child-oriented culture will turn out a cohort of wusses and lazy butts. They are burned out by the time they exit Princeton, I think is the key, and their parents are too old to drive them to piano lessons and ballet so they give up on all those structured hobbies and turn to pot and low-level careers where they don't feel all that pressure. He cracks me up.
I'd better stop versifying if I want this done before "Lost" comes on.
Okay: the sentences are:
"But, as one official notes, even Reagan eventually did business with the leader of the 'Evil Empire.'" Mmm. Precious.
"He has to help him build a lasting legacy — and retire to Texas before the heat sets in." It's getting hot in here! Sike. NW isn't going to put the heat on the administration!
Oooh, like the picture of the scowling black kid on an article about LAPD shooting a 13-y-o unarmed kid. That's subtle. Also, if I were the protestors, I'd be concerned that all the signs have been written by the SAME PERSON. Was there, like, a sign-nazi person who wouldn't let others use the crayon on the butcher block? I mean, all the Ks look alike on the three posters I can read, and the hs in child. There's a story there for the local daily.
end sentence? "To keep panic — and anger — from spreading, Bratton's gone on TV and met twice with black leaders to show that his department — and its chief — are on the case."
"He has a good thing going playing the ultimate outsider, and that means keeping his show, and eating his steaks, back in Fargo, far, far away."
Four pages for Charles and Camilla. Oof. Her bangs. They are hurting me. Princes William and Harry must be so grateful they have Di's sexy genes. I have never seen a family of intense press interest that needed the sexy genes more.
"One thing is for sure: no singer or actor can help HP now." Sniff. "HP investors hope this picture develops just as he promises."
"Please, spare us the truth." Thanks, Mr. Samuelson. I bet you just did.
I'm not liking the women they chose for "Mommy Madness" pictorials. One is a morning news anchor for a local market. One is a Dartmouth grad part-time physicians assistant. The last one is a teacher (yay!) with four kids and no time to do her PhD dissertation. She did her coursework, though. The D grad has a husband that wants "the traditional dinner on the table." Didn't your ivy education give you a prep for a high-minded retort?
"'She ain't playin'.' Neither is he. Or he always is. 50 (Cent) will never be easy to know. But he would never reveal himself so nakedly in his music, as both the gangsta and the grandson, if he didn't want you to try." If he's so naked, and you've even talked to him for his profile, why don't you come down on one side of the fence or the other?
That's it for today. I can't stand it anymore. And heaven have mercy, I certainly don't want to miss a moment of "Lost" to deal with another popular crap sociology story-oriented NW: Babies and Autism, the scary disease they will scare you with. Just when the parents think they can control for every variable, autism strikes. Oh, I suppose it can be kind of sexy, but again, it's all fearmongering pretending to be highmindedness.
I can't do radio talking. Oh, do yourself a favor and go to Slate.com and click on the Surfer Girl page, follow her link to the one to the FCC and scroll down to read the part she suggests, which are case studies in what is considered obscene. It is hilarious. Unless you are easily offended by rap lyrics. Honestly, I can't understand three-quarters of the lyrics in songs anyway, I had no idea. Well, a little. I was listening to "The Next Episode," a classic by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg from "The Chronic," and laughed pretty hard when he comes to the part about gettin' his drink on, and his smoke on, and takin' somethin' home for him to poke on.
I mean, really, stripped of its incomprehensibility, a lot of rap becomes 99 percent less threatening to honkies.
Aye. The cover of this NW is the mother as Shiva. She's white, of course, and doesn't look particularly like most American moms (i.e. she's groomed and hot). This is part of the "perfect mom" thing, I guess. Which just goes to show it's a total myth. Anna Quindlen will apparently be declaring that moms shouldn't be martyrs. But then what would moms have to guilt trip their kiddos with? Moms that are martyrs — no, make that every one who is a martyr — eats that stuff up. They love martyrhood. If they didn't they'd take some control and go, "I'm sick of being a martyr around here. I'm not going to do x" and then leave it at that.
Interesting. According to editor Mark Whitaker, Society editor Lisa Miller, a recent mom, found herself "privately appalled" (well, up until now!) about the competitiveness of other mothers. She came across the manuscript for the book from which the excerpt runs on her desk (among "tons and tons of mail") and "dipped into it and fell in love." Turns out author Judith Warner is a stringer for NW. Sure you did, Ms. Miller. Sure you did.
Now, right here I have to break and say, haven't I read kind of the same story every 10 years from NW? Mothering — the secret thing no one talks about but is so bloody difficult women are almost killing themselves over it. Well, sheesh, I'd go into why it's self-indulgent pap but this chick at this page has done a really great job herself and she's a mom so she has moral authority to boot. It seems like every once in a while the media rediscovers this story. And, simultaneously, manages to let the men in the picture off the hook for all manner of responsibilities. Which is just too white, too upper-class, too riche to contemplate who they're talking to.
Also I don't think the occasional sentence referring to men in such an article means that they do not get off scot-free. Although I have friends who would argue the opposite. Look, the problem is that the women are protrayed as the engines of everything in their families and the men basically are a passive unit they need to manage. Which is possibly true for my mom and dad in some ways and some of my extended family. The articles pretty much accept, however, that this is the default parenting position.
Also that children must be catered to. I remember block parties where the kids had to fend for themselves while the adults got buzzed. That is the kind of future parent I wouldn't mind being. Not negligent, but not hovering, not worried and fearful of the neighborhood I live in. I never see block parties anymore; when I see anything that vaguely resembles them, it's all about catering to the kids. Whose fault is this?
Anyway, this is the popular sociology angle that hasn't been attacked in the mainstream press. How did we get to be so fearful? What does our social fixation on child competition say about us as a culture.
Also, a friend of mine has been reading some books and is convinced this child-oriented culture will turn out a cohort of wusses and lazy butts. They are burned out by the time they exit Princeton, I think is the key, and their parents are too old to drive them to piano lessons and ballet so they give up on all those structured hobbies and turn to pot and low-level careers where they don't feel all that pressure. He cracks me up.
I'd better stop versifying if I want this done before "Lost" comes on.
Okay: the sentences are:
"But, as one official notes, even Reagan eventually did business with the leader of the 'Evil Empire.'" Mmm. Precious.
"He has to help him build a lasting legacy — and retire to Texas before the heat sets in." It's getting hot in here! Sike. NW isn't going to put the heat on the administration!
Oooh, like the picture of the scowling black kid on an article about LAPD shooting a 13-y-o unarmed kid. That's subtle. Also, if I were the protestors, I'd be concerned that all the signs have been written by the SAME PERSON. Was there, like, a sign-nazi person who wouldn't let others use the crayon on the butcher block? I mean, all the Ks look alike on the three posters I can read, and the hs in child. There's a story there for the local daily.
end sentence? "To keep panic — and anger — from spreading, Bratton's gone on TV and met twice with black leaders to show that his department — and its chief — are on the case."
"He has a good thing going playing the ultimate outsider, and that means keeping his show, and eating his steaks, back in Fargo, far, far away."
Four pages for Charles and Camilla. Oof. Her bangs. They are hurting me. Princes William and Harry must be so grateful they have Di's sexy genes. I have never seen a family of intense press interest that needed the sexy genes more.
"One thing is for sure: no singer or actor can help HP now." Sniff. "HP investors hope this picture develops just as he promises."
"Please, spare us the truth." Thanks, Mr. Samuelson. I bet you just did.
I'm not liking the women they chose for "Mommy Madness" pictorials. One is a morning news anchor for a local market. One is a Dartmouth grad part-time physicians assistant. The last one is a teacher (yay!) with four kids and no time to do her PhD dissertation. She did her coursework, though. The D grad has a husband that wants "the traditional dinner on the table." Didn't your ivy education give you a prep for a high-minded retort?
"'She ain't playin'.' Neither is he. Or he always is. 50 (Cent) will never be easy to know. But he would never reveal himself so nakedly in his music, as both the gangsta and the grandson, if he didn't want you to try." If he's so naked, and you've even talked to him for his profile, why don't you come down on one side of the fence or the other?
That's it for today. I can't stand it anymore. And heaven have mercy, I certainly don't want to miss a moment of "Lost" to deal with another popular crap sociology story-oriented NW: Babies and Autism, the scary disease they will scare you with. Just when the parents think they can control for every variable, autism strikes. Oh, I suppose it can be kind of sexy, but again, it's all fearmongering pretending to be highmindedness.
The tragedy that is Newsweek, 2/14
I have gotten so far behind on it it's hard to get going. I mean, here I have three Newsweeks waiting to be vetted for crappy last sentences and the only thing that is making me do it is that I have bugged out of kickboxing because a) my Achilles tendons have been barking at me all day and b) it's a substitute, so I don't feel like I'll be letting down my usual instructor, the partial-to-Ricky-Martin Regina. Honestly, the past couple of classes when the aerobicised version of "She Bangs" comes on I want to do the William Hung dance instead of knee lifts.
But back to Newsweek.
In the 2/14 edition I spy with my little eye:
A somewhat dry desert of bad last sentences. Heart be still!
"But isn't it just like him?" (After a personality profile of Barry Manilow. The set-up: Barry, who I adore for no good reason, says he always tips piano bar singers (awww!), and the writer said it should be the other way around because the Manilow magic (my phrase) makes "their tip jars sing.")
"That will leave plenty of time for more talk, more campaigning, more blogging — and more rock concerts." Oooh, they used the word "blogging." How HIP!!!
"Perhaps. But that would require a coherent policy first." I like snark, but I'm not sure it's called for at the end of an article that purports to show how the state dept. and the dept. of defense have tagged one group of Iranian rebels as either terrorists or good allies. This isn't about policy. This is about a burgeoning Nicaragua-style situation where there is going to be a policy that the MEK should not be helped but the shifty America-firsters, even if it costs our reputation and future security, will undermine that through gov't channels. That's just my prediction; if I were Seymour Hersh I'd look into it in — when did Scott Ritter say we'd be on the ground in Iran, June? Yeah, I'd wait till five months later.
So it was a boring week. Not that I don't have additional comments.
I am curious about the letters page. In 2005, isn't it about time Newsweek quit running letters with the tag "VIA INTERNET?" Because there are ways to verify where the writer is from. A phone call, for example, from a number supplied by the author. Most people who are asked to verify themselves for publication will do so in a NY minute. That's what I did when I got a letter published in the Gray Lady nigh on these many years (14? Really? Holy cow.) I think I might have squeeeed a bit as well.
Anyway, a geographical location for people — like Nkosinathi Sibanda — would be nice. Would Nkosinathi be of the East Egg Sibandas or the Palm Springs Sibandas? I mean, c'mon, it's the new millenium, but the internet is not a place in and of itself.
Speaking of irritating internet stuff, try this headline on for size: "You Don't Have Mail," about the FBI's incredibly FUBAR'd computer system. You know, the one that was supposed to spell out the salvation of interconnecting all those counter-terrorism agencies, the one that was supposed to lift the FBI out of the carbon copy and ditto sheet age, the one that was supposed to make it possible for agents in any place to do a basic database search? Basically, the one that would have brought the FBI halfway to where the teevee crime drama shows give it credit for being at?
Okay, I'm going to read the peice and, with nothing but the facts in the story and common idiomatic computer talk, come up with an alternative of approximately the same length and twice the compellingness. Ready?
Ooooo, complication number one rears its ugly head: The story is actually about email!!! Can Callie do it? Can she beat the Newsweek headline writers while referencing the email issue????
Here's what I'm working with: email shut down because hackers got in the system, the FBI has to tell its agents not to use their kids' names, etc., as passwords, and all the FBI honchos have basically been ignoring even their own safety precautions by using the public, non-sensitive "fbi.gov" email channel instead of the private one with the unknown URL (P.S. Newsweek didn't make that last bit as explicit as I just did).
How 'bout:
"You've got security breeches"
Which relies also on the tired AOL thing, but at least it includes the evildoing instead of just making the FBI look somewhat retarded. Honestly, it wasn't that they were so bungling as it was that the hackers (greasy men in their 20s who live on Domino's Pizza and Mountain Dew, I wager 7-1) were so much more creative.
or
"The Oops Files"
Which isn't as compelling, but throws up a shout out to the X-Files.
But back to Newsweek.
In the 2/14 edition I spy with my little eye:
A somewhat dry desert of bad last sentences. Heart be still!
"But isn't it just like him?" (After a personality profile of Barry Manilow. The set-up: Barry, who I adore for no good reason, says he always tips piano bar singers (awww!), and the writer said it should be the other way around because the Manilow magic (my phrase) makes "their tip jars sing.")
"That will leave plenty of time for more talk, more campaigning, more blogging — and more rock concerts." Oooh, they used the word "blogging." How HIP!!!
"Perhaps. But that would require a coherent policy first." I like snark, but I'm not sure it's called for at the end of an article that purports to show how the state dept. and the dept. of defense have tagged one group of Iranian rebels as either terrorists or good allies. This isn't about policy. This is about a burgeoning Nicaragua-style situation where there is going to be a policy that the MEK should not be helped but the shifty America-firsters, even if it costs our reputation and future security, will undermine that through gov't channels. That's just my prediction; if I were Seymour Hersh I'd look into it in — when did Scott Ritter say we'd be on the ground in Iran, June? Yeah, I'd wait till five months later.
So it was a boring week. Not that I don't have additional comments.
I am curious about the letters page. In 2005, isn't it about time Newsweek quit running letters with the tag "VIA INTERNET?" Because there are ways to verify where the writer is from. A phone call, for example, from a number supplied by the author. Most people who are asked to verify themselves for publication will do so in a NY minute. That's what I did when I got a letter published in the Gray Lady nigh on these many years (14? Really? Holy cow.) I think I might have squeeeed a bit as well.
Anyway, a geographical location for people — like Nkosinathi Sibanda — would be nice. Would Nkosinathi be of the East Egg Sibandas or the Palm Springs Sibandas? I mean, c'mon, it's the new millenium, but the internet is not a place in and of itself.
Speaking of irritating internet stuff, try this headline on for size: "You Don't Have Mail," about the FBI's incredibly FUBAR'd computer system. You know, the one that was supposed to spell out the salvation of interconnecting all those counter-terrorism agencies, the one that was supposed to lift the FBI out of the carbon copy and ditto sheet age, the one that was supposed to make it possible for agents in any place to do a basic database search? Basically, the one that would have brought the FBI halfway to where the teevee crime drama shows give it credit for being at?
Okay, I'm going to read the peice and, with nothing but the facts in the story and common idiomatic computer talk, come up with an alternative of approximately the same length and twice the compellingness. Ready?
Ooooo, complication number one rears its ugly head: The story is actually about email!!! Can Callie do it? Can she beat the Newsweek headline writers while referencing the email issue????
Here's what I'm working with: email shut down because hackers got in the system, the FBI has to tell its agents not to use their kids' names, etc., as passwords, and all the FBI honchos have basically been ignoring even their own safety precautions by using the public, non-sensitive "fbi.gov" email channel instead of the private one with the unknown URL (P.S. Newsweek didn't make that last bit as explicit as I just did).
How 'bout:
"You've got security breeches"
Which relies also on the tired AOL thing, but at least it includes the evildoing instead of just making the FBI look somewhat retarded. Honestly, it wasn't that they were so bungling as it was that the hackers (greasy men in their 20s who live on Domino's Pizza and Mountain Dew, I wager 7-1) were so much more creative.
or
"The Oops Files"
Which isn't as compelling, but throws up a shout out to the X-Files.
"Chi is real"
That's a quote from my former Sifu. Imagine it in a North Little Rock twang and you'll understand the effect such a sentence may have years after actually studying Kung Fu. It's not something you forget.
The thing is, Sifu was totally right. Chi is as good a metaphor for some sort of physiological processes as I've ever heard of, and I'm a devoted allopath. 10,000 years of anecdotal evidence must mean something, right?
In Kung Fu class we'd occassionally do Chi Gong exercises to build up our chi; I think the idea was eventually, once you build up enough, you can release it at your opponent much like in Mortal Kombat. We'd stand totally still, knees slightly knocked and bent, tongues at the tops of our mouths, arms rounded like we're trying to keep a bubble in them without popping it, and let the chi build up. That I, skeptic former Magician's Club member, could feel the popping and snapping in the tips of my fingers was kind of a surprise.
I took a Tai Chi class at the Y and it just isn't the same thing when a crunchy person teaches it. Of COURSE crunchy people believe in new age hokum like chi. I needed a church-going redneck to confirm it really existed.
There needs to be a name for the physiological processes that made Eric and Jesse, two 18-year-old, high-energy wild guys, such good kung fu fighters. Eric (who got a Decepticon tattooed on his arm before anyone else was getting Decepticon decals and tattoos) said when he was fighting he pictured "a little Chinese dude" (again, in an Arkansas twang) doing all the moves in a movie. Basically, he acted the part of a kung fu fighter and became one. What do you call that sort of mind over matter?
The thing is, Sifu was totally right. Chi is as good a metaphor for some sort of physiological processes as I've ever heard of, and I'm a devoted allopath. 10,000 years of anecdotal evidence must mean something, right?
In Kung Fu class we'd occassionally do Chi Gong exercises to build up our chi; I think the idea was eventually, once you build up enough, you can release it at your opponent much like in Mortal Kombat. We'd stand totally still, knees slightly knocked and bent, tongues at the tops of our mouths, arms rounded like we're trying to keep a bubble in them without popping it, and let the chi build up. That I, skeptic former Magician's Club member, could feel the popping and snapping in the tips of my fingers was kind of a surprise.
I took a Tai Chi class at the Y and it just isn't the same thing when a crunchy person teaches it. Of COURSE crunchy people believe in new age hokum like chi. I needed a church-going redneck to confirm it really existed.
There needs to be a name for the physiological processes that made Eric and Jesse, two 18-year-old, high-energy wild guys, such good kung fu fighters. Eric (who got a Decepticon tattooed on his arm before anyone else was getting Decepticon decals and tattoos) said when he was fighting he pictured "a little Chinese dude" (again, in an Arkansas twang) doing all the moves in a movie. Basically, he acted the part of a kung fu fighter and became one. What do you call that sort of mind over matter?
New thing bloggin: itty bitty sweet peppers
I am all for the itty bitty sweet peppers. I can get about six of them for three dollars. This means I can use two whole peppers in a salad and I am left with four whole peppers that will not dry out over the course of the day or go bad in short order. Also, they cost about the same as the regular red and orange and yellow peppers at the grocery store.
In just about a month the farmers markets will be opening up. Good times.
Also, I have been miniwheat free for something like three or four days now. The FMW have not been on sale like they usually are and I ran out. I've been eating the Safeway knockoff of Cranberry Almond Crunch ("Healthy Heart" my eye! So much sugar!) and contemplating the fake private label FMW I bought instead. Here's how passive aggressive I am toward it: I left it in the bag on the kitchen floor for three days and kicked it around a little while I was making breakfast and dinner. What a misplaced way to be hostile.
Who knows, they may even be as good as my tasty overlord FMW. I doubt it, though.
Made a decent vinaigrette last night with balsamic vinegar (which tastes good, but I have an instinctive hatred for because of having been a waitress and having fetch the stuff for people and having to walk around the front of the house smelling that pungency a lot — it just triggers my lizard brain), olive oil and a dash of sesame oil. If anyone has a suggestion for additions, I'd be all for it.
That was a hint. Comment. Please!!
In just about a month the farmers markets will be opening up. Good times.
Also, I have been miniwheat free for something like three or four days now. The FMW have not been on sale like they usually are and I ran out. I've been eating the Safeway knockoff of Cranberry Almond Crunch ("Healthy Heart" my eye! So much sugar!) and contemplating the fake private label FMW I bought instead. Here's how passive aggressive I am toward it: I left it in the bag on the kitchen floor for three days and kicked it around a little while I was making breakfast and dinner. What a misplaced way to be hostile.
Who knows, they may even be as good as my tasty overlord FMW. I doubt it, though.
Made a decent vinaigrette last night with balsamic vinegar (which tastes good, but I have an instinctive hatred for because of having been a waitress and having fetch the stuff for people and having to walk around the front of the house smelling that pungency a lot — it just triggers my lizard brain), olive oil and a dash of sesame oil. If anyone has a suggestion for additions, I'd be all for it.
That was a hint. Comment. Please!!
Still coveting
I just checked my account at the library electronically (I do this about three times a day, minimum) and I am not getting the "AVAILABLE: Being routed to MAIN" message for the "Persepolis."
I guess there are still some inefficiencies in the library system. I'll just have to get used to them.
I guess there are still some inefficiencies in the library system. I'll just have to get used to them.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Thou shalt not covet
but I do.
Today I saw a book that has been on my TPL hold list for nigh on a month in a cart behind the counter at the library, where I was picking up something like five other books (three of them don't count because two are biz advice that may or may not help me achieve the highest levels of professional success and the other is on women's weight training). My eyes got all big and I wanted to tell the librarian that I was on the list for "Persepolis" and, hey, since I'm here, why not just GIVE ME MY PRECIOUSSSSSSS.
One reason I feel the pinch is that I cannot read "Persepolis 2" until I get my hands on the first book/graphic novel. It's about a young girl in Iran during the revolution (I'm pretty sure, but then, I reserved it many moons ago) and her family fleeing; the second gn is about adapting to the US of A.
At least I got "What's the Matter with Kansas" this time.
Also I saw "Bowling for Columbine" for the first time a few days ago and lemme tell ya, Canada is looking really good and reasonable right now. Even the street punks just want to talk things out!
Today I saw a book that has been on my TPL hold list for nigh on a month in a cart behind the counter at the library, where I was picking up something like five other books (three of them don't count because two are biz advice that may or may not help me achieve the highest levels of professional success and the other is on women's weight training). My eyes got all big and I wanted to tell the librarian that I was on the list for "Persepolis" and, hey, since I'm here, why not just GIVE ME MY PRECIOUSSSSSSS.
One reason I feel the pinch is that I cannot read "Persepolis 2" until I get my hands on the first book/graphic novel. It's about a young girl in Iran during the revolution (I'm pretty sure, but then, I reserved it many moons ago) and her family fleeing; the second gn is about adapting to the US of A.
At least I got "What's the Matter with Kansas" this time.
Also I saw "Bowling for Columbine" for the first time a few days ago and lemme tell ya, Canada is looking really good and reasonable right now. Even the street punks just want to talk things out!
Fitness blogging day 10
Denise and Mark's Tuff-E-Nuff certainly is! There was a warm up, then a cross-training where you were either running wind sprints for four minutes or on the track jogging. Shins be still. Also, it was Mark's 39th birthday; he had a little extra to prove. I'm glad we did a big ab workout instead of arms — my right wrist is hurting.
To recap, my shins hurt, my wrist hurts, my knees hurt. I am falling apart. Also the scale said I gained two pounds from the other day. What is going on with the Seca digital scale?
I just want to lie down a bit.
To recap, my shins hurt, my wrist hurts, my knees hurt. I am falling apart. Also the scale said I gained two pounds from the other day. What is going on with the Seca digital scale?
I just want to lie down a bit.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Fitness blogging day 9
Kickboxing with the lovely and talented Miss Regina.
It was nice to go to an aerobics class and not feel like I was precipitating a cardiac event, which is how I feel in Denise and Mark's class. However, I do not recommend aerobics after a lunch of mere ramen noodles and a snack of Hershey's Take 5 — another new thing for me, basically it's pretzels with caramel, chocolate and peanuts in little fudgy bits — is not the best idea.
I have been taking Kickboxing with Regina for the better part of three years and she is really good at mixing up the workouts. There is really only so much in the Billy Blanks cannon; it takes some creativity to rearrange four basic punches and four kicks (I would say the crescent kick and the roundhouse are a little more advanced than the front and side kicks — the rear kick is pretty much a non-factor).
So I bought a bunch of veggies from Safeway for salads and stuff, should I so choose to eat a salad sometime soon. I have balsamic vinegar and EVOO (That's Rachel Ray slang for "extra virgin olive oil"), so I need not eat crummy salad dressing. I can't seem to find an agreeable salad dressing in a bottle — something classy and tasty in a vinagrette — unless it's for hot wings or mom's grapefruit and avacado salad.
I'm not going to make this challenge from the standpoint of the actual timeline — I missed a slot last week — but I'll make up in average by going to four classes (or more, if I feel perky enough) this week. Not very satisfying, but not bad.
Also, now that the weather isn't so blasted cold and the dogwoods are budding a bit and the hyacinths that some kind soul stuck by the apartment building's pergola are smelling up the entryway something wonderful, it makes working out a whole lot easier. Heck, it makes getting out of bed easier.
Now, back to 24 and the velvet terrorist fighter, the only competant man in our nation's capital in bizarro world (and possibly ours), Keifer Sutherland.
It was nice to go to an aerobics class and not feel like I was precipitating a cardiac event, which is how I feel in Denise and Mark's class. However, I do not recommend aerobics after a lunch of mere ramen noodles and a snack of Hershey's Take 5 — another new thing for me, basically it's pretzels with caramel, chocolate and peanuts in little fudgy bits — is not the best idea.
I have been taking Kickboxing with Regina for the better part of three years and she is really good at mixing up the workouts. There is really only so much in the Billy Blanks cannon; it takes some creativity to rearrange four basic punches and four kicks (I would say the crescent kick and the roundhouse are a little more advanced than the front and side kicks — the rear kick is pretty much a non-factor).
So I bought a bunch of veggies from Safeway for salads and stuff, should I so choose to eat a salad sometime soon. I have balsamic vinegar and EVOO (That's Rachel Ray slang for "extra virgin olive oil"), so I need not eat crummy salad dressing. I can't seem to find an agreeable salad dressing in a bottle — something classy and tasty in a vinagrette — unless it's for hot wings or mom's grapefruit and avacado salad.
I'm not going to make this challenge from the standpoint of the actual timeline — I missed a slot last week — but I'll make up in average by going to four classes (or more, if I feel perky enough) this week. Not very satisfying, but not bad.
Also, now that the weather isn't so blasted cold and the dogwoods are budding a bit and the hyacinths that some kind soul stuck by the apartment building's pergola are smelling up the entryway something wonderful, it makes working out a whole lot easier. Heck, it makes getting out of bed easier.
Now, back to 24 and the velvet terrorist fighter, the only competant man in our nation's capital in bizarro world (and possibly ours), Keifer Sutherland.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Dad's in China
And Thailand.
It's not that I'm saying its *unfair* that I'm the one who has casually pursued study of the Chinese language (verrrrrrry casually) and that I have an abiding interest in sex slavery in SE Asia (as in ending it and documenting it), that I have no fear of developing world situations and yet work in perhaps the most Wonder bread of places (not that Gig Harbor doesn't have its David Lynch moments — although they are few and far between), that I will eat just about anything with no fear and my father, well, kind of likes to work on his computer a lot (although he, too, will eat just about anything; once he ate some oreos my brother had slurped the cream out of). No, I understand dad worked really hard for the job he has.
I also understand it came to him when he was in his 50s.
I just hope it doesn't take me that long before I'm running supply lines to rebel forces, reporting back on the conflict that is tearing apart Lower Freakistan.
It's not that I'm saying its *unfair* that I'm the one who has casually pursued study of the Chinese language (verrrrrrry casually) and that I have an abiding interest in sex slavery in SE Asia (as in ending it and documenting it), that I have no fear of developing world situations and yet work in perhaps the most Wonder bread of places (not that Gig Harbor doesn't have its David Lynch moments — although they are few and far between), that I will eat just about anything with no fear and my father, well, kind of likes to work on his computer a lot (although he, too, will eat just about anything; once he ate some oreos my brother had slurped the cream out of). No, I understand dad worked really hard for the job he has.
I also understand it came to him when he was in his 50s.
I just hope it doesn't take me that long before I'm running supply lines to rebel forces, reporting back on the conflict that is tearing apart Lower Freakistan.
Cleanliness: almost accomplished
It took a weekend of effort, three separate dishwashing shifts and a lot of procrastination, but I'm almost back to clean in my place.
Just need to take out the trash and recycling, hang up some clothes, wash some more, throw away some dead flowers, sweep, and some random straightening.
Oh, Lord, I'm nowhere near finishing. And the internet is so addictive!
Just need to take out the trash and recycling, hang up some clothes, wash some more, throw away some dead flowers, sweep, and some random straightening.
Oh, Lord, I'm nowhere near finishing. And the internet is so addictive!
New thing blogging: SDT Pesto
Sundried Tomato Pesto, why did it take me so long to discover you??? Is it because your sibling regular pesto is so wonderful? Possibly.
But now that I have found you I will work to incorporate you into my life a little more. Because of you I bought four pounds of various-thickness noodles (also because the primo stuff was selling for $1 a pound, and that's $.25 a serving, and it's so easy to reheat) in anticipation of your tangy goodness.
Sundried Tomato Pesto, you are a new part of my repetoire. Come into my kitchen and join the frosted miniwheats, the Fuji apples with Adam's all natural peanut butter and the mushroom raviolis with marinara sauce, the DiGiorno spinach and mushroom pizza, the scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions and cheese that make up the bulk of my home cooking.
Sundried Tomato Pesto, at little more than three dollars for three servings (only at Tacoma Boys, the best place to buy groceries in town, except for Metropolitan Market, but it's too expensive) is so good. I only wish it covered four servings, but I like my pasta pestoed up.
Sundried Tomato Pesto, you get an official rave from me.
But now that I have found you I will work to incorporate you into my life a little more. Because of you I bought four pounds of various-thickness noodles (also because the primo stuff was selling for $1 a pound, and that's $.25 a serving, and it's so easy to reheat) in anticipation of your tangy goodness.
Sundried Tomato Pesto, you are a new part of my repetoire. Come into my kitchen and join the frosted miniwheats, the Fuji apples with Adam's all natural peanut butter and the mushroom raviolis with marinara sauce, the DiGiorno spinach and mushroom pizza, the scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onions and cheese that make up the bulk of my home cooking.
Sundried Tomato Pesto, at little more than three dollars for three servings (only at Tacoma Boys, the best place to buy groceries in town, except for Metropolitan Market, but it's too expensive) is so good. I only wish it covered four servings, but I like my pasta pestoed up.
Sundried Tomato Pesto, you get an official rave from me.
"The Thief Lord"/"America the book"/"Stargirl"
I have been on a kiddie lit kick; "Stargirl" is a might too precious for my tastes. Sorry, nobody is that different. "The Thief Lord" isn't. Goodness knows we could all stand to read a little more about Venice and its street urchins.
But seriously, Cornelia Funke, the author, is one of the best-selling German kid's authors of all time. Because her name is so cool. Also she writes fantasy, which the kiddies love now (but not when I was a dweeby 11-year-old and it was all about Judy Blume). "The Thief Lord" is mercifully light on the mystical baubles and yet strangely light on the implications of ... well, the third act's ratification of the mystical powers of the one bauble to speak of.
"America the book" may not have been a cheap cash-in, and it might make a fine addition to a coffeetable or pile of reading material near the john, but ultimately I'm glad I didn't buy it. It's a little too of-the-moment and there are some ways that a book needs a little more trenchent-nicity that a TV show doesn't to make it work. The printed page is about levels, I guess.
Also a bonus: "Enter the Zone" by Barry Sears, PhD, doody. Got it for free at the Y. I have better math skills than 80 percent of the population and the whole thing about protein blocks just confused the heck out of me. So I need 11 blocks of protein equalling 7g per block because of my lean muscle mass — that I can figure out — but there are recipes that state each serving contains "four blocks" of protein? Whose blocks are we talking about? Because the way I read it, everyone has different protein needs depending on their personal amount of lean muscle mass.
Also setting off the bullshit detector is a graph that purports to explain how the Zone was formulated. In the center, there is a circle that says "Zone-favorable diet," four boxes pointing to it, described by the graph as being "Foundations of a Zone-favorable diet" are "Neo-Paleolithic diet," "Anti-Aging diet," "Hormonal effects of food" and, this kills me, "1982 Nobel Prize in Medicine." Let's see — we've got a dietary fad, a hope that you're selling, your blanket statement about food and a Nobel Prize. I'm sold!
Frankly, "The Zone" reads like a prescription to eat caesar chicken salads for the rest of your life. I want peak performance and to "reset" my "genetic code," or whatever that means, but really. If I can't eat Frosted Miniwheats I can't do it. Just won't happen.
But seriously, Cornelia Funke, the author, is one of the best-selling German kid's authors of all time. Because her name is so cool. Also she writes fantasy, which the kiddies love now (but not when I was a dweeby 11-year-old and it was all about Judy Blume). "The Thief Lord" is mercifully light on the mystical baubles and yet strangely light on the implications of ... well, the third act's ratification of the mystical powers of the one bauble to speak of.
"America the book" may not have been a cheap cash-in, and it might make a fine addition to a coffeetable or pile of reading material near the john, but ultimately I'm glad I didn't buy it. It's a little too of-the-moment and there are some ways that a book needs a little more trenchent-nicity that a TV show doesn't to make it work. The printed page is about levels, I guess.
Also a bonus: "Enter the Zone" by Barry Sears, PhD, doody. Got it for free at the Y. I have better math skills than 80 percent of the population and the whole thing about protein blocks just confused the heck out of me. So I need 11 blocks of protein equalling 7g per block because of my lean muscle mass — that I can figure out — but there are recipes that state each serving contains "four blocks" of protein? Whose blocks are we talking about? Because the way I read it, everyone has different protein needs depending on their personal amount of lean muscle mass.
Also setting off the bullshit detector is a graph that purports to explain how the Zone was formulated. In the center, there is a circle that says "Zone-favorable diet," four boxes pointing to it, described by the graph as being "Foundations of a Zone-favorable diet" are "Neo-Paleolithic diet," "Anti-Aging diet," "Hormonal effects of food" and, this kills me, "1982 Nobel Prize in Medicine." Let's see — we've got a dietary fad, a hope that you're selling, your blanket statement about food and a Nobel Prize. I'm sold!
Frankly, "The Zone" reads like a prescription to eat caesar chicken salads for the rest of your life. I want peak performance and to "reset" my "genetic code," or whatever that means, but really. If I can't eat Frosted Miniwheats I can't do it. Just won't happen.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
While I'm taking aim
at African-American-themed television, I want to impart some shots at the local PBS affiliate.
Stop running the Perricone Prescription. Or that stuff about creating wealth. Might as well put Ron Popiel up there. You aren't paying for this crap, are you?
The one-stroke paint woman that's on all the time with her little crafts? Did no one realize she's got *one stroke* and that's why all her "artwork" looks the same?
The "Red Green Show" is blather. For those of you fortunate enough to have a life and not catch this perpetual KCTS stinkbomb, I can only say that it appears to be something like "Tool Time," the show-within-a-show on "Home Improvement" because there are tools, man-talky things and a general recognition of an audience by the "host," Red Green. At least, I'm pretty sure that's his name. I can't understand hardly a word he says because his voice is so gravelly and flat. He wears ugly suspenders, like Mork, and has a geeky sidekick like Mallory. What alleged jokes there are, when I can understand them, are not funny; worse than corny, really. They are delivered as jokes — set ups and all — to the fraudience, which is really the camera crew (three cameras, three sad bastards wondering if this is how much life has to offer them). What happens next is the laugh track is abruptly switched on to "full-on uproar" and then, just as unceremoniously, switched off.
What possible benefit to society does this exceptionally banal, inoffensive pablum have? It's not even good for pensioners in the nursing home because the key character is not only incomprehensible, he's bearded so you can't watch his lips move for cues!
I suppose it's cheap and fills time, but maybe, KCTS, you should chuck it for some Ron Popiel. After all, he'll pay you and you can offset all that debt or invest the money in better stuff for primetime or kid's programming.
UPDATE: "Red Green" is *Canadian.* And apparently draws from *14 seasons' worth of episodes* and I am just feeling a cold, cold quiver in my spine as I write that. There aren't that many seasons' worth of "Kids in the Hall" and they were actual funny Canadians! It is amazing how pervasive mediocrity is, how long lived it can be. For an American example, might I refer you to Wendy Pepper of "Project Runway"? Where is the justice in this world when there are a million years of "7th Heaven" but there is talk of cancelling "Veronica Mars?" Well, I don't watch either of those shows, but you get my drift.
Stop running the Perricone Prescription. Or that stuff about creating wealth. Might as well put Ron Popiel up there. You aren't paying for this crap, are you?
The one-stroke paint woman that's on all the time with her little crafts? Did no one realize she's got *one stroke* and that's why all her "artwork" looks the same?
The "Red Green Show" is blather. For those of you fortunate enough to have a life and not catch this perpetual KCTS stinkbomb, I can only say that it appears to be something like "Tool Time," the show-within-a-show on "Home Improvement" because there are tools, man-talky things and a general recognition of an audience by the "host," Red Green. At least, I'm pretty sure that's his name. I can't understand hardly a word he says because his voice is so gravelly and flat. He wears ugly suspenders, like Mork, and has a geeky sidekick like Mallory. What alleged jokes there are, when I can understand them, are not funny; worse than corny, really. They are delivered as jokes — set ups and all — to the fraudience, which is really the camera crew (three cameras, three sad bastards wondering if this is how much life has to offer them). What happens next is the laugh track is abruptly switched on to "full-on uproar" and then, just as unceremoniously, switched off.
What possible benefit to society does this exceptionally banal, inoffensive pablum have? It's not even good for pensioners in the nursing home because the key character is not only incomprehensible, he's bearded so you can't watch his lips move for cues!
I suppose it's cheap and fills time, but maybe, KCTS, you should chuck it for some Ron Popiel. After all, he'll pay you and you can offset all that debt or invest the money in better stuff for primetime or kid's programming.
UPDATE: "Red Green" is *Canadian.* And apparently draws from *14 seasons' worth of episodes* and I am just feeling a cold, cold quiver in my spine as I write that. There aren't that many seasons' worth of "Kids in the Hall" and they were actual funny Canadians! It is amazing how pervasive mediocrity is, how long lived it can be. For an American example, might I refer you to Wendy Pepper of "Project Runway"? Where is the justice in this world when there are a million years of "7th Heaven" but there is talk of cancelling "Veronica Mars?" Well, I don't watch either of those shows, but you get my drift.
BET Jazz catches Latin fever!
What the hey? BET Jazz is featuring Fat Joe??? How does he have anything in the world to do with Jazz? Thanks for showing the "Do the Rockaway" or whatever the song is(lena back! lean back!), about five times — actually once or so, but interrupted about four times.
Now, Fat Joe is a rapper or Hispanic extraction, and this (alleged) BET Jazz has "Viva" in big letters across the left side of the screen, juxtaposed with the BET Jazz bug on the right. This is a Latin show on Black Entertainment Television.
BET has caught Latin fever!
In all seriousness, rap *is* Black. The African diaspora *does* extend through Latin America. Fat Joe has a place on BET.
But Rap is not Jazz, and having a Ricky Martin wannabe and a would-be J-Lo hosting a show on Latino music for what is supposed to be a Jazz program on a cable network allegedly dedicated to African-American culture just seems like a bald grab for a Latino audience.
On cable, BET, the operating word is niche. Find it and narrowcast the heck out of it. If you want to attract English language Latino TV watchers, start up a new channel. Surely you've got plenty of money, what with not spending it on quality programs, right?
Now, Fat Joe is a rapper or Hispanic extraction, and this (alleged) BET Jazz has "Viva" in big letters across the left side of the screen, juxtaposed with the BET Jazz bug on the right. This is a Latin show on Black Entertainment Television.
BET has caught Latin fever!
In all seriousness, rap *is* Black. The African diaspora *does* extend through Latin America. Fat Joe has a place on BET.
But Rap is not Jazz, and having a Ricky Martin wannabe and a would-be J-Lo hosting a show on Latino music for what is supposed to be a Jazz program on a cable network allegedly dedicated to African-American culture just seems like a bald grab for a Latino audience.
On cable, BET, the operating word is niche. Find it and narrowcast the heck out of it. If you want to attract English language Latino TV watchers, start up a new channel. Surely you've got plenty of money, what with not spending it on quality programs, right?
Friday, February 18, 2005
Fitness Blogging Day 8
The beat goes on ... the beat goes on ...
According to the scale outside the cardio room I have lost four pounds in one day. I think something is cracked.
According to the scale outside the cardio room I have lost four pounds in one day. I think something is cracked.
Taking the Amazing Randi's challenge
I understand that the Amazing Randi, magician and skeptic, has offered a $1 million prize for anyone who can prove paranormal abilities. All he asks is the applicant tell him the particular powers s/he proposes to exhibit, under what limits that power may have, and what constitutes a positive or negative conclusion.
Amazing Randi, I can read men's minds. For the best example of this, and the most recurrant one, I would have to demonstrate with a particular man who was a city attorney in a city I was once a reporter in. Whenever I interviewed him after a city meeting, I could tell he was thinking about my boobs.
However, I was not alone in this mind-reading capability. Several other female reporters told me that when they would talk to him, they too could tell he was thinking about their boobs. All of us agreed that when we tried to prevent him from thinking about our boobs — by taking notes higher and higher up until our forearms effectively covered our boobs — he was still thinking about them and not even trying to pretend he was not, in fact, thinking about them.
Are we psychic or what?
Naturally, I claim a finder's fee on the psychic money pot. But I'm willing to take you other girls out to dinner somewhere mighty special.
Oh yeah, this one time, I could totally tell this guy was thinking about going "all the way" with me. Actually, it was more than one time. Sometimes it was with boyfriends. A couple of times it was some guy friends, and that's how I thought of them, really. Sometimes it was with men I didn't even know!
Can I have $2 million?
Amazing Randi, I can read men's minds. For the best example of this, and the most recurrant one, I would have to demonstrate with a particular man who was a city attorney in a city I was once a reporter in. Whenever I interviewed him after a city meeting, I could tell he was thinking about my boobs.
However, I was not alone in this mind-reading capability. Several other female reporters told me that when they would talk to him, they too could tell he was thinking about their boobs. All of us agreed that when we tried to prevent him from thinking about our boobs — by taking notes higher and higher up until our forearms effectively covered our boobs — he was still thinking about them and not even trying to pretend he was not, in fact, thinking about them.
Are we psychic or what?
Naturally, I claim a finder's fee on the psychic money pot. But I'm willing to take you other girls out to dinner somewhere mighty special.
Oh yeah, this one time, I could totally tell this guy was thinking about going "all the way" with me. Actually, it was more than one time. Sometimes it was with boyfriends. A couple of times it was some guy friends, and that's how I thought of them, really. Sometimes it was with men I didn't even know!
Can I have $2 million?
Fitness blogging Day #7
It was yesterday. It was Tuff-E-Nuff. It was a fairly small class, possibly only 30 people.
I performed like a champ. I didn't get the shortness of breath and I only got the heavy legs during the sprints — well, I always was the slowest runner in elementary school. I wonder if it was due to my spicy roll for lunch (carbs plus fish protein) or the diet Pepsi (caffeine) which did not, sadly, turn out to have an iTunes voucher.
Anyway, Mark seems to love plyometric exercises. I think it has something to do with volunteer coaching high school football. So there was one exercise where we had to jump across the mats in the cardio circuit. I discovered I could stand to work on my jumping muscles. Also in the cardio circuit: bench climbing, jump roping and thumping a basketball on the floor and then boosting it over your head over and over as fast as possible. I even jumped a little while I did it for an extra boost.
Woke up stiff in the shoulders and achy in the calves. I'm going to invest in some knee bracey things; they've been bugging me. Denise and Mark must have joints made of iron. And muscles made of iron. And wills made of iron.
Oh yeah, you might have noticed I had sushi for lunch. That means I bought it since there is no way I'm making my own. I will likely buy lunch today as well, but it will be under $5. For real. I don't have much to eat around here, and I think I have been doing pretty good, anyway. Or I'll take a ramen to work.
Also, encountered a dilemma of a cheapskate cleanfreak — is it worth paying nearly $8 for 10 swiffer duster refills? Should I give up the ghost on a sock or two? Will that be as much fun as the special swiffer duster?
I performed like a champ. I didn't get the shortness of breath and I only got the heavy legs during the sprints — well, I always was the slowest runner in elementary school. I wonder if it was due to my spicy roll for lunch (carbs plus fish protein) or the diet Pepsi (caffeine) which did not, sadly, turn out to have an iTunes voucher.
Anyway, Mark seems to love plyometric exercises. I think it has something to do with volunteer coaching high school football. So there was one exercise where we had to jump across the mats in the cardio circuit. I discovered I could stand to work on my jumping muscles. Also in the cardio circuit: bench climbing, jump roping and thumping a basketball on the floor and then boosting it over your head over and over as fast as possible. I even jumped a little while I did it for an extra boost.
Woke up stiff in the shoulders and achy in the calves. I'm going to invest in some knee bracey things; they've been bugging me. Denise and Mark must have joints made of iron. And muscles made of iron. And wills made of iron.
Oh yeah, you might have noticed I had sushi for lunch. That means I bought it since there is no way I'm making my own. I will likely buy lunch today as well, but it will be under $5. For real. I don't have much to eat around here, and I think I have been doing pretty good, anyway. Or I'll take a ramen to work.
Also, encountered a dilemma of a cheapskate cleanfreak — is it worth paying nearly $8 for 10 swiffer duster refills? Should I give up the ghost on a sock or two? Will that be as much fun as the special swiffer duster?
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Superheroing and the pitfalls of the digital age
So I was driving home tonight thinking, of course, about James "Jeff Gannon" Guckert, because I am so tripped out by it. I mean, the way the open source research thing works, you just don't stand a chance in this world. I was also thinking about how comfortable my Dansko clogs are, and if I were a superhero, would I go for Danskos? Because they are very sturdy and thickly soled, I could probably break someone's jaw with a well-placed kick with the big Ds; however, to run in, I am not sure they are the best because they're very stiff (see previous clause) and the soles are a little slippery.
Naturally, my thoughts turned to what if I were a superhero? How in the age of the internet and modern forensic science could I maintain my secret identity? Because Danskos are about as obviously identifiable a shoe as anything, and all the sudden there's a raft of marketing material out there about the likely purchaser of the Danskos — e.g. a crunchy white girl in a communications job with vegetarian tendencies (BTW, today was a Frosted Miniwheat three-mealer! Except for some cheese and crackers, that's all I ate — with strawberries) — and there's one arrow.
Then I was reading in FAIR that the NYT talked to a scientist who studies images and has enhanced video of the infamous "Bush Bulge" during the first pres. debate that kinda shows how he likely cheated with a listening device (well, it sounds better when you support the visual evidence against the weird no-cameras-shooting-from-behind-Bush clause in the administration's agreement and the whole "let me speak!" when no one was talking to him) and I was thinking, ehmehgeh, because how would my face be safe from such technology no matter what mask I devised. Actually, I just realized a shell of plastic might do the trick. But eeew. That would be so unbreathable, and I'm sure as a superhero I'd sweat quite a bit kickin' bad guys across town.
Then there would be all the location blogging of times, dates and who is where and invoices for who bought what where to make the kick-ass costume I would have (remember, superheroing is not at all remunerative, and if it is you are doing it wrong; unless maybe it's through a non-profit Hall of Justice thing) and then they would have me. Oh, it would take a while, but the wily internet people and their total wilyness would finger little ole me.
It wouldn't even have to be the federales with their facial-recognition software and tire tread analyses and DNA testing, which are all major obstacles to maintaining a secret identity in the modern era.
Being a superhero would be a really hard job these days anyway. Maintaining a secret identity, impossible.
It almost makes me glad I'm not a superhero.
Naturally, my thoughts turned to what if I were a superhero? How in the age of the internet and modern forensic science could I maintain my secret identity? Because Danskos are about as obviously identifiable a shoe as anything, and all the sudden there's a raft of marketing material out there about the likely purchaser of the Danskos — e.g. a crunchy white girl in a communications job with vegetarian tendencies (BTW, today was a Frosted Miniwheat three-mealer! Except for some cheese and crackers, that's all I ate — with strawberries) — and there's one arrow.
Then I was reading in FAIR that the NYT talked to a scientist who studies images and has enhanced video of the infamous "Bush Bulge" during the first pres. debate that kinda shows how he likely cheated with a listening device (well, it sounds better when you support the visual evidence against the weird no-cameras-shooting-from-behind-Bush clause in the administration's agreement and the whole "let me speak!" when no one was talking to him) and I was thinking, ehmehgeh, because how would my face be safe from such technology no matter what mask I devised. Actually, I just realized a shell of plastic might do the trick. But eeew. That would be so unbreathable, and I'm sure as a superhero I'd sweat quite a bit kickin' bad guys across town.
Then there would be all the location blogging of times, dates and who is where and invoices for who bought what where to make the kick-ass costume I would have (remember, superheroing is not at all remunerative, and if it is you are doing it wrong; unless maybe it's through a non-profit Hall of Justice thing) and then they would have me. Oh, it would take a while, but the wily internet people and their total wilyness would finger little ole me.
It wouldn't even have to be the federales with their facial-recognition software and tire tread analyses and DNA testing, which are all major obstacles to maintaining a secret identity in the modern era.
Being a superhero would be a really hard job these days anyway. Maintaining a secret identity, impossible.
It almost makes me glad I'm not a superhero.
Write me back Rasputina!
I couldn't help it. I wrote Rasputina about their experiences being the featured artist on BET Jazz a couple days ago. I have not heard back from them.
The process of going to their website to find their email — and coming across links tagged "photograveur" and "A Division of the Ladies Cello Society" — didn't encourage me very much about their suitability for BET. In fact, it made me angry on behalf of all the Black people that deserve quality entertainment that supports and nurtures their community, their perspectives and their heritage.
If it weren't for Black people there would be no Jazz, no Rock n Roll, no tap dancing, no Hip Hop, a much poorer Modern Art movement, no Gospel worth listening to and the Schottische would be a popular dance. Not that it isn't pretty, but without Black people, hips in this country would be rigidly locked in place, never to break free. Elvis couldn't have done it on his own, people.
Black people have done so much for the entertainment world. They deserve better than BET.
The process of going to their website to find their email — and coming across links tagged "photograveur" and "A Division of the Ladies Cello Society" — didn't encourage me very much about their suitability for BET. In fact, it made me angry on behalf of all the Black people that deserve quality entertainment that supports and nurtures their community, their perspectives and their heritage.
If it weren't for Black people there would be no Jazz, no Rock n Roll, no tap dancing, no Hip Hop, a much poorer Modern Art movement, no Gospel worth listening to and the Schottische would be a popular dance. Not that it isn't pretty, but without Black people, hips in this country would be rigidly locked in place, never to break free. Elvis couldn't have done it on his own, people.
Black people have done so much for the entertainment world. They deserve better than BET.
According to Science
Meegan should have had her baby today. But I'm still pulling for 2/17 (i.e. tomorrow, which it already is in D.C.) because it's my friend Beth's birthday and she's pretty cool.
Drop her a comment of encouragement, won't you?
It's okay if you're a stranger, apparently people on the street feel it's perfectly okay to touch pregnant women's stomachs and tell them their birth horror stories and ask all kinds of questions that foster what is known in polite circles as "instant intimacy." This is just my opinion on why, because pregnant women or recently pregnant women get into fits about it, but then obviously they go on to doing the exact same thing after their children aren't itty bitty anymore and people don't coo over them but, rather, think, "Oh my Lord, what little terrorists." That opinion is that, fundamentally, people are welcoming of new people whose politics, religion and looks are yet to be determined; that fundamentally, we all do realize that it takes a village, as Hillary and the Africans said, and we all want to think of ourselves as up to the challenge of being a support system for something so vulnerable as a baby; and, finally, none of us is as classy as we'd like to think.
I know I'm not classy.
Woooooo Meegan! Have that baby!!! YEEEEEHAAAWWW!!
Drop her a comment of encouragement, won't you?
It's okay if you're a stranger, apparently people on the street feel it's perfectly okay to touch pregnant women's stomachs and tell them their birth horror stories and ask all kinds of questions that foster what is known in polite circles as "instant intimacy." This is just my opinion on why, because pregnant women or recently pregnant women get into fits about it, but then obviously they go on to doing the exact same thing after their children aren't itty bitty anymore and people don't coo over them but, rather, think, "Oh my Lord, what little terrorists." That opinion is that, fundamentally, people are welcoming of new people whose politics, religion and looks are yet to be determined; that fundamentally, we all do realize that it takes a village, as Hillary and the Africans said, and we all want to think of ourselves as up to the challenge of being a support system for something so vulnerable as a baby; and, finally, none of us is as classy as we'd like to think.
I know I'm not classy.
Woooooo Meegan! Have that baby!!! YEEEEEHAAAWWW!!
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
No fitness!!!
I am skipping. This means tomorrow morning I have to get up for early morning spinning. Igh.
On the positive side, I will have clean clothes. My kitchen is still not clean, but I'm going to get there. As for other goals, I did not spend any money on lunch. I used a coupon for a free burrito instead.
Also, "The Thief Lord" is picking up nicely.
On the positive side, I will have clean clothes. My kitchen is still not clean, but I'm going to get there. As for other goals, I did not spend any money on lunch. I used a coupon for a free burrito instead.
Also, "The Thief Lord" is picking up nicely.
Only in NY!!!
Only in a town chockablock with attractive people would the question arise: Did humans make it with neandertals?
Quick answer: Guys will make it with ANYTHING.
Longer answer: As a cocktail waitress at a not-too-classy Little Rock club (the now gone Planet Earth, I believe it had to close down because of all the shootings out in front) I have seen courtship behaviour that exceeds what your mind would believe credible. There was a "stripper" that would come in after her shift with her sister. Oh Lord those two were repulsive. The stripper, if that in fact was something she got paid for, would come in in a dress made out of swimsuit material cut up and down to reveal lumpy rolls of cellulity flesh. Her hair was tatty and fried, her face had a cast iron quality in its smashedness and uneven texture. She had redneck teeth. Her sister was supposedly not a stripper, but she'd wear this little tiny not-a-tube tube top. More like a bandeau swimtop. And she was ginormous. Her boobs would flop up and down on her tummy rolls as she danced and shimmied.
Neither of them had any lack of male attention. The sober male bouncers were totally put off, but bouncers have a kind of club status where they can hook up with attractive strippers, but if they hadn't been, they would have taken what they could get.
Lest you think nothing ever comes of these unions, one of my best friends is a labor and delivery nurse at a free hospital. Her stories are hilARious. She has one about the pregnant dwarf with her bf the enormous baller. She has one about the skinny gangsta who fainted dead away as he entered the delivery room after putting up a big "I'm gonna be with my woman while she have my baby!" front. But she has these stories about these pregnant women with all kinds of craziness — they're 500 pounds and basically immobile, they have privates that look like fields of cauliflower, they haven't bathed in a dog's age — and they are having children!!!
This is not to say that the specimens that are contributing half the zygotes' genes are models of the pinnacle of human eugenic achievement; but to reiterate.
Guys will do ANYTHING. What's a little short forehead, a little unibrow, in the scheme of things?
Quick answer: Guys will make it with ANYTHING.
Longer answer: As a cocktail waitress at a not-too-classy Little Rock club (the now gone Planet Earth, I believe it had to close down because of all the shootings out in front) I have seen courtship behaviour that exceeds what your mind would believe credible. There was a "stripper" that would come in after her shift with her sister. Oh Lord those two were repulsive. The stripper, if that in fact was something she got paid for, would come in in a dress made out of swimsuit material cut up and down to reveal lumpy rolls of cellulity flesh. Her hair was tatty and fried, her face had a cast iron quality in its smashedness and uneven texture. She had redneck teeth. Her sister was supposedly not a stripper, but she'd wear this little tiny not-a-tube tube top. More like a bandeau swimtop. And she was ginormous. Her boobs would flop up and down on her tummy rolls as she danced and shimmied.
Neither of them had any lack of male attention. The sober male bouncers were totally put off, but bouncers have a kind of club status where they can hook up with attractive strippers, but if they hadn't been, they would have taken what they could get.
Lest you think nothing ever comes of these unions, one of my best friends is a labor and delivery nurse at a free hospital. Her stories are hilARious. She has one about the pregnant dwarf with her bf the enormous baller. She has one about the skinny gangsta who fainted dead away as he entered the delivery room after putting up a big "I'm gonna be with my woman while she have my baby!" front. But she has these stories about these pregnant women with all kinds of craziness — they're 500 pounds and basically immobile, they have privates that look like fields of cauliflower, they haven't bathed in a dog's age — and they are having children!!!
This is not to say that the specimens that are contributing half the zygotes' genes are models of the pinnacle of human eugenic achievement; but to reiterate.
Guys will do ANYTHING. What's a little short forehead, a little unibrow, in the scheme of things?
Neighbors. Everybody needs good neighbors.
That's when good neighbors ... become ... good ... friends.
Those are the lyrics to an Australian soap opera that played daily in Britain when I was studying there. I did not need to watch this soap to learn too much about it. Really, it was interesting to live in an entire country where the goings on of a soap or two were actually significant. Compare and contrast to the U.S., where soaps haven't been significant in even the trashy media since "Dynasty." In England, it's pronounced "dinnestie."
But back to neighbors. I was going up the stairs to my pied a terre (is it possible to have a pied a terre on the fourth floor? What is a pied a terre anyway?) when my weird neighbor and I almost walked into each other. She was, of course, talking to herself. She was saying "Terminate! Terminate the money handouts!" while stabbing her finger in the air. Her other hand was occupied with a Sprite bottle wrapped up in a plastic bag. It occurs to me that such a clear example of the benefits of handouts should either refrain from inveighing against them *or* has had this told to her.
Anyway, I was reminded that I was going to talk about more of my weird past neighbors. I swear to God I have had more than my rightful share. Or else everyone in this world is bonkers and I'm the last to notice. After all, didn't the Osbornes throw a ham over the fence to irritate neighbors that *they* found too outre?
When I last left you, I was going to tell a tale not necessarily of neighbors but a strange occurance in the apartment complex I lived in in Hillcrest in Little Rock. This is a really pleasant neighborhood; shady trees, sidewalks, mixed use street nearby — basically the kind of place that is not being built anywhere else in Little Rock or its excessively huge sprawl.
I was much younger then. I was going to get lunch at my place, then go back to work and wait for the Arkansas Stocks to roll in.
I was pulling into the driveway when, from the apartment next to mine, about fifteen — I am not kidding you — gangsta youth come out of the door and pile into three custom hoopties. There was a single adult with them, a big black dude with a light colored suit. He had a Nation-of-Islam kind of air about him, although maybe because he was big, bald and suited and carrying some kind of clipboardy/notebooky thing that threw me off.
I just sat there in my car, watching bball jersey, cornrowed, doo-rag'd, gold-fronted young boy after another file out of the apartment like they were on a mission. I was like, was there a meeting in there? What sort of meeting?
I still have no idea what was going on, but I never saw them again. Of course, I rarely went home from work for lunch, so I got the feeling that maybe other stuff was going on there while I was gone. That apartment was later rented to Wanda. She is so special I have to be in a special writing mood to talk about her.
Since I'm not sure what was up with those "neighbors" I'll relate a story about Harvey, the nice but extremely tiny gay guy who lived with his boyfriend on the other side of the apartment building.
Now, just because someone is gay in Arkansas does not mean they are sophisticated. No! He or she is probably a big-ass redneck. So it was with this guy and his boyfriend.
It turns out the tiny man's boyfriend, who I never met, was kind of a drunk. Actually, they both were, but the tiny one was the only one that ever talked to me. He was apparently in an abusive relationship and, According to Wanda, one time he and his larger lover were having a fight right out in the parking lot and the complex called the cops, who got there just as the bigger dude clocked the little one, who rolled down the short but steep hill that made up the street access.
If I had seen that I would have beat the bejeezus out of the bigger guy.
See, I was in Arkansas, and under prolonged contact with rednecks, you become one of them. I don't know if this is true of other tribes — what's that Vonnegut word? Klepf? Grok? The word for tribe — but I'm not willing to test it out with gamers, fundamentalists or libertarians.
Those are the lyrics to an Australian soap opera that played daily in Britain when I was studying there. I did not need to watch this soap to learn too much about it. Really, it was interesting to live in an entire country where the goings on of a soap or two were actually significant. Compare and contrast to the U.S., where soaps haven't been significant in even the trashy media since "Dynasty." In England, it's pronounced "dinnestie."
But back to neighbors. I was going up the stairs to my pied a terre (is it possible to have a pied a terre on the fourth floor? What is a pied a terre anyway?) when my weird neighbor and I almost walked into each other. She was, of course, talking to herself. She was saying "Terminate! Terminate the money handouts!" while stabbing her finger in the air. Her other hand was occupied with a Sprite bottle wrapped up in a plastic bag. It occurs to me that such a clear example of the benefits of handouts should either refrain from inveighing against them *or* has had this told to her.
Anyway, I was reminded that I was going to talk about more of my weird past neighbors. I swear to God I have had more than my rightful share. Or else everyone in this world is bonkers and I'm the last to notice. After all, didn't the Osbornes throw a ham over the fence to irritate neighbors that *they* found too outre?
When I last left you, I was going to tell a tale not necessarily of neighbors but a strange occurance in the apartment complex I lived in in Hillcrest in Little Rock. This is a really pleasant neighborhood; shady trees, sidewalks, mixed use street nearby — basically the kind of place that is not being built anywhere else in Little Rock or its excessively huge sprawl.
I was much younger then. I was going to get lunch at my place, then go back to work and wait for the Arkansas Stocks to roll in.
I was pulling into the driveway when, from the apartment next to mine, about fifteen — I am not kidding you — gangsta youth come out of the door and pile into three custom hoopties. There was a single adult with them, a big black dude with a light colored suit. He had a Nation-of-Islam kind of air about him, although maybe because he was big, bald and suited and carrying some kind of clipboardy/notebooky thing that threw me off.
I just sat there in my car, watching bball jersey, cornrowed, doo-rag'd, gold-fronted young boy after another file out of the apartment like they were on a mission. I was like, was there a meeting in there? What sort of meeting?
I still have no idea what was going on, but I never saw them again. Of course, I rarely went home from work for lunch, so I got the feeling that maybe other stuff was going on there while I was gone. That apartment was later rented to Wanda. She is so special I have to be in a special writing mood to talk about her.
Since I'm not sure what was up with those "neighbors" I'll relate a story about Harvey, the nice but extremely tiny gay guy who lived with his boyfriend on the other side of the apartment building.
Now, just because someone is gay in Arkansas does not mean they are sophisticated. No! He or she is probably a big-ass redneck. So it was with this guy and his boyfriend.
It turns out the tiny man's boyfriend, who I never met, was kind of a drunk. Actually, they both were, but the tiny one was the only one that ever talked to me. He was apparently in an abusive relationship and, According to Wanda, one time he and his larger lover were having a fight right out in the parking lot and the complex called the cops, who got there just as the bigger dude clocked the little one, who rolled down the short but steep hill that made up the street access.
If I had seen that I would have beat the bejeezus out of the bigger guy.
See, I was in Arkansas, and under prolonged contact with rednecks, you become one of them. I don't know if this is true of other tribes — what's that Vonnegut word? Klepf? Grok? The word for tribe — but I'm not willing to test it out with gamers, fundamentalists or libertarians.
Monday, February 14, 2005
mmmmmmm ... hamdog
Read all about it. Sounds tasty, if a bit dry and hard to bite into. But it hardly sounds Southern. It just sounds unreasonably American and the product of a particular bar.
How can one talk about Southern cooking and not mention Coca Cola Salad? It's Atlanta where CNN is, right?
How can one talk about Southern cooking and not mention Coca Cola Salad? It's Atlanta where CNN is, right?
Are you a science person?
Here's a study for you: What is up with all the people who don't know how to walk? I'm not talking the annoying people who walk, like, four abreast and don't budge when you're about to go screaming by on the rollerblades and you're hollering "ON YOUR RIGHT!!!" They're scum of the earth, that's what's wrong with them. I'm talking about otherwise perfectly normal people with perfectly normal development going on except that their gait is weird.
Were there a bunch of otherwise normal people who didn't get mangled in the cotton gin who walked funny 100 years ago? Or is it something to do with all the Nintendo and latchkey kid stuff? Because there are a lot of nerd kids who have the most bizarre gaits; roly poly legs, limpiness, gimpiness. Is it because they aren't physically gifted that they have become nerds or vice versa?
Seriously, this is something the science people need to look at.
Were there a bunch of otherwise normal people who didn't get mangled in the cotton gin who walked funny 100 years ago? Or is it something to do with all the Nintendo and latchkey kid stuff? Because there are a lot of nerd kids who have the most bizarre gaits; roly poly legs, limpiness, gimpiness. Is it because they aren't physically gifted that they have become nerds or vice versa?
Seriously, this is something the science people need to look at.
Valentine's Day
Would not have been such a crock if only I had been able to spend it the way I was meant to — with my darling Frosted Mini Wheats and 24, featuring the glorious velvet voice of Keifer Southerland and (!) the reemergence of Tony Alemeida.
Instead, the meeting runs long. And it does executive session first thing instead of last.
It's all good. Except that because I felt like a food illness-ridden, PMSing wrenched amoeba yesterday I had no time to do laundry (really I need to get detergent first) or wash dishes or, my favorite, wipe down the baseboards and use the Swiffer WetJet (really, I do love it!). So I am living in filth and kind of procrastinating on hauling four bags of recycling to the curb. Tomorrow I have fitness to do, the day after another meeting. Thursday fitness, Friday more fitness. I can't wait a week. I need to multiply in order to do everything I need to. Maybe if I could separate based on which Barr body was which. Or something.
Instead, the meeting runs long. And it does executive session first thing instead of last.
It's all good. Except that because I felt like a food illness-ridden, PMSing wrenched amoeba yesterday I had no time to do laundry (really I need to get detergent first) or wash dishes or, my favorite, wipe down the baseboards and use the Swiffer WetJet (really, I do love it!). So I am living in filth and kind of procrastinating on hauling four bags of recycling to the curb. Tomorrow I have fitness to do, the day after another meeting. Thursday fitness, Friday more fitness. I can't wait a week. I need to multiply in order to do everything I need to. Maybe if I could separate based on which Barr body was which. Or something.
9/11 commission/ "Little Children"
Okay, I couldn't get all the way through it. It was good, though completely depressing.
You know what's even more depressing, and the reason I stopped reading? Finding out there have been classified sections of the book. Reports that say things like "52 warnings to the FAA about hijackings" all of which included the fact that the pilots would likely be suicidal. So not only is the story not complete, the juciest bits have been kept totally secret. It's like "Lady Chatterly's Lover" without the dirty Scottish gardener bits. Without the implication of the affair.
So I lapsed into Tom Perrota's "Little Children" on Sunday, when I was feeling terrible — something must have been really awry with that frozen pizza. And it was great. When I thought about getting up and engaging with the world because I wasn't on the verge of vomiting I didn't want to because his writing is just that addictive. Perrota's other books include "Election," so that gives you an idea of the suburban setting and dystopic tinge.
So, "Little Children," it's a good read.
Oddly, I thought finally getting to the head of the queue for "America the Book" would be good sick reading. I was wrong. It's funny and colorful, both of which are annoying when you have a headache. The book looks like a lot of work. I mean a lot. It's a little too motivated of an effort. Not just cashing out, are we, Jon?
Next up, Cornelia Funke's "The Thief Lord."
You know what's even more depressing, and the reason I stopped reading? Finding out there have been classified sections of the book. Reports that say things like "52 warnings to the FAA about hijackings" all of which included the fact that the pilots would likely be suicidal. So not only is the story not complete, the juciest bits have been kept totally secret. It's like "Lady Chatterly's Lover" without the dirty Scottish gardener bits. Without the implication of the affair.
So I lapsed into Tom Perrota's "Little Children" on Sunday, when I was feeling terrible — something must have been really awry with that frozen pizza. And it was great. When I thought about getting up and engaging with the world because I wasn't on the verge of vomiting I didn't want to because his writing is just that addictive. Perrota's other books include "Election," so that gives you an idea of the suburban setting and dystopic tinge.
So, "Little Children," it's a good read.
Oddly, I thought finally getting to the head of the queue for "America the Book" would be good sick reading. I was wrong. It's funny and colorful, both of which are annoying when you have a headache. The book looks like a lot of work. I mean a lot. It's a little too motivated of an effort. Not just cashing out, are we, Jon?
Next up, Cornelia Funke's "The Thief Lord."
First FMW in two or three days
I can't even remember; I've been out of my mind.
I was out of milk. Now I'm back on the frosted miniwheat buzzmobile. I polished off the last of the Vanilla Creme FMWs with some strawberries (early crop out of Cali, a little too crisp, a little too sour, but two pounds for the price of one is good; plus, the FMW have enough compensatory sweetness).
Will any other food ever be as important to me as my sugar-coated master FMW?
I was out of milk. Now I'm back on the frosted miniwheat buzzmobile. I polished off the last of the Vanilla Creme FMWs with some strawberries (early crop out of Cali, a little too crisp, a little too sour, but two pounds for the price of one is good; plus, the FMW have enough compensatory sweetness).
Will any other food ever be as important to me as my sugar-coated master FMW?
For the love of Pete!
Hey, New York Times, I realize that the closest thing to a barnyard epithet would probably be the word you're so discreet about not sayin in this article today but everyone can hear it on cable. Even on the sanitized for our protection "Sex and the City" on TBS.
Don't play coy! It's dorky! Don't be prissy! It's such an act, you decadent liberals, you.
The only reason I'm not saying it is the offchance my granddad reads this.
Oh, heck. I call bullshit on me for hypocrisy.
Sorry, granddad.
Yes, let others mull over far more heinous journalism sins; it's these little bitty ones that degrade respect over time.
Don't play coy! It's dorky! Don't be prissy! It's such an act, you decadent liberals, you.
The only reason I'm not saying it is the offchance my granddad reads this.
Oh, heck. I call bullshit on me for hypocrisy.
Sorry, granddad.
Yes, let others mull over far more heinous journalism sins; it's these little bitty ones that degrade respect over time.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Nick n Jessica 4eva! Sike!
If the QVC video of Nick Lachey acting like a total dismissive, unsupportive creep to his wife, Jessica Simpson, does not herald the end of their marriage I don't know what will. Maybe cigarette burns on her arms?
Reality television consumers — and this is more and more of the planet, particularly the ladies, were quick to feel sorry for poor little Nicky that he married such a dumb chick during the first season of their drecktastic "Newlyweds." I can't say I felt sorry for either of them. Neither is a mental giant; and what does it mean when the most interesting character trait either of the pair posess is a desire to remain chaste until marriage?
While others have been impressed with Jessica's inability to learn anything about chicken by the age of 22, or by Nick's sweeping romantic gestures (which are actually typical of men who are abusive), I've always looked at the pair as the result of the same sort of redneck mistakes that happen every day to people who don't have the money, the good looks, the modicum of public fame, the television cameras. They don't truly know each other or themselves, but they're both so desperate for a wedding (on her part) and a wedding night (on his part) that they go ahead and get married without the slightest idea of what the other person is about.
So Jessica is sheltered and prissy. Nick ostensibly knew this before they were married, if he's the smart one, but did she realize what a contemptuous, arrogant twit she'd latched on to? Just look at any episode in the Newlywed cannon. Even her "chicken of the sea" gaffe is completely meant to open some form of conversation with him. Please, Nick, talk to me, her every stupid word says. I'll try anything. How does he respond? Dismissal, every time. And contempt.
A local newspaper out here with the kind of audience that appreciates this sort of thing — or thinks they have an audience as such — should have gone to the UW, where there is a psychologist who can tell in 10 seconds which couples are going to make a marriage that lasts, to screen an episode of Newlyweds. In the studies of couples at the UW, they've discovered that there are four marriage killers. The only one that is irreversible is the only one I remember: contempt.
If people haven't seen that in spades in Nick Lachey, it's because they've felt plenty of it for Jessica.
Surely this story will be used as a cautionary tale of the effect of celebrity and reality television on marriage. But really, it's about two stupid kids getting hitched for stupid reasons. Nothing, not fame, not money, not Christianity, can save people from their own stupidity.
Reality television consumers — and this is more and more of the planet, particularly the ladies, were quick to feel sorry for poor little Nicky that he married such a dumb chick during the first season of their drecktastic "Newlyweds." I can't say I felt sorry for either of them. Neither is a mental giant; and what does it mean when the most interesting character trait either of the pair posess is a desire to remain chaste until marriage?
While others have been impressed with Jessica's inability to learn anything about chicken by the age of 22, or by Nick's sweeping romantic gestures (which are actually typical of men who are abusive), I've always looked at the pair as the result of the same sort of redneck mistakes that happen every day to people who don't have the money, the good looks, the modicum of public fame, the television cameras. They don't truly know each other or themselves, but they're both so desperate for a wedding (on her part) and a wedding night (on his part) that they go ahead and get married without the slightest idea of what the other person is about.
So Jessica is sheltered and prissy. Nick ostensibly knew this before they were married, if he's the smart one, but did she realize what a contemptuous, arrogant twit she'd latched on to? Just look at any episode in the Newlywed cannon. Even her "chicken of the sea" gaffe is completely meant to open some form of conversation with him. Please, Nick, talk to me, her every stupid word says. I'll try anything. How does he respond? Dismissal, every time. And contempt.
A local newspaper out here with the kind of audience that appreciates this sort of thing — or thinks they have an audience as such — should have gone to the UW, where there is a psychologist who can tell in 10 seconds which couples are going to make a marriage that lasts, to screen an episode of Newlyweds. In the studies of couples at the UW, they've discovered that there are four marriage killers. The only one that is irreversible is the only one I remember: contempt.
If people haven't seen that in spades in Nick Lachey, it's because they've felt plenty of it for Jessica.
Surely this story will be used as a cautionary tale of the effect of celebrity and reality television on marriage. But really, it's about two stupid kids getting hitched for stupid reasons. Nothing, not fame, not money, not Christianity, can save people from their own stupidity.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
I've got the pow-ah!
This old dance, um, classic? is being used in commercials for hotels dot com and huggies feel n' learn diapers. Both commercials dance around themes of empowerment — finding deals and learning to not wet oneself are the keys here.
I am thinking perhaps there is a wider cultural emphasis on empowerment that is maybe a little on the ridiculous side. Live your lives, people. Let it go. Use the toilet because you don't want to be stinky and cold, not because you're IN CONTROL. I mean, it's cute, or whatever, to use that song ironically with diapering, but really, people.
I am thinking perhaps there is a wider cultural emphasis on empowerment that is maybe a little on the ridiculous side. Live your lives, people. Let it go. Use the toilet because you don't want to be stinky and cold, not because you're IN CONTROL. I mean, it's cute, or whatever, to use that song ironically with diapering, but really, people.
I have a new 'do!
I have been a victim of tatty hair for too long. I am not going back to Arkansas and the loving shears of Michael, the man who has tamed my mother's intractable hair, until at least July — barring any unexpected events — and I couldn't wait. I looked atrocious with split ends and all.
So Beth made me an appointment with her stylist, Ryan, who is not a gay man but rather a bubbly blonde who is, of all things, engaged to another Ryan who is not a gay man. No, really, she's positive.
Basically I didn't say much of anything. Beth and Ryan worked the whole thing out themselves. I'd forgotten that I'd been considering bangs (I probably whisked it out of my mind because my last bang experience with them they were wretched, just a block of hair on my forehead that Claire, my then-stylist at "What's Under Your Hat," would lighten up with the then-totally brand-new sorta scissors, you know, they don't cut all the hair? Those) — Not Beth! She brought it up, and Ryan suggested "side bangs," which are basically less hair than traditional bangs and pushed to the side. Well, I am glad Beth was there to push for them because I kept hearing my mom's voice nagging and bitching about how stupid it would look to have bangs that weren't really bangs. Mind you, this is a conversation from maybe 10 years ago.
Well, Mom, you were wrong. I got the side bangs. They are great. I also pretty much let Ryan do whatever she wanted with my hair, which included layering the bejeezus out of it. Much more than I would normally have gone for. For the first time in ages I feel okay with having my hair down because it isn't all in my face, which is awesome.
Also, I look like a girl. I nearly cried in the hairdresser's chair — she and Beth pulled off a "big reveal" by drying my hair while I was turned away from the mirror — with the whole looking like a girl thing. A pretty girl. I am not a crier.
I am, however, a cheeseball.
So Beth made me an appointment with her stylist, Ryan, who is not a gay man but rather a bubbly blonde who is, of all things, engaged to another Ryan who is not a gay man. No, really, she's positive.
Basically I didn't say much of anything. Beth and Ryan worked the whole thing out themselves. I'd forgotten that I'd been considering bangs (I probably whisked it out of my mind because my last bang experience with them they were wretched, just a block of hair on my forehead that Claire, my then-stylist at "What's Under Your Hat," would lighten up with the then-totally brand-new sorta scissors, you know, they don't cut all the hair? Those) — Not Beth! She brought it up, and Ryan suggested "side bangs," which are basically less hair than traditional bangs and pushed to the side. Well, I am glad Beth was there to push for them because I kept hearing my mom's voice nagging and bitching about how stupid it would look to have bangs that weren't really bangs. Mind you, this is a conversation from maybe 10 years ago.
Well, Mom, you were wrong. I got the side bangs. They are great. I also pretty much let Ryan do whatever she wanted with my hair, which included layering the bejeezus out of it. Much more than I would normally have gone for. For the first time in ages I feel okay with having my hair down because it isn't all in my face, which is awesome.
Also, I look like a girl. I nearly cried in the hairdresser's chair — she and Beth pulled off a "big reveal" by drying my hair while I was turned away from the mirror — with the whole looking like a girl thing. A pretty girl. I am not a crier.
I am, however, a cheeseball.
Friday, February 11, 2005
Fitness challenge Day 6 ... kvetching, really
Yee haw. More fitness fun and games.
But I can't get excited about it because of the slovenly state of my studio apartment. The studio is such an easy place to filthify up. You eat and sleep and do all your leisure stuff there; of course the newspapers and tissues and clothes are going to pile up (I pick up the dishes after I get home from work. Even I have my limits). But when I have been going to meetings every night or doing fitness stuff I don't come home all chipper and ready to wash dishes or do laundry. If anything, I come home desperate to encounter the sweet anaesthetic of Frosted Mini Wheats and cable teevee or the internet. Ahh, sweet internet.
So I'm living in filth and my chances of getting out of it are looking kind of grim, because I gots to go get a haircut tomorrow at 9 a.m. in Renton. Yeah, Renton. That's more than halfway to Seattle. And it's a driver's hellhole. It's like Conway, Arkansas. It's a town with a city council that saw the bright lights of strip mall developers and just drank the Kool Aid with everclear and in a fit of raw desire, optimism and neediness, got in the backseat with the ones whut got 'er drunk.
"Baby, you give me street access for my parking lot every fifty feet and I promise it'll be awesome and I'll bring you flowers and tax money." "But ... you can only get access points 100 feet away from each other!" "Man, what the hell? I thought you loved me and here you are making an issue out of fifty lousy feet?" "But it'll make it hard on traffic, especially those curvy parkways the city engineers built." "Hard on traffic, baby you're making this hard on me. (Huffs) Look, baby, I know what you're thinking, but I'm only thinking about you and the needs of your residents." "I don't know." "Look, I don't need this, I'm going to Tukwila. She'll appreciate me and all the commercial property tax assessment." "No, baby, I'm sorry, look baby don't be this way!" "I don't know that you understand me. I mean, I really love you and you deny me my needs." "No! I understand you! I do, I really do, I understand! Look, if it means that much to you I'll give you that access you want." "I guess you do love me."
Awww. What a love story. I'm sure they'll have lots of other terrible compromises, abusive arguments and snot-nosed bastards (like a Wal-mart that cuts and runs as soon as the neighborhood it helped destroy goes downhill) to keep them company.
So, since I get lost every place I ever go (I have witnesses) I'm sure this salon will be a breeze to find what with the mapquest and all.
Anyway, the plan is for me and Beth to get new dos and go to Ikea. You know, the store where people got trampled in London. Since I live in a studio my actual furniture needs are scant. I'm pretty sure even buying organizers would help my place look shabbier. But I'm going because, well, it's so cute. It's a city block of what would be urban blight if it weren't for the fact that commercial Renton is a freestanding geographical blight.
Of course, Renton might not have been so quick to compromise if the airline industry was any healthier EVER and Boeing wasn't so quick to lay people off. And move to Chicago (ouch! The weather there is so much colder. And hotter!). What would you do with that campus if it were ever abandoned? Whatever it was, it would cost a bunch of money.
In a sense, the West is really, really fortunate to not have the kind of massive cities and old-timey sprawl that inhabits all places East of the Rockies; the problems with inner cities and abandoned 60's-style strip malls is not really a huge issue out here. However, development is happening at such a rapid clip that the problems seen in a town like Little Rock, where there are long streets of abandoned commercial areas and other long strips of soon-to-be-abandoned commercial areas (drive West on Burnham Drive, and once you pass Rodney Parham I dare you to count the vital businesses before you hit Bowman curve. There are still plenty, but the cancerous bits, like the ever-revolving restaurant that was Pavarotti's, the Puffs $12 Zoo, the whole Michael's area —— the place where Wal-mart used to be and the failed Books-a-Million I briefly worked at that crashed and burned — are far more present).
It isn't that development is bad. But the way it has been marching apace in this country seems analogous to our expanding waistlines. We all got fat real fast, we do things like create "University Village" diets to mitigate the damage we've done, but we can't cover up the fact that the whole thing isn't organic or natural. Being thin and having healthy, people-centered development takes work — conveniences must be shed. The car is not our natural ally for the battle of the bulge or Burnham Drive. Plus, oh crap, being fat causes cancer; what other analogy is there for an empty box store?
Somehow I'm sure all of this is to blame for the fact that I am in a veritable sty right now. I have three bags full of recycling that need to go out. I have a sink full of dishes that must be washed. My jeans are all dirty. I have no milk in the fridge and I'm jonesing for the sweetness and soothing texture of My Lord Frosted Mini Wheats.
Honestly, I have Ramen, I have a frozen pizza, I have raviolis, I have marinar, I have three boxes of Kraft deluxe Mac n Cheese, I have packet upon can of Indian food and rice that I can boil up, I have bacon and eggs, I have cheese sticks and granola bars and cans of edible soup in my pantry and all I want are those FMW. What is the matter with me???
Frosted Mini Wheats, I think we have an unhealthy relationship.
But I can't get excited about it because of the slovenly state of my studio apartment. The studio is such an easy place to filthify up. You eat and sleep and do all your leisure stuff there; of course the newspapers and tissues and clothes are going to pile up (I pick up the dishes after I get home from work. Even I have my limits). But when I have been going to meetings every night or doing fitness stuff I don't come home all chipper and ready to wash dishes or do laundry. If anything, I come home desperate to encounter the sweet anaesthetic of Frosted Mini Wheats and cable teevee or the internet. Ahh, sweet internet.
So I'm living in filth and my chances of getting out of it are looking kind of grim, because I gots to go get a haircut tomorrow at 9 a.m. in Renton. Yeah, Renton. That's more than halfway to Seattle. And it's a driver's hellhole. It's like Conway, Arkansas. It's a town with a city council that saw the bright lights of strip mall developers and just drank the Kool Aid with everclear and in a fit of raw desire, optimism and neediness, got in the backseat with the ones whut got 'er drunk.
"Baby, you give me street access for my parking lot every fifty feet and I promise it'll be awesome and I'll bring you flowers and tax money." "But ... you can only get access points 100 feet away from each other!" "Man, what the hell? I thought you loved me and here you are making an issue out of fifty lousy feet?" "But it'll make it hard on traffic, especially those curvy parkways the city engineers built." "Hard on traffic, baby you're making this hard on me. (Huffs) Look, baby, I know what you're thinking, but I'm only thinking about you and the needs of your residents." "I don't know." "Look, I don't need this, I'm going to Tukwila. She'll appreciate me and all the commercial property tax assessment." "No, baby, I'm sorry, look baby don't be this way!" "I don't know that you understand me. I mean, I really love you and you deny me my needs." "No! I understand you! I do, I really do, I understand! Look, if it means that much to you I'll give you that access you want." "I guess you do love me."
Awww. What a love story. I'm sure they'll have lots of other terrible compromises, abusive arguments and snot-nosed bastards (like a Wal-mart that cuts and runs as soon as the neighborhood it helped destroy goes downhill) to keep them company.
So, since I get lost every place I ever go (I have witnesses) I'm sure this salon will be a breeze to find what with the mapquest and all.
Anyway, the plan is for me and Beth to get new dos and go to Ikea. You know, the store where people got trampled in London. Since I live in a studio my actual furniture needs are scant. I'm pretty sure even buying organizers would help my place look shabbier. But I'm going because, well, it's so cute. It's a city block of what would be urban blight if it weren't for the fact that commercial Renton is a freestanding geographical blight.
Of course, Renton might not have been so quick to compromise if the airline industry was any healthier EVER and Boeing wasn't so quick to lay people off. And move to Chicago (ouch! The weather there is so much colder. And hotter!). What would you do with that campus if it were ever abandoned? Whatever it was, it would cost a bunch of money.
In a sense, the West is really, really fortunate to not have the kind of massive cities and old-timey sprawl that inhabits all places East of the Rockies; the problems with inner cities and abandoned 60's-style strip malls is not really a huge issue out here. However, development is happening at such a rapid clip that the problems seen in a town like Little Rock, where there are long streets of abandoned commercial areas and other long strips of soon-to-be-abandoned commercial areas (drive West on Burnham Drive, and once you pass Rodney Parham I dare you to count the vital businesses before you hit Bowman curve. There are still plenty, but the cancerous bits, like the ever-revolving restaurant that was Pavarotti's, the Puffs $12 Zoo, the whole Michael's area —— the place where Wal-mart used to be and the failed Books-a-Million I briefly worked at that crashed and burned — are far more present).
It isn't that development is bad. But the way it has been marching apace in this country seems analogous to our expanding waistlines. We all got fat real fast, we do things like create "University Village" diets to mitigate the damage we've done, but we can't cover up the fact that the whole thing isn't organic or natural. Being thin and having healthy, people-centered development takes work — conveniences must be shed. The car is not our natural ally for the battle of the bulge or Burnham Drive. Plus, oh crap, being fat causes cancer; what other analogy is there for an empty box store?
Somehow I'm sure all of this is to blame for the fact that I am in a veritable sty right now. I have three bags full of recycling that need to go out. I have a sink full of dishes that must be washed. My jeans are all dirty. I have no milk in the fridge and I'm jonesing for the sweetness and soothing texture of My Lord Frosted Mini Wheats.
Honestly, I have Ramen, I have a frozen pizza, I have raviolis, I have marinar, I have three boxes of Kraft deluxe Mac n Cheese, I have packet upon can of Indian food and rice that I can boil up, I have bacon and eggs, I have cheese sticks and granola bars and cans of edible soup in my pantry and all I want are those FMW. What is the matter with me???
Frosted Mini Wheats, I think we have an unhealthy relationship.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Disturbing commercials
1) the one where the teenage girl is introducing her boyfriend to her parents, starts chewing on a piece of Dentyne Fire and starts macking on her bf with abandon. The kicker is the mom reaches for the gum at the end of the commercial.
Eewwweee.
2) There's a diamond commercial out that uses a crappy remake of "99 Red Balloons." Apparently it is unaware that the song is about nuclear holocaust due to false information — namely, 99 red balloons floating by looks like a bunch of MiGs or something. You know, "this is what we've waited for, this is it boys, this is war, the president is on the line, 99 red balloons go by," and "The war machine springs to life, opens up one eager eye" and, of course, "everyone's a superhero, everyone's a CAPTAIN KIRK." What with the connection between diamonds and terrorism and South African diamond merchants and the entirely bizarre diamond economy (I mean, how often do you find Orthodox Jews and Islamic terrorists dealing in the same business?) they might want to choose a perkier song. Like, "Let the bodies hit the floor."
3) Not a commercial, but an observation of marketing skills. There's a local biz that does the whole H&R Block thing — the same kind of "rapid refund" ripoff loan and stuff — that's all over the region. They hire people to stand out on the street dressed as Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty to encourage us to get our taxes done there. Except they hire people that are scary! I saw one doing the special meth dance and talking to passing cars. Possibly he was talking about the services, but I didn't want to make eye contact at that particular stoplight. Or any of them. They often are wearing earphones; I can't blame them, but I would think Uncle Sam would take the whole rendering-unto-Caesar thing more seriously. Also, they tend to choose ugly, ratty-looking drunk chicks to play the statue of Liberty. They're always staggering around, going "Wooo!" and bending over while they yell. While they're dressed as Lady Liberty. She's sposed to provide relief to the dirty, poor and huddling masses, not be one of them.
Eewwweee.
2) There's a diamond commercial out that uses a crappy remake of "99 Red Balloons." Apparently it is unaware that the song is about nuclear holocaust due to false information — namely, 99 red balloons floating by looks like a bunch of MiGs or something. You know, "this is what we've waited for, this is it boys, this is war, the president is on the line, 99 red balloons go by," and "The war machine springs to life, opens up one eager eye" and, of course, "everyone's a superhero, everyone's a CAPTAIN KIRK." What with the connection between diamonds and terrorism and South African diamond merchants and the entirely bizarre diamond economy (I mean, how often do you find Orthodox Jews and Islamic terrorists dealing in the same business?) they might want to choose a perkier song. Like, "Let the bodies hit the floor."
3) Not a commercial, but an observation of marketing skills. There's a local biz that does the whole H&R Block thing — the same kind of "rapid refund" ripoff loan and stuff — that's all over the region. They hire people to stand out on the street dressed as Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty to encourage us to get our taxes done there. Except they hire people that are scary! I saw one doing the special meth dance and talking to passing cars. Possibly he was talking about the services, but I didn't want to make eye contact at that particular stoplight. Or any of them. They often are wearing earphones; I can't blame them, but I would think Uncle Sam would take the whole rendering-unto-Caesar thing more seriously. Also, they tend to choose ugly, ratty-looking drunk chicks to play the statue of Liberty. They're always staggering around, going "Wooo!" and bending over while they yell. While they're dressed as Lady Liberty. She's sposed to provide relief to the dirty, poor and huddling masses, not be one of them.
Fitness Challenge Day 5
Mark had to do class all by his lonesome today, with an assist from Chris. My legs feel like cast iron from all the running and plyometrics and my back is seizing a little in the shoulders from the weightlifting.
I think I was planning to do some laundry tonight. Oh well!
Does it count as breaking my goal of not eating out for lunch if I had a coupon for a free sandwich so long as I bought only the chips and iced tea? It was less than $3 ...
I think I was planning to do some laundry tonight. Oh well!
Does it count as breaking my goal of not eating out for lunch if I had a coupon for a free sandwich so long as I bought only the chips and iced tea? It was less than $3 ...
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
You know whose freedom I hate?
That of rich people with cars that take up more than a lane's width that drive too slow.
That's who. Dangit, I'm late for "Lost!" Get out of my way! Some of us can't afford Tivo! I hate your freedom to be a slow-driving paranoid ninny.
If you are a man of a certain size, and your skin has lost a certain amount of elasticity, you might want to rethink your mock turtleneck. Any clingy knits, really. I hate your freedom to impose your saggy man-tas on me.
People who lean in too close with coffee breath. I hate your freedom to be ignorant to your need for a mint.
I discovered for about the 80th time today that I'm smarter than most of the people out there. I think it was more of a paradigm shift; before I thought they were just bound and determined to waste my time and pound their ideology. Now I honestly think they walk around in a perpetual fog, incapable of understanding that if A=B and B=C then A=C, incapable of making intuitive leaps of the most insignificant kind.
That's who. Dangit, I'm late for "Lost!" Get out of my way! Some of us can't afford Tivo! I hate your freedom to be a slow-driving paranoid ninny.
If you are a man of a certain size, and your skin has lost a certain amount of elasticity, you might want to rethink your mock turtleneck. Any clingy knits, really. I hate your freedom to impose your saggy man-tas on me.
People who lean in too close with coffee breath. I hate your freedom to be ignorant to your need for a mint.
I discovered for about the 80th time today that I'm smarter than most of the people out there. I think it was more of a paradigm shift; before I thought they were just bound and determined to waste my time and pound their ideology. Now I honestly think they walk around in a perpetual fog, incapable of understanding that if A=B and B=C then A=C, incapable of making intuitive leaps of the most insignificant kind.
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