Momma wake up!
Dammit ...
Wuv.
03 August 2007
Early Morning Routine
So Dave leaves for work at about 6 am, which is an hour before I even get up. This generally wakes Inty up, so she yells her little head off and that usually wakes me (sort of. She tries her best.) Apparently one morning he documented the process via cell phone camera and sent me this awesome series of pxts. Captions are his, too.
Momma wake up!
Dammit ...
Wuv.
Momma wake up!
Dammit ...
Wuv.
02 August 2007
Thursday Cat Update
because ... why not, really, fulfill all of the naval-gazing female blogger stereotypes?
Here is my formerly wee black baby; she's still black and she's still my baby, but she doesn't seem to be quite so wee any more ... must be the good food and happy environment; also the indoors-only regime is less active (but safer). She also seems to be a hell of a lot shoutier than I recall, too.
Yeah, she's sleeping right on the mattress pad. She likes to get right up there as soon as I've stripped the sheets so she can hair it up good-style.
Here's Zoe wearing a bow from one of Dave's birthday presents;
you can see she's been playing with the wrapping and is alert and ready for more crumpled! paper! to play with.
Yes, I am immoral for dressing up my cat. She looks so debonair, don't you think?
And, since they don't get along and rarely occupy the same piece of furniture at the same time, here's at picture of both of them, together, about as close as they'll ever get to one another, and it's only because they're both sacked out from the heat.
Yep, that's an old gallon milk container with a scrub brush in it, because Dave was cleaning the floor. See how it gleams?
And in conclusion ... yes, I spend my weekends taking pictures of my cats and cleaning the house. Then I document it here, in the most boring and stereotypical blog entry ever.
Here is my formerly wee black baby; she's still black and she's still my baby, but she doesn't seem to be quite so wee any more ... must be the good food and happy environment; also the indoors-only regime is less active (but safer). She also seems to be a hell of a lot shoutier than I recall, too.
Yeah, she's sleeping right on the mattress pad. She likes to get right up there as soon as I've stripped the sheets so she can hair it up good-style.
Here's Zoe wearing a bow from one of Dave's birthday presents;
you can see she's been playing with the wrapping and is alert and ready for more crumpled! paper! to play with.
Yes, I am immoral for dressing up my cat. She looks so debonair, don't you think?
And, since they don't get along and rarely occupy the same piece of furniture at the same time, here's at picture of both of them, together, about as close as they'll ever get to one another, and it's only because they're both sacked out from the heat.
Yep, that's an old gallon milk container with a scrub brush in it, because Dave was cleaning the floor. See how it gleams?
And in conclusion ... yes, I spend my weekends taking pictures of my cats and cleaning the house. Then I document it here, in the most boring and stereotypical blog entry ever.
23 July 2007
Harry Potter and the Craziness
So, just got Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - which I accidentally had delivered to the office on Saturday. Doh.
But actually it worked out fine; this way I got to have a leisurely re-read of books 5 and 6 over the weekend.
I don't have any elaborate theories worked out, but here are my best guesses for some of the revelations in store with Book 7:
1. Snape will be revealed to be a super duper double bubble agent and will be working for the Good Side. Dumbledore's pleading in Book 6 was for death - kind of a cop suicide thing.
2. None of the big three - Harry, Ron or Hermione - will die. Therefore, Voldemort will die. Although I'd expect her to leave some kind of back door open for other books set in that world.
3. Ron and Hermione will get together by the end of book 7, and Ginny and Harry are already together - well, I suppose they broke up for barfy noble reasons at the end of 6 but that won't last long, given Ginny's increasing prominence in 5 and 6. I'm not saying there won't be fights, but by the end of the book it'll be happy families.
4. The person or persons who are cannon fodder will be marked as such by 100 (or so) pages in - either a previously little-known character who gets sudden new prominence (Cedric), or a more familiar character who starts acting completely out of character (Sirius, Dumbledore
5. There's a throwaway line in Book 5 from Dumbledore about his brother, which made me wonder if Dumbeldore's brother will be making an appearance in book 7 (perhaps the RAB of the horcrux? But no - presumably Dumbledore's brother is also a Dumbledore.
6. She will have needed an editor just as badly as she did in books 4, 5 and 6, and won't have gotten one. I'm interested to see which of the red herrings are going to be red herrings (SPEW) and which will be important (the locket).
20 July 2007
TimeWaster Friday
Advertising silliness:
Hilarious parody of the iPhone on a napkin. Hehehehe. Also, pretty graphics.
(via adrants)
more satirical goodness for you: puppet agency, an ad agency. I don't know if this is funny to me because I'm in marketing or because all account coordinators (and I've been one) are kind of douches. Or because the camera work on the puppets is just fucking genius. I'm going with the camera work.
(again, via adrants.)
a complete gallery of simpsons movie promo stuff. Cuh-razy. My favorite (even more than the Haarper's Bazaar spread) is the make-your-own simpsons avatar.
Here's mine:
(I had to use Otto's hair because his is the only one that's long and curly. I don't wear headphones as often as Otto does, though.)
You can also upload a photo and they'll do it for you, and you can then adjust. Here's mine:
(I liked the doctor's outfit best, okay?)
Caveat: the flash-heavy Simpsons sites are SLOW. But this is a timewaster post for Friday, so I suppose it doesn't matter.
Pet Moustache is sponsored by Burger King but doesn't make me want a Whopper (or a mustache) in the slightest. It is fun, though. My results:
(I was drunk and riding on a carousel for this picture. Does it show?)
Games (some of which include silly advertising ideas)
Awesome Blossom from CandyStand.
Ostensibly selling Lifesavers (same idea as the Burger King pet moustache thing) doesn't make me want a lifesaver but is mesmerizing and soothing. Remember Dr. Mario on the gameboy? It's like that. (The whole candystand idea is seems inane to me and unlikely to work, but what do I know?) I wish you could turn the sound off, that's my only caveat.
More logic puzzle games:
Blocky - oddly addictive although I can't make it past green.
Circlo My boss walked by while I was playing this and wanted me to send him the URL. heh.
Bloxorz. I am not very good at this - rotating objects in space is not my specialty.
They're all good games for work, since a game lasts 5 - 15 minutes, which is a perfect break.
Dirt Nap Merch
I also found this site for death-themed stuff you can buy. Oh man! skull cupcake molds, ribcage tshirts, guadalupe de los muertos ... bring it on, motherfucker! via popgadget.
Hilarious parody of the iPhone on a napkin. Hehehehe. Also, pretty graphics.
(via adrants)
more satirical goodness for you: puppet agency, an ad agency. I don't know if this is funny to me because I'm in marketing or because all account coordinators (and I've been one) are kind of douches. Or because the camera work on the puppets is just fucking genius. I'm going with the camera work.
(again, via adrants.)
a complete gallery of simpsons movie promo stuff. Cuh-razy. My favorite (even more than the Haarper's Bazaar spread) is the make-your-own simpsons avatar.
Here's mine:
(I had to use Otto's hair because his is the only one that's long and curly. I don't wear headphones as often as Otto does, though.)
You can also upload a photo and they'll do it for you, and you can then adjust. Here's mine:
(I liked the doctor's outfit best, okay?)
Caveat: the flash-heavy Simpsons sites are SLOW. But this is a timewaster post for Friday, so I suppose it doesn't matter.
Pet Moustache is sponsored by Burger King but doesn't make me want a Whopper (or a mustache) in the slightest. It is fun, though. My results:
(I was drunk and riding on a carousel for this picture. Does it show?)
Games (some of which include silly advertising ideas)
Awesome Blossom from CandyStand.
Ostensibly selling Lifesavers (same idea as the Burger King pet moustache thing) doesn't make me want a lifesaver but is mesmerizing and soothing. Remember Dr. Mario on the gameboy? It's like that. (The whole candystand idea is seems inane to me and unlikely to work, but what do I know?) I wish you could turn the sound off, that's my only caveat.
More logic puzzle games:
Blocky - oddly addictive although I can't make it past green.
Circlo My boss walked by while I was playing this and wanted me to send him the URL. heh.
Bloxorz. I am not very good at this - rotating objects in space is not my specialty.
They're all good games for work, since a game lasts 5 - 15 minutes, which is a perfect break.
Dirt Nap Merch
I also found this site for death-themed stuff you can buy. Oh man! skull cupcake molds, ribcage tshirts, guadalupe de los muertos ... bring it on, motherfucker! via popgadget.
13 July 2007
Magically Delicious
So last night I was on my tod and was therefore free to make pasta (or anything else) for dinner without fear of complaint or criticism. (Although there wasn’t much else besides pasta in the house.)
By Thursday in our house, the perishables are sometimes getting a little low, and the few survivors are usually getting soft and starting to develop age spots. It was kind of hot and I’d walked the few miles home from work (Dave had the car) and I was tired and would have liked something crisp and fresh-tasting, preferably not made by me, but sometimes you need to suck it up and go with your available resources, which in my case was pasta and some kind of improvised sauce. (Plus yesterday was the end of a pay cycle, so there would be no takeout for me. Tonight, though, is another matter.)
Anyway. The pasta sauce? Turned out kind of amazing. (Maybe the amazingness was mostly because it was based on what I had around.) I had a teeny weeny onion and a can of petite cut diced tomatoes and garlic, which is usually a good starting point for a tomato-based pasta sauce. I also had a wrinkly bell pepper, some jalapenos, a nectarine, some heavy cream from about a month ago, a happy basil plant and butter. Oh, and some red wine. Heh.
While waiting for the water to boil, I chopped all of the above ingredients and sautéed them in their proper order (which really depends on what results you are looking for.) I wanted the onions and garlic to meld seamlessly into the sauce rather than striking individual notes of their own, I thought the sweetness of the bell pepper would complement the nectarine – not really a traditional ingredient – so I put the pepper in early on. And a good glug of wine followed the peppers. (In a different kind of sauce, with fresh tomatoes and firm, crisp peppers, I would probably have added the pepper close to the end, so it retained its crunch, and barely cooked the tomatoes at all, just let the heat of the cooked pasta warm them through. Or I might have cooked the garlic at a slightly higher heat, so it turned medium-brown and nutty-tasting.)
With the onions, garlic and pepper all taken care off, I added the other stuff: the jalapeno, the nectarine (I didn’t bother to skin it), and the canned chopped tomatoes. Then I put the pasta in and let that cook while the sauce reduced a bit. Once the pasta was done (I should have stopped it just before doneness so it could continue cooking and absorb some sauce, but I was drinking the red wine as well as cooking it, so I didn’t think of it and just cooked the pasta to al dente).
Anyway, when the pasta was done I drained it, turned the heat off the sauce, and added some heavy cream and a good handful of chiffoned basil o the sauce and stirred that up.
Mixed everything together in the pot the pasta had cooked in and oh my goodness. Sometimes musicians talk about sound being “fat”, having extra depth and oomph and complexity. The nectarine added sweetness and fragrance to the sauce without really being noticeably present on its own, or being cloyingly sweet, a little like the way adding some good aged balsamic vinegar to your tomato sauce works. The cream smoothed everything out, the jalapeno provided welcome bite and the basil was like a counterpoint melody, harmonizing with the rest but definitely going off and doing its own thing. The other best part? 40 minutes from start to plate, not that you'd know it from my excessive verbiage.
I’d planned to make enough for me, enough for Dave when he got in PLUS leftovers for our lunches today, but I was greedy and there ended up only being enough for a gluttonous solo dinner and lunches. (My jeans are a little tight, today.)
I will definitely be playing around with fruit in pasta sauces more in future. Seeing as I make pasta with some variant of tomato sauce all the time, it’s nice to have found another dimension to play around in. Quantities and suggestions below.
1 lb pasta (I used ziti with lines; anything not too small would do.)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 can (12 z) tomatoes
1 small onion (although you could use more), diced
2 fat cloves garlic, minced
½ c. heavy cream (doesn’t have to be heavy, or even present.)
½ c. red wine (I think … maybe ¾ c.)
1 jalapeno (adjust this according to your preference for heat and the hotness of your peppers. You could use ½ tsp. of flakes, too.)
1 tbl. butter (olive oil would be fine)
1 small overripe nectarine (you could use peach or apricot, too. Maybe even pitted cherries.)
1 large handful of basil, sliced fine.
1 sweet bell pepper, chopped
No photos because this is not a very special-looking dish.
By Thursday in our house, the perishables are sometimes getting a little low, and the few survivors are usually getting soft and starting to develop age spots. It was kind of hot and I’d walked the few miles home from work (Dave had the car) and I was tired and would have liked something crisp and fresh-tasting, preferably not made by me, but sometimes you need to suck it up and go with your available resources, which in my case was pasta and some kind of improvised sauce. (Plus yesterday was the end of a pay cycle, so there would be no takeout for me. Tonight, though, is another matter.)
Anyway. The pasta sauce? Turned out kind of amazing. (Maybe the amazingness was mostly because it was based on what I had around.) I had a teeny weeny onion and a can of petite cut diced tomatoes and garlic, which is usually a good starting point for a tomato-based pasta sauce. I also had a wrinkly bell pepper, some jalapenos, a nectarine, some heavy cream from about a month ago, a happy basil plant and butter. Oh, and some red wine. Heh.
While waiting for the water to boil, I chopped all of the above ingredients and sautéed them in their proper order (which really depends on what results you are looking for.) I wanted the onions and garlic to meld seamlessly into the sauce rather than striking individual notes of their own, I thought the sweetness of the bell pepper would complement the nectarine – not really a traditional ingredient – so I put the pepper in early on. And a good glug of wine followed the peppers. (In a different kind of sauce, with fresh tomatoes and firm, crisp peppers, I would probably have added the pepper close to the end, so it retained its crunch, and barely cooked the tomatoes at all, just let the heat of the cooked pasta warm them through. Or I might have cooked the garlic at a slightly higher heat, so it turned medium-brown and nutty-tasting.)
With the onions, garlic and pepper all taken care off, I added the other stuff: the jalapeno, the nectarine (I didn’t bother to skin it), and the canned chopped tomatoes. Then I put the pasta in and let that cook while the sauce reduced a bit. Once the pasta was done (I should have stopped it just before doneness so it could continue cooking and absorb some sauce, but I was drinking the red wine as well as cooking it, so I didn’t think of it and just cooked the pasta to al dente).
Anyway, when the pasta was done I drained it, turned the heat off the sauce, and added some heavy cream and a good handful of chiffoned basil o the sauce and stirred that up.
Mixed everything together in the pot the pasta had cooked in and oh my goodness. Sometimes musicians talk about sound being “fat”, having extra depth and oomph and complexity. The nectarine added sweetness and fragrance to the sauce without really being noticeably present on its own, or being cloyingly sweet, a little like the way adding some good aged balsamic vinegar to your tomato sauce works. The cream smoothed everything out, the jalapeno provided welcome bite and the basil was like a counterpoint melody, harmonizing with the rest but definitely going off and doing its own thing. The other best part? 40 minutes from start to plate, not that you'd know it from my excessive verbiage.
I’d planned to make enough for me, enough for Dave when he got in PLUS leftovers for our lunches today, but I was greedy and there ended up only being enough for a gluttonous solo dinner and lunches. (My jeans are a little tight, today.)
I will definitely be playing around with fruit in pasta sauces more in future. Seeing as I make pasta with some variant of tomato sauce all the time, it’s nice to have found another dimension to play around in. Quantities and suggestions below.
1 lb pasta (I used ziti with lines; anything not too small would do.)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 can (12 z) tomatoes
1 small onion (although you could use more), diced
2 fat cloves garlic, minced
½ c. heavy cream (doesn’t have to be heavy, or even present.)
½ c. red wine (I think … maybe ¾ c.)
1 jalapeno (adjust this according to your preference for heat and the hotness of your peppers. You could use ½ tsp. of flakes, too.)
1 tbl. butter (olive oil would be fine)
1 small overripe nectarine (you could use peach or apricot, too. Maybe even pitted cherries.)
1 large handful of basil, sliced fine.
1 sweet bell pepper, chopped
No photos because this is not a very special-looking dish.
07 July 2007
04 July 2007
July, July!
Today I celebrate independence by not wearing a bra all day. Let freedom ring!
(or reign, as bushlet would say.)
I also plan celebrating independence by liberating myself from such things as showers, deodorant and toothpaste for much of the day. I'll probably take pity on Dave and make some ablutions before he gets home from work. Hopefully. Maybe we should cross our fingers on that one. I am totally taking pity on you guys by not posting pictures. Trust me, you don't want to see this.
It is gorgeous out - low eighties, dry and sunny. Perfect for spending much of the day alternating between getting-things-done-around-the-house and long stretches of reading time on the back porch in the new-to-us papasan chair with a cat.
I'm re-reading Robertson Davies's Deptford Trilogy. Some years ago I wrote a dissertation on him, and as a result earned the right to call myself a Master of English Literature. (Not that you'd know it from reading this; typos and sloppy writing abound! Since it's the 4th of July, let's just call that tendency my declaration of independence from grammatical rules, and not just bone-laziness.)
Anyway. Davies is an author whom every time I come to him again it's like I'm a new me, reading a new book. I'm still not very thrilled about my Master's thesis - mostly because it didn't do Davies's writing justice, also it was boring and added nothing to the scholarship in the field of Davis or Canadian identity or even identity politics in general. But re-reading The Deptford Trilogy (it's my marked-up copy that I worked with on the thesis) reminds me of what I was trying to do and say and why his work inspired me, and that's not a bad thing. I spent a year of my life with this man, and it's nice to know I wasn't wasting my time. It's charming and witty and clever and I am marveling anew at the creation of voice for the narrator's opinions. All his narrators sound a little similar but it's such a nice voice to listen to, dammit! Plus there's all that heady love for learning and cerebrality, I'm totally swooning.
(or reign, as bushlet would say.)
I also plan celebrating independence by liberating myself from such things as showers, deodorant and toothpaste for much of the day. I'll probably take pity on Dave and make some ablutions before he gets home from work. Hopefully. Maybe we should cross our fingers on that one. I am totally taking pity on you guys by not posting pictures. Trust me, you don't want to see this.
It is gorgeous out - low eighties, dry and sunny. Perfect for spending much of the day alternating between getting-things-done-around-the-house and long stretches of reading time on the back porch in the new-to-us papasan chair with a cat.
I'm re-reading Robertson Davies's Deptford Trilogy. Some years ago I wrote a dissertation on him, and as a result earned the right to call myself a Master of English Literature. (Not that you'd know it from reading this; typos and sloppy writing abound! Since it's the 4th of July, let's just call that tendency my declaration of independence from grammatical rules, and not just bone-laziness.)
Anyway. Davies is an author whom every time I come to him again it's like I'm a new me, reading a new book. I'm still not very thrilled about my Master's thesis - mostly because it didn't do Davies's writing justice, also it was boring and added nothing to the scholarship in the field of Davis or Canadian identity or even identity politics in general. But re-reading The Deptford Trilogy (it's my marked-up copy that I worked with on the thesis) reminds me of what I was trying to do and say and why his work inspired me, and that's not a bad thing. I spent a year of my life with this man, and it's nice to know I wasn't wasting my time. It's charming and witty and clever and I am marveling anew at the creation of voice for the narrator's opinions. All his narrators sound a little similar but it's such a nice voice to listen to, dammit! Plus there's all that heady love for learning and cerebrality, I'm totally swooning.
28 June 2007
I guess I'll have to try harder next time
Mingle2 - Online Dating
This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
fucking (10x) knife (2x) zombie (1x)
Zombie, heheheheheh.
Maybe if I work on it I can get up to X! That'd be sweet! Fucking sweet!
27 June 2007
Internet round-up! some fun, some depressing
Fun stuff:
Animals cans teach us how to stay cool! okay, this article is fairly simplistic (take naps in the heat of the day ... wear protective clothing ... don't drink alcohol to quench your thirst ...) but whatever, I clicked anyway bnecause my second-floor apartment has apparently relocated itself to the eleventh circle of hell (I know Dante didn't know about that one. It's for enterprising sinners like me.) Whatever, even the cats are all panting on the couch and have lost their cat cool (probably all that fur.) Via Digg.
MizPee. Find the nearest clean toilet when you're out and about in an unfamiliar place - as long as you've got your cell phone, you're all set. No more crouching between parked cars while your friends gigglingly "stand guard". It works with text messages and phone with online browsing capabilities (so, anyone with an iPhone, then ...) via TechCrunch.
Seven brilliant free fonts from Smashing magazine. Check out their back articles, they are chocka with useful stuff and loads of free fonts.
some distressed free fonts. (Via HowAboutOrange, I think.) Man, do I wish I had photoshop so I could use all this stuff. I'd so love to design our wedding invitations using a distressed free font and maybe some of these free brushes ... I'm particularly fond of the misprinted type grunge brushes and the bloodspot brushes from angryblue. (Possibly not the bloodied fingerprints one on the wedding invitation ... unless I can incorporate it as some sort of (tasteful) nod to Sid Vicious.)
Since I don't have photoshop (can't afford, le sigh, also don't need in the course of day job wherein I massage the internets so that they yield money for my company) I use The GIMP (nope, not like the Pulp Fiction one at all, it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and it's a free open-source alterbative to Photoshop. I just wish for photoshop since it's a lot more intuitive than GIMP.) Althuogh I did manage to use GIMP to make the lolZoe below:
And here are some free flower brushes for GIMP. Or, if you're really tech-y (or have more time on your hands than I) here's a tutorial on how to convert Photoshop Brushes to GIMP. (I haven't tried it yet, so I can't vouch for it.)
In case your odd photo quota hasn't been met yet for this month, quick! go to the china daily and see images like this goat walking a tightrope while carrying a monkey on its back. Who knew?
Depressing stuff:
Only one topic here, but it's not good news. Anyone miss the coverage of Jessie Davis, the pregnant lady (by a married! black! man) who was murdered by her partner? If you missed that, surely you haven't forgotten Lacey Peterson? Turns out, as a matter of fact, that being pregnant is really really really likely to increase a pregnant woman's risk of death by violence. (Homicide, in fact.) In fact, if you're pregnant, you're statistically more likely to be murdered than to die of any pregnancy-related health issue. Why's that? Intimate partner violence. Being pregnant increases the likelihood and severity of abuse dramatically. Read this Salon article, Murder Most Foul, for some eye-opening (and horrifying) facts.
From the article:
"Why are pregnant women dying?" asks Rebecca Whiteman of the Family Violence Protection Fund in San Francisco. "Their partners are killing them."
Go read it.
Of course there are other issues at play - because it's her fault, right? For being a slut? Check out Jill's analysis (at Feministe) of the thinking behind some people who are indeed implying that she deserved it. And I'd also recommend Amanda Marcotte's take on some of the racial issues playing into the media coverage (from Pandagon)
Animals cans teach us how to stay cool! okay, this article is fairly simplistic (take naps in the heat of the day ... wear protective clothing ... don't drink alcohol to quench your thirst ...) but whatever, I clicked anyway bnecause my second-floor apartment has apparently relocated itself to the eleventh circle of hell (I know Dante didn't know about that one. It's for enterprising sinners like me.) Whatever, even the cats are all panting on the couch and have lost their cat cool (probably all that fur.) Via Digg.
MizPee. Find the nearest clean toilet when you're out and about in an unfamiliar place - as long as you've got your cell phone, you're all set. No more crouching between parked cars while your friends gigglingly "stand guard". It works with text messages and phone with online browsing capabilities (so, anyone with an iPhone, then ...) via TechCrunch.
Seven brilliant free fonts from Smashing magazine. Check out their back articles, they are chocka with useful stuff and loads of free fonts.
some distressed free fonts. (Via HowAboutOrange, I think.) Man, do I wish I had photoshop so I could use all this stuff. I'd so love to design our wedding invitations using a distressed free font and maybe some of these free brushes ... I'm particularly fond of the misprinted type grunge brushes and the bloodspot brushes from angryblue. (Possibly not the bloodied fingerprints one on the wedding invitation ... unless I can incorporate it as some sort of (tasteful) nod to Sid Vicious.)
Since I don't have photoshop (can't afford, le sigh, also don't need in the course of day job wherein I massage the internets so that they yield money for my company) I use The GIMP (nope, not like the Pulp Fiction one at all, it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and it's a free open-source alterbative to Photoshop. I just wish for photoshop since it's a lot more intuitive than GIMP.) Althuogh I did manage to use GIMP to make the lolZoe below:
And here are some free flower brushes for GIMP. Or, if you're really tech-y (or have more time on your hands than I) here's a tutorial on how to convert Photoshop Brushes to GIMP. (I haven't tried it yet, so I can't vouch for it.)
In case your odd photo quota hasn't been met yet for this month, quick! go to the china daily and see images like this goat walking a tightrope while carrying a monkey on its back. Who knew?
Depressing stuff:
Only one topic here, but it's not good news. Anyone miss the coverage of Jessie Davis, the pregnant lady (by a married! black! man) who was murdered by her partner? If you missed that, surely you haven't forgotten Lacey Peterson? Turns out, as a matter of fact, that being pregnant is really really really likely to increase a pregnant woman's risk of death by violence. (Homicide, in fact.) In fact, if you're pregnant, you're statistically more likely to be murdered than to die of any pregnancy-related health issue. Why's that? Intimate partner violence. Being pregnant increases the likelihood and severity of abuse dramatically. Read this Salon article, Murder Most Foul, for some eye-opening (and horrifying) facts.
From the article:
"Why are pregnant women dying?" asks Rebecca Whiteman of the Family Violence Protection Fund in San Francisco. "Their partners are killing them."
Go read it.
Of course there are other issues at play - because it's her fault, right? For being a slut? Check out Jill's analysis (at Feministe) of the thinking behind some people who are indeed implying that she deserved it. And I'd also recommend Amanda Marcotte's take on some of the racial issues playing into the media coverage (from Pandagon)
20 June 2007
At last
New tattoo isn't healed yet, but I got it finished last night. The shading around the waves will be more silvery grey, rather than the almost black it looks like now. I'll put up more pictures later (and maybe get Dave to help, since I apparently can't hold the camera steady) in a proper blog. In the meantime, I've been playing with other photo effects using picnik and snipshot as photo editing tools, in a vain attempt to make silk purses. I should really learn to sew (shoot) before I start attempting to tranform sows' ears into anything else, though.
Current, unsatisfactory camera is a Canon Powershot S230. Any recommendations?
I should note one thing, especially following up from my last post: I certainly didn't do anything to trim any width from my waist or change the shape of my nose, I just intensified colors and contrast and sharpened focus (where possible.) When I looked at the straight-out-of-the-camera pictures, anyway, I was all, what the hell am I worrying about, anyway? I think I look great. (Not perfect, although I won't enumerate here, but great.) Who gives a shit if I don't wear a size 0? I'd look horrible (I know because I did wear a size 2, anyway, and it was Not Flattering.)
Current, unsatisfactory camera is a Canon Powershot S230. Any recommendations?
I should note one thing, especially following up from my last post: I certainly didn't do anything to trim any width from my waist or change the shape of my nose, I just intensified colors and contrast and sharpened focus (where possible.) When I looked at the straight-out-of-the-camera pictures, anyway, I was all, what the hell am I worrying about, anyway? I think I look great. (Not perfect, although I won't enumerate here, but great.) Who gives a shit if I don't wear a size 0? I'd look horrible (I know because I did wear a size 2, anyway, and it was Not Flattering.)
19 June 2007
Vanity, Insecurity
I know we all know celebrity photos get retouched, a whole lot, before they appear in magazines. (yes, even rags like InStyle retouch, I believe.) However, it's one thing to know that and quite another to see the befores and afters. (And then a whole 'nother thing to try to disassociate your own body issues from the images constantly being beamed at you in the media ... but anyway.) This site should help. http://iwanexstudio.com/. Click on the portfolios section. The whole site is flash but it's worth the aggro.
I suggest you take a close look at the work done on skin (very often in the afters it's lit up until it glows! It's not just the removal of lines, although there's plenty of that. Reddish people get yellower, freckled people become milky, lips and eyes get shine added until they sparkle. Cate Blanchett's picture has all of these things happening.) Look, also, at the work done on bodies (skinny girls are given more curves, curvy girls are airbrushed down a couple of sizes - Kelly Clarkson's picture is a great example). Halle Berry is one of the few pictures who looks just as flawless before and after, although it looks to me like the "before" has been de-flawed. Do I even need to tell you that both Halle Berry and Beyonce get lighter in the after photos? Sigh.
Scary. And also, this is a good explanation for why Britney Spears looks just fine in regular magazine photos and really horrible when you see candids of her in The Enquirer (read in line at the grocery store only, of course.)
I suggest you take a close look at the work done on skin (very often in the afters it's lit up until it glows! It's not just the removal of lines, although there's plenty of that. Reddish people get yellower, freckled people become milky, lips and eyes get shine added until they sparkle. Cate Blanchett's picture has all of these things happening.) Look, also, at the work done on bodies (skinny girls are given more curves, curvy girls are airbrushed down a couple of sizes - Kelly Clarkson's picture is a great example). Halle Berry is one of the few pictures who looks just as flawless before and after, although it looks to me like the "before" has been de-flawed. Do I even need to tell you that both Halle Berry and Beyonce get lighter in the after photos? Sigh.
Scary. And also, this is a good explanation for why Britney Spears looks just fine in regular magazine photos and really horrible when you see candids of her in The Enquirer (read in line at the grocery store only, of course.)
11 June 2007
social justice round up
Unfair Lending: The Effect of Race and Ethnicity on the Price of Subprime Mortgages Fucking awesome. Irresponsible (to say the least) lenders are doing racial profiling. Can you say, redlining? hey, isn't that illegal? (Never mind that it still happens.)
'Subprime' Aftermath:
Losing the Family Home
Mortgages Bolstered
Detroit's Middle Class --
Until Money Ran Out What happens when, oh, say, something unexpected (like life) occurs to upset the payment schedule on a subprime loan.
Subprime Lending is a Drain on Home Ownership Damn straight it is.
Banks or bloodsuckers? If you read the other articles above, you know where this one is going to come out. I love my little local bank (mostly becuase they don't bankrupt me with overdraft fees) but it's a total rarity and probably won't last forever.
I'm mad about this because we are getting gentrified out - our landlady is selling our house for condo conversions. FUCK. I'm just hoping that she's way overpriced and the somerville market won't sustain it. There seem to be a lot of foreclosures in process right now in somerville (according to the Google maps applet, anyway). Jesus. It's ironical (hee), though, that while Dave and I are totally the face of gentrification - white kids with heavy-framed dark glasses - I even own an iPod - we're actually the victims (no, we're not contributing to the problem by paying rent over the odds. Ha fucking ha, like I've got the money to do that.) No, we don't buy coffee at starbucks. No, we try not to shop at big box stores, instead spending the vast majority of our money locally - apart from my car payments and insurance (which are held by a small previously-local-to-me-non-chain bank)- Yes, we'd really really really like to buy but c'mon, the median - not average, median - price for a house in our area is 400K. Yes, that's a condo. You're probably lucky if it's more than 1200 sq feet - price per sq foot is between $300 and $400. Right now median housing prices in Boston exceed the median household income by 5.4 times ... while the rule of thumb for affordable housing is more like 3 - 3.5 times the yearly household income. That is fucked up, people. And here's the original study, which looks at the whole nation.)
Some dude (okay, some dude named Edward Glaeser) has an idea: build more affordable housing!. Sounds good to me, although he says that regulatory issues in MA make building a tougher prospect than elsewhere - which, given the loathsome corruption of the Big Dig, I have no trouble believing (wanna build? better take out an extra loan for all those bribes you'll need to make), although I'd like to see some figures that tell me where and how regulation is stuffing things up. Still, it's a good idea. Because you know why I want to buy a house? because I'm ready to fucking settle down! I'd like to buy so I know my rent won't increase and my landlady won't decide the flip the place she inherited for a shitload of cash. I'd like to buy so I can decorate a house myself, and not have to leave in two years (unless we decide to). I'd like to buy so I can grow tomatoes in my backyard ... or at least make a big old container garden on a porch or something and, jesus, NOT HAVE TO MOVE AGAIN unless I want to. Hear that, people? I hate moving. I moved forty times (no, really) in my twenties (forty-one is looming, as soon as the landlady sells the place), and three of those moves were across continents. I'm good at moving and it doesn't scare me but I fucking hate it. I'd love to have the luxury of acquiring books and then, novelty, KEEPING them because no one will force me out of my house. (Can you tell I take this personally? I fucking well do.)
Okay, rant over, round-up continues.
Here's a great analysis from an online friend of mine The classic American Dream is about how anyone can become rich in the US through hard work and endurance, no matter how humble a background they come from...However, for each such tale, there are literately hundred of thousands of untold stories about those who didn't make it. Those that grew up in poverty, and stayed in poverty. Or those that sank into poverty either through bad decisions, or sheer ill luck.
Just for kicks - being mostly chronically late myself:
For the Chronically Late, It’s Not a Power Trip
(behind the wall now, it's still free but requires registration.) My first husband really was crazily, passive-aggressively late. I'm just a little too optimistic. I think I'm more in the overly optimistic wants-to-do-too-much category.
So some dude in Arizona hit a woman so hard he killed her fetus and, two days later, her (via brain damage.) How did his sentencing go down? "Gurrola was sentenced to 16 years in the death of Monica Sanchez and 20 years for the killing of her fetus." WTF? how come killing the fetus garnered more time than killing the woman? Check out punkassblog's pie chart for a sublimely sarcastic pie chart.
'Subprime' Aftermath:
Losing the Family Home
Mortgages Bolstered
Detroit's Middle Class --
Until Money Ran Out What happens when, oh, say, something unexpected (like life) occurs to upset the payment schedule on a subprime loan.
Subprime Lending is a Drain on Home Ownership Damn straight it is.
Banks or bloodsuckers? If you read the other articles above, you know where this one is going to come out. I love my little local bank (mostly becuase they don't bankrupt me with overdraft fees) but it's a total rarity and probably won't last forever.
I'm mad about this because we are getting gentrified out - our landlady is selling our house for condo conversions. FUCK. I'm just hoping that she's way overpriced and the somerville market won't sustain it. There seem to be a lot of foreclosures in process right now in somerville (according to the Google maps applet, anyway). Jesus. It's ironical (hee), though, that while Dave and I are totally the face of gentrification - white kids with heavy-framed dark glasses - I even own an iPod - we're actually the victims (no, we're not contributing to the problem by paying rent over the odds. Ha fucking ha, like I've got the money to do that.) No, we don't buy coffee at starbucks. No, we try not to shop at big box stores, instead spending the vast majority of our money locally - apart from my car payments and insurance (which are held by a small previously-local-to-me-non-chain bank)- Yes, we'd really really really like to buy but c'mon, the median - not average, median - price for a house in our area is 400K. Yes, that's a condo. You're probably lucky if it's more than 1200 sq feet - price per sq foot is between $300 and $400. Right now median housing prices in Boston exceed the median household income by 5.4 times ... while the rule of thumb for affordable housing is more like 3 - 3.5 times the yearly household income. That is fucked up, people. And here's the original study, which looks at the whole nation.)
Some dude (okay, some dude named Edward Glaeser) has an idea: build more affordable housing!. Sounds good to me, although he says that regulatory issues in MA make building a tougher prospect than elsewhere - which, given the loathsome corruption of the Big Dig, I have no trouble believing (wanna build? better take out an extra loan for all those bribes you'll need to make), although I'd like to see some figures that tell me where and how regulation is stuffing things up. Still, it's a good idea. Because you know why I want to buy a house? because I'm ready to fucking settle down! I'd like to buy so I know my rent won't increase and my landlady won't decide the flip the place she inherited for a shitload of cash. I'd like to buy so I can decorate a house myself, and not have to leave in two years (unless we decide to). I'd like to buy so I can grow tomatoes in my backyard ... or at least make a big old container garden on a porch or something and, jesus, NOT HAVE TO MOVE AGAIN unless I want to. Hear that, people? I hate moving. I moved forty times (no, really) in my twenties (forty-one is looming, as soon as the landlady sells the place), and three of those moves were across continents. I'm good at moving and it doesn't scare me but I fucking hate it. I'd love to have the luxury of acquiring books and then, novelty, KEEPING them because no one will force me out of my house. (Can you tell I take this personally? I fucking well do.)
Okay, rant over, round-up continues.
Here's a great analysis from an online friend of mine The classic American Dream is about how anyone can become rich in the US through hard work and endurance, no matter how humble a background they come from...However, for each such tale, there are literately hundred of thousands of untold stories about those who didn't make it. Those that grew up in poverty, and stayed in poverty. Or those that sank into poverty either through bad decisions, or sheer ill luck.
Just for kicks - being mostly chronically late myself:
For the Chronically Late, It’s Not a Power Trip
(behind the wall now, it's still free but requires registration.) My first husband really was crazily, passive-aggressively late. I'm just a little too optimistic. I think I'm more in the overly optimistic wants-to-do-too-much category.
So some dude in Arizona hit a woman so hard he killed her fetus and, two days later, her (via brain damage.) How did his sentencing go down? "Gurrola was sentenced to 16 years in the death of Monica Sanchez and 20 years for the killing of her fetus." WTF? how come killing the fetus garnered more time than killing the woman? Check out punkassblog's pie chart for a sublimely sarcastic pie chart.
04 June 2007
Greg and Erica's wedding
Me, Dave, a lobster
Not too drunk yet at the time of picture taking but you can see I'm on my way. Click here for all the pictures. Hopefully I caught all the most embarassing ones and didn't share them in that stream.
I fucking HATE my camera. I need to research a new one. Dave suggested I get a new one to celebrate his birthday - his gift would be me shutting up about how crappy the camera is.
02 June 2007
OMFG, I hate summer hair
And this is why:
last night's hair, very dirty and after much exercise including walking in the rain. Often the worse I treat it, the better it looks. (Although FAR FAR too much like Sarah Jessica Parker in the eighties. Any amount is too much, really.)
Yeah, this is what I wake up to every morning. Fucking charming, right? It's the true reason I refuse to go camping - let me tell you, it doesn't improve as the day wears on without electronic intervention. Vain and shallow I may be, but I'm realistic.
Fucking stupid fine curly hair flat at the roots gets frizzy bullshit. Fucking stupid boston summers humidity. Motherfucker!
last night's hair, very dirty and after much exercise including walking in the rain. Often the worse I treat it, the better it looks. (Although FAR FAR too much like Sarah Jessica Parker in the eighties. Any amount is too much, really.)
Yeah, this is what I wake up to every morning. Fucking charming, right? It's the true reason I refuse to go camping - let me tell you, it doesn't improve as the day wears on without electronic intervention. Vain and shallow I may be, but I'm realistic.
Fucking stupid fine curly hair flat at the roots gets frizzy bullshit. Fucking stupid boston summers humidity. Motherfucker!
01 June 2007
Turns out I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, or, a Friday time-waster for you
According to Lumosity, anyway. It's another of those brain training games which claims to be able to "improve your memory, attention [ed: do they mean attention span?] and processing speed." This involves playing games with which involve spacial memory (yes, like the child's matching game, Memory) and basic arithmetic.
Obviously I could be accused of sour grapes here since I seem to be in the sub-normal range. Hehehehehe, they don't seem to give any credit for smart aleckery or uneccesary new word formations. But - I don't know about you, but when someone asks me what 7 x 8 is, I will tell them it's 56 not because I've done the multiplication in my head but because I memorized it in third grade. I'd guess my score would be better if I tried to play the game a second time because this time I understand how it works (I probably should have read the instructions on the games) and also, it's easy to figure out ways to manipulate the system.
What it actually made me think about is how limited our standard ways to judge IQ are. Seriously. I've had a very thorough IQ evaluation (they wouldn't tell me my number, they just said, "You're very talented, don't worry about the number" Condescending fuckheads!) ... anyway, IQ tests are horribly limited in not having any way to assess the creative (don't give me your Rorschach tests - just because I saw identical twin circus monkeys in most of the blots doesn't mean I'm creative). Ya know, plus I think snappy wordplay is a totally valid skill (not to mention, really helpful with real life stuff like job interviews and email crafting and ass-covering exercises) and indicative of smartness, but there's nada in the standard IQ tests to look at that stuff. (Well, there wasn't - that I remember - in the ones I took. I did a lot of verbal and math stuff - it was like the SATs, but longer and more boring.) Why does it matter if you can do instant multiplication in your head but you can't maintain a relationship? It all seems so limiting.
To be fair, Lumosity doesn't claim to be an IQ evaluator, and to be honest, my short term memory is for shit, so I might actually benefit from playing the game some more. (Noooo, I'm not skivving. I'm smartening myself so I can work better!)
At bottom, though, are you really going to learn skills which are applicable to myriad aras of your life, or are you just going to learn how to play Lumosity better? I guess it would be great if I could remember a grocery list longer than 12 items (I used to be able to), but where's the real world application in this, since in the real world I tend to write lists? Because, you know, I have pens and paper. Tools. Isn't the extensive use of tools what is supposed to make humans so much smarter than animals anyway? Unless my job required memorizing a lot of things. In my experience, though, organized detail oriented people (like me ... I'm a fucking data analyst, for dog's sake) don't do it all from memory ... why would you, anyway? Not having to remember everything frees me up to do important things ... like blogging! No, seriously, like looking for patterns and discrepancies and results and changes and detectivating (o I am on a roll today) what might have caused changes.
That said, I might be completely wrong about the applicability of this little game (maybe it prevents alzheimer's! I swear I'd play for an hour a day. Anything to avoid becoming the drooling zombie that my grandmother (life-long crossword puzzler and wheel-of-fortune watcher) turned into in the last ten years of her life.) and am open to being corrected on this.
30 May 2007
ooookay, I'm a leetle embarrassed
Just today I realised that I've had comments sitting on my blog for, oh, a while now. Which I never read. Because I hadn't enabled new comments to pop up or get emailed to me or anything like that. Doh! I'm so high tech, huh?
Never mind, I'm human too. And humbled now. Sooooo, sorry 'bout that and I promise to actually read and reply to comments in future.
I will leave you with the knocked up babymaker. I made one of Inty and Zoe (spayed females who hate one another, but I didn't let that stop me.) also, FYI, this little tool is for some dumb movie with Kate Hudson, I think, but I skipped all that stuff and went straight for the throat.
Here's Inty:
(black cats are hard to take pictures of, okay?)
here's Zoe:
You thumbs fucking suck and I hope you die soon so I can eat your face
and here is their terrifying putative impossible offspring:
I think I just hurt myself laughing.
Never mind, I'm human too. And humbled now. Sooooo, sorry 'bout that and I promise to actually read and reply to comments in future.
I will leave you with the knocked up babymaker. I made one of Inty and Zoe (spayed females who hate one another, but I didn't let that stop me.) also, FYI, this little tool is for some dumb movie with Kate Hudson, I think, but I skipped all that stuff and went straight for the throat.
Here's Inty:
(black cats are hard to take pictures of, okay?)
here's Zoe:
You thumbs fucking suck and I hope you die soon so I can eat your face
and here is their terrifying putative impossible offspring:
I think I just hurt myself laughing.
29 May 2007
The algorithm is sexist
Check out the results I got when I typed in Twisty's question, define "woman". Thinking about the recent furor stir in the blogosphere when a Digg user pointed out that when you do a Google search for "she invented", the auto-correct asks, "Did you mean, 'he invented'?". Google has since altered the results of that particular search.*
A quick, very basic primer on how Google's algorithm works and how it sorts its search results. It sorts by relevance, taking into account the content on a particular page (i.e., how many times your search keywords were used) as well as things like how many other pages have linked to a page (if a page is worth linking to, goes the thinking, it must have valuable content - these links to a page are known as "incoming links") and how many times the site gets linked to and from what sources - if the New York Times links to your article on horse farming with a related article, that will count for more - because the Times is a trusted source that gets linked to many times itself - than if a site with few readers/incoming links and an unrelated article (such as my site) links. Basically, it's keyword content + popularity (just like high school!) that makes a page relevant, and likely. Additionally, Google has now added further sorting to its search so that, depending on your query, you get what Google suggests are more relevant answers - such as the handy-dandy "Web definitions" results at the top of my screenshot.
I know, that was boring when what you wanted was for me to rip Google a new one, but patience, my pretties. I'll get back to the algorithm presently - it matters. Basically, it's relying on a mathematical formula and user data to decide what is the best (most relevant) answer.
Let's see, the top result is from something called wordnet.princeton.edu/ I haven't actually checked the veracity of the domain but princeton.edu suggests to me that this is probably really a Princeton project. Emphasis below is all mine.
Of course. Because women ARE defined as opposed to men, not as beings in their own right. Because women keep house while men hunt. Fabulous, gender stereotyping and reductionism in the very first, most trusted answer!
But wait - maybe it was a blip. Let's look at some of the other results, shall we?
Okay, the next two results are from About.com articles, and the second article actually talks some about the realities of gender and social constructs thereof, one article focusing on abortion and the other on gay marriage. I might not agree with every premise put forth in either of those articles, but I'll give 'em a pass.
Next up: wikipedia. Mmm, okay, it's a vapid and useless article (women are females!) but not particularly offensive.
For the fifth search result, though, we have another weiner:
And the link is to a terrifyingly sexist article based on the premise of Jimmy Soul's song: happiness comes from marrying women who will be grateful to the man (nope, we're not getting into any transgender discussions here) for marrying her and will therefore cater to his every whim. Because ... that's what will make "you" happy (a man, remember, is the default "you" ... established not only in the song, in the article itself "whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career...", and don't forget about the princeton definition). Because women exist to make men happy, right? Otherwise why would anyone bother with them? Please excuse me while I get back in touch with my first husband, who would have agreed wholeheartedly with the author of the article.
There's a weak refutation of the original article (which is also about 30 percent shorter) which says, based on the author's anecdotal experience (it doesn't even go to the trouble of citing any outside sources), that two-career marriages can work. The solution to the housework when both the man and the woman work outside the home? Hire someone! It won't make a dent in your two-income household! That's right, women can pay someone (probably another woman) to take on the traditional female roles. Awesome. I'm extra glad that the refutation challenged none of the explicit or implicit gender role assumptions, but answered any complaints with "practical" solutions like the housekeeping one above, thus giving credibility to the original vomitous premise but not refuting the logical fallacies.
Two of the top 5 results are about marriage. That's 40 percent. The very first result gives as an example of common usage that the woman "keeps the home". One of the articles is about childbearing.
This is so fucking DISAPPOINTING. Christ on a crutch, it's 2007 and women are still being defined in terms of marriage and housekeeping and having children.
Tell me, am I wrong for feeling outraged?
And before anyone tells me that the algorithm is just a mathematical equation and doesn't really care and isn't being sexist on purpose, let me point out that the algorithm is written by people - who, intentionally or not, have an agenda. The other part of the equation is that the algorithm's results are coming up based on what's most popular - that fantastic definitions from the kind fellows at princeton, the kidders at Forbes. Which I suppose, depressingly, means that the world is more full of recidivist dickheads than I'd previously realised. I think I need a drink. Preferably cyanide. Since I'm a career woman and don't have kids and all, and share the housework with my partner (he's my fiance, though, does that make me worthwhile?) ... I should probably just end it now and clean up the gene pool for everyone.
Final note: HAHAHAHAHA MOTHERFUCKERS, I am writing this blog outing Google on Google's free blogware! I am so subversive! (Okay not really since they're getting my user data in return and I doubt they give a shit about this blog, but hey.)
*I'm not picking on Google in particular here; what I've got to say applies to all the search engines.
A quick, very basic primer on how Google's algorithm works and how it sorts its search results. It sorts by relevance, taking into account the content on a particular page (i.e., how many times your search keywords were used) as well as things like how many other pages have linked to a page (if a page is worth linking to, goes the thinking, it must have valuable content - these links to a page are known as "incoming links") and how many times the site gets linked to and from what sources - if the New York Times links to your article on horse farming with a related article, that will count for more - because the Times is a trusted source that gets linked to many times itself - than if a site with few readers/incoming links and an unrelated article (such as my site) links. Basically, it's keyword content + popularity (just like high school!) that makes a page relevant, and likely. Additionally, Google has now added further sorting to its search so that, depending on your query, you get what Google suggests are more relevant answers - such as the handy-dandy "Web definitions" results at the top of my screenshot.
I know, that was boring when what you wanted was for me to rip Google a new one, but patience, my pretties. I'll get back to the algorithm presently - it matters. Basically, it's relying on a mathematical formula and user data to decide what is the best (most relevant) answer.
Let's see, the top result is from something called wordnet.princeton.edu/ I haven't actually checked the veracity of the domain but princeton.edu suggests to me that this is probably really a Princeton project. Emphasis below is all mine.
Web definitions for woman
an adult female person (as opposed to a man); "the woman kept house while the man hunted"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn - Definition in context
Of course. Because women ARE defined as opposed to men, not as beings in their own right. Because women keep house while men hunt. Fabulous, gender stereotyping and reductionism in the very first, most trusted answer!
But wait - maybe it was a blip. Let's look at some of the other results, shall we?
Okay, the next two results are from About.com articles, and the second article actually talks some about the realities of gender and social constructs thereof, one article focusing on abortion and the other on gay marriage. I might not agree with every premise put forth in either of those articles, but I'll give 'em a pass.
Next up: wikipedia. Mmm, okay, it's a vapid and useless article (women are females!) but not particularly offensive.
For the fifth search result, though, we have another weiner:
Careers And Marriage - Forbes.com
Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career. .... But rather than rush to blame the woman, let's not overlook the other key variable: What is ...
And the link is to a terrifyingly sexist article based on the premise of Jimmy Soul's song: happiness comes from marrying women who will be grateful to the man (nope, we're not getting into any transgender discussions here) for marrying her and will therefore cater to his every whim. Because ... that's what will make "you" happy (a man, remember, is the default "you" ... established not only in the song, in the article itself "whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career...", and don't forget about the princeton definition). Because women exist to make men happy, right? Otherwise why would anyone bother with them? Please excuse me while I get back in touch with my first husband, who would have agreed wholeheartedly with the author of the article.
There's a weak refutation of the original article (which is also about 30 percent shorter) which says, based on the author's anecdotal experience (it doesn't even go to the trouble of citing any outside sources), that two-career marriages can work. The solution to the housework when both the man and the woman work outside the home? Hire someone! It won't make a dent in your two-income household! That's right, women can pay someone (probably another woman) to take on the traditional female roles. Awesome. I'm extra glad that the refutation challenged none of the explicit or implicit gender role assumptions, but answered any complaints with "practical" solutions like the housekeeping one above, thus giving credibility to the original vomitous premise but not refuting the logical fallacies.
Two of the top 5 results are about marriage. That's 40 percent. The very first result gives as an example of common usage that the woman "keeps the home". One of the articles is about childbearing.
This is so fucking DISAPPOINTING. Christ on a crutch, it's 2007 and women are still being defined in terms of marriage and housekeeping and having children.
Tell me, am I wrong for feeling outraged?
And before anyone tells me that the algorithm is just a mathematical equation and doesn't really care and isn't being sexist on purpose, let me point out that the algorithm is written by people - who, intentionally or not, have an agenda. The other part of the equation is that the algorithm's results are coming up based on what's most popular - that fantastic definitions from the kind fellows at princeton, the kidders at Forbes. Which I suppose, depressingly, means that the world is more full of recidivist dickheads than I'd previously realised. I think I need a drink. Preferably cyanide. Since I'm a career woman and don't have kids and all, and share the housework with my partner (he's my fiance, though, does that make me worthwhile?) ... I should probably just end it now and clean up the gene pool for everyone.
Final note: HAHAHAHAHA MOTHERFUCKERS, I am writing this blog outing Google on Google's free blogware! I am so subversive! (Okay not really since they're getting my user data in return and I doubt they give a shit about this blog, but hey.)
*I'm not picking on Google in particular here; what I've got to say applies to all the search engines.
drinking and cooking: two great tastes
This weekend, among other things, I made Smitten Kitchen's black bean confetti salad. With a few changes - I only had one can of black beans so I used that and threw in a can of small white as well; I didn't have 4 bell peppers (only one red bell, getting sad and wrinkly) so I used some on-their-way-out green beans and frozen corn instead. (I also didn't have cayenne so I substituted hot pepper flakes. Cayenne would have been better, though, since I didn't bother grinding the pepper flakes and thus didn't get terrific heat distribution.) I also doubled the dressing called for but it still wasn't quite enough when finally plated (I tossed some of the bean salad with romaine.)
Never mind. It was a delicious adventure in food photography - I learned that the flash on my camera is not my friend:
(it makes food look yellow)
but that taking pictures without flash works fine:
(food looks more appetizing, or at least more real)
as long as you're still capable of holding your hand steady for long enough:
the dissolute cook
On the other hand, the blurriness of that photo means it's hard to tell quite how bad my hair looks, and you can't see that I'm all broken out from wearing sunscreen on saturday. (Honestly, why do I have to be allergic to sunscreen? Aren't there enough things wrong with me already?)
Picture taking + drinking: these hobbies were born to be together.
or not.
note rotten photo composition and prominent, nearly empty wine glass
Other weekend events:
Zoe had her first bath and was surprisingly good natured about it:
I'm vewy mad at ou
Dave and I hung out a lot:
(my hand was partially over the flash here which accounts for the dumbass lighting effects.)
I made the first batch of salsa of the year: I blitzed it too long in the food processor so the texture is more, uh, frothy than I love (also too early for local tomatoes) but man, it was good and I'm working on refining the order in which the ingredients need to go into the blender. (Garlic, jalapenos, olive oil and balsamic first, then onions and tomatoes and coriander, pulsed, then salt. Pulse again. That's how I should have done it, anyway.)
We went to the WBOS EarthFest, which was HEAVING with people - it was really hot and crowded but we eventually elbowed our way onto some grassy riverbank:
You can see in my haunted eyes that the crowd experience was traumatic. Also you can see some people passing by behind us.
And we checked out the Somerville memorial day parade, which I did not take any pictures of (but I really don't think I could have done the oddities justice anyway.) Man, those shriners went on forEVER (I swear to god, one of them was riding a converted lawn mower). The cars just kept getting smaller. They had shriner clowns, too. (One clown was on a chopper bike.) Shriners are fucked up, is all I can say. The somerville dog owners' association was a little disappointing (last year it was the highlight) - not many dogs, although there was one crazy springer spaniel mix that kept running circles around her owner, in typical springer style.(I think she'd been trained to do the running-in-circles trick but only a springer would keep it up nonstop for a 3 mile parade.)
Also, many many marching bands - mostly school kids or people loosely associated with the military - and all the tuba players were wilting with heat. Just like last year, we were across the street from the nun encampment. There were also nuns in the parade, I forget why.
We missed most of the politicians (okay by me) since we missed the first half hour.We let when eleven screaming fire trucks and abulances (I think there were more than 11, actually) came up the street to blow our ears out.
Inty and Dave took a nap together:
And that's my weekend round-up.
24 May 2007
Shortbus movie review which gets sort of derailed into a feminist tirade. You’ve been warned.
We watched Shortbus a couple of nights ago, which was, as one of my internet friends said, verrrry sweet. Almost cloying, at the end - very rose-tinted glasses. Dave didn't like it as much as me, and I thought the film kind of skimmed over some really hard questions (like the potential aftereffects of dedicating a film of your suicide to your boyfriend) - it's a leetle more complicated than the easy reunion at the end suggests.
For a movie that, on the surface, is all about sex and sexuality, (the movie’s website describes it as “a mad nexus of art, music, politics and polysexual carnality”) it’s awfully non-titillating – much more interested in love and romance. As far as sex goes, it’s kind of an analytical look at it – which interested me since most of the time in real life, sex works better when you turn your higher cognitive functions off.
BUT - one of the things I found totally refreshing about the movie was that, for all the cocks and shoulders and sixpacks being fetishized, there was hardly any long loving looks at the female body - if anything, it was almost ignored, except for a couple of pairs of nice (non-implanted) boobs. There was barely a cooter shot in the whole movie, but millions and millions of cocks.
Without having done any research, I suspect that speaks more to what the director/photographer was interested in looking at but seriously, I felt like I was in a movie where everything you normally see - the breathless overglamourization and heavy emphasis on the female body as objet d'art and d'obsession was completely missing and instead the female body was, oh my god, really about women learning to take pleasure in their own bodies. For themselves, not for anyone else. It's practically fucking revolutionary.
It was a nice palliative to all those dickheads who think women wearing short skirts or dressing stylishly are asking to be raped, or at very least "should have expected some attention, dressing that way" - like catcalls from across the street, say.
Of course, I’m constantly enraged that when I wear a tight tank top and tight jeans and Docs and walk down the street, I'll get leers and whistles. When my boyfriend wears the identical outfit (in his size) he gets ... silence. Not leers, not whistles, not catcalls. Possibly a couple of funny looks, but no one is propositioning his or telling him to "show off that pretty smile, honey!" Because it's okay for men to show off their bodies and enjoy the beauty of their bodies purely for themselves, but when a woman does it ... well, geez, there's no way I could wear an outfit like that without hoping to attract some male attention, right? So I either suck it up and ignore the assholes or dress so as not to attract attention. Yay. Why don't I put on a fucking burka and have done with it?
(I know, street harassment – or any kind of sexual harassment - isn’t really about finding someone attractive, it’s about exerting your dominance over someone else. So a burka wouldn’t help. It still fucking sucks. )
23 May 2007
Summer Slack
I hate punny titles but the flesh is weak sometimes, you know?
So yesterday Mom was in Boston for a big flower arranger’s convention (if you have to ask … you probably don’t want to know. But I linked it anyway, just for the hell or it.) And since Mom’s not in Boston that often these days, we decided to get together for dinner. Her choice, since it was her treat, and she wanted to go to Jasper White’s Summer Shack..
Okay, I’d been there before – at the Cambridge one (it’s a chain) with Dave and we thought the food was good and the seafood fresh but it was pretty damn pricey, considering what you got. I shared these concerns with Mom but whatever, fried oysters are one of her favorite things and the Summer Shack almost always has them – plus, did I mention she was the one paying? So I was kind of psyched, actually, since the Summer Shacks get a lot of press locally and are generally regarded in a pretty favorable light. I was hoping that Dave’s and my slightly disappointing experience was because we were eating out when we couldn’t afford to, which colored our experience, rather than the place itself being sucky.
Alas.
I wouldn’t say it was a disaster, but I sure as hell wouldn’t go back there, even if it is on someone else’s tab.
For starters, the service was friendly and prompt. This is good, right?
Well, not so much when they are so eager to clear the table that the busboy has your plates in their hands before you’ve answered.
“Hey, I’m not done yet!” I said, and he reluctantly took his hands off my plate. (I wanted to eat my fucking corn on the cob, for chrissakes.) So the busboy went to clear Mom’s plate.
“Hey, I’m not done eating her fries yet!”
Granted, that one might have been a little counter-intuitive, and I think he did wait to see Mom nod before he had her plate, and it’s probably not a comment I could have gotten away with at all if I wasn’t a skinny bitch
but … dude had the plate in the air and his back to me when I said something. Which, given my protest from a moment earlier AND the fact that Mom’s plate was still pretty full, seems like it’s a habitual offense and not so much a one-off.
It’s not like it was a Friday night pre or post Red Sox game and the joint was hopping and they need the table; it was a Tuesday and I don’t think the restaurant was even half full – we’d been seated for probably 40 minutes, which I don’t think is unreasonable for a two-top.
Also, I wasn’t super pleased that when my lobster arrived, I had to flag someone down and ask for a bib (c’mon… I’m wearing a cashmere sweater and work clothes. How hard is it to think that maybe I want a bib? Lobsters spurt everywhere when you open them up – insert early ejaculation joke here – most people who’re lobster-experienced know this.)
Although, props to Jasper White’s for thinking ahead, since when the bib arrived it also came with a nutcracker (no, not the kind that’s like the bearded dude from the ballet) – which was good, since the “claws which come cracked for you”, as the waitress assured me, arrived sporting a delicate hairline crack across the top. And like many New Englanders, I like to enjoy my lobster – ALL of it. It’s sofa king expensive, how could you not? And the bib also had a couple of wet naps for cleanup afterwards, which was a nice gesture, although no substitute for going to the ladies’ and properly washing my hands.
So the lobster itself was nice and fresh, not particularly sweet but fine, I’m happy as long as the claws aren’t all horrible and shrunken and floppy. (Lobsters held in a tank for a long time will eventually lose weight and the claw meat will shrink.) And the corn was fine too, and my mom’s fries were more than fine, they were delicious. Good thing I made that busboy leave the plate behind. As were her fried oysters (although I still miss the big fat fried oysters I used to get in New Zealand. At, I believe, Ponsonby Fish and Chips. Somewhere on Ponsonby road, anyway.)
I can’t speak to Mom’s wine but the Australian Cockatoo chardonnay I had was not bad – and for 6 bucks a glass, not bad for a restaurant price, either. We each had two glasses, so I think Mom’s pinot grigio was also probably acceptable.
Also, okay, in a place called a shack I’m not expecting much in the way of ambiance, and I can’t say I was bothered or put out to see the giant fry-o-later ventilation ducting criss-crossing the ceiling or the painted walls. But: place is giant, like a cave, and with all the echoey acoustics of a natural ampitheatre. Would it be too much damn trouble for them to carpet the ceiling or something – it’s not like it’ll ruin the décor - to try to deaden the sound a little? We were yelling at each other all through dinner, although unfortunately not loud enough to drown the hoots and hollers from the group of bike couriers 40 feet away at the bar.
(Psychodrama aside: You know that as soon as Mom shouted, “You look so thin! Your face is gaunt!”, I started eating like I’d seen the locust cloud on the horizon and needed to fatten up for the coming famine.)
For dessert, I had something called Tollhouse pie, which was about what you’d expect: a big slab of undercooked cookie-dough-ish stuff inside a leaden pastry crust, topped with “chocolate sauce” – you know that weird black, almost gritty hot fudge sauce you see at make-your-own-sundae bars at hotel restaurants at brunch? That stuff. It came with “icecream” which, I foolishly, thought might be a scoop of vanilla. Nope, it was a big pile of soft serve, complete with little funnels from the machine. Ah, just like TCBY. I ate it anyway.
Mom had rhubarb-strawberry pie for dessert, which looked a little pale and gummy to me (for me, when I use rhubard and strawberries together, half the joy is seeing those fantastic garnet-colored juices bubble up) but she said it was good, although she left the pastry untouched as it wasn’t worth it.
Anyway. I probably wouldn’t have actually bothered to write all this up and trash the restaurant online if we hadn’t had one final insult added to injury. Upon receipt of the check, mom realized her reading glasses were missing, and, thinking back, thought that the too-eager busboy had probably rolled them up with the napkins and disposed of them. So she caught our waitress and asked her to have someone take a look. Waitress was back at our table in a remarkably short amount of time saying, “I looked in every trash can and there was nothing!” Uh huh. She wasn’t even gone long enough to locate the trash can, much less bother to look anywhere. So, fine, Mom should keep better track of her glasses, right, and not presume to, say, leave them on the side of the table we weren’t using?
Guess who also discovered this morning that her sunglasses were missing? I, too, had foolishly placed them within the busboy’s reach next to my purse on the table. Which, taken along with all the other things, made me think … yeach. Maybe it was just the fault of a shitty, hurried busboy. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be working that night or had been screwed with double shifts three days in a row. Maybe the waitress really did look for Mom’s glasses. Even so … all of this together did not add up to my idea of a hundred dollar dinner. Even if it wasn’t my hundred dollars.
The breakdown of the bill, if you’re curious and still reading (hahahaha, I make myself laugh):
$80.33 on the bill plus $16 for the waitress. All for a one pound lobster, a fried oyster dinner, four glasses of wine and two desserts.
Summer Shack will henceforth, in my mind, be known as the Summer Suck. The Overrated Summer Suck. I have no idea how Jasper White acquired his reputation but dang, it ain't deserved.
17 May 2007
other people's brilliance
If you haven't read the Salon interview with Tinky Winky about Jerry Falwell's death, do so now.
I always dismiss Salon in my head because, speaking of ambitious failures, Salon is one. But every once in a while, they have some damned awesome content and I remember why people still pay attention to them.
I hope that link stays free and doesn't go behind the annoying watch-the-commercial free one-day-pass. If I realise that's happened later, I'll try to find a permalink which doesn't require registration, money or commercial watching. Because that's what we internet marketers do: circumvent the legitimate revenue streams of websites wishing to make a buck off great content. Who said an uncontrolled free market was immoral? Not I, for sure.
Also, in other Thursday news, it's been raining for two days now and I've got a migraine to prove it. Motherfucking stupid blood vessels feeding fucking brain and affected by the environment. Why can't I be more climate-insensitive and less inclined to listen to Al Gore? (That is a really ugly flash-filled website, sorry. Dude invented the internet - okay, not quite, okayed major funding for the invention of the internet - but still, can't he have a decent website design?)
I always dismiss Salon in my head because, speaking of ambitious failures, Salon is one. But every once in a while, they have some damned awesome content and I remember why people still pay attention to them.
I hope that link stays free and doesn't go behind the annoying watch-the-commercial free one-day-pass. If I realise that's happened later, I'll try to find a permalink which doesn't require registration, money or commercial watching. Because that's what we internet marketers do: circumvent the legitimate revenue streams of websites wishing to make a buck off great content. Who said an uncontrolled free market was immoral? Not I, for sure.
Also, in other Thursday news, it's been raining for two days now and I've got a migraine to prove it. Motherfucking stupid blood vessels feeding fucking brain and affected by the environment. Why can't I be more climate-insensitive and less inclined to listen to Al Gore? (That is a really ugly flash-filled website, sorry. Dude invented the internet - okay, not quite, okayed major funding for the invention of the internet - but still, can't he have a decent website design?)
Mirrormask .... kind of a failure. But in a thought-provoking way.
We watched Mirrormask last night - my Netflix pick - and Dave was hugely unimpressed (no surprise there - he dislikes written fantasy and watching anything animated, so a Gaiman/McKean outing was hardly going to be his thing.) Since it was released in 2005, I'm not going to be bothering to warn about spoilers below, I'll just head right into them.
I wanted to like it, I really did.
I love the written Gaiman/McKean book collaborations, and the individual work of each. But ... I know why the movie wasn't a commercial success (I was living in New Zealand when it was released, so I have no idea/recollection of what the critics said.)
The pacing sucks, and the storyline is too intricate. I thought, over and over again, that it would be perfect and clever a book but as a movie ... it moved too fast for me to be able to register most of the visual clues and many of the clever lines were thrown away, without appropriate pauses to process the joke.
Was it just me, or were the actors mostly talking really fast? I felt like I was watching Shakespeare for the first ten minutes, then I settled into the rhythym of the speech patterns and accents and could comprehend. I suspect part of my problem with the dialogue was the sound mixing, either on my tv or as it was translated to DVD or just badly mixed in the first place - I had no trouble hearing the music (which was partly unfortunate, since a lot of it sounded like an extended Dave Matthews band jam) but the speech wasn't crisp enough.
That plus the overly complex plot (for a movie that I complained above moved too fast and finished in well under 2 hours, it sure was draggy: okay, evil black queen versus enchanted white one, just like the socks at the beginning, I get it already) made me have to strain to pay attention just to be sure I was following the storyline. Let's just say I was glad I was stone cold sober.
On the plus side: I watched the entire movie in one sitting and did not fall asleep. (This is rare for me.) Visually, it was often brilliant - I thought the realisation of McKean's characteristic artwork into masks was fucking genius, and it was a little CGI-heavy - I felt like sometimes the movie used CGI for special effects as a shortcut to a more interesting visual narrative, which is a personal pet peeve - but seriously, if there was ever a movie designed to be paired with judicious use of CGI, this (and the live-action version of James and the Giant Peach) was it. And my complaint about the dialogue wasn't that it sucked - I suspect it was probably a lot funnier and smarter than I could quite follow, since it moved too damn fast. (Yes, I am a fogey. And possibly a fogey that's been spoiled by too many Monsters, Inc and Labyrinth sorts of movies.)
On the acting, I have no real complaints - I thought the mum, daughter (helena) and father (who was underutilized - Rob Brydon was brilliant in Marion and Geoff but I think is largely unknown outside the UK) and the fairy-tale-ish parts were appropriately overplayed.
One thing I did really appreciate about the movie was its acknowledgement of the struggle between parent and child at adolescence. Although Helena was a bit too perfectly mannered to be a believeable teenager, always recanting before it's too late with things like, "I'm sorry I said that [wished for your death], Mum" when her mother first goes into hospital - doesn't everyone know that she's not supposed to apologize until AFTER she's saved her mother from death? It's part of the dramatic arc! Although at the same time, while it removed emotional tension it was nice not to see a teenager being a total asshole all the time. It reminded me that Gaiman's daughter was in her late teens while he was writing the film, and I wondered if some of the insights came from that. It also nicely avoided the trap of making Helena's comrade, Valentine, either perfect or a love interest - I was pleased to see that.
This was a really interesting failure. As an internet friend of mine always says, ambitious failures are more interesting than bland successes. I think, given some of my complaints above, that this is a movie which would reward repeated viewings so I could get more of the jokes, at least ... except it wasn't compelling enough for me to want to watch it again, ever.
15 May 2007
Things I want: a(nother) cutting board
Introducing a new area to my blog, kind of a long wishlist all in one place. I'm taking a leaf from my coveteous friend's book. It's not that I can't afford any individual item (well ... some things I really can't afford), it's just that my reach exceeds my grasp. Or my greed exceeds my checking account. However you want to look at it.
Despite having the most beautiful butcher-block kitchen island in the world (built for us by my dad), I still find myself wishing for a really huge cutting board. Because I always use cutting boards on top of the island (it makes cleanup easier) and my prepped food, especially if I'm making a stir-fry or something, tends to overflow off the cutting board.
The picture above is called the Overboard, which is a 20-inch by 20-inch cutting board of end-grain wood. For $40! That's right, forty bucks! This thing is like, criminally cheap compared to the prices you see on most end grain butcher's block stuff.
And yet ... I have three cutting boards which are perfectly good (although one of the two larger ones is warped, but still - you can cut just fine on it!) plus the aforementioned glorious butcher's block kitchen island so I really can't justify this purchase in any way. I guess I just like to exercise my salivary glands regularly, otherwise I wouldn't torment myself with longing for excess or upgrades when I've got plenty - more than plenty - of perfectly good, nice stuff already.
Le sigh.
08 May 2007
Hi mom and dad, if you're reading this, surprise! I have a giant new tattoo. Please don't disinherit me!
For all of you (I'm sure there are HANDFULS of faithful readers*) who have ever wondered what it was like to get a really big tattoo on an ouchie place on your body...
Here it is, in its current incarnation - only 2+ more hours to go on shading around the waves
I waited almost a year for these appointments and spent a ton of money. It was totally worth it.
Step 1: Outline only, not even scales yet. Check out how the skin around is all raised on the black parts where the needle's been. The purple stuff is the ink the tattoo artist uses to transfer the deisgn onto thte skin. Sort of like transfer paper. My tattoo was done at Fat Ram's Pumpkin tattoo. (by Fat Ram himself- he's not fat at all, actually)
Another angle of the outlined piece
yet another shot of the outline. I think it's the angle I'm twisted at here but it looks like I am in dire need of a couple of sandwiches.
starting on the color ... those are red ink smears, not blood (mostly. There's probably a little blood in there.)
Close-up of the needle applying red ink. This is the color it is in real life.
Complete outlined fish with red fins. It hurt so much I cried.
You can see my eye makeup is kind of smeary. This picture is one of the few I retouched and the color of the fins is accurate, at least if your monitor settings are close to mine. A really dark rich red.
The final fish; getting this color was only sitting that was relatively easy for me. Color hurts less than outline, in my experience, but it varies from person to person.
a close-up (sort of) of the whole thing
A detail of the dragonfly that Ram retouched - I wish I'd thought to take a before shot. He did a gorgeous job on the smeary, fuzzy original. (Got back in the old days - before tattoos were legal.) By the time he got around to touching up dragonfly I was so tired from two consecutive nights of being tattooed I was hyperventilating by the end and needed some sugar. Everyone was very kind and pretended not to be annoyed when I showed them my blue fingers and fed me Tootsie Rolls. At least I didn't cry.
And here we are back at the start, with a slightly different angle.
Fat Ram's is also on myspace. I wouldn't hesitate for a second to recommend Ram's work or anyone in the shop - they are all terrific artists and, you know, nice. Because if someone is going to be inflicting pain on you for several hours (or even just one!) you want them to be nice, especially when you're whining about the self-inflicted pain. Darlene did Dave's feet.
Also, lots of people have been curious about how much it hurts. Again, your mileage may vary, but for me the pain is about equivalent to getting an eyebrow wax - so, it doesn't hurt that much, actually, tattoos are just hard because they go on for a lot longer than a waxing. (Sorry, boys, I don't have a good male experience equivalent.)
* actually, that's pure hyperbole, I know from my analytics program that there are NONES of you out there .... but on the internet no one has to know you're unpopular. It might help if I posted more than once a month, too.
Here it is, in its current incarnation - only 2+ more hours to go on shading around the waves
I waited almost a year for these appointments and spent a ton of money. It was totally worth it.
Step 1: Outline only, not even scales yet. Check out how the skin around is all raised on the black parts where the needle's been. The purple stuff is the ink the tattoo artist uses to transfer the deisgn onto thte skin. Sort of like transfer paper. My tattoo was done at Fat Ram's Pumpkin tattoo. (by Fat Ram himself- he's not fat at all, actually)
Another angle of the outlined piece
yet another shot of the outline. I think it's the angle I'm twisted at here but it looks like I am in dire need of a couple of sandwiches.
starting on the color ... those are red ink smears, not blood (mostly. There's probably a little blood in there.)
Close-up of the needle applying red ink. This is the color it is in real life.
Complete outlined fish with red fins. It hurt so much I cried.
You can see my eye makeup is kind of smeary. This picture is one of the few I retouched and the color of the fins is accurate, at least if your monitor settings are close to mine. A really dark rich red.
The final fish; getting this color was only sitting that was relatively easy for me. Color hurts less than outline, in my experience, but it varies from person to person.
a close-up (sort of) of the whole thing
A detail of the dragonfly that Ram retouched - I wish I'd thought to take a before shot. He did a gorgeous job on the smeary, fuzzy original. (Got back in the old days - before tattoos were legal.) By the time he got around to touching up dragonfly I was so tired from two consecutive nights of being tattooed I was hyperventilating by the end and needed some sugar. Everyone was very kind and pretended not to be annoyed when I showed them my blue fingers and fed me Tootsie Rolls. At least I didn't cry.
And here we are back at the start, with a slightly different angle.
Fat Ram's is also on myspace. I wouldn't hesitate for a second to recommend Ram's work or anyone in the shop - they are all terrific artists and, you know, nice. Because if someone is going to be inflicting pain on you for several hours (or even just one!) you want them to be nice, especially when you're whining about the self-inflicted pain. Darlene did Dave's feet.
Also, lots of people have been curious about how much it hurts. Again, your mileage may vary, but for me the pain is about equivalent to getting an eyebrow wax - so, it doesn't hurt that much, actually, tattoos are just hard because they go on for a lot longer than a waxing. (Sorry, boys, I don't have a good male experience equivalent.)
* actually, that's pure hyperbole, I know from my analytics program that there are NONES of you out there .... but on the internet no one has to know you're unpopular. It might help if I posted more than once a month, too.
03 April 2007
Getting there in a handbasket
okay, this is depressing: sunshine plus a hug, for sale in pillow format. (Via Popgadget.) Not that plenty of people don't need more sunshine and hugs - god knows I could use 'em , especially in a cold New England april, with a sinus infection to boot - but the idea is ... hmmmm ... appalling is the right word to use here.
Not to sound like an old coot spouting cliches (although I sort of am) but what happened to, you know, going out and making friends? Which I realise is a bit rich coming from a blogger with a rich and varied online life, but most of my online friends have also made the jump into real life. With hugs and all (although none of my friends or relations emit sunlight; some people I've met seem to be under the impression that the sun shines from their nether regions, but those people aren't usually going around dispensing hugs anyway.)
Anyway, it's not the need for the pillow that appalls me, it's the idea that for an $84.95 pre-order, you can buy the solution to your loneliness. Loneliness is a bigger problem than this pillow ... so I'm not faulting the genius marketer who came up with the idea of a light-emitting pillow which hugs you back (although it does resemble Funzo in some ways [unrelated: that simpons website is badly designed]) ... I just think it's another symptom of the over-medicated American culture. Much easier to throw a little money at a problem than invest time and hard work and scary amounts of energy fixing it the old-fashioned way.
Okay, it's a pillow, not Prozac. And I do think medicine for emotional disorders is waaaay important. I can testify about how it saved my life and blah blah blah post-traumatic-stress-cakes. Clinical studies support this view; no doubt about it, medicine can't be ignored when treating things.
But I also think medicine only addresses about half the problem - the other half comprises behavioral changes and therapy working in conjunction with your meds. And that stuff is harder to implement than a one-off purchase of a pillow or some drugs.
Take, for example, my sinus infection. (I know, ew.) The doctor wrote me a scrip to wipe out the infection. We knew I had ongoing sinus issues, since she'd referred me to an allergist last summer (who found out I am allergic to dust mites but nothing else, and that my sinus headaches were actually migraines) ... anyway, my doctor used her knowledge of my allergies to help with the sinus infection diagnosis, but didn't suggest that I do anything about the trigger for the allergies (which were the cause of the sinus infections.) I'm not complaining about my doctor here - she's totally awesome - but I think it would be a good thing if doctors, along with the prescriptions, also prescribed things like "air out your house" and "exercise at least three times a week" ... which, I know, easier said than done. But if they keep saying it, maybe some and then most of us will start doing it. And that would be a good thing, because it's a big step in the preventative medicine department and also a step towards greater accountability for your own health and well-being.
Not to sound like an old coot spouting cliches (although I sort of am) but what happened to, you know, going out and making friends? Which I realise is a bit rich coming from a blogger with a rich and varied online life, but most of my online friends have also made the jump into real life. With hugs and all (although none of my friends or relations emit sunlight; some people I've met seem to be under the impression that the sun shines from their nether regions, but those people aren't usually going around dispensing hugs anyway.)
Anyway, it's not the need for the pillow that appalls me, it's the idea that for an $84.95 pre-order, you can buy the solution to your loneliness. Loneliness is a bigger problem than this pillow ... so I'm not faulting the genius marketer who came up with the idea of a light-emitting pillow which hugs you back (although it does resemble Funzo in some ways [unrelated: that simpons website is badly designed]) ... I just think it's another symptom of the over-medicated American culture. Much easier to throw a little money at a problem than invest time and hard work and scary amounts of energy fixing it the old-fashioned way.
Okay, it's a pillow, not Prozac. And I do think medicine for emotional disorders is waaaay important. I can testify about how it saved my life and blah blah blah post-traumatic-stress-cakes. Clinical studies support this view; no doubt about it, medicine can't be ignored when treating things.
But I also think medicine only addresses about half the problem - the other half comprises behavioral changes and therapy working in conjunction with your meds. And that stuff is harder to implement than a one-off purchase of a pillow or some drugs.
Take, for example, my sinus infection. (I know, ew.) The doctor wrote me a scrip to wipe out the infection. We knew I had ongoing sinus issues, since she'd referred me to an allergist last summer (who found out I am allergic to dust mites but nothing else, and that my sinus headaches were actually migraines) ... anyway, my doctor used her knowledge of my allergies to help with the sinus infection diagnosis, but didn't suggest that I do anything about the trigger for the allergies (which were the cause of the sinus infections.) I'm not complaining about my doctor here - she's totally awesome - but I think it would be a good thing if doctors, along with the prescriptions, also prescribed things like "air out your house" and "exercise at least three times a week" ... which, I know, easier said than done. But if they keep saying it, maybe some and then most of us will start doing it. And that would be a good thing, because it's a big step in the preventative medicine department and also a step towards greater accountability for your own health and well-being.
15 March 2007
News: men like to look at boobs, packages, and genitalia in general
Okay, so I was reading this article about eye tracking on computer screens for work (actually ...I was at work, not so much researching for work, but it turned out to actually be related to my job and it's lunch anyway) and started laughing when I got to this part:
Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site
This is news? But, hilarious that men are as interested in dog packages as people. What I want to know is: why?
09 March 2007
Barbados
Quick Barbados photoblog on Flickr. (Guest access, you don't need to be a member to check it out.)
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