Apparently It's 1909
We realized today that our office phones are afflicted with the Y2K bug. The date on the phones’ digital display shows up as Tuesday, October 16 (instead of Friday) — which would be correct if it were 1909.
Funny.
In the news today is the story of a Louisianan interracial couple who was denied a marriage license on the basis of the justice of the peace’s “concern for any children the couple might have.” Read the AP article on Freep.com here.
From the article:
“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” [justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, Keith] Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”
Not funny.
Gross or Cool? (A Poll)
This is not Photoshopped. A dude had an ear grown from his stem cells. Then he had it implanted into his arm. He calls this “performance art,” but I don’t see where the performance part comes into it — or the art part.
It seems like people shouldn’t be allowed to do things like this. I’m not sure why, but the idea of weird body part growth and strategic placement just really gets under my skin. Ha. Get it?
"At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance."
The Most Despicable Creature on the Planet
(Image from dragonstouch.co.uk, a website I obviously frequent.)
Meet the Komodo dragon.
A creature of island gigantism, this guy weighs in at 100 pounds (not including undigested food).
He eats a little of everything red. A sampling of their dietary delights: Monkeys, baby Komodo dragons, insects, humans and human corpses (if they can dig their way into a grave), miscarried deer remains — as in, they “have been observed intentionally startling a pregnant deer in the hopes of a miscarriage whose remains they can eat.” (Wikipedia.)
He has insanely virulent bacteria living in his mouth (think E. coli and staph, sharing a community with 55 other gross strains). Even though he could probably bite his victims and then wait for the bacteria to kill them, he also has venom at his disposal, which causes hypothermia and bleeding to death.
He generally has blood-tinged saliva, caused by the fact that he’s very gummy (his teeth are mostly covered in gum tissue) and he gets all cut up during a feast. After he eats 80% of his body weight by swallowing an animal whole or in chunks, he drags himself “to a sunny location to speed digestion, as the food could rot and poison the dragon if left undigested for too long.” (Wikipedia.) Ew.
At some point he will fight other males for territory and females. He often vomits or defecates in preparation for the fight. The winner of the fight for a woman’s hand will later pin her down to force himself on her, so that she doesn’t lash out and hurt him. But it must just be part of the game, because then they mate for life.
You can read the whole story on Wikipedia, but this is pretty much the highlight tape.
Why am I reading and writing about Komodo dragons at 3am? Good question. Z and I were fighting over whose mouth was cleaner and he told me I had a mouth like a Komodo dragon. I had to look it up.
I am slightly obsessed with oral hygiene, so I take offense to that comment, now that I know what it means. Not true. And totally disgusting.
Close Talkers Are the Worst
A notorious close talker at my work called to say he’d be in late today because he was up all night sick. The announcement was met by a collective office groan with the certainty that anyone he close-range talked to/breathed on would end up getting sick too.
The biggest problem with close talkers is that they don’t know they do it. Or maybe they do and they don’t realize it’s bad.
Announcement: It’s bad.
The first step is admitting you have a problem. Everyone knows that. I think that makes it our duty to society to inform offenders when they invade our personal space, so that they’ll realize it’s an issue and ultimately stop doing it.
Please do your part. Determine whether or not you are a close talker. If you are, stop. If you are not, then please inform those who are of their offense.
You’ll be doing the rest of the world a favor.
Day maker. Well, it made mine, anyway. (Via @mbsnyder.)
Hey, thanks eMusic! I think you rock too!
Any suggestions for all these songs I now get to download? Looking for new music, please. Kind of in a pop-ish mood lately. Not like Britney Spears pop-ish though; more like Lykke Li pop-ish.
Also, does anyone know how to pronounce “Lykke Li”? According to Wikipedia, the Swedish pronunciation is “ˈlʏkə li,” but as Swedish phonetics is not so much my forte, I’m lost.
Thank you and thank you.
Role Models?
I was watching “Top Chef” (which I really like, even though I’ve always sworn to hate reality shows until the day I died) last night, and all the Bravo commercials for “Real Housewives of Wherever” made me embarrassed to be a girl. These housewives are celebrated figures deserving of their own show and of an audience — for what reason? Because they’re married to rich men? What an accomplishment. And women in general should be ashamed of themselves for creating the viewer market for that kind of garbage. Am I missing something here? Positively nauseating.
"America has become a country filled with people who stubbornly continue to believe what they want to believe, regardless of the facts."
Delightful Dessert: Simply Sautéed Fruit
I discovered a lovely meal-ender yesterday, based on the concepts of pie, cherries jubilee, and grilled pineapple: Simply sautéed fruit.
I keep seeing all these recipes involving fruit cooked with sugar. But think about it: Fruit carries its own sugar. It’s already sweet. It’s why grilled pineapple is so amazing without any added sugar (slice it into rings or chunks and throw it on the grill for a few minutes — you can thank me later).
So, I cut up/pitted/hulled some cherries, strawberries, a pluot (a cool hybrid of plum and apricot that I bought because it was on sale), and blueberries (which I left whole).
I sprayed a frying pan with olive oil (healthier than veg and doesn’t affect the flavor like I used to suspect it would), heated it up to a medium-low setting, and dumped the fruit in. After 3-4 minutes, I turned everything over and cooked for another 3-4 minutes, and dropped it into a bowl.
It was SO fantastic. The strawberries were the least interesting, but I’m not the world’s hugest strawberry fan, so that may be why. The blueberries and cherries were phenomenal.
I’m going to make it again tonight for friends and drop some granola over the mix at the end. Highly recommended. (And healthy!) I’ll grab a picture of it later to share.
Craving Calissons
Fact: I have a mega sweet tooth.
I’m fiercely craving calissons, which I’m assuming I can’t get around here. They’re a specialty of Aix-en-Provence, where I studied abroad. I haven’t had them in years, but they suddenly popped into my head for some reason and now I can’t get them out. I’m going to have to make some.
I found a recipe on about.com; we’ll see how it goes. Unfortunately, I’m not a very good baker. Following directions and precisely measuring things are for some reason quite difficult for me. I’m too careless or too ADD-stricken, maybe both. I’m much better at improvisational cooking. Anyway, this will be an adventure.
(Photo grabbed from seriouseats.com)
While Googling to find a recipe, I found this super-interesting explanation for the origin of calissons, on seriouseats.com:
And now for the racy French story behind them. Legend has it that at the second marriage of Good King Réné in 1473, he had these suggestively petal-shaped confections served to his young, fresh second wife. With these, named for “caress,” over time, he won her over—mind, soul, and, after awhile, body.
Way Cooler Alter Ego
So today at work my friend Emily turned around and asked me, “Want to see something creepy?” And duh, of course I did. “Is this you?” she asked, and showed me this picture she found, by PaperMonster:
It’s pretty awesome, right?
And I guess it could be me. Emily was referring to the similarities in my Facebook picture:
If it is me, I like the PaperMonster version better.
I can’t decide whether or not it would be creepy if someone used my Facebook picture to create something cool. Yes I can. It wouldn’t be creepy. It would be awesome.
My life and I are incomplete without this iPhone case. I think such an accessory would define me in the way I’ve always imagined.*
Buy it here for $330.05. Sure, that’s kind of a lot, especially if buying it would mean not eating for a couple weeks — but isn’t bettering yourself worth it?
*Just in case this note is necessary: This post was meant ironically. For the record, I think that iPhone case represents everything that is wrong with this world.
Help the Children Without Hands
So today I was looking at different nonprofit websites asking for donations, to come up with ideas for a headline for a client’s upcoming fundraiser.
I found something funny (but also sad and moving) on one of the sites that came up in my Google search for “make a donation”:
“Help us put books in the hands of children growing up without them.”
Now, upon re-reading that I can see that it’s talking about kids who grow up without books. (Plus it’s for an organization called Reach Out and Read, a fact I didn’t notice when I first loaded the page.)
But when I first read it I thought it was asking us to help kids who grow up without hands.
Which is sadder? Kids without books or kids without hands? Tough one. I mean, I guess it depends on whether or not the kids’ families (or a nonprofit organization devoted to kids without hands) can afford prosthetics. They can do everything with prosthetics these days.
Anyway, confusing marketing copy. Maybe they need my help.
A Little Uplift for Your Tuesday
This song is so good. Like bounce-around, bob-your-head (you might even shake your ass a little) good. It’ll get stuck in your ears and you’ll want to hear it again and again.
Or maybe not. Maybe you’ll hate it. Whatever.
The Very Best featuring Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend): Warm Heart of Africa (link to Hype Machine, because it’s occurred to me it’s probably not so legal for me to host songs here)
Apparently It's 1909
We realized today that our office phones are afflicted with the Y2K bug. The date on the phones’ digital display shows up as Tuesday, October 16 (instead of Friday) — which would be correct if it were 1909.
Funny.
In the news today is the story of a Louisianan interracial couple who was denied a marriage license on the basis of the justice of the peace’s “concern for any children the couple might have.” Read the AP article on Freep.com here.
From the article:
“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” [justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, Keith] Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”
Not funny.
Gross or Cool? (A Poll)
This is not Photoshopped. A dude had an ear grown from his stem cells. Then he had it implanted into his arm. He calls this “performance art,” but I don’t see where the performance part comes into it — or the art part.
It seems like people shouldn’t be allowed to do things like this. I’m not sure why, but the idea of weird body part growth and strategic placement just really gets under my skin. Ha. Get it?
The Most Despicable Creature on the Planet
(Image from dragonstouch.co.uk, a website I obviously frequent.)
Meet the Komodo dragon.
A creature of island gigantism, this guy weighs in at 100 pounds (not including undigested food).
He eats a little of everything red. A sampling of their dietary delights: Monkeys, baby Komodo dragons, insects, humans and human corpses (if they can dig their way into a grave), miscarried deer remains — as in, they “have been observed intentionally startling a pregnant deer in the hopes of a miscarriage whose remains they can eat.” (Wikipedia.)
He has insanely virulent bacteria living in his mouth (think E. coli and staph, sharing a community with 55 other gross strains). Even though he could probably bite his victims and then wait for the bacteria to kill them, he also has venom at his disposal, which causes hypothermia and bleeding to death.
He generally has blood-tinged saliva, caused by the fact that he’s very gummy (his teeth are mostly covered in gum tissue) and he gets all cut up during a feast. After he eats 80% of his body weight by swallowing an animal whole or in chunks, he drags himself “to a sunny location to speed digestion, as the food could rot and poison the dragon if left undigested for too long.” (Wikipedia.) Ew.
At some point he will fight other males for territory and females. He often vomits or defecates in preparation for the fight. The winner of the fight for a woman’s hand will later pin her down to force himself on her, so that she doesn’t lash out and hurt him. But it must just be part of the game, because then they mate for life.
You can read the whole story on Wikipedia, but this is pretty much the highlight tape.
Why am I reading and writing about Komodo dragons at 3am? Good question. Z and I were fighting over whose mouth was cleaner and he told me I had a mouth like a Komodo dragon. I had to look it up.
I am slightly obsessed with oral hygiene, so I take offense to that comment, now that I know what it means. Not true. And totally disgusting.
Close Talkers Are the Worst
A notorious close talker at my work called to say he’d be in late today because he was up all night sick. The announcement was met by a collective office groan with the certainty that anyone he close-range talked to/breathed on would end up getting sick too.
The biggest problem with close talkers is that they don’t know they do it. Or maybe they do and they don’t realize it’s bad.
Announcement: It’s bad.
The first step is admitting you have a problem. Everyone knows that. I think that makes it our duty to society to inform offenders when they invade our personal space, so that they’ll realize it’s an issue and ultimately stop doing it.
Please do your part. Determine whether or not you are a close talker. If you are, stop. If you are not, then please inform those who are of their offense.
You’ll be doing the rest of the world a favor.
Day maker. Well, it made mine, anyway. (Via @mbsnyder.)
Hey, thanks eMusic! I think you rock too!
Any suggestions for all these songs I now get to download? Looking for new music, please. Kind of in a pop-ish mood lately. Not like Britney Spears pop-ish though; more like Lykke Li pop-ish.
Also, does anyone know how to pronounce “Lykke Li”? According to Wikipedia, the Swedish pronunciation is “ˈlʏkə li,” but as Swedish phonetics is not so much my forte, I’m lost.
Thank you and thank you.
Role Models?
I was watching “Top Chef” (which I really like, even though I’ve always sworn to hate reality shows until the day I died) last night, and all the Bravo commercials for “Real Housewives of Wherever” made me embarrassed to be a girl. These housewives are celebrated figures deserving of their own show and of an audience — for what reason? Because they’re married to rich men? What an accomplishment. And women in general should be ashamed of themselves for creating the viewer market for that kind of garbage. Am I missing something here? Positively nauseating.
Delightful Dessert: Simply Sautéed Fruit
I discovered a lovely meal-ender yesterday, based on the concepts of pie, cherries jubilee, and grilled pineapple: Simply sautéed fruit.
I keep seeing all these recipes involving fruit cooked with sugar. But think about it: Fruit carries its own sugar. It’s already sweet. It’s why grilled pineapple is so amazing without any added sugar (slice it into rings or chunks and throw it on the grill for a few minutes — you can thank me later).
So, I cut up/pitted/hulled some cherries, strawberries, a pluot (a cool hybrid of plum and apricot that I bought because it was on sale), and blueberries (which I left whole).
I sprayed a frying pan with olive oil (healthier than veg and doesn’t affect the flavor like I used to suspect it would), heated it up to a medium-low setting, and dumped the fruit in. After 3-4 minutes, I turned everything over and cooked for another 3-4 minutes, and dropped it into a bowl.
It was SO fantastic. The strawberries were the least interesting, but I’m not the world’s hugest strawberry fan, so that may be why. The blueberries and cherries were phenomenal.
I’m going to make it again tonight for friends and drop some granola over the mix at the end. Highly recommended. (And healthy!) I’ll grab a picture of it later to share.
Craving Calissons
Fact: I have a mega sweet tooth.
I’m fiercely craving calissons, which I’m assuming I can’t get around here. They’re a specialty of Aix-en-Provence, where I studied abroad. I haven’t had them in years, but they suddenly popped into my head for some reason and now I can’t get them out. I’m going to have to make some.
I found a recipe on about.com; we’ll see how it goes. Unfortunately, I’m not a very good baker. Following directions and precisely measuring things are for some reason quite difficult for me. I’m too careless or too ADD-stricken, maybe both. I’m much better at improvisational cooking. Anyway, this will be an adventure.
(Photo grabbed from seriouseats.com)
While Googling to find a recipe, I found this super-interesting explanation for the origin of calissons, on seriouseats.com:
And now for the racy French story behind them. Legend has it that at the second marriage of Good King Réné in 1473, he had these suggestively petal-shaped confections served to his young, fresh second wife. With these, named for “caress,” over time, he won her over—mind, soul, and, after awhile, body.
Way Cooler Alter Ego
So today at work my friend Emily turned around and asked me, “Want to see something creepy?” And duh, of course I did. “Is this you?” she asked, and showed me this picture she found, by PaperMonster:
It’s pretty awesome, right?
And I guess it could be me. Emily was referring to the similarities in my Facebook picture:
If it is me, I like the PaperMonster version better.
I can’t decide whether or not it would be creepy if someone used my Facebook picture to create something cool. Yes I can. It wouldn’t be creepy. It would be awesome.
My life and I are incomplete without this iPhone case. I think such an accessory would define me in the way I’ve always imagined.*
Buy it here for $330.05. Sure, that’s kind of a lot, especially if buying it would mean not eating for a couple weeks — but isn’t bettering yourself worth it?
*Just in case this note is necessary: This post was meant ironically. For the record, I think that iPhone case represents everything that is wrong with this world.
Help the Children Without Hands
So today I was looking at different nonprofit websites asking for donations, to come up with ideas for a headline for a client’s upcoming fundraiser.
I found something funny (but also sad and moving) on one of the sites that came up in my Google search for “make a donation”:
“Help us put books in the hands of children growing up without them.”
Now, upon re-reading that I can see that it’s talking about kids who grow up without books. (Plus it’s for an organization called Reach Out and Read, a fact I didn’t notice when I first loaded the page.)
But when I first read it I thought it was asking us to help kids who grow up without hands.
Which is sadder? Kids without books or kids without hands? Tough one. I mean, I guess it depends on whether or not the kids’ families (or a nonprofit organization devoted to kids without hands) can afford prosthetics. They can do everything with prosthetics these days.
Anyway, confusing marketing copy. Maybe they need my help.
A Little Uplift for Your Tuesday
This song is so good. Like bounce-around, bob-your-head (you might even shake your ass a little) good. It’ll get stuck in your ears and you’ll want to hear it again and again.
Or maybe not. Maybe you’ll hate it. Whatever.
The Very Best featuring Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend): Warm Heart of Africa (link to Hype Machine, because it’s occurred to me it’s probably not so legal for me to host songs here)
