Monthly Archives: April 2008

BSG open thread

Posted on by

IF YOU DIDN’T SEE LAST WEEKS SHOW- AVERT YOUR EYES! SPOILERS SPOILERS!


Ok- since tomorrow is BSG livestreaming day, I thought we should all take a moment to remember Cally Tyrol.

Cally, when your boss loved a cylon saboteur who tried to kill Papa Bear- you shot her.

And then married your boss after he punched you in the jaw (but we all have issues Cally)

You were the one that made Tyrol stand up for the workers on the tillium ship.

You have always had a stronger moral core.

Of course, that might be because your dear hubby is a cylon. But you just found that out. Which also means that little Nicky is half cylon, perhaps he and Hera will grow up to rule the universe together.

But…………………………….

That bitch Tory blew you out of the airlock. I never liked her. Bring Billy back.

That is all.

Idiots, they make us laugh

Posted on by

Long long ago, there was a writer here named DeeK.

DeeK is a dude. Actually, DeeK is a brilliant, big, black dude. I can attest, we worked together long before we started this blog together. And then DeeK got a real job and started seriously working on his book and his other website, and we don’t see DeeK around here anymore. (Though I still see him cause we like to go drinking and oggling cute girls together)

DeeK, a true feminist ally if ever there was one, wrote a post called Why Do Men Hate Women?

This post is one of the things that brings out the crazies.

Normally I would turn the comments into a nursery rhyme, but sometimes I like to let the crazies stand. It really showcases how fucking off their rocker they are.

And what is even funnier is that the commenters always think that post was written by a girl. There is no chance of a DUDE, a DUDE WITH A PENIS, writing something that might be feminist friendly.

Sadly why do men hate women is one of the things that regularly brings people to my blog. I assume that like our batshit commenters, they are looking for a fellow rager to justify their hate. I do hope that maybe a wee bit of DeeK’s thoughtfulness sinks in, but I am not that hopeful.

RQ Cooks- Avgolemono Soup

Posted on by


(Why yes this is a crappy cell phone pic of soup. Trust that it tastes much better than this pic looks)

This sunny, yummy Greek soup is also super easy to make when you have next to nothing in the fridge. And it really does taste like a mouth full of sunshine and happy.

As usual- I took someone else’s recipe and adapted it.

6 eggs
8 cups of chicken stock ( I used chicken bullion and it worked fine, really)
1.5 cups white rice
Juice of 6 lemons (I had a bottle of lemon juice in my fridge- I prolly used about 1.5 cups cause we really like lemon flavor)
Dill

In soup pot, bring stock to boil
add rice
In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix eggs
to eggs add lemon juice slowly

turn soup down to low

Temper the egg mixture with hot broth so that eggs will not curdle when you add them to soup by adding small amounts of hot soup to eggs and mixing until the egg mix is warm in the bowl

Add eggs to soup. Cook for about 20 minutes or until rice is done, stirring regularly.

Garnish with dill

Cause I really like the roof metaphor.

Posted on by

So Lil Ms. Randombabble sent me to this fright fest of misogyny and privilege (thanks! Now I need a bleach bath for my soul)

So this guy doesn’t think he should be held responsible for his privilege cause he didn’t start it- wah wah wah.

So I give you my comment, in full- typos and all, cause I think the metaphor works really well.

Wow- that entire piece just has white boy privilege bleeding through it.

But there’s a more important point, which is that the idea of privilege seems to me to shift the ‘blame’ for any such favoritism away from the people who propagate it and toward the people who ‘benefit’ from it.

First- who are the mythical people that propagate privilege? Is there a special committee straight, rich, thin, white heterosexual men who get together once a month to decide on the ways further their influence?

No.

Privilege is perpetuated by people who refuse to see that they benefit from it. There is no evil cabal writing secret rules to benefit some people over others. There are just people who have privilege and don’t want to give it up- so they pretend like it doesn’t exist or it isn’t their responsibility cause they didn’t make things the way they are.

You might need to, I don’t know, go learn about how sexism and racism are institutional structures. That means they are the framework society is built on. Much like the framing of your house- you can’t exactly see them cause they are covered with a bunch of stuff. But it’s still there, holding up your roof, whether you believe in it or not.

But see that framework is built to leave a bunch of us (women, gays and lesbians, people of color, the disabled, etc) out in the rain most of the time. Sometimes we get a tiny chance to sneak under the roof for a bit. But usually we are just standing outside, soaking wet, while privileged fucks like you stand under the roof and declare that there isn’t a cloud in the sky.

But surely we are postfeminists now

Posted on by

BTW- this be the 1000th post. 1000, in 2 years and one month. Damn- no wonder I be so tired.

From Valleywag comes a lovely little piece about how Google is trying to make sure that their engineering staff is at least 25% female. YAY Google (though you know we are about 51% of the population- so don’t aim too low)

But of course the shithead is in the comments

And overall, I think pussy just motivates people. It’s like a phantom reward. Men are more polite around woman with the false pretense of sex later that rarely happens. Personally, I’m above that and accept the patriarchal society.

Hell, terrorists use it [pussy] as an excuse to bomb each other in the middle east. Island of 50 virgins and a the finest wine.

On that end, I personally find woman annoying. Men that surround these woman make my teeth grit. Get back to work. I want one woman, just for myself. Not much to ask. A techy? Trust me, you are supposed to be an interlocking duo, she should love you for your techness. You can love her for keeping her body a temple and interest in culinary arts. Woman should keep their bodies sculpted and perfect, their hobbies don’t even matter. True woman are passive and should like whatever you show them.

That’s right ladies. Your only value is in keeping your body a temple so that your pussy is a proper motivator. And don’t forget to make me a sammich.

Speaking of things that piss me off- I used HRC’s wage gap calculator and I make about 10k a year less than a man with my similar back ground and education. No wonder my account is overdrawn.

Also it’s take your kid to work day. Mine is sitting at the end of the lab reading manga at the mo. Everyday is take your kid to work day here.

And a big ole fucking duh

Posted on by

Have you peeps heard me go on an ag subs rant yet? Prolly not. I hate agricultural subsidies almost as much as I hate rethuglikans and just as much as I hate the color yellow.

Once upon a time I wrote a very very long paper about the evils of farm subsidies. But it’s at home somewhere and I’m at work, so you’re going to have to trust for now that I am not really pulling numbers out of my ass and I promise to correct them if I get home and see that I’ve done wrong.

Farming in the US accounts for less than one half of one percent of all labor in the US (actually that farming, fishing and forestry). In France, it’s about 4%. As a portion of GDP it’s 1.3% for the US and 2.2% for the France. And we are the two biggest subsidizers of farming in the world, though we hardly need to be. 75% of those subsidies go to giant megafarms, not ma and pop farmer.

And corn, ah king corn. With the whiff of massive profit in the air and the safety net of giant subsidies at their feet, the scary megafarms stopped growing food and started growing corn for ethanol instead. Between 1995 and 2006 more than 52 BILLION dollars was spent subsidizing corn (there are no numbers for 2007 yet).

Since 1996 money to farms has increased while the food stamp program has seen it’s budget cut again and again. So let’s take a look at that. Less than one half of one percent of the population benefits from farm subsidies, while 12 percent of the population as a whole and 10 percent of families live under the poverty threshold.

Your clump of uterine cells is what you eat

Posted on by

You may have read some of the blog rage for a certain study about how a woman’s prenatal diet can influence the sex of her child (huh- I thought sperm determined sex, but that eliminates blaming the ladies don’t it). But of course they ONLY talk about how it influences the birth of boy babies. Cause who in their right mind would want a girl?

My answer at Shakes was:

Huhm, my pre-baby-boy gestation diet was diet coke and marlboros (I was 19 and he was a surprise) so I am going to say diet coke and malboros makes boys. Maybe for girls it’s mountain dew and camels.

But, that is a wee bit unfair. I can’t really pick on people for wanting a child of one sex over another. When I was pregnant I wanted a boy. I grew up in house full of cruelty directed at me purely because of my sex. My mother hated me because I was a girl. I was given twice the work, none of the encouragement and resources such as clothing only grudgingly (and then with months of guilt, anger and actual objects thrown at me for needing anything). My birthday was regularly forgot (My brother’s birthday is a month before mine so there wasn’t any money left for presents or cake by then anyways). And that is just the easy stuff, only my therapist knows the worst. I am told that my aunt cried when I was born because I was a girl (not that she hates girls, she has 2 daughters who she loves and supports unconditionally) but because she knew my lot in life was going to suck with my mother.

So when I found out I was pregnant at 19, I did not think I had enough strength or distance from my own childhood to give a daughter a fair chance. I wanted a boy because at least I had seen how to raise a boy with love. And a boy is what I got.

Now with 13 years of mommy experience and almost as much therapy, I think I could raise a kick ass girl. But I’ve come a long way to be able to say that.

It is easy for us to cringe at the idea of sex selective abortions and to bemoan the fate of all the little unwanted Chinese girls. We can push for restrictions on sex selective abortions all we want, but that doesn’t change the culture that values boys over girls. It just gives girls to parents, like my mother, who don’t want to raise them. We can find it disgusting that so many people, men and women, want sons to pass on the family name or give the birth of a boy more value than that of a girl.But we really aren’t that much different than the Chinese. We still value boy children over girl children.

And until we change that value system, until a child is valued because it is a child and not because of it’s xy chromosomes, then complaining and restricting doesn’t do a damn thing but put girls into homes where they are despised. Trust me, I know.

A little blegging never hurt anyone

Posted on by

So the RQ screwed up. I knew that money would be tight this month (being that I have only half a months income due to spring break) and I knew I was overdrawn at the bank.

I didn’t know I was $375 overdrawn. That’s 10 overdraft fees (but oddly only $25 in actual overdraft). I know, when you have less money you have to be more careful. I am sure that at least one of those overdrafts is because I had to spend $4.95 on hair dye cause it was super on sale even though my hair doesn’t need to be dyed yet (I finally let vanity get to me and started dying the greys.)But most of it is from groceries. Even eating super cheap we can’t get by on less than $350 per month and more like $400.

So my next check in a week is for $384. Which means I will have exactly $9 for food, rent, laundry soap, etc for 2 weeks after the overdraft fees are paid.

If you have a few bucks to spare, anything you send me goes straight to paying the overdraft and makes eating a much more distinct possibility. And of course royalty will smile on you.

We now resume our regular snark schedule.

Cause Shakes Reminded Me

Posted on by

If there was a theme song to my life, this is it. Kristy Maccoll- In These Shoes.

Let’s see: Shoes, check. Spanish, check. world travel, check, multiple boys, check. And just a wee bit of sadism, check.

But Kristy MacColl was not just awesome for writing a song that perfectly sums up my slutty ways. She was a single mom and did an entire album about how hard dating and mommying is. And then she died while swimming in the French Riviera with her kids. She was decapitated by a run away speedboat while saving her kids from being run over.

So a slutty creative adventurous mom. Yep, that’s me.

So what would your theme song be?