Today at the Seattle Public Library there is an actual, old fashioned debate about which is better- Harry Potter or Twilight.
As I said at Random Babble a few days ago- Harry Potter may have its issues, but no one ever almost died of a fucking papercut in the Potter series. And papercuts should NEVER be a serious plot point.
Besides, if it wasn’t for Harry Potter we wouldn’t have this thing of beauty.
(Yes I’ve posted this before. No I don’t care that it annoys you.)
Here be spoilers for the series finale
WTF was that load of tripe? Seriously? A show that has been complex and and never trite winds up with such a fucking cliche of an ending that I am still pissed. I will give the BSG guys some credit though, they managed to make me thoroughly uninterested in anything the characters might have done once the credits rolled. Shit, even Friends made me kinda curious about the lives of the people on the show, but not BSG. I am pretty sure that with the first bout of cholera because they’ve given up on actual plumbing they will be wiped out.
I’m pissed. I am pissed that a show that took so much care at showing how difficult and complicated choices are took the easy way out. It was like an “ah fuck it” moment. I was jokingly saying that Starbuck was going to disappear in a poof of angel dust, and then she did! I was hoping when they showed Earth II there would be some comment about the difficulties in blending into a pre-verbal, pre-pastoral native society and maybe some allusion from a show that has used historical moments as plot fodder to the fact that a technologically advanced society was descending on a less advanced society and the complications that might involve. Instead they decided that the whole of the Colonial fleet was gonna give up technology and go native as some fucked up way of avoiding repeating past history. We’re tired of fighting with our own creations, so now we’re all gonna shit in the woods and die of influenza or childbirth or chicken pox.
There was exactly one moment that I liked, well loved. Baltar, divine instrument of “All this has happened before and will happen again” gets stuck being the thing he never wanted. The dude who did everything he could to run away from his roots, and in that running set off the chain of event that destroys the human race (over and over again), gets stuck being a farmer. Just like dear old dad.
So last night was Birthday, Battlestar and Dips and I made french onion dip from scratch. No soup packets!
French Onion Goat Cheese Dip
4 medium onions, diced
Olive Oil
1 log (11oz) of goat cheese
1 small container plain goat yogurt (6 oz)
Worcestershire sauce
1 cup strong beef broth (I used Better than Bullion No beef flavor. I used about a teaspoon and a half to one cup of water)
Salt & pepper
Cook onions in olive oil. Depending on how patient you are you can carmelize the onions, though the dip is fine if you just sweat them till they are translucent.
Add beef broth and Worcestershire sauce. Cook until the liquid is almost gone. Add yogurt and cheese and continue cooking over low heat to the cheese melts all the way. Add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerated for at least one hour.
You will never want to eat onion dip made from dried soup again. It’s that good.
I also made a gorgeous fruit salad with Raspberry mint dressing. We had raspberries, blackberries, mango, apples and oranges. To dress them I used the juice of 2 lemons, and equal amount of raspberry vinegar, a couple of teaspoons of honey and dried mint. It keeps the fruit from browning and adds a depth of flavor without being too sweet or thick.
We ( well Ruth mostly) also did a ton of fried stuff like fried pickles and zuccini and homemade potato and sweet potato chips. My left hand is now a mangled bloody mess because using the guard on the mandolin takes too much time. I sliced myself 3 separate times and bled all over, but it was worth it. Homemade chips are good and fried pickles are awesome!
Now about man food. I put out a tray of veggies to go with the dips (we also had Ruth’s famous spinach tofu dip and some dill dip that I whipped up in about a minute). There were the normal things, carrots, celery, cukes, tomatoes and radishes. Towards the end of the night the radishes were the only left on the tray. I walked past and someone asked me if I ate radishes. I said I do, grabbed one and ate it. I was then told that radishes are man food cause only dudes eat them.
I love radishes. I also love steak and bacon and really good hamburgers. And I make some awesome slow cooked ribs. The Kid likes good greek yogurt with honey and just about any vegetable or fruit and bready things like muffins and toast. I am not a dude, yet I love and cook “man food”. The Kid is not a girl, yet he loves and eats “girl food”. How seriously fucked up is our society when food is gendered and the act of eating a radish calls someones gender identification into question?
But what does a trillion dollars look like?
Is it bigger than a bread box but smaller than a car?
Turns out it looks a lot like a football field stacked 6 feet high in hundred dollar bills. Who knew?
(H/t to Corrente)
Cracked.com has this list of 5 horrifying tales of 911 call incompetence.
Now while the average reader may just see stories of incredible failure on the part of the 911 operators to do their jobs, when seen through feminist lenses it looks a lot different.
Every single caller in these stories is female. Two of the women callers were in the middle of being beaten or possibly stabbed to death by their male partners (domestic violence apparently bores 911 operators). One was a teenage girl dropping f-bombs cause her dad was having a seizure (nice girls don’t cuss, watch your language ladies). One was a women who was having her window tapped by a stranger (perhaps the police would like to prevent a crime instead of waiting for one to happen) and one the 911 operator made jokes about shooting a woman’s out of control child.
Girl talk people. When women talk, we aren’t supposed to be taken seriously, even (or especially) in an emergency.
Sorry, but I cracked Ouyangdan up with a Yoda pic yesterday and now I can’t stop writing in Yoda speak.
It’s my birthday and my blogiversary, though i can no longer remember how long I’ve been blogging (3 years, probably longer but my brain is all melty from the old age, there was a blog here before this one, and another one before that. Oh well)
I’m planning on Thai food with Ruth and the Kid tonight and Battlestar and cocktails tomorrow. There is a channel on cable here of pets that you can adopt. I told Ruth that I want a dog, but only if it’s missing an eye and looks and acts like Saul Tigh. Since the Kid is deathly allergic to pets, I think I am safe from having my b-day wish full filled anytime soon.
If only because Alison Janey is awesome. And Maya Rudolf is awesome.
Co-parenting after violence is possible in sometimes.
If the abuse was situational rather than intimate. (Explanations of the difference are in the article)
The thing about my case is that it was intimate with all the classic characteristics. There was the honeymooning or periods of time where he made meaningless gestures of change to win me back or keep me without doing any of the actual work to change. Then there was the crazy-making
Is Timothy Geithner Obama’s Michael Brown?
You all remember Brownie right? The guy who let New Orleans drown while he twiddled his thumbs.
So I gotta wonder, if the whole reason we can’t void AIG bonus money is because the bonuses were written into their employment contracts, then why is it ok to screw union workers who also have employment contracts (and aren’t directly responsible for world wide recession) .
Kid and I were taking our usual bus ride home tonight. This particular route is known for it’s perpetual lateness, being one of the longest routes in the city. Our bus wasn’t any later than usual, but it was being driven by a trainee with a trainer sitting close by to give tips, etc.
So Kid and I grab an open seat at the back of the bus and the dude behind me starts screaming about how slow the bus is moving (no slower than normal, mind you).
Screaming dude: Fucking move it! Push it! Push it! Fucking girl talk is for breaks, shut up and drive! Move. Rock it! Push it! This is no time for chit chat!
This tirade goes on for about a mile. I’m tired, grouchy, I already had a headache before I got on the bus. Dude is not just screaming in my ear, but he’s being a great big misogynist douchebag while he’s at it (can you guess what gender the trainee and trainer are by the “girl talk” comments?)
So me being me, I turned around and asked the douchebag if he could “Just knock off the misogyny?”
So his little tirade turned to me instead “fucking bitch better shut your mouth I wasn’t talking to you bitch just be glad I’m getting off this bus or my evil twin would show you what’s up”
He gets off the the bus, and I turn to the Kid.
Me: How much you wanna bet me that if the driver were a dude that asshole would have shut up.
Kid: Nothing, I’d lose the bet.
Girl talk. I fucking hate that phrase. It implies that any discussion done between two women (or girls) is frivolous and should be ignored. In the case of the misogynybag, it was meant to convey the idea that his time was wayyyyyyyyy more important than anything these two women could possibly be talking about, even if what they were talking about was their work and how to do it better. If they didn’t shut up and pay attention to his needs, then they weren’t doing anything worth while.
And people wonder why I hate movies and tv that doesn’t pass the Bechtel test. Until we see women talking to other women as being just as important as anything a man might talk to another man about, everything out of our mouths will just be considered “girl talk”.