Way back in September '05, I heard about the concept of vagina dentata, which is a term for the notion of how a vagina could be a mouth .. with teeth.
Recently, an indie horror/comedy movie called Teeth came out about that very concept. They took on some awesome embellishments of the idea for the plot, as well: the girl dealing with that is a wide-eyed teen in a hyper-conservative Christian environment and therefore knows nothing about what her genitals should look like... until an unfortunate boy tries to have his way (or at least as unfortunate anyone can be whilst trying to force sex on a girl that doesn't want it).
It's getting generally rave reviews, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go see it!
I am still trying to eat well. Rachel's gone kinda-sorta vegetarian, but I don't want to be that kind of paranoid about my food (especially with soups, as they often have chicken or beef in them without it being obvious).
A big part of eating well is putting a little effort into making food. You can only go so far when relying on super-quick frozen or ready-to-eat meals. I am terrible at this. I've been known to just not eat anything rather than spend five minutes making a sandwich.
But today I actually made a sandwich -- a brand new sandwich whose primary ingredient is awesome.
Kitchen bits:
Large skillet (depending on how much chicken you want) A slotted turner (I admit without apology that I had to look that up)
Put the chicken into a skillet for ten minutes in the marinade on low to defrost and get the flavor in. While that's happening, get out the ingredients.
Split the pita bread, and spread the tomato paste on one side. When you add stuff, try not to destroy the pita. Put some caesar dressing on the other side, to taste. Keep in mind that both ingredients are pretty tart. Slice up the cheese and put it in there. Flip the chicken over so that it defrosts evenly. Put away the cheese, dressing, and paste: it's nice to not have to clean that after you eat.
Once the chicken is defrosted and properly marinated, take the pan to the sink and dump the marinade carefully while holding onto the chicken with the turner... or just dump it in a colander, whatever. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to do perfectly, so have a paper towel handy to wipe the pan lip. Return the chicken, sans-marinade, in the skillet on the burner.
Start chopping up the chicken so it's in nice little half-inch bits until it's done through. I like mine just starting to brown on the outside, personally. There's nothing worse than chewy chicken.
Stuff the chicken into the pitas. The sprouts will stuff into the corners, which is why they go in last. Arrange in some pretty way or another. Applesauce is a good side, and root beer goes down very well with it.
Despite the apparent lack of updates, I've been writing. Actually, I've been writing as much if not more than usual: the problem is that I haven't been able to finish all these long-winded posts. They'll be up soon, though. Some of them will remain at the date in which they were first written, and others will be put to the date they were finished, depending on the context of the article.
It's becoming clear to me that, once you're at the level of a congressman or occupying some other rare-air position, the only kinds of lies that will sink you are small lies that take more than ten seconds to explain, and infidelity. The more ridiculous your stories, the less likely they are to sink you, especially if it takes a gnat's attention span to explain. Cheney's Fourth Branch of Government is a classic example of this, but Clintons thousand tiny lies also illustrate the problem.
The Clintons are too smart to punch a nun on MSNBC. But I wonder what level of sleaze Clinton supporters waiting for before finally ditching them. She's had so many little lies and ridiculous lies, and problems with her campaign that (to me) it amounts to a huge collection of little sleazes:
I don't generally hold subordinates' or associates' opinions to be the same as their bosses (Ferraro, Wright, Power, etc), and all of that list - written off the top of my head - doesn't even acknowledge how good a candidate Obama is. It's just a rote list of the sleaze that has turned people away from Clinton.
Yet her supporters dig in further. I don't understand it.
When I was teaching, I tried not to think too hard about how I was making an impact on the students' lives. The pressure would've caved in my already imploding head.
I know there's an influence, because I was for some reason thinking of a situation in which I have always wished I'd had a comeback. You know what I mean - ohh I wish I had said that instead of standing there like a dumbass.
This particular situation happened when I was still waffling between getting a music degree and a graphic design degree. I had written a mediocre song out on staff, and wondered what an "accomplished" music student would do with it. I gave it to one of the grad students that was teaching music at the time. I asked if he had taken a look at it. He had. I asked what he would do with it. He said:
Trash it. Start over. It's crap.
And he walked away.
I wish I had said (and I say to him now): I hope you slip on all that dream juice between your toes, jerk.
I have a certain amount of sympathy for the stresses of being a teacher and a student. I do. But in that situation, in which someone's confidence in their own abilities is on the line (and it was: I left the music program shortly after that), nothing justifies being an asshole about it. In some ways I'm glad I left, though, because the sheer snobbery in the program was palpable.
I'm not an advocate of state-sponsored arts just because I'm working on my 4th album, or because Tech Theater was the best thing about high school for me (OK, yes, I did get an awesome education), or because my last class at UA was painting, or because I have more Mp3's than I could listen to in six months of continuous listening.
Although that helps.
From a purely social engineering point of view, I am an advocate because I know how happy it makes people. There is a self-sustaining circle that goes like this: a happy society is a productive society, which can afford to institute programs to keep itself happy and healthy. The Arts make us smarter, get us to know other people, and generally improve society on a lot of levels.
Why do I post this (generally-accepted) assertion? Because a little bit of arts in people's day makes me, personally, gleeful. That's why I love Improv Everywhere, which is a loose group of musicians, miscreants, and like-minded crazy people who stage public events unannounced in order to make normal people's lives just a little more interesting, funny, and generally awesome. If anything, their involvement in events such as no-pants-day (which, to be fair, wasn't invented by them), and other surreal events make people look up from their text messaging and realize they are, really and actually, in the waking world.
This skit was done recently, and still, really, really, really makes me happy:
I'm amused that the little girl in the 'scare' ad (link) is actually 17, almost 18, and was a precinct captain for Obama. The footage was stock footage (which explains why the Obama campaign could use it, too), and she found out about it's use along with the rest of us. She mentions doing an ad, and I wrote this. I wonder if anyone had (a) any suggestions and (b) knew to whom it should go, because it would be a very effective counter-punch, but they'll have to use it soon or people will forget the ad.
[fade in to sleeping girl stock footage]
Casey [voiceover]: "Hillary Clinton recently used stock footage of a happy little girl sleeping in bed to make a political ad, but tinted it blue ..."
[fades to dark, scary blue like the Clinton ad]
[Casey, cont'd.] "...and used a gravelly voice to scare you into voting for her."
[fade out ad, fade in Casey in brightly-lit room]
Casey: "That was me, eight years ago. And I'm here to tell you I'm not scared. You could even say I'm full of hope. Before I even saw the ad, I was a proud precinct captain on Barack Obama's campaign."
[Barack Obama walks up next to her]
Barack: "Let's put an end to politics of fear that uses scare tactics to drum up votes, and to justify bad decisions."
Casey: "And instead of relying on scary stock footage to get votes, Barack's campaign will rely on the people who've volunteered for his campaign. Like me. I'm Casey Knowles..."
So, for all that angst I went through, and all the noise the Clinton campaign is making about momentum from their three (very narrow) wins over Obama last Tuesday in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island...
Obama came out ahead in the delegate count, by 4 delegates. How? Well, the margin of victory for Clinton on Tuesday was 4 delegates (out of 370, or 1%). But California modified its delegate count, reducing Clinton's share from 207 to 203, and Obama's from 163 to 167, an 8-delegate swing.
Which means that after Tuesday, Clinton actually is further behind Obama.
I am amused. I really hope that the Obama campaign picks up on this and uses it to deflate the 'momentum' bubble his opponent will try to float.
*FTL is Internet slang for "for the loss," which is derived from "for the win," (FTW) as in, "Here comes Steve Nash, shoots a three 'for the win' - yes!" - and is used any time someone is very awesome (Obama FTW), or very much a loser (Clinton FTL).
It took me 27 years to figure out a work regimen that actually keeps me coherent for an eight-hour stretch. Of course, until this year, I didn't have a full-time desk job, so I didn't really need it, but I struggled with focusing for more than 3 or 4 hours before this. I really wish I had actually spent some time with this as far back as high school, but I never quite did bad enough for myself to force the issue. It's something I think should be taught in grade schools: how your own rhythms work.
I am one of the types that benefits from taking frequent, short breaks, because the longer I focus on a problem, the more tunnel vision I get. Every time you make a change in web design, you are probably effecting other changes, and if you don't zoom out a little to realize what those other things are, you can do a lot of damage.
The extra bonus of this is that, by taking those short breaks, I can shake out my hands and focus my eyes on a distant object to rest them, so I reduce the strain on them as well.
My current work regimen goes like this:
Work for 3 minutes, then a 30-second break (which can be skipped if I really need to finish something). Every hour, take a 10-minute break. I use this to do dishes, run the laundry, and if those are done, play basketball (practicing free-throws, jump shots, around-the-world, 3's, or dribbling). That gets my blood flowing again, and surprisingly, I come back to the desk a lot more awake and focused. I'm aided in this by Workrave, which actually locks my computer at breaks.
The temptation to slack by checking blogs, comics and so on is especially keen when you spend your whole work day online. Bookmarks are especially easy to click on. Probably the biggest gain in my productivity besides the 10-minute breaks has come from using two Firefox profiles. Firefox profiles allow you to have a completely different set of bookmarks and plug-ins from your current profile. I have two Firefox profiles: work and play. Play has all my webcomics, blogs, and a lot of cool little plug-ins. Work has far fewer plugins (all web design related), and zero bookmarks. Just not having the toys staring me in the face helps immensely.
The only thing I haven't really been able to do is find a way to offset the after-lunch malaise without a load of caffeine. I have started making smaller sandwiches, and that helps, but I am absolutely sure that the U.S. would be a happier place if we went with the Spanish workday, with a siesta. Also, the jury is still out about whether or not 20-50 minutes of light basketball is going to be enough of the health and weight effects of having a full-time desk job.
Unusually absurd legislation that has been inserted government spending legislation, in return for political support.
Very delicious pork.
Ex:
"When you see construction of a new [road that is], unpriced and not likely that it'll soon become overcrowded, you're looking at a porkalicious "bridge to nowhere" sort of phenomenon where people are constructing something that has a cost out of proportion to its value."
Upgrade your damn browser. I am amazed that you've even managed to find a computer that came with it. Lord knows you can't download it from Microsoft anymore... and haven't for about a year and a half.
Look, IE6 sucked. It was buggy, even when it came out. It will take you three minutes to download IE7 or Firefox or Opera. Do it. Please.
I am not going to put up with your crap browser and your inability to upgrade anymore as a web designer. When IE6 came out:
I've come up with a new game, suitable for parties of all ages.
All you really need is a bulletin board or some other large writing surface. This is how it works:
A person, presumably the host of the party, creates a rule. Everyone takes turns making a rule every ten minutes or so. It can be most anything, but the idea of the game is to create a lot of little neuroses (rules) that everyone has to follow. If a person is seen breaking the rule, whoever caught them gets to shout, "busted!" (or similar), and assign that person a rule of their own.
I would encourage the rules to be very small, but noticeable behavioral tics such as not walking on cracks in tile, only eating unsplit peanuts, talking only when your hand is on your neck, touching an object when entering a room, and so on.
After a few hours of this, everyone will have about a dozen neuroses, and will be eyeing each other to try to catch someone else. Any rule that is excessively difficult, unfair, or otherwise unpopular can be undone by a majority vote.
The skill involved in delivering hundreds and hundreds of speeches, without "um," or awkward pauses is tough enough. But the way he can do so with grace and, indeed, rhythm akin to music is unreal.
Not only is he able to deliver these messages in a beautiful way, but he also is delivering several thick books' worth of information in them - all memorized. He rarely looks at his notes. He doesn't even have notes in his interviews, but is able to deliver that same tone and nuance.
The most ridiculous example of this was during a recent interview on Cleveland TV. The interviewer first asks about NAFTA, and he debunks a rumor about his campaign. Then, he was asked to name two things he could do as President immediately (i.e., without Congress) after being sworn in. He could've said, "get out of Iraq," but instead he had a more nuanced response involving a meeting about the Chiefs of Staff. He also (admirably) wanted to tell his Attorney General to review every executive order to examine which are necessary for national security. Not breathless rhetoric about restoring American rights, but a thoughtful response about what he would do and how.
Then he gets a question about NASA. Incredibly, he had a finger on the nation's pulse: it's been stuck in place, needs to review its budget to make for more effective innovation, and starting to plan for manned flights deeper into space in order to grab the imagination of the people again.
His third question was easy enough, about whether there would be a divisive campaign between himself and McCain (he didn't think so).
Finally, he was asked about the basketball trade between Cleveland and Chicago, and he gave a pretty detailed analysis of the Chicago Bulls' and Cleveland Cavaliers' position in the NBA.
No "um," no awkward pauses, no notes, and no half-cooked answers. Why can't all politicians do this?
