So I’m watching this video with the lovely damp lady with all the silk scarves, finding it all rather stimulating, and then it gets to the end and…oh, man. Castration anxieties. I’m going to go curl up in my bed and whimper.
Aug 10 2011
Episode CCXLIII: Yikes!
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692 comments
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chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 12:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh!!!
You actually met/touched Quentin Crisp???1!!
I swoon.
seriously.
Benjamin "van Driessen" Geiger
12 August 2011 at 12:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau:
Lecture vs. lab, I guess. I imagine most people in the class are going to have laptops, so they’ll be able to follow along or experiment during the lectures.
Labs will have workstations (or their laptops), so everyone codes. Less candy then.
Kamaka
12 August 2011 at 12:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh, you are incorrigible.
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 12:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I wish some men did not see aging as aberrant in gay culture, especially since many younger gay folks need older gay role models in my opinion. It is like any hoary trait you have suddenly makes you undesirable or something. But it is changing now.
On the other hand, horray for youth!
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 12:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kamaka – You’re welcome, and you said the right thing.
Josh – Cripes I’ve never seen the movie either, but now I’ll look for it. I bet it goes right over my head, I have absolutely no gaydar, none.
SC (Salty Current), OM
12 August 2011 at 1:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Take care, everyone.
I’m unhappy with PZ after his latest comment on the Markuze thread. Time to take a break.
Be well.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
12 August 2011 at 1:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah, Chigau, I picked him up at the train station in my rusty old Geo while in college. . .1998 or so. Our LGBT committee had snagged him as a guest speaker, and I almost died when they called me, “desperate,” asking “could you please pick him up because we have no transportation?”
I apologized for the shitty dirty cigarette-smelling condition of my car, and he said, “I don’t even notice. I don’t clean my apartment.”
When we got him to the faculty house dining room, they had a buffet of sorts, but he was quite decrepit. So we all kept asking, “Would you like some chicken, Mr. Crisp? Vinaigrette or creamy dressing for your salad?” And he very politely said, “Yes, I’ll have some of that, thank you so much.”
He enthralled us over dinner for two hours with tales of Brit and American celebrities and people of letters he’d met over the years. After the Crawford story, he made some viciously funny snide remark about Madonna that I wish I could remember.
He then spoke to an audience on “how to have a life.” He started out with, “I’ve been invited to tell you how to be happy. . .”
I leave you to fill in the rest. God, he was a treasure.
crowepps
12 August 2011 at 1:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Laughed out loud. I’ve always thought it a great shame that bookstores don’t have shopping carts.
Tethys
12 August 2011 at 1:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I so miss my male gay friends. I loved going to the gay clubs with them. I got to get drunk on perfect cocktails, watch the drag queens, scope out all the lovely men, without worrying about some creep taking advantage of my impaired judgement.
My only male gay friend now can’t go out with me because his boyfriend disapproves.
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 1:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nite, nite SC!
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 1:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
re: old homosexuals
Does someone still have the link to the NYC photos of the (ghey) people getting married?
Did you see the wrinkles?
and pikachu
you will be old for a LOT longer than you will be young
/englisssssh
Josh, Official SpokesGay
12 August 2011 at 1:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If he doesn’t immediately tell said boyfriend to fuck right off, he’s no kind of friend. And he’s in for a rough ride (and not the good kind).
Kamaka
12 August 2011 at 1:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Off to bed with me.
Have I called Josh incorrigible lately?
G’night all.
Benjamin "van Driessen" Geiger
12 August 2011 at 1:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kamaka:
“Have I called Josh incorrigible lately?”
Stop incorriging him! </obligatory>
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 1:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chigau,
In this life, who does not favor youth?
(Cookies for those who know what song I stole this from.)
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 1:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks for the invitation, but see I have this guy with a long beard waiting for me.
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 1:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jezus said that while he was with the youth in the towel.
Pass me the cookie that goes best with sangria.
Tethys
12 August 2011 at 1:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@SC
I don’t blame you for being upset at Abbie. Her continued behavior is far out of bounds, and she has been personally insulting to you.
But was PZ’s post directed at you in particular, or just the general erv bashing that was upthread?
I hope it wasn’t directed at you.
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 1:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gyeong Hwa (I get no points for song ID)
Everyone who has ever actually seen their aircraft pilot.
I will take gray and wrinkly over fresh-face EVERY time. (given the choice)
Tethys
12 August 2011 at 1:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Josh
We do flirt outrageously. I would be jealous too. I do not insert my opinions into others relationships. I wish him love with his houseboy. When and if it doesn’t work, I will still be friends with him.
I am accustomed to losing my friends to their mates.
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 1:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Patricia, here’s some cookies but no sangria since that wasn’t a song. ;)
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/wine-cookies-original-italian/detail.aspx
This is the song that I was thinking about.
See I am an old fashion queer. :D
Josh, Official SpokesGay
12 August 2011 at 1:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tethys, I didn’t realize you were a gay guy. Sorry about that.
And, it’s never fun to lose friends when they pair up. Damn, but don’t they start acting like two birds roosting over a bunch of fucking eggs?
Tethys
12 August 2011 at 1:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, gravity magnets are pulling me to bed. Nite all.
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 1:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Good night Tethys.
Tethys
12 August 2011 at 1:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh
Im a straight female. But women generally abandon friendships when they get married. We are still friends, but I never get to socialize with them anymore. I have lost two of my dear male gay friends to suicide and aids. Damn we used to have so much fun together.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
12 August 2011 at 1:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, Tethys, I’m sorry I made the wrong assumptions. I hate it when people break off friendships because of marriage. I hate it even more when friends die. I’ve experienced both, as you have.
Tethys
12 August 2011 at 1:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
As far as the flirting goes. It was really confusing for me too. My gaydar pings, but theres also a sexual attraction vibe. It made total sense after I met his ex-wife.
mouthyb, powered by spite since 1977
12 August 2011 at 1:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine, I join the crowd hoping it is not cancer.
Tethys
12 August 2011 at 1:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
goodnight. I will stick the flounce this time.
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 1:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gyeong – Now wait, I can’t understand a word of that song. I’m a native speaker of ‘hillbilly’.
And you should give me a free sangria for pointing out gay jezus with the towel loosing youth. He’s got 2000+ years on your old fashioned. *wicked smirk*
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 1:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Patricia, here is one with English lyrics (it’s the second song).
How about some Hello Kitty Pinot Nero?
Caine, Fleur du Mal
12 August 2011 at 1:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tethys:
It wasn’t directed at SC. The Abbie comments were a derail and PZ just wants the Horde to take the high road, which, as he said, isn’t much of a task.
Mouthyb:
Thank you. I’m sure I’ll be fine. :)
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 2:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine, I will simply not allow you to have anything terrible like cancer. I forbid it.
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 2:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s no shit. Try it from the female side – they get furious when you don’t turn to goo when they get pregnant. They turn to double plus stoopid when they have grand babbies.
This summer I’ve knitted FIVE pairs of babbie socks, shouldn’t that absolve me from any kissing and cooing? And diapers! *heads for the fainting couch*
Caine, Fleur du Mal
12 August 2011 at 2:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gyeong:
I hear and obey. :)
Patricia:
Gad, that’s the truth*. I’ve lost friendships because I’m not interested in talking all things pregnancy 24/7 and then don’t want to talk all things baybee 24/7, don’t simper all over it and don’t want anything to do with watching it. It’s like watching someone’s brain get eaten. Eeesh.
*Not all women, of course. Just too many I’ve known, I suppose.
Benjamin "van Driessen" Geiger
12 August 2011 at 2:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Submitted without comment.
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 2:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine – I hope we mutually don’t have cancer, and I hope we both get better health care.
You and the Mister had the cancer talk, that’s scary as hell. I’ve done death with my husband of 35 years, that’s the worst. Because of that, I’ve gotten my will, next of kin, and all medical decisions filed. It’s not that I expect to croak, it’s that I don’t want my survivors to have to go through what I have.
I’m sure you’ll be fine too. :)
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 2:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I believe I have damaged more than one “friendship” when I failed to acknowledge that Their babby/child was NOT the cutest/smartest/specialest EVAR.
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 2:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Do they? Holy shit, I thought that was just my female friends bonding with other like minded females dumbstruck with the goddamned nesting, poopy diaper syndrome.
And before someone gets outraged at my anti-baby rant, I have two little brothers. Nuff said.
SC (Salty Current), OM
12 August 2011 at 2:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Night, Patricia.
…
*smolders*
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 2:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh #507
I missed that (caching and refreshing).
Thank you. What a lovely story. What a lovely man.
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 2:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau – Amen.
I think I’m about to be shit-canned by a friend because I don’t want her damned mini-dawg crawling all over me.
Mind you I NEVER take my Bulldog to other peoples houses, and I lock him in his crate when I have a guest show up, so I think it is unfair for her to get so damned indignant.
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 2:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m off to bed too. That bearded guy is cooing in a most entrancing manner.
Nite, nite!
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 2:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
MY bearded guy is snoring.
Not entrancing.
But very normal and comforting.
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 3:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I wish I had a bearded man to cajole me into bed. I will settle for a goatee.
Well, gotta sleep. I need to do some chest workout tomorrow.
Flower by Hayley Westerna a beautiful rendition of a Japanese folk song.
Rorschach
12 August 2011 at 4:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
How is the poor Rev BDC ever going to cope with this information ?
(blog pimp that involves bacon, sadly)
Tigger_the_Wing
12 August 2011 at 4:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I suppose that all the flirting* upthread has exhausted everyone and they’ve gone to bed, just as I finally catch up.
Oh well, I’ll wish everyone the best anyway and a very good night.
I’d like to join in with everyone forbidding Patricia and Caine to have cancer.
Otrame, big hugs to you.
*Which I enjoyed immensely, I must say. I suppose that makes me naughty?
John Morales
12 August 2011 at 5:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tigger,
Less easily bored than some, anyway.
Cath the Canberra Cook
12 August 2011 at 6:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Me too. No cancer allowed! None of that! I will do a spot of sympathetic magic with voodoo dolls and my recent negative pap smear, wave my arms in the air and gabble something about transferring positive energies. And say “quantum”. There. If that doesn’t sort it, I don’t know what will.
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 6:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fucking New York Avenue! I’m going to start driving 25 mph on that goddamned street cause no matter the speed I’m going I get a fucking ticket! It’s got its speed limit signs spread out so goddamned far that I don’t know if I’m in a 40 or 35 mph zone. 10 mph over is fine, but oh no, you were 11 mph over the limit, pay us $125.
Can’t argue about it cause it wasn’t my car.
Fuck that road. I hate driving.
John Morales
12 August 2011 at 6:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine,
According to that, 45 mph is fine.
(Prudence would indicate 44 mph, though)
Carlie
12 August 2011 at 6:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Patricia and Caine, good luck on everything, and of course you don’t have cancer. *arms crossed defiantly* I didn’t realize the tests were for a real reason – I thought they were more in the “overactive doctor preventative” realm. Which THEY ARE BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING WRONG. Hmpf.
Also, I want to hang out with you all soooo bad. Looks like last night was a fun time on the thread.
SC, I just read the other thread, and for what it’s worth, it looked to me like PZ’s comments weren’t directed towards you at all – more a general statement to everybody that he didn’t want the conversation to start going that way, not for anyone who had already commented, but for anyone else who might start up.
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 6:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@JM:
I was going 46. Probably for a couple seconds.
And how the heck do you get rid of that desktop cleanup wizard!?! I hate that sonofabitch wizard with a hatred that rivals my hatred for New York Avenue!
Tigger_the_Wing
12 August 2011 at 6:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine, I hate it when cities cannot signpost speed limits properly. Having lived in the UK and Ireland, and having travelled in Europe, I was used to signposts indicating the speed limit everywhere that it changed. Which usually meant at road junctions or places where a road widened/narrowed.
For instance, at a junction emerging from a 50 zone into a 60 zone, one side of the pair of signposts (which are on each side of the street) displays a red circle with 60; and for people entering the 50 zone the sign on the other side displays 50.
The rule is that motorists obey the last speed limit sign they pass. Simple.
Can they do that in Canberra? No, of course they can’t. As one enters the ACT one passes signs stating that the speed limit is 50 except where posted; but speed limit signs are posted randomly. It is perfectly possible to travel a kilometre or more along a road at 50km/hr (irritating following traffic) before passing a sign that says 80, because one joined at a junction just after the previous, randomly placed, 80 speed sign and was previously on unsigned roads.
When turning off the main road into our suburb, which has an 80 limit, into the main road through our suburb, one is expected to guess for 500m that the speed limit is 60 because that is how far the sign is from the entrance; and that if one turns into any of the side roads the limit is now 50.
It drives me (and everyone I know) absolutely nuts.
And one can be fined for being as little as 2km/hr over the limit.
Cath, good idea! “Quantum!”
That’d better work!
John M, not at all easily bored!
I* find pleasure in simple things and in the unlikeliest places. =^_^=
I get a lot of fun from TET as well as the heartbreak and drama.
You are a great bunch of people, you know.
*…have been forced by circumstances to …
Probably Ogvorbis, but with my commenting problems, who knows?
12 August 2011 at 6:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cyber hugs to Otrame.
Darwin didn’t predict cancer, so evolution is wrong! So if there is no Darwinismists, no cancer?
(sorry, I ain’t good at magical thinking)
Patricia and Caine, I offer my hopes for a positively negative result. Seriously, good luck.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
12 August 2011 at 7:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yep, truth be told, as much as a promote all things bacon I don’t really eat that much of it. Outside of drinking way too much beer, I actually eat fairly healthy as a whole and exercise 5-6 days a week. In part so that I can have these things occasionally.
Remember:
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 7:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Tigger:
I tend to drive at about 45 when I don’t know the speed limit. The annoying this is, I’m pretty sure I know exactly where I got the ticket at.
And looking at a map on Google I was right, this annoying stretch of roadway with 6 lanes and absolutely no reason it needs to be 35. It’s not even a residential area, it’s all hotels.
—
Set: 1 min, 3
Rev. BigDumbChimp
12 August 2011 at 7:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This bearded guy got punched in the shoulder for that last night.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
12 August 2011 at 7:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Anyone catch the Bachmann/Pawlenty kook fight last night?
John Morales
12 August 2011 at 7:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine, you running XP?
Enable or Disable the Desktop Cleanup Wizard
–
Tigger, not fair, pricking my bluster like that!
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 7:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@John Morales:
Thanks!
opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les pouces
12 August 2011 at 7:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Belated expression of envy re Josh actually getting to meet and hear a speech from Quentin Crisp, fabulous summa cum laudae. (I believe that among many other things he was the first to utter the ultimate, very last word in housework:
“After the first two years, the dust doesn’t get any thicker”. )
Tigger_the_Wing
12 August 2011 at 7:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry, John. As I said, I get my laughs where I can and you popped up as a nice, juicy target…
Pouring you a tipple of your choice through the USB in contrition…
broboxley OT
12 August 2011 at 7:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh,
thanks for the explanation of the avatar. I had thought it was Ann Landers doing drunken camp
broboxley OT
12 August 2011 at 8:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
was doing a WTF over this news article
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/lovstruck-taco-bell-worker-453627
then noticed this site listed in the comments. Looks like the ERV monument gang has their own blog
http://boycottamericanwomen.blogspot.com/
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 8:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@broboxley:
… … …
WTF?
Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
12 August 2011 at 8:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caught up! (Mostly)
Otrame,
*hugs* and love to you. If you need to vent, I’m here to listen.
Tethys:
My older sister was like that until fairly recently… and then she discovered supernatural romance novels. Not my cup of tea, but to each their own, right?
I go through fits and spurts of reading a lot*, depending on how my attention is divided. Right now, I’m finishing a book a week, but it’s not unusual for me to read a book a day if I’ve got nothing else going on.
GH:
♥!
I haven’t been to the gay bar (we’ve got a few in the area, but only one is worth going to) in ages. I used to go with my bff, but he moved away to go to law school, so now I’ve no one to go with. :(
*I’m never not reading something.
Carlie
12 August 2011 at 8:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m also still having troubles with the pages not refreshing (in firefox 3.6).
Bernard Bumner
12 August 2011 at 8:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m sure American women will be disappointed.
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 8:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Carlie:
Why are you still using Firefox 3.6?
Sili
12 August 2011 at 8:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Isn’t Enterprise the series everyone loves to hate (next to Voyager)?
My luck. Of course I’m the spitting image of a character who don’t pull.
Birger Johansson
12 August 2011 at 8:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Lord Shplanington:
“Unless the dub is really, really horrendously awful, I prefer the things I watch to be in a language I understand, and to not need to split my focus between reading and watching the action.”
After a while, the reading becomes automatic and does not cause distraction.
It is much more distracting with the mismatch between mouth movement and speech. Example: German dub of Kurosawa film, samurai shouting “achtung”!.
The format of the subtitles also matter.
The system of the (national) Swedish TV is to have a black band with white text on top for contrast.
No scrolling of text, that is really distracting!
Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
12 August 2011 at 8:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kat,
I can’t speak for Carlie (obvs), but I wish I had never upgraded to 4. I miss 3.6– I think it was way more stable and easier to use. And now Firefox wants me to start using 5*, but I’ve heard that it’s similar to Chrome and I loathe Chrome.
So, yeah. There’s my ff whine. :P
*That version came out awfully fast. Just sayin’.
Sili
12 August 2011 at 8:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Incidental evidence that Buddhists are as silly as any other religion.
Check out Mark Liberman’s link in his response to me for condensed crank magnetism.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 9:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
DrDMFM:
I dislike this kind of analysis, which treats punctuation as if it were rests (of varying value) in the music of speech. Puncuation is that, of course, but focusing on that aspect in explanations of usage tends to overwhelm the (IMHO, much more important) role of punctuation in delimiting the logical structure of an utterance.
As an editor whose client authors are mostly engineers and whose job often involves having to explain why a semicolon is correct and/or preferable in a given application, I want people thinking about punctuation marks as logical operators, much more than as artistic flourishes. YMMV. (As an aside, the colon and the semicolon are not interchangeable, regardless of what anybody thinks! </rant>)
SC:
I saw this post last night just before I went downstairs to watch the results finale (on DVR, but starting only about 50 minutes behind “live”; we finished watching at ~10:30 pm EDT). I meant to rush right upstairs to post as soon as we finished watching the show… but we made the mistake of deciding to watch the new (DVRed) Project Runway episode as well, and I fell asleep in the middle (so don’t spoil me!) and woke up on the couch, at 2:30 am, for just barely long enough to stagger to bed.
I didn’t perceive them as calling her mediocre… but you no doubt have a more accurate recollection of the comments than I do. My only point was that, in an entertainment/art form that is at some level about making beautiful shapes with your body and face, commenting on looks isn’t inherently out of bounds.
Have you seen the results yet? I think Melanie has been the best throughout the season, but Sasha may have been better over the last few episodes. Of course, I’ve previously confessed that Melanie is my SYTYCD crush (oddly so, since in several particulars, she’s not my typical “type”), so I’m not entirely objective.
In case you (or others here) haven’t seen the results yet, I won’t spoil… but I will tease: They announced the vote percentages for the final 2 (I don’t remember them doing that in the past), and it wasn’t close at all. The winner had ~47% of the vote, which in a 4-way race is essentially a landslide. As soon as I heard those numbers, I was pretty sure I knew who had won… and seconds later, my intuition was confirmed.
Yeah. Based on pure dance talent, this should’ve been the show’s best season ever, and by a long margin… but that potential was undercut by inconsistent quality in the choreography (and, not incidentally, in the choice of music, which is something SYTYCD usually excels at). Not that there weren’t some great moments, of course, but the overall standard of quality was down. Could that be owing to the absence of Mia Michaels, perhaps? I find her judging comments to be a bit precious and artsy sometimes, but there’s no arguing with her choreography.
Speaking of great moments, the way they stretched 2 minutes worth of results into a 2 hour show was the typical thing of having judges (a big panel) pick their favorite numbers to be re-presented. This makes for a great show, but it always makes me nervous: What if they’re not as good as we remembered? Interestingly, that never seems to happen, and that points out something (analogous to a point I’ve encountered in Bourdain’s writing about cooking): The art here is not just about being great once; it’s about being great in a way that’s repeatable.
Also, one other observation: Everybody loved the Melanie/Marko “statue” dance, but personally, I found the body makeup off-putting. Last night, they didn’t have time between numbers to do the makeup, and I found I liked the number much better.
I’m really enjoying MasterChef, too (though I’m not enjoying Christian!). The person eliminated most recently was my fave: not necessarily the best cook, but the person I would’ve been most happy to see succeed.
I don’t recall how I ended up watching MasterChef, though, because I’ve otherwise made it a point to avoid Ramsey’s shows. I don’t know how much screaming and ranting he actually does on those shows, but that seems to be the only thing they feature in the promos.
No, I haven’t. Where should I look for it?
SC (Salty Current), OM
12 August 2011 at 9:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No. He said he’d seen too much “smearing” of Smith. There was no smearing. CCP called her a narcissist, as he long has, and if that’s smearing then PZ smeared Zenbuffy in his post by calling her a narcissistic wanker. The handful of comments about her were posted six hours before he commented, with plenty of intervening remarks on other subjects, and were very tame compared to previous discussions of Mooney, Laden, and many others. I was insulted by the suggestion that our comments were moving or could move in the direction of her repulsive threads.
The reason I brought her up in the first place was that the transparent reason Zenbuffy ginned up this nonsense about PZ was that she was angry with him because of his comments about Watson and those attacking her. She went after him for a wholly imagined stigmatization and said not a word about ERV’s real stigmatization, just as she claimed herself and others as victims of an utter public trashing when not only were they not but they’re the ones publicly trashing people.
Carlie
12 August 2011 at 9:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine – at work we use a browser-based platform that currently doesn’t support beyond Firefox 3.6, so we’ve been warned not to upgrade or else if we have any problems IT will just laugh at us for upgrading when we were told not to.
SC – fair enough. I was reading it as just too much attention being paid to her at all, not specifically how he was describing the attention. I thought he was trying to avoid a lot of new people piling on and getting worse, not that the current commenters were going to descend there.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 9:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SC:
Thin-ist! </MiffedPortlyFellow> ;^)
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 9:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@carlie:
Seems to me like your IT is just lazy :p
Rev. BigDumbChimp
12 August 2011 at 9:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If you worked with me I would be scowling at you from my office.
Matt Penfold
12 August 2011 at 9:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Quite a few company’s tech support teams are getting a bit annoyed with how Mozilla releases new versions of Firefox.
There does not seem to be any logic to it, and support is quickly dropped from older versions no matter how quickly newer versions are released.
AJ Milne
12 August 2011 at 9:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
When I’m bored I like to dream up responses to the sidebar ads…
Today’s exchange:
‘Is God calling you?’
‘Hard to say. I generally don’t pick up when it comes in as ‘number not displayed’. Maybe that’s him?’
Carlie
12 August 2011 at 9:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine,
It’s contracted out through the state, so it’s either the company itself or the overarching State University of New York IT that’s at fault. I wouldn’t put it past either of them.
ChasCPeterson
12 August 2011 at 9:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
My fault. I should know better than to say anything, especially when it’s shit I already said.
So now I guess I’ll return to shutting up, without using the word ‘paternalism’ first.
oops
Sili
12 August 2011 at 9:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The first gay couple to get a civil union in Denmark was Axel and Eigil Axgil (yes, the last name is what it looks like), who’d been together for 40 years.
I may very farrrrrr out be related to Helmer Fogedgaard, who was also a big name in gay rights once upon a time, and the coiner of the word “homophile” in place of the more derogatory terms in use.
Quodlibet
12 August 2011 at 9:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh gosh, when am I not reading? I’ve usually got several books going at once.
———
May I share a recipe? Made this last night as a side dish to chicken and basmati rice. I got the idea from a Mediterranean cookbook.
Arrange on greens of your choice: (I used half baby spinach, half herb/lettuce salad):
Asparagus spears, steamed and cooled
Slices of avocado
Slices of ripe tomato
Orange sections
Drizzle over these a light dressing composed of olive oil, a little sherry vinegar, a little orange juice, salt and pepper.
The colors and textures are lovely, the flavors together are just wonderful. So nice on a summer evening
Rev. BigDumbChimp
12 August 2011 at 9:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
See for me all the sidebar ads are now targeting various product searches I’ve done recently for enterprise software packages.
llewelly
12 August 2011 at 9:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort | 12 August 2011 at 8:35 am :
Firefox 3.6 will stay up for about a day if I’m using FailBook chat a lot, or about a week if I am not.
Firefox 4.x will stay up for about an hour if I’m using FailBook chat a lot, or about half a day if I am not.
Obviously, the real problem here is FailBook chat, but either way Firefox 3.6 is more stable than Firefox 4.x , which is the least stable version of Firefox in a long time.
llewelly
12 August 2011 at 10:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
broboxley OT | 12 August 2011 at 8:14 am
… and they’re throwing ERV under the bus already.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 10:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Random thougths based on a quick skim from SC’s SYTYCD post last night through my posts this morning:
Benjamin:
Be happy that you’re teaching clueless newbies: They’ll have no bad habits to unlearn. I don’t know anything about programming (I learned BASIC back in the mid 70s, when there were still line numbers and GOTO statements, but am otherwise ign’ant), but I gather opinions about “best practices” can get a bit theological. Your non-CS-major undergrads will be clean slates, ready to be baptized in the True Religion of coding (whatever that is, according to you)! Should be fun! ;^)
Josh:
I’m probably the right age for you, but sadly, not gay. You could have a doomed, hopeless crush on me, if you wanted… but if you saw me, you probably wouldn’t want. ;^)
Josh and SC:
When y’all hang out, can I be a fly on the wall? Or perhaps your volunteer bartender?
Gyeong Hwa:
I’m mortally certain I’ll never be able to wrap my head around all the cultures, ethnicities, languages, etc., of Southeast Asia. Just one question: I’d always interpreted Khmer, by itself, as referring to a people (i.e., an ethnic/cultural name) and Khmer Rouge (=Red Khmer, right?) as referring to the political/ideological faction behind the genocide. Is that not right?
And finally, Caine:
To be serious for a moment… I’m sure you’ll be fine, but if (FSM forbid!) your test should come back positive for cancer, please remember that it’s not your fault! That may seem like a trivially obvious thing to say, but it’s shocking how many cancer patients and their families experience (irrational, but nevertheless quite real) guilt and shame about their illness. When my daughter was diagnosed, the first thing the oncologist said was that there’s no known root cause for her sort of cancer, but that it was almost certainly not a matter of environmental exposure… and even so, my wife went through agonies thinking about all the things she could’ve (in her mind, should’ve) done differently to protect her baby.
I’m absolutely not criticizing anyone, but a couple of the jokes here about you being “forbidden” to have cancer might tend to reinforce the idea that there’s some element of personal responsibility in the diagnosis. It ain’t so… but you’re liable to feel that way anyway. Please be on guard for that, and take good care of yourself. <hugs>
Rey Fox
12 August 2011 at 10:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
All I did was criticize her choice of soft drink.
llewelly
12 August 2011 at 10:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Carlie | 12 August 2011 at 9:40 am :
My bet: In these Dire Times of Hardship and Austerity, the State University of New York cannot or will not pay the contractor to support Firefox 4.x . IT is just coping with that decision.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 10:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Say, is it just me, or are others finding that the Recent Comments sidebar is often out of date? Several times, recently, I’ve looked at the sidebar and said “Oh, goody! New comments on TET,” only to find, upon clicking, that the links weren’t to new comments, but to comments tens or dozens up from the current latest. And yes, this has happened to me immediately after reloading the front page. ‘Tis a puzzlement….
Vicki
12 August 2011 at 10:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m doing okay with Facebook 5 at work (they gave me a new machine a couple of weeks ago, and previous versions weren’t available for download). Where “doing okay” means I’ve now run it for ten workdays, with zero crashes.
On the other hand, I’m not stressing it with Facebook, only Google+, some blog and news sites, and whatever work-related searches I need to do. Probably not relevant to stability, but I’m running AdBlockPlus and Flashblock, both for the same reason: I don’t want lots of random animations.
AJ Milne
12 August 2011 at 10:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Went through a spell like that. Bought this used four-track, hunted around for it a bit in the online want ads, and for weeks that was all anyone wanted to sell me…
Then my daughter got a camera. Did some hunting online. Same deal, again, for weeks.
They should have an ‘I don’t think he’ll be ver’ interested/he’s already got one y’see’ button for those things. Y’know. Save ‘em some trouble.
But it got me to thinking I should take note of the sites that do that–mebbe try and create some amusing juxtapositions for screen captures… Y’know, search for a while on various sex toys, then visit some godbot forum, see if you can get the ‘Butt plugs 4 cheap’ banner in various amusing spots…
(/Or wait… You don’t s’pose the rent boy services would use those cookie-driven things? And then I see what I can get next to a Rekers essay…)
Jules
12 August 2011 at 10:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I haven’t been able to try to log on for days, and I’ve only posted once or twice, so this is mostly just a test post.
I’ll go back and catch up like a good girl now.
Glad to be able to see everyone again.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 10:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yay! Jules is here!
Sili
12 August 2011 at 10:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m sure it’s unprofessional, but I love how the people behind the camera on The Rachel Maddow Show can’t help laughing.
And how saying “google it” when talking about Rick Santorum constitutes a joke in its own right.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 10:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Since Sili mentioned the Rachel Maddow Show, I’ll just note that I had a little happy this morning when I was listening to the podcast of last night’s show, and heard Rachel mention Congressman John Larson, the Democrat who represents the next district over from mine (and the district in which my workplace is located), and whom I’ve met on numerous occasions.
Six-degrees-of-SomebodyWhoGetsMentionedOnNationalTVShows!
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 11:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
OK, I need a bit of food advice: My colleague brought me a small bunch of Swiss chard from her garden, and I don’t quite know what to do with it. It’s a small enough bunch that if I just sautee the greens, it probably won’t make for more than a very small side dish for two. Does it work well raw in salads? Is there some other application — an ingredient in a main dish, perhaps — that might make better use of it? And this bunch includes nice long stems, which kinda’ look like very skinny celery, and which I understand are edible: Any advice on how to use the stems?
Thanks in advance….
Matt Penfold
12 August 2011 at 11:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I tend to remove the stems from the leaves, and stir fry the stems until tender. Then add in the leaves, together with some garlic and cook until the leaves have wilted.
You can add some cream if you like.
Quodlibet
12 August 2011 at 11:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill,
I love Swiss chard steamed/wilted and served with butter, but yes, as with spinach, it takes a large quantity to make even one serving.
You can use it as you would spinach, though it takes a bit more cooking time. Taste a bit raw to see if you would enjoy it in a salad. Chop it up and stir it into a pasta dish; I often do this with spinach, adding it at the last minute, so it stays bright. Maybe use it in a quiche? Or serve it as one of several vegetables.
Be sure to wash it carefully, as those curly leaves can hide the dirt. Soak it in a large bowl of very cold water, swishing it around to loosen any grains of dirt. Depending on how it was grown and harvested, you might need to do that 2 or 3 times.
Matt Penfold
12 August 2011 at 11:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Another nice thing to do with chard is to make a gratin. Maybe adding some bacon.
cicely
12 August 2011 at 11:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sure thing, Josh. Wall o’ Text Warning: People not actively interested in the play-by-play would be well-advised to scroll down now.
My Intro to MRSA came disguised as a pimple, of modest aspect, on my butt. I noticed it on, I think, a Friday; by the next afternoon, it had formed a substantial abscess, about the size of a quarter, under it. Attempts to lance it were ineffective; I now know that this is because the festering mass was deeper down than we suspected. It increased greatly in size overnight, so we went to the Walk-In clinic to have it looked at. The doctor was very impressed. He lanced and drained it, told us to watch it closely, and bring it back in if it didn’t get dramatically better. Instead, it got dramatically worse, so the following day, after work, we went back to the clinic. The Husband described the abscess at this point as being as big as his doubled fist (and his hands are not small). The doctor looked at it, left the room, and when he came back in, told us to go, right now, without even stopping to pay out at the desk, across town to a specialist, with whom he had already set up an appointment and faxed her the relevant info; his hope was that she would be able to deal with it it her office. As you’ll no doubt remember, she wasn’t; she looked at it for a couple of minutes, and then had her appointments assistant book me in at the front of the line for surgery first thing in the morning. Waking up at 5 am tends to make me cranky, but I was plenty scared at this point, because the phrase “life threatening” had been floated in the conversation.
After that, hospital time, my memory’s not too clear (and morphine yields such bright, shiny dreams!), I’d bet that the IVs included antibiotics, and since the great gaping hole in my butt (oh, yes, and a smaller cavern off to one side where a smaller infection had never got around to running a shaft to the surface) seemed to be doing well, they released me into the wild, after giving The Husband detailed instructions in the Care and Feeding of Post-surgical Asses. They were also able to arrange 2 free in-home visits from Oxford Medical (props!) to check me out, and make sure TH was doing everything right. They seemed impressed that we knew about sterile implements, surgical gloves, the need to segregate the medical wastes, etc. After some while (involving drugs again; and again, memory is hazy) it had healed enough for me to go back to work. Massive use of bleach and Lysol.
We thought we had this thing whipped.
Fast-forwarding the tape, we go to a couple of months ago. A suspicious (to me they have a slightly different feel and appearance to “normal” zits) and inconveniently-placed zit appeared (pubic mound); we did as the doctor had recommended, using heat to lure it to the surface so we could lance it. It evaded our wiles and refused to surface, grew into about a nickel-sized abscess, and we took it to the doctor the next day, by which time it was about half-dollar sized. He cut it (drugs!!!) and drained it and put a wick in it, no hospital time, at office visit prices (mad props to Dr. Baird), home, more antibiotics, healed, blah-de-blah.
Fast-forward to the recent past; there was a swarm of little zitlets (why the groin? always the groin….), but they were surface and shallow, easily dealt with as per directions, but we didn’t go the the clinic because we didn’t have the cash because our car was being spectacularly stoopid (but that’s different epic). Then came the Little Zit That Could; as soon as we saw it making a run for the goal line, we took it in for an attitude adjustment. With its dramatic speed of enlargement I was worried, but again the doctor handled it in-house, and on follow-up (to have the ‘wick’ removed) decided that it was healing well, and he prescribed a longer course of antibiotics than previously, and more of ‘em. It’s a work-in-progress, but I’m cautiously optimistic.
Hopefully what he’s got me taking will nuke it into non-existence, and we won’t have to do this again.
And don’t you wish you hadn’t asked? :)
-
SC (Salty Current), OM
12 August 2011 at 11:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I seem to have missed the comments about Caine and Patricia and can
lalalalalalalalalalalalala
***
No doubt. :)
Dude, I never said it was.
Yes, but let’s hold off in case others haven’t.
Agreed – all of it.
I thought their choices were good. Most had been my favorites. I love the Sasha/Twitch number.
I didn’t care for it either time. I don’t know why. It doesn’t have any elements that I dislike particularly, other than being kind of gimicky, but it doesn’t move me. Come to think of it, maybe it is the gimickiness…
I can’t bring myself to dislike him too much. He’s from Glosta and cooks fish.
Hm. I don’t think I have a favorite on that one.
Here.
I’ve only seen it a couple of times.
Oh, no! I didn’t mean it like that. I meant more like “people who consume so much garbage they become it” and thick as in mentally dense. I think it and other mass food items would make good insults – “The science does too support AGW, you charbroiled thickburger.”
mouthyb, powered by spite since 1977
12 August 2011 at 11:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Catching up as well, to add the hope for Patricia that it is not cancerous and that your doctor is better behaved.
mouthyb, powered by spite since 1977
12 August 2011 at 11:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
On Swiss Chard: I like to wash, de-stem and braise in the following mixture–
bouillon
low sodium soy sauce
booze
a little sugar
crushed red peppers
sesame oil
minced garlic
Not to much of any one thing, and the booze is whatever I’ve got in house (rice wine for a preference.)
It’s quite good. I’ll sometimes serve it with big old hunks of bread to sop up the sauce.
Melissa G
12 August 2011 at 11:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Benjamin “van Driessen” Geiger, omg…. “Depression is a kind of fire.” That was amazing. Thank you for posting that.
The Sailor
12 August 2011 at 12:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh, what would be even more camp for your avatar is to have a picture of a female impersonator depicting Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford! (Or maybe that’s just my weird sense of humor.)
++++++++++++++++++++
In the latest republican caught-with-their-pant-down news Email rendezvous entangles state Rep. Phillip Hinkle
Lawmaker calls encounter set up with young man on Craigslist a ‘shakedown’
Sili
12 August 2011 at 12:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I can’t say I knew of Gloria Steinem, but I liked her very much on The Colbert Report.
Not my place to judge, but I think Colbert did a good job. Odd how one can be a Catholic and a feminist.
slignot
12 August 2011 at 12:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The horrors of medical inconvenience, incompetence and cruelty from Patricia and Caine fill me with rage and horror. I truly don’t understand how anyone could think our medical coverage system is adequate as is.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 12:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SC:
Then we’re in perfect agreement… hooray!
This is a problem I’m increasingly recognizing in myself: I articulate points in ways that sound like a fight when there’s really no argument — or at least, no conflict, even if there’s an “argument” in the strictly rhetorical sense. I was trying to “revise and extend my remarks,” as they say in Congress, not pick a fight with you. Sorry for the confusion.
I agree wholeheartedly. I felt a bit sorry for Melanie and Sasha, though, because they were onstage almost constantly. It has to have been twice as much dancing as they’d done in any previous episode… while they were on pins and needles waiting for the results. It must’ve been exhausting! I’m just happy neither of them got injured.
Ding-ding-ding! There’s one moment in that dance — when Sasha pops up off the floor directly into a backbend, and then Twitch reaches up and pushes her upright — that’s probably my favorite individual sequence of the season, just ahead of Melanie’s flying leap across the stage.
Re the “statue” dance: Maybe the gimmicky factor is why I liked it better without the makeup.
Do you have any structural critiques of the show, or wish-list items for future seasons? Personally, I really like the way they blended the original Top-20 structure with the All-Star-partner format from last season, and I liked that they continued to have the judges involved in elminations as deep into the season as they did. I hope they keep those changes.
I’d like to see solos better incorporated as main performances: While there have been some outstanding counterexamples, the solos we get mostly come off as technical exercises… more audition pieces than real artistic performances. I’d like to see (occasionally; not replacing the basic partner-dance format) longer solos, choreographed by the show choreographers and judged in the same way the partnered numbers are. I recall the episode (in whatever season it was that Sabra won) in which all the dancers performed the same Mia Michaels solo, to John Mayers’ Waiting for the World To Change, in the same costumes. I really enjoyed seeing how… I think it was eight… different dancers interpreted the same dance. I’d like to see them do more stuff like that in the future.
Yeah, I suspect I’d like eating his food; I just don’t like listening to his mouth. I actually wonder if that arrogant jerk persona isn’t a conscious pose: Does he think he’ll get more attention from the audience by making himself a villain? Because I find it hard to believe he’s really that much of a… damn, I wish I hadn’t sworn off gendered insults, because prick feels like the perfect word here.
You did notice my cheeky fake-tag and smiley, didn’t you? I was just teasin’!
Rev. BigDumbChimp
12 August 2011 at 12:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Homescholers for Perry
Yep.
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 12:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I just burst out laughing at a news story, my work probably thinks I’m crazy.
You’re probably aware of the Bert and Ernie thing – how a petition online wants them to get married. Well, the problem there is they’re best friends and roommates, not lovers… and they’re puppets, they don’t have a sexual orientation! I’m all for equality, mind you, and I think it’s important to know that people have different sexual orientations – but preschooling / kindergarten students are a bit young for that.
So yea… that was hilarious.
theophontes
12 August 2011 at 12:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am going to succumb to laziness and try to make this bread.(Link:No-Knead Bread) The dough is rising as I type, and should be ready to go into the oven when I get up tomorrow.
For the Pharyngufoodies who are too lazy to read the whole recipe, here is a video: Link.
[holds thumbs]
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 12:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks, everyone, for the Swiss chard ideas. mouthyb’s combination of booze, hot peppers, and Asian flavors speaks to me most immediately, so maybe I’ll give that a try this evening.
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 1:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill,
What is Asian flavors? Whenever I taste myself, I taste like lotion.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 1:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gyeong Hwa:
LOL! I have no idea what Asians taste like (my wife won’t let me find out!); in this case, I was just referring to sesame oil and soy sauce.
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 1:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And fish sauce, wasabi, coconut milk, rice wine, vinegar, hoision, sriracha, chili peppers, curry, lemon grass. . . I’m suddenly craving noodles.
Rey Fox
12 August 2011 at 1:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No kidding. I think it’s just as valuable to have the message out there that two men can be in the same room together without being TEH GHEY HERP A DERP. Now if only television could give us a few platonic male and female friends.
cicely
12 August 2011 at 1:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*hugs* and *boozes* for Otrame. I’m sorry about your friend. We’re here for you. But you know that.
:( :( :(
-
*snortle*
-
I think that it’s probably unanimous. And the same goes for Patricia.
-
Like chocolate; distilled Awesomeness, but no-one (except maybe DDMFM) can actually live on it.
;)
-
(Fang-porn.)
-
WIN.
-
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 1:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gyeong Hwa:
Stop, dammit! I’m stuck at my desk, nowhere near any of those yummy things!
Speaking of lemongrass…
1. I’ve got a batch of Lebaoku (a homemade basil-and-lemongrass liqueur) that should be ready to bottle; I’ll have to do that this weekend.
2. I’m growing lemongrass, and I think the plants need to be trimmed. I’ve only ever worked with the stalks before (from the market; this is the first time I’ve tried to grow my own), but it seems a shame to just throw away/compost the leaves (blades). Are they good for anything?
Caine, Fleur du Mal
12 August 2011 at 1:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Patricia:
Er…amen. ;) All tentacles crossed. I seriously hope your appt. on the 15th goes well.
Yep, I’ve done all that too. I don’t want things to be more difficult than they need to be.
I’m sure you’ll be fine as well. :)
Cath:
Aha, quantum! Yes, that’s it. I knew I was forgetting something. Everything will be okay now.
Audley:
On that score, I’d recommend a trilogy by C.E. Murphy – Heart of Stone, House of Cards and Hands of Flame. Love interest is a human female lawyer and a gargoyle. For my money, the most interesting character is the man who is actually a dragon. ;D
Bill:
Oh, I know that! I am over 50 and know that these things happen. Thank you, though.
Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
12 August 2011 at 2:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cicely,
Ha! Exactly!
SallyStrange
12 August 2011 at 2:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…handosexual?
Are you sure you’re not perpetuating anti-puppet prejudice here?
(Alliteration FTW!)
But yeah, demanding Bert & Ernie get married is just silly. Now, Rod and Nicky on the other hand…
Sili
12 August 2011 at 2:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I usually don’t mind pointing and laughing at stupid, people but this Not Always Right rubs me the wrong way. I think the clerk is judgemental.
Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
12 August 2011 at 2:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT. CAN PEOPLE PLEASE STOP FUCKING EVERYTHING UP TODAY?
Gah!
slignot
12 August 2011 at 2:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You know, while I think the petition that Burt and Ernie get married was incredibly stupid, I’m also bothered by the rather huffy answer that they are certainly not gay. I always rather liked the unambiguity in their relationship, at least as I got old enough to realize there was any.
For as long as I can remember, I had the distinct impression that they were a gay couple. (Moreover, that it wasn’t even worth mentioning, because the characters were the interesting part of the plot.) I was rather stunned when I first got the idea that other people considered them “just” friends or roommates. I even nicknamed an older cousin (my mom’s cousin actually) and his lover Bert & Ernie, and they would argue over which one got to be Ernie.
I’m always rather troubled when people imply relationships as an adult topic that children should be protected from. I was insulated from anti-gay bigotry to such a degree growing up that discovering that there were those who were angered by same-sex couples was almost unthinkable. It was simply normal that people were with whoever made them happy. I don’t think I ever needed to have those relationships explained to me, and my parents said I never asked curious questions that would need explanations about orientation.
Between gay couples in the family and my favorite uncle buying a huge old house with 3 lesbian couples, I had enough exposure to LGB individuals to prevent me from ever “othering” them. By waiting until children grow and have opportunities to internalize prejudice, I think we do them a disservice. Attractions are complicated and can wait for ongoing education about sexuality and sex ed, but denying that gay couples exist or refusing to talk about them is damaging.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 2:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
FWIW, Here’s the recipe for the Lebaoku liqueur I mentioned. I didn’t see any relevant English-language Google results other than to this recipe, so it’s possible the name is the author’s own invention.
My variation on the recipe is to use a mix of several types of basil (opal basil, African basil, even a little classic Italian basil) along with the specified Thai basil. All the basil I use for this comes from my garden; it was because of this recipe (and because lemongrass is sometimes hard to find in the markets near me) that I decided to try growing my own lemongrass.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
12 August 2011 at 2:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Audley, book recommends for your sis-in-law in 623. :)
Sili
12 August 2011 at 2:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Plenty of lovers don’t want to be married. I think it’s wrong of society to be so heteronormative.
And preschoolers are not too young for equality. But I wouldn’t let them watch Ert and Bernie, no.
Dianne
12 August 2011 at 2:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
and they’re puppets, they don’t have a sexual orientation!
That never stopped there from being a lot of discussion about Kermit and Miss Piggy getting married. If one set of puppets can get married…
The Sailor
12 August 2011 at 2:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
We’re all being nice to each other. Maybe leaving a couple of gaps in the breadcrumb trail was PZ’s 11th dimensional chess.
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 2:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Remember this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletubbies#Tinky_Winky_controversy
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 2:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@chigau:
True, but Tinky Winky WAS purple and had a triangle on his head so there *sagely nod*
@slignot:
I don’t think it’s up to Sesame Street to tell kids about sexual orientation. It should be up to the parents. If they’re homophobic bigots, it’s doubtful they’d react well anyway.
slignot
12 August 2011 at 2:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Was catching up on my reading, and found something that actually cheered me up today: New York doing something positive for young rape victims. I wish I’d heard about this sooner, actually.
Recognizing that testifying in court is incredibly damaging and re-victimizing to even the most stoic victims, therapy dogs are starting to be allowed in some states to sit in the witness stand with young victims to help them through testimony. That’s incredible!
Defense attorneys naturally dislike anything that makes a victim they’re cross examining more confident or that makes a witness seem more credible to the jury, and don’t like it one bit.
slignot
12 August 2011 at 2:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It isn’t; as I said, I now see the relationship with Burt and Ernie as open to interpretation. But I do think that media that children consume shouldn’t be produced with total de-facto heterosexuality because the less exposure a child has to the idea of same sex couples, the greater the risk of bigotry in attitudes later.
Having couples or possible couples be in the backdrop of content without ever making a point of instructing or mentioning orientation is healthy. I don’t want Sesame Street or the like to directly address orientation, I just don’t want them to pretend gay people don’t exist.
Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
12 August 2011 at 2:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine,
Ah, thanks. She will appreciate those. ;)
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 2:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Another cuss troll on the Beck thread. *yawn*
KG
12 August 2011 at 2:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Patricia, Caine,
I’d cross my fingers and toes for you, but you know it’s unlucky to be superstitious :-p
Patricia, OM
12 August 2011 at 2:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
KG – Well we couldn’t have that! Have a round of something highly drinkable instaed.
Muse
12 August 2011 at 2:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So yes – I think the Not Always Right is wrong in this case. Clerk is a. Assuming that the woman is pregnant b. assuming that she wishes to stay pregnant, c. that the smokes are the woman’s/they will be smoked around her d. that it’s any of her damn business.
The Sailor
12 August 2011 at 2:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kat, I sorta agree it’s up to the parents, buuut :”I don’t think it’s up to Sesame Street to tell kids about sexual orientation. It should be up to the parents.”
I don’t think Sesame Street did that in any way except to acknowledge the differences children see every day, depending on their community.
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 3:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine #635
Yes, true.*nodding sagely*
But I maintain that one must have sex parts before it can be determined if one is homo- or hetero- (or other-).
Gyeong Hwa
12 August 2011 at 3:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine,
He had a prada bag too, remember. The creature was camp!
Josh, Official SpokesGay
12 August 2011 at 3:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I have no opinion about the Bert/Ernie getting married thing, but I’m surprised and disappointed in some of the responses here. It’s just as slignot said, why is it more controversial to talk about puppets getting Ghey Married than puppets getting “normal” married? Why is it just ordinary everyday life when Maria and Luis are a married couple on the show, but it’s “sexualizing” and inappropriate for young children if the couple (puppet or not) is same sex?
Some of you have some re-thinking to do.
Sili
12 August 2011 at 3:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Just what do you think that triangle was for?
starblind
12 August 2011 at 3:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Japanese and there tentacle porn …. WTF.
Sili
12 August 2011 at 3:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*ding*ding*ding*ding*ding*ding*ding*ding*
That was the one that bugged me.
The Sailor
12 August 2011 at 3:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I will never haz a Molly. [/sadz] When I post here it’s generally nice posts, when I post on other threads I go full throttle, because I’m springloaded to the pissed off position and the safeties are off.
Oh, also, too, I don’t deserve one. Hanging out with you folks is a lot like my work environment; I’m the stupidest person in the room and I like it. I get to learn every day. (Unlike work, I don’t get paid for learning everyday here;-)
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 3:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau:
I wonder. I know y’all are “just funnin’” about muppet sex, but doesn’t the above imply that orientation depends on performance? If a man’s “wedding tackle” had been (as Tom Lehrer might put it) “shot off in the war,” would that man not still be either gay or straight, just as he was before? For that matter, isn’t a Catholic priest gay or straight, depending on his indwelling desires, even if he keeps his vow of celibacy ’til death? And <Danger!>isn’t a bisexual woman still bisexual even if she’s in a lifelong monogamous relationship with a man?</Danger!>
OTOH, Bert and Ernie have never had any sexual bits, and neither (so far as we know) have any of their fellow denizens of Sesame Street: Perhaps sexuality is an inherently irrelevant concept to muppetkind. Maybe the right way to put it is…
;^)
slignot
12 August 2011 at 3:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@chigau, I realize that when you said this:
You didn’t mean to imply certain things about sexuality and gender, but it feels a little cis-privileged to me. The sex parts one has or was born with don’t dictate gender and therefore don’t necessarily dictate sexual orientation. I know you didn’t mean it in this way, but the implication is there.
I catch myself thinking this way on occasion and hate it. (I didn’t quite understand transgender issues very well until the last few years, and I have to try harder to catch my own privilege.)
BTW, I also disagree that the puppets on Sesame Street are not divided according to a gender binary.
Quodlibet
12 August 2011 at 3:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Set 0:57!!
But it was pretty easy today.
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 3:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I thought it was a coat-hanger.
And the green one appears to have a penis on it’s head.
(I’m working on a netbook. The pictures are very, very tiny.)
I don’t know what the yellow one has.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 3:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh:
^^^THIS!^^^
For that matter, why should it be inappropriate for young children to acknowledge any intimate relationship. I’m not suggesting Sesame Street ought to convert itself to the Muppet Porn Channel (MuppetMax?), but it bothers me that we seem to think the kinder’s brains will melt if they stumble upon the concept of human sexuality.
Again, I’m not suggesting it’s Sesame Street’s job to address sexuality in any direct way; I just get wearly of a culture that implicitly treats sex as toxic.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
12 August 2011 at 3:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hmmm… it occurs to me that my comments @X51 (for some reason, I’m only seeing two-digit comment numbers) did not adequately allow for possibilities other than gay or straight in a couple places. Please forgive my oversight.
Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
12 August 2011 at 3:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh:
That’s it exactly. It’s not like we’re talking about anything other than what should be normal.
And there are ways to explain same sex couples to young children, if there are any questions– just say that Bob and Ken or Jane and Sally love each other very much, so they decided to get married.
It doesn’t seem that earth-shattering to me. *shrugs*
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 3:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ow…
I just jammed a freakin’ pair of tweezers into my leg.
A little bit of blood, didn’t go in too far… but still. Ow.
cicely
12 August 2011 at 3:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jules!
-
Be comforted, The Sailor; I am far less likely to haz a Molly than U r. (Well, someone has to take responsibility for Teh Thread’s inconsequential fluff content!)
To be Mollyable you pretty much have to do hard time on threads that I find very stressful, comment copiously, cogently, and cleverly. I…can do one out of three; on a good day, two out of three.
I suspect that I would beat you in the “stupidest person in the room” contest, too. :)
-
Jaundice.
-
Nerd of Redhead
12 August 2011 at 3:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Finally decided to upgrade the OS to Lion, but also did a reality check on my storage capacity for my semi-paranoid need for back-up. Got a new honking big external HD, and it looks like lot of information has be moved to get the space where I want it. Sigh, present configuration is going through USB2 instead of FW800.
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 4:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill Dauphin and slignot
I see your points.
What I meant was that one would need to have actual sexual organs to be considered as any kind of sexual being.
Is that better or worse?
I got the impression that the Teletubbies were deliberately made gender/sex ambiguous/neutral.
—
I do battle daily with my various privileges and sometimes all the voices in my head give me a migraine.
slignot
12 August 2011 at 4:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau, better. :) I knew you didn’t mean that intentionally, but it jumped out at me. I never really saw the teletubbies as gendered, but the characters on Sesame Street are fairly clearly gendered.
At least we’re not dealing with muppets with creepy sexuality; seriously, was anyone else ever bothered that Animal was basically a sexually harassing rapist?
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 4:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kitty
Don’t do that.
And don’t run with scissors, either.
Seriously, though, are you current with your tetanus shots?
Sili
12 August 2011 at 4:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Can’t say that I remember that.
Gonzo and the chickens, though …
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 4:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@chigau:
Yea. I got them about two years ago.
But they should be fine. I was tweezing hairs and a hair was just under the surface, so I got an exfoliating loofa and started rapidly rubbing the skin.
Needless to say, tweezers in hand went into my leg.
Tethys-zombi feministe calmar-garou
12 August 2011 at 4:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Leaving aside the issue of sesame street promoting any type of agenda.
I am bothered by the prurient interest in projecting sexuality onto puppets. Or sponge bob square pants.
Why must a cohabitating same sex couple be subject to speculation?
Laverne and Shirley. Lenny and Squiggy. Felix Unger and Oscar Madison.
I’m sad that room-mates can’t just be room-mates without people having to sexualize or stigmatize them.
Sili
12 August 2011 at 4:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
1 Min, 50 Secs
Not too bad, given how hard I found it to find the last one.
slignot
12 August 2011 at 4:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kitty, that sounds like something I would do, actually. Spouse perpetually seems horrified by the number of scrapes, scratches and bruises I have at any given time, especially since I don’t always remember where they come from. I don’t bruise as easily as my mom, but I do tend to bump into things a lot.
I recently had to update my DTaP because I managed to find a nail in the lawn with the heel of my foot.
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 4:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
slignot
*whew* Thanks.
What I remember most about Animal is that he had major crush on Buddy Rich.
Sili
12 August 2011 at 4:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I haven’t watched Laverne & Shirley and even I think they’re gay.
Sometimes a cigar isn’t just a cigar.
Katrina, radicales féministes athées
12 August 2011 at 4:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
When I was a kid, I just always assumed Bert and Ernie were brothers.
Nerd of Redhead
12 August 2011 at 4:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
How about Lennie and Squiggy?
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 4:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@slignot:
Yep. I wake up with weird scratches on my arms or legs and I have no idea where I got them from. Huge bruises too. Don’t hurt, so they’re probably just pooled blood from sleeping weird.
Sili
12 August 2011 at 4:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Apropos of nothing does moustache wax still exist or is that just something I’ve read about in old novels?
Katrina, radicales féministes athées
12 August 2011 at 4:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Sili:
http://www.drugstore.com/search/search_results.asp?N=0&Ntx=mode%2Bmatchallpartial&Ntk=All&srchtree=1&Ntt=moustache+wax&Go.x=0&Go.y=0
Tethys-zombi feministe calmar-garou
12 August 2011 at 4:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sili,
I did watch Laverne and Shirley as a kid. I never once speculated about their sexual orientation. I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.
Sili
12 August 2011 at 4:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The pictures look pretty gay, but what do I know.
Reminds me that I really need to read Steinbeck at some point, though.
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
12 August 2011 at 4:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Time to play Bastion.
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 4:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
me:
“actual sexual organs”.
On a Teletubby.
*sigh*
Where does that leave Barbie and Ken?
Sili
12 August 2011 at 4:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks. I shoulda known better than to ask:
http://www.handlebarclub.co.uk/wax/morewax.shtml
Sili
12 August 2011 at 4:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Little girl is playing with her Barbie and a GI Joe.
Mother: Doesn’t Barbie come with Ken?
Girl: No. Barbie comes with GI Joe. She fakes it with Ken.
Le Havre en Chêne - socialiste rapide
12 August 2011 at 4:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sili:
As you’d expect – Ken’s totally gay anyway, so I doubt Barbie would be his type.
Tethys-zombi feministe calmar-garou
12 August 2011 at 4:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“I seen hunderds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hunderds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Everybody wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.”
- John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, Ch. 4
chigau ()
12 August 2011 at 5:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s midnight in Oslo.
Is PZ still in the airport?
The Sailor
12 August 2011 at 5:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“Why must a cohabitating same sex couple be subject to speculation?”
This.
Sili
12 August 2011 at 5:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Huh. I had no idea I’d ever actually heard Norwegian Wood, but the tune sounds vaguely familiar.
Dhorvath, OM
12 August 2011 at 5:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
David M,
How quickly do you read?
___
Sailor,
So you have a rudder? Been sailing?
___
Otrame,
My shoulder is free if you still need one. Death is hard enough without people pushing bullshit at us, sorry you are dealing with two problems at once.
___
Benjamin,
Yes, that is wrong. There is a difference between preference and compatible.
___
chigau,
What the hell is up with that anyways? No your kid isn’t the only one in the world, no it’s not always cute, smart, or talented, and no I don’t want to talk about it to the exclusion of anything else. I have progeny and I don’t want to talk about him all the time. Shit, he crept into this though.
___
Theophontes,
But, kneading is half the fun of making bread.
___
Katherine,
I am at a loss. Why would you think that parents are better suited to telling kids about sexual orientation?
___
Are we having a stupidest person contest again? By what metric? I only ask because I can fit under a number of lines too; it’s intellectual limbo don’t you know.
___
Sili,
My father uses mustache wax, I think he buys it online.
Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
12 August 2011 at 5:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau:
Scissoring.
Nerd of Redhead
12 August 2011 at 5:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Played a lot of Beetles during my marching band days. I know we played that at least once. Probably couldn’t put a name to it, but it would be familiar.
PZ Myers
12 August 2011 at 5:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
NEW THREAD!
Now, let me sleep.
cannabinaceae
12 August 2011 at 5:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill Dauphin’s talk about how he feels perceived as a fight starter, reminds me of my own experience.
(BTW, I find Bill’s prose tends to be an exemplary use of parentheses and side comments for specifying nuance.)
Anyway, and I find this especially trye when I’m talking science with scientists, I feel that I come across as defensive, when I’m assuredly not so. When one says one’s piece about whatever’s being talked about, one inevitably sacrifices details for time, and people interrupt at need. When I’m the one supplying details, my audience responds (to my perception) as if they think I’m being defensive.
I think that both situations are examples of the inherent difficulty in people understanding each other, even when all are honestly trying. I usually go to extra effort to understand, when conversing. Often what I conclude is that the lack of communication* is largely due to the other person’s not attempting to understand. Obviously, when you finally figure out what others misunderstand, you can strategize, which can really decrease the aggravation.
*For this message, I am equating “conversation” with “lack of communication”
Nerd of Redhead
12 August 2011 at 5:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
WAKE UP PZ.
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