This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. Even baby dragons look superior.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
the up roar about the 9-11 Mosque,
Excuse me, I know no one was supporting the uproar, etc, but I used to live near the “9-11 mosque” and got the full force of the uproar. Therefore, I will now rant:
1. It wasn’t a mosque. It was a community center that included a prayer space. Much like many hospitals, including secular ones, include a chapel.
2. It wasn’t at the WTC site. It was at a nearby building that was completely unrelated to 9/11, Port Authority, or anything else.
3. The Muslims involved were sufis-the unitarians of the Islamic world. They had nothing to do with the terrorists and would have been targets of their hatred even more than the “western” world is. Seriously, it’s like protesting a Presbyterian church on the site of an IRA bombing.
4. The building they were going to turn into a community center? Now empty except for the occasional graffiti artist. Thanks, guys. The economy is really so wonderful that we can afford to turn down people who want to restore an empty building.
5. An informal poll of the people protesting (consisting of me saying, “Excuse me, would you mind telling me where you’re from?”) revealed no one from southern Manhattan participating in the protest, but many in the counter-protest in favor of the community center.
6. My theory is that it was all a conspiracy by the Jerseyites to ruin New York’s economy.
Excuse me, I have to go wipe the foam off my mouth now.
dianne,
As far as the Park 51 project is concerned, I also like to add something that I hope you’d agree with: the people building that community center were victims of the terrorists on 9/11, the same as everyone else who was in NYC that day. They aren’t interlopers or invaders, they are members of that community and have been for decades.
Dianne:
Wasn’t it an old Woolworth’s or something?
I absolutely love how the people who regularly decry New York City as being a hive of scum and villainy were the ones protesting the community center. I mean, what the fuck? Why the fuck should they even care?
Makes me want to deport all Republicans and I don’t even live in/around NYC.
Not really caught up on the thread, and about 12 hours late.
However:
Yippee! I won’t have to go to church again for at least 10 weeks, and I can probably get out of every service after that point (except the actual Christmas Day service). Life is looking up.
[I have my excuses and Get Out Of Questions Without Lying Or Telling The Truth Free card all prepared.]
@Joe: I agree with you entirely. I like the way the song “The Peter Principle at Work”, which is essentially about the 2004 Republican convention puts it: “New York IS everything so many of you fear. Chinese, Korean, Russian, even ARABIC spoken here.”
In other words, the people who talk about the horror of 9/11 without respecting all New Yorkers, including the ones who wear burkas and pray 5 times a day are the interlopers and their “sympathy” is not wanted.
The reaction to the Park 51 project is an example of Islamophobia right there… just because it can be invoked dishonestly doesn’t mean it stops existing.
FossilFishy, you can thank John Howard for the Bradman question in the citizenship test.
Does one need to answer the question correctly or is “I don’t give a fuck.” acceptable?
kristinc – hat received! GirlChild will be happy. Thanks.
I dont comment often on Pharyngula, though I regard it as home. My darling wife Ruth died at 12:50pm on Sunday 23 September – one month and three days short of her 46th birthday. her sister and I held her hands, and the last thing she heard was me reciting my wedding vows in her ear. Breast cancer. We’re burying my darling on Saturday, in her wedding dress. And we’ll do it the Maori way – fill in the grave ourselves.
terryg
*hugs*
*hugs*
*hugs*
terryg,all the hugs, I’m so sorry for your loss.
terryg:
You have my sympathy. Hugs to you.
terryg,
Sympathies, hugs, etc. That’s hard.
Oh terryg, so sorry for your loss. Hugs.
terryg: I am so sorry. Many hugs.
Dang, my sympathies terryg. I’m not much for hugs, but let me know how much grog you need if you hold a wake.
:( crying now terryg.
Oh, terryg, I’m so, so sorry. How profoundly sad.
thanks Horde. I’ve donated her eyeballs – the Sclera & the Corneas can be used, so up to 4 people will have vision restored – and I get to find out who. I’m so enamored of this I have decided to donate my corpse to science – so my last act will be a teaching moment (fitting, I have a tendency to lecture).
Its a learning experience – albeit horrifically painful. I can recognise chain-stoking now (Ruth was a nurse, and told me about it), and now see whence the term “waxy pallor” originates.
I marvelled at the sensitivity of the Hospice doctor, James – when determining death he spoke to Ruth, explaining all that he was doing and (rhetorically) asking permission for each test.
When Ruth was diagnosed we were in a hurry, so I paid some $50k to get her double mastectomy done quickly – it was done the day her emergency mammogram was scheduled under NZs free healthcare system. Other than that we used the Public system, and it was great. Since January 2009 we’ve spent less than $100 all up on meds. The standard of healthcare has been excellent – I’m an engineer and have spent a lot of time in large factories; a hospital is a factory for repairing autonomous meat robots. I was very happy with how my tax dollars were being spent, the calibre of staff, their compassion and the overall resource utilisation.
The Hospice care, however, was a different story. I cannot conceive any way it could possibly be improved. the location was beautiful, the buildings & rooms were opulent and the staff were the most compassionate people I have ever met. They got it exactly right. Ruths last night was bad, but the night nurse was her friend and colleague Flo (they worked together for years at the spinal unit).
Fluffy the cat slept on my cot, and in the morning slept on Ruths legs. After she died Fluffy came back and stayed sitting on her all day, until the funeral director came and took her away.
terryg
More hugs.
terryg – I am so very sad to hear of your loss. It was kind to make the donation so that others’ vision may be restored. May warm memories help comfort you.
Oh, terryg, I’m so sorry for your loss. More *hugs* if you want them.
terryg, hugs to you.
terryg
I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll just leave a pile of hugs for you.
terryg – I am so sorry for your loss. *lots of hugs*
My condolences Terry.
It sounds like Ruth was well loved in her life.
My most heartfelt commiserations on your loss, terryg. There’s not a lot a person can say now, we all find our way through life’s saddest grieving moments differently. But know that many of the folks in the lounge care and listen, and help in any way they can, if you need that kind of support.
It is a very touching and worthy donation that you can help others to see. I’m inspired by your sense of giving and thoughtfulness at such a time, I will donate to the local breast cancer charity on behalf of your wife – Ruth, wife of Terry G.
My thoughts are with you.
Thank you McC2lhu
Terryg, I’ll do the same. I don’t know where you are, I know there’s probably nothing I can do to assist, but I will if I can. I’m in New Plymouth.
I’m so grateful Ruth and her family got good care.
terryg,
I’m sorry for your loss.
*hugs*
terryg, I’m so very sorry. The donation is wonderful, and will change people’s lives.
I’m glad the care was so good, and that there was so much love between you. My condolences for your loss.
The story you are about to read is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
My dear friend Alice has been taking kickboxing classes at her local MMA school since late spring or early summer. She absolutely loves it, and it’s been a really positive thing for her during a really hard time in her life. She loves the workout, and the community, and watching the BJJ class after hers. But she has a creeper problem.
By her own account most of the guys there treat her with respect and she doesn’t even get stared at in the unisex locker room. But Bob, a purple belt in jiujitsu and thus much higher up the food chain (also a couple decades older), has been persistently hitting on her, despite her telling him outright that she isn’t interested. He claims she was flirting with him because she made friendly conversation and says that she must be looking to hook up since she wears shorts and all the other women in the class wear pants.
Apparently he’s acted similarly with other women in the kickboxing classes and mothers of younger students but not towards the women in the jiujitsu class (which I gather is made up of more serious competitive athletes). She has one female friend she can commiserate with but she doesn’t feel like she has much recourse since she doesn’t want to risk backlash from a group that she very much wants to feel a part of. He’s perfectly fine as long as there are witnesses, but as soon as he manages to corner her alone it’s more of the same. When she’s friendly she’s being a cocktease and when she turns him down she’s just playing hard to get. And of course a bitch.
So I guess I’m asking advice from the Horde. Does anyone who’s been in a similar situation (which I would guess covers the majority of women) have any relevant advice (I’ve tried to refrain from offering my own thus far since I have no personal experience to draw on) I could pass along?
Thank you Horde, and thank you McC2lhu & Amblebury – that is both wonderful and touching. I’m in Papakura, and am in good hands – just as well, its a hell of a walk from New Plymouth.
Once the nieces have ransacked her wardrobe, I am donating most of our possessions to Hospice. this is a fascinating learning experience, on a number of levels.
The person from the Tissue Team that contacted me about organ donation was really helpful, and (once they worked out what I was like) gave me a brief tutorial on the actual process and utilisation thereafter. I used to think the biological sciences were poor cousins to “hard” science like physics. oops. turns out its the other way round, the biologists just had to wait for us to build them some decent hardware. I’ve always planned to “retire” someday and do a PhD in plasma physics. not any more – it’ll be in medical imaging of some sort.
Oh, and IMO Atheism+ is an excellent and necessary progression. kudos to those at the forefront.
Terryg,
hugs, if you want them.
Breast cancer has claimed several of my relatives.
— — — — — — — —
“It wasn’t at the WTC site. It was at a nearby building that was completely unrelated to 9/11”
I think it was The Burlington Coat Factory.
terryg: I am so sorry; it sounds like your wife was a truly wonderful person.
(I want to say more, but nothing sounds right and my eyes are doing this weird fuzzy thing. I think there’s something in them.)
Congratulations, Americans! You are not the only ones who put OMG abortions kill babies above the health of their incubators.
Nasty story about a woman we’ll call Ana.
Ana was pregnant. She found out that her fetus wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t developing right, disfigurements were mentioned and it was advised that she goes for a medically necessary abortion. The problem was that she was already too far along to get it without special clearance from a medical board. Some days passed and suddenly the rumor mill spread the story that it was all a mistake, and the doctors had told Ana that her baby was just fine. Times passes, we’re back in the present. Just a couple of days before term, Ana notices that her baby has stopped kicking. The fetus’ heart had stopped.
Now, this could be just a coincidence. The fetus could have been fine and then suddenly not… but honestly? I don’t believe it. There’s a bit too many coincidences here.
They didn’t want to perform abortion and pronounced everything all right, right up until it wasn’t.
RAGE
I should have put “your doctors” or “your government” here instead of a general “you”.
I know you people here are not like that. Sorry, I was typing in RAGE.
Beatrice
Oh fuck.
I guess the poor woman is about to find out the truth the very, very hard way. I’m sorry for her.
Intrauterine death does happen to perfectly healthy fetuses, because contrary to popular knowledge babies don’t know when (or how) to be born. But in either way they put this woman through horrible and totally unnecessary pain and trauma.
This first the fetus was horribly malformed and then everything was fine? I don’t belive it. They were able to find out that the little one was one kidney short of a full set while she was still inside of me and they were careful in pronouncing anything definite.
+++
So, the little one went to kindergarten for the first time today. Which means that I got to spend a whole hour sitting in the hallways reading a book.
I thing it wasn’t even her first pregnancy, and she’d had a spontaneous abortion before this.
The whole story stinks of malpractice. They’ve put this woman through hell. She’s less than an acquaintance to me, just a person I’ve met a couple of times, but I want to punch someone in the face for her.
Nope.
He didn’t say “I already know Wallace is a pretentious asshole.”
He didn’t say “Wallace is well known for ‘treating the lower classes basically as a side show’.
You said those things. Ignorantly, afaict.
He said “the author is a sneering classist asshole” and mentioned two specific (if twisted) reasons, both from p.2 of the linked article.
And his #481 suggests that he didn’t even know who Wallace was. (Evidently this makes people who do know classist and elitist.)
beatrice
Yes, one way or the other there’s malpractise.
Either when they diagnosed grave things and were wrong or when they declared anything fine and were wrong.
Spontaneous abortions are sadly very common, so, dunno if that means anything.
But give her a few gentle words anyway, but nothing “wise”. That#s usually really appreciated.
I mentioned the miscarriage(s?) because she has obviously been trying for a kid and this was just another trauma on top of past traumas, not for any possible medical meaning.
And I’m confused about why he assumed the people at the festival were poor in the first place.
I’d read the DFW piece years ago but in a book, an essay collection. It’s so much more effective in its original context of Gourmet magazine! They must have gotten some letters after that.
I guess it is “beat up on Joe week” here.
Look, I’m sorry I’m not as literate as the rest of you, and I apologize to David Foster Smith for not knowing who he is or understanding why I should care. I guess I’m not educated enough to have an opinion, and I should stick to topics that suit my lower class station in life.
But this is the Lounge, so maybe “beat up on Joe week” should happen someplace else? Because right now, you people are making me feel like a stupid, poor, uneducated piece of shit.
beatrice
Oh, so, when she was in an extra need of people being kind, compassionate and overall professionals she got an extra large serving of people being incompetent assholes.
Fuck that shit.
Terryg,
I’m sorry for your loss.
One hundred sixty dollars!? One hundred sixty dollars a month?
If fecking true, fecking unbelievable!
The figure for France is in-line with what I pay, albeit the deal I have isn’t quite compatible with the deals being discussed. (My “other stuff” differs.)
“Beer-drinking Bears Trash Norwegian Cabin, Chug 100 Beers” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/10/beer-drinking-bears-trash-cabin_n_1764808.html
Naah, it must have been Finn bears that had crossed the border. And since it was “only” 100 beers, the bears trashed the cabin in anger when the beer ran out.
The mildly deranged penguin suggests convincing a male penguin to sit on your arm / head / whatever-is-cold. They’ll do it for months and don’t even need feeding. And being able to walk around with a Personal Portable Penguin Warming Pad™© is a few points up the cool scale. You should be able to get a choice seat at the bar, theater, resturant, … . There is a whiff of decaying herring guts, but this only adds to the cool factor.
A few pea-lovers will get it running away screaming in no time at all.
blf,
I pay $98 a month for Internet and TV, no phone. I had to talk them DOWN to that figure, they wanted closer to $200 for that. At the time, the Internet speeds you would get in that sort of $160 Internet/TV/phone deal was like 5mbps.
Dunno anything about SAS, but also never seen a GUI which isn’t stupid.
The current headache is I can’t figure out how to make the MUA (e-mailer) I use to (a) Not display HTML e-mails in such a fecking small size (it’s c.9 pt, and I need 12 or larger to be ready readable); and (b) Display the HTML e-mails with a high contrast (e.g., black–on–white, instead of the current light-grey–on–white). I’d just read the textual equivalent instead(of HTML) except the idiotic corporate IT — who are so stupid they use centralized IMAP servers (made worse by being located on the West Coast of the USA (I’m in France for feck’s sake)) — configured the servers to strip out non–HTML “equivalents”.
It’s a sadomasochist.
And you are probably behind in your tithes to DripDRIPSdrippyDrop, the Faerie of Faucets. A lengthy session with washers, wrenches, winches, and wenches should get make everyone happy.
I’m not interested in ‘beating up on Joe’.
But ignorant kneejerk shit Joe chooses to type and post ≠ ‘Joe’.
The most useful person in the universe.
(The mildly deranged penguin says that title should be applied to those who harvest cheese (or MUSHROOMS!).)
ChasCPeterson,
So when we disagree, it is because I’m posting “ignorant kneejerk shit” and not because we have differing viewpoints… and what I’m posting is SO WRONG that you are required to be a hateful asshole to me?
Why don’t you LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE?
Having a similar issue. It’s also as if it isn’t doing anything. i keep feeding it but its not bubbly like it was. It hasn’t gone rancid or anything, just looks.. dead.
terryg: I’m very sorry for your loss! If you don’t mind my asking, was Ruth ever tested for BRCA mutation? Early breast cancer with nasty aggressive course, double mastectomy needed-it sounds like some sort of germ line mutation. Knowing might be important if she had sisters or children.
beatrice: I’m trying to figure out a medically plausible scenario to explain what happened to your friend. Failing completely. Someone lied, probably about the “everything’s just fine” because I see no plausible motive for lying about a fetal defect. (Could have been an error, I suppose.)
blf: I’m with the penguin on this one. Lobsters squick me as a food source. I prefer food that doesn’t scream when you cook it, even if the “scream” is due to something other than pain. Also, live animals into boiling water…no. Cheese and mushrooms, otoh, never scream when you eat them and are extremely yummy. And far more varied in taste than lobsters. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, you’d be much better off choosing cheese or mushrooms than lobster.
@52: I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t know what I pay for internet and phone, but I’m almost certain it isn’t $200/month. Is this one of those “screw poor people” situations where you get charged more if you can’t make a largish deposit but get reasonably inexpensive service if you can?
Dianne,
it is more of an issue in that many people don’t know that you can negotiate prices with large companies, especially if you make a stink using social media. It is maybe a “screw rural poor people” issue in that you have to have access to competition in order to make threats to the cable company to get cheaper service. If you live in a metro area where you have your choice of cable or fiber optic, and have the money to spare on deposits if your credit isn’t great, you can play one against the other.
Wait. There’s a place where cheese can be harvested?
Take me to this fabled land. Where blue cheese grows in rows like cabbage, and you can wander ‘midst the copses, and pluck a wedge of brie fresh from the branch…
(/Gets faraway look…)
That means they are stale.
Penguins do eat crustaceans. The mildly deranged penguin doesn’t always bother boiling them first, just peels them live and screaming. And she prefers her sashimi to still be swimming and screaming. (The fish and lobsters also scream.)
Her idea of tartare de boeuf is particularly loud.
I sometimes use earplugs but then you can’t hear the peas sneaking up on the lair.
terryg, *hugs*. My condolences.
@blf: Your link says that penguins also eat cephalopods. Don’t let the chief poopyhead know. He’ll be distraught.
terryg: My sympathies. And the mildly deranged penguin wants to know if you’d like some cheese.
Improbable Joe: Would you kindly step into my office?
Why do cooks do lobster like that anyway? What would happen if you were theoretically able to, say, cut a lobster’s head off cleanly and only then cook the flesh after that?
Antiochus Epiphanes,
No. I’m not here to have arguments and I’m not interested in dealing with the “citations please” assholery of people who can’t handle the existence of opinions without ten pages of defense for them. I just really don’t give a shit.
dysomniak,
This guy who is pursuing Alice feels entitled to her attention, but knows enough about social norms to not chase her with witnesses around. In my view, the situation is not safe as it stands. She needs to let him know that she is not vulnerable, which means letting him know in no uncertain terms: his behaviour is inappropriate, and will be reported if it continues; however, she does not expect to report it, because it isn’t going to happen again.
Alice should keep notes on what he says and does and when, and her responses, to use as the basis of a report if he continues. If nothing is done, or there is a backlash from the group, then turn around and get out. If the group sides with him, then the group is not worth it.
So insists the mildly deranged penguin. She claims she grew up on a cheese plantation, complete with coconut eating T. Rex and krakens in the sea you could ride. Oh, and whilst Brie does grow on a bush (but needs to be carefully washed and dried before eating), most blued cheeses are actually underground. She thinks the cabbage-like cheeses are Morbier — that “ash layer” is really were the two fruits which are pressed together to make one wheel were lying on the ground.
Outcry over jailed Russian chemist http://www.nature.com/news/outcry-over-jailed-russian-chemist-1.11462
Sadly, I am not shocked about the conduct of Russian prosecutors
— — — — — — — — — — —
“Congress Concerned About Weirdo Senator’s Increasingly Violent Legislation” http://www.theonion.com/articles/congress-concerned-about-weirdo-senators-increasin,29664/
Memory question for the horde; I suddenly found myself remembering a few things about a film I saw years ago and I can’t remember anything about the title, actors, director … anything. So it’s itching at my mind.
All I recall is the following: I’m almost 100% sure it’s a British film. It’s about two men in their sixties (or thereabouts), one of whom has always known he is gay and the other of whom realises he is gay during the course of the film. The first bloke is middle-class, the second working-class. The second bloke is a widower with a daughter and grandchildren; the daughter and son-in-law are horrified and horrible about it (I think the film is suggesting some slight improvement by the end). There’s a scene where the first bloke goes round to see the other one and finds him barbecuing for the kids in the back garden (maybe the kid’s birthday or something). That’s all I remember about it – does this ring any bells with anyone?
Put this in reverse. We aren’t interested in hearing an opinion that isn’t based on facts. If you can’t handle “citations please”, you shouldn’t be posting here, as you are here to vent and have arguments.
Nerd,
I’m NOT here to have arguments, I’m here to socialize. That’s my point. Why the fuck is everyone so up in arms about me not liking an article by some guy that you think I should defend my opinion or never post here again?
Or Nerd, put it another way:
If someone said “I just watched this movie” and someone else said “I tried to watch that once, I found it boring and slow and pretentious” would everyone be angry and call that person’s opinion stupid and ignorant and knee-jerk and tell them to stop posting here?
If y’all are not demanding citations for “what X said was sexist” then you shouldn’t be demanding citations for “what X said was classist” either. The fact that it comes off as classist to Joe IS evidence.
Reverse that. Why are you so up in arms about giving an opinion and having somebody ask you to justify it? This is Pharyngula, and that will happen. If you want to just socialize and give opinions unchallenged try facebook.
Pteryxx,
Thanks for the support. And also classist is the “who are you to judge Mr. Important Writer without reading all of his books!” attitude.
Something I thought about last night: if Mitt Romney went to a lobster festival and complained about Styrofoam instead of real plates and glasses, and mentioned that he didn’t have one of those skinny little forks to get the meat out of the shell, the reaction would be “classist, out of touch asshole.”
Nerd, I don’t know what I did to make you dislike me, but I’m sorry for it.
And look…
I have a real life with real problems. Why can’t I just socialize and vent and share recipes and talk about TV shows and such? If I don’t like an article by somebody, why is that different from me not liking a food item or a TV show?
Improbable Joe: You had nothing to say about the article, but rather about the author of it. Which would indicate that you know something about the author. Which you admit you don’t.
Fair enough. But you aren’t the only one who’s interested in socializing, which is largely an exercise in discussing opinions. When you express an opinion about things in which other people are interested, you shouldn’t be surprised if they want to discuss your opinion.
Except he did back up his opinion everyone.
So leave off. He’s allowed to have fucking opinions and not have to defend it.
Let’s move onto a *different* subject.
Like, hey, Munchkin(my guinea pig) makes noises when she sleeps and doesn’t like to share with me.
When I cuddled with her in a towel with salad mix, she actually made effort to pull the salad mix away from me.
<3 bratty piggy.
I caught her popcorning yesterday in her fresh clean cage. So adorbs.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/08/06/the-new-rules
Oh wait, do I need citations for why Munchkin is adorable?
Or is that allowed to pass?
Fucking bunch of hypocrites.
I don’t dislike you. What I have responded to was your complaint about your opinion/comment being questioned. You really need to rethink the idea that your opinion can’t/shouldn’t be challenged/questioned. If you do have a problem with your opinion being questioned, Pharyngula may not be the best place for you. I’ve had my say.
trinioler,
I don’t think I’ve ever had a guinea pig… sort of a bigger, cuter hamster right? I’ve had hamster and rats though.
Supposedly a dead lobster starts to leak unspecified toxins quite quickly. I’ve no idea if that is true, and if it is true, why boiling it first avoids the problem. (This is not, as far as I know, the can-be-toxic tomalley.)
Generalissimo Google™ says some people do decapitate a lobster (I never knew). An interesting point here is the tailing thrashing a live lobster does when boiled also happens to the decapitated lobster. Off-hand doesn’t that rather knock the idea the tail thrashing is a pain response? (As I recall, the consensus hypothesis is the thrashing is an “automated” flee response, similar to some insects.)
Some people freeze the lobster (for c.10 minutes, I think) to kill it before boiling it.
blf,
Out of deference to SC and other ethical vegans, maybe a little less talk about the lobster specifics? Imagine you’re describing the same thing about guinea pigs with trinioler in the room.
—
blf: lobsters’ neural ganglia aren’t centered in the head. Decapitation’s a vertebrate-centered procedure.
Tip: Different beds. Then the squish! noises(and screams) when you roll over will stop.
Superheros have to start somewhere…
In a few years time, she’ll be pushing the planet around. You may wish to invest in a phonebox.
In completely different news, has anyone seen Lawless (click for imdb page on Lawless)?
The movie selection was shitty the other day, so friend and I chose this one solely because we read that Nick Cave wrote the screenplay and all the music. OK; I also wanted to see it because one of the actors is Gary Oldman (who actually has about 10 minutes of screen time *sigh*).
The movie is good. It deserves a major trigger warning for violence, but I guess that’s a given considering, you know, Nick Cave. I should have expected scenes where I’ll cover my eyes (I used to have a better stomach for these things).
Apparently, it’s based on real people, described in the book (“The Wettest County in the World”, in case anyone’s read it) by their descendant.
Good morning, all! The [Lounge] looks a little stuffy. Here, let’s open up a window and air this place out.
Anyway, I have the day off today and no doctor’s appointment! Woo! I know I’m going to spend the day trying to wrestle Borderlands 2 from Mr Darkheart. :p
Terryg,
My sympathies for your loss. I’m glad that Hospice was so awesome to your wife.
Woo Audley!
I wish I could “get” games like Borderlands 2… people seem to get so much enjoyment out of them, I then I play them and just ‘meh’. That one, the Mass Effect games, Red Dead Redemption, RPGs, anything with sports… fuck.
Well, back to Darksiders 2 and the Crucible, where young Joes go to die 6-7 times before giving up in disgust. :)
I think the Pullet Patrol would be surprised by the over-abundance of heat, and probably the radioactivity. When they started growing extra heads THEN spontaneously bursting into flame*, complaints would be heard at the Nerd household.
+++
*This situation is commonly known as the Pullet Surprise. You can tell your friends that you have won the Pullet Surprise out loud (eg. “I just won the Pullet Surprise!”. When you do so, it sounds very, very prestigious. Your friends will be impressed to the point of buying you drinks, which makes the slight verbal artifice completely worth it.
Beatrice,
I was thinking about seeing Lawless, but my hatred for Shia LaBeouf faaaaaaaaaaaaar outweighs my love for both Nick Cave and Tom Hardy.
Mr Darkheart and I saw End of Watch yesterday. That was really really good, but really really violent. I would not recommend it to anyone who is squeamish, even though the performances were incredible.
Thank you for the various lobster-related satisfactions of my curiosity. And d’oh! stupid of me for forgetting to remember that invertebrates don’t have to have their nervous system centred on the head.
Out for a bit; see y’all later.
Oh Joe. I like you, but you start talking smack about Mass Effect and we’re gonna have to take this outside. Hell, I’m wearing my N7 sweatshirt as we speak.
;)
Audley @99:
Your reference to video game apparel reminded me of the Halo Kitty T.
:)
I’m not talking smack… I’m just no good at those games, and don’t find them very much fun at all. I WANTED to like Mass Effect so much that I actually bought an N7 hat to wear when I played! And just nothing. I’m not very good at it, and I didn’t think it was fun enough to stick with and get better at it. They are obviously good games and popular, but I’m more of a hack and slash platform gamer, God of War or Prince of Persia sort of thing.
Oh, and I liked the Call of Duty games. Multiplayer even. I just wished they had a universal mute button so I didn’t have to manually mute every other player in order to enjoy the match.
For the record, saw “The Master” this weekend. How this movie is getting any kind of positive press, I don’t know: it’s got 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, but only 68% audience, and I personally don’t even think it deserves that.
The basic story is one of a person with mental issues coming out of WWII (the implication is that he had them before going into the Navy; his mother is mentioned as being institutionalized) who meets up with someone who is, basically, L. Ron Hubbard.
If you’re at all triggered by drinking, brainwashing, past experience with cult-type settings, or huge, drawn-out cinematography that senselessly makes up 3/5ths of a film, you probably want to skip it. There were parts where the nonsense being spewed and the sheer gall of what they were portraying led to my literally cringing in my seat, to the point where the friend who nearly begged me to take him to see it was honestly concerned about my well-being. I should add that, after begging me to take him to it, said friend leaned over about 2/3 through and said, “Is this film ever going to end?”
The only good parts were the acting – it was very well acted, which one would expect from Hoffman, Phoenix, and Adams. It’s too bad they couldn’t have acted well in a decent movie.
Audley,
I think this may be a case where an actor falls into a role where they have to play themselves, which is then difficult to screw up.
He played an entitled, wilful brat who can’t take a shit without being an obnoxious little asshole about it. Does this sound anything like the actor? :)
Actually, he was pretty good in the movie. Annoying as hell, but that’s what the character was supposed to be, with a side of a bit endearing.
Richard,
Do you even think that The Master would be worth renting, or is it that much of a stinker?
Warning, complete change of subject to something kind of creepy: I’m hoping someone can explain why I’m worrying about nothing here, but…One typical way of deducing the number of people who die due to a particular disease is to calculate a “relative survival”, which is number of people surviving with disease X/number of people of same age/sex/race/etc surviving in the general population. This gets applied to cancer statistics a lot.
Now, in some cases, the relative survival makes it appear that cancer is good for you. For example, men with localized prostate cancer have a 103% relative 5-year survival (i.e. are slightly more likely than the average man of the same age to survive the next 5 years.) Cancer is never good for you. But health insurance is. And cancer patients can get at least some form of basic health insurance, no matter what their employment, wealth, immigration, etc status. So they get not just their cancer taken care of, but also their blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. So they have a survival advantage compared to the average person who has a 15-30% (depending on age) chance of being completely uninsured.
In short, are all the comparisons of cancer survival in the US tainted by a misestimation of what the patients’ expected survival would be? Brownian? Anyone? Thoughts?
Joe,
I enjoyed the hell out of the last Prince of Persia— at that point, I had kind of thought that (serious) platformers were dead and was very pleasantly surprised. Then again, if I’m not mistaken, that was right on the heels of Assassin’s Creed and Ubisoft had been on fire that year.
Have you tried the AC series? It sounds like those might be more up your alley rather than a FPS or an RPG.
Improbable Joe:
Perhaps. You’d be able to fast-forward through most of it (it’s 137 minutes long). I suppose the display of how people get brainwashed into past-lives and such could be interesting, though they don’t really explain what’s happening. I honestly think some of the cinematography is an attempt to duplicate the “destruction of ego” brainwashing effect, but maybe that was unintentional.
Terryg:
My condolences on the loss of your wife. I think it wonderful of you to donate her eyeballs so that others can benefit.
Hugs, chocolate and Bacon for you.
Dianne,
I don’t have anything specific on that issue, but it strikes me as similar to the high(and some years rising?) number of medical mistakes that lead to death in the hospital. The higher numbers seem to be a combination of better records, tighter pharmaceutical inventory and distribution control, and the fact that we have more people than ever who can be kept alive much closer to the edge of death than in previous years. It used to be that if you were close to death, you usually just died. Now you hover on the edge where even the slightest mistake can kill you.
My wife used to be an ICU nurse, and she told me stories. At the start of that part of her career, the paramedics would bring in people with certain injuries and it was almost a formality because there wasn’t anything anyone could do but call time of death. By the end of it, a lot of those people could be sustained in some technical definition of life for days and weeks… which is part of why she quit.
Anyways, long ramble to say that statistics are twisty, potentially evil things that should be disciplined harshly.
Audley @106-
I thought you were talking about the prince of Persia MOVIE at first. I had to do a double take. Gosh that was an awful movie.
Tony,
Ha! No. :)
IMHO, there’s only been one decent video game movie– Silent Hill– and everything else I avoid like the plague.
Anyways, long ramble to say that statistics are twisty, potentially evil things that should be disciplined harshly.
Yep.
Not all the medical mistake statistics are getting worse, though. Having the little alcohol thingies everywhere seems to be bringing down hospital acquired infection rates. Plus everyone now walks through the hospital rubbing their hands like evil geniuses plotting to take over the world, which can be amusing, though it does make it harder to identify the evil geniuses who are plotting to take over the world.
Audley, I have Assassin’s Creed 3 pre-ordered… I got the nifty metal box and everything! Woo! Yay!
I guess Resident Evil 6 is coming out soon as well. I liked RE5 OK, but I’m afraid that RE6 is going to require co-op, which means I won’t play it. I’m too shy.
Don’t you just love it when people claim that it is only a lack of civility that is keeping Congress from getting anything done?
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/24/the_return_of_the_civility_caucus/
Maybe if CongressCritters spent more time at work, more than a week since last spring would be good, they would wear each other down with their vitriol and obstructionism, thereby slowing becoming more civil out of simple exhaustion.
Audley:
But now the question is-what is the WORST video game to movie adaptation? The list of contenders will be a tad long.
Joe,
If I recall, RE6 does NOT require co-op. It’s like 5: your partner is AI controlled*. I am super excited for it– it’s prolly the last game I’ll be able to play before the DF is born AND it’s the first RE where you can back up with your gun drawn, woo hoo! (Yes, I am easy to please.)
*You can choose to pop into a friend’s game, but you can play totally one player. Think like Fable III.
Tony,
Mario Bros., hands down.
Also Joe, if you’re on Xbox Live, my gamer tag is OurDeadSelves.
Tony:
Oh, gee. Super Mario Brothers has got to be up there. And Wing Commander. Or even Street Fighter. But SMB has to be the worst.
Improbable Joe,
I thought your characterization of those paragraphs and the author of the article was inaccurate and an ad hominem dismissal. (And as I noted above, I haven’t read his other writing, so I could hardly be acting as a literary snob in this instance.) It bothered me because I feared it might distract and lead some people who already suspect the article raises some issues they don’t want to think about to feel justified in ignoring it, but when I responded to your comment I didn’t insult you. I don’t think your claims about the nature of people’s responses to you have been reasonable, and I don’t like being accused of things I haven’t done. I do believe that you’re genuinely feeling attacked and upset, though, and I don’t want to contribute to that, so I’m going to leave the discussion.
Oh god, Street Fighter!
Van DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMME!
Thank you for that.
(By the way, the lobster-cooking questions are addressed in the DFW article.)
Joe, sort of.
Guinea pigs are more bigger rodents, that are herbivores, who seem completely ill-adapted to survival in any way except being cute, so they get taken care of as pets.
They don’t really burrow, can’t run too well, they make lots of noises, eat their own kids, etc. Oh and pregnancy in most pet piggies can be very easily lethal to the mother, so multiple litters can be rare.
And despite all of this, they breed like freaking rabbits in the wild and can devastate fields of grain given half a chance.
Guinea pigs and hamsters don’t get along, but piggies and rats do. Same for piggies and rabbits.
well I already liked you and enjoyed your extremely excellent posts, dianne. Now I just have to ♥ you a little bit even more, is all :-)
Audley, I’ll add you on XBox Live next time I turn on the accursed contraption.
Joe,
:)
trinioler,
I’m sure guinea pigs are awesome, and have to be cheaper than the 4 cats I have now. Maybe someday…
[Lounge]rupt.
terryg, *hugs* and sympathy.
–
Lobsterer…ererer…er?
–
Ah. Like truffles, then.
Fungus truffles. Not chocolate truffles. Though if someone knows the way to the Land Where Chocolate Truffles Grow On Trees, I would be much obliged if you would email me a map.
–
I forgot to mention: Tonight I’m taking a class called “All About Infants”, so maybe I’ll have some idea what to do with DarkFetus when she’s born.
Joe, not exactly. One demands fresh hay every day, multiple times a day, with fresh veggies as well.
I think I spoil her.
Oh and they poop and pee incessantly.
trinioler,
Ummm… on second thought, no. Although this morning Sleepy Time Snuggle Buddy fucking bit my hand as I was petting her.
I love my little brat dearly, but, she’s a brat.
Most piggies are very loving and trusting. You can train them to poop and pee in certain areas/objects, but that takes a lot of time and training.
They also have unique personalities. Some piggies love to be held, some don’t, some will come at their name, others only for food.
I have been going through Fan Fiction Fridays at Topless Robot. Now my brain hurts. In fact, I think I broke my brain.
(Mutters something about The Scoobie Gang (Buffy), Desperate Housewives and Daleks; Batman and Robocop; and Wonder Woman and Shrek.)
When I have her in my lap, or put my hand in her cage, she’ll come up and kiss my hand/fingers. <3
trinioler,
Well, what matters is that you’ve found a friend. :)
My problem is that my wife wants to keep ALL THE KITTIES. And there’s a limit to how many cats you can have per square footage in your house before they start disrupting your mellow safe space.
Why didn’t I know about this?!
I’m going to read that shit until my brain leaks out through my ears. (It won’t be much of a loss)
HEY A+/PHARYNGULA PEEPS:
If you weren’t aware, there’s a sister organization called Secular Woman that has a FB group. Some of the leadership is feeling kinda down, and they apparently haven’t had much activity from A+’ers. I think most of A+ probably knows what it feels like to be constantly criticized. Care to come and do some cheering up? Feminists gotta stick together, y’know! (Melody Hensley is also in this group). PZ can bring some friendly octopi.
https://www.facebook.com/bridgetgaudette/posts/10151194668628447
Beatrice, please, do not do it! You will never be able to be clean again!
Terryg, I’m so sorry.
Reading Fan Fiction Fridays is like reading the bible. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.
(Gives thanks to Mark Twain.)
The Dragonball Z movie was pretty awful too. I’ve heard Uwe Boll’s ‘Alone in the dark’ is considered one of the worst films ever made. I wonder how it compares to Plan 9…
Janine,
Too late. Dark Vader has fucked Harry Potter.
I am now having some sort of hallucination about Garfield, King George and Queen Helena Bonham Carter (with Johnny Depp playing Garfield, of course) and that linguist guy who’s actually a Nazi.
OMG Queen Helena Bonham Carter and Garfield “have become one”… (Meanwhile in Nazi Germany, Hitler was plotting schemes of evil.)
*brainsplode*
*wipes brain of the screen*
They do not exist in the wild. Pace SC, they’ve been bred for millenia as foodstock.
Beatrice, I am sorry that I have corrupted you.
Keep away from Shrek and Wonder Woman.
You can still get away with minimal damage.
Or maybe not.
*shudder*
The horror of the butterfly!
I will see that ::shudder:: and raise you full body goosebumps and chills to the bone :-)
Mpreg is bad enough.
A pregnant Transformer…
There is not enough tequila in the world to make this right.
Is this more of that there fanfic slashfic that I keep hearing about? Or is this in reference to Rule 43? Damn. I did a search for ‘Darth Vader fucking Harry Potter’ and not only has someone written about it, I found a literary criticism of the writing.
Queen Helena Bonham Carter and Garfield “have become one”…
Garfield as in the president, the cat, or someone entirely different who I would have heard of if I weren’t so culturally illiterate?
Goku and Anne Frank?!?
I just died a little bit.
If by criticism you mean mocking the fuck out of it, and it’s on toplessrobot.com then it’s the thing I’ve read.
The cat
Yup. That is about a 79 on the Weird-Shit-o-Meter.
And that should have been 34, not 43. Srory.
Romney made unrealistic demands and basically threw a tantrum before appearing on Univision.
Excerpt:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/24/14068455-romneys-behind-the-scenes-tantrum-at-univision
Finn and Munch and hope for death to arrive soon.
I was eating, Janine. Now there are soggy bread crumbs all over my keyboard.
Lynna,
I just saw that Rombot said that the uninsured receive excellent medical care through ER visits. Kind of defeats the purpose of Romneycare, doesn’t it?
http://wonkette.com/484984/romney-healthcare-through-emergency-rooms-is-a-pretty-sweet-deal
@153: I’m oddly relieved and disturbed at the idea that I’m relieved by that answer.
I can’t breathe. I shouldn’t have started eating while reading that site.
Hee hee hee. “On slot”!
Beatrice, I have been reduced to a quivering mass. How will I ever be simple again?
@495 trinioler Cool thanks! I hope you feel better soon.
@496 Obvorbis I once found myself so groggy and out of it that I ran a red light because I couldn’t wrap my head around what it meant in time to stop. I immediately went home and called into work – it was a medication combination (migraine preventative + anti-depressant + sleeping pills, puts me out for days at a time, fortunately I’m not on those anymore). Maybe what really happened was the devil was trying to kill me and missed. /snark
@10 terryg I’m so sorry for your loss. (Hugs) if you want them.
@20 terryg I have a friend who lives in NZ and she talks sometimes about the healthcare system. It sounds like a well run, humane system, which I wish we had the political will to emulate.
@95 Joe On games, all I have time for is World of Warcraft. I don’t have time for any other games…maybe if I didn’t spend so much time in WoW (10 level 85 characters, one in every class, all possible professions in the game maxed, over 8k achievement points, etc). Before ex-BF introduced me to WoW the most I had played was Solitaire and Minesweeper.
@102 Richard I saw that one on Fandango the other day. I was interested to see Joaquin Phoenix, but I guess I’ll skip it. :(
@111 Dr. Audley I remember liking the Resident Evil movies, not as high art maybe but they were kind of fun. It’s been a few years, though.
@135 Joe I just want one :( But we have new carpet, so no such luck.
@32 dysomniak That sounds really frightening. I would feel really unsafe in that situation. I second everything echidna said about the situation. Most companies have a no harrassment policy in place even for members and customers so hopefully there is someone to report to.
Started my job today. The building is even bigger than I realized, and some of my new coworkers laughed when I said something about it being big. They said it was small and hadn’t I been to the Nike building? Or this one or that one? So yeah, apparently as warehouse/production facilities go, this one is on the smallish size (but only on that scale).
Audley @158
Yeah, Romney made those clueless comments on CBS News/60 Minutes. “Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance,” Romney told interviewer Scott Pelley. “If someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and — and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.”
Scott Pelley pointed out that emergency medicine is the most expensive way to be treated. Romney’s reply: ““Some provide that care through clinics; some provide that care through emergency rooms.” That’s a non-answer if I ever heard one. Romney’s supposed to be a brilliant businessman, but where is his grasp of the financial implications, (let alone the health implications), of the uninsured relying on emergency rooms for care?
This is RomneyBot 2010:
ERs are horrible places to get follow up care…in fact, they won’t give it. So a person having a heart attack can come into the hospital through the ER, get their heart attack dealt with, then be released…but without insurance they can’t get follow up to take care of their high blood pressure, cholesterol, and MTHFR mutation driven homocysteinemia…so will end up right back in the ER again with another heart attack that was about 90% preventable with proper care.
In the UK, those are generally senior management rather than clinical staff – so it’s the ones not rubbing their hands like evil geniuses that you should be wary of!
Evil, yes, but…you have senior management that could be described as “geniuses”? That’s rather different from the US.
Mitt Romney fails at understanding aeronautical engineeering. Ann Romney’s plane filled with smoke due to an electrical fire and was forced to make an emergency landing. Mitt was understandably concerned, but he couldn’t stop at voicing his concern, he had to make an unforced error.
Is this another example of Mitt humor? I don’t think so. I think he was serious.
Let’s make a MittPlane, one that allows Mitt to crack a window at 30,00 feet. Concept brought to you by the Educate Mitt Consortium of Desperate Citizens.
Wags have suggested that we also build a submarine for Mitt that has screen doors.
Sneaky Mormon Moment of Madness: mormons seem to be representing themselves as workers for “The El Paso County Clerk’s Office,” to register voters. But those mormons are registering Romney voters in Colorado. “We’re out here in support of Romney, actually,” says the the girl wearing a CTR (Choose The Right) mormon ring.
Coverage in the Daily Kos.
Video of mormon girl working for Romney: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdk55dLsFhc
dianne@168,
Good point. Although it’s possible in the UK that apparent incompetence is part of an evil-genius plot to advance the privatization of the NHS, when on past precedent current senior management could expect to cash in big time.
The biggest problems I have seen involve getting proper follow up care for lab work that resulted after the patient has left the department. Even patients who eagerly await their results (and call repeatedly) can have a hard time getting anyone to interpret them.
I like what happens after the visit to the emergency room if you are one of the great uninsured masses. The hospital sends bill collectors after you until you are sucked dry and the husk of you has been discarded.
@169 Lynna What struck me about that was not so much the idea of opening a window at cruising altitude, but the idea that when you have a fire you want oxygen. Sure you want oxygen to breathe, which you get from the masks, but he sounds like he thinks you fight fires with oxygen. (this is clearer in a later portion of the quote).
@173 skeptifem The biggest problem I remember knowing about happening to someone I knew was a guy who lost three years of his life to what they kept telling him was a hernia. He didn’t have insurance so they wouldn’t schedule any appointments and the only care he could get was in the ER when the pain got so bad he couldn’t stand it but they would just tell him it was a hernia and send him home telling him to make an appointment that no doctor would take or keep. In the state we lived in there was no short term disability type of coverage available, and Social Security/Medicaire/Medicaid wouldn’t take him because he was an adult, not a parent, and not permanently disabled. So he was unable to work, had to let all his bills go to collections and in constant pain for 3 years, and then an ER doctor finally realized that he had a severe, persistent infection in his stomach – so bad it was literally protuding from the stomach like a bad hernia does – and a round of antibiotics cleared it up.
You know Chas I try to get along with you so you could at least pretend to show some civility and respect in the socializing thread.
Dear universe
I know you like to show us internet smartasses who always show up at a doctor’s officice already knowing what’s the problem that we’re actually ignorant idiots.
Why couldn’t you do that when I went to the dentist this afternoon thinking that I had a problem with my root canal?
+++
Please, no. Unless you have designed the pets area in a way that gives the piggies a rabbit free space, what you get is something that looks like wonderful friendship and peaceful coexistence but is in fact permanent forceful dominance by the rabbits. Rabbits and guinea pigs are both social animals who speak completely different languages. For rabbits, grooming each other is a sign of group identity and affection. For piggies it’s a sign of force and dominance. So your friendly rabbit will groom the much smaller piggy to show its affection while the piggy is enduring a moment of submission and misery.
I see. Sorry Gilell. I’ve been corrected. :)
trinioler
Hey, no problem.
The one thing I find really great about TET is that there are so many smart people here and you can learn so much. I thought I’d give a little bit back. Only learned about the rabbit-piggy thingy a bit over a year ago when we got rabbitses for the kids and I started to feverishly get some actual knowledge about how to keep them with whom.
Is anybody else having problems changing the email address attached to their ftb account? It directs me to a page that says I don’t have those privileges at ftb. (I apologize if this is something the class discussed while I was absent.)
kristinc: the link is wrong. it’s missing a directory. If you look at it, and look at the user management page, I think there’s a “user/” missing in the path (IIRC). if you add it, it works just fine.
Richard: Is that the link in the email that FTB sends me to confirm my address change? Because this is the link I get: http://freethoughtblogs.com/wp-admin/profile.php?newuseremail=b2a6e5ab48c6a0b67c57216b92d17e3a I see that it has “wp-admin” in it, which is doubtless why I “don’t have privileges”, but I don’t see where I would add the “user/”. (Substituting it for wp-admin just gets me a 404.)
Gosh, here’s hoping that link doesn’t end up showing everybody else my underwear.
And it drives up the medical costs for those who are insured. The hospital has to charge more to those who can afford to pay (including some insurance companies). My ER visit and 2 days in the hospital after what I thought was a heart attack came close to $40,000. And yes, the insurance company paid it.
Kristinc:
Replace “/wp-admin/” with “/wp-admin/user/” and it’ll work (won’t link to prevent accidental abuse).
Thank you, Richard!
I am so fucking tired of getting flyers for church-based or church-hosted activities from my kid’s public elementary school.
So is that a no on the tomato sauce recipes?
Sorry. I missed your request.
Ragu Bolognesa d’Ogvorbis
2 onions, diced
2 sweet green peppers, diced
(1 medium carrot, scraped and diced
1 stalk of celery, finely diced (OPTIONAL))
1 pound lean ground beef
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup good red wine (Burgundy works nicely)
1 cup whole milk
Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Dump in the veggies and saute over medium heat until the onions become translucent. Add the beef and use a spatula to break up the meat. When the meat is browned, add the wine, stir, and turn up the heat. Allow almost all the fluid to boil away. Add the milk and stir it again. Allow most of the liquids to boil away.
Add
1 18-ounce can of good chopped tomatoes
1 18-ounce can of good crushed tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
Stir and bring it all to a boil. Turn it down and allow to simmer for about an hour.
Add
10 to 20 cloves of fresh garlic, diced
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (like the ones you put on pizza)
2 Tablespoons dried oregano (or 3 T fresh)
a little salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
a dash of Worcestershereshire sauce
and allow to simmer for a half an hour.
Add
3 Tablespoons of dried basil (or 1/4 cup of fresh)
1/4 cup really, really good virgin olive oil
Taste and adjust seasonings.
Allow to simmer for another 15 minutes and serve over hot pasta.
Dam. Sorry. I should have prefaced my previous with a recipe warning.
Azkyroth,
You mentioned a lot of tomatoes and eggplant, right?
With those I’d make sataraš with eggplant:
chop lots of onions
chop lots of bell peppers
chop a bit less than lots of eggplant
skin and chop lots of tomatoes
Put some oil in a large, deep pan. Fry the onions for a couple of minutes, add peppers, then eggplant. Fry for a while then add tomatoes.
Add salt and pepper.
If you wish, you can add a variety of spices. I like to add basil. Lots of it.
… but that’s not exactly an award winning recipe.
I sometimes like to put a bit of mustard into tomato sauce or even sataraš. I’m not sure if I’ve ever used it in combination with eggplant, but I imagine it would work just as well.
Or curry powder. Love to add a bit of that one.
@dianne, other possibilities might be social class & health behaviour. Prostate cancer is found by screening, people who are health-conscious have screening and also take care of themselves in other ways. It seems pretty complicated.
You might like to take an international comparison to rule out most of the insurance issue. See here for recent Australian statistics. (Link is to media release; includes link to free PDF of full report.) We also can’t work out the prostate cancer trend easily, though.
Azkyroth:
For fresh tomatoes, cut an ‘X’ in the bottom of ~20 tomatoes (medium ones). Submerge them, two or three at a time in boiling water, dunk in cold water, and peel the skins off. Slice each tomato in half and scoop out the seeds leaving as much flesh as possible. Finely dice the tomatoes and use in place of the canned tomatoes in the recipe above. You may need to add some paste, or simmer it, on low, for a lot longer.
Even better, pop them in a low oven to roast for a couple of hours until they darken slightly – you want roast, not dried. Skins are very easy to slip off. Peeling them over a sieve over a bowl helps catch excess seeds.
I find fresh tomatoes to be too acidic so I add a bit of baking soda to neutralize it.
By “a bit” I mean a literal pinch at a time until the taste is right.
dianne @ #60,
yeah, unfortunately no BRCA2 mutation so Herceptin was out. Ruth had no children (unless Holly the German Shephard counts).
blf, yes please. good cheese is (cant stop channelling Yoda).
Tony – thanks! they’ll go well with the cheese.
deborahbell @ #163, thanks. yeah, New Zealands healthcare system is pretty well done. I could have waited 3 weeks and spent nothing, but I had money (no insurance though) and figured that unlike fine wine, breast cancer doesnt improve with age. it turned out not to help, but Ruth was given 6-18 months, and made a respectable 45 months – almost all of which was of the highest quality. As a Kiwi who used to live in Boston, I think the US system is TFITH – thats a medical term nurses (like Ruth) used to write on charts – Totally Fucked In The Head (yes, they really did write that on charts. back before patients were allowed to look at them).
Thank you Horde, for your kind thoughts, and thank you all and our overlord PZ, for making pharyngula what it is, and what I love. that is my opinion, and I shant provide proof other than by blatant assertion (ducks head)
Chigau,
That’s odd, fresh tomatoes are about the only tomato I can eat. If they come out of a can, now that’s getting hard for me to stomach.
terryg, I’m so very sorry for your loss.
Thank you for sharing your story. Being reminded of the fragility of life helps me appreciate it all the more. It helps me let go of the petty irritations that are part and parcel of being in a long term relationship. It helps me remember that I have one shot at this, there are no do overs, and for most of us the game clock is forever hidden. It helps me be a better person. I know that’s a small and insignificant good in the face of such a loss, but it’s all I have to offer. Well that and the pittance I dontated here in the name of Mrs. terryg.
Ooh, roasting sounds good.
Those are good suggestions, but I don’t like bell peppers that much (in fact, I’ve only found myself *enjoying* them alongside carrots and lentils, though I can tolerate them in a few other contexts), and I don’t know how much of this the physics department is going to actually eat, so I’m hoping for something I can make lunches out of leftovers of readily. I was thinking about something derived from eggplant parmigiana, with small rather than big slices of eggplant interspersed with mushrooms…
I think someone mentioned bay leaf for tomato sauce a while ago?
@197 Dhorvath (and Chigau) I love all tomatoes, but I like fresh tomatoes best. I will eat just tomatoes with a bit of salt – delicious! But recently I have been taking canned diced tomatoes, one can of “hot” diced tomatoes flavored with habanero, and one can regular mild tomatoes and some diced onion and making up a salsa out of it. I really enjoy the taste. :)
unfortunately no BRCA2 mutation
Now there’s a phrase you didn’t used to ever hear (/showing my age.)
Paul Ryan’s Roadmap to Inequality, by Edward D. Kleinbard
Abstract:
The purest articulation of Paul Ryan’s fiscal belief system is his 2010 Roadmap for America’s Future. The tax provisions of this extensive proposal would convert the current personal and corporate income taxes into two consumption taxes, and repeal the gift and estate tax.
This report explains how the Roadmap, like Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan, would operate in practice like a large new payroll tax. The Roadmap would directly immunize the highest labor income earners from this tax through a large reduction in the top rate of the Roadmap’s labor earnings tax, compared with current law or policy. Unlike the 9-9-9 Plan the Roadmap further would largely immunize “old” capital from the efficient (if arguably unfair) imposition of consumption tax when that capital was consumed, by providing a write-off of existing depreciable basis. And finally the Roadmap would reduce the tax burdens on the most affluent capital owners further by eliminating the gift and estate tax.
For these reasons, it is not surprising that the Roadmap contemplates an extraordinarily large redistribution of tax burdens from the affluent to middle-class and lower income Americans. For middle-class families, tax burdens would increase on the order of 50 percent. At the same time, the Roadmap’s reprioritization of government spending also would be regressive in its impact. Proponents of the Roadmap or plans like it must explain how any projected increase in economic growth will compensate the majority of Americans for shouldering more tax burdens while receiving smaller government benefits.
DeborahBell,
It’s not a case of finding tomatoes unpalatable, it’s the lack of digestion that throws me off. Sigh.
@Lynna
I think Romney just surpassed his stupidity score with that comment on airplane window.
@203 Dhorvath You have my sincerest sympathies. I would be very sad without tomatoes.
I hate to cook. However, I can’t afford to hire someone to cook for my family, and the HusBeach can’t do more than frozen pizza or macaroni and (alleged) cheese from a box. So, because I hate to cook, I’m not very good at it.
Why can’t somebody write a cookbook that only has recipes that my family will eat, that take no more than 20 – 30 minutes to make, and includes instructions like “turn the left front burner to 6, wait 4 minutes, put the food in your big frying pan and stir with the blue spatula for exactly 5 minutes.”
@Janine
Oh joy, fan fiction Friday. I don’t think I will be clicking there (okay, maybe just a little when curiosity gets the better of me again). When I went there years ago, let’s just say it was somewhat traumatizing for my brain. A warning to everyone, brain bleach is highly necessary for that web page.
Oh, god I need that cookbook so badly! I need instructions like that. I don’t know how but I get lost with regular recipes. I’m so directionally challenged I can’t follow them apparently. lol. Especially if it’s being priced for someone on foodstamps would be the best cookbook ever.
ImaginesABeach:
What does your family eat?
Joe – as far as I can tell, everybody’s favorite meal is “something Mom didn’t make.”
Horde Call: Anyone live in Orlando florida that could take in a dog for six weeks next summer?
ImaginesABeach
Get everyone into the kitchen to participate in dinner prep!
It’ll be fun!
Or else!
No work, no eat.
Satirical newspaper column from the 1928 election.
Note the not one but two angles: 1) ha ha, the ladies and their voting, amirite? and 2) ha ha, Hoover sux!
Leaving this link here for chigau (違わない).
My condolences to you terryg — I never know what to say faced with such sad loss. *hugs*
Deborahbell:
I’m starting to worry about you now.
You like *tomatoes*???
Moments ago, T looked at me funny when I said I plan on being at Wal-Mart @12 am so that I can buy The Avengers on dvd/blu ray. That, coming from someone who waited with breathless anticipation for the debut of Pink’s new album…
@Tony are you sure it wasn’t the “Wal-Mart” and not the “12 am” that caused the funny look? :-p
terryg Hello again. Grief can take unimaginable twists and turns. What I’m saying is, whatever is going on for you, whenever, you’re most likely to find some decent, caring human here.
—
I like cooking well enough. My problem is that by the end of the day I’m usually too tired to do it :(
Ing:
Ha!
Entirely possible.
Believe me, I’d have gone somewhere else if something were open @ 12 am. I really wanted the DVD (watching it now in fact).
Love the ‘nym btw.
Tony,
You are a strange, strange man.
Tomatoes are delicious.
When they are the best of the season, I eat them fresh, without even a touch of salt.
The sataraš I mentioned above can be tweaked into a surprising amount of dishes.
Then fresh tomatoes in light summer salads.
Or just tomatoes and mozzarella with a hint of olive oil.
Deborahbell:
[Tony starts taking notes]…peas get shipped to Caine, tomatoes to Deborahbell…who else?
Beatrice:
You picked up on that, huh? I’ve been told that once or twice…today. Actually, T said the same thing twice today.
One day I’m going to compile a list of food I don’t like.
Beatrice:
In all seriousness, I love the flavor of tomatoes. Once again my dislike of a food stems from the texture*. Biting into a tomato just feels icky. That’s why I don’t like chunky salsa, pico de gallo, or spaghetti sauce with chunks o’ tomatoes.
(*same reason I don’t like mushrooms or calamari)
Good morning
Ohhh, we’re talking about cooking!
I like cooking but I often don’t have the time to make really big stuff, so, a lot of it involves turning convenience food into something edible.
So, very much loved are:
Meatballs (bought frozen at Ikea), mashed potatoes, veggies, boiled and then mixed into onions and garlic that were fried in butter.
pasta with sauce like:
-mushroom sauce: fry sliced bacon, onions, garlic, add frozen mushrooms, fry over high heat, add milk and cream, season, add parsley
-bolognese sauce: fry onions and garlic (a reoccuring theme), fry minced meat, season, add finely chopped carrots, add canned tomatoes, season. Always add a bit of sugar or if you feel like it honey. If you have a freezer make lots of it and freeze it.
-salmon sauce: fry you know what, add cream an milk, thicken a bit with corn starch, add finely sliced smoked salmon, season.
-carbonara sauce: start as usually, add sliced bacon. Mix eggs and cream, season (always use a bit of nutmeg), put into pan, heat over low heat so it thickens.
Last night we had griddle cakes.
They are a bit more work but I love them.
Serves 4:
1 pound of floury potatoes (after peeling!) , dice and boil until tender, dry over high heat, mash, let cool
1/2 pound of flour, mix with 30g butter (and a bit of nutmeg)
mix in potatoes, add 50ml milk, make a soft dough.
You can now either roll out two big disks you cut into slices or just foem small disks (1/4″ thick) and fry lightly in butter.
Serve with sour cream, or to soup
Tony,
*I cross in my head all the dishes you probably don’t eat because of mentioned texture aversions*
…
I’m sorry.
:-( That’s so sad! I never knew that.
(I like bunnies. And piggies. Though I don’t have either, or indeed any pets at all.)
Ikea? You can buy food at Ikea? O.o (I’ve never been, so I have no idea.)
Poll to possibly pharngyulate here :
http://ninemsn.com.au/
Voted yes. Reckon Mittens has well and truly blown it now.
Obama should win easily. Hopefully I’m right on this.
Polls there usually changed on a daily basis – and it’s been most of the day here already so get in quick!
sarahface
At least in Europe they have “Sweden shops” where you can buy Swedish foodstuff, including their “Köttbullars”. Last time they were on offer, 5€ for 1kg of frozen meatballs, so that’s really a staple food around here.
Walton
I don’t consider the fact that bunnies and piggies aren’t good mates sad. I think it’s one of those examples that show that before getting a pet people should really educate themselves about them and learn about their basic social behaviour and body language, so they can understand what their pet is really trying to communicate and not superimpose the human interpretation.
Terryg – I’m sorry for your loss.
Tomatoes are wonderful (so are peas!). Squash is evil (I’m not sure if what I’m thinking of is called the same thing throughout the world as I have heard some people refer to butternut squash which I think would be butternut pumpkin here which I do like, so for some clarification it’s small and yellow and sort of looks a little like it was flattened)
You can buy food at Ikea in Australia, I do not like their chocolate at all (A cousin once bought me some for Christmas once) but I have heard that the meatballs are apparently ok.
Aussies – I think I’ve mentioned this previously but my family and community are mostly conservative christians and I was kind of looking to get an idea what others were thinking. Are you in support of the high court challenge against compulsory voting?
I wasn’t especially excited about IKEA opening a store here, but now I’m eagerly waiting for it. I hope they’ll have these “Sweden shops”.
I, for one, am so disappointed in her new album. I adore Pink. But from the snippets I’ve listened to, it sucks. Maybe 2 good songs on the whole thing. I couldn’t even bring myself to spend the $5 the download was on special for last week. Oh, Pink.
Speaking of pets, how about this twinned dualist double your pleasure double your fun without gum dichotomy?
Link = http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2012/09/22/dnt-2-headed-snake.whns
A two headed snake. Not two heads on the same end but one head on each end. Wow, talk about “meet me in the middle”, eh?
It gets me to wondering anew about the ends justifying the means and the whole idea of cooperation and debate.
Push me pull you and howdy doody both of you. Can you imagine having another brain on your other end?
From the video narration it seems that this is a mature creature. That means it must be proficient at predation and therefore has a lifespan beyond merely emerging from an egg.
This begs, of course, the question of how it eliminates waste. Where is the asshole and which end does it belong to? Is it possibly in the middle with joint ownership? Is the task unfortunately relegated to one of the ends? Or shared after alternate feedings?
I can see one benefit to having a head on both the approaching and receding ends; it would make getting back home easier.
Gee whiz, there really is no end of wonder and amusement abroad in the world.
Two old boys are declaring what is the baddest critter in the world.
One says it’s the tiger, the other says it’s the lion.
A third fellow says they are both wrong and in fact it’s the tiger-lion. On one end is the tiger and on the other end is the lion. It can kill and eat you coming and going, he says.
The first old boy ventures that this creature, with a head on either end would necessarily lack an asshole. The second old boy then asserts that such a creature couldn’t shit.
The third fellow nods and says, “That’s what makes him so mean”.
*OK, I’ll get my coat*
Lexie, Full disclosure: I’m a Canadian currently waiting until I’m allowed to take the Australian citizenship test. I like compulsory voting. Not because it makes people more engaged in the political process as is commonly thought. I read a study called (IIRC) Unpacking the Black Box which examined this question and found that amongst teens and early twenty- somethings there was plenty of disinterest. I like it because it defines voting as something that this society values, literally. You can choose to not vote, but you have to pay for that choice.
Also, that term ‘compusory’ is pretty inaccurate. I understand that it’s rare for any sort of action to be taken should one refuse to pay the fine, which somewhat mitigates the objection that the poor are being denied yet again the privileges of the better off. Anyway, that’s my half informed opinion. I’m curious to see what the more politically astute hoard members think.
Crudely Wrott,
Tiger-lion:
Liger
Liliger
:)
And there’s also Tiglon
Jim Wright notes on his Stonekettle Station blog here :
http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/09/dodging-bullets.html
An interesting annivesary that seems to have otherwise gone unnoticed.
If you read some of his other recent posts I reckon you’ll agree with me that he’s on a roll too!
Uhm, can this pain please be a tooth being annoyed at the procedure it underwent yesterday and calm down tomorow and not be a tooth that tells me it wants to get out?
NEW THREAD.