This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. They say that’s an agouti, but I think it’s a tribble.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
rq
Neat pictures! Your kids are so cute, I love catching glimpses of them enjoying their new home :)
Ogvorbis
Congrats, friend. Keep on keepin’ on.
Audley
I am currently enjoying some of my mom’s wonderful pea soup.
Perfect for this partly-rainy spring day.
Parrowing
Thanks ^__^ We’re having a nice time together.
—-
I got a vacuum on craigslist for $10, and then on the way back from that stop we saw a moving sale. Got a lovely old wooden table for $15, and a wooden ladder like they always show “upcycled” for $2. :D I also found some adorable red dishes at the local thrift shop. It’s a charity shop run by a lady here in our little village and she does wonderful work in the community with the proceeds. Of course, just having second hand merch available for such low prices is itself a public service.
Did not get boxes from S’s basement, because his car was there so I didn’t stop. Wouldn’t have minded doing it while he was home except for I knew the kids would be there. I haven’t seen them in over two months and I have no idea what he told them and I kind of miss them and I don’t want to confuse them and I’m just a bucket of confusion myself wrt to them. So, I’m going to do it another time, no big deal.
—-
Hugs all around.
Ha!
I did not do any time at all on Page1 refreshing and muttering.
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We got into the garden today:
– cleaned strawberry bed (most strawberries are dead)
– cleaned asparagus bed (I see no evidence of asparagus)
– caned raspberries (lots of life but they are going to move)
– re-stacked about 4 cubic metres of potential fire wood
– watched kitteh eat and hork-up alot of grass
– PLANTED!!! peas (sorry), potatoes and broad beans
I’m really tired.
What is this?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2013/05/04/hello-world
Hot, sweaty, tired, threadrupt and still have more yard work to do…
Checking The Lounge is my excuse for taking a break. Of course, this Loungetime of day is slow so… it’s all an excuse [Don’t blow my cover!].
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Whad I miss?
bluentx
Other than the Lizards finally arriving to establish The New World Order and my Planting Peas …. see Page1.
Wife and I went to the doctor today. Well, she went, I provided moral support. Her antibiotic was extended. No more stuffing into the wound. She can now shower. She doesn’t have to go back. The only discomfort/pain is what you would expect from a one-inch cut.
Good news, Oggie. Glad to hear it.
Good News! The end is in sight, with no setback.
Oggie
*hugs* for Wife.
YAAY science-based medicine.
Portia & Nerd
Oh, we hope so.
Whoops.
Thanks, Portia.
Nerd, we hope so.
chigau, thanks. Yeah, bravo for modern medicine. This is something that, untreated, would, in all probability, have killed her. Very scary.
ogvorbis
Good to hear. Go modern medicine.
Portia
*hugs*
Thanks Dalillama, backatcha.
—
I have a slight headache. Mom and I are both bushed because we went out to the bar and had about two drinks each and then watched Mad Men til we fell asleep. We’re vegging out. I’m hungry. Trying not to eat wheat so I never know what to eat. I think I might make bean dip.
/randomramblings
Ogvorbis
Yay!
Jebus on peanut butter crackers! Green Lantern sucked!!!
Dalillama & YOB-Sc:
Thanks.
Wife, Boy and I just spent the last few hours watching old Batman episodes. Including Shelly Winters as Ma Barker. Even with the cheesy dialogue, deliberate overacting and hopeless plot, she could out-act any of them. Well, Milton Berle was pretty good in one of the episodes, too.
Ogvorbis
Nice. I’ve recently turned my daughter onto old Batman, too. She likes it, but loves Buck Rogers more.
*Boggling* Gardens are confusing. I tried to grow potatoes in containers last year (first time ever), and they never bloomed. I dug around and didn’t feel anything, so I was disappointed, thinking nothing grew. Being lazy, I left them in the pots over the winter… and spring… and decided to dump them out this weekend to plant new ones.
There were potatoes in my containers, all growing away like mad.
I’m pretty sure I can’t use these (they’re all thoroughly sprouted, some were full plants), but it looks like I ended up with about a 10 lb. crop last year and didn’t know it. Surprise! Wretched plants…
MissEla,
Yeah, you can. It’s all about the tuber; you can even just rip off the stem and plant the tuber (or even pieces of it).
MissEla #518
Plant the potatoes again.
One per container.
Potato flowers are tiny and easy to miss and irrelevant to growing potatoes-for-food.
As Glenn Beck & Alex Jones (plus Cicely* of the Anti-Peas Movement) would say: “Is that all?”
–
*Apologies, Cicely , for putting you in the same sentence with those nutters. I don’t think you’re (quite) that…er…uh…
celery… I mean silly! : )“Whad I miss?
“Other than the Lizards finally arriving to establish The New World Order and my Planting Peas …. see Page1.”
I just read the graphic novel based on “Crysis”, with art by Peter Bergting. Not bad, but the aliens were more cephalopodomorph than reptilian.
The novel Crysis; Legion is also highly recommended.
Just got the final details on our new state union contract. When all is said and done, it results in me losing about $230 a month. Thanks, governor and legislature, for all the support. And the sad thing is, we got a better deal than most of the other unions in the state. They got hit even harder.
Oh, I meant for eating, not growing. I have a whole new bag of seed potatoes for this year. :)
MissEla
The secret to growing potatoes is to plant them and not mess with them.
Regular watering is about all you need to do.
MissEla, oh. Well then, you could, but it’s probably hardly worth it.
(You’re discovering the joys of home-gardening! ;) )
chigau @503: it’s Ally Fogg, writer on men’s issues for the Guardian, Independent, and sometime Good Men Project. (h/t to commenters in the For men thread) See also:
http://hetpat.wordpress.com/
and his latest entry regarding FTB.
*phew* … gratz on the good news, Oggie.
chigau & JM–Yeah, I like to try a new crop every year or two. This year it’s corn, 3x of beans (black, scarlet runner, & calypso), tomatoes, bell peppers, 2x of carrots, and bunching onions downstairs (I swiped the apt. complex raised bed again this year), while potatoes and flowers are upstairs. I usually do pretty well, too–last year I had *gallons* of tomatoes. It only took 30 years for my thumb to turn green, but it did so with a vengeance! (Now, if I could only get my African Violet to stop blooming. It’s been blooming for 2 1/2 years straight. *Give it a rest, already!*)
Ogvorbis
That is great news, and I’m very glad for you and Wife!!
chigau
That’s a lot of gardening done. I have some *extra rum* if you would like!
(How do you plant asparagus – seeds and then wait? Or is there Special Method? I would like to attempt but someone once told me it’s Extreeemelyyyy Diffifult! so I hesitate.)
bluentx
Get thee back into the Yard!
Or, you can look at mine, near the end of Page 1. ;)
Ye Olde Blacksmith
I’m with you about Green Lantern. It was terrible.
That is all.
MissEla
When your African violet stops blooming, let me know – I’d like mine to take a break as well. (I do nothing to it but water – and I’m afraid if I stop watering, it will die altogether, which is not what I want…)
My vegetable thumb is green, I know that – I do fantastic tomatoes and cucumbers and especially radishes (did poorly with peas, for what it’s worth!), this year we will find out if my thumb is also green for flowers-that-need-tending).
Good luck with your crops!
One of my coworkers had a bad fall at the beach a week ago. Turns out she tore her ACL *and* fractured her tibia/fibula. So she’s out of work for the next 2 months. This means that I am working 6 days a week for the rest of the month.
I think I may turn into a zombie that consumes dreams and sleep, leaving rampant infectious insomnia in my wake.
Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
rowanvt, are you being compensated for your increased workload?
John: Overtime pay, wheeeeeeee! The paychecks will be nice for the rest of the month with a total of 20 hours of overtime.
rowanvt, see, it’s win-win for you*.
You get extra $, and you’ll be too tired to spend it! ;)
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Not so much for your coworker, of course.
rq–I’m scared to think of what would happen if I gave it fertilizer. *Insert scary Little Shop of Horrors moment here.*
Blacksmith, rq:
Come on, Green Lantern did not suck.
Sure it had a cliched story.
Yeah, maybe the CGI was unpolished.
I was able to guess certain plot points in advance, which shows a lot of foreshadowing subtetly.
Of course the dialogue was uninspired.
And above all, I could not have made any tweaks to the movie to make it better.
Oh fuck that.
The movie was uninspiring, run of the mill and trite.
Ryan Reynolds played things a bit too far IMO. Hal Jordan is cocky and reckless, yes but he is also supposed to be charming and suave. He is supposed to be a daredevil who sees fear and overcomes it. Reynolds just did not display enough depth of character to pull off Jordan (a similar problem I had watching Chris Evans play Captain America. Cap is supposed to be a commanding presence. He has gravitas. He is the guy *the President* is in awe of. Evans was OK, but he lacked the screen presence of Robert Downey Jr or even Chris Hemsworth. Tom Hiddleston was one of the best actors in the movie. Scarlett Johanssen made a powerful showing as both a capable super spy and manipulator while able to convey a range of emotions through her expressions and body language. In fact, all the other characters we’ree played by solid actors, while Cap was played by an attractive man who failed to convince me that this guy could command a god.)
One of the key things missing in Green Lantern was ‘grounding’ the character sufficiently in the real world-not in a world of cliches-make the audience care for him first before thrusting him into otherworldly, fantastic scenarios. Again, a comparison with Avengers is apt. For all that we had gods, super soldiers, gamma irradiated embodiments of repressed rage, an arrogant uncaring WMD creator who regained his humanity while becoming a technological marvel, a superspy in over her head who is driven to atone for her sins (and is responsible for driving important plot AND character pieces forward), and Hawkeye (one of the few played by a good actor-Jeremy Renner-who had untapped potential), as well as aliens, a megalimaniacal jealous deity who just wanted to be loved and even..(.well ya’ll can google THANOS, the guy at the end of the credits) each of them displayed convincingly human emotions and desires. The actors convinced me that they were people first and super heroes second.
I would be remiss to not dole out gushing congratulations to Joss Whedon who turned in a FANTASTIC character driven movie with an amazingly talented cast, fantastic set pieces and CGI, a and some great dialogue.
The elements in Avengers that made the movie work should have been in Green Lantern.
Instead we got something every bit as bland as X-Men:The Last Stand (deliberately chosen comparison. Like the Brett Ratner directed mashup of two powerful X-Men stories, Green Lantern sought to do two much. One movie with Hector Hammond, contrasting a quiet man verbally harassed and degraded by his father who wants nothing more than love and acceptance, but is driven past the end of his rope by acquiring immense power vs a cocky, arrogant ladies man always seeking to make his dead father happy who acquires great power and in turn reigns himself in (just one quickly worked out idea)…? I can easily see a movie that delves into the relationships between fathers and sons. A movie that explores a powerful dynamic that many people can relate to. A movie that makes the audience care for Hector Hammind, understanding what drove him to and beyond the breaking point, yet all the while acknowlege that he is acting irresponsibly and petulantly with his newfound power. A movie that presents a young, cocky daredevil who had an ostensibly great relationship with his father, yet still was lacking something (I would deviate from the plot a bit here and have Hal’s father wrapped up in work to the detriment of his family bc his idea of being a father was financially driven). Hal as an ever increasing, reckless danger to those around him. Hal as a guy who strives to do what he thinks would make his father notice him. Hal Jirdan as the guy who fears he will never be what he thinks his father wanted…at least not until he acquires great power and encounters another powerful man who has issues with his father.
Huh…thats what a lifetime of reading comic books combined with an appreciation for strongly written character drama set amidst a world of super science, magic or super heroes will lead to (one possibility anyways).
Bottom line-hook the audience with strong characters before launching them into deep space.
(Ine dat, me and CONCISE are gonna meet up. Honest.)
MissEla
The sequel Day of the
TriffidsAfrican Violets also comes to mind…I did repot mine, though, which seems to have slowed it some. Too early to tell if it’s just gathering strength for a new purple assault on my senses, but the old flowers are holding well.
Stupid f*****g phone!
Last parenthetical should be:
(One day…)
Tony, are you channelling Roger Ebert?
Tony
I see Tpyos is strong with you today.
But yes, you’re right about Green Lantern. It felt all too quickly thrown together just to make a movie (to make more money), not an actual thought-out story that would be more meaningful to people than the title.
I admit, I have yet to see The Avengers (it’s on my list, though), but I’ve been hearing all kinds of good things about it, so I’m actually looking forward to it.
You know what else made Green Lantern a bit… ridiculous? (I think campy is the word I’m looking for, but in a bad way.) The fact that it looked ridiculous. None of the non-human actors seemed right in their roles, or came across convincingly. All the fantastical stuff was a bit over-done, to my mind, to the point of parody (almost). It didn’t help that they also had some laughs about spandex outfits and the like.
As for Ryan Reynolds’ acting, well, I’ve liked him in other movies, but you’re right, I think, that he didn’t have the screen presence necessary to pull this off. I’m used to him in more comedic roles, which isn’t a bad thing, but if taking on a (hopefully) more serious role, then the actor needs to make extra effort to be grounded and appear more serious. Nope, got more of his flightiness and lack of meaningful emotional connection. Honestly, I just didn’t believe that his father had so much influence on him – I knew it, because it was shoved in my face (way to go, Subtlety, another non-appearance), but I didn’t feel it. I could call this a lack of consistent motivation or something.
Anyway, I am not a movie critic, but I did not like Green Lantern. Everything was just a bit too ridiculous to be believable (and I really wanted it to be a good movie).
One thing I remember that irritated me about Green Lantern is that the guy’s powers are imagination-based and he, as a character, was just so damn uncreative that it ended up working against him—or would have if the script writers hadn’t simply forced the “plot” to progress with no attention to logic.
Pteryxx:
I followed your link at #127. And also read more stuff by him.
I will give the guy a chance, but some things he says make me wary:
” The third variety of misandry is the one that seriously concerns me, and it is worth looking in detail at what it is and what it does. Cultural misandry is a significant force in policing and constraining the roles of men, and indeed women in society. Our capitalist hegemonic culture (or patriarchy, if you prefer) considers it acceptable to routinely mock and denigrate men’s domestic and child-caring abilities because this acts strongly to discourage deviations from the gender status quo, from which vested interests profit. Our culture systematically devalues male deaths (in news reports specifying numbers of deaths of women and children, for instance) because economic interests require a degree of male disposability in the workplace and military interests may require the mass dispatch of young men to die on battlefields at a moment’s notice. When society mocks and reviles male victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, the subtext is that that it is women’s place to be victimized and oppressed, not men’s.
http://hetpat.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/on-the-misandry-isnt-a-thing-thing/#comments”
He gets sexism and patriarchy to a point, but does not see that PHMT. It’s as if he used to be an MRA and has shaken off most of it, except for this (TBH, it could be more, I have not read anything else by him). He does not see that the problem is not “men are disposable”. Instead it is “women are precious, fragile commodities who’s place is in the home tending to the family. that is such an important task for our species that she cannot be allowed to participate in activities that could jeopardize her life”. So a institutionalized system that places the greatest value on women in their baby making capacity has no choice but to send men off to fight in wars.
He also does not get the connection between misogyny and WHY men are dismissed when it comes to sexual abuse or victimization.
****
rq:
Yeah, one of my problems with Green Lantern was that the CGI was not a seamless fit for reality. Granted, with all the locales and creatures involved, that can be hard, but really, Ang Lee’s Hulk had the same problem, and that was fixed in the ‘sequel’. Sure, willpower crafted energy constructs are going to stand out, but they shone a bit too bright. So too were any of the shots of Oa or the other Green Lanterns.
****
A. Noyd:
I agree.
Of course that is in keeping with Hal’s comic book personality. He has never been the most imaginative. If they had chosen Kyle Rayner, the artist, or John Stewart, the architect things might have been wildly dufferent. If course Kyle wad not likely and John Stewart…well he is black. By ehich I mean that I find it unlikely a Green Lantern script with him in the lead role would have been …greenlit, unless it was WILL-I RUINED ‘I AM LEGEND’-SMITH, which itself is another crappy can o worms.
Not seeing Green Lantern wasn’t a particular loss, then. Ok.
Come to think of it, Ryan Reynolds also annoyed me in Blade: Trinity, because it felt like he was too over the top. I did appreciate the extended shots of his rippling 16-pack while he was chained up (one of the few enjoyable aspects of an otherwise pathetic fim). I wonder how many of his contracts include a clause to show off his body (and who’s idea is it)?
John:
Can’t say as I was. I only have a passing familiarity with his reviews. Were you speaking to similar styles of writing between he and I, similar criticisms of the same movie, or something else?
Has anyone heard from Joe lately?
Beatrice
He left his email here a while ago with little to indicate he was coming back to the Lounge anytime soon. :( That being said, no I hvaen’t, but he shows up on Butterflies and Wheels from time to time.
Tony
While I agree with you that HetPat doesn’t seem to get patriarchy to the end (in his About section, he mentions that some people have called him an MRA in disguise), but at the same time, I agree that there is a sentiment that men are disposable (I mean, conscription in any world war is a fine indication of this… Send us more young men!), and that this is a convenient idea for certain economic powers. At the same time, I don’t think he ties it in with patriarchy in quite the right way. He obviously avoids the women-are-fragile aspect that you mention, but also the emotional value of women and children being killed – we’re supposed to feel a lot more empathy and horror at women and children being killed, which is part of the women-are-fragile bit, but it also reinforces the idea that it doesn’t matter how many men are killed – both for the idea that they’re somehow disposable, but also that they’re so tough, they can handle it! And besides, since men don’t have emotions, they don’t need emotions shown towards them. Or something. Either way, it’s the equivalence of women to emotions and men to rational thinking.
Because if you think rationally (I think it’s a part of utilitarianism?) you’ll understand that all those mens’ deaths were somehow useful and for the greater good (and at the same time indicating that it’s ok to kill as many men as needed if there is a purpose behind it – wasteful and disposable), while womens’ deaths are terrible because they have no purpose behind them (and that’s just plain wastefulness).
Or something.
[/personal thoughts]
rq,
I think I even saw him in one of the threads there, but forgot! Thanks.
Oh, and I didn’t comment on your garden: it looks really nice. I wish ours wasn’t out of town.
Beatrice, I talk to iJoe on Twitter fairly often.
I’m being an asshole to my best friend. Someone make me stop. I feel she’s finding better things in life than bothering with a depressed anti-social weirdo like myself, and I’m helpfully moving the process along by being an asshole.
Beatrice:
Don’t ask us; ask her.
Beatrice
Stop being an asshole to your best friend.
(How are you being an asshole? And it’s not bothering with you… It’s being friends. I like you, and I don’t think you’re a bother, and I’m not even close to being your best friend.)
rq, “a depressed anti-social weirdo like myself” should give you a clue.
(There’s an element of self-punishment there)
—
Beatrice, please tell me when it’s time I stopped helping! ;)
John,
I’m mostly asking myself. Now that my failure is out here, where all you people whose opinions I respect can read it, I will feel more ashamed of myself and hopefully stop.
rq,
By being a selfish ass and trying to make her feel guilty because I have no one else to do stuff with, and expect her to indulge me.
—
In other words… I feel guilty and this is my self-punishment, as well as an incentive to change my behavior.
John,
See, you got it right!
(And I didn’t even read that last comment before writing 555)
Beatrice, well then, thank you, and you’re welcome.
rq
Asparagus is not particularly difficult to grow but it takes several years after planting until you can harvest.
And a bad winter can set them back
Asparagus is as tough as old boots once it’s established. I read something by a bloke who said he didn’t really understand asparagus. His mother used to send him out during spring to cut the young shoots growing up through the lawn under the clothesline. He was almost 30 before he discovered that this was not the usual way to grow asparagus.
The only issue is how much are you willing to spend to get a head start on a crop. If you go with seed, you’re looking to wait more than 2 years before any cut at all and 3+ years before anything remotely like a crop. If you spend the price of a seed packet on. each. crown. if you buy them that way, then you’ll definitely have _some_ to cut, for a couple of weeks, in the second year and more from the 3rd year onwards. If you want some now and lots later, get a few crowns for starters _and_ a packet of seed. You’ll have the benefit of some early pickings, and be able to gloat over the growing babies ready to give you lots of luscious results not so many years down the track.
The other issue is choosing the place to plant them. They don’t move well – you lose at least one year’s crop, if not more – and they can last 20+ years. So don’t plant them too close to a young tree, for example, because they won’t do as well under the shade of a mature tree.
John
It’s just that there are several ways of being a depressed anti-social weirdo.
Beatrice
Sorry for asking.
re: asparagus
Thanks for the information! Looks like asparagus isn’t on the shortlist of this year’s garden vegetables, then. (We’ll probably be reorganizing this and that out in the yard, and if it needs one location in which to settle, this will not be a good year for it.)
But I’ll put it on the long-term list, I’d love to try to grow it, see if it even likes the climate here.
rq,
I didn’t have a problem with your question, so there is no need to apologize.
rq, I appreciate your worrying and reassurance.
Lumberjack declared dead after 102 years” http://www.thelocal.se/47722/20130505/
“He’s a lumberjack and he’s not okay…”
birgerjohansson
But… but… but… Rip van Winkle came back!
Beatrice
Sometimes I don’t know when I’m being obnoxious in asking about these things though. *hugs*
*hugs*, Beatrice.
…how important is primer if I just want to paint the top of my new/old wooden kitchen table? I really don’t feel like driving 20 minutes to get some. But I know I should if I want the project to be quality. Sigh. [/things I really shouldn’t whine about]
Portia – if you don’t do it, will you be annoyed forever every time you look at it that you didn’t? If so, then yes, go get some. (I feel for you, I really do, I’m the same way)
carlie:
I’m honestly not sure I’d know the difference. I’m a very…slapdash artist. A slap of this there, a dash of this there, does it look passable? Alright then, we’re good. What I’m wondering is if the difference is all that noticeable, I guess. All the instruction blogs say to sand, prime, sand, prime, sand, prime, sand, and then paint. : p But it’s just an ol’ table so maybe I’ll just go for it. :) I at least do have sandpaper.
Thanks for the hugs, and here’s a really simple chocolate cake recipe I enjoyed:
185g of flour
90g of cocoa
Mix those two and add:
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
1 full teaspoon of soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
250g of sugar
Mix well. Add:
80ml of oil
185ml of buttermilk
vanilla extract
2 eggs
185ml of hot water
You can use a mixer for this, but it turned out great just being stirred.
Put the mixture in a cake pan and bake for about 35-40 minutes at 180°C.
Frosting: (it depends on whether you’ll just cut the cake in half and spread the frosting in the middle, or if you also want to put the frosting on the top and sides of the cake. For the latter case:)
300 ml of whipping cream
200g of dark chocolate
1 tablespoon of powdered sugar
rum
1 tablespoon of butter
Mix chocolate and butter in a double boiler (someone actually buys that or you all just put a pan over another pan filled with water, like I do?). After chocolate melts, add cream and stir it in well. Get it off the fire and leave to cool for a couple of minutes before adding sugar and rum. Whip it up. Assemble the cake and try not to eat the whole thing by yourself.
I haven’t tried it with sour cherries over that inside layer of frosting, but that’s the plan for some weekend.
Beatrice
*hugs* I’ve been in similar situations, and they suck. I can’t think of any useful advice though.
Hi there
Didn’t do shit for college so far (really not possible with the kids running around), but I was a tad creative. Pics to follow as soon as that damn cloud moves away from the sunlight.
beatrice
*hugs*
gardens
I’m a tad envious.
I wished I had a garden and the time to work it.
But I planted starwberries and some flowers on the balcony
carlie
I’m sorry to hear about the financial woes.
rq
I think it’s important to remember that this modern day war is very different from what it used to be. Especially if one is from a culture that hasn’t experienced a land war in the own country for quite a while.
For millenia armies have been opportunities open for men, but not for women. The Roman army offered that to their conquered subects, the Spanish Conquista was a way for men to escape famine and misery. German even knows the term “Zivilversager” which means a guy who was totally useless in life but who got a nice job with a rather good pay at a time when there was zero risk of war, or the opportunity to go to college and get a salary at the same time
Wife and I planted sugar snap peas in the garden this week. We also have basil and will be planting a couple of chili pepper plants.
Sorry you lost out in the new deal, btw, carlie. That’s a big chunk to lose.
(I opted for no-primer. I think it’s gonna be ok, but mostly because my standards for quality are not high).
Giliell
Good point, that.
Also, I thought about adding the fact that the disposability of young available men (ostensibly) increases the availability of women to the men not dying in wars, because, you know, to procreate, you only need a few men, but many many women! Which may or may not be a factor in this discussion.
I hope your strawberries grow well!
Portia
If it’s for personal use and to make it look fresher, then you should be fine. ;) You rebel.
Beatrice
The best part about that chocolate cake? The rum in the icing. ;) Thanks for the recipe! My list of things to try via the Lounge is impressive, but one day. One day, the one recipe that I need will be right there.
Is anyone else a bit bored with Doctor Who this half-season? It’s not all bad, and there were some great moments, but all in all… it’s a bit meh.
Doctor and Clara just aren’t working for me. At this point, most of what I’m looking forward to are interesting side-characters. Luckily, Madame Vastra and Jenny will appear in the next episode.
Thanks, Giliell and Portia. It sucks, but maybe this will be the year the employment gods smile on Spouse and it will even out.
Random thought – has anyone heard from Caine lately?
carlie
She’s alive and stiching. She’s been incredibly productive the last weeks…
rq
Not sure how that holds up for modern times when who’s dying in war is mostly lower-class guys…
Thanks, rq :) I’m getting excited about the project as it progresses. If I like the end result I’ll post pictures.
—
Does Spouse have leads/prospects, carlie?
—
That does sound yummy, Beatrice, I’m making lemon bars from a box…I’m not ashamed ^__^
Ooo, ooo! I have a cheap food scale now that I bought last month on sale! I can actually figure out recipes like Beatrice’s chocolate cake! Now if I can only find a decent substitution for buttermilk, I’ll be all set for this afternoon. :)
Carlie
Plain yogurt and milk-with-lemon-juice have both worked for me. Good luck!
carlie,
The original recipe says buttermilk, but we don’t have that here (or at least I don’t know what to buy as substitute), so I usually squeeze some lemon juice into regular milk and leave for 10 minutes or more.
I wrote in the buttermilk because I thought US-dwelling hordelings would be familiar with it.
Portia – no, we live in a pretty depressed area and he’s been a stay at home dad for several years, looking for the last few. Good at what he’s trained for but few to no jobs there, would be willing to do something like retail but with some physical problems that would make things like stocking difficult (and they always make the guys do the stocking…), mostly looking for general office type jobs. We are scraping by ok without him working so it hasn’t been a priority, but this pay cut might bring it into a bit sharper relief. I can’t say we’re in economic danger, but we do have a pretty hefty credit card bill from an accumulation of emergency situations (mostly car repairs) that never seems to go away and can’t save for things like new emergencies and impending college tuition for kids and such, and a 12 year old car that may not make it much longer. We’re those people who are a couple of catastrophes from financial problems, but ok generally.
carlie
I gotcha. Thanks for the explanation. Here’s hoping something comes along that fits his needs and abilities and pays decently.
Beatrice:
For me personally, buttermilk is not hard to find. It’s just that me and most people I know only ever use it in a recipe, and so you buy it for the recipe and then it sits. So it’s not generally something I have on hand. Hence the substitutions being a good fix. :)
Cerberus – I’m so sorry. *lots of hugs and chocolate and unconditional love and support*
Ogvorbis – *hugs* for you and your wife. I’m happy to hear she continues to improve.
Found a photo of PZ out for a bike ride!
Octopus Bicycle
from
Brian Kesinger
I saw this this morning and had to make it more well known, it is from an admitted libertarian, I do not know how to comment on this, words fail utterly!
uncle frogy
===========================.>
By Justin Raimondo
May 03, 2013
Yet Sen. Paul’s reaction is not irrational: it is simply not thought out. People react instinctually to threats of violence, to the sight of a horror like the Boston Marathon bombing – or 9/11, for that matter – and America is peculiarly susceptible to this kind of fear.
sorry for some reason the link did not show up
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/05/02/liberty-in-the-age-of-terrorism/
uncle frogy
carlie
Fingers crossed for your husband.
+++
And now, pics as promised
*load of hugs on floor for people to wallow in*
Has everybody seen this yet?
“Ich bin nichts
Ich kann nichts
Gebt mir eine Uniform”
(I am nothing, I don’t know how to do anything, give me a uniform. Apparently there are T-shirts with this.)
I squeed in meatspace.
My table is done! 24 hours from project acquired to project completed. This is record time.
SO.
I decided to make Beatrice’s cake. I only had about 40g of cocoa, so decided to just cut it all in half. Since that wasn’t quite half, though, I added a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee that was sitting in the cabinet to add a little of that flavor too. And I’ve been trying to do better with fiber and omega-3s, so I substituted some flaxseed and water for the egg, and since there was no buttermilk I did the milk and lemon juice, then it was a little runny so I threw in a little more flour until it looked better. It’s in the oven now. We’ll see what happens. But I will not blame Beatrice if it doesn’t work, given what I did to it. ;)
OH MY GOD YES. We’ve missed the last three episodes because none of us in the house seem to care enough to remember it’s on, when usually we’re walking around all day Saturday going “Doctor Who tonight Doctor Who tonight Doctor Who tonight”. And then when we do see them, it’s like eh, why bother. I hope it gets better FAST.
*confetti&champagne*, and may there be no recurrence!
–
bluentx, just promise me you won’t plant a crop of Horses, and I’ll forgive you. Yes, even for the mention of Glenn Beck in that context.
–
carlie, sorry to hear about the drop in income.
:(
–
*hugs* for Beatrice.
–
Beatrice:
Not so much. I heard he moved to a small island in the Caribbean where he’s working a poolside Tiki bar at a resort hotel, but that’s a completely unconfirmed rumor.
…um, the quoted excerpt looks like a detailed description of exactly that, using different language.
I had steak with a Jack Daniel whiskey glaze, green beans and baked brie in crescent roll dough. Then I had a nice 5 Vegas cigar and two fingers of Son’s cognac. Now I am watching the end of the NASCAR race in Talledaga.
Today is the Redhead’s birthday. Since it is Cinco de Mayo, she must have a south of border dinner. The plantains and empanadas are fried, the enchilada filling is cooling, ready to be assembled and baked. Rice, tamale, and a burrito are ready to nuke, and a spicy guacamole was purchased. For desert, tres leches cake (foreground with strawberry & kiwi).
Am I the only one NOT seeing the new blogs on the mainpage?
Happy Birthday to The Redhead!
IJoe!!! *Pouncehugs*
WMDkitty
You aren’t the only one.
Happy birthday to the Redhead.
HiJoe! :)
Happy Birthday Redhead! Dinner sounds delish. I’m going to have tacos at my aunt’s house. Omnomnom.
Nerd, tell the Redhead Happy Birthday for me.
The other night, Wife and I came home after having dinner out. On the counter, in the pile for the recyclables, was an empty Taco Bell box and two (count ’em, TWO) empty bottles of hot sauce.
Hey! iJoe! *glomps & purrs*
What? Joe is totally chilling in PR with a sweet tan and a large collection of cool shirts and straw Trilby hats.
Hi, iJoe.
Go for a nice Shantung straw Stetson cowboy hat. Much better in the tropical sun.
And if you wear it with a pair of cowboy boots, some dark slacks, and a Hawai’ian shirt, you’ll look like a late-1960s CIA officer in Southeast Asia. (Oddly, what I just described (substitute jeans for slacks, though) and you have my normal summer dress)
Sorry. My 609 was in reference to the trilby.
The Redhead uses Salsa Brava, hot (half way down the page).
Nerd:
One was a bottle of Cholula. The other was You Can’t Handle This Hot Sauce. He uses the Cholula for taste and the YCHTHS for the actual heat.
Man, that hetpat welcome thread is just full of slymers. This promises to be interesting. Popcorn, anyone?
iJoe!
*pouncehug*
The rumor I heard was that
you’dhe’d gone undercover at the Creation Museum, investigating the undeniable links between Ham and Horses.–
Happy birthday to the Redhead.
–
@Alethea
They’re all pretending so hard to be interested in the blog itself, too. Not that they can very well say, “I’m so glad you’ve opened up a foothold on FtB for us to better antagonize people from.”
Indeed. I think it is going to be funny.
… And Joe is going to have to be gone again, because this place isn’t safe or comfortable for him. I like a lot of you folks, but the reality is that I’m too low-class to ever fit in here.
IJoe
You’re welcome back anytime, man. We love you, and you’re definitely missed.
Dalillama,
I’m actually NOT welcome here, a fact I keep forgetting. But thanks for caring.
@Og
Super happy that Ms Ogvorbis’ infection is clearing up as well as can be expected. MRSA is awful, awful stuff.
@Nerd
Conga Rats & Felicitations for Redhead!
@iJoe
Not welcome?
I miss a ton, because I’m here a lot, then gone for a while, then here a lot again. I’m afraid I don’t know why you (have concluded you) aren’t welcome. If there’s anything I/the Horde can help address, let me/us know.
IJoe
What Oggie said. You’re sorely missed, my friend.
We made new compost bins today ( gad, they are sooo clean and new and shiny and piny).
Moved most of the old stuff into the new ones ( there is still ice).
This has reduced the size of the garden (a good thing) and freed more space outside the garden.
I am quite happy.
Now we just need to split and stack 3 cubic metres of wood.
I’m renewing my First Aid card tomorrow.
(in an all-day class)
Should I keep drinking or get some sleep?
carlie,
Well, the batter for that cake is a bit more runny than I usually make it, but the cake turns out really soft and moist and grows quite a lot from the lightness and powder and soda.
—-
Joe,
*waves*
It’s good to read you, I’ll like it if you come by more often.
—-
Happy birthday to the Redhead!
@Cerberus
I’ve been following things with your family. I wish I had had a Horde when I was coming out to mine. I’ve been reluctant to interject myself too much, but I just feel like I have to say something. You can choose not to read it if you don’t want to be triggered by my own family stuff – my family experience is not a prophecy about yours. More after the break…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
So, I had mixed reactions from my family, & I got that whole “But you didn’t say anything, and real trannies have to be beaten to keep them away from their mothers’ high heels!” thing that families so often do, invisibilizing FtM folk in the process. Obviously your fam is doing the same thing & I’m sorry. But the piece I most wanted to engage was the bit about your lack of care for which way your family will go in choosing to support you, or not. It’s absolutely true that the refusal to communicate something that tells you what you can expect is itself a horrible thing. And yet, you will eventually care which way your family has chosen. My dad was the relatively liberal, supportive parent in my first family growing up [mom & dad divorced & they each remarried about 4 years later]. And yet, when I came out as trans, he took it as a personal affront. He gave me the worst of both worlds; he didn’t overtly disown me. He just refused to speak to me and moved without giving me his new phone number, and in other ways made communication impossible without ever saying that, say, he never wanted to speak to me or see me again. So I got all the purgatorial fun of the lingering ambiguity and uncertainty combined with the excitement of exile! I gotta tell you, I’d never been jealous of those folks in Athens that had to watch one citizen after another drop a black ostracon in the pot, but the finality of counting the 6000th vote for your exile at least gave one knowledge upon which one could act. Oy.
Why do I say all this? Well, I’m not sure, which is part of why I gave a warning for you to skip this if desired. It’s been 2 decades, and things haven’t gotten better. I hurt for the first year or two, then intermittently for another 3 or so, then things calmed down. I got used to the fact that his silence really was a form of certainty. But then 6 or 7 years after that, everything came back with a vengeance. So I want to warn you that psyching yourself up to not care is incredibly useful in the short term, but I worry that you’ll be surprised by the future bite if you assume that dealing short term means you’ve effectively dealt long term.
I guess that’s my real message, just a warning from my experience. I don’t mean to be debbie downer, but I don’t want you to be hit, all unprepared, the way I was.
I do hope things get continually better with your uncle, and I certainly hope that the stuff with your dad doesn’t end up as badly as the stuff with mine.
Best wishes, Cerberus. Take care of yourself during this time…and into the future.
iJoe
Dude, I don’t *glomp* just anybody… well… okay, I kinda do, but you… I’ve fucking missed you, man. I miss you going on for tl;dr about guitars and amps, and I don’t understand a single bit of it, but I love it because it’s you, being passionate about something you love.
So… yeah. Totally missing one of “my” humans, here!
WMDKitty
The reality is that I can’t be here, because some people here aren’t going to allow me to be here safely. You can find me on Twitter, and through email, and on my blog. And if you look for me there, I will answer you back every single time.
Seconding (or whatever-ing) the missing of Joe!
Please come by more often. (No such thing as too-low-class!)
rq
You can blame some of your fellow (gaslighting) Horde-members for why I’m not here anymore. I’m happy to chat with most of you on Twitter or by email or even Skype or your favorite chat program.
And if you don’t seek me out? I guess you didn’t miss me that much after all. Which is cool, I can live with it… but don’t… fake the funk on a nasty dunk.
I get bonus points for that, right?
Sorry about that, dude. I am a deeply shitty correspondent.
Joe, I know exactly what you mean and I respect you choosing to handle it this way.
If it makes any difference, though, I think I can guess who you have in mind, and the recent absence of at least two of them from the lounge has been remarked on lately.
Rewatching Doctor Who on Netflix. The line “have a fantastic life” made me burst into tears – again. And the episode gets even more sad from there.
Help! I’m becoming far too attached to the Parsnip. D: I can’t have 5 cats, though, as that puts me directly into crazy-cat-lady territory!
But but but… he reminds me so much of my most beloved cat ever, personality wise. This is really hard. Especially when he’s bonded to me as well. He only purrs when *I* pet him.
Grooming:
http://imageshack.us/a/img153/7742/parsnip24days3.jpg
“hmmmmn?”
http://imageshack.us/a/img35/3227/parsnip24days1.jpg
“MOOOOOOOM!
http://imageshack.us/a/img829/2021/parsnip24days2.jpg
Good morning
Portia
Your table rocks
Joe big hugs
But don’t forget that your depression also lies to you about why people aren’t looking for you. Maybe their own depression tells them the same thing about you
I haz a tired.
Three actually.
This was the first Cinco de Mayo in which I worked at a Mexican restaurant. On Pensacola Beach. On the Boardwalk. In one of the best weather days of the week. By jove, I am exhausted. 10 am til 2 am, with the nonstop train o’guests from 11 am til 9 pm.
Of course the most memorable time tonight was learning I am an asshole who does not know what he is doing behind a bar. Which another manager informed me about. Yeah, this stands out against a backdrop of guests both familiar and not who were pleased with my service. No, I cannot shake the combination of worrying that I did come off wrong, even though it is highly unlikely I did. Moreover, the guests main complaint was that I was ignoring them. Apologies, but when you have a mass of people wanting your attention while you are making drinks, taking care of servers and taking food orders, it is entirely possible I was not ignoring you deliberately. I know guests cannot know that, but FFS I did not use the restroom for oh…7?8? hours??! Maybe I wasBUSY. I am good at what I do, but still do I have my limits.
Joe:
I do not Tweet.
I rarely Facebook anymore.
This is my primary place for online interactions with friends. Of which I consider you one. As your friend, I feel you are welcome here.
I doubt it.
I didn’t get that. Here’s what Crip Dyke said:
The implication appeared to be that all straight men find the idea of anal sex with a woman a turn-on – unless the implication is confined to men who “keep saying how very, very vile anal sex is”; but the latter looks close in form to the assumption that all raging homophobes are closeted homosexuals*, although it doesn’t have the same harmful effects. My response was really just a heads-up: “You appear to be making a false assumption here – you don’t know he’s thinking that, because he may not like the idea of anal sex at all, since some straight men don’t”**. I guess the discriminator here would be whether a man has the same attitude to man-woman anal sex as to man-man. If he doesn’t, then yes, he’s being hypocritical in making that his claimed objection to sex between men.
*I use “homosexuals” not “gays” here because I take the latter to imply an identity, not just the existence of same-sex attraction. Please correct if this usage is wrong.
**I’m aware that some gay men don’t either! I should perhaps say, just for clarity, that I don’t have any moral objection to anal sex – it just doesn’t appeal to me.
I assume the evil mutant horse(?) trying to feed the baby long pig peas has been flayed and sold as beef here in Europe.
(Or turned into glue and sold as a replacement for gum arabic for USAlien’s soda pop (which may be the mildly deranged penguin’s plan).)
Chas @638:
…oh, dear.
Thanks Giliell! I posted that picture on facebook and now friends want me to paint furniture for them. (Including Cousin Who Is Pregnant and decorating her nursery) Fun stuff.
Portia, what a table!!! It looks so happy.
Best wishes to the Redhead! May is a good month for birthdays.
I realized that in two days, I’ll be exactly the age my mother was on the day I got married. This is causing aging angst. I swear she was a lot older then than I am now. ;)
Happy Birthday!*
I’m not sure exactly when, I don’t know his birthdate, but sometime in the next couple of years I will have had a longer life than my father did. I don’t know how to feel about this. His early demise had profound effects on me, ones that I doubt will ever completely shed, some good, some not so.
Reading your comment it suddenly struck me that barring unforeseen tragedy I will end up with more life experience than he had. It’s weird to think that not so long from now I’ll be in a position where my opinions and decisions would have a greater experiential data set to draw on than his ever did.
*In before everyone! WOOO! (Usually I’m the one offering embarrassingly belated congrats.)
A gun made on a 3D printer has been fired …. Apparently the nutter who built this people-killer — as designed, it has no other plausible use — (according to the BBC) “said his plans to make the design available were ‘about liberty’. … ‘There are states all over the world that say you can’t own firearms — and that’s not true anymore.'”
Portia
Now I want you to paint furniture for me! A little impractical, what with those pesky oceans in the way, but The Ghost Train Villa ™ will be needing such things soon.
Speaking of Chez Fishy: Here’s The Small Fry and her handiwork in the main bedroom. No, those aren’t gloves on her hands. And here she is pushing her wheelbarrow of painting supplies over to the house.
*Large file warning for those on data plans and slow connections.
FossilFishy – thanks, but it’s not my birthday then. :) *
But quite often it strikes me just how young and inexperienced my parents were in raising me when I hit milestones like that, because it’s so clear what it would be like for me to deal with X now that they dealt with at the same age then. My oldest is just barely in high school, and I was already out of college when my parents were my age. I led a pretty charmed life growing up, but of course there were some Issues, and this perspective as I’m getting older has really given me a lot of compassion for what a struggle it was for them. Why, they were just babies themselves! No wonder parenting wasn’t the easiest thing in the world for them to do well.
I’m sorry about your dad, too. A few years ago was the “I’m the age my mom was when her mom died” mark, and although I have several friends who also lost their parents at a young age, I can only barely imagine how difficult it is.
* but it’s not far off, because that’s why I was thinking about it because her birthday is near my wedding anniversary, and my birthday is the equivalent amount of closeness to now as hers is to that. Oh lord, I’ve just made my life a standardized test analogy. “Mom’s birthday: my wedding day = my birthday:?” But yes, you’re still the first then. :)
FossilFishy – oh my goodness, that look she’s got! It’s a proud “I’m awesome and my painting is great and I know it and you shall just deal with it.” Fantastic. :)
Love the table, Portia, it is super-cheerful and bright! :)
Happy pre-emptive birthdays? And actual ones? To Lounge members and their loved ones celebrating.
Giliell from upthread, love the children’s jackets! And your other handiwork is beautiful, too.
+++
Next time someone tells you it’s ‘hyacinth’, ask them which shade of hiacinth.
(I dedicate today’s hiacinths to Parrowing, the cream tulips to cicely, the daffodils to Portia because they match her table, and everything to everyone who enjoys too many flower pictures.)
FossilFishy
Does she do caves for posterity, too? ;) But the real question is, is she productive with the wheelbarrow, or does she do as my offspring do – push random objects around just because they can?
Awesome pictures, and the house looks… nearly done??!! Can it be?
You do realize there is a history here that stretches farther back than one comment within the last couple days, right?
(WTF is your purpose here, even ignoring that?)
Dammit. Oh well, I tried. :)
My father’s death is such an immense and complicated thing in my life that I really shouldn’t have brought it up. He was an alcoholic, a shitty father to be sure, and his dying might have been the best thing he could have done for me. Or not. Doing it just as I was starting puberty wasn’t exactly good timing.
I do feel sorry for him though. That he struggled with depression and anxiety is pretty clear to me now. And ‘there but for his bad example go I’ is never far from my mind. Our world is full of ways to self-medicate, and the harm those methods can do lays all around us….enough, or I shall wax maudlin in a counterclockwise way until it’s way past my bedtime.
The Small Fry is certainly confident about some things. Her painting there being one. Her ability to take off her own shirt? Not so much. For all that youth is a time of excitement, possibility, and novelty, I’m finding that more and more I prefer the steadiness and certainty of knowing where most of my boundaries lie.
Night all. May your Monday (Western Hemispherical Folks) be as pleasant and relaxing as mine was.
FossilFishy
Good night! Would you like a rose named after you?
+++
That question goes for everyone:
Would anyone like a rose unofficially named after them? I have about 45 – 55 bushes, and I was promised a list of their official names… Unfortunately, the list appears to have been lost during the move, so I am left with an assortment of nameless roses of various colours. If anyone would like an unofficially named rose, let me know (also colour preference… won’t know this until they actually bloom, but I know there are all colours, including the so-called ‘blue’ for roses).
Okay, not quite to bed.
She’s her mother’s daughter is my little Fishy, rq. A self-sufficent lot, are the women of my in-law family. In that picture she’s actually carrying all the stuff she needed for that trip to the house. I was most emphatically NOT ALLOWED to carry her stuff. That said, the first thing she does when getting off the school bus is to hand me her backpack. Much depends on the tide and how one holds one’s tongue I suspect.
I would gladly hire her out for all your cave-painting needs. So long as all rules and regulations for child labour were to be followed. Nap times are no longer needed, but two bedtime stories are non-negotiable. Hair washing and jumper wearing are to be hazarded only when strictly necessary…
I love how the figures are all holding hands.
And now I mean it: goodnight I say, goodNIGHT!
I am not, and do not resemble, a hemisphere. Nor a sphere. Not even a hemi.
(This is your daily† I’m procrastinating waste of electrons.)
† (Well, it would be daily if I wasn’t procrastinating so much…)
I’d ask you to describe that as fairly as you can, but seeing as it concerns me so I that could recall it better than you anyway, and since it’s probably not a great idea to discuss it in the lounge, I’m actually going to drop it entirely rather than take this to the t-dome. I doubt anything worthwhile would come out of it. But if for some reason I should apologize for something I’ve said, do let me know what that is supposed to be.
“so that I could recall it,” obviously.
Need more coffee.
Dammit, I should have shut the computer off, I really should have.
I’ll think about the rose rq. Thanks for the offer.
blf
But, but, but, how can we do any physics with you if you’re not spherical? Do you [gasp] transcend the laws of space and time!?*
*This is my daily contribution to the procrastination of others. No, no, don’t thank me. ‘Tis the least I could do.
FossilFishy
blf is a vague cloud of probability of where an electron may be located.
If I remember correctly, some of those clouds are not only spherical, but also like 3D figure eights and various other strange shapes.
That means blf is not a valence 1 electron.
Or something.
For spherical physics, use a cow.
“vague” — Check.
“cloud” — Perhaps in some metaphorical sense. I don’t recall floating in the air pissing down on people, however tempting that may be.
“of probability” — Hum… maybe.
“an electron” — As in just one? Sounds like a rather extreme diet! Or else I was stepped on by a forty-foot high “affectionately aggressive” killer rat… (Checks self. Nope, not flat. Don’t think so.)
“3D figure eights and various other strange shapes” — Broadly true. Broadly true. For a significantly broad definition of broadly. And true.
blf
I encompass all.
…wwwwwhat?
BTW, I can’t comment on your blog, because I don’t have a Google ID or an OpenID. :-( Your table is awesome!
*glomp*
*purr*
^_^
(…I can in fact purr. It doesn’t sound good, because I’m just that much bigger than a cat, but…)
{herbivoric preaching redacted}
….and thus we know that the music of the spheres is conducted by the Holiest of Ungulates, the Sacred and most High: Four Thirds Pi R Cubed. Blessings be upon her udder.
And in closing I say unto you: To err is human, to moo bovine.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Go in peas, er… I mean peace! Go in peace my brethren.
Sorry, I meant “a history with regards to Joe’s feelings of being unwelcome in the Lounge/on Pharyngula,” not to you (or mythbri) specifically. I should have been clearer.
World’s Heaviest Metal Band
–
iJoe, what Dalillama said.
I still click in to your blog on weekdays.
You know.
Just in case.
:)
–
Awesome table, Portia! And Giliell’s denim jackets—also a winner!
(Almost forgot.)
–
Happy pre-birthday, carlie!
–
Pretty flowers….
–
rq: I would be pleased to have an unofficial rose. Blue? Violet? (I killed a violet tea rose, recently….) Something live, with all its petals and leaves on, anyways.
–
Trying for Lounge-kindness here.
If Joe hadn’t flounced from the toothbrush thread when he did, I’d have offered a friendly looming bunny video warning. His behavior in that thread was uncalled for, and I’m speaking as someone with a chip on my shoulder about not having had the opportunity to finish a degree big enough to win most shoulder-chip dicksize wars.
I note that this is the second time since I’ve been here that I’ve seen Joe 1) attack another commenter in a manner others found excessive, 2) react strongly to correction that’s arguably somewhat mild by local standards (perhaps less so in the first instance), 3) announce his departure in the Lounge in “nobody loves me” terminology.
I have always been glad to see Joe comment on my threads here even when I think he’s out of line, as I did yesterday. I hope he’ll continue to do so. But that’s a deeply unhappy dynamic there, if I might say so from my own personal indulgence in the realm of passive-aggression. It makes me haz a sad both for Joe and for those of us who are put in the position of reacting to it.
Chris Clarke
I’m definitely naming a rose after you.
Do you have a colour preference?
Cute kiddie photo, FossilFishy! I do love her expression in it. And excellent house progress! I’d happily contribute a decorative house-warming gift were it not for the distance :) Thanks for the compliment.
carlie: I find myself empathizing with my parents more as I get older…hindsight being 20/20. There’s a sadness that comes with the clarity, but it’s still nice to have.
rq, who told you that daffodils are my favorite flower? I love yours, they are so bright and cheery. You nailed what I was going for with the table. I was inspired by the upholstery fabric I chose for the kitchen chairs, which I chose because of it’s bright and cheery motif. : ) Can I please be named for a yellow rose?
My daffodils are unruly.
I got a bright golden/orange tablecloth at the local thrift shop. It protects my artwork nicely when I’m using the table a lot.
Mom has gone home. Sad. But she might come back next weekend, with nieces! :D That would be really fun..
Now I have some work to do.
Elizabeth Smart, the girl (now a young woman) who was kidnapped, held captive, and raped repeatedly in 2002, recently gave a speech in which she confirmed that mormon sexual purity lessons were partially responsible for her failure to run away from her captors:
The “licked cupcake” is the purity lesson I’ve heard most often. Toxic stuff.
RD magazine link.
Caught up with the previous page.
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Ye Olde Blacksmith! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
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Unlike the Ninja Turtles, he’s not restricted to people who are logged in and claim to be 18 or older.
Wow. Awesome. :-o
Uh, he hasn’t disappeared. He’s just using part of his meatspace name now: Anthony K. He hasn’t even changed his photo.
LOL in meatspace! Subthread won.
I suggest sitting on the bridge to block it. Shouting “YOU SHALL NOT PASS” is optional. Wear bulletproof vests, though.
I think there is.
I think it’s actually the other way around: it makes them a woman because it’s gross. I think the “logic” goes like this:
1) It’s gross.
2) Therefore, it’s humiliating.
3) Humiliation, punishment even, is what the “it” in “take it up the ass” really refers to. (Freud can go cheney himself.)
4) In a hetero situation, that’s bad enough for the man, but the woman is reminded of her status. She’s dominated. That’s fair enough, at least the order of things is upheld.
5) But two men? The one who takes it up the ass is either being degraded, or he’s degrading himself. Either way, that goes too far. It’s sick, it’s against the natural order.
Same for oral sex, plus the angle of “kneel before me, kiss this, swallow the disgusting slime that comes out, and pretend to like it because I have all the power – even the power to make you not just bite me”.
Disclaimer: the “logic” already fails at step 2.
That Mormon crap is soo dysfunctional. I recommend a reboot for all afflicted.
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Now we know where the Hulk went.
‘Hero’ Swede lifts car to save trapped boy” http://www.thelocal.se/47734/20130506/
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I took the day off to escort my mom to the first visit at the new senior activity group.
Afterwards I took a stroll to the nearest bus line. Very peaceful, just intermittent sounds from the occasional car far away while the birds were singing.
While this is in the periphery of the town, Umeå is still a 100.000+ place with lots of traffic so I realised how wonderful it is there are still unexploited places where senior people (and the rest of the public) can take a walk in a rural setting three miles from the center of town.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to be stuck where you need a car to get out for a bit of nature-interaction.
The meltwater will fill the dams to capacity, I hope some of the spring flood will be diverted into the old rapids. Umeå has no burial cairns or Greek temples but the rapids are awesome whenever the rapids are brought back to life.
The LDS church has run canning factories for many decades. These factories use “volunteer” workers (church members usually “called” by the Bishop to serve) that are not trained. LDS Church Corporation has been called on the carpet in the past by federal inspectors. Now the LDS Church is closing canneries.
Not a moment too soon, in my opinion. Tales of untrained workers canning rotten or semi-rotten fruit, lack of cleanliness, etc. abound on the exmormon.org site. Still, in a Moment of Mormon Madness, true believers are making the closure of canneries into a tale of persecution, government overreach, and general evil done in the name of regulation.
Link.
Ex-mormon discussion link.
Seriously disgusting lesson. I grew up in a conservative Xian home, but my parents were sort of hippyish. There wasn’t any discussion of sex whatsoever. The closest I got to this crap was from another homeschooler friend who explained that dating was a bad idea. You see, when you date, you give away a piece of your heart, and then you have less for your husband when you get married.
When some people’s depression finds real or imagined slights, they curl up on the floor and cry for hours.
When some other people’s depression finds real or imagined slights, it seems they turn aggressive and lash out.
Anxiety shows the same split in reactions. Maybe it depends on the relative levels of oxytocin and testosterone – I have to add that (even in my limited experience) gender isn’t a very good predictor of those.
Gah.
And some of us are a little from Column A, a little from Column B.
birgerjohansson,
sounds like a lovely walk. :)
Lynna,
I like the scarequotes around trained. Like that’s something the gubmint made up, that you should be trained for the factory work you’re doing.
rq, You are too kind.
I love roses and would be thrilled if you would name a rose after me (my great grandma, too). Zoe – please. The color is entirely up to you.
My mother has many gardens all over the lawn. I keep telling them – a woman I know on line is from Latvia, and I just saw pictures of her garden. : )
I really enjoyed your pictures. Someday when I have a yard again I will plant. : )
I have other Horde members to thank for pictures, but it will have to wait.
‘Til then. : )
NEW THREAD.