News
Friday, January 04, 2008
Deb: The Biggest Loser
I started to watch it again, and when they were doing the intros and the mother and son came on and mom insisted that her kid looked like her because she’s a terrible mother, I turned it off. Because science is cool and I can’t take all of this bullshit anymore. *headdesk*
Anyway, tuns out that I was way right to do so. I don’t think my blood pressure could have taken the rest of the episode, per Jeff Jarvis, anyway.
Just remember, that blood pressure spike would have had nothing to do with having to endure outrageous stupidity...it would have been brought to you by TEH FAT!
Honestly, I’m starting to really enjoy having given up TV again. Thanks, WGA. I *heart* you.
Deb: OK, bonus post.
I gave up voting because I couldn’t answer this question: if it is obviously wrong for a single person to use force to organize people in a way that is pleasing to him, why is it right for a sufficiently large group of people to use force to organize people in a way that is pleasing to 51 percent of them?
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Deb: The end of the world is well and truly nigh.
If I hadn’t given up voting as a bad job all around, I’d no doubt find myself supporting McCain as the least bad of the lot. Hear that? That’s the sound of the ice in hell crackling as it forms.
*sigh*
And yes, I know, Fred, Fred, Fred. But even after I’ve frozen hell by endorsing admitting the relative non-suck of McCain (remembering, please, that I think every last one of them is a horror for wanting the job at all, never mind the tactics used to get it), his snowball? Passed right by while he was sitting around contemplating the run. Besides, the problem with being repeatedly compared to the Great Conservative God is that nobody can live up to it.
Not that any one of the GOP contenders would recognize true conservatism if it bit them on the ass.
Fred’s problem is that the idea of Fred is awesome. Fred, though? Maybe not so much. Which isn’t entirely his fault: I don’t think there are very many actual conservatives left in America, though there are an awful lot of people who think they are conservatives around.
Mitt? Makes John Kerry look like a possessor of strong convictions. Besides, I *hate* perfect candidate hair. But really? What I hold against him most is that now that purchasing health insurance is mandatory, my premium? Went up 20 percent this year. And since we chose to prioritize this month and pay the rent, we are now not just temporarily uninsured, we’re also criminals. Because, you know, feeding your kids is a bad thing. And if you have an off month or two, you should be subject to mandatory receipt of government benefits and all of the baggage that implies. Because being in job flux is such a rare thing these days, which makes it immoral, right?
I never, never thought that within my lifetime it would be considered wrong NOT to take a government benefit. Because it’s stealing to take the risk of having a hospital bill you can’t pay, but it’s not stealing to take government healthcare money to cover that risk. Because government healthcare money comes from where? The magic money tree they’ve been growing on the dark side of the moon?
Er, yeah.
Wasn’t there somebody else in the race, too? Some guy from New York? Do I even have to go there? His authoritarian impulses make McCain & Co.’s attempts to rewrite the first amendment look like certifiable good-guy-ism in comparison.
So yeah, McCain. And I’m going to go shower now, because even the thought makes me feel dirty. Good thing I’m not a Republican. And if you’ve made it this far, you’re probably glad by now that I don’t vote any more. Maybe I’ll tell you about that sometime. For now, though, just let me chime in with a “thank the FSM that New Hampshire is over next week and I won’t have to watch campaign commercials for a couple of months.”
See ya.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Deb: Thanks, Mitt Romney!
I was going to put a post here, but I thought better of it. Let’s just say that I don’t tolerate any talk about how he’s presidential material.
Happy New Year, anyway.
Jay: Yay!
The weather system never lost its warmth. It’s a bit wet and icky out there, but no snow. Apparently the record will stand.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Jay: Yuck
This takes place roughly 1 AM to 1 PM Monday.
When I didn’t go do errands Friday afternoon, this was nowhere in sight. Tomorrow is going to be… interesting. I can’t not go to the bank, even if it’s the one in the mall (weirdly, the closest branch) so it’s open late.
Looks like we’ll get our record December snowfall, which a couple days ago they were certain couldn’t possibly happen.
Sigh…
Oh well. Ham’s been in the oven long enough that it’s about time to peel and cut up potatoes and butternut squash to go with it. Then it will be sandwiches, pea soup, and packets of ham pieces for scrambled eggs or perhaps other things, like beans or mac and cheese. Gotta get our money’s worth, even at $1.69 a pound.
Perhaps I’ll make some applesauce too.
Even with having to go out tomorrow afternoon, regardless, I still feel like I ought to scrape up some cash from around the house to get milk and diapers. Perhaps a couple things of babyfood. But it can wait, really. I hope.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Jay: I’m Beginning to Wonder…
If McCain isn’t the least of all the evils running, and the most competently presidential.
How weird, considering that on the old blog he had his own category: Senator Control Freak.
But aren’t they all?
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Jay: Dan Fogelberg
So he died the other day, way too young, of prostate cancer. Which reminds me of the fun I sometimes poke at people who think it’s prostrate, which I guess would make it the genuflecting gland or something.
Interesting history, me and Dan Fogelberg. Because I am easygoing and incapable of staying angry or holding a grudge, it’s not so long ago that I finally forgave people like him for participating in the misguided, to use a polite term, “no nukes” album project some 25 years or so ago. Bombs? No, power.
That being fresh didn’t make it any less cool that I almost got to meet him once, way back then. I stayed at a house in Maine near his. The kids there offered to take me to meet him, but found he was away at the time, so no dice.
It also never stopped me from loving some of his music, especially Same Old Lang Syne, which is an all time favorite of mine. I told Deb I thought he chose an interesting time to die, since it’s the time of year when that song receives a ton of extra airplay due to its New Year’s and Christmas associations. She was amused with my “chose” phrasing.
A counter example is Cat Stevens. After the Salman Rushdie thing, to this day I refuse to listen to Cat Stevens if I have a choice. I change stations if one of his songs starts to play. How long ago was that? Been a while.
Anyway, I was sad to see the news. Fogelberg struck me as a nice and talented guy, and it’s not like opposing an environmentally and economically energy option is overtly supporting death to anyone the way coming out in favor of a madman’s crazy religious death decree is.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Jay: Ick
The weather outside is frightful. Kind of like the smell from Sadie in her overnight gear.
What’s annoying is even though the temperatures are only supporting a mix and what’s been falling is doing serious damage to the snow depth, for some reason the place is permeated with chill. I’m not ready to throw chicken leg quarters in the oven as planned for sometime today, but it seems wise to make the planned banana bread now rather than later.
Anyway, I think I’d rather have pure snow than seriously slushy mix, unless it’s going to be mainly rain and melt what’s there into oblivion.
Okay, Sadie is reminding me by coming up and saying “I did poop.” Guess I’d better take care of her.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Jay: Rest In Peace Triticale
Blogger Triticale, whose real name turns out to be Tom Dee (Update: make that real name Tom Arnold, which makes more sense), died last night, according to his brother via Nick Schweitzer.
I didn’t even have time to adjust to the news that he was sick and not expected to make it, relayed to me by Deb after she saw a post by Charles. As she said, that explained why he hadn’t been around lately. He was a fairly regular reader and commenter, particularly about food. I actually have this recipe in my “food” folder of bookmarks, and used it as one of my references when attempting to make hummus.
As it turns out, he would have been 57 on Monday. Oh so young. To all indications, he was a super nice guy.
Needless to say, we’re tremendously sad here tonight. Rest in peace. You will be missed.
Jay: Sleep
I slept for seven straight hours last night!
At least, I believe it was about 12:30 when I fell asleep. It was 7:30 a minute later when I woke up. It was wonderful. I flipped the coffeemaker on en route to the bathroom, pleased that Deb had left it ready to go while I wasn’t looking.
Then it was probably a mistake to lay back down, as the additional three hours was restless, for all it felt like I could keep going and going. Even with part of it not as good, getting nearly ten hours sleep is amazing. The big thing is that seven hours, and how absolute it was.
The plan was to get up and go out to finish the shoveling. I like to have it clear enough to take advantage of the temps that can melt it and the interaction of sun and blacktop. Looking out, the guy upstairs has shoveled around his truck, and the lady downstairs is out shoveling behind our cars, where I was anticipating having to do. Wow! That is almost in her path to go in and out of her customary spot, but still. She’s parked up near the street as a snow measure.
Fourteen inches and it’s not officially winter yet. At least when we get a snowy December we generally make up for it in one of the other winter months, but we’ll see. Sunday looks like snow changing to rain here, which could be pretty messy. More significantly, lots of wind. That means way too high probability of losing power, for us. We have outages way too often when it’s sunny and windy. Perhaps all the people who are moving to South Carolina have the right idea…
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Jay: Snow Equals Exercise
This afternoon I went outside with Sadie and Valerie and set out to clear the driveway of the first 4 or 5 inches of fluffy powder. Sadie wanted a shovel, so I got her the collapsible car shovel, just her size. Valerie just kind of wandered around, admiring the snow. Sadie spent most of her time “helping” with shoveling snow. At one point the two of them discovered the turtle sandbox. Someone else had used it and left the cover off, so it ended up being like a mini ice rink. Before I went to the store, I put the toys in it and put the cover on as best I could with the toys holding it up. figured why make it worse. Well, the girls went at it like it was a dig site, brushing the snow off and unearthing the turtle to lift the cover. Cute.
The gal on the third floor had dug a path from the cellar door to the street earlier. She saw me and came out to help. I decided to discount that she had heard the landlord would be having it plowed, as that has always been expressly not his policy, so I did the awkward end of the driveway, she did the rest, and by the time we were done there was an inch of snow in the places we’d started.
Deb came out and got Valerie partway through, before I got insistent that she go in because I thought she was too cold. Sadie persisted in staying out there with me the entire couple hours and rebelled when it was time to go in. She should have gone in sooner, but it was a lesson for her about knowing when she is getting cold and what it feels like to be prickly warming up. She was sorely disappointed when she could not climb the mountain of snow against the garage. Too fluffy.
I could have sworn I felt the snow getting damper while I was out there, maybe even a bit of sleet. When we went in, Deb had heard them saying it was turning, so I was right.
I figured I’d go out again sometime after 8:00 when it was approaching done, do some more and get the rubbish out to the side of the street. I ended up waiting until my pumpkin bread was done (or close enough to turn off the oven and let it slowly finish). The lady downstairs was working on the street end of the driveway and part of a path, and had the first barrel out near the street. We each took one of the others. I finished the path, cleared where the barrels go behind the building, widened the path, gave the driveway a wide opening rather than a barely one car can pass opening, widened what she’d done, added a couple feet clear behind her car, and from there to the steps widened the path almost to car width. I also made the trash barrels as accessible as possible to the trash guys, who will have a hard enough time in the morning.
She’d planned it all out so the third floor guy, who was at work delivering pizzas in this mess, could park in the clear area in front of her and she could get around him and out if she had to leave first. He arrived home just after I came in and parked in his normal spot, where it was unshoveled. I was amused but not surprised, and had almost gone ahead and dug him a spot for that reason (though it turned out there wouldn’t have been time). Deb figures he saw where she had dug and thought “someone else dug that spot, I can’t take it,” in an entirely different set of logic from hers.
The lady downstairs also reminded me I ought to have parked up along the side of the driveway to save shoveling way to the back. Rather than thinking it was great that we’d gotten ahead of the shoveling (apparently we had about 14 inches officially) so there’d be less on the second pass, she thought it was a waste because “it just has to be done again.” Odd. After she arrived home to a clear driveway she didn’t have to touch until later.
I was pleased that I still had the ability to settle in and go like a machine for a couple hours.
After I came in from tonight’s touchup, we were talking about what an odd tick it is that I like to shovel snow just so. That is, neat sides, thoroughly clean within reason, wide opening, and so forth.
If we’re lucky, the kids will sleep well tonight after being outside a while. I know I should.
Pumpkin bread? Yup, from an actual pumpkin. The other day I cooked a larger pumpkin, which produced about 5 1/2 cups of pulp, which turned into 5 heaping cups. Two went into breads tonight and three went into the freezer. Came out good. My first attempt was the best I’d ever had. This is perhaps second best, and more similar to what my grandmother produces that the first attempt.
Okay, back hurts and I should go to bed.
Jay: The First Flakes Fall
Alternately: Deb is so smart!
The first flakes fell as I was about halfway home from Hannaford, going the long way to avoid a traffic snarl caused by the traditional people in cars being people in cars, with a monkey in the wrench of an oversized load going my way and a tough left turn to get into said mess. Instead I went Fairview and Wareham, then neglected to take a second back route to avoid the not-really-that-bad center traffic.
They were starting to fall like they meant it as I carried in the groceries and snow broom, which is more useful carried out of the house after snow falls than retrieved from the Sentra where I’d stashed it.
By the time Sadie and I had put the groceries away (I can’t wait to harness that enthusiasm as she gets ever older and more capable), the world was already covered in white. 20 Minutes later, the roads are fully engaged and looking slippery.
So yay for only going to Hannaford! And skipping the rest.
Jay: Heh
Discussion ensues, as I am about to finish my coffee and launch, as to whether there’s anything we can’t live without from the store.
I skipped getting any of the slim pickings of meat at Hannaford last night, so it’s meatless again or something with pork, and I put off eggs because they are better and cheaper at BJ’s, so I would be stuck without all the eggs I could use for the baked, ready to pulp pumpkin I have in the fridge. But yeah, we can deal. Or I can run to Hannaford or such quick. Deb says it’s supposed to be beautiful tomorrow, whereas we are on the leading edge of the snow and it’s going to start any minute. By this time tomorrow it’ll be bare roads.
I’ll just have to run out and do the things I was going to do on the way, like throw the old bag of sand back into the truck bed.
Right now I am getting sleepier by the minute, so I almost look forward to the invigoration of shoveling. In fact, I must crave exercise, because I keep thinking I’d enjoy having a physical job for a while. By the same token, I must crave seeing people in person, because I keep thinking it might be fun to work in a store or something. Weird.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Jay: I Was Unaware…
That Mark Cuban was an idiot. And I don’t even use P2P or torrents. I do, however, pay for the right to, by paying for an internet connection, which I guess would make me a “freeloader” if I did. Link via Ars Technica.
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