Quodlibets

More For Your Consideration

If you have some time, check out the Big Fat Carnvial, over at Alas, a Blog.  It's a fantastic collection of links to posts about everything under the sun having to do with fat and fat acceptance.

I defintely don't agree with everything there, but it's still an interesting read.

For your consideration

For some cartoon takes on the Muhammad cartoons, see this.  Very interesting.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Yay for packages!

Today, I got a book from Amazon that I didn't order.  Nevin, thank you for the book!

Nevin is apparently the man or woman behind the uber-cool Tristram Shandy website, and to thank me for liking the site (and seeing the movie when it hits theaters here), he or she sent me The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin.

Made my day.

And Nevin, if you're reading, the reasons The Master and the Margarita isn't on my wishlist are #1) I'm scared of it, #2) I don't much love non-frothy fiction and #3) it terrifies me with its strangeness.  I hope those are good reasons.

My two cents

I just have to chime in with the rest of the world, and talk about this cartoon kerfluffle.  Especially considering the news that Iran is holding a Holocaust cartoon contest.

While I might be offended by a Holocaust cartoon, the thought of that offense doesn't bring me to violence.  It shows an appalling lack of taste, but whatever.  I can be offended and find something tasteless without torching an embassy or calling for a trade embargo.

One of the foundation's of a democratic society is freedom of press; I always go back to Voltaire when issues like this come up: Though I may disagree with what you say, I will defend to death your right to say it.  There's nothing else to say.  I can think you're stupid, you're uninformed, you're ignorant, or you're just plain wrong, but one thing is for certain:  you're allowed to say and write all the stupid/ignorant/wrong things you want.  And I don't have to read/look/hear them if I find them awful.

And also, it seems to be a diversionary tactic created by a small group of somebodies to draw attention away from something else.  The rioters are being manipulated.  (Why the fuss now?  The cartoons were originally printed in September.  Seems like an important question.) 

This is a nuanced situation, far more than "People saw cartoons.  People reacted."  Are we treating it that way?

Chicken in Peanut Stuff

Well, I'm actually going to make two new recipes this week, to make up for the non-cooking of last week (due to S's crappy work schedule, two dinners out and two days of terminal laziness).  I wasn't going to, but when I was mucking around on the internet at work this afternoon I found a simple recipe for chicken with peanut sauce that I knew I had all the ingredients for, since the ingredients were:  Salsa, chicken, olive oil, peanut butter, lemon juice. 

If you're now thinking, hmmm, that doesn't sound very good, well, you're right.  I'm going to say right now that it wasn't horrible.  It just wasn't great.  Here's why I didn't think it would be bad:  Thai food is good, and involves peanuts and tomatoes.  The chicken I had was of dubious quality because it was not a good brand and I've had this brand before and it is usually full of icky veins and fatty crap; this recipe requires the cutting into chunks of the chicken, which is perfect if you want to cut out all the gross stuff.  I also thought that I could pair it with sticky rice (another experiment in my darling, wonderful, perfect rice cooker), which I love love love.  And lastly, I thought there was an off-chance that S would like it, as he loves the sort of peanut sauce that comes with satay (in fact, he's fond of saying "Everything tastes better with peanut sauce" when we're eating at Stir Crazy) and he's really good about trying the new things I cook.

And for all those reasons, except the first, it was good.  The sticky rice was good.  S did try it and eat it (albeit sort of unhappily, as I myself ate it).  The chopping of the chicken did allow me to get rid of the ick bits.  But the tastes just weren't that great.  It lacked something.  I think I put too much salsa in too, and not enough peanut butter.  It was also five million times better with a squirt or two of lemon juice over the top, because it added some tang.  S did not add lemon juice, and he ate a pile of rice with it, but all in all, probably didn't get enough to  eat.

Would I recommend this?  No.  Am I still hungry?  Yes.  It wasn't satisfying enough to eat enough of it.  My stomach is all rumbly.  Not a success.  Maybe Thursday night's experiment will be more successful.

Quick Question

Is anyone else distressed by the United States that GW Bush is handing us younger generations of Americans? 

A ridiculously bloated deficit, inadequate health care and education due to the tax cuts he hands out to his wealthy friends, and two wars that are eating money like Cookie Monster consumed, well, cookies.

Not to mention the untold costs to our morale as a nation, as the rich get richer and poor get fucking hammered by the rich, and poor kids keep dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Oh yeah, things are looking UP for my generation.  Can't wait until we have to figure out how to run a broken country.

RIP, Betty Friedan

She passed away today, at the age of 85.  I'm sure you'll read more than one obit, so I won't even try.

I'd just like to say that I have an appreciation for the women who went before me, fighting for something that would, ultimately, benefit me.

I am able to make the choices I am making due in no small part to Ms. Friedan. 

We've lost a legend.

Clever website/Movie I Now Must See

I think that this is one of the best movie promotional sites I've ever seen.  Or maybe I just really love hands-on experiences.  Either way, it's made me want to see Tristram Shandy very badly, so send your good thoughts out to S, who will now have to sit through it.  (Though it is supposedly very good, in my defense.)

Friday Random Ten (The Pandora Edition)

1. Face Up and Sing -- Ani DiFranco
2. My Friends -- Red Hot Chili Peppers
3. Karma Police -- Radiohead
4. O'oh -- Yoko Ono
5. Living Room -- Tegan and Sara
6. My Weakness -- Moby
7. The Girl from Back Then (Riton Remix) -- Kings of Convenience
8. Pointless Nostalgic -- Jamie Cullum
9. Hunger Strike -- Temple of the Dog
10. Voices Carry -- Aimee Mann

Lately, I haven't been doing the iPod so much, but listening to Pandora.  Anyway, these songs came off of my iPod, which offers a more organic mix than Pandora.

One Month Retrospective

Tomorrow marks one full month at my job.  It's odd, because in some ways it feels like the longest month of my life, and in others, I feel like I've blinked, and here I am, one short month down the road.  I have to admit that this job fills me with none of the joy that working at Borders did, someting that fills me with sadness.  I'd hoped to love this job, to feel like it was an extension of myself, but it's just not challenging enough for me.  I felt that at Borders, and goddamn, I want to feel it again.  I feel like I'm eternally searching; now I feel like I'm in the right field but the wrong job. 

I'm not sure how I can make this better.  I certainly don't have any plans to leave the job.  It's a good job, that doesn't repulse me, though it doesn't fulfill me.  I just wish I knew how to make my existence seem less joyless while doing something that seems to eat up every bit of me.  I worked the same amount of hours at Borders (though without the commute), even working later in the day, and I never felt like my time was being sucked away, and eaten, like I do now.  The truth is, this job doesn't make me happy, and it never will.  I've got to get to a place where that's okay, and I can separate that unhappiness from my life outside of work, and not make myself (and the people around me) so miserable.  I've just never been good at this, as those who love me and know me well know.  It's new for me, so I'm going to have to try very hard to make it work.

I feel comfortable knowing that this is a way station in my life.  That I'm going to begin working, eventually, towards something bigger.  Hopefully, at this time next year, I'll have started.  (I have a sense that I need to do my MLS full-time, that part-time will be too excruciatingly hard for me, simply because I hunger to be a student so much; right now, I'm thinking that I'll do one semester part-time, just to make sure it's right, then a summer session class, and then full-time after that.  No idea if that will really happen.)  A year is just a really, really long time.  I'm also hoping that a move this summer will help.  Maybe if I'm in a better place culturally, I can be more at peace with my work life.

I simply don't know, at this point, how this will go, except that I have to stick this out.