Quodlibets

Current Obsessions

In no particular order, a list of things that I can't seem to get enough of:

• Miami Ink.  Does anyone besides S, my sister and I feel obsessive about this show?  I've had conversations with both of them about who you would want to do your tattoo, who is the cutest, and how good their art is.  Personally, I'm a Garver fan, all the way, though Nunez is beginning to worm his way into my heart.  Oh, and I adore Yoji and his gorgeous daughter.  Honestly, though, I think it's great TV.  If you're not watching, you might want to check it out.
• Breathe Me, by Sia.  I know this is an old song, being that it was basically the last five minutes of the last episode of Six Feet Under.  But S just acquired a promo copy of Sia's CD, so it's fresh in my head.  I don't love the album, but I love this song.
• Sparks, by Coldplay.  Now look, I hate Coldplay.  I'm so sad that Martin and co. have sold out to become the next U2.  Their music was purest on Parachutes, had some moments on RoBttH, and currently sucks.  S and I make fun of the guitar sounds all the time, as in "What?  Why is the Edge playing on a Coldplay song?"  However, Sparks is an absolutely marvelous song, that makes me tingle.  It gives me a little thrill, every time I hear it.  Even when it makes an appearance in Wedding Crashers.
• Greek yogurt.  Now look, I hate regular yogurt.  I can't eat it, ever.  There's something about it that makes my skin crawl.  I've tried.  Lord, how I've tried.  I know that it's so good for you, and if you get the right stuff, it's low point.  But still, I can't eat it.  Recently, when I've been in Trader Joe's, I've poked around the dairy case, trying to decide whether to try the FAGE Greek yogurt.  I knew that it was different from regular yogurt, but I didn't know what the difference was.  Anyway, this past weekend, S and I were dogsitting (near a Trader Joe's), and I decided to go for it.  I also bought some granola to put toss in, thinking that plain yogurt might be pretty boring without something in it.  I was right, it is boring without a little help, but my god, it's also delicious.  I'm not sure how to describe it except to say that it's a little bit more like sour cream than traditional yogurt (and in fact, since then, I've made sour cream based dip twice with the Total 0% yogurt) and it seems entirely decadent.  I've bought some preserves to try in it, which I think I will do tomorrow morning.  I really can't get enough of the stuff.

I know there's more, but I'm tapped out.  Back to my tivo'd episode of Miami Ink.

BB

I have to admit, I've been following the Barry Bonds steroid scandal closer than I do most sports stories.  But something about the story has grabbed me from the beginning.  I find it despicable that someone like him can rocket himself into the record books on steriods.  Is he tarnishing baseball?  I think so.  I've read the Sports Illustrated cover story (it made me long for the days when I could pick up SI just laying around my parents' house; I'm thinking about getting a subscription for myself now.), and I think the evidence is pretty damning.  I also think Barry Bonds' appearance is pretty damning.  And I also think, as a sidenote, that he looks scary, and has since he started the doping.  I mean, "started the alleged doping."

Regardless, I read an interesting column (okay, a blog post) in the Tribune this morning about how to punish Bonds for his transgressions, and it seems perfect, if implausible.  The blogger suggests walking Bonds, intentionally, every single time he's at bat.  I can't believe it would ever happen, but all the same, I love it.  Deny the idiot the chance to make those records that he shouldn't make, and just (how to say this) pettily push him out of baseball.  Seems like a fitting punishment to me.

Honestly, I'm all for kicking him out of baseball (which I don't think baseball will do), and I don't even think his name should be in the record books.  But I don't think baseball will do such drastic things.  Hell, I don't even think baseball will put asterisks by his records.  It's too bad; it's also too bad that many of the home run records set in the past few years (or so) are meaningless, because they happened under the cloud of steroids.

I am, of course, taking it for granted that everyone thinks steroids are bad, and that they tarnish whatever game they interfere with.  Maybe everyone doesn't feel that way.  Maybe some people think Bonds deserves his place in the record book, for doing whatever it took to get there.  I guess the purist in me demands that athletes be naturally gifted, be naturally able to hit the long ball, or sack the quarterback, or snowboard like mad. 

Whaa?

Every day, one of my internet stops is the political cartoons at Cagle's Professional Cartoonist's Index.  I'm usually not a fan of mediums that use pictures as well as words to get the point across--for instance, while I can recognize that some graphic novels are extraordinarily beautiful and wonderful to read, I still hate reading them--but I have this insane love for political cartoons.  I'm not sure why, though I suspect it has something to do with boiling an issue down to its very heart, and making the message easy to understand (whether or not I agree with an interpretation of an issue).  There are some cartoonists I don't always "get", and others who seem to be speaking to me personally (I love the Christian Science Monitor's Clay Bennett), and then there are those pesky regional/international divisions.  Usually, I can sort of make out what a cartoon is getting at if it's a regional thing.  But I have to say that almost 100% of the time, I don't understand the Latin American cartoons.

I'm not sure if the humor just isn't the same down there, because we're not talking language barrier here.  All of the cartoons are in English, when they actually have any sort of word content.  Which brings me to another point:  there seems to be less of an emphasis on words and more on picture content, which for me, is a weakness.  I'm better at understanding pictures when words are involved.  But even so, sometimes with words I can't make out what the cartoon is trying to say.  I have to admit that it bothers me.  I think it must be some elemental difference in humor, or politics.  Either way, it's annoying.

Library Hilarity Ensues

I'm not sure what the point of a live-action re-enactment of Pacman is.  I'm especially not sure why a university library is the place to do such a re-enactment.  But clearly I'm missing something, because someone does know those two things.

Pretty funny. 

Book dilemmas

I'm having two book dilemmas. 

First of all, I'm not doing so well on the reading of the Time 100.  I'm having a hell of a time making myself read stuff that I'm not even remotely interested in.  I have two Time 100 books sitting opened on my bookshelf, because I stopped reading them right in the middle.  Anyway, I thought that I'd remedy that by doing the book-on-CD thing, since I've got an hour commute every day.  My sister has been staunchly anti-book-on-CD since we decided that we'd attempt the Time 100, but I think it's a great way to maximize your reading/book enjoying.  And I thought it'd be perfect for getting through some of the real clunkers.  I wasn't super-surprised though, to find that not many of the Time 100 books are on CD, so I decided I'd start ambitious, and listen to The Lord of the Rings (all three books that comprise the trilogy).  Boy, was that a mistake.  (And I guess this isn't really a dilemma, just an observation.)  Frankly, the book is just as boring to listen to as to read.  I know people that love love love these books, and my mom and sister both read them.  I have seen the movies, which I actually really like.  But I cannot stand the books.  I tried to read Fellowship once, and was so thoroughly bored by page 20 that I stopped.  I've done a little better with the audiobook; I'm on disc 12 (out of 16).  But I'm stalled.  I can't make myself put the CD in the player.  I've been listening to music, just to avoid having to finish the audiobook.  It's bad.  It's really bad.  I'm not sure what to do.

Second dilemma:  I remember very fondly reading a series of books named after states.  I did some internet research and found the books, the Wagons West! series by Dana Fuller Ross.  Not shockingly, they're not available new (they are, um, charitably, crap.  But I loved them like crazy when I was a young teenager, and I really want to read them again), and any library that has copies will have tattered, ugly, dirty, very used copies.  Hence, I decided to try to purchase book one (okay, two book ones, one from each of Dana Fuller Ross' series, since I loved both of them.) used.  It wasn't really very hard to locate copies.  What was hard was to locate copies in good condition.  I found copies that were listed "In Very Good Condition", and that was the best I could do.  So I ordered them, thinking that if they were really bad, I'd send them back, or just give up on the idea.  Well, they're here now, and it's not that they're not in good condition.  They're just old, and yellow, and to me, scary.  (Yes, I don't like old/dirty books.  So sue me.)  I want to read them, I really do.  But I'm having a hell of a time picking each of them up, because they're so...icky.  I know it's silly, but ewww.  So the dilemma is how to convince myself that reading these books is okay.  (And I am really longing to read them, I can't even tell you.  I look longingly at them at least once a day.) 

I'm just disgruntled with myself.  That's all.  I'm going to try to get back on the Fellowship horse tomorrow and finish the book by the weekend.  And then I'm taking a LoTR break.

Friday Random Ten (Party at my Dad's Place Edition)

Ha ha, just kidding, dad.  Your house is no fun now that the basement is all crappy.  Kidding again, dad!

1. Rushing -- Moby
2. Too Much (Live) -- Dave Matthews Band
3. If It Makes You Happy -- Sheryl Crow
4. Tiptoe (Dunno) Live -- Ani DiFranco
5. Angel (Live) -- Dave Matthews Band
6. Cry Freedom -- Dave Matthews Band
7. Love Song For No One -- John Mayer
8. Runaway Lover -- Madonna
9. They Can't Take That Away From Me -- Ell Fitzgerald
10. Stay -- Lisa Loeb

Holy boring songlist, Batman.  One of THE most radio-friendly lists you could possibly imagine.  And hey, iPod, what's with the three DMB songs?

Dogsitting this weekend at my dad's (hence the party, or non-party, rather), though that means no interruption in posting, since he's got wi-fi.  I'm planning on being at my mom's for at least part of Saturday, to enter all those books at her house (or some of those books, anyway) into LibraryThing.

I'm just that boring right now.

First, they came for my right to choose. Next, they came for my birth control. After that, they came for....

Holy jesus god.  I don't even know where to start.  Apparently, (Planned Parenthood and Broadsheet [on Salon] the Senate is considering a bill that would allow insurance companies to weasel out of paying for birth control, even if state law mandates it.  The bill also allows them to weasel out of annual cervical cancer exams, and allows them to make it harder to see your ob/gyn.  I'm confused for several reasons.  First of all, Roe v. Wade, in some ways, is all about State's rights.  This bill is....well....not. 

Okay, wait, not confused anymore.  These fuckers (sorry, Kate, but I don't know how else to say it) are chipping away slowly at the idea of women as independent moral agents.  It's starting with sexuality, but if you think it won't move farther, you're wrong.  I just never thought they'd try to make contraception hard to get, but here it is.  For many, many women, insurance makes the pill possible.  Birth control is expensive, man.  If you take away that insurance, you take away the pill.  Point.  Fucking.  Blank. 

It's very clear, from this, that the right-wing religious fundie people aren't concerned about stopping abortion.  They're all about stopping women from having sex.  I think that they think if you take away contraception, and abortion, women will stop having sex.  Women will stop having sex, and when they stop having sex freely, they'll submit to men.  As it should rightly be.  You know what?  That makes sense.  You know what it must be?  All the semen.  That's right, all the semen us slutty women are, um, acquiring is making us want to be like men.  Stupid women!  Sexual free agency is for morally superior men. 

I think this is where I'm confused.  Do these men really believe they can get two (three?) generations of women who have only known the freedom to do what they want and when they want and how they want to stop being liberated and start being drones?  Wife-y drones?  And why precisely do they care?  I mean, don't they aleady have traditional ladies to stay home and cook for them, and pop out as many babies as daddy wants?  Why the hell do they care what I do?  Who I sleep with?  This is my major lapse of understanding, as far as these righties go.

Anyway, the point is, there has to be something we can do.  I'm sick of sitting around bitching about this and feeling helpless.  I don't know WHAT it is I can/should do, however.  I've donated money, and will donate more, but I'm not sure how far my limited resources will go.  I've looked at PP's events for the next month, and there's nothing in this area.  I'll probably write letters to both my state's senators and ask them to pleeeease not support this ugly anti-woman contraception bill.  (But not in those exact words.)  But then what?  I can't help feeling hopeless. 

Spring! Yay!

By my measure, spring is here.  What is my measure?  Ask yourself this question:  Can I wear flip-flops to work today?  If the answer is yes, spring is here.

Yes, I'm wearing flip-flops (which necessitated an emergency toe-nail painting while at work this morning, because I just cannot wear flip-flops without painted toenails.) and yes, I'm happy as a clam in saltwater.  I think.  I mean, if clams like saltwater, then yes.  I am happy as a clam.

A professor came in while I was painting (to look at her holds; she's also one of the friendliest professors I've met so far) and said, "Making time for the important things?"  I stammered and blushed, I think.  But I explained why I was painting, and she replied, "Oh yes, because people would talk [if I didn't paint my nails]."  I laughed, but I didn't stop painting my toenails.  Now, I am happy.

Also, I'm getting my hair cut and colored tonight, and there is a battle raging in my head about whether or not to go back to a shorter cut, or stay long.  I know I want the red streaks back, but I may want a shorter 'do.  Spring makes you want to do craaaazy things.

Linkity-Linkster

A nice piece about body image by Jill at feministe.  Particularly interesting considering the little kerfluffle over at my sis's blog, and her referencing "skinny girls complaining about being fat."

Also, a FANTASTIC post about abortion at a blog I've never read before, It's All Connected.  I've long known of the argument that abortion is offensive to men because of the power dynamic between men and women, and their subconcious fear that an abortion is like a negation of themselves.  It's an interesting argument, one that I'm not sure I whole-heartedly agree with.  However, the link points to a post that brings in religion, and it's simply a really good read.  (Via Alas, A Blog.)

And one last link.  My friend Tim's take on the Oscars, which is interesting.  Not sure I agree with all of it, but he always writes well and says intelligent things.

Diet advice with my sandwich, please

Today, when I went in to Subway, the little man working the counter was almost too jovial.  Here's our conversation:

LM:  Hello!  Hello!  What can I get for you, dear? 
Me:  Six-inch Roast Beef on Wheat.
LM:  You look like you are going skiing?  Are you going skiing? On wheat? 
Me:  Uh-huh.
LM:  Are you going skiing?
Me:  No.
LM:  No?  What else, what else?
Me:  Um, roast beef.
LM:  Extra meat?
Me:  No.
LM:  Bacon?
Me:  No.
LM:  Grilled?
Me:  No.
LM:  Extra cheese?
Me:  No cheese, thank you.
LM:  No cheese?  No cheese at all?  You're on a strict diet, yes?
Me:  *mumble*
LM:  What else, what else?
Me:  Lettuce, tomato, pickle, um, cucumber, banana pepper, oregano, and um, vinegar.
LM:  No!  Too strict, too strict.  You can't deny yourself this.
Me:  *staring at him*
LM:  I could not eat this sandwich like this.  No sir, could not eat this.  You are on a strict diet and you deny yourself.  (Puts cup on counter for drink.)
Me:  Oh, no drink, thank you.
LM:  See, dear!  You are not even drinking!  You deny yourself, you shouldn't do that.  No, you shouldn't deny yourself.
Me:  Mmmmm-hmmmm.  Thank you!
LM:  Of course, every time, it is a pleasure to help you.  Every time you come in here!  Thank you dear!  A pleasure!  Every time you come in....

And then I walked out, as he was cheerfully telling me how lovely it is to serve me.

Even though I am sick to death of Le Lean Cuisines, and the atmosphere in the "staff break room", perhaps it is time to return to them.