December 2010
“As I stood in the bathroom, ripping up boarding passes, waiting for the social...”
– Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Things He Carried” (November 2008). (via theatlantic)
Sure, back in ‘08. But now, they’d just grab his crank and know in an instant he wasn’t faking.
The penis doesn’t lie.
November 2010
I spent a lot of time last week with a Faux News...
Many of the same right-wing libertarians who curse and complain about high taxes and evil revenuers and death panels and socialists taking away their guns and activist liberal judges and and and…nonetheless hold our men and women in uniform - military, police, etc. - in very high esteem.
I think that’s laudable, but confusing. Why is it they seem only to fear the members of Gubmint...
mathcat345:
Too Many Cooks: Len - Chapter 5 toomanycooks:
Previously …
Somehow the word treasure seemed more believable being spoken in this cavernous hideaway. Old milk crates of discarded power cords curled up under the workbench serpent-like and the curved metal roof of the structure caused our whispers to echo slightly.
“Nessie, you can trust…
Well, well, well. Only one...
TMC: Round 5, Week 4
toomanycooks:
Amidst all the turducken and roast beast and green eggs and ham last week, we managed to find room to slip in new chapters for four of our stories. Enjoy these after-dinner treats.
I took Althea out of the suffocating walls of Len’s house on her search for Nessie.
Valary got Al and Lindsey back together. He’s still upset, but she’s formulating a plan.
Cary is still stewing...
Too Many Cooks: They May Not Mean To, But They Do... →
Valary tends to the aftermath of the revelation of Al’s shocking secret.
For once Lindsey didn’t have a quick comeback to Al’s revelation. Perhaps her silence signaled that she was on the cusp of leveling up on the maturity scale in the game of life. Girls that age were said to be more mature than their male counterparts. Rather than spilling out her mouth like water through a sieve, words...
Thanks, Hyundai. Now I *definitely* know I'd never...
I’ve been watching a lot of basketball this week (natch) and have been subjected to this heinous Hyundai ad starring Pamplemousse more times than is palatable. If I ever would have considered buying a Hyundai before, I certainly won’t now.
I. Fucking. Hate. Pamplemousse.
Too Many Cooks: Welcome to Boomtown - Chapter 3 →
Cary continues Earl’s story and gives us some history.
The bumps had always been there, even when he was an infant. His pa told him it was a sign of special things to come. Thankfully, his hair came in thick as he grew into toddlerhood, so the lumps weren’t obvious unless someone put her hands on his head. That didn’t happen often enough for him to worry about.
Pa told Earl the bumps were...
tumblr: what is your favorite dystopian...
seltzerlizard:
Probably A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Jr. Highly recommended classic Science Fiction from 1960, and it still resonates, considering the world is still on the brink of nuclear horror. I normally avoid dystopian stuff, but sometimes the material is too good to pass up.
That’s a good one. I hadn’t read it until a few years ago. Coming to it the first...
The Lawson Longshot →
TV Justice →
The most boring story ever.
It was an unusually brisk Monday in June when I boarded the train for Sussex. It was the first day of what would prove to be an especially uneventful ten-week contract in the accounting department of a regional shipping company. Rotten timing has always plagued me.
I’ve been told mayhem circled in the stranger’s wake everywhere he went that summer. Friends and family alike proclaim...
Antimatter Atoms Trapped for First Time—"A Big... →
smartasshat:
Good. Now hurry up with the warp drive. I wanna get the fuck off this planet.
Make it so.
Ain’t gonna happen. We use all our lithium on vibrator batteries and anti-depressants. There’s none left for warp core regulation.
Tux Life: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt →
So there you have it. Unbeknownst to the 12 of us, we were playing out a script to the letter. Our inability to reach an accord, while not the stuff of Law & Order, actually set in motion a chain of events that allowed all parties to get the best possible outcome from a terrible situation. From chaos comes order. This system that you look at and think that it’s in disrepair, that nobody can...
Seltzerlizard: Coyote And Raven On The Job →
Go. Read. Now.
“Profession? It’s a cosmic imperative. It’s a role placed upon us by the whole of the cosmos! It’s what we do and what we are. You make it sound like we saw an ad in the papers. Profession! Mediators between death and life wanted, must be archetypes. Carrion eating a plus. We exist to seek out these situations and see them through to one end or another. Eating is a...
iamdonald:
Cowboys & Aliens Trailer
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Someone needs to punch Greg Berlanti in the...
Hal Jordan is fearless. That’s it. It’s his one great, defining trait. In the hands of a good writer, it’s also his one great, fatal flaw.
But not in Berlanti’s incapable hands. Nope. Ryan Reynolds looks to be playing Jordan as a reckless, feckless frat boy. A frat boy who got all emo to Carol Ferris in the new trailer about how he’s full of fear.
Ugh.
My boss's boss didn't appreciate an email I sent...
Some choice excerpts:
I’ve never seen software or a service as bad as [REDACTED] and I’ve been doing this professionally for almost 20 years. I could have written something over a drunken weekend that would surpass the technical sophistication (not to mention the documentation maturity) of this piece of garbage.
It sure would have been nice if [REDACTED]’s test server worked anything like their...
“These bacteria then use RNA recombinases packaged in viruses to send information...”
– Problem-solving bacteria crack sudoku - tech - 16 November 2010 - New Scientist
Oy. They ain’t kidding. Last week I ate some fish and chips that were wrapped in the Friday Times crossword puzzle. My E. Coli were “solving that puzzle” for hours.
“Is it possible that we have begun to think of ourselves that way? It seemed...”
– Generation Why? by Zadie Smith | The New York Review of Books
Too Many Cooks: Bye Week
toomanycooks:
Hah! You thought my chapter for Monday’s story was late. No, no! It’s not due until next Monday.
We’re taking this week off at TMC in order to devote our attention to trussing our birds, mashing our berries, and grinding our sausage. At least that’s what I’m doing. Some of the other writers might be cooking or doing other things to prepare for Thanksgiving.
We’ll be back with...
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I made an English muffin for breakfast...
…which may seem like much ado about a piece of bread, but I did make the big, fat, beautiful bun from scratch without a recipe.
I made a big deal the other day about Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio. I’m growing more hooked by the day.
When I got home from work yesterday, I threw 100gm of flour into a bowl, added 60gm water, a dash of salt, and a glug of oil. Sprinkled on a little...
I've never read anything by Nick Hornby
catty1:
Also, I’ve never read anything by Tom Robbins. I know right?
But here’s the thing: when I was in my teens/twenties, there was this certain kind of guy who’d carry around Tom Robbins as a kind of shorthand for “I’m intellectual but hip” followed by a cadre of girls who wanted to seem smart enough for those guys but not too smart and I dunno, I instinctively resisted his oeuvre.
And...
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“Now, perhaps you are saying, “We focus on the art of writing, not the business.”...”
– An Open Letter to MFA Writing Programs (and Their Students)
Too Many Cooks: Rummy — Chapter 3 →
Dan takes on Rummy and his mistress. In the bright light of morning, things seem rather more sinister than in the dark and dismal night.
The storm had blown away by the time I got out of bed. The sun was already up and shining through my window so it looked like a ribbon was wrapped around Rummy’s mane. Miss Marie was gone, too, just like the storm. Daddy never tells me when she and I have a...
“WASHINGTON — Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) continued on Sunday to threaten a...”
– Heath Shuler: If Nancy Pelosi Runs I’ll Challenge Her, And Lose
I have to hand it to Heath. Once he gets good at something, he’ll be good at that forever.
And he’s really good at losing, and making a joke of himself, in Washington. Been good at it since the ‘94 season.
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On cooking: old dogs, and the teaching of new...
While none of you has ever eaten my food, I think a fair number of you have gotten a sense over our time here in etherland that I cook pretty well. I learned at my mother’s feet (she’s a pretty fine cook; a strictly by-the-book pastry chef) from a ridiculously early age and took to it like a duck to a hot pan. In college (part the first) I worked two part-time jobs: dishwasher/prep...
TMC: Round 5, Week 2
toomanycooks:
I’ve been trapped under something heavy all week, so this Week 2 Wrap-Up is coming to you with three-fifths of Week 3 on the books. This is not a problem, good readers; this is a gift. You see, this means that the overwhelming anticipation you normally feel upon reading these roundups, the nervous waiting that typically stymies your weekends and causes you to obsessively refresh...
holy fucking hell i think everyone has gone...
inthefade:
Google Veterans Day Controversy: American Flag, Islamic Crescent Moon Doodle Sparks Internet Outrage
Polite political discourse does not even play a factor here. To anyone and everyone who were so outraged at this perceive injustice that you took to the internet en masse - rushed to your twitters and facebooks and blogs and whatnot to express horror over Google’s “crescent moon...
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Glad the good people of the world got Amazon to...
Yes. I’m an absolutist.
Too Many Cooks: They May Not Mean To, But They Do... →
I fear we’ve taken Dan’s story way off course, but this is where we find our boy Nixon and our girl Lindsey Buckingham Palace now. And only one day late! (If you’re far enough west, but still on this side of the International Date Line such that right now it’s Wednesday, creeping up on Thursday. If it’s already Thursday where you are, could you please let me know the...
indefensible:
So I don’t read graphic novels. Not because I’m elitist about them or anything - they just don’t appeal to me. And then I recently saw Watchmen. And there’s a guy in it called Dr Manhattan. I assume this is because he’s a totally self-absorbed cunt.
See, if you had read the graphic novel you’d know he’s called Dr. Manhattan because he goes down like sweet vermouth.
monkeyfrog asked: I hope you have a foot fetish.
Making room in my pantry for jars of...
Robin, I'd probably choose Montreal and we all...
“I spent Monday and Tuesday at the Montreal International Game Summit. It was...”
– The Game Biz - Complications Ensue
“EXCLUSIVE: In one of the highest-profile reboots this season, CBS is looking to...”
– CBS To Remake ‘The Wild Wild West’ Series With Writers Ron Moore And Naren Shankar – Deadline.com
I bet this time it’s all dark and stuff and they won’t even have a daggett cool train to lighten the mood.
