Randomosity
Nov 3, 2008 Randomosity
A quick note first: I’m running a giveaway for a great prize, and it isn’t getting a lot of attention in comparison to the phone that I gave away last week. Please go here and enter. Even if you don’t have small kids, anyone with a child still in a stroller would love to get this as a gift. Please spread the word!
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This is what’s been floating around in my head for the past week. I need to clear it out to make room for more.
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This Fark headline from last week is in honor of my relatives in San Francisco, including my not-yet-living-in-San-Francisco mom:
Crime spree in SF-area cemetery – thousands dead.
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Ode to a Butter Bell:
I don’t know why every home in America doesn’t have one of these. I hate trying to put cold, hard butter on toast or English Muffins, and when I make grilled cheese I need soft butter to spread on the bread. I don’t remember exactly when I discovered these, I think it was in college. I saw them in a catalog, and didn’t really believe that they would work, but I bought one and have been using it for about 15 years, the same one.
You put softened butter (it fits one whole stick) in the top part, put cold water in the bottom part, and turn the butter over onto the water. It forms a seal and keeps the butter from spoiling. Supposedly it will keep butter fresh for 30 days with no refrigeration, but a stick of butter has never lasted a month in my house so I’ve never been able to test that out. I do routinely use the same stick for a couple of weeks though. I change the water every other day or so, except in very hot weather when I usually change it every day and sometimes even toss an ice cube in there (our current kitchen doesn’t have AC and gets beastly hot).
It works great! I hate staying with other people who don’t have soft butter. I’ve given these as gifts over the years – friends don’t let friends have hard butter.
While we’re on the subject of, I don’t know what to call it, things to hold things you spread on bagels and toast maybe? Here’s what I’ve been putting my cream cheese in since college. It keeps it from getting those crusty bits it gets if you leave it in the wrapper. My husband made fun of this one for years but I think he’s finally come to accept the fact that it’s better this way.
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I recently introduced Munchkin to Ramen Noodles, and she’s addicted. She wants it day and night, for every meal. She’ll survive well when she goes off to college. Pasta Boy, who hates trying new things, finally tasted some after watching Munchkin eat it for a week, and now he loves it too. I may never have to spend more than five minutes making dinner again.
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I don’t watch all that many commercials. I’m usually fast forwarding through them. But I spotted this one a few months ago even on fast forward. And every time I see it I have to stop and watch it.
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Hopefully by tomorrow night the enemies of science, education, and thoughtfulness will be going to sleep knowing that they lost a big election, and deservedly so. But here’s one more reason in a pile of reasons not to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket. Sarah Palin’s War On Science.
I remember the last two presidential elections, sitting on my couch in disbelief as the realization came over me that the Republicans had won, despite so much evidence that they simply did not have the best candidate for the job. George W. Bush scares me, but in a head-shaking, what a moron way. McCain and Palin scare me in a very different way. Where W.’s biggest failing was his willingness to give himself over to whatever those pulling the puppet strings wanted him to do, it’s Sarah Palin’s own ideas that terrify me. With no help from anyone, her ideas are so obnoxious, so uninformed, and so backwards, that I literally shudder to think what she would do with real power if she got a hold of it. I rolled my eyes when friends threatened to move to Canada if Bush won (it’s worth noting that they’re all still here). But with the probability that the next president will appoint more than one Supreme Court Justice, the possibility of a McCain/Palin win keeps me up at night. Not to make light of past elections, but this one is no joke. This is going to shape things for decades to come.
Here’s a report card from a group of economists. It’s not even close. McCain as president would be bad for women. I think it would also be bad for men, children, fish, the air, bicycles, the economy, and my marriage (my husband would be near suicidal), but it would be especially bad for women.
One more day…
GObama!
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Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Tags: Barack Obama, Butter Bell, John McCain, Ramen Noodles, Sarah Palin
Palin as President and The Daily Show
Oct 22, 2008 What's Going On
OK, if it seems like all I’m doing today is sitting around on the computer, well, that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s my birthday. This is how I want to spend it. I have a ton to do, but I choose not to do any of it. Did I mention it’s my birthday? Of course, for the next few days I won’t be able to look anybody in the eye when I say “Sorry, I just couldn’t get to it, I was sooooo busy this week!” knowing that I pretty much wasted an entire day.
Actually I have to leave in a little while – there are things I have to do, even on my birthday, and then I’m meeting my husband to see a taping of The Daily Show. The guest is supposed to be Tom Brokaw. Every once in a while they tape the guests out of order, but usually not. Seeing Tom Brokaw would be cool (although I must confess, I’d rather see Brian Williams – he cracks me up every time he’s on TDS).
I went to a taping of The Daily Show ten years ago, when we first moved to the area and Jon Stewart had just gotten the gig. I was severely dissapointed to have missed host Craig Kilborn by just a few days, but of course Jon Stewart was much better and I got over it.
Last year, for my husband’s birthday, I took him to a taping of The Colbert Report. A graphic designer friend of mine made up a picture of my husband holding the Koran and shaking Stephen Colbert’s hand, with the caption “My Nonpracticing Muslim Friend.” (I would have loved to post it here, it looks really good, but The Ass said no.) I wanted to get Stephen Colbert to sign it, but security was really tight. Apparently he was getting a lot of threats, so nobody was allowed to approach him with anything. So, I’m going to bring it tonight and ask Jon Stewart if he can ask Stephen to sign it. Which will get me made fun of, I’m sure, but I don’t care. I’d love to get it signed and framed for The Ass, especially since I didn’t do a thing for him this year for his birthday.
Speaking of The Ass, he sent this to me a couple of weeks ago and I forgot to post it. Very entertaining.
Enjoy! I’m off to make myself look pretty for The Daily Show and my birthday dinner (still haven’t decided where to go). Or at least make myself clean. And I have to call the babysitter and warn her that there will be a dead mouse waiting for her in the kitchen. I put a step stool over it, which is really the most I’m capable of doing.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Tags: Craig Kilborn, Jon Stewart, Palin as President, Sarah Palin, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show
Surprise Dancing with the Stars Winners!
Oct 22, 2008 What's Going On
My sister Cara just sent this to me. Hilarious! I guess my video message was way off base, I guess Palin was able to bridge the gap after all.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Sarcastic, Big-City Moms For Obama
Oct 22, 2008 Uncategorized
Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Tags: Barack Obama, Brooklyn, John McCain, Sarah Palin
Randomosity
Oct 13, 2008 Randomosity
This is what’s been floating around in my head for the past week. I need to clear it out to make room for more.
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It’s supposed to be in the high 70s for the next few days, in NYC, in October. This is crazy!
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I’m so disgusted with John McCain at this point that I just can’t stand it. I can remember, back in the primaries, when the field was narrowed to McCain, Clinton, and Obama. And I said to a friend of mine, this is the first election ever where I would be happy with any of the contenders. I mean, no question at that point I wanted Hillary or Barack to win, but McCain seemed different than the other Republicans.
So what the hell happened? When did he decide to sell his soul and give up who he is in order to be president? He used to have fans on both sides of the aisle. He used to say things that made sense. He used to seem in control of his thoughts. Now he’s spouting talking points with the worst of them and making disastrous campaign moves. If he can’t do the simple things well, like navigate talk shows and pick a running mate who would actually help him in the polls, how can he do the big things in office?
We are witness to the biggest economic collapse in history, and instead of talking about that, he thinks he can distract his way to a win, that talking about a guy Obama may or may not have been friends with in Chicago is at all relevant (as if every single politician didn’t have shady associations). Thank goodness it doesn’t seem to be working. But it just blows my mind that he thinks the voters are this stupid.
Then again, these are the same voters who elected Bush twice, so maybe his thinking isn’t so far fetched.
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I was listening to The Michael Savage Show on the radio the other day (no, I’m not insane, I just like to check out what other people are listening to once in a while) and he played a clip of Michelle Obama saying something like “At least Barack knows what he doesn’t know.” Meaning, to anyone with half a brain, that if he doesn’t know something he doesn’t pretend to know about it, he’s honest with himself that he doesn’t know it. But Michael Savage went on a long rant about how if president, Obama will want to remain ignorant of things, that he would refuse to learn about things. That he would actually prefer not to know things.
I’ve never met a fan of The Michael Savage Show, so perhaps you guys could help me out, if you know any: are they that stupid? Are they that moronic that they believe this crap? I’ve never really understood in the past why talk radio was so popular with the right but not with the left. But I think I’m getting it. Far righters seem way more willing to believe anything that radio hosts tell them. I routinely check out The Radio Factor, and it doesn’t seem to matter what Bill O’Reilly says, how outrageous or unbelievable, his popularity just grows and grows. When he has someone on his show who disagrees with him, he cuts the call off before they have a chance to seriously refute anything he’s said. But the next day there he is, claiming that he listens to all sides, because just yesterday he had this person or that person on his show.
So I have to ask myself again, just how stupid are their fans? There’s a lot of nonsense talk on both sides, that’s politics. But conservatives really have cornered the market on letting other people think for them.
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There’s a dead mouse in my kitchen right now. I’m a complete baby about dead mice. I will not scream if I see a live mouse, but dead mice completely skeeve me out. We used to have a huge mouse problem, finding droppings and mouse hair on the counter every morning and killing at least a couple every week. Now we only kill about one every two months. But this one didn’t die in the trap behind the garbage can, which is where most of them go to the big cheese shop in the sky. This one died in the trap next to the fridge, and it looks like it dragged the trap about a foot before dying, so it’s sitting in the middle of the kitchen, keeping me from getting a Diet Dr. Pepper or making the kids breakfast. My husband’s still in the shower, and I’m not going in there until he takes care of it.
I can take care of most things around the house. I’m way better with tools than my husband. I routinely take out the garbage and recycling, shovel the snow, clean gross drains, and go out on the roof to clean the gutters. But I can not get rid of dead mice. If one ever dies when my husband is out of town, the entire trap will be going in a garbage bag, along with the two-foot-long BBQ tongs that I’ll have to use to do the job.
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James Taylor was on The Colbert Report a couple of weeks ago, and Stephen Colbert asked him a few questions about his famous song, “Fire and Rain”. The story that I had always heard about that song was that it was about his girlfriend, who had been flown in secretly to see him by his road crew while he was on tour, but her plane crashed. So when Stephen asked him about using pyrotechnics and a rain machine while performing “Fire and Rain” I was thinking to myself, that’s really dickish, even for Stephen Colbert’s rather dickish character on that show. Or perhaps he hadn’t done his research, which also seemed unlike him.
This really bothered me, thinking how horrible it must have been for James Taylor to face someone making a joke about the love of his life dying in a horrible accident. So I guess it was my love for Mr. Colbert that caused me to finally do some research about the validity of the plane crash story. Turns out it’s BS. According to Snopes, different verses of the song are about different things, including a friend of Taylor’s committing suicide, his addiction to heroin, his recovery, and his band’s break-up. But it’s certainly not the literal story about a broken airplane in pieces on the ground that has become legend.
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I just finished a four-Saturday run of a children’s show that had, in it’s entire run, roughly the same number of paying customers as it did cast members. Truly humiliating.
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We went out to dinner last night to a diner in Queens, and the waitress was weird. She was a great waitress in just about every respect but one: dealing with our children. She was clearly fond of them, and she was very nice to them, but when it was time for dessert told my daughter that she had to take one more bite of her dinner before she could have her ice cream. Umm…not your territory, lady! I politely said “Thanks, but she’s done with her dinner.” And she gave me a weird look, like I was letting my daughter get away with something sinister, as if she hadn’t yet crossed the imaginary threshhold of eaten food that existed in this woman’s head.
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Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Tags: Barack Obama, Fire and Rain, Hillary Clinton, James Taylor, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Snopes
Randomosity
Sep 22, 2008 Randomosity
This is what’s been floating around in my head for the past week. I need to clear it out to make room for more.
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Last week’s best Fark headline regarding the country’s economic freak-out, after the government’s massive bailout plans were announced:
Stocks climb on news that rich people are fine with socialism when the money is going to them
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The other night, coming home on the subway, I saw a guy solving a Rubik’s Cube. Repeatedly. He would mess it up totally, then solve it again in about five minutes. His fingers were flying, and he kept turning it rapidly to check out what was going on. Once he didn’t even solve it for solid colors, he solved it with a pattern, same on all sides. I have a hard time comprehending how minds like that work.
The next night, same time, same subway, I sat across from a guy who was practicing card tricks: one-handed shuffling, making the top card pop up off the deck, fanning, etc. It was fascinating. I was staring. He was doing it without even realizing that he was doing it, I think, but I guess that’s how you get good, by doing it all the time.
So I’m wondering what’s next: will I see a juggler? A sword swallower? Will someone be setting up a trapeze in the station?
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I don’t want to go into too many details, because I don’t mean any ill will toward anyone, but have you ever found yourself in a position where you accepted an opportunity, and then a much better one came along but you were already stuck with the first one? That happened to me last week. And if I had only accepted the first opportunity but not really gotten involved with it yet, I might have tried to back out. And even if I had gotten involved already but it was with people that I would never see again, I might have tried to back out (sad but true). But it’s with people I will see all the time for as long as I live in Brooklyn, so there’s no way I could get out of it without looking like a complete asshole. So, lesson learned about following my instincts.
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I found this on Fark.com (yes, I spend way too much time on Fark): Earlier this month a man tried to pay for groceries at a North Carolina grocery store with a $200 bill, complete with a picture of George Bush on the front and a White House lawn full of lawn signs on the back (including one that says “We Like Ice Cream”). The best part of the story is, the cashier accepted it, and gave him $50 change! Go here to read the rest of the story.
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This quote was on brownstoner.com last week, in a discussion about a house for sale:
In Wasilla, a comparable home would be more horizontally oriented, clad in aluminum, and perched on wheels and/or cinder blocks. But with the de rigeur meth lab, it would be a more profitable investment than this place.
— by SnarkSlope in House of the Day: 47 Sidney Place
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The above comment thread on brownstoner led me to this site, the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. You put in your name, and it tells you what your name would be if Sarah Palin had your naming rights. I’m “Chase Rooster Palin.” Sounds about right. I’ll fit right in with Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow, and Piper.
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OK Comedy Central, I’m looking for some kind of pattern across your shows regarding what’s OK to say and what’s not. Last week Jon Stewart, in anticipation of interviewing Tony Blair, made a joke about spotted dick (a very strange sounding British pudding). When Stewart said “dick” in reference to the recipe, it went unbleeped. But at the end of the bit, when he said “dick” in reference to his body part, it was bleeped out. What gives? And remember, this is from the network that aired a South Park episode where the characters say “shit” 168 times. How do I know it was 168 times? Because there was a little counter in the corner of the screen that kept track. So how is it OK to say “shit” but only sometimes say “dick” on the same network?
Americans get hung up on all the wrong things, allowing bigger things to slide by unnoticed. I went to a panel years ago about media and censorship, and one of the panelists was Aaron Sorkin, creator of West Wing. He was talking about an episode where the president learns that nine soldiers have just been killed in an ambush. Sorkin wrote him yelling “God Damn It!” but the network wouldn’t let him do it. A network exec told him that he’d hear “fuck” on NBC before he would hear “God Damn.” God damn it, that’s fucked up.
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Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Tags: baby name generator, brownstoner, Rubik's Cube, Sarah Palin, wasilla
Randomosity
Sep 15, 2008 Randomosity
This is what’s been floating around in my head for the past week. I need to clear it out to make room for more.
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I was making French Toast the other day, and we ran out of white bread before I got a chance to eat any (Pasta Boy can go through French Toast like you wouldn’t believe). I thought to myself, OK, I love wheat bread, I’ll just make myself some with wheat bread. Big mistake. Wheat bread does not make good French Toast. No amount of syrup could save it. It was inedible.
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The best line last week regarding Sarah Palin came from Keith Olbermann, referring to this Q&A in the Charlie Gibson/Sarah Palin interview about the oft-repeated assertion that being governor of a state near Russia qualifies Sarah Palin to deal with foreign diplomacy.
GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions particularly in the last couple weeks does the proximity of the state give you?
PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.
Olbermann’s response?
I can see right into the headquarters of Chase Bank from my office, so on the Sarah Palin scale that makes me Alan Greenspan.
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I saw these on TV the other day and had to find them. I just had one. Why did it take until 2008 for someone to invent these? The making and eating of multiple tacos has been revolutionized. Viva la revolucion!
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The other night my husband was complaining that he had a shooting pain in his right arm. After a bunch of tasteless jokes about how much insurance I have out on him and how rusty my CPR training is, he headed upstairs to go to bed. He yelled back “Hey, turn the TV down.” Thirty seconds later he came back downstairs and said “If I’m having a heart attack I didn’t want that to be the last thing I ever said to you… I love you.”
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I took the kids to Olive Garden last night (sans The Ass – he hates the OG). I wanted a sauce that wasn’t on the regular menu, the tomato and basil caprese. It was on the unlimited pasta bowl menu, which was great, because for some reason stuff on that menu is cheaper than what I would normally order. And of course I should have stopped after about half a bowl, but it was so good! So I finished it all and was truly full. Then the waiter came and took the empty plate and said “Refill?” And even though I was bursting I heard myself saying “Yes, please.” What? Why? Because it was free, that’s why. This is the same reason why I have to stay away from all-you-can-eat buffets. I don’t think I will ever get to a point, financially, where I will be able to turn down free food. Doesn’t matter that I can afford to buy the food I want, to leave and come back again and pay to have the same thing again. Doesn’t matter. Free? Gimme more. I’ll find room.
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If Karl Rove says your negative ads have gone too far, it’s time to get out of show business.
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Last week the New York Post’s Page Six ran a little story about Joe Pantoliano and his charity, No Kidding, Me Too, which works to remove the stigma from mental illness (Mr. Pantoliano suffers from depression). The title of the article? “Crazy Advocate.”
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I woke up this morning to my daughter combing my hair with an eyelash comb. I guess there are worse ways to be woken up. :-) Have a great week.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Tags: Charlie Gibson, French Toast, Joe Pantoliano, Keith Olbermann, No Kidding Me Too, Old El Paso Stand and Stuff, Olive Garden, Page Six, Sarah Palin, Taco
