Dude.

So, over at Questionable Content creator's Jeph Jacques livejournal, which I periodically peruse, I found this comic. If you're too lazy to click, the important part is this statement: "Stop using 'win' and 'fail' as complete sentences."

The post's a month old, so rather than post a comment there, I'm just gonna put it here, where no one will see it.

I can't really understand the animosity towards this practice. People have been using one-word reactions to things since long before the internet. Back in the Jurassic era when I was a kid, it was things like "cool" and "awesome" (and "tubular", but I'd like to forget about that one). Or, of course, the all-purpose "dude", which, depending on tone, can convey a myriad of reactions. There's even a precursor to "pwned" from pre-internet days: "burned".

Sure, it gets annoying when the only thing someone seems to be able to say is "LOL" (or, more likely, "lol", because the shift key is apparently only for SHOUTING these days), and I want to smack each and every person on the internet who uses it as punctuation (lol i guess lol *smack*). But "win" and "fail" aren't trying to convey anything more than an instant reaction to something, so why should it be any longer than that one word?

You can't put a price on human life

Unless, of course, you are Joe Lieberman.

Or anyone else who has done their best to gut health care reform.

Well, I'm disappointed

Three chefs. I liked two. The third one won.

My reaction? A big 'whatever'.

I recommend....

Over at Making Light, this post on cold-weather safety contains links to helpful posts on how to avoid hypothermia and other winter troubles. (If you're in the Southern Hemisphere, save until June.)

Right now it's a comparatively balmy 36°F outside here, and I'd be willing to bet at least one of the sets of sirens I've heard this morning has been for someone who thinks that means it's not cold enough to be dangerous. (I live near a fire station, at which all the ambulances for the area are also housed.) They were wrong.

Sure. I believe you.

Via Penny Arcade, I was linked to this post about a group called the Entertainment Consumers Association. To sum up if you don't want to read:

ECA is an online organization. They offered a free one-year membership coupled with some discounts on video games. Some people who signed up decided to cancel after some of those discounts disappeared. A few people found a cancel button online, but it was later removed. People were instructed to use snail mail to cancel their purely online service.

Now, the post I link to includes a letter from the president of the organization that attempts to explain this by placing the blame for the cancelled discounts and the need for snail mail cancellations on scammers. In part, he says:

We explained that we are working on ramping up infrastructure to become more automated going forward, but due to a small but active number of members who were repeatedly joining, leaving and re-joining the organization – in an effort to exploit our member benefits and unduly take advantage of our partners' generous offers – we would require a mailed letter, as per our membership agreement.

The problem with this statement, in my mind, is that they require you to provide a credit card number, and therefore presumably a billing address and a real name, to join (yes, even with the free membership). It would be trivial, one would think, to prevent people from signing back up again if their name and billing address matched a recently-cancelled account, or to prevent them from getting any deals aimed only at new members. So I'm a little dubious about their reasoning.

Please note I have no dogs in this fight. I'd never heard of the ECA before today, in fact. But I was struck by the completely sense of dishonesty I felt behind the published statement, not simply in that passage, but overall. It had the distinct odor of CYA, with just a hint of the scent of Lying Corporate Bastards.

The moral of the story, if there is one, is this: don't piss off the intarwebz. Everyone, including people not even remotely connected to you, will find out.

Pet Peeve #ILostCount

I just love reading a random blog and seeing, in the comments, someone roundly and smugly criticize someone else for using singular 'they'. I especially love it when that comment is followed up by a person basically saying how it's the result of how uneducated modern people are.

Look, you may not like it, but a) it's been in use a long, long time, b) it's accepted professionally by some editors and style guides, c) IMO, it's a lot less clunky than saying 'he or she', and d) (also IMO) it's a lot less bother than rewording your sentences entirely to avoid it.

If you're going to bitch about it, at least show some awareness that it's a matter of opinion.

Next up: I will tackle the myth of the double negative in my essay, "Why conversation is not mathematics."

Mid-Top-Chef reaction

Michael V (interview): Kevin cooks the kind of food I cook on my day off.
Michael V (to Tom C. during walkthrough): I'm making couscous and tzatziki.
Me (to Michael V's image): I can make those on my day off. Or any other day. What does that say about you?

Wow Me or GTFO

I'm going to rant a bit about Project Runway now, and then I'm going to tie it in a bit to my feelings about Top Chef, and then I'm going to wonder if I should go back to watching neither of them and just sticking to the recapper's blogs as I did for S5 of both. Suitable warning: This is extremely long. If you don't want to read lots of words, don't clicky:

It's really not that hard

Tonight's Top Chef involved needing to cook for a vegetarian. This was a twist on what looked like an otherwise straightforward dinner party, so I do understand the chefs being thrown for a loop at first, but they got to go straight into looking through the non-meat products (fresh ones from a Farmer's market, Tom Collichio says in his blog, so probably plenty of good choices even aside from anything they normally had on hand). But the dishes were not, really, all that great. Many of them looked a lot more like appetizers or sides than entrees, and almost none of them included a protein.

Massive Eyerolling

Dear Designers,

You were asked to do a Bob Mackie-style outfit for a singer. Bob Mackie-style stage outfit! I know most of you would not normally do something like his costumes, but you'd think one of you might've realized that he rather likes colour. Black, white, grey, black, white, black and white, white, grey... I think I saw a hint of blue somewhere, but it was pretty subtle. 'Subtle' is not on the list of words I think of when I think of Bob Mackie's stagewear.

In fact, while we're on the topic: just what do so many of you have against colour this season? I've seen more black, white, and grey than I can take. And I like grey (and black, but everyone likes some black I think). Even when you were supposed to make something blue I saw grey! Yeesh.

That having been said, I'm glad to see Carol Hannah finally win one, even if it was with a black dress. She's not my favorite designer (sorry, but I like Gordana more!), but I think she got ignored for good outfits more than once, so it's nice to see her get some kudos for her skill.

Anyhow. Colour, people. Don't be afraid of it.

Hugs and Kisses (except to Irina)!

I may have to buy the November Playboy

Cuz, like, um... this is their cover (work safe unless risque and the word 'Playboy' count as non-work safe where you work):

I know I said I wasn't likely to watch...

...but I've been watching Top Chef regularly this season again.

I think it's obvious at this point who the front-runners are, the probable top four. Granted one of them might screw up (anyone can have an off day, or succumb to the pressure of time), but really it's been pretty clear for a couple weeks that Kevin, Jen, and the Voltaggio brothers are the likeliest top four. If one of them screws up badly enough, I suppose that Mike I. might be in instead, but I don't think he's as talented or creative as that group. Plus I can't stand him, so I hope he doesn't make it. Laurine also might have a shot, but again, I think it would take one of the others screwing up.

No offense to Robin or Ash, but I don't think either of them likely to make it to the top. I kinda like both of them and I don't think they're incompetent, but I don't think either of them work well with the time pressure or in front of the cameras, and they haven't shown a lot of flair. Eli, well, I don't like him, and he's not any more likely than either of them to make it, for similar reasons plus a general blindness to his own faults.

I'm torn on who I want to be the winner. As far as skill goes, I think the four best are all on par with each other overall, so I wouldn't be disappointed at any of them. I'm inclined to root for Kevin, who sort of slid into being my favorite personality-wise, but I kinda want to root for Jen's quiet competence as well. If it comes down to those two I think I'd be pretty happy either way (the loser might not get the money but the publicity can't hurt).

Now to be fair...

I have noticed a trend lately in U.S. fashion shows to use a) more women who look like they're naturally lean rather than starving themselves, and b) models who actually are a bit larger, albeit still not anything like average size. I've even noticed some of the shapes of clothing looking more adaptable to different body sizes (fewer microbodices, looser construction, etc.).

But I'm not going to stop thinking model size choices are odd just yet.

Some Statistics

Average height of women in the U.S.: Approximately 5'4"[1]
Average dress size of women in the U.S.: 14^[1,2]
Size "plus size" begins at: 12-18, depending on the store.

Typical height for models: 5'8" and above
Typical dress size for "normal" size models in the U.S.: 0-4^[2,3]
Typical dress size for "plus" size models in the U.S.: 8-12^[2,4]

[1] Height based on 2002 CDC report, the latest available. Dress size is from fashion media reports; CDC reports 36" average waist, which depending on source may be anything from 14-20.
[2] Standard U.S. dress sizes. Where "standard" means "not really".
[3] Some firms and designers may go slightly higher.
[4] Some firms and designers start or go higher.

Okay, seriously, is it just me?

Look, I get that $900 billion is a lot of money, and I understand why people might want to try to find ways to cut costs in any government overhaul of health care, of any sort of subsidies for people to afford insurance, and so forth.

But... it seems sort of odd that the people who are so focussed on the money that they're putting out advertising on the issue don't seem to have a problem with spending tens of millions of dollars on that.

Or, uh. Is it just me?

No thanks!

Seems like a bad idea to me.

Why I Love Tim Gunn

Because who else, honestly, could possibly say "I am woeful." and not sound like an emo-freak?

An Open Letter

Dear Mike Isabella of Top Chef,

You seem to not realize that your audience is composed primarily of foodies and chefs. I base this characterization on the fact that you felt a need to condescendingly let us know that risotto can be made of other things than rice.

I realize that 'condescending' is your normal tone, and what with your obvious hangup about women and bloated self-importance I hardly expected to particularly like you at any point, but that one little interview pretty much guaranteed that I am now actively anti-rooting for you. You probably don't care (I'm a woman and not a professional chef, after all), but let me point out to you something you and certain other past contestants seem to have missed: you are on national TV getting name recognition. That recognition can be good (as in, "Wow, that dish Michael V made sounds excellent") or bad (as in, "I don't care if he cooks food suitable for the second coming of Jesus, that guy is such a douche, I wouldn't eat at his restaurant for any amount of money").

In case it isn't clear, you fall into the latter category for me.

It's a little late now, of course; the season is long since taped and the decision made as to who will be the winner. I predict, however, it will not be you, which means the only thing you will have accomplished by this is alienating a portion of your potential customer base. I hope that outcome is what you wanted.

Sincerely,

Your #1 Anti-Fan

Why proofreading is important

The other day I got curious about the whereabouts of past Top Chef contestants, and happened, in my searches, to come across a restaurant run by Season 5 contestant Stefan Richter. The restaurant has a menu, so I thought I'd take a look at it and see what he was offering.

I'm not going to critique the food choices; that's not really the point. I am, however, going to note that it's a really, really good idea to hire a proofreader for one's menu, even if it's just the online version. This particular version of the menu (I'm working off screenshots on the assumption they'll fix it at some point) contains a number of misspelled words, missing commas, and missing spaces. It's really pretty amusing, which probably wasn't the point of putting it online.

For instance, I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as "haricotvert red onions". Sure, I can parse that into what they mean (I assume they mean both green beans and red onions), but it's sort of jarring as one goes along. And I think that "cauliflower puree roasted shallots" is simply missing a comma, though I did find it entertaining to try to decide if they were coating shallots with puree and then throwing it all in the oven.

But I have to admit I'm not entirely sure how to parse "pan seared john dory with lentil parsnip ragout, baby spinach, extra virgin olive oil and micro greens". Are they just serving some olive oil on the side? Is it a spinach, olive oil, and micro green salad? Is the spinach on the side and the olive oil just on the micro greens?

Among the various things they're offering are: sandwhiches, sourkraut, sunchockes, bannana split, and 'redwine icecream lolipop', which... well, let's just say I had an image for a very, very scary anime series, okay? You're lucky my scanner is broken or I might try to share the image. (And, yes, I've reproduced those words accurately.)

But the one that finally made me and my sweetie crack up was when I read 'aged smoked goud'. It really shouldn't have been that funny, except I said "I guess they just dropped the 'a' from gouda." And then he said, "Unless there's such a thing as 'goud'." So I looked it up, and said "Not unless they're offering smoked Indian dudes."

It was... uh. It was really probably a lot funnier if you were there. Trust me.

Anyhow, I imagine they'll get that cleaned up at some point, and while the food doesn't seem to be much to my tastes (a few items excepted), I imagine there will be some happy customers. Even if some of their smiles are at the menu, and not the food.

WTF?

So, President Obama wants to broadcast a speech to schools encouraging kids to study and finish school.

And judging from the response, apparently, "study and finish school" is a code phrase for "kill their parents, get pregnant, abort the fetuses, and eat them, while singing praises to Satan and dancing the Troika".

I'm glad there are so many helpful right-wingers out there to help me with this translation. After all, here I was, thinking "That's a great message, particularly coming from an important, well-placed black guy". Little did I know about the horrible, unsafe, Un-American message that lurked beneath those simple words.

I know, I know. What was I thinking? It's terrible that Obama thinks that encouraging kids to get their education will do anything for this country. Why, people might learn to think! They might learn how to research facts, analyze them, and make up their own minds about issues and situations...

Or is that the problem?

Not a Top Chef

I'm not watching Top Chef this season. I freely admit I got bored of it, which seems weird because I really do love cooking shows. Maybe I just like them better when there's less manufactured drama. I find Iron Chef (the real one, not the American version) and Alton Brown pretty entertaining, for instance.

That doesn't mean I'm totally disinterested, though. I'm reading the recaps over at Television without Pity, which I do for shows I've seen as well because they're frequently really funny and point out things I missed. Right now, because I'm bored, I'm noodling through some of the old recaps, and I just got up to season 3's "reinvent a classic home dish as an updated, healthier dish" challenge, which I really liked.

Now, I'm not a professional chef and never will be, but I do like to cook, and I'm fairly good at it. I'm actually a lot more familiar with the classic home dishes than upscale food, in fact, and cooking healthily is usually a goal of mine (nothing wrong with occasional unhealthy food, mind you). So when they did this I thought about what I would make, and I'm thinking about it again now that I'm reading the recap. I don't know if I'd be able to come up with this stuff on the fly, but then, I'm not aiming to be a contestant. I haven't tried any of these (though some use elements I've used before). I actually am planning to try some of them since typing it up made me hungry. :D I think, though, they'd work reasonably well.

Gun-toting delusional people

I don't really like to discuss politics much. It tends to start fights I just don't have the energy for. But there are just some things that I can't ignore.

See, here's the thing. I don't mind if you don't really like Obama, if you disagree with his policies, if you think he's the wrong guy to be the President. I probably won't agree with you much if you think that—I don't think he's by any means the perfect President but so far I don't really dislike him, either—but if you're just expressing your opinion in terms of, well, your opinion, that's fine.

But if you start doing things like talking about some conspiracy to elect a foreign-born President or faking his birth certificate or insisting he took his oath of office on the Quran or how he's going to march your grandmother and your disabled cousin to death camps, I'm going to think you're a loon or a liar.

And even if somehow you convince me you're not, that you're just misled, I'm going to know you hang out in the company of loons and liars. Dangerous loons and liars, seeing as how the same people who believe that sorta thing (or who pretend they do) are showing up to the so-called 'town hall' meetings about health care with guns, and thinking that's okay.

It ain't okay.

I admit I don't like guns, but even if I did, I'd know there's a time and a place for them, and an allegedly civilized discussion meeting (and they haven't really been, but that's not the point here) is neither of those. The only threat at those meetings is the one the people with the guns represent, a threat that they themselves made. A bunch of loons and liars with guns is not a discussion group; it's a mob. Next it'll be pitchforks and torches.

I'm not even going to get into how I don't understand how anyone could be against the idea of everyone having access to health care, or how people just don't seem to get the idea that providing basic health care to the population is likely to result in costs going down what with the number of ED visits for conditions left untreated until dangerous it'll cut down on, or all the other reasons why I can't see how anyone could be opposed to the notion. Because that doesn't really matter. What matters if that you do oppose it for whatever reason, you aren't going to convince people by spreading lies and misinformation and waving guns around. That's what crazy people do, and no one wants to be on the side of the loons.

Cocktails

I'm reading a book in which a PI is posing as a bartender. The author was careful to note that she had experience, which is good as the waitress-to-bartender ordering shorthand she depicts is a bit opaque, even to me, who was once fairly interested in cocktails and thought about being a bartender.

I never did it, though. I decided that customer service in general wasn't for me (I waitressed for the longest 6 weeks of my life once—never again). But I used to know what a lot of those drinks were, I'm sure of it. Not so much anymore.

See, over the years, I've pretty much... not exactly stopped drinking, but I don't really do it much at all (and these days the meds I'm on mean drinking in any quantity's a bad idea anyhow). I maybe go through couple bottles of Kahlua a year (some of which ends up being drunk by my SO), plus the occasional other drink if I'm going out, and by "occasional", I mean, really, honestly. It adds up to maybe a drink a month.

All of which means I can't really play 'stump the bartender' anymore. Chances are if I go for a drink it'll be something mundane like a margarita, or at least not entirely uncommon, like a Sloe gin fizz. I used to be able to come up with slightly more obscure drinks that I genuinely liked (I once stumped an admittedly fairly young bartender with Brandy Alexander), but the thing is, if you're going to do that, you should know what's in them, and I don't remember anymore.

I don't know if I actually care about that or not, but it does make reading a book with a bartender in it a little odd.

Oh hai

I suppose if I'm gonna have a new blog, there ought to be at least one post.

Hmmm. Let's see. What shall I write about?

*crickets chirp*

Okay, you got me. I just made the blog because I was thinking that if I did want to post about something random, none of my other blogs would work. I don't know why I didn't wait until I had something to say.

...

Hrm, no. Still nothing.

I'll get back to you.