Google Doodle: Freddie Mercury

Freddie would've been 65 today. Alas, he is an eternal 45 (just a few years older than I am now), dead for these last 20 years.

Some people think Queen was one of the best rock bands ever to exist. Some will say the music was good, but nothing special. But even many of the people with the latter opinion concede Freddie Mercury was an amazing performer; as frontman of the aptly-named band, he energized audiences through stage and video.

Speculation about Freddie's sexuality was always a topic. He'd been reluctant at best to discuss it, being a somewhat private person. But it was more or less an open secret at best that he was bisexual, so when news leaked that he'd been tested positive for AIDS, most people believed it. For some time he denied it, but just before his death he finally admitted it. Two days later, he died of AIDs-related pneumonia.

Since his death, a lot of people have wondered if he should've been more open about both his sexuality and his HIV+ condition. His popularity could've lent a lot of clout to fundraising and acceptance efforts. But he was raised in an England where homosexuality was illegal, and even once that wasn't true, he was an adult in an era where being openly gay was a much riskier proposition than it is even now, when prejudice is still rampant and attacks on gays still prevalent. In the late 80s, many people still thought you could get AIDS from casual contact, and it was still thought of as a "gay disease". Only recently have most people learned better.

In his death, however, he may serve that purpose. His legacy as a performer lives on, and when those who learn about him (perhaps by clicking that awesome Google doodle) find out a musician they admire died of AIDS, perhaps they will reflect on how sad it was he felt any need to hide his sexuality and his disease from the public.

Top Chef idea

You know what I want to see? A spin-off of Top Chefs called "Home Cooks" or something.

You know how people who are really good home cooks sometimes are told they should open a restaurant? The purpose of the show would be to help someone do just that.

I'd want it structured more like TC Masters, with qualifying rounds and then "playoffs" and finals, and with a rating system like theirs as well. I'd also like to see some more generous time limits, or the addition of sous chefs or something else to acknowledge that home cooks aren't always the fastest preppers, and take the focus off of speed a bit in favor of letting them see what they could do. And the prize would presumably be both money to go towards opening a restaurant (or catering business, maybe) and the aid of someone who knows the ins and outs of opening restaurants to help them set up their place and hire the right people and such.

The challenges could be similar to what they do now, so long as they got the extra time or extra prep help I mentioned above. Plus I'd probably want to give them basic reference guides—not recipe books, exactly, but things like "this is what goes in basic sauces at these ratios" and "here's a basic white cake mix", and "here's a list of basic substitutions". A bit of a cheat sheet seems reasonable for people who don't spend as much time with cooking as professionals do.

Anyhow, I think that'd be interesting to see.

Glee-related babble

I'm not watching Glee, but I do read some recaps (done by TLo, aka "the Project Rungay boys" from the old name of their blog) and watch clips of songs I'm interested in. I'm gonna have to pry some money loose from the budget to buy a few of those clips. In particular, I definitely want the NPH "Dream On", and "Baby, It's Cold Outside" from the Christmas episode.

I swear that Chris Colfer sounds more like a girl than I do. :D It's just... I've always had a kinda low voice for a woman, and it's just gotten lower as I've gotten older. My singing voice is shot to hell lately anyhow—not that you'll ever hear it because it records like total crap, even if it sounds fine in person—but I seem to have fallen down into the tenor range, or some midpoint between tenor and alto, depending on how you measure.

Oh, there's one other song I know I want to get from the Glee soundtracks, but I hate to admit it because I typically tend to actively avoid any pop singer with a hype machine larger than Madonna's. But, I must admit, their cover of "Telephone" got stuck in my head pretty hard. I went and found the video for the original, so I've heard that now too, and I do kinda like it but I like the cover better for some reason (maybe because I saw it in context and the context was funny).

An open letter to the wing-nuts

Dear American Wing-nuts,

Pray, enlighten me: when did Australia become a U.S. state? Was it right after Canada was annexed*? Because apparently I missed it.

Look, I realize that you're genetically programmed** to respond to any criticism of the United States or anything that you think threatens the pocketbooks of big businesswar effort, but you might want to try thinking a little about the stupidity of calls to prosecute Julian Assange for treason.

You see, to commit treason, you have to actually be a citizen of the country you're working against.*** I realize this is hard for you to grasp, but not everyone is a citizen of the United States. Assange is an Australian citizen. It is impossible for him to commit treason against the United States.

I'm not going to argue about the rightness or wrongness of Assange's acts. I don't care whether you think he was right or wrong. That's not the issue. The issue is: you're a bunch of morons who don't understand that citizens in other countries aren't bound by the laws of the United States.

Happy holidays!****

Love,

Me

* Note for the easily confused: this hasn't happened. If it had, you'd have better health insurance. And nicer neighbors.
** Well, probably just stupid and/or reflexive, but I'm trying to be nice here. Only not really.
*** This presupposes it's fair to say Assange is 'working against' the U.S., but I didn't want to complicate this too much by getting into that argument.
**** You should probably see a doctor about that blood pressure spike you have whenever someone says that.

One last PR post

I'm now kinda glad I wasn't able to spend more time doing recaps, but that's not what I'm gonna talk about. I'm gonna talk about the actual three finalists' collections and what I thought about them.

Well, that's one less show I'm watching again

Dear Nina Garcia and Michael Kors,

You have lost all credibility with me. Seriously.

I've been disagreeing with your choices for a while, sure. But this season, not only have I disagreed with you, I've started to wonder if you actually do have any real idea what's going on in the fashion world.

You just gave Gretchen the win over Mondo. And I'm pissed off about that, yes, but it's not just because I think Mondo is by far the better designer. It's also because of the bullshit that came out of your mouths in justifying it.

You see... I've been paying a lot more attention to the runway and the fashion world in general since I started watching this show, and you know what I haven't seen recently? Anything that looks much like the 70's aesthetic animal print stuff Gretchen did. In fact, I'm looking at Marie Claire's web site right now, and do you know what I am seeing? Clothes that look far more like what Mondo did than what Gretchen did. In fact, in specific, on the Fashion News page, I see one thing using almost the same pink and aqua I saw in Mondo's collection, and another using a black and white print.

Whose finger again is on the pulse of fashion trends?

Apparently not yours.

Sincerely,

Someone whose Thursday nights look to be staying free for the forseeable future.

PR: Lifetime Sucks

No, seriously. I just went to try to go look at finishing up E2 and found out they have taken down the full episodes for everything prior to E6. That means the four hours or so I spent on the E2 recap was a total waste, because no way to finish that one without the video handy. Oh, I probably could go dig up some other people's recaps and figure out which designers I hadn't yet managed to get to and get them in the right order, but, well, screw it. I'll just skip up to E6 and straight into my "shorter recaps" plan, and be caught up that much sooner, I guess. If I ever get ahold of E2 video again I might go ahead and finish it, but probably not.

PR recaps; Top Chef; Top Chef: Just Desserts

Because of the length of time it takes me to write a recap like the one I did for S8 E1—it's a good 5-6 hours of watching for a few seconds, pausing, and writing something, then starting the video up again—I'm clearly not going to get caught up. I'm going to try to finish up the one for E2 anyhow, since I was near the end of it, but then I'm going to try to find a way to write much leaner recaps for the rest. No promises, though; my painkillers aren't, lately.

On Top Chef DC: Totally disappointing season. I didn't really ever connect with someone I wanted to root for—the closest I came was deciding to root for Tiffany, and then she got eliminated right after I decided that—and one of the people I thought was not all that strong a chef won. Whoopie-doo. And apparently the next season of Top Chef is going to be an "All-Stars", starting in December. I haven't decided how I feel about that. It includes people from every season, many of whom made it near or into the finale but didn't win. (Thank goodness it doesn't include winners, or I might have to see that cockmeister Ilan again. Seriously, guys: stop inviting that douchebag back, okay?)

Top Chef: Just Desserts is probably not going to hold my attention. Basically, most of the contestants annoy me, and of the few I kinda liked, two are already gone. But I'll give it another couple episodes. And that's... seriously all I have to say about it.

The official lineup of Top Chef: All-Stars has already been announced, and I have some opinions:

Things I don't get

Here's one thing I don't get: A lot of people seem to think the Republicans are being taken over by crazy right-wing extremists, but also think the Democrats are a bunch of liars who make promises about how they're going to change things but then support the status quo. So, uh... why is no one seeing "vote for a third-party candidate" as the obvious answer? I mean, here we have a fair bit of evidence the two-party system just is not working for us, and yet... somehow it doesn't occur to people to try to change that.

Here's another thing I don't get: Why is it so hard for people to accept the word "moderate" means "actually holds positions in between the 'left' and 'right' positions", and that people who demonstrably don't do that aren't really moderates? No one seems to have a problem calling people on labeling themselves "liberal" and yet expressing non-liberal positions, or people labeling themselves "conservative" and yet expressing non-conservative positions. But if you call yourself a "moderate" yet express non-moderate positions, people will apparenty use this as "evidence" that "moderate" means something other than, well, moderate.

Here's another thing I don't get: The context of the following quote is that the Texas Board of Education—that bastion of eliminating accuracy in the name of upholding their narrow views, but I guess that's another topic—has decided that there is a bias in textbooks promoting Islam and condemning Christianity.

In interviews, Mr. Rives has likened his concerns about Islam to those he and other Americans once had about communists infiltrating American society. [source]

Why would anyone think this was a good position to publically take? The Americans who once had "concerns about communist infiltration" included people who did things such as use blacklists to keep people from being hired based purely on accusation, rather than evidence, and those people are fairly widely regarded as having been extremists and witch-hunters who damaged American society and played fast and loose with the rule of law. Why would anyone want to associate themselves with that?

PR recaps

I'm mostly done with my episode 2 recap, but I'm really distracted by all the info coming out on Guild Wars 2, I'm afraid, so it's not going up before the show. I'll get that up maybe tomorrow, and try to have 3 and 4 done before next week, and then do my best to start getting a more timely recap up, though no promises until my doctor decides to give me a better painkiller for my back problems.

Project Runway S8, E1: "And Sew It Begins"

Last season of Project Runway, I made a stab at doing a dress overview with my opinions of it, with a couple comments here and there on the episodes, and then realized I couldn't keep up and stopped trying until the end. This season I figured I just would be better off not trying, but you know what? I've got some free time and am sitting at the computer anyhow, so I think I'm gonna try again... and I even am going to do more of a "real" recap! Until, you know, I start getting behind and only throw up notes about the dresses and then stop being able to keep up. No, no, wait. Positive thinking! Recaps! Let's roll back the clock and start with episode 1 because I'm already behind! Fair warning: this is quite long.

Er... no thanks.

From my local paper today:

Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group is teaming up with a Silicon Valley start-up to reward smartphone-equipped shoppers for walking into Simon's shopping malls.

The partnership with technology company Shopkick Inc. is a big step in realizing retailers' long-held dream of using cell phones to beam ads and coupons to people passing by to convert them into buyers.

I think someone needs to look up the definition of "reward". I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean the same thing as "annoy".

Top Chef & Project Runway

Here's my reaction to Top Chef so far: x.x

That word you keep using...

"Israel will never apologize for defending its citizens," a high-ranking Israeli government official told CNN Monday, after Turkey reportedly demanded an apology or an inquiry into an Israeli raid on an aid ship that killed nine Turkish citizens.

"Of course we regret the loss of life, but it was not the Israeli side that initiated the violence," the official said.

Yes, it was. Armed men rapelling onto boats from military helicopters is an act of aggression. Threatening people with those armed men is an act of aggression. The people who engaged in self-defense were those who attempted to repel the pirates.

Yes, I said pirates. That's what we call armed forces that board boats in international waters with the intention of securing control of said boats (outside of war). Israel was not in a state of war with Turkey. (Though they sure seem to want to be.)

And there would have been no need for the Israeli military to "defend" themselves if they hadn't deliberately gone onto those boats with armed men with the intent to commit violence in international waters.

(I realize there is a great deal of legal debate on whether or not this was acceptable legally. I note, however, that there is a great deal of legal debate, rather than it being cut and dried. Just once, I'd like to see the Israeli government admit they've made a mistake with their responses of overwhelming force. But I'm not holding my breath.)

Top Chef DC Initial Impressions

So, as usual with the first episode, I barely remember anyone's names or much about their actual dishes, but a few things did stand out:

• Dude with the dreads. Sorry, I know this is shallow, but to be honest I'm kinda glad I'm not going to have to be creeped out by his hair anymore. I know that dreads are just as likely to be clean as some random sweaty chef's hair, and he wore a bandana to keep 'em out of the way, but seriously, dude's hair scared me. Also, if the dish you make to represent yourself and where you're from is something I can make at home, you probably aren't quite ready for Top Chef. No offense.
• Big chick with a big mouth... I thought at first I might like her, until she decided to call another contestant a hick and implied that would mean he sucked. Yeah, I didn't see you in the top 4, babe. Maybe keep a lid on the insults til you show you're any good either, k?
• Kenny is freakin' fast at the mis en place. Doesn't guarantee he's good (but the top four placement in Elimination Challenge does tend to suggest he is), but, wow. I think I'd still be working on the onions, myself...
• On the other hand, dude needs to learn how to lose gracefully. Seriously.
• And speaking of someone who's gonna have to learn to lose: Angelo? Is that his name? The one who won, with the attitude and the smug and the self-absorption and the admittedly good-sounding dish? Yeah. You aren't gonna win all the challenges. Trust me.
• I hope the culinary instructor lady kicks some serious ass this season, because I'm sick of all the winners being young-ass kids. She seems to be pretty collected, so hopefully she'll do well under pressure. Don't know what I thought of her food, though.
• Kenny and Angelo may've clearly set the "people to beat" mark, but... Alex? Russian dude. *just goes and looks it up* Yeah, Alex. Anyhow, deconstructed borscht that actually sounded kinda good? Sounds like he's got some interesting ideas, at least.

Maybe by next week I'll remember more people's names...

Playlist: 1979

[Warning: This Post Contains Many, Many Words Below the Cut.]

Let's go back a couple years from the last playlist. As before, the flash object below the cut is an embedded playlist of American Top 40 hits I liked, this time from 1979.

Playlist: 1981

[Warning: This Post Contains Many, Many Words Below the Cut.]

The flash object below the cut is a playlist of songs that were either Billboard or American Top 40 hits in 1981 (back when it was hosted by Casey Kasem, for those of you old enough to remember that). It's obviously not even close to all the hits on either chart, but it's a good cross-section of music I actually enjoyed listening to.

Things I Learned From TV, Part 1

Got blue balls? There's an app for that!

A commercial advertising something called "Juicy TV", which appears to involve very large-breasted women, touted their service, which apparently includes an iPhone app. The statement above was not literally in the commercial, but it sure seemed to be the message.

Commercials with the sound off can be strange.

Based solely on the visuals, I believe that the message of a recent Snickers ad is this: When you are transformed into an old woman, just eat a Snickers bar! You'll soon be transformed back to your virile male self.

Sadly, the sound being on would probably confirm this was basically the message.

Things from bad movies are, well, bad.

Lesson for Saturday: if you try to hit ScaryDemonGuy with a car, and he jump/walks his way over it instead? Chances are, the same thing will happen when you put the car in reverse and try again.

I didn't catch the name of the movie, but the 10 minutes we saw was pretty bad.

Here's something I'm sick of...

I'm sick of people categorizing moderates as wishy-washy and unable to make up their minds, especially if they're willing to compromise on certain points.

First off, political opinions do not just come in "left" and "right". There's a whole wide spectrum. For instance, when it comes to abortion: you can be avidly for legalized abortion or avidly against it, but it's just as possible to be in favor of legalized abortion generally but also in favor of trying to minimize it through some means, or you can be against abortion generally but in favor of leaving it legal under certain circumstances. That's at least four major positions, but two of them are more moderate than the others. It's a complex issue; it can have complex positions.

Also, taking a compromise position takes both empathy for people one doesn't entirely agree with and the ability to discard preconceived notions in favor of examining the various positions to try to find where opinions are either more similar than one might have originally thought, or find where complex opinions have points that people are not as fervent about. It quite often accomplishes nothing to just keep on insisting Your Way prevails over Their Way; decisions are hard to make when no one can agree. Coming up with a suggestion that's "close enough to Our Way to be satisfactory" will be more effective in many cases. Just because it can take longer doesn't make it "wishy-washy"; it just makes it careful.

And frankly, the world could use more people willing to be careful.

Misread

What it said: mythological conspiracy.
What I read: mycological conspiracy.
What I pictured: Nazi mushrooms.
What you probably just did: rolled your eyes and suppressed laughter.