Not Shopping (Alt. Titled: Boring Crap Petitedov Did)

One of the things I didn't do this weekend, which I was very grateful for, was go shopping. Hell on Earth is going shopping on Black Friday (at least for me)! Instead I spent the day in a lazy haze with the guy in my life - we braved the windy and (almost) deserted streets to grab a burger at J.G. Melons, watched the fantastic, utterly charming, very funny, and appropriate for all ages - The Fantastic Mr. Fox, (even if two tickets did cost $25! - but thanks to a gift card, cost us sweet, sweet, nothing!) and then capped the night at the very affordable and very cozy, The Pony Bar (even if I had to firmly, yet sweetly, wrestle our well deserved seats).
So even though I don't like Black Fridays, I do tend to look out for deals on Cyber Monday or whatever today is called. I was keeping an eye on one thing! One! A remastered Abbey Road CD if you must know. And low and behold, I go to buy it and stupid, no good, Amazon had sold out of it! Bastards.

Point of this post: Shopping sucks. Go drink some beer and watch The Fantastic Mr. Fox you will thank me.

Quote of the Day

It's one thing to relax the stigma on welfare in times of epic economic decline. It's another if the stigma doesn't return with the possibility of employment.

- Mickey Kaus ripping on the New York Times for "stigmatizing the stigma" of the food stamps/welfare program.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My favorite American holiday. It's very special to me, especially remembering our first Thanksgiving in this country and how each person we met that first year in our new home affected us and the utter feeling of thanks to those people.

Whenever It's Convenient

Michael Goldfarb on NYT refusing to publish e-mails that are showing how shady global warming "scientist" are (manipulating data, tarnishing reputations of people who disagree, etc.).

Dot Earth, is taking a pass on publishing any of the documents and emails that are now circulating. Andrew Revkin, the author of that blog, writes,

The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.

This is the position of the New York Times when given the chance to publish sensitive information that might hinder the liberal agenda. Of course, when the choice is between publishing classified information that might endanger the lives of U.S. troops in the field or intelligence programs vital to national security, that information is published without hesitation by the nation's paper of record. But in this case -- the documents were "never intended for the public eye," so the New York Times will take a pass.

I guess truth hurts and NYT doesn't like the pain.

NPR's This American Life Explores The State Of Healthcare In American

It's findings are not what you might expect. I mean the NRO applauds the efforts. Can't wait to listen to the show for myself.

Greeting Cards Anxiety

I tend to dislike giving greeting cards. I want to write sincerely and having a cute little character, a silly joke, or overly-serious photo of a beautiful landscape just doesn't do it for me. I get anxious about how to really convey to the person that they mean a lot to me, that they are special, and I want them around for long time, hopefully while being 90% content & in good health.

So even though I don't like giving greeting cards, whenever I'm in a store I love looking at funny cards. In fact while waiting for my sister to give birth to my adorable niece, I spent some time looking over a bunch of funny cards. It also helps that my boyfriend is an awesome card maker/writer - the dude is funny and touching - it's all a girl can ask for - so when it comes to giving cards I go to him for help aka I make him write the darn thing. I also love someecards, when I need a quick laugh they are a good place to go for inspiration.

While on a recent window shopping adventure in Northampton (the land of Smith college and lots of lesbians, but I repeat myself) I found uncooked cards.
They were funny and sometimes a little too gross for my taste, but fun time wasters none the less. I might even buy a few and sign my name at the bottom and give it to my "loved" ones.

Good Question

Why is being overqualified a reason for turning someone down for a job?

911 Everywhere

So I might have mentioned before, not sure, but I see the number 911 everywhere. There's nothing deep about this, I just notice more than usual and at times it makes me sad.
However when I saw this post, it made smile.

From

Stuff My Girlfriend Says.com: I was running late for work. She told me it was eleven minutes after nine. : "Never forget or the terrorists win."

That's kind of how I feel when I see anything with 9/11.

Telephone Sheep

A friend of mine was traveling around Europe this summer and snapped the above photo the Museum für Kommunikation in Frankfurt. I'm not sure why I love these sheep so much. Might be my nostalgia for rotary phones, man I love those.

Update:
Found the following photo just after posting the above. It's funny because I used to hate cauliflower as a child and now it's fast becoming one of my favorite vegetables to eat. Salt, pepper, a hot oven and 30 minutes later you have a delicious snack/side dish. Yum.

Song of the Day

"Pale Blue Eyes" by The Velvet Underground. I actually adore the whole album and think listening to it as a whole, instead just one song at a time is far more complete experience.



I love Lou Reed's voice (for some reason I have a penchant for confusing him with Iggy Pop). Driving back to New York this past overcast Sunday, Peter put on "Perfect Day" and since then I've been wanting to hear Velvet Underground. I like listening to them when it's sunny out.

From The Middle

I have pondered this very question many times reading things like Salon or NYT, what makes them the keeper's of middle ground, what makes them decide they speak for all that is decent and good?

But according to what dispensation are entities like The New York Times and Media Matters, individuals like Burns and Krugman, endowed with that coveted imprimatur? Who says that they get to determine what is acceptable and unacceptable to polite company? That they get to stake out what counts as "the middle ground"? To decide what "elevates" and what is merely ideological pandering?

Roger Kimball explores these thoughts on a piece about the Lou Dobbs, a man didn't fall so easily into a left or right camp, but who some would demonize because he tended to see illegal immigration and overall immigration policy as a problem.

via Insty

By the way, I want to add that I'm really sick of people who proclaim to be bearers of middle ground, the moderates. As if caring about something or strongly believing in something makes you crazy. It's one thing to be an Independent because you don't like one party or another, but it's a whole other animal to condescend to anyone who holds an allegiance to an ideology or political party. You're not better than people who hold specific believes that can be easily identified as right or left, Republican or Democrat, the so called Independent who relishes in his/her role as the "sane" one is just as prejudiced as anyone else. They just like to tell themselves they are cooler, more levelheaded. Wow you like gay marriage and lower taxes - and you hate the Dems as much as you hate the Repub.? Guess what that's like most Americans!

Flavor Signature

"Every culture tends to combine a small number of flavoring ingredients so frequently and so consistently that they become definitive of that particular cuisine." - Ethnic Cuisine: the Flavor-Principle Cookbook by Elisabeth Rozin from an article about Moroccan flavors and how to use the principle in cooking Moroccan food.

Best Cover Of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face"

Christopher Walken does his interpretation of the famous hit.

This man can do no wrong. Love him.

More Than Political Correct Culture Problem

Daniel Henninger goes beyond criticizing the political correct culture that led to Hasan not being dishonorably discharged and thus preventing the terrorism he perpetrated. I don't think any of Henninger's suggestions will be enacted, which is annoying but not surprising.

Look Who's Back!

Caryn is back writing! I love the post about the magic of automatic daily rituals.

9:15 am. Steps from my front door, I push the button to call the elevator. I think to put on my sunglasses. I reach into my purse, and there they are.

Magic.

I don’t ever remember putting the sunglasses back into my bag. I obviously do it at some point, but I couldn’t tell you when. But every morning, I can count on the sunglasses being in my bag.

Political Correct Cultural

Ace's touches on the destructive policies that exist and perpetuated by our own government of being overly sensitive to certain groups. Writing about the Fort Hood atrocity and the investigation on why Hasan wasn't removed before he could commit the atrocity.

This investigation will go nowhere, because no one will ever admit they refrained from acting out of fear they would be punished and their careers terminated for doing so. In other words, the government has created a perfectly self-sustaining system of willful ignorance: They will cashier people who lodge complaints about people about to "Go Muslim," but, on the other hand, those people, having failed to take the necessary steps to protect human life, in order to protect their careers, will never have the guts to admit they did so, and will blame their inaction on other factors.

Which is just what the government wants: It wants these things swept under the carpet and deliberately overlooked, and it furthermore wants its very policy of sweeping these things under the carpet and deliberately overlooking them themselves to be swept under the carpet and deliberately overlooked.

That's the way it perpetuates this scandalous indifference to security and human life: It has created such a perverse system of rewards and penalties that no one can publicly admit to being so monstrous and callous as to act according to that system of rewards and penalties.

The system will remain in place, because no one dares admit the very existence of The System at all. The System requires denial of The System. In fact, that's rule one of The System.

And so we see here, everyone who could have acted to stop Hasan's murderous rampage quickly ascribes their behavior to any other motive -- well, we just need mental health professionals in the Army; even -- dare I say especially? -- mental health professionals who are themselves floridly schizophrenic lunatics, because hey, personal experience and all -- rather than admitting to following the covert, cowardly policy the government actually favors and enforces. Secretly.

Read the whole thing as they say.

Autumn

Autumn, originally uploaded by approachingchaos.

This photo was taken back in September. Back when birds just started migrating South. The gym I went to is right next to a beautiful old cemetery (in fact most of the Kennedy clan is buried there). Light was magnificent, dark and moody, mixed with light from the setting sun. And then there were the birds, chirping and swooping all around. So full of life. It was incredible. I'm glad I got to document a tiny fraction of that magic. Favorite shot of the whole day.

P.S. Damn I wish I had a fancy camera. This photo would be bijillion times better.

A Good Thing To Remember

Jerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! … I’m a man.
Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.

This is one of my favorite lines/scenes of all times. I remember watching this movie with my parents and the big reaction that line got. Russians are big on taking quotes from movies, books, songs, even poetry, and using it in daily conversations. The sayings can come from anywhere - my parents loved to tell me about where this or that expression comes from. I'm horrible at this, if you ever heard me quote ANYTHING, you know how bad I am at it. And even though I studied film, I'm terrible at the movie quote game. Horrible. So I love this quote because a) I can quote it (correctly) b)my parents used to quote it c) it's so universal, true, and hilarious

Gayest. Photo. Ever.

I say that lovingly, the YMCA Hollywood shirt and the cut off jeans just scream it. On another note I realized that in a certain light Leonard Cohen tends to resemble Bob Dylan and Serge Gainsbourg. #Jewy

Your Daily Moment of WTF

glumbert - Hold your feet! Korean baseball gets strange

Via Allah's twitter

Update:

This is not a real professional baseball game.

There is a fund-raising baseball game organized by actors, musicians, television stars and other public figures annually and they were trying to entertain the crowd.

The game they are playing can be roughly translated into "chicken fight" which is a traditional Korean game where the players hold one of their leg up in the air and try to knock each other out.

I hope that cleared some confusions around here. By the way, baseball in South Korea is extremely popular. Aside from US and Japan, I am pretty sure South Korea has one of the largest baseball fan base in the world.

Individual Vs. The State

I recently re-watched one of my favorite films, Blue by Krystof Kieslowski. The film focuses on the concept of liberty (it's part of a trilogy (Blue, White, and Red - colors of the French flag and each film correspondents thematically with the three values represented by the colors - liberty, equality, and fraternity) however, like all Kieslowski's (later) films, it's not the political that Kieslowski focused on but the personal.

The film follows Julie and questions if a person can be truly free of everyone and everything? At the start of the film, Julie loses her only daughter and her composer husband. She decides to completely cut her self off from her old world and all people, can she live a life of complete isolation? Her liberty from people is what the film tries to explore and does so beautifully.

When I was watching the commentary by Anne Insdorf, a colleague and scholar of Kieslowski's, she noted how keenly aware he was of the political situation (in fact the movie itself can serve as a metaphor for the Europeans unification efforts), since in his early career he produced documentaries in Communist Poland, but that after the fall of Communism he chose to make movies about the individual, staying away from overt political messages. This seemed to slightly surprise Insdorf, why would someone who was interested and invested in the politics choose to explore the individual over and over again, but it made perfect sense to me.

When the political intrudes on every part of your life like the Communist regime Kieslowski lived under, the last thing you want to show, over and over again, is the political generalities. Kieslowski knew the personal was much more richer way to connect to people and explore what was really important over the political dogmatism that some people think is the way to reveal the truth. The individual will always be more compelling and more truer than the State.

The Way My Boss Sees Himself

[Overhearing a conference call.]

My co-worker: Do you think he (our boss) gets tired of saying the same thing over and over again?

Me: No, he sees himself as bringing the truth to the masses.

My co-worker: Kind of like Jesus? Spreading the gospel?

Me: Something like that.

Oh the heft....

I don't know this poem by heart, but some days parts of the poem pop into my head because they are so dead on. Emily Dickinson was good at what she did. I've been in a bit of a melodramatic mood lately or maybe all my life. Hard to tell.

Sometimes I think I like being depressed, there is a certain comfort and familiarity to the feeling. Sometimes I think I should give myself a big kick in the rear for even indulging it. Life has a tendency to feel oppressive, it's beautiful yet heavy at the same time.


There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons—
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes—

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us—
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are—

None may teach it—Any—
'Tis the Seal Despair—
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air—

When it comes, the Landscape listens—
Shadows—hold their breath—
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death—

Song of the Day

The Kills were at Coachella this spring, but we didn't get to see them because I think they were on at the same time as The Cure, which was one of our "must see bands." I've been curious about them for a while. Besides constantly confusing their name with The Killersthe only thing I knew about them is that one of the members dates Kate Moss and the other (a woman) covers her face when she plays shows.

I found this song, "Black Balloon," randomly on tumblr and loved it. It has that spacey, out of this world feel to it. I didnt' actually watch the whole video, but the bits I saw seem kind of bloody. So um, enjoy the song, I can't vouch for the video part though.

Don't Call It A Religion

Except you're dog will die and you should feel guilty for using a car and living in your warm house.

IF you don't reduce your carbon footprint, then puppies will drown and bunny rabbits will die. And a terrifying, jagged-toothed monster with crazy hooked hands will descend from the clouds to eat you up.

Believe it or not, that is the message being delivered by the British government to children, in a L6 million ($10.7m) advertising campaign designed to scare the next generation witless about the alleged horrors of global warming.

Taking environmentalist propaganda to a new low, the TV ad shows a father reading a nightmarish bedtime story to his perturbed-looking young daughter.

He tells her of a land where the "weather is very, very strange". There are "awful heatwaves" and "terrible storms and floods". A cartoon bunny is shown crying as it starves on the dried, cracked earth, while elsewhere a puppy drowns in floodwaters.

Above it all, a sooty, blackened monster - CO2 made hideous flesh - surveys the horrors with a grotesque grin on its face.

And just in case the little girl, and the millions of children that the TV ad is aimed at, thinks this is merely a twisted fairytale, her father makes clear that it is reality.

It is the "horrible consequence", he says, of human beings using too much CO2, much of which comes from "everyday things like keeping houses warm and driving cars".

In short? Children who live in warm houses and who get lifts to school or football practice should feel guilty, because their evil antics are causing dogs to die and cute rabbits to go hungry.

Not surprisingly, the ad has caused a storm. Nearly 400 people have complained to Britain's Advertising Standards Authority. Some are disturbed by the ad's scientific illiteracy (how one gets from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's relatively sober reports about changing weather patterns to a cartoon dog drowning in a flooded city is anybody's guess). Others have slammed the government for knowingly and deliberately - and with taxypayers' money - scaring kids.

Total rational and scientific response to the situation. But it's evil religion like Christianity and Judaism that is hateful and fear inspiring. Good grief.