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Barack Obama’s Big Mistake

Finally, something to bring down Obama. Oliver Willis has it all figured out. Scandalous. (Via Balloon Juice)

2008 05 09 ac Politics Comments (0)

Now They’re Sending CARTOONS about Bacon

xkcd says it all about a lot of things, now it’s saying it all about bacon.

2008 05 08 ac Comments (0)

75 Things Men Should Be Able to Do

This list of 75 things every guy, well, really everyone, needs to know is interesting mostly because I think there’s an entire genre of books of lists like these fleshed out. In any case, my favorites?

52. Step into a job no one wants to do. When I was 13, my dad called me into his office at the large urban mall he ran. He was on the phone. What followed was a fairly banal 15-minute conversation, which involved the collection of rent from a store. On and on, droning about store hours and lighting problems. I kept raising my eyebrows, pretending to stand up, and my dad kept waving me down. I could hear only his end, garrulous and unrelenting. He rolled his eyes as the excuses kept coming. His assertions were simple and to the point, like a drumbeat. He wanted the rent. He wanted the store to stay open when the mall was open. Then suddenly, having given the job the time it deserved, he put it to an end. “So if I see your gate down next Sunday afternoon, I’m going to get a drill and stick a goddamn bolt in it and lock you down for the next week, right?” When he hung up, rent collected, he took a deep breath. “I’ve been dreading that call,” he said. “Once a week you gotta try something you never would do if you had the choice. Otherwise, why are you here?” So he gave me that. And this…

53. Sometimes, kick some ass.

2008 05 07 ac Comments (1)

Gas Tax?

I’m too angry to write anything sensible about Clinton’s and McCain’s unbelievably stupid “gas tax holiday,” so read Robert Reich instead.

So, so stupid.

2008 05 05 matt Politics Comments (0)

Andrea Coller

I’m privileged to be part of a group of writers that meet up, a few times a year, for weekend retreats at the home of our fearless leader in Northampton. It’s that rare group where the friendly and sincere compliments that we give each other on our work aren’t, for the most part, just being polite. We like each other, and we like each other’s writing, and that’s a recipe for a good time, and for good friends: the kind of friends with whom you can spend a few weekends a year and feel like it’s been forever. In a good way.

A few retreats ago I met Andrea Coller, a writer, singer, songwriter, and all around swell person. She’s one of those artists, if I may throw the term around, who’s good enough to almost piss you off. You wonder, how did she get so good? Does she know how good she is? She can’t possibly, or she’d be much less pleasant to be around.

Several months ago, Andrea read us a short memoir piece that blew me away, and I wasn’t particularly surprised to learn that a longer version of it won Glamour Magazine’s non-fiction writing contest. Read it for yourself, and trust me when I tell you that everything I’ve ever heard that she’s written was this good.

No, go on. Read it.

It’s pretty nearly unutterably sad that Andrea died yesterday, at age 29. I was honored to have been able to partake of her talent and to claim her as a friend.

Update: Jennifer Weiner, one of the judges of the Glamour contest, blogs briefly about Andrea.

2008 05 01 matt Comments (5)

Biggest Little

I didn’t have an accurate perception of how Rhode Island stacks up against other states, and this report is really interesting. We have relatively high unemployment, but relatively low uninsurance. I imagine our high ranking on NCLB standards could be used to justify our relatively high per-student spending. And our little state is fairly green, ranking very near the bottom in CO2 emissions (in absolute and per capita terms).

Thanks to Dan for the link!

2008 04 29 matt Comments (1)

A Black Name

Racism is alive and well! Daisy’s post on being a white woman with a “black-sounding” first name is a good read.

2008 04 28 matt Comments (0)

Duh

Apo asks and answers the right question: why would Republicans try to kill a bill allowing hand recounts and paper trails for electronic voting machines? Because they plan to cheat.

2008 04 25 matt Politics Comments (0)

So…?

This seems like a pretty cut and dry case of an industry group promoting their economic interest over public safely in a laughably obvious way, right?

[Rhode Island] has proposed banning vehicles with more than two axles from two key bridges that are weakened by deterioration, the Route 24 bridge over the Sakonnet River and the Route 95 bridge over the Pawtucket River.

The state says that the weight limits it has imposed on both bridges aren’t working well enough, while the trucking industry says that the state’s plan would fall most heavily on local businesses and force thousands of trucks that aren’t heavily loaded to take detours.

The clash of interests the plan raises — the cost and inconvenience of detours versus the need to protect two major bridges that are failing — points to the difficulty the state is having maintaining its transportation system.

Just to recap, the clash of interests are:

  1. Cost and inconvenience of detours
  2. Failing bridges

Seems like an easy choice to me.

2008 04 25 matt Politics Comments (0)

Our Media

Kotsko’s point about what’s wrong with the media is astute. Here, too, the filthy hippie.

2008 04 23 matt Politics Comments (0)

Something Other than Love in an Elevator

This video of a man’s 41 hour ordeal in a New York elevator is chilling. I am chilled.

2008 04 15 ac Internet Frippery Comments (0)

In Which We Take A Brief Tour of Crazytown

Via the Poor Man, I truly hope that this comment is serious, and not a parody:

The claim that the melting of the ice caps will cause sea levels to rise which intern will flood large parts of the land mass; if this were true, then that would mean man has more power than God because God said he’d never flood the earth again.

I don’t know about you but I’m more apt to believe scripture than I am these socialist wacko’s who are trying to scare us in to submission.

Right? That’s gooooood crazy.

2008 04 09 matt Comments (1)

Fuck John McCain Part 2

You have to think that at some point the media will start calling John McCain on shit like this. Just because a politician grills for them doesn’t make him a good guy and I just wish they’d see it.

2008 04 06 ac Politics Comments (0)

Double Gin-ger

I originally posted this as a comment over at Unfogged, but I think it’s worth reposting here. I have to share with you the most delicious of beverages, which I have just concocted from a recipe of my own design.

First! Boil 2 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan for 4-5 minutes, and then add approximately 6 inches of peeled fresh ginger, sliced. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, strain out the ginger, and reduce the remaining liquid to an oozy syrup. Put the ginger in a Mason jar, pour over the syrup, cool to room temperature, and store in your refrigerator.

Later that same day! Pour an appropriate amount of cold gin into the glass of your choosing. Stir in two good teaspoons of the ginger syrup. Do you wish to add a piece of the candied ginger as well? By all means!

Stir vigorously! Top with a splash of soda water! Enjoy what I have decided to call the “Double Gin-ger.”

Drink one, and then post about it to your blog. Huzzah!

2008 04 05 matt Food Comments (1)

Hawk attack at Fenway Park

In light of a recent hawk attack at Fenway Park and prior experiences, I’d definitely say Boston has a problem. How long will we allow ourselves to be terrorized by these assassins of the sky? It has been long enough and I will not take it anymore.

But really, how cool, right?

2008 04 04 ac Comments (0)

Bacon Bra

Seriously folks, even if I wanted to stop posting bacon related links, people would keep sending them to me. Here’s a bacon bra sent over by Karmen. I can’t think of many things grosser than uncooked bacon, though a bra made out of cooked bacon would be a lot less comfortable (I’m just guessing).

(Via Jezebel via World of Wonder via Found Shit)

2008 04 04 ac Food Comments (2)

Candied Kumquats

Hmm. “Candied kumquats” sounds vaguely inappropriate.

Well, it’s not! I was in a bizarrely citrus-y mood at Whole Foods yesterday; perhaps I have a vitamin C deficiency I don’t know about? Whatever the reason, my shopping basket ended up looking like Carmen Miranda took a header into it. (Are Carmen Miranda fruit jokes deprecated yet?) I bought blood oranges, some kind of pink-fleshed orange called Caro Caro, Meyer lemons, and a pint of kumquats.

Elise from Simply Recipes posted a recipe for candied kumquats which turns out to be almost too easy: make a sugar syrup and cook some kumquats in it. The result? A Mason jar full of shiny, gooey, orange love. The kumquats taste like the best marmalade you ever had, and the syrup ain’t too shabby in a cup of tea.

Candied Kumquats Candied Kumquats

2008 04 04 matt Food Comments (0)

Exceeds Expectations

Every time I think we’ve discovered the most bald-faced anti-democratic lunacy this administration can come up with, they top themselves.

For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn’t apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism.

That’s right: Fourth Amendment? Not in the TERROR ZONE!

2008 04 03 matt Politics Comments (0)

Bacon Scarf

Chapter X in the saga of friends sending me bacon related nonsense, a Felted Bacon Scarf on Etsy sent to me by Lillian. It really is remarkable how lifelike the bacon scarf is.

2008 04 01 ac Food Comments (1)

Dodgers touch Colon for run in fourth

An unfortunate and eminently avoidable headline makes me giggle. I’m such a child. And you are too.

2008 03 30 ac Sports Comments (0)