Things have been crazy-busy, so I haven't had much time to update recently. There was a visit from [Bad username: errant_variable"] last Monday. I've been going through quite a few books, but something which isn't anthropology needs to arrive in the mail. If I read one more chapter of anthropology without a break, my head may go 'splodey. I've been on a kick of making Halloween candy out of what's essentially just sugar, flavoring, and binding. It occurs to me that I could be cutting caffeine powder into this. I must start doing this.
There were things that I planned to do with last weekend- you know, those three days off a week that I get. None of them happened. I came home Friday night, crashed, and slept most of the weekend. On the upside, my stomach now no longer hurts when I eat food. Yes, it took that long for the last remnants of that flu to get over with.
Sven brought the evil death flu home a few days ago. I seem to have it now. Called in sick. Sven stayed up with me for hours last night, and made chicken soup, which I was unable to actually eat.
Today I bummed around the kitchen and used up things which have been on the shelf forever, or otherwise need to be used. This, of course, being my kitchen, the results are quite positive. Autumn should be coming over in a bit to help with the eating. Thus far, dinner looks to be couscous with peas and lime, a Greek salad, chicken in a lemon sauce, and chicken in a Greek rather than Italian style tomato basil sauce. There'll be deviled eggs with capers for while we're waiting, and baklava for dessert. And someone really should have told me how easy baklava is to make. I've a feeling that my D&D group is going to start getting subjected to weekly or bi-weekly baklava with their tea. Why yes, tanwyn, mentioning all of this delicious food is yet another ploy to get you within feeding range.
I know I've not posted in a while. My father and brother returned from the mining claims. They almost got stuck there a few extra days when fog rolled in, and there was only thirty foot visibility. Nope- there was a pilot visiting the neighboring company who came out to get them in those conditions. He found the ground, and then followed it up the ridge, inching his way along, until he found the two guys stuck at the top of the ridge.
I've had little going on in my life as of late. I've been reading quite a bit, of course, most recently a textbook on criminal profiling, and Scheherezade Goes West.
Raptor Chickens! The lovely azurelunatic found me a link to something which references the U of Montana raptor chickens raptor chickens Sadly, I can't seem to find the original article put out by the U of Montana, which is where I first heard of the University making chickens with raptor teeth and tails. Yes, the U of Montana did this- and it's freakin' awesome.
I want to see a restaurant that serves things like "tail of raptor chicken". It totally needs a big tank in place of the standard restaurant aquariums, in which some of the food is vat grown. Personally, I think there'd probably be a pretty respectable consumer market for raptor chicken tail meat. Mind you, I'm not sure what else you'd put on the menu at that restaurant, but this thing needs to be.
I agree with zombiechocolate that it's sad this is the best Americans Against Food Taxes could do. The proposed taxes are minimal- three cents on a 24 ounce soda- and would generate an estimated 24 billion over four years. High fructose corn syrup is bad for you. Soda is a luxury. If it were a nutritious food item or a staple food, I could see being upset. I can't think of a single person I know who would be really adversely affected by such a tax.
So, there's a family in Arabia suing a djinn for harassment.
And it would appear that in lieu of Bible camp, you can now send your child to atheist summer camp. Instead of Jesus lessons, your child will be given lessons in evolutionary biology, astronomy, and logic. Of course, the usual summer camp activities, such as archery and canoeing, are also included. The winner of one of the camp's challenges will win a ten pound note autographed by Richard Dawkins. This sounds so much cooler than some of the camps I got stuck at as a child.
Tomorrow morning's round of estate sales look promising. Some of the better estate sale companies' employees seem to have started recognizing Dawna and myself. We tend to favor the sales done by certain companies, who have fair prices and don't try to misrepresent what they're offering. One of them has started pointing us at books of interest when we walk through the door, since she remembers me as the person who'll actually buy vintage gynecology books. (Yes, there is actually a market for those, if the contents is interesting enough.) That particular company seems to focus on the homes of people who were well-traveled. Houses they work on do not often have typical tourist souvenirs, but may have perfectly authentic not-made-for-tourists African or Middle-Eastern art. The house I saw them at last belonged to a couple from Norway who'd had a respectable vintage weapons collection. The aforementioned couple also apparently imported a good deal of their food. I picked up a few bottles of pure, undiluted, brownie points with Sven from the kitchen. I really wish I had a few hundred dollars more every time I go to sales by that company. I'd love to pick up some of the art they have, and I'm quite sure the Russian art they had a few weeks ago was worth far more than they were selling it for. Three weekends ago, we went to a sale by a different company, in a gorgeous Irvington home. The first thing which became apparent was that it was the home of an elderly male attorney. From the looks of it, he'd also lived alone. The man had more designer suits than I could count, and the advertisement by the estate sale company had mentioned that there were upwards of 200 silk ties. His library had a fairly extensive section of queer interest books. They were not the sort you purchase after your son comes out of the closet, but the sort people buy for themselves. The last room of the house contained several racks of dresses, the sort which only a drag queen could wear. They were for someone the same size as our suit wearing attorney. Rest well, whoever you were. Some houses are like that. You'll walk in the front door, and get a basic feel for the person. ("This person was a doctor", or "This person lived for years in Algeria.") Each room ads some poignant detail, changing and adding to the story, as you go through the house. I've yet to notice any kind of a haunting in the houses I've been in, which has come as a surprise in some places. The owners of such elaborate libraries certainly would have been attached to them, and they're not long gone. I've found myself mentally promising to take good care of some things as I've picked them up, well aware that the late professor had probably taken years, and gone to great pains to find that volume, or that the wear on the book is probably from the German woman who owned it re-reading it over and over for comfort while the war raged around her.
I normally don't watch fiction, any more than I normally read it. My typical fare is documentaries. Lately I've been on a foreign film kick, and primarily dramas. What should I watch? I need more recommendations. I'm also having trouble finding good classic movies, if people could recommend those. Many of the highly rated ones have horrible acting and worse script writing, but a lot of sentimental old people willing to give them lots of stars. I've been reading Nightwork by Anne Allison, an anthropologist's account of working in a Tokyo hostess club. For my light reading, I'm finally wrapping up Daywatch.
So, I've never watched an Indian film before today, nor has Jessi. We both noticed that the actors and actresses seem remarkably fair skinned for being Indian. Is it normal for Indian films to use white face to make the actors look fairer-skinned?
Last Sunday, my camera phone sadly failed to save a picture. There was something so hideous that I had to share it with you all- a faded pastel clown doll made from a bowling pin. The people holding the yard sale wanted $40 for it as a collectible. It's not collectible. I checked.
My current reading is an account of being raised in a harem by a feminist women's studies professor. I picked up her work originally because I read an introduction to one of her other books, and found the perspective very interesting. She lives in Europe these days, but has quite a bit to say about the treatment of women in Islamic countries- and it's not all raging and angry. I'd been reading a bit of other middle eastern history and related books lately, and am beginning to notice how badly misrepresented the middle east was in all of my text books growing up.
I've been watching a fair deal of Netflix documentaries lately- among others, one on the history of pornography in in the US, and a documentary on the second strip club in the US to unionize. Of course, Netflix recommends other things based on what you've already watched. When it recommended the instructional video on kama sutra positions, I had to see if it was really as bad as it looked. I'm normally okay with jazz, but they somehow came up with a soft jazz sound track which makes some of the worst porn soundtracks I've heard sound like a night at the symphony. If you're going to play the same three songs on repeat, at least choose ones with no lyrics. I'm fifteen minutes in, and I can already sing along. The narrator is attempting to use a sultry, phone-sex voice to describe things in medical terminology. The narrator does drop into a monotone from time to time- typically, when describing something as "a particularly exciting position". I'd say that I didn't know why anyone needed instructions for the missionary position, but then again, I do tech support- I get calls from people who literally don't know how to plug a power cord into a wall, and do have children. Now I know how they figured out this insert tab A into slot B business long enough to procreate. Two positions in a row have been given the exact same description- an excellent position for the woman to fantasize about other men in. Honey, if he takes this video seriously, it might be time to do more than think about other men. At least one of the couples is really not into it. It's not that they look unenthusiastic- it's the degree to which they've overdoing things.
So, I have a strange request for locals on my friends list. Do any of you have bad romance novels I can have? They must be lower-grade than the usual bodice ripper, and an actual published one. (In other words, that manuscript your aunt Mandy has been working on for the past two years doesn't count.)
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