So there's this underground DJ practice called "Mashups" wherein you take two songs -- or three or four or six -- and smash them all together to make a new song. Not only does it work, it often works so well that you go "Holy crap! Why haven't those songs always been fused together?"
Here are some of my favorite Mashup links:
DJ Earworm (click through all the Mashup links for some real treats)
CCC's Mashups Galore -- listen to the Radio CCC -- it's a 40-minute masterpiece and a wonder to behold. The "Isn't She Lovely" vs "The Way You Make Me Feel" bit is particularly inspired.
Owner of a Lovely Butt - Yes meets Sir Mix A Lot
I have to say that "Let Jolene Enjoy the Music in Silence" is my favorite, but "Owner of a Lovely Butt" is completely inspired.
Know of any other good mashups? Post 'em here. I'm looking for esoteric, not modern -- the weirder the better, provided it works -- like Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner smashed with Dire Straits' "Private Investigations", or Ben E King's "Stand by me" fused with the Police's "Every Breath You Take".
Paul announced to me last night that we're debt free.
Woo Hoo!
Well, except for the mortgage. But, well, you know. We only have one mortgage, and it's small. And we're on the 13-month plan, and we tuck a little extra in each check. So we'll probably finish way early anyways.
And not to be one to rest on my laurels, I just went out today to look for a new-to-me car. I found one that's an amazing deal, just plain amazing. I've already got a buyer lined up for my car, which means the transaction itself should be pretty small.
The car's in that zone where everything is working really well, but the car is 14 years old. So -- sell it while everything still works and get a decent amount for it, or wait until the transmission konks out or the steering gives out or the head gasket fails and I get stuck with the choice of paying a couple thousand in repairs or starting over from scratch. It's a proactive move -- I hate spending money on cars, but this is forestalling disaster of sorts.
But, like I said. We're debt free. Wedding's paid off, no more credit cards, and for the moment, we both own our cars. Wa - diddly - hoo.
Happy new year to you all, and I hope that 2005 is better for all of y'all than this year's been.
Much love.
So, the Bush Administration's initial pledge to the Tsunami Relief fund was $15 million. After some arm-twisting and "public embarrassment" from the UN, the number was ratcheted up to a whopping $35 million, with promises that the figure marked "only the beginning" of US aid, though no firm amount was disclosed. Just to put this into perspective, we spend $35 million in a day or two over in Iraq, blowing up people. In reference to the amount, Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said, "We just spent it... We'll be talking to the (White House) budget office ... (about) what to do at this point.''
Also, we're about to head into an inauguration, the festivities for which are rumored to cost $40 million.
Let me rephrase all this for clarity's sake: The Bush Administration's idea of a pledge to aid a tragedy that left five million homeless and well over a hundred thousand dead is five million dollars less than what it's going to spend on a self-congratulatory party.
Think how much armor that $40 million could buy our troops. Think what else it could be spent on.
It should also be noted that Roosevelt, during WW2, took great pains to ensure that his inagurations should be understated affairs, because the country was at war, and the troops needed the money more than he needed a big party.
Oh, and for the first 96 hours after the tragedy, Bush himself made no public statement, and was reported to be "riding his bike and clearing brush" at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Priorities, indeed.
Okay, people. Holiday's over, reality's back, and boy is she pissed.
Here are some excellent places to donate some money to the three or four million people who just got the Christmas gift of homelessness and loss of livelihood and family members:
Red Cross, by way of Amazon.com
Doctors without Borders / Medicines sans Frontiers
World Health Organization (WHO)
Donate like you'd want others to give to you if your house burned down and took your family with it. There are eighty thousand dead, with the toll liable to rise. The worlds' nations probably won't be able to foot the bill for this, and private donations are going to need to make up the loss.
Please give.
Hey, everyone. Paul and I had a great series of Christmasses, and thoroughly enjoyed them all.
Saturday before Christmas was Bakin' with Virus. We made two loaves of bread, three dozen cookies and eight dozen pretzels. W00! We are bakin' fools.
Sunday before Christmas was a calm art-day, followed by Nog Night: Eggnog and fire with good friends Tom and Becky.
Christmas Eve was at Paul's family, which was pleasant and calm and a child's view of the day, because of the kids, ages four, seven and almost one. Stockings and Santa for people who believe in him most. Good fun, and a good reminder of why we do all this dorky stuff in the first place. I also got to bond with Paul's sisters over Alton Brown and cooking geekery.
Christmas Day was spent with my family and went off way better than expected; definitely one of our better, saner Christmasses -- historically speaking, anyway. Tom and Jim gifted us with a commercial-grade Kitchenaid mixer and I can't wait to put it through its paces. There was Trivial Pursuit and more cookies than we could hold.
The day after Christmas I finally got to go cross-country skiing, which I'd been lusting after for the three days the snow'd been on the ground.
And then?
Then the intestinal flu hand-delivered by Paul's nieces set in. The entire Sizer clan over the age of seven came down with it, and the girls had all had it the week before, so we know exactly who it came from. I'll spare you the gory details, but whatever your mind conjured up is probably about as bad as it got.
We're finally almost recovered, but pretty tired yet -- from both the holiday and the illness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/politics/22aid.html
In one of the first signs of the effects of the ever tightening federal budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched.
As a result, Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services and other charities have suspended or eliminated programs that were intended to help the poor feed themselves through improvements in farming, education and health.
More, much more, at the link. Millions of hungry people around the world, in places like Malawi and Tadjikistan, will be affected by this.
Merry Christmas, from the Bush Administration.
I'm trying to steer my life toward more organic foods, and to stop giving my money to big food conglomerates -- tobacco companies seem to own everything these days, from Grape-nuts to Jif peanut butter and Ritz crackers!
I've been doing some research, and by happy accident, came across King Arthur Flour, available in most grocery stores. The flour's wonderful (Did all of my Christmas baking with it and had great results), the company is employee-owned and operated, and here's a quote from the company regarding Genetically Modified Wheat:
November 2003 — “With the many unknown factors surrounding GMO wheat, including potential effect on the global food chain, financial impact on the United States farmers and consumers, impact on the global food chain, and other concerns; and based on input from our customers and employees, King Arthur flour does not support the introduction of GMO wheat, nor its use in King Arthur flours… Using GMO wheat as the basis for King Arthur Flours would run counter to our centuries-old commitment to natural quality, and thus we don't endorse that option.” — King Arthur Flour, company position statement.
EDIT: From K in CT:
Have you requested their catalogue yet? Lots of fun baking things
and recipes. They have some really good cookbooks too.
A word to the wise-their all purpose flour is a "harder" flour than
most. That is it has a higher protein and therefore gluten content,
so if you are making cakes or pastries, a cake flour is generally
better. We've used KA for years. If you need to do a lot of baking
at some point, it may be useful to know that Costco carries large
bags of KA all purpose.
At my dayjob, our previous CTO's server naming convention involved wine regions. Never minding that the majority of us can't tell the difference between a Cabernet and a Merlot, we have to slog through the spelling and remembering of names like "Pauillac", "Sauternes" and "Margaux".
Two new servers were brought on line this week. In a fit of brilliance, they were named "Arbormist" and "Boonesfarm". I am now publicly lobbying for the third machine in the cluster to be rechristened "Manischewitz".
I love my husband, so I paid a man to beat him up for two hours. Paul whimpered, in his own words, like a little girl, and came within a couple seconds of crying several times. The guy decided he hadn't had enough, and yelled at Paul so soundly that he went back three days later for another four hours of heavy-duty pounding.
And just to return the favor, Paul paid the man to beat me up for two hours. There will be tears, agony, and begging for mercy. And I'll get yelled at. "Honey, what the hell were you thinking?! Come see me before your back gets this bad again!"
We love our masseur. He's not one of those "feel good" masseurs.
He's one of those crunch pound smite twist kind of masseurs. You leave in agony, your muscles ringing with an overworked stretchy tinnitus. That evening and the following night, you have to drink a gallon of water -- I am not kidding -- to flush all the crap out of your system that he's managed to dislodge. Otherwise, you get symptoms similar to a headcold -- loagy, stuffy-nosed, headachy grumpiness.
You feel better in following days, but it takes a while. Unlike feel-good massages, though, which leave you blissed out but don't have any real lasting effects, you can feel what Sky does for weeks afterward. He really rearranges stuff inside you, in a good way. He knows all the tricks, from reiki to swedish massage to rolfing to shiatsu.
I so can't wait. Agony and bliss, all at once.
Until I can get round to revamping my self-publishers page, here's a link I don't want to lose:
John Scalzi's Utterly Useless Writing Advice
If you are thinking of doing any writing -- comic, freelance, journalistic or otherwise, please read this.
Curse you, Mythbusters. Now I have two reasons to watch teevee. Thank goodness Paul taught me how to program the vcr. Now I can see two hours a week of pleasantly concentrated, geek-infested insanity and not have to spin 'round the channels for twenty minutes just looking for something good enough to waste twenty minutes watching.
If only the blasted season one DVDs weren't the exhorbitant price of $99.
Some of you have no doubt seen this already, but I think it bears sending around nonetheless.
This is a Television commercial created by the United Church of Christ called "Still Speaking". Please take a moment to watch it, I find it rather good.
NOw, realize that you'll probably never see this ad on television. Know why? Because both CBS and NBC have refused to air this ad: "the networks deemed the UCC's all-inclusive message as "too controversial." Know why? Because -- gasp -- a woman *put her arm around another woman* at the end of the commercial.
Yes,the idea of lesbianism being accepted by a church -- though we have several television shows currently airing on both CBS and NBC with openly gay and lesbian characters -- is "too controversial".
The UCC is my home church, the church I was raised in, and I am phenomenally proud to see it fighting the good fight for civil rights.
I just made a big dang pan of Spanakopita. In thirty minutes.
Dang Fast Spanakopita
2 lbs frozen spinach, washed and squeezed free of water in a colander
three medium-sized leeks
1/2 c pine nuts
1c good feta
1 package phyllo dough
Misto fulla olive oil
square-sided lasagna pan
Set up your cutting board right next to the stove. Put the pine nuts into your biggest nonstick pan, set to medium heat and keep an eye on them while you dice the leeks. Dice 'em into the colander. Rinse 'em good, because honest, well-groomed leeks are full of dirt. Shake the pinenuts until they're toasty brown on one side and smell real good. Remove the pinenuts from the pan and toss in the leeks, adding a tablespoon of olive oil. Up the heat a little. Keep an eye on the leeks while you chop the pinenuts into a separate bowl. When the leeks are floppy, take great fistfuls of the soggy spinach and either snip them with kitchen shears or drag a knife through them on the cutting board until they're more or less diced. Toss in the 'diced' spinach gradually, adding oil as necessary. Turn off the heat and add the pinenuts.
Misto your pan (if all you have is that nasty Pam stuff, toss it aside and use a pastry brush and olive oil or butter instead). Add a leaf of phyllo. Misto it. Repeat until you have seven layers of oily phyllo. Roughly strew half the spinach, leek and pinenut mixture on top of the phyllo dough. Salt and pepper lightly. Top with half the crumbled feta. Repeat. Cover with a lid of three or four layers of oiled phyllo.
Bake. Eat.
I dislike dill, ergo, there's no dill in the recipe. You can add some if you like. I just winged it. This recipe is so fast and easy that next time I'm gonna blow the doors off and make three pans at once so that we can eat one and freeze two.
woo!
Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit - And Power
What if there really was no need for much - or even most - of the Cold War? What if, in fact, the Cold War had been kept alive for two decades based on phony WMD threats?What if, similarly, the War On Terror was largely a scam, and the administration was hyping it to seem larger-than-life? What if our "enemy" represented a real but relatively small threat posed by rogue and criminal groups well outside the mainstream of Islam? What if that hype was done largely to enhance the power, electability, and stature of George W. Bush and Tony Blair?
And what if the world was to discover the most shocking dimensions of these twin deceits - that the same men promulgated them in the 1970s and today?
It happened.
The myth-shattering event took place in England the first three weeks of October, when the BBC aired a three-hour documentary written and produced by Adam Curtis, titled "The Power of Nightmares." If the emails and phone calls many of us in the US received from friends in the UK - and debate in the pages of publications like The Guardian are any indicator, this was a seismic event, one that may have even provoked a hasty meeting between Blair and Bush a few weeks later.
According to this carefully researched and well-vetted BBC documentary, Richard Nixon, following in the steps of his mentor and former boss Dwight D. Eisenhower, believed it was possible to end the Cold War and eliminate fear from the national psyche. The nation need no longer be afraid of communism or the Soviet Union. Nixon worked out a truce with the Soviets, meeting their demands for safety as well as the US needs for security, and then announced to Americans that they need no longer be afraid.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon returned from the Soviet Union with a treaty worked out by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the beginning of a process Kissinger called "détente." On June 1, 1972, Nixon gave a speech in which he said, "Last Friday, in Moscow, we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945. With this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear—for our two peoples, and for all peoples in the world."
But Nixon left amid scandal and Ford came in, and Ford's Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) and Chief of Staff (Dick Cheney) believed it was intolerable that Americans might no longer be bound by fear. Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated?
Rumsfeld and Cheney began a concerted effort - first secretly and then openly - to undermine Nixon's treaty for peace and to rebuild the state of fear and, thus, reinstate the Cold War.
And these two men - 1974 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ford Chief of Staff Dick Cheney - did this by claiming that the Soviets had secret weapons of mass destruction that the president didn't know about, that the CIA didn't know about, that nobody but them knew about. And, they said, because of those weapons, the US must redirect billions of dollars away from domestic programs and instead give the money to defense contractors for whom these two men would one day work.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/4038375.stm
Jacklyn Hoerger's job was to treat children with HIV at a New York children's home.
But nobody had told her that the drugs she was administering were experimental and highly toxic.
"We were told that if they were vomiting, if they lost their ability to walk, if they were having diarrhoea, if they were dying, then all of this was because of their HIV infection."
In fact it was the drugs that were making the children ill and the children had been enrolled on the secret trials without their relatives' or guardians' knowledge.
...
Spokesperson Vera Sherav said: "They tested these highly experimental drugs. Why didn't they provide the children with the current best treatment? That's the question we have.
"Why did they expose them to risk and pain, when they were helpless?
"Would they have done those experiments with their own children? I doubt it."
...
Again, it takes the BBC to bring us the worst stories of our own country.
EDIT: FAUX News is also carrying the story: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140829,00.html
After the scandal at Abu Ghraib, we sure learned our lesson. We stopped torturing prisoners in Iraq. We cleaned up our act. And anyone who doesn't think so is clearly delusional.
(From Salon, requres a commercial to see it. Watch it anyways.)
The chimney sweep just pronounced our fireplace open for business. Woo!
Next stop... fireplace insert.
Highschoolers in one of the most conservative parts of the country fight back against stupid homophobes.
Elsewhere, Neil Gaiman talks about homophobia in Alabama:
I was astoundingly unimpressed to find that in Alabama a lawmaker is proposing to prevent libraries from having books on their shelves -- books that contain gay characters. (This reminded me of a comics story I wrote in 1987 called FROM HOMOGENOUS TO HONEY, for Alan Moore's AARGH, which Bryan Talbot drew, about removing homosexuality from culture and history.)
If the bill became law, public school textbooks could not present homosexuality as a genetic trait and public libraries couldn't offer books with gay or bisexual characters.
When asked about Tennessee Williams' southern classic "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," Allen said the play probably couldn't be performed by university theater groups.
Allen said no state funds should be used to pay for materials that foster homosexuality. He said that would include nonfiction books that suggest homosexuality is acceptable and fiction novels with gay characters. While that would ban books like "Heather has Two Mommies," it could also include classic and popular novels with gay characters such as "The Color Purple," "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Brideshead Revisted."
The bill also would ban materials that recognize or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama. Allen said that meant books with heterosexual couples committing those acts likely would be banned, too.
The Sexual Misconduct laws of Alabama, by the way, apparently defines sexual misconduct as "a misdemeanor banning acts of oral or anal sex between adults not married to each other". So you know.
(I wonder, in a multi-series book, would a librarian have to yank early books in which you didn't know a character who later turned out to be gay appeared without any reference to his or her sexuality.)
The home inspector just came through, and declared my kitchen-turned-studio to be a Den, since it's not a bedroom, and has a sink in it. "You could turn that into a bar or something," he said.
So now it's official. I have my own Den of Iniquity.
I am now officially an Alton Brown addict.
He appeals to every side of me.
He's like having Bill Nye the Science Guy in the kitchen.
He makes a perfect ten-pound roast using a teracotta planter he stole off his neighbor's porch.
Good Eats is actually good enough to make me want to watch television, and that's saying something. Previously, only Jon Stewart was good enough for that.
I got to see two eps of GE last night while I laid out the costumes for five new walk-on characters in the next Vogelein book: A mother, a daughter, and three brigands. Historical accuracy's a bitch. Thanks, Vermeer, you rock.