tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57338951940857282192024-03-21T13:38:12.540-07:00Blogging for danielsBlogging all about me. Yes, it even sounds dull to me.Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.comBlogger177125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-90051143757962620362018-09-15T18:31:00.000-07:002018-09-15T18:31:04.578-07:00It's been a whole other while since the last post was relevantSo Alphonse and Bob and I moved back to the Big Apple (NYC for those not familiar with city/fruit nomenclature).<br />
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Alphonse and I have been living our exciting parenting lifestyles trying to make Bob into a successful human. What I've deduced is that there's not a great deal you actually have any real impact on as a parent, but you still feel awful if you don't do all the right things ninety-plus percent of the time.<br />
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Right now the "right thing" for our 3 yr old, is potty training, and I should apologize, because from here on out it seems as if this may become a daddy blog.<br />
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Ugh.<br />
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Anyway, potty training makes me think we're focusing on the wrong problem, and that really we should be inventing high-tech diapers we can wear into our adult years. What's so fantastic about needing to find a bathroom all the time, anyway? I had a tense argument the other day with Bob about whether she was going to crap in the toilet or the potty. She won, because they're her bowels, and I ended up writing this text to my wife:<br />
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"Bob pooped. But she flatly refused to do so in the toilet, so when you get home and are trying to decipher my inscrutable expression, it's the face of a man who has to give his daughter a prize for making him scrub shit out of a plastic tub."<br />
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#kidsaredelightfulDaniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-56203023674211256462018-09-15T18:21:00.001-07:002018-09-15T18:21:28.112-07:00What the what?!? Is this thing on again?I've decided that I need an outlet for talking about life and junk again, so here it is. Apologies in advance as I work out my voice again. <br />
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Since the last post a lot has happened. I got married to the delightful <a href="http://bloggingfordaniels.blogspot.com/2010/01/beginning-of-year.html">Alphonse</a>, finished up an MBA, and with a majority of help from my good lady wife, participated in the creation of a tiny baby daughter. In the spirit of the blog thus far, my wee daughter will be provided an alias.<br />
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We will call her Bob, because it's easy to remember and is the name I told her has been adopted by all the world's sparrows, even the females because sparrows are invariably cool and consequently the women, who are actually named Roberta, all go by either Bobbie or Bob. Fatherhood, which in the early days involves killing a lot of time, generates bunches of weird conversations/monologues; And kids are fantastic because they believe most of what you tell them.<br />
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<br />Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-26343317813150803722013-05-01T19:18:00.001-07:002013-07-30T08:55:48.791-07:00Crappy crappy restaurant reviewsSomething I give almost no thought to in daily life is the presence or quality of local restaurant reviews. I think of them sort of like tap water: When I need them, I expect them to be there and I expect them to be adequate. They certainly don't have to be great, primarily because I honestly don't know what a great restaurant review might look like. Would they inform my understanding of the human condition? Would they illuminate man's casual inhumanity to man? They might, but really I just want them to tell me if I should eat here or go down the street. <br />
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I was reading the Washington Post's restaurant reviews recently before a night out at the theater and all I wanted to know was where to eat in the most restaurant-dense portion of DC. Unfortunately, Tom <span class="st">Sietsema's reviews let me down thoroughly. The one I read was about <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/restaurants/cure-bar-and-bistro,800380.html">Cure</a>. He damns it with the faint praise by talking about its decor and the sense of deja vu he got from the charcuterie plate, or something. I also looked at the one for Azur, but he just yacks on about what's coming in that space.</span><br />
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<span class="st">If your review of a restaurant has nothing about the food, because it hasn't opened, or bangs on about the sofas, stop, take a deep breath, and hit delete until the tyranny of the blank page is back doing its job of discouraging your further composition. You suck. </span><br />
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<span class="st">Here's what I want: 1) Is the food good, 2) what's the vibe (loungy, greasy spoon, molecular gastronomy, weird), 3) would I be better served by eating elsewhere within the same a) tradition or b) area? </span><br />
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<span class="st">Here, for instance, are three better reviews for DC restaurants: </span><br />
<span class="st">- Rogue 24's three drinks and three snacks for $55 deal is great if you can swing that and are at least a little interested in goofy molecular cooking. The bartender, Brian or possibly Bryan, is a lovely Midwestern sort who clearly cares about his craft, and enjoys talking about it. If you're lucky the Chef will wander by and make you a weird thingamabob while you get positively blotto on the drinks. Like much high-end food these days, this experience will appeal most to people who are "foodies" and can treat the experience half like going for food and half like going to a museum of food and cooking. </span><br />
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<span class="st">Eat a half a loaf of bread beforehand because the snacks are minute and the drinks are weapons-grade.</span><br />
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<span class="st">- The Gin Bar at New Heights restaurant has a very enthusiastic bartender, but her drinks are a little sweet. There are tons of gins there, and she's enthusiastic about them, but I found her enthusiasm got in the way of me trying the gins without her odd tonic concoctions. You may get better results by asking her to go light on the ice. </span><br />
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<span class="st">- Loriel Plaza is great for middle-cost Latin food and margaritas. You go there because they have ample covered outdoor seating with heat lamps as well as high-quality crappy margaritas. They're frozen and yet you can drink as many or as few as needed. The food can be hit or miss, but their masitas de puerco are the best puerco you've ever had. Don't go on weekend nights because it's a goddamned zoo. Go instead to Casa Oaxaca up the street. </span><br />
<br />Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-37972710330220973512013-04-14T16:11:00.004-07:002013-04-14T17:30:53.990-07:00Aruba, not bad!It's a low sort of human that goes to Aruba and complains about it ... so I won't. I had a good time.<br />
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I went with my girlfriend, who is shy about being mentioned on the Interwhatsits and who shall therefore still be referred to as Alphonse Dubai.<br />
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Aruba, a tiny island outgrowth of the Netherlands is a lovely place if you can believe songs and tourist brochures, and also obviously if you like white sandy beaches and plenty of Americans. Seriously you can speak English and spend US dollars just everywhere there.<br />
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And everywhere in this case is about 13 miles long by five miles wide. It's like a squat Manhattan, but, I think, with more native born US citizens.<br />
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Through Alphonse's family we got much appreciated access to a time-share that was going unused, and not being ones to punch a gift horse right in the kisser, we found the cash for the plane and told work where to stick it for a week, before toddling off on our merry way.<br />
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Alphonse is a big fan of beach, because she likes sunshine and looks good in a bikini. I, being made almost entirely from English man-parts, am leery on both counts. However, we did find a way to combine our loves - hers of beach and ocean and mine of biology/zen sports - by going scuba diving quite a lot.<br />
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We got a 5 tank package and therefore dove 5 times. I think there's probably a certification you can pay for so you do multiple tank dives, but I don't have it and the dive shop didn't care to rig their systems up that way anyhow.<br />
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A short note about scuba: PADI, which certifies scuba instruction, is clearly a bit of a squirrely group. Scuba isn't actually all that hard to learn, and while there are all sorts of certifications you can get, and are no doubt supposed to have before you go diving in wrecks or diving too deeply, most dive shops don't really care as long as you remember to keep breathing (actually super important), breath in the correct hole, don't bob directly to the surface unexpectedly, and don't ruin dives for their other paying customers.<br />
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For instance, Alphonse and I are certified to 60 feet in open water and nothing more. We're not supposed to dive through enclosed spaces or, say, to 80 feet, both of which our dive shop were totally glad to chaperone us through because a) it seemed like fun and b) that's what they were doing. They were mildly troubled when we admitted after our first dive that we'd forgotten more about scuba than we currently knew, but we went home and watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to set up our equipment, so by the time we came back we'd pretty much completed the majority of what PADI actually charges you to learn anyhow.<br />
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We dove a couple of wrecks, one of the Antilla, a German merchant ship that scuttled itself in Aruba at the outbreak of WWII (I'm assuming because if you know you're likely to become POW's, why not Aruba?), and a couple of planes that were, get this, sunk because people might want to scuba through them. Fascinating history. We saw some cool wildlife including an eagle ray, a couple of moray eels, a lion fish, some spiny lobsters, and toward the end of one dive, a huge school of silvery 8-inch fish that I tried to float unobtrusively into the middle of. They knew.<br />
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Also, once they'd dashed off, I realized that what it seemed they'd been doing, was feeding on the distressingly large cloud of jellyfish I suddenly found myself unobtrusively infiltrating. It wouldn't have been quite so unobtrusive if you could scream underwater. You can, I learned, get stung. Also you can panic. Lucky for us, the boat came and picked us up right in the middle of this cloud of stingy little bastards. Sigh.<br />
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Anyway, a good time was, in balance, had by all, and I finally got to examine underwater life in a spot where you could see more than two feet in a row. Alphonse got to hang out on the beaches. The "lively" Aruba economy of money for slightly less alcoholic beverages than advertized, got money. I'm not sure I'd go back to Aruba, but I'd certainly consider it and I'd definitely try other Caribbean vacations. Not cruise ships. Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-21866488197290410812012-09-24T19:33:00.001-07:002012-09-24T19:34:13.055-07:00Istanbul ..... not Constantinople. I cannot resist.<br />
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Anyway, anyone have any suggestions about cool stuff to do in Istanbul (NC)? I plan to go there in a little while and I'd hate to miss your favorite place to eat or whatnot.<br />
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<small><a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=Istanbul,+Turkey&aq=0&oq=istanbul&sll=38.893596,-77.014576&sspn=0.285916,0.676346&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Istanbul,+Turkey&ll=41.00527,28.97696&spn=0.017327,0.042272&t=m&z=14" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">View Larger Map</a></small>Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-81143981487043655992012-09-12T17:56:00.005-07:002012-09-12T17:56:54.762-07:00Ahhhhh iPhone!!!Ugh, I just don't care. It's got what, like a new cpu and an extra row of icons or something? I thought for sure they'd do some near-field-communication on this one. It's true that the new Samsung Galaxy's NFC is only useful with other Galaxy's, if I'm understanding it right, but at least it's sort of new. You know what would be cool, an app that gives you an easy way to program the phone in an "internet of things" sort of way.<br />
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Like, "if (I'm near this address) { turn off my GPS because I'm pretty sure I know my own neighborhood};" And if you tell me about Tasker with its interface designed by 1983, I'll beat you to death with a Java compiler.<br />
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Honestly, I'd really like a phone from either camp that doesn't just poop its firmware at about two and a half years and send you back to the venal used-car dealership that all mobile phone stores have somehow become. Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-12044301054969501842012-09-05T16:56:00.001-07:002012-09-05T16:57:07.048-07:00Driving - Is it only for asses now?If you drive in DC, I probably hate you. Sorry. Quit turning without signaling.<br />
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Also, quit running blood-orange lights; where the hell do you have to go to so quickly?<br />
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Also, go some damn place when the light turns green. You probably shouldn't have gotten in the car if you didn't want to go somewhere, so unless you're contending with dementia, pay some damn attention.<br />
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If you're suffering from Alzheimer's I apologize for honking at you the other day. My guess is we can just forget all about it.<br />
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Seriously, DC drivers are among the worst in the known universe. I've thought long and hard about why this is. I've driven in New York, Boston, Chicago, L.A., and many many spots in between. The best drivers are in the Pacific Northwest. Out there, people will slow down to accommodate your lane change if you put your blinker on. I KNOW! It confused me at first too.<br />
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In Boston, you are going to get cut off. Some optimist is going to hang a Louie the immediate second the light turns green - possibly before. There may be shouting. It's all in good fun.<br />
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In the Big Apple, taxi drivers will move into your lane. They all suffer from selective visual line neglect. The lane lines are more suggestions than law. If a road has four lanes, you can get five cars abreast once you get over 20 miles an hour. Even one way street signs are a bit elastic. You cannot, however, park there, wherever there may be. Don't even try it. You'll get a ticket. <br />
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In most of the southern towns, people are driving as though there's a gas shortage on and they'd like to stop and smell the roses, besides. Apparently you only drive fast if your car is decorated like a pop-up window in the South. <br />
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But DC, which may or may not be a southern town, depending on who you ask, has the worst drivers, I assume, because people are here from everywhere. North, South, East, West, Ethiopia, the Middle East, the Balkans, Detroit (where, I neglected to mention, driving is divided into tooling around town kind of heedless of traffic signs and driving on the freeway as close to the speed of light as physics will allow). The consequence of this diversity is that you never know how the person ahead of you is about to screw up their driving. Are they from a part of the country that thinks it's okay to wrest your right-of-way off you if they can turn left before you hit the pedal? Are they from some portion of the universe that applies the 5 second rule to red lights? Maybe they're from Texas and just don't give a rats ass where they end up today. The joy is in the journey, so why worry about when we get there?<br />
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My wise stepfather lectured me about driving by saying you have to avoid being surprising. Broadcast what you're about to do in as many ways as possible. Don't cede your right of way except in extreme circumstances, because most people don't expect you to. Use your goddamn signal. Accelerate out of corners, because other people taking turns generally don't expect to find two tons of steel and asshole hanging out in an intersection.<br />
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That's the problem with DC. There's probably the same percentage of bad drivers here as anywhere. It's just that they're being bad in so many stupid ways. Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-87880435468909228862012-08-25T19:02:00.001-07:002013-07-30T09:01:15.476-07:00Voter IDIn my less optimistic moments I think that people shouldn't be allowed to vote unless they can find the US on a map, explain the difference between America and the US, and ideally explain in broad terms the major points of <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full">the tragedy of the commons</a>.<br />
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The last one I like to throw in because it might talk some libertarians out of being so cavalier with our democracy, but you know what, I know I'm wrong. It's not only on the tragedy of the commons count either, but on the whole shebang. It's not that it wouldn't be super-keen to have an informed and educated electorate, but rather that we can't possibly pretend to aspire to the American dream if we don't hold that all people are, in fact, created equal. That all their stupid ideas are, in fact, worth allowing onto the public stage, even if only in the form of thumbs up to the thinly veiled pandering of these actors we're now calling politicians.<br />
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The hope is that if you are really crazy stupid and think that the balancing of the government's budget is similar to balancing a small business budget, or worse, that of a household, then by all means, I hope you vote to counteract the crazy bastards who think every elderly person should get as many free, life-extending operations as our debtors see fit to pay for. Both positions are crazy, so if we inhibit one end of the spectrum from voting, then the other injurious rapscallions will start to rise in influence.<br />
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That, the math and the freedom of it, explain why the voter ID laws being enacted by Republicans in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania should dispirit you. By all means, all parties should try to win. A democracy relies on it. We should encourage the free and open discussion and even testing of ideas. It's possible that the Tea Party, as well as actual socialists (which, by the way our current president is not) have some great ideas that deserve to be tried. I doubt it on both counts, but while I'm very smart, I'm simply not smart enough to know the best way to run an incredibly complex system like our economy or our culture. Nor is anyone else alive. Paul Krugman seems to come close on the economy, I guess.<br />
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Here's what I hope. If you believe in conservative or liberal ideas, let's discuss them. Let's try them out even once a sufficient plurality of the public votes for the ideas or the smile of the pandering individual trying to sell them. However, if your party or the other tries to erode the very machinery of our democracy, tell them to go to hell. Ask them to stop, and if they don't, refuse to vote for them. We're actually and irrevocably in this together. There is no "taking back" the US from one or other party. Everyone invested in the taking of America lives here, and we were promised by our founding fathers that we would have a right to vote. It's one thing to disagree what colors to paint the walls of our fort. It's another to burn the place down so you can be in the position to decide once and for all. Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-59400851657827336862012-03-18T16:17:00.000-07:002012-03-18T16:17:57.834-07:00Chinese Art and Me (One of its Audience Members)<div style="float: right;">
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I went to see the second of this year's A.W. Mellon lectures today. This year's series is being given by art historian and all around erudite Scotsman, Craig Clunas of Oxford University.<br />
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The topic he has chosen to hold forth on is <i>Chinese Painting and Its Audiences</i> which, as you can imagine, is right over my head. Whereas Dr. Clunas is an authority on art from the Ming period, my insight into their body of work begins and ends with the knowledge that they made vases. That ignorance, however, is the reason I decided to show up to the National Gallery today and last week to get some art facts jammed into my largely recalcitrant head-bone. <br />
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Last week's lecture, I hate to say, was all intro. The gist, as well as pretty much the rest of it, was that "Chinese art" as a concept is a blunt term that is applied both unwittingly and wittingly by various audiences of the art that has come out of China. It has been applied perhaps more wittingly (shut up it's probably a word) by the Chinese themselves and tells us something about their relationship to the creation and perception of art.<br />
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Today's lecture dealt with how courtly and erudite gentlemen of China past interacted with art of the Ming and shortly post-Ming period. (I could be wrong about the eras because, as I intimated above, I'm about as sharp as a potato when it comes to Asian art of any stripe. A clever, but fairly ignorant potato.)<br />
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Anyway, knowing very little has seldom stopped me from forming an opinion that I will gladly come to blows over, so I chose to discount the lecture's main theme and develop my own. While Professor Clunas was suggesting (I think) that the active viewing of art was a form of encouraged self-improvement in China's Ming dynasty and that the meta-paintings (the paintings being perused within the paintings) gave form to a notion of capital-A art peculiar to China at the time, I wanted to know what social and spiritual benefit the appreciation of art was supposed to have at the time.<br />
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It seemed to me that the meta-paintings being reviewed by the characters of the paintings tended to have a great deal of correspondence with the paintings in which they appeared. This was most true in the paintings wherein the meta-painting was not fully displayed, but was on a scroll that curved so you could see just a lower portion of the meta-painting's subject. I noticed that often the visible portion of the meta-painting mirrored in subject or at least form the corresponding right or left hand section of the actual painting.<br />
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This would make sense if the idea of viewing a painting was to appreciate more ideally the essence of what was being depicted. If art was supposed to bring a truer sense of the natural and sublime, in the same way I understand calligraphy was supposed to refine the thoughts of the calligrapher, then this trope makes a lot of sense. If not, then I'm back to being a dopey art monkey. I wish there were a Q and A after the lectures. Maybe there is and dopey monkeys aren't invited.<br />
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<br />Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-51164368374188308152012-02-09T20:01:00.000-08:002012-02-09T20:01:36.746-08:00I'm tired of my ass hurting. I pulled a glute in yoga, of all things, about a million years ago and ever since, ass-pain has stopped me from running, playing Frisbee, taking up kick-boxing again and, of course, yoga.<br />
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My friends and family have been as supportive as you'd expect - from suggesting curatives, like "manning up" or "spreading a little vagisil on it", to suggesting I try other exercises, like knitting, while I recuperate. <br />
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The worst part, honestly, is not the derision - because that's awesome. It's not even the realization that I've crested some feature of senescence's landscape, the downhill side of which requires me to stretch before goddamn yoga. That's only a couple of skips ahead of time's winged chariot away from walking to get warmed up before a jog. Christ. No, the worst part is being sedentary for so long. I've always hated exercise, but that's about what I can manage now. I can't do sports, because they're too free-form. If I can pull my left ass in yoga, basketball could easily cause me to poop a lung or sprain a prolapsed lymph node. So, I do nothing and hope my ass gets better. <br />
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The best part, incidentally, is the physical therapy. Yes, I'm going to PT for a pulled whatsit. In my youth I could have walked this off in a day, probably on my hands. Now a strong gentleman assaults my bits with ice, heat, ultrasound, electricity, and on one memorable occasion, mallets. The very good news, however, is that a much more valiant injury I sustained years ago during a kickboxing class when my instructor decided it would be a good time to help me stretch, is now on the mend. Years after being treated like a wishbone and losing 90% of my flexibility, PT has helped me regain most of that. The irony is that if I'd just gone to PT in the first place instead of trying to restore my flexibility through yoga, I would never have hurt myself.<br />
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Hardy har har. Life is stupid.Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-24776822866722695172011-10-17T17:45:00.000-07:002011-12-17T15:27:41.815-08:00Costa RicaI was just browsing over a few old posts and I realized I neglected to mention that I have now totally been to Costa Rica. I can report that it's a lovely place to totally go.<br />
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Not only are the people quite friendly, but it's choc-a-block with interesting flora and fauna, some of which are delicious, but all of which are quite intriguing. To be honest, I didn't eat a lot of the local fauna, but I stayed alert for unusual fruits to nosh on. My mom used to occasionally bring home weird and unusual fruits when I was growing up. We'd all come and try them out and usually we got sea-monkeyed by a star fruit or dragon fruit, but occasionally we'd learn that kiwis or mangoes were delicious and add them to our list of regulars. Sometimes mom would unaccountably learn something false, like papayas are delicious, and the rest of us would have to choke down fruit that tastes like mucus, but overall it was worth it.<br />
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So anyway, arriving at adulthood, I felt I had a pretty good handle on what the world's fruit is generally like. There are millions of versions of tiny oranges that all taste the same; a handful of reliable standards like apples, pears, bananas, peaches, nectarines and plums; and some more interesting if still standard "tropical" fruits like mangoes, pineapple, papayas (blech). Finally, there are the weirder options like lychees, ugli, star fruit which never really caught on because they're awful, dull, or just not worth the extra effort.<br />
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So when I went to St. Lucia some time back and had myself a soursop, which is the best fruit on Earth, I felt a little betrayed. It was the same way I felt when I found out that cuttlefish are not just the source of those weird shells that look like soap dishes and wash up on beaches in England for no apparent reason. They are also astonishing alien-like beasties that can change both the color and texture of their skin, see as well as us, and already know the manner and time of your death.<br />
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That's why (the fruit bit, not the cuttlefish), when I go places I haven't been before, I want to try the fruit. The weird thing about Costa Rica is their utter reluctance to ply you with new fruit. So weird is this, that it extends to mangoes. I found this lack of mango frustrating, not because it's new and exotic any more, but because it was falling out of the goddamn trees whenever the wind blew. Nevertheless, we could not get served a plate of it for love or money.<br />
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Every morning we sat down to a platter of FANTASTIC pineapple, quite good bananas, papayas that tasted unremarkably like snot, and wholly inexplicable watermelon. I'd gaze wistfully out into the hotel parking lot where cars had started a reasonably compelling mango chutney using nothing more than gravity and the bushels of fresh fruit that had fallen from the trees during the night, and wonder what the blazing hell was going on around here. <br />
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<a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3587/3680860742_69e3bee6e4.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3587/3680860742_69e3bee6e4.jpg" width="320" /></a>I know where you live and I want my mango back, gringo!</div>
I finally seized my chance when a troupe of white-throated Capuchin monkeys started shaking a tree for fruit and knocked some to the ground. Monkeys may be hella strong, but I wanted my fruit, dammit. I dashed across the street, grabbed a mango, and pranced away one mango richer and slightly worried about being chased down and gang-mauled by a tribe of feisty Capuchins.<br />
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It was delicious.<br />
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Now I'm back in the U.S. where I just heard about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina">Paw Paw</a> which grows in like Ohio or something for godsake. What the hell supermarkets? You've got mango-like superfruits growing in my own back yard and you won't find and sell them to me because they're not created from seeds made by Monsanto?Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-64249768232689140862011-10-17T17:22:00.000-07:002011-10-17T17:22:56.977-07:00Moving. It sucks.Moving first myself and then my girlfriend in the last month has given me a keen insight into moving. It sucks. I've learned other things too ....<br />
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1) It truly sucks. I learned this first from everyone else. You know how science tells us childbirth is awful but that there's a part of women's brains that, for the preservation of the species (and because brains are misogynists), helps you forget that fact in the face of sexytimes? Well that part of the brain doesn't exist for moving. Nor does the part of the brain that edits what you say about it or when, apparently.<br />
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My friends, when I told them I was getting ready to move, happily assured me it would be fucking awful. Thanks, pals! When I asked my boss for a day off to prepare, she raised a hand to cut me off as though I'd told her a family member had died. Moving? Say no more. "Moving is hell," she admonished me. Even a completely random guy outside Staples who saw me and my sweetheart walking along with our freshly purchased boxes and bubble-wrap figured he should weigh in and explain, you know, in case we were otherwise without human contact. He'd moved the weekend before and could vouch that, "moving sucks!" <br />
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But of course, they were all right. Why you ask?<br />
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2) It takes longer than you expect. A lot of things take longer than you expect, adoption of the metric system, general acceptance of evolutionary theory, college, whatever. But unlike a lot of these things, which only take longer than expected in blue states, moving takes longer than you expect no matter how long you expect. It's like a weird twist of Zeno's paradox, but rather than resulting in never getting there, you instead find yourself cramming whatever you can lay your hands on in boxes or bags or, well mostly the trash, as the moving truck sways around the corner.<br />
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My girlfriend, who I'll be calling <a href="http://bloggingfordaniels.blogspot.com/2010/01/beginning-of-year.html">Alphonse </a>from here on out, benefited slightly from my packing mayhem weeks earlier, because when I showed up and found her considering whether this knick-knack was a better candidate for the kitchen box or the things-from-my-mid-twenties box, I pooped. More than was strictly necessary, given how effing smart she is, I explained, nay insisted, that the gig was up and it was time to narrow choices down to the "is it coming" boxes and the trash. <br />
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3) Holy shit we live with a lot of trash! Alphonse and I each lived in a one bedroom. Hers was quite small and mine was a bit larger. I threw out (or recycled, you humorless harpies) around 8 large trash bags of junk I will never miss, along with three boxes of books that went to the used bookstore conveniently open for donations between like 10AM and 4PM, those precious darlings. Alphonse remarked that the process made her feel like a hoarder. So anyway, my best gal and I have agreed that we will do a monthly purge of our stuff so we don't find ourselves surrounded by crap come March. I suspect it's a lie we use to comfort ourselves, but I'll let you know.<br />
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The worst part of that is that the grand total of crap doesn't even include the TWO trips I made to the dump to get rid of a desk, two bookshelves, a dead hobo and god only knows what else.<br />
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<a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/51/156924044_efada189e7_m.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/51/156924044_efada189e7_m.jpg" /></a>WHEEEEEEEE!!!</div>
4) Going to the dump effing rules!!!! Moving is a stressful endeavor that you're not good at because you don't practice. There are entirely too many choices about what to take, how to pack it, and where to put it once you're there. As the previous item suggests, a lot of stuff that you've hidden under the proverbial rug because you couldn't work out where to put it resurfaces and requires some dealing with. Take that shit to the dump. It's liberating as hell.<br />
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Once you arrive at the dump, you are a samurai. The choice is made. This desk will not be recycled or dropped off at Goodwill. This desk will be excised from the list of your possessions and all that remains is to execute your good choice. And the execution requires no paperwork, no planning, no stress. I arrived and began fretting about the correct protocols for disposing of my stuff. The protocol, apparently, is you park in the general vicinity of a huge pile of refuse in the Fort Totten area, extract the unwanted item from your car, take a couple of discus thrower spins for good effect and spin the large wooden plane that was lately the top of your desk as far as you can away from you and toward the center of the heap. It's primal; it's final; and no one there gives a rats ass if you could have reused or recycled that crap.<br />
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5) Unpacking takes forever and chicks need lots of closet space. There's no further insight for item 5. It's just true. Plan ahead.Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-9991309537499505012011-09-23T08:56:00.000-07:002011-09-23T08:56:04.927-07:00Stepdad sittingThis week has been either busy or terrifically dull, depending on outlook.<br />
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I moved on Saturday just in time to sleep in the new spot for two nights before hopping on a plane home to Michigan where I've been looking after my stepfather. He's suffered from blood-clots in the lungs and minor strokes, as well as a lifetime of anaphylactic shock brought on by the merest hint of exercise. He's generally okay, but needs help. It's tedious, but mostly not too bad.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIpzL9WD0BP4ftZAC0xRLZjSARcIk-Csx9KfTnuCLbeoqnivRS4GmngowByJqfqPTwFeT6hbjJOGCenFvqtnC7AXna_sD3AinwxKROZF7FDXACPM-T6EQ9_pJDBc5KF7TS9r9d3Rs3nho/s1600/hypodermic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIpzL9WD0BP4ftZAC0xRLZjSARcIk-Csx9KfTnuCLbeoqnivRS4GmngowByJqfqPTwFeT6hbjJOGCenFvqtnC7AXna_sD3AinwxKROZF7FDXACPM-T6EQ9_pJDBc5KF7TS9r9d3Rs3nho/s200/hypodermic.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stab directly into heart in case of aerobics!</td></tr>
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Still, I'm anxious to get back to my largely unpacked apartment and start positioning stuff and getting organized. I'm moving in with my girlfriend, which is exciting, but she won't move until probably the beginning or middle of next month, which still gives me precious little time to get things organized just right before she comes and ruins the couch fort I'm building. Girls!<br />
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The kitchen will be my domain since I'm the one who finally threw up my hands in frustration and organized her kitchen so I could cook there. I also had to buy her knives because the vaguely wedge-shaped slabs of metal she was using were better suited to tenderizing meat than cutting it, and honestly, if you were trying to slice cheese, you'd have been better off with a mallet. I actually don't understand how so many people get by with crappy crappy knives. With a good knife you can do just about anything in the kitchen. A bad knife just causes you to cut yourself, or sometimes helpful sorts who happen along to inquire what's taking so long. <br />
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Now, the week is coming to a close and I'm feeling both a bit bored out of my skull and as though I've done nothing at all all week. I had big plans for accomplishing things while I was here, but most of my attention's been focused on ye olde stepdad. I obviously have time, as I'm writing here rather than doing what I should be up to, but this is sort of therapeutic. Shortly I'll dive into what I'm supposed to be doing and see what I can salvage from this week running aground in Michigan. Then later, we'll go for a walk, assuming my stepdad's throat doesn't close up when I mention the possibility of a little exercise.Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-61041330549040366902011-08-20T10:44:00.001-07:002011-08-21T15:36:36.162-07:00YogaIt's taken me longer to get to yoga than might be expected by those who know me.
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<br />Friends might reasonably expect me to take to it the way I did with Tai Chi, hackey-sack, volleyball, gymnastics, Kali, ultimate or any of the other left of center sports I've enjoyed over the years. Obviously, I've never been one to stick to sports that present as particularly masculine. I did volleyball and gymnastics in high school followed by intramural crocheting and varsity menses in college. In one indelible memory from grad school, I experienced a bright moment of lucidity while enjoying the crap out of a gift from my sister (a subscription to Bon Apetit - manly!). A terrifying certainty came upon me that I had to go immediately to the local kickboxing gym and man up a little. I don't really subscribe to sticking to appropriately gender-rolled sports since I think you should play whatever's fun. Still, I think it's good to play both sides of the divide for balance's sake.
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<br />So, yoga's a little feminine, true but I think the real issue is that it's extremely hippie. The physical element is demanding, but not nearly so much as keeping my smart mouth shut when people ask me to thank the universe or open a third eye. Also, and this can't be stressed enough. I'm not flexible and was quite fearful about yoga.
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<br />A few years ago I ran afoul of a friendly but dumb karate instructor at a dojo in NYC. He "helped" me with my stretching to the point where I felt a sort of disconcerting twang from my groin and continue to be essentially unable to separate my legs beyond about 80 degrees, side to side. This wouldn't be a big issue in my life except that I really do like kickboxing and it's tough to practice Muay Thai if you can only kick your opposite from the knee down.
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<br />Anyway, I picked up yoga about three months ago when a friend of my girlfriend suggested she and her boyfriend go with me and my gal to yoga together before brunch. I can't make enough jokes about my yuppie life here, so go ahead and insert your own. Based on the setup, it's structurally impossible for any of them to be over the line - by all means, use the comments.
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<br />So that's how I got started. I quickly learned that I'm unusual at yoga. I can't, for instance, sit comfortably cross-legged on the floor (very rudimentary for most yogis), but I can do a handstand, bow pose (bridge), or crow pose. These are very rudimentary for gymnasts. In fact, the crow pose wasn't called either yoga or gymnastics by my gymnastics team members; it was called "fucking around" and was kind of a trifle.
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<br />So what happens sometimes in class is that we start off doing stuff that I'm okay at - forward stretches and such, transition into difficult stuff that I'm great at, and end with cool-down poses that I fucking gasp and cry at. I'm a yoga idiot savant.
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<br />Recently however, I've been moving just toward the idiot end of the scale. I think, sadly, that I may have to start stretching before yoga. That began as a bon mot but may shortly become my life. Somewhere along the line I seem to have pulled the entire right side of my ass, which limits mobility somewhat. I was hoping yoga would help me strengthen the appropriate accessory muscles and loosen up the rest, but what I think it's done is to convince me I need physical therapy.
<br />Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-809589104066768102011-08-17T20:02:00.001-07:002011-08-17T20:59:28.706-07:00There's a fine lineBetween ratatouille and rancid vegetable mush. Apparently that line is quickly crossed when you leave the ratatouille in a pot on the stove for two days.
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<br />Blech.
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<br />Ratatouille, for you goggle-eyed, peasant-class, boob tube monkeys who only know it as the name of a delightful children's movie, began as a French vegetable stew. It's the un-deconstructed version of the dish at the end of that same movie. To make it you stew a lot of vegetables together, sometimes after frying them, but that's sort of up to you. If ever there were a delicious French peasant repast, it's ratatouille and crusty bread with butter and a few bottles of table wine.
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<br />I went and bought the ingredients the other day at that bastion of fine produce, Safeway. In D.C. there are multiple Safeways. The one in Georgetown is the "Social" Safeway because I guess it's a good place to meet slutty people who cook or something. My Safeway is, I believe, sometimes referred to as the "Soviet" Safeway because of the history of crappy selection. It's not bad these days, but the produce is not going to wow you. That's okay, it's a stew. As long as the vegetables are relatively fresh and you can get some garlic and basil, you're okay.
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<br />As an aside, I'm sick and tired of D.C.'s farmers markets. Where I'm from, the Midwest, which has the distinction of being near a farm or two, farmers markets were places you would show up with money to meet farmers who showed up with vegetables still dirty from the walloping great field of earth they'd just been pulled out of. The half with too many vegetables gave them to the half with too much money in fair trade and you went home with some hideous, but cheap and delicious veggies and fruit.
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<br />I went to the Dupont farmers market and they have cedar planked salmon and overpriced, sad looking strawberries. Everything is marked organic; Everything is expensive as hell; And everything bears that slight taint of being touched by at least one earnest yuppie too many.
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<br />So, back to the Safeway where yours truly is trying to answer questions from the Latina checkout lady who has, with the same sort of instinct that draws cats to allergic people, intuited that my Spanish is exactly good enough to give her a good laugh. She opened simply enough by asking if I was a vegetariano. Porque no tuve carne (I didn't have meat). I, quixotically, tried to explain that, no, I wasn't a vegetarian, but today I was making a delicious French meal called ratatouille that didn't require meat. I may have gotten it across to her, but she did end up asking if I spoke French.
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<br />Anyway, the ratatouille was a disaster of burned garlic, missing basil and rather drab vegetables. Nevertheless, and here's one of the key selling points of this dish, it came together nicely. It wasn't great, but even bad ratatouille paired with some bread and butter gets the job done. I ate it for two days, during which time my gut inquired frequently and loudly as to what the hell I thought I was up to. It made one exercise class in particular kind of touch-and-go. Still, plenty of fiber and deliciousness even if I was producing high-grade construction-ready adobe in my spare time.
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<br />Finally, yesterday, I got a mouthful of the ratatouille that I'd been leaving on the stove (not for philosophically grounded reasons, but because I'm an orangutan) and realized that somewhere during the night my french cuisine had transubstantiated into compost.
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<br />So, here's how to make ratatouille:
<br />- cut up a bunch of the following: 1 egg plant, 1-2 summer squash/courgettes, a couple of bell peppers, some mushrooms, 6 cloves of garlic, a handful of parsley and a handful or more of basil (expert tip: you can't really add too much basil to anything). This is a rough meal, so things don't have to be chopped up finely. Cut the eggplant, for instance, into rounds about half an inch in height and then quarter the rounds.
<br />- Open a tin or two of tomatoes, and look, this isn't a highly engineered dish here you prancing tit, stop fretting about whether it's one tin or two. See how you like it with one and try it with two next time. That's cooking.
<br />- (Second expert tip: put the chopped up eggplant into a bowl and either sprinkle salt on it or drop it into boiling water for about 30 seconds. This helps alleviate the bitter taste you sometimes get with eggplant).
<br />- lightly saute the 6 or so cloves of garlic in a few tablespoons of olive oil (a little butter thrown in has never hurt either, you pompous ascetic) in a very large cooking pot.
<br />- Add some salt and pepper and drop in the mushrooms and courgettes (oh, courgettes are the English term for what you goofs call zuchini - we speak English here in the U.S. of A. so, er, love it or leave it, etc. and so forth. Also, Freedom Fries!)
<br />- Saute until you've got a little brown on the mushrooms but before you've totally burned the garlic. Burned garlic tastes like failure in cooking, so avoid it as sedulously as possible. Expert tip 3: You will never use the word sedulously in conversation.
<br />- Add the eggplant and whatever else I've forgotten to tell you to add so far, including the tomatoes.
<br />- Turn the whole mess down to a medium simmer. Add chicken stock or water if it's not kind of watery and go away and have a beer or two. Check in as necessary.
<br />- When is it done? Taste it occasionally. It's a stew so it's got the consistency of thin chilli. All the veggies are okay to eat raw, so basically you're just adding heat to mix the flavors.
<br />- Eat with crusty bread and irresponsible amounts of butter.
<br />- REFRIGERATE THE LEFTOVERS. I cannot stress this enough.
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<br />The final result should look EXACTLY like this:
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic5c9mmV1nZcJsRdXDXOnt3drgpCFbFDuz1MLcM7hi-92pbi-r7nDE7lq0BzsXGJiV5wyB2LWfhAdmY2KXsMwBiP3Bt0G-5q-inR98jkcfviTf-rAcSGwf20IJf2SQSvUIWetb2xbiq3E/s1600/donuts.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 210px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic5c9mmV1nZcJsRdXDXOnt3drgpCFbFDuz1MLcM7hi-92pbi-r7nDE7lq0BzsXGJiV5wyB2LWfhAdmY2KXsMwBiP3Bt0G-5q-inR98jkcfviTf-rAcSGwf20IJf2SQSvUIWetb2xbiq3E/s320/donuts.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5642037098044417538" border="0" /></a>
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<br />Or you can use that <a href="http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ratatouille">computer network</a> I've been hearing so much about.
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<br />Disclaimer: If you burn yourself on my ratatouille recipe, or learn the hard way that you're allergic to anything in it, it serves you right. I'm not your life-coach. Exercise some critical thinking when you do stuff. I take no responsibility for your dumb mistakes. Mine are trying enough.
<br />Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-39359698365152251112011-08-12T12:54:00.000-07:002011-08-12T13:27:59.495-07:00Digital Love HelpI just signed up for <a href="http://theicebreak.com//">theicebreak </a>website. Maybe ironically. I'm not sure yet.
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<br />As far as I can make out, the site encourages you to take the pulse of your relationship from time to time then makes recommendations based on how satisfied you say you are with things like the amount of quality time you've spent with your [insert term of affection of your choice here - you can use "sweet baboo" as my boss does if you're drawing a blank].
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<br />I rated my relationship as healthy, since I'm shortly moving in with my [cutie pie] and frankly over the moon about it. However, she's out of the country for a couple weeks, so I rated my overall satisfaction with amount of quality time as lowest of the things I was asked about. Theicebreak suggests an evening of boardgames, which tells me two things: First, theicebreak is an elderly lady in a floral print dress (it's second suggestion was to take a bath or soak my feet!!).
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<br />Second, it has never seen me or my [sassy little monkeypants] play a board game. My [boo] and I are seldom competitive with one another, but we are in fact both crazy competitive where stupid games are involved. I fear theicebreak has found an efficient, if boring as hell, way to break us up. Thanks a lot website!
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<br />My next experiment is to tell it I'm finding our physical relationship lacking and see what terrible terrible idea it suggests. "Have you considered hugging?" I'll get back to you on what it comes up with.
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<br />In other ways, the site seems like email for couples who are at that stage in their true love where they have run out of things to talk about and decided it was best to stop. It encourages you to share pictures just for your [beloved] - and for the news media if you're Anthony Wiener or any number of ethics-touting/aggressively anti-gay GOP heavies. It also gives you ideas about "Icebreakers" to share with your partner. Some of these seem like things you should have talked about on dates 4-8. Others seem like excuses for fights.
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<br />In the former camp are questions like "what's the sexiest part of your partner's body." Guys, it's their personality. In the latter are softballs like "would you rather grow old with someone you settled for or be alone when you are older because you never found true love." Holy crap. That's specifically not a question for your [dear sweet smoocheyface]. It's a question for overly earnest college seniors in a WB movie that reimagines the Great Gatsby as a bittersweet rom-com set at NYU all about the trials of joining adulthood.
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<br />Still, sometimes technology confounds our best predictions. Twitter, as it turns out, has very little to do with the rampant narcissism everyone thought it would fuel and be fueled by. I'll wait and see. I'm pretty sure my [north, my south, my certain azimuth] will not be going for this nonsense. I'm pretty sure that's one of the reasons I like her so much.
<br />Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-14866364685158950982011-05-10T17:52:00.000-07:002011-05-10T15:03:58.335-07:00Storytelling<div style="border: 1px solid #ccc; text-align: center; font-size: 9px; color: #999; float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 156px;"><img style="width: 152px; height: 195px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidVY6R1gbvPJXLie4_Ots7vW5C9sJPepxFiLibhAdwgJXNgWlrgl597yTYh5Bxg_ezYkoZHC_y9JSbqT8urtWAd2bmgqJJJFB7wzHjTZFdZgiHbkRlAvGcDkm0Wx6ue-nyzyMFsjUjtxI/s320/Demosthenes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605207356789778146" border="0" />Like me, but I'm funnier.</div><br />A while back I stood on stage and told a bunch of people a story, and thankfully they laughed.<br /><br />About 5 weeks prior I started a class run by <a href="http://www.speakeasydc.com/">speakeasy d.c.</a> on storytelling. We had our "final" at <a href="http://www.chiefikes.com/">Chief Ike's Mambo Room and Pastry Parlour</a> (or something).<br /><br />The story I told was about two times I got my ass kicked - I mean actually, not metaphysically. The "profs" got us up on stage ahead of time so we'd know how far to stand from the mic and how not to freak out under the glare of the spotlights or the scrutiny of strangers. We were supposed to say our name and our favorite color. I quipped that my favorite color was fear of public speaking. Then I went and drank.<br /><br />Mostly I drank soda because my blood-sugar kept sinking, but I preceded it with a strong salutary draught ... for nerves.<br /><br />Then we storytellers got to go upstairs and consider our stories--and anxieties--for a while. I realized mine didn't have a very good ending--the story or, consequently, the anxieties. Luckily, with the help of the alcohol, I managed to think of how I didn't really care.<br /><br />The night was supposed to open with the strongest storyteller from the class, who I have to admit was not me, and then I was supposed to help carry us over the finish line toward the end. Instead, the woman going first came in late and ended up going right before me. Fantastic.<br /><br />My girlfriend tells me I did a very good job, and although that sounds about as credible as your mom telling you you're smart and handsome, you should know this about my girlfriend: She's honest, sometimes regrettably so. And I'm really good at reading her.<br /><br />So, I have to concede that my story went over well. I remember hardly any of it. When my name was called I adopted the same trick I used when I jumped out of a plane a while back: I reined my considered event horizon in to about a distance of 2 seconds. Before my stupid limbic system could explain how I was going to fail, I took a breath and dashed for the stage. Take that, brain!<br /><br />I certainly got some good laughs at the points I expected. I also got a laugh at a spot when I really didn't expect one, which is odd. I wish now I hadn't been suffering a nearly mortal case of nerves and could have remembered not just that people had laughed, but when. I supposed I'll have to get up at a more regular Speakeasy event and try again.<br /><br />Just like skydiving, I remember little, I think I enjoyed it and I kind of want to go again.<br /><br />Speaking of, my friend is telling a story tonight at Town for a Speakeasy called Eye of the Tiger, which focuses on winning and losing. I expect it will be a lot of fun and any of you in the D.C. area should come on down and have a look. You will like it.<br /><br />http://www.speakeasydc.com/Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-26553635742482790242011-04-12T16:39:00.000-07:002011-04-12T17:12:40.283-07:00Baconalia?You may have heard that Denny's is launching some fancy bacon-related promotion of foods with bacon in them. If you craved a bacon sundae, Denny's now has half the answer to your problems: A bacon sundae. Whatever terminal brain disease is making you crave a bacon sundae is still yours to contend with.<br /><br />What weirds me out most about this bacon extravaganza is not so much the fact that they've put a ghastly amount of bacon in a frankly irresponsible range of dishes (because I've given up on the American people's ability to think before they jam foodstuffs in their faceholes). It's the oddly classical name.<br /><br />I'd love to see the pie chart (mmmm, pie) that shows what constituents of the "Denny's demographic" (or perhaps the "Dennygraphic" ... or maybe, "Fat <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny%27s#Racial_discrimination_lawsuits">Racists</a>") think of when they hear the term Baconalia. Because that's what Denny's is calling this meaty madness.<br /><br />It's a clear reference to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchanalia">Bachanalia </a>- the ritualistic madness that seized devotees of Bacchus/Dionysus, and I just don't imagine a ton of Denny's eaters catching that. I don't mean that (entirely) as a harsh on folks who eat at Denny's but even among my friends who are over-educated pointy-head sorts, I'm not sure more than 50-60% would immediately get the reference.<br /><br />I like to imagine some thwarted comp. lit. major sulking during an ad meeting. When the campaign manager winds up the meeting by asking, "Great, we've got the bacon sundae all squared away, what're we gonna call this thing?" our hero snorts quietly, almost to himself, "baconalia?"<br /><br />And then Joe Manager replies, "sounds good," and a weirdly classical name is born for an ad campaign that makes literally no other reference to Pan, Bacchus, Dionysus or any other element of Greek or Roman mythology.Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-68692666688615385542010-05-25T18:41:00.000-07:002010-05-25T19:08:10.457-07:00Wow it's been a while: Scuba, lawyers, frisbeeIt's been some time since I rapped at ya, but things are good in the nation's capital, at least for me: I'm renewing my lease, which is nice because it's a great place; My girlfriend and I are getting along swimmingly. We're young(ish) and in love(est) and all is super. Despite all the elapsed time, I still smile like a dork when I think of her. She's the keenest.<br /><br />In other news, in my ongoing effort to become less boring as I get older I've taken up Ultimate Frisbee again and now play with a crowd of lawyers on Sundays. The effect so far is that I feel like I've been beaten up by a crowd of Huns come Monday, but I'm sure that will fade.<br /><br />A week ago, Sunday, one of the tinier lawyers among them (thank God) and I crashed into one another at velocity. She must weigh about 100 lbs soaking wet with friends, but I now tip the scales at a (fat) manly 182 lbs of pure taught indolence.<br /><br />As I hurtled towards her and realized we were going to collide like a Buick into a kitten, I did some back of the envelope calculations in the back of my head and realized I might kill someone.<br /><br />And that someone would be a lawyer; and have lots of lawyer friends around to bear witness, provide testimony, do pro bono work on behalf of their dead friend's family and whatnot. The homicide would occur, I figured, either by me flattening and running blithely over her or by her ricochetting off me like so much ping pong matter off a bowling ball and landing in the nearby river.<br /><br />So I grabbed her.<br /><br />I figured I'd either pick her up and cradle her safely where no fat blokes were likely to run her down, or at least I'd stop her from bouncing off this mortal coil all willy nilly. I think it worked and that she was as uninjured as possible considering the kinetic energy involved. That said, all her forward momentum that wasn't used minutely stalling my onrush shot into the only unrestrained part of her body, her head, which translated it quite nicely, thank you very much, into my trachea via the small surface area of her nose and teeth.<br /><br />My mom, who I told about it quite a lot later during Call To The Folks, gasped and pointed out, as though I were dragging my feet about getting a lump checked out, that I could have been killed. It's possible her diagnostic skills are getting rusty, because here I was talking to her on the phone, using my very own larynx and everything, hours later. It's nice to be loved though, honestly.<br /><br />Still, I can't recommend taking a lawyer to the throat. It made me sound like Kathleen Turner for the better part of a week - so I was dead sexy - but it also made me feel as though I was coming down with something the entire time. Like a law suit.<br /><br />Other efforts to remain hip and with it have been much safer despite happening under 5 to 10 feet of water. I just finished learning to Scuba (no longer SCUBA it seems). I'm not prepped to take my open water certification dives should the opportunity present itself in Brazil, where I'm going next month - with my awesome girlfriend. My life sounds so interesting, doesn't it.<br /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-4286483485208383372010-02-05T12:43:00.000-08:002010-02-05T13:15:03.704-08:00The snowpocalypse is upon us!!!! Day 1It's going to snow in D.C.<br /><br />Let that sink in for a sec ... now do what comes naturally:<br /><br />RUN!!!!! Or, if you like, check out this <a href="http://snowpocalypsedc.com/">link</a> for tips on how to handle the snow in D.C.<br /><br />Anyway, this is my journal of these trying times. For posterity. In case I don't come through the other side.<br /><br />We have only ourselves to blame, as Fallwell will no doubt remind us later. The warning has been ample. We've known for days the frozen water that lives in the sky was planning an attack. As early as yesterday the grocery stores were mobbed with people stocking up in case they were TRAPPED INDOORS FOR AN ENTIRE WEEKEND!!<br /><br />Luckily the government took courageous action and in an ingenious preemptive strike, planned to close and send people home <span style="font-style: italic;">well before we saw even the first snowflake</span>. I was done with work at noon. I was already at home because I'd decided ahead of time that I would stay home in case (also because i was up late at a show). Nevertheless, the government's wise planning let me stop working at noon and start preparing for the worst.<br /><br />I got a haircut. You never know how snow can change the outlook for personal grooming, so it's best not to tempt fate.<br /><br />Coiffed, I slogged across half a block of concrete, through literally millimeters of snow, to the grocery store for cheese and bread, because I'm out. It was like Crate and Barrel meets Lord of the Flies. Lines of yuppies stretched down the aisles and an air of frantic anticipation stirred every sensible being to greedily clutch to themselves whatever foodstuffs might bring them any succor in the approaching blight.<br /><br />I left. I'll get cheese on Monday or something. I did stop in at the local market for a turkey and Stilton sandwich though. Yummy. Still, the privation has clearly begun. They were out of raisins! A chill went through me. Barring some sort of miracle (or the fairly good possibility that my gf will find raisins on her way home) my oatmeal this weekend may be largely unadorned. The horror. The horror.<br /><br />Clasping what little food I'd been able to snatch to my breast out of the fingers of fellow men made hollow and feral through anticipating their own doom, I scuttled back to my home and contemplated the horrors of facing so merciless a God as could unleash this unnatural tumult upon us. What invades my waking thoughts with nightmare is the unnatural temperature. A blizzard in such warmth defies every expectation. What sort of hurdy-gurdy blizzard is it when snow scarcely has the chance to settle before it vanishes like some phantom. My teeth are set a-chatter - though not from the cold obviously.Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-45063845125158232052010-01-09T16:13:00.000-08:002010-01-09T16:54:40.901-08:00Ping PongSo here's how I feel about ping pong: It's awesome.<br /><br />I started playing ping pong as a youth in my friend's basement, where his father and he would take turns kicking my ass. At the time I thought his dad was a jerk because he didn't play down to me at all. I later realized that he was a jerk for cheating on his wife with, get this, his secretary or grad student or some other conveniently available cliche. What a jerk.<br /><br />However, his beating the tar out of me totally motivated me not to play like a child anymore. You may be aware from your own experience that most kids suck at most things. That's where the common phrase, "hey kid, gimme your lunch money" comes from. Kids suck at fighting for their lunch money.<br /><br />My friend's jerkwad dad taught me that you should be able to smash the ball from below the level of the table and that you could put side-spin on the ball to mess with opponents.<br /><br />For years this valuable knowledge lay irresponsibly unused. Then, one magical day, my friend Dirk and I got frustrated with work and decided to play ping pong in the gym at work instead. I assume we were frustrated by someone asking us to do an interesting task and then insisting we do it all fucked up. The odds are on my side if I remember correctly why we were usually pissed off.<br /><br />We started playing ping pong regularly thereafter and a bunch of our friends joined in for three simple reasons:<br /><ol><li>It's awesome<br /></li><li>It's super manly<br /></li><li>Fuck you, it totally is.</li></ol>The more complicated reason, and the one I'm a bit embarrassed to acknowledge is that ping pong is the onliest sport I ever get that "flow state" high in, the one where you know what's going to happen in two seconds and everything suddenly becomes really simple and natural. I'm convinced it has to do with learning what stimuli matter and what don't and focusing only on the important ones. But I don't (yet) have a PhD in psychology, so what do I know.<br /><br />Well, Dirk and I were joined by Eug (who hits the ball harder than a human should), Courtney and Mark (two dudes from Jamaica who, no joke, played on their high school ping pong teams and are goddamn amazing and in Mark's case, sneaky and "teefin'"), Meredith and Cara (both of whom managed to maintain their graceful femininity despite playing what's widely regarded as the world's most testosteronatastic sport), Dennis (who thank God doesn't know that he's totally susceptible to any shot to his backhand with a little sidespin on it - Hi Dennis!), and a roster of other folk who came and went according to their interest and terms of employment.<br /><br />At one point we had to know who was best, so we held the first ever Consumer Reports table-tennis league (I shit you not). The Jamaicans insist it's "table tennis", not "ping pong", but I maintain that in a very real sense you're hitting a tiny plastic ball over an adorably diminutive net so there's not much way to salvage that passtime by changing its name. Plus, who won the league play? Who? Me, the best "diminutive paddlewang" player at CR that year, that's who. I figure if you win you get to name it.<br /><br />Anyway, the point of this dreadful ramble is that on Monday I'm going to a bar and playing ping pong. Sadly, I haven't yet decided if I'll be taking my own paddle. You read that right. I have my own paddle. In fact, I'll have to decide which of my paddle I'll take, if I take one. Playing with "hard bats" sucks.<br /><br />I think we can all agree that the point of this post is that I'm pretty sweet. <sigh><br /><br />Anyway, let me know in the comments if taking my own paddle is just sensible because it'll improve the quality of the play, or tremendously sad because ... well, you know.Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-83400227843089059322010-01-07T16:40:00.000-08:002010-01-07T19:52:33.446-08:00The beginning of the yearHey there suckers, it's been a while since I rapped at you, in any real sense of the idea.<br /><br />So, one of my resolutions this year was to write <span style="font-style: italic;">at least</span> 10 minutes a day. So far, I'm succeeding splendidly if you replace "write 10 minutes a day" with "think about writing 10 minutes a day for at least 2 minutes a day".<br /><br />I suck.<br /><br />So today, before I go get a drink/dinner with my writer friend @fstockman, I'm going to write for another 9 minutes or so.<br /><br />Here's what's up in the life of me:<br /><br />I got me a girlfriend. She's plain awesome. Because she values her privacy, I'll call her Alphonse Dubai and let you know that she's a plumber from a video game. None of which is true.<br /><br />If you're one of those people who knows me and reads this blog (like 99.9% of you), do the decent thing and don't mention her in the comments. She's got a reputation to uphold and I guess part of that includes not letting on to the nameless faceless mass of the Internet that she knows me, or exists, or what have you. I admit I've sort of lost track of what constitutes privacy any more, but I know she's none of your business.<br /><br />Anywangle, I spent time with her over the holidays and it's made me a complete girl. I'm usually obtusely independent, but thanks to spending a great deal of time with her, I've become addicted to those crush hormones my body makes when she's around. Stupid endogenous whadyamacallums! Now I have to think about her all the time. It might be okay if our date yesterday had worked out, but I got about half an hour of her before she had to dash back to the videogame to plumb. Oh Alphonse! Sigh.<br /><br />My attitude towards relationships has long been that you're not ready for a relationship if you <span style="font-style: italic;">need</span> to be in a relationship. So now I feel both needy and apostate. Christ I suck.<br /><br />On the plus side, my 10 minutes are up.Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-90966475439008621882010-01-05T21:26:00.000-08:002010-01-05T21:40:19.794-08:00Couldn't sleep . . .Thought I'd write a quick post and turn in. Because, well, it's been ages since I wrote a damn thing.<br /><br />So, I start off the new year with a good job, a simply wonderful girlfriend, and a house that looks like it was raped by a troupe (flock?) of methed out flying monkeys. Still, it's a great location, and you know what those folks in real estate say: "Don't live near flying monkeys, you jerk."<br /><br />I'm getting to do more writing for my pal Helen over at MSNBC.com. Being nice to her was the best cold and calculating thing I've ever done, though I can't take too much credit for dastardly Machiavellian forward planning, since she's awesome and hilarious and fun and all that, and I've pretty much liked her since we worked together. She sends me Christmas cards with pictures of her pugs on them for Pugsake!!<br /><br />Besides, if I were truly Machiavellian, would I be amping up my "writing career" just as writing is maturing into a dying art. The answer, my writerly friends, is "shut your hurtful faces. Shut 'em."<br /><br />Okay, maybe that'll prime the blogging pump for the rest of this year. It certainly convinced me I need to get some sleep.<br /><br />Also, am I the last guy to see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bduQaCRkgg4">auto-tune the news</a>? Super funny.Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-71430032506656854122009-10-17T11:42:00.000-07:002009-11-11T09:31:23.308-08:00I don't know if any of you have seen this ...But recently Meghan McCain uploaded a picture that set the conservative Twittersphere on fire. I'll put the picture in just ... here:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHSQ-xVptaX8OncauMSKJm64oDcQrBPzZtp59rJkL1t9rxaI_DhFEFyZ-sp8yiZ0hfjDQ2XK_OdVvnVyCTvbMO4ijAP1LUuRV3uYw-k2wneTOhbS6abASoS7_9eLfKa_iJgzbbgzAHXc/s1600-h/meghan-mccain_twitter.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 187px; height: 140px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHSQ-xVptaX8OncauMSKJm64oDcQrBPzZtp59rJkL1t9rxaI_DhFEFyZ-sp8yiZ0hfjDQ2XK_OdVvnVyCTvbMO4ijAP1LUuRV3uYw-k2wneTOhbS6abASoS7_9eLfKa_iJgzbbgzAHXc/s320/meghan-mccain_twitter.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393642263372662018" border="0" /></a><br />So, take that in if you would.<br /><br />She posted it, ostensibly because she was hanging out at home on a Saturday night and reading a Warhol biography. Also, if you look very closely, you'll see she has breasts.<br /><br />The twitter/internet response was INSANE. On the fairly liberal and male Digg.com, which is to the Internet what behind the Stop 'n Sip is to the Midwest, the reaction had a "stupid conservative floozy"/"I'd put my dick in that" inflection. There will always be kids on the Internet, I guess.<br /><br />All she's doing in this picture is showing off a book and having breasts. Ogling her is fine if you do it in the comfort of your own home and don't give public voice to the notion that chicks are first and foremost for ogling. It's the difference between saying "that woman who reads has intriguing breasts," and, "thank god the breasts partially obscured by that book had a woman to ride into the frame of this picture on!" You see the difference?<br /><br />Also, calling a conservative a whore for being sexy is missing the point of social liberalism you jackasses. You can't turn conservatives' own punitive worldview on them when they demonstrate sexiness, because it's not them we're fighting, you jerks, it's their worldview.<br /><br />Speaking of the conservative response, the worst comment I've seen so far is this:<br />"You knew you were posting a nearly NSFW [not safe for work] photo, so don't pretend like you're surprised at people's reaction,"<br /><br />NSFW is probably a useful notion, because it stops you from opening up a picture that might create a "hostile work environment" for some people. Who those people are is generally implicit in your culture's notions of decency. The idea of "nearly NSFW" is looney.<br /><br />It's not as though the person sending something labled "NSFW" is saying - "don't look at this filth!" They're saying, look at this filth later, when only consulting adults are around. Nearly NSFW, or NNSFW, just means "NSFW if there are a lot of prudes around". I'm offended by NNSFW because it's retrogressive. It suggests we're not being prudish enough yet.<br /><br />I think we already do a number on women's self-image by insisting that female sexuality is somehow irreconcilable with brains or seriousness. Just because boobs make us guys momentarily stupid and licentious doesn't mean we should project those characteristics on their owners. So, hey conservatives, quit it! We don't need to go any further backwards on this.<br /><div id="TixyyLink" style="border: medium none ; overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br /></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5733895194085728219.post-56300183476816896262009-10-15T20:45:00.000-07:002009-10-15T20:46:17.224-07:00Watch this spaceThere's talk about maybe a new article being published.<br /><br />The Internet will hate me for it, so that'll be exciting. I'll post a link from here when it's up.<br /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Daniel Harrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10506056302471444053noreply@blogger.com0