Such a pretty girl Happy in an ugly place

Pretend this was posted 5 days ago.

2009-11-29T18:16:06Z

I was planning on posting about the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species back on its actual anniversary on the 24th, but life got in the way.

Thank you, Darwin, for expanding our worldview in such a radical way that 150 years later, people are still fighting your discovery.

My Grandmother told me when I was 10 or so that if my science teachers started telling me that I came from monkeys to just smile and nod and remember that it was all lies because that’s not what it said in the bible. But to be sure and remember what they told me like she did, but only to pass the test.

However, growing up in rural southern Georgia, I wasn’t exposed to evolution until middle school. My first exposure was seeing an entire chapter of my science book blacked out with marker. Upon inquiring as to why, my teacher said “I didn’t come from no monkey, and I’m not teaching you any different than what it says in the bible.”

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

BatSmart!

2009-11-14T15:52:01Z

There was a commerical that ran on tv here a few months back for some crappy Korean or American car (I really can’t remember which), that featured a car super hero with this ridiculous cape. Ever since seeing that, I wanted to put a cape on the smart. With Halloween rapidly approaching, I saw my opportunity.

I decided that I would dress my car up as Batman. Mind you, not the Batmobile, as that’s pretty expected and has already been done.

nananananananananananananananana...

BatSmart!

I borrowed the vinyl printer at work for the emblem and hood decals, and had the help of two of the guys at work in putting them on. One of them does not want to be named because the vinyl application was not up to his rigorous standards. The ears are made from scrap gator board that I spraypainted gloss black and are held on with silver ribbon and gaffer’s tape. The cape is a plastic party tablecloth I picked up at Walmart. The cape is shown at highway length, it can be let out as far as you want for more dramatic cape action. All told, I spent $3.

I’m still holding onto the hope that at least one of the people I’ve contacted about taking pictures of the cape in motion will get back to me. I’ve been driving around with the vinyl still on my car just in case. I see this as the automotive equivalent of having your eyeliner smeared all over your face on November 1st.

I can’t begin to explain to you the amount of love BatSmart has received. Two notable occasions are:

This guy walking down the street with his girl trying to be all badass. When he saw my car he stopped in his tracks, pointed at me and yelled “BATMAN!!!!” like he was 7 years old. His girl rolled her eyes and started walking off. I’m pretty sure I cockblocked someone with my car.

And

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Belated Halloween shenanigans

2009-11-13T18:47:23Z

Our dysfunctional prom.

Halloween is a huge holiday for me, but November is notoriously busy because of people needing shit designed for the holidays, so I’m never really timely about posting about it. However, due to a Crape Myrtle tree’s roots growing into our plumbing system and the subsequent fix that is going to require a wall being torn out and the water to be cut off all day, I’m working at home and have time to post about it now!

We had our work dress up day the Thursday before Halloween because one of the designers had a wedding to go to and wouldn’t be there Friday. Just for the record, I think that it’s a terrible idea to have a wedding on Halloween weekend if you think Halloween is stupid and don’t want people to dress up. Way to ruin someone’s holiday.

We usually have themed dress up days, and this year’s theme was dysfunctional prom. It was going to be “white trash prom” and then “ghetto prom”, but we eventually opted for the broader theme of generically dysfunctional to ease in costume selection. It still presented some issues for some of my coworkers. I was set because I had this gothic vinyl monstrosity of a senior prom dress that I can still fit into thanks to the fact that it’s a corset. This was the easiest dress up day ever for me.

My adjacent coworker, who is now going to be referred to as my work boyfriend (which is a long story that I will be broaching on a later date), decided on Tuesday that he wanted to wear a dress. After a couple of ill-fated trips to Goodwill, I talked him into going to my favorite thrift store up in Roswell. While he was trying on a tux in a last-ditch effort to have a costume, I found the perfect lilac dress for him and it actually fit!

We decided that since it was a prom theme, that we’d take prom pictures with a cheesy background. We actually posted all of these on a site and sent them to vendors. I’m only going to repost the couple’s pictures, because they’re the best ones. We happened to have this marble column laying around the office. The fruit and flower arrangement was a gift to the office manager from her MIL, that was rejected and given away during our annual white elephant Christmas gift exchange and has somehow made it onto my work boyfriend’s desk.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

New Orleans

2009-11-02T15:25:11Z

this was carved into the sidewalk in front of an art gallery

On the way back from Houston, it was decided that it’d be a great idea to go to New Orleans since it would only tack on 30 minutes of driving time. We pulled into New Orleans just after dark and made our way to the French Quarter where there were tons of people walking around in costumes trick-or-treating.

It was a huge mistake to drive a car into the French Quarter, there were people everywhere who wouldn’t move out of your way and there was no place to park at all. Eventually we found a parking spot and walked back to Bourbon Street.

A lantern outside of the visitor center, where there was actually parking

A crazy chandelier inside the visitor's center

It turned out that we’d just barely missed the Halloween parade, which explained all the people in costumes. We only stayed a couple of hours, long enough to walk the length of Bourbon St, grab some drinks and food, and visit a few of the little shops. There were tons of voodoo themed shops and porn stores.

through the gate of the st. louis cemetery

okay, so i'm still a little goth girl at heart, i love cemeteries.

After visiting our last store, we made our way to Armstrong park and stopped for a bit to listen to a random brass band that was playing on the sidewalk and watch people dance. Once you got off Bourbon St, it was much quieter and infinitely more pleasant. I’d like to go back for more than a couple of hours to really enjoy it.

this walgreens has the best sign I've ever seen.

the ritz across the street from the walgreens.

the entrance to armstrong park

I only saw one girl flash boobs while I was there. Apparently you don’t have to flash to get beads on Halloween. I came back with some awesome glow in the dark skull beads which I wore around work for Halloween.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

A wedding in Texas.

2009-11-02T01:23:46Z

Last weekend I took a 12 hour car ride to Houston to attend the wedding of a long-time internet friend. I took Friday off work, and left Atlanta right after work on Thursday. Caught rush hour traffic both leaving Atlanta at 7pm and arriving in Houston at 9am.

The ride to Houston was pretty interesting. On the way over we were driving the entire way at night. Upon entering Alabama, I noticed that the state highway signs kind of look like Alabama has a nutsack.

It’s just compounded by the fact that the silhouette of the state is resized poorly, so it looks all sad and stumpy with a nutsack.

There is absolutely nothing along i85 in Alabama. The first stop of the trip was at Victoryland, which was apparently a greyhound racing track and two gas stations. While at the gas station, I saw a beaten up pickup truck full of scrap metal and a guy exiting the convenience store carrying a 40 and a half gallon of milk. I was later informed by my tattooist friend that Victoryland has a convenience store that sells draught beer in gallon jugs. I’m assuming that was at the other store.

In Alabama, we also passed through Waugh. This is now on my list of terrible things to name cities somewhere near Guelph, ON. They both just sound like noises your body makes while sick. Ugh. We drove through Alabama’s nutsack, where I saw a truck hauling “show chickens” and into Mississippi, where I promptly fell asleep.

I woke back up somewhere on the bayou crossing an endless bridge. Southern Louisiana is a lot like southern Georgia, with all the swamp land. However I found on the drive back that their swamp land is a lot more water and less peat than Georgia’s swamp land. It was nice being in a state with french city names that actually pronounce them correctly. I still cringe when I hear people in Georgia pronounce LaFayette “Luh Fayit”.

The bridge over the bayou lulled me back to sleep and I woke up a bit again on the bridge over the Mississippi River. It’s this gigantic arch, and at the top of it you look out over this gigantic industrial area. It was really pretty at night, like a city decorated with christmas lights. It was not so impressive coming back through during the day.

Texas was interesting. Within 5 miles of entering it, I saw an example of every single Texan cliché there is, minus a gun store. Texas also has THE WORST ROADS EVER. Georgia’s roads are pretty great, we’re kind of known for our well maintained roads. Every other state we went through, the roads got progressively worse. In Louisiana, the dismounts from bridges were almost bottoming out the car. All of that was just in preparation for Texas. Almost all of i10 is under construction, so there are death walls with no shoulder down miles of road. On top of that, the lanes aren’t painted, they’re marked off with cat’s eyes and strips of corrugation. They’re impossible to see during the day and vibrate you car like it’s going to fall apart if you need to switch lanes. I was wishing I could fall back asleep to escape the terror that was traveling on those roads.

The GPS failed and took us to the reception site instead of the hotel, which was a nice introduction to the ghetto public transit in Houston. They have trolleys that look like the future from the 80s, and they really screw up traffic. As sad as Atlanta’s public transport is, at least we have trains that don’t effect traffic.

Finally, we arrived at the hotel. The hotel was amazing!

After a bit of a nap, it was time to get ready and head to the Natural Science Museum. The ceremony was to be held in the butterfly house. It was a really cute venue.

The traffic was pretty bad, so we arrived a bit late. That ended up being okay, though, as the ceremony also started late. No one wanted to go into the butterfly house because it was so humid, so we all stood around in the lobby. Eventually, the family members found out that we had only met the bride in person about 3 hours before the ceremony and kind of freaked out.

Eventually it was time for the ceremony to start, so we all filed into the butterfly house. It was a cute, geeky ceremony full of inside jokes and a reference to the konami code.

It was also pretty dark by the time the ceremony started so out of the hundred pictures I took, only about 5 of them turned out because I wasn’t using flash. The ceremony was short and sweet, and then it was time to head to the reception venue that was down the block at the Czech hall.

We were actually the first people to arrive, but circled the parking lot and then got stuck at a light that refused to change for 5 mins, before we just ran it. The reception venue was pretty decadent.

The couple’s grand entrance

The staircase was epic. There was a piano underneath it, and the bar was right next to the piano.
The bride made all of the bouquets herself out of clay. They were lovely.

The rug was also pretty epic. Every single thing was just covered in baroque decoration. Apparently the space was chosen so they wouldn’t have to pay to decorate, which is a great idea.

The dinner was really nice. I had a salad and lemon rosemary chicken. I noticed I was the only one at the table that didn’t scrape off all the herbs, but I found it pretty yummy. The cake was a black forest cake and it was HUGE. The bride and I were the only two people who managed to finish eating a full slice.

Although I was dreading the drive, I’m glad we went. It was nice to meet the bride and groom in person, we all got along really well and it was pretty fun.

Driving that far west (which is the farthest west I’ve ever been) also opened the door to me trying Jack in the Box and Whataburger, neither of which we have here in Georgia. I do have to say that I found Whataburger tasty, I had this buffalo chicken sandwich and it was super yummy.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

A wedding in Texas.

2009-11-02T01:23:44Z

It’s just compounded by the fact that the silhouette of the state is resized poorly, so it looks all sad and stumpy with a nutsack.

Finally, we arrived at the hotel. The hotel was amazing!

After a bit of a nap, it was time to get ready and head to the Natural Science Museum. The ceremony was to be held in the butterfly house. It was a really cute venue.

Eventually it was time for the ceremony to start, so we all filed into the butterfly house. It was a cute, geeky ceremony full of inside jokes and a reference to the konami code.

The couple’s grand entrance

The staircase was epic. There was a piano underneath it, and the bar was right next to the piano.
The bride made all of the bouquets herself out of clay. They were lovely.

The rug was also pretty epic. Every single thing was just covered in baroque decoration. Apparently the space was chosen so they wouldn’t have to pay to decorate, which is a great idea.

Although I was dreading the drive, I’m glad we went. It was nice to meet the bride and groom in person, we all got along really well and it was pretty fun.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Death stairs.

2009-10-19T22:28:01Z

Autumn is upon us

I had a short day trip to Amicalola Falls this Saturday. I was under the impression by the flowery prose on the GA State Park Leaf Watch page, that it would be gray skies but with lots of color. There was a bit of color, but nothing to get excited about. It looked as though the leaves that had turned had already fallen off, leaving mostly bare branches and green leaves.

Moss and naked trees

A bit of yellow

Weird seedpod thing outside the lobby

Weird seedpod, burst

It was also in the high 40s/low 50s outside, which makes me an unhappy girl. After the short walk around the “Lodge Loop”, I wanted to thaw out a bit and visited the lodge.

Crazy chandelier in the lodge

There was a birds of prey show going on in the lobby, which was keeping me from getting close to the amazing wall of glass. The show seemed to consist mostly of various types of owls, and I firmly believe that owls are assholes, so I wasn’t very interested. Eventually, the kids cleared out of the lobby and I could look out the massive window.

View from the gift shop

View from the lobby

After the lobby, it was off to see the falls. The falls were definitely an afterthought, as I was there mostly for pretty trees. I had no idea what the falls were going to entail, other than a 604 step staircase, which I learned from a shirt in the visitors’ center.

From the top, the falls are a bit anti-climactic.

The top of the falls

View from the top, with the edge of the falls

helpful sign

The view was pretty incredible

To get to the “viewing platform” of the waterfall, you start down the longer portion of the devil stairs.

The sign isn’t lying, either. It’s pretty difficult just going down these stairs, by the time I’d reached the bottom, my legs were twitching.

This isn't even all of the stairs. They go on and on and on

I wasn't going fast enough, apparently.

Right before the viewing platform, there’s this stump covered in old gum.

the gum stump

The viewing platform was pretty impressive. I had no idea the falls would look anything like this judging from the top.

from the viewing platform

There are around 100ish more stairs from the platform to the “bottom” (which didn’t look like the bottom to me once we got there, it just wasn’t as intense).

leaves on the way to the bottom

from the bottom, you can't see the top and can only barely see the viewing platform.

It was a really pleasant day trip. I would like to stay a weekend at some point. It was SO quiet and peaceful.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Crème Brûlée

2009-10-19T02:27:39Z

I love crème brûlée.

(I also love Amélie. Such a beautiful film.)

For the longest time, I was intimidated to try making it, though. Custards are notoriously testy, prone to curdling and becoming rubbery, and the recipes I studied involved all kinds of funky steps that I just didn’t know if I was prepared to attempt.

However, making crème brûlée is really, really easy. Much easier than making homemade pudding. You should try it.

Crème Brûlée

yields approximately 4 ramekins (20oz)

2 cup heavy cream
4 tbs sugar
1 pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla
4 egg yolks

Preheat oven to 300° and set a large pot of water out to boil. Line the bottom of a deep pan with a damp cloth. You want the pan to be about as deep as your ramekins and, obviously, large enough to fit them all.

Combine the cream, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat 4-5 mins, or until the cream mixture starts to steam. This is pretty forgiving, I’ve let it simmer accidentally and the final product hasn’t been compromised.

Beat the egg yolks and vanilla together until smooth. I would really recommend you use your stand mixer for this, it will make adding the cream mixture much easier. Once the eggs are smooth, add the cream mixture to the bowl in a thin stream, beating constantly. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you need to add a little of the cream to the egg yolks and beat to temper them. Then pour the egg mixture back into the rest of the cream mixture and beat until thoroughly combined.

Place the ramekins into the pan on top of the towel and pour the custard into them. Place the pan in the oven, then pick up your pot of boiling water and pour into the pan until the water level is about halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 25-30 mins or until set. You want the custard to be firm around the outside, but jiggly like jello in the middle. Cool in the refrigerator.

When ready to serve, remove from the refrigerator, blot any moisture from the tops, and sprinkle the custards with sugar. Turbinado is yummy, but white is just fine. You’re about the burn the crap out of it, so it doesn’t really matter.

If you have a kitchen torch, you know what to do. If you’re like me and torchless, turn your oven to broil and move your rack to the top. Once the elements are red hot, place the ramekins underneath and watch constantly until the sugar begins to bubble. Both methods have their difficulties. With the torch, you’re more likely to catch the sugar on fire. With the broiler, you’re more likely to begin rebaking the custard an having it become overdone. I’ve yet to mess one up though, like I said, they’re very forgiving.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Beginning the biscuit quest.

2009-10-16T01:24:21Z

Seeing as I am from the south and love to bake, you’d assume that I’d have an awesome biscuit recipe that is flaky, delicious and full of win. And you would be wrong.

Although I am from Georgia, and have lived here my entire life, I have learned precious little about southern cooking. My family was displaced from California and my grandmother took great pains to not learn recipes from the lowly southern folk. I had a childhood devoid of confections such as cobbler, and events such as potlucks.

Most of the time, not knowing the first thing about southern cooking doesn’t bother me, as I know it’s basically just an excuse to deep fry things and fill then with lard. However, I really really like biscuits and gravy and have a burning desire to know how to cook this dish.

I’m focusing on the biscuits first, as I’ve tried to make milk gravy (also known as sausage gravy or white gravy depending on your locale) and failed miserably. I thought I’d have more luck with biscuits and that culinary win would keep me from falling into despair as I spend my Saturdays scraping clumpy gravy into the garbage.

When I think of terribly healthy southern cooking, I think of Paula Deen. I figured my search to find an authentic southern biscuit recipe should begin with her. I found this recipe from The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook and thought that it sounded promising, although it yields between 2 and 3 dozen biscuits and that’s insane.

Paula Deen’s Basic Biscuits

1/2 c water
1 package yeast
2 c buttermilk
3/4 c shortening
5 c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbs baking powder

Preheat the oven to 400. Heat the water to luke warm and dissolve the yeast to let it bloom. I’d recommend using a thermometer so you can be sure it’s between 100 and 110F, but the water is the right temperature if it feels slightly warm to your fingertip, and neutral to your wrist.

Mix all the dry ingredients (that’d be the flour, soda, salt, and powder) into the largest bowl you can find. Then cut in the shortening. I’d recommend using a pastry cutter as they make life so much better, but a fork works if you’re a glutton for punishment.

When the shortening is fully incorporated, make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the buttermilk and yeast. Beat until the batter becomes a sticky tragedy. You will now need to somehow roll this mass flat enough to cut with a biscuit cutter without adding additional flour. Obviously, you’ll need to flour your hands, the surface, and the rolling pin, but try to be as sparing as you can be. The biscuits will not rise well if you incorporate too much additional flour in at this stage. Do not make my mistake.

After the biscuits are cut and placed into greased pans, I’d recommend letting them sit for a few minutes to rise a bit before popping them into the oven for 10-12 mins.

Overall, this is a decent biscuit recipe. Mine came out a little bready, but I also made the mistake of incorporating too much flour. In a month when this batch is finally eaten, I’m planning on giving it another try with less flour. I’d like more flake and moisture overall, and i think the overabundance of flour is what killed me this time.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Weekend in Berea

2009-10-11T22:44:35Z

I had the pleasure of staying last weekend in Berea, Kentucky. It’s a quaint little town that is basically run by this cute little college. Berea is basically a free school for underprivileged Appalachian kids, where they work off their school related debt in the town by way of hospitality or traditional crafts. I found it pretty interesting, and a fun visit. Everyone there was ridiculously friendly, and it was overall just a pleasant experience. I’d like to go back at some point, if for nothing else than to have some more of the delicious brown sugar crusted salmon I had at the Boone Tavern.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

The office moved.

2009-10-08T02:02:56Z

The office moved last week. We’ve gone from a dark little cave to a bright, echo-y hall of douchebaggery. I never thought I would miss working in the cave that completely blocked all means of cellular communication.

I am one of three designers that did not get an office. This is still a step up for me, though, because I was previously at the tiniest desk in the office. I now have a big-girl desk that I haven’t quite gotten used to. All of my stuff is still crammed into a tiny corner, and I lose job jackets because the account execs drop them wherever on my desk and I keep forgetting that it’s all my desk.

My desk is right outside of pervy coworker’s office. He’s taken to listening to terrible, whiny 90s radio rock on his shitty internal speakers. I guess he thinks because he has an office that it’s cool to play music with the door open and leave it going as wanders aroung. My adjacent coworker finally had enough and stayed late to tear pervy coworker’s computer apart in an effort to silence the speaker.

The acoustics in the office are terrible. We have a nice high ceiling, which makes for insane echo. There’s no place to go in the office and talk without everyone else hearing it. One of the owner’s major complaints about the old office was how sound carried, and it’s at least 50 times worse in the new office.

On our last day at the old office, pregnant coworker was on one of her plentiful conference calls via speaker phone. The owner walked by and muttered, “I can’t wait until I don’t have to hear that shit anymore and I can just tell her to shut the goddamned door.” I’m pretty much convinced that the reason all the account execs got offices with doors in because the owner was tired of hearing everyone’s conference calls.

The first day in the new office, pregnant coworker jumped on speakerphone. I walked up to the office manager’s desk (which is on the opposite end of the office) and said, “You’d think that she’d close her fucking door since she has one.” The office manager couldn’t believe that it was pregnant coworker’s phone because it was so loud. The office manager told me that she was going to go back there and make lots of noise until the door was shut. I left for lunch and when I got back, the office manager stopped me to tell me that the owner had gone over in the middle of the conference call and slammed her door. We had a hearty laugh.

Speaking of pregnant coworker, I found out recently that she threatened legal action if we didn’t provide her a breastfeeding room at the new office. Eventhough the vice president and the office manager pumped in their cars and bathrooms, she’s too good to do that. She actually said “I’m not going to sit on a toilet for hours while I pump.” Hours?? Really? It’s going to be great when she gets back from maternity leave (assuming she returns, I’m not 100% that she will), and does absolutely nothing because she’s too busy being an entitled cow.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Atlanta Flood of 2009

2009-09-27T00:26:14Z

a well used umbrella drying out in the dark lobby at work

This week at work was absolutely insane. We’re in the middle of a move from our current office space, which is a cave of a basement that cell signal can’t even puncture, to a new office that is being renovated. Last week there was a bit of a rain which made it evident, through an awesome amount of drywall damage, that the repair job on the roof of the new building hadn’t gone as well as was hoped.

So last week, the contractors spent time tearing out the water damaged drywall and replacing it with new. Before the roof contractors made it back out to fix the roof. A tarp was placed over the roof and the roofers were due out this Monday along with the HVAC people.

Over the weekend, we were pummeled with a storm riding a front that hovered over atl all weekend. Cue Monday and it’s still raining. The roofers refuse to come out and the HVAC people are there, but can’t hoist the unit to the roof because the ground is too soft and the crane is sinking.

At around 2pm, someone from the upstairs of our current building comes down and says “The ditch is in danger of overflowing, you might want to move your cars”. This is completely preposterous in my mind, as there is a 5ft bank for the 3″ deep creek to flow through and a 5ft wall on top of that to protect our parking area.

The lobby illuminated by emergency lights

At 3pm the lights go out. They stay off for around 15 minutes, which means they’re most likely not coming back on before the close of business, so everyone goes around shutting off the surge protectors to stop the beeping until we’re told to leave. One of my coworkers grabs me and tells me to go upstairs because the creek is spewing forth like whitewater from underneath the road.

This is kinda hard to see, I couldn't get my camera to focus past the droplets on the window

Then I am reminded of what the lady from upstairs was telling us about the parking lot flooded and we all ran outside and are greeted with this:

That concrete barrier is the wall I was alluding to earlier. The water is even with the land that the concrete wall originates from.Although the parking lot was in no danger of flooding, it was in danger of having the ornamental trees in it toppling over from massive erosion. Everyone started moving their cars and we went back inside.

Upon returning to the building, our Vice President was freaking out because the contractor working on the new building had just called and said that “thousands of gallons of water” were pouring into the new building through its leaky roof. After trying to call a flood cleanup company and not being able to get through to any of them, she ran out of the office and told us to finish up what we could and try to make it safely home.

working my emergency light

Getting ready to brave the floods

I live 12 miles from work. It took me an hour and a half to go home.

I was told that 400 was a parking lot and to try to take back roads home. My usual back road was blocked by a tree. I spent about 30 mins taking the alternate back road home and made it halfway before seeing an even bigger tree blocking this road, causing me to have to backtrack and try 400 afterall.

Again, hard to see through the windshield, but the huge tree taking down the powerlines

400 wasn’t backed up too badly until I saw the traffic sign saying that 75/85 was closed due to flooding. At that point, I didn’t think it’d be that big of a deal because the sign said that the interstate was closed at downtown and I only needed to be on it until midtown. I was a smidge mistaken.

It finally stopped raining some time during the evening, so I went into work the next day and saw the devastation of the creek overflowing.

you can see exactly how high the water got in the kudzu

In the background, you can see where the water pulled a chain link fence to the ground. That’s insane, because the current wasn’t even that strong that far down.

It was a pretty interesting distraction from business as usual. I can’t believe that Atlanta is so ill-prepared for flooding. I-20 was closed for multiple days and Six Flags is still under water. It just started raining again today and we’re under a flood watch again, so who knows what’s going to happen now?

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

swine flu woe

2009-09-13T22:41:08Z

how I've spent the last week

I’ve wasted the last almost week of my life in bed thanks to the plague I’ve somehow acquired. My doctor suspects it to be swine flu (yeah, seriously. lucky me?), but I haven’t made it in for testing. I don’t know if I will bother now because I’m feeling marginally better. I have no idea how I could have possibly caught it. No one I’ve been around lately has had anything even remotely resembling this mucus-filled nightmare.

I’m now ridiculously behind on the freelance work I’m working on. I’m juggling about 7 different jobs from 3 different clients right now. Most of it is print based, so pretty quick work, but one is an entire website design which is proving to be more time consuming than I though. On top of this, I am about to pick up an additional web job from an incompetent local web design company that have completely screwed over one of my repeat clients. I was planning on knocking out all of the print work for the client that’s giving me the additional web job this past week, and fleshing out the rest of the first web job as much as possible (i’m still missing… oh… all of the content for that, ugh.) so I’d be a bit less stressed. But yeah, that didn’t happen.

I was also hoping to split some of the wedding freelance work I’m doing with my future business partner so that we could start acting like a business, and she’s, of course, too busy to take anything. I’m starting to get really concerned about the feasibility of getting this business off the ground. I know that she means well and is serious about the business, but is busy with her ridiculous work schedule. It’s just worrisome that we’ve made no real progress since June on getting our shit together. Part of that is my fault, because I’m also ridiculously busy, but I feel like it’s mostly me working around her schedule when we are equally strapped for time.

I’m sure it will all work out in the end, I’m just having a bit of a breakdown right now. I feel like I have entirely too much responsibility that I can’t successfully delegate out, and I really need to be able to.

Deep breath.

If anyone says something positive about me, it’s that I’m driven. My mom’s favorite way of saying this is to never tell me that I can’t do something, unless you want to be proven wrong. I know that I can get through this, no matter how behind this stupid plague has put me. I’ll start on catching up when it doesn’t feel like I have a bucket of nails hanging out in my brains : (

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

tattoo aftermath

2009-09-07T22:50:18Z

This was my second tattoo. I got it the summer of ‘02, between graduating highschool and moving off to college. I got my first one earlier that year, right before I graduated.

The heart is on the small of my back and didn’t heal very well because it was itchy as hell and I started scratching it in my sleep. So not only was it done in red, which fades badly anyway, the color was flaked off in places.

I hit a friend up from highschool for some ink this weekend and had him touch up my back. This resulted in the following carnage:

I never had this problem in highschool because I was sleeping on black satin sheets. Here’s hoping I can bleach out tattoo ink?

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Stock photo lolz

2009-09-02T19:18:50Z

birthday jesus-one of the most hilarious stock images i've ever found

I started working on xmas themed ads in August. Ugh.

We have a client that has a large “worship” market, that they believe is only christian although that is not the case. They always want to really jesus-up the mailers and ads they do, eventhough a pretty large chunk of their mailing list are synagogues. So instead of fighting it this year, I just decided to search “christmas jesus”.

The search yielded this beauty, which I am compelled to work into a mailer now. It’s too tongue-in-cheek to just let it slide. If i’m going to be forced into pandering to the evangelicals, I might as well have fun with it.

I’ve also found out recently that:

my pervert coworker wears girls’ jeans. Not that this surprises me in the least because he’s in his 40s and dresses like he aspires to grace the pages of latfh.

and my pregnant coworker got bit in the ass for looking at daycare centers when she was in her first trimester instead of pediatricians, like a sane person would do. She was on the phone with her preferred pediatrician for most of an afternoon trying to bully herself into a spot. An argument which she eventually lost.

I am now guiding my office into the wonderful world that is social media advertising. I pointed them toward the (canadian) Nissan Hypercube fiasco as a cautionary tale. I actually would like to delve into this marketing disaster in-depth, but it’s been done many, many times over now. Suffice it to say, I’m glad that my company is utilizing me as a user of said social media to guide our efforts, instead of some marketing douchebag that really doesn’t know anything abut the medium.

I’m hoping that my company will realize that I’m more than an inDesign and Flash jockey. Not that I want to get into marketing in the slightest, but I feel as though I’m being woefully underutilized.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Rainbow cake

2009-08-26T20:20:40Z

I’ve been meaning to make a rainbow cake for almost a month now. This cake, which made the twitter rounds yesterday, finally inspired me to do it. I used the same basic cake recipe, but cheaped out and used ready-made “white” frosting. I didn’t want to use the last of my butter and eggs making frosting. Especially since the cake itself used 5 egg whites and the frosting recipe was going to push the egg white usage over a dozen if i used the full amount. I went light on the frosting as well, because nothing makes me sick quite like over-frosted cake.

My only regret is how “meh” the purple came out. It came out very gray, which isn’t very appetizing at all. I think I have to chalk the subpar performance of the red and purple dye up to the fact that I bake using white whole wheat flour which has a pretty strong brownish cast. The red came out all right in the finished cake, but i used about half my tube of gel. The purple is definitely a lost cause. It’s a good thing that it’s on the bottom.

Rainbow Cake

from Whisk Kid

2 sticks butter
2 1/3 c sugar
5 egg whites
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 c flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 1/2 c milk
food coloring ( i prefer gel, it doesn’t rape the consistency of the batter as much as liquid)

Gather all ingredients, letting all refrigerated ingredients come to room temperature, and as many 9″ cake pans as you have. Unless you’re mightily blessed in the way of cake pans, you’ll be greasing and flouring the same ones multiple times. Preheat to 350.

Think now about how you are going to portion your batter out into 6 equal amounts. If you’re going to do it by weight, measure your mixer bowl now. I did not do this, and promptly dirtied every single bowl in my entire kitchen.

Cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. While that’s going, sift your dry ingredients together. Pour the eggwhites into the creamed mixture in a small, steady stream. It will fluff up considerably, and you will likely have to scrape down multiple times. I have the 4.5qt kitchenaid and this batter really tested its limits.

After all the eggwhites are incorporated, add the vanilla and mix thoroughly. Then add the dry ingredient mixture, alternating with the milk until thoroughly mixed. All pretty standard “I’m making a cake” stuff.

Now divide the batter into 6 equal portions and color them accordingly. I colored all the batches at once and then put them into the pans and smoothed them out with as little molestation as possible so they would still rise in the oven. By the time I cooked my third batch (I only have two usable cake pans), the baking powder had already given all the leavening power it had and my last layer baked up pretty flat. Bake for 15ish minutes.

I also only have two, small, cooling racks. I didn’t let the cake sit in the pan to cool because I didn’t have the time as I was baking 3 batches. I jiggled the cake around in the pan and immediately turned it out. Those cakes would stay on the rack for the time the next batch would take to bake, then would be piled on a plate on top of waxed paper.

I would recommend baking purple – red for maximum efficiency. I baked red – purple and realized at the construction stage that it would have gone faster the other way, so my base layers would be cool and ready to frost as the top layers were cooling.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Thrift store finds

2009-08-22T01:41:58Z

After having not gone into a thrift store in a few years, I finally made the trek during my lunch break to scout some dinnerware pieces. I promptly ran into my dumpster-diving coworker who has a profound love of retro-modern furniture and his friend, who is my coworker who loudly listens to death metal in the office. They apparently spend part of their lunch break combing the aisles of Goodwill every day.

I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did find these absolutely adorable Japanese tea ceremony cups. I picked them up to use as tealight holders. As it turns out, they’re almost too small to actually hold tealights, but they’re close enough. They’re also a very attractive shade of black-brown which perfectly matches my Ikea-procured furniture. As anyone who has visited my loft has witnessed, I have a pretty strict white, black-brown, gray, and burnt orange color scheme.

However, I have yet to find a place to put them. So they are sitting on my kitchen counter filled with their icecream scented Ikea candles waiting for a home. Yes, I may shop at Ikea a bit too much. But honestly, who wouldn’t if they have the minimalistic design sensibilities and woefully tiny cashflow that I have? It’s not like I can drop $3k on a le Corbusier lounge…. yet.

I’m very afraid of the longing for amazing thrift store finds that this trip has aroused in me. It’s hard to not cheerfully remember all the amazing mid-century furniture finds I’ve made in the past. At least smart car’s size limitations will tame the urge somewhat.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

New macbook woes.

2009-08-20T21:50:47Z

The packaging, like always, is beautiful. The tab is to lift out the macbook.

I have been silent lately. Not for a lack of things to say, but because it took a full 40 hours for the data to transfer between my old macbook and my new one. It is painful for me to be without a computer for that long, especially while in the middle of freelance work. Luckily, my clients seemed to be pretty understanding. But that just means I have to work twice as hard now to pick up the slack.

New macbook is nice but it isn’t. It’s much faster, has much more storage capacity, the optical drive is on the side where it should be, and the screen will get a lot brighter and dimmer than my old one. However, I hate the keyboard. It’s loud, it’s ugly, it’s not as ergonomic, and the volume up/down keys aren’t in the proper spot. I keep opening dashboard or exposéing instead of muting or turning the volume down. I wish there were some way to put the keyboard from my old macbook into my new one.

An additional complaint is that it’s fucking retarded to send out a computer that has a firewire800 port without including a 400-800 adapter when the primary means of transferring data between computers during setup is firewire. I had to transfer over the network, which is why it took ages.

Aside from the time lost, it was a pretty painless process. I opened up the new macbook and it felt like being on the old one. All my icons were in the right place, my firefox tabs were saved, and even the files in my trash bin were moved over. My only lingering issue is that some of my fonts apparently didn’t transfer over properly, but I haven’t had time to properly look into why that happened.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Rampant consumerism.

2009-08-12T18:52:53Z

excuse the sad, chipping toenail polish

This week has been full of ridiculous purchasing. First off I purchased a camera, the Canon SD790IS which i got an awesome deal on. The macro on this camera is amazing, it will focus from about an inch and a half away. I want to marry it and have its babies.

oh the shallow depth of field...

Hands down the best macro I have ever seen out of a lowly point-and-shoot. I couldn’t even see the fuzz on my silicone cover with my eyes.

my filofax's clasp. gorgeous macro. i can't say it enough.

I’ve had the camera for a bit, but only got to test-drive it for the first time today on my lunchbreak. I think I may need to change underpants now, oh my god.

However, I’m kind of regretting buying this because the fan on my laptop’s processor finally gave up the ghost. I swear to god that Apple engineers their intel macs to immediately break down at the three year mark. So, I’m being forced to upgrade a bit early. I was planning on upgrading next year, but Macbook forced my hand.

I’m going from a Macbook Pro 2ghz to a Macbook Pro 2.66 with the “anti-glare display”. One of the things that was holding me back was a lack of matte display in the new models. Glossy screens are useless for calibrating for CMYK press production, and since I’m primarily doing print-based design, I need true print color. However yesterday, the day the 15″ matte displays were released, was the day my fan went down in a deafening blaze of glory. Thank you Apple, for allowing me the choice of a matte display — something I’m sure you only relented to stocking again due to the combined outcry of the design industry — and charging me a $50 surcharge for it. It’s beyond me how a matte display could possibly cost 50 additional dollars to produce. Especially since in my generation of MBP, the generation you released the first glossy displays in, you were charging an additional fee for the glossy display. There should not be an addtional charge to change screen finish. Period.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Finishing my smart-iPod integration.

2009-08-10T20:56:56Z

ipod + moutning bracket

It occured to me this weekend that I never finished my ipod into smart car integration story. A few days after I hacked a new dc outlet into my glovebox, my chosen mounting bracket showed up.

I decided to go with the proclip solution. It’s a two-part solution that includes a vehicle specific mount, coupled with a device specific holder. It happens to have a mount for the smart, which is extra awesome seeing as not many companies have much smart love. For the longest time, it had a mount for the 450 but not the 451, but now it has both.

I like it because it’s not destructive to the interior. It’s held on with double-sided tape and tabs that fit in the natural gaps of the dash. However, it was obviously not made to be in a black car with black leather interior in the summer heat of Georgia. The double-sided tape tends to get a bit wobbily on the hottest of August afternoons.

I was pleased to learn that all of the branding on the mount came on stickers that were very easily peeled off. It goes a long way to making this feel like a properly integrated solution. My biggest complaint is that there’s no way to mount it that doesn’t at least partially obscure the source button on the factory radio. I never turn my radio off aux input, though, so it’s not a huge deal.

Overall, I’m very pleased with my solution. This is massively better than holding my ipod in my lap and digging it out of my floorboard whenever I have to slam on brakes.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

Visiting family

2009-08-05T17:56:45Z

A touching brotherly bonding moment over Mario

I had a rather impromptu visit to south Georgia last weekend to visit my family. I was originally going to go the weekend prior, because it was my mom’s birthday, but I managed to jam that weekend up with freelance work.

This was the first time I’ve driven down there on a normal weekend. I usually don’t make the 3 hour drive unless it’s a long weekend, because I actually get two full days down there. I only got one full day, but I made it a good one. It was the highlight tour of my hometown, really. Anything more than 3 days and I run out of stuff to do, short visits are great because they quench my thirst for the serenity of the country, but don’t remind me too much of how mind-numbingly dull it was to live there.

I was on a bit of a scavenger hunt through my late-grandmother’s sewing supplies, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to go down. There was some stuff that I inherited and stuff that I left down there when I moved off to college that I wanted to reclaim. Digging through my grandmother’s belongings, I ran across the first “real” painting I ever did on canvas:

painted ca. age 5-6

For those of you not privy to my artistic genius, it is a cat wearing a hat with a flower stuck in it holding what I believe to be a book.

I remember begging my grandmother to buy me a canvas to paint on. After a few days, she relented and bought me a watercolor set and one piece of canvas board, which she then cut in half. This was the result!

It was framed and hung in the dining room of our old house, right next to the sliding glass doors to the patio, until we moved when I was 13.

She kept this and my first real drawing (ca. age 3), which was of my mother. I really need to find that and post it as well. It’s amazing for a 3 year old having done it.

It’s nice to know that, although she tried to bully me out of going into an art field later in life, she at one point encouraged my artistic ability and believed in me.

that's a pool with a tractor and a soybean field.

smart car surveying his domain... of soybeans.

lizard with a crazy blue tail

I spent most of the afternoon in my uncle’s parents’ pool with my mom and little cousin. I much prefer swimming down there to my pool at my building. It’s much more laid back, the pool isn’t lined with overly tanned gay men in speedos and judgemental anorexic bitches, and it’s much, much deeper than the sad 5ft my building’s pool is.

It was thundering, but sunny when we got in. And all of a sudden there was a sun shower, it was pretty amazing. We all started laughing and enjoying the rain like children. I really wish that I could relive that, it was a lovely moment. Towards the end of our swim, my aunt and littlest cousin joined us for a bit, before heading back to play some wii.

I left my cousins playing wii and headed to the town I went to highschool in to meet up with a friend. We had the “greatest hits collection” tour of the city. We had dinner at el Potro (the mexican restaurant in town), and omg for a tiny town in south Georgia, the food is amazing. I am so in love with their salsa.

We actually caught the sno cone shack open as well! SnoBiz hadn’t opened at all last year, so I was surprised to find it open this year. I got a MaiTai with cream and my friend got an Island Breeze, which turned her tongue first green, and later blue. It brought back so many memories of being a kid and stopping by SnoBiz on the way back from the public pool, still in my bathing suit and dripping wet, with the smell of cut grass and ot asphalt in the air.

After sno cones, there was nothing left to do but go to Walmart. We lapped Walmart twice, didn’t see anyone we knew (which is rare, but thank god), and decided to leave. It’s always curious to me how small towns get this “Walmart culture” where everyone goes to it for entertainment. There are always kids in there playing and people in there to purely socialize. I’m so glad that my Saturday nights don’t revolve around who I bump into at Walmart anymore.

Having exhausted all of our other options, I drug her to the park I always go to and we swang in the dark. Swings are a very pivotal object in my life, and I am drawn to them. After dropping her back off at home and chatting a bit, I headed home.

There, my cousins decided to stay over until 2am (they’re 13 and 4, and don’t look at me like that, I’m not their mom) playing Super Mario Bros. Do you have any idea how funny it is to watch a modern child try to play an old 8-bit game? It is epic fail! The youngest one isn’t so bad at it, but the older one is terrible, which is great because he’s so cocky about being awesome at video games. Being the loving cousin that I am, I mock him mercilessly.

Sunday was much the same as Saturday, with Mario and pool, but bookended with my packing smart car to the brim and driving back to Atlanta. I got back and immediately had to do a load of dishes, ugh. Welcome back to you, too, loft.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

The best mac and cheese ever

2009-07-31T17:39:27Z

Hello, my name is Alicia and my two major food groups are cake and cheese. I actually went to the grocery store last week and spent $30 out of a $40 trip exclusively on dairy products. I am the bane of the lactose intolerant.

I am sharing with you this supremely delicious macaroni and cheese recipe. It is definitely my go-to for comfort food. Originally a Betty Crocker recipe, I’ve tweaked it a little for my needs. As time progresses, you will see I have a sordid love affair with Betty Crocker.

I borrowed this from the internets because I ate mine too quickly to photograph.

Macaroni and Cheese

yields one loaf pan of lovely, bubbly goodness

2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni (I like the spiraled elbows, myself)
2 tablespoons butter (No, do not substitute margarine. Real butter from a stick, please.)
1 small red onion, chopped finely or minced (approx. 1/3 cup, more if you like onion or are using very sharp cheese. If you’re lazy, a tsp or so of onion powder will work.)
2 tbs flour (all-purpose)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups whole milk (Do not use under 2%, period. Whole will yield best results.)
8 ounces cheddar cheese, grated or finely cubed (I recommend buying real cheese and not Kraft if you can find it. the success of this dish is directly related to the quality of cheese you choose to employ.)

Pre-heat oven to 375.

Par-boil the pasta. I usually let it go for 6-7 minutes instead of the full 8-9. You want it to still be very al dente, but not crunchy. If you over to it, the pasta will just turn to mush and be gross.

While the pasta is boiling, melt butter in a medium-small sauce pan on medium-high heat. Add onion and salt and pepper, and cook until onion just barely starts to brown. Then add the flour into the mixture and stir until it becomes bubbly, what you’re doing is making a roux. I never have much luck with it remaining liquid enough to become bubbly, so as long as it’s mixed thoroughly and forms a paste, you’re fine.

Remove the pan from heat and begin pouring in the milk. Pour the milk in slowly, 1/4 cup or so at a time, and blend until it’s completely incorporated each time. Return pan to heat and continue stirring constantly until milk comes to a boil. At some point before the milk comes to a boil, your pasta will finish boiling. Strain pasta thoroughly and dump into your pan. Let milk boil for one minute and remove from heat.

Add in the cheese and stir until cheese is completely melted and smooth. Do not return to heat, returning to heat will cause the proteins in the cheese to break down and you will be left with a clumpy mess. Dump the cheese mixture in into the pan with the pasta. “Fluff” the pasta so it is completely covered in the delicious cheese sauce and pop in the oven for 30ish mins, or until brown and bubbly.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

does fuzzdecay give you diarrhea?

2009-07-30T21:14:04Z

Two people have legitimately found my page by searching “do wendy’s frosty’s give you diarrhea?” I find this perplexing, unfortunate, and hilarious all at once. I shared this information on my twitter which auto-updates my facebook status. This was probably a bad idea. I now have these additional fecal themed searches:

do wendy’s frosty’s give you diarrhea? (#3)
do wendy’s frosty’s give your diarrhea (#4)
does the scifi channel rebrand give you diarrhea? (#5)
does a smart car accessory outlet give you diarrhea? (#25)
fuzzdecay diarrhea (#53)

Thanks guys! Nice to know my friends are all 12 years old. I’m just expecting google to drop my search rank now. Not that I didn’t giggle heartily.

Just so this post isn’t all disgusting, I’ve noticed some heartening trends amongst my visitors.

most common browser is firefox (62%), followed by internet explorer (26%) then safari (17%). I am counting this as a nail in the coffin of IE, thank god.

Most common OS is windows (46%), followed by Linux (40%), then Mac (14%).

Two people came to my site that have their computers running 8 bit color depth? 24 bit (52%) barely nudges out 32 bit (43%).

Most people are using a resolution of 1280xsomething (53%). Happy to report that no one is using below 1024×768, which is itself only 17% of the demographic. There are two hits from someone with 320×240. I think that might be an iPhone? I also only have two hits from one, so I’m just guessing.

Although I’m sure my sampling of visitors isn’t completely indicative of overall trends, it’s still nice to see IE having its ass handed to it.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.

fuzzdecay @ 2009-07-28T12:05:00

2009-07-28T16:32:38Z

this requires some backstory. gwenhyffar recently posted this tirade against the dutch government being overrun by fundies and trying to inch away abortion rights. By requiring that abortions be performed in a hospital or licensed medical clinic, they are essentially putting a group that provides abortions in international waters for women in countries in which abortion is illegal out of business. I am, of course, enraged that their government would do such a thing. Especially since the Netherlands is seen to be one of the most progressive countries in the world.

I read down and find some controversy in the comments. Namely, a man comes in and is like "what's the big deal?" and gwen tries to explain to him and it doesn't get through.

He then posts this (which is a small excerpt from a much longer comment):

I'm just trying to imagine it the other way now,.. A ship from the middle east comes by, picks up a bunch of women and returns them circumsized. I bet you would not just let this slip of with a, HEY it's their law they did it where i couldn't see it so it's all good!

I reply:

i don't see how this has any bearing on an abortion argument. if the women wanted to have circumcisions, that is their right. you are comparing the additional availability of an elective procedure with the restriction of an elective procedure.

Of course, you are a man. You will never have the reality of being stuck in a country where you are being forced to carry a fetus to term that may be killing you because you have no reproductive rights. Men, in my opinion have no right to tell women anything about what we do with our bodies, until you also start dying during childbirth.

I think that I am fairly respectful. I point out the fallacy in his statement, and then tell him why I believe this organization's contribution to the world is meaningful, and that I understand why he may not feel that way. By this point, he has been banned from commenting further in her journal, so I receive this lj message:

i don't see how this has any bearing on an abortion argument. if the women wanted to have circumcisions, that is their right. you are comparing the additional availability of an elective procedure with the restriction of an elective procedure.

Partly true, but for many people abortion is not all that elective, like you said yourself, sometimes it just really needs to be done. I admit it is not the best comparison, but it was merely to state that even if it is not illegal, the argument of legality really doesn't matter to me. It's more of a moral thing.

Men, in my opinion have no right to tell women anything about what we do with our bodies.

Very true, yet stupid by my book. No other person, be it man or woman (because our cabinet really is not a league of big evil conspiring men, women have the right to vote and there are more women on this earth to begin with :p) should have the right to tell another person what to do with his or her body, that is why i dislike this whole femalre rights crap. It should be human rights! men should just as badly NOT want to see a woman die :s i really don't see the point. All of a sudden female rights organisations need to go wild? as if men are PRO abortion just because they are men :p

to which i replied:

The reason it's "women's rights" instead of "human rights" is because we live in a patriarchal society, for better or worse. White men as a group have never involuntarily had rights stripped from them, or not been allowed certain basic rights. So it is the "minorities", in this case women, that must fight for their rights.

I do agree with you in general, I think "feminism" has gone from searching for equal rights to something completely different and mildly unsavory. There are a lot of women whining and demonizing men. That's not something I seek to do. I just don't believe that men should be able to pass laws restricting access to a medical procedure that only effects women. It's like a band of women coming along and wanting to restrict access to treatments for prostate cancer on the grounds that it is immoral. I realize all lawmakers are not men, but when you look in my country (i'm from the us), a vast majority of lawmakers are rich white christian men, so i believe it's an apt comparison.

You're also talking to someone who had to travel hours into another state to have an abortion performed because of the restricted access to them in my home state. I understand (partially) what these women in countries in which abortions are illegal feel when they learn that there is a ship that will come and help them. It's the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel when you find a way to end an unwanted pregnancy that you didn't think you'd have.

I would like to clarify in my reply, that it is the women who fly the flag of feminism because of their hatred of men that I find unsavory. I don't believe that feminists as a whole do this, as I consider myself one.

Abortion is a medical issue, not a moral one. You cannot legislate one group's morality on the whole. It is wrong to do so. Our laws should be based on principles that are beneficial to the society, not some stone aged belief system.

If abortion's legality is revoked, women will go back to dying in motel rooms at the hands of untrained abortion providers. We will not just cease to seek abortion, they will only become unsafe. By restricting access to abortion, you are maiming (and sometimes murdering) your wives, daughters, and mothers. If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one.

ETA: Our dialogue is continuing:

I do agree with you in general, ... so i believe it's an apt comparison.

Exactly right on the first part, but the second i don't understand. When i read Gwen and the hatefull reactions i'm gettin i always see the same problem returning white christian men,.. i am a white christian male and i am pro abortus? what is it that makes those women think white christian men are against them? they are against abortion! It's not like i get a daily newsletter from conspiringwhitemalechauvinists.com or anything, there is no THE white christian man. And as far as Holland goes, there are men and women probably not all white against abortion, so why gather under some feminist flag? Many men want women to have this choice and would really support it, but once you call it feminist and you get people like those in Gwen's post out in public nobody takes it serious anymore.

Seeing as the whole post is going wrong and i'm getting angry emails from people to which i cannot comment i would only like to say that what Gwen is saying simply isn't true. This law change is due for november, it's still under debate :s the WoW has given a statement in an intervieuw that the way this is going their operation might come in danger, THAT's why they are not sailing out with their ship, they are busy here getting this law change done right and if they set sail now ant this bill does get passed, THEN they are in trouble. I read a couple of articles on the subject and it's all on a if, when, maybe base. People are getting a lot of things mixed up here and it is simply not true. Now non-dutch people read her post and think we are bloody idiots just because she posts something they think is true.

You're also talking to someone ... that you didn't think you'd have.

And THAT is what the world needs, the people in the country that has poor to none abortion options need to stand up for themselves, it's not like shouting boo in some dutch LJ chat that changes things, it's getting up and doing something about it. I think what WoW does is great and they should be ale to do it a lot more, but it is no sollition! it's not enough!

with kind regards,

a white christian male :p

my reply:

I don't know if i can clarify why women band together like we do and mercilessly eviscerate white christian men. Most of us understand that all white christian men are not part of some evil conspiracy to keep us barefoot and pregnant. However, there are a lot of those men, and a lot of them hold positions of power, and that it very very terrifying. When you bring about a point of discussion that even hints to the fact that you maybe, in some way, agree with something that we see as endangering our rights, the claws come out. As you have seen. I've been keeping it civil, but I'm sure I'm one of the few that has been.

I see where you're coming from regarding the need to go out and do something as opposed to chatting about it online, but by chatting about it we raise awareness. Although this law has not passed, and may never, it's good to get discussion going and to raise the issue so that people are informed. There's a bill going through in Ohio that restricts abortions to only ones that the father consents to. If you can't find the father to consent, you're fucked, basically. I don't see airing dirty laundry (potential or actual) as anything but good. It will get people to act and to bring about change. It may make your country look bad right now, but hopefully will make it better in the future.

Green tea cupcakes with honey frosting

2009-07-27T18:25:18Z

with fluffy clouds of frosting. excuse the very unappetizing food photography, it was taken with a blackberry because i'm waiting for Prince Charming to come along and gift me with a decent camera.

I’ve been dying to try my hand at green tea cupcakes for ages. I finally gave up trying to find a local distributor of matcha powder and used brewed green tea. Overall, I think they are successful. The cake has a very subtle green tea flavor due to using the brewed tea instead of powder and the frosting has a bit too much honey. I like the subtlety of the tea flavor, and how it paired with the honey, the honey was just a smidge too overbearing. I am adjusting the recipe to account for the strongness of the honey flavor.

Green Tea Cupcakes

adapted from 195os Betty Crocker white cake recipe.

yields 6-9

1/4 cup shortening (half butter for taste)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
3/8 cup flour (half cake, half all purpose)
scant 1tsp baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup strongly brewed green tea

For the tea brewing, I used 4 teabags in the 1/4 cup water. You’re shooting for the finished product to be opaque and very very dark greyish green. The more unappetizing it looks, the better it will be for flavoring the cake.

Beat butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Unless you are impatient like I am and put the butter in the mixer straight from the fridge, then it will take more like 5 mins. I usually spend this time sifting my dry ingredients (flour and baking powder) together. And by sifting, I mean dumping everything into a bowl, because I am a bad baker. I also mix the wet ingredients (milk and tea) together.

Next cream the sugar with the butter mixture, again, until light and fluffy. Mix egg throughly into this mixture, another 2ish minutes.

Then you will be adding the “sifted” dry ingredients into the mixture, alternating with the wet. You want to start and end with dry. I always add the dry in thirds, and the wet in halves. I’m pretty sure that it’s supposed to be added in small increments than that, but i get impatient.

This batter is extremely wet when mixed and makes for a dense cake with a low dome. You can safely fill papers 3/4s full. Bake at 350 for 18-20ish minutes, you know, standard cupcake baking.

Honey Frosting

yields generous frosting for a dozen

2 egg whites
scant 1/2 cup honey (more if you just really love honey.)
dash of salt
1/4 tsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Disclaimer: This recipe includes raw egg whites. If you can’t handle raw egg whites, because you’re a giant pussy, I’m sure you can find a nice cooked frosting to substitute.

Add egg whites, salt, lemon juice, and cream of tartar to mixer and beat to soft peak (egg whites are opaque white and form peaks, but still shiny). At soft peak, start drizzling honey in a very thin stream, about the width of a pencil lead. It will take several minutes to incorporate all the honey. Beat until frosting is of desired consistency, you’re shooting for spreadable, but will hold a shape.

Due to the nature of the frosting, if you’re not eating these immediately, please store in the fridge. Let come to room temperature before eating for the best flavor.

crossposted from fuzzdecay.com.