We took a walk in the snow today, and for a change of pace I remembered to bring my camera. Please enjoy the new gallery of photos. 
In other news, Snow.
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Category Archives: Life
My diet can beat up your diet.
It occurs to me I haven’t talked about myself in a while. I dont generally do that here, but rather in my social networking spaces… you can find me chattering away on G+, FB and twitter. I generally crosspost the same material over all the services, so if you ‘re interested, just grab me in whichever service you’re most comfy in and we’ll be BFF. Until the chocolate and vodka run out that is. And then we’ll look at eachother awkwardly and think… who are you again?
Today though, I wanted to talk about something that crosses a leetle boundary into the personal. My diet.
Now, stop, chillout, relax. I’m not hawking anything, or going to start putting up ads for bars or powders or little chrome widgets that promise your thighs will melt into matchsticks on contact. Just gonna mention a few things i’ve learned. Do feel free to support a girl and buy one of my T-shirts (Also available in dark colors) though. I happen to think the’re snazzy and have a great message for women of ANY size or shape.
But it’s the end of january and all those new year-new you good intentions are starting to flag. So… Continue reading
SOPA, PIPA Internet censorship and other crappy things.
http://sopastrike.com/
Tomorrow, Wednesday, January 18th, my site, along with thousands of others will be going dark in protest of the legislation the US is attempting to pass. They claim it’s to stop copyright infringement. The reality is, it’s just censorship. Of all the times I’ve seen screaming about censorship on the internet over the years, this is the time to scream, kids. Private companies can censor you on their playground if they want. THIS is the U.S. Federal government censoring you… THIS is the one that is illegal!
As an American Citizen, I am furious at this attempt, and rock solid in my belief that this legislation is not only unnecessary, but ineffectual, unconstitutional, and based on the false premise that internet “piracy” is harmful to the U.S. and world economies.
As a citizen of the Internet for more than fifteen years, I am furious. The Internet cannot be under the jurisdiction of any one nation and remain the free marketplace of ideas, art, information and social interaction it wants to be. For years, we have tut-tutted at China and other nations for censoring the internet… and now the US wants to do the same, with the major difference being that vast numbers of services that are now part of the infrastructure of the internet itself are based in US Jurisdictions.
This is the problem. We need to get the Internet out of the jurisdiction of any one nation.
Perhaps Google should consider moving its corporate headquarters to Antarctica? Or maybe buy a small island in the Pacific? Queen Elizabeth, will you sell St. Barts to the Internet if we put enough money in your paypal account? Or maybe we could buy out Haiti and the Dominican Republic together, or Nigeria… free the web, stop hunger and bring peace to a nation, in a single blow!
I don’t know.
But what I do know is that nobody should have the right to decide for everybody. Go dark.
http://sopastrike.com/
Happy holidays to all of you.
Also, as some of you are aware, I celebrate the Solstice. In celebration of the return of our life-giving, nourishing sun, I shaped tonight’s bread into a rustic form:
Happy Fucking Holidays
OK, Im going to try to say this again, as clearly as I can, since I lost my temper and apparently started a flamewar on Facebook.
What I am trying to express is that not all of us celebrate the christian holiday. Not all of us want to celebrate the christian holiday. Thus it is insulting to some nonchristians for christians to insist this is not a season of many holidays, but “christmas” and christmas alone when it is demonstrably true that many nonchristian holidays exist in December. Whatever the intent, the result of insisting that “it’s Christmastime, not “the holidays” is that you dismiss all nonchristians as unimportant.
Continue reading
My debit card needs a debit card.
Today I was talking to a girlfriend who’s trying to join the fitness program at the YWCA, where I go for yoga and Aquafit on a fairly regular basis. Her guy has well, lets say strongly suggested she not give out banking information to anyone, and now this is the YWCA’s primary method for collecting dues. leaves her in a bit of a dilemma. While I am of the opinion that the YWCA is an organization that can be trusted with this information. After all, they’re a “Safe Haven” for abused women… when you can literally trust a group with your life, I seriously doubt they’re going to rob you.
But these kinds of requests become more and more common. We need to think about adding some way to put a layer of protection between your account information and well, everybody. I want to be able to allow someone to debit my account, but limit them to a specific amount and only that amount. I want to not have to give them my bank account number, but some other kind of access code that doesn’t work at an ATM, or even with a teller. Better yet, so many of us bank electronically these days, why not add a page on bank websites where one has to approve automatic transactions before they complete… they can request the debit, but until I enter a PIN, the transaction stalls.
Like Paypal, but only for the real world. So I can buy cooking gear or fresh pomegranates or a book from the Kobo store without giving away anything that directly links to me or my accounts. Banks are supposed to be handling this stuff, but well, I think we can all come up with examples of how well they’re protecting our interests. Credit card companies are no better, and neither are the retailers themselves… just ask Sony. I think a third party anonymizer is getting to the point of being necessary.
As the analog world becomes more tightly integrated with the digital world we really need to adjust our thinking accordingly.
Serving size = 3 oz
The other night we were watching “Super Size Me”, and I got to thinking about the serving size strangeness that has affected North America.*
A small is now a kid size, and it isnt that small. A large can be used to park a truck in. And you can almost always go “extra large”, or “Super Size”. We all know this is the truth in fast food, but upscale restaurants have also increased their plate size over the years.
According to this study the top influences on serving size are presentation of foods (70%), food cost (65% ), and customer expectations (52% ). This rather jives with things I’ve read elsewhere. It’s gotta look awesome, it has to not break our budget, and it has to look right to the customer.
Customer have gotten used to large servings though, and not just in fast food. Plates have gotten larger, and servings with them ever since Depression era lunch counters started serving up Blue Plate Specials. One way to generate business loyalty was to get a reputation for giving ”good value” by putting a bit more on that 5¢ lunch plate that the factory boys lined up for.
So plates have gotten bigger and bigger and we Americans* have too. It’s something that I come face to face with on a daily basis. Weight Watchers is heavily about portion control. And I have found that a “serving” of beef just doesnt look like much. The US Department of Agriculture recommends 5.5 oz of meat per day, but three ounces of steak looks like kitchen scraps, and most restaurants serve it 8 to 12 oz servings. Is it any wonder obesity is on the rise?
I wonder what would happen if signs like this started popping up in restaurants :
Would it be possible to retrain our minds to accept proper portion sizes? Especially if there was a monetary penalty? Maybe. Personally I wouldn’t bet on my favorite pasta heaven surviving such a concept unless it became a widely used standard. It would have to be a gradual thing, much like the way Big Food is reducing the sodium in their products as Health Canada leans on them to cut the salt or be forced to under regulations. Otherwise it wouldn’t work- salt is too ubiquitous a flavor enhancer. MSG was relatively new to western palates when it was banned… and if you check regulations you’ll find it’s still allowed in many circumstances, and is still in tons of ethnic foods.
But what on earth would I do without my big bowl of Penne in Rosè sauce? With the sausages and slab of garlic bread on the side?
*Yes, you Canucks are just as bad, so don’t point fingers at the Americans. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
Autumn Days and Soupy Nights
The change from Hot to Cold this year was fast and hard. Like turning a corner quickly and running smack into a wall that wasn’t there yesterday. So cold being cold, I want soup. Soup is for snuggly cool days.
Of course there’s annoying problem of my Diet, and the simple truth that most commercially made soups are so full of sodium I’m surprised they don’t draw deer down out of the woods to lick the cans. So I prefer to make my own soups. It’s safer for my calorie count as well as my blood pressure.
It’s been a long time since I had Onion Soup though. Mostly because I hadn’t made it because Lee doesn’t care for it. Which is really surprising, since normally the only way I can keep one of my homemade soups in the house is to freeze it hard as a brick and hide it under the frozen lima beans. Even in the dead heat of summer. It’s one of those lovable idiosyncrasies of his. But onion soup is cheap on Weight Watchers if handled carefully. So I dug up my copy of “Mastering The Art OF French Cooking”, since theres no point in going anywhere but to the Master for this one. Julia’s is pretty much the definitive one since she showed us how to do it on TV all those years ago. I modified a few things, but it still works beautifully, which is no more than I would expect from this tried and true recipe.
Continue reading
We Are SO Breaking Up.
Amazon and I have a long and (hopefully mutually) cozy relationship. I’m pretty sure they were my first steady etailer. I can navigate their cluttered site with the same ease that I can find the precise lipstick I’m after in the bottom of my purse. Familiarity has never bred contempt… just the occasional irritation. Only rarely have they failed me, and then usually in matters of international shipping. They hosted my wishlist for years, and my wedding registry (and no, I have not forgotten the less-than-enthusiastic response to that) and sent birthday gifts to my little brother for me.
But their new Kindle Lending Library they have cast a decided chill over our relationship. One not likely to go away unless they recant their offenses.
Dont get me wrong. I love books. I love the Internet. I love gadgets and gizmos and shiny machines that go PING! So eReader? Yeah, natural thing. I didnt think I’d fall as deeply in love as I did, but there it is. And Kindle was there. But Kindle… well, Kindle didnt want me to talk to other booksellers, or even speak their languages, not even ePub. It had to be Kindle, and only Kindle.
Now, Im a brand loyal kinda gal. Really. Ask Western Digital, or Hellmann’s Mayonaise. They can vouch for the faithfullness of my love. I even brought them to Canada with me. But I cant be forced into that kind of loyalty. It doesnt mean I dont love you, I just need my space. So with a touch of regret I bought the Sony Touch reader, and have been waving the flag for these little flatpacked libraries ever since. I wont go further than the corner store without mine.
The thing is, I have an older, deeper, steadier love than Amazon. Continue reading
Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Despite being relatively torn on this one, im going to go with a four, in part because I didnt expect to enjoy it. Also, because it’s actually kinda different, as it steps into a relatively new arena for novels, making visual content just as important to the story as the text. The images which accompany the storytelling are arresting and fascinating, making me wish for a coffee-table sized print copy over my ereader, in order to enjoy them the better.
We start off with out teenage hero (Yes, this is a YA classified book) being told all kinds of funky stories by his grandfather, who soon after dies, putting our young hero into the position so many YA and children’s novels do… the unparented, misunderstood child.
Riggs is exploring the theme of over-protection and the harm it can do, which is rather nice to see happening in YA literature at a time when Helicopter Parenting seems to be considered the norm. Our young hero is sheltered from the truth and so is unprepared to a dangerous degree when reality bites him in the ass. It’s well written, it’s got a great pace and the dialog is realistic from both the sulky you-didn’t-believe-me attitude from our teen to the “we’re-just-trying-to-help” condescension that so most adults don’t like to think exists.
Overall, I recommend this one, and can only hope that if there is a sequel (as is implied by the ending) that Riggs manages to live up to an auspicious beginning.
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