Herbivorous

Made beer last night. Hopefully it will turn out better than the ginger beer we attempted during the winter (Hint: Go with your instincts. For the first batch, I did not get lager yeast, as I'd planned, because the guy at the brewing place talked me out of it. Well, guess what? It was WAY too cold, it didn't brew right, and when we finally got it fermented it over-fermented and turned into flavorless mush. Yuck.)

So anyway. My sister said she had a patch of nettles in her yard, and I was all "Yay! Nettle beer! Always wanted to make that!" Except that it wasn't a very large patch. It was, in fact, like five plants.

Oh well. Good for her; one doesn't want a huge freakin' patch of nettles in one's urban backyard; slightly less good for the prospects of nettle beer. Recipe to follow ( Read more... )

You know, I still think that "Please could you stop the noise/I'm trying to get some rest/From all the unborn chicken voices in my head" is still one of the most subtly disturbing lyrics ever....

Patsy Cline has an amazing voice.

That is all.

Did it not turn Spring EIGHT DAYS AGO??? Yes? Then WHY THE HOLY HELL DID WE JUST GET A FREAKING SNOWSTORM?

Goddamnit.

Stupid Midwestern weather.

I swear, I'm gonna move to San Jose.

If you haven't wasted time by going through the videos at willitblend.com, then by George, you have not experienced the power of the Internet.

I'm not sure what was better--the twelve glowsticks, the rare earth magnets, or the pickled pigs' feet. The latter video produced what can only be called a "slurry", and yes, someone DID consume it.

The best part, of course, is Tom, the narrator, who is clearly a geek of the highest caliber and stands there, cool and collected, blending cellphones with the utter aplomb and assurance of one who knows that he is indeed selling a superior product.

Hell, if I had $400, I'd totally get one of those blenders.

You should watch.

If you are my friend, or possibly related to me, you have to watch this video.

IT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING. This is my rant, except I suck worse at the guitar. It also explains why I hate almost every one of those songs, too, which I hadn't quite figured out until he put it together so succintly:



Favorite quotes: "It sucks to be a kid that plays the cello, because it is impossible to be cool when you play an instrument that is bigger than you are" and "The second violins get lovely melodies, which should just not happen...."

We interred Japanese citizens during WWII.

It was wrong.

They lived in camps, but the kids were schooled and were able to create a yearbook.

Compare this to Guantanamo and waterboarding. Discuss.

You know what would be really awesome? If I could tie-dye my cat. I mean, obviously I can't, as I'm fairly certain that bleaching him and then wrapping up his pelt into small rubberbanded bundles would break some laws, at least outside of Louisiana, but would that not be awesome, especially at parties? You could wait until everyone was really drunk, and then let him out of your bedroom, and everyone would be all, DUDE IS THAT CAT RAINBOW COLORED OR AM I JUST REALLY DRUNK???

Like many Americans, I find myself at home tonight, covered in glitter and so mentally exhausted that I find myself lying next to my cat, maniacally giggling as I thump him on the very end of his nose.

(For all of you animal rights types who are winding up to shriek "HOW CRUEL!!!!", keep in mind that this is an old and venerable game between the two of us, and if it really bothered the damn cat, he could get up and walk away, as he is in no way restrained. For what it's worth, I believe he enjoys the game, for the rule is that if he can see the nose thump coming, he can use his catlike reflexes to bite the end of my finger instead. We can spend hours this way, he and I. It's like interspecies chess.)

I am covered in glitter, as some of you may have guessed, because I am unfortunately part of the Retail Sector, and in the Retail Sector you don't so much celebrate the holidays as you are violated by a giant Holiday Truncheon consisting of equal parts misbegotten holiday promotionals, evil-tempered shoplifters, and a deep and abiding hatred for Christmas carols that sets in about November 28th, leaving you with almost an entire month in which to engage in elaborate mental fantasies involving a Santa hat and a clocktower. Please allow me a moment in which to reflect upon the year that I spent working in a small retail establishment in a large mall whose entrance was very unfortunately situated directly beneath one of the Musak loudspeakers. Did you know that they turn up the volume during December to allow shoppers greater musical enjoyment? Did you also know that the carols you are hearing are a fifteen-song loop that is played around the clock? Reflect, for a moment, what this is like when you are trapped in what is effectively a small white box lined with Holiday Cheer for ten hours at a stretch. (The specific glitter this years is from yet another batch of poorly constructed holiday ornaments, but that's neither here nor there, just emblematic of the overall rot that has taken root in society.)

In many ways, the type of employment that I've had to take to support my Starving Artist-level vocation has meant that almost every holiday has been utterly destroyed for me on some level. Mothers Day? Not only did I get to spend it thousands of miles away from my own mother, but I believe that there is a special circle of Hell reserved to those that are waiters. If there is any justice in the universe, they are forced to relive the following scenario, Groundhog Day-style, for eternity: Waiting tables for an endless Mothers Day Brunch, full of grim and cheerless people who only take Mom out this one Sunday out of obligation, too cheap to tip and far too nasty to enjoy their time out, who take pleasure in sending food back for vague, poorly defined reasons or even just because "they've changed their mind", without a break, in an understaffed Holiday Inn restaurant. Do NOT get me started about Valentine's Day.

My sister sent this. I have no idea where it came from, but all I have to say is, "Yup. Pretty much":

Dear Red States:
If you manage to steal this election we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will benefit the nation, and especially the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly:
We get stem cell research and the best beaches. You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85% of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that New California will be pro-choice and anti- war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight your wars, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and soybeans, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We also get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws; 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you people have higher morals then we lefties.
Peace out,
–Blue States

Some poor bunch of mint farmers might lose the family farm that's been in their hands since 1912. That SUCKS. IT JUST FUCKING SUCKS. If you use any essential oils at all (and these would be appropriate for just about any use--flavoring/culinary, medicinal, aroma, etc.), you should go buy some mint oil from these fine folks:

https://www.getmint.com/index.cfm

But seriously: This is funny. Potentially NSFW, tho.

http://www.spike.com/video/pg-porn-pg-porn/3041858

THIS IS SO FUCKING COOL!!!! SQUEEEEE!

http://www.sciencentral.com/video/2008/08/21/street-corner-science-with-leon-lederman/

I miss you, Utah Phillips.

From "Medline and the Mainstream Manufacture of Misinformation":

"But when it comes to mainstream articles about herbs anything goes, including major spelling errors. For example, a search of MEDLINE for papers published on ginkgo interactions misses some potentially important reports because they are entered under the misspelled name gingko (sic) hence do not appear in a search for ginkgo in the title....[M]ore frequently there is a complete failure to use proper scientific nomenclature for botanicals. This is not a trivial issue, because without a validated description of a herb by its binomial name (and preferably the naming Authority), the identity of the herb cannot be established....The technical literature persistently claims there is an herb-drug interaction between the monoamine oxidase inhibitor phenelzine and Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer). This is documented by conventional medical authorities such as Stockley's (Stockley 2002), and is repeated in several botanical monographs e.g. World Health Organization (WHO 1999). The original report of this alleged interaction was a brief mention in a 1985 editorial by the then editors of the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology....In this speculative commentary they devoted a couple of lines to the case of a 64-year old woman who took (an undisclosed dose for an undisclosed time) of a combination dietary supplement apparently called "Natrol High" while concurrently taking 60 mg qd of phenelzine. She experienced symptoms of "insomnia, headache, and tremulousness". The authors did not include any medical details or history, and crucially did not identify the ingredients of the Natrol product, other than the fact that it contained "ginseng"....In sleuthing mode, this author was able to rapidly establish that the product "Natrol High" contained no Panax ginseng whatsoever. This discovery required a simple e-mail inquiry to the manufacturer who sent back in ten minutes the (now discontinued) product label with its ingredients list which revealed that it actually contained Siberian ginseng (Eleutherococcus senticosus Rupr. & Maxim)....Verification of the herb's identity, either at the time of the observed adverse effect or at least before publication of the report, would hardly have been onerous but it clearly never occurred to Shader and Greenblatt....The fundamental point is, of course, that the Shader editorial is not really a report at all; it lacks the most rudimentary elements of scientific precision and rigor, and ultimately it is nonsense because it misidentifies the herb involved. As is typical for herb-drug interaction claims, the authors fail to consider the adverse effects of the drug alone, which in this case are entirely consistent with the observed symptoms, particularly at the high (60 mg qd) dose involved...."

Oh, Jonathon. I love it when English herbalists get all high dudgeon; although my ability to use the language is fairly evolved I cannot approach the literary looking-down-my-nose-in-disdain that a wickedly smart middle-aged English gent can manage.

Even if you are completely uninterested in herbal medicine and think it's all a load of powdered bats' wings, I highly recommend reading this article because it's an excellent essay of how deeply non-scientific much "evidence-based medicine" actually is (Mr. Treasure doesn't even mention how the supplement in question had a WHOLE LOAD of other things in it, and how utterly unscientific it was to randomly Decide that one herb was the troublemaker). Which makes me sad, as I am very fond of truly evidence-based medicine, and get extremely cranky when I am told that herbal medicine doesn't have any, as will be evidenced by my friends who have seen me get all shrieky and arm-wavingly annoyed when challenged about such things.

About once a week, I have this conversation, usually with an otherwise healthy middle-aged woman:

Customer: I've been having a lot of bloating and indigestion lately. I think I need to do A Cleanse!

Me: Well, maybe. But first, let me ask you a few questions: What's your diet like?

Customer: It's pretty healthy. I'm a vegetarian: I have a smoothie in the morning, a salad for lunch, and then dinner is usually something homemade.

Me: Let me guess. There is soy protein isolate powder in the smoothie, edamame in the salad, and dinner involves some sort of fake-meat tofu product?

Customer: ...yes.

Me: Ah. Well, soy is a BEAN. It is hard to digest. I strongly suggest you cut way back on soy, NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES allow it to be your only source of protein, and if you do consume soy? Make it a fermented product like miso or tempeh. If you want to fortify your smoothie with protein, use a fermented soy protein powder, hemp powder, or perhaps a high-quality whey protein. Remember: Refined food is refined food, whether it's vegetable based or not. And people in countries where soy is used a lot typically consumed it fermented more often than not.

Customer: OMG I never thought of that! Yes! No wonder I'm becoming The Gas Princess!

Me: Smiles, and dies a little more inside.

And then I saw this on the good ol' Beeb: Tofu may raise risk of dementia, and I get a little more annoyed at the Soy Is God claims. (Mind you, I am WAY more interested in the only obliquely referred to fact that, where the study is done [Indonesia], they sometimes preserve things WITH FORMALDEHYDE, which I strongly suggest is probably more of a problem than a wee bean, but still: I'm not a huge fan of unfermented soy in large amounts.)

Dear Senator Obama,

As a long-time Obama supporter, I have recently been absolutely aghast at your support of the FISA bill. Although you promise to work against telecom immunity, your support of this bill is EXACTLY the sort of "Washington insider" nonsense that your campaign purports to depart from.

I have done volunteer work for your campaign in the past, and I was considering what amount I could contribute financially to the campaign--not IF I could contribute, mind you, but HOW MUCH. After this breathtakingly horrible choice, I am now forced to re-think my support of your candidacy, which pains me enormously.

Please, you are making an enormous mistake supporting this terrible bill. A large part of your support base is well-educated, Internet-savvy men and women such as myself. We do not support telecom immunity, and in allying yourself with those that do, you put your support in jeopardy. I urge you to reconsider.

From the "Fairly Obvious" file:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/05/29/fruits.vegetables.and.teas.may.protect.smokers.lung.cancer.ucla.researchers.report

Granted, it's probably the first study that showed that these things reduced lung cancer risk in smokers, but given the huge, pulsating, gigantic mound of information suggesting that--call me crazy--eating lots of fruits and vegetables may actually be GOOD for you, I am extremely amused by the following quote, from a Dr. Zhang, "...I would usually be hesitant to make any recommendations to people about their diet". Because, you know, we need to do more studies.

Seriously, you would hesitate to recommend that folks EAT VEGETABLES? Okay, I get it, scientific rigour and all, but seriously--it's okay to recommend to your patients that they step up their broccoli and apple consumption, FFS.

So, anyway, eat your goddamn vegetables already. Have a piece of fruit. Seriously--apricots this time of year are AMAZING.

Well, DAMMIT.

Another awesome product, no longer so awesome.

I'm a big fan of Pyrex. Nonreactive, durable as hell, and looks nice. Recently I saw a blurb for a newscast called "Problems with Pyrex?" I looked into it, and it boils down to this:

1) The Pyrex we all know and love from the durable-as-all-get-out stuff that our Moms baked with when we were wee 'uns was annealed borosilicate glass made by Corning.

2) Corning no longer makes Pyrex, and apparently the brand is now owned by somebody called World Kitchens, who is making it out of a soda glass "with similar attributes and characteristics".

In other words, it ain't Pyrex, as of 2001. Now people are reporting that it's been violently exploding when the temperature changes--and we're talking changes like, say, taking it out of the oven. I dunno about you, but having done what limited lab work I've done has given me great respect for borosilicate glass, but I'm none too sure about this sort of Pyrex Lite.

Well, dammit, I say. Time to forget about buying the new stuff, and time to hit the second hand stores.