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The fruit of such a plant, used as a vegetable.

[	website	\|	Freaky Trigger	]
[	userinfo	\|	livejournal userinfo	]
[	archive	\|	journal archive	]

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance. …Where to start? How about at...

[Nov. 11th, 2009|11:09 am]

http://katstevens.tumblr.com/post/240180531

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance.

…Where to start? How about at the end, where Gaga is having a post-coital cig next to the charred skeleton of her ‘highest bidder’ whilst her bra randomly fires sparks, accompanied by a chirpy harpsichord refrain?

Nah - let’s start with those HOOFS in the middle eight (3.27, just after the spinning gyroscope bit). It’s all very well saying “walk, walk fashion baby” but feet are not meant to DO that, dude - I don’t care what Alexander McQueen says.

Then there’s the post-middle 8 bit with her polar bear dress catching fire while she says some words in French then screams “I don’t want to be French!” (or “friends”, whatever). At this point you may end up overlooking the fact that she’s wearing a red belt-based outfit with only one leg. Only Lady Gaga would make a video where this is barely noticeable.

See how many other things you can spot in amongst all the vodka:
- wrinkly cat
- solar eclipse
- Burberry trenchcoat
- sunglasses made out of razor blades
- the Judderman
- gold chin protector

Well done everyone involved in the making of this video.

You are the generation that bought more shoes

[Nov. 11th, 2009|12:06 pm]

[	mood	\|	thoughtful	]
[	music	\|	Apartment - Shirley Bassey	]

It always used to be - perhaps still is if you catch me off guard - that asked when I'd like to live, I'd instantly reply 'the twenties'. Yes, as a rich person, obviously - just like anyone who thinks we've never had it so good is obviously thinking of themselves rather than a Third World peasant, just like nobody ever said Rome and meant as a slave (well, except maybe a few serious submissives). But a while back a doubt dawned and has been niggling ever since - were the twenties rich any different to the arses clogging the gossip mags I spurn? Do we just romanticise them through distance, the same way classic pirates seem sexy while having your yacht seized by Somalis with automatic weaponry is distinctly less so? DJ Taylor's excellent Bright Young People - The Rise and Fall of a Generation: 1918-1940 is doing nothing to convince me otherwise. Yes, in America the gilded twenties produced some artists of genuine stature - the Fitzgeralds, Dorothy Parker - but over here we mostly ended up with never-was-es like Stephen Tennant and Brian Howard, always just about to write masterpieces which somehow never quite materialised. Of the books written from and about the scene which did appear, most are now only ever read as research for social histories like this one, and even those which survive for wider public attention - which basically means Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies - are still principally known for reflexive reasons just as they were at the time; like their subjects, we read them to be at once scandalised and fascinated by the thinly-veiled documentary of the times*. Times which only produced these books. Which we only read because...and so on. If Waugh had kept his powder dry on the topic until Brideshead years later (assuming he'd somehow supported himself in the meantime and not become another Tennant or Howard), would literature be much the poorer?
But mostly, what was written about them was the gossip mags, the disgust/obsession of the middle-market rags, the same we see nowadays. "The reader's curiosity, in fact, was almost bovine. It went only so far. It wanted, above all, to be reassured that the grass it ate was grass, that the people presented for inspection, whoever they might be, were worth reading about." Consider the junkie Brenda Dean Paul, the radio news following her escapades with the same urgent irrelevance as Amy Winehouse or Pete Doherty gets from the websites and tabloids. And never mind Winehouse, she couldn't even claim such nugatory cultural achievements as Doherty, being an 'actress' in the loosest possible sense (but then, she did exist in a time before ITV drama, so that at least could have changed).
Understand: it's not Taylor taking this line - he laments the decline of the Bright Young scene into a parade of wannabes and ever-increasing efforts at novelty, but the wondering if there was ever anything there in the first place is just me. Similarly, the modern parallels are if anything underplayed. Though the book being a couple of years old, there's one at least which couldn't possibly have spooked him like it did me. Describing a Punch satire of the scene:
"Losing sight of Lady Gaga for half an hour, the interloper eventually finds her with her arm round the waist of 'a young heavyweight in horn-rims dressed as a baby', listening to a hollow-eyed girl ina tutu and an opera hat who is singing a song with the refrain 'It's terribly thrilling to be wicked'."
Of course, counterpoint all this with the worries of parents about how the Bright Young People were wasting their time, refusing to acknowledge the serious side of life and you realise - if they had, they'd still have been wasting their time. What else could they have done? Gone into business and been wiped out by the Crash. Gone into finance, and caused it. Gone into politics and achieved about as much at the rather duller masquerades of the League of Nations as the Bright Young People did at theirs which at least had plenty of cocktails - or stayed in domestic politics and as like as not been damned forever for going along with appeasement. As a wise man once said: "Yes, you may be wasting your life. But it's your life to waste. Hell, no matter what you chose to do, you were wasting it anyway. And that you have the chance to doom yourself in such a way...well, that's glorious." Or as an even wiser man put it, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". The good times are good times because of what they become as a half-memory which itself becomes an aspiration. Sometimes it's better not to meet your heroes, not even in a group biography.

*On the other hand, while I rather like the look of The Noughties Were Sh1t ("This blog will chart the worst of the noughties. The rubbish new genres, the horrible new trends, the idiot popstars, the dullard celebrities, the pitiful movements and the squandered promise of a rubbish generation. Think of it as a process of truth and reconciliation. We must make sure that the fucking noughties are never allowed to happen again"), I'm conflicted in the awareness that even aside from having myself had a pretty good decade - I may be a victim of the economic bust having never really got the benefits of the boom, and yet compared to a decade ago I live in a much better place with more friends and more avenues of entertainment - that site is the work of one of the best bands of the decade. A band whose driving force is disgust with that decade. And so the contradiction spirals on.

2 comments|post comment

101 things in 1001 days - end date passed...

[Nov. 11th, 2009|11:04 am]

[	Tags	\|	101 things, getting things done, polls	]
[	mood	\|	tired	]

I meant to post this last month, but have been epically lacking in motivation and follow-up powers on pretty much all fronts recently. Considering this, you can probably guess how well I did.

( [POLL] 101 things in 1001 days - a review )

3 comments|post comment

Radio East Berlin: Forgotten Music of a Lost Country (part 2)

[Nov. 11th, 2009|10:29 am]

http://inuitbikini.blogspot.com/2009/11/radio-east-berlin-forgotten-music-of_11.html

What is this? Why, I am talking you through a recently compiled CD-R of East German music. Part 1 appeared yesterday, this is part 2. See also

Walter Kubiczek – Maskentanz
Walter Kubiczek – Abbisinia
Two pieces of rare groove soundtrack work by Herr Kubiczek. The latter sounds like it might have come from an East German spaghetti western, while the other is a bit more racy.

Modern Soul Band – Hallo Carlos
Orchester Günter Gollasch – Es Steht Ein Haus in New Orleans
More German soundtrack action.

Walter Kubiczek – Tentakel
Kubiczek returns with the theme tune to a popular East German cop show. I bet in Tentakel the main character was a tough cop who always plays strictly by the rules.

Renft – Gänselieschen ([No idea what this means, anyone got any ideas?])
Renft feature heavily in Anna Funder's book Stasiland. Unlike many East German rock bands, they were actively counter-cultural. I understand that their lyrics were somewhat oblique, but they did not play ball with the authorities and had a generally oppositional aura. This might perhaps be detectable in the relatively melancholic nature of this tune. Their story illustrates the dangers of messing with the East German regime – one day Renft were hauled into the culture ministry and informed that they were disbanding. And that was the end of their musical career.

DIE PUHDYS – Geh Zu Ihr (Go to her)
DIE PUHDYS, meanwhile, illustrate the benefits of cooperation. As an apolitical band of vokuhila rockers, they became the officially sanctioned face of East German rock, and found themselves rewarded with nice houses and various other perks. The fall of the Wall should have swept them away (as lamer mullet rockers from the western world would now be able to play and sell to East Germans). However, emerging particularist sentiment meant that they remained the band of the East. This song of theirs is that bit more musically interesting than anything else I have heard by them; the oompah tuba sound is a particularly inventive touch.

Jürgen Hart – Sing Mei Sachse Sing (Sing My Saxon Sing)
Bit of an odd one this. In the life of the DDR, Saxony was famous for a two things – the comedic nature of the local accent, and the region's inability to pick up West German TV and radio. DDR cops, especially the kind of cops whose main job is to crack heads, were disproportionately recruited from the good folk of Saxony, because of their lack of exposure to the corrupting influence of the West. So, this song… I really wish I knew what the lyrics were about. It is obviously meant to be funny, and the stomping march-beat does call to mind an army of thicko cops stomping their way towards a load of dissidents who need a good kicking. But is this laughing at Saxons (and very obliquely challenging the DDR regime), or is Mr Hart celebrating the fascinating local culture of Saxony? I have seen actual albums by him, with covers showing road signs pointing to Saxony, so maybe it is the latter.

Berluc – Hallo Erde, Hier Ist Alpha (Hello World, Here is Alpha)
Socialist space rock! Here we have Berluc saluting Sigismund Jahn, the East German cosmonaut. This is a stormer of a tune, with hints of Status Quo and Thin Lizzy. I keep wanting to seek out more music by these fellows, but fear that this might be a flash in the pan.

Sandow – Born In The GDR
As far as I know, this is the only song here that was recorded after the Berlin Wall came down. It communicates well the sense of dislocation you would get if your (admittedly rubbish) country were to disappear overnight.

Kinderchor A. Weiz – Unsere Heimat (Our Home)
We end with a poignant tune from the Pioneers, East Germany's socialist boy scouts.

Sachsen signpost

dancing on The Wall

Ooo! Fran’s just qualified fastest in the women’s...

[Nov. 11th, 2009|10:40 am]

http://tumblrturns.tumblr.com/post/240164320

Ooo! Fran’s just qualified fastest in the women’s 100m! In your face, Sarah Sjostrom. And Ross Davenport’s pulled his socks up and qualified 3rd fastest in the 200m (after a sub-par 100m yesterday). Go Team GB!

Fina World Cup #3: Stockholm Syndrome

[Nov. 11th, 2009|10:11 am]

http://tumblrturns.tumblr.com/post/240149066

Fina World Cup #3: Stockholm Syndrome:

It’s round 3* of the 2009 World Cup in Stockholm, and the men’s 100m free was… surprising. Local lad Stephan Nystrand won the event (and well done to him), but a bunch of normally extremely fast dudes didn’t even make the final!

Eamon Sullivan: 10th (Olympic silver medallist)
Fred Bousquet: 12th (50m LC world record holder)
Fil Magnini: 15th (double world champion at 100m LC)
Michael Phelps: 16th (general superhuman mentalist)
Amaury Leveaux: 38th (100m SC world record holder)

Good news for the GB squad though - Lizzie Simmonds won the 200m back, Michael Rock got 3rd in the 200m fly (he was leading until halfway!), and Joe Roebuck won the 400m IM to confirm his top world ranking place this year - an event normally dominated by Phelps, who only bothered entering the 100m IM for this round (and came third). Perhaps he should shave that awful beard off? But looking beneath the O NOES headlines everyone seems to have forgotten that:

1. Short course really isn’t Phelps’ cup of tea
2. He clearly wasn’t tapered
3. He might as well have been wearing pyjama bottoms

I’m very reluctant to write him off just yet - let’s see what happens after January, eh?

*Rounds 1 & 2 were in Durban and Moscow, i.e. nothing interesting happened.

these are my cards as embedded flash

[Nov. 11th, 2009|10:42 am]

MOO business cards

Again, not my real cards.

EDIT : TESTING NOTHING TO SEE HERE

these are my cards as a static badge

[Nov. 11th, 2009|10:40 am]

MOO business cards

NB : not really my cards for work, we have designers here and everything.

EDIT : TESTING NOTHING TO SEE HERE

The longest time

[Nov. 11th, 2009|07:52 am]

[

music

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some reason I've got Billy Joel's "The Longest Time" in my head, which I've not heard in years...

]

Last night I dreamed I went back to college. I dreamed my first class, French, in real time it seemed. After that I had math, a class about India, and...something else. I forgot it when I woke up but it sounded good. I’d even made a couple of friends already, Ross and Adrian.

It was in incredibly detailed dream, much more so than mine usually are, and while some of the details actually matched my old university (which I dreamed I’d gone back to), a lot of them didn’t but were still just as vivid and caused me no problems in the dream.

I woke up feeling really good.

I’ve had dreams before about going back to university and they’ve all been about not knowing where or when my classes are, feeling out of place. They were straightforward anxiety dreams. This couldn’t have been more different.

My hysterics last night were triggered by, though not really about, Andrew’s dad visiting when I was lying down, headachy and sore-throated and otherwise miserable. He ate a takeaway and told Andrew that me having a job would do me a world of good, and Andrew came in to get a cuddle from me afterwards and instead I got all wibbly about how I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing by not looking for jobs now.

In a post I deleted yesterday I wrote that I was suffering the effects of not having a job or school or anything to do with myself lately, anything I could point to and say “That’s it, that’s what I’m doing. That’s where I’m trying to get to.”

Instead of being able to give Andrew his hug, I started crying and couldn’t stop for what felt like the longest time.

By the end of it I wanted to chuck my meds and start applying for jobs. I didn’t get too excited about it just then, knowing not to trust myself when I was in such a state. But I woke up remembering all the good and exciting things from, really, the last period in my life in which I was successful and happy, in which I thought I could do things.

I know this is crazy but it almost feels like the illness I’ve had these last six months has broken like a fever. Like it washed away in those floods of tears. I know that’s not how these things work. I’ve still got a headache and nothing is objectively better than it was yesterday. But damn.

5 comments|post comment

Two-Party System

[Nov. 11th, 2009|05:00 am]

http://xkcd.com/661/

I favor approval voting or IRV chiefly because they mean we might get to bring back The Bull Moose party.

47 comments|post comment

Sex, Gender, Attraction and Prejudice

[Nov. 10th, 2009|11:19 pm]

[	Tags	\|	lgbt, online things, political	]
[	mood	\|	pensive	]
[	music	\|	A. listening to Von Weber on Last.FM	]

I've been pondering these issues a little of late. A post today by

faerierhona, and some other discussions about identity and orientation, reminded me of a recent post in the community section of Feministing, 'Having Sex While Stealth Is Not Sexual Assault', which made a number of very good points about how the trope of trans people as "deceptive" is perpetuated under the guise of promoting 'honesty' in relationships. Sadly but predictably, it contained some pretty transphobic comments. Notably, a particularly head-breaking piece of double-think came up, wherein a number of people tried to claim that their orientation was "cissexual", or even "heterocissexual" (say that 3 times fast!), and that there was absolutely nothing wrong with not being attracted to trans people, it was just their sexual orientation, they weren't prejudiced at all, some of their best friends were trans, blah blah.

There's a bit of a problem with that construction: "trans" is not, in itself, a specific sex or gender, and nor is it a sexual orientation. So claiming that your sexual orientation excludes trans people is rather like claiming you're a "thinsexual", and only people below a certain BMI can excite you, and it's some sort of natural, hard-wired aspect of your personality, not conditioning at all, oh no. If you are otherwise attracted to people whose sex and gender presentation are within the usual scope for your attraction, but are not or would not be attracted to such a person because of a trans identity or history, then your attractions are being influenced by transphobia. This is not to say that any transphobic actions are deliberately being undertaken, but to point out that transphobia has an effect on how people understand their attractions (and, frankly, this in itself is quite relevant to trans people in terms of stealthness v. outness).

Before anyone runs away and assumes that I'm saying that anyone who isn't attracted to a trans person is a hateful bigot, or worse, I'd like to make very clear: nobody is ever obligated to feel attraction, or behave as if they feel it, with anyone, not least because it sucks for the other person who thinks they're a genuine recipient of interest. I know I have no interest in being a pity fuck, and I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same. Even if one's choices are being influenced by a prejudiced culture, it's often difficult for individuals to see that, or if they do see it to do anything about it. And what they should be doing isn't always clear. But what they shouldn't be doing, I propose, is claiming that their prejudices are in fact beyond their control and outside of culture or influence.

And I'm not just talking about gender presentation. Gender presentation in and of itself is not a specifically trans issue. This is an aesthetic matter. But liking bears and not twinks is a matter of taste, and not necessarily anything further. Some people adore femme, some think it's a lot of fannydangle. However, not liking trans people *does* go further, and not just because a lot of assumptions about trans people focus on extreme ideas of gender presentation which are quite far outside the norm. So simply not being attracted to people who are genderqueer, or androgynous, or otherwise are confounding gender roles visibly, is also not the same as not being attracted to trans people.

Let us, for a moment, think about a lovely pretty boy* in eyeliner and a cute skirt. I know this is an image which appeals to quite a few of you ;-) Now, many people like boys regardless of such accoutrements, and others are really very specifically keen on boys in eyeliner and cute skirts. So far, so much visual flirtation. But suppose, for a moment, that you, whoever you are, have met and are attracted to said boy. Then said boy tells you he is in fact a trans man. Heavens! Does this put you off? If your attraction dissipates at the news, then well done, you've just told him that in the eyes of your libido, he's not a "real" man. Because, despite meeting what are otherwise your gender preferences, his transness terminates his worthiness as a lust object in your eyes. He doesn't count where it matters. Or even where it *doesn't* matter. In the case of trans women, commenters on the original thread responded to claims of "my orientation means I am not attracted to this configuration of genitals" by pointing out that, for post-operative trans women, the observer (allow me to presume for a moment that they are not a cosmetic surgeon or otherwise particularly expert) would not be able to tell any difference even from looking very closely. So there is NO determinable physical difference between the trans and the cis women to whom they are attracted, save for the non-visible fact of transness. However you slice it, I don't think you can have a sexual orientation based on something invisible!

In conclusion: if the knowledge that someone is trans would prevent a person being attracted to someone, or would end their attraction if they had been interested, then I'm afraid some part of their psyche is being transphobic. One doesn't necessarily need to do any particular THING about it - although I think that pondering it in-depth would be a good start - and it's probably not useful to get overcome with guilt instead of working to overcome guilt and be a bit more open-minded, but please, for the love of small furry rodents, let's STOP with the bullshit about how it's an "orientation" and therefore has some kind of protected status. Let's recognise that standards of beauty are highly cultural and often kind of crazy and actually try to do something about them (as has already happened to a small but important degree re: things like race, size, disability, etc), instead of just subscribing to the horribly victim-blaming idea that it's all trans people's fault for being trans/stealth/both to begin with.

TBH, I really just don't get this concept, so I'm extrapolating from reason and not inclination here. But then, I don't really get "shells" as a definition of a person to begin with. Of course, if they were a 50 foot mecha, my attraction to their "shell" might be a little above average, but only if they let me have a go at stomping.

*If you're really having terrible problems imagining this, feel free to exchange "boy" for "girl" and "man" for "woman" in your head. I think you might be even less visual a thinker than me, if so, though.

34 comments|post comment

[Nov. 10th, 2009|11:21 pm]

marchosias444 took this picture of me on Friday.

How can I possibly give up smoking when I look this arch doing it?

Am much calmer now...have thought it through so that it makes some sense. I have no definitive answers, but then the offers are not yet on the table so there is still time.

What are the odds that whilst I am in my MANDATORY back to work session at the Job Centre (which is probably about 4 weeks premature, the b*stards) tomorrow morning, that I have 4 missed calls two with job offers 2 for more interviews? I already have to work out how to find the time call back all the people I missed early this evening when I was having my very special personal drama. I could well do without this blooming session designed to get me back to work as it is GETTING IN THE WAY OF ME GETTING BACK TO WORK. IDIOTS.

What was that line in The Thick of It about the only people who watch the TV coverage of a party conference are '15 housebound mouthbreathers - oh and the ever-swelling ranks of the unemployed who f*cking hate us, by the way.' Yeah. That.

I'm just quite stressed that I am basically working a 40 hour week just in managing my job search. It takes a lot of organisation to do the research, fill out all the forms, be in the right place at the right time and say the right things to the right people. I haven't even had time to get down to the Housing Office. Also, being in the full suit and heels all day is tiring - I have to dodge the charity muggers more than ever. When I used to leave Holloway at 8 in the morning it was easy to dodge the beggars. At 10am I turn into a high priority potential cash cow. One called me a name. A bad name. I am usually civil to people who ask me for money, but the suit makes me a target.

13 comments|post comment

Lots to be thankful for

[Nov. 10th, 2009|10:54 pm]

[

Tags

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holiday celebrations

]

Thanksgiving is the last Thursday of November. They tell you it’s about Pilgrims and shit but really it’s about a four-day weekend and eating enough food to last you a week, and passing out from the tryptophans in front of a football game on TV.

I have a hankering to introduce my British friends to this, and am already wondering if I can make pumpkin pie and stuffing from scratch (and I’ve never cooked a turkey! I won’t even be eating the damn turkey! I have the fear).

Are any of you interested in coming around on the last weekend of November for this sort of thing? I’m only sad I can’t provide the football game.

6 comments|post comment

Spooky action at a distance

[Nov. 10th, 2009|10:42 pm]

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Tags

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]

How wonderful and terrible, to have someone there to rest your head against when you are crying so much that even peeing seems hard work.

To have someone there, even in this supposedly-private time, to have someone so thoroughly a part of your life that there seems no line where one ends and the other begins....

Usually I find this distasteful.

He talks about all the past and all the future, and how I am not alone in it because we are entangled together like fibers in a rope, like quantum entities that, the physicists tell me, once in contact are forever after connected. Somehow.

Usually I find this stifling, or terrifying, his certain proclamations about always and forever. I’ve always been honest about it; it’s nothing to do with him, I’m just not a “forever” kind of girl.

I clench a tear-sodden tissue in my fist and think This is what it is to be married.

For once I don’t resent the heavy machinery because right now I see what it is good for. It is great and terrible, huge and sturdy, in all the good and bad ways.

2 comments|post comment

Peel all your layers off, I want to eat your artichoke heart

[Nov. 10th, 2009|07:02 pm]

[	mood	\|	melancholy	]
[	music	\|	Siriusmo - Nights Off	]

Two records that I have been completely in love with recently:

1. Thom Yorke - Atoms For Peace (Four Tet Remix)

Gorgeousness. This was mentioned in this wonderful post on Platform*, and as Mr Fountain says, the original is a bit too strange for me and doesn't quite work.. However this remix enhances the swoopy lushness of Yorke's vocal and swathes it in a glowing fairy-light mantle of woodblock-heartbeat drums, warm rhodesy keyboards and glockenspiels, with cadences that don't quite resolve themselves but all seem to somehow work together, and the result is a really tender, sweetly awkward and life-affirming record. If it fails to melt your heart then I don't know what will succeed.

2. Death In Vegas - Help Yourself

(argh! This version cuts off too soon. I'll post an mp3 in a minute)
I'd not heard Scorpio Rising in full before last weekend, and when I did listen to it properly this song completely took my breath away. Hope Sandoval coos mournfully and drowsily in a kind of vaguely desperate way over these stunning open-sky Aaron Copland strings and it just keeps building to an overwhelming, epic psychedelic shoegazey climax. Heartbreakingly beautiful and strangely, desolately comforting in its cosmically cinematic nature.

*See if you can tell which "anonymous" is your heroine, getting smacked down in the comments.. Hmm.

3 comments|post comment

Flaming Lips - TONIGHT

[Nov. 10th, 2009|02:07 pm]

[	Tags	\|	beards, gigge, rock	]
[	mood	\|	rushed	]
[	music	\|	Buggin'	]

Really short notice but does anyone want to see the Flaming Lips tonight at the Troxy E10? One seated ticket spare - £25 to the first one to shout.

[Nov. 10th, 2009|02:16 pm]

How to be an Indie Girl!

Wise words, wise words.

11 comments|post comment

[Nov. 10th, 2009|01:30 pm]

[

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finlay, free stuff, freeloading

]

We occasionally get free bones from the hippy organic butcher for Finlay, which he then only makes a very tiny dent in before we have to get rid of them. I was considering using them for stock to make some of his food with (rather than feeding him entirely on the commercial stuff, even the nice organic commercial stuff), but this would mean using one of OUR PANS to put MEAT in urgh urgh urgh[0]. So I wondered if anyone had a fairly heavy-bottomed pan that they don't actually use and/or want rid of? It is a long shot, I know.

[0] This is *marginally* irrational, b/c one of OUR PANS is the pressure cooker that used to belong to my parents, which has very definitely had meat cooked in it in the past. So I should really just get over myself.

4 comments|post comment

utahraptor used to be more against t-rex stepping on tiny women, but it keeps happening and the woma

[Nov. 10th, 2009|11:46 am]

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1591


archive - contact - sexy exciting merchandise - search - about–

← previous	November 10th, 2009	next
November 10th, 2009: In yesterday's comic T-Rex and Utahraptor talked about self-charging mp3 players (before everyone died) (quite a bit before everyone died). Utahraptor said "There are physical limits to what a -" before he was interrupted by T-Rex. If he'd been allowed to continue he would have said "There are physical limits to what a device such as that can do, and it wouldn't be enough, as I said earlier - assuming of course that the person lives a sedate lifestyle and barely uses their legs." I say this because it turns out that people are ALREADY working on T-Rex's invention! In fact, they're such great people that they started working on it even before he invented it, and that's really something. Thank you everyone who sent me links to this Science Daily article and this NPR story. I even got some emails from researchers working on this very problem, which was kind of crazy, because I hadn't expected that! It made me think that if I'd written a comic about how you can converse in English with your dogs now instead, we'd all be waking up today to a world where, come Christmas 2009, a Dog Talker will be on the top of everyone's list! Anyway that sounds pretty good to me! UPDATE: Guys it turns out that dog translators exist, I am going to think really hard about what my third invention will be before posting it here; I don't want to waste it. UPDATE 2: Okay the idea of using breasts as a power source was just a stray thought, I didn't mean for it to come true! I need to get a handle on controlling this new-found power. – Ryan

13 comments|post comment

[Nov. 10th, 2009|01:21 pm]

This slightly hermit-like period of writing up is good for finishing off some of my 101 Things. Chris is going away to Leicester this weekend, to see family and do dive training, and this is a good opportunity to get the vegan thing in. It's not that he's opposed to eating vegan food as such, just that it's my thing to do, and it'll be easier if he's only joining in for a couple of days. Also I feel better about only inflicting experimental cooking on myself first time round, insofar as possible.

I've been planning. I've got a couple of useful recipe books, and a whole internet full of information. One thing I'm uncertain about; I can't see any reason why Sainsbury's Fruit And Fibre shouldn't be vegan, given that it declares itself vegetarian, but I can't find anything to confirm that it is. The Animal Free Shopper (no link because it's a hideous website) doesn't include it, but does reckon the own brand bran flakes and sultana bran are, and surely this is the same with more dried fruit in? I think I'm declaring it close enough for my purposes, anyway. I'll probably only be eating a limited amount of normal sandwiches for lunch, but still I thought it would be useful to find vegan bread, and I was surprised how many of yer normal sliced loaves are vegan. I mean, there's no reason why most bread shouldn't be vegan of course, but I had it in my head that lots of the usual commercial additives like flour conditioners (the word flour is really hard to type for someone who writes fluorescent and variants a lot) weren't vegan. I'm surprised, albeit pleasantly, that bread manufacturers think that there's enough of a market to have sorted this out, and pointed it out. Jus-rol filo pastry, by contrast, is vegan but doesn't mention it, or even being vegetarian which you'd have thought their customers would reasonably ask, anywhere on the packaging.

I thought this would be easier in Brighton and it is. Not a single one of the supermarket chains sells tempeh, as far as I can work out, but Sunny Foods, a health food shop literally two minutes' walk from my house, does. I've got Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan With A Vengeance and it's got loads of tempeh recipes in, so this is useful. I've been down to Infinity Foods, the ever-expanding flagship of Brighton's hippy fleet, and I've got dried apricots for a reasonable price and tofu not in a UHT carton and a big jar of proper additive-free peanut butter and nutritional yeast flakes which Chris has taken the piss out of. Mind you, I've also got some stilton and bacon in the fridge that will get eaten up before Thursday, the start of my week. And I bought the tempeh while wearing a leather jacket. And, I may actually be going to have some knee-length boots that fit; there were some in Long Tall Sally (well, apparently they only get one pair of size 11 boots per style per shop, so these ones were in the Long Tall Sally in St. Albans and I had to buy them and get them posted to me to try them on) that fit on the foot and are only somewhat welly-like on the leg, so I've given them to the nice man in the Lanes with a basement den where he fixes leather things to have about an inch taken out of each leg, and I imagine I'll be collecting those in vegan week. I think the experiment still stands, though. Especially if I make sure to check which beers are vegan before starting too.

I'm still doing the Couch to 5k, and I'm halfway through the week where I do two three minute and two five minute runs per session and I can do them with no trouble. This is unheard of for me, but then again, this is the first time I've stuck to training regularly and gradually working up, and also the first time I've had proper running shoes. Doing it properly in getting good results shocker, who'd have thunk it, etc. That first twenty minute continuous run is due to happen on the last day of vegan week, so let's hope I get both of those things right, eh?

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