I joined some Flickr folks on a wee A2 safari today. Nothing spectacular - just a walk around Ann Arbor with some cameras and various pics. Got a few that I like - though my fondness for high contrast images may be getting a little out of hand
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
An invitation
I've just been invited to attend a cooking class. By the people at Gourmet magazine. And while I know that the invitation is business rather than personal (they know that I have money to spend and products to promote) I'd like to think that at least a little of the invitation was based on my being interesting.
So French Bistro cooking here we come.
So French Bistro cooking here we come.
A joke from my dad
After numerous rounds of "We don't even know if Osama is still alive",
Osama himself decided to send George Bush a letter in his own
handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.
Bush opened the letter and it contained a single line of coded message:
370H-SSV-0773H
Bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to Condoleezza Rice. Condi and her
aides hadn't a clue either, so they sent it to the FBI.
No one could solve it at the FBI so it went to the CIA, and then to MI6.
Eventually they asked the Mossad for help.
Almost immediately the Mossad emailed the White House with this reply:
"Tell the President he's holding the message upside down."
Osama himself decided to send George Bush a letter in his own
handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.
Bush opened the letter and it contained a single line of coded message:
370H-SSV-0773H
Bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to Condoleezza Rice. Condi and her
aides hadn't a clue either, so they sent it to the FBI.
No one could solve it at the FBI so it went to the CIA, and then to MI6.
Eventually they asked the Mossad for help.
Almost immediately the Mossad emailed the White House with this reply:
"Tell the President he's holding the message upside down."
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Faux'd to Gray
... there was a time when I reacted to everything as though it and I were magnets. I was either irresistably attracted or equally violently repelled. Life was love - hate - love and shades of gray were seen as compromise.
Of course life is made up of shades of gray - but then embracing that fact would mean embracing a gray life, wouldn't it? You see only a couple of sentences in and already this seems circular and self indulgent.
What I've learned of course is that you can be black and white some of the time. That it's all about choice. When to get annoyed, when to hit back, when to hit first, when to track down their ISP and report them to their boss and when to simply think "what a tosser" and move on to something more deserving of time (like mayonaisse)
There's been a lot of mayo contemplating recently.
On a more concrete side I am officially allergic to everything other than dogs. Dust, trees, grass, mites, people with beards. Did an allergy test today - in a bid to find out what turns me into a Geisha Panda on occasion - and was amazed to find out that there's nothing that I don't react violently to (well I react only mildly to cats). This is not a good thing. And there's very little that anyone can do - other than advise me to live in a sterile environment with a dog. Which wouldn't be so terrible - Connecticut here we come
Of course life is made up of shades of gray - but then embracing that fact would mean embracing a gray life, wouldn't it? You see only a couple of sentences in and already this seems circular and self indulgent.
What I've learned of course is that you can be black and white some of the time. That it's all about choice. When to get annoyed, when to hit back, when to hit first, when to track down their ISP and report them to their boss and when to simply think "what a tosser" and move on to something more deserving of time (like mayonaisse)
There's been a lot of mayo contemplating recently.
On a more concrete side I am officially allergic to everything other than dogs. Dust, trees, grass, mites, people with beards. Did an allergy test today - in a bid to find out what turns me into a Geisha Panda on occasion - and was amazed to find out that there's nothing that I don't react violently to (well I react only mildly to cats). This is not a good thing. And there's very little that anyone can do - other than advise me to live in a sterile environment with a dog. Which wouldn't be so terrible - Connecticut here we come
What possesses
people to take pictures of people on American Idol and then upload them to Flickr is quite beyond me. But I'm rather glad that they do. This is Carly Bruiser and her fighting lizard husband. Can America bring itself to vote for flesh desecrators I wonder?
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
American Idol
I realised today that I've been almost entirely silent on the subject of this season's American Idol - which is most unlike me as it's a bit of a corker.
Let me start by bringing you up to speed with the contestants
Brook White is the toothy Carly Simon type. She's never seen an R rated movie, is relentlessly positive and likes to play the piano in a way that reminds me of a chaste Tori Amos (her knees are resolutely never splayed). She's harmless enough but alas she's about 40 years too late to have a career - and 40 years ago we had tapestry and carole king anyway.
Carly Smithson is an Irish bruiser who this week admitted that she'd murdered Total Eclipse of the Heart in part because her slimming girdle had been too tight. Married to what appears to be a fighting lizard she's the kind of girl you'd like to have a pint with - and she can belt out a song but in the age of HD and widescreen the bingo wings are a killer.
David Archuleta is a singing mormon foetus who seems too earnest for his own good but really connects on songs with a pseudo refligious content. He makes the girls scream but only because girls are evil and they see how it makes him squirm. Tellingly he's almost never acknowledged by another contestant. He'll go far, but never far enough
David Cook is a doughy Daughtrey. He's done a couple of good covers that have turned out to be accurate enough rip offs but he does at least sound current in an emo rocker sort of way. I'd like him more if he didn't look like a Cornish Pastie.
Jason Castro is the young, blue eyes, dreadlocked bedroom strummer with the hippie attitude and the ability to turn 12 year old girls into puddles of jello. He's crap but that doesn't really matter - it's all about the eyes.
Kristy Lee Cook has played every Idol card she can. She sings with a country twang. She has a "I sold my horse" story and after WEEKS in the bottom three she this week made the most cynical and brilliant choice of songs in the history of the show "God Bless the USA" - Americans bought shovels to help them gobble that shit up faster and she's moving on.
Michael Johns is from Australia and has a Queen fetish. This makes people compare him to Michael Hutchence. Maybe a castrated Hutchence. He's already in a hotel room - somebody hand him a noose and save us from more weeks of self indulgent vocal noodling.
Ramilele Malubay wouldn't be out of place belting out slightly mis-pronounced covers in the Mandarin Oriental, Manilla. When she does end up there be sure to ask for a room as far from the 'cabaret lounge' as possible.
Syesha Mercado is another cut priced Whitney. She has nice hair. And she's making the most of good dentistry. But really girl - you need to get your own schtick 'cause this has been done and been done so much better.
And that's it. Nobody as excruciating as 'beat boxer' Blake Lewis, as deformed but brilliant as Doolittle or even as deranged as last year's winner - a hairy pre-pubescent giantess . But it's been a blast so far.
Expect weekly updates hence.
Let me start by bringing you up to speed with the contestants
Brook White is the toothy Carly Simon type. She's never seen an R rated movie, is relentlessly positive and likes to play the piano in a way that reminds me of a chaste Tori Amos (her knees are resolutely never splayed). She's harmless enough but alas she's about 40 years too late to have a career - and 40 years ago we had tapestry and carole king anyway.
Carly Smithson is an Irish bruiser who this week admitted that she'd murdered Total Eclipse of the Heart in part because her slimming girdle had been too tight. Married to what appears to be a fighting lizard she's the kind of girl you'd like to have a pint with - and she can belt out a song but in the age of HD and widescreen the bingo wings are a killer.
David Archuleta is a singing mormon foetus who seems too earnest for his own good but really connects on songs with a pseudo refligious content. He makes the girls scream but only because girls are evil and they see how it makes him squirm. Tellingly he's almost never acknowledged by another contestant. He'll go far, but never far enough
David Cook is a doughy Daughtrey. He's done a couple of good covers that have turned out to be accurate enough rip offs but he does at least sound current in an emo rocker sort of way. I'd like him more if he didn't look like a Cornish Pastie.
Jason Castro is the young, blue eyes, dreadlocked bedroom strummer with the hippie attitude and the ability to turn 12 year old girls into puddles of jello. He's crap but that doesn't really matter - it's all about the eyes.
Kristy Lee Cook has played every Idol card she can. She sings with a country twang. She has a "I sold my horse" story and after WEEKS in the bottom three she this week made the most cynical and brilliant choice of songs in the history of the show "God Bless the USA" - Americans bought shovels to help them gobble that shit up faster and she's moving on.
Michael Johns is from Australia and has a Queen fetish. This makes people compare him to Michael Hutchence. Maybe a castrated Hutchence. He's already in a hotel room - somebody hand him a noose and save us from more weeks of self indulgent vocal noodling.
Ramilele Malubay wouldn't be out of place belting out slightly mis-pronounced covers in the Mandarin Oriental, Manilla. When she does end up there be sure to ask for a room as far from the 'cabaret lounge' as possible.
Syesha Mercado is another cut priced Whitney. She has nice hair. And she's making the most of good dentistry. But really girl - you need to get your own schtick 'cause this has been done and been done so much better.
And that's it. Nobody as excruciating as 'beat boxer' Blake Lewis, as deformed but brilliant as Doolittle or even as deranged as last year's winner - a hairy pre-pubescent giantess . But it's been a blast so far.
Expect weekly updates hence.
Like the real thing - but not quite
Not much happening today... which isn't really the way to start any blog entry. No the way to start a blog entry is thus
"So there I was wrist deep in a post op-tranny"
The reason that's the way to start a blog entry is simple. At any given moment there are a huge number of men looking online for any mention of "Post op trannies"
Perhaps some are surgeons - looking for a new, neater stitch. Or nurses hoping to find a favorite ex-patient. But the majority are guys on the slow slide into fetishism. Pushing boundaries further and further in a bid to find the thrills that once came so easily. That's the problem with infinite options - they dull the senses. Things that are easy to find - and shared by many are somehow less thrilling - and so we search for the unusual.
Families try to "get there before McDondalds" when travelling. Businessmen stay in 'boutique' hotels owned and run by mass chains. Teenage girls search second hand stores in search of vintage. And a million boys sit in bedrooms trying to create the ultimate mash-up - the modern mix-tape without the awkward connotations.
We're all looking for the unique. Defining ourselves by the increasingly small number of things that we do that are different. For the things that make up the 2% of our lives that we believe is ultimately 'us'.
We're becoming nomads. Constantly moving in the search not for stimulation but for uniqueness. We want to drink from the fountain of interesting... to experience what others haven't and as a result become what others aren't. Choice does that. It allows us to indulge fantasy.
Maybe that's why I get so many hits looking for post-op trannies. Or maybe it's just that guys are predictably in search of cheap titillation.
Whaddya think?
"So there I was wrist deep in a post op-tranny"
The reason that's the way to start a blog entry is simple. At any given moment there are a huge number of men looking online for any mention of "Post op trannies"
Perhaps some are surgeons - looking for a new, neater stitch. Or nurses hoping to find a favorite ex-patient. But the majority are guys on the slow slide into fetishism. Pushing boundaries further and further in a bid to find the thrills that once came so easily. That's the problem with infinite options - they dull the senses. Things that are easy to find - and shared by many are somehow less thrilling - and so we search for the unusual.
Families try to "get there before McDondalds" when travelling. Businessmen stay in 'boutique' hotels owned and run by mass chains. Teenage girls search second hand stores in search of vintage. And a million boys sit in bedrooms trying to create the ultimate mash-up - the modern mix-tape without the awkward connotations.
We're all looking for the unique. Defining ourselves by the increasingly small number of things that we do that are different. For the things that make up the 2% of our lives that we believe is ultimately 'us'.
We're becoming nomads. Constantly moving in the search not for stimulation but for uniqueness. We want to drink from the fountain of interesting... to experience what others haven't and as a result become what others aren't. Choice does that. It allows us to indulge fantasy.
Maybe that's why I get so many hits looking for post-op trannies. Or maybe it's just that guys are predictably in search of cheap titillation.
Whaddya think?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
A marble gray day
it's one of those heavy gray days here today - the skies look marble and the earth feels as cold. Everywhere you look there's evidence that this has been a brutal winter - from the pallid complexions of the faces you see here through to the dirty grey chunks of decomposed road mixed with week old slush that are thrown up by the trucks. Cars are glazed with crusted salt, concrete structures act as a black holes - overpasses sucking what weak light there is available into their very bases - like monsterously selfish plants. Clothes that started black and tight are now faded and slack, as are the bodies below them - the winter adding inches of marbled flesh to bodies programmed to expect famine.
Yup today is marble gray
Yup today is marble gray
Monday, March 24, 2008
Home alone
I'm home alone today.
Judith is at work but I have the day off to celebrate the rising of The Lord (aka R. Savior) in the traditional fashion (Quorn, chocolate, a trip to the vet, a walk with the dog, an hour in the gym and some thinking about an event I'm organizing)
The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the snow is melting despite it still being -1c and somehow it feels like spring.
A month ago I'd have filled the day with searches for Hillary and Obama - but I have Primary fatigue and besides there are too many other things to find online to be worried about THAT particular black man - older white woman pairing.
Right now I'm going book myself tickets to Vegas, Miami, Cyprus and maybe LA. Now that's what I call spending,
Judith is at work but I have the day off to celebrate the rising of The Lord (aka R. Savior) in the traditional fashion (Quorn, chocolate, a trip to the vet, a walk with the dog, an hour in the gym and some thinking about an event I'm organizing)
The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the snow is melting despite it still being -1c and somehow it feels like spring.
A month ago I'd have filled the day with searches for Hillary and Obama - but I have Primary fatigue and besides there are too many other things to find online to be worried about THAT particular black man - older white woman pairing.
Right now I'm going book myself tickets to Vegas, Miami, Cyprus and maybe LA. Now that's what I call spending,
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Molecular Gastronomy
I've always thought that Molecular Gastronomy was more about theatre than food. Well when I say always I mean during my years as someone poncy enough to be thinking about Molecular Gastronomy rather than whether to have the fish sticks or the chicken sticks.
Anyway last night we headed down to our landlord's pub and then on to his restaurant. It's about a 60 mile drive each way and the town of Clarkston is a two stoplight town so we weren't quite sure what to expect. Other than it would be good. But was that good for such a small town, good for Michigan or good for America?
As it turned out it was gorgeous, the food was good (my Ahi Wellington- seared blue tuna wrapped in rice paper with shitake duxelle, wasabi white bean puree and ponzu demi-glace was great), the decor was great and our landlord was generous with his time , his attention and his cash (he comp'd our entire meal - wine and all)
Best of all though was the ice-cream. Wheeled out on a trolley with a bowl lit blue from below by a light box the ice-cream was an exercise in molecular theatre. Yup they took the ice cream mix and added liquid nitrogen, right there tableside. They then did the same to both citrus fruit and chocolate. The result was spectacular tableside theatre and an icecream that tasted like none I've ever tried before. The flavors were fresh. The ice-cream smooth. And the citrus just zing'd.
We'll be back - and next time we'll be paying
Anyway last night we headed down to our landlord's pub and then on to his restaurant. It's about a 60 mile drive each way and the town of Clarkston is a two stoplight town so we weren't quite sure what to expect. Other than it would be good. But was that good for such a small town, good for Michigan or good for America?
As it turned out it was gorgeous, the food was good (my Ahi Wellington- seared blue tuna wrapped in rice paper with shitake duxelle, wasabi white bean puree and ponzu demi-glace was great), the decor was great and our landlord was generous with his time , his attention and his cash (he comp'd our entire meal - wine and all)
Best of all though was the ice-cream. Wheeled out on a trolley with a bowl lit blue from below by a light box the ice-cream was an exercise in molecular theatre. Yup they took the ice cream mix and added liquid nitrogen, right there tableside. They then did the same to both citrus fruit and chocolate. The result was spectacular tableside theatre and an icecream that tasted like none I've ever tried before. The flavors were fresh. The ice-cream smooth. And the citrus just zing'd.
We'll be back - and next time we'll be paying
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