Above: San Francisco writer and renaissance man Dave Eggers was an aspiring artist in his youth and supported himself after college as a cartoonist and illustrator; his sketchbook of animals, It Is Right to Draw Their Fur: Animal Renderings by Dave Eggers is $27.72 at Amazon.
"Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you." - Fran Lebowitz
No one knows this more than I do.
A Little Trivia From Jane: “Bob’s Your Uncle” is a phrase commonly used in Britain to indicate success will come easily. It’s reputed to have originated from a 19th century politician, named Robert, who assigned his inexperienced nephew to a prestigious post in government.
"Glico Pocky is THE BEST. From the first bite it tastes like magic in snack form. The chocolate isn't too sweet and just melts in your mouth, all while being complimented by the biscuit stick.
Pocky=Amazing"
Designed for anyone who has far too much money and loose change, this is the piggy bank of all piggy banks. Its a real piglet that has been taxidermied and inserted with what all piglets probably dream of as babies, a coin storage unit and a cork plug.
Make your plush overpriced apartment complete with this little guy.
The piglet bank will take up to 12 months to produce from the time of order. We expect half the money up front and half when the piglet had been completed. Just so you know that we don’t actually kill the Piglets, they die of natural causes and these are the ones that we use.
Price $4000
(not including postage and packing))
from Remodelista
Women over 50!
In case you missed it on 60 Minutes, this is what Andy Rooney thinks about women over 50.
60 Minutes Correspondent Andy Rooney (CBS): “As I grow in age, I value women over 50 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:
A woman over 50 will never wake you in the middle of the night & ask, 'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think.
...blah, blah, blah...
Women over 50 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.
Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.
Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 50.
For all those men who say, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’ Here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!”
Andy Rooney is a really smart guy!
"Coconut milk is considered very healthy in Ayurveda, and in modern times has been found to have hyperlipidemic balancing qualities as well and antimicrobial properties in the gastrointestinal tract and topically. It is also used for healing mouth ulcers. In a study with rats, two coconut based preparations (a crude warm water extract of coconut milk and a coconut water dispersion) were studied for their protective effects on drug-induced gastric ulceration. Both substances offered protection against ulceration, with coconut milk producting a 54% reduction vs. 39% for coconut water."I added garlic to the coconut milk, brought it to the boil and added a bag of baby spinach. Served alongside my baked sweet potato, topped now with EVOO, and all I can say is "Yum!"
"According to Anne Allison, food is prepared in a presentational style that is determined by a number of codes. One code calls for “smallness, separation, and fragmentation,” another for opposition by means of color, shape, texture and even between the food and its container. The foods should oppose each other in that pink is placed with green, smooth surfaces with rough ones, and circular foods in square dishes should rest next to angular foods in round dishes. There is also a code that calls for the stylization of nature. Foods should remain in their natural, raw, state (and) should also be decorated with natural objects such as flowers or maple leaves. Mothers can spend up to 45 minutes per obento every morning for each child’s lunch.
Nursery schools have established regulations for obento. All children must bring one for lunch and each obento should have the following properties:
1) Food should be prepared in such a way that it is easy to eat.
2) Food must be prepared in such a way that it can be eaten with chopsticks or with the fingers.
3) Portions should be small.
4) Food that a child does not like should be slowly introduced so that the child will not be a fussy eater.
5) The obento must be pretty and pleasing to the eye.
6) Obento should be as handmade as possible, including the obento bag (obentobukuro) in which the obento is contained.
Mothers take extreme care in following the rules because each obento serves as a connection between the home (uchi), and the outside (soto), represented by the school.
Once at school, the child is responsible for completely finishing his or her obento. Often recess or lessons will not start until every student is finished. The logic behind this rule is that the child must meet certain expectations as an introduction to the future “rigors” of the Japanese educational system. Schools create many ploys to encourage children to eat such as sing-alongs and collectively thanking Buddha. The bottom line, however, is that the obento signifies a message to follow directions and accept authority. The lunch-time rules form an approval of ritualistic tasks that will be carried by the children into later years.
Because the obento signifies both uchi and soto it is important for the mothers to create the perfect obento for each child. It must be attractive and must encourage the child to eat all the food within it. However, mothers do not have to form ideas for the obento by themselves, hundreds of magazines are published about obento giving tips and ideas for creating the ideal lunch. In fact, although dated, a 1998 survey in Osaka concluded there were 474 magazines available pertaining to obento. Many schools hold PTA meetings to discuss obento, especially during the first months of the school year. These meetings focus on how the food should be “packed and wrapped” in order to ensure the best results. Often if a child fails to be able to finish his or her obento the blame is placed on the mother’s inability to prepare a proper lunch."
Freaks (1932)
A lady trapeze artist violates the code of the side show when she plots to murder her midget husband.
"Japan has many interesting cold remedies. I've been feeling a bit under the weather over the past few days, apparently having caught my daughter's cold. After testing the Japanese joshiki -- the near-supernatural "common sense" that most every Japanese person seems to possess -- about sick people not taking baths by taking one with no ill effects, I partook of my large stock of American cold remedies like Nyquil and Alka-Seltzer Plus and went to bed. Nothing is less fun than being sick and not having access to medicine brands you know and trust, and while there are many cold medicines here in Japan, they just don't seem to work well on my giant gaijin body. Incidentally, the Japanese have some pretty interesting folk remedies they turn to when they're sick. To break a high fever, put a raw egg in a glass with sake and a bit of sugar and swallow it rapidly, then wrap a spring onion (e.g. a leek, like the one Miku Hatsune is always holding) around your neck and hit the sack."
"What happens when the future has come and gone?"
- Robert Half
It takes too much energy to be against something unless it's really important. - Madeleine L'Engle
"It's the typo to end all typos: Illinois gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney's name is misspelled as "Rich Whitey" on some electronic-voting machines in Chicago, and officials say the problem can't be fixed before election day.
The Chicago Sun-Times, which broke the story, notes that half of the flawed machines are in predominantly African-American areas of the city. The problem is present in 23 of Chicago's 50 wards.
"I don't want to be identified as 'Whitey.' If this is happening in primarily African-American wards, that's an even bigger concern," Whitney, the Green party candidate, told the Sun-Times.
He added that the typo could be the result of "machine politics" and said "this has to be disconcerting to a voter," though he added he was not sure how it will impact the vote.
A Rasmussen poll out today found Whitney taking just two percent of the vote. The survey found he trails Republican Bill Brady with 46 percent, Democratic Governor Pat Quinn with 40 percent and independent Scott Lee Cohen with 4 percent.
Whitney's name is actually spelled correctly on initial screens on the electronic voting machines but then becomes "Rich Whitey" on review screens. City officials say they do not have sufficient time to reprogram the machines, though Whitney is reportedly considering legal action to try and force them to address the matter."
Enjoy!!
The adult 2 lb. Potoroo has 1/2 inch long offspring which sometimes stay in a state of suspended development (embryonic diapause) while another Potoroo is conceived.
Potoroos are the most fungi-dependent mammal on earth. They eat truffles.
"Traditional American confidence in individual freedom has resulted in a morally and socially undesirable distribution of wealth."
Herbert Croly, 1909
One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right.' If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated.
"Inspired by the Fool of the Tarot, Zed is the main character in the show. Called to undergo a transformation, he is both multiple and omnipresent. The initial state of Zed is associated with the unconscious and chaos: his imbecility is obvious, but his silliness is touching because it reveals his vulnerability and naivety. By the end of the show, Zed represents consciousness, restored harmony and the reversal of the order of things through laughter."
