Alienation of Affections, Feline Variety

Ever since I adminstered flea medication to my kitteh earlier this week, he's been shooting lasers at me with his eyes. It looks like this:

(Yes, it's possible I'm smelling my cat's head in this pic, it's also possible that you should mind your own cat-smelling business!)

Any advice on how I can get back in kitteh's circle of trust? He's always peowsed off when he gets tackled and medicated, but his ire is lasting longer than usual. I just want to get some cuddles, so I'd like to speed up this relationship recovery process.

Suggestions welcome. 

Crock Pot Crosspost: This Is Nerdery!

If you're a nerd, you may have just taken the Jeopardy! online contestant test like I just did. I think I did pretty well, but this is my first crack at it, so I don't really know what, if anything, "pretty well" gets you in this game show application game. I can assume, based on the fact that there's a Jeopardy! newsletter and numerous Jeopardy! fan sites, that trying out for Jeopardy! is its own nerd subculture, and since I'm already an active participant in several other nerd subcultures that take up a goodly amount of my time, it's not one I'll be joining.

I did have fun taking the test, however, and it got me thinking about the guy who pwned Jeopardy! week after week yet humbly accepted defeat at the hands of a dweeby supercomputer named Watson (which I personally think is a dumb name for a supercomputer, I would have named it something cooler like...Supe...Supey...no, Super Duper...Pooper Shooter the Supercomputer, or Jim), the one and only Ken Jennings. Yeah, I know there are probably, like, two hundred people named Ken Jennings in various phone books throughout the U.S., but you know what I meant.

Ken Jennings is not only a Jeopardy!-slaying beast, he's a pretty funny guy. Which is why today's CPCP is from Ken Jennings' blog, Confessions of a Trivial Mind.

Crosspost:

KJ's blog FAQs, the most Jeopardy!-tryout related work of literature on these united webbernets.

I found KJ's responses to the questions frequently asked of him endearing and clever. And now that I know he does a Wordplay Wednesday feature on his blog, I think I'm becoming a fan. What are Ken Jennings fans called, anyway? Jemmings? Like Jennings combined with lemmings? Or human supercomputer superfans...who area also human? That one's kind of wordy. I don't know what we're called (yup, I used "we", so I think that makes my fandom official) but we're out there! Get used to it! Kick rocks, Watsonites!

Crock Pot Recipe:


In honor of today's game show theme, I present crock pot Cornish game hens as today's recipe, courtesy of Greyson Ferguson at About.com.

Happy reading and bon app!

Crock Pot Crosspost: A Lie is a Lie is a Lie

Nice try, Mike Daisey, but nobody's buying it. You got caught in a lie, excuse me, LIES. And what you should be doing is apologizing, PROFUSELY, to everyone who's integrity you put on the line with your stories. What you're doing instead is pretending like this was all part of some great plan to highlight a "bigger truth".

Bull merde! Pardon my French.

Daisey's attempts at talking himself out of this corner are about as skillful as what I'd expect a middle schooler, who learned about the art of persuasion yesterday, to come up with when caught behind the baseball fields smoking.

First of all, Daisey's current message is inconsistent. If "it's not journalism, it's theatre," then why would Daisey have participated in a program like This American Life in the first place? And why would he have needed to talk with fact checkers at all, or hide a translator from TAL? He could have simply said, "the details aren't important because this is fiction; I did research to create an air of reality for this work of fiction, but it's not intended to be taken as the truth." Taking "a few shortcuts," which he sooo generously admits to, would have been irrelevant, because art doesn't require substantiation. The reason Daisey never said anything like that, of course, is that he never thought of this as theatre rather than journalism, until he had no other choice.

Second, if veracity does matter (which Daisey seems to half believe), who the balls does Daisey think he is to decide what constitutes the "bigger truth"?  What does "bigger truth" even mean? If it's something other than just plain truth, then I've got another word for it. Young children are generally able to grasp that, when it comes to details, there is truth, and there is un-truth (also known as lies). Of course Daisey's "bigger truth", his narrative, is not a truth at all. It's a subjective, steeped in his imagination, significantly fabricated fable designed to fit his premise. When scientists alter their data to fit their hypotheses it's called fraud. Daisey's story, with the lies added in, might be more interesting and titillating for the lies, but clearly, it's fraud.

That a lot of what Daisey presented did pan out, doesn't change anything either. The scientist who has 90% of the data he needs to substantiate his hypothesis but fabricates the final 10% is not forgiven the deceipt because "a lot" of what he presented was true. One drop of poison spoils the soup. And if we really value journalism we'll not make comments about how Daisey said a lot of truthful things too. It's so plain to me that this isn't important. Most dishonest people still tell the truth a lot of the time, but there's no credit for that. A cheater doesn't get credit for all the games where he didn't cheat, a kidnapper doesn't get props for all the kids he didn't kidnap, and Daisey doesn't get credit for the truthful things he included as part of a fraudulent show.

Daisey's attempt to persuade the public that he didn't intend to mislead, or worse, that he's just above petty little things like truthful details, is an insult. And one that would be dangerous, if anyone was buying it. Fortunately, no one is. And it's a relief that in a world where the silver-tongued serpents of industry, media, and politics rely on the pervasiveness of gullibility, there's still no one stupid enough to buy this bridge.

Today's Crosspost:

Mark Baumgarten of City Art's Magazine shares some thoughts on having been lied to by Daisey in At Large: On Getting Duped by Mike Daisey.

Today's Crock Pot Recipe:

Liar's Tomato Soup by Annie at Tastebook.

This soup can be served chilled, so you can give your crock pot the week off if you want to. And if serving the soup hot, you can heat this soup in a saucepan or use your slow cooker, just keep the temp and time in your slow cooker loooow. This soup shouldn't come to a boil.


Remember, friends: shortcuts are just fine in cooking, but not in journalism.

Happy reading and bon app!

You Don't Look a Day Over Cutie-One!

Vintage Dutch Girl is doing a giveaway for her birthday, how fabulous! Spread the word, spread the joy.

Happy birthday, VDG!

I'm In Luuuurv!

The Dizzy Dames Etsy shop is to die!

I'll admit it, when I've got that hankerin' for retail therapy but don't want to spend a buns ton of money on clothes for myself, I, from time to time, buy Barbie clothes. I'm ridiculous, I know.

Dizzy Dames' handmade Barbie clothes are EQUISITE. You would not believe the detailing and styling. And dresses generally cost $5.50, which is about what you'd pay for a store bought Barbie dress of far inferior quality.

This arrived in my mailbox this morning...

Are you kidding me?! Gorgeous. I can now pretend my Barbie is Betty Draper...'cause, that's a normal thing to do...

"I'm as corny as Kansas in August, high as a flag on the fourth of July! If you'll excuse an expression I use, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love..." with a teeny tiny dress.