In which this is a quick primer for all y’all who are innarested in packing your own lunches all healthy and cute-style.
Matro said this, so I’m saying this:
Bento boxes are nothing more than lunch boxes that happen to be from Japan, so you can put non-Japanese food into them if you want (and I do all the time). They are compact, visually appealing, and reusable. They have a variety of accessories, including chopsticks, fork and spoon sets, sauce bottles, food cups, picks, food dividers, carrying bags, and more.
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In which I ramble on about politics and never get to the point.
My country has a seriously fucked up budget. China, Japan, and the UK hold over 2315 billion dollars in US treasury securities. We’re currently $127k in debt per tax payer. And we’re still cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy because it’s supposed to increase tax revenue, even though I can’t figure out how such an approach is supposed to work. (Probably because I’m not an economist and I don’t really care enough to do any deep research.) (What. It’s an opinion piece. Shuddup.)
“As of January 31, 2011, the Total Public Debt Outstanding of the United States of America was $14.13 trillion and was 96.4% of calendar year 2010’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) of $14.7 trillion. Using 2010 figures, the total debt (96.3% of GDP) ranked 12th highest against other nations.”
Congress is trying to balance the budget. Since they’re GOP-heavy, they’re threatening to kill stuff the GOP traditionally doesn’t like, little things like Planned Parenthood and PBS and NPR. I’m upset about these threats because I find these agencies to be both important and useful, and as a citizen I want some of my tax money to go to fund these things.
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In which another country’s dictator tries to disconnect it from the world.
Have you been paying attention to Libya? (And Bahrain? And Yemen? Algeria?) Well, it disappeared from the Internet tonight:
“Renesys confirms that the 13 globally routed Libyan network prefixes were withdrawn at 23:18 GMT (Friday night, just after midnight Saturday local time), and Libya is off the Internet. One Libyan route originated by Telecom Italia directly is still BGP-reachable, but inbound traceroutes appear to die in Palermo. A minority of our peers report some surviving paths through the peering connection between Level3 and Telecom Italia, but traceroutes into those prefixes fail, suggesting that the Libyan cutoff is complete.
“We wondered whether anyone would repeat Egypt’s strategy. Tonight, it appears that we have our answer.”
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In which Dr. Mel’s going to Iceland next month, so he had to do some stash reduction.
The good news is that Mel, in a sudden stash-reduction fit, sent me two boxes of yarn:
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In which I wish I posted more.
Every time I post, I think, “That was pretty good! I need to post more often!” But then nothing happens so I have nothing to write about so I don’t write and then I check my site and it’s been, like, half a month since I wrote anything. (I’m proud to say that it took me nearly an entire decade to really start to run out of shit to say!)
Part of it, I think, is that most of the things I find really interesting socially are not appropriate topics. I can’t talk about how that couple’s falling apart spectacularly, or about that person’s funky health issues, or about that couple’s freaky sex life. I mean, I could, but then I wouldn’t have any friends. And I like having friends. I like getting stopped on the street by people who know my name. It’s nice not being a stranger anymore.
I don’t have a job, so I can’t bitch about stupid policies (and when I do have a job, I still can’t, because that shit gets you dooced. Which SUCKS, because all jobs, no matter how cool, are stupid and need to be mocked).
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In which I record my first-ever bread baking experience in great and tedious detail! Yay!
I am not a baker. I have never made a loaf of bread in my life (except for in a bread machine, and that can’t possibly count for anything). In spite of this handicap, I am going to bake a loaf of bread. And live-blog it. And hopefully be able to eat it.
In November of 2006, a recipe for bread was printed in the New York Times. It sparked some kind of bread revolution, apparently. There are thousands and thousands of blog entries about it, there are entire websites dedicated to variations on the method, tons of pictures abound online, and you can spend hours watching people on YouTube gush about how awesome it is.
I don’t know how much of a pain in the ass kneading really is, but judging from the response to this recipe, it’s freakin’ bad. Anyway, here’s the vid that sparked a baking revolution:
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In which I defend my degree-lessness. And whine.
I have six years of higher education to my credit, but no degree.
Although my grades at MHCC were only just above average, when I left MIU my GPA was comfortably over 3.5, and last term at WWCC I made the president’s list.
I’ve taken musical performance classes, operatic training, music history, vocal pedagogy, music theory, sight singing and ear training, basic piano, basic rhythm, and music composition. I’ve taken physics overviews, world history, classical Greek literature, composition, poetry, and in-depth courses on the American Transcendentalists. I’ve taken courses on Linux, Windows clients and servers, security standards and protocols, and am in the process of completing CCNA 1 – 4. There are probably hundreds of other courses I would be interested in taking for their own sakes, whether they’re related to music, English, or networking or not.
I like school and historically earn above-average grades. I like to learn and I like to think. What I don’t like is the year or more of stupid pre-reqs that one must pay for in order to qualify for a degree.
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In which I explain to you why you must be for net neutrality.
Egypt is missing. The entire country dropped off the Internet today (and the cell network as well), moments after AP video footage of a protester being shot in the head began to emerge. It looks like there’s one network left, Noor, and currently the assumption is that it was allowed to stay connected to the rest of the world only because it carries the country’s stock exchange traffic. That’s one pipe out of 80 massive, country-feeding connections:
At 22:34 UTC (00:34am local time), Renesys observed the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the Internet’s global routing table. Approximately 3,500 individual BGP [border gateway protocol] routes were withdrawn, leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange Internet traffic with Egypt’s service providers. Virtually all of Egypt’s Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.
The Internet was designed to be self-healing. It was built to carry data even after entire cities had been destroyed. If you understood even a little of how core routers work, you’d love the Internet eleven times more than you already do, and you would know how utterly fucked up it is that an ENTIRE COUNTRY has gone dark. 80,000,000 voices have been silenced.
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In which I just realized I haven’t blogged in, like, ten days or something! Ack!
I watched all four-point-five seasons of Battlestar Galactica in the space of half a month. It was frakkin’ awesome.
I have been in bed for three days with an evil, mean, awful cold. I’m coughing like I’m in a TB ward and I can’t smell anything.
Why can’t I buy simple cotton long-sleeved fitted women’s t-shirts anywhere? How hard is it to make long-sleeved freakin’ t-shirts that aren’t fugly and boxy?
I still need to buy new underwear, but I’ve run out of Xmas money and I’d rather pay my cell phone bill instead.
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In which I tell you all I know about the Polaroid SX-70!
I have two SX-70s. One is a lovely silver and leather top-shelf SLR, and the other is a black plastic Model 3 (the non-SLR model). I’m lucky in that I got them both really cheap, and they both function beautifully and close completely. They’re really cool, compact, portable cameras.
SX-70s were made to take a particular kind of film (Polaroid SX-70 integral print) that is, of course, totally discontinued now, but the cameras can be altered to shoot 600 instant film (which has also been discontinued, since as of early last year Polaroid no longer manufactures any film at all). The 600 film you can still find is long expired, so buyer beware. If it’s been stored properly it will shoot just fine. If it’s been stored badly it might give you interesting, moody images, or it might not work at all.
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VSCO
Instagram has become unusable crap, so please click the icon below to see my latest pics.
4 random books from my Library!
