baking > jobhunting

so coping with new medications, doctor's visits, and miscellaneous other issues has eaten my time this week -- before i've even had it which seems unfair -- so therefore all i have for you on this lovely wednesday are links to three cooking blogs.

lately, i've been baking on the weekends as a de-stressor from work and job-searching and all that kind of fun stuff. yeast bread doesn't ask you to fill out resume forms when you've already uploaded your resume to the job sites. chocolate cookies are not known for being critical of your professional development experience. and i have never yet found a quick bread which requires a cover letter.

joy the baker is the newest, courtesy of my friend diana, and i want to make pretty much everything on this site. the photography is appetite-inducingly good, too, which doesn't hurt at all.

sprinkle bakes has equally great photography and some nice recipes -- more useful, i find, for ideas for what to do with recipes i already have or decoration ideas or the like.

the british larder sounds like it should be one long list of recipes for fish 'n chips or fry-ups but it isn't. there is my current favorite recipe -- hot cross buns with golden sultanas and cardamom -- on here and i can vouch for the fact that not only does the recipe produce awesome hot cross buns, but the dough is perfectly amenable to being turned into loaf form and makes the most wonderful, tender, toast-worthy spice raisin bread.

friday fun times

because this week has been something like youtube/video overload, i decided to go with something not a video for friday.

so, instead, i suggest you visit the photographic dictionary. i think the project is more or less entirely self-explanatory from the url, but in case you need convincing for the clickthrough....

"injury," jimi franklin

...and...

"zazen," nicholas gottlund

"this is how you remind me..."

through a post from arts & letters daily i discovered this marvellous and more than slightly strange blog called killing the buddha. through them, i discovered this video:

CHARTER FOR COMPASSION TRAILER from TED Prize on Vimeo.

for the charter for compassion which is rolling out or going live or unveiling or whatever they call it today. first of all it made me think of my friend douglas who probably knew about this months ago. i have to admit, i think the video is a tad bit creepy -- the drum beats are a little too nouveau horror movie trailer for me but that could be just because i watch too many trailers for horror movies -- but i've spent some time poking around the website and looking at the people they've worked with and, even for someone as cynical as myself, it all looks reasonably genuine and well-thought-out. and i can get on board with people who are basically arguing that if you want people to behave well towards you, maybe behaving well towards them isn't a bad start.

i thought of this yesterday when i was sitting on a bench outside kupel's in brookline waiting for anna to come out with bagels and cream cheese; one of the local homeless women (unless she's a really dedicated performance artist) passed by, pushing this giant cart loaded down with what i'm guessing is all her stuff. she saw me sitting on the bench and smiled at me, so i smiled back, and she called over to ask if i had any spare change for a cup of coffee. i said i hadn't which was true and interactions like this are why i don't carry cash with me a lot of the time; at least this way i'm not lying. she shrugged and moved on. there was a guy standing near me waiting for his dog to finish with a nearby tree and he turned to me and asked with this expression of total horror on his face: "what did she say?" i explained what had gone on. the woman heard us talking and called out to him -- very politely -- to explain what she had asked me and to ask him the same question. he gave her this look of total disbelief that seemed to translate as "what is it doing talking to me!" and hurried off with his dog, muttering something that i couldn't really hear.

and because i'm not very good at writing about this kind of thing, i can't tell you what i thought next except that i remember thinking that the man over-reacted just a little. even if he didn't have anything, what was the harm in telling her so -- ideally nicely -- to her face rather than flinching back as though she had thrown something at him?

and then, because i'm absolutely incapable of leaving a post alone without putting something silly in it -- if you want a really neat-sounding explanation for why laughing at things is a good idea, the dailyom makes it sound very cool with their most recent post:

probably safe for work; it is a little risque but if you have an understanding boss or a boss with a sound sense of humor you should be fine. and you will need sound, definitely. :)

"come on if you think you're hard enough."

a few days ago, anna sent me a link to this story by someone named john hawkins -- sorry, all i can think of is a cross between the boy from treasure island and ben from carnivale, i have no other context for this man and i don't really want one if this is his taste in movies -- who wrote "10 horror movies for conservatives to watch..."

i thought it was a joke. it is not.

my favorite bit? well, apart from the bit where he plumps for the recent movie adaptation of the mist because of the great ending -- gag me; the ending sucked; they should've gone with the short story ending -- my favorite bit has to be within the first couple of paragraphs:

Here's the problem: horror films aren't family friendly. They're gory, they're violent, and they're vulgar. Even setting that aside, there really aren't very many "conservative" movies overall and there are almost no truly "conservative" horror flicks.

this is just mindblowing. horror films aren't family friendly? say it ain't so, doc, say it ain't so! (i think my actual phrase when reading the article for the first time was a little...ahem...more vehement. but i'm trying to be family friendly. ;) )

gory? only when necessary, please, and make sure the blood looks real. violent? god, i hope so! vulgar? very often, yes. life is a vulgar sort of thing, sweetie; conservativity won't protect you from that, believe it or not. sooner or later that ol' violent, gory vulgarity is just going to break right through and then where will you be? well, searching for someone like me or one of my friends who knows the three best ways to kill a zombie, that's where.

and i realise that not everyone watches sleepy hollow or predator in order to relax after a hard day's whatever-it-is-you-do. that's fine. if you don't like it, don't watch it -- god knows there are enough movies out there that you should be able to find something that will tweak your particular interest! so if you find horror films innately objectionable -- why watch them? watch something else, for goodness' sake and leave the theatre to those of us who want to be here. personally, i can't deal with horror flicks in the style of the saw or hostel series -- so y'know what? i don't watch 'em. very easily solved problem!

the article is entirely worth reading just for hilarity value; the movies he picks are mostly 'ehh.' nothing non-hollywood; nothing non-mainstream; nothing that would really make you think in any meaningful way. it avoids -- with the possible exception of quarantine which i hear is a remake of a superior spanish film called rec which is currently sitting at position 6 in my netflix queue waiting for me to fall out of love with bones and the original the fog which i hear is awesome; i've only seen the remake which is funny -- all the great things horror and genre films in general have been doing over the past few years. which is a shame.

anna also found for me this post from a blog she reads called shakesville (which often makes me want to spit blood but also has some great pictures of cats) but whoever posted the comment on the hawkins piece did more detailed commentary than me while still keeping a close eye on the sheer 'what the fuck'-ery of the original piece.

as a random follow-up to something i posted awhile back, i noticed this review of freda warrington's elfland from the fantasy & sci-fi lovin' news & reviews blog. she has a much more positive take on the book than i did, so i thought i'd link it here for the sake of completeness.

coming later in the week: thoughts on unseen academicals, jonathan maberry's bad moon rising, layer cake, and (with any luck) iron man (yeah, yeah, yeah, i know i'm practically the last person on earth to see it.)

random items

as you read this, i will (most likely) be at a new england historical association session in burlington, vt. i'm not presenting at this conference so my ego is safe; i just get to sit back, relax, and enjoy what everyone else has to say. and then cross my fingers and hope that the restaurants i remember as being good are still good so that anna and i don't have to wander around too much looking for somewhere to eat!

this is, of course, assuming that we get there at all -- i keep getting weather update alerts (from my mother, mostly) telling me about all the horrible things that are due to happen in the next 24-36 hours.

anyway, there are a few things i've got starred on my greader list that i wanted to put up here in case anyone else found them interesting, too.

hillary clinton was in belfast this past week. i haven't had time to go looking for any irish coverage of her talks, but there is some coverage from the guardian here. i've never been wildly impressed by hillary clinton, honestly; if a clinton had to continue to be involved in the government on an international level, i would've voted for her husband, but no-one asked me. in this case, i think her talk -- at least the excerpts i've seen -- sounded more condescending than friendly or helpful: "okay, kids, if you all learn to play together real nice, we'll give you some candy!" in this case, the candy being international investment by american corporations in northern ireland. just in case you can't get your own banks to fail on time, let the americans show you how to do it!

as a sidelight, there was also a report this morning of another car bomb in belfast. i doubt it has anything to do with clinton's visit, but there it is.

also this week was an "anniversary" of an attempt by the ira to bomb the grand hotel in brighton 25 years ago -- at the time, a political conference was being held there. if i remember rightly, the actual aim of the bomb was to kill margaret thatcher. no comment but anyway, they missed thatcher, killed four other people. the article here discusses the odd relationship that has built up between the ira bomber, patrick magee, and the daughter of one of the men killed as well as loosely commenting on the aftermath of the bombing itself. what gets me is the last sentence or two:

After all Patrick Magee couldn't bring himself to say sorry for the suffering he caused either.

"Pat, I find that quite hard," said Berry. She emerges as the bigger person.

my only thought on reading this the first time -- and i've read it several times since and i think it will find a home in the conclusion to my thesis -- was, 'well, no, of course he won't apologise. what did you expect?' if you're waiting for a hearts-and-flowers-style apology from a still-living ira paramilitary, complete with bended knee and hand on heart, i'd suggest you're going to be waiting a long damned time.

and this i saw this morning and couldn't quite believe: apparently a judge in louisiana totally missed the odd supreme court case or two in his legal training, like, say, "loving v. virginina." small details!

on a less political note, apparently vampires and zombies also reflect a "sexual divide" in mainstream culture. (and, while we're at it, does anyone want to have a stab at explaining what "post-scifi" might mean?)well, damn. apparently i don't like 28 days later and resident evil after all -- i actually like twilight. who knew! and i haven't even read/seen it. i've tried to put together a more reasonable comment on this article but i just can't. it makes me boggle -- i probably would have put this guy's book on the list to read had i not read this first. but, y'know, i have david wellington's 99 coffins on hand and, really, anyone who wants to snog one of his vampires needs their head examining. (and don't forget wellington's ongoing 30 [free] stories in 30 days at dailylit.com!)

if you're looking for a reason to make a list, i found this via imdb.com: what movies have you "rolled the dice" to see?

for those of you waiting with bated breath for the appearance of this ebooks blog i keep talking about, paper not included will be starting up sometime in the next few weeks; we're busily trying to work out stylesheet and other such-like formal issues on the discussion board.

i got sucked in by the "new books" shelves at the coolidge corner library the other day, so instead of walking out with two books which had been the plan (robert w. chambers's the king in yellow and patrick messert's literature of the occult which is less exciting than it sounds), i walked out with four, including dark places and prospero lost which has gorgeous cover art -- as well as a highly complimentary blurb from kage baker. i'm also looking forward to finishing wellington's 99 coffins this weekend and to the arrival of jonathan maberry's bad moon rising at the library so i can finish that series. more 5-cent book reviews in a few weeks!

and, as a final note, i offer this video clip (only the first 8 minutes of a longer show, sadly) from a charity "children in need" concert -- you've always wanted to see david tennant work a crowd, haven't you?

Doctor Who - A Celebration
Uploaded by frankzaatar. -

"i'm out of it for a little while and everyone gets delusions..."

okay, i really do have zero (0) time to be blogging this week because i have a draft of a thesis section due friday and the little fucker is just refusing to sit down and co-operate and be written.

but.

during my daily sifting of rss feeds and websites that i look at every morning, i caught this blogger's rant about the l.a. times and san diego comic con. and i thought, "gosh. what the hell can the l.a. times have done that's so bad? and comic con? aren't they pretty much niftyness on a stick?"

(and i have to admit i also thought, "wow, it's a bad week to be a newspaper ending in the word 'times', because the london times got forced to out some poor blogger from the lancashire police force and the judge in the case is affected with loony virus." possibly more deadly than h1n1. there's also a really good reaction to the case verdict back there at that link you just passed.)

anyway. not the point. ahem.

i clicked into the link, read it, and thought things, well, things that i won't write here because they are very profane and, as the internets might describe it, "nsfw." mostly i thought, "what the fuck? aren't we all over this now, children? why, oh, why are we going back to the dark days of the late '80s? i thought we were all over this 'girls only like scifi with hot guys in it' crap. aren't we? c'mon, guys -- aren't we?"

and so, because i like io9.com -- unlike ign.com which, after the absolutely insane contest they chose to co-sponsor can just "bite my shiny metal ass" -- i clicked into the link of their article.

after a few minutes spent in taking the glory of the quotes they chose to excerpt from the times, i swallowed about half my cup of coffee, hung grimly on to the second half, and clicked into the primary source as it were.

let me say first off that anywhere there are squealing twilight fans, i will not be. i haven't read the books; i haven't seen the movies; i plan to remedy neither of those defects. the fans scare me, honestly, and i feel i've heard and read quite enough about them; i'm not a ya librarian; and i have a long reading/viewing list already (which does include true blood, because it was recommended to me). even michael sheen, wonderful though he is, will not bring me to watch the new twilight movie.

there are 23 pages of this rubbish starting off with a long paragraph about all the male celebrities currently considered attractive who may -- or may not -- be present. it's set up like a slideshow: publicity photos -- for the most part -- captioned with little snippets by bloggers from sites like zap2it.com, and latimes.com. and just for the record, i have no desire to do jake gyllenhaal's laundry. none. at all. i assume he can either hire someone or buy a washing machine.

take, for example, this representative piece of text illustrating a still from the upcoming film version of the time-traveller's wife:

"Picture the wonderful sappiness of "The Notebook," replace Ryan Gosling with equally appealing Eric Bana, and inject a different hapless conflict to keep him from Rachel McAdams. In this case, Bana's character's got a gene that causes him to leap through time without the wife. Oh yes, bring on the bittersweet tears."

thank you for informing me neatly and succinctly that i should avoid this movie at all costs. when's 9 coming out again?

while i am pleased to see that alex o'loughlin found work post-moonlight and that sounds like a movie i will see, this

"What more do you need than the hunkiest Aussie to ever play the undead ... alive and in the flesh? And as long as he uses his real accent, he can talk all about this murder mystery set in Antarctica. Male lead Gabriel Macht isn't too shabby either."

really just doesn't sell it for me and i feel bad for o'loughlin being described in these terms. he's better than that and the review reduces him to his physique, much as the snippet on prince of persia and the one on benicio del toro in the wolfman reduces gyllenhaal and del toro to theirs. a shame in all cases since all three men deserve better.

i really got bogged down around slide 10 or so after i was told that the only reason i would go to see tim burton's new alice in wonderland was because johnny depp was in it. lovely photo to illustrate a totally moronic point. the photos which don't actually have the caption text suggesting the male actor in question will be mobbed like the beatles by female fans are for children's movies -- where the wild things are, toy story 3 -- which suggest that women will be interested in these either because they can take their kids or because they're fluffy, happy fun; or they're looking for a chicklit/flick-style experience with a witches of eastwick adaptation that sounds like charmed-redux. (if you miss charmed, go rent the dvds. better yet, watch early buffy. better yet, watch firefly, farscape, or torchwood. don't thank me; it's all part of the service.)

did it ever occur to anyone writing this rubbish to check with an actual female person who was actually going to the con and ask why she -- or they! find a group! make some friends! -- were actually going? i mean, i'm sure people -- of all genders, sexes, or personal convictions -- show up because jake gyllenhaal is hot or alex o'loughlin has a cute accent, but i'm equally sure that more people show up because they want to hear about the shows or the movies or the books or the comics. that being, y'know, the point of the thing.

the con didn't sell out because brad pitt might show up to push a quentin tarantino movie.

"i can help spread the pain!"

my chrome window is just overflowing with tabs of nifty things and since i learned my lessons from mr. rogers and sesame street about sharing well, here we go:

• superman is dead and we killed him. rather cynical short article about the dearth of good guys. i don't spend a lot of time mourning the death of the boy scout, really, but this is worth skimming through.


• guardian article on film villains. this is sort of like part two of the previous article with a little more expanded argument. thomson wants to argue that modern film glorifies the villain at the expense of a moral lesson. i'm not sure i buy it (critiquing a movie that hasn't come out yet is a bit of a cheap shot), but he uses some interesting movies to make his point. and along the same movie lines, a rather interesting article about the development of the zombie over the years.


• guardian review of the city & the city which i have sitting on my shelf. i read the first six chapters in the cafe of the borders on newbury. i'm not sure it's going to frame up to shoulder out either the scar or iron council which are my favorites of mieville's writing so far, but i haven't finished it yet. and a further review from tor.com.


• these aviary tools i haven't had a lot of time to play with yet, but it looks like an interesting set of browser applications: a word processor, graphics program, etc. free, shareware, yaddayadda -- insert all the nifty webwords here.

and this



is kind of how to drive a movie geek nuts. if it moved a bit faster, it would be absolutely how to drive anyone nuts. the background music they added is a little distracting but as a way to spend a couple of minutes and really be horrified by how many movies you know, it's not bad.

edit:

i've been hearing about the teaser trailer for guillermo del toro's the strain for a couple of days but, bar using it as a reminder to put myself on the hold list for the book at the bpl (fourth place, not bad), i hadn't bothered to watch it until i saw it posted today on one of the blogs i read sporadically. 

if nothing else, i like it because the elderly english gentleman in it reminds me of william hartnell, the first doctor who.

things found while (mostly) at work

i hate those days where everything seems about half again as hard as it should be. i was processing unidentified photographs this morning -- a thankless task, let me tell you! -- and i kept getting distracted by minor details in the background: what's the nametag say? what's she reading? is that really the pru under construction? and i feel i often come very close to falling off the line that marks necessary staring at the details in order to figure out who the person is, where they are, what's going on, in order to describe and catalogue -- inasmuch as these photos are being catalogued; they're mostly just getting a home in a folder under a fairly general heading -- from simple goldbricking or indecisive "look at the pretty flower"-ness.

and you know you've been living in the same place for awhile when you come out of your workplace the morning after a storm -- in this case an ice storm -- and you're automatically considering which sidewalks will have gotten the most sun during the course of the morning and will, therefore, be at least partially safe for foot traffic. i mostly guessed right. and then, of course, the notification that the book i wanted from the bpl is waiting for me at the copley branch came after i got home. of course it did.

while i sit here "working" -- no, really, i am -- i thought i should pass on this photograph which i found this morning in a guardian.co.uk online exhibit. it's part of a teaser "flipbook" for a john gay retrospective exhibit in realtime being held at....some...really neat london museum that i can't even begin to remember. the rest of the mini-exhibit is really worth looking at, as is the 8 or so photographs from the viking re-enactment fire celebration in the shetland isles, but, anyway, i think this may be the only photograph taken of nobody evans in real life. i took anna's suggestion and figured out a way to mail neil gaiman the link as well; we'll see whether or not it is possible to tell if he is amused by it, too.

i also came across this scribd.com site while i was at work -- really, this one was work-related. i was trying to track down a photographer; we have a stack of contact sheets with his name and address stamped on them and i found plenty of bibliographic and old exhibit references to him but nothing current, sadly. anyway, one of the references i found was to an article housed on this scribd site and i thought it looked kind of cool.

i haven't spent a lot of time digging into it; from a quick glance or two, it looks like someone thought adobe acrobat and .pdf documents were a really good idea and wanted to build their own. the idea seems to be to offer storage and sharing space for people to upload their own documents in a kind of user-created e-library format. but, as i said, i haven't spent a lot of time looking at it. this is their faq page if you want to skip right to the description. it seems similar to me to the basic idea behind the directory of open access journals, but with a more "ground up" approach in that the scribd people want you to have access to the whole package to build the journal (if that's what you want) and the doaj people just want to know about it so they can list it.

and, while i'm "working," i'm also waiting for the clunk of the mailbox which will mean i have a 90% chance of a new netflix. in light of the forthcoming fourth entry into the terminator series and the fact that it will star christian bale, i decided i simply can't forego the possibility of spending two hours studying his cheekbones and therefore i have to go back and watch the third sequel which i have avoided 'til now. so we'll see if that's any good or if it's as bad as dragon wars which i tried to watch on netflix insty last night and ended up turning off because the total lack of logic was making me lonely for torchwood's weevils and, really, when you wish a weevil would show up just to make things make sense, things are pretty bad.