It's Funny Cuz They're FAT!

So I caught that show Mike and Molly, the show that was supposed to break all these societal rules by having an unconventional couple – a very overweight woman who falls in love with an even more overweight policeman.  I remember hearing all about it on the radio, how amazing it was that the show was turning things upside down by showing a woman that despite her weight, was empowered, confident and comfortable with whom she is.

And let’s not forget the overarching message, that this fat woman can find love. 

And when she did find love, it’d be with, of course, another fat person.  Because these are real Americans!  This represents the real world, people who don’t fit into the mainstream’s ideals but are still  normal, worth while human beings!!

Right?  RIGHT?  This is a show about a funny situationally comedic duo that upset the conventional expectations with humor!

Or… It’s a show about fat people.  And it’s funny, because they’re fat.  And they make jokes about how much they eat, or better, how much they lie about how much they eat until someone humorously points out how many times they have eaten, and now they are driven so heavily by food they can’t make logical decisions when a piece of cake is waved in front of them.

That’s literally what I saw.  Scene opens on “Molly” reviewing photos on a laptop with her friends of her now-husband from their wedding day.  In every photo, “Mike” either has his mouth open or his eyes closed, or both.   

Maybe he's faint, has he remembered to eat?

Every pictures looks like a mouth breather slipping into a diabetic coma.  She notes the only time he smiles is when a server, who happens to be female, is handing him a plate of food.  She wonders out loud if she can photoshop her face onto that woman’s body so that she’ll have one picture where he’s not slack faced, but actually smiling like a normal person. 

In walks Mike, slice of cake on a plate, shoveling it into his mouth.  Witty banter ensues as Molly looks shocked, interrogating him on where he got the piece of cake. 

Oh look, he's eating.

When told he’s eating the top of their wedding cake (that is traditionally eaten on the first anniversary, you know, when it’s totally hard, stale, and gross), he continues eating it and says it was like she was hiding it, he almost didn’t find it behind the ice cream trays, frozen turkey, and a load of other crap.  He complains he only had one piece at his own wedding, that it wasn't fair.  (Are you still with me? This WHOLE thing is about food…) 

Oh look, in this one, you can see your dignity slinking off to hide in a corner!!

She shows him picture after picture of him sneaking slices of wedding cake at the reception, “Here’s one of you hiding behind the band, eating cake…”  She went through 4 or 5 pics.  

That’s the longest I’ve ever watched the show.  There wasn’t one joke that wasn’t about being hungry, being out of control around food, or being motivated entirely by food.

So, kudos, entertainment industry.  Way to break ground on a new, incredible show where the punch line isn’t HAHA BECAUSE THEY’RE FAT.  Brilliant. 

There's Nothing Like the Sweet Taste of Justice...Porn

I came across a video about a really horrific event that I did not know about until I saw the video.  A woman was going to be moving to a new city so she left her daughter, 3 years old, in the care of another woman while she was preparing to move.  While in this woman’s care, she and another woman beat the child.  When EMTs were called to the house, the kid was in full cardiac arrest and died at the hospital. 

The video is of those 2 women being sentenced, their reactions of shock and desperation, and one of their mothers erupting in the courtroom.  One of the perps, “Erica,” goes into a hyperventilation fit and gets wheeled out in a chair.

Now… I’m not a huge fan of kids.  But I’m really not a fan of people who hurt kids, or anything dependent/innocent.  Old people, sick people, mentally challenged people, animals, babies, little kids – hell, even bigger kids, kids who believe adults are in charge and can’t see a way out.  I have no sympathy.

So… after seeing the video of their reactions (in a forum called “Justice Porn,” no less, where assholes get what’s coming to them), I go in search of the story about the girl.  And another thought struck me, a very unrelated thought that I can’t seem to make sound any less cynical and awful….

I believe in education – I think we should all have access to it, we should want it, we should want it for our kids, we should want it for …yes, even those annoying kids in my neighborhood, one of them may grow up to cure whatever I get struck down with in 40 years.  But there’s something really poetic about a stupid criminal… ignoring for a moment any sad sobby story about how an education might have changed their lives… the lack of one is often what makes is so fucking easy to nail someone with a criminal charge.

Really?  She just fell and hit her head?  You don’t think anyone is going to notice the giant burn on her leg, the cuts and bruises all over her body?  You don’t think someone with maybe a little medical/science knowledge isn’t going to be able to piece together how that fucking injury occurred, you imbecile? 

Well, maybe they did know. I’m making an assumption that they thought *anyone* would believe such as stupid story about how she got hurt, but I am willing to bet in every single hospital in every single city, every day there’s someone who – in the face of the obvious, staring at that x-ray of a hot wheel up their rear end or medical chart of, as this case, a beaten kid… and just lies their ass off about what happened.  Why do that?  Why bother?  In a criminal matter especially, does it not occur to them that attempting to cover it up is going to be just the thing the prosecution will salivate over to tell the jury??

So to the 2 women that told emergency responders that the little girl “hit her head,” fuck you, enjoy prison. 

Article about the little girl.

Video with serious justice porn credit.

Low carb Banana Muffins

 

Ingredients

 For coconut flour:

2-3 ripe, mashed bananas
1/3 c butter, melted
6 eggs
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c coconut flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/3 c nuts (optional)
(or)


 If you use almond flour instead of coconut flour:


2-3 ripe, mashed bananas
1/3 c butter, melted
4 eggs
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
2 c almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/3 c nuts (optional)

Directions

Combine bananas and melted butter. Mix well. Add eggs, honey, and vanilla and whisk until eggs are combined.

In separate bowl stir together dry ingredients. Add to wet ingredients. Add nuts if using and stir in.

Transfer batter to greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.  Mini muffins cook in about 15-20 minutes.

Serving Size: makes 1 loaf or about 29 mini-muffins.

Number of Servings: 8

Note: If you replace the coconut flour with almond, use 2 cups of flour and take out two of the eggs.

My Banana Blueberry Walnut Recipe From My Mother

Banana bread

2 1/2 C flour

1 C sugar

3 1/2  tsp baking powder 

1 tsp salt

3 Tbsp salad oil.  

3/4 C milk

1 egg

1 C mashed banana 

1 C oatmeal or nuts

(optional: add cup of blueberries)

350 degrees

Grease and dust flour on pans

55-65 for loaf /15-20 for mini muffins

Topping: 1/3 cup Brown sugar,  2 tbsp flour,  1/8 tsp  cinnamon, mix in one tbsp of butter.

1.  Mix all dry ingredients (first 4)

2. Mix in all wet.  Moosh bananas up a little first. 

3. If you make the topping, pat it down into the bread mixture so it won't just crumble off as the bread rises.

4. Mini muffins cook in 15-20 mins, loafs 45-60 mins.  

To be honest I doubled the recipe and haphazardly threw in about 1.5 C banana, at least a cup of blueberries, and a cup of walnuts...recipe is very forgiving, original didn't even call for the blueberries but you'd never tell.

If out of milk, slightly watered yogurt works too.  I've done that and no 

one noticed.  I learned that from a professional baker.

Billionaire Plan

 

Most of us have one, I presume… you hear about the giant amount of money in whatever lottery… the one you probably don’t even buy a ticket for because you know the odds.  But I know I’m not alone in daydreaming about what I’d do.

For some reason, my “obvious first choice” is made fun of a lot.  I think it must be related to the things I have stress about, it just seems like the thing you have to do first and get it out of the way:  Mortgages.  Yes, suspending for the moment the idea that I’d simply move, mortgages are my first item on the list.  Mine, my siblings, my husband’s family, and then some of my extended family.  Yeah, I know, “some of my extended family” may cause some issue, but what can I say – I’m close to my dad’s sister’s extended family.  I’m not nearly so close with my Mom’s siblings’ kids, but there are certainly a few of them that I am.  My closest friends.  Either in getting started with that giant downpayment (as in, most of it), or paying off the one they have.  And I guess a little trust fund for whatever surprises arise from house ownership that weren’t foreseen, I don’t want this to turn into an Oprah car give away where the taxes surprise anyone.

Yes, I’m assuming I have enough that this is all possible.

Once that crap is out of the way…

ON TO THE IMPORTANT STUFF!!!  I will be known as the shady zoo dealer.  “Soo… you want a new gorilla enclosure?  How about I make that happen, but… you let me frolic with baby red pandas?”   

 Oh that’s right, your cute little penguin habitat comes at a cost.  I get to tickle their bellies and feed them fish.

What, you say? Your leopard just had kittens?  PERFECT!!  I’ll be there, holding the full bellied little bundles, while they break ground on that giant aviary you were hoping to start.  All zoo donations… be prepared to anti up some one on one time with your friendliest fuzzy and/or delightful beasts.

Then it’s on to the travel.  Galapagos, Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand, here I come.  You all house critters that get top billing for “ONLY HERE!”  I’ll be slumming it with Lonesome George, the only Giant Tortoise left, and comparing E.T. fingers with Aye-Ayes in Madagascar.  Then we’ll be on to some Koala cuddling, maybe some kiwi chasing, some platypus admiring.  

The Ultimate Forever Alone, last Giant Tortoise in the world.

My billionaire plan is apparently pretty boring.  Yeah, maybe I’d buy a new house, but nothing crazy.  Just one with one of those kitchen islands in it, I like those.  It’d have a nice floor plan for entertaining, and would most likely be on a larger plot of land – not for a huge house – but for chickens, maybe a donkey, some fainting goats.  I don’t want to be so far away from the things I like that I’d feel isolated.  I still wouldn’t like golf, investment bankers would still annoy the fuck out of me, and I still wouldn’t eat foie gras.  The tortoises would get a bigger enclosure, and maybe I’d have part of the yard caged in so that the indoor only kitties could sit outside safely. 

And probably for like the first year or so, I’d have sushi every day.  (Monterrey Bay Aquarium approved sushi!!).   

EDIT: when this was written, Lonesome George was still with us. :(  Sigh.

Connie Willis Should Be Imprisoned If She Ever Tries To Write Again

Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis

If you’re only going to read one book this year… Make sure this one is simply on hand in case you run out of toilet paper.  Because it’s long enough that you won’t run out any time soon, AND ITS GOING TO IRRITATE YOUR ASS it’s so terrible.

This book won a Nebula and Hugo award.  Oh swoon, right? OMG this must be awesome, right???  Well, no… it got about 48 1 star Amazon reviews and 57 2 star reviews, (contrasted with 270 5 star reviews, a bunch of wantonly stupid morons banding together and using crayon to write reviews, most likely).  I just don’t know if I have it in me to fully express how bad this book was. 

Let me start by setting the scene:  the only vaguely science-fictiony thing is attempting to take place, where some guy mans a console and a history student, in “authentic clothes” sits among already damaged crap so that when she’s sent back in time to a bit before the black plague, she’ll appear to be a high born woman attacked on the road, deserted by her help with a nasty bonk to her noggin from her contrived robbers.  The console man will be attempting to send her through.  In what can only be described as the “Crying Room” found in any church, a bunch of hen pecking, annoying as fuck scientists all talk over each other and do a terrible Acting 101 soliloquy in which they listen to no one and repeat themselves like some contemporary art performance where their next feat will be to pull a 10 foot poem out of their collective vaginas.  (That happened:  http://www.caroleeschneemann.com/interiorscroll.html)  Seriously, the book would have taken such a turn for the better if they read to each other from scrolls yanked out of each others’ twats. 

Okay, so what you want me to say is this: predictably, something goes wrong sending her back; despite the fact that ‘no viruses can get through the net,’ you as the reader are aware that the student went through and got flu-like symptoms pretty bad.  The scientists that were squabbling about nothing interesting (and not actually talking to each other anyway) go get a beer to wait for the “fix,” when console-man says “hey, I got a fix on her, we’re all good!” only… he shows up discombobulated to the pub, says “something went wrong… I got the fix…but…” runs off back to the console across the street and when they all get there, he never finishes his sentence but passes out ill.   And thus this amazing tension of OMG WHAT ILLNESS WHAT WHAT OMG OMG. The console man got very sick… panic and quarantine, AND A CAPER!!! Eh, why make it interesting, though?   

Buuuut… that’s not quite what happened.  I mean, it is, if you cut 300 pages out of the book.  In the first 200 pages, all that happens is they send the girl back, the guy collapses without telling them what was off about the send.  That’s it.  So far, nothing.   What DID happen 46 times in those 200 pages is they got him to say “something’s wrong…” before he’d pass out again.  Actually, he continued to say this up through page 600 out of 884, when he finally spat out more of that sentence.   

And what of the girl that was sent back?  Let’s just say it takes you oh, about… a page.. a whole page… to figure out “hmmm, yes, something IS wrong, and deducing from the fact that her ‘translator’ in her ear isn’t helping her speak the correct language, they must not have sent her to the right time!”  Honestly.  It took her half the 884 page book to realize oooOOOOoooh…they can’t understand me because I’M IN THE WRONG TIME!  Oh for Fucking Stab Your Eyes Out, could you really not figure this out??  She’s sick and delirious and OMG what an amazing historical novel, we’re seeing how they care for the sick and dying in the 1300s!  We’re witnessing the Black Plague all around her!!  Yes, the girl actually has a recording device on her that activates when she presses her hands together like she’s praying… so OF COURSE for science, she will occasionally document specifics.  Like… “I hear a rat gnawing under my bed.” 

Okay, so first of all… this book is touted as a historical masterpiece.  I am no expert on the 1300s.  but… UNDER YOUR BED?  Under?  What, where your cute little Tupperware tubs are filled with sweaters from last season?  WTF UNDER YOUR BED IT”S A PILE OF STRAW YOU FUCKING IDIOT CUNT.  I mean, seriously, didn’t the 1800s still have really shitty mattresses for poor people?  Under her bed?  COME ON.   I did ONE FUCKING GOOGLE SEARCH and found this:  http://www.oldandinteresting.com/medieval-renaissance-beds.aspx

THAT IS IN THE FUCKING 1400s!!!!  Poor people had mattresses on the fucking floor.  What, are you going to tell me that she magically had a future bed in 1330 something?  OMFG, how is this a historical novel?  By the way, my favorite amazon review mentioned that while this is touted as being a historical fiction novel, she sources ONE LIBRARIAN in the back of the book.  One.  ONE. 

Back to my point, while I get it that student idiot girl is delirious, but we’re told over and over how she was to learn old English, French, german, latin, her cover story, etc… and ALL SHE SAYS to these people is “I NEED TO GET BACK TO THE DROP SITE TO SEE PROFESSOR FUCKFACE”  over and over and over and over and…. Where the fuck is your training?  I HOPE YOU GET THE PLAGUE.  Omg I hope she dies of the plague. 

She doesn’t, by the way.  Fucking doesn’t.  It’s unjust. 

The author finds this amazing device to set a scene… we’ll call it Shitty Writing.  She’ll take one character, and make them crawl into their own mind, spinning out of control, thinking OMG what if something went wrong? What if the send didn’t go well?  What if there’s a problem???” and then a second character, completely immune to outside signals people are putting off, just barks at them about how “you’re always trying to mess up my experiments! You don’t respect me as a professor! Any mistake here is your fault!”  Now, these EXACT two sentiments… down to EXACTLY REPEATED SENTENCES will repeat for 8 pages.  One paragraph, inner soliloquy.  Next, berating asshole moron complaining without listening.  Soliloquy.  Barking.  Soliloquy.  Barking.  If at any one point in 1000 times this occurred, the person being barked at said “HEY.  STFU.” And then maybe answered them, the conversation would be over and not have to be repeated 8 million times, but no such luck.

You ever read a word in a book, and it's such a unique word, that you totally notice when the author uses it again?  I don't know if it's a british thing, but he never "dials" a phone, he punches it.  He punched numbers 31 times in the book.  OOoh, and my personal favorite, Rummage.  In the beginning of the book, one of the scientists waiting in the crying room has a "shopping bag," which is mentioned no less than 20 times in the first 150 pages... 32 times in the book.  But... this woman is constantly rummaging through this bag or some other bag, and rummaging is a word used 5 times on one page early on.  HOLY FUCK lady!  STOP RUMMAGING.  It's like the only way she builds tension into a scene.  She literally has someone talk at her, then in response she rummages.  So that person repeats themselves SO SHE FUCKING RUMMAGES SOME MORE oh come on!

But that’s not all.  This book, set in the future, spends much of it’s time with busy signals.  Yes, that’s right, pull that memory out of the back of your mind, the most annoying sound in the world, brought back to life.  The book was written in 1992, so, unfortunately the science fiction part wasn’t her strong suit, only masters like Gibson can get this one right… time travel, and no voice mail or cell phones.  EGADS.  And, every time he gets through somewhere, it’s to someone that I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP wants to update him on the toilet paper situation, and mention that some foreign guests are really pissed about being stuck in a quarantine.  The toilet paper and the grumpy guests have nothing to do with the story.  They are simply used as a device so that every time he calls this guy for info, these 2 problems will keep him from answering what he was supposed to answer, and then the call will end, with no one getting anywhere.  “Yes sir, but…the guests sir… the guests are upset”  OMG I WANT TO STAB THIS WRITER IN THE EYE SO FUCKING BADLY WHY DID I SPEND SO MUCH TIME ON THIS FUCKING BOOK.

Okay, so… remember how I mentioned the soliloquies?  Take the individuals constantly having ‘asides’ where they think the same thoughts… (I used the search feature and found whatever words in their thoughts repeated throughout the book, so I could see they thought about the same thing, but got interrupted, so they have to go back and think the same thing AGAIN), failed phone conversations, and the sick console man who keeps saying “SOMETHING WENT WRONG…” and you have a broadway musical number:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KXx80zm-d0  Yes, it’s as easy to read as it is to stomach a high school rendition of that cacophonous medley. 

Fuck, I feel some of the fight drifting out of me.  My sister recommended this book, and I so wanted to like it so we could chat about it… but I am just so angry these words were allowed to be printed on a page!  It aggravates me!  From the beginning of the book, we know something went wrong about sending her back, but the guy who wants to tell you what happened gets sick… he says something went wrong 129 times BEFORE HE SAYS WHAT WENT WRONG by page 600.  By page 400, student girl finally figures out she must have been sent to the wrong time, and that’s why her translator won’t work.  By the end of the book you realize none of it matters.  At least, that’s what the shitty reviews on Amazon say, because I can’t be bothered to read any further. 

I recommend reading Amazon’s 1 star reviews, they’re written far better than the book and they tell a much better story. 

My Opinion Isn't Worth Shit

This ad speaks to me… it says… together…we’re gonna make a shit ton of money!!! Well, not really.  But I imagine that’s what an ad would say to me, if I were the spokesperson looking out from it.  Though I guess that’s not really correct, either.  Once you’re in the ad, you got paid already.  You did your job… it’s the people using ads to self-promote that are the ones crossing their fingers, they’re the ones with something to lose.

I get really tired of stupid people confusing 1^st amendment rights with advertising revenue.  Or even 1^st Amendment rights with business decisions.  They’re just not the same fucking thing, and you look like an idiot when you overlook that.  You can say what the hell you want whenever wherever…unless you’re in someone’s employ, where something you said could affect the corporate brand.  Money talks far louder than anyone’s concerns about your stupid opinions.

Here’s an easy example.  You have the right to call someone a “nappy headed ho.”  You don’t have the right to expect advertisers to want to pay for you to say it, if negative publicity about such a comment splashes over into their end of the pool.  And more importantly, your employers have the right to define their own brand, too.  They might look at the outcry and throw you under the bus because, short sided or not, it earns them goodwill/money.  Or, most likely, they take the long sided route and “fire” you for 3-4 days, and hire you back when the angry mob got distracted by some other shiny object.  It’s not about your 1^st Amendment right anymore, it’s about their bottom dollar.  Totally different things.

I have a friend that gets really pissed off when a celebrity is forced to apologize for something they said.  For the most part, I completely agree with her: they’re not being paid or employed by someone that might have to do damage control over it, right?  People should be allowed to hold onto whatever opinions they want, right?    

But it’s not like someone put a gun to their heads to apologize, so… my sympathy only goes so far.  Think about it.  They don’t have to apologize.  Fuck that.  Whatshisface Kramer could have just forged right ahead with his n-word flinging fail, and been unapologetic about it.  Who cares?  He didn’t say anything illegal… You know who cares? He fucking cares.  And this is why I’m not sympathetic to the celebrity that is “forced to apologize.”  The dumbfuck realized that with the viral nature of the interwebz, his stand-up bomb wasn’t just a passing review by a bored critic… he got mad at the crowd, and the crowd fucking memorialized his failure for all time.  Oooh, that stung a little, didn’t it Kramer?  Is THAT why you apologized?  Did that hurt the ol’ image… I mean pocketbook?

Fuck that, celebrities aren’t forced to say shit.  They just realized that the number of people backing them and whatever dumb shit they said don’t equal enough fans for them to continue with the lifestyle they have grown so accustomed to expect.  “I could just tell them to suck it up… or… I could try to win back over the public so that I can actually sell enough tickets to my next gig…”  Because a celebrity is their own brand.  They are their own advertiser and employer, and they are only too well aware that their marketability may have its limitations.  Age, relevance, talent… these qualities are all pretty fleeting (if present at all) and may give out if the public turns on them.  No one forced Oprah to apologize to the beef people, but in her branding wizardry, she found a way to turn the whole thing into some goodwill avalanche of actual cash right back into her empire. 

The whole thing sways on public opinion.  20 years ago, there’d be some angry letter campaigns and phone calls, and that was the main way the public communicated their anger.  Now?  Fuck letters, who the fuck cares that you can still write in cursive… now it’s twitter, facebook, blogs, and comment sections on articles… people’s opinions are so much more visible… you couldn’t see that 20,000 had written letters, but HOLY FUCK IT’S NOW A TRENDING TOPIC ZOMG PAY ATTENTION!  I think public opinion, with its power, visibility, and appetite, is pretty awesome.  And not because I think mob mentality usually has something coherent or intelligent to say, I don’t – it’s usually a drooling, stupid flatulence of a sentiment that we could really do without.  I like it because it’s this awkward phenomena of little people all realizing they can squawk about something and be get heard.  Corporate entities have to have whole Public Relations departments prepared 24/7 to react… imagine that… you’re on call at any moment to respond to some rage campaign on twitter that has decided you support skinning baby kangaroos for a hobby, forcing you to do a bunch of positive ad campaigns with you shaking hands with a perfectly fuzzy baby kangaroo. 

And just the same, that public outcry informs you about what kind of opinions are out there.  The Million Moms, all 40,000 of them or so, has let us know how much they hate gaywear, and how they won’t shop at JC Penney now that they’ve endorsed that militant gay Ellen.  And now, everyone else knows how they feel, and can form their own opinion about how they feel about the Million Moms.  Well, at least about gay apparel, they don’t really tell you much else about themselves, other than they presumably would not make out with me at a party so I’m sort of over them.   I’m curious to know how much support JCP received… because it was either such an overwhelming amount that they made the obvious choice of goodwill with the larger customer base, or, JC Penney decided they had the better of the two arguments and decided to stand by their guns in hopes society would grow up a little.  Of course, there could be a third option; JC Penney is a little strapped for cash, and already paid Ellen the endorsement money…maybe they don’t have the cash to start from scratch so they figure they’ll take the hit, use the advertising campaign, and go with something more banal the next round, something with little baby kangaroos in jackets.  I have my money on the first one, but you just never know.  I know I’ve certainly used something illfitting or illsuited because I already paid money for it and couldn’t return it. 

The downside of course, is the same upside.  It’s a stupid angry mob.  And like most stupid angry mobs, a group out there, somewhere, somehow, can and has figured out how easy it is to make an angry mob do their bidding.  (Stand behind it, tap it on the shoulder so it turns that direction, shove.)  Throw some political money at a small organization with a REALLY LOUD FUCKING WHINE and suddenly you can mimicry public outcry of millions with only a few thousands.  That’s not a bunch of people voicing an opinion, that’s a political machine focusing those dumb little mob-cogs all together like a desperate Who-Ville cry to be heard.  We are less informed about what the little individuals really want, and more informed about what their political organization of a brain needs them to think.  But hey, no one's paying me to have an opinion, so what do I know.