Re-soup-view

Instant Ramen noodles have come a long way from when you could buy them 12 for a dollar. Actually, no they haven't, but there are a bunch of different kinds now. They're usually pretty good, though of course not much like what's pictured on the cover.

One I like is the Crystal Noodle Spicy Tofu. It's like $2.50 or something. What I like about it for one is the noodles. They aren't particularly good but they're clear which is cool. It's like you're eating space food.

The broth is brown flavored. I don't know exactly what it's supposed to be but it's good and indeed spicy. The tofu is there but really doesn't leave much of an impression. There's much more sodium than soy going on.

Bonus Review / Re soup-Double-view




Also want to give folks a heads up on Kung Fu's beef flavor soup. It's the instant soup with a difference because it has 2 packets: The flavor packet then this other packet which I forgot to take a picture of. The stuff in that one is clear and oozy and seems to give the soup more of a "pro" feel. I can't imagine what's in there but it's probably not too healthy. Again, The sodium in these things is off the charts even for soup.

I like soup but not super a lot. I'm not a "total noodle head" like someone in the amazon reviews said they were. I don't really get those Vietnamese soup places. I had one once and it was good but I think of soup as a thing before a meal, not the meal itself. I can't see downing a gallon of broth then going out for beers, that's all I'm saying. My next column is going to be about a massive pig sacrifice during the depression.

The Communist Toilet Paper Manifesto

"When toilet paper was available, it was the type that was hard and glossy on one side, and very rough on the other. We used to call it "the sandpaper."

I've been reading this study about toilet paper behind the iron curtain, soon to be a feature film. The accounts are harrowing

"In Saratov last summer [late 90's], every home I visited had... the rough brown kind that sells for about a rouble a roll. "American-style" (as I think of it) TP was available, but at 4 or 5 roubles I never saw anyone buy it. These were middle-class homes by Russian standards, though not necessarily "intelligentsia" (e.g., a fireman and a teacher). Public facilities were a different story. The men's rooms at both SGU and SGTU had no toilet paper and, indeed, no toilets -- just a hole in the floor."

For some reason, communists didn't want people to have decent toilet paper. What was available was of very poor quality and sometimes you couldn't even get that. People just used newspaper. Everyday. Irony was apparently not a concern either as the newspapers people were literally wiping their ass with were all communist propaganda. While some did note receiving some satisfaction from this, it was likely a small consolation.

The entire issue of toilets was mainly just not dealt with. No one could be coerced into being an Untouchable One I guess. Ventilation? just get in there and do it and leave. Forget feminine products either. and then no one drinks the water because they aren't doing anything they should be with the toilet water. Even in high end places your gag reflex would be put to the test

Here some lady describes a fun trip to Romania

"...Closing the door behind you, you begin to choke on the sharp stench of urine as you desperately try to find a dry patch on the flooded floor. Needless to say, there is no seat on the toilet, but by the time you visit that famous restaurant, you will already know that such a thing is not to be expected. And then you have to pull a dirty piece of rope in order to splash the water. Soap is nowhere to be seen and toilet paper seems to be a completely unknown thing. There is not a single public toilet in Bucharest where you would find it."

That's great. Why do this? Why not create, say, a Ministry of Toiletry?

1. ideological purity. Determined people are willing to put up with a lot of things in pursuit of living according to their principles. In their minds, it's a long term decision where things might be rough now but eventually they will get better. It's honorable. unless you're wrong, then it's stupid and cruel. "Sorry, but we only have so much capitol and we need it for stuff like tanks, statues, and other basic necessities of life." (Sound familiar?)

2. demand creates more demand. If people get toilet paper they are going to prefer it to newspaper so they will want to keep buying it. Once they go forward, they won't go back. Momentum caused by a rumor that a Berlin wall checkpoint being open was what eventually brought it down. The lesson for dictators is don't let people think a rumor like that is even slightly plausible.

2.5 Why not just use the paper they use to make newspapers for actual toilet paper? Then the whole thing falls apart because there's no propaganda keeping people in line!

3. Finally, here's what a Russian guy told me "and so what? I remember that time, i was a child. We had old newspapers as toilet paper. They were smooth enough. I think it's more nature-friendly thinking - to use paper as much, as you can - read news and after that go to toilet (especially, that news were so big propaganda). But westerners buy things and throw them out and start consuming other ones, just now people start to think about recycling - thing that soviets were doing lot earlier. And i'm not communist."

So the last and least plausible reason is that the communists were massively ahead of the ball on environmentalism ( a sick joke considering the industrial and nuclear pollution in their countries).

Post communism, standards of living are rising. With a freer press people are more cognitive of how others in the western world live. This study was done in 2000 and by the end they were catching up. I'd probably put off visiting the famous restaurant in Bucharest for a while though.

Lame

I like debating. I always have. People are still talking about my performance in 6th grade whatever it was class supporting the Loch Ness monster's existence. Recently though, I got in a donnybrook that left me utterly baffled. Here is the thread in question. You don't have to go to it, I'll explain what happened. I include it simply as proof because people wouldn't believe it otherwise.

Here's how it began: In a generic current events discussion, I made a pretty nondescript point somwheres along the lines of this: newspapers have ceded edgy political content to the internet and actually seem to have backtracked in what they will print in an OP ED. They aren't simply lame but reactionary and in total denial of the last decade or so of political thought.blah blah blah. This was one womans response

"Using the word 'lame' to mean 'pathetic' or 'deficient' or whatever the fuck you meant (since I sincerely doubt you meant 'having a physical disability') is insulting to and dismissive of people with physical disabilities. I do not care whether you meant to be insulting and dismissive. I do not care whether you have ever before encountered someone saying it is insulting and dismissive. It is insulting and dismissive. Knock it the fuck off."

This is a joke right? I responded "I will continue to lose lame". I meant "use" but I was somewhat inebriated. Later , here was my response

Ellie- I was a little drunk, sorry. I meant I will gleefully continue to use the word lame to describe something that is lame lame lame

I figured that would be the end of it. Instead, an unwanted, totally unrelated to the topic debate ensues. One or two brave souls initially try to stand up for free speech, but they fade away and most of the others gradually line up under the matriarchs* (there are two now) (*alot of liberal boards have these.)

Ellie explains that the word lame doesn't offend her "But I've got two friends in wheelchairs who've expressed pain at encountering use of the word". The friends, as far as we know, are not in the thread. She could have said " speaking of lame, I had two friends with disabilities who were very sensitive to the word "lame" This, while having nothing to do with anything, would at least have been a normal way to communicate a thought. Instead it's now a campaign to make me not use the word lame. Problem: Using that non homopobic, rascist or obscene word is OBVIOUSLY not against the board's rules, so it was up to me to do this of my own volition. Yeah right.

We go back and forth and I am thinking either, again 1. This is a joke or 2. she has serious mental problems. Lame is a very common word / expression coined by, I don't know, surfers? right?

Was she offended at lame duck sessions of congress?

"Now you mention it, yeah, there are surely ways to express that concept that do not rely on the disparagement of mobility disabilities."

This bizarre statment shakes me to my very core. I again reiterate that I cannot stop using the word lame simply to indulge a person who has no good reason for asking me to. That's that, lets move on. No dice. I try being sensitive and attempt very boring wordy explanations of language and society and why it's okay to say lame even though it offends some people. Everyone is mad at ME, not her, for being so obstinate.

Finally after being admonished for several pages by this pack of demented druids I break down "This is crazy, everyone says lame!!"

I must be naive because I didn't see this one coming :

"There was a time when "everyone" said the N-word. That didn't make it right.

Also? Using "crazy" this way is rude and demeaning to the mentally ill. Not like you care, because no one tells Chris Hadrick what he is and is not allowed to say.

Troll."

The word crazy is offensive. I couldn't have written a better ending to this than that. A week later I went back and she was chastizing someone else for a language infraction and once again completely derailing the thread.

Ann

I started reading/ hearing about Ann Barnhardt during the MF Global scandal. Ann was a broker for farmers out in the heartland and began to realize that the stock market and related industries had completely lost touch with reality. Fearing that her customers funds weren't safe, she decided to simply close her firm. She describes this decision in this interview with Peter Schiff here (as well as calling for a total boycott of Wall Street and the death penalty for Jon Corzine).

I soon learned she's also a kind of Westboro Baptist-light type fundy. There are tons of Evangelicals and fundamentalists on the "alternative right" which I seem to inhabit so it doesn't faze me. She's done stuff like burn a Quran on youtube (no one cared) and goes on and on about the Crusades and gays and Muslims on her site and on twitter. Sufficet to say, even in the now crowded field of bearish economic commentators she seems to have carved a niche for herself.

Ann doesn't have comments on her blog and doesn't allow them on her youtubes so I'm making my comments here. This video is the last quarter of a talk she gave to a bunch of people about the French Revolution. I haven't watched the whole thing because 1. I'm not that interested in the French Revolution and 2. Who even knows if it's remotely accurate. My comments are related to the last part where she brings everything around to today and our godless rap culture.

8:00 - Here's where she starts talking about how an atheist revolution of a horrible, rampaging sort could take place here today. Again, I haven't watched the whole thing but the hook of it I gather is: early 18th century France = US today.

We begin with Dan Savage and Amanda Marcotte saying some "offensive" things about the bible. It's obvious what they mean, however tackily they say it. "As bad as the people in the French Revolution were they never said such sacreligous stuff yada yada". Yeah, but that was 300 years ago and it's like...different. not that strong

10:04 - Now she's talking about rap which I think she secretly loves. She shows a picture of Lil Wayne sitting in between two girls. This is hugely offensive to her for some reason. "These girls are pieces of meat" Are we hearing some feminism here kinda? She uses this picture to again go into her argument about mass rapes happening. Lil Wayne is just sitting there. "We are hanging by a thread." okydoke.

Next there's a cute picture of a dumb guy and his girlfriend. She's bent over and he's behind her. Ann asserts that the guy is "mocking anal sex" (which would certainly offend me). She has apparently never heard of doggy style (in her defense, Ann does claim to be a virgin). It's the time honored formula of stuff with "warnings" about wild behaviour that of course show all the behaviour.

Next she shows the gif of Snooki getting punched in the face. We see Snooki getting punched in the face a thousand times. "This is our culture". Yes, everyone goes out to a bar and punches a fake Italian dwarf in the face on the weekends.

The "I'm gonna make your booty pop" kid, the New Black panthers. She shows something awful from the internet and goes "This is our culture". I could do this.

Obama is going to hire mexican drug gangs and muslims as mercenaries. and the New Black Panthers. She calls out Hillary. Hillary would torture you at Gitmo, Ann.

So I don't know. For some reason I like her but this stuff is just silly. If you're smart enough to follow and understand CNBC you're too smart to mess around with this claptrap. I'm probably a Marxist Muslim infiltrator though. See how I capitalize Marxist and Muslim out of RESPECT?

Workplace Environs

I went to the pizza/ beer work party thing out of obligation to my hardworking bosses, not because I at all wanted to go. I'd been to one before and it was silly. Almost nothing of import was discussed, it was just my one boss hearing himself talk about the shipping business which he for some reason loves. I work at work, why do I want to go to more work for free? I contented myself with stuffing my face with free pizza and beer and staring at Carrie, a MILF who unfortunately or fortunately for her works for the guys but not at the same site as the rest of us.

One of the new guys arrives and we talk, he's in a ska band or something. He tells me that Dave, who I always want to call Jason because he's somewhat fat and Jason-y, is leaving. Apparently, he got a new job somewhere (that doesn't happen around here very often these days). Dave has to be the least socially interactive person I've ever met. I've worked with him for over a year and never really had a conversation with him. I know he's a pothead and a gamer but not much beyond that. Still, he's a brother in arms and I'm sad to see him go. Meeting new drivers takes energy and our turnover is very high, etc. it's bad he's leaving.

Friday, his last day, arrives and something is off. Dave is parked in the middle of the street for one. The little area we have rented is getting full and sometimes it's hard to find a spot but I've never seen anyone just blatantly park in the street. It's not a very busy street but cars do go down it. There's definately a weird vibe but it just seems like Dave is being colorful and wacky on his last day.

He does seem rather agitated but I'm thinking it's all some ridiculous routine. I find one of his packages in my pile which happens all the time, we have the areas right next to each other. I approach him sort of smirking and say " Vine Street. Is this yours Dave?". He's positively fuming and stalks toward me like he's going to kill me and grabs the package out of my hand. I collapse in laughter.

Moments later they tell us Dave's new job had been put off for a week and this apparently was why he was so pissed off. Of course, I had no idea. I find another package that logically belonged to him. We discuss it and decide the best thing to do would be to estimate when he was the furthest distance away then call him and tell him to come back for it.

Update: He apologized on Monday. love that guy

Wendy Vainity Primer/ Quasi Article

Every morning I'm a little late to work. The worst part of my day is load in UGH. Taking the packages off the truck and putting them in order can take as long as an hour and you don't get paid for it. Something smells funny, then you start smelling everything.

Then all the sudden it will come into my head "I am a little gurl, with a curl, right in the middle of my head, lalalala la la lah!"

Welcome to Wendy's world.

At some point I started following this guy Meowsans on twitter. If you're at all familiar with twitter, he's part of that crazy abstract part of it with Horse E Books and Katie Notopoulos and those people. I don't think it has a name. It's like they live inside twitter. Anyway, he starts posting these brilliant ass videos. On the surface, they have the feel of some "outsider" art*, with normal-people sort of aspirations and even some occasional Christian themes, but they're always resolved in a ridiculous unpredictable way, kind of like a stoned Thomas Kincaide. (* It's really more outsider-ish art I guess. There's no more outsider art anymore because everyone has the internet. )

The animations are unique and ribald and hilarious but it's the music that keeps you coming back. Some of them are from some Rodgers and Hammerstein thing she downloaded but some seem to be of her own device. The most overtly catchy tune has to be the nom de song of this shirtless, terrifying farmer:

One recurrent theme is simply the technical aspects of animation. We've all come to learn about Carrera and Daz via Wendy's descriptions from tossed off genius such as this and this She is also quite busy. I subscribed to her channel and there are new vids almost daily sometimes, though you have to comb through them to find pieces like those above, many are kind of just sketches. It wouldn't be youtube without some trolls but they are more or less kept in line by Wendy herself and her army of admirers, some of whom have formed tumblrs and facebook pages.

Youtube was only invented like what 6 years ago? I don't know what Wendy would have been doing before that but it probably wouldn't have been anything I ever would have seen.

WTNG 89.9 FM: Solid Bronze compilation

I didn't listen to this album first before I bought it because I didn't realize the store I was in had a listening thing ( I'd only been there like twice). Sometimes you buy an album for what you THINK it is which is very dangerous and which you should never do and which no one has to do anymore, except me apparently. Shockingly, it was just about everything I could have hoped for! I've listened to it like a thousand times.

The page of the people who put it out does it far more justice than I will attempt as far as concept and background here. It's something like: Radio stations used to have a Battle of the Bands and the best bands would get to be on an album like this, so this is like one of those. Isn't that clever? It was released for the new national holiday Record Store Day. Every song sounds like a montage where people are rollerskating and falling in love. The lyrics all seem to say "hey, don't worry about it. STD's are just a part of growin' up nowadays". I think I actually caught something from the bassline in Cream & Sugars "Between Us".

It's pretty evenly balanced between upbeat and slow but of course, not TOO far in either direction. Caroline Peyton's "Try to be True", a jazzy Carole King -ish tune, is a quaint time capsule of the era. She asks if her lover could please try not to get with any girls while she's away, probably for like a weekend which was a lot to ask back then, I gather. It's kinda pathetic though, in any era. It's a good song though. The second half, or "side" as they used to say, gets a little moodier. Donna Kime's "Golden Pony" while somewhat cheesy (there's a line about silver dolphins or something) is more of a torchy soul song, but it fits in well enough. Lorren Cornelius's "Fantasy Woman" is also beautiful and intoxicating. At the same, you can't really have a song called "Fantasy Woman". "Fantasy Woman, you're a child in my eyes, Fantasy woman, something or other in disguise" A lot of the lyrics are kinda like that. I think people didn't pay attention in school a lot back then. I didn't either but I was like 5.

The Roach Band are the only group with a black singer. You'd figure he could school the honkeys on some Barry White type smoothness but instead they fizzle with a depressing repetitive song about a magic lamp. Greenflow's "I Gotcha", the albums sole instrumental, has a nice break that's cool the first 50 times but it gets annoying. Here I'll do it: 1,2,3 1-2,3, 1-2,3 4..I gotcha(repeat).

The rest is light, fun and even good in a besides the point ish way. I don't know when these songs were recorded exactly, it sounds like right went everyone switched over to cocaine. I wonder if legit musicians today can even play this kind of music? You have to listen to it on your day off though. It doesn't quite work any other time.