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March 26, 2007

Righteous pork

From the comments to Is humane meat better for the environment? | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist:

"Humane" meat is just lipstick on a pig, a greenwash plan to sell more meat to guilty liberals.

Interesting and pretty accurate take on the situation. Don't worry, St Pollan will be along shortly to explain how eating meat is really the only moral choice.

The comments are also interesting in their immediate and contorted attempts to redeem "humane" meat. Kind of takes that whole 'epater le bourgeois' sheen off the whole "The MAN Can't Bust Our Pork!" fervor, don't it?

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Posted by John at 4:49 PM | | Comments (1)

March 23, 2007

You don't bring me flowers anymore

On the Twitter unsub:

Broked up

Yeah, like they ever really were.

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Posted by John at 4:16 PM | | Comments (1)

March 22, 2007

Poor widdle me

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » The NBC/Fox gigadeal on video:

I’m told that it’s likely this video also may be made available for embedding on lowly blogs such as this — and obviously, I think that will be key. You make the popcorn, and let’s get together to watch American Idol on IdolCritic, eh?
If you believe that Mr. Jarvis ever actually thinks of his blog as "lowly" you deserve everything he and his virtual little ponytail are trying to sell you. This is the false humility of a false populist.

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Posted by John at 1:15 PM |

March 19, 2007

Poor readers

Scripting News: Poor Scoble:

I can't believe how surprised MSM people are at Scoble saying that Microsoft's advertising sucks. That's how people talk, and one of the principles of blogging is, imho, Come As You Are. (See also: Dogma 2000.)

Personally, I think they're feigning suprise, pretending they're shocked, when they use language like that too. What do they think about Microsoft's Internet strategy. When was the last time they created some software that made you think they liked software?

Glad as I am that we seem to have gotten over the misquoting, I find it hard to accept this sudden call for working blue from someone who still usually spells it "fcuking." Besides, don't you remember? They said he said it sucks! They weren't shocked! They do use that language!

And who are these MSM people? Where's the links?

I also can't really parse that last paragraph with all those "theys" in there. Are you asking when the last time was that the MSM people created some software-philic software? Or Microsoft? Or both?

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Posted by John at 4:45 PM |

Tweetmeats

Let's all start Twittering things like "Screwing your (partner|spouse|daughter|son)" - then we'll see how much anyone really wants to know. Or "Stealing your home entertainment system." I read that eventually somebody'll Twitter in the bathroom. I'm waiting for somebody Twittering during sex. It's probably already happened.

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Posted by John at 2:42 PM |

Lease attention

Susan Sontag: Pay attention to the world | Review | Guardian Unlimited Books

While I was reading this rather long essay I suddenly found myself wondering what the hell Susan Sontag would make of Twitter. And what Twitter means for Susan Sontag. They seem like alien universes. Does Twitter kill off long essays? (I was shocked to see an article contrasting paragraph-long posts as "long-form" blogging, as opposed to the 140 character limited Twitter) Should it? What kind of thinking do we get in a world with a 140-character attention span?

UPDATE: Corrected Twitter post limits to be even scarier. Thanks, Greyduck.

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Posted by John at 2:38 PM | | Comments (1)

Buzz Machine

If you have no life and half a minute with nothing scheduled in your GTD lists, head on over to The Caffeine Database and figure out how righteously buzzed you is, man. "Dude, I shouldn't like even be a solid, I am so wired on joe..." Incidentally, can you really be "buzzed" on 2 large black teas and a grande decaf Americano? I ask you.

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Posted by John at 2:27 PM |

March 18, 2007

Heaven forfend

Eater doesn't come right out and say it ("note new equipment..."),... (kottke.org):
I think that when the Shake Shack opens for business on Wednesday, they'll be distributing those light-up buzzer thingies that vibrate when your food is ready.
You know, like they use at....(gasp)...Applebees. Not so yummy.

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Posted by John at 9:59 PM |

The TimesOnline gets read wrong

Scripting News: The TimesOnline quotes wrong:
They quote a top blogger (Scoble) saying "Microsoft sucks." The only problem is he didn't say that. Another accuracy-challenged "real" reporter.
Ok, here's what he did say:
The words are empty. Microsoft’s Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks (look at that last post again).
Now let's look at the disputed "quote:"
‘Microsoft sucks’, says top blogger
This is the headline to the story. First off, how often does the reporter write the story headline? Not often, if ever. Then read that passage above, taken from Scoble's blog, which is quoted in the Times article. Does he say 'Microsoft sucks?' No. Is it pretty close? Yes. Is it reasonable to infer that the headline is not a full quote, but a paraphrase, as is often the case in news headlines? Yes. For example, do we believe that Gerald Ford actually said, verbatim, "Drop dead" to NYC? No. Is this the narrow, agenda-ridden interpretation of someone with a chip on their shoulder? Definitely. Another connotation-challenged "top" blogger.

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Posted by John at 7:30 PM |

Don't Sell His Shorts

Daring Fireball: Like a Sponge, in which John Gruber tries out for Metropolitan Diary:

The boy looks angry: teeth clenched, brow furrowed. He is muttering something about a broken car that won’t start. I assume it has something to do with a toy; later, my wife informs me that he was re-imagining today’s episode of Sesame Street, wherein Oscar the Grouch couldn’t get his jalopy to start.

“You really look upset,” I tell him.

“No, I’m pissed,” he says.

Somehow, I doubt he learned that word from Oscar.


Kids say the darndest things.

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Posted by John at 10:56 AM |

Peanuts Gallery

Eaten By Ducks: Happiness is an Unhappy Hipster:

But the essence of [Peanuts] was never Schulz’s sadness. It was his professionalism, his inventiveness, and, above all, his sense of humor. After all, any idiot can tell you that life sucks. When they do, though, I wish they wouldn’t pretend they got the insight from poor ol’ Charlie Brown.

Pretty interesting essay, though I like most of the cartoonists he mentions.

All sorts of meanings got hung on Peanuts. When I was an insufferable pious little twit (age 7-17), I read the Gospel According to Peanuts. Actually, I read the first few paragraphs, became bored to tears, and skimmed through the rest of the book just reading the strips. All of which I had read before. Didn't matter. Schulz is Schulz, baby.

Bonus whatever: this cartoon that Hank Ketcham sent to Schulz "as a joke:"
Dennis
Reminds you of those Calvin window decals, sorta.

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Posted by John at 10:30 AM |

Drinky Crow, goddamn it!

Fantagraphics Books:


You have to see it, you have to give Cartoon Network the message that you want to see it. So post on blogs, spread the word, get out the buzz. The network apparently makes a ton of pilot shows then decides what to air and is currently sitting on Drinky Crow trying to figure out what people want to see. The answer: THE DRINKY CROW SHOW!

OK, I'm in - Tony Millionaire is great. I'd watch this, and I'm just a suburban father! I'd even post obsessive updates about it on Twitter! See the wide appeal this'd have? Has anybody leaked this to YouTube yet?

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Posted by John at 8:46 AM |

March 13, 2007

Ginger cookies

Orangette: The wait and the wonky molasses:

Also, you’ll note that this recipe calls for molasses. In this particular cookie, I like a mild one, such as Brer Rabbit Mild Flavor Molasses, but you could also use a standard dark variety. I wouldn’t, however, reach for blackstrap molasses. It’ll make the cookies taste too dark and Christmasy. Plus, it covers up the flavor of the chocolate chips. That’s just wrong.

No, blackstrap molasses is what I like to think of as the whole point. Chocolate anywhere near a ginger cookie, especially a molasses ginger cookie, is the thing that is "just wrong." Turns it from a savory cookie into some cheery poseur. Obviously never had a Joe Frogger. Leave 'em out - chocolate chips already have their own damn cookie.

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Posted by John at 11:46 AM |

What are you doing?

Via Shelley, Google Watch - Today in Stupid - Twitter Is Dodgeball, but Boring

But wait, you say: Twitter is a great news feed for events like SXSW, and for getting links, and for keeping in touch. It's like instant messaging, but public!

Sure, I get it. It's a message board for BlackBerry-toting tech zombies. And the majority of posts I've seen include the blabberspeak mumblegum language of incessant now-ness:

LaughingSquid: "up, barely, coffee soon"
jidnet: "just woke up."
daveboob: "Watching a bulldozer outside with Sam."

Riveting.

Holy Hannah, and I thought I was sanctimoniously snarky. That "blabberspeak mumblegum language of incessant now-ness" is pretty damn brilliant, though.

Disclaimer: I very intermittently use Twitter. I would rather off myself than use it to follow Scoble, though - that'd be like an always-on dental appointment.

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Posted by John at 10:45 AM | | Comments (2)

March 7, 2007

Pump the snark


The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing. » Blog Archive » Digest: Serious shellfish invasion, butter banned, Monsanto exec fined, slaughter up close

“Death on the range”: A first-person essay about the day the writer watched the on-farm slaughter of one of her family’s steers, after her father told her that “if you’re going to eat beef, you should have the stomach to watch how it gets to the table.”

When I read this item in my RSS reader, the article ended:
Her reaction is interesting — and sure to piss off certain sanctimoniously snarky vegetarians.

That has now been removed from the post. Gee, I wonder who she meant? And that's sanctimoniously snarky vegan to you. (Hey, is that domain name taken?)
So, always in search of something to get pissed off at call bullshit on, I went and read the article. Didn't piss me off at all. I actually had a lot of respect for the writer. It was a straight-up, honest look at what happens. She didn't call killed "harvested," she didn't turn away from it. She watched it. The whole damn thing. Not on tape, not photographs. Not Michael Pollan's Foodie Safari "hunt." The raw, hard, bloody reality of someone killing and cutting up an animal for food. Not some bullshit like 'National Pig Day.' Not posting pastoral photos of contented animals or caricatures of animals slaughtered for food. I'll say it again: I don't think everyone needs to be vegetarian. I only have problems with those people writing moral checks that their stomachs can't cash. That's what I'm sanctimonious and snarky about.

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Posted by John at 5:15 PM | | Comments (4)

March 1, 2007

Who's this "we?"

Michael Pollan teaches us to think before we eat

Q: In your book, you call us 'processed corn, walking.'
A: That's us. That's what we've become, because we eat a diet that really consists of processed corn, in the form of the meat and milk we consume. It's all corn fed. All the beef, all the chicken, all the pork is really processed corn.

Uh, no, that's what you've become. To the extent I'm corn-fed it's from directly eating corn, no intermediate medium of delivery.
Q: What are you eating for dinner tonight?
A: Tonight, we're cooking for some friends from New York and we're having salmon.
Q: I assume it's wild.
A: (Laughs.) I'll tell you what. It's not.
Q: You're kidding.
A: No. There's no wild salmon right now on the market. There's a place in Scotland, called Loch Duarte, which grows sustainable, undyed, no-hormones salmon. It's the most sustainable farm salmon you can get. Yes, it's not local. It's come a really long way, but what it shows is we all make compromises.

Or what it shows is that your convictions are expedient. One of the things I had always understood eating locally to mean was eating more seasonally and in tune with availability - avoid tomatoes in the winter, gorge on them in summer. It makes them all the sweeter. You often hear self-congratulation about the ease of eating locally in California, but it's also spoiled them; they're less able to deal with the seasonal deprivation we experience here in the East. Eating locally becomes "eating locally if convenient." Otherwise, rather than going without salmon for a season, import foodporn "gourmet" salmon and shrug it off as a "compromise." It's really all about justifying your conspicuous consumption as "ethical."
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Posted by John at 8:54 PM |

As a heart attack

Serious Eats: 30 Days of Pork

Ms. Kelso, a 34-year-old executive producer for an interactive ad agency in San Francisco, became a vegetarian while living with a vegan boyfriend. "He was adamant that his cookware not come in contact with any meat products." Because she cares about animals, their welfare, and their ethical treatment, she said, she found it relatively easy to give up meat. But, she says, "I love the taste, so I was one of those vegetarians who would always try all the fake meats."

Oh, it's serious fun over at Serious Eats on National Pig Day, which the meat-happy folks over there seem to have misread as National Pork Day. To celebrate, we get yet another converted-to-Christianity-oh-wait-I-meant-meat-eating story. Of course, she had her Road to Niman Ranch experience after reading the Holy Writ:
"After reading it, I realized that I was in violation of those ethics even while being a vegetarian," Ms. Kelso said. "Unless I drop out of society, live in the forest, and become a hunter-gatherer, I have an impact based on what I buy, no matter what it is."

I have read this paragraph at least 4 times, and it still makes no sense at all. So the solution is to eat fried-spam musubi and bacon and egg sandwiches? Is the idea that you make less of an environmental impact if you're dead of a heart attack?

Oddly enough, nowhere on the site am I finding a link to this recipe. I wonder why - it seems pretty damn serious to me.

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Posted by John at 3:15 PM |

Is never good for you?

Via Ed, GTD + Your Emotional Life - lifehack.org

So why not apply GTD methods of organization to your feelings and everything icky? It may sound stupid to some of you, but I know people who would immediately benefit from this kind of thought process.

If we can manage our emotional relationships like we do business relationships, maybe we’d have less trouble. If we could organize all personal stuff like you do your work stuff, could we become emotionally productive?


I dearly wish that this were satire, but I know it's not. Some geeks, they sure do loooooooove their cults.

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Posted by John at 10:12 AM |