Directions

1. Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Using your fingertips, rub the butter and shortening into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Get your thumbs into it. Close your eyes. Soak in the sensation: Flour dust combining with scratchy grains of sugar and salt and the coating grease of butter and shortening. Resist the urge to apply it like a cosmetic to your face, or to your dry elbows and knees.
2. Using a fork, blend in just enough water to make the dough come together. Shape into a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for 45 minutes before rolling. Feel the moist cool of the dough as you grip it both hands, thumbs gently clamping the disk to the fingers that cradle it. You may want to fling it Frisbee-like, just to see how far it’ll fly. Again, resist.

How to roll the dough

1 Flour your rolling surface and rolling pin

Place a well-chilled piece of dough shaped into a disk onto a floured surface. Dust the rolling pin and your fingers with flour to prevent sticking. As you dust, pinch the flour between thumb and tips of  index and middle fingers. Imagine it’s sand in an hourglass, but don’t be in too much of a hurry.

2 Roll out the dough, rotating the dough as you go

Applying even pressure, press your rolling pin into the dough, rolling away from you and back. Rotate the disk as you go, and flip it over occasionally, to create an even circle. When the dough starts to feel sticky, apply a light dusting of flour. When the dough is a little less than a quarter of an inch thick, place your pie plate in the center of the dough, face up, to check that the dough you’ve rolled out is large enough to fit the dish. As you roll, close your eyes. Be conscious of your grip on the pin, the handle pressing into the V between thumb and forefinger. Use the weight of your body to press the pin into the dough so as not to stress your hands. If you do not have flour somewhere on your face, preferably on your nose and above one eyebrow, you should apply some now.

3  Transfer the dough into the pie plate

Flip the rolled dough in half toward you, creating a half-moon shape, and lift it over the plate. Set it down so that it covers half the plate; then open it so it forms a circle again and covers the entire pie plate. As warm-up, spread out your hands, palm up. Bring your thumbs across the palms toward the little fingers. Now apply this motion to the rolled dough.

4 Press the dough into the pie plate

With your fingertips, gently push the pie dough into the bottom and sides of the plate. Yes, be gentle. But let your thumbs get into the pie plate, where the bottom meets the sides. Revel in the thumbprints that’ll bake right into the pie.

5  Trim the edges

Use a scissor to cut any extra dough along the edge, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Fold the edge of the dough underneath itself so that it creates a thicker, 1/4-inch border that rests on the lip of the plate. Before the blades cut, the scissor holds the dough. That hold extends the human hand’s grip, particularly that of thumb and forefinger.

6  Crimp the edges

Create a patterned edge by pressing the thumb of one hand against the edge of the dough from the outside of the dish while gently pressing with the thumb and forefinger of the other hand from the inside. Rotate the pie plate until you’ve completed the pattern along the entire edge.  This is the coup de grace for the thumb as well as the rest of the hands. By this time, you should have dough somewhere in the hair framing your face.

Tip: Bake the crust right away, or refrigerate or freeze it for later use.

See how it’s done (although this baker doesn’t spend any time in thumb-contemplation): http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1726686707?bclid=1729305751&bctid=1668060958

Judges 1:6-7 — Adoni-Bezek fled, but they chased him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.  Then Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table.  Now God has paid me back for what I did to them.”

Okay, so maybe this post is a little less than serious, but laugh with me for a second, if you will.  I read this today and couldn’t help but imagine what could be…

I doubt there would be too many repeat offenders.  And if there were, they would be easy to catch!

When I open my hands palms-down in front of me, I see two little mounds — calluses — in the Vs between thumbs and forefingers. I think of these parts of my hands as oar locks, where the shaft of my kayak paddle — the pole-y part between the flat paddle blades — rotates in my grip. When I travel via canoe, clutching the T-grip of a canoe paddle, the shaft of that paddle builds the calluses, too.

But those hard little bumps at the base of my thumbs, they’ve always been there, and I haven’t always paddled. They may have started with a tennis racket, or a jungle gym bar. In 4th grade at Valentine Elementary School, I wanted to be Nadia Comenici, earning 10, 10, 10 on the unparallel bars. At every 15-minute recess and the hour at lunch, I’d practice over and again my most perfect cherry drop, hanging from the bend in my knees upside-down and swinging, swinging until my chest was parallel with the ground. I’d release the grip with the back of my knees and fly …

…

Or I’d attempt a dead-man’s drop, where I’d sit upright on top of the bar and drop backwards, gripping with the back of my knees and releasing at just the right moment. Fuh-woooop …

…

Minutes, hours, days later, when I landed, I’d raise my arms above my head, signaling to the imaginary Polish, Romanian, and French judges. My routine was complete. And … now Amy Sanderson or Kathy Crimmins or Michelle Amestoy could take their turn on the bar, provided they were wearing shorts under their dresses. Girls weren’t allowed to wear shorts or pants at Valentine Elementary.

The big move was on Saturday. It was a long, stressful painful, process, and I’m so traumatized by it that I don’t yet feel excited by the fact that we have done it.

When the movers arrived at 8am, they didn’t inspire much confidence. There were only two of them, not three as promised. One was a scrawny teenager, the other an elderly man whom I thought at first was just the teenager’s dad or chauffeur. A third mover showed up an hour into the job, another scrawny teenager who wore an iPod the whole time and sang out loud while carrying things up and down our steps. About 45 minutes later he mysteriously disappeared, and we were told he had left for a “doctor’s appointment.” On a Saturday.

Actually, the other two turned out to be really nice, respectful, efficient guys, despite their odd couple appearance.

Nick had to be at work at 1pm, which meant he had to leave the house at about 12:30. Even though the movers were doing the heavy lifting, we were doing a lot of packing/organizing/tossing at the same time, which made it feel like we were in some sort of race. (This despite the fact that we’d been packing at night throughout the week, including the entire day before, and that we’d been up since 5am that morning.) By the time noon rolled around, there appeared to be just a few dribs and drabs of stuff left scattered about the house. We both thought I’d get it all together with a few more trips to my car and be done by 1:00. At the latest.

Not so fast. By the time I rounded up the last of the moving detritus–brooms, dust pan, packing tape guns, some pretty ceramic wall hooks I had to unscrew from the wall, but first had to borrow a screwdriver from the neighbor downstairs, who was also moving in that day, and oh, shit, did we forget about all the food in the fridge? and that we needed to clean the fridge?–by the time all of this was under control, it was 4pm.

To compound the amount of stress and angst I was feeling, the new tenants started moving their stuff in much earlier than we had anticipated, like at 1:30, not 4 or so. When I got back to the apartment after supervising the first round of unloading at the new house, the new tenant was standing there with a box in her hand while giving me dagger eyes, for what I did not know, seeing as how we’d met the day before and seemed to hit it off–we’d both lived in Brooklyn before moving to Portland, etc. I guess she and her husband did not expect to find some of our stuff still there, or our two cats, so with Thumbs mewling in her carrying case and Wiley hiding somewhere upstairs, I frantically scrubbed the fridge and tossed leftovers left and right into a garbage bag.

At this point I was feeling completely agitated, overwhelmed, and filled with despair that I would EVER get out of this apartment and be able to find anything again in the new house. Miraculously, midway through all of this my mom showed up with Sadie. I have never been so glad to see my mom in all my life. She took charge, vacuumed, cleaned stuff, and basically gave me hope that the move would be complete in my lifetime. I was also glad to see Sadie, who’d slept at my mom’s the night before in her first overnight away from me and Nick, ever!

When I was finally, officially done with my part, there was only one thing left to do: find and move Wiley. Thumbs was already contained in the cat carrier, so I brought her out to my car. My plan was to drop her off at the new house then come back for Wiley, but with the new tenants coming in and out and leaving the door open, I decided against leaving Wiley there by himself. So I picked him up and we walked outside. Unfortunately, two other sets of couples were also moving into our building that day, and there was mass confusion in our driveway, with lots of people milling about, and, of course, a dog.

Wiley saw the dog, freaked out, and jumped off of me so hard that he actually left bruises under bloody claw marks on my neck, shoulder, and torso. It looked like I had a vampire bite on my neck, which was fitting, since it was Halloween, after all.

He ran around the building but I caught him on the other side, getting him into my car along with randomly strewn coats, pots, shoes and brooms, as well as Thumbelina and Ting-Tong. But when we got to the new house, he escaped out the hatchback as soon as I opened it. I caught him, then wrangled him into the house for a brief moment before he darted out the door again, over towards neighbor Ben’s house, and then into the neighborhood. We haven’t seen him since. It’s been three days. Two people now have claimed to have seen him (Tony, the painter, and George, the excavator) but we haven’t yet caught sight of him.

Overall, the move was a trying, stressful ordeal, and right now I sort of feel like a mother who has given birth and then rejected her child. The house lacks running water, it’s a mess, it has wet primer paint in some rooms, and I don’t know where anything is. Luckily, we’re able to stay at my mom’s condo for now, because getting this house in livable condition is going to take all our extra time and energy, of which we don’t have a lot right now.

One Cat

Texting is an important part of everyday life for most people.  You can send a quick message to a friend or quickly and easily let a loved one know you are thinking of them.  Our generation has developed very dextrous thumbs from this combination of chatting online, video games and texting.  Moving our fingers rapidly over a keypad or keyboard is as much a part of our existence as brushing our teeth or clubbing a baby seal.  That’s why our parents so often struggle with the concept of texting or even using their thumbs for things that we wouldn’t even think about:  this stuff simply didn’t exist. 

As evidence, next time you’re watching television with your parents and they have the remote and change the channel.  They will nervously teeter the remote in the middle of their palm and use their index finger to change the channel; poking randomly at the remate like a chimp and an ant-filled log.  Part of this is because their thumbs aren’t as nimble as ours and the other part is that we spend a lot more time watching television than our parents because they ya know… have responsibilities.  They don’t have time to figure out what the ”input” button is.

But thumbs aside, what I’m more interested in is that space in between text messages when you hit “send” and your screen says “sent”.  More specifically, when you’re texting with someone you like, texting becomes a peculiar point of anxiety.  Because let’s all be adults for a moment and put it out there:  unless you’re texting your friends or your parents, if you are having a text conversation with a girl or guy, you’re flirting.  And flirting is a fairly nerve-racking endeavor because we’re surreptitiously letting people know we think they’re pretty great.  You’re flirting which is w hy you immediately check your phone when you get a text to see if they’re returning the sentiment you so sneakily shared with them.

The most disappointing thing is when you’re expecting a text from that special someone and it’s your friend asking you what you want on your pizza.  And in that particular moment you hate your friend because you were expecting it to be the cute guy from Starbucks that you finally got the nerve to give your number to.  It’s not that you actually hate your friend, but it’s just that you wanted to flirt damn it and you really don’t need anymore drama queen moments from Cindy who can’t decide whether periwinkle is her color. 

 We like it because texting is a safer form of flirting where we get to keep ourselves hidden through our phones but still say intimate things to the people we care about.  It is a masked courtship that protects us from the forced intimacies of putting our own feelings on the line in person.  But what about when people stop texting.  It happens all the time.  You’ll be having some solid banter with the cute girl from the library when the messages just stop.  You were receiving fairly regular text messages every few minutes and the instant that frequency is broken your mind starts to wander.  Holy shit, what did I say wrong?  Should I have not made that joke about seals?  Is she part seal?  Was her uncle killed by a seal?  These are the kinds of absurdities your mind jumps to when that space and time between texts becomes irregular.

For guys, when the text frequency becomes irregular, they will generally assume there is another guy ruining things for them.  This will generally result in lots of grunting and maybe even throwing of objects, pets, cars, etc. 

In the same circumstance a girl will think it was something they said and will go over the transcript of their texts with their girlfriends to try to look for the Fibonacci sequence or anagrams in the text to try to actually decipher what the guy meant when he said, “Can’t hang tonight. the game is on.”  I bet he’s just really concerned about the situation in Pakistan or maybe he’s really getting into Romantic poetry.  But… if you rearrange the letters in “can’t hang tonight the game is on”, it spells “A Egomaniac Tenth Night Thongs”.  GASP!  I bet he’s seeing another woman.

When it comes to texting I think it’s important to have some ground rules to avoid this tension and discord.

1)  If you’re texting and decide to stop abruptly because you need to actually do things with your life, let people know you’re stopping the texting for the moment.  I think that should stop global warming or the Taliban.  I don’t recall which.

2)  If you stop to do something else, like keep your eyes on the road or answer the phone at your work, and the time between texts will become less frequent, then you should say so.  We can’t read your mind.  How can we know that you dropped your bowl of Frosted Flakes on your cat and now there’s a huge mess.  We start to worry!

3)  We will pick up on your texting style, but if you don’t want us to keep texting you or you actually want to have a phone conversation, let us know.

Now when these rules aren’t followed we get exceptionally anxious because we fear the worst, that our thinly veiled comments of flirtation were uncovered and, what is even worse, not well received.  I know people who have had meltdowns because So and So stopped texting them and they don’t know why.  It’s maddening to try to figure out because you keep sending text messages and then you text their friends.  It is beyond me why no one ever thinks to call.  Yep.  Just call someone on the phone.  It is quicker.  But I’m guilty of the same thing.  If I’m touching base with someone quickly about plans for the evening or whether or not I think the Yankees suck wastewater I will generally send a text.  Are we becoming more detached from human interaction or are we just revealing our own insecurities that allow ourselves to hold our true emotions at arm’s length.  Whatever the case, folks, let’s just remember to be more diligent about allaying the worries of those when we abruptly stop texting.

I personally am an advocate of texting but there are always problems that arise.  It’s important for us to be clear and concise with each other and our feelings… especially when we’re e-flirting.  And also to avoid talking about seals.  And using emoticons.  Those are ridiculous.

The Los Angeles Review’s website has finally, with newborn wings, flown the nest. Fly with it. The Fall 2009 Issue, No. 6, will be released into the wild Nov. 1. *

Speaking of wings, bats have them. They also have a short curved claw called a “bat thumb.” Along with the bat’s toes, the bat thumb helps the little flying mammal hang upside-down and climb. Bat Thumb  is also the name of a 30-minute parody of Batman created by director Steve Oedekerk. The film’s characters are live-action, costumed thumbs, with the actors’ faces and voices superimposed.

*I’ve been the LA Review’s nonfiction editor since February 2009.

Tibetan Buddhist monks of the 9th or 10th centuries used spells to learn prophecies, to wrest power from demons, find treasure, cure illness, tame wild beasts, cause springs to gurgle from the ground, and other such everyday needs.

One such spell, recorded in a monk’s ritual manual*, describes a kind of divination that invokes a deity to answer questions put to it. The ritual refers to the deity as “the sky-soarer,” and this sky-soarer communicates through a “pure” (aka, pre-pubescent) child. Sometimes the child sees visions in a mirror. Sometimes, the visions appear on the flat of the pure child’s thumb. 

 *found in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, and now archived in the British Library as part of the International Dunhuang Project

After one of the kids somehow got locked out of the house and managed to get in by “adjusting” the back door, my son volunteered to help me put on a new door. When he was focused, his help was appreciated.

It’s a good day for reputation management consultants everywhere–we just got Google’s official endorsement!

Yep, Google has come off the fence and wholeheartedly endorsed the creation of positive web content to try and outrank anything negative. In the Google post, the search engine does an admirable job of creating a primer for Google Reputation Management which includes this endorsement of creating positive web pages:

Instead, you can try to reduce its visibility in the search results by proactively publishing useful, positive information about yourself or your business. If you can get stuff that you want people to see to outperform the stuff you don’t want them to see, you’ll be able to reduce the amount of harm that that negative or embarrassing content can do to your reputation.
(emphasis Google’s)

Of course, this isn’t ground breaking in any way–Google also offers advice for SEO, although just as basic–but it’s nice to see Google giving the green light to online reputation management campaigns. I wonder how much of the impetus for this post came from all of the content removal requests Google gets each day.

PS. Once you’ve read Google’s reputation management advice, you can check out my Google reputation management tips here and don’t forget I have tons of this stuff in my book Radically Transparent!

Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!

Blogging, like spinach, liver, and weight-bearing exercise, is good for you. I’m not big on liver, but I’m awright with weight-bearing exercise, and I looove spinach. Where, then, do I stand with blogging? I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately. Asking asking asking. Asking asking asking. Asking asking asking. Hooboy, that’s a whole lot of asking, and not much blogging.

So I’m on a quest to find out what keeps people blogging every day, or, ya know, weekly, or whatever-the-hay regular morsel of time. I’m looking for inspiration for these blogging digits.

Feel free to comment if you’re in the Thumbing Through neighborhood.

I remember my first my first pair of suspenders. I tried to put them through my belt loops until my dad showed me the right way to wear them. Of course, he didn’t have any thumbs, so it was really awkward when he tried clipping them to my pants. I could do it once he showed me, but he hated it when I just took over without giving him a chance to finish something he was struggling with. I guess looking back it was embarrassing that he couldn’t even put a pair of suspenders on his own son. Once they were on, I tugged each pair, pulled them out from my chest like I’d seen guys do in the movies. He looked at me with a mixture of pride and envy. If he wasn’t my dad, I’d say it was mostly envy.

okay, so I’m getting an ASS-TON of hits, which totally rocks, but I’m not getting any of the little thumbs up or thumbs down lil guys…so I don’t know if you are showing all of your friends and being like, “read this shit, this bitch is crazuh” or if you actually like it.

So all you gots to do kiddos is click on my rant or whatever type post I have that day, and you can give me thumbies up or down so I know if you hate me or not:o)

PLUS please don’t forget to check out the social vibe link on the side.  Seriously, just clicking on it raises money for awareness.  And awareness=education=okay in my lil book.

k. I’ve nothing to really rant on today except the fact that I’m tired of dealing with little boys, but who isn’t, unless you are a new mommie and daddie of an actual child.  Perhaps I should rephrase to I’m tired of dealing with manboys who make promises they have no intention of keeping, just for shits and giggles.  Eh, but what’s a vow or a broken heart for that matter? HEY, no bitterness here today, I will just play with my Zen balls (quit laughing Deah, Kaylin, and Beej, there IS a such thing!) and relax.  Thanks Guru Leslie for them! If they don’t bring me to a Zen state, I will use them in a harmful passive-regressive-aggressive manner and Karen will be proud! Score for us!! Maybe I can call Em and we can practice our lil voodoo dolls out!!

k. So I lied about ranting today, but it wasn’t too much, and it wasn’t too random, so I think I should get some sort of consolation or MAJOR AWARD!! for that, and hopefully not in the form of a kitty puking or pissing on my bed.  No thank you kitties.  I know you are proud of your peeing and puking skills, much like a man is proud of how far he can piss and how loud he can belch, but mama doesn’t want you pissing and puking on HER stuff.  Aim for your dad’s stuff (i.e. his pillow-but don’t let it near mine-, his “collectibles”, his many a gaming system, hats, books, any will do, just not MY stuff, I thought we had an alliance, and I was the cool mom that lets you get on the counters and eat people food! geesh! can you give me a little support??

k. guess that was a little random, but it’s better than being balled up in the corner rocking back and forth crying and singing r&b songs about broken hearts and ladies that be freaks in the streets and ladies in the bed…what I’m certain, I’ve that backwards.  Oh well, woe is me.

I’m off for some grand adventure, who knows where I will go or where it will take me, but I’ll have some bullshit to say about it I’m sure.

And MOMMIES I didn’t drop the F bomb AGAIN! score for me! I’m trying to learn how to NOT be a total fucking social misfit…damnit…my bad.  Love you anyway, it’s your fault for marrying a damn yankee anyway AND then letting him live with us! geesh! What’d you think would happen woman?

**note to mommies, please don’t beat me or fight me next time I see you, because I fear you like many fear the great Medusa or the great Dog the Bounty Hunter and his big boobied wife. I’m certain you could take them on, and that scares me on many levels, and gives me nightmares **shudders**.

And I just realized I say “k” a lot.  That must stop.  That’s like written “um”, but I guess since I’m obviously worried about grammar and such, it can slide for a bit!

Thank you, drive thru, have a nice day.

“Acafellas“

September 16th, 2009

“Acafellas,” by and large, is like an answer to my prayers (or, if not prayers, then at least requests). Last week, I noted that I enjoyed the show as a whole but felt that they were moving too quickly with the main storylines and not giving us any time with the supporting characters. And, by and large, this episode managed to move at a pretty quick pace (the show certainly didn’t become slow) while spending plenty of time with pretty much everyone. The show is a large ensemble, and this episode felt like an effort to both address ongoing storylines (including the main ones covered last week) in small scenes while spending time with entirely new settings and character pairings.

This is not to say that I think the episode was flawless by any means, but I think it’s an example of the show’s particular brand of humour and musical performance proving capable of expanding into other areas outside of the “core” storylines. While I still have some issues with the way the show tends to pace itself with individual storylines, this episode managed to handle a lot of material in a single hour, covering various bases with a fairly high degree of success.

But, be warned that I’ve still got some issues with the way the show likes to rush to the good parts, so to speak.

I was really happy to see the introduction of a storyline for Kurt and Mercedes, but when it became clear where they were going with it I had my reservations. When it became clear that they were heading in a direction wherein Mercedes was convinced by the Cheerios to pursue Kurt romantically, my reaction was the same as Rachel’s: Kurt is clearly being written as a gay character, and the show has ladled cliche after cliche onto him. I’m ashamed that I was so quick to jump to that conclusion, but that’s partly the fault of the show itself. This is not a show that is about subtlety – yes, the show can be subtle, but its favourite gear is an in-your-face collection of stereotypes. When, in the final moment between the two characters, Kurt reveals that he has never told anyone that he is gay, it’s like the show telling us that the way it most often stereotypes its characters isn’t showing everything about them.

And I think that’s an important thing for the show to establish at this stage in its development. I do think that the episode was a bit too blatant in its destruction of its stereotypical images of Mercedes and Kurt (she as confident and assured of herself and he as openly gay), making Mercedes too blind to Kurt’s sexuality (which was never honestly in question) and Kurt a bit too scared to be revealing his sexuality for someone who just openly discussed a tiara collection. It’s one thing for Mercedes to get to the end of her rope with no options left and decide to settle with Kurt knowing he was gay, and it’s one thing for Kurt to be surprised to hear himself finally saying those words out loud. Instead, we got the shortcut: since the show hasn’t shown this side of them before, it seemed as if the show went for the most extreme emotional state to make an impact. Both of the young actors nailed the scenes involved, but it just seemed like the show rushing into the conclusion of the storyline rather than letting it unfold over time.

The episode did the same thing with the arrival of the Acafellas, although there the pace seemed a bit more natural. It seemed like Will was finally living the musical dream, starting a group out of a spontaneous moment and suddenly booking gigs, getting media mentions, and eventually singing in front of Josh Groban (more on that in a bit). I was half expecting it to turn into an episode of Behind the Music, which works as a bit of satire. The show works at a fast-pace when that’s part of the point of the storylines, but when it seems like the show is rushing potential long-term storylines (like it seemed last week) it’s a bigger issue than when it’s rushing something that’s supposed to seem very sudden and out of the blue. Storyline gave us a couple of really enjoyable A capella Hip Hop songs (in particular “I Wanna Sex You Up”), and a scenario wherein the musical numbers’ overproduction (which has been discussed here before) actually fit in with the almost fantasy-like nature of their meteoric rise. Throw in some extra characterization for Puck (who has needed to be a bit more connected with the audience), and the welcome return of Stephen Tobolowsky (whose Sandy is a one-liner machine), and you have a fun storyline.

It was also a storyline that was aided significantly by a real emotional core that didn’t have to do with a love triangle or anything else. The episode was defined by a theme about confidence and (for lack of a better word) gumption, being willing to get out there and do what you need to do. The episode is one enormous fantasy, where things that shouldn’t work or seemed before lame or inappropriate become cool because the people behind them find confidence from there. The Acafellas is not nearly as “cool” as it is in the show’s universe, but because it’s finally Will doing what he always wanted to and because it’s Finn and Puck discovering another side of themselves we see it as the success that it is. When the Choreographer from Vocal Adrenaline comes in (as the cheerleaders try to tear the group apart), he sees everyone as a mixed up group of misfits, but as long as they all remain confident in themselves they can stay together. And when Victor Garber, playing Will’s father, announces that he’s going back to law school, you see that this simple message (one that’s certainly on the positivity side of Glee’s cruel/kind dichotomy) transcends generations.

What I do enjoy immensely about Glee is how much is packed into each episode, and how here they manage to touch on the various underlying storylines without doing anything with them (proving that despite the evidence they know how to pace themselves, sort of). You had Emma’s overenthusiastic applause for the Acafellas that we know (and Terri somewhat suspects) was for Will and not Ken, Finn and Rachel’s discussion about confidence in the hallway, Terri trying to get pregnant (and Will taking it as her love for a capella), and the runner with Sue Sylvester trying to take down Glee once and for all. These are small moments, but they remind us that even as weeks pass (and apparently weeks did pass in this episode) these storylines don’t go away. It’s a good way to handle things, and I liked seeing a completely different portion of the show’s universe (Will’s family, etc.) while not forgetting the ongoing storylines.

I really want to be one of those people who is jumping up and down and cheering on this show with all of my heart. And there are times, like during the musical performances, where something sparks in me. But right now, the show is so uneven in its pacing that it feels manufactured in a way that isn’t as charming or amazing. I like this show a whole lot, and find it exciting, but I keep getting pulled out of it and have to wonder if that’s by design (and if I really think that design is in the show’s best interest).

Cultural Observations

• I love that Will’s father spent six months at the Hanoi Hitlon and uses it as a joke. And that Terri warns about bones in the hamburger casserole. And that Henri eats the thumb off of his “Thumbs Up” cake hand. And that Sandy writes Desperate Housewives Fan Fiction. And that Sue was on the Noriega Strike Force in Panama. All amazing.
• I’m interested to see the show continue to play around with the sequence of events – Rachel’s early speech to Will, intercut with the Cherrios getting to her in order to force her to make her case, breaks right into Will having a discussion with Emma about John Stamos and confidence. It’s a really unique way to get from Point A to Point B, and I’d be more content with the show’s pacing if it used more of that and fewer emotional shortcuts with the characters.
• Cory Monteith really impressed me in this episode: he asserted himself well with Lea Michele in terms of being the “voice of reason,” but then really demonstrated Finn’s more awkward side when he wondered what a cliche was, and if this was one of those times where she was actually mad about something else. His character is one who has always been about the duality between external appearance and inner insecurity, and he fit in well with the episode as a result.
• We also learned where Monteith got his “Frankenteen” twitter name: “I feel like a woodland creature” was another choice line. (On that note, I was curious why they bothered to show so much of the Mercy routine, which seemed gratuitous if impressive).
• Are we supposed to take Quinn’s line to Sue as a reason for us to like her? They really gave some depth to both Puck and Quinn in this episode, if so, and that’s a step in the right direction.
• The show’s production numbers worked great here: I hadn’t even heard the original version of Bust Your Windows before, but Mercedes’ made it irrelevant, and the fantasy-like nature of the production made the over-produced music actually fit in with the scenes involved (the same goes for the Acafellas, which was helped by remaining a capella without the music.
• Josh Groban’s cameo got some play from FOX’s marketing department, but it was really quite great in practice: as last year’s Emmy showed, he’s more than willing to make fun of himself, but here he was great in shutting down Sandy w/ Flex’s help, and then utterly brilliant in hitting on Will’s Mom (which would make him Puck’s new role model). The “I love a blowsy drunk” line was downright killer.
• Lea Michele has my heart, just so we’re clear.

ok, passport, tickets, credit cards, cool backpack, tripods, batteries, more batteries, the other batteries too, portable hdd, storage media, mac, chargers, three cameras, navigational thingie, maps (shit, still gotta print them), cosmetics, clothing and something to write on and with. seems simple enough and yet there’s too much to organize… where does all that come from?! i dumped half of my belongings and it’s still too much. aaaaaargh!!! my room’s a mess and i still have to wash clothes, organize mail forwarding… over-friggin- whelmed.

“crazy in pyongyang” went south. about 130 hits or so and no answers. well, i got an answer from someone i haven’t seen since… loooooong ago.

well… other than that, there’s nothing else to do, than to wiggle my toes and twirl my thumbs until i get going.

Picture: taken a year ago from dandong. North Koreans being put on a boat and shown dandong. you can watch, but you can’t touch.

The first successfully-installed wind turbine at Binh Thuan wind power plant. It is expected to be the first wind power plant in Southeast Asia to generate power in the third quarter of the year. — VNA/VNS Photo Anh Tuan

LAM DONG — The Lam Dong People’s Committee granted the licence for construction of the province’s first wind power plant in Da Lat.

Cavico Transport Joint Stock Company, the project investor, worked in Da Lat for about ayear to complete a feasibility assessment for erecting wind turbines in the region.

The company said the city’s Tram Hanh Commune, at an elevation of 1,600m above sea level with high wind levels, had good conditions for development of a wind power plant.

The Build-Own-Operate project, valued at US$57 million, will have two turbines covering 2ha. It will provide 90 million kWh of electricity annually.

Although Lam Dong does not generally suffer from a shortage of electricity, the plant will help meet the country’s increasing demand for power when connected to the national grid.

This type of power plant does not contribute to the greenhouse effect in the way that thermal power plants do, said a company spokeperson.

The provincial people’s committee said the locality had a regional potential and advantage for building this type of plant and that it would call for more investors to develop environmentally friendly energy in the area.

Construction of the power plant in Tram Hanh Commune is expected to be completed by 2011. —

Source: vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn

I met Bass Drum Ben, so-called because he played in the UC Berkeley marching band, on a roadtrip to Slab City. We drove from Santa Monica to California’s Colorado Desert, south of Coachella and east of the Salton Sea. We were part of a group creating and documenting the Hitchhiker Tribute Cairn, a memorial mound of stones dedicated to those who have ever known the road via thumb. Ben is an admirable spokesperson for hitchhiking in North America (as well as the six other continents) today. I also have a happy memory of eating cornmeal pancakes at an I-Hop before dropping him at the Ontario Airport.

http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/qa-hitchhiking-with-ben-bachelder/

thumb war champion is ready for battle

but i got no thumbz!

Picture by: dunno source. Caption by: JunoTheGreat via Our LOL Builder

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I’m not a huge Megan Fox fan. I’ve never seen any movie that she is in, and I don’t really care to either. But I think she’s gorgeous. Like smoking hot.

So, Chelsea Handler made a comment on twitter that Megan Fox should just sit there and look pretty. Chelsea Handler is hilarious, and she’s totally right on this one. I mean, I’ve read some of the interviews Megan Fox gives:

Blender: What was your worst family vacation?
Megan Fox: When I was 10, my parents and I drove through the Southern states. I have a real phobia of hearing people breathe, especially if I’m trying to sleep — it really upsets me. I had to share a hotel room with my parents and listen to the both of them breathe. It was torture.

Blender: Have you ever been mauled by a sea-dwelling creature?
Megan Fox: No, but two years ago I was surfing in Malibu and I got bumped by something incredibly large. My board hit me in the face and I was bleeding. I have no proof, but I’m pretty sure it was a great white shark. Now, if I go into the ocean up to my shoulders, I start having a panic attack and breaking out into a sweat.

But, others commented on Chelsea Handler’s post with criticisms of Megan Fox like “One thing this girl won’t do: Hitch-hike… have you seen her thumbs? Gross.” And yeah, that comment is mildly funny because have you seen her thumbs? Gross.

It’s a pretty weird looking thumb, but if that’s all that is wrong with this chick’s body, then sign me up. I’ll take those creepy stub thumbs in exchange for all the rest! Heck, I might even consider a stub hand for a body like that.

And while I wouldn’t be asking to borrow any of her brain cells, you gotta admit that this comment is pretty funny:

Blender: What’s the best thing about global warming?
Megan Fox: If global warming were to cause the coast of California to fall into the ocean, my house would become oceanfront property, which I’m all about.

I have never seen anything like this but, it’s apparently pretty common. Just type up a nice little Google search for “toe thumb” and peruse the results… I’ll wait.

Shocking isn’t it? I’ve seen all kinds of deformities in my people watching moments. This one kinda sneaks up on you.

So stay safe out there. Stay very very safe. Beware of the toe-thumb.

BTW: toe-thumb is recognized and is well documented as an “Ender”.

Toe Thumb Blog

Infomation: Put your green thumbs to good use! Click on items to pick them up and use them. First use the shovel and the seeds to plant a tree, then follow the instructions next to the trees to grow your fruit.
How to play: Use mouse to interact.

Happy_Gardener

This morning, we woke to the pitter patter of little feet — 20 little feet. Five raccoons had made our roof an aerial super-highway after using their almost-human-like hands to pull up the grasses in our pond. That’s 10 little thumbs (not fully opposable thumbs) out wreaking aquatic havoc. I have no photos of the roof-rambling perps, but found a YouTube video of a thumb-sucking raccoon named Outlaw.

Cute or disturbing?