I always send thank-you cards. It makes me feel better about not giving gifts.
1: Did you have Jesus birthday cake, too?
The Jesus birthday cake and the birds actually sounds very sweet to me. I love symbolic shit like that.
If you had to light candles and sing, though, that's different.
4: Nope. No singing. That would be funny, though, now that I'm imagining it.
So "hand" delivering a fruitcake with a glory hole cut in it is passe now? What a world.
Also: no candles, but I'm envisioning us standing out there in the Chicago cold with a cake stuck through with a gazillion candles burning (Jesus is this many! Infinite!), waiting for the wind to put out the candles. "It's Jesus' breath!" we would squeal.
Sending thank-you notes isn't effeminate or archaic, it's polite.
George H. W. Bush spends half an hour a day sending thankyou notes and the like. Need I say more?
8: In fact, I think the only thank-you card I've received in years was your own, mrh. Very masculine, indeed. And polite. I kept it, unlike most cards.
10: Aw, shucks, ma'am. 'Tweren't nothin'.
Zomg! I had nearly forgotten Jesus birthday cake. I think that only lasted until I was five or six years old. No birds, though.
I will admit that our standards have loosened, a bit. Every gift we received before October 19 got a prompt(ish) hand-written thank-you card. Everything received after October 19 got a thank-you email... the first paragraph of which was an apology for sending an email rather than a hand-written thank-you card.
"Oh. Thanks. No, no, sponge cake is terrific. I didn't really want chocolate."
We never did Jesus cake. Our family was pretty secular until 1988 or so, when the slow creep of fundamentalism began.
the slow creep of fundamentalism
Pastor Warren? Is that you? Where's your helmet?
We always sent thank-you notes. I still do; I've gotten so much practice at doing them that it's practically second nature.
2: I'm pretty sure Jesus cake is just you. I never heard of it or anything like it. Maybe your mom forgot to put 1/2 the sugar in a cake or something. Jesus cake sounds better than, no cake because I messed-up. I once forgot half the sugar in a batch of cookies, so I told people they were a special recipe for the dog. (Fortunately, without a holiday, there is very little danger of a tradition starting).
There are all kinds of jesus cake recipes and pictures and so on all over the internet, so I'd bet against 18.
People who don't send thank-you notes for any kind gesture this side of a smile and a wave from a passerby are savages.
20 poses the question: which side of said kind gesture is ari on?
Look, Ari, I thanked you for the handjob in person, okay?
I will note that I hardly get any holiday gifts these days, mostly just from a handful of relatives, so my actual thanking responsibilities are pretty limited.
er. Yeah, really aren't in-person thank-yous at the time of the giving of the gift enough? Are you really supposed to follow up with a written note despite already having said thank you? It seems overly effusive.
21 see 22. Also, we haven't grown up enough yet to begin sending holiday cards. Do you think we can claim that we refrain because we heart the trees? Really, we'd hate to make the Lorax cry.
24: Many gifts are not given in person, parsim.
Many gifts are not given in person, parsim.
True enough. Hand jobs are better in person though.
14: When I highlighted that link and saw the file name in conjunction with your comment I became very eagereluctant to clink the link. I ban my imagination.
Do you think we can claim that we refrain because we heart the trees?
Depends on your feelings about e-cards, which exist.
"It's Jesus' breath!" we would squeal.
What? You didn't sound outside banging a trashcan with a stick in time to 'Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus?'
Are you some kind of deviated prevert?
max
['You know, Jesus would maybe liked a card, too.']
Goyim are weird.
I know, right? It was a plain yellow cake, as I recall. No frosting. On the appointed day, we took it out and broke it up at the normal bird-feeding spot.
(That we had a normal bird-feeding spot may be evidence of a tendency towards DFH-ism or whatever, but really, what else do you do with stale bread, etc.?)
19: Much to my surprise, there are many Jesus cake recipes. However, if you Google jesus cake recipe, you'll notice that the first ten hits mention nothing about birds and that they were written by people with traditional cake utilization theories (i.e. people eat the cake).
what else do you do with stale bread, etc.?
Make Jesus crumbs for Jesus salad, duh.
||
Through an application of deviant preversion SO profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits describing it here I have discovered what happens when SWPL wraps around on itself.
French Lingerie Label G=9.8. Takes Loving Trees To A Whole New Level
Got wood? You will. Just as soon as you lay your eyes on the Mya lingerie collection by French label g=9.8. Designer Sophie Young's line of exquisite bras and knickers are made naturally. No, really. They're made from white pine tree prunings....
The entire production is based in a small French village (population 1,500), which supports local development, employment and utilizes local know-how. For those physics class truants out there, g=9.8 "represents the acceleration constant of Earth's attraction", so it's about protecting the integrity of the planet.|>
34: Ducks was what we did. Apparently someone got a kick out of watching my brother and I hurl crumbs at ducks. There are lots of home movies of this.
what else do you do with stale bread, etc.?
bread pudding, you heathen.
38: You hurled the crumbs at the ducks? Criminy. They would have liked the crumbs just given.
41: they weren't trying to feed them, parsimon. They were trying to fend them off. Haven't you ever seen Food Of The Gods?
37: Hey, that site has a bunch of ads for the microlending nonprofit that dominates the first 80 or so hits you get when you google the word kiva.
41: I was three, and terrified of ducks.
Presumably your Jesus birthday cake was not quite so elaborate as this one.
besides, have you ever tried to hurl a crumb?
45: I hope that's a delicious chocolate crown of thorns...
45: The crown of thorns is a nice touch.
Jesus cake gets transubstantiated into special baby-Jesus flesh.
besides, have you ever tried to hurl a crumb?
I know! And I'm laughing hysterically over the image.
You know what's really, really wrong? This is.
Jesus cake gets transubstantiated into special baby-Jesus flesh
Right! I forgot to mention that we put out a birdbath of fine Syrah.
Not many people know this, but Stanley harks from a parallel universe where Jesus was torn apart by vultures.
48: needs strawberry syrup though
I will instead train my kids to hurl insults at ducks. That will provide more rewarding video footage.
In that universe post-resurrection Jesus was much more terrifying, and Thomas was too busy running away screaming to touch the wounds.
47: 45: I hope that's a delicious chocolate crown of thorns...
I was ask to do a baby Jesus birthday cake. The design was up to me. My husband came up the the crown of thorns idea. To make the crown, I weaved rolls of fondant around a ring of rolled up of wax paper. Then before the fondant dried, I cut the crown into two sections. This allowed for easy removal of the paper without breaking the crown into pieces. After the fondant dried (several days), I "welded" (with royal icing) the rolls together in various places to keep them together when the paper was removed. Then after that dried, I removed the wax paper. The thorns are made with royal icing and also attached with royal icing. The tips of the thorns are dabbed with red royal icing. The cake is red velvet with cream cheese icing
You know what's really, really wrong? This is.
True, but so's this cake . Unclear if it's Jesus's or not.
51: You got a problem with Jesus, Tweety?
Our story takes a surprising turn.
Every time a sparrow falls, Jesus notices and feels a little safer.
61: not at all. I think his oddly shaped limbs are delicious.
64: wow. Where'd he find the hunky one-armed dude to score him the junk, though?
The tips of the thorns are dabbed with red royal icing.
That's just nasty.
"The Last Sizzupper" s/b "Fo' shizzle, my Chrizzle"
You know what the absolute best thing about 64 is? The guy's hanging out, just him and Jesus, some heroin, some blow, a bottle of jack, a revolver, and two playing cards, but he still takes the time to light some candles. That kind of attention to detail is something we can all aspire to.
62: Our story takes a surprising turn.
Admittedly he could have cleaned up the random nunchuks and handprints, and okay I don't care if you're trying out at the community theater you put the prop skull away before entertaining, but still.
Laugh you scoffers, but remember the alternative to Jesus cake is this.
Oh man is 73 ever hilarious. Makes me wonder what else there is to find at dinosaurfanfiction.com.
73: it all works out in the end, though.
I am comforted that this is one of the image hits for "gay jesus".
77: you know, it's not nearly as awesome as I'd hoped.
I wish I could find the dinosaurs-having-sex-with-cars image gallery from the late, lamented herpies.net.
"Did you mean to search for: herpes lizard"
No, google. No I did not.
Makes me wonder what else there is to find at dinosaurfanfiction.com.
this ?
So clearly a bad Photoshop. People need to work harder on their Jesus/dinosaur mashups.
After 73, 78 and 80, I can't take it any more.
No, google. No I did not.
86: I never pictured jesus with the one little thalidomide arm, but live and learn, I guess.
86: That's pretty great, but I was hoping more for something that, say, looks convincingly like it could be a 15th century Flemish altarpiece, which just happens to include a scene of Jesus riding a triceratops.
You people! I endeavor to have a polite discussion about the place of thank-you notifications in contemporary society, and it devolves into dinosaur porn? I'm shocked. SHOCKED! I tell you.
one little thalidomide arm
It's retractable. It extends to a full 7-1/2 feet for smiting.
88 is what happens when the rest of us try to get all uppity with funny links.
93: Yeah, I retract 90 in light of 88. Holy crap, that's hilarious.
90:
It's always polite to send a and crafted note
I like the implication of the heroin shot that the question WWJD? can always be answered with "Whatever the fuck I'm doing."
97: I didn't know there was a Tricerabottoms.
I was ask to do a baby Jesus birthday cake. The design was up to me. My husband came up the the crown of thorns idea...The cake is red velvet with cream cheese icing
Isn't red velvet cake also known as devil's food cake?
101: no. Devil's food cake is chocolate, red velvet cake is... red.
Red velvet cake only contains a small amount of cocoa powder and a bit of cinnamon as well, along with a mostly sour-cream or buttermilk batter. It's a particular taste.
Red velvet cake is better if you go ahead and put the extra egg back in it.
||Cleveland Cavaliers: 98
Boston Celtics: 83
Celtics record, last 10 games: 3-7
Cleveland record, last 10 games: 8-2 ||>
104: And you need to pay the Waldorf-Astoria "two-fifty" for the real recipe.
106: Damn, forgot that was tonight. Would feel bad for Beefo Meaty, but at least he has the Patriots to cheer for.
106: I'm not going to pay for you to take a statistics class, no matter how much you hint at it.
108: I know you were joking, but really, speaking for all Boston sports fans: we know we've been lucky! I promise!
Meanwhile, where's the sympathy for apo?
110: In the Dean Dome, no less. The ACC is a murderer's row this year, top to bottom. But the #2, 3, and 4 teams in the country right now are Duke, Wake Forest, and UNC, and 3 and 4 play Sunday night. This is the best of times.
Carolina needed to lose that game. I wish it had been a non-conference contest. But UNC simply could not hold out all year winning by frightening every team they faced into playing piss-poor basketball, especially in this year's ACC. Hopefully now we can see the team they ought to be show back up.
Cleveland Cavaliers starting lineup:
PG: Mo Williams
SG: Delonte West
SF: GOD
PF: Ben Wallace
C: Anderson Varejao
Drop your parochial prejudices and join in worship. WE ARE ALL WITNESSES.
PGD, will you explain the origin of your love for the Cavs? I ask as someone who regularly drove out to Richfield to watch them play when I was a kid. And that drive was no fucking joke.
112: That really doesn't make it any betteer. Harvard is coached by Tommy Amaker, who both played and ass't coached at Duke.
I am a basketball fan generally. I lived in Cleveland for a number of years. Those years happened to coincide with Lebron's last two years of high school in Akron, the Cavaliers getting the first pick in the NBA draft, and then his first four years in the NBA. I made sure to see it all. Tickets are cheap in Cleveland.
I knew it would be my greatest experience as a sports fan. What does the divine mean to an atheist? Transcendence of human limitations. Lebron James, homeless child of a single mother. The Chosen One.
Yes, but will the people of Parma make cakes in His likeness and then feed the crumbs to birds? If the Cavs win the championship, probably.
Were at the bar and I have an iphone
You guys are funny. iPhone autocorrection works well
I
Mean you can type
When you've been drinking and it doesn't even look like it because it corrects your mistakes
124: yeah I couldn't even tell.
Were at the bar
I thought you were in a (laydeez) subjunctive mood, but I didn't know what you were on about.
Otto come back and be drunk at us!
I
Mean you can type
When you've been drinking and we won't make fun of you
Otto come back and be drunk at with us!
Certainly one of you has a flask we can pass around.
(a) At least I managed to have some wine myself tonight, and
(b) holy shit I am listening to the weirdest damn music.
132b: Would love to hear it, but, really, my cows
Oh, your cows, JP. Just wait, your cows.
For you and your cows, Mr. Stormcrow.
Are these cows related to Stanley's cow orkers?
That music is far more enjoyable than Alan Maralung's "Bunggridj-Bunggridj: Wangga Songs from Northern Australia".
138: I think I'm glad you think so.
Not reading but am at a different bat and gonna talk to the people here don't want to be antisocial you know. Nut really the autocorrect works ewallu well.
Nut really the autocorrect works ewallu well.
New mouseover?
One of the few Google hits for "ewallu":
point onehou fucking briliantpoint2 you're ewallu HOTpoint 3 youre a legendpoint 444 youre a hotn4ewsss bitch]pint5 you look like purplre biolet prune bery nice ;))pint 6 you are shit bex bropthers walkerds in!!!point 7 I LOVE LOVE OLVOEOEOVLLLOVE YOU COS YOURE VERY OCOOLL ANBD GET JKCICKED OUT OF HGERMAN PARK WITH ME!! FOR ROLLING DOWNNS HILL AVREC MOI AND WE RUN BERY FAST AND ROOLL IN LEAVES :)))MANY LOVE S TO YOUUU..!!OEFJH PIU NT8I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUBED BREAKEREGHE GI GI GI GI GI GI GISKODA OS THE SDJOTE SHOTEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
||
I am watching my friend on his nerdy-ass TV show, and it is hilarious. It is also really, really weird.
Moving on!
|>
my sister and i were very strictly schooled also in written thank yous -- and we have at least one aunt who is unforgiving about such things, and will actually raise an omission with you months later -- a phonecall to say thank you is NOT ENOUGH
the upside of this we have recently been discovering -- my dad, with advanced parkinson's, is no longer able to write letters, so my sister and i must do so on his behalf, xmas being an excellent occasion for same
what comes out of the requirement to fill at least a page is the opportunity to pass on and receive distant family news: viz we found out that my dad's mum's sister, who i haven't seen in person for more than 40 years, or heard word of since his mum died now more than 10 years ago in her mid-90s, is still hale and interested, aged 102 (her daughter, my aunt once removed who i've never set eyes on, writing on her mum's behalf: she must be in her 70s or 80s now, but as i only ever heard stories of her from her aunt, ie my gran, when i myself was a tiny, i imagine her still as a small child)
so i find i have switched from thinking the thank-you letter a bit of a dated chore to seeing it as a fascinating lifeline for the elderly,which habit is best inculcated long before you realise you need it blah blah
Getting back to the Jesuses for a moment, there's something very wrong with this.
I do not send thank you notes, but that is because I am uncouth, disorganized and just generally not as good a person as I should be. Sending thank you note is a cool and entirely appropriate (and thus manly) thing to do.
We did Jesus birthday cake at my grandma's house, with candles and singing.
Sifu's mom gave us both thank-you notecards for Christmas this year. I'm pretty sure it was just another stocking stuffer, with no message intended, but my first reaction was defensive: Look, we sent thank-yous for engagement presents right away, okay?
The result years of parental nagging about thank-you notes, I'm sure.
I'm fully on board with the requirement of sending Thank You Notes. The Thankee, though, completely forfeits all entitlement to a Note (and indeed all future Notes) by asking after it, much less offering a rebuke.
Them's the Rules, folks, like it or not.
150: In fact, a gift given with the expectation of a thank you note ceases thereby to be a true gift but rather is a form of unbargained for demand for recognition and repayment. The conversion of the gift into an unbargained for exchange thereby eliminates any entitlement the giver may have had to a thank you.
re: 150/151
I have an elderly relative who keeps a written record of this stuff. What was sent to who and when, and when the thank you note [or phone call] came, and who was late sending presents to who and so on ...
Since the relative is someone I like and care about a great deal, I try to ignore it, but it is exactly as 150 and 151 say.
152: I suppose one could allow an exception to 151 whereby old people who have little in their life to keep them occupied are given a pass?
My sense of it is that you have to actually thank someone for giving you a present, or you're a jerk. Presents delivered in person can be thanked for in person, phone calls are unexceptionable, and handwritten thankyou notes are very sweet, but superogatory. But I suck at thank you notes even when I think I should write them -- my parents attempted to impose them on us, and for some reason it turned into something I rebelled against rather than a habit (probably because I'm a nastier person than Stanley.)
But the only really bad thing to do is to leave a giver hanging and wondering "did it get there? was it so undesirable a present that they're offended?" and any sort of acknowledgment avoids that -- there's no reason for someone who generally thinks of paper mail as an archaic means of communication to revert to it just because the context is a thank-you.
ceases thereby to be a true gift but rather is a form of unbargained for demand for recognition and repayment.
In some sense, all gifts are such. Whether or not we're keeping track or following-up, we all have some register for reciprocity. Except my old college roommate, who keeps sending outlandishly expensive presents long after mine to him have tapered off.
135: For you and your cows, Mr. Stormcrow.
Thank you Mr. Tweety, I am enjoying listening to the music as I type this. I hope you not think me overly tardy in my thanks, but the sandman beat both me and my cows to death somewhere between 12:34 and 12:46 Unfogged Standard Time.
155 was me.
Another question, regarding Stanley's manhood. Consensus seems to be that there's nothing effeminate about sending thank-you notes - but is there a gender spectrum within the thank-you notes? As in, from this to, like, this? Or maybe this?
is there a gender spectrum within the thank-you notes?
Is this even remotely in doubt? It applies to birthday cards, christmas cards, notepaper, everything ..
You won't see many sparkly things, flowers or ribbons on mine.
Yeah, I just wanted to see some jokes about it.
LizardBreath: But the only really bad thing to do is to leave a giver hanging and wondering "did it get there? was it so undesirable a present that they're offended?" and any sort of acknowledgment avoids that -- there's no reason for someone who generally thinks of paper mail as an archaic means of communication to revert to it just because the context is a thank-you.
I concur.
A recent present I made to someone did actually turn out to be an undesirable present - which I didn't find out until we met in person and she thanked me for the other half of the present, at which point I said "You didn't like the book..." and she admitted she hadn't. :-( So, now I know.
Conversely, I am still feeling slightly on tenterhooks over a present I sent to someone nearly three years ago now, and then never heard from her again. From wondering "was it so offensive? I didn't think it was offensive at all!" I'm now slightly pissed at hert becaise I feel she should have known, even if it was a present that she considered inadequate/offensive, that I didn't mean it to be - and at least got in touch to let me apologize for inadvertently offending her with it.
(You're all going to wonder what it was, now. I'll leave you on tenterhooks, because I'm not going to tell you.)
I am still feeling slightly on tenterhooks over a present I sent to someone nearly three years ago now, and then never heard from her again. From wondering "was it so offensive? I didn't think it was offensive at all!" I'm now slightly pissed at hert becaise I feel she should have known, even if it was a present that she considered inadequate/offensive, that I didn't mean it to be - and at least got in touch to let me apologize for inadvertently offending her with it.
I believe the convention is that when you are offering someone a sex toy as a gift, you present it in person. That way you know if they liked it or were offended. But maybe I am old fashoined in that regard.
You know, Jes, socks can be a thoughtful present. One sock? That really is inadequate.
re: 159
Well I for one am glad that Hello Kitty do a tweed and English leather range ...
On the vibrator? That really is sick.
No.
A Giver who is in some doubt may freely inquire of the Receiver, without bringing up the lack of a Note. E.g., "I was not allowed to go to the post office, and so had to guess at the proper postage. In addition, I'm told that they really do use a barge for surface mail. Thus, Mr. ___, I am curious whether, three weeks on, my package has arrived."
Has no one taken a look at the Restatement (Second) of Modern Interpersonal Manners?
Has no one taken a look at the Restatement (Second) of Modern Interpersonal Manners?
Excellent! I shall steal this line and henceforth adopt it as my own when referring to obnoxious opponents.
I recently found out that a box full of presents did indeed fail to arrive. I thought the recipient was just being rude and not saying thank you. She thought I forgot it was her birthday. We are both sorry about the whole thing.
Also, there were cookies in that box. Damn you, Mail Carrier Cookie Thief!
167 -- As you are fully permitted to do under section 114(c) of the Restatement.
(To those who haven't read, 114(c)(i) allows unironic use, while 114(c)(ii) allows ironic use in certain specified circumstances. Check out example 3 in Comment f as to these.)
Stealing cookies from the mail is a serious felony, regardless of the value or quality of the cookies.
the Restatement (Second) of Modern Interpersonal Manners?
I should like to see this work produced in time for the holiday season for 2009. I should like to give said book as a gift to any number of colleagues and/or supervisors. I would not, of course, feel that such gift would obligate my recipients to feel or express gratitude, though acknowledgment of receipt would seem called for.
171: hey! stop impugning by implication the quality of my cookies!
Samoan customs agents were sort of endearingly theivish; cookies or candy tended to come through the mails opened, with a few missing.
Is it wrong for me to want to own some of these images in a high enough quality to fram and hang on my wall? The wife would shit a brick, so I can't, but man do I want to. Heroin Jesus! Raptors double-dorking a Mustang! Talk about outsider art.
150: When I was a child I failed to send my grandmother a thank you note, and she reprimanded my father who promptly sat me down and told me to write a note. She was bossy and demanding, but I really did need to have someone tell me to do it.
176: There's a standard exception for grandmothers and grandchildren when the grandchildren are under twelve years of age.
No one can stop me from impugning cookies, Cecily.
I thing the grandchild exception is pretty conditional, along the lines of "He's such a darling little boy, and I'm sure he'll never do that again".
176: See, I'd suspect that this was less about the thank you note and more about a parent parenting her child on his parenting responsibilities.
BG is so irresponsible I just can't stand it.
BTW, BG, my sister has that book you recommended on borderline personality disorders and she's very impressed with it.
I don't think I've ever written a thank you note in my life. Not that I think I should be praised for that though. (That's why I had children.) I *am* very good at Christmas cards, so perhaps that makes up for it. And I visited a grave (the grave of half a unit of human ashes, to be precise) this week, which felt like a kind of respectful thing to do.
(To be ultra-precise, it was the grave of two half lots of ashes, but I was really only there for one of them.)
BTW, BG, my sister has that book you recommended on borderline personality disorders and she's very impressed with it.
Which book was this? is it the Walking on Eggshells one?
184: No Marsha Linehan's book on Dialectical Behavior Therapy. She has a DBT workbook and her original book is called the cognitive behavioral therapy of borderline personality disorder.
She teaches at the University of Washington and also has a company called behavioraltech which does trainings.
Thanks! I think I'll order it.
It's for training therapists mostly.
180: Yes, though it wasn't her child; it was her son-in-law.
Speaking of Jesus, look Calvinism's back!
Macho Authoritarian Jesus has always been one of the most popular Jesuses in America. Now apparantly he's scheduled a cage match against the reigning champion American Jesus, Self-Help Jesus.
Heebie, if I send you a present, are you going to write me a thank you card?
Even better, I'll write you a thank you post.
Probably a card is better.
oh my. I just said to myself "a thank you post card!" and laughed until I practically threw up. Maybe I should step away from the computer for a few minutes.
190 - Calvinism never really went away. It's been sort of hiding in various corners (like the prosperity gospel). Nice to see it getting some sun, though. I expect Obama is going to be good for Calvinism. The religious right is going to be thrashing around quite a bit trying to stay relevant, and Calvin offers some easy answers.
As a teacher at Generic U. Heebie specializes in borerlines.
I thought the book would be about the Madonna song Borerline. I was way off.
I didn't mean to misspell Borderline.
I hope your classes aren't too "borerline", heebie.
Calvin offers some easy answers.
I actually rather liked Hobbes myself.
@190
Mars Hill is enormous and Driscoll has made the news quite a few times. My favorite was when he said that Ted Haggard wouldn't have done meth with a gay prostitute if only his wife were attractive enough.
I hope your classes aren't too "borerline", heebie.
I am actually holding a two-hour differential equations class this next semester, as part of making my courses accelerated so that I can finish by the end of March and go have a baby.
This seems totally lethal and borerline to me. I think I would stab my eye out if I had to sit through two hours of Diff Eq, twice a week. As the teacher, it'll be fine for me, but holy crap, my poor students.
WOMEN WANT HIM, MEN WANT TO BE HIM, LIBERALS HATE HIM! WORSHIP MARK DRISCOLL TODAY!
Just think of how the poor foetus feels. "Mom, mom, mom!" it's screaming. "B-o-o-o-o-ring".
201: Try having a break in the middle. Or two breaks, in the...two middles.
Also, use the socratic style of teaching. For the first time in the century-long, thousands-of-colleges-wide history of DiffEq.
I totally think about the fetus just hanging out in there, and now she can open her eyes apparently, and I think, "Isn't she bored? I'd be so bored."
163: Yes.
166: Unfortunately, I transmitted the gift not by post but by hand via a Third Party. Third Party reported back to me that Receiver had Received it, thus ensuring I could not write to say "Er, did you get it?"
However, after writing the comment above, I finally got off my ass (metaphorically: I'm a couch potato with a sprained ankle right now) and e-mailed Receiver. I am off tenterhooks at last.
You lot, however, may remain on tenterhooks about what it actually was. I wish it had been a sex toy. That would have been funnier.
201: I love differential equations. They're pretty. Possibly my mom made me sit through four hours of them weekly when I was a fetus. Maybe you are incubating a mathmo.
Just wanted to add a book recommendation to Heebie and those considering books about borderline and/ or DBT -
Dialectical Behavior Therapy Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, & Distress Tolerance (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook) by Matthew McKay, Jeffrey C. Wood, and Jeffrey Brantley
- It's cheaper
- It explains skills in a way that the Linehan book doesn't (kinda like a DBT for Dummies book)
150 sounds fair to me.
Also, I think Sifu was right the first time about red velvet and devil's food being two different cakes. But apparently they're often confused, or the names are used interchangeably, even though red velvet has red food dye, whereas devil's food does not.
I'm sure I've never tasted red velvet cake. I can't remember ever having eaten devil's food cake either, but probably I have.
I was just reading about this! Devil's Food Cake has a slight reddish tinge not because of dye but because there's a chemical interaction between the chocolate and the baking soda---the latter of which you don't find in most chocolate cakes. Certainly not in the gigantic flourless chocolate cake I just gorged myself on. Uggh, I feel a little ill.
I took a 6 week differential equations class that was something like three hours a day five days a week. It wasn't bad, but the sheer amount of writing got to me.
I'm sure I've never tasted red velvet cake.
Don't make it to Brooklyn very often? The last time I visited a friend there, the red velvet cupcakes threw themselves at us from every coffeeshop counter.
Don't make it to Brooklyn very often?
Hey, I live in Queens. We go to Manhattan for the higher-end stuff, and to Long Island for the bargains. For most purposes, Brooklyn doesn't really show up on our radar screen.
(That said: We just put in an offer for an apartment in Brooklyn, which we are expecting, and perhaps more than half-hoping, will be rejected. I say more than half-hoping, since the thought of buying a property in this climate is a bit terrifying, and maybe we should just stay put and be thankful for our ridiculously low [by NYC standards, that is] rent?).
Queens doesn't do cupcakes. It's great for Italian bakeries, though.
205: I totally think about the fetus just hanging out in there, and now she can open her eyes apparently, and I think, "Isn't she bored? I'd be so bored."
No way is she bored. She's contented as can be.
I'm sure I've never tasted red velvet cake.
Girlfriend, you are missing out. Cake with a little chocolate and a lot of cream cheese frosting is a good thing.
I am very excited by having just bought a bottle of all-natural blueberry syrup to use in the making of another Blue Velvet Cake sometime soon.
Also, no time to read the thread, but yes: Devil's Food Cake is completely different from red velvet cake.
Cake with a little chocolate and a lot of cream cheese frosting is a good thing.
Well, I dunno. I'd have to try it before passing definitive judgment, of course, but I have to say, I love chocolate so much that the notion of "a little chocolate" doesn't exactly appeal to me. I want the cake to be either seriously chocolate, or else not chocolate at all and something else entirely. It's that 'neither fish nor fowl' status on the chocolate question that accounts for some of the extreme animosity toward carob, I think (which extreme animosity I'll admit that I share).
Blue Velvet Cake is entirely new to me. What's in blueberry syrup, anyway? (I mean, apart from the blueberries, of course).
Hey, I live in Queens. We go to Manhattan for the higher-end stuff, and to Long Island for the bargains. For most purposes, Brooklyn doesn't really show up on our radar screen.
That's the way I was when I lived in Queens, too. I mean, if you live in Queens, why would you want to go to Brooklyn? Queens is the place to get good food, even though it may not lead the market for fancy cupcakes.
When eating Blue Velvet Cake be careful you don't end up like the Yellow Man.
217: I feel the same way as you about chocolate, but RMMP is dead-on right about the red velvet cake. You will just have to try it to understand.
Also, I want this blue velvet recipe -- I am intrigued.
Someone explain to me why Cass Sunstein is OK.
Queens is the place to get good food, even though it may not lead the market for fancy cupcakes.
Oh absolutely. Not to get all reverse-snobbish, and chowhound-like, but having lived in Park Slope for a year before moving to Astoria, I can attest that Queens is the place for the good food. And it's not just that it's cheaper (which it absolutely is), but also that it's just better, in absolute terms. Just two blocks from our place, we have an Italian bakery, an Italian grocery, an Indian grocery, a Korean vegetable stand with interesting little grocery items, not to mention the Greek coffeeshops and groceries and restaurants, and the local diner which serves an Irish breakfast and an Italian supper. And it's all mostly not yet self-consciously "ethnic" or anything, it still mostly just what it is. I guess it's the property-devaluing eyesore of the above-ground subway that keeps on keeping it real.
Oops! 223 was me, and I meant to say, "it still mostly just is what it is."
Goddamn Rubin got fired from Citigroup just because he bankrupted them, but fortunately he's got a backup job lined up with the Obama administration.
Please God, don't make McManus be right about everything!
Seriosuly, has any malefactor been burned yet?
I suppose that's ambiguous. I'm not actually asking.
This is like the eighth time I've flipped my opinion on whether Obama is really serious about climate change.
People have assured me that Sunstein is not a winger, but he really seems to be one. A sort of slick winger who can be introduced in decent company, who wants to split the difference between the right wing of the Democratic Party and the right wing of the Republican Party.
There was a nice Crooked Timber post a while back.
It seems that in our world, all someone has to do is have good manners and a bit of taste to be regarded as a liberal.
Obama is playing a mysterious game, and maybe he'll surprise everybody, but at this point the odds are that McManus is right.
"Winger" is ambiguous. I wouldn't apply it to CS, although he's wrong about a whole bunch of things.
I'm more generous than you with that term. The guy just seems to be worthless most of the time, and actively bad some of the time. He has a great reputation with some people, for example Obama, but that's a bad thing.
So it is or isn't too early to declare the Obama presidency a failure? Let's quantify, here.
Failure is the wrong word. He seems to plan to succeed at the wrong thing, but he probably won't do that either.
I understand that a lot of people pretty much agree with Obama's approach, but those of us who don't are not too happy. He's sent us a lot of signals that we're a nuisance he's going to try to minimize. This isn't an enormous surprise, but so far, not so good.
pre-presidency failure points = (.000001)x presidency failure points
where x = whatever I feel like depending on what's happened that day
Goddamn Rubin got fired from Citigroup just because he bankrupted them, but fortunately he's got a backup job lined up with the Obama administration.
He stepped down. Not fired. Fired is the interpretation the reporters are putting on it, but one notes that it is helpful for an administration to able to claim a senior economic advisor is not the head of/sorta in charge of a bank.
Anyways, aforementioned senior advisor decided to get off the Hillary train back during the primaries and attach himself to the rising star (loyalty - gotta love it) and said senior advisor has been careful to recommend various people for official posts who happen to listen to the senior advisor on things, since he is their mentor, or something like that. That's a game as old as history: the kingmaker switches sides and surrounds the aspirant king with the kingmaker's advisors. This differs not very much from what would have happened if Hillary had gotten the nod, except that Rubin would have been even more firmly in the mix in that instance.
The basic problem, of course, is that Rubin has been pretty much wrong about everything, much like Greenspan, and no doubt he will continue in that vein, since all he has learned is that he can bail himself out with government money if he screws up. (And who will bail out the United States?) So. From my point of view, you can give Obama a few years to see if he can pull it out; in practice most presidents fuck up like this, as far as I can tell, and then the good ones get better and fire the losers.
As for the stimulus bill, we're still doing what we were doing last year: the tax breaks are for banks like Citi, apparently, and the stimulus is really a stimulus. A lowball on bare replacements for money that the states won't be getting in taxes. Otherwise, everything is pretty much still by the Paulson/Bernanke playbook.
Unfortunately, what we need here is replacement for contracting business investment, plus replacement for consumption spending.
max
['Gack.']
Granted, I haven't been following the reporting much, but I had the impression that Rubin's move was part of the movement of the revolving door.
I feel even more like a peasant than usual when the government digs up two trillion dollars from nowhere to (hopefully) solve a big problem, after having spent about that much on a pointless war. I realize that money is not something like turnips that exists in finite, countable quantities of actually existing units which cannot be summoned up out of thin air, but it seems to me that if three or four trillion dollars are involved, someone's paying the price and someone else is getting rich.
And then I read Congressmen's speeches, and they're all still deficit hawks (including half the Democrats), like it was still 1956 and 50 years of history hadn't happened. (And disregarding the fact that the last fiscally conservative President -- Eisenhower -- seriously slowed the economy with his peasant frugality).
This is for Sifu in 233, from Josh Micah Marshall.
Second, when I write stuff critical of Obama, either on the policy or political fronts, there's always a rush of emails saying, 'Give him a chance!' 'Leave Obama alone!' 'He's probably got a plan you don't know about!' and so on. He may. I hope he does. But all of these debates are dynamic. You never assume anything. If Nate's right about what Obama's plan is, having people pushing for something better from the outside is part of it. So under either scenario, holding your tongue makes no sense, in addition to being unethical.
Basically Obama needs to be pushed in the right (i.e., left) direction. Roosevelt played that game too. Obama has placed himself as a centrist. You can't have a center if you don't have a left. Media "centrism" entirely consists of Democrats making concessions to Republicans, but that's not centrism.
Democrats have this most exasperating habit of trying to figure out what the best they can do will be, and then asking for it right off, without laying down a bargaining position first. If you do that you'll get less than the best. It's elementary game theory. You need to bluff, and you need to try to get more than the minimum.
It's like they concede games before they're played. It's very reasonable, except that a.) you never really know the whole story and might end up selling yourself short, and b.) even if you understand the situation perfectly, this isn't the way to bargain.
Reid does that vs. McConnell all the time. And centrist Democrats want left Democrats to do that with Obama. But it doesn't work that way.
The Hooverists are already at work.
