AliThinks

Whatever

I turned 39 today. I'm at the edge of the proverbial abyss, right?

Whatever.

A Slight Departure From The New Norm

Longtime readers know that this blog ain't what it used to be. I don't write much about what I'm feeling or what I'm doing. And yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to remedy that. In a couple of days, I will have been blogging for five years. That's almost ancient in blog years.

There's a reason I no longer blog without abandon. And I really don't want to say what that reason is. To get all meta on you, the reason I no longer blog the way I used to is the reason I can't tell you the reason I no longer blog the way I used to.

Is your head spinning yet?

I miss blogging. I want to write about Facebook. I want to write about Twitter. (Although, both things have contributed to my lack of content here.) I want to write about our friend Katie's amazing novel (it's destined to be Great American Literature, people). And I want to write about the meal I just ate, and the party I attended, and that thing I saw, and that other thing. Oh, and that thing, too.

So I'm left wondering how to reclaim my blog. I miss AliThinks.

Only Slightly Dead*

I haven't calculated this, but I do believe that the total "weight" of the photos I have taken this entire year — as in 2008 — doesn't even equal a month of photos from 2007. By weight I mean file size; in France, a large file is referred to as a "fichier lourd," lourd meaning heavy in this case. (Lourd means other things in French, which we will not delve into now, parce que c'est trop lourd pour moi en ce moment.)

Wherefore the lack of photographic evidence? I don't know. I couldn't even say if the loss of my photographic mojo coincides with the loss of my writing mojo. That's how complacent I am.

So while I contemplate all of this, I'll ask you to look at some other notable photos I've seen around the web lately. The first one to come to mind was taken not far from me; Louisville is 60-some miles to the northish-west.

Next is pretty much anything on this guy's Flickr stream. We've met once, but only because he recognized Allan and me in the Rite-Aid down the street. Seriously. We need to touch base with J.

And while I know she doesn't *need* the traffic, I can't resist directing you to dooce's Daily Chuck series. If ever I have a dog, he will be like Chuck. No, really.

Last, but not least, Explore is always a source of cool photos.

*As opposed to mostly dead, in reference to a movie which shall remain nameless until you mention it in the comments.

A Completely Random Expression Of Annoyance

On the jar of natural peanut butter (ingredients: peanuts, salt), in no less than two prominent places, are these words:

Oil separation is natural. Just stir and refrigerate.

Are we really this far removed from our food?

Failure

On the days when I’m not wishing I could punch The Internet in the gonads, I end up shedding a tear or two because I feel like a blogging failure.

Heather and I have different ideas of blogging failure, but that sentence of hers makes a nice summary for me.

In Which I Speak My Mind

Usually the "In Which" blog posts are my own videos. This time I'm going to direct you to a video created by David Stephenson of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

I don't appear in the video, so you can all calm down right now. However, my thoughts on the subject at hand became one of the voice-overs. Allan's thoughts were recorded and posted too. An opposing point of view was recorded as well; it's the first voice you hear. (And no, I don't know who it is.)

I haven't written much about what's happening in downtown Lexington here, partly because in the months leading up to the wedding my head fell off several times. (I'm not kidding.) The other reason is that it's a painful subject for me, even though Lexington has been my home for only two and a half years.

Tom Eblen's columns on the subject are measured. Reasonable. My friends at Barefoot & Progressive have not held back, on the other hand.

But today? Joel Pett stole my heart with this editorial cartoon. (A larger version is available if you click on the cartoon itself.)

If you're interested, you can click those links to get a sense of what's going on. If you just want to hear my teary voice, click here. (By the way, we were interviewed just after leaving Thursday Night Live, an outdoor summer concert series...which takes place a block from where the scoops and bulldozers were doing their work. The machines started up just as the concert was ending. Nice, right? And this was the last of the buildings on the block to go. So it was especially poignant.)

Because I Am Devoid Of Content

I generally hate doing memes, which are so 2004, but I saw this at Clotilde's blog, and because I have met her and know she's as kind and smart and funny as she comes across on her blog, I'll do this meme she suggested.

The rules:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here, linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush

Dammit

Cock and Balls.

Gripe

It annoys me when American journalists insist on perpetuating the stereotype that French people say "ooh la la" all the time.

Guess what? They don't.

Foodstuffs

Michael Ruhlman has written a great blog post about real food. Go read it. Here's one of the more significant paragraphs:

The sad fact is that fresh food that is good for you is significantly more expensive than the processed crap that truly is bad for our diet, not to mention our food production system.  And the people who most need food to be healthy are the ones who can least afford it.  The millions of Americans on a restricted food budget will see little choice other than to buy the cheap calories provided by agribusiness corn.

Amen.

Subversive

We are in a hotel in Erie, PA, and I just got back from the free! breakfast. I chose oatmeal, and struggled to spoon brown sugar and raisins into my bowl.

Why was it hard? Because the spoons were positioned to the right, and I am left-handed. Now, I could have turned the sugar and raisin bowls in order to use my left hand, but I hadn't had any coffee yet. I'm always a little dim before I get some caffeine in me.

Once I had finished my task, however, I gave each bowl a counterclockwise half-turn, and went to eat my breakfast. I hope some right-hander has a hard time of it for just a moment. You southpaws out there know what I am talking about.

An Open Letter To The Woman In 21E

Honey,

Doing stretches and lunges (LUNGES!) in the aisle does not endear you to your fellow passengers.

xoxo,

Alison

Today's Secret Ingredient Is...

You have to listen to me rant before you can have the pie crust recipe.

We get a number of foodie-type catalogs: Dean & Deluca, Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma, et al. The other day we got a new one called Cooking Enthusiast. I was flipping through it today when I saw the recipe wheel:

No longer do you have to scratch your head over simple fractions when you want to increase or decrease a recipe. Spin the wheel on this ingenious magnet and you can double, triple, half or third a recipe.

Just how hard is it to halve or double a recipe? I'll admit that thirding something might take a little more brain power, but who in their everloving mind thirds a recipe anyway?

And believe me, I'm no math whiz. I quit math after high school geometry and avoided the math requirement in college by taking science courses instead. (Don't ask me the logic of that, but I was damned if I was going to take remedial math in college, and that's what they wanted me to do.) But I can, um, figure out pretty easily that half of 1/2 cup is 1/4. I even know that a third of 1/2 cup is 1/6 cup.

This is a prime example of dumbing-down a process. But we're not stupid, we're lazy. On the other hand, if you don't use your muscles you lose them, and it's the same with brain cells. This is why I will never own a recipe wheel. This is why I still add, subtract, multiply, and divide on paper a lot of the time.

Okay. Rant over. The secret ingredient is VODKA, and the recipe is below the fold.

A Letter To My Namesake

Dear Alison,

I suppose you are wondering who I am and how I got your address. For some time now, I have been receiving your e-mails, because Gmail [in its infinite stupidity, -ed.] does not recognize dots in e-mail addresses.

This is how I became aware of your trip to Majorca. I hope you had a good time. This morning I received another e-mail from EasyJet. I logged into your account in order to unsubscribe and saw your address and phone number.

I thought I'd write you a note informing you that I've been getting your e-mails. For Gmail, alisonDOTnameATgmailDOTcom = alisonnameATgooglemailDOTcom.

Unless you choose a new user name, I will continue to get your mail. If I have a bone to pick, it's with Gmail, not you. However, I will continue to unsubscribe you from e-newsletters if I continue receiving them.

Thanks for your understanding.

Regards,

Alison SameExactNameAsYou

Rolling My Eyes

...because fuckin' Wendy's is using a Violent Femmes song in a commercial.

Allan thinks it's okay, because it allows the musicians to make an extra buck. I see his point.

But really. The Femmes? Wendy's? It's almost worse than Iggy Pop and that cruise line.

Oh hey, here are the lyrics to that song. Just so you can see how WRONG it is to use it to sell fast food:

When I'm a walking, I strut my stuff, then I'm so strung out
I'm high as a kite, I just might, stop to check you out

Let me go on, like a blister in the sun
Let me go on, big hands I know you're the one

Body and beats, I stain my sheets, I don't even know why
My girl friend, she's at the end, she is starting to cry

Let me go on, like a blister in the sun
Let me go on, big hands I know you're the one

Whisper:

When I'm a walking, I strut my stuff, then I'm so strung out
I'm high as a kite, I just might, stop to check you out
When I'm a walking, I strut my stuff, then I'm so strung out
I'm high as a kite, I just might, stop to check you out
Body and beats, I stain my sheets, I don't even know why
My girl friend, she's at the end, she is starting to cry
When I'm a walking, I strut my stuff, then I'm so strung out
I'm high as a kite, I just might, stop to check you out

Loud:

Let me go on, like a blister in the sun
Let me go on, big hands I know you're the one

Yah. The anthem of many an 80s teenager. Fuckin' Wendy's. Need I say more?

Yeah, Tired.

I've just spent the last four and some hours reading - nay, devouring - Bitter Is The New Black by Jen Lancaster (and hey, why won't Typepad let me turn her name into a link to her website?). Anyway, her site is http://jennsylvania.com, and her book was damn funny. It took me a moment to not be annoyed by the constant footnotes, but other than that, it was a great read. I recommend it, if you enjoy reading snappy commentary, blog-style. (I have to laugh, because I used to write that way. Alas, I no longer do.)

It's now a proven fact that I cannot sleep without chemical enhancement. This is not new, but I suspect my lack of exercise for the past two three months isn't helping either. So, um, yeah. I've got the four a.m. migraine coming on and am not confident in ibuprofen's ability to help.

Random thoughts that come shooting out of my brain, hooray for insomnia! And lack of coherent thought! Or ability to channel synapses! And that last one didn't even make sense!

So. How ya'll are?

Edit: Has anyone out there tried valerian as a sleep aid?

Insomniac

Insomniac, originally uploaded by Alison.

 

Oh, Good Lord

It's raining and I have to come up with a 500-word story on recycling.

Also, I cannot make my hair as straight as my stylist did.

Send reinforcements, please.

EDIT: 504 words, written and submitted. Decision to use hair dryer BEFORE straightening. Now, do I go out in the rain to get chocolate, or not?

Stop Bitacle: Sticky Post

Please look carefully at the web address in the URL field of your browser. It should read http://www.alithinks.typepad.com/.

In case you see a web address containing the word ‘bitacle’ or ‘bitacle.org’, you’re not looking at the original page on which this text was posted. If this is the case, the text you are reading right now might be incorrect or out of date [and stolen, -ed.]. After I place a post on my weblog, I always try to keep published information up to date, or incorporate additional information, which I receive from readers.

You will never find this information on bitacle.org. Bitacle.org copies the content of weblogs without permission of the author, the holder of copyrights or the licensee. By visiting bitacle.org, you create income for the people who run bitacle.org, at the expense of me and other owners of a weblog, without permission and often without respecting copyrights and/or terms of use as in a license.

So please, next time you want to view my posts, do so by using the web address of my weblog, which is http://www.alithinks.typepad.com/.

Please make a bookmark of my weblog’s address, if you would like to visit it again. [Or subscribe to my RSS feed, -ed.] Thank you!

______________________________________________________

This post was suggested by the folks at Stop Bitacle.org. Since everything I publish ends up at Bitacle, this is a way to generate negative press for them. I'll leave this post on top for a few days. Actually, I don't know when I'll be blogging again, so it'll probably stay at the top of the page anyway.

Bitacle: Aggregator or Thief?

The other day I got a trackback notification from Typepad; it was for a site called Bitacle. I clicked the link in the notification, and got taken to a page that had my exact blog post, complete with a place to comment and everything. I looked around the page, and there were my archives! 

I asked Chris if he knew anything about it, and he said he'd received a similar trackback. He asked me to let him know if I found anything out.

An e-mail to Bitacle got no response.

At the bottom of the Bitacle homepage there's this sentence: "Bitacle is reader feeds by web." Yeah, okay. Whatever. So why do they reproduce my whole post? And leave space for comments? Granted, there's a link to my blog in their post, but why would anyone reading there bother to click through to AliThinks? There's no need! Everything is there; everything is archived! The page is (apparently) loaded with ads, but Adblock is doing its job; I can't see them.

There has been some discussion on other blogs about whether Bitacle is simply an aggregator or a splog, and whether the language barrier plays into the perception of it. (Bitacle is Spanish). My gut is telling me there's something fishy about it. I don't care if there's a disclaimer at the bottom of every blog post ("Articles are copyright their respective autors [sic]"). Or that their FAQ states:

What type of blogs are   inlcuded in the search?

All blogs that has a feed. This it can be RSS or Atom.

What happens if I don’t wish to appear in the list?

If you doesn’t publish feed, it won’t be   included in the blog’s search. Nevertheless, if you previously has   published feed of the site that was indexed, the old entrances will remain in   the index, although the new ones aren’t added.

Sorry, but Bloglines and Technorati and whatnot are not republishing my entire content!

Stop Bitacle.org is a blog dedicated to creating "negative momentum" against Bitacle.  The folks behind it are outraged, and I am, too.

UPDATE: Allan Jenkins has a spot-on synopsis of what's going on.