Topics

Boston Marathon today.

The finish line is in Copley Sq, where I work.

Just now, there were two explosions near the finish line.

No word on what's going on.

Updates will most likely follow.

http://kslegislature.com/li/b2013_14/measures/hb2366/

House Bill 2366, introduced into the House Energy and Environment Committee, would prevent any state funds from being "used, either directly or indirectly, to promote, support, mandate, require, order, incentivize, advocate, plan for, participate in or implement sustainable development."

Judge orders FDA to make morning-after pill available to all ages

A federal judge ruled Friday that the government must make the most common morning-after pill available over the counter for all ages, instead of requiring a prescription for girls 16 and younger. In his ruling, he also accused the federal government of "bad faith" in dealing with the requests to make the pill universally available.

I love.

No really, I love.

All of you here, I love.

I wish I could reach out to every one who is reading this, and show them how I love them.


UP CLOSE.

I found what we've all been waiting for!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w-0CS-T1HUQ#!

In a ruling released today, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said that National Security Letters suffer from "significant constitutional defects" and violate the First Amendment because of the way they can be used to effectively gag companies that receive them. Illston has ordered the FBI to stop issuing NSLs and cease enforcing their gag provisions in all cases.


I need to know why this is doomed and/or a cynical ploy to use even more covert tactics.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/13/the_geopolitics_of_girls

The true TV connoisseur appreciates that the most insightful television show about world... politics airing right now is, obviously, Girls.

Start with the protagonist: Dunham's Hannah Horvath, a struggling young writer who clearly represents the United States in all her fading hegemony. She borrows from others in order to afford her current lifestyle. Hannah manages to insert herself into every situation, making it all about her -- a process that evokes myriad U.S. military interventions. Like many an American president abroad, Hannah often leaps before she looks, convinced that the experience will be enriching. Of all the characters on the show, she is naked the most often, revealing a transparency that parallels the American political system. Finally, despite all of her flaws, Hannah clearly possesses both talent and charm, which allows her to get away with such egregious behavior for sustained periods of time -- until it finally catches up with her. Tell me I haven't just described the United States as viewed by the rest of the world.

It goes on from there.

I know where you stand about oil in the pasta water, but where do you stand with carrots in the marinara?

Observation: TED talks are supposed to be 15 minutes long.

Realization: Taking the train home from work takes 20 minutes.

Conclusion: I could be listening to amazing people discussing amazing things five times a week.


Request:  Tell me what your favorite TED talks are.

Something is wrong.

Inside my head.

And I can't figure out what it is. 

There's something nagging at me, something not quite right that's keeping me off balance and making me cranky.  But there's nothing obvious going on that would do that.  My marriage is going well, there are no money problems, the Frost Heaves will be releasing a new album next month, dontchewcords has another gig this Friday, my fabulous friends are still fabulous, and I've been pain free from my various joint problems for at least a couple of years now.

But I'm still feeling like I'm just spinning my wheels.  I'm getting this hollow feeling creeping up, like nothing's really happening.  Every day is different, I'm doing new stuff all the time, I'm creating, I'm performing, I'm recording, I'm dancing... But I'm feeling like it's all the same-- just grey, empty space in my head.  Since stuff is actually happening to me and I'm not curled up into a ball on the couch suffocating my brain with reality TV, I can only conclude that something is bothering me that's bigger than physical movement and new experiences.  A few possibilities:

1) Its a new form of grieving.  Dad's been dead for a couple of years, and there's a him-shaped hole in the world, and it's getting bigger.

2) Connected to the above and conflated with some of Roger's rants, I've been doing things, but I haven't been doing things.  I haven't done enough to leave a mark on the world, and all my book and music projects have been essentially selfish flights of narcissism, doing things to say I did them, not to actually change anything.

3) I'm worried about my health, but I haven't been doing what I know I should be doing.  I should lose 20-30 pounds, cut back on the alcohol, eat healthier, and all the rest, but I'm simply not doing it – especially the cutting back on alcohol bit.  Which prompts quiet anxiety that I may be turning into (or I may be) a functioning alcoholic, which we know usually turns into a non-functioning alcoholic.

4) Biological clock.  What's missing is a child.

5) My brain chemicals are screwy, and I'm sliding into depression.

6) I'm not getting enough sleep.

I figure number six and number three are the easiest things to check, although number three has been on the To Do list for about a decade now, so "easiest" is a fairly relative term.  But there.  I've written it down.  Something's up with my headstate. 

What the hell did I just get in the mail?


Ok, it's probably not lights...


There's something wrapped in an odd fabric.


Why, look! Squid has sent me a gift of home made bitters!
"Herbal Bitters: Grain spirits infused with herbs and spices. Get Bent."


Why, thank you! I will!



Taaaaasty.

2/6/13 – RPL team meeting.
•   WFH to be initiated next week (Pilot program)

•   Customer service to be a priority

•   Circuit III – Self-work – We give it high priority.  Numbering circuits does not signify "better". IV not > III not > II not > I.  But III is the only clarification communication system, that can get meta & express the other circuits.  Maybe not V, though.  But it can talk about V.  Circuit I & II can only express.  III begins a time-binding process.  III is the observer.  Wait – no.  III is the ability to communicate what is observed.  It frames the observation.  And that observation happens all along each & every circuit.  And each circuit communicates in their own way.  I runs towards and away.  II dominates or submits.  IV turns on or off*.  But for complex explanations we need III.  III can also be Art?  Music? What other forms of Ordered communication fall under III?

•   Quality numbers for Q1 State of the Unit due prior 10:00 am Monday.

•   Utility at 89% in MBPS, Productivity 104% of projected.























*This needs to be clarified.

The Government has laid out its justifications for killing you without a trial.

The legal basis for using drone strikes to kill US citizens has been disclosed in a leaked Justice Department memo.

The undated 16-page Justice Department White Paper published by NBC gives more details of the justification for the use of drones outside recognised war zones.

The paper adopts a broad definition of "imminent threat", saying it is not necessary to produce evidence that a specific attack is being planned if the target is generally engaged in plotting against the US.

https://controversy.wearscience.com/info/wallpapers/#coexistence

This will eventually be moved to Recipes, but we talked about your Bloody Mary experiments, so here you go:

1 quart plain tomato juice
2Tb prepared horseradish
3Tb Franks hot sauce
1 small clove grated garlic (fresh)
1 Tb Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp celery salt
3 cloves (ground)
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp powdered mustard
A pinch of cayenne
Salt and pepper to taste

No need for fancy vodka, unless you like a spicy infusion, like jalapeño or something.

Please note that if you buy a quart of tomato juice, the finished mix will NOT fit back into that bottle.

You can thank me later.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/1d9/doing_your_good_deed_for_the_day/

people who did one good deed were less likely to do another good deed in the near future.

in his circles, it's well known that people having lunch after church tend to abuse the waitstaff and tip poorly... He says that, having proven to their own satisfaction that they are godly and holy people, doing something else godly and holy like being nice to others would be overkill.

If this is true, then anything that makes people feel moral without actually doing good is no longer a harmless distraction. All those biases that lead people to give time and money and thought to causes that don't really merit them waste not only time and money, but an exhaustible supply of moral fiber

some of the other activities Dr. Beck mentions as morality sinkholes seem appropriate, with a few of the words changed:

Bible study
Voting Republican
Going on spiritual retreats
Reading religious books
Arguing with evolutionists
Sending your child to a Christian school or providing education at home
Using religious language
Avoiding R-rated movies
Not reading Harry Potter.

I would add to the less religion-o-centric list:

Joining "1000000 STRONG AGAINST WORLD HUNGER" type Facebook groups
Reading a book about the struggles faced by poor people, and telling people how emotional it made you
"Raising awareness of problems" without raising awareness of any practical solution
Taking (or teaching) college courses about the struggles of the less fortunate
Many forms of political, religious, and philosophical arguments

Re-arranging deck chairs?  Maybe.  But I'd like to hear people's opinons on these guys.

The mainstream media stories give the impression that Hagel is a cautious Realist regarding wars in Asia, while Brennan is somewhat complicit in the whole Gitmo/rendition clusterfuck.

Researchers Build a Projectile Vomiting Robot.

Its name is Vomiting Larry, and it's designed to do one thing: puke just like a human.

[These guys were the most neurotic, self-centered, unconfident shells of men I've been around since I can remember.]

I know this is just another one of those "I got drunk last weekend" posts, but it's in the form of a compliment.  I had to go to this bachelor party for someone I've known for a long time, back in the days where it wasn't entirely stupid for me to be in a goth club with long hair and leather pants.  Also invited were several people I used to hang out with in those days, who I haven't seen in probably a decade or more.

I wasn't sure what I was getting into, because there were reasons I hadn't seen them in that long, mainly I went in the Fabulous direction, and they... pretty much stayed in the same place.  Only they're older.  And not really wearing goth clothes anymore.  Let's just say we don't have much in common.

Anyway, so I sat fairly quietly for about 20 minutes, to see where things were headed.  And they started drinking.  And holy shit.  These guys were the most neurotic, self-centered, unconfident shells of men I've been around since I can remember.  They were terrible people, in bad relationships, or they ruined good ones, with brittle shells around empty personalities, and they spent the evening trying to be witty by insulting each other.

I'll say that again: They were trying to spill T and dish desserts.  And I was at the table with them.  Let's just say the library was open, and I read those bitches like I was in a library.  I took them bitches to college; I gave them bitches some knowledge.  Imma read, Imma read, Imma read.  And they loved me for it. 

Anyway, it made me really glad I had places like this to go, where the people are mostly self-possessed, with a passing understanding of who they are, and how they live.  I'm not sure I could take an existence with the likes of those drunken assholes who have nothing better than be rude/hit on to waitresses.  Fuck those guys.

Anyway, that was Friday. 

This thread is to brag about all the cool shit your family got you, or complain about the lame shit they bought you.

I got six books:
Maryland Soups
The history of Meat
A collection of essays edited by David Foster Wallace
Willie Nelson's "Musings from the Road"
Neil Young's "Waging Peace"
Pete Townshend's "Who I Am"

Also got some snazzy clothes, a new non-stick pan, electric knife sharpener, and scotch (21 year).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR4a5GSgK34&sns=em

Exactly what it says on the tin.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/coworkers-attacked-by-gas-645132

A federal employee was formally reprimanded this month for excessive workplace flatulence, a sanction that was delivered to him in a five-page letter that actually included a log of representative dates and times when he was recorded "releasing the awful and unpleasant odor" in his Baltimore office.

Now coming to a stage near you:



Be afraid, people.

Well, crap.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that the little-known National Counterterrorism Center, based in an unmarked building in McLean, Va., has been granted sweeping new authority to store and monitor massive datasets about innocent Americans.

The snooping effort, which officials say is subject to "rigorous oversight," is reminiscent of the so-called Total Information Awareness initiative, dreamt up in the aftermath of 9/11 by the Pentagon's research unit DARPA... they were accumulating masses of data about "suspicious" activity that was not of any use. The intelligence being swept up, the investigators found, was "oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens' civil liberties and Privacy Act protections."

Such sweeping surveillance efforts pose difficulties for the authorities because they can end up drowning in data, attempting to find a needle in a haystack, in the process deeming innocent people suspicious. As the Journal's Julia Angwin notes, the risk is that "innocent behavior gets misunderstood—say, a man buying chemicals (for a child's science fair) and a timer (for the sprinkler) sets off false alarms."

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/11/166879584/russian-scandal-hints-at-larger-political-battle

Is this an intentional cover by Putin to provide cover for something else?  Is it meant to keep the factions at each other's throats, or is Putin being forced to fire this guy over a sex scandal?

Just outside of Boston is a little parcel of land called Jamaica Plain.  It has a small-to-medium pond there called, naturally, Jamaica Pond.  The various rumors and legends about its name can be found in almost any Boston historical book, so we won't get into that.

You should, however, take a look at a map of the area.  Technically, Jamaica Plain is part of Boston.  But you'd never know it by looking.  Downtown has several arms snaking out West, broad avenues leading directly into the heart of the city.  But look.  Look again.  Tremont/Columbus? Veers left and shoots into Dorchester.  Huntington?  Hooks right into Brookline.  Between Jamaica Pond and Boston, there's a twisting maze of old streets, a collection of arcane footpaths and one-way streets protecting NIMBY-style neighborhoods from traffic.  You could dismiss these as a lack of urban planning, but I'd advise you to look further.

If you look at a map from 1630-1640, you can see some direct routes from the pond to downtown.  Makes sense that You'd want the city to have easy access to one of the larger sources of fresh water in the area.  But jump to 1772, and there it is.  The main routes avoiding the pond have already been established, and the entwined intricacies of streets and lanes have been laid down.  And note that those streets are firmly in place, more so than the surrounding towns of Roxbury, Mattapan, or Chestnut Hill.  So why the change?

Maybe looking at the streets themselves would be helpful.  Get a blow up of the section bounded by the Arborway/Jamaicaway, Heath Street, and Washington.  Now orient it so Centre St is more or less straight left-to-right.  Look what happens when you start at Parley Ave, and trace it around Parley Vale and then around Robinwood Lane?  See anything odd?  There doesn't seem to be any good reason for that spur coming off Robinwood.  Unless you complete the circuit to Rockview.  That, my friends, is clearly the sigil for the demon Bael.  It's unmistakable.  From there, you can find others in close proximity: Myrtle Street to Burroughs via Eliot is Naberius.  Lamartine, through Glenvale Terrace to the corner of Spring Park and Burr is Cimerus.  The whole Revere/Elm/Sedgwick clusterfuck is a tight grouping of Agares, Eligos, Marax, and Halphas.

There is, however, one clear, straight line on the entire map.  Start at the pond, find Green Street.  Now follow its unbreaking, clear path.  And when you trace that arrow-straight road, you find yourself at... Forest Hills Cemetary.


More to come

I've just started her book, Of Summer and Winter, and it's pretty sharp.  Good characters, great details, and has a way of keeping the tension high while at the same time recreating Byzantium in your head.

Kind of like George RR Martin, without thirty pages devoted to roasted mutton and turnip soup.

I am exhausted from recording late into the night, lack of sleep and MEETINGS(ad infinitum).

I can hear colors.

Ask me anything.

TO THE GAY BAR!










LMNO
- at the gay bar.

So, here we are.  Halloween, 2012.  In a few hours, it will be midnight, and I'll officially be 40 years old.  Or, it will be the fifth anniversary of my 35th birthday.  Depends on my mood, really.

Perhaps this might sound melodramatic, but I honestly could never picture myself at 40 when I was younger.  Little boys playing at Nihilism, I suppose, but sometimes I didn't think I'd make it.  Or, maybe it's that I didn't know what I wanted, so I didn't know what to envision.

Certainly, I had no idea I'd end up at a major financial/insurance company when I was 19.  Or even at 23.  Or 28.  It was an inexorable pull of events that led me from driving trucks around Boston to mastering regulations and processes revolving around a small section of the tax code... hey, wake up.

One thing I WAS sure I'd be doing at forty is making and playing music.  I'm in two great bands, and working on a third.  I've been lucky enough to study audio engineering, and I manage to carve out enough time in my day to keep those skills fresh.  Music has been such a large part of my life for so long, I don't see any possible way I could give it up. 

I've also been amazed at the amount of awesome people I've managed to meet so far.  They've come from all over, and managed to go all over once again.  They've shaped my life, my music, and my ideas.  They've ranged from squatting punkers to Entomologist post-grads, artists to software developers, DJs to tech writers.  When I look back at the line of friends I've made, the one thing that stands out is that they've all been INTERESTING.  And that's the best you can hope for.

But the biggest and best part of these forty years for me is the person who has been with me for over a third of them.  She's been there through the craziness, through the boring bits, through two apartments and a condo; and she's always had my back, encouraging me when I was down, and laughing with me when I was happy.  She's someone with whom I can go on adventures, and we've had our fair share of that.  I'm incredibly lucky she agreed to marry me.

So never mind the grey hairs, the strange aches, or the desk job.  In the past forty years, I've made friends, I've recorded albums – hell, I even self published a book – and I found someone who can love me for who I am.  So, yeah.  It's been a good life so far.  I think I'll stick around for more.

And if I'm not mistaken, it's also Roger's birthday, no?

Watching { WWE wrestling | American Politics } is my one guilty pleasure. I know the story lines are written ahead of time, and the whole { match | election } is rigged from the start, but the compelling narratives are addictive. I find myself rooting for someone to jump into the { ring | race } and start beating a guy with a { fold-up chair | focus-group-tested zinger } . I know it's all fake and contrived, and there'll never be real { appreciation for | progress in } the arena of { real wrestling | meaningful politics } until we give up our addiction to this fake, over-the-top, badly-acted crap. But I { bought my  season pass | invested in my candidate } and it seems like such a waste to give up now.

Anyone play Lord of the Rings online? CV from dontchewchords has a free spare "Mithril Edition" CD. Apparently it gives you cool stuff. I'll send it out to whoever wants it.

What happens when you make chatbots talk to each other?  The argue.

"Noobs take science books and treat them as gospel, without doing the work.  Did noob spiritualists in the age of Yore do the same?  Could that have led to the corruption of the transcendent experience?"

Or WOMP.  I don't care.

In a matter of days, some 1,400 American pastors are planning to break the law.  And they're likely to get away with it.

As part of "Pulpit Freedom Sunday," on Oct. 7, religious leaders across the country will endorse political candidates — an act that flies in the face of Internal Revenue Service rules about what tax-exempt organizations, such as churches, can and cannot do.

Though the regulation has been in place since 1954, in 2009, the U.S. District Court of Minnesota ruled the IRS no longer had the appropriate staff to investigate places of worship after a reorganization changed who in the agency had the authority to launch investigations.

New procedures for conducting church audits have been pending since 2009, which has left the IRS virtually impotent in conducting any kind of new investigations.

Well, fuck -- if a church wants to endorse a political candidate, then they should fucking pay taxes.

In light of several discussions that got out of hand, I'm pretty much just going to cut and paste this entire blog post:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/85h/better_disagreement/

__________________________________________________________________________

Now that most communication is remote rather than face-to-face, people are comfortable disagreeing more often. How, then, can we disagree well? If the goal is intellectual progress, those who disagree should aim not for name-calling but for honest counterargument.

To be more specific, we might use a disagreement hierarchy. Below is the hierarchy proposed by Paul Graham (with DH7 added by Black Belt Bayesian).



DH0: Name-Calling. The lowest form of disagreement, this ranges from "u r fag!!!" to "He's just a troll" to "The author is a self-important dilettante."

DH1: Ad Hominem. An ad hominem ('against the man') argument won't refute the original claim, but it might at least be relevant. If a senator says we should raise the salary of senators, you might reply: "Of course he'd say that; he's a senator." That might be relevant, but it doesn't refute the original claim: "If there's something wrong with the senator's argument, you should say what it is; and if there isn't, what difference does it make that he's a senator?"

DH2: Responding to Tone. At this level we actually respond to the writing rather than the writer, but we're responding to tone rather than substance. For example: "It's terrible how flippantly the author dimisses theology."

DH3: Contradiction. Graham writes: "In this stage we finally get responses to what was said, rather than how or by whom. The lowest form of response to an argument is simply to state the opposing case, with little or no supporting evidence." For example: "It's terrible how flippantly the author dismisses theology. Theology is a legitimate inquiry into truth."

DH4: Counterargument. Finally, a form of disagreement that might persuade! Counterargument is "contradiction plus reasoning and/or evidence." Still, counterargument is often directed at a minor point, or turns out to be an example of two people talking past each other, as in the parable about a tree falling in the forest.

DH5: Refutation. In refutation, you quote (or paraphrase) a precise claim or argument by the author and explain why the claim is false, or why the argument doesn't work. With refutation, you're sure to engage exactly what the author said, and offer a direct counterargument with evidence and reason.

DH6: Refuting the Central Point. Graham writes: "The force of a refutation depends on what you refute. The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone's central point." A refutation of the central point may look like this: "The author's central point appears to be X. For example, he writes 'blah blah blah.' He also writes 'blah blah.' But this is wrong, because (1) argument one, (2) argument two, and (3) argument three."

DH7: Improve the Argument, then Refute Its Central Point. Black Belt Bayesian writes: "If you're interested in being on the right side of disputes, you will refute your opponents' arguments. But if you're interested in producing truth, you will fix your opponents' arguments for them. To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you [also] must fight the most horrible thing that can be constructed from its corpse."


Having names for biases and fallacies can help us notice and correct them, and having labels for different kinds of disagreement can help us zoom in on the parts of a disagreement that matter.

_____________________________________________________________


This won't fix what's already been broken, and this probably won't stop all the flare-ups we have, but at least we have some sort of framework when things start getting out of hand.

So, I saw some pictures of myself playing drums from our last show, and I realize I look like some hunchbacked ogre beating my kit with a look of overly possessive lustful anger.  And the latter is fine (makes for a good performance), but the former is horrible.  My posture – atrocious!  Not only does it look bad, it actually makes it more difficult to play the drums.

And then I began noticing I slump over in most situations: At my desk, riding on the train, even walking around.  And, if I catch my reflection, this is most certainly not the way to bring FABULOUS into people's lives.

So, I'm working on my posture, trying to remind myself to sit and stand as if a thread were pulling at the nape of my neck.  And I realized two things:

1) It's making my back muscles sore, so I think I'm doing something right.

2) It's directly affecting my attitude.  It seems as if posture is directly linked to my Second Circuit, and I feel more confident, in control, and less complacent.  I'm simply feeling better about myself, in a way that I hadn't noticed that I wasn't feeling good about myself before.  I understand and know how the brain responds to the body just as much as the body responds to the brain, it's just that in this case, the feedback is pretty immediate and, in a way, startling.


Now if only my back would stop hurting.

... but you might want to pull your pant cuffs out of your boots, next time.

I was checking out lesswrong.com, and came across "The Worst Argument In The World", and realized it could be quickly and easily employed at PD.com.

I like it because it's about definitions of words and semantics, but then overcomes and moves beyond the purely semantic argument.  It includes both the specific definition, but also the common usage and context.

Basically, the worst argument comes in this format:

"X is in a category whose archetypal member has certain features. Therefore, we should judge X as if it also had those features, even though it doesn't."

So, (to use an example from the article (and I am more or less paraphrasing the article in this post)) While MLK, Jr actually did break the law, get arrested, and go to jail, it seems entirely disingenuous to say he's a bad person because he's a "criminal".

"Criminal", while technically a correct label for some of MLK, Jr's actions, does not fit the archetypical attitudes, motiviations, or emotional reaction to the vast majority of those in the set of "criminal".

This seems to fit a lot of political and social arguments, such as "abortion is murder" and "taxation is theft", and recognition of this type of argument could possibly allow us to leapfrog the argument when it gets to this point, so instead of pulling out dictionaries when someone says "affirmitive action is discriminatory", we could simply answer, "It doesn't matter how we define discrimination at this particular moment, let's discuss the costs and benefits of affirmative action like mature adults".

I realize that this may look really fucking close to E-prime, but at least it doesn't force us to mutate our syntax any worse that we already do.

What did I miss?  Any drama or flounces I should know about?

Crossposted from http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,33003.0.html

So, new band, dontchewcords, tracks up at http://www.reverbnation.com/earfatigueproductions.

Some covers, some originals.  Three lead singers, myself included.  Covers include Devo, Eno, Beatles, and Sparklehorse.  We also do a Cure song (not recorded yet).

We're sort of an indie/garage/early 60s psych sound.

Recording process:
basic tracks, all in one room, shure 57s for just about everything. 1 mic per amp, and on the drums one for kick, and a mono overhead.  Bass was DI. Instrumental overdubs were also done on 57s.

Vocal overdubs were done on pricier condenser mics (KSM32).

All mixing done by me.


Enjoy.

Ok, kids.  I've got another band, and we've finally done some respectable demos in the basement.

We're called dontchewcords, and the tracks can be found here: http://www.reverbnation.com/earfatigueproductions .

If you want the details, they'll be in Bring and Brag, here: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,33004.0.html

I have no idea who "Shit Brown Eyes" are, but it's a pretty good name.

Snoop Dog is trying to be a reggae singer.  Here's his first single.


It's got a roots sound, which I'm down with, but I can't shake the feeling that Damien Marley and HR are gonna want to smack a bitch.

#DryJuly has begun.  3 days into it.  Physically, I'm ok.  Mentally, I'm gonna struggle with the need for a martini after a tough day at work.

Updates as the month goes on.

Ok, so I had the idea to make chicken gumbo.  However, I know I don't have certain items.  At what point does gumbo become soup?

So, in order of importance (I feel):

No okra
No Andouille sausage
No celery for the Trinity

However, I do have File powder, and I can make a damn good roux.

Aaaaaand GO!

If you're not sure of what to do on a Saturday Night, please observe.

Let's Have a Kiki

Watch this three times in succession.

This message will repeat until the FABULOUS™ reaches adequate levels.