to get going in a cold and (slightly) snowy day
goddess bless the DbT.
...because if I have google wave, everyone else in the world has google wave.
but if by any chance any of ya'll been living in a cave, I got eight (8) invites to gwave. doesn't mean that I know much anything about it.
send me a message here or an email to mariser(at)gmail(dot)com
later
A
vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons.
The
stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only
one
carrion allowed per passenger."
Reasons I Am Buying Less At Trader Joe's
or
Items Trader Joe's Has (Apparently) Discontinued
in no particular order other than the most heartbreaking is first (also you might notice a theme)
- Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies--I told the cashier last year that I loved these so much I wanted to marry them. Then I wrote Trader Joe's and told them that, and they said they were a seasonal item. And they didn't bring them back this season. I want to punch them in the face for this alone.
- Pierogies--these had become rather a staple for me over the last year or 2. I'm not sure if they have been discontinued but I haven't seen any in a few months.
- Hot chocolate mix in the round blue can--okay, they have the sipping chocolate which is good, and this one I can live without but still, just another turn of the thumbscrew.
- Chocolate yogurt--the kind with the real cocoa in the bottom that you mixed up and it was all delicious and shit, not that Eurotrash crap in the smaller container they try to shove off on you.
- Cookies with Perks--the chocolate chip cookes with espresso chips (or espresso flavored cookies with chocolate chips?). Haven't seen them since probably last winter or spring. Bastards.
- Milk chocolate cocoa almonds (are you getting the theme yet?)--now they have the black cocoa almonds, and they are pretty good, though unless you eat them with a spoon or chopsticks it's like you just read 100,000 newspapers (okay, newspapers that taste like chocolate, but still, it's messy!) Now---90% of the time I prefer dark chocolate, but this is one of the few exceptions (one of the others is the milk chocolate covered McVitie's digestive biscuits which I haven't had in years but I would probably sell a kidney for a packet right about tomorrow). Would it be SO WRONG to have both?
- I didn't check for it this time because I bought some at the regular supermarket since I couldn't find it at Trader Joe's the last couple times, but if they have discontinued their frozen broccoli florets I'm gonna bust up the joint.
- I don't think they have discontinued them (YET) but their sea salt brownies were really delicious until they lightened up on the sea salt. Now they are just bland.
- I didn't see the little chocolate mint cookie clusters. They were so good that I can't even remember what they were. They were in a brown and dark pink round container, like a pint of ice cream, like Thin Mints or something, all crumbled up and covered in chocolate, maybe?
- Also I haven't seen the dark chocolate toffee squares I've become rather addicted to, in a while. I bought some in September to bring on vacation. I have one left in front of me.
There are probably other things but it's probably like regular food that doesn't stand out in my mind like chocolate stuff. I will add things as I recall them. I know my neighbor was pissed about some croissants they discontinued, maybe almond croissants.
They are discontinuing stuff I like but not replacing them with anything as good or better. Are my tastes that eclectic? Do all the rest of the Trader Joe's customers have bland ass taste?
Oh--the first thing I ever had from Trader Joe's, before I lived near one, were these little chocolate animal cracker type cookies (my sister had them at her house when I was babysitting once and I wanted to eat the whole thing). They weren't chocolate covered or anything, they were like chocolate butter cookies that melted in your mouth. And they replaced them with something BLAND.
I seriously was planning on buying 10 boxes of those Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies. And next trip I would have bought 10 more. I'm completely serious. I was going to stock up so I could have them at least through the spring. Or till New Year's. Or till I OD'ed on them, or at least till I vomited.
Quit breaking my heart, Trader Joe. You are getting to be evil and sadistic, getting me hooked on this stuff and then yanking them out from under me, without warning, before I can stock up and buy out every store in the area.
Yeah, probably.
So I'll just drive myself somewhere.
*sigh*
I've just gutted my entire house, right down to the studs, and am slowly rebuilding it. After months of nothing but demolition, I'm finally starting to reverse the process. My bathroom contractor is working today to get ready for my tile guy. The insulation guy worked yesterday, so the house is nice and cozy now. (Right, except that I have to put the windows back in.) On Tuesday, the sheetrock guy comes to start putting my ceilings and walls back.
Just as soon as I wrap up my work in the attic: 2 more ceiling joists to sister, one more ceiling fan mount to install, plus 3 more fixture mounts for other lights. I'd planned to sister all the 5 ceiling joists that need it this weekend, but Tuesday I created a little emergency. While trying to rip out a piece of planking in the wall that had bowed and split--thereby preventing the sheetrock from being flush--I discovered that two of my ceiling joists were actually resting on that plank, instead of on the exterior load-bearing wall. The reason? when the foundation failed in the 40s that wall bowed out about three inches, and the joists slipped off it.
Which is how I broke my nose. With all that weight on the plank, it was under a lot of pressure, so when I finally managed to pry it off the studs, it came loose at high speed and whacked me in the face. I blacked out for about a second, before that little quiet voice in the back of my head kicked in. You know, the little voice that whispers, "Maybe you shouldn't take that short cut," and "Get up and check the door." My little voice said, "Don't fall off the ladder."
I didn't. I managed to get myself down the ladder, my head ringing, and my dust mask filling up with blood. As I was just starting to wonder how badly I'd fucked myself up, I heard this soft groaning sound and looked up. Above me, the ceiling was sagging about three inches. Not terrible, but likely to become so.
This was at about 8 pm, and who was I going to call for help? Sure, 911 would take care of my face, but they wouldn't do anything about my ceiling joists. So I went out to my truck, grabbed the jack, and a couple of 2 x 4's on my way back through the garage. I slapped one 2 x 4 up to the ceiling with a pair of screws (thank you, trusty cordless drill), wedged the other one up under it, balanced on top of the jack, and cranked the ceiling back up to the proper height. Contrary to my expectations, it worked perfectly. After all, that little jack was designed to lift one quarter of my truck, so it was strong enough to lift one tenth of my ceiling.
Then I could worry about my nose. Luckily I still have a kitchen sink, so I went it and pulled the dust mask off. Blood, lots of it. I washed off a bunch of it, but I didn't have a mirror, so I couldn't really see what the damage was. I had half a bag of ice in the freezer, so I grabbed that, stuck it on my face and drove to my temporary digs.
I kept the ice on it for about five hours, and that seems to have done the trick. I have a bump, a bruise, and my eyes are a little black, but my nose is straight. I'm pretty sure it's broken, because I can feel it wiggle when I laugh, and my eyebrows actually hurt.
Episode 2 was me calling into work sick the next morning. Only I didn't stay home. I couldn't. I went to the house and crawled up in the attic to sister in the three joists that just couldn't wait for this weekend. Then I had to repair and replace the plank I'd originally been intending to fix when it bitch slapped me. I won the rematch.
and no one would ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER misinterpret or change or slant anything to their own views because that just doesn't happen. EVER ever ever ever. I have had this argument with people many a time.
I'll be diplomatic. "Can you imagine one of Jesus' followers just adding a little nudge in there during writing...rather than leaving it as "Believe in me" they would add ...."or you will burn in Hell forever." You know...the kind of thing an ardent, overzealous follower would do.
Nope. No way. Never. Ever. That's the answer I get back continuously. The Bible is exactly as it was when it came out of God's mouth into someone's quill thousands of years ago.
So, imagine my amusement when I saw this article.
Blessed are the conservative in Bible translation
A new online project seeks to purge liberal views from the scriptures
Rich Schultz / AP
Andy Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia.com, at in his home office in Far Hills, N.J. The conservative online encyclopedia is hosting a project of amateur conservative readers that are putting together their own interpretation of the Bible, to counter what they say is liberal bias by scholars.
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Video |
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Conservatives to rewrite Bible
Oct. 6: Kent Jones tells Rachel Maddow about a conservative effort to rewrite the Bible to better suit conservative political views. The Rachel Maddow Show |
CHARLESTON, West Virginia - The Gospel of Luke records that, as he was dying on the cross, Jesus showed his boundless mercy by praying for his killers this way: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
Not so fast, say contributors to the Conservative Bible Project.
The project, an online effort to create a Bible suitable for contemporary conservative sensibilities, claims Jesus' quote is a disputed addition abetted by liberal biblical scholars, even if it appears in some form in almost every translation of the Bible."
Yup. Uh huh.
Wine and cows.
Can't wait for this restaurant to open.
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