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Nov. 1st, 2010 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedINGREDIENTS:
Water, black beans, corn, jalapeño peppers, tomato paste, onions, red bell peppers, modified food starch.
Contains less than 1% of the following: salt, sugar, spice, potassium chloride, garlic powder, onion powder, natural flavor, corn syrup solids, dried chili pepper, calcium chloride, citric acid, paprika extract (color).
It's Progresso's Black Bean Jalapeno soup! I never thought I'd see a major-brand, pre-made soup with "starch" last in the list of major ingredients, and all the sugars and preservatives hidden behind the "less than 1%" tag. Granted, there could be sugar and flour hiding in "tomato paste", and I could make the same thing myself with a couple peppers and some canned beans, corn, and tomatoes - or I could just open a can of salsa - but it's the idea of the thing, you know?
I've been swamped working on graduate school applications and avoiding work on graduation school applications. XD. But things are finally moving forward! Yesss! Or at least that's how it feels now, on a day when I was able to answer routine questions about grades and test scores. We'll see I feel about the process on a day when I've had to revise a personal statement or a research goals essay: you know, expend actual mental effort.
No entries for a while, but here are some blogs I've reading:
http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/
http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/
The first is an American comics criticism blog (but for a long discussion of old-school shojo manga I had with a knowledgeable person whom I hope will return to continue the conversation look here). The next two I found by following the blog of the head of the Applied Statistics department at Columbia.
Here are the books I've been reading:
Panic! The Story of Modern Financial Insanity (the essays Michael Lewis picks out from contemporary reports are all about institutions, while Lewis' own essays are all about people - is it because he has more connections inside, or because he's more interested in human drama? Or both?)
The Junior Officers' Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars (memoirs of a legacy British army Captain/English Literature major who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan - finally, the slang I picked up in Libertines fandom gets put to good use!)
Loups-Garrous (This is like a Japanese version of 1984 with computers, social networking, and data-mining as the tools used to control the masses, rather than TV and human surveillance/informers. There are a lot of interesting ideas here and I fully intend to write about them later - STAY TUNED.) (for context see this post) (also why didn't anyone tell me Alexander O. Smith did the translation on Summer of the Ubume?)
The Teahouse Fire (debating whether I can recommend this to a friend who's into tea ceremony, or whether it's a victim of MFA program writing. I did learn a lot about the beginning of Japanese girls' schools in the Meiji era, though. a gift.)
Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found (this, on the other hand, read like something a bored MFA candidate dreamt up, but was a true story. o_O If only there had been a littlllllllle bit more detail for me weigh against the author's explanations. also a gift.)
Threepenny Memoir (for instance, as I was able to do with Carl Barat's memoir. XD. I talked about this pretty exhaustively in the Libs-comm-we-dare-not-name, but is anyone interested in the highlights version?)
Finally, and speaking of the comm-we-dare-not-name, this is a Libertines joke that will only be funny to about two people: obviously an inspiration for that Elton John-referencing number on the solo album amirite?.
Water, black beans, corn, jalapeño peppers, tomato paste, onions, red bell peppers, modified food starch.
Contains less than 1% of the following: salt, sugar, spice, potassium chloride, garlic powder, onion powder, natural flavor, corn syrup solids, dried chili pepper, calcium chloride, citric acid, paprika extract (color).
It's Progresso's Black Bean Jalapeno soup! I never thought I'd see a major-brand, pre-made soup with "starch" last in the list of major ingredients, and all the sugars and preservatives hidden behind the "less than 1%" tag. Granted, there could be sugar and flour hiding in "tomato paste", and I could make the same thing myself with a couple peppers and some canned beans, corn, and tomatoes - or I could just open a can of salsa - but it's the idea of the thing, you know?
I've been swamped working on graduate school applications and avoiding work on graduation school applications. XD. But things are finally moving forward! Yesss! Or at least that's how it feels now, on a day when I was able to answer routine questions about grades and test scores. We'll see I feel about the process on a day when I've had to revise a personal statement or a research goals essay: you know, expend actual mental effort.
No entries for a while, but here are some blogs I've reading:
http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/
http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/
The first is an American comics criticism blog (but for a long discussion of old-school shojo manga I had with a knowledgeable person whom I hope will return to continue the conversation look here). The next two I found by following the blog of the head of the Applied Statistics department at Columbia.
Here are the books I've been reading:
Panic! The Story of Modern Financial Insanity (the essays Michael Lewis picks out from contemporary reports are all about institutions, while Lewis' own essays are all about people - is it because he has more connections inside, or because he's more interested in human drama? Or both?)
The Junior Officers' Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars (memoirs of a legacy British army Captain/English Literature major who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan - finally, the slang I picked up in Libertines fandom gets put to good use!)
Loups-Garrous (This is like a Japanese version of 1984 with computers, social networking, and data-mining as the tools used to control the masses, rather than TV and human surveillance/informers. There are a lot of interesting ideas here and I fully intend to write about them later - STAY TUNED.) (for context see this post) (also why didn't anyone tell me Alexander O. Smith did the translation on Summer of the Ubume?)
The Teahouse Fire (debating whether I can recommend this to a friend who's into tea ceremony, or whether it's a victim of MFA program writing. I did learn a lot about the beginning of Japanese girls' schools in the Meiji era, though. a gift.)
Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found (this, on the other hand, read like something a bored MFA candidate dreamt up, but was a true story. o_O If only there had been a littlllllllle bit more detail for me weigh against the author's explanations. also a gift.)
Threepenny Memoir (for instance, as I was able to do with Carl Barat's memoir. XD. I talked about this pretty exhaustively in the Libs-comm-we-dare-not-name, but is anyone interested in the highlights version?)
Finally, and speaking of the comm-we-dare-not-name, this is a Libertines joke that will only be funny to about two people: obviously an inspiration for that Elton John-referencing number on the solo album amirite?.
Re: Ramble alert!
Date: 2010-11-04 09:08 pm (UTC)I also commute to work - an hour each way - and yet my max speed seems to be about 3 books a month, no matter what. XD; I guess I'm spending most of my commuting time asleep or reading blog posts on my phone.
Well, it was more a brief reaction, and then a lot of excepts with commentary. XD. I was being a bit cute with the comm-we-dare-not-name, actually I think the story is just that
If you have some time, there's some pretty interest posts in the archives. I forgot that the community has been almost-dead for a while, though, though, when I decided to put my book post there. -_- Probably should have posted to dilly_boys instead. Lemme know if you have problems seeing the review, I'll repost it.
The joke is... "You're a dancer, and you dance, and you swing/And I love you even though you ruin everything" vs. "She's a dancer, and she sparkles, and she shines/She's an attractor, and she loves to wine and dine". And then the gender flip in the Crack the Sky song, which is actually about a cross-dressing man. XD. But I didn't want to spell that out too explicitly since What Have I Done is not exactly a comedic song.
Sorry to be so mysterious! I'd actually forgotten that you were still reading this journal. ^^; Oops.
No worries about leaving comments! Just get better!!
Re: Ramble alert!
Date: 2010-11-04 09:52 pm (UTC)Anyway, back to more uplifting things. I think I need to join thinky_libs. I probably never did because I didn't know the community is still (sort of) active.
Haha, now that you've mentioned it, the lyrical similarities are rather striking indeed; for some reason the whole gender flip at the end stole my attention though and since gender flipping makes me think more of Peter than Carlos, I got distracted. ^^
OF COURSE I'M READING. YOU WON'T GET RID OF ME. Even if they try to kill me with evil medications. XD
Re: Ramble alert!
Date: 2010-11-04 10:25 pm (UTC)Also, I just went to check your journal and I see that your commute is much longer than mine - five hours!!! But you're moving soon, so that's good, too. Plus, if you end up taking some time off from work to recover, you can distract yourself for at least an hour on the old thinky_libs posts (I don't know how fast you read).
From your journal entry, you don't seem to regret flying off to England while you had bronchitis, but maybe that post was written before the allergic reaction kicked in?
I thought thinky_libs was still active, but I didn't get many comments, so I guess it's not that active. ^^;
There are lyrical similarities, and there is also my sneaky way of punctuating the lyrics, which emphasizes the similarities. ^_^v The vocal deliveries and phrasings are completely different, though, so they don't actually sound alike. (On that note, have you ever noticed that Peter makes everything sound like a Pete Doherty song, while Carl seems to ALWAYS use the phrasing of whoever originally sang the song? I think I read in This is Your Brain On Music that getting away from someone else's phrasing is actually pretty hard, even more so when the singer is someone you really admire.)
And gender-flipping reminds you of Peter: YES, EXACTLY.
Re: Ramble alert!
Date: 2010-11-05 03:18 am (UTC)