I want to become immortal -- and then to die.

My best friend once was reading over a menu at this Italian restaurant here in SF and exclaimed, "Oh, look! They have trofie! I've never seen that on a menu in the States."

To her great credit, she immediately realized what an ass she sounded like and apologized. It's sort of become our shorthand for whenever one of us says something so ass-hatty.

Me at age 16 or so: "Consistency is all I ask."

I'm not really sure now what I meant by this, but it was a freakin' mantra for a while. I lobbed it at people I felt were being, you know ... incoherent or something. A year or so later, as a college freshman, I was torn between majoring in physics or philosophy. No doubt I was writing angst-ridden poetry in cemeteries when I was 16 as well.

2 doesn't sound terribly ass-hatty to me.

You gotta contribute something before you knock someone else's, NCP. This is called making up the rules as I go along.

My ex's seven-year-old was talking about how some kids he met on the playground were discussing their favorite snacks, and several of them said their moms take them to McDonald's. The kid made this disgusted face and said, "Why don't they just go to Balthazar?"

Let them eat foie gras!

I blamed his father, of course.

My ex's seven-year-old was talking about how some kids he met on the playground were discussing their favorite snacks, and several of them said their moms take them to McDonald's. The kid made this disgusted face and said, "Why don't they just go to Balthazar?"

Oh man. "Oh, sweetie, you are never, never, ever going to live that one down."

From this article on the editor of French Vogue:

Roitfeld is 48 hours off a ten-day vacation in Thailand during which she worked a great deal on meditation. How was this trip? "You think this will be so glamorous," she sighs. "You have the idea in your mind and then you get there and the people in the hotel ..." She grimaces and gestures hugely in the hip area. "There were lots of people who were so fat and like that."

The whole article is like this.

Oh my god, 8 is awesome.

I've never seen that on a menu in the States.

I didn't think that sounded too bad, either. I'm sure that has come out of my mouth on more than one occasion. But oh, um, for the rule in comment #5... well, ST and I have several of those mantras from this very blog.

I don't even own a television!

I would never buy [complicated food item] from the store! (Alternately: I make my own [complicated food item].)

Any Alice Waters quote about mass-produced food, ever.

"It makes me happy because there is vewy gweat lighting," she says about the restaurant. "Vewy flatter." (Roitfeld has reached a compromise with the hard American r by converting them all to ws.)

From the article in 8, methinks the author is insufficiently masking their contempt.

I would never buy [complicated food item] from the store! (Alternately: I make my own [complicated food item].)

Uh oh.

"I find arrogance to be an unforgivable character flaw."

-University of Chicago grad student, circa 2002

8: Ugh. I ended my Vogue subscription mostly because I was disgusted with their normalization of plastic surgery, but the adoration of Roitfeld didn't help, either.

You already won this contest, Blume.

12: It's true, and I first read that article because a friend of mine who is an ex-pat in Paris was blasting the writer on her blog. However, if I were a journalist forced to spend time with someone who said that kind of shit, it would be horribly tempting to mock her in every way possible.

13--No kidding.

Um, oops. That was me. I don't know if Sifu ever had a Vogue subscription or not.

19: 15 was so much more entertaining before you 'fessed up.

I need to meet some bisexualcoholics, so that I'll have a chance to use the term 'bisexualcoholic'.

I enjoyed the momentary alter-reality where Sifu did have a Vogue subscription. And I've share the story linked in 16 to friends in real life. I love that story.

I didn't think that sounded too bad, either. I'm sure that has come out of my mouth on more than one occasion.

Well, yes, but you have apartments in both Boston *and* Berlin. And you go to society events.

13, 18

The making of complicated food items is highly regarded! But come on, declaring that you would never, ever buy such things in a store definitely fits the parameters.

This from a girl who made all of her own yogurt for three years.

Overheard at a hot spring in the Great White North: "You know, there's a lot of wisdom in the Northwest Territories."

But come on, declaring that you would never, ever buy such things in a store definitely fits the parameters.

Absolutely! I just... worry.

"I've always had a thought maybe that I might have been Shakespeare in another life. I don't really believe that 100%, and I don't really care about Shakespeare, I've never been into Shakespeare, but then people are constantly bringing up all of these qualities in my work that mirror Shakespearean tragedies and moments and themes." - Quentin Tarantino

"Urging others to eat better (and thus more expensive) food is not elitist, [Alice Waters] said. It is simply a matter of quality versus quantity and encouraging healthier, more satisfying choices. "Make a sacrifice on the cellphone or the third pair of Nike shoes," she said."

I can't tell you how much I'm loving this thread. Pretty much every example has made me laugh out loud. I'm actively resisting saying so, each time I do, because that seems boring.

OKAY 27 and 25. But I'm not saying any more.

It is simply a matter of quality versus quantity and encouraging healthier, more satisfying choices. "Make a sacrifice on the cellphone or the third pair of Nike shoes," she said."

OH MY GOD, I remember reading that out loud to Snark. Fuuuck you, Alice Waters.

I sense that this discussion is on a divergent course with the SWPL debate.

What do we find intolerably self-important? That which might plausibly be guilty of ourselves, were we less self-aware. Bet: no one is thinking of appalling uncensored thoughts that a red state small town millionaire's wife made while out to lunch at the cute restaurant, or some bragadoccio-filled speech of a corporate executive. These might be self-important, but the self-importance doesn't make us wince in the same way as, say, a Hollywood star's musings on opposing Bush's judicial appointments, because the latter expresses a sentiment we identify with.

I don't know that I'm on board with the analysis in 31. Wasn't there a red state wife who famously claimed that the only language we need to teach in the schools is English, because English was good enough for Jesus, so it's good enough for her?

I realize I'm fairly ridiculous with the making my own foodstuffs (although bacon is so easy! and it's so much better!). Unfortunately, that leads to the conclusion that I sound like a pompous ass when I talk about it, just like I do the rest of the time.

Seriously, all the best quotes I could come up for on this thread would be something *I* said, e.g. once while making woo to a lass that had caught my fancy: 'There's nothing wrong with arrogance as long as it's justified.' Speaking, of course, of myself.

A guy I was working with once referred to "The 1904 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, arguably their best edition..." And yet it was his wife (also a co-worker), when she announced that the books in their home were arranged in Library of Congress order, who prompted me to blurt out "That's the most pretentious thing I've ever heard".

Fortunately, they're good people, so my rudeness was forgiven.

(On looking it up, the 11th edition of the EB, from 1910-11, is "is still praised for its excellence", so maybe that's what they guy was on about. And I just gave myself a perverse thrill by looking up the EB in Wikipedia.)

32 is a good example of why 31 is right. It's not the self-importance that irritates us in the red state woman's remark, but the ignorance (and the fact that she speaks for an evidently widely held worldview).

Painfully self important would be something like "Growing up in a bilingual environment, I discovered that learning a second language gives one a window into other modes of thought, other perspectives on the world. The existence of vibrant Spanish-speaking community is a gift to future generations of Americans."

In other words, swipple.

10:
I have never owned a TV!!!!
I haven't owned a car since 1975!!!!
I have no teeth!!!!
Don't talk to me about pretentiousness!!!!

The Chris Klein Elle interview is a goldmine for these quotes. Everyone who hasn't read it should go read it in full. Here's a starter:

ELLE: What's the worst thing a woman has ever said to you?
CK: "You're an *******." The time it really hurt was when a stranger said it. I was just trying to tell this chick to get lost. I try to treat all women with respect whether they're pretty or ugly. I want to be nice and be like, "Wow, thanks for the attention. But get out of my face."

The Tarantino quote, if real, wins. End the contest.

I've already shared other gems from our northern neighbors. I really need to spend more time up there; the place is obviously an overheard-conversation goldmine.

35: For me, it's the self-importance. Ignorance is a dime a dozen.

The link in 37 is unreal. I love it.

It's not the self-importance that irritates us in the red state woman's remark, but the ignorance

Yeah, but I'm not irritated. Somehow these grandiose pronouncements delight the hell out of me.

For a bland, medium-sized country with tiny problems, Canada has produced some surprisingly vivid serial killers.

I try to treat all women with respect whether they're pretty or ugly.

That pretty much takes the cake. It's the inclusion of the word "try"--with the implication that I don't always succeed, and I'm humble enough to admit it--that takes this quote beyond garden variety self-importance into the realm of asshattery.

And no one is allowed to ask me how my reaction relates to the theory expounded in 31.

OK, can't resist. The parameters are:

"let's have a thread where we pool our favorite pretentious-ass blowhard quotes of all times! Wrack your brains - who takes themselves a little too seriously?"

Hmmmm, where to turn . . . I know, let's go to the front page of an inexplicably popular website! I know you can all guess which one within 30 seconds:

"The practice of handing around bad statistics like Grade Z Oaxaca Ditch Weed on the last night of Senior Week. It's bad enough in itself, but it also hideously supports stereotypes that women can't cope with real math. This is certainly not a practice limited to feminism--any political movement does a lot of it. But many of the worst statistics come out of women's study and feminist advocacy."

"What Fogel brings to mind is that the argument about the personhood of slaves was a similar sort of instrumental argument. Recognizing their personhood would in fact have destroyed a highly functioning economic system; therefore, many people advanced the argument that slaves couldn't be persons. This is rubbish.

To be sure, it's obvious to me that slaves are persons, while I find the personhood of fetuses deeply problematic. But I don't think it's facially ludicrous to declare that they are persons. To me that means that "Feminists for Life" cannot, as I've heard declared, be an oxymoron; it seems perfectly possible to embrace all the other tenets of whatever you want to define as feminism, and also regretfully believe that since fetuses are persons, we cannot embrace this particular means of women's liberation."

Whooo, that was tiring. I can't go on. The self-importance, the pomposity, the arrogance . . . . this game has beaten me. Thank god that progress means that, instead of doing my job, I can get this content delivered every day, for free, over the internet.

The link in 37 is unreal. I love it.

And how. Amazing!

I am aware of all pretentious-ass blowhard quotes of all times.

The Chris Klein interview violates one of my most cherished rules of publicity and communications, which is that when you find yourself in a hole with part of your cheek spattered all over the walls of the hole, the first thing to do is to stop shooting yourself in the face.

37: I basically think of Chris Klein as his character in Election. Or "Steve Holt!"

From the Annals of Stuff White People Don't Like:

So I'm walkin' up to the bus stop yesterday afternoon, probably the second or third-toughest bus stop in downtown Mpls. There's a decent crowd there, about 30 people, and two of them, a young black man and an older white fellow, are standing close to each other at the little spinning thing that has the bus schedules on it. Out of nowhere -- POW -- the younger guy pops the older guy in the mouth, the older guy collapses, the young guy picks up something he's dropped and takes off down the block. Everybody is just gobsmacked for about 5 seconds, 'cause it was so out-of-the-blue. But then a few people go over and help the guy up. Turns out that he's (a) not really hurt, and (b) somewhat the worse for drink. He staggers over to a wall, props himself against it, gets his breath back and starts shambling down the street. Just then, the prototypical yuppie couple shows up, the guy in a natty tailored navy blue pinstriped suit and the woman in a black-and-white ensemble, of the kind that are being worn nowadays. Elements of the crowd start speaking sharply to Mr. Yuppie, who has apparently been telephoning the police. He puts his phone away, and one of a group of nurses says to no one and everyone "Why's it always the white people who gotta snitch?" (She was a fairly light-skinned person herself, but presumably identified as not white.) Mr. Yuppie draws himself up and with his full dignity announces:

"I'm sorry, but from a block away, I saw a man get struck, and I assumed it was an assault."

Oh, no shit Sherlock, an assault, huh? Learn about that in one of yer fancy college courses, did you?

[Note: If Mr. Dipsomaniac had been crying "Murder! Murder! I am struck!" I would have happily called 911 for him. But one glance told you that this was the kind of fellow who might not be well-disposed towards talking to the authorities at that point, due to wants, warrants or possession of controlled substances. And really, he was fine, just a little winded.]

33: Seriously, all the best quotes I could come up for on this thread would be something *I* said

33, meet 3.

34: the 11th edition of the EB, from 1910-11, is "is still praised for its excellence"

Yeah, the 11th. Praised, and highly valued, not exactly for its excellence, but for some killer entries, though which ones I can't remember.

37: I basically think of Chris Klein as his character in Election. Or "Steve Holt!"

To disabuse you of this notion, he would say to you: "Hello."

||

My summer mix is here.

Tracks include:

Chicago Falcon, The Budos Band
Wolves, Iron & Wine
Galaxies, Laura Veirs
Rocket, Working for a Nuclear Free City
Stoned Soul Picnic, Laura Nyro
Sun Down, Nik Freitas
Kathy's Song, Eva Cassidy
Sweet Lucy, Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones, Michael Hurley & Unholy Modal Rounders
How Deep Is Your Love, The Bird And The Bee
Song For Nina, Jens Lekman
End of Love, Clem Snide
I Want You Back, David Ruffin
Open Your Heart, Lavender Diamond
I See You Baby, Cato Salsa Experience + The Thing + Joe McPhee
Just A Little Lovin', Shelby Lynne
Toxic, Chapin Sisters
Is That All There Is? Cristina
Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Betty Johnson-the Johnson Family Singers

These were the songs I liked the best that I got in the last six months. Sources include this very blog, an essay by Franklin Bruno, my ex-wife, a friend's best of 2007 list, an old hippie who lives in Colorado, a Song of the Day list I'm on, and my grandmother's funeral.

There's even an envelope you can print out!

|>

I basically think of Chris Klein as his character in Election.

"After school each day, she would come over, so we could fuck and eat a hot dog."

54: "...so we could fuck and have a hot tub."

And who the hell is Chris Klein? (Do not answer. Obviously I can look it up.)

I have a memory (no idea whether true or not) of looking at the entry on dreams in an old Encyclopedia Britannica. They started by discussing dreams, then moved on to "American dreams" and "animal dreams". But maybe I dreamed it all; Americans tend to be paranoid that way.

53: Woo hoo!!

54: so we could fuck and eat on a hot dog

Wait, I don't get it. Did the kid really hit the older guy in the face? Because, I don't like that either.

It's worth seeing Election, parsimon. It's one of the great movies of the 90s, and the career hallmark of Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, and Alexander Payne.

Wrongshore! I just saw the Chapin Sisters and Lavender Diamond at the Silent Movie Theater. Were you there? It was great!

Objecting to People Getting Hit In The Face: SWPL #467.

61 - Are you calling me defensive?

60: I missed it. But I saw Lavender Diamond with New Pornographers at the Music Box last year, and I almost rented a house to a Chapin Sister.

He hit the guy in the face, but it was fairly clear that there had been some interaction prior to that which was sufficiently provoking to make this response, while certainly regrettable, also fairly predictable.

It wasn't so much that Mr. Yuppie was calling 911, because a lot of people would have done the same, but the fact that his response underscored his pretentiousness and entitlement.

Cf. Nattergam's explanation of how it was okay in his youth to call the cops if your car got stolen, but not okay to call them if you had information about some private dispute which was settled violently.

61: Technically, I'm calling you white.

(Peace. I might have called the police myself.)

Chris Klein doesn't seem to understand that he's... Chris Klein. He should at least be someone who can open a summer blockbuster or who fronts a band that goes on actual world tours. Sometimes with, and sometimes without, Gwyneth.

50 -- OK, apologies to the happy fun blog, but that pushed me over the line. Ummm, poseur much? So the sin is calling the cops in the middle of an assault at a crowded bus stop? I live in a typically bad, majority-minority neighborhood and I can guarantee you that almost all of my kindly neighbors, including the illegal immigrants that have bigger worries about the cops than you do, would much rather have the cops show up than risk an unsupervised brawl that could turn deadly fast. But I'm sure as long as you and your incredibly awesome and deep empathy with black folks are working hard to sneer at yuppies, no one has to worry about violence.

Note that I am sensitive to this as we just had the second gang murder in two months in a 3-block radius.

Just to reiterate: If the struck-ee had wanted someone to call 911, I would have been happy to comply. However, he didn't ask anyone to do so, and in that context, making the assumption that it was a good idea to call without his consent was indicative of a life spent outside of that context.

Plus, what would the cops have done? "All units, all units, be on the lookout for a young black male, 5' 10" to 6' 2" tall, wearing a white T-shirt and dark shorts, with close-cropped black hair. He should be considered unarmed and dangerous to old drunk guys who are acting the fool." Yeah, that'll do a lot of good.

You know, minneapolitan, maybe you should just be a little more concerned about Chris Klein's safety.

From a block away, that yuppie couldn't have known that he had provoked the kid to punch him in the face by saying, "When a woman isn't feeling good about herself and you combine that with her period, eventually she'll ask you if you like her body. You have to say no."

69 is true. Otherwise you are a despicable placater, and Chris Klein never placates.

67: No, the "sin" is acting like an ass when people very reasonably point out to you that you acted without enough information.

Anybody there would have called 911 (which is a joke in my town, if not in yours) immediately, if it had been necessary, but it simply wasn't necessary. Do you know why? Because if you're some old drunk guy, and the cops show up, there's almost certainly going to be extra shit in your life that you really don't need to deal with. There wasn't any fucking "brawl", dipshit. Just a random act of violence like a thousand others that happen every day, unreported, unremarkable and unintelligible to people who think that Officer Friendly is going to swoop in whenever there's trouble and make everything all better.

Clueless, much?

68 -- From your description, it sounded like a potentially nasty fight was actually ongoing in a public place. That's a situation in which an quick cop appearance actually can make a big difference, by defusing a situation that at least has the potential to get bloody quick. I don't know about MN, but out here there's a very real chance that letting the fight run its course in a crowded spot could end with an innocent bystander shot dead.

Chris Klein also has a chick he dated for years and years and then was engaged to insisting that they never ever did it.

69: No, you're right, you're right. I met people in Omaha who knew Chris Klein, and to all accounts he actually appears to be a human being of some sort.

73: Learn how to fucking read before you comment here.

Learn how to fucking count before you call someone illiterate.

The Tarantino quote was from a GQ interview. Can't find the full article but excerpt here. It goes on.

"I remember in the case of Reservoir Dogs, writing this scene where the undercover cop is teaching Tim Roth how to be an undercover cop, and when the actors came in to rehearse it, Harvey Keitel read it, and he thought I had just taken Hamlet's speech to the players and broke it down into modern words.

"I'd never read Hamlet's speech to the players."

Wow seriously! Nice to see AWB took the words out of my mouth. (Confidential to AWB: xoxo)

That was a finger roll. I meant 72.

Compare:
From your description, it sounded like a potentially nasty fight was actually ongoing in a public place.

and

the young guy picks up something he's dropped and takes off down the block. Everybody is just gobsmacked for about 5 seconds, 'cause it was so out-of-the-blue. But then a few people go over and help the guy up. Turns out that he's (a) not really hurt,

So, no, I didn't describe an ongoing fight, or a race riot, or anything else along those lines.

Cop-lovers ruin everything.

Just like Derb said about women, Chris Klein is at peak attractiveness between the ages of 15 and 20 years old. As he ages, he will change, horribly, from "cute" to "weird-looking in a desperate, truckstop-stalker way."

80: We're supposed to point out pretentious-ass blowhard quotes in this thread, not generate new ones.

Kathy's Song, Eva Cassidy

This is a striking track.

A few moments of research reveal that I don't recognize this Chris Klein person at all, and don't seem to have heard of Election. The photos of him on IMDB suggest that no, he is not aging well.

HOWEVER. Contra 81, many of us women are not at all at peak attractiveness between 15 and 20 years of age. That must be a joke.

75 -- Look, I know I started by being rude, but fuck off. Your position is that there's something wrong with seeing a fight break out at a crowded bus stop in a downtown and calling 911 to have the cops come and break up the fight? How do YOU know what the cause of the beef was? How do YOU know what the most likely result would be? Sure, like anything else, it's more likely than not that not too much comes of it. But there's a real chance in these situations that things can go bad, and fast. And that's worth worrying about. This also sounds like one of the situations where cops can do the one of the few things they usually do well, which is to defuse trouble situations before they become a problem.

But your view is that the real asshole isn't the guy who takes the swing but the guy who's worried enough to try to call the cops to defuse the situation, presumably because he's wearing a suit, sounds like a dork, and has a well-dressed girlfriend. Wow, what a tool! Guess I better show my own street cred by calling him out on the internet. That's a pretty juvenile attitude IMO.

In general, although what you describe turned out to not be that big a deal, I really dislike your glib attitude about how big a problem violent situations like those can be. As I say, I wouldn't have responded, but the attitude hits a very sore spot with me because my neighbors are currently grieving for their kids who were actually shot, and because I and my family are sad to see a lot of good people in our immediate neighborhood afraid of random violence. But maybe you're cool enough to handle it!

Also, I find your attitude towards racial solidarity false and grating, but that's a different conversation and not one that I really want to get into.

Look, I know I started by being rude, but fuck off.

I was going to nominate something by McArdle (so many choices), but this just won the thread.

86 -- OK, fair enough. But I blame the other guy. I'll bow out now and let the fun thread resume its course.

You guys killed the thread. Goodbye, happy fun thread.

I once said "Ooh, Heraclitus. He's my second favorite Greek."

I quickly realized how awful that sounded, so I followed it with. "My favorite Greek is Yanni, this guy I went to college with."

(Oudemia will appreciate that last one.)

Yay! More blowhards, please!

I just mined my mom for quotes. Sometime in the K-3 years, being driven home from school: "There are too many churches. If God was a cockroach, I'd squash Him."

(I think I picked up my parents' atheism a little more automatically than they would have preferred.)

83: I heard of her from LAt music critic Ann Powers, who linked a rendition of "Imagine" done by a teenage boy on American Idol to Cassidy's version of it and sent me hunting for her stuff.

89: Yanni is famous! Both from his own doings and a Dag Nasty song named for him!

About three years ago, in the course of a very heated argument with friends about charter schools, I tried to make a pro-union/anti-charter argument. It wasn't going well, and pretty much everything I was saying was based on something my sister, who then did educational policy, had told me. So I noted that, explaining, for what reason I know not why, that "my sister had gone to Oberlin." My combination of asshattitude and non-sequitur met stony silence. Until, finally, a friend said: "Is that a credential?" At that point it was too late to explain that my sister actually had real knowledge on the subject. So I folded my tent.

I don't know what made me think of that. Maybe I just wanted to break the awkward silence. And by the way heebie, this is an excellent thread.

94: And by the way heebie, this is an excellent thread.

Yes, although somehow I think that Ben's presence might have added a certain little something to really put it over the top.

Harvard publishes little Greek-English and Latin-English facing pages translations hardbacks under the imprint of the Loeb Classical Library. I know someone who refers to them as "Lebs." Classicists are wildly pretentious, but this takes the cake even for them.

95: Was me.

Thanks! A la 93, I once boasted to a roomful of mathematicians that my uncle was a mathematician. They were like, "Um, that's great."

98: Heebie, I was just in Kansas City grading Latin AP exams and there were calculus people there too grading exams. They had made themselves MADD tshirts -- Mathematicians Against Drunk Deriving. "Know Your Limits!"

Speaking of things that make you laugh, I thought this scientist's response to a nutty guy questioning his study on the evolutino of E. coli bacteria was very funny. Don't miss the postscripts.

This isn't blowhardy, but on-topic.

This past spring, a student was trying to tell me this joke:
Q: What did the asymptote say to the function?
A: (singing) Can't touch this! Bum-ba-da-dum...da-dum..da-dum Can't touch this!

Anyway, as she was telling it, she interrupted herself to make sure I knew what song she was talking about. I was dumbfounded that she thought I might not know MC Hammer!

Are evolutinos the atomic particle that selects nature?

[Cindy] Sheehan has obviously taken a short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive.

Christopher Hitchens

I'll tell you what. I've been in combat. I've seen it, I've been close to it... and if my unit is danger, and I've got a captured guy, and the guy knows where the enemy is, and I'm looking him in the eye, the guy better tell me. That's all I'm gonna tell you. The guy better tell me. If it's life or death, he's going first.

Bill O'Reilly

Everyone should have enough money to get plastic surgery.

Beverley Johnson

A lot of people think it's going to take the mustard off the World Series. Well, the World Series will always have mustard on it. Anytime you're playing for that ring, there's going to be mustard involved.

Unspecified baseball player attempting to talk about "lustre" and the World Series; I can't remember who said it but I swear to God this is a real quote

100 is funny.

I first was told of the "wonders" of the 11th Edition EB by a gentleman who was wandering around a party reading one of its volumes. Just so happens that at the time he was associated with ari's sister's college.

Actually a few years later I bought a copy of the 11th and have been quite satisfied with it. (Those who do not own it can infer my feelings of superiority ... Actually it is rather interesting, a real mixed bag, some of the articles, "Tides" for instance, are incredibly daunting.)

I have a lot of respect for Johann, but this article is conceptually chaotic from the first sentence. (There is, Johann, no construction of the form "to be comprised of" in English: a quantity comprises its parts, or is composed of them; the parts do not comprise the whole. I know it will appear pedantic to raise the point, but as I criticise you for not examining the intellectual case that you're depicting, it's relevant that you weren't visualising clearly your target before attempting to characterise it.)

Oliver Kamm, excerpt taken pretty much at random

Fuck me and a different computer, I am 105. Looking for a real treasure of a Nabokov quote that struck me. As I am aware of all Nabokov quotes, it is taking me a bit of time to find the one I am thinking of.

100 is funny; 102 is punnier.

Heebie, it hurts me to say this, but you just don't seem like the kind of gal who'd know about MC Hammer. There's nothing wrong with that! I'm sure you're a fine person.

I just though you should know what people think of you, for your own good.

OK, I'll try to redeem myself. This is a blowhardy quote from the blowhard to end all blowhards. Guess who?

"Everyone is entitled to be an architectural critic, especially of one's own environment. Since I studied and worked at Harvard for almost half a century, I have a list of its buildings that I believe should be taken down immediately. If not sooner. They despoil both the skyscape and the landscape, most of them brutally fulfilling the threat inherent in their style, i.e., the "brutish" style."

I've said many pompous things, but I don't remember any of them. Mostly just garden variety stuff like getting my Ws upside down when saying "we".

DS, reading Kamm is hurtful. Find a steps group at once.

Every city I go to is an oppurtunity to paint, whether it's Omaha or Hawaii.

Tony Bennett

Beyond its entertainment value, Baywatch has enriched and, in many cases, helped save lives. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to continue with a project which has has such a significance for so many.

David Hasselhoff

The 700 variations of lying that humans have cultivated since the beginning of humankind . . . should be utilized in the creation of hyperlinks. They should never be true, but never false in uninteresting ways. The difference in the time between the promise and the gift should be as rich and natural an experience as Bourdieu's understanding of the giving of the gift and time expended until its reciprocity as part-and-parcel of the cultural substance and psychological pleasure of the exchange among the Kabyle.

Brian Kim Stefans, who isn't nearly as much of a douche as this quotation about cyberpoetry makes him sound

112: reading Kamm is hurtful.

I find that my eyes bleed after exposures of longer than thirty seconds.

110: Peretz?

You got it!

Nabokov: I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.

This itself always set my teeth on edge a bit, but then:

Martin Amis: To paraphrase and slightly adapt Vladimir Nabokov: I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished man of letters, I talk like an idiot.

(Amis was defending some of his Muslim BS on the basis that the quotes were from something he said rather than wrote.)

Oh, here's something I said once that a friend still gives me shit about. I was describing the apartment that my sils were sharing in Chicago in the process of bitching about them. You need a rising inflection at the end in true gossipy suburban lady mode to get it right:

"Blah blah blah apartment . . . and small!"

Thesis: the so-called "warblogger" era of 2002-2004 produced the most pretentious and blowhardy writing in recorded history. Consider:

S/teven D/en B/este
Jeff Goldstein
Kamm
Peretz
that "Belgravia Dispatches" guy
the "Belmont Club"
Michael J. Totten
"Tacitus"
and a cast of thousands of others

110 didn't seem nearly as blowhardy when I didn't know who said it. But then I have a short list of buildings I'd like to see demolished. Also, I don't even own a television.

119: A really splendid example of Cheeto-stained pomposity is presented for your reading pleasure at The Poor Man Institute right now.

Are the people pictured in that Poor Man post actually the people who said the things being quoted? B/c if not, those pictures are mean.

I nominate everything Lee Siegel ever wrote.

Also, taking issue with heebie's original question, pretentious asinity and blowharddom are not necessarily colinear. If you imagine a cartesian coordinate system with pretension on the x-axis and blowharddom on the y-axis, you would have a certain concentration of points around the line described by x=y, but you would have non-negligible outliers in the northwest quadrant (e.g. Sean Hannity, David Horowitz) and southeast quadrant (Leon Wieseltier, Jeffrey Toobin).

Peretz, of course, would necessitate the use of a logarithmic scale on both axes.

123-- Awesome. But isn't Wieseltier also a blowhard, in addition to being the most pretentious man alive?

For some reason, I feel like a pretentious-ass blowhard whenever I use the word 'hegemony.'

i think I met 14. repeatedly. But I can top it:
"I'm on the verge of being famous."
--unfamous assistant university of chicago prof. still unfamous.

for years we all joked, 'oh sure honey, we're all on the verge of something. and you definitely are.' but not in front of academic on the verge.

The video at number 11 here.

122: To whom, the people in the pictures? I agree with you.

122 is silly. That poor gentleman who put pictures of himself wrapped in duct tape on the internet: he never thought anybody would mock him for it!

I am not a snob - ask anybody. Well, anybody who matters.

Meeting Andy Warhol... cool, great... but it wasn't like someone giving me a Ferrari or anything.

How about this one?

Anybody there would have called 911 (which is a joke in my town, if not in yours) immediately, if it had been necessary, but it simply wasn't necessary. Do you know why? Because if you're some old drunk guy, and the cops show up, there's almost certainly going to be extra shit in your life that you really don't need to deal with. There wasn't any fucking "brawl", dipshit. Just a random act of violence like a thousand others that happen every day, unreported, unremarkable and unintelligible to people who think that Officer Friendly is going to swoop in whenever there's trouble and make everything all better.

122, 129: I thought the internet ran on Mean. Maybe it's been retrofitted to accept Nice (expect some loss in performance). Speaking of retrofitting, my electrified bike is great.

129: Well, mocking him is one thing, but comparing him to one of the most inveterate, deluded conservatives imaginable? That's a pretty low blow.

Let's add this one to the Minneapolitan Fuck The Police file:

Police lie to suspect, tell him that girl he knows is snitching. Suspect orders girl's murder.

At age 11 or so, I was at lunch at a restaurant* with the extended family after a funeral. (I don't remember whose it was, but it was an older relative -- probably at least in their 80's -- so not too sad an occasion.)

A (young and not-so-wordly) cousin was impressed by the butter pats wrapped in foil, and I said, "We saw those everywhere in Europe."

*That would be at the R0bin H00d Inn, the traditional family lunch spot after we bury someone in the G.W. cemetery in Paramus.

Gehovah Witness?

Once I visited a friend whose mother actually churned their own butter. It was sitting all shapeless in a tub on the kitchen table, not in a nice rectangular shape. I also was once offered milk still warm from my uncle's cow. In both cases I found the naturalness mildly disgusting.

I thought the internet ran on Mean.

Usenet ran on mean. The web runs on a mixture of pr0n and cluelessness.

nice has never been seriously considered.

"my sister had gone to Oberlin" . . . "Is that a credential?"

ari, go find your friend and tell him, "Yes, you sad, clueless bastard."

Sir Kraab grew up in Paramus?

I spent a summer in Bergen County at the Ramapo Junior College.

Niceness is being stockpiled by speculators for the coming era of Peak Pony.

139: Nope, I've only lived in central & south Jersey.

Both of my parents grew up in Teaneck, along with their extended families. Many of the older relatives bought family plots in that cemetery decades ago, so most of my grandparents and great aunts and uncles and others are buried there, even if they ended up living somewhere else.

She's no Chris Klein, but Scarlett Johansson's wittering about Obama is still worthy of this thread:

On talking with Obama: "The most time I spent with him was the first time I met him, at a private event for supporters. After that, it's been a few minutes here, a few minutes there on the trail."

Obama's response is what make this completely awesome:

"She sent one e-mail to Reggie, who forwarded it to me," Obama said matter-of-factly.

"I write saying, 'Thank you, Scarlett, for doing what you do.' And suddenly we have this e-mail relationship."

Probably that means he's gay. He's suspiciously well-groomed.

Someone ask him about interior decorating next.

138: "Yes, you sad, clueless bastard."

But a credential for what, exactly?

Also, food-related reviews in Yelp are good for self-importance:

I found the salumi sampler in a cone delicious and thought provoking.

144 - A credential for being a liberal fascist

The ongoing multi-blog spat regarding certain blogs unpublishing entries by and about certain other bloggers is also a goldmine for self-importance.

147: oh dear me. I think I know which blogs these be. URL?

136: We have friends that make the majority of their own dairy products. (Also a wide variety of distilled and fermented drinks) Moll-E makes yogurt all the time, and has also experimented with making cheese and butter. I think it is great. There is an Amish family that sells butter in the west Cleveland area that is wonderfully salty.

148: This is a decent starting point. I'm not linking directly to any of the blogs involved because dear GOD do I not want any of the myriad participants coming back here.

http://www.metafilter.com/72928/Boing-Boing-Finds-21st-Century-Trotsky

I thought in-jokes were to be the analogies of the Heebie era. Are we not to eschew them rigorously?

...which contains links to relevant threads at the boingery and M/aking L/ight.

Hi! Hi.

150, 151: ooh! Not what I thought! Good times!

Is the reveal that changes everything a hidden enmity between VB and Amanda Congdon, or something else?

Well that's all so stupid I think my face fell off.

You've disappointed Sifu, Josh. You know how he gets when he's disappointed.

157: It's rather breathtaking in the scope and magnitude of its stupidity, though.

I can't possibly understand any of that blog-fight stuff. Is there someone here who cares to explain the finer points for a noob like me? I mean, I read that blog occasionally. But I've never stopped to consider that there are actual bloggers who post things there. Nor has it ever occurred to me that they have feelings.

Okay, 159 was actually as concise an explanation as I could hope for. Moving on...

Well that's all so stupid I think my face fell off.

But... but... there's no way that you've had enough time to fully STEEP yourself in the face-dissolving stupidity.

Also, it's boring.

162: my face is very sensitive like that. The canary in the stupid-mine, as it were.

SIfu has one of those fancy quick-release faces, rfts.

165: The facial hair obscures the rather unsightly seams.

Ask Blume about the time it came off on her...

Oh, sorry, sanctity of off-blog communication.

Any statement ever made by Steven Seagal.

I'm hard to disgust, so good job, Knecht.

"I stuck my tongue in his mouth and tasted fresh air!"

136:

I also was once offered milk still warm from my uncle's cow.

Was this in Iowa? Man, all the pervs in the world seem to be on Iowan farms.

I hope you didn't try it, because that was no "milk" and for sure that was not his "cow." Being from Chicago I thankfully knew enough not to fall for that one.

Ewww.

There is an Amish family that sells butter in the west Cleveland area that is wonderfully salty.

Now you are really pulling my leg. Cleveland is nowhere near the ocean.

Ewww, Sifu made it worse. Now I yearn for the sweet surcease of death.

People are often surprised at how salty the Amish can be.

I found the salumi sampler in a cone delicious and thought provoking.

Totally stealing this.

Hey, where's Cala? Your sister's school has an excellent new restaurant - not dining hall, but genuine restaurant, with a full bar and quite good contemporary American food.

For locals, think of it as S/x Penn Junior (Oh, how I wish we could say that in the review. But it wouldn't be fair).

There is an Amish family that sells butter in the west Cleveland area that is wonderfully salty.

I still have a chunk of that* in my freezer - I just can't eat it, and my MIL - who consumes 80+% of our salted butter - doesn't like it, either.

* Or similar, from other Amish.

I'm hard to disgust, so good job, Knecht.

You know, I was offended once. It was the weirdest feeling. I wasn't just grossed out. I get grossed out easily. I was *angry.* I couldn't figure out why I was angry, or what was going on with me. Then I realized I was angry at the person who had made the gross movie for polluting the world with its grossness. Then I realized "Hey, this is what it is like to be offended. Wow. I've never been offended before."

For a long time I've been meaning to find a way to John Waters for making Pink Flamingos, because if I hadn't seen it, I would have never known what it was like to be offended.

almost OT: Isn't salted butter sort of pointless unless you're leaving it out a long time?

170: General area of Dows and Clarion.

Wisconsin is where the cannibals are, though.

I do leave my butter out, but I like (most) salted butter! It tastes good. Salty, if you will. The effect isn't exactly the same with butter plus salt on top.

Isn't salted butter sort of pointless unless you're leaving it out a long time?

What? Salted butter is the kind that's good for eating on toast and so forth. Unsalted is just for baking, when you want to control your salt inputs.

I know there are people who eat unsalted like a spread, but they're wrong. I should know. I have credentials.

[How did I do? Does it fit with the thread or what?]

The effect isn't exactly the same with butter plus salt on top.

My mom always loved to tell the story of going to some banquet thing in NYC in the 70s, and the butter was unsalted. She and an acquaintance tried mixing salt into the butter, but it didn't work.

JRoth is absolutely right.

Before pills I tried low low salt to control my high blood pressure. That was no use against my peasant Polack genes but I did discover that no-salt cheese is terrible. Yuck. You might as well eat lard. By itself. Plain. You might as well drink, ugh, silk (shudder).

178:

You know what they call a bunch of John Deere's parked around a McDonald's in Iowa?

Prom night.

Ar Ar.

I gotta say the women from Iowa are hott though. Must be the corn.

Tripp, last time I was in Minneapolis I met Minneapolitan at a place featuring Polish food.

I have credentials.

You went to Oberlin? Did you know my sister?

I know there are people who eat unsalted like a spread

I do this. Don't remember why I started. It definitely makes you buy the better-quality butter.

I'll stand up for unsalted butter as a spread. It can be extremely delicious if it's whipped and made with very sweet, fatty milk and perhaps a little honey, so as to add a delicious slighly cool melty sweetness to the toast.

Otherwise, salted all the way.

Swipple, I guess.

The effect isn't exactly the same with butter plus salt on top.

See, I don't find this is true, much. And it's too variable with maker, sometimes way too much (overbears the flavor). I guess if you were just eating buttered toast or so it would be weird to sprinkle salt on the butter. But I never do that. Sandwiches that need it have a place for it, and for some things it tastes better withouth. For anything else (cooking/baking/whatever) the salted is bad .... so I though people only liked it for the preservative effect.

It definitely makes you buy the better-quality butter.

That too! Without the salt covering it up, you can really taste the difference.

You went to Oberlin? Did you know my sister?

No and no, but the most delightfully wrong thing I ever did was at Oberlin. Ah, memories.

peasant Polack

Uhh-- peasant Czech food is indeed hella salty, but the butter by and large isn't.

Is the hottness of midwesternettes maybe a byproduct of cultural exoticism, the same way that orthodox men apparently really groove on shiksas because they're SO DIFFERENT?

Fleur and I went to a tony restaurant last week where, I swear to God, a server approached our table and offered us a choice of the house butter (complimentary) or the premium butter selection, including a homemade butter made with sea-salt, which cost extra ($6, as it turns out, although no mention was made of the price at the time, because, you know, if you have to ask...).

I'd like to say it was the best butter I've ever eaten, but in fact it wasn't that special. It was so awkward. We joked for a long time after that about things like whether they would come around and offer us complimentary Morton's salt or some premium fleur de sel de Bretagne.

||

Holy crap.

|>

I thought for sure that 194 would have to do with Yggles and the Flophouse.

I joke because Beutler will survive.

193: Ah, the old artisinal butter scam. I hear White People Like That.

Is the hottness of midwesternettes maybe a byproduct of cultural exoticism

No, they are the very antithesis of exotic. They are the neutral palette against which exoticism is measured. The open air and prairie sunshine have bleached all the exoticism from their bodies.

Their hottness is related to the phenomenon that "averaging" digital images of multiple faces tends to produce more attractive faces. If only they would learn not to wear those damned baggy sweatshirts with the name of their landgrant university plastered over it, their hottness might grow to be more widely appreciated.

lw,

I meant as a peasant Polack I tend to have high blood pressure. It is a fair trade-off for the fast twitch muscles though. Put another way I'm a weightlifter not a distance runner.

Midwestern hotties are not exotic to me. Personally I think it comes from the hybridization that comes from genetic diversity.

For example when I traveled to England I seemed to see many people who had, shall we say, inbred for just a tad too long. You know, exaggerated features like elephant ears or beaky noses or missing chins.

There were exceptions of course, but I think midwesterners are closer to the ideal median that is beauty. One of the benefits of being a mixing pot.

We bought the Icelandic butter at Whole Foods once. Who wouldn't? It's called Smjör!

197: KR - exactly right. And - pwned as well. I salute you!

a homemade butter made with sea-salt

God help me, but I can sort of see the temptation to do this if you were a chef. Internal dialogue: man, I'd really like to make some homemade butter here, but if I offer it to the customers, they'll surely laugh at me for pretension, and yet, and yet I'd really like to do that, because my butter is so damn good, so. um.

Not the same as offering an array of salts, presumably none of which is hand-mined.

195: do we know if any of the flophousers were with him?

My first thought, of course, was to make a joke (e.g. "Great job, Roberts court" or something about Yggls) but then I actually -- no lie -- thought "too soon?"

I'm also glad he'll be okay.

$6

Considering how easy butter is to make (in the context of a tony restaurant, that is), that's a nigh-outrageous amount of money. It's also a weird price, because it's hard to imagine people paying it twice (accepting KR's assessment that it wasn't all that much betterbutter).

I suppose there's a group of people who simply don't care and/or want to show off, but still....

197: KR - So true, but the U of Whatever across the sweat bottoms is kind of cute.

Of course, I try to treat all women with respect whether they're pretty or ugly.

202 continued: or maybe "way to be stingy with the body armor, spackerman".

201: So you just make it and serve it and don't make a big deal about it?

then I actually -- no lie -- thought "too soon?"

On the veldt, only the most heartless wits survived.

So true, but the U of Whatever across the sweat bottoms is kind of cute. 1993

it's hard to imagine people paying it twice

This was a "destination restaurant" in an out of the way place, so I doubt they get a lot of their revenues from repeat business. So there isn't much disincentive to soak the unwary. Also, the overall price level was jaw-droppingly high (appetizers $17, main courses $44). It was good and all, but it always pains me to pay through the nose for the fresh, simple swipple food I enjoy, when the same product can be produced in a less frou-frou environment for a fraction of the price.

That's why I mostly prefer to cook for myself over eating out.

I offer it to the customers, they'll surely laugh at me for pretension

They will?

Of course, I try to treat all women with respect whether they're pretty or ugly.

They're all pretty. Some more than others. Except the English.

210: url to restaurant?

the U of Whatever across the sweat bottoms is kind of cute

I see a lot of these around with the name of the local high school emblazoned on them in the same place, causing me no small measure of moral panic.

213: fuck to oboe?

URL

"moral panic" s/b "sexual arousal"; "KR" s/b "SdB"

Fuckin' Ogunquit.

Ah, the perennially fresh topic of sweatpant-ass writing.

KR,

In that case I can only imagine what the "Juicy" ones do. Don't tell me. I'd like to imagine.

Damn good house-made swipple butter can be had here, and they don't charge extra. Interestingly, they don't have it on the buffet at breakfast. You have to ask.

Beutler's companion called 9-11.

Honestly, some people.

222 wins.

"moral panic" s/b "sexual arousal"

The phrase "no small measure" was carefully chosen, FL.

Hey, redfoxtailshrub, since we were talking about 2001 yesterday I was gonna mention I was happy to see some references to 2001 in Wall-E. I liked that.

mcmc FTW!

Did you go to the beach there, Knecht? It's lovely at dusk.

Ah, the perennially fresh topic of sweatpant-ass writing.

SWPDNL: SPAW

207: So you just make it and serve it and don't make a big deal about it?

Yeah, that would be an option, wouldn't it?

On the "surely the customers will laugh", well, the impulse is there. What's an upscale swipple-type chef to do?

Except the English.

This may be the most wrong thing Tripp's said here. I'll blame selection bias.

The now old Sedaris bit about menu prose has generated a running joke in my house. Sedaris wrote about an entree "menaced by a tribe of Chilean mushrooms" but pretty much any entree description can be enriched by adding "menaced" and "tribe" in the right place.

What's an upscale swipple-type chef to do?

just ask: WWTKD

On the "surely the customers will laugh", well, the impulse is there. What's an upscale swipple-type chef to do?

The impulse to laugh? I really think most people who go to upscale restaurants are not going to laugh at fancy butter served with no surcharge.

Hey, since we're talking food: did Blume ever pick up any of the cookbooks we talked about? Has anyone tasted the results?

Did you go to the beach there, Knecht?

Ayup. The Ruprecht family was taking our low carbon-impact vacation. The beach there, it occurred to me, was probably the inspiration for the writers on Jay Leno (I think it was Leno) for their gameshow spoof, "Gay, or French Canadian?".

A restaurant where a friend used to be the Chef de Cuisine had a policy of training all the servers to tell stories about the food. I thought things had gotten a little out of hand the time I went there and the server started telling us (no lie!) about where the owner had discovered the particular kind of butter we were served.

234: I didn't get on the cookbook-buying whim right away, and now I'll be out of the country for most of the rest of the summer. But I wrote down all the suggestions!

230: This may be the most wrong thing Tripp's said here. I'll blame selection bias.

Could be. You could have simply said "Elizabeth Hurley" and I'd have to back down immediately.

I'm too much of a gentleman to state where in the US I saw the least attractive people. I'm talking looks, voice, temperament, the whole nine yards.

233: We must write the restaurant and demand to know why they charge extra for the special butters. It's inexplicable.

236: "The artisans at the slaughterhouse told me that this particular cow put up a really impressive fight that caught them totally off guard".

Further to 234: But I have been making a lot of desserts using the Tweety family's new ICE CREAM MAKER. Cherry ice cream with chocolate chips and almonds has been the best recently.

just ask: WWTKD

What Would Tae Kwon Do?

I think "Who Wants Tae Kwon Do" is more grammatical.

Tripp, there is no shame in admitting you've been inside congress.

Sedaris wrote about an entree "menaced by a tribe of Chilean mushrooms" but pretty much any entree description can be enriched by adding "menaced" and "tribe" in the right place.

Some colleagues with whom I am remotely affiliated are currently working on a project to empirically evaluate menu word choices for a not-to-be-named restaurant chain. For example, is it better to describe a pinot noir as having "notes of raspberry" or as "a delightfully drinkable wine"?

The idea is not, as you might imagine, merely to boost sales, but to steer the customer toward the highest margin items. Certain menu items are not there to be purchased, but merely to satisfy certain customer expectations, or to stake out some cognitive boundaries to encourage the customer to order more (a $40 main course makes the $32 dish look like a bargain).

You might think, for example, that the restaurant is disappointed when you order the sorbet for dessert instead of the bananas foster bread pudding. Not for a moment! The gross margins on sorbet are among the highest of any food offering.

"Who Wants To Kiss Dikembe?"

I'm too much of a gentleman to state where in the US I saw the least attractive people. I'm talking looks, voice, temperament, the whole nine yards.

Three circles there...where do they overlap? My guess is Sugar Land, Texas.

Cherry ice cream with chocolate chips and almonds has been the best recently.

Yup. But I aver the overall prize stays with the Cherimoya sorbet, margins be damned.

Sugar Land is good, but I'm sticking with Congress. They don't call it "show business for ugly people" for nothing.

Rory, upon arriving in downtown SF in the airport shuttle: "Mama, don't you think San Francisco just really expresses the modern culture of America?"

(Thanks, BTW, to all for the travel tips. You have made a great contribution to my candidacy for mother-of-the year.)

I'm too much of a gentleman to state where in the US I saw the least attractive people.

Big Ugly, West Virginia?

Could be. You could have simply said "Elizabeth Hurley" and I'd have to back down immediately.

Never use a cutting, precise reply when a paragaph or two of blather will do.

The gross margins on sorbet are among the highest of any food offering.

I would imagine the gross margin isn't really the relevant metric, but instead total dollars of gross margin per dessert (as chances are that diners will order only one dessert, regardless of how cheap or expensive their choice is).

NPV, not IRR!

Tripp, there is no shame in admitting you've been inside congress.

As a short term visitor, anyway.

"Mama, don't you think San Francisco just really expresses the modern culture of America?"

Must have been jet-lag causing Rory confuse San Francisco with Wal Mart.

I would imagine the gross margin isn't really the relevant metric, but instead total dollars of gross margin per dessert

Yes, that's technically correct. The lazy use of "gross margin" where "gross contribution" is meant is a widespread shortcoming in these parts. There's no w-lfs-ns around to keep us in line.

...even when there are no w-lfs-ns around. The little fucker has habituated me to correct my own grammatical errors even when he's on hiatus.

254, 251: for, were that not the case, national chain restaurants would focus on ultra-high-margin super-premium designer desserts, like a single gentle puff of saffron and honeysuckle scented air.

255: he's still on hiatus? He's been commenting.

he's still on hiatus? He's been commenting.

Since when has one precluded the other? Noob.

Here at the Campaign For Real Hiati, we reject the term n00b as a tool of the capitalist unhiating dog.

Do you often get emails that were intended for the Campaign for Real Haiti?

No, but boy did we piss the Campaign For Real Hatin' off.

254: Gotcha, I couldn't think of the term "gross contribution".

That is pretty amazing though, since I'd imagine the sorbet or ice cream is probably a couple bucks cheaper than the bread pudding going on the menu. That's a bigger difference in production/purchase cost than I'd have expected.

Sorbet can be completely prepared remotely. You're paying to have a dish taken out of a freezer. Aside from fresh ingredients, kitchen skillz deployment is at a premium. Gahan Wilson knew fancy restaurants.

261: Nah, we're too small fry. The CAFRAH has had its hands full with fake rapper beefs for years now. The backlog's so huge they've only just gotten to the Fiddy Cent case files.

Sorbet also lasts indefinitely, so you don't have ingredient turnover.

(Thanks, BTW, to all for the travel tips. You have made a great contribution to my candidacy for mother-of-the year.)

Wait, have you been and gone already?

Sorbet also lasts indefinitely

Not exactly true. It is definitely best the day or day after it is frozen.

"I would never eat sorbet that's more than a day old."

267: well, okay. But it's less of a hassle than (say) bread pudding.

Also you could just buy these and chuck one of 'em in the ice cream maker every morning.

Did I say "you"? I meant "I" could buy those and chuck 'em in the ice cream maker every morning. I could do that thing.

Sorbet also lasts indefinitely

Not exactly true.

No, but it will last much longer in a commercial freezer, than in a home freezer. It will also last longer stored in large quantities (lower surface area).

A pint of ice cream has a noticeable change in taste after a week or two in my freezer, but have the sense than you can store tubs of ice cream at -40, with little or no change in flavor.

"We sensed that we were revolutionizing how the Hebrew language is taught in the United States."

Maybe they were! You don't know. We'd have a lot harder time getting people to do obscure, poorly-paid crap like writing Hebrew textbooks if they couldn't get excited about the possibility of revolutionizing their tiny little niche in the world. This is also how we get stuff like more aborbent paper towels, better-tasting toothpaste, etc.

Living in DC is fertile ground for pretension. Just recently, I had a woman swear me to secrecy before a mildly kinky sex act because "she might run for office eventually" and didn't want anything getting out that would hurt her political viability. Despite this, she was a very nice person, just sort of kidding herself about the way the world worked and her chance for future celebrity.

PGD that is awesome. You should totally put it up on Late Night Shots.

Yay! PGD got a blowjob!

A pint of ice cream has a noticeable change in taste after a week or two in my freezer, but have the sense than you can store tubs of ice cream at -40, with little or no change in flavor.

I suspect this is not true, if only from the evidence that the large higher-end ice cream chains have put a ton of work and money into rapid delivery. If `freeze it really well' was sufficient, they'd do that. IIRC, B&J had this fixed at maximum 3 days at point of sale.

That being said, a commercial freezer helps lots of things, true.

A pint of ice cream has a noticeable change in taste after a week or two in my freezer

After a what in your freezer? Does that happen?

did Blume ever pick up any of the cookbooks we talked about?

Thread link? Google is failing me.

"This is the real resource curse: with great resource wealth comes great unnecessary government responsibility."

From here.
I drafted it 100 hours ago and after stopping by here pretty much instantly wanted to change my handle.

After a what in your freezer? Does that happen?

We're not a big ice cream family. Other than fresh cherry season, the inevitable fate of all ice cream containers that enter our home is to be thrown away with a half inch of seriously freezer burned ice cream at the bottom.

Yay! PGD got a blowjob to second base!

I suspect this is not true, if only from the evidence that the large higher-end ice cream chains have put a ton of work and money into rapid delivery. If `freeze it really well' was sufficient, they'd do that. IIRC, B&J had this fixed at maximum 3 days at point of sale.

Rapid delivery would still be valuable even if "freeze it well" works. Temperature changes are always a problem (not least because they cause ice crystals to form) and time in transit is almost certain to involve tempterature changes.

Also, if you're talking about B&J getting pints to grocery stores, you're talking about a smaller container.

I could be wrong, though. I am far more confident about my description of the behavior of ice cream in a freezer at home, than the behavior of ice cream in a commercial freezer.

266 -- yeah, kind of a whirlwind deal. In the future, I will remember to figure out public transportation and not rent a car -- driving in SF kind of sucks.

Yay! PGD got a blowjob to second base!

"I'm going to let you feel my tits...you can even see them; I'm going to take my whole top off...but you can't tell anyone when I run for student council."

"I'm going to let you feel my tits...you can even see them; I'm going to take my whole top off...but you can't tell anyone when I run for student council."

Naa. Probably "you can do me from behind, but don't tell ANYONE!"

Will went to a faster middle school than I did.

282: DC is where student council hits the *big leagues*.

And 283 probably is accurate to middle school today.

280: No, I meant their own stores.

I'm pretty sure crystal formation in the fat molecules is the problem, and I don't know if you can avoid that even in deep freeze. What do I know, though.

ultra-high-margin super-premium designer desserts, like a single gentle puff of saffron and honeysuckle scented air.

I would order this.

There were rumors of blowjobs in the fire escape stairway in middle school. They seemed credible at the time. Sixth grade girls and eighth grade boys. I was in seventh grade.

This was Hebrew school.

ultra-high-margin super-premium designer desserts, like a single gentle puff of saffron and honeysuckle scented air.

You forgot the gold

A friend of the girl in the fire escape used to regale me with stories about how the two of them would call up high school boys and try to get them up over the phone. These boys' penises had names, one of which had to be "Herman".

This is probably why I found it credible.

ultra-high-margin super-premium designer desserts, like a single gentle puff of saffron and honeysuckle scented air.

Kind of like a hookah bar? I had rose-vanilla once.

My friends who went to Jewish summer camp had the wildest stories. It seemed much, much more interesting and wild to be a Jew than it was to be a Mormon. Which, come to think of it, is probably still true.

Friends went to Jewish summer camp with Seth Green (Oz on Buffy, Scott Evil) and said that he was revered for being able to take off a girl's bra while kissing her without her even knowing it.

I went to hippie international summer camp. I still recommend it to your kids of ages 9-16.

"revered"? By the other boys, presumably.

Who else is there? What, like, the horses?

Horses are famously bad at bra removal.

Damn, normally it takes years to attain that level of bra mastery.

Are we talking "take off" as in taking the whole thing off, or just unhooking it? Because if the former, wow.

The whole thing, although I'm going with "print the legend" here, Liberty Valance.

These boys' penises had names, one of which had to be "Herman".

Uh-oh.

Re 194: Petey is being nonsensically provocative. I sense baked good in our future.

286: I'm pretty sure crystal formation in the fat molecules is the problem, and I don't know if you can avoid that even in deep freeze.

Has anyone ever told you guys how anal you are? It's quite charming.

Liberty Valance

My favorite movie!

Penis=Ralph.
All 12-yr-old girls know this.

Ralph has stumped us all.

Twelve? What grade is one in at twelve? 5th? Why, I was still riding my bike in 5th-grade competitive fashion through the narrow dirt trails in the woods! And borrowing my friend's maroon corduroy bell-bottomed hip-huggers. Experimentally, you know.

Oh good gravy. Doesn't everyone read Forever at 12?

304: The corrections are making themselves now. I knew this would happen eventually.

In the U.S, one is in 7th grade at age 12.

12 = 6th or 7th grade, depending.

Hi.

In that case I can only imagine what the "Juicy" ones do. Don't tell me. I'd like to imagine.

Hott.

Beutler's companion called 9-11.

Giuliani‽

Go help me, I'm a bad person. I am very glad Beutler will be OK and I feel for his family and friends. Hmm, how is Beutler pronounced? I read it as Boyt-ler.

+d

One of my favorite college female friends had a whole naming system. Her BF's penis became "Jimmy, Jimbo, James, or Sir James" depending on how just how it was responding to the sexytime.

315: One the one hand, an erect penis is tall and dignified, like a knight, and hence one might expect the "Sir James" end of the spectrum to be used for that state.

On the other hand, erections are usually only shared with those with whom one is intimate, and hence one might expect that the more informal "Jimmy" to be used as an appellation in that situation.

an erect penis is tall and dignified, like a knight

If you say so.

||

Romantic dinner liveblogging: hey, Knecht and Fleur are at the same restaurant as us! Fleur is very nice.

|>

Romantic dinner liveblogging: hey, Knecht and Fleur are at the same restaurant as us!

Nice to see your and Knecht's plan is coming together.

Romantic dinner liveblogging

This really should be vlogged, I think.

Mary Catherine! Now you're back! Or is this, too, old new? Regardless, I *really* missed you. They kept changing the channel from hockey to football. And people are getting shot with handguns. Everything is so unfamiliar when you're away.

driving in SF

Video game Crazy Taxi, much fun, is set in SF.

news. Stupid Canadian fingers, ruined by frostbite.

What are they usually getting shot with, ari?

Or is this, too, old new?

Oh, I'm old news. Or am I old new? Aged to perfection, you might say, like the bottle of screech that I brought back for Emerson. Not that I went to Newfoundland, but my sister did and she got it for him. I went to TO to visit my mother's relations, and also to southwest Cork to visit my mother's relations, and also to London, where my mother doesn't have any relations. One thing I realized, yet again, is that the New York airports are a disgrace: overcrowded, understaffed, inefficient, noisy, dirty, chaotic, and just basically scuzzy in an early 1980s sort of way. Someone should do something, but probably won't.

That's awful about the shooting. Understandably, people are emphasizing that he's going to be okay, but holy crap! he might have been killed.

What are they usually getting shot with, ari?

In Canada? They're not usually getting shot. And when they do, it's with a long gun. Though honest, I was just expressing Canadian solidarity with MC and really meant no offense to any friends of Beutler. My comment was probably in pretty poor taste. Which may have been your point. Sorry.

honestly. Dammit.

Knecht and Fleur are at the same restaurant as us!

*boggle*

Sifu, Blume and Fleur are getting drunk on my corporate Amex. Embarassing stories sure to follow, unless I decide to be uncharacteristically discreet.

Sifu, Blume and Fleur are getting drunk on my corporate Amex.

Nice to see your and Tweety's plan is coming together.

I was going on syntax, not on taste. But it's good to see your guilty conscience in the full flower of its flower.

I'm disappointed to read that Fleur is very nice. I had been led to expect better of her. But I'm used to being disappointed.

331: Hey, Wrongshore, I tried to download your fabulous-looking mix, but I got a zip file with no files in it. Could you please direct me to the Secret White People's Version?

332: johni, I promise to be bitchy when I meet you, because I understand that sometimes love hurts.

Oh no. Try this. If it doesn't work, email me.

333, 335: For the record, it worked for me this morning.

I'm starting to suspect that Wrongshore receives payola from Clem Snide, however.

Thank you Fleur.

I used to know a woman named F/lor I/rlandez, in Spanish. The F/lor was for Fleur-de-lys, because she had French ancestors. I/rlandez means "Irish", in Spanish, because she had Irish ancestors. The Spanish was because Spain ruled the Philippines, but she didn't know any Spanish. She was an American, as were her kids. (Though she still spoke Tagalog and visited the Philippines frequently. )

Wow, thanks to Fleur for chasing down that waitress to get me a kir royale. A woman after my own heart.

329 is right. The part about being beckstyle, anyway.

Fleur got us super drunk and took advantage of us, for the definition of "took advantage" that includes "engaged in friendly, and drunken, conversation."

Friendly! Vor values of friendly that involve lots of hand holding. I love Fleur.

Um, forfor.

Thanks to 334, I now have Nazareth's version of "Love Hurts" playing in my head. I feel so violated.

Forfortor: that was the kimd of night. Forforfor.

Fleur has apparently given Blume hiccups so bad none of my techniques work to cure them. Beware the fiendish schemes of the Ruprechts.

I'm pretty sure crystal formation in the fat molecules is the problem, and I don't know if you can avoid that even in deep freeze

Commercial ice cream formulations usually include emulsifiers/stabilizers such as soy lecithin or carrageenan that inhibit (somewhat) the formation of ice crystals. I imagine that B&J achieves the same effect through a high egg yolk content.

Sorbet has none of this, so isn't actually very freezer stable. Nevertheless, a restaurant can whip up a batch in a commercial ice cream freezer very easily using only a bag of fruit (which can be stored in the freezer). So both the labor content and ingredient cost is relatively low, and you get a "house made" dessert that sells well, particularly among diners who feel too guilty to order a baked dessert.

Haagen Daz has a high yolk content. Ben and Jerry's has stabilizers in it; I think it's full of carageenan.

The promise of 329 is disappointingly unfulfilled.

Knecht should be severely chastized, as should Sifu. (As a gentleman I expect nothing from the fair sex, of course. They just need to be lovely.)

The promise of 329 is disappointingly unfulfilled.

Let's just say it's a good thing Blume is leaving the country today.

Blume is eating yogurt and rocking a thoroughly hungover aspect.

The grim photographic record of the evening (accessible to members of the unfogged pool).

Is she being lovely?

Is she being lovely?

The question answers itself, Emerson. "Lovely" in an inherent quality of Fleur and Blume. Note the apt symbolism of their pseuds.

352: I always knew I was a midget.

A midget with a shit-eating grin. Not exactly a grin. Figure of speech.

Forgive me for gushing, but bumping into Blume and Sifu last night was amazing. They were seated at the table next to us, and when I saw Blume I recognized her immediately from the DC Con photos, as she is very stunning. At the same time, she recognized Knecht. I think I said something incredibly stupid like, "Oh my GOD- you guys- I CAN'T believe it's you!!!!!" Then I had to sit for the remainder of the dinner with our guests, who were quite taken aback by my emotional outburst, and feign engagement while the whole time thinking to myself,
"this is too incredible, I can't believe I am sitting next to them- I must to talk to them!"
We whisked them to bar after our guests left.
I had such a wonderful time. They are both lovely.

It brings up an interesting point that I first really noticed when Ogged left- as someone who is older and not computer savy, I find it difficult to classify the emotions I develop for people on Unfogged. When Ogged left, I cried. When I met Blume and Sifu it felt for me like meeting old friends because I was already attached to them in a positive way.
Yet everyone here is in their alias form, and creating themselves from scratch.

Doesn't Blume have amazing eyebrows?

Blume and Sifu, we need a report on Fleur. She married down, didnt she?

Fleur, many of us teared up when ogged got cancer.

We'll all have to do something this summer.

We'll all have to do something this summer.

Yes you should! Like come to Richmond for a party.

BR keeps asking if we can have a summer Unfogged party in Richmond. But, I am afraid it would just be Stanley, eekbeat, and us.

358: will, you and I of all people should be encouraging women not to think they could do better than they have.

Does Richmond have beaches? I was thinking more about stuff in the metro Boston area.

Sifu, you have to generate traffic where ever you can.

Two things are always said after meeting BR:

1. Wow! She is fabulous.

2. Why on earth is she with you?!?!?

I suspect that the same happens after people meet Blume.

Fortunately of us, Sifu, those two comments are followed by the mostly unspoken thought that we must be very good in bed.

BG:

Beaches are very near to us.

I forget what Blume said on the "settling" issue.

352: Holy crap. Both Blume and Fleur are really kind of ridiculously stunning. I just thought that needed to be said.

363, etc. No offense to Will, but any kind of "my partner married down" self-deprecation rubs me the wrong way.

George W. Bush used to make this joke while campaigning in 2004 (he joked that both he and John Kerry married up). The obvious overtone here--I am a rich scion of a Yankee patrician family and the son of a former president who married a small town librarian--was false humility of the most infuriating sort. It only works as a joke if the audience recognizes that it is meant ironically. I could never understand how anyone could interpret this line as genuine humility, any more than I could understand why the Washington press corps agreed to pretend that W.'s penchant for bestowing nicknames (a classic asshole trait) was somehow endearing.

FTR, neither Fleur nor I "settled"; neither of us could imagine marrying anyone else, and we generally prefer to remind ourselves of that rather than pretending to believe that one did the other a favor.

367: my grandfather used to tell my grandmother she had married up. Besides the fact that they were cousins, that was a pretty winning thing to do.

W.'s penchant for bestowing nicknames (a classic asshole trait) was somehow endearing

Okay, suddenly my quest to find a nickname for each of the little 9 year olds on Rory's softball team feels kind of hollow...

Okay, suddenly my quest to find a nickname for each of the little 9 year olds on Rory's softball team feels kind of hollow...

That's different. What W. does is a form of dominance behavior: "I am so powerful that I can take the most personal and precious thing you have, the very thing that defines your identity, and change it at my whim, possibly humiliating you in the process, depending on how much you please me. Moreover, my power is so absolute that you must pretend to be delighted by my exercise of power." Think of the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket dubbing the fat draftee "Private Gomer Pyle".

It only works as a joke if the audience recognizes that it is meant ironically.

Fair point. No offense intended.

Like most who take this easy route, I only intended it as a compliment to her and to give you a hard time. I hope that you know that despite what everyone else thinks and despite your best efforts to keep it hidden, I think that you are a great guy!

George W. Bush used to make this joke while campaigning in 2004

While agreeing with all the rest of your comment, and with no reference to the relationships of any of those here, it nevertheless always struck me as true in his case. She could have killed several more people and the point would still hold.

By the way, did anyone answer the request for a thread link in 276? 'Cause I've been looking and haven't seen it, and cookbook recommendations are just the sort of thing this white person likes. Or was the relevant discussion conducted in some useless way like an in-person conversation?

Think of the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket dubbing the fat draftee "Private Gomer Pyle".

That's her nickname for the catcher, actually.

I really do need to sign up for Flickr at some point. All these mysterious internet people, they actually exist somewhere! I just wouldn't know what to do with the account, seeing as how I believe photos steal the soul.

I just wouldn't know what to do with the account, seeing as how I believe photos steal the soul.

Take pictures of others, and then gloat over having their souls, of course.

That's her nickname for the catcher, actually.

Are you kidding? The catcher, like any good fast-pitch catcher I've ever know, could easily kick my ass. I just call her ma'am.

In early levels of baseball or softball, the catcher should be the best players, except maybe the pitcher.

Pickles was Dubya's role model -- she killed someone and walked.

In early levels of baseball or softball, the catcher should be the best players, except maybe the pitcher the one kid who can throw the ball from home plate to second base without bouncing it.

359
BG, after meeting Blume and Sifu last night, we decided that we would definitely be hosting a Boston meet-up at Chez Ruprecht this September. Date to be determined, but we will let you know soon. Knecht will be cooking. I will probably get drunk and hug people a lot (see photo). If you can endure the latter, please join us!

The seat at the head of the table will be reserved for Di, if she can make it.

378: Oh yay!

In young kids' sports, a kid can dominate without being terribly talented just by playing the game at all. Half of them will be sucking their fingers and asking "Was I supposed to try to catch that ball?"

I was just reading Fish on constitutive vs. regulatory rules in speech-act theory, and reading 377 made me realize that a lot of those 7 year olds I remember still hadn't the constitutive rules of their positions or the game itself.

372: Sorry, I missed the link request.

JRoth cookbook recommendations. Look around a bit - Ben mentions a couple as well.

I really do need to sign up for Flickr at some point. All these mysterious internet people, they actually exist somewhere! I just wouldn't know what to do with the account, seeing as how I believe photos steal the soul.

I know the feeling. I mostly prefer to not have visuals for the people here, but occasionally it feels like being left out.

The story of my downfall: reading unfogged has gotten me to adopt mp3 as format for distributing music, soon I will give in and enable youtube videos after that . . . flickr.

re: 382

What was your format for distributing it before?

What was your format for distributing it before?

Burning a CD and either mailing it, or handing it over in person.

Heh.

I should add that I use this for compiling CDs. (I think I've mentioned that earlier; I got it to celebrate getting my current job).

re: 386

Ooh, now that's flash.

It's very nice. It's overkill for what I use it for, but the sound quality is excellent, even when adding fade-ins and outs, and there is a pleasure in having a well designed tool (SWPL).

381: Bah. I see no cookbooks mentioned here.

JRoth was taunting us with the promise of cookbook recommendations. He's really only interested in driving traffic to his blog to make it the biggest green architecture/Tour de France/transit and urban development site around.