I hope you were wearing a hazmat suit when you waded into those waters . . . the depth and breadth of the delusion on display is frightening, also too.

Don’t give them Florida; they’ll finish killing the Everglades. Give them Texas, maybe, or Alabama.

The place I was lucky enough to be able to buy last year has butcher block counters in the kitchen, and I’ve been loving them. I still use cutting boards on top of them so I don’t hack them up too much, but I don’t worry about stains. That all said, any recommendations on what I should use to treat the counters? How often?

Okay, here’s another complaint: she has all that long hair swishing all over the place–does she ever pull it back when she “cooks” or “bakes”? Because I guarantee (as someone who has always had long hair), if she’s not pulling it back and braiding it and putting a bandanna over it, she’s serving it with dinner. And dessert.

Also too, she’s so fucking clueless it makes my brain hurt.

Can brining substitute for waterboarding?

Glad to see someone finally got to the Dead–they included so many influences in their music that they’re a crucial piece.

And I don’t think three is enough; any selection of three (including several fine attempts in these here comments) leave out significant strains of influence.

I also love Perotta–I stumbled across “the Wishbones” when it came out and devoured it in a weekend, and have kept an eye out for everything else as it appears. I like some of TC Boyle and some of Gaiman, but only some of each of them. And I’ve never seen Dr. Who, either. All that said, you might enjoy Martin Clark. I really liked “The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living” and “Plain Heathen Mischief” quite a bit, and am pleased to discover there’s a third one I haven’t read yet.

Probably hasn’t peeked at one, either.

Okay, I had never seen Stefon before, but he reminds me of a bad combo of Dieter and John Belushi’s samurai and . . . something that isn’t that funny.

I liked the Bruuuuni joke, and I have no opinion about his food reviews, but I recently read his book about him and food (“Born Round”) and really liked it. Even if the bit above does make him sound kinda assy.

The Reason review inadvertently gets to the point: the reviewer describes the movie as a “labor of love.” Except according to the Randian babble, it should only have been made for profit. (Which brings up one of the many conundra of Rand’s crap: why would anyone ever write a novel, or tell a story, or paint a picture, or sing a song?)

In general, weighing rather than measuring ingredients is better, especially for baking. That said, in pastry school, even though we weighed everything, we still sifted stuff on occasion. At home I almost never do, unless it’s something that has clumped.

But I would never, under any circumstances, use my Cuisinart to sift flour. That is wildly demented.

Over at Edroso’s place, the comments are also quite good.

Did you mean Selma Diamond?

Whom I loved.

Yes to LeGuin, particularly “Dispossessed” and the whole Earthsea series. The complete set is fascinating to read through, not just the first three. “Left Hand” never did much for me, but I’m such a huge LeGuin fan.

Sherri Tepper can be extraordinary–particularly “The Gate to Women’s Country,” “the Margarets,” and the Grass trilogy. “Beauty,” too. Others are good, but a couple are too formulaic for me.

“Mists of Avalon” is wonderful; I didn’t discover it until a couple of years ago and wondered what had stopped me. Others by the same author sucked, though.

Love Neal Stephenson, but start with “Cryptonomicon,” “Snow Crash,” or “The Diamond Age.” If you like those, then go ahead with “Anathem” or the trilogy.

Can’t really read Vonnegut any more (I used to love him); his issues with/around women seep out too much for me to read any more. Same with Heinlein.

Gaiman is fun.

Simmons eventually bored me; just kinda went on and on w/o going anywhere all that interesting.

This site/thread should be called “Atlas Shrugged: The Snarkening.”

One of the more horrifying things about Randfans is that they think her books are anthropological reporting. Personally, I wish they’d just actually go Galt. I’ll even let them use all of the roads, regulations, and municipal goods they scorn, one last time, if they promise to go away and not come back.

Holy shit–this is too damn funny. It sounds like something from the Spinal Tap world.

Bunk bassets!

Appropos mostly of the title, I once had the fun of explaining to my then-about-8-year-old-now-ex-stepson the difference between a minion and a minyan; the wonderful world of homonyms.