Telephone is SO my new jam.


This post brought to you by my new Lady Gaga icon.

All around and outstanding weekend for music!

Friday: Purchased my Lady Gaga tickets. WIN! I am so effing excited!

Saturday: Attended Neko Case show. It was phenomenal, I could listen to her sing a grocery list and I'd be happy. Also as an added bonus Joey & John from Calexico opened for her and in addition to being fabulous musicians they were hot stuff.

Today: The Fame Monster was leaked on ONTD. HOLYSHIT the internet is going wild. ONTD might break the LJ servers again.

Bonus music news: Have recently been enjoying 2 new (to me) bands; Girls and Thao With the Get Down. Girls sounds like The Beach Boys+Sonic Youth+Pavement with a dash of the Jesus and Mary Chain. Thao sounds like Cat Power and Modest Mouse got together to write happy songs.

I blame this post and any future related posts squarely on alixnoorchis

I've got two new tv obsessions.

The Modern Family and Stargate Universe. Sigh. I'm never going to be a good student this way.

Ok the Modern Family is hilarious and you all should watch it. That's pretty much all I have to say. Good stuff.

SG-U is...strangely addictive. EW described it as "BSG-lite" and I can totally see that. With like, a touch of Firefly thrown in. Also the most recent episode "Water" had these crazy litle swarming bug things that attacked people and it was TOTALLY like those creepy green X-Files bugs. Without the cocoon though, or the misogynist  republican lumberjacks. Wow, I never thought I'd string all those words into one sentence. Go team!

Anyway SG-U is addictive for the following reasons:

1-I fucking love the shit out of sci-fi, even if it's kind of crappy
2-it's not crappy. It's not awesometastic yet but it's above average (particularly for the sci fi channel. Excuse me, SyFy)
3-HOT DUDES. Especially Jamil Walker Smith, who amusingly enough provided the voice of my favorite Hey, Arnold character. (Yes, I have one. Deal with it.)
4-There's a crazy ego-centric Scottish genius! It's like Baltar if his emotional issues skewed a different way.
5-There are gaping plot holes, providing ample opportunity for mockery. This is a positive, I assure you.

I'll stop now but I've got a question about one of those plot holes so let me put it behind a cut.

( What happens on Hoth stays on Hoth! )

Please tell me I'm not the only one here...

I really can't stand Funny Or Die. I just cringe every time I watch a video...I just don't think they're funny. At all.

Has anyone else noticed syndicated feeds aren't showing up on your friends page? I think something weird is going on.

So I've read/watched a ton of stuff lately. I'm going to dump it all into one post for convenience.

( Here there be spoilers )

Mother of pearl, I just made the best cookies ever! EVER I say. I'm not going to lie, I've already eaten five of them. I will probably eat five more in the near future. I'm going to have to bring them to school tomorrow to give out otherwise I'll give myself a case of Heart-A-Betes by the end of the week.

With the arrival of autumn my love of baking has been kicked into high gear. Also, I discovered another kind of chocolate that's safe for me to eat (Baker's Unsweetened for those of you keeping score at home) and it's opened up new avenues of chocolatey deliciousness.

I made a variety of other tasty things this week too, though the cookies are probably my favorite thus far. I'll provide all the recipes so you can live vicariously through my culinary adventures. Again, I wish for a proper camera so I could photograph my food in all it's fresh-baked majesty.

I think I'm also going to start using a ranking system for the difficulty of the recipe, that way when you guys play along at home you can decide if you're up to the challenge or not. Henceforth, the ranking shall be on a scale of 1 to 10 as follows:
1= Even if you're the most incompetent of chefs (spoiled trophy wife, man-child frat boy, etc.) you can make this.
5= You're a moderate amateur, you no longer rely on food from boxes. You rarely burn things and are familiar with most culinary terminology.
10= You have your own show on the food network or have written a cookbook. You have an incredibly high tolerance for tedious, time consuming recipes.

Chocolate-Cinnamon-Espresso Cookies (Skill level: 7)
( Coffee AND chocolate in one cookie? AMAZING! )

Cheesecake Marbled Brownies (Skill level: 6)
from Smitten Kitchen
( Like a cheesecake with a fudge crust! )

Jalapeno-Cheddar Scones (Skill level: 5)
I got these, as usual, from Smitten Kitchen.
( Sconetastic! )

DUDE. Why did I not read this book years ago??? It was fucking amazing. Holy shit. There is not enough profanity available to describe how much I enjoyed this book. It has everything: deep character development and exploration, vivid immersion in an alternate universe, political intrigue and espionage...all around fantastic! It was everything sci-fi should be. I know, that sounds really sappy. But I feel like as much as I enjoy sci-fi, so often it gets stuck in techno-babble, or space!porn, or (and this is more the problem of fantasy novels and fanfiction) extensive descriptions of the characters' attire and physical appearance all at the expense of character development. However, this book was totally solid.

I really hate to peg books by their genre but I think there's a reason sci-fi doesn't appeal to everyone, in particular literary snobs. I think it's in part because genre book authors often focus the majority of their energy on developing a style and this causes them to overlook other elements. This is not a problem exclusive to genre books, but I think they often fall into the trap. 

The Left Hand of Darkness was a complete and compelling novel in every way, and I think the fact that it IS sci-fi in addition to this makes it even more impressive. I'm not saying this to be condescending to sci-fi, I love it. I just think that often in literature it's a give and take and you sometimes have to sacrifice one element to manage another. Sometimes the effort to maintain meticulous technical accuracy, or a whole language/universe/history etc. means sacrificing character development. The universe becomes the focus rather than the characters. It's the same with mystery novels- the characters are there to propell the plot and if it's the other way around it's called drama.

The authors who are able to include everything and still have a cohesive readable novel are the truly talented ones. And there is no doubt in my mind that Ursula K. LeGuin is talented and has earned every bit of the praise and awards she's received.

I'll share with you the book jacket description as it's probably more concise then I could be and you're most likely tired of my rambling now.

"A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction."

Wikipedia tells me she's written many more books in this universe, I need to get them! Tomorrow I shall see if the URI library has them available...

Ok people I'm trying to decide what to be for Halloween. I'm opening up a poll to settle the debate. Cast your votes!

Poll #1464673 What should I be for Halloween?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

Which should I be?

I love Neil Patrick Harris!! I want him to come and sing songs for me every day.

Also: the Emmys are pretty much the only award show I care about anymore.  Anyone else share this sentiment?

FYI if you lack tv like me, you can stream it here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/east-coast-primetime-tv