Here's something that might cheer you up

I love how good-spirited that meme is. It totally could have (probably would have?) gone the other way, but she got out in front of it immediately, and now it's a laugh with instead of against.

I didn't watch a moment of gymnastics, I can never remember her name, but I think that's great.

Anne, you have a plan (why did I type dress? I guess that's my plans for today leaking out my fingers), and that's the important thing. Make sure everyone knows you have a plan--in a job that finally makes me feel like I am empowered and have a level of autonomy (although my boss wishes I did less¹). Take it from fuckup or possible fuckup to managed risk.

Consuela, you have reached so much further than it looked like you could just a month ago. You're almost in the clear, and I think now that the flag is in sight, whatever obfuscation it takes is what you should do. Your mother can't stop needing to have a place in the decision making, but since she clearly can't, enh, why not let her feel like she has? It sounds like her reaction might be explosive enough in the short term, but in the long term she'll move onto something else.

When someone writes an ad that says "Why is it that complex pieces of technology come with equally complex instructions?" there are two things that come to mind: No, and Why not? Obviously everyone in the making of the ad knows that. Is the principle that manipulating the viewer is the most important thing, so you don't have to be truthful or even plausible (it's not like it's a big secret that your average iPhone or Android phone doesn't come with complicated instruction leaflets like the ad shows), but rather the stab for an emotional response is more important?

¹ My boss was sending people home early for Diwali, and I wasn't leaving because I had a 4pm meeting with someone a couple levels higher up the org chart with me, and he was offering to take the meeting for me, or make the discussion irrelevant. His half swallowed way of suggesting that was "I can run interference for you...not that you ever need that." Which was shortly after an "aside" about me eating lunch with the CIO. I'm starting to get paranoid that I'm doing things wrong. It doesn't feel like me or my projects suffer for me randomly showing up in people's offices, or calling the VPs of departments to find out how accounts payable/commisions/etc work.

In fact, the amazing project from hell, that was the role I fell into--when no one on the project team knew the business process, I'd start working through the org chart from directors down, to work out the proper subject matter expert. Now I'm getting paranoid that the job fell to me because that's not how you're actually supposed to do it, so they left it to someone who didn't know better?

Oddly enough, I mentioned this to the CIO during lunch. Just, weird, and just occurred to me.

I have bowed out of the race etc in casting discussion, since the last remaining person believes that the demographics of TV LA matching the national demographics makes perfect sense, and that there is not and has never been a white able bodied male skew on either the big or small screen. So the person in SAG/ACTRA whose job is diversity is either totally successful or unneeded. The articles about the male domination and vanishingly few non-white TV leads didn't happen.

I'm just...tired. I'm not doing the research for him, because I think it only takes being pensive and attentive to become aware of this. I mean, just from watching TV, and wondering how the Friends meet one Asian person and one black person in the whole run (hyperbole, but you know what I mean), or why all the writer/director/producer credits tend to be male, and why Nikita stands out on more than one front, and Undercovers had that meta discussion when it was cancelled. I know that the burden of proof is on me, but I've told him to watch television. Do I have to do his web searches too?

And as my sister noted--why do we have to reflect the (continued...)

( continues...) national/local/actor demographics? Why is art suddenly limited? Why can we dream of fighting a war against sentient robots we created so much more easily than we can dream of two black people and someone in a wheelchair on the team?

::breathes::

I'm not here to educate people, or make them think, like me or anyone else. It's Saturday. I have 1 errand and 1 work task to complete before midnight. Chilling now.

The cheese I figure I can just leave out, but the egg is a structural component as well as flavor/texture. I've done some Googling but so far all of the suggestions I've come across have been baking-related. I don't really think I want banana puree in my savory swiss chard pies. So...silken tofu? Soy or nut milk?

I'd probably go with silken tofu. Put it in a blender for a few seconds to get it smooth, then measure about a tablespoon or two.

Thanks, Hil.

What do you consider to be the most important things you can do in a muffin recipe to make it have a good crumb? It's not supposed to be too cakey, but the ones I've been making so far are denser than I like them. Randomly, the last ones I had from the place near work were the *best* I've had from there. I really want to know who their baker is.

Anyway, on my next go, I'm going to try baking soda as well as powder for leavening and hoping that opens it up a bit. Anything else?

Cute vid splicing many movies to make a trailer for Gotham High: [link]

When someone writes an ad that says "Why is it that complex pieces of technology come with equally complex instructions?"

Creepily, that ad came on exactly as I was reading that sentence.

Why can we dream of fighting a war against sentient robots we created so much more easily than we can dream of two black people and someone in a wheelchair on the team?

I only thought of this general thing recently, but really: why is realism ever a consideration? What on tv/film is actually realistic? Nothing, is what.

To paraphrase Dana, AUGH RUGBY.

I only thought of this general thing recently, but really: why is realism ever a consideration? What on tv/film is actually realistic? Nothing, is what.

This is why I have little to no patience for antiquated gender bullshit.

We just spent $800 on furniture at Ikea...

I only thought of this general thing recently, but really: why is realism ever a consideration? What on tv/film is actually realistic? Nothing, is what.

Well, I require some aspect (probably a set of aspects that must exceed some threshold number, really) to have plausible enough realism that I care what happens. That people really would behave like that, or talk like that, or those streets really intersect, or that's actually how physics works, something. But how much realism and in what aspects can vary a whole lot just for me, and I imagine other people have entirely different demands. So it isn't really a hittable target.

Ooh, Consuela, for your parents' new digs?