More luck and wealth! Huzzah!
I’m up 10% on my index fund experiment. Maybe I’ll get rich after all.
–Simon
Tales from Easement Acres
More luck and wealth! Huzzah!
I’m up 10% on my index fund experiment. Maybe I’ll get rich after all.
–Simon
Contrary to what my gardening habits might imply, I don’t really like squash. At best it’s a filler that absorbs more palatable flavors, and at worst it’s a slimy earthy sludge. For example, squash cooked with apples tastes good–like apples. Squash cooked with butter tastes like butter. Squash cooked as-is tastes like…sludge.
Case in point: Mediterranean Sausage Bake. This abomination, a recipe of my mother’s, involved baking zucchini with eggplant and onions, with some cheese and sausage for flavor. It was disgusting, but a favorite of dad’s, so each Father’s Day we lived the nightmare.
So anyway, back to present, I have a lot of squash. Ronde de Nice, specifically. And dad was visiting. It presented an opportunity to unload some of it. The plan was to cook him the sausage bake while we ordered a pizza. And yet…
…look at that!
Okay, so I used a lot more cheese, but still. It warranted a taste. And it was…reasonably acceptable.
Maybe I used better sausage. Maybe the Ronde de Nice was better than standard zucchini. Maybe I sweated the onions better. Whatever the case, it was edible, and a way to use up some garden produce.
And it made the old man happy.
–Simon
More cucurbitas. Though not the ones I intended.
When I planted the squash patch, I selected seed for each mound. Then I thew compost on each mound. Then I discovered somewhat later that the compost contained cucurbita seeds. These were supposed to be my pie pumpkins:
They are not.
But at least we’re getting a lot of fall decorations–arguably a better purpose for cucurbitas anyway.
–Simon
In these contemporary times it often feels as though I’m being force-fed feminism. It is, understandably, a product of modern social/economic/technological circumstances coming into conflict with our stubbornness to change, and is, within reason, a required means to achieve true egalitarianism. To this there is little argument. But why then do I find it frequently so off-putting? I am a modern man, a Millennial in fact, with rather liberal views.
To resolve the internal conflict, I decided to meditate heavily on the subject, and I believe that the anxiety is not a result of the goals themselves, but rather the execution. I will explain via corollary, specifically through the means by which one of my generation explores our present culture: TV and video games.
Firstly though, I’ll cite the Bechdel Test, as it’s both appropriate for this topic as well as a very straightforward method by which to analyze the relevance of female characters in media.
In summary, a movie doesn’t represent women in any meaningful way unless [paraphrasing mine]:
I’ll use this as the foundation to my own test (Moorhead Test?), because in response to a sudden desire to pass the Bechdel, women are being cast at an exponential rate, many times inappropriately, with the results often patronizing if not downright jarring and unbelievable. So I will attempt to assist the entertainment industry with their shortcomings. Here’s my test:
A female character isn’t believable unless:
I will elaborate on these points, then provide a good and bad example for each, to show where we have succeeded and where we have horribly failed (with the assumption that you, the reader, have similar media tastes and are familiar with the referenced characters):
Hopefully you’re following me and not looking for reasons to be angry. The point is that properly casted female characters don’t generally even raise an eyebrow amongst the intelligentsia, but too often they are indeed miscast for what I’m assuming is simply an attempt to increase female audience size or show how “progressive” the creators are trying to be.
Here’s my examples:
Category: TV
Good
Show: The Expanse
Character: Chrisjen Avasarala
Actor: Shohreh Aghdashloo
Role: UN Deputy Undersecretary, later UN Secretary General
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Bad
Show: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Character: Diana Troy
Actor: Marina Sirtis
Role: Counselor
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Failure reason: Acts annoyingly flirtatious and dresses inappropriately for a professional (despite what the above image might indicate, she spent most of the series not in a Starfleet uniform!). Makes several amused comments about the silliness of male honor codes.
Category: Movie
Good
Movie: Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Character: Sarah Connor
Actor: Linda Hamilton
Role: Mother of John Connor/Terminator Survivor/Cyberdyne Destroyer
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Bad
Move: X-Men
Character: Storm
Actor: Halle Berry
Role: X-man/teacher
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Failure reason: Acts juvenile with her short temper, and what is she teaching at that school exactly? Why did Xavier leave her in charge? Also: bad delivery of poorly-written dialog.
Category: Video Game
Good
Game: Halo Series
Character: Dr. Halsey
Actor: Jennifer Taylor
Role: Forerunner Tech Scientist, ONI (creator of Cortana and SPARTAN program)
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Bad
Game: Mass Effect
Character: Ashley Williams
Actor: Kimberly Brooks
Role: Gunnery Chief
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Failure reason: Lengthy banal backstory with no value, a clear insert for a love interest, tells stories of her sister’s bad experiences with men and her beating them up. Alien racist, but no clear interest as to why.
I ask you then, oh content creators, can we not please consistently create believable female characters? Ones that are professionals in their fields, and not just walking curves/love interests/man haters? Give us a reason to believe their existence is justified in the roles they’ve been cast, and then work on their personalities and backstories?
Perhaps your problem is that you lack women on your writing staff? Maybe hire some, but make sure they pass the Moorhead Test first.
–Simon
The laminate saga continues. To recap: carpet is disgusting and needs to be banished to the inferno!
We had actually installed new carpet in the master bedroom when we bought the house. It was an emergency solution. The existing carpet was beyond hope. It had been cleaned so much that it had unevenly bleached out. It was also the first glimpse we got of what happens to carpet padding after 50 years. It had to go, and we had Lowe’s contract the replacement with what we thought at the time would be a long-term solution: Stainmaster carpet.
But carpet is carpet. And dogs are dogs. And stink is stink. And unlimited trash pickup day was arriving. So here we went again.
But this time, I bought an oscillating saw. In the past I used a coping saw, but that was laborious. Plus, it was an excuse to get a new power tool.
I also added trim the the closet frames. And Liz painted a shade of green this time.
It does look nice and inviting. Two more rooms to go!
–Simon