Shameless plug
So if you didn’t know, I have a catering company called Triple L Desserts. I made a King’s cake today for the inaugural Fat Tuesday at The Way Station (see below) and here is a Twitter quote from a satisfied customer: “I am eating caek [sic] so good that I either wanna rub it on my tits or slap somebody.” And it was a good fake Mardi Gras. ‘Nuf said.
9/24/2011
A personal post or two…
Just to let you know I’m still alive. Life has a way of messing with your mind and spirit. Hopefully, I will be able to master such things soon enough.
And now on to lighter fare. Watching The Dark Knight again, it’s not nearly as confusing as it was the first time. And I realized that it wasn’t as OMG fantastic as I thought the first time round. Still fantastic, just not OMG. You understand.
Geeking out at my new(ish) favorite bar The Way Station. It boasts a TARDIS (which is bigger on the inside!) Wasabassco burlesque every last Thursday, and Tin Pan playing every first Friday. Come over to Prospect Heights, you know you want to…
Also loving new(er) webcomics. Up first: Girls With Slingshots, a comic strip that features girls and the men (or women) who love them. Right now (as of Saturday night,) Danielle’s having her deaf character, Melody, teach you signs that look dirty. Then we head over to Hijinks Ensue, which is what happens when the nerds you love to hate meet Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Check out Joel’s store, with great T-shirts. And for all you comic book fans, we come to The Gutters, which at this moment is showing an ad for Hijinks Ensue (interesting…) It’s a commentary on the comic book industry, conceived by Ryan and Lar, who also do Least I Could Do, a comic featuring a perpetually horny 20-something (it’s great, really!) and Looking For Group, a fantasy comic. The best thing about Gutters is that each one is drawn by a different artist, so you are exposed to many types of drawing. I don’t know anything about the comic book world, but after reading this strip, I could just about hold my own in a conversation. That’s saying something.
OK, on to another movie or something. I hope some of you will enjoy the fare I’ve given you.
8/5/2011
The Response
Texas Governor Rick Perry’s The Response, cause that there Rapture worked so well, dontcha know.
8/1/2011
Hooray for “compromise”…
I’m jotting this down quickly before I get to work, so apologies for the lack of links. If I get a fact wrong, please let me know.
Once again, President Obama has jumped in at the last minute and saved the day by compromising with Speaker Boehner. This time our debt ceiling will get raised. And once again, it seems like Obama gave it up faster than a virgin on prom night.
Let’s review, shall we? When this whole “crisis” started (reach of arbitrary debt limit = crisis; climate change & vast poverty in the US and the world = meh) everyone but a vocal minority (cough, Tea Party, cough) wanted to raise the debt ceiling. Republicans wanted to cut spending drastically and pass a “balanced budget” amendment, where it was law that the US always balanced its budget. Forget that this Congress was pretty much the same Congress that kept giving Dubya a blank check to fight unnecessary wars, but I digress. Democrats wanted to have a mixture of spending cuts and eliminating the tax cuts on the rich (again, another great idea from the team that gave us “Mission Accomplished” 8 years (and counting) too soon.)
This morning I hear that we’re cutting $1T from the budget, with a “super committee” of 6 Dems and 6 Reps to determine future cuts. Democrats don’t get any revenue raisers right now, but they got the debt ceiling to be raised. Wait, wasn’t that supposed to be a given? Except for that damned minority (hack, Teabaggers, hack) everybody wanted that. That wasn’t supposed to be up for debate!
Republicans get their spending cuts (oh, it wasn’t as high as that minority wanted, pobrecitos) but they didn’t get their amendment, which wasn’t really a huge deal-breaker in the first place, or there would have been a bigger stink about it.
This committee is supposed to have the power to raise taxes as well as cut spending. Let’s hope they do that. If they can’t come to a conclusion, then there are automatic cuts across the board. Once again, the Democrats are sliding further to the right, and we all lose.
7/13/2011
Netflix, the company I have loved and adored for helping me catch up on old TV shows, now wants to charge me for 2 plans: one for streaming, and one for a 1 DVD at a time shipment. Instead of $10 per month, I’ll be charged $16 if I want to keep what I have.
So, because it can’t get the rights to stream these movies, if I cancel the DVD shipment, I can’t watch Hotel Rwanda, 9, Inception, Scott Pilgrim or The Illusionist (the new one by the guys who did The Triplets of Belleville.) I’m charging this to my credit card, and I don’t want to charge much more than I am to get the stuff I’ve been wanting to watch.
And that’s not the thing that gets me. The real stinger is that I can’t contact them efficiently to ask if there’s a way to get better streaming. I’ll pay a couple bucks more a month if it means I get more TV and movies, but now I have to pay $8/month for a service I just got for $2? I can call Netflix, but the amount of time to speak to anyone on the phone is just under a half-hour (according to their website at publish time.) That doesn’t mean I’ll get to speak to anyone who can answer my question or do anything for me.
Some of you might think I’m being selfish, that I’m whining about something that’s really small. And yes, paying $16/month could be considered a small amount for unlimited service. What I don’t like (other than the unavailability of customer service,) is the huge spike in the price coupled with the fact that I’m trying to get TV shows and movies legally while not owning a cable box.
Netflix, by raising the price 400% in one go, you’re encouraging people to download movies for free from BitTorrent sites. Why so much? Are the logistics of a joint account that impossible to comprehend? Am I the only person who wants streaming and DVD’s? If you want more people to stream your content, then add more content. My DVD queue of 53 movies and shows has 9 streaming options. There’s a reason I pay more for a DVD shipment. I’m happy to pay a little more for the service, but you’re charging too much too soon. I’m dropping the DVD shipment and will either have to wait for the movies to appear in streaming video or get them from other sources.
Your loss, Netflix.