Stereotypes

So, apparently, "survey says" conservatives are boring and liberals are messy. I'm offended on behalf of both sides of the aisle.

Granted, my quirky mindset (aka "moderate") is such that I'm labeled either liberal or conservative, usually whatever is the opposite of the person I happen to be chatting with. This is one of those many reasons I don't tend to volunteer a lot of political opinions. So I suppose that, having been labeled as both, it's easy for such a vapid article to get under my skin.

Then again, there's just the eye-rolling aspect of it. Surveying political opinions and then having strangers rate the tidiness or stylishness of workspaces? Somebody has a heck of a lot more time on their hands than I do.

Of course, then there's this David Cronenberg quote:
"All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they're stereotypes because they're true."

When means... I'm boring and messy? Touché!

Barefoot and in the Kitchen

This weekend I acted completely out of character by not only baking an elaborate dish (it required 5 pots--and a strainer!), but also by baking two different kinds of cookies from scratch. It's like on Sunday I had a little Betty Crocker Seizure... the lesser-known sister of the Grand Mal Seizure.

Here's a link to the main course recipe on my wiki:
Portobello Mushroom Lasagna

For my vegetarian friends, in particular (Kali, Lilly, pay attention!), this would be a great dish. The mushrooms are hearty enough that they provide a lot of protein. It's provided courtesy of your friendly Food Network and specifically The Barefoot Contessa, a show which I will now have to avoid because it compells me to cook tasty things with a cup of pure butter. Yikes.

By ironic contrast, the cookies were quite healthy. I made several healthful substitutions that, oddly enough, resulted in the tastiest, most perfectly-baked batch of chocolate cookies I have ever made. I started with dark chocolate chips instead of the usual semi-sweet; they're tastier and have more of those "healthy" flavinoids (which is the most made-up sounding substance ever). It was a pear upside-down cake recipe that Alex sent me, that inspired me to substitute applesauce (and a dash of veggie oil) for the butter. Then I got reckless and substituted whole wheat flour for half of the regular white stuff. Then I got plain silly and added a few teaspoons of a fiber supplement and bee pollen (which is supposed to be miraculous for energy and allergies, according to my bee-keeping in-laws).

They were the puffiest, most glorious cookies I've ever made. Now I'm pondering another batch, but substituting honey for half of the sugar.

And in the crossover between politics and comedy...
I can't find the link to the clip from Thursday's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but it was ridiculously hilarious, regarding Hilary and Obama in Alabama. Each, according to Stewart, speaking as if a black person imitating a white person imitating a black person. Ah, politics.

And in geekery...
I've had the Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis theme songs alternating in my head all day. This is no doubt due to the fact that we bought Atlantis Season 2 last week, and as a result, can finally finish watching SG-1 Season 9, since they intersect plotlines. And for the past two days, we've been watching a lot of Stargate.

Life is good... until you get to the last DVD of the season (we've currently got 2 1/2 to go in each show).