firecat

I was just treated to a really good dinner at the Madison Concourse restaurant, Dayton Street Grill. The restaurant has a new chef since the last time I was at Wiscon (and according to my dinner companion, since last year). It's definitely more than "a convenient hotel restaurant" now, at least for dinner.

They serve three sauces, out of a list of twenty, with each entree. You can either pick your own sauces or they will recommend some. I went with their recommended sauces for the short ribs, and was happy. Not only did the sauces add something to the ribs (which were very tender and came with their own sauce, which was also tasty), but the ribs were served with a risotto I actually liked. (I almost never like risotto...something about the texture.)

Tonight they were also serving some specials, which are supposedly previews of what will be on the menu later this year. One of the specials was "Cheese bread." I'll just say that it's not what it sounds like, and it's superb.

This is awesome.

http://www.food-for-thought-pyramid.com/

Designed as a tongue in cheek response to and criticism of the FDA’s Food Guide Pyramid, the “Food for Thought” Pyramid offers an alternative approach to enhancing your health. The “Food for Thought” Pyramid will help you become more conscious of the bigger picture of your health.

http://www.food-for-thought-pyramid.com/articles/pyramidsample.pdf

You can buy it as a poster.

The Kiva microloan charity organization lets individuals lend money to individuals or small groups in areas like Africa and Asia via the Internet. You don't get interest on the loan, but it is repaid to you, and you can either lend it out again or withdraw it.

Kiva initially repaid lenders at the end of the loan term (typically 10 months to 18 months), but they've just changed their policy so that they repay lenders each time the loan recipient pays an installment (typically once a month). So you can get your money back faster.

I just went online to lend out my accumulated "Kiva credit." A lot of other people were doing the same thing, presumably because of this change in policy. I was refreshing the pages of several loan requests and watching the "amount still needed" drop every minute.

It is cool to watch people trying to help other people.

My lender page: http://www.kiva.org/lender/firecatstef

....go to http://www.bethelstreetgallery.com/index_flash.html, click artists, click Chris Campbell, and enjoy.

Since I like all four, I'm enjoying a lot. Some of my favorites: "Summer Heat," "Cat Fight," "Floating Flower"

(via BBW Art: The Broad Band http://francesca.net/broadband.html via liveavatar)

Bacon brittle

Bacon baklava

I would make them, but bacon has a tendency to go from the draining and cooling stage directly into my mouth.

http://www.shakesville.com/2007/07/like-a-hole-in-the-head/
excerpt:

Thorn and I have become so outraged by all the stories we’re hearing about fat people’s encounters with asshole health professionals, we’ve decided to start a blog devoted to collecting them all in one place.

if you have a story to share ... please send it to fathealth@gmail.com.

Here's a roundup of some of the stories that people submitted. It has a link to the original post that inspired all the comments (which is heartbreaking).

http://www.shakesville.com/2007/07/first-do-no-harm/

via http://harrietbrown.blogspot.com/2007/07/take-love-your-body-pledge.html
via serenejournal and sistercoyote

I, your name here, pledge to speak kindly about my body.

I promise not to talk about how fat my thighs or stomach or butt are, or about how I really have to lose 5 or 15 or 50 pounds. I promise not to call myself a fat pig, gross, or any other self-loathing, trash-talking phrase.

I vow to be kind to myself and my body. I will learn to be grateful for its strength and attractiveness, and be compassionate toward its failings.

I will remind myself that bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and that no matter what shape and size my body is, it’s worthy of kindness, compassion, and love.

The point of this pledge is to "change the way girls and women talk to themselves and others about their bodies." I like that. I'm all for changing how body-hatred talk becomes an automatic bonding ritual among women that IMO ends up damaging our self-esteem and reinforcing a negative tendency to view our bodies as tools and vehicles to be manipulated instead of, well, us.

I certain am happy to pledge that I won't "call myself a fat pig, gross, or any other self-loathing, trash-talking phrase," except in mockery of such phrases or as a way of describing an inner landscape I don't agree with and want to change.

The part I won't promise is not to talk about how fat my thighs or stomach or butt are. Because promising that in the context of a promise not to talk trash about my body implies that I'm broken if I have fat thighs or stomach or butt. And I don't agree with that. My thighs and stomach and butt are fat, and there's nothing broken about any of them.

Cool!

http://bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com/375773.html

(note, contains photos of shirtless man)

I don't remember which person on my friends list posted the link to the Making Light thread in which LOLCatz (and other Internet phenomena such as 1337) meet literature, but thanks to whoever it was. I haven't laughed this hard in months.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009050.html

For those of you who are fans of the Mystery Case Files game genre (where you locate objects hidden in an image), they've come out with a new type of game in the same genre, called Travelogue 360 Paris. One difference is that the image is larger and scrolls (so you can't see all the objects you need at once).

I haven't played it yet; I just got a notice about it from one of the sites that carries it, BigFishGames.