» OMG last night’s Supernatural—part of what I call the hub’s “HoYay double feature”—OMGPONIES!!1111!!! (Pshaw, I know they’re playing brothers but 1. straight men don’t talk about their “feelings,” least of all to another guy, and 2. they look like they really really really just want to go somewhere shady and make out. A lot.) (1)#
Have you scoped out the Geico cavemen’s pad at Cavemen’sCrib.com? I’m not one to shill for corporate America but the site is very thoughtfully and impressively put together—especially from my vantage point as an interactive-marketing refugee—and far more entertaining than I’d care to admit. I took a screenshot of a cookbook I stumbled open during an exploration of their kitchen; it specifies locally grown and organic ingredients (antibiotic-free seems redundant, however.)
Cavemen, they’re just like us!
(Although, considering that the Geico cavemen are portrayed as testy, bourgeois poseurs, maybe it shouldn’t be construed as a compliment.)
» I suppose the State of the Union address (or SOTU, which my brain always processes as STFU first, which isn’t a huge leap between neurons) proceeded as I expected it to—a lot of pithy lip service to placate the masses, much calculated spin to jerk Dems from their seats like puppets on string. And I’m sure the folks in NEW ORLEANS were hanging on his every word. Jerk. Let’s not even go into his audacity for bringing up Darfur. Asshole. The personal-outrage tally: One outburst (“THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN COAL!”), several grunts, and at least one derisive snort. As always, David Roberts has an entertaining play-by-play, if you’re raring to dive back into that cesspool of evil again. (3)#
January 4, 2007 at 7:30 am · Filed under Fair Trade, TV
A reminder that Coffee: Beans to Buzz will be on the National Geographic Channel tonight at 9pm ET/PT. The documentary is mostly a history of coffee, although it does touch on the plight of the coffee farmers, deforestation, and fair trade, albeit rudimentarily. A decent-enough overview of what the kerfuffle is all about.
The National Geographic Channel will be screening Coffee: Beans to Buzz on Thursday, Jan 4 at 9 pm ET/PT. (Repeats: Friday, January 5, 12am ET/PT and Sunday, January 7, 3pm ET/PT).
Coffee: Beans to Buzz traces the epic saga of a potent little bean with a revolutionary impact that has helped break down social, political and economic barriers throughout the ages. Trace the fascinating tale of international trade and intrigue, chronicling how coffee traveled from Africa to the Middle East and then to Europe and the United States. From the planning of the French Revolution in coffeehouses to how drinking coffee became a patriotic duty in the American Colonies after the British taxed tea, coffee has been part of history and cultural shifts over the last several hundred years. …
Coffee: Beans to Buzz also examines Brazil’s leading role in the coffee industry, producing a quarter of the world’s supply. It is said that one romantic Frenchman supposedly smuggled the first coffee beans to Latin America. That led to the eventual rise of coffee barons and contributed to the subjugation of Indians and Africans, the destruction of rainforests and, ironically, the evolution of both democracy and dictatorships.
Experts include: Gerry Baldwin, Director, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, and Founder, Starbucks; Deborah James, Coffee Exchange; Corby Kummer, Food Writer/Editor, Atlantic Monthly; Nestor Osorio, Executive Director, International Coffee Organization; Mark Pendergrast, author, “Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World”; Jim Reynolds, Roastmaster, Peet’s Coffee & Tea; Donald Schoenholt, President, Gillies Coffee Company; Howard Schulz, CEO, Starbucks; Bennett Weinberg, author, “The World of Caffeine”; Chris Wille, Rainforest Alliance.
The hub actually received a press hamper with the release, a screener (which we will devour tonight and report posthaste), plus organic- and fair-trade-certified coffee and chocolate from Counter Culture Coffee and Global Exchange respectively. Well played, National Geographic. Well played.
My favorite Farm Chicks (the hub bought me one of their vintage-wallpaper pendants for our first, “paper” wedding anniversary) have an easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy tutorial on how to make a tres-country-chic fabric-scrap flower pin. Simply use their template to cut out petal shapes in varying sizes (four of each), then fasten with a vintage button in front and a safety pin round back. The Chicks used salvaged fabric and ribbons from an old chicken coop about to be burned down; I’m bowled over by the fabulousness of that corn-meal sack.
I’m also crushing on Posie’s recycled wool flower pins in a major way. If I were ever to Single White Female anyone, it’d be her (except no puppies would be hurt because I’m a big ol’ softie like that).
Instead of moping around for want of a husband—he’s been away for three weeks and counting—I went to the farmers’ market in Union Square to partake of some of fall’s bounty. From left: organic banana bread, homemade apple butter (I blame Amy), and organic spelt flour. Not shown: six luscious yellow peaches for my lonesome belly.
Here’s Chekhov’s takeout—really homegrown organic wheatgrass, but I get a kick every time he nibbles from it.
3. 58 percent of consumers surveyed said they were “not green interested” and did not care about environmentally friendly practices, including recycling, corporate social responsibility, or natural and/or organic ingredients.
5. Bottled water vs. tap water: “Paying hundreds of times more for something you’re already paying for is probably the silliest of all spending habits.” I think the word they’re looking for is “sucker”.
6. On PBS this October: Building Green features green building techniques and materials.
Author Germaine Greer has an interesting take on the life and death of Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter. I don’t have much to say about the man himself, seeing as I’ve never watched his show—I tend to find “stunt zoology” embarrassing—but I do know that we tend to alleviate those who have shuffled off the mortal coil to a kind of ad-hoc sainthood, which is unsurprising because we’re always warned never to speak ill of the dead. While Irwin’s fans may prefer to focus only on the good he did—which, by many accounts, was a great deal—we must temper any posthumous adoration, I think, with the knowledge that we are all ultimately flawed.
Perhaps it’s telling that I feel most sorry for his children.
I highly recommend watching Who Killed the Electric Car, even if the documentary does drag on in places. You’ll leave the theater pumping your fist into the air, screaming epithets at Big Oil and the government, while being filled with a sudden, unquenchable desire to T.P. the GM headquarters.
On a slight tangent, has anyone seen that ridiculous Hummer ad on TV? You see a frail twig of a woman meekly trying to protest when someone else’s kid cuts in front of her son at the playground slide. The bullied mother can only stare with her mouth agape as the line-cutter’s mom brushes her sputtering aside with a snide comment. Cut to a scene of the forlorn woman signing the papers for a brand new Hummer. The slogan “Get Your Girl On” appears in big white letters as we watch the now-happy woman driving off in her monstrous hunk of combat-ready metal, while the crooner in the background tells us that “this little girl’s gonna rock1.” What is she going to do, run over the mother and son who crossed her? Flatten the playground so nobody else gets to play? Oh I know, instead of actually developing a backbone or learning to assert herself, she is going to use her global-warming-in-a-can to foul up the air with 13 times the killer-smog-forming pollution of your average 2006 SUV because THAT WILL SHOW THEM ALL. HAHA I PITY THE FOOL WHO TRIES CUTTING IN FRONT OF ME NOW! SO LONG, BIATCHES!
That ad makes my eyes bleed.
1 “Little girl” is an incredibly condescending and sexist term, especially in light of the typical phoney machismo associated with the Hummer brand.
Marci Zaroff, president and founder of Under the Canopy will be introducing Under the Canopy fashions for women, baby, spa and home in “Spicing Up Your Organic Life.”
The show’s hosts will also tour the inside of a textile mill to see how organic fiber becomes fabric. (Ties in nicely with my previous post, no?)
(I know it clashes with La Keifer but that’s what TiVo and VCRs are for. Or at least friends with one of those.)
What the Internet doesn’t need is another blurry snapshot of someone in a cunningly knit Jayne hat, so here’s an illustration of Ma Cobb’s dear boy, as cunningly as I could capture him, instead.
I completely grok fandom. My older brother’s a fanboy, my husband’s a fanboy, and as much as I hate to admit it, I’m a big ol’ fangirl (but anything you’ve heard about my high-school past with The X-Files are LIES ALL LIES). What I don’t understand is fandom knitting, a concept I find as difficult to grasp as slash fiction1, Harry Potter fans, or … My God … cosplay).
When Jayne hats started popping online like gorram Tribbles, I feigned nonchalance (cleverly edged with boredom) and asked my Firefly-obsessed spouse if he wanted one—I didn’t necessarily want to knit one, but if he had to have it, then I GUESS I could. He said he could live without it. I asked him again over the course of a few weeks, bringing it up as if I were discussing the weather or ruminating on the taste-versus-health differential of low-fat salad dressing (”… blah blah raspberry vinaigrette … so, honey, you really don’t want a Jayne hat?”) To which he would respond, “I don’t know … I think I’d rather have a Harry Potter scarf instead.” (THE HELL?)
Thank Gort for the relative anonymity of the Internet so Heather didn’t see me beet-red with embarrassment as I ordered one of her 2kits, clutching my paper-thin excuse of a first-date anniversary.
In two evenings, the damned thing was done. I marched over to my husband and pulled it over his head.
“Here, I thought you might want a Jayne hat after all, and who am I to deprive you. HAPPY NOW?”
OMG last night’s 
