Frosting For Breakfast

September, In Which I Get Cranky About Fashion

2008-09-06T04:12:00.000-07:00

Do not let what I am about to say confuse you. You may take away the wrong message and I am quite adamant that such a misunderstanding not happen. You see, I am about to say that this year's fall fashions need to be set on fire. What I mean is not that menswear-inspired fashions, per se, need to be put to the flame-- how could I, when I own a pair of these puppies?

No, what I mean is the one item of clothing that embodies everything I hate about fall this year, purely because they have been around since at least last fall if not earlier and I keep waiting for them to die but, like that one Alzheimer's-ridden great aunt who insists on lingering and lingering in a nursing home for a good 20 years longer than she should be entitled to under any merciful god, eternally circling the drain and projectile-drooling on you when you make your bi-annual visit more out of guilt than of genuine affection before screaming about the 12 cats she lost when she was moved into hospice care back in the Reagan administration, they never do. Yes, I am referring to ankle boots.

See, there's this little thing called a cut-- the way your shoes, jeans, shirts, tights, whatever are cut will affect the way you look. Cut them the right way, and they'll make you look taller and leaner than you already are (a sartorial miracle). Cut them the wrong way, however, and it's far less flattering-- you'll look short and heavy, much like photos of your beloved Great-Aunt Mildred back in the 40's. This, by the way, is why that whole leggings-under-skirts trend was so irritating. It made teenage girls look old and frumpy. Was there anybody that looked good on?

But I digress. Anyway, so about ankle boots: sure, they look really, really cute when they're not, you know, being worn by anybody. I mean, who could not fall in love with this:(Steve Madden, $159.95)

I know. They are completely adorable. Look at those little brass buttons! Makes you want to strap on some riding gear and start beating horses with riding crops. (Note: I do not advocate beating horses with riding crops.) But see, the thing is, while they look SO cute while still in front of their little white backdrop thing, being photographed for the website or whatever, they look completely innocuous. Then you finally give in and shell out, and cut ends up rearing its ugly head, and you end up looking like Mischa Barton here:

And that's if you're lucky. See, much like gladiator sandals, ankle boots end in such an awkward place-- just above the ankle, in fact-- that it ends up cutting your legs off in just about the least flattering place a piece of footwear could possibly manage. I cannot fathom how you could begin to make ankle boots look flattering and cute on an actual human leg that had an actual ounce of fat anywhere on it (for example, Mischa Barton above, who weighs about as much as my pinkie finger the last time I checked). The only way I can imagine ankle boots looking even remotely good is when paired with skinny jeans, but if you're going to go that route, why not just wear regular pumps? It defies explanation.

I swear to god, all the trends that I've seen since, oh, 2006ish have just been a giant practical joke played on us by designers who want to see how much shit they can get away with before we catch on and stage a revolt.

The Amber Spyglass: Philip Pullman Is Very, Very Disappointing

2008-08-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I JUST finished His Dark Materials. Lame? Yes, but not half as lame as the ending of The Amber Spyglass.

1. The Golden Compass:

Awesome! It had witches and gypsies and a shadowy evil organization that was kidnapping children and using them for nefarious secret purposes and an evil hot chick and people getting shot and blowing up and freezing to death and someone is going to fucking KILL GOD and oh yeah, MOTHERFUCKING ARMORED POLAR BEARS, FUCK YEAH.

2. The Subtle Knife:

What the fuck is this Cittagazze shit can we stop with this and get back to the MOTHERFUCKING ARMORED POLAR BEARS now please? And who's this Will dork? OH MY GOD THAT KNIFE CAN FUCKING CUT TIME ITSELF. Oh, he lost some fingers, that's kind of cool I guess. Yawn. Okay, book finished. I hope the megaawesome showdown with God will happen soon. Maybe a polar bear will rip his jaw off! Sweet!

3. The Amber Spyglass:

Well, that whole "war with God" thing sure fizzled out in a hurry. Almost as if it wasn't the reason for the entirety of the last two and a half books. Oh, looks like the whole Fall of Man Part II that Lyra is supposed to play such a huge role in is going to come down to two 13-year-olds fawning over each other in the moonlight. Annnnd she goes back to being An Ordinary Girl that Anyone Can Identify With in about 2.5 seconds. That's... certainly... something.

And wait, what was Dust supposed to be?

---

Does anyone else get the feeling that Philip Pullman died halfway through The Amber Spyglass and his 13-year-old niece finished the series for him or something? I mean, there was all this stuff about Dust being a subatomic particle that binds the Many Worlds interpretation together, and then he just threw it all away to sort of halfheartedly reveal that it was actually TWOO WUB between teenagers. I kind of feel like he was actually reaching for something much bigger with the whole Dr. Malone side plot, but he couldn't quite flesh it out and anyway God was already dead so he decided just to make the universe magically heal itself by having Lyra and Will feed each other super love apples. Or something. Oh, hey, apples. That's metaphorical. I can't be the only one who had trouble finishing this book because their eyes kept rolling, right? Right?

Eh, I should have known it was all going right downhill when Lee Scoresby died.

Binaural Beats - OR - Are your children getting high off of SCIENCE MIND RAYS?

2008-08-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

So I was chilling out by myself (working off a slight hangover, actually) when I happened to come across this little gem. Yes, apparently Junior, tired of chugging cough syrup and snorting nutmeg for kicks, has found a far more insidious source of jollies.

THE INTERNET.

The basic idea here is that-- as I understand it from the article-- there are certain frequencies with alter your brain waves. Teenagers are using them to become more relaxed or chilled-out or better able to yell "FAG NIGGER" into their xbox live headsets for 30 hours straight or whatever it is teenagers do when they're not shooting up their high schools because they have acne or something. You'd think that, since music can't make your liver fall out, kids listening to vague wom-wom-wom noises all day would be preferable to kids railing Adderall in middle school bathrooms after recess, but apparently the danger lies in the fact that musical weed is a gateway drug that will lead you into doing harder things, like meth. I know how it is. One minute you're taking your first puff of a joint your weird friend Jimmy's older brother managed to score and three months later you're throwing dicks up your ass in a dirty alley for $2. I see it all the time.

Anyway, because I am all about responsible journalism (and recreational drug use), I decided to check out and see if this low-frequency weed actually does anything. Luckily I didn't have to shell out for the I-Doser, a sort of musical bong (or maybe it's actually musical weed, since all they're giving you is mp3s... anyway, that's not the point) since there are plenty of samples available on YouTube. Immediately, I found a video that promised me nothing less than infinite bliss. Excited at the prospect of floating in waves of my own joy, buoyed up by dolphins carrying my gifts of love and peace in my own private ocean of sheer euphoria, I clicked.

Turns out infinite bliss is a lot more like a vague headache than I would have thought. The underlying wom-wom-wom sound is kind of neat, but the synthy stuff they overlaid it with sounds like David Bowie with a debilitating hangover (or severe brain damage) fucking around on 80's Casio keyboard, trying to remember how Crystal Japan goes but not quite getting it. Actually, the more I listen, the more it sounds like the intro to an 80's instructional science video. I keep expecting the music to fade out and be replaced with a voiceover about atoms or something. "OUR FRIEND THE ATOM. What is the smallest thing you can think of? A pea? An ant? Well, many millions of times smaller is the atom, the building blo--" and then I fall asleep. I am forced to conclude that there is really not much to getting high via sound, unless you're really into re-creating elementary school for yourself.

By far the most interesting thing I found while searching for free drugs to stuff into my ears on the internet was not actually a drug at all, but a really intense mindfuck. If you have some time, put on your headphones, shut your eyes, and experience getting a haircut from an Italian barber... ON THE INTERNET. There were a few times when I actually had to open my eyes to remind myself I wasn't in a salon with a racial stereotype whispering in my ear.

Look Valve, this episode shit has got to stop

2008-08-05T12:07:00.001-07:00

This is what my list of games looks like on Steam right now:

half-life,
half-life,
half-life,
half-life 2,
half-life 2 episode one,
half-life 2 episode 2,
half-life 2 episode 1.24,
half-life 2 episode pi,
counterstrike,
counterstrike: source,
counterstrike: the reckoning,
counterstrike: episode half-life,
counterstrike 2: electric boogaloo,
portal.

A Pictoral Representation of My Life in the Last Few Days

2008-08-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't been around since last month. What have I been up to? Let's find out!

I made a ceiling cat, who watches me sleep:

Then I made failcake, collapsed in a heap:

Folded a cube, with friends trapped inside:

Then changed my name to something with pride:

Then I saw Snake:

And ran out of rhymes. :(

Es gibt eine Wunderland im Canada! Scheisse.

2008-07-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

I went to Canada's Wonderland today. I am typing this as I rub moisturizer into my face because I'm Dutch and as everybody knows, the Dutch and the Sun go together like peanut butter and the Holocaust. The hatred is burned into my face. Either hatred or sunburn. Or genocide. What?

I learned something today: Brown people LOVE roller coasters. I don't mean like whitewashed Brown people, I mean like there was a crowd of dudes behind me in line for Top Gun (now Flight Deck) who were jabbering in Tamil. Behind them, there was a crowd of women and children in chadors (and one niqab). I think I saw someone making butter chicken. Oh, and they ALL rode. Even the one who looked 60 or 70. It was bad ass.

I also learned that Brown people get sunburns. Ha ha ha, Zaheen. Ha ha ha ha ha.

And just so this won't be an entirely wasted post, here's a photo I took that I think is pretty badass:

She's wearing a sari and a baseball cap. <3

warcrack, again

2008-07-14T00:21:00.000-07:00

Wow has been eating so much of my time lately. I'm so sorry.

Here is a graphical representation of what I've been doing with my life:

I apologize for how scarily bad my "art" is.

Hmm.

2008-07-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

I don't understand why anybody would make fun of Toronto. I mean, this city is great! Everyone here is smart and witty and would never fall prey to a stupid marketing gimmick, no matter how eco-friendly it...

Oh.

Minor Cuts

2008-07-05T03:02:00.000-07:00

In the interests of pathos, and because I am feeling too lazy and tired to write a real update yet still feel compelled to mash that little “Publish” button for the rat-getting-a-pellet sense of accomplishment it provides, I have gone through my My Documents folder and found all the random txt files with names like “asldfkljs.txt” and pulled out the most interesting bits. Here they are, seperated by three dashes. Don't laugh too hard.

---

Time: 5 minutes, plus 12 hours’ resting

1/3 cup ground coffee (medium-coarse grind is best)
Milk (optional).

1. In a jar, stir together coffee and 1 1/2 cups water. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight or 12 hours.

2.Strain twice through a coffee filter, a fine-mesh sieve or a sieve lined with cheesecloth. In a tall glass filled with ice, mix equal parts coffee concentrate and water, or to taste. If desired, add milk.

---

air canada flight 7929 departure 9:40 AM arrival 11:34 AM window 6A

---

I wish there was a food version of What Not to Wear. It could be called "What Not to Eat". I'd fucking volunteer myself. I would be sitting alone in my apartment, eating cake frosting out of the tub with a spoon in front of CSI at 3 AM and some sort of gastronomic Stacy and Clinton could burst in and start making fun of the contents of my fridge. "Really, Sietske? Garlic-flavoured popcorn seasoning is *so* 1983." "I get that you like spicy things, and that's great-- but do you really need *three* kinds of hot peppers AND hot sauce on one pizza?!"

---

as I walked home
in the harsh light of morning
trailing the trappings of glory
in ragged shameful strips behind me
I realized that with the stiletto prisons trapping my feet
I could easily
touch the ceiling.

---

Professor Malkmus of U of T's Faculty of Doucheology and Douche Studies (formerly Arts and Science) postulates this is because of a "perfect storm" of hipster shit: a music scene teetering on the edge of relevance, a large local "art" community, and highly aggressive squirrels.

---

(1:32:34 AM) *naf overdid it at the soda shop: once my mom asked me what teabagging was
(1:32:41 AM) *naf overdid it at the soda shop: I told her she'd have to find out for herself
(1:32:44 AM) *naf overdid it at the soda shop: ... she googled it
(1:33:06 AM) *unicefZaheen: OMG

---

When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.

Sara Teasdale (1915)

---

1 mM = .001 M = x mol ubiquitin / 20 mL H2O; x = 2x10^-5 mol = .1713 grams ubiquitin

10 uM = 1x10^-5 M = x mol ubiquitin / 20 mL H2O = 2e-7 mol = .0017 grams ubiquitin

---

I have never met him, but I know when he is lost for words his pointy eyebrows rise, hoping to imply his interest in the subject at hand. I know his cheekbones burst into pale brown spots in the summer and fade ghostly white in winter. I know when he is bored or killing time he sits backwards and joins his fingers over his stomach. I know that when he is especially happy, his grin is so wide it forces his eyes to narrow slits.

---

I walked down quiet streets, past Queens Park Corner, feeling alone and afraid like a deer in Gap jeans, staring into the unlit wilderness between the Faculty of Music and Victoria College.

---

(9:02:49 PM) *unicefZaheen: hold on, faraz will give me a bunch of rare thom yorke outtakes if i listen to mmmbop

Starrbooty: The Reckoning

2008-07-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it was Pride Week in Toronto. Lots of gayness, rainbow flags, creepy men wearing "BEAR PRIDE" stickers, basically everything you might expect from a weekend dedicated to being as gay as humanly possible.

Some friends and I decided the proper end to such a week would be going to CiRCA and seeing RuPaul. Despite the fact that she's about 400 years old (actually, 47) she's still the GLITTERIEST THING ON THE PLANET. I am not kidding. We're talking pink sequined jumpsuit glittery.

There is something very strange about watching a man in drag yelling "HEY TORONTO, DO Y'ALL WANT SOME PUSSY" and having 500 gay men yelling back "YES WE WANT SOME PUSSY". Very strange indeed.

edit: it seems to be Canada Day. I'm not sure what one does on Canada Day. Go up to the cottage and make beaver kabobs?

DDR for the Wii is lame.

2008-06-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

I hate DDR: Hottest Party.

Here is a list of reasons why:

1. R&B doesn't belong in a dance game. Now, I am well aware that R&B has a rich tradition of dance (hell, it's called RHYTHM and blues for a reason), but DDR is a game where you press arrows by stepping on things with your feet. Furthermore, DDR's roots lie in hyperactive high-pitched squeaky J-pop made by 20-year-old women pretending to be 12-year-olds (see: Naoki, Smile.dk although I suppose they're technically Swedish, Luv Unlimited etc. etc.). I wouldn't have such a problem with all this had the first song I'd seen the first time I started the game was motherfucking 1, 2 STEP. SERIOUSLY. 1, 2 STEP. Fuck.

2. See above: COVERS. Covers of popular American songs do not belong in Japanese dancing game unless they can reasonably be wrangled into being danceable. Coldplay does not apply here. Also, for the love of god, there's A MOTHER FUCKING NICKELBACK SONG IN IT. NICKELBACK. IN DDR. Try to wrap your head around that. Yeah. It hurts, doesn't it?

I hear Hottest Party 2 has already licensed "Umbrella".

3. Pointless minigames. You know how in Virtua Fighter and probably a million other games I haven't played because I go outside during the day (sometimes), you have to go around to different venues, beating challengers and winning money to buy pink chaps for Lion? Well, you get to do that in Hottest Party too! Get ready to face some completely arbitrary challenges, fucker! Also, this is the only way to unlock new modes or stages because there is no arcade mode.

4. The Wiimote functionality. While I appreciate Konami actually trying to invent a new way to play DDR as opposed to just shitting out another generic game, let me just say that you will use the Wiimote exactly three times in this game. Once to navigate the menus, once to play one song, and once to turn the hand gestures off forever. Same goes for the foot bombs or foot stomps or whatever else they have you do. For fucks sake they're even called "Gimmicks" in the menu.

I'm trying to find a way to work the phrase "bastard child of DDR and Beatmania" into the above paragraph, but I think you get the idea. It's the bastard child of DDR and Beatmania, but less fun.

5. FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK THERE ISN'T EVEN AN ARCADE MODE! WHAT THE FUCK, KONAMI?

6. The announcer is the most annoying fuck on the planet. If you leave the game for 10 seconds to get a glass of water or possibly burn your apartment building to the ground because you spent $60 on this, he will start taunting you. Not only is the game annoying as fuck to play, but it actually makes fun of you for not playing it more. I wish I was dead.

Well, I'm going to go continue playing Crisis Core, and then I'm going to go throw myself down a flight of stairs because I just spent half an hour writing about DDR.

Fucking incredible

2008-06-11T16:37:00.001-07:00

Things I Have Seen in Toronto in the Last Few Days

- Man at grocery store, furtively stealing olives from the salad bar
- Man in checkout line at same grocery store, chugging a full carton of juice before getting to the register
- Juice-chugger, after buying his empty carton, standing by the bin of watermelons by the door, carefully selecting a watermelon, holding it up to his ear, slapping it three times, then discarding it for another, repeat multiple times
- Very well-dressed woman with bags from The Bay, Lulu Lemon, etc. in a bare-shouldered top, with very obvious skin cancer, entering a treatment clinic
- Homeless man with Armani sunglasses

This is why I don't go outside more.

More weather, more blathering

2008-06-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

I promised myself I wasn't going to start making infinite posts about the weather and how it sucks, so let me just say this and be done with it: I have never voluntarily spent six hours in Robarts library before.

Were it not so shitty out (seriously, every time I lift my arm off the book it's resting on, the book cover comes with it), I would probably be out checking out something Alex showed me: restaurants on Queen St. East that serve NOTHING BUT CUPCAKES. Also, "Frostitution" is the best name for anything, ever, at all. Bonus points for Beaver Cafe. I love reading things like this, because I suspect that business ventures in a similar vein (along with romance novel writing) will be my major source of income after I either graduate, or finally drop out in shame. Really, I already have a pseudonym picked out and everything. I'm going to be called Sylennium Wyndshear. Totally not made up by misspelling science words.

So, look for my debut novel: Frosted As the Night Came, by Sylennium Wyndshear.

Dear Planet

2008-06-06T10:33:00.001-07:00

I would like to take issue with your handling of the weather lately.

It is 31 FUCKING degrees in Toronto right now (for those of you labouring under the delusions of the Imperial system, that's 87); with humidity, 41 (that's 106, GET WITH THE PROGRAM AMERICANS) and I am lying on the floor of my apartment sweating. But Sietske, you grew up in the South, surely you're used to insane temperatures and 100% humidity? Well, 1) Shut up, 2) We have ways to deal with the heat, like iced tea, and air conditioning, neither of which exists in Toronto. Seriously, people, Nestea is not iced tea. It is crap. It doesn't even taste like tea. Snapple is even further from being iced tea. This is a drawing of what I look like right now:

In fact, it is so hot that I think I will actually go and make tea now. Northerners, pay attention:

- 5 (regular) tea bags, orange pekoe preferred
- 1 cup of sugar, or to taste
- Large pitcher
- Ice cubes
- Water

In a large pot, boil the tea bags with one liter of water. Let them stand for five minutes, then fish out the bags (use a spoon, or burn your fingers, whatever) and briefly return the tea to the boil.
Put the sugar in the pitcher-- this is a handy lesson on solubility rules, kids-- and add the boiling (or at least very hot) tea to the pitcher. It will dissolve. If you wait until it's cold, it won't dissolve.
Next, add the ice cubes, fill the pitcher the rest of the way with cold water, and stick it in the fridge. Garnish with bourbon. Mommy's had a hard day, go play outside, kids.

I typed this from memory, so if it sucks, it's not my fault, and you probably have crappy tastebuds anyway.

DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS

2008-06-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

Windows Vista is driving me insane. You know how insane? Well, right now, I am on my third cold boot of Vista in ten minutes and I still haven't gotten it to work right. That spinning blue donut of failure has instituted a Pavlovian response of despair and hopelessness in me. I want to find the bastard who thought taking a bad system (.INI files) and replacing it with a worse system (the registry) was an excellent idea. You know, the registry wouldn't be so bad if not for permissions. Permissions are my downfall. They make me want to eat babies.

A long time ago, if I wanted to, say, upgrade iTunes or update the firmware on my iPod (that capitalization is going to give me carpal tunnel), I could do it. I could do it by clicking a button and holding still for the 15 minutes it would take to download the new firmware or software update over my ISP's traffic-shaped, clogged network, clicking "Yes" a few times, and waiting while Steve Jobs sprayed brushed-aluminum cum all over my screen.

I could do it. But now I can't. And you know why? Because Vista does not acknowledge I have "Administrator" status on my account or any other accounts I happen to make. Come to think of it, why would one person who buys one laptop for their own personal use need an "Administrator" account? Why would Windows tell them, if they're having problems, to contact their systems administrator or network personnel on the "Home" edition of their shitty fucking operating system? Is "Contact your systems administrator" some sort of coded message for "We don't have a fucking clue what's going on and neither do you, send us more money"? Right now, I am typing this on Notepad as it is the only program that will open since I apparently froze iTunes in shock by clicking "No" to an upgrade to the latest version of the software that I can't install anyway because I don't have permission to modify the registry key needed to install the software because SUCK MY DICK, STEVE BALLMER, JUST GIVE ME ROOT ACCESS ON MY OWN COMPUTER THAT BELONGS TO ME THAT NOBODY ELSE IS EVER GOING TO USE GOD FUCKING DAMMIT. That's why.

FIGHT AT CITY HALL

2008-06-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.columbiadailyherald.com/articles/2008/06/05/top_stories/001brawl.txt

See, this is why I left Tennessee.