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TIL about the existence of the Bullshot Cocktail, which of course was created in Detroit.

I'm torn between glee, horror, and the temptation to try and make it with Malort instead of vodka.

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I like that three of them are the same but she's clearly experimenting with form on the other two. Go grandma, use those transferrable skills. :D

[ID: A post to social media, uncredited, reading "I think my grandma's watching BDSM porn because look at her tamales". The photo that follows is several packets wrapped in what appear to be corn husks or banana leaves; they are tied elaborately with string in fancy patterns that resemble rope bondage.]

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This is a fantastic guide not only to the technical aspect of cover design but the aesthetic aspect as well!

Too many writers are using generative 'AI' to make their book covers, so I've written a guide on how to make your own cover for free or cheap without turning to a machine.

If you can't afford to pay an artist, you CAN make your own!

I hope this is a helpful overview that covers the basics and points to some free resources.

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There's a new ad campaign trying to lure people into moving to Illinois by hyping how good the manufacturing jobs are here, called "Make It In Illinois".

But the campaign is mostly audio ads on podcasts, at least that I've encountered, and the ad narrator is speaking rather fast. Which means that after discussing how good the pay and opportunities for advancement are, she sounds like she wants you to learn more at their website...Naked In Illinois.

I mean, if it was unionized and the pay was good with a chance for promotion to middle management, I'd be interested in nudity as a second career.

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I do love a mustard-themed dance.

You can tell this is relatively early in their career (the film was released in 1939) because it's also fairly traditional. I don't know a ton about dance in film but as a kid whose mother was obsessed with old musicals I know enough to see they're not yet pushing the edges of dance the way they and their contemporaries would begin to in later films, inspired by dancers who WERE innovating at this time, mainly African American dancers like the Nicholas Brothers. Astaire and Rogers both had intense talent, but they weren't yet making full use of it as choreographers in part because they were still working out how movement in space could be dynamically filmed.

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Hi, been thinking about Detroit pizza lately and remembered some of your posts about pizza and wanted to ask a couple of questions. You’re using a cast iron pan instead of a non-stick aluminum as I’ve seen suggested elsewhere, is that because non-stick gets scratched too easily? And you’ve mentioned lack of bottom char as well as the middle not baking enough, and might that be because the cast iron heats more slowly than a thinner pan and maybe a baking steel or pizza stone under it would boost the baking? Or have you solved for the bottom char?

I’m in the ‘looking at pans to buy’ stage (prefer cast iron if possible) and would be grateful for your thoughts. Thank you!

Yay, time to talk pizza!

I actually was using a nonstick pan, a tart pan I was given ages ago, which is why I wasn't getting a good bottom char, at least I thought. The cast iron heats up slower but gets hotter and stays that way longer, which is why I swapped over.

Then the problem I was running into became that the cheese would burn before either the bottom crust charred properly or the very center of it cooked as thoroughly as I could wish (it got cooked, just not very).

I considered getting a baking steel/stone, which I really should do anyway, but I just can't justify the expense at the moment.

So there are two solutions to using cast iron to make Detroit pizza:

Give up on it being square and just make two smaller round pizzas. Smaller round pizzas cooked in cast-iron frying pans do get at least some char underneath, because there's less surface area to heat.

If using a larger square pan, before you put the pizza in the oven, cover the pan with aluminum foil. This keeps the cheese from cooking as quickly, so you can extend the amount of time the entire dish is in the oven. For example, the recipe I use calls for 18-20 minutes for a round pizza cooked in a cast iron frying pan. Using aluminum foil, I can bake it for 25 minutes with the foil on and then another 5-10 at least with the foil off, which gives the crust some char and also lets the dough cook fully, but keeps the cheese from burning.

For the rectangular pan I use, it also helps that I grease it REALLY thoroughly with Crisco, which also encourages the browning and keeps the pan from sticking, a very real peril with cast iron even when it's seasoned. I may try covering the square pan with a half-sheet baking sheet and see if that will waste less foil.

The pan I use currently is the Lodge 9x13" Cast Iron Casserole, which is bulky but does seem to work pretty well. That's a link to the sales page at Lodge, but I've noticed that other retailers (Target, Amazon) often have it discounted, so if you like the look of that one I'd shop around a little.

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I bought the Fjallraven bag from a thrift store about two weeks ago, scrubbed it thoroughly when I got it home, and I've been using it frequently since. I even took it with me on Friday when I went into the office to work.

I thought I'd made sure nothing was in it when I cleaned it, but last night I was taking my keys out of the front pocket and this came out with them. It's five British pence, looks brand new. It's definitely not mine, I didn't use cash when I was in London and that was two years ago anyway.

I'm used to finding keys as oblique omens; perhaps it's a sign of a new era in my life that now it's becoming coins.

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Ahahahaha I just saw this version and got to listen to it, EXCELLENT WORK.

[Thurl Ravenscroft's unmistakable bass has entered the chat]

"You're here to serve cunt, Mister Grinch."

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Are you still writing fanfic? Did you watch Agatha All Along? Can we expect any Marvel lesbian content from you?

Oh man "are you still writing fanfic" is one of those It's Complicated questions, lol :) I mean, technically I haven't posted any fanfic in a couple of years now, but that's because I've been working on an original series, and the series itself is...kind of fanfic-like? In that I keep writing new stories in the same world, I'm just kind of writing fanfic of my own work :)

The other complication is that even if I were writing fanfic at this point I don't think it would be Marvel -- I didn't even know Agatha All Along exists, I've kind of fallen out of touch with the sprawling world of Marvel at this point. There was just too much content to keep up with, especially since I don't have any streaming services other than Paramount, which I only use for watching the footie.

So, sadly, I doubt you'll have any Marvel lesbian content from me, but it's mostly because I just haven't kept up. But thank you for asking!

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For Christmas I got Portico by Leah Koenig, which is a book of both recipes and essays about the culture of the Jewish community in Rome; I used recipes from Portico to cook my New Year's feast in 2023, but I didn't own a copy until now. I've been selecting recipes I want to try, and I had most of the ingredients for this one so it came first -- this is Pasta e Ceci, chickpea stew. You simmer chickpeas in a sauce of seasoned diluted passata (strained tomato puree) and then mash some of the chickpeas to thicken the stew, adding pasta (in this case ditalini) towards the end.

I made some modifications -- I added some meatballs I'd made last week, and when I tasted it at the end I felt it needed a little herbal sharpness so I added some shredded basil. It's very simple and filling, sort of like a less sweet baked bean dish, and this amount (a halved recipe) will probably feed me for a week. Next time I might add some caramelized onions, and while the recipe calls for water to be added to the passata I think probably replacing half the water with red wine would add a nice depth to it.

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have you ever been by paper and pencil (stationery store) in andersonville? i have to plug it bc its owners are so nice and its a very cute store! :) -a fellow chicago dweller

Oh, I haven't! I'm adding it to the list to check out :) Thank you!

I've started a new thing where when I find somewhere I want to visit, I save it to a list in Google Maps -- I have lists for various cities and then one for Chicago that's just "To Try" and every time I have to go somewhere on an errand, I look up what else is nearby in the To Try list. Or sometimes I'll open the whole list in maps and find "clusters" where I could visit a bunch of new places at once. I'll definitely be adventuring back to Andersonville...but maybe I'll wait for slightly warmer weather :)

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When I turned 34 I declared I had officially outlived both Alexander the Great and Jesus, and that my next target was Napoleon, who died when he was 54. I might need to procure a small portrait of Napoleon to provide me with perspective. "Oh, you're anxious about an upcoming social event? I was at Waterloo."

highly recommend keeping a small portrait of a historical figure who met a grisly end on your work desk. for perspective.

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Those are delightful! I've actually had good results making "tortie" looking cookies by stirring mini chocolate chips into the mix -- it gives them a slightly striated look and the chips are irregular, so while it's not quite as realistic as these calicos, it still looks pretty neat.

[ID: Several images of sugar cookie dough that has been dyed brown and orange in places; the dough has been marbled and then rolled out, and the resulting cat cookie cutouts look like calicos, with irregular splotches on their white sugar cookie coats.]

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I need your help with a hypothesis!

For context: My linguistics professor and I got into a discussion after a test she did with us, and I was of the opinion that the reason for the results was different from the one she offered, so she encouraged me to test my theory.

What I need

All you need to do is draw a coffee cup (with a handle, not the disposable stuff) and then answer three questions.

I don't need to see the coffee cup. You can draw it wherever you like; on a piece of paper, digitally, in the sand, on a foggy window. Anything works. It does not have to be good. A doodle is fine.

You have to draw the coffee cup before you see the questions. This is very important. If you decide to help me with this, please doodle the coffee cup before you keep reading.

Assuming you have drawn the coffee cup, I now need you to answer these three questions:

On which side did you draw the handle?

Are you right-handed or left-handed?

Do you primarily write using the Latin alphabet or a different one? (please specify which)

More context

Most people will draw the handle on the right side. My professor says it's because most people are right-handed, so they draw the handle in the direction that would be comfortable for them to pick up.

I said drawing it on the right side just felt more comfortable to my hand and argued it's probably because we write a bunch of letters like that. B, b, D, P, p, R all look like a tiny "handle on the right side" and are all a straight line followed by a round one (so "cup first, handle second," like most people draw cups). The Latin alphabet doesn't have letters like that that face the other way, except maybe d, depending on how you write it, so it makes sense to me that people writing mostly Latin letters would go with the handle on the right side.

Which means that I need to know what Asians, Arabs and Greeks do and if the distribution of left and right sides of handles differs from the Latin alphabet group. Cyrillic seems to favor right, too, though it'd be interesting to see if there are differences.

If there are, my theory is right. Doubly so if there is a sizeable increase in a group whose alphabet has letters that benefit the left side choice.

So feel free to spread this to as many people as you like and put the answers in the comments or the tags of a reblog. The more answers I get, the better I can assess whose theory is better.

Thank you for your help!

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I'm trying valiantly to come up with a good pun but all I can think of is "This is why you wear your seatbelt, so you won't die in a Mino-an collision."

[ID: Two images of the Minoan tomb, showing pre- and post-excavation; the tomb contains several pots and what appear to be pot lids, along with a large chest with a lid slightly askew. The farmer's vehicle is not in evidence.]

In the summer of 2018, at Rousses, Crete, a farmer was trying to park below the shade of an olive grove in his property. The ground gave up and through the 1.2 meter (4ft) hole he found a Minoan tomb, undisturbed for around 3,400 years.

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Yesterday's treasure find -- a Fjallraven bag from one of the Andersonville thrift shops. I looked it up on the website and it's a Kanken 2 Laptop (leather handle, padded laptop pocket at the back). It had some weird stains on the top but those came out with a little scrubbing with an old toothbrush. For those in the area, Andersonville Buffalo Exchange has a small but EXTREMELY well-curated bag rack at the back of the store, I would have bought about four other bags as well if I didn't already have a Problem.

The bag I'd been looking at getting for myself was the Weekender, because I prefer messenger bags to backpacks, but I have been looking for a new large-ish pack to take grocery shopping with me, since my old Ikea backpack is on its last legs and my other backpacks are proper travel packs that are ostentatiously large. This might fit the bill. I will have to take it on a test run at some point but not today, given it's 6F and feels like -1F out there.

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Had kind of a rough day at work -- nothing I did personally, like my job isn't in peril or anything, just various frustrations and upsets, so I thought even though it's goddamn freezing here I'd go out and have an adventure.

Adventuring paid off; I took the bus to Andersonville and hit some of the thrift/antique shops, and to my delight managed to pick up a full sized Fjallraven bag for $20. I'm still planning to treat myself to a new one when I get rid of all the donation stuff currently living in the front hall, but this one will be helpful to see if I really do want to drop serious cash on a new one.

Just as well I bought it too, because my last stop was Early To Bed, a queer-friendly, sex-positive sex shop I had recommended to me as a pleasant and reasonable shopping experience. My current partner and I had made certain plans that require specific equipment, and the haul from the shop fit into my new Fjallraven bag exactly.

So here I am on the bus home with a new green Fjallraven bag full of delights, contemplating whether to stop somewhere for dinner or just go home and try to thaw out. I think thawing out will win.

And now I have a punch card for a sex shop, so that was sufficient distraction for an evening.