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carriagelamp · 3 years ago

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Weirdly enough, I often find myself reading less in the summer, since I have more time than I do during the rest of the year to do other things. Also artfight has been eating up more than a bit of my free time! But here’s a collection a graphic novels I sat around on the hammock reading, and some novels I finished up...

(Everyone go read All Systems Red, holy crow guys)

A Whale of the Wild

The “sequel” to A Wolf Called Wander, though it doesn’t actually connect to the previous novel except in the stylistic/thematic sense. A Whale of the Wild is very much a standalone novel. And a pretty decent one! Personally, I think I liked Wolf more, but this one was a pleasant, informative read, with just the right amount of crushing dread sprinkled in. It’s about a young orca called Vega who is learning to become a new wayfinder for her pod but who still has a lot to learn, especially in an ocean that is becoming increasingly hostile to orcas and the other sealife that live alongside humans. When a devastating earthquake hits, Vega and her little brother find themselves separated from their family, lost in a now horrifyingly unfamiliar environment, and fighting starvation as the salmon that sustain them become more and more unreliable. It’s a desperate fight for survival as they search for food and their missing family. This book is written for a middle grade level, and does a really good job of putting the current environmental crisis into an animal’s perspective while giving the readers something to hope for.

The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom

Every July I eagerly anticipate the next Adventure Zone graphic novel. This one is for their fourth arc, The Crystal Kingdom, in which Magnus, Taako, and Merle respond to a SOS from a floating laboratory that is gradually being consumed by crystals and which threatens the entire world should it fall into the ocean. Carey Pietsch’s art continues to be absolutely fantastic, so beautifully and hilariously expressive, and this one delivers some great Merle moments, lots of Carey Fangbattle, and, of course, Kravtiz. Kravitz, my beloved…

Anyway, I obviously always recommend these. If you’ve never gotten into The Adventure Zone, I totally recommend either trying these graphic novels — or even better, just go listen to the podcast because it really is both hilarious and creates a shockingly good and heart-wrenching story by the end.

All Systems Red

I’ve seen The Murderbot Diaries on my dash occasionally, and it always looked interesting, but a friend’s recommendation finally compelled me to read the first novella of the series. And holy shit y’all. Absolutely the best book I’ve read this month, it’s amazing. Mind-blowingly good. Also, if you’re like me and want a good audiobook, it’s a nice three-hour listen, very chill!

Anyway, All Systems Red is about a Security Unit, an artificially created being that’s part-organic part-mechanical and all-company-owned-and-controlled. However, self-named “Murderbot” has managed to hack into the system that suppresses its own will, and is now coasting along, doing the least amount of work its job requires not to be noticed, while preferring to spend all its time watching the hours and hours of soap operas it has downloaded into its brain. And it’s a tolerable if somewhat dull life, until the science team that it's currently rented to is attacked and the whole mission goes pear-shaped. Suddenly Murderbot has to scramble to keep its humans alive… while its humans scramble with the realization that their “SecUnit” isn’t actually a mindless robot like they had all believed...

This story is both gripping and hilariously funny. Murderbot has such a unique voice and perspective and it’s an absolute pleasure to follow its story. I reallly need to read the next book...

Asterix and the Banquet

A classic. I was startled when I realized I hadn’t actually read this Asterix story… but hell I’m not gonna complain, it lets me read one of the originals for the first time again! In this Asterix volume, the Indomitable Gauls and the Romans end up arranging a bet — the Romans intend to keep them under siege, trapped in their village, while Asterix is confident that he can easily evade them… and will prove it by going on a tour around all of Gaul, collecting iconic foods from each region in order to return and put on a fine banquet. So we get a fantastic adventure in which Asterix and Obelix run all over the country, pursued the whole way, while making cheerful stops at the various eateries along the way. Also the first book Dogmatix shows up in! All around, a wonderful read, fun like all the best Asterix comics are.

Beauty Pop v4

A less impressive graphic novel. The first Beauty Pop is one of my guilty pleasure manga because… it really is pretty stupid but in the best possible ways. I mean, the whole thing is framed around hairstyling battles, like a shojo sports manga without the sports. It’s bonkers. Unfortunately, the series does not really manage to hold up, and it really begins to feel repetitive and dragging as it continues… as a lot of series like this do. *shrug* Unsurprising but still kinda disappointing I suppose. The building three-way romantic tension is mildly interesting if for no other reason than the main character Does Not Notice and Does Not Care about any of it, which is amusing and refreshing.

FRNCK v5

Now this series only gets better and better as it goes. This is the first book of the second arc, and somehow the danger just seems to be ramping up and up and up. The cavefamily have lost their home… as well as Léonard and Gargouille. Heartbroken, shocked, and angry, Franck is the one who ends up shouldering the blame for their presumed deaths as the others mourn. Things only get worse when Franck finds himself separated from the family, and in the territory of another tribe, this one hostile and cannibalistic...

Haikyuu v5

I continue to read this series because it continues to be charming… though it is beginning to feel, maybe, just a little repetitive. Kind of an inevitability with sports manga. But so far it continues to be good enough to overcome that. I’m not sure what I can say about this series that I haven’t already, so I’ll simply say it continues to be one of the most impressive sports manga I’ve read, and the author does a fantastic job of creating engaging characters, fleshed out teams, and really compelling relationships. I do genuinely adore all the main members of Crows, along with a number of characters from the rival teams as well. And of course it has some kickass volleyball scenes that are just drawn so dramatically they can’t help but take your breath away a little.

M*A*S*H Goes To Maine

Meh. The original book of the series was actually quite good in my opinion. This one… considerably less so. The first part I enjoyed more, since it was about Hawkeye, Trapper, Duke, and Oliver Jones trying to set up the FinestKind Clinic and Fishmarket in Crabapple Cove (which… is just the best premise I could have ever asked for). However, the book spends most of its time describing the quirky lives and times of other people living in the area and I… just… don’t care. It was funny at times but… I just don’t care. I wanted to hear more about the main cast. Also I found this book felt more racist and misogynistic than the first which also put me off :/ Wouldn’t bother if I were you. Go read the first book instead, or better yet just watch the TV show which is an obvious banger.

My Heart’s in the Highlands

I have had this on my “currently reading” list for so long but I’m officially giving up. It’s a really good book in theory but my god I can’t get over the pacing.

It’s about Lady Jane, a woman studying medicine in Edinburgh in 1888, and who suddenly finds herself back in the Highlands in the 13th century. Lost and confused, Jane is now at the mercy Clan Donald’s hospitality while she tries to adjust to this new world and hunts for her broken time machine. Fortunately, this hospitality include a burgeoning friendship with a red-haired warrior woman, Ainslie nic Dòmhnaill, who opens Jane’s eyes to the way the world could be.

Listen. It drives me nuts. This book should be completely up my alley, it has everything I like — IT HAS ALL OF ITS HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES CITED AT THE BACK, LITTLE EXTRA DETAILS ABOUT EVERY CHAPTER. THAT’S MY SHIT RIGHT THERE. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LIKE BEING ABLE TO GO OVER HISTORICAL DETAILS?? AND WELL RESEARCHED FOOTNOTES?? And yet it doesn’t. Fucking. Work for me. It has a kickass Scottish warrior lady as a love interest! It has a badass lady doctor! It has fish-out-of-water culture shock! But it also has a completely meandering plot, no sense of building tension, and a romance that just happens out of nowhere and feels completely unearned and uninteresting.

I would genuinely just rather read Outlander again, which I know has its own host of problems, but at least Outlander felt exciting and interesting and tense and funny. The romance built in fits and starts, it was complicated, and kept me interested. That book had me hooked (and has me hooked every time I reread it) whereas this book I’ve been sadly picking at for months like its a plate of overcooked spinach. This felt like an attempt at a queer, historically accurate knockoff which I would normally be super into but which just could not stick the landing.

Moomin on the Riviera

My first time actually reading anything from the Moomin canon. I have zero idea how to feel about it! It certainly is as feral as I’ve heard described! Overall, I think I enjoyed it but it sure made me feel strange emotions I didn’t know existed. I’m not even going to try to describe it. Read it if you want a batshit insane anti-capitalist comic.

Surviving the City

This was good in some areas, less good in others. It had a very interesting indigenous perspective on life in the modern city, the foster system, and The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women issue, which I’ve never seen handled in a book before. Something about the pacing did not completely click with me and I found myself getting easily distracted, but it’s definitely worth the read just to experience it and look at the issues it deals with through the characters’ (and author’s) eyes. It did give me a lot to think about and wrestle with, which is sometimes the best thing a book can give you.

Torchwood: Pack Animals

A really fun read, more so than I had ever expected! If you like Torchwood and want more stories about the team before everything goes to shit, this is perfect for that. It includes the entire cast, an interest mystery to be unravelled, lots of slavering monsters, Rhys being really wonderful and sweet (which I didn’t know I wanted until I read this book), and all the humour I expect from Torchwood. I had to send a lot of quotes to my long-suffering girlfriend who a) does not watch this show but b) needs to tolerate it because I find it too funny to keep to myself. It was good enough to make me go out another book of the series since this was the only one my library carried.

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dtrhwithalex · 3 years ago

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TV | Leverage (Season 2, Rewatch)

Rewatch of the second season of TNT's LEVERAGE (2008-2012), created by John Rogers and Chris Downey together with Dean Devlin and his production company Electric Entertainment.

In anticipation of the show's reboot / revival / sequel LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION coming to IMDbTV on 09 July this year, I am rewatching the original 77 episodes and writing about my favourite moments and things from each episode, season by season.

201: THE BEANTOWN BAILOUT JOB

D: DEAN DEVLIN. W: JOHN ROGERS. Original Air Date: 15 July 2009.

We here at the Rabbit Hole adore the Beantown Bailout Job very much (and by we I mean me). It is such a great season-opener and everything about it sets up the season so nicely. Also let me just say, I love the cheesy intro. I like to imagine that this plays on whatever website the clients usually end up finding the team. It would be so confusing. And wonderful.

This episode, of course, also introduces another of my favourite characters: Lt. Patrick Bonanno, State Police. And I am very sad that there is zero chance we'll ever get to see him in the reboot, since the wonderful Robert Blanche has unfortunately passed away last year. Bonanno was such a fantastic addition to this show and I love him very much. He is just brilliant in every episode he is in.

Aside from the introduction of Bonanno, Beantown is a brilliant episode for various reasons, but I wanna talk about this one most of all. John Rogers talked about this on his blog, I think -- not one member of the team can come straight out and admit that they need the others. It is the impromptu meeting at Sophie's performance that brings them together again (very much against Nate's best attempts). Only once they're at McRory's and Parker suggests stealing something to cheer up Sophie is when they all fess up and tell Nate that they want this team back together again. And then, of course, we have one of my favourite sequences in this entire show: Nate forcefully being bullied back into this family. They do exactly what he did to them in The Second David Job -- they get him to contribute knowledge to the case that they, allegedly, lack. And he knows what they're doing, of course, he's not an idiot. Well played, indeed.

I would also like to personally thank one Nadine Haders, this show's most brilliant costume designer, for every single piece of clothing she put on Christian Kane for this episode. That green sweater with the brown jeans jacket? All my love to you, Nadine. All of it. Also, uncharacteristically, Nate has some very good looks in this episode (the man looks healthy for once!) and I am unreasonably mad about it (actually, he has some very good looks this entire season).

One last thing: I would like to have a word with whoever decided to play the Andy Lange song here that Sophie's departure in The Two Live Crew Job is set to. It makes this first half of the season a circle. Who do I need to have words with? Who?

202: THE TAP-OUT JOB

D: MARC ROSKIN. W: ALBERT KIM. Original Air Date: 22 July 2009.

An absolutely amazing episode for Eliot but also very much for Sophie. They are the Conference Of Mom Friends, and I adore them very much, thank you. It is a fantastic episode for them individually, but especially also for the specific relationship these two people have. There is an amazing post floating around on this website (this one here) talking exactly about this episode and Eliot and Sophie in the role of protectors in their team, their family.

There are a few scenes here that I really like and really, most of them are about or with Eliot. I love in the briefing at the hotel that Eliot does not just dismiss Sophie's misunderstanding of wrestling, but takes the time to explain to her what the sport is about -- and she listens. We also here get a nice glimpse at the fact that Eliot teaches them certain fighting skills and self-defence techniques, which I just love so much. Just as Sophie coaches them all in their grifts, he makes sure that they all have a certain know-how in fighting and protecting themselves. It's so good.

I am also very fond of both the moment where Eliot brings Sophie to the restaurant to meet with Rucker, but also Sophie showing up at the gym at night to talk to Eliot while he's preparing for the fight against Tank. Eliot gives away so much of himself in this episode, and it is very interesting to me that the person he does this with is, continually, Sophie. The others may be on comms, and might be, for all we know, listening in, but it is Sophie he tells these things to. It's like Hardison says later in The Two Live Crew Job: "We trust Nate to make sure the plan works, we trust you (Sophie) to make sure we're all okay." While I would not necessarily call Sophie the heart of the group (that's Hardison), she is very much the emotional centre of it.

This episode is also just very lovely to see how they all take to an environment that is, for once, not big city life. Eliot takes to it immediately, which makes sense, because he probably is from a town not much different from this one. Parker, somehow, fits in immediately as well (I love her I <3 Nebraska shirt). I feel like Nate never has any issues fitting in anywhere, he just takes things as they come. It is Hardison and Sophie who have difficulties -- Sophie because she is, after all, a bit posh and needs certain standards met, and Hardison because his world of technology does not mix well with a small, rural Midwestern town ("Can't hack a hick" anyone?).

203: THE ORDER 23 JOB

D: ROD HARDY. W: CHRIS DOWNEY. Original Air Date: 29 July 2009.

I occasionally see some posts on here that call what the team does to Charles Dodgson in 512: The White Rabbit Job the worst thing the team does to a mark. I have to say, objectively, I think what they do to Eddie Maranjian in this episode is much worse. Of course, Dodgson is a good person, and Eddie is a crook, but still. Objectively? This episode is more evil.

Anyway, this episode has some fantastic moments that I adore a whole lot. I love Eliot and Hardison as cops, Sophie's act is absolutely amazing, and I have a super soft spot for both Nate teaching Parker what he is doing, and also Eliot and his side quest of helping Randy.

I am so incredibly fond of all these little moments where Parker's eventual role of Mastermind is already being planted. She always asks Nate questions, if she doesn't have a part to play in the con, she is with Nate, learning. She says it in the pilot episode already: "I'm really good at one thing, only one thing, that's it. But you, you know other things, and I can't stop doing my one thing, can't retire." And then she does her best to learn the other things Nate knows. This episode particularly, how Nate explains to her how NLP works, that what he is selling is fear. Nate is so patient with her, too. I love them both so very much.

Eliot's side quest with Randy and his abusive dad is an absolutely excellent addition to this episode. Especially after the previous Eliot-centric episode, this small thing just goes to show that, at their core, these are good people. Yes, they are criminals, the lot of them. But they are not bad people. Things like this just make me think that, it had to have been this exact combination of people Dubenich put together. Any other thief, any other hacker, and Nate would have walked away from this alone. It had to be Parker, Hardison and Eliot for this to work exactly as it did. And Eliot looking out for Randy even though they are in the middle of a con, taking his time to make sure Bob, the U.S. Marshall goes to see Randy, is exactly something that brings this point home.

Lastly, I adore that everyone shows up at the court house when Eddie goes to find his money. He knows they all conned him, but they know no one is ever going to believe him. It's a fantastic gloat scene. And I also really love that Nate explains why this works to the others: "So, here's everything you need to know about criminal law. Every crime has two elements, Actus reus, the act itself, and mens rea, Literally "The Guilty Mind." ... Now, for escape, the prisoner has to both break out of custody and show the intent to escape. ... Which brings us back to our friend Eddie and how the brain reacts to fear. In the heat of the moment Eddie didn't ask himself a simple question, who would doubt his guilty mind?"

204: THE FAIRY GODPARENTS JOB

D: JONATHAN FRAKES. W: AMY BERG. Original Air Date: 05 August 2009.

This one was Bernie Madoff inspired, if I recall correctly, who was arrested in 2008, around the time Berg, Downey and Rogers were already bouncing ideas back and forth for this season.

There is so much to love in this episode! Where to even begin. Maybe with Parker replacing Sophie at the client meeting? Or Sophie immediately heading for both popcorn and the cookie tin after the breakup? How about Parker perching on Eliot's arm rest with her food? Nate's headmaster act? Eliot as Coach Brewer (red is a fantastic colour on him, thank you Nadine)? Hipster rich newlyweds Parker and Hardison? The return of my beloved FBI fools McSweetheart and Taggert? Taggert being McSweetheart's biggest supporter in his affection for Parker? Sophie and Widmark? The actual science-sical with all these adorable kids singing about science?

So much to love. Chock-full of greatness, this episode. Also Frakes, once again, directed the hell outta this. I love this episode so very much.

One moment that does, however, absolutely win out over everything else, is the scene at Nate's apartment after Hardison and Parker meet McSweeten and Taggert again:

Eliot: One of you two can identify the gunman, right? Hardison: Oh, yeah, sure. He stopped and let me take a picture of him as I was chasing him. Eliot: Hey, you know what, man? I've been around little kids all day. I don't need to come home and do all this crap.

That line, Mr Spencer? "I don't need to come home and do all this crap"? Home? Sir, we are four episodes into the second season, and you are already calling Nate's apartment home. Honestly, that boy has been invested into this group as a family from the moment Hardison hands him a check in the pilot episode, if not earlier. And I am very much here for all of it.

205: THE THREE DAYS OF THE HUNTER JOB

D: MARC ROSKIN. W: MELISSA GLENN & JESSICA RIEDER (GRASL). Original Air Date: 12 August 2009.

This is another one of those episodes which, when I think about it, I am not entirely into, but then when I watch it, I always love it. It's a brilliant episode, but the mark rubs me in all the wrong ways and I think that's why my general reaction to this episode in theory is mostly "ew". Which I think is kind of the point, as well.

There is much to love in this episode, though. Sophie being Nate in this one, Nate being very wary of this concept and also having difficulties letting someone else take control ("If you don't mind, I would still do the 'Hardison, run it' thing" Nathan you precious little man, I love you so much). I think it's so nicely done. I mean Sophie has run cons before -- she was the Mastermind behind the First David Job, and she runs their con in the Second David Job as well -- but then she was confident, now she is going through things, on the brink of rediscovering herself for who she is. And of course, it bites her in the ass a little bit.

I absolutely adore Conspiracy Nut Hardison and his fantastic apartment. Set Design did a magnificent job here. I am so fond of Parker asking Eliot about the different things -- the council, the moon landing, Loch Ness monster -- and also very much the bit at the end where he and Hardison answer Parker's questions while he prepares food. That ending bit overall is just absolutely excellent and I love it with my whole heart. Eliot cooking for all of them in Nate's kitchen, giving Parker stuff to try, while Hardison sits there and sips his orange soda out of a wine glass. Meanwhile Nate pouring wine for Sophie, and then going over to her to make sure she is alright. For his slightly more sadistic streak in this season, Nate is so good with Sophie here. And honestly I think this conversation here is one of the reasons why Sophie feels able to leave them for a while. It is Nate's reassurance of "Whatever you need, I'm here for you" that lets her take this leave of absence.

206: THE TOP HAT JOB

D: PETER O'FALLON. W: M. SCOTT VEACH & CHRISTINE BOYLAN. Original Air Date: 19 August 2009.

I adore this episode! The fantastic Veach and Boylan on the keyboard for this one (who, I've had to find out, are both tangentially involved with my latest hyperfixation, SHADOW AND BONE -- Veach having written my favourite episode, and Boylan being married to the showrunner), which is just lovely, because they are both excellent.

First off, I would like to, once again, give all my love to Nadine Haders for that Pizza Guy outfit she put Kane in for the recon sequence. A+ costuming, thank you Nadine.

This episode has so many excellent comedic beats and a wonderful many Hardison/Eliot moments. Sophie trying to set up Nate with their client is absolutely hysterical -- especially considering that she had just been broken up with and had been urging Nate to figure out what it is that is between them since day one. I especially love her attempt at finding things Nate has in common with Jameson: "She's a scientist. And well, you're a bit nerdy, aren't you? ... And food, she works with food. Well, you eat, don't you?" Like, girl, what are you trying to do here, really?

I absolutely adore Hardison and Eliot trying to get into the server room so Hardison can access the data they are trying to get before anyone can get rid of it. Eliot hooking Parker's rope to Hardison's belt, Eliot's complete awe at Hardison's ability to remote access their mark's phone ("You can do that?" Eliot, honey, he can do so much more), the two of them wedged underneath the desk, and then, of course, Eliot's huge smile when Hardison hacks the scanner at the door with the help of his gummy frogs. I love these boys together so much, and this episode has given me so many great moments.

I am also incredibly fond of Nate's magician act. That is a brilliant role and it suits him so well. And I love how genuinely enthusiastic he is about magic.

207: THE TWO LIVE CREW JOB

D: DEAN DEVLIN. W: JOHN ROGERS & AMY BERG. Original Air Date: 26 August 2009.

This is an absolutely brilliant episode for so many different reasons. Let me get two things out of the way straight off the bat: 1) Where do I address my "Chaos For Leverage: Redemption" campaign to? and 2) Where do I address my "Apollo Robbins For Leverage: Redemption" campaign to? I want both of them back desperately!

Of course, this episode is important as a major stepping stone in Sophie's character arc. Because of Chaos and his bomb, she has to kill off one of her aliases which is the last thing that then leads to her taking a leave of absence to figure out who she is and who she wants to be. That scene in her apartment with the bomb is also just an excellent moment for the team as a family. The care with which everyone interacts with Sophie, Parker's instant pudding hack, Eliot's instructions on how defuse this situation, Sophie's immediate shift into protector mode once it becomes clear that the only real solution is to run and telling everyone to leave immediately, Nate staying behind and even when Sophie tells him to leave, waiting for her by the apartment door -- they care for each other so much.

I also really love the con-off with Starke's crew. It is so nice to see how similar yet different he and Nate are, and the same goes for the other crew members. I adore their individual confrontations a lot. Eliot's non-fight fight with Mikel Dayan, Parker's thief-off with Apollo, Hardison and Chaos' baby monitor fight. It just really highlights who our beloved characters are and what makes them them, now that we see them, metaphorically, in front of their mirror.

And then, of course, the actual heist is also just amazing. I adore that Starke chooses Nate as his alias to gain access, it is such a great move. Parker and Apollo talking in the ventilation shaft about birds is also just so lovely. And as an admirer of Eliot's arms, I am also very fond of his fight with Mikel. Good choices have been made, I appreciate all of them. The reveal at the end is also absolutely amazing. To beat them they had to save them? Brilliant.

Lastly, of course, Sophie's goodbye at the graveyard with Nate. What a spectacular moment. Also just, the visuals are so beautiful. I love the lighting here. And of course the return of Andy Lange's song, which is just perfect. I am so happy that this is the journey they decided to give Sophie when it became clear that Gina would not be able to be in the full seasons due to her pregnancy. They accommodated her so beautifully and gave Sophie such an amazing moment of character growth. This is why I love this show and the people who made it so much. All my love, to all of them.

208: THE ICE MAN JOB

D: JEREMIAH CHECHIK. W: CHRISTINE BOYLAN. Original Air Date: 02 September 2009.

We love The Ice Man Job! Another fantastic episode by one Christine Boylan who we love in this house. Our very first episode without Sophie being there, and it's a great one. I absolutely adore how they worked in moments with our favourite grifter in a way that so wonderfully accommodates Gina's pregnancy.

I absolutely adore the moments where all of them eventually end up calling Sophie. Parker, hiding underneath the bar after Nate tells her she'll be the grifter in this one, calling her mom Sophie in a panic without wanting the others to know, but still needing her advice and missing her so much. Then Eliot, calling to complain to his mom Sophie about Hardison going overboard again with the grift, needing the knowledge that his concerns are being heard and aren't unfounded, needs to hear the other protector of the family acknowledge his rightful fear that things will go sideways. And of course also Hardison, calling mom Sophie so she can pick him up from the party help him out of the mess he's made, hoping against all hope that she'll be able to help without having to involve Nate. The others both had the luxury to ask Sophie not to tell Nate -- Hardison had no other choice but to let her call it in. Lastly, Nate too, at the end, calling his wife Sophie. And honestly, I love that Sophie drops her phone into her drink after the call, because Nate is the only one not giving her what she wants to hear. The kids, all of them, called with an "I need you" and that is the one thing Nate doesn't give her.

There are many other things in this episode that I love very much. The opening briefing, Parker feeling alone on the big empty couch, trying to sit next to Eliot, but he makes her move. Nate's big DadTM moment of "Eliot, can you please sit next to Parker" and Eliot's very long-suffering oldest child answer "No! I'm sitting here now."

Then of course Eliot and Hardison's two moments -- Eliot telling Hardison "I ain't bailing your ass out" and then when he eventually does anyway, Hardison's smug joy, forcing Eliot to sort-of-hug him back at McRory's. Eliot's unsuccessful attempt to make him helping Hardison a decision forced onto him by Parker, and Parker refusing to accept the "blame" immediately. Their whole dynamic this episode is just so good. Neither Eliot nor Parker being happy with Hardison in this role (Parker's refusal to ride with him in the Ferrari), Eliot proudly watching Parker do her thing over the security camera ("Stuck it!").

Lots of love also to Pasha Lychnikoff as our main Russian goon, who is just fantastic here, our much beloved Lt. Patrick Bonanno, and also Nadine Haders for so many amazing looks, especially on Eliot.

209: THE LOST HEIR JOB

D: PETER WINTHER. W: CHRIS DOWNEY. Original Air Date: 09 September 2009.

Court-room episode, which means we have our friend Chris Downey on the keys here, and he gave us an absolutely excellent introduction for Tara Cole played by the lovely Jeri Ryan. Honestly, the more often I watch this episode, the better it gets. Tara is just so good.

Highlights of this episode include: Sophie's immediate "who died?!" when Nate shows up at her apartment in London, Hardison playing "Where is Waldo Ford," Hardison and Eliot in prison, the first appearance of Nate's lawyer alias Jimmy Papadokalis who wears brilliantly loud and obnoxious suits in outrageous colour-combinations, Hardison stalling Blanchard at court security with his keys, Nate's reveal of Ruth as Kimball's daughter (I am fascinated that he completely drops the character here -- he is just Nate now), and of course, the reveal of Tara at the end.

Honestly, this is such a magnificent episode to introduce Tara's character. We have just watched the team scramble and fuck up without Sophie, and then their next job gets more complicated because of this random lawyer who shows up. And she's so righteous and law-abiding and absolutely not someone they should be taking with them on their job. And Tara plays it perfectly. Her honest try at getting Orson to talk to them, her confusion about her "dogs", her excited smile when she gets to con Blanchard and be a bit dishonest -- it is so good. And then we get that complete 180° when the team finds her in Nate's apartment. Not just visually, but the personality. Her voice drops a bit too. Jeri fucking rocked this introduction. The reveal is so damn good.

210: THE RUNWAY JOB

D: MARC ROSKIN. W: ALBERT KIM. Original Air Date: 13 January 2010.

I have zero interest in fashion but I honest to God love every single one of these characters at fashion week. Fashion!Eliot is absolutely fantastical and I love him. Julien, my beloved. Fashion!Parker is very cute with her braid and even before she gets the model makeover she outshines every single other person at the event. Fashion!Hardison is surprisingly understated but I dig it. Tara as Caprina is also just excellent. And I absolutely, un-ironically adore Fashion!Nate. Jacques is such a character. Nate exchanged the usual "obnoxious and greasy" with "gay," slapped some would-be-French that sounds like German on top of it, and called it a character. And I love it.

I also very much love the three video calls with Sophie in this episode. The kids calling in the beginning, complaining about Tara. I absolutely adore both the "she's hot" moment and Eliot's "...and all the way to Europe?" when Sophie says Nate lets what is good for him walk out the door. Parker's little "I just miss you" before they hang up has me all the way up in my emotions every damn time. Tara calling Sophie to complain about Nate is also just excellent. The whole bit with Nate's "I'm sexy because I'm broken" thing is just *chef's kiss*. And of course Nate's call at the end. I love that Sophie hangs up on him, it is so fair, it is absolutely justified. And I think he knows that too.

So many great other moments too -- Hardison's Steven Seagal comment about Eliot's clothes, Nate's "Julien, sweetheart" and Eliot's little clap before taking the money, Nate and Parker at the mark's house, Eliot and Tara vs the Triads, Eliot and Parker at fashion week together ("It's a fashion show, not Thieves'R'Us"), and of course Tara's "For what it's worth, Sophie was right. You guys are the best I've ever seen ... But no one in the world, is as good as you think you are."

211: THE BOTTLE JOB

D: JONATHAN FRAKES. W: CHRISTINE BOYLAN. Original Air Date: 20 January 2010.

This episode has got to be one of my favourites, if I were forced to chose some. I love a bottle episode, and this one is just magnificent. Excellent client, great mark, fantastic additional characters, wonderful episode for the team. All around just, so good. Not surprising if Frakes and Boylan are at the wheel together, of course.

The addition of Cora is so lovely. I would have loved to see more of her, to be honest. She is such a great character. I love what her presence does to who we see Nate as. I adore when characters get to show new sides of themselves, it's so nice. Also, Nate's comment to Eliot about him not wanting Eliot to like Cora because she's like his niece? Most excellent.

I adore our three police officers too. Mickey, Danny and Johnny are such great additions. I really liked them. How they just went with whatever Nate was planning and in the end decided to just pretend none of this ever happened, it's just so good.

Doyle and the Liams as our villains of the week are also just fantastic. Also I just love Irish accents, it sounds so good. I love to hear it.

Other highlights of this episode include: Tara's "I'm Trish and I'm lonely", the kids going for their individual emergency funds stashed in Nate's place (they are all so fantastically in character, I love it), Nate using his dad's name as his alias, everyone stopping to see if Nate is going to succumb to the booze again, Hardison's excitement about pulling off the wire in under 2h, Hardison faking the weather, Eliot and Parker on safe duty. Also, rewatching this episode, I am absolutely 100% convinced that what Eliot is doing to distract the Liams from Tara conning Doyle, absolutely categorises as flirting. The way he throws that dart at the board and then buys them beer? Mr Spencer, sir, you are flirting with these guys.

212: THE ZANZIBAR MARKETPLACE JOB

D: JEREMIAH CHECHIK. W: MELISSA GLENN & JESSICA RIEDER (GRASL). Original Air Date: 27 January 2010.

The wonder twins with yet another magnificent episode. No surprises here. We have not just the return of Maggie but also of Sterling! We love this!!! (Seriously, I want both of them back in the reboot. I don't care that they're most closely tied to Nate. Bring them back.)

This episode has so many absolutely excellent moments as well. I love the opening sequence in the bar, with them going over possible next clients together, Nate kicking Eliot for flirting with the bartender, and then of course also Sterling walking in. The interaction Nate and Eliot have here is just fantastic.

Sterling: *walks in* Nate: Eliot, I'm gonna ask you not do do anything violent. Eliot: Wha-what are you talking about? I only use violence as an appropriate response. Sterling: Hello, Nate. Eliot: *responds appropriately*

And to think that Sterling only gets beat up here because Mark Sheppard's son was visiting the set that day and wanted to see his dad get beat up by Eliot. We stan one Sheppard Jr.

I very much love the scene where Nate and Sterling go over what they have on Lundy, and then Parker interrupting them out of nowhere, just sitting there on the counter, like she's been there forever (which she probably has). Also just, fantastic clothes on Parker, thank you Nadine. Maggie showing up here is of course also brilliant and I am very fond of Parker making Maggie a fugitive bag. It is so completely adorable. I love my girl so much.

Another favourite moment is, of course, Tara and Eliot getting Chernov to tell them where the sale of the Fabergé egg will take place. Tara not saying a damn thing, Eliot grumpily doing what Tara tells him to ("Do that thing with your eyes that scares people" / "What -- I don't know what you're talking about"), Chernov's complete unease about this whole entire situation, and then of course Tara and Eliot's other interaction:

Tara: What we imagine is always so much better than reality. Eliot, with the tiniest voice possible: Like love? Tara: *just stares at him, confused*

Just, *chef's kiss* this scene.

The scenes in the embassy are also just excellent. Tara and Nate pretending to be a couple, Nate's inability to deal with the idea of Maggie and Alexander, Maggie and Tara hysterically giggling while talking about Nate, Sterling pretending to be drunk (and incredibly gay) to get Parker access to the egg room -- brilliance, all the way through.

I adore Eliot taking charge of the situation once it becomes clear that Maggie and Nate have been taken hostage. Parker doing her magic and switching the bomb with the empty briefcase in the elevators is beautiful. Maggie kissing Nate instead of Lundy in what could have been their final moment and regretting it instantly the moment Parker shows up is excellent.

And the final scene back at McRory's is also just wonderful. The kids watching the news about Sterling with Tara ("I hate this guy" / "Now, you're part of the team"), and Nate talking with Maggie. I adore Maggie in this scene so much. Her and Nate's relationship is so lovely. We know Sophie understands how Nate ticks, but Maggie knows him so well too, still.

213: THE FUTURE JOB

D: MARC ROSKIN. W: CHRIS DOWNEY & AMY BERG. Original Air Date: 03 February 2010.

This episode is so good for so many reasons. First off, I adore Luke Perry (I'm still sad about him) even if he plays creeps like Rand in most everything I've seen him in. He was just so good. Second, Medium Tara is probably my favourite role of hers. It's a lot softer than many of the other characters she's done, and I love it. Also the costuming is just excellent.

But I want to talk about Parker most of all. The scene where Rand cold reads her is so well done. Riesgraf knocked it out of the park here. Also, I love how Nate, as soon as Rand starts approaching and doing his act, barely ever takes his eyes off her. He occasionally glances at Rand, but his attention is on Parker at all times. And it just makes me feel things.

The team coming back to Nate's to find Parker sitting on the floor in front of the couch, crying also makes me super emo. They are all so very careful with her here. Even Tara, who hasn't been with them for that long. I quite like how Eliot and Hardison choose to sit a bit away, giving her space, and Nate carefully approaches and sits closest to her. They are all so good with her here, I love them all so much. And I absolutely adore this part of the conversation:

Tara: So what do we do now? Parker: Cut off his arms. And his head. Yeah. I wanna kill him. Can we make that happen? Eliot: Yeah, I can...I mean, I could...

Also earlier, after Tara acknowledges that Rand is good at what he does, Hardison says "He should be shot." I adore how both our boys would not hesitate to end this man for hurting Parker like this. That's their girl and he went too damn far. And even though Nate suggests a way of retaliation that is less final, he isn't above hurting the man either. Because that's his girl, too:

Hardison: Nate had me rig the table with a mild electrical current. Eliot: You electrocuted him? Nate, smugly: Yes, I did. It helped sell the bit. Parker: I approve. Nate: Thanks, Parker. Eliot: No, her agreeing with you is not a good thing. Nate, whispering to Parker: Thanks.

And add to that the absolute joy each and every one of them have when fucking with Rand to fulfil Tara's predictions? *Chef's kiss.* Absolutely beautiful.

There is so much more absolutely fantastic content in this episode, but I just wanna point out the ending where they meet with the client again. Nate is so good with them here. The way he talks to Jodie about her baby and how she will see her late husband in the child, makes me cry every damn time. Just like Tara says, "Yeah, now I see why you do it," this is why this show is so damn good. It's because of this exactly. Because for one shining moment within so much suck and tragedy, there is goodness and a wrong that has been made right. They help people and it isn't just fleeting momentary relief. They change people's lives for the better. I love this fucking show so much.

214: THE THREE STRIKES JOB

D: DEAN DEVLIN. W: JOHN ROGERS. Original Air Date: 10 February 2010.

First half of the second finale! Patrick Bonanno my beloved! I get so sad every time he gets shot here. My man deserves better than this. I love Bonanno so damn much, man. I absolutely adore that Nate goes to see his family at the hospital. Like, this is a cop. The very opposite side of the law Nate and his people operate on. But he goes to see him anyway, because this is their cop. And I love that Bonanno's wife recognises Nate's name. "He wanted to buy you a drink. And then arrest you." That's just so good.

I also absolutely love Richard Kind as Brad Culpepper, the corrupt mayor. I would love to see him back in the reboot, but I doubt there'd be any reasonable explanation why on earth they'd have to see this particular mayor again. I just think Richard Kind is an absolutely fantastic actor.

Anyway, favourite moments. Hardison and Eliot at Bonanno's house is beautiful. I am so fond of how Hardison deals with law enforcement while impersonating law enforcement. He tears them down and builds them back up again, every single time. And I adore how Eliot just smiles at his antics. He crawls around on that carpet with the young cop and Eliot just stands there and smiles. I love them, guys. I really do. Parker pretending to be Brad's pregnant lover with Tara's help is also just most excellent.

And of course: Roy Chappell. Baseball Eliot, my most beloved. There is so much to love about this whole concept. Eliot's reluctance at first because he doesn't like baseball. The discovery that baseball is actually something cool and something he is good at. His absolute childlike joy at the energy drink commercial Hardison made him. His damn hair during the actual game. The sandwich! The enthusiasm about the sandwich. Hardison admitting that the sandwich thing is cool.

I also absolutely love Hardison and Parker as Beavers Fans. The badly photoshopped picture of Dean Devlin and John Rogers as the radio hosts makes me smile so much. So does hearing their voices on the show. Both Hardison and Parker's phone calls to them are also brilliant. Parker speaking Spanish? Marvelous. The two of them demonstrating the Beavers leaving? *Chef's kiss.*

The final showdown with Brad and then the FBI is also just most excellent. Nate going ballistic on Brad because of Bonanno. Hardison and Lucille. Parker giving Lucille a little kiss before they send her to explode as a distraction. Hardison quoting Spock to say goodbye to Lucille. Hardison being pissed at Nate about Lucille. And of course: Jim Sterling, Interpol. The bastard. I love him.

215: THE MALTESE FALCON JOB

D: DEAN DEVLIN. W: JOHN ROGERS. Original Air Date: 17 February 2010.

Second half of second finale! And it's a good one, too. This show has absolutely brilliant finales, lemme tell you.

What do we love about this episode? MUCH. Tara's naked bit is excellent. Eliot and Parker sharing a look after watching Tara's naked bit is even better. Parker turning on the porn channels on the hotel tv is hilarious. Eliot talking to the receptionist about the gym is hysterical ("Ah, the fitness spa. Isn't the Zen Steam Garden divine?" / "Yeah....delicious").

Nate on stairs vs Sterling in elevator is probably the pettiest thing I have ever watched on television and it is absolutely amazing. I don't think anything can ever top this as pettiest moment. It is just so good.

Sterling, of course, is always great fun. I love that he has his own little villain theme that announces him before he even enters the screen. Love a good villain theme. And I adore his moment with FBI Bob outside Brad's hotel room.

Sterling: Name's Bob, right? Bob: Yes, sir. Sterling: You've been here the whole time, Bob? Bob: Yes, sir. Sterling: And nobody's gone in or out, Bob? Bob: No, sir. Sterling: Then would you mind explaining, where the HELL THE MAYOR IS?!

Absolutely perfect.

Nate going back to his place always has me all up in my emotions. Also, I think Sterling here absolutely believes that what he is offering Nate, is good for him. That he can save him from himself or something. They were something like friends at some point, after all. And of course, Nate calling Sophie. She is, of course, unbeknownst to him, already on the way to save his ass. But he calls her and finally tells her exactly what she wanted to hear at the end of The Ice Man Job: "I need you. Not the team, me." Sir. I am emo about you.

And then of course the final con and the reveal of Sophie's return. I absolutely love that Parker's first reaction to Tara possibly betraying them was to try and throw her off the roof. That's my girl (I love Tara, but that was fair). Also just, if you pay attention on the boat scenes, you can see Sophie from as early as Kadjic hearing Nate's offer and then leading Nate and Eliot below deck. If you can pick out her hair and know the colour of her coat from the scene in the helicopter, you know that she is there. And then, below deck, you can see her so many times -- at one point essentially back to back with Nate -- before any of the characters know she's there. And can I just say, I absolutely love Nate's completely shocked face when he hears her voice. Those comedically big eyes are just excellent.

Everyone seeing Sophie again is done so well. Hardison and Eliot's confused "Sophie?" when she walks past. Eliot winking at Sophie after they free Nate. Parker hugging her immediately once her and Tara arrive on the ship. Hardison putting his hand on the small of her back as he passes by her to go down the stairs. I just love them all so much.

And lastly of course, the reveal of the plan, Nate cuffing himself to the railing and making Sterling leave his family alone. What Nate says to them always makes me so emo too: "You guys are the most honourable people I have ever met in my life. You have become my family, my only family. And I will never forget that." John Rogers, sir, we need to have some words once I get this lake out of my eyes. And I obviously can't not mention the kiss. Finally, finally Nate gets his shit together. And she slaps him and it is perfect. And then they leave and he sits down and bleeds and Sterling, for a moment, is genuinely concerned about Nate as a person and not merely about Nate as his only way to nail Kadjic.

Bob: Who the hell is this guy? Sterling: I have no idea. Nate: My name is Nate Ford. And I'm a thief.

Yes. Yes you are, you magnificent bastard.

[image taken from the electricnow website]

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cherry-valentine · 4 years ago

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Winter 2021 Anime Season:

What I’m watching:

Log Horizon season 3 is all about the politics. Of all the “trapped in a video game” anime I’ve seen, Log Horizon has always been unique in the way it focuses not on the drama and action (although there is some of that), but on the world building of the “game” the characters find themselves stuck in. It’s less a game and more an entirely new world, one that the players, called “Adventurers,” are keenly aware of their influence on. The show focuses much more on the politics, economics, history, etc. of this world than it does on battles or romance. This sets it apart from things like Sword Art Online and the .hack franchise. Season 3 so far seems to be focusing on how the hub town of Akiba will be governed, with an actual election taking place. The Adventurers have to form good business relationships with the “People of the Land” (NPC’s, who in this world have their own personalities and lives and are just as developed as the players). The series goes into things like power systems, food supply, the politics of arranged marriages, and so many other things that make this world so interesting. Because of this, I’ve seen people calling the show boring or slow. I can understand how it could be seen that way, but I honestly find it fascinating. When the show does focus on action, it really nails it. So far season 3 has had pretty much zero action, but I’m guessing we’ll get some in the later part of the season. The animation is nice, with tons of characters sporting various designs. The music is great too. While I do miss the “Database” opening theme from season 1 and 2, this new one is pretty good. Watch Log Horizon if you’re into fantasy world-building. Avoid if you think a few episodes without a fight makes a series boring.

Beastars season 2 is a delight. I didn’t watch the first season as it aired, so I quickly caught up on Netflix before season 2 started, and I’m so glad I did. The show is definitely something I didn’t think I would enjoy, but everyone seemed to agree it was fantastic, so I gave it a shot. I intended to watch the first episode one evening to see what it was like and ended up watching the first eight in practically one sitting. For those unaware, Beastars is about a society of vaguely human-like animals (almost all of them walk upright on two legs and wear clothes, for example) and the conflicts between the carnivores and the herbivores (many of whom live in constant fear of being eaten, even though eating meat is illegal). The core of the story is about a wolf, Legoshi, falling in love with a rabbit, Haru, and all the complications that arise from that. Apparently, inter-species relationships are allowed, but frowned upon (I guess? It’s never explicitly stated either way). What makes this relationship interesting is the fact that the wolf is shy and awkward (and just generally a sweet guy) while the rabbit is more experienced and worldly. Something that struck me as interesting is that the rabbit Haru is sexually active, and has been with several different male characters. While the other characters, naturally, have things to say about this (calling her a “slut” or a “bitch” - the main setting is a high school after all), the story itself doesn’t condemn her for it. In fact, the story presents her in a positive light, sexual history included. The fact that she sleeps around is never portrayed as a negative aspect of her character, and Legoshi is very much aware of her activities. It’s a surprisingly sex positive take. Of course, this positivity doesn’t extend to the audience. Avoid comments sections on episodes of this show unless you want to see some rampant slut shaming.

I ended up talking mostly about season 1, but I didn’t get to do a write-up about it so there’s that. Season 2 is so far very good, dealing with a plot thread that had been left dangling in season one: an herbivore student was murdered and eaten in the first episode, and the mystery of who the killer is was pretty much dropped in favor of character development and world building. But season 2 is addressing that mystery in earnest, and it’s been exciting to watch Legoshi pursue the case. Overall, it’s an engaging show that I regret sleeping on until now. The opening and ending themes are real bangers and the animation looks great.

Dr. Stone Season 2 was easily my most anticipated series this season. It was my favorite show during it’s first season and is my favorite overall this season as well. The show is just so fun. The very quick and basic plot setup is that humanity was turned to stone in the modern age and, thousands of years later, the earth has been retaken by nature. A teenaged scientific genius named Senku breaks free of his stone shell and decides to save everyone and bring science and technology back to the world. In conflict with him is Tsukasa, a physical powerhouse who wants to destroy all the stone adults and create a utopia for the youth. Season 2 leaps right into the war with Tsukasa’s army, with Senku and his allies actually building a primitive cell phone to communicate over wide distances. The charm of this series has always been in its mixture of science facts and methods (all based on real-world science and theoretically possible) and dramatic action between well developed characters, both presented in equally exciting lights. It’s just as much fun watching Senku and his friends gather materials to make a vehicle as it is watching the various skillful warriors battling it out. The art style is something often commented on, as the character designs take a little getting used to, but the animation itself is very nice. As per usual, it has amazing opening and ending themes, with my favorite opening of the season.

The Promised Neverland Season 2 is a bit of a mess. I don’t follow the manga, but I enjoyed the first season of the anime very much and, just by virtue of being on Tumblr and being aware of the series, I ended up hearing about some major plot points from the manga that had me excited. So season two started and the first few episodes were great. But then things started seeming rushed, or just not quite right. A glance at the comments on the episodes revealed that entire story arcs had been skipped, and it really shows even to someone like me who hasn’t read the manga. And one major event I had seen so many images of from the manga is clearly being done in a completely different way in the anime (one that lessens the scene’s impact quite a lot). So... I’m not sure how to feel about this series. It was one of my most anticipated shows this season, but now it’s dropped down toward the bottom, and that’s disappointing. I guess I’ll finish this out and then consider picking up the manga, since apparently this is so different it won’t be spoiling much.

World Trigger Season 2 was a bit of a surprise. I only found out about it a few days before it began airing, and I honestly hesitated when deciding whether or not to watch it. When the first season aired, I loved it. I was sure it would be a new favorite. But then the filler arcs started, and they were almost unbearably boring. I dropped the series and always wondered if the show went back to its former greatness. So when season 2 started, I wondered if this was more filler, or if the filler arcs had ended in season 1 and I’d missed out on some content that I’d need to watch to understand season 2. Plus, my memory of season 1 wasn’t so great. With these thoughts in mind, I decided to watch the first few episodes of season 2 and see if I could make sense of it. Luckily, all of my concerns flew out the window pretty quickly. By the end of the first episode, I was enjoy it so much that I didn’t care about any of the things I’d been worried about. Sure, I might not have remembered all the names or all the details, but the important stuff was coming back to me.

The thing World Trigger does best is juggling tons and tons of characters. I know a lot of anime have large casts, but few of them have so many characters active in a single story arc, and even fewer of them handle those characters so well. Even though it’s been a few years since I watched season 1, and there were dozens of characters popping up in the first few episodes alone, I remembered most of them as I saw them. This is because all of them are memorable, well-designed, and interesting. I think it says a lot about the cast that, in the first several episodes, the three main protagonists are completely left out of the action, and we only get a brief glimpse of them. And this did absolutely nothing to hinder my enjoyment of the show. The supporting characters are so strong (both in-series and in terms of the writing) that the protagonists were not even missed. And I’m not dunking on the protagonists here. They’re great, fun characters. Aside from all this, the show has simple yet attractive art with a ton of variety in the design work. The music is nice, with one of the better opening themes of the season. The action is well choreographed and it’s just a fun series overall.

Sk8 is one of only two totally new series I’m following this season, and it’s a blast. Following a handful of eccentric skate boarders who engage in one-on-one races, the show is equal parts funny and exciting. The main focus is on two skaters, the energetic Reki and the Canadian snow boarder Langa, whom Reki is introducing to the world of skate boarding. The first thing you’re likely to notice about this series is just how colorful it is. It’s like the show itself is in love with color. It makes the art very striking and pleasing to look at. Honestly, it’s worth watching for the eye candy alone. Luckily, the series has other things going for it as well. The budding friendship between Reki and Langa is humorous and sweet, with very little of the usual “rivals who act like they hate each other but are actually friends” shenanigans we see so often in anime. They’re just two nice boys who are nice to each other, and that’s refreshing. Another high point is the gloriously flamboyant villain, Adam. He’s a real treat whenever he’s on screen. The show has an overall light-hearted feel, with enough emotional moments to keep it from becoming too silly. I don’t know much about skate boarding, but this anime makes it look awesome.

Kemono Jihen is the only other new series I’m watching this season. It primarily focuses on a small group of mythical creatures (or half-human/half-mythical) living in Tokyo, operating a detective agency for cases involving creatures like them. The protagonist is Kabane, a young boy who is half human, half ghoul. He’s apparently immortal, to the point that severing his head doesn’t even seem to cause pain. Due to being neglected and mistreated by his adoptive human family, he lacks social skills, but his earnest attempts to make friends and help his companions make him an endearing character. While this type of “urban fantasy” story isn’t new, it’s executed rather well. The characters and their abilities are varied and interesting, the art is competent, and the music fits. There’s a bit of a gross-out factor, with at least two cases involving insects, so be aware. It’s not my favorite show this season, mainly because it doesn’t seem to bring any new ideas to the table, but it’s entertaining enough to keep a spot on my watch list despite me being absolutely brutal when trimming that list down this season. Worth watching, for sure.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons:

Black Clover

Jujutsu Kaisen

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Sk8

Best Opening Theme: Dr. Stone Season 2

Best Ending Theme: Sk8

Best New Male Character: Langa (Sk8)

Best New Female Character: Kon (Kemono Jihen)

#anime #seasonal anime #winter 2021 anime #anime reviews #dr. stone #log horizon #beastars #world trigger #sk8 #text

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cannaray-cbd-gummies · 3 years ago

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gizmosisbuttons · 7 years ago

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Episode 4 was a fandom wide callout post.

all you fools too busy being pissed bc Coran went all show crazy and basically re-characterized the paladins to what the masses found entertaining, to notice that the entire episode was literally a fandom wide call out post. they literally called us out guys.

lets go over the list of things Coran said/did in ep 4 and compare them shall we?

let me preface this by saying he literally wasn't himself and i still love him just as much as before, my gorgeous man.

”I worked up very specific personas for each of you. This is going to help the audience connect on a much deeper level with each team member.”

as if they didn't already have defining personalities that make them very likable and awesome? sounds familiar right? its one thing to speculate and theorize based on what we know about a character especially if we don’t know a lot about said character. the writers put a lot of time and effort into developing these characters and even said during an interview once that one of the things that bugged them about og Voltron was that the only properly developed character was Keith. the other guys didn't get a chance to be loved. and that was what they aimed to do, to give every paladin and character the chance to be loved. since the beginning the fandom has been bad at this. taking one teeny trait from each character and twisting them so that the only thing that matters is that trait.

“lover-boy lance”

throughout the series lance is known to flirt with...pretty much every cute alien girl. of course. hes handsome, charming, girls love him. Coran wipes away all of the actually relatable things about his personality in favor of this charming flirt who would win over girls. Lance is insecure, he’s witty, he is the freaking sharpshooter, the teams sniper and their glue. he’s voltrons right hand now for a reason. he got into the garrison which is a military space exploration base, not just anyone gets in. hes incredibly intelligent and a great pilot. amazing really. bc simulations are always absolutely terrible and rarely help. oh yea, and hes charming.but god forbid anyone forget that hes a flirt. who cares about the other stuff that will actually help the audience connect with him.

“science wiz pidge”

its no secret that pidge is incredibly intelligent. she is one of the characters who haven't gotten their developing points until this season. in one of the first flashbacks we learned she nearly gave up studying because some kid decided to be a dick and bully her. Matt pulled her out of it and encouraged her to work hard. later on in ep 4 coran says that her science doesn't need to be factually correct because noone will understand her either way. he undermined her intelligence because . well. noone cares what she says as long as it sounds smart. fanfic writers do this a lot. like. a lot. i understand that you may not have the same knowledge that the girl who hacked herself into a military school base undercover at he age of 14-15 (if the theory that the garrison is a high school program is correct) because she had gotten banned for sneaking in and hacking into the computer system, but if you really do insist on focusing her on her smarts, do some research. no to mention. pidge may be the youngest, but she really is more than science and calculations. shes intelligent yes, but she can hold her own in battle (at the age range of 15-17 with no prior battle training), shes afraid of the possible reality that all her efforts are wasted and Matt and Sam are dead, she is actually pretty social with the paladins (she can even be seen hanging out in the kitchen while hunk makes glass cookies.) and beyond her intelligence, shes wise. shes not just random science facts, she knows how to hold her own in situations outside of battle and books. shes street smart.

“lone wolf keith”

now i know this was said to allura, and ill get to that. but if the keith vlog showed us anything, its that hes not just a moody loner teenager. i am very guilty of this myself. i portray keith as a human disaster. we don’t know hen he was left alone, we don’t really know much of his story. i head canon that his dad left him to fend for himself but every month woul drop off food or money or something. i head canon hes terrible about taking care of his body. but at least i don’t call him moody and move on. i give him a background to fill in the blank space, but sometimes i forget and focus too much on his folded arms and pouty face. he smiles. he laughs. hes an actual precious bean. but hes also afraid of being pushed away. hes guarded and does his best to be strong. he hides his feelings and protects his heart with everything he has. (geez boi who hurt you). he is not the human embodiment of “teenagers” by mcr. aka he has feelings too. not to mention he also got into the garrison, and was the top pilot regardless of how he got in, if it happened to be by recommendation like most people think.

“humourous hunk”

as a hunk stan this one annoys me the most. throughout the episode hunk is consistently embarrassed, and even protests the fart noises, fart jokes, etc. he is purposely tripped for laughs. the fandom forgets that hes not just the fat funny guy, or just the personal chef. hes overcome so much since babies first lion flight, he used to get sick, constantly had to be the voice of reason to keep his teammates out of trouble, he is just as intelligent as pidge and is actually one of the only people that can keep up with her science stuff. keith and lance even stated that they didnt understand anything they'd said. hes a fantastic engineer even if he had a few tummy mishaps. hes an amazing pilot too, and extremely sassy. he and pidge probably rigged the game console to work in space, And hes pretty friendly and cautious. he is NOT meant to be the comic relief. (say it louder for people in the back)

“shiro the hero”

a lot of the fandom has taken to calling shiro daddy, sexualizing him (”now put on this tight shirt”) and focusing on shiro and only shiro (shiros the “favorite character” of corans little show). hes great. he really is. and the man needs a break. voltron is a kids show. he isnt meant to be sexualized, none of them are. hes more than his arms and his leadership abilities. the biggest issue i have with the whole shiro thing. regardless of if hes a clone, when shiro returned he cut his hair differently, and wore short sleeves. everyone i know, including me, said they'd be fine with the clone if he had kept his hair long and “as much as i love the arm view” and didnt change his outfit. its a kid show. his body shouldn't matter.i am also guilty of this, and ep 4 opened my eyes to it. coran lifted shiros arm as if to prove that thats what the audience really wanted. he treats shiro differently bc hes the real star here and everyone should know it. ofc, hes the black paladin. (i wonder where the whole “the black paladin is the only one who really matters here” mindset came from. looking @ u ‘84). shiros may have ptsd, and hes constantly trying to hold himself together for his team, and its obviously not easy. maybe thats why hes got a cute white floof. the stress.

alluras erasure

another point that always bugged me. the fandom either forgets allura exists, or that she is just stealing lances place temporarily. Allura is the blue paladin. while keith is gone, she is not filling in. shes a paladin now too. for coran to call her keith, and constantly call her keith, even though she obviously has a few choice words to say about it, its distrespectful. she says his plan is working and he replies with “why thank you keith...i like to keep you in character” once again, erasing her existence. now im not as well versed in this particular topic, but id like you to keep in mind that he talks to his princess with that mouth, and that she IS the princess and not a fill in while keith leads. feel free to elaborate on this more.

coran “fires “ team voltron.

this. i find extremely entertaining. remember that legal trouble last year bc of the leaks? and right around that time the klance shipper started threatening them if they didn't make it gayer and put keith and lance together? the fandom, who wanted all of this to happen their way, were threatening to get it cancelled and such just because things didnt go their way. shiro, the leader, disagreed with coran and tries to shut him down. and coran in fit of rage says:

you're a bunch of quitters! quitters! i’m a visionary! i have thoughts, ideas, i dont need you anyway. ill rewrite the show, get rid of the whole lot of you, replace you with new paladins! and the show will be better than ever before!...except for you shiro, ill never get rid of you, you're our most popular character!

this is essentially what the fandom was saying. now, was this definitely their plan, to call us out with this bit, in not sure, but honestly, its almost too coincidental.

the writers have made it clear that they heard us, and have always been listening. and really, thats why i love ep4. you're angry because you know you got called out but haven't admitted it to yourself. the writers do their best to bring us the best show possible, but they cant satisfy everyone. why cant we just be happy about Actual Meme (tm) Matt, and look forward to season five instead of fighting them because we got our shit handed right back to us. weve gotten a taste of our own medicine, so chill. i enjoy them keeping us on our toes, surprising us with every turn, theyre great writers.who cares if one or two things pissed you off? we both know youre not gonna stop watching.

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duckandrollblog · 4 years ago

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Scintilating scifi scenarios

I do a lot of articles that talk about fairly system and setting agnostic ideas, and occasionally cover some more indepth looks at pathfinder, but this time around I want to talk about scifi, and specifically some of the best science fiction specific situations that can make for amazing centerpieces for a good adventure. Some of these can be adapted and changed to suit other games, but some are specifically related to technology and futuristic settings.

1.) The perilous takeoff. This is a fantastic set piece that can essentially serve as several encounters strung together. A staple of sci-fi, the perilous takeoff goes as follows. The Players are infiltrating a dangerous hostile location, hopelessly outnumbered and then, due to success or failure they have to leave fast. The longest version of this essentially contains man tasks. First is the break in, this is usually a stealth, technology and social skill focused challenge that sees the players trying to infiltrate the dangerous area. Then there’s the objective, which could be a combat encounter assassination, a tech skill hacking job, a prison break, the details don’t matter it’s the job they came to do. And then there’s the escape, usually taking the form of a running firefight back towards ones ship. This can also work as a vehicle chase though, or even a vehicle chase while under fire. Once the party reaches their ship the fun isn’t over. After a perilous takeoff they may still have to engage in either an aerial dogfight, a pitched space battle, or a high altitude chase in order to fully escape. It’s an absolutely fantastic setup for an amazing set of awesome encounters.

3.) The orbital bombardment. Combining the greatest aspects of a natural disaster with the narrative power of a capital war crime there are few moments as powerful as the players being caught in an orbital bombardment. When an enemy has been pushed to their limit, or is so cruel and callous that collateral damage no longer matters they turn to this brutal method. In simplest terms they have a satellite or orbiting spaceships open fire on the surface of the planet. Depending on the cruelty of the villain this might take place on a barren wasteland world, a jungle thriving with exotic life, or even in a populated city center. This single encounter can take many forms. From evacuating a collapsing building, dodging explosions, evading falling projectiles, helping to evacuate the innocent, all the way to trying to get into one’s ship and go stop the attack directly. GM’s can easily tweak how intense, dangerous, and devastating this scene can be from one turn to the next and it serves as a great opportunity to present something vastly different from a standard fight.

3.) The stowaway. A single ship cruises the endless black of space. It’s crew carrying on their duties, unaware that they arn’t alone. Someone or something is secretly out there with them. This simple concept works for a ton of different adventures. Is the stowaway a deadly Alien? Is it an assassin? Perhaps an arch nemesis? Or someone desperately in need of help? To really mix things up, the player or players might actually be the stowaway hiding from a crew of enemies. A stowaway adventure can either be a terrifying horror adventure, or an epic close quarters battle with a deadly foe, a heartrending emotional character moment, or a perilous stealth adventure just by changing a few tiny details.

4.) Stranded. Since the age of sail, stories of castaways stranded of deserted islands have captivated people. No different is it if that island is an unknown or forgotten planet of no interest to anyone. The stranded adventure can be a single session of fear and exploration, or it can be stretched into an entire campaign just about exploring and scavenging on a single planet. The planet may be teeming with feral animals, fascinating local cultures, or deadly traps, as long as there’s something interesting to discover. For a very deep and introspective adventure the planet may even be entirely barren and the encounter might even focus simply on the slow starvation and the introspection that comes with it for the player characters. Who will get the last sip of water and bite of food? What are their regrets before they pass on? Will they forgive old grudges?

#Tabletop RPG #GM Advice #DMs togather #duckandroll

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vincentpennington · 5 years ago

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Easy Cinnamon Rolls in a Muffin Pan (Paleo, Gluten-free)

These easy paleo cinnamon rolls can be made in a muffin pan! Even better: they’re gluten-free and oh-so delicious! You can freeze the extras and reheat them when you’re craving a healthy grain-free treat!

As longtime Nomsters know, I don’t normally post recipes for paleo treats or desserts because I’m not much of a baker. That’s why I was so delighted to get a copy of Michele Rosen’s new cookbook, Paleo Baking At Home. Michele’s the genius recipe developer behind the popular blog Paleo Running Momma, and although she has a ton of fantastic savory recipes, I turn to her simple yet decadent paleo dessert recipes when I need a sweet fix. Case in point? These easy cinnamon rolls in a muffin pan from her new cookbook!

Muffin pan = genius hack!

Michele’s idea to bake individual cinnamon rolls in a greased muffin pan is pure genius ’cause the rolls don’t spread as they bake and the edges get evenly browned. Plus, the muffin tin forces you to make each roll a reasonable portion size and not the size of your head. The resulting perfectly-sized rolls are slightly crunchy on the outside with a tender crumb on the inside—just how I like them!

Ingredient Substitutions?

Don’t even ask me, because I honestly have no idea if you can use a flax egg in this recipe or coconut flour in place of the almond flour. Part of the reason I don’t like making paleo sweets is because you can’t easily swap ingredients depending on your mood or what’s in your pantry. After all, baking is a science that requires precise measurements. I’m so grateful that Michele Rosen did all the testing and graciously allowed me to share her recipe with you!

Per Michele Rosen, you can substitute the tapioca flour with arrowroot flour in most of her recipes as long as the volume is up to one cup. Although she warns that the texture may be altered if you go above that amount, I tried arrowroot powder in this recipe and my rolls tasted just fine. If you substitute one of the ingredients in this recipe and have success, please share them in the comments section!

Can you freeze them?

Yes! The best way to store any leftover unfrosted cinnamon rolls is in the freezer for up to two months in a sealed container. You can reheat the frozen baked rolls in a 300°F oven for 5-7 minutes or until warmed through. Spread the icing on top while the rolls are still warm and you’ll be thanking your former self for saving some for later!

Time to make Michele Rosen’s easy cinnamon rolls in a muffin pan!

Serves 12

Ingredients:

Rolls:

1¾ cups (168 g) blanched almond flour

1½ cups (168 g) tapioca flour, plus more for sprinkling

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon fine sea salt

⅓ cup (79 mL) light coconut milk, blended

3 tablespoons (45 mL) melted ghee

2 tablespoons (30 mL) raw honey, melted

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 large egg, at room temperature

Avocado or coconut oil spray

Filling:

1 tablespoon (12 g) ghee, at room temperature

1 tablespoon (21 g) raw honey, at room temperature

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Topping:

¾ cup (117 g) powdered maple sugar or Swerve confectioners sweetener

1 tablespoon (11 g) palm oil shortening or ghee, at room temperature

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon (15 mL) coconut or unsweetened almond milk

Equipment:

All of my recommended kitchen tools are listed here.

Method:

Time to prepare the rolls! In a large bowl, whisk together the almond and tapioca flours, baking soda, and salt.

Add the coconut milk, ghee, honey, and vanilla, and mix well.

Lastly, add the egg.

Continue to mix until a sticky dough forms.

Cover and chill the dough in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes. At this point, it should be firm enough to handle with some help from extra tapioca flour.

Meanwhile, heat your oven to 350°F (177°C) and spray 12 wells of a muffin pan with avocado or coconut oil spray. (Pro tip: spray the muffin pan on your open dishwasher door! Any mess you make will be gone once you run the dishwasher!)

Draw a 14 x 6 inch rectangle on a large piece of parchment paper.

Flip over the parchment paper so the tracing is still visible and place the paper on a large cutting board.

Sprinkle about 1 tablespoon (7 g) of tapioca flour on top of the parchment paper on top of the rectangle tracing.

Place the chilled dough in the center of paper and using tapioca flour dusted hands, press the dough into the long rectangle traced on the paper with the heels of your hands until the dough is of even thickness.

Now, let’s make the filling! In a small bowl, mix together the ghee, honey, and cinnamon until it is a thick paste with no lumps.

Carefully spread the filling in a thin layer over the surface of the dough.

Using the parchment paper to help you, roll the dough tightly on the long side. Once rolled, place the dough in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes for easier slicing.

Slice the chilled roll into 12 even pieces with a sharp knife.

Place each piece, flat side down, in a greased muffin tin well.

Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, rotating the tray at the halfway point.

The rolls are finished cooking when the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of a roll comes out clean.

While the rolls bake, prepare the icing! In a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered maple sugar or Swerve confectioners sweetener, palm oil shortening, and vanilla.

Slowly add the coconut milk and stir until the desired consistency is achieved.

Transfer the rolls from the muffin pan to a wire rack in a rimmed baking sheet.

Drizzle on the icing while the rolls are still warm and dig in!

Freeze the unfrosted leftover cinnamon rolls for up to 2 months. Reheat in a 300°F oven for 5-7 minutes or until warmed through. Spread the icing on top while still warm and savor your treat!

Want more amazing paleo baking recipes? Buy Michele Rosen’s cookbook, Paleo Baking At Home, and get this cinnamon roll recipe and a bunch more just like it!

Looking for more recipe ideas? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes on my iPhone and iPad app, and in my cookbooks, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2013) and Ready or Not! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2017)!

PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE CARD

Easy Cinnamon Rolls in a Muffin Pan (Paleo, Gluten-free)

These easy paleo cinnamon rolls can be made in a muffin pan! Even better: they’re gluten-free and oh-so delicious!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword gluten-free, grain-free, nom nom paleo, paleo, paleo dessert

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Servings 12

Calories 279kcal

Ingredients

For The Rolls

1¾ cups finely ground almond flour

1½ cups tapioca starch plus more for sprinkling

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon fine sea salt

⅓ cup light coconut milk blended

3 tablespoons melted ghee

2 tablespoons raw honey melted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg at room temperature

Avocado oil spray or coconut oil spray

For The Filling

1 tablespoon ghee at room temperature

1 tablespoon raw honey at room temperature

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

For The Topping

¾ cup powdered maple sugar or Swerve confectioners sweetener

1 tablespoon palm oil shortening or ghee, at room temperature

1 tablespoon full-fat coconut milk or unsweetened almond milk

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Make the rolls!

In a large bowl, whisk together the almond and tapioca flours, baking soda, and salt.

Add the coconut milk, ghee, honey, and vanilla, and mix well.

Lastly, add the egg. Continue to mix until a sticky dough forms.

Cover and chill the dough in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes. At this point, it should be firm enough to handle with some help from extra tapioca flour.

Draw a 14 x 6 inch rectangle on a large piece of parchment paper. Flip over the parchment paper so the tracing is still visible and place the paper on a large cutting board.

Flip over the parchment paper so the tracing is still visible and place the paper on a large cutting board.

Make The Filling!

In a small bowl, mix together the ghee, honey, and cinnamon until it is a thick paste with no lumps.

Form and Bake The Rolls!

Carefully spread the filling in a thin layer over the surface of the dough.

Using the parchment paper to help you, roll the dough tightly on the long side. Once rolled, place the dough in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes for easier slicing.

Slice the chilled roll into 12 even pieces with a sharp knife. Place each piece, flat side down, in a greased muffin tin well.

Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, rotating the tray at the halfway point. The rolls are finished cooking when the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of a roll comes out clean.

Make The Topping & Frost The Rolls!

While the rolls bake, prepare the icing! In a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered maple sugar or Swerve confectioners sweetener, palm oil shortening, and vanilla.

Slowly add the coconut milk and stir until the desired consistency is achieved.

Transfer the rolls from the muffin pan to a wire rack in a rimmed baking sheet.

Drizzle on the icing while the rolls are still warm and dig in!

Notes

Easy Cinnamon Rolls in a Muffin Pan is excerpted with minor adaptations from Paleo Baking At Home: The Ultimate Resource for Delicious Grain-Free Cookies, Cakes, Bars, Breads and More © 2020 by Michele Rosen. Reproduced by permission of Page Street Publishing. All rights reserved.

Nutrition

The post Easy Cinnamon Rolls in a Muffin Pan (Paleo, Gluten-free) appeared first on Nom Nom Paleo®.

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dazzledbybooks · 5 years ago

Quote

The Bold Type meets The Social Network when three girls vying for prestigious summer internships through a startup incubator program uncover the truth about what it means to succeed in the male-dominated world of tech. This summer Silicon Valley is a girls' club. Three thousand applicants. An acceptance rate of two percent. A dream internship for the winning team. ValleyStart is the most prestigious high school tech incubator competition in the country. Lucy Katz, Maddie Li, and Delia Meyer have secured their spots. And they've come to win. Meet the Screen Queens. Lucy Katz was born and raised in Palo Alto, so tech, well, it runs in her blood. A social butterfly and CEO in-the-making, Lucy is ready to win and party. East Coast designer, Maddie Li left her home and small business behind for a summer at ValleyStart. Maddie thinks she's only there to bolster her graphic design portfolio, not to make friends. Delia Meyer taught herself how to code on a hand-me-down computer in her tiny Midwestern town. Now, it's time for the big leagues--ValleyStart--but super shy Delia isn't sure if she can hack it (pun intended). When the competition kicks off, Lucy, Maddie, and Delia realize just how challenging the next five weeks will be. As if there wasn't enough pressure already, the girls learn that they would be the only all-female team to win ever. Add in one first love, a two-faced mentor, and an ex-boyfriend turned nemesis and things get...complicated. Filled with humor, heart, and a whole lot of girl power, Screen Queens is perfect for fans of Morgan Matson, Jenny Han, and The Bold Type. Screen Queens by Lori Goldstein Publisher: Razorbill Release Date: June 11th 2019 Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction Review: Screen Queens by Lori Goldstein is such a fantastic book. This is something that we needed in the book industry. With how fast pace the tech industry is, I think we forget that women still struggle with the same things in every industry. In a lot of ways women have gained freedom but we still don't win in the workplace. I think that comparing this book to The Bold Type is pretty accurate. This book focuses on three girls that join an incubator tank to design a new app. It is about their struggles of being girls in a program and with trying to prove themselves because they fact that they are girls. I love how much empowerment this book gives girls and women alike. Lucy, Maddie, and Delia are all at ValleyStart for their own reasons. Delia is ready to be a part of the tech world. She is at ValleyStart to make her parents proud and to try to break into an industry that she loves. For Delia this is an opportunity of a lifetime. For Lucy this is an opportunity to meet big wigs in tech as a future CEO. All she wants to do is prove to her mom that she can accomplish her goals in life without her. Maddie is at ValleyStart to build her design portfolio. These three girls are thrown together to build an app together. I love that this story is told in the three perspectives of these young women. I feel like this really helped the reader get the full picture on what is going on at ValleyStart. I really enjoyed that these women were thrown together and became friends The had lots of issues along the way but in the end they were there for each other and that is how women should be. We should be there for each other rather than tear each other down. Goldstein wrote an amazing book. I really loved this book and I thought that Goldstein did an amazing job. You should definitely read this book. There is so much empowerment for women. Favorite Quote: Because that's how they were all related. The women that came before, the women of now, and the ones to come. All empowered. For the future they'd create. Five Things Every #TechGirl Needs 1. Snacks. Long hours of planning and coding demand snacks. Many startups and tech companies have fully stocked kitchens with food and beverages available for free around the clock. Sneak into one and you’re likely to find everything from organic granola to acai bowls to honey lavender lattes, jugs of cold brew with almond milk, and of course, ramen.2. A cool phone case. You never leave home without your phone, so why not use it to showcase who you are? Your favorite artist, motto, book (ahem!), stamp your phone case with it! Your favorite vacation spot, dog, cat, turtle, whatever, one flash shows the world your personality and what you hold most dear. Don’t let your phone go naked!3. Headphones. For times when you are head down, deep in coding, drawing, or whatever your passion is, you need to block out the world and focus. A great set of wireless headphones is key. Skullcandy is making headphones designed specifically to fit women. Pretty cool.4. Collaborators. In the world of a tech, a unicorn is someone who is a tech genius, a wizard able to do it all. If you aren’t a unicorn yourself, the best thing to do is surround yourself with collaborators who complete the skill set needed to create the next killer app. Lucy’s the project manager, Maddie’s the designer, and Delia’s the coder. Together they form a formidable team, and the apps they create prove it. Get yourself a squad!5. Thick skin. Here are the facts: Only 20 percent of tech jobs are held by women even though women make up more than half the workforce. The number of female computer science majors has dropped in the past two decades by more than 20 percent, down to just 18 percent. Only 11 percent of executive positions at Silicon Valley companies are held by women. Here’s what we do about it: Encourage more girls from a young age to think of STEM as a career path. The more women who enter the field, the more role models these young girls will see. It is a cycle that will feed itself. Yet it won’t be an easy road. Women entering this field are sure to encounter some of the discrimination and harassment that the girls in SCREEN QUEENS do. They face this with the strength that comes from knowing someone has their back. So along with that thick skin, make sure you have a team and support one another every step of the way. Excerpt: Four. Still. Only four.Lucy shifted in the hard wooden chair across from her mom’s desk and clutched her phone tighter. She swiped up and down with such force that her Caribbean Blue Baby fingernails would have scratched the glass had she not been diligent about using a screen protector.Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, Facebook . . . Swipe, swipe, swipe. The likes, favorites, followers, friends . . . she had enough. Enough for her ranking on the Pulse app to be higher than four.Four?Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.The pink plastic bracelet the bouncer had secured around Lucy’s wrist danced up and down the same way she had last night, after name-dropping her way into the hottest new club in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. The fact that she didn’t actually know Ryan Thompson, founder of Pulse, was a technicality that would soon be remedied.Her ♥ our fingers are on the pulse ♥ tee only given to Pulse employees opened doors closed even to most of Silicon Valley’s elite. She’d snagged it from a hipster-preneur six months ago at a party in Fremont. He was so busy claiming he left Pulse of his own accord (uh-huh) because his eco-friendly (read: nonprofitable) idea was going to change the world (i.e., drain his bank account) that he scarcely knew what he’d lost. All it took was a deftly spilled cocktail, an exorbitant dry cleaning bill, and Lucy’s favorite tank (note: pomegranate margaritas don’t come out of silk), but it was worth it.Soon she’d have one of her own.And she’d no longer be a 4.♥♥♥♥Really?The likes on her Instagram story from last night alone should have bumped her up to a 5. Thumping. But here she sat. Still at 4. Still Thudding.She stared at the string of hearts on her Pulse profile knowing that, somehow, this was all because she was wait-listed at Stanford.And that, Lucy knew the exact “how” of: Gavin Cox.Freaking Gavin Cox.She shouldn’t have done it, but her blue fingernail moved on its own, navigating to his profile.Level 6. Throbbing. Gavin Cox was Throbbing and she was Thudding. If only she possessed a male member and a wingspan like Michael Phelps, she’d be Throbbing too. But now that high school was over, winning state would no longer be a crutch for Gavin, and his Pulse would plummet. He’d be lucky to be Beating—a measly 3.Lucy was tempted to knock her mom’s expansive cherry wood desk. But Lucy Katz didn’t believe in luck. Lucy Katz didn’t hope. Lucy Katz didn’t dream. Lucy Katz did.She knew what she wanted.And it wasn’t this.Thudding and wait-listed and this drab third-floor office in this mud-brown building in this sad little Sunnyvale office park.So it wouldn’t be.Tired of the edge of the chair digging into the soft underside of her knees, she scooted forward until her wedge sandals reached the floor.Her mom was twenty minutes late.As usual.Lucy knew enough to show up for their scheduled lunch a half hour after its start time, but she was on time.As always.Lucy planned like other people breathed.Which was why she wasn’t nervous about Stanford. It was a blip. A minor inconvenience. Nothing that an internship at Pulse wouldn’t wipe away like a hard reset on her MacBook Pro.She stared at the gently tanned skin of her exposed ankles and wiggled her toes, enticing circulation to resume after being dangled two inches off the floor despite her heels. She pulled her pink-and-white-striped notebook onto her lap and leafed through the pages, refreshing herself on all the notes she’d taken thus far on ValleyStart, the summer tech incubator program she was about to begin. The five-week competition ended with one team winning an internship at Pulse. If she succeeded (please), she’d spend the rest of the summer at Pulse with Ryan Thompson. And Pulse, well, not even Stanford could ignore a pedigree that included Pulse.Satisfied it was all already committed to memory, she closed her notebook and stared at the shiny gold L floating on the center of the cover—the only Hanukkah gift she’d received last year, sent in a FedEx envelope from her mom’s assistant.She tucked it under her arm and stood, passing by windows that looked out on row after row of blue, red, black, white, and green hybrid cars lined up like Crayolas in the parking lot, the closest the office came to having a pop of color. A four-by-six double frame propped beside her mom’s three monitors was the only personalization in the room.One side held Lucy as a baby, swaddled in her mom’s arms with her dad looking off to the side, toward the London office he’d soon head. The second photo once again displayed the three of them, this time on graduation day, just a few weeks ago. Her dad had scheduled a week of meetings before and after in order to attend.Two milestones in Lucy’s life, as if nothing had happened in between, with the frame leaving no room for anything to come.The graduation photo hung crooked in the frame. She could just see her mom hurriedly shoving it inside with one hand, typing an email with the other, while on a conference call with Singapore, Melbourne, and Dubai.Lucy set her phone on the desk. She pulled off the cardboard backing to straighten the photo and out fell the slip of paper behind it: a smiling baby—not Lucy, simply the picture that had come in the frame. How long had her mom kept that other child beside Lucy? Long enough to forget to print one to take its place, long enough to no longer notice that she should.On the desk, her phone vibrated and lit up with a text.ValleyStart: Team assignments are in! Meet Your Mates!Lucy’s arm shot out like a rattlesnake and her notebook fell, knocking into one of her mom’s monitors.“Lucy!” Abigail Katz entered the room and rushed forward in her expensive flats.“Got it!” Lucy’s tennis-trained reflexes saved the monitor before it took down the others like dominos.Considering Lucy had read and re-read the acceptance packet about a thousand times and been waiting for the past two months to see who she’d be spending the next five weeks with, her restraint in not jumping on the ValleyStart portal instantly was extraordinary.It’s actually happening.Her pulse quickened, and she was almost dizzy as she circled one way around the desk, back to the hard chair. Her mom rounded the corner from the opposite direction, adjusted the tilt of the monitor, and sat down in front of it.With the seven-inch height difference between them, Lucy could only see her eyes. And the tiredness in them.Lucy would never deny that Abigail Katz worked hard.But that was all she did.“I’m sorry, Lucy.” Abigail smoothed the ends of her chin-length bob. The barest hint of gray dusted the roots—a constant battle, waged every three weeks as she colored it back to brown. “They needed some guidance in a branding meeting that wasn’t on my schedule.”“Right,” Lucy said.Abigail reached into the top drawer of her desk and pulled out two protein bars. “Just a quick lunch, then, okay?”Peanut butter. Lucy hated peanut butter. “Sure.” She peeled back the wrapping. Not even peanut butter could ruin her ValleyStart high.“All set for tomorrow?”“Packed the car this morning.” She bounced (just a little) in her seat.Abigail stopped chewing. “Not an Uber or Lyft?”“It’s ten miles.”“Right. Ten.”Half the number of fender benders Lucy had been in. Who has time to spend learning to be a perfect driver?“Fine. Whatever.” Lucy pretended there was no judgment in her mom’s question and forced a bite of the peanut butter. “I’ll leave the car.”“Better plan. You won’t need it anyway.” Abigail set her own half-eaten bar down. “You have to focus. Palo Alto High School may have been competitive, but ValleyStart’s in another league. The top startup incubator for high school graduates in the country with only sixty accepted out of—”“Three thousand applicants, I know.” An acceptance rate of only two percent. Two. Stanford’s was four. The sole explanation . . .Freaking Gavin Cox.The only other applicant from her high school to make it into ValleyStart.Lucy pushed her heels into the floor and all thoughts of Gavin where they belonged—in the past.“I’ve been focused, Mom. I’m certainly not going to stop now.” Top ten in her class, 4.8 GPA, tennis all-star, two marathons under her belt, and still a lecture on being “focused.” Lucy regretted the bite as her stomach churned.“Nothing wrong with reminders,” Abigail said, just as one dinged on her computer and phone in unison, the sound as familiar to Lucy as the squeak of her bedroom door.Lucy stood.“Wait. It’s just . . .” Abigail’s eyes slowly drifted from her three monitors to Lucy’s expertly draped off-the-shoulder tee and perfectly cuffed dark-wash jeans. “I’ve always given you freedom because you’ve shown that you can handle it. Up until now.”Now meaning not getting into Stanford.“But with this, with this new world you’re entering, well, I just want you to be aware of the pressures and the importance of how you present yourself.”“Present myself? I’m not a poodle in some dog show.”“That’s not what I meant.”“Then what do you mean, Mom?”“Letting off steam in high school is one thing, but now you’re an adult.”“So I’ve heard.” Her mom had repeated the same phrase ad nauseam since Lucy’s eighteenth birthday three months ago.“Believe me, Lucy, it’s no secret how little you’ve wanted to heed my advice lately. If and when that changes, you know where to find me.”Right here in this same baby-poop-brown office you’ve lived in since I took my first steps . . . which, naturally, you missed.Heat rose in Lucy’s chest, and all she wanted to do was give her mom a reminder: that the phrase was “work hard” and “play hard.” And the playing bit could yield the same—if not better—results as the working. Connections made things happen. Just ask her Pulse tee.“Sure, Mom.” Lucy brushed her hand through her long dark hair, forgetting she was still holding the brick of peanut butter. She picked a crumb off a strand by her chin and watched as her mom slipped on her computer glasses and turned the world right in front of her eyes crystal clear, blurring everything else beyond—including Lucy.Lucy headed for the door. “Just one small thing . . . in order to give me freedom or anything else, you’d actually have to be around.”She didn’t wait for her mom to look up; she simply wrapped her hand around the metal knob and closed the door behind her with barely a sound, making sure she “presented herself” properly.How am I even related to her?Lucy only made it halfway down the hall before she slowed, leaned her head against the crap-colored walls, and tried to stop her heart from racing.Level 7. Seven hearts was Racing.Like everyone her age, like everyone in the world, Lucy knew the Pulse levels as well as her home address. “What’s your Pulse?” were the first words off of anyone’s lips upon meeting, the first background check determining worthiness for everything from friend to blind date to party invites, probably even job offers.The brainchild of Ryan Thompson when he was only a year older than Lucy, the app amalgamated an individual’s likes, favorites, views, thumbs-ups, and more from every major social media platform, translating it to a simple Pulse level, ranking you from zero, Dead, all the way to ten, Crushing It. Over time, as the app evolved, Level 10s became top influencers, the people everyone wanted to be or be seen with. Advertisers and the entertainment business soon realized that Level 10s’ smiling faces could increase sales and media coverage. Now, 10s got complimentary everything, from the newest iPhones to dips in Iceland’s Blue Lagoon. To be a 10 was to live with all the perks.Once Lucy and her team won the ValleyStart incubator, Pulse would be her second home for the rest of the summer. The prize of an internship at the most successful tech company in the past ten years was worth more than any amount of money.She’d use it to her advantage. Starting now.Lucy opened the Stanford portal and did what she’d wanted to do for weeks, since she was accepted into ValleyStart. She requested a second alumni interview. She knew it was irregular, but she explained that she had new information she was delighted to share—namely the incubator.Lucy then lifted her chin higher and straightened her top. As she passed by the largest office—a suite—she ran her finger along the three little letters on the nameplate: CEO.Pulse would secure that future.At the elevators, Lucy logged into the ValleyStart portal to find not just the names of her teammates but her assigned mentor: Ryan Thompson.For the first time since arriving at her mom’s office, Lucy smiled. About the Author: Author of SCREEN QUEENS, coming from Razorbill, June 11, 2019, and available for preorder now (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and IndieBound) about three teen girls who attend a startup incubator in Silicon Valley and learn what it means to compete in the male-dominated world of tech. My Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy series Becoming Jinn and Circle of Jinn is a modern spin on the traditional tale of wish-granting genies (Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan). Obsessed with books, beach, and Game of Thrones, Find me at @loriagoldstein and follow my blog and sign up for my newsletter at http://bit.ly/24E6Zjn, my Instagram at http://bit.ly/2x7UFhf my Tumblr at http://bit.ly/1Mbzk8a. Like my author page on Facebook for fun book-related photos, tidbits, and happenings as well as news on upcoming releases. Giveaway: Prize (1): Win a copy of SCREEN QUEENS by Lori Goldstein and two swag packs (US Only) Prize (2): Win (1) of (20) paper doll character cards for Lucy, Maddie, and Delia (INTERNATIONAL+US/CAN) Starts: June 18th 2019 Ends: July 2nd 2019 a Rafflecopter giveaway Tour Schedule: http://fantasticflyingbookclub.blogspot.com/2019/05/tour-schedule-screen-queens-by-lori.html June 18th The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club - Welcome Post June 19th Moonlight Rendezvous - Review + Favourite Quotes The Reading Corner for All - Review + Favourite Quotes Young Adult Media Consumer - Review + Favourite Quotes Devouring Books - Review Confessions of a YA Reader - Promotional Post June 20th The Book Thief Without Words - Review Snark and Squee - Review Kayla Reads and Reviews - Review Wall-to-wall books - Review June 21st The Hermit Librarian - Interview Book-Keeping - Review + Favourite Quotes A Few Chapters 'til Love - Review + Dream Cast Hauntedbybooks - Review + Favourite Quotes Bemused Bibliophile - Review June 22nd L.M. Durand - Review + Favourite Quotes Magical Reads - Review + Playlist Kait Plus Books - Review + Favourite Quotes Musings of a (Book) Girl - Review + Favourite Quotes Pooled Ink - Promotional Post June 23rd The YA Obsessed - Review Belle's Archive - Review Frayed Books - Review Firstbooklove - Review Dazzled by Books - Review + Favourite Quotes June 24th Morgan Vega - Review + Playlist + Favourite Quotes The Clever Reader - Review + Favourite Quotes Bookish In Bed - Review Mind of Luxe - Review Kourtni Reads - Review + Favourite Quotes

http://www.dazzledbybooks.com/2019/06/screenqueensblogtour.html

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language576-blog · 6 years ago

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Learn Hebrew for Free: 42 Resources and Classes to Learn Hebrew Online

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Learn Hebrew for Free: 42 Resources and Classes to Learn Hebrew Online

Looking for resources so you are able to learn Hebrew for free?

There are loads of Hebrew courses out there, so if you’re learning to speak Hebrew, it can feel like you expend more day trying to figure out what resources are good quality than you are learning the language!

Ready for some good news? I’ve put this article together because I’ve done the work for you. I’ve tried out several Hebrew learning tools to find the best ones out there. And the best part? You can use any of them to learn Hebrew for free.

Let’s take a look at these online Hebrew language resources and class so you are able to learn Hebrew online. Learn Hebrew Online with Hebrew Audio and Podcasts Listening comprehension is often a challenge for language learners, which is why I recommend get lots of listening practice. But where do you find good quality audio lessons in Hebrew?

To start, podcasts are a handy way to learn Hebrew. You can take them with you wherever you go — they can accompany as you wait in line, as you commute, or even while you go out for a walking. Anytime you have a spare moment, you are able to fit in some speech learn.

There are many Hebrew language podcasts out there, but just a few offer a complete Hebrew course. I opt podcasts that provide a step-by-step Hebrew class. I also think it’s good to listen to Hebrew as it’s spoken in real dialogues

Here’s where to start with Hebrew language audio:

HebrewPod1 01 is free to sign up for and is a favourite of the Fluent in 3 Months team. It has an impressive amount of Hebrew content available at every level from complete beginner to advanced. You get a one-week free trial to test out lessons at all skill levels. After that, you do have to pay for the most advanced lessons and premium material, although it’s very much worth it.

TuneIn: Listen to radio in Hebrew on TuneIn. Test out a few stations based on the subjects you’re interested in, consider what catches your attention and enjoy. Download the app to enjoy radio on your mobile device.

Forvo: If you come across a new word, especially with Hebrew which has its own writing system and vowels that were traditionally unwritten, Forvo is a great place to listen to terms spoken by a native speaker. It has a large database and is a good reference for accent.

Streetwise Hebrew: In each episode of Streetwise Hebrew, a specific word and its different utilizes are featured. It’s great for picking up everyday Hebrew as it is spoken on the streets of Israel.

YouTube: Free Hebrew Video Lessons YouTube is an incredible place to find free Hebrew classes and resources. The following channels give you hours of Hebrew lessons in an entertaining format. Plus, video has the added benefits of giving you access to facial expressions, body language and other non-verbal facets of the Hebrew language.

HebrewPod1 01: In addition to their free podcast lessons, HebrewPod1 01 also has an excellent YouTube channel with hours of free content.

Easy Hebrew: I love the Easy Languages channel because it gives you a look at the local culture and offers you context. In this series, the hosts go out into the streets and interview the people they meet. It’s spontaneous and a fun route to hear the route people truly speak the language, pick up useful conversational language, and improve your listening comprehension.

Rosen School of Hebrew features several “word of the day” videos and many other Hebrew language lessons.

Hebrewpodcasts: Another great channel with many free Hebrew lessons.

Miiko Shaffier has posted several live videos packed with Hebrew language learning tips. And while the channel doesn’t appear be active at the moment, but there’s still a lot to be drawn from her video archive.

Hebrew for Beginners: This channel is true to its name – it has two or more videos for beginner Hebrew learners encompassing everything from the writing system to basic vocabulary and grammar.

Learn Arabic with Maha: I featured Maha in my post of the best free Arabic learning resources, but her channel also has several helpful basic Hebrew lessons.

Free Online Hebrew Courses, Systems and Tools If you’re interested in guided lessons, there is a good selection of free online Hebrew courses and systems available. Here are just a few websites that offer online Hebrew lessons at no expense, plus some Hebrew tools you’ll find useful:

Glossika is an audio speech course and the first 1,000 repetitions are free. It utilizes spaced-repetition to help you learn useful Hebrew phrases.

Pealim is a free Hebrew verb conjugator and reference site.

Goethe Verlag has 100 free lessons for Hebrew language learners. They encompass everything from numbers to preparing for a journey and running errands.

Live Lingua: There is one free FSI Hebrew course on Live Lingua, a database of Peace Corps and FSI coursebooks and audio materials.

Wikibooks offers Hebrew language learners a free online coursebook.

Hebrew Podcasts has dozens if not hundreds of lessons available on their site. You can browse the lessons by level and learn everything from how to get out and about on the town to culture tips-off.

Teach Me Hebrew has a wide range of free Hebrew language class. It has modules on everything from grammar to sungs you are able to learn with.

Your Daily Dose of Hebrew features free vocabulary lessons. Each post features a word and offers you both audio and context.

Teacher Mike’s Blog offers Hebrew learners short video lessons with text notes.

Loecsen has almost twenty beginner lessons available to Hebrew learners. They encompass everything from basic greets to phrases you can use if you find yourself in need of help.

BBC Languages: Appearing for a fantastic introduction to the Hebrew language with video and tons of accompanying material? The BBC’s Hebrew course has it all.

Free Hebrew Language Apps Apps are a handy route to learn a new language, especially for those who like to study on the go.

Memrise or Anki( for iOS, for Android, and for everyone else ): These are flashcard systems that you can use to create your own Hebrew vocabulary decks or download those already created by other users. The desktop version of Anki is free, as is the basic version of Memrise.

Duolingo is a popular language learning app that introduces you to both Hebrew vocabulary and grammar. It’s a gamified platform, so it’s fun to use and addictive, so you’ll keep coming back to learn more.

Drops helps you build your Hebrew vocabulary in merely five minutes of study hour per day use gorgeous visuals and spaced-repetition.

Clozemaster is a language learning app that uses cloze( fill in the blank) to help you master new vocabulary in Hebrew.

NEMO on iOS and Android are right to download and it offers you the chance to record yourself speaking Hebrew and then compare it against native speakers.

Free Online Hebrew Language Resources for Advanced Hebrew Learners Take a Free Online Course in Hebrew MOOCs( Massive Open Online Courses) is not merely offer Hebrew language courses, but they also offer courses on other topics, being implemented in Hebrew. If you’d like to use Hebrew to find out more about something you’re passionate in, taking an online course in Hebrew can be a useful way to do two things at once.

Class Central is an online portal that indices free online courses from various categories of sites( including Coursera and EdX ). Currently, they have six courses taught in Hebrew listed on their site.

Ted Talks in Hebrew: Ted Talks are a powerful route to learn new things in bite-sized chunks. Most talks are between 10 -2 0 minutes and are presented so that they keep your attention from start to finish.

Watch Hebrew Vloggers on YouTube If you’re looking for native and relevant material for your Hebrew language learn, YouTubers are a good place to start. Hebrew vloggers encompass everything from slapstick to beauty to food, so you’re sure to find a YouTube personality who encompasses a topic that you’re interested in.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Top Geek is ruled by Karin and Nimrod Aldea and they vlog about entertainment, science, and technology. Their channel includes gameplay and other fun videos, too.

GameGems is a Hebrew vlogger who reviews games and shares gameplay videos with new content every few weeks.

OldSchoolil includes gameplay videos and may be of special interest to those who enjoy vintage games on some of the older game systems.

Ashley Waxman Bakshi: Searching for a Hebrew speaking beauty vlogger? Seem no farther. Ashley posts makeup tutorials, beauty tips, and commentary videos.

Free Hebrew Language Reading Materials Finding reading material appropriate for your level in the language can be a challenge. Thankfully, there’s a decent selection of Hebrew reading resources available to you as a learner online for free.

Wikipedia: Use Wikipedia to read short articles in Hebrew. You can switch back to your native speech to check your comprehension.

LingQ is a popular online learning system that enables you acquire new vocabulary through its read interface. It’s free to sign up, though if you want to use it long-term you’ll need to opt for a pay plan.

Google News: Read the news in Hebrew with Google News.

What Free Online Hebrew Resource Do You Use? It’s amazing just how many incredible resources there are to learn Hebrew at no expense online. Though I’ve featured 42 places you are able to learn Hebrew for free, I’m sure there are many more. Is there anything you feel that I’ve missed? Let me know!

Want More? Check out Benny’s favorite Hebrew resources.

The post Learn Hebrew for Free: 42 Resources and Class to Learn Hebrew Online seemed first on Fluent in 3 months – Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

Read more: fluentin3months.com

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globalfilesystem · 7 years ago

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The Best Charlotte, NC Travel Tips From Our Readers

“People are much more friendly and polite than they were in NYC,” says reader Jeebs, one of the biggest contributors to our thread of Charlotte, NC travel tips. That might be a low bar, but friendly Charlotte readers (including some redditors from /r/Charlotte) left over 100 comments listing the best of their city. Here are their best tips.

Each Monday on Hack Your City, we ask readers for your best tips on a city: driving tips, restaurant recs, things to do, and any other advice for visitors and locals. Then on Thursday, we present the best comments. We’re working our way around the U.S. and around the globe.

Getting Around “Our metropolitan area is called Uptown, not Downtown. (It’s a thing from the 80s trying to make it sound fancier.)”—Jonathan Carpenter“Prepare to do a lot of driving. Charlotte has a lot to offer but it’s so sprawled out that it’s difficult to get to everything. Pick up a Creative Loafing Paper first chance you have to get an idea of the goings on while you’re in the area. In preparation for a trip, check out their 2017 ‘Best of’ Issue for some good ideas. I can tell you the critics and readers are both on point for the majority of the picks.”—Th3DudeAbides“The 485 loop is referred to the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ as well as directionally. Just remember that the “inner” loop is the one going clockwise and the ‘outer’ is counter clockwise and you should be set.”—AtomicSnowman“Epicentre [the shopping mall] is very overrated unless you really want to party/club hard. If I were uptown I’d stick around the Latta Arcade area which is close to some cool spots.”—elbbubria2“Avoid Concord Mills like the black plague when it’s NASCAR season. That area gets overcrowded very quickly.”—I-am-Solid-Snake“I stay away from Uptown (bros), South End (yuppies), and University (woo girls). But as always, there are diamonds in each area if you know where to look.”—Amanda“If you are flying in/out of town, be sure to return to the airport early enough to enjoy the rocking chairs on the concourse. The most comfortable airport I’ve ever had a layover in.”—Cheryl K“Be careful about street names changing several times, and at seemingly arbitrary points.”—Zach“The light rail is your best transportation friend when visiting. Start down at New Bern Station to have direct access to Hyde Brewing, Suffolk Punch, Triple C Brewing, Lenny Boy Brewing, and Sycamore Brewing.”—ArchitectQueenBitch Things to Do “Lake Norman is 30 minutes outside of Charlotte and is a great spot for boating but is very popular/oversaturated. Lake Wylie might be about the same or a little further out and is more ideal for kayaking and canoeing. VBGB is a fun spot for volleyball and great beer. Crowders Mountain is 45 minutes outside of Charlotte and is a great spot for a ~2 mile or ~4 mile hike, and a solid view.”—Jeebs“Charlotte is known for the Whitewater Center. Rock climbing (both free and attached), mountain biking, ropes courses, ziplining and white water rafting and kayaking are all available and it’s got a nice walking course. They also have events like live music and movie screenings during the summer and have two restaurants.”—haoleje“Levine Museum of the New South is a must do to learning experience about how the old South became the new South. An off-the-beaten-path gem is the Carolina Aviation Museum near the airport. It has the actual 1549 plane that went down in the Hudson.”—rb314636“The Discovery Science Museum is a cool spot for families with kids, and it’s in the heart of Uptown. Plenty of good food within walking distance.”—VT MikeO“Sleepy Poet Antique Mall, Paper Skyscraper, and Buffalo Exchange if you like to shop/like kitschy shit.”—GobyCow“Carowinds, Karting, Discovery Place and other museums if you have kids.”—cosmicspeed “The Bechtler Museum has one of the best, private modern art collections in the SE. Warhol created portraits of the Bechtler family which hang in the lobby – at least they were there the last time I attended. Plus, the Niki de Saint Phalle Firebird sculpture out front is pretty distinctive. Research their family, very interesting.”—jaygee“The Charlotte Knight’s stadium has a fantastic selection of local breweries and very good food options, with a packed house most games. The view of the city skyline from the ballpark is pretty epic as well.”—ArchitectQueenBitch“We have a number of social sports, including LGBT-oriented (Stonewall Bowling/Kickball/Dodgeball/Volleyball, Charlotte Royals Rugby).”—haoleje“The Little Sugar Creek Greenway is a beautiful system for a walk or a jog. There is a nature museum in the woods in Freedom Park, which the Greenway runs through.”—Aaron B“Drive through the Lazy 5 Ranch and get a chance to feed the animals. Then take some time out to spend with the birds of prey at the Charlotte Raptor Center.”—Jeff“There’s an aviation museum, a large theme park including the 8th fastest roller coaster in the world (95 mph), an NBA team, and the US National Whitewater Center.”—The Waco Kid“While the city has had an influx of arcade bar openings (Lucky’s, Palmer Street, etc.), the only one that matters is Abari.”—Amanda“Go to Salud for hip hop yoga, waffle sammiches, and great beer.”—Senorcoconuts“The Rosedale Plantation is fun to see and you might see a ghost! The Charlotte Paranormal Society offers ghost tours of it in addition to the regular visits.”—haoleje Where to Eat “Soul Gastrolounge (fusion), Carpe Diem (upscale date spot), Midwood Smokehouse (BBQ), Kindred (if you can get to Davidson – constantly gets awards), Bonterra (more upscale, 300+ different kinds of wine), Niko Sushi (young hip sushi place) all great options. Beef and Bottle is a hole in the wall steakhouse that is incredible.”—Jeebs“Go to Gastonia, and hit up Kyle Fletcher’s BBQ, Blacks BBQ, and get you a couple containers of RO’s to bring home with ya.”—TeamplayerTimothy!“It’s not worth going to Charlotte if you don’t eat at BBQ King at least once. Bill Spoon’s is a distant second.”—cmoak“Price’s Chicken Coop (1614 Camden Road) is great fried chicken. Bring cash because they don’t take cards. Also check out Mr. K’s (2107 South Blvd.) for a great burger and milkshake.”—GM3711“There’s a great British pub called Big Ben just south of uptown that serves a real shepherd’s pie with lamb (just tell them no cheese).”—AtomicSnowman“The Shepherd’s pie at Tyber Creek, across the South from Big Ben, is way better, and also made with lamb.”—GregGuy“Lupie’s Cafe is amazing. Go on Thursday for some chicken & dumplings or any other day of the week for a meat and three or some world-famous chili.”—Amanda“Go to Seoul Food! Korean inspired BBQ—not Korean BBQ. If you want Korean BBQ, go to their new restaurant next door, Let’s Meat. All you can eat Korean BBQ.”—allen13uga Where to Drink “Breweries are like bars here. The thing to do is day drink on the weekends and hop around to different breweries. Breweries are also dog heaven!”—allen13uga“Old Mecklenburg, (most popular), Wooden Robot, and Sycamore (most popular) are all great breweries to check out. I’ve also heard good things about Triple-C and Unkown Brewery. Old Meck feels like a beer garden you would see in Munich.”—Jeebs“Spend an afternoon in South End walking to the various breweries. Be sure not to miss Wooden Robot. Sycamore is great, but the vibe can be a little frat-house. Great dining options in that area as well, with Seoul Food being a favorite.”—JJR“Grab a rental bicycle (B-Cycle for docked bikes; Ofo, Lime, Spin for dockless rental bikes) and doing a self-guided brewery tour is a great way to see any of the urban neighborhoods. If you just want to sit in one place with all the options, Craft (in Southend), Helles and Dunkel (Southend) or Flight (in uptown) are great.”—haoleje“Charlotte is also very LGBT friendly. We have a number of bars serving the LGBT community: 316, Boulevard 1820, Chasers (drag and strippers), Sidelines (sports bar), Argon (dance club), Woodshed (leather), Scorpio’s, and more. But most places in Charlotte are so LGBT-friendly that the gay bar is going away.”—haoleje“Hoppin’ is a cool concept bar where the walls are lined with taps and you can pour your own beer by scanning a bracelet.”—allen13uga Where to Coffee “Amelie’s French Bakery, NoDa location: Open 24/7/365 in the artsy district, this coffee shop and bakery has room after quirky room filled with funky decor and varied furniture for individuals and small groups to relax, hang out, or get some work done. They have baked goods and sandwiches and whatnot… the real can’t-miss standout is their caramel covered brownies.”—Saralinda“Cuplux offers an amazing sour cherry espresso on tap in the summer.”—Amanda Getting Out of Town “I recommend driving 15 miles north of the city to the small Lake Norman towns (Davidson, Cornelius and Huntersville). Tons of water sports, beautiful parks and great restaurants (Hello, Sailor and Kindred to just name two favorites). Hello, Sailor should open their tiki bar on the lake soon too.”—TheBobCat1“Asheville and the other towns around the Blue Ridge parkway if you like mountains, trees, and beer. The Triangle area (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill—‘Raleigh-Durham’ is not a city) for the arts, food, and beer. The Outer Banks for beaches and beer.”—Andy Simmons

And that’s it! Read more tips in the original thread, leave your own below, and come back Monday when we’re going to Ireland.

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ntrending · 7 years ago

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Star Trek, James Bond, and the trip from science fiction to science fact

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/star-trek-james-bond-and-the-trip-from-science-fiction-to-science-fact/

Star Trek, James Bond, and the trip from science fiction to science fact

The following is an excerpt adapted from The Edumacation Book: Amazing Cocktail-Party Science to Impress Your Friends by Andy McElfresh.

Here’s my misspent youth: I spent many, many hours in a camping hammock behind my parents’ house devouring the Science Fiction Hall of Fame series, everything by Arthur C. Clarke, many things by Robert Heinlein, the complete works of Philip K. Dick, and especially issues of the short-lived Galileo magazine. I also read Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, which was a lot like Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspense Magazine, but with ray guns and the peculiar feature of having a different photo of Isaac Asimov in the upper left corner on each issue. One photo was of Asimov’s feet.

I got into sci-fi when I was a young teenager. That’s when I really started pouring on the steam as a competitive swimmer and a member of a barbershop quartet, which meant I had a lot of free time to read all the way through high school while other young men were spending all those tedious hours exchanging bodily fluids and viruses with young women (or each other). I was filling my head with possible futures, then thinking about them (or singing the baritone parts to one-hundred-year-old songs) for six hours a day in the pool. I never grew taller than 5-foot-6, which ruined my chances of becoming a world-class swimmer, and I never was able to grow a handlebar moustache, which ruined my chances of becoming a professional barbershop quartet singer. (So, thank God.)

I was super into gear, and dreamed of possessing impossible inventions, like I was Miniver Cheevy longing for the Medici gold. A chronosynclastic infundibulum that you could activate under your arm, which would serve as a holster for whatever you wanted to carry and was completely undetectable to anyone in the universe? I wanted. A portal projector that would allow you to walk through any wall, could teleport you anywhere, and somehow regulated the difference in temperature and air pressure? On my wish list. A watch that you could set to go back and undo all of the embarrassing moments in your life? I still want that. In fact, if the Devil is reading this, write my publisher for my email and we can make a deal.

Of course, the coolest stuff came in the dumbest stories. Bad science fiction is defined by constant stops and starts so they can explain the gear. “Tyrone Xandar pulled out his X251 Stratoblaster—a plasma energy pistol so powerful it could melt the metallic fur of a Denebian magmabeast”—stuff like that. Really takes you out of the story.

But there were so many things in fiction, movies, and TV shows that people just took for granted. Cool stuff that was part of their world of the future. Keep in mind that I was a little kid in the 1970s, when everyone thought that polyester clothing and digital watches were pretty awesome. I mean, if you didn’t have to know what the hell the big hand was doing while simultaneously generating projectile BO from the pits of your tight plastic football jersey, it meant the future was something we controlled.

Most of the 1970s, from the Carter administration to The Love Boat, did not work out. But don’t forget that there was a little thing called Star Wars that came along somewhere in there, and it carried on the tradition of using science fiction to tell stories that could have happened to anyone, in a future that had some pretty cool shit.

Star Trek

Food replicator. Universal translator. Tablet computers. Tractor beam. Star Trek was full of firsts when it debuted in the fall of 1966. There is so much wonderful optimism built into the premise of that show, from the Prime Directive (which was broken as many times as it was brought up) to the multicultural Team Benetton–in–space casting (ignore the accents, please) to even featuring the first interracial kiss on US television (though aliens used mind control on Kirk and Uhura to make it happen under protest). And Kirk got so much alien na-na that you know Bones had a special space-penicillin hypospray vial set aside for daily use.

And Star Trek was full of predictions, too, although I’m not sure how far they explored them as concepts. For example, they had a food replicator, from which crew and guests would request such exotic menu items as soup or Earl Grey tea. Give me a food replicator, it’s gonna be surf-and-turf from the Palm with frozen gold-leaf truffle from the Savoy. But in the future, I guess people want to appear humble when talking to a food replicator. Nowadays, there are several versions of food replicators, the most recent being a pizza printer that will work as a vending machine and that NASA is re-outfitting for the International Space Station.

The universal translator was first introduced on Star Trek. It could take any language—even telepathy—and turn it into mid-Atlantic droning with heavy reverb. And you know that disembodied brains are thinking things like “Fifty quatloos on the newcomer,” because even though they completely consist of brain tissue, they twitch around a little bit when they think. Nowadays, we have several translators, the most interesting of which are small handheld units developed by a number of Native American tribes to preserve their dying native tongues. However, Google Translate isn’t there yet. I took the phrase “Is this my favorite puppy I see before me?” and translated it first into Pashto, then Basque, then Sindhi, then Amharic, then back into English, and I got “I was the doll I liked before I saw it before.” It may not be as confusing and bizarre as the translation in Arrival, but Google definitely has some work to do.

Plenty of other cool ideas came out of the Star Trek canon, but we’ll finish up with the holodeck, which was first seen on the 1970s Star Trek animated series but didn’t really enter nerd consciousness until Star Trek: The Next Generation. I always thought the holodeck was both underutilized and not fully thought out, but they had other things to worry about, like constantly letting out Number One’s uniform and the strange sadness Denise Crosby seemed to bring to her role. Why didn’t they use the holodeck as a real-time, planet-to-planet communicator that would make you feel like you were talking to someone in person? No more space leave! What happens on the holodeck stays on the holodeck! Anyway, VR goggles are like the holodeck, according to VR goggle manufacturers, so let’s move on.

James Bond and Ian Fleming

We all know a guy who says that From Russia with Love is the best James Bond movie because it didn’t have a ton of unbelievable gadgets, just a briefcase with a choke wire and some gold sovereigns. That, of course, is a stupid opinion to hold. For one, it is one of the best James Bond movies because Quint from Jaws has blonde hair and kills James Bond–lookalikes for fun like he’s in The Most Dangerous Game. And for two, the gadgets from the Bond movies are super-awesome!

Author Ian Fleming was legit when it came to the spy business. He worked as an intelligence officer for British Naval Intelligence, most notably on Operation Goldeneye, which is where he got the book title and the name of his estate in Jamaica. He probably named the operation, since he was a bird lover and the Goldeneye is a bird. Want more evidence? The author’s name of his favorite bird guidebooks was James F%@$ing Bond [f%@$ing mine].

Fleming knew his stuff when it came to gadgets. Real stuff they had at his time in intelligence included tie-clip cameras (more astonishing is the fact that people wore tie clips), hollow teeth containing cyanide (actually, a Soviet invention), and the microdot, which anybody could make with an ordinary 35mm camera because it was just an incredibly tiny negative—a picture of a picture.

What imaginative bits of Bondiana have survived and flourished as real equipment? How about the exosuit, from the brewery scene in Goldfinger? Or the jetpack from Thunderball, which—while it was wired to a helicopter in the movie—was an actual prototype capable of 30 seconds of flight (working on The Awesome Show, I got to see a demo of the Zapata Flyboard Air that can stay aloft for 30 minutes). The fingerprint scanner in Diamonds Are Forever is now available on your iPhone, though it might be the most easily hacked security measure in history. And let’s not forget the homing beacon also from Goldfinger: Do you have a Tile connected to your keyring yet?

When it comes to fantastic gadgets, however, no Fleming story does it better than Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. That damned car—in addition to tolerating those obnoxious children—was also a boat, a flying car that could hover, was remote controlled and self-driving, and even seemed to have its own artificial intelligence—all characteristics we see in today’s most cutting-edge cars. However, for all that foresight, Fleming never put in any drink holders.

This excerpt was adapted from The Edumacation Book: Amazing Cocktail-Party Science to Impress Your Friends by Andy McElfresh, on sale March 20, 2018.

Written By By Andy McElfresh

#Science

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paleorecipecookbook · 7 years ago

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RHR: The Best Ways to Support Diet Change—with Melissa Hartwig

In this episode, we discuss:

The inspiration behind the Whole30 diet

The psychological component to diet

Accepting the responsibility for change, without blame

More evidence on how diet impacts health

How important it is to support change in different ways

Melissa’s two new books

Using the concept of food reward for weight loss

Show notes:

Whole30 Day by Day by Melissa Hartwig

Whole30 Fast & Easy Cookbook by Melissa Hartwig

[smart_track_player url="http://ift.tt/2k1ps8q" title="RHR: The Best Ways to Support Diet Change--With Melissa Hartwig" artist="Chris Kresser" ]

youtube

Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. Today I'm really excited to welcome Melissa Hartwig, founder of Whole30. I can't believe we haven't had you on the show, Melissa. Melissa Hartwig: Well, you and I have talked so often at events and behind the scenes. But yeah, I'm really excited to get an invite and chat with you formally. Chris Kresser: Yes. I feel like the timing is perfect because, as most of my listeners know, I just released a book about, among other things, the importance of diet and lifestyle behavior change in preventing and reversing chronic disease and addressing the epidemic of chronic disease that we're suffering from. Of course, Melissa, this is something that's very close to your heart and something that you believe in and have practiced and preached for many, many years now with the Whole30 program. As a way of diving into this topic of how to change diet, in particular, in a powerful way that not only prevents disease but even reverses it after it's already occurred, why don’t you just … I think a lot of people who are listening to this of course have heard of Whole30, but for those that haven't, why don’t you just talk a little bit about how this originated. I think you have your own interesting story, and this came out of your own personal experience, I know, and then what the Whole30 is, and we'll go from there.

The inspiration behind the Whole30 diet

Melissa Hartwig: Yes. “Interesting” is a very polite way to put it. A lot of times people say, “Have you always been healthy?” And my answer is “No.” My interest in health and fitness actually came as a result of crisis, as you know. Crisis often drives change, and I was a drug addict for about four or five years in college and then after and have been clean for almost 18 years now, but it was when I got out of rehab and realized that I had to change every aspect of my life in order to stay clean and kind of protect myself and build a buffer between me and my impulses, urges, and addictions that I found health and fitness. I got into it through CrossFit, doing triathlons, and started with, like, a body-for-lifestyle diet, and then Zone-style diet, and then discovered Robb Wolf and Paleo. It all just sort of tripped along in my own personal growth in trying to become a healthy person with healthy habits.

Making the leap to real food—insights from Melissa Hartwig of Whole30

The Whole30 was just another one of those self-experiments. We had just gone to a Robb Wolf seminar where he was talking about these dietary factors that can influence everything from digestion to chronic pain to energy to sleep to performance in the gym, which was really important to me, and at the end of the seminar he said, “Just try it for 30 days.” That's exactly what we did. We just said, “Okay, let's do this 30-day experiment where we pull out these dietary factors that are really commonly problematic, and the science bears this out. Let's pull them out and see what happens.” I wanted to see what would happen to my athletic performance. I wasn't overweight. I wasn't trying to change body composition. I just kind of, maybe I'll do better in the gym, and what that 30-day experiment highlighted for me was all of the ways in which my relationship with food and my habits around food were profoundly dysfunctional. I don't think I ever would have become aware of it had I not stripped out the stuff that I was using for comfort, reward, sometimes punishment, and to self-soothe and release anxiety. In the absence of those foods for 30 days, I was forced to both acknowledge the unhealthy way I was using and find other ways to kind of comfort myself, reward myself, and show myself love. It was just such a powerful experience for me that I decided to share it on my blog, and that was July 2009. That was the start of the first official Whole30. Chris Kresser: Cool. And since then millions of people around the world have gone through it and it's become a fantastic entry point for a lot of people, not just an entry point, a refresh … a lot of people do an approach like this if they started to slide a little bit over time, and we all know that happens, so it's not just a starting place. It's also something that people can come back to over and over to recharge, recommit, basically.

The psychological component to diet

Melissa Hartwig: Yes. And it's funny, I really don't see having to repeat Whole30 as any sort of failure, moral failing, willpower failure, or that you're not really trying. What we're talking about is trying to reverse decades of less-healthy habits, unhealthy emotional connection to food, and all of the physiological effects that happen when we eat these modern, super-normally stimulating, calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods. You're not going to do that in 30 days, so I really love that people feel like they can come back and kind of get that reset, get that touchdown, that grounding, and then go on and kind of live their food freedom in between programs. Chris Kresser: Yes. All major religions have, or most have, fasting or periods of fasting built into that. What I think is interesting, Whole30 is not a fasting program, but it has a similar impact in the sense of highlighting the unhealthy ways that we can relate to food and the roles that food plays in our life that go way beyond just meeting nutrient needs that you just spoke to in your own experience. A program like Whole30 is really interesting in that regard because it's not just about food and diet and the relationship between food and diet and physical physiological health; it's also, as you shared, a lot about emotional, behavioral, and psychological health too. Melissa Hartwig: It's about food, but it's not really about food, and that's what people discover, I think, when they take on the program, as they start out really paying attention to the technicalities and the food itself, and then they discover that there's really so much more to the mindset, the commitment, and the relationship. Chris Kresser: Right. It becomes kind of a framework or a vehicle for all of these other very positive changes that people are making in their life, and perhaps most importantly, just raising their awareness about, because that’s so much of what it's about, isn’t it, a lot of people don't even think much about the way that food impacts their health. I mean, that sounds crazy for a lot of people who are listening to this show because most of your listeners and readers and mine too do, but we all know that a lot of people don't. I went on Joe Rogan’s show recently, and one of the interesting outcomes of that was hearing from a lot of people on Twitter that quite transparently and frankly just said, “Wow, I'd never really thought about this stuff before.” This is kind of blowing my mind. For all of us, we tend to forget that the majority of people out there are not thinking about this, so Whole30 as a vehicle for raising people's awareness about the relationship between their behavior, their diet, and their lifestyle with their health is a major thing. Melissa Hartwig: Yes. You’ve hit the nail on the head. You tell someone who has a horrible hacking cough that they should quit smoking, and they go, “Oh yeah, I make that connection. I probably should.” You tell someone who suffers from migraines or chronic pain or an autoimmune condition that maybe the food they're putting on their plate is making their symptoms worse, and that is a much harder connection to draw until they have the personal experience. That's really what the Whole30 is all about, is giving them that personalized self-experiment to help them draw the connections for themselves. Chris Kresser: Right. Which is why Robb always emphasizes, “Just try it.” Don't take my word for it. Just try it. Do it. It's 30 days. Come on. There are a lot of other things that people have done that are a lot harder than that. Melissa Hartwig: Yes, exactly. Chris Kresser: Childbirth, for example. Melissa Hartwig: Childbirth is harder, yes. That’s one of the most famous lines in the Whole30, yes. Drinking your coffee black, right, it’s not that hard.

Accepting the responsibility for change, without blame

Chris Kresser: Not only is lack of awareness, actually ... can be pushback, which I am sure you’ve received too, but I talked on Joe Rogan about ... we actually watched a commercial about Humira, which is a drug that's used for autoimmune diseases like Crohn's and IBD. We're talking about it in the context of how dangerous it can be. Now, certainly, I didn't argue that it wasn't necessary in some situations, and it can be part of a recovery program, but it was amazing to see some of the pushback on Twitter and social media, like, “How dare you assume that diet changes could treat Crohn's as effectively as Humira?” Because this is really built into our culture, this idea that these diseases require drugs to treat them, and I think some people actually feel threatened or offended if you suggest that diet change could be part of the solution because, perhaps, there is in that some feeling of personal guilt or responsibility, whereas if that's not possible and you just have to take a drug, I don't have to look as carefully at my own diet and behavior. Melissa Hartwig: Yes. That is such an interesting conversation. It's something I've come across in seminars where the people who are the most resistant to the idea are usually the people who are the sickest. I had a woman in a seminar once with MS. Her husband really encouraged her to go because he had heard some great testimonials, and she was so resistant to the idea, and I think, and you would know, working so closely with patients, that if you change your diet and things get better, then that forces you to accept the fact that some of your behaviors contributed to the condition getting worse, and that is scary. That is your responsibility. It's easier to say, “I have a disease. It was foisted upon me. There is nothing I can do and I'm relying on these medical experts and these pharmaceuticals to treat me.” It’s kind of the two sides of the same coin. If you can use it to get better, then that means that what you were doing perhaps contributed to you feeling poorly, and that's hard to accept for a lot of people. Chris Kresser: That's right. It's hard to accept because I think what happens there is that gets unfortunately tied up with guilt rather than to responsibility, and I understand responsibility to mean “ability to respond.” “I have the ability to respond to this,” not “I’m to blame,” and that blame and shame, I think, that comes with that guilt becomes a major obstacle. And so, the way I like to talk about that with patients or people is just to say, is to split those apart. You can become aware of your responsibility without accepting or taking on blame, guilt, or shame. Just the recognition that yes, unknowingly you made choices around diet that, by the way, hundreds of millions or billions of other people are making every day because it's just part of our culture. It’s the way that we were brought up. It's not your fault, in the same way that the way that you are parented and how you were born and how you were raised as a kid is not your fault. Let's actually recognize the contribution that your choices have made without you taking on that whole story of blame because I think that's what becomes the obstacle for people actually, taking responsibility and getting past that. Melissa Hartwig: Can you imagine if every healthcare practitioner had that conversation with their patients? Can you imagine how much better people would get? I've not heard a doctor or a healthcare practitioner outside of our community address a health condition, or even food, in that manner, and there's so much guilt, shame, and morality attached to it and what we eat, the effect it has on our body, and that's the conversation we need to be having. I love it. Chris Kresser: It's definitely very much the conversation that we need to be having. Frankly, it may not be a conversation that people have with their doctor very often. It's probably going to be a conversation that they have with their health coach or their nutritionist, which is why I am such a believer that we need more of that kind of work in our approach to chronic disease because doctors, they just may not be the ones to have that conversation.

More evidence on how diet impacts health

Chris Kresser: Going back to the Humira example, aside from what we just said, which I think is the most important piece, the other piece that I pointed out in my response is actually, we do have proof that diet can be as effective as Humira and steroids, or at least play a big role, and you're probably aware of the study that was recently published at UCSD on AIP, which is the first peer-reviewed study on AIP, showing that it was remarkably effective in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. I mean, a Whole30 is not AIP. AIP is a little bit more restrictive and more specific, but it’s a very similar approach, and there is objective peer-reviewed evidence showing that this isn't just in our heads. It actually can reverse disease, even some of the most serious diseases. Melissa Hartwig: Yes. You can say, perhaps, all day long, “I've got eight years and thousands of pieces of clinical evidence to show the exact same thing,” but it's really nice to have a paper to back it up. Chris Kresser: Absolutely, yes. It's an important part of our framework, and so the anecdotal experience, I think, is crucial and shouldn't be discounted just because it's not in a peer-reviewed journal, but at the same time it's not enough to lead to widespread adoption within the conventional medicine community, if that's what we're hoping for. I'm not somebody who gets too hung up on that. I think change is going to happen in a lot of different ways, but certainly having a study to point to is helpful. Melissa Hartwig: It is. It's huge. Yes.

How important it is to support change in different ways

Chris Kresser: So let's talk a little bit about, you've been doing this for a while now, since 2009, and here we are in 2017, so almost a decade later. I'm sure you've learned a bit about the Whole30, how to make it effective and what works and doesn't work. I know that's partly why you wrote two new books, which we're going to be talking about shortly, but why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you have learned over that period of time. Melissa Hartwig: Yes. The program itself, the rules, the structure, the foods you eliminate, the foods that you eat haven't changed that much in the last eight years. We've added a few things back in because they were originally eliminated, just because we were being super dogmatic about it, like white potatoes, and we’ve made a few little tweaks because today's convenience and modern foods in the “Paleo realm” are way different than they looked like even four or five years ago. There are a lot more Paleo treats, convenience foods, and chips and all this other stuff, so we've had to kind of address that, but the rules themselves haven't changed. What has changed dramatically is my voice in the program, and I think my understanding is how people need to be supported. When we started in 2009, our primary audience was CrossFit. I was very involved in the CrossFit community. I was traveling, coaching kettlebells. I was writing for the CrossFit Journal, and you tell a group of CrossFitters, “Hey, here's your thing for 30 days. It's going to be hard, but you need to suck it up and do it because it's going to be good for you,” and they're on board. They don’t do anything else. You tell them it's going to be hard and they're, like, “Sweet” and roll up their sleeves. When they started sending their moms... and I remember exactly when this happened, it was a January seminar, 2013, in Philadelphia, and I remember looking out over our nutrition seminar audience and there are a lot of 50- to 60-year-olds in our crowd. This is different, and it was people who said, “My nephew told me I had to come,” or, “My daughter brought me here,” or, “I knew someone who did it and they told me I should come listen,” and that's really when I knew the tone and the voice had changed. I began to realize that people need so much more support than I had imagined, that this is a very scary proposition on changing your diet and your relationship with food. There's still a place, you know, Whole30 is very famous for our tough love, and there is still a time and a place for that, but I wheeled it very carefully and I wheeled it very heavily on the love side. There's a little bit of tough, and I'm hoping people find that inspiring and motivating, but my job for the last four years has been, what can I do to support you? What do you need? What resource can I create? What video can I make? What article can I write? What book can I bring to life? What do you need to feel like you are supported in every aspect of this program? The physical, the emotional, the psychological, the spiritual—what can I give you? Chris Kresser: I think that's really wise. As a clinician who of course has worked with thousands of patients at this point, everyone's approach to behavior change is different, and as you pointed out, most of us and myself included, my patients especially, initially were the people who were the most motivated, the sickest, had tried everything, and I was their sort of final hope, and those patients are willing to do anything and they will comply with every recommendation that I make. Working with that population is really rewarding and easy in some ways because the compliance doesn't become an issue. Later, as my practice grew, we hired more clinicians, more people learned about my work, and we got the same issue, like, the moms and the cousins and people who were not as connected to the work and frankly, not as sick and not as motivated to make the changes, and I just started re-evaluating how I approach things. Part of what we did was we brought on a health coach who is getting training in behavior change and things like motivational interviewing and positive psychology because we came to realize that for the general population, just telling people what to do is not going to be very effective. Melissa Hartwig: No. Chris Kresser: There’s a guy, Bruce Fordyce, I think, who is at University of Washington, and he has a quote that I like: “Patient education is to behavior change as spaghetti is to a brick wall.” Try to keep in mind the CrossFitters and the hard-core, chronic illness community and Paleo folks who are super motivated, yes they can do it. But for others, they need a little bit more handholding and support. I think that's really smart, and it's clear that came out of your own experience working with people. Melissa Hartwig: It did. Gosh, there's so much of my background between my own addiction and recovery between my real areas of interest in research, especially for a few of the more recent books I've written, have been behavior change, psychology of change, habit, willpower, and those are real big interests. There have been a few tools that have come out lately. Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies is like a game-changer in terms of me figuring out how to talk to Whole30-ers. Even with your patients, you have to say the same thing six different ways until you find a way that clicks for them. You have to be willing to flex your conversation style, your personality, and take your ego to get the message across. I think you asked kind of what's changed over the last few years; I think many years ago I used to say, “This is just my style. I'm a little tough love. I'm a little hardcore, and if it offends you or you don't get it, then that's your problem.” And guess what, that's not your problem, that's my problem because my job is to inspire change. And if I am not doing that in a large section of my population, I need to figure out how to flex my personality, my communication style, and my intentions to get my message across. Otherwise, I'm just shooting myself in the foot, and so that was a lesson I learned the hard way a few times, and I'm much, much better with that now. Chris Kresser: Great. That's an important one. It's not just … even, I would say, “their problem” or “your problem” or “my problem as a practitioner,” it's actually all of our problem because if we don't reverse this epidemic of chronic disease, it doesn't just have personal individual consequences. It's not just about my health is not going to get better, your health is not going to get better—it's about our kids living shorter lifespans than we are. It's about our country actually becoming bankrupt because it can't pay for the burden of chronic disease. I don't actually even think it's an exaggeration to say that it's about the survival of our species, at least as we currently understand it. These are things that we're taking on that are much bigger than ourselves as individuals, and even much bigger than our communities, that we talk about. I have really come to see this as a significant threat to human existence and our ability to thrive as a species. Melissa Hartwig: Yes. I agree with you, I do, and gosh, the way that we do that is just like one person at a time or hopefully a thousand people or a million people who read the books and buy into the program. But it can, I guess, feel a little overwhelming when you think about it like that. But then when you think about how much headway you can make just by really connecting with people, whether that's one on one or your online community or at an event that you're attending, really connecting in a way that it’s open, authentic, vulnerable, and having those tough conversations that you mentioned about the guilt and the shame, I think that's how I envision inspiring change. Chris Kresser: Absolutely. This is why I have become a passionate believer in health coaching and why I think it really will be a huge part of this movement to reinvent healthcare because the average visit with a primary care provider today is between eight and 12 minutes. There's not enough time for that conversation that we’re referring to in that 12-minute visit, and certainly we can take steps to try to lengthen those visits, and I advocate for that in the book. But if you have a health coach that's trained in how to establish trust and rapport, how to build a strong relationship with their client, if they're trained in motivational interviewing, which is helping people to discover their own motivation for change instead of just telling them why they should change it, all we have to do is think about our own experience of people telling us what to do and remembering how we reacted to that to see how effective that is. And then, you know, evidence-based principles of behavior change, which of course Gretchen talks about in her book, and there are many other books about shrinking the change and the importance of tools and technology and other resources that we can make available that actually support people in making change, which we're going to talk about very shortly in your new book. There are so many things we can do that we can provide to people to enable them and support them in making the change, and so it's just awesome to hear that you have moved in this direction because I think your impact is going to be that much more. In fact, it's already been enormous, but it's just going to become even more. You're going to reach so many more people with this approach. Melissa Hartwig: Yes. Thank you. I think one of the things we learned really early on was that you cannot win an emotional argument with logic. Chris Kresser: Especially on the internet. Melissa Hartwig: Yup. I think that's been a guiding principle of our approach for many years now.

Melissa’s two new books

Chris Kresser: Great. So let’s use that as a segue to talk about your new books. You have one book which really does seem like it's arisen exactly out of this conversation that we've been having—how do you provide people with more support and the equivalent of handholding for them that you can do in a book in a virtual kind of setting and then how you actually make it possible. People are busy, that’s something that there is no disagreement on, and so they don't necessarily have four hours to spend in the kitchen preparing all of their meals and it's not easy to eat up with Whole30. How do you have it actually quickly figure out some meals that they can put together that turn this from, ”Oh, my God, how am I going to ever do this?” to “Oh, I could actually probably pull this off.” Melissa Hartwig: Yes, exactly. Whole30 Day By Day, which is kind of a 30-day guide to your Whole30, the general idea came out in an email service that we released in 2012 where everyone who signed up for the email service got an email every day of their Whole30 full of some motivation, some support, and some tips. It was wildly successful and that was borne from habit research that shows that the more closely connected people stay to the process and the more accountability they have, the better chance they have of sticking with a new habit long term. There’s some built-in accountability at the bottom of every email. You are expected to check a button that says either, “I did it. I stuck to my Whole30 today,” or, “I went off plan and I need to start over.” For a lot of people, knowing that accountability is there is a real motivator to you to kind of push through some more difficult times in addition to all the other support we offer. And so the thing that that program was missing, though, was a journaling or reflection component, and obviously, the idea of writing down goals, writing down progress, staying connected to your growth mindset by journaling, reflecting, or writing is a very important piece, and that's where the idea for Day by Day came from. I've been researching it for a few years now. After having watched thousands of people go through the program, I can basically tell you where you are on any given day with eerie accuracy, and obviously, there's discrepancy. Everybody's program looks a little different. But generally speaking, if you're on Day 10, I know how you're feeling and I can tell you what you need to kind of get through what we call one of the hardest days. All of that went into Day by Day, so there is a timeline, what to expect on this day; there's Melissa's Motivation, where I'm basically perched on the side of your bed speaking directly to you every morning to get you off and running for your day. There's a habit hack, there's a tip, there's a FAQ, there are some community inspirations, and then there's a few pages of guided reflection, and at the end of every day there's a box you have to check that said, “I did it. Whole30 Day 10 is in the bag.” Chris Kresser: Nice. I'm a big nerd when it comes to learning theory. I studied a lot of learning theory and behavior change theory before I created my ADAPT clinician training program. One of the things that I learned that I know you're aware of based on how you designed this is that taking action on something that we've learned is one of the best ways to solidify that learning and make it practical in your life. So whether it be writing something down in a journal, reflecting on it, or actually going and doing the pantry clean-out, these kinds of steps, instead of just reading the book, I mean, it's so easy for us, and I'm sure we've all done this, to just read the book—“Oh that's interesting, that’s nice”—and then you put the book on the bookshelf and that's it. I mean, it's not actually going to change your behavior. But if you are taking action on it by journaling, reflecting, or carrying out recommended steps in bite-size pieces, which this program has always been structured in that way, you're so much more likely to succeed. This has been proven over and over again in the research literature on behavior change, which is extensive. I think a lot of people are surprised to find this out. We're not just making this stuff up. There is actually a lot of research and evidence that goes into successful behavior change, and it sounds like that's really been part of your journey in terms of writing this book. Melissa Hartwig: Yes. It has been, and I find it super fascinating because obviously, with my personal experience with addiction and recovery, and a lot of the habit research is done on people who are trying to quit smoking, quit drinking or quit drugs, which is I've always said from a psychological perspective in terms of the kind of cycle and the emotional state it puts us in, and the guilt and shame and the over-consumption, drugs and food are not necessarily that different. And so, yes, I really enjoy reading that stuff, and I enjoy reading a book, hearing a theory, and thinking, “How can I apply this to my Whole30-ers?” “Okay, we’ll put a little box at the end to check,” or, “We'll include extra credit every day, something that you can do to help you prep for the next day so that you wake up feeling like you have a plan,” because the brain really likes the plan, and yes, I kind of geek out on that stuff too. Chris Kresser: Cool. I can see that and it's necessary. If you're really serious about behavior change, which you are, you have to consider this stuff, and you learned the hard way, I think, in the past of, like you said, your story about how just saying this is my style, and if you don’t like it, hit the road. That works, but it’ll mean you’ll only be effective in reaching a certain number of people who respond well to that style. They're definitely out there, but I know your goal is to reach a much bigger audience, and this is how you're doing it. The second book is the Whole30 Fast and Easy Cookbook. You have 150 delicious everyday recipes, which I think, every day is important in there because if you're having a dinner party, that's one thing. You've got a few hours maybe to be in the kitchen, listen to some music, and prepare the food. But for most people, “everyday” means “Oh, my God. I just got home from work. I have to pick up the kids, then I got to get to the store, get back home, and get dinner on the table in an hour,” all of that. So tell us about this. Melissa Hartwig: So, that's another way that my thought process has evolved. Just over the last few years, I've been a huge fan of the idea of letting good enough be good enough. Not every Whole30 meal needs to be an Instagram-worthy religious experience where you've hand-harvested your own kale under a hunter’s moon and roasted it in unicorn style. Sometimes, and I'm going to give this as an example, last night's dinner was cold leftover roasted butternut squash eaten straight out of the glass serving container, I did use a fork, and a couple Applegate Farms hot dogs with some mustard, and I think there were some sautéed spinach in there somewhere. That was my dinner because I had a really richly scheduled day and I was doing meal prep at the same time. Is it ideal? Is it the most nourishing? Is it the most lovingly prepared? No, but man, was it good enough, and that's what Fast and Easy is all about. Ways for you to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the table in a way that is satisfying and in a way that doesn't sacrifice flavor, but it doesn't keep you stuck in what we call “good food jail.” We want you to be enjoying the benefits of your Whole30, not stuck in the kitchen all the time, and we've pulled about 10 contributors from the Whole30 community to share some of their favorite recipes too. That was a cookbook I was really excited about. Chris Kresser: Cool. Having good recipes that you like and are easy to prepare, you can't underestimate the importance of that impact. I can really make the difference between somebody doing it and not doing it because if they looked through the book and they're like, “There’s no way I could ever pull these off. I'm not very experienced with cooking,” or, “I just don’t have time to do that,” they're probably not even going to consider doing the program. Melissa Hartwig: Exactly. And again, we're really focused on accessibility right now. So it only uses ingredients that you can find at any old grocery store. You don’t need a super-specialty food store. You don’t need a super-specialty list of kitchen gadgets. A slow cooker is one of the most expensive and most transformative appliances I think you can have in your kitchen, a total game-changer. Chris Kresser: Game-changer. Melissa Hartwig: Yes. So it's just all about, again, reaching as broad an audience as possible and showing them this is what Whole30 looks like. Sometimes it's Applegate Farms hot dogs and cold leftover butternut squash, but I stuck to my commitment and I didn't order pizza. I didn't have popcorn and wine for dinner. Chris Kresser: It's super important to know part of this is just getting more familiar with these different kinds of foods and different ways of putting them together that are as simple and satisfying. Because somebody might not even think of that because they've never gone to a restaurant and ordered that on the menu or their mom never did that, and so they don't even actually consider putting those things together and the value of having recipes. It’s not just the recipes themselves, I find, in terms of following the specific recipe, but recipes can also just give you ideas, like, “Oh, wow. I see how they put those things together, so I could just do that and put those things together.” For me, at least, that's often how I use recipes. I don't necessarily even follow them by the letter. I just use them as inspiration. Melissa Hartwig: That's exactly what I do. I have kind of like templates, so like, ground meat with stuff over stuff, and it’s like, “Okay, do I ground beef or ground chicken? Who cares?” What do I have in my fridge? I'm just, “Sauté them. What can I stick it on? Do I have zucchini noodles? Do I have some steamed spinach? Do I have butternut squash?” It's just a template, and then people can get creative. It's a way to use leftovers, which saves money and shopping time. It's almost like the Bill-Gates-turtleneck-and-jeans of eating healthy. Just keep it simple and just swap stuff out, and then that’s one less thing you have to think about. I love that idea. Chris Kresser: The template approach is awesome. That’s definitely how we do it around here, and it's an important way, I think, for people to make use of what they have and not have to prepare something from scratch every time. Now we know there are certain foods that in some ways might be beneficial that eat left over because they form different types of starches. Leftovers can get a bad rep, but they actually can be a really useful part of the overall approach. Melissa Hartwig: Yes, see that's an added benefit for me. I'm just going to eat them because they're in my fridge and it means I don’t have to cook one more time. Chris Kresser: Exactly. Melissa Hartwig: Also, I think it was Steve Jobs who wore the turtleneck and jeans! Chris Kresser: It was Steve Jobs. A lot of the most effective people—Barack Obama was pretty famous for only wearing a couple of suits, and he actually spoke about it. He talked about decision fatigue, which is a well-known reality that we only have a certain amount of mental energy to make decisions, and if you spend it all on “what shoes am I going to wear and what clothes to wear?” then you have less left over. In the context of food, I think just having some cookbooks around that you can quickly look at to give you some ideas is another way of dealing with that decision fatigue. It just makes it easier. Melissa Hartwig: I totally agree, and you don’t have to eat the exact same meal every single day. But if you've got a template and you're swapping out veggies and fruit based on what's in season or what you happen to have on hand or what was at the farmer's market, that's an automatic good balancing of micronutrients too. Chris Kresser: That's right. And you know what, even if you do the same or close to the same meal for a few times in a row, it’s not the end of the world. Melissa Hartwig: No.

Using the concept of food reward for weight loss

Chris Kresser: I'll give you a little secret that's actually one of my most powerful advanced weight loss strategies with patients. Melissa Hartwig: It is? Chris Kresser: It is. Melissa Hartwig: Okay, tell me. Chris Kresser: All right. You know I think of the concept of food reward, because you mentioned it earlier, and variety is one of the key characteristics that drives reward value. So the easiest way to think about that is, you might have heard Robb Wolf tell the story of the guy who won the ice-cream-eating competition. Have you heard this? Melissa Hartwig: No. Chris Kresser: Okay. You can see it on YouTube. Robb will send you the link if you ping him. So this guy is in an ice-cream-eating competition, and you can watch it on YouTube, and it's literally a kitchen sink full of ice cream. It's the most disgusting thing in the world. Melissa Hartwig: Oh, my goodness. Chris Kresser: But he's eating, and he's making progress. He's about 70 percent of the way through, and you can see him visibly start to turn green and he looks like he's going to vomit and he's slowing down, he can't do it. The way that he is able to finish is by ordering French fries and eating the French fries, and most people when they hear this they’re like, “What? That doesn’t make any sense.” Melissa Hartwig: No, I get it. Chris Kresser: Yes. You get it because it's the salty, crispy, totally different texture and flavor of that food provided enough variety for him to then go back and eat more of the sweet ice cream. And so, if a patient is having trouble losing weight, one of the strategies that I’ll have them do is just eat the same meal for two or three days in a row because there is no variety there, you're eating the same thing over and over, and what will happen is you only eat exactly what you need to meet your nutrition needs. It's far, far less likely that overeating will happen when you're eating the same foods over and over again. Melissa Hartwig: I like that tip so much, and I'm actually thinking about it from a perspective breaking the dessert habit for people because I have so many people who say, “I feel like my meal is not complete until I have something sweet,” and very often it's because your dinner was kind of savory, and then you want that offset, either texture or flavor. It’s something crunchy, it's something a little bit sweet, maybe a little salty. So I actually think that will be a great strategy for breaking that habit too. Chris Kresser: Yes. The way I explain this to people too is if you think of two plates and one has a baked potato with no fat or salt and the other has potato chips, which do you think is easier to overeat? It's obvious, nobody gets that wrong. You’ll eat as much as you need to satisfy your hunger, but no more, and with the potato chips, most people will just keep eating it until they're gone, and the reason for that is the variety. It’s triggering all the mechanisms—salty, crunchy, fat. It's triggering all those reward circuits in our brain. These are not necessary for many people. Many people, just doing Whole30 or something like that is enough to lose weight, but I just bring it up in the context of we're talking about leftovers and eating similar meals like, yes, it's interesting. I believe we should enjoy food as much as we can. At the same time, there is no rule that says that we can't eat the same meal twice in a row if we're busy and we have other things that are important. Melissa Hartwig: Yes, totally. Again, it goes back to the idea of letting good enough be good enough. One of my strategies for sticking to your healthy eating commitment on the Whole30 or in your food freedom is to cook double what you normally would and just eat the same thing for breakfast the next morning or lunch the next day and maybe you remix it a little bit by putting a different side dish on it or putting it over a salad. But yes, these are lifesaving strategies for people who want to make eating real food in our busy modern world actually work. Chris Kresser: Totally, 100 percent. I think by the time this show comes out, your books will already be available, so tell us where people can find these books. Melissa Hartwig: Yes. They’ll be out December 5th, and they're available anywhere books are sold. We've got big support from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Costco, Indigo in Canada, and Books-A-Million, and they'll be available via ebook. Support your local bookstore or order online. I'll be doing an event in Los Angeles the night of December 5th when the books come out, and then I'll be doing a big book tour through the month of January to support it. Chris Kresser: All right. Try some quick and easy recipes yourself during that period. Melissa Hartwig: I sure will, yes. Chris Kresser: Great. Well, thanks so much for joining us everybody. Check out these books. We have the Whole30 Day by Day: Your Daily Guide to Whole30 Success and the Whole30 Fast and Easy Cookbook: 150 Simply Delicious Everyday Recipes For Your Whole30. Melissa has been a powerful force for change in this movement for almost a decade now with the Whole30 program, and millions of people around the world have been super successful. I have tons of patients who come to me who have started on this path with the Whole30, and so it's really such a great service that you've been providing, Melissa, and I know these new books will help people, even people who are experienced and who have already done it, to just make it that much easier and more effective to do. Melissa Hartwig: Thank you so much. Especially coming from you, that means a lot. I appreciate it. Chris Kresser: My pleasure. So I’ll probably see you in our once-a-year annual in-person sighting at Paleo f(x) next year. Melissa Hartwig: I know, exactly. But it would be nice if it were more than once a year! Chris Kresser: Maybe somehow we’ll figure that out. Melissa Hartwig: Can't wait. Chris Kresser: Wish you the best with the book launches. I know how challenging that can be in terms of time. Melissa Hartwig: Thank you so much, and congratulations on Unconventional Medicine. I'm looking forward to sharing that with both my new Whole30-certified coaches because I've got a lot of MDs and NDs, and I think they'll really love it, but also just my community in general. I think your voice is really missing in terms of traditional healthcare practitioners, and I know that they will feel very reassured knowing that there's someone out there who will actually speak to them at that level. Chris Kresser: Great. Well, I appreciate that, and I look forward to seeing you soon, whenever that is. Melissa Hartwig: Sounds good. Thanks.

Source: http://chriskresser.com December 06, 2017 at 04:58PM

#paleo #recipe #food #delicious #healthy #yum #diet

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shapesnnsizes · 7 years ago

Text

RHR: The Best Ways to Support Diet Change—with Melissa Hartwig

In this episode, we discuss:

The inspiration behind the Whole30 diet

The psychological component to diet

Accepting the responsibility for change, without blame

More evidence on how diet impacts health

How important it is to support change in different ways

Melissa’s two new books

Using the concept of food reward for weight loss

Show notes:

Whole30 Day by Day by Melissa Hartwig

Whole30 Fast & Easy Cookbook by Melissa Hartwig

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youtube

The inspiration behind the Whole30 diet

Making the leap to real food—insights from Melissa Hartwig of Whole30

The psychological component to diet

Accepting the responsibility for change, without blame

More evidence on how diet impacts health

How important it is to support change in different ways

Melissa’s two new books

Using the concept of food reward for weight loss

0 notes

denisalvney · 7 years ago

Text

RHR: The Best Ways to Support Diet Change—with Melissa Hartwig

In this episode, we discuss:

The inspiration behind the Whole30 diet

The psychological component to diet

Accepting the responsibility for change, without blame

More evidence on how diet impacts health

How important it is to support change in different ways

Melissa’s two new books

Using the concept of food reward for weight loss

Show notes:

Whole30 Day by Day by Melissa Hartwig

Whole30 Fast & Easy Cookbook by Melissa Hartwig

youtube

The inspiration behind the Whole30 diet

Making the leap to real food—insights from Melissa Hartwig of Whole30

The psychological component to diet

Accepting the responsibility for change, without blame

More evidence on how diet impacts health

How important it is to support change in different ways

Melissa’s two new books

Using the concept of food reward for weight loss

0 notes