Yeah - apparently some folks are getting really sick of it:

Mayan elder says world won't end in 2012

A Mayan elder says he is sick of people asking him whether the world will end on December 21, 2012.

Apolinario Chile Pixtun says the date will not bring the end of the world - despite claims the Mayan calendar shows that time will "run out".

"I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff," he told the Daily Telegraph.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3519526.html

Curious how others would define this word, so it sits here on my blog this Tuesday morning.

Define for me, if you will: Dignity

I'm seeing a lot of people on Facebook posting the supportive status statement:

No one should die because he or she cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because he or she gets sick. (If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

Good.  We should all be aware of the ramifications of not going through with healtcare reform.  But truly, how does posting a status message change anything.  Shouldn't we be figuring out what we can do to support this change and help it move forward?  Passive activism seems to be all too prevelent, and I am trying to understand what it does, save to assuage our guilt and make us feel better about ourselves.

Anyone?

So one of my friends on Facebook posted a video - a trailer of a movie called Blood Money with the tag line "the ultimate exploitation of women".  The subject? The movie claims to seek to "expose the abortion business".  With interviews of workers at abortion clinic workers and women who have had abortions.  I have been unable so far to find anything but a Pro-Life site discussing the movie, and apparently the creators are still seeking a distributor, so I am unable to find any information on how they got their research or data.

With claims like the following, I'm a bit at a loss:

From a supposed clinic worker - Everette says, "We would give them [young girls] a low-dose birth control pill they would get pregnant on or a defective condom. Our goal was 3-5 abortions for every girl between the ages of thirteen and eighteen."

I post this here because honestly, I think we need to be aware of things like this.  I am tired of propeganda masquerading as information.  Unsubstaniated data being passed off as fact.  Even when I agree with the general theme of a movie, I have a hard time stomaching the serious spin doctoring, and when I whole heartedly disagree it makes me quite ill.

I don't care whether you are for or against the legalization of abortion. You have a right to feel the way you do.  But to attempt to traumatize and misinform people with faulty information is as morally wrong as the issue you think you're trying to correct.

I post this here because we should all be aware enough to be able to have a sensible conversation when it comes to touchy subjects.  I would love to hear from anyone who can find information from a non-pro-life source on this "documentary".  I would like to know more about how they get their facts that support their claims that Planned Parenthood exists to cause unplanned pregnancies and profit from the abortions.  So let me know.

redredgroovy  and I stopped by Nick's on Main on a Tuesday night. They kindly managed to find us a table outside even though we didn't have a reservation.

We started with a cup of the soup of the day: corn chowder. I'm very glad we didn't skip this - the crisp, fresh white corn really made this soup something different. And the potatoes were so well cooked they melted in your mouth.

Next came our starters. redredgroovy  devoured his spare ribs with gusto, enjoying every last bit of the tender meat. I was tickled that Nick himself delivered by choice to Trust the Chef - one of the options from the starters portion of the menu. He'd chosen to make me a roast quail on a bed of polenta surrounded by some delicious escargot. I'll admit to being a bit surprised, but dove in and enjoyed it. The portions were huge and if I hadn't been so bent on trying more of the menu, we could easily have split a single appetizer.

Our entrees arrived shortly after we finished our starters. My veal was tender and very flavorful, again with that lovely creamy polenta. The broccolini that accompanied it was a great accent. The pork filet with it's dried apricot and port wine reduction was an equal to it. I'm just thankful I got to sample both. redredgroovy  raved about how perfectly the brussel sprouts were roasted.

We finished with coffee and dessert: the lemon tart with raspberry coulis for him, and the raspberries soaked in Grand Marnier with some whipped cream for me. I have to say I've rarely had such a simple and delicious desert as my raspberries.

We were both quite satisfied with the overall meal. The portions are huge without sacrificing any quality and with the prices for entrees running between $25 and $35, this place is a great value for your money. The chef and our waiter were both very attentive and made sure that our meal was all it could possibly be. I would happily suggest Nick's to anyone I know.

A commonly used word, but I'm curious what it means to those of you who read it here.

Define for me, if you will: Luxury

Sorry all, but I seem to have caught some bug and need to rest up and take care of myself.  We'll resume in a week with our ginger themed evening.  Sorry for the short notice.

The townhouse next to me is up for rent - 2b/2.5b for $1600/month

http://www.calwestern.com/property_details.php?listing_id=2652

Because it's been on my mind, and even if I did post it before it has been ages since. 

Define for me, if you will:  Respect

...and here's why.  I've seen two amazing videos posted:

Susan Boyle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnmbJzH93NU

Kevin Skinner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzul5rxd-i8

I was moved and touched a few months back when I saw the Susan Boyle clip.  The unassuming woman made her mark in a way no one expected.  I loved seeing the crowd reaction.

Then comes Skinner.  And it all just felt too much to the same.  Maybe this sort of thing happens on the show off and on, since I don't watch it, I don't know. I have to admit, part of me wonders if this was an attempt to re-create the Boyle phenomenon in America - if it was staged.  Doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.  But I suppose it does make me a tad jaded. I just don't trust the American entertainment industry.

On the heels of dinner last night at my place, this particular word came to mind.

So define for me, if you will: Decadent

So my kitty has proven herself quirky in yet another way.  Friday and yesterday she was a lot more twitchy than usual, and more quiet than I'm used to with her.  Eventually we figured out what was wrong.  The blanket that is usually on the arm chair for her to curl up on had been stuffed out of the way since Monday.  Blanket was replaced and she immediately jumped up into the middle of it and shortly thereafter was back to normal - as much as she ever is anyways.

Yes, my cat has a security blanket.   Who knew.

I was in Barnes and Nobles last night and I noticed a poster for a book signing next weekend. Apparently since Naamah's Kiss has come out, Jacqueline Carey will be doing a book signing at the store next Saturday, June 27th.

For more info: bhttp://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/59402

A word we often hear people use, describing their relationships with people, their jobs, their schedules.

Define for me, if you will: Compatible

A rather interesting video from Babelgum, at least from an anthropological standpoint.

From the site:

The Linguists
Like modern-day explorers, the two academics featured in The Linguists travel to forgotten places around the globe to unearth rare treasures—in this case, endangered languages. On a shoestring budget, professors David Harrison and Gregory Anderson navigate difficult terrain, searching for speakers of these forgotten and mostly hidden languages. While more than 7,000 different languages are currently spoken around the world, many are rapidly disappearing. Language diversity is shrinking as colonialism and economic unrest destroy traditional tribal tongues. When young people abandon their ancestral language, the passive suppression of their culture begins, and soon those languages will cease to exist. Joining a traditional ceremony in a remote village in India, observing a Kallawaya healing ritual in Bolivia, and completing an arduous journey into Siberia are all part and parcel of heeding the urgent call. The word connoisseurs are well suited for the monumental task of researching and documenting native tongues; they speak 25 languages between them. These humble ethnographers are in a race against time to preserve the increasingly rare words, which are intricately linked to the vanishing traditions and heritage of Indigenous populations. Well-paced and laced with humor, The Linguists serves as an insightful, contemporary adventure film with a strong emphasis on cultural history.

Straight from Gizmodo: A Harvard Psychiatrist Explains Zombie Neurobiology

"Through education Dr. Steven C. Schlozman is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a lecturer at the Harvard School of Education. He is also an avid sci-fi and horror fan - and, apparently, the world's leading authority on the neurobiology of the living dead. He has even drafted a fake medical journal article on the zombie plague, which he calls Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome, or ANSD (the article has five authors: one living, three "deceased" and one "humanoid infected")."

http://io9.com/5286145/a-harvard-psychiatrist-explains-zombie-neurobiology

I have to say, it's a rather fascinating look at the theoretical biological reasons.

Last night, redredgroovy and I went to dinner at Arcadia in the Marriott Hotel in downtown San Jose next to the convention center.  The Dine Downtown San Jose event going on currently (June3-13) is what prompted us to go there, and we were not disappointed.

Arcadia has a very upscale feel to it - broad spaces and wood but with a clear view into the kitchen.  You enter walking past their glass doored wine cellar.  We were immediately seated upon entry to the restaurant.

After several minutes, we were approached by the waiter who brought us the menu, the special tasting menu for the Dine Downtown event, and the wine list.  He informed us that starting that very evening, Tuesday nights all bottles of wine on the list were half price.  That definitely piqued our interests.  We discussed several of the dishes on the menu - how can you not want to know more about Foie Gras Sliders, Duck Fat Fries and a Lobster Corn Dog?  He then left us to decide but returned, to our surprise and delight, not much later with an amuse bouche prepared by the chef for us of the very Lobster Corn Dogs (pictured left) with a whole mustard creme fraiche and fennel slaw of which we had spoken.  I have to say, I was heartily impressed.  The lobster itself had been made into a mousse so that it cooked up to much the same consistancy as a hot dog, but the flavor was worlds apart.  The understated flavor of the sauce and the fresh taste of the slaw complimented it very well.  With that first taste under our belts we were definitely ready to dive in.

As we were there for the special menu, we decided to stick to our guns to get the best value for our dollar, knowing we could always return if we truly enjoyed the food.  And since the chef had seen fit to grace us with a taste of the lobster corn dog, that left us free to try the other two starters: tomato soup with basil oil and grilled cheese, and the Arcadia salad.  The soup was just shy of a maranara sauce, but delicious nonetheless, with the sandwich working as such a good accent that Redred left not a scrap on his plate.  I had a bit more trouble with the salad as they had chosen to go the whole leaf route, and though they'd dressed the lettuce well throughout, the cheese, apples and spiced pecans were all buried under the leaves.  I've a personal dislike for whole leaf salads as there is no way to eat said salad without cutting, folding or stuffing in ways that are most unladylike.  Despite that, the flavors mixed well and I did enjoy it despite the extra work.

For our main courses I chose the organic chicken with rosemary onion rings and truffled macaroni & cheese while redred went with the kobe skirt steak with whipped potatoes and spring vegetables.  The chicken was well seasoned and on the hugest plate-sized mound of macaroni and cheese, topped with four very crisp and not even slightly greasy onion rings which redred said were the best he'd ever tasted.  The macaroni and cheese was so delightful, though a bit surprising as they'd included tiny mushrooms and well mixed brocolli in it.  I was, needless to say quite happy with my choice.  Redred seemed to enjoy his grilled steak, which while a bit on the raw side was very tender and flavorful. 

The final course brought redred the rootbeer float made with sasparilla, sassafras ice cream and rootbeer sorbet, deliciously complimented with two huge chocolate chip cookies.  I didn't hear more than a peep out of him as he devoured the entire thing.  My choice was the chocolate molten cake with salty caramel ice cream and hazelnut praline.  It may not have been the best molten cake I've had, but the chocolate was reasonably good quality, and the ice cream was absolutely amazing.

The restaurant wasn't even half full when we arrived at 7pm, but it did fill up a bit more while we were there.  The sommeiler was very helpful with our wine, and our waiter was incredibly solicitous.  The menu is a bit on the pricier side, with most entrees in the $20-30 with no few reaching up into the $40 but the food was well prepared and delicious.  I'd say it's a great place to go for a celebration of some sort.  But for now, with the $40 menu for three courses, there's no reason why you couldn't try it out yourself!

Generally seen as a word with negative connotations - how do you see it and what does it mean to you?

Define for me, if you will: Discriminate

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen–I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones who look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline of good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of The Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies too. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."
- Sam Black Crow in the book American Gods by Neil Gaiman

It's been a few weeks - I've been distracted with friends and planning and baycon. But now I'm back, so I have a new word.

Define for me, if you will: Satisfied