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So much misery, so little time | Salon Books

5 September 2008 By Leave a Comment

So much misery, so little time | Salon Books.

“Suffering,” he writes, “is as common as death, and like death, it resists all attempts to explain it.”

Peter Trachtenberg took a tour around the world in his quest to understand why some people are crushed by suffering and others are transformed by it.

I know a thing or two about suffering. Maybe not as much as some, but don’t we all suffer equally, regardless of ther reason? No, my losses aren’t as great as the losses of the man who lived through Auschwitz, or the people who lost everything in Katrina (or Andrew or any severe weather or reason), or the twins with the skin disease. Are they any less though?

I’ve had a life of loss, but if I try very hard and flip it around, I’ve been given some powerful gifts as well. I’m compassionate, I’m thoughtful of others, I don’t see differences between people… often. I’m sure there is more. I am a better person for my suffering. I am stronger. I am smarter. I am a lot of things.

I also have less. I am missing important people, things, accomplishments, milestones and events. Much like our Holocaust survivors, I watched members of my family waste away in sickness and die. I’ve buried my mother and my sister. I’ve stepped up to fill in her place, as best I can.

Suffering… what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger? One foot in front of the other. I live my life by that mantra. I always have, and I suspect, always will. Disaster will always strike, but good times are always just around the corner.

I want to pick up this book. It fascinates me. Maybe I just need to know that everyone else is just as miserable as I am. Maybe my Zaide is right, if we all hung our troubles up at the end of the day, and could pick new ones to take home, we’d still take our own. We know them, we understand them, and we have learned what to do with them. Someone else’s troubles frighten us because they are foreign. I’ll keep my troubles, my suffering, because I know what to do with it, and I know good times are coming.

Filed Under: General, MediaWhore, Philosophy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Just a few (free) things worth mentioning…

4 September 2008 By Leave a Comment

My good friend Leila of Immature Couture is sponsoring a give-away at Now Entering Momville. She has this to say about the blog itself:

This is a fantastic blog run by an amazing woman. I am sponsoring a giveaway contest for her right now to help promote the handmade kids contest and the Alt Bazaar! Please go and check it out, comment to enter in the giveaway and blog about the contest to get an additional win! She has a LOT of giveaways going so there are others to enter in as well!

-Kunoichi/Leila (you all know her nickname, now go enter the contest and spread the word!)

I also have the need to mention that Jess of And She Lived Happily is featuring none other than Punky Moms this week! We’re giving away a tote bag to one lucky winner, just fill out the form to enter!

Punky Moms is giving away some Cherry Canary goods this month, come enter the giveaway! The entry form is on that page, so take a peek, fill it out, and see what happens! Punky Moms destroys your submitted information as soon as the winners are picked, so your info is safe!

Filed Under: Fun Stuffs Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Female Tattoo Artists

16 August 2008 By Leave a Comment

Someone commented in a thread I was reading this morning that as a woman it is that much harder to become a tattoo artist, let alone get ahead in a male dominated industry.

I call bullshit. As woman, are we limiting ourselves in so called male dominated industries by expecting it to be harder? It’s a chicken/egg question. Is it harder because we’re women, or as women, do we expect it to be harder, therefore it is?

I know so many women who prefer a female doctor (of any kind), a female piercer, a female almost anything over male in any job where being bigger or stronger isn’t a given for better (if I was hiring a mover, I’d go for a large man over an average sized female, but I’d take a muscular female over a small male… so even this isn’t a “given”). Why not a female tattoo artist? Why is it harder for a woman to get footing, or ahead, in this industry? Makes zero sense to me.

I don’t expect to have a hard time. I had a year of suffering (mostly silently) to get where I am, but from what I read, most people looking to apprentice will whine, moan, pester, whine some more, pester some more, be the shop bitch for six or nine months before they even work on themselves, let alone another person… yah, I put in my year, it just happened to not include bitchwork in the shop.

Let’s move beyond that. Being a male doesn’t inherently make a better artist, better tattooist, better… hell, I can’t think of anything that a penis or more upper body strength would make you better at as a tattoo artist. Someone care to enlighten me? I can see being a female artist putting me in a better position with other females, the kind who want a female doctor or who aren’t comfortable with males. Yes, I know that isn’t a huge demographic, but I think it’s great for any shop to be able to offer both a male and female artist and piercer. I think it opens up the clientel.

For all my ranting, I’ve only met two or three female tattoo artists in my life. One I met when I was 16, and one I met just a few  years ago. The rest, all men.

I still don’t see what the big deal is. Maybe because I am not anticipating problems, I wont have any.

Filed Under: Body Modification Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

YummySoup!

9 August 2008 By Leave a Comment

How on earth did I forget to mention this gem of a program? YummySoup! is only the best recipe program ever that I have seen, and I have the joy of it being a Mac only program at that! (Joy only because how often is a program PC only? Only almost every time!)

http://hungryseacow.com/From their site (my comments in red):

Organize, Share, Cook & Shop.

Try YummySoup! free for 15 days. If you decide to keep it, use PayPal, e-check, or any major credit card to purchase.

Here are just some of the features that make YummySoup! the best recipe app for your Mac.

Not only does YummySoup! support fully automatic web imports, but also boasts the most intuitive interface for importing recipes from any website! (<- my fav feature, btw) There are fully automatic web imports from a growing list of sites and the new AnySite Web Importer for everything else including any web site, text based PDF, and text files. Both these features are simple and intuitive. Check out the new video tutorial on these features!

Browse your recipes with the adjustable full screen view, that gently fades into view. Use your Apple remote to flip through your recipes, or have your directions read to you! Cook with ease, assured that you won’t have to touch your keyboard or mouse since sleep timers are deactivated when using this view.

Send rich formatted emails with pictures. These emails look exactly like prints. If your recipient also has a copy of YummySoup!, then they can add your creation to their library with the included export file, sent with every email. (this feature is awesome too!)

A seamlessly integrated user contributed Online Library. (with some fantastic recipes, I might add)

Keep track of your favorite Wines, Beer & Liquor with the built in Wine & Spirits manager.

The navigational structure of YummySoup! is fantastic. Groups of recipes can have subgroups which makes finding the right meal easy. Browsing any one group, will show you not only the recipes belonging to that group, but all the recipes belonging to all subgroups.

Smart groups are powerful. Whether you want to find all the recipes you can make with a handful of ingredients, or just want to find a Spanish style Main Dish that is not only easy to make, but has a five star rating. (love this too – I found catagorizing them to be a bit of a pain (as far as is this an appetizer or a snack?), but this way I can just search for ingredient A and find what I am looking for)

.Mac backup and restore.

YummySoup! uses a family-pack style license. You are free to use your license file on any computers in your home that belong to you or your family members residing in your household. YummySoup! is also a constantly evolving application. Many users have suggested great ideas which I have either added, or am in the process of adding to YummySoup! Have a great idea? Let me know!

I normally hate paying for programs, esp. when they are so many reasonable free ones out there, but this one is worth every penny of the 20$ and then some. It is one of the best, easy to use, nice interface, multi-functional recipe programs I’ve seen. I just might start entering frequently used recipes from my books and see about packing them away or donating them… at least the ones I know I only use one or two recipes out of ;)   Seriously? If you have a  Mac, and you cook, and you have a bazillion recipes (I have a bazillion loose recipes I am in the process of entering) you need this, yesterday. I needed it a few years ago.

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you are into superheroes or other speculative fiction…

4 August 2008 By Leave a Comment

As per my lovely husband, this looks to be quite interesting. In the spirit of my new informational blog, here is some information!


If you are interested in picking this up, see about buying it on the day it is released to help boost the interest in it on Amazon.

The Amazon write up is as follows:

The shining metropolis of Seventh City is the birthplace of super powers. The First Wave heroes are jerks, but they have the best gifts: flight, super strength, telepathy, genius, fire. The Third Wavers are stuck with the leftovers: the ability to instantly make someone sober, the power to smell the past, the grace to carry a tray and never drop its contents, the power to produce high-powered excrement blasts, absolute control. over elevators. Bar owner Keepsie Branson is a Third Waver with a power that prevents anything in her possession from being stolen. Keepsie and her friends just aren’t powerful enough to make a difference. at least that’s what they’ve always been told. But when the villain Doodad slips Keepsie a mysterious metal sphere, the Third Wavers become caught in the middle of a battle between the egotistical heroes and the manipulative villains. As Seventh City begins to melt down, it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad, and even harder to tell who may become the true heroes.

You can also check out the author’s site if you are interested in more. She has a few running Podiobooks as well.

But wait, there’s more! (edited to add on 8/05)

From [info]sailormur, the author herself,

Thank you for the write-up! I do want to mention that people can download the entire book in audio form for free, if they’d like to preview the book.

Very much appreciate the post! Thanks for the support!

So, yeah, go check out Mighty Mur.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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