Lisa del Giocondo née Gherardini; June 15, 1479 – July 15, 1542) was an Italian noblewoman and member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany. Her name was given to the Mona Lisa, her portrait commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance.
Little is known about Lisa's life. Born in Florence and married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local official, she was a mother to five children and led what is thought to have been a comfortable and ordinary middle-class life. Lisa outlived her husband, who was considerably her senior.
yeah I got sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place -- my rental house got purchased and all the other rentals out there dried up as landlords all around the area noticed they could make a killing off of a sale instead
but DH landed what I'll call her "forever job" (something that isn't time-limited like a postdoc) so we decided to plunk down for the long haul
Indeed. I remember watching Gerald Ford take the oath of office in the White House (East Room?). I also watched Nixon's resignation speech the day before.
I'd tried to reply last week when you brought it up, but was on phone and it wanted me to "subscribe", etc. Feh! Yes, great show.
I stumbled across "Why Are You Like This?", an Aussie comedy that is kinda like Never Have I Ever 10 years later, but where the people have less ambition. Quite Funny...only six eps.
And started Astronomy Club, which since it's sketch comedy is hit-or-miss, but overall (a few eps) has been worth the time. The Robin Hood sketch in Ep 2(?) was quite funny.
Watched some of the "History of the Sitcom" on CNN last night. Incredible to witness the dumbing down of America over the past two decades leading to the morass we are currently in.
I mean My Mother the Car was in the 70s, and Alf and Small Wonder in the 80s - there have always been dumb sitcoms. But is the inverse true - has there ever been anything as innovative as The Good Place? Or Community?
Binge watched Season 2 of the Mandalorian end of last week. I enjoyed it. To me it started slower (first couple of episodes were meh), but ended better.
I've been going back through the original Leverage episodes after watching Leverage: Redemption. Had forgotten that Wil Wheaton was in a couple of episodes. Just finished season 3 of Leverage.
I've caught up with all my tv shows from this last season. I've got all 10 episodes of The Chi waiting to watch and also Ted Lasso. I'll probably watch the first 3 episodes of Ted Lasso, then start The Chi.
IMO most of the best shows do this. Even something like Breaking Bad would have a little mini-story that got resolved within the episode while also advancing the larger plot.
I watched "THE Suicide Squad" and even by the low standards of what is essentially a remake of a bad film, I thought it was just okay - trying far too hard.
It's one of my favorite comics and the only DC title I read during my comics collecting years - but I haven't seen it yet due to not living in a place I have HBO Max
I feel like a lot of people are grading it on a curve due to the widely-panned first movie. Personally, I thought this one was also quite poorly plotted and indulgent. The comparison that comes to mind is a darkly comic version of Rogue One, warts and all.
IMO James Gunn benefitted from the restrictions the Marvel process placed on him. He couldn't get too indulgent with cursing and splatter gore, so he had to come up with a better story for Guardians of the Galaxy and it's the best I've seen from him thus far. This one is way more indulgent. Enjoyable, but very indulgent.
Strong elements of "on a very special Ted Lasso" about last week's new episode. Thus far, I'm finding season 2 to be "worth 30 minutes of my time," but not "worth watching at 00:01 Eastern when it becomes available."
Ah, it took me a comment by sycasey to figure out what you meant by "on a very special Ted Lasso" - I didn't really take it that way, I felt it was more a plot device to integrate Jamie back into the team.
fried chicken tonight. Soaked in buttermilk and Frank's red hot sauce, double breaded in corn starch, flour and numerous spices then deep fried. All the noms
Did you know the KFC twitter account follows 6 herbs (like Herb Sendek and Herb Albert) and the 5 spice girls (Geri Halliwell, etc) for 11 herbs and spices?
we usually do a mix of onion and garlic powder, something called Kickin' Chicken, Mexican oregano, salt and pepper. We use a pot on the stovetop to keep the oil splatter reduced
Oh perfect; I should give that a go! I got on a fried chicken kick over the winter but haven't tried it in a while. I would brine boneless breasts overnight, then just do cayenne, salt, and pepper in the flour. Got plenty of flavor, but I had a horrible time trying to keep the oil hot enough on the stove. New place hopefully does a better job than the stove in my old rental
Not really "test" since she's made it before, but the wife's spaghetti & meatballs is well nigh perfect. The method has evolved somewhat in that now she roasts all the veggies before combining them in the sauce. Had a couple of bottles of excellent Brunellos, daughter made cherry upside-down cake (plan was for plums, but they weren't ripe).
Making Quiche Lorraine this eve. A few simple ingredients: six eggs, lightly whipped, 3 tbsp dijon mustard, 1.5 cups grated swiss cheese 1/2 cup diced red onion, 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, 5 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled. Mix all ingredients in bowl, pour mixture into a pie shell and cook for 1 hour at 340 degrees.
My favorite quiche hack is to dice the cheese (pretty small) instead of grating it. You end up with little pockets of melty cheese that way and they're glorious.
You know how I've been sitting over here in secure borders with barely any Delta variants . . . well we had an outbreak in Nanjing last week (while I was traveling) and now all the loosened restrictions are back. Health codes + masks to go into malls again. Pretty dilligent checking of health codes when they had relaxed so much that only 1 restaurant and trains/planes required them. A bunch of co-workers went to Beijing on a business trip but because they had Shanghai origin health codes - they were turned back from hotels . . .because there was one case of local transmission in Shanghai. (the total outbreak is approximately 100 for now)
In other news, Fosun Pharma (Shanghai) is about to spin up production of Pfizer BioNTech's mRNA vaccine to stack on top of the inactive virus SinoPharm and SinoVac vaccines that we have here. So I'm double vaxxed right now - and when it becomes easily available I'll add Pfizer as a booster.
For the first time this entire pandemic I had to show a health code to get into my office building (which is a crappy chinese building with usually super low security)
Reading the stories below with Gomes and Harrison on the A's and Scherzer and Turner on the Dodgers, it seems the ex-Nats are doing well on the left coast.
How well are things going for the Oakland A’s right now? Not only have they won four games in a row, and eight out of 10, they’re even getting the benefit of replay reviews.
The A’s challenged two calls in the 1st inning and won both of them, helping them post an early crooked number en route to a 6-3 victory over the Texas Rangers. The triumph completes a three-game weekend sweep of the Rangers at the Coliseum.
Oakland’s lineup is hot, and once again some of their newly acquired hitters were in the middle of the action. Starling Marte got things started by bunting for a single and then stealing second base — he was initially called out at second, but the A’s challenged and it was correctly overturned to safe.
The A's are getting a lot of production from Marte, Gomes, and Harrison. Pinder and Piscotty should be worried about getting playing time and being mostly irrelevant.
I was listening to the game while doing work around the house.
Apparently Eduardo Escobar had a base-running flub in the Brewers' half of the 8th inning. I haven't been able to find a good replay of what happened.
Escobar walked to lead off the inning. Narvaez then struck out swinging. Which brought up Rowdy Tellez. As I understood it from the radio play-by-play, Tellez hit a deep fly ball to left. Escobar took off from first before the ball was caught, and rounded 2nd then stopped. When the ball was caught, Escobar retreated directly to 1st base without retouching 2nd base. He was called out for failing to retouch 2nd base.
Anyone see this who could comment on what happened?
The Dodgers took care of business on Sunday, as expected with the best pitcher starting against a middling team. But two plays stood out in the 8-2 win over the Angels at Dodger Stadium.
Woosh
Trea Turner’s speed was on display in Saturday’s win, but on Sunday he made Dodger Stadium collectively gasp.
After a one-out walk, he scored from first on a single. Yes, you heard that correctly.
He appears to glide, like Russell White did. He also makes the distance between bases look, well, short.
Turner also got a jump by attempting to steal 2nd with 2 outs, and the infield misplayed the ball. Consequently, the ball dribbled off into left field where the left fielder had to run in to field it.
we just *today* mandated employee vaccinations (previously, we just mandated it for students, and strongly encouraged it for faculty/staff). Classes start 8/31 fully in-person, fully masked, and hopefully we won't have to switch to Zoom partway through the semester
hello everyone! long time no DBD. What's new?
we bought a house just over a month ago, I'm starting to get settled in and the d-honey is moving in this coming weekend
Congrats on the new place.
Congrats! That's awesome. So sounds like you'll be staying in the NE state for quite a while.
yup! although I moved one state up the coast (still not a long commute)
Oh interesting. That sounds cool. Were the prices a little more reasonable? Or was it just a better neighborhood?
Congrats! The market is wild right now but at least interest rates are incredibly low.
yeah I got sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place -- my rental house got purchased and all the other rentals out there dried up as landlords all around the area noticed they could make a killing off of a sale instead
but DH landed what I'll call her "forever job" (something that isn't time-limited like a postdoc) so we decided to plunk down for the long haul
Sometimes you need a little nudge into home ownership.
Nice! Congratulations!!
Congrats!!!
thanks! it's been a whirlwind couple of months and I feel like I'm only just now starting to emerge
were all rentals expensive, or only detached houses? Last time I looked, regular apartments were significantly discounted.
pretty much everything, although regular apartments are less common in my neck of the woods
This day in 1974 Nixon's resignation became effective.
Indeed. I remember watching Gerald Ford take the oath of office in the White House (East Room?). I also watched Nixon's resignation speech the day before.
The Louvre.
Last night's Paris Olympics preview showed a biker riding/jumping along a narrow path on what I believe was the roof of the Louvre.
I'm hoping for an epic parcours-focused opening ceremonies in Paris.
Da Vinci
That furry version of Mona Lisa is really creepy.
I thought it was really blurry until I saw this comment and realized it's fur...
Code
interesting book on old tyme conspiracies.
wish we could go back to dumb conspiracies (bigfoot! loch ness! yeti! DB Cooper! Somerton Man!) instead of QAnon and election.
But no parsley conspiracies?
There's a great website somewhere (can't find it now) that shreds the writing. Only addresses Page 1, but pretty on point...
Admittedly, though one flaw in the book (and movie) is that there is no department of Symbology at Harvard.
Eh, a minor point. It would have made more sense to just list him as part of the History dept, but that's boring.
But that's OK because it's fiction!
Lisa
He don't even have his license, Lisa....
needs braces
DENTAL PLAN
The forgotten Apple computer.
It was 10000!
https://www.mac-history.net/apple-history-2/apple-lisa/2007-10-12/apple-lisa
DBD AV Club
Alright, a reminder, if you're not watching "Never Have I Ever" - you are missing out.
I'd tried to reply last week when you brought it up, but was on phone and it wanted me to "subscribe", etc. Feh! Yes, great show.
I stumbled across "Why Are You Like This?", an Aussie comedy that is kinda like Never Have I Ever 10 years later, but where the people have less ambition. Quite Funny...only six eps.
And started Astronomy Club, which since it's sketch comedy is hit-or-miss, but overall (a few eps) has been worth the time. The Robin Hood sketch in Ep 2(?) was quite funny.
I started The White Lotus over the weekend. 2 episodes in, I am enjoying it so far though I want to give the male honeymooner a good slap.
As a Hawaiian aficionado I figured you would like it.
Watched some of the "History of the Sitcom" on CNN last night. Incredible to witness the dumbing down of America over the past two decades leading to the morass we are currently in.
I mean My Mother the Car was in the 70s, and Alf and Small Wonder in the 80s - there have always been dumb sitcoms. But is the inverse true - has there ever been anything as innovative as The Good Place? Or Community?
Binge watched Season 2 of the Mandalorian end of last week. I enjoyed it. To me it started slower (first couple of episodes were meh), but ended better.
I've been going back through the original Leverage episodes after watching Leverage: Redemption. Had forgotten that Wil Wheaton was in a couple of episodes. Just finished season 3 of Leverage.
I've caught up with all my tv shows from this last season. I've got all 10 episodes of The Chi waiting to watch and also Ted Lasso. I'll probably watch the first 3 episodes of Ted Lasso, then start The Chi.
i like that while there is a general storyline, each episode is pretty self contained. you dont see that much anymore.
It's a Western/Samurai show! (or the A-Team. Or CSI. Or NCIS.)
A-Team?!?!?!?! Fie! How dare you associate a solid show with that garbage.
You might not like Mando, but calling it garbage is a bit much.
A-Team IS garbage! As is CSI & NCIS - all cities.
IMO most of the best shows do this. Even something like Breaking Bad would have a little mini-story that got resolved within the episode while also advancing the larger plot.
Yeah, I like that about the show as well.
I watched "THE Suicide Squad" and even by the low standards of what is essentially a remake of a bad film, I thought it was just okay - trying far too hard.
It's one of my favorite comics and the only DC title I read during my comics collecting years - but I haven't seen it yet due to not living in a place I have HBO Max
I feel like a lot of people are grading it on a curve due to the widely-panned first movie. Personally, I thought this one was also quite poorly plotted and indulgent. The comparison that comes to mind is a darkly comic version of Rogue One, warts and all.
IMO James Gunn benefitted from the restrictions the Marvel process placed on him. He couldn't get too indulgent with cursing and splatter gore, so he had to come up with a better story for Guardians of the Galaxy and it's the best I've seen from him thus far. This one is way more indulgent. Enjoyable, but very indulgent.
Strong elements of "on a very special Ted Lasso" about last week's new episode. Thus far, I'm finding season 2 to be "worth 30 minutes of my time," but not "worth watching at 00:01 Eastern when it becomes available."
"On a very special..." always conjures up images of Jerri Blank...
Ah, it took me a comment by sycasey to figure out what you meant by "on a very special Ted Lasso" - I didn't really take it that way, I felt it was more a plot device to integrate Jamie back into the team.
generally speaking, I feel the same. That said, any scene with Roy Kent in it is pure magic
I become more interested if this sponsorship issue becomes an ongoing conflict throughout the season.
yeah, it was tied up too neatly. I know that they're all buds now, but I don't think Rebecca risks corporate team funding for this
the girl who plays his niece has surprisingly good comic timing
She’s great!
DBD Test Kitchen
Homemade pizza last night. whole wheat dough. came out quite good, except I burned the roof of my mouth on hot cheese.
fried chicken tonight. Soaked in buttermilk and Frank's red hot sauce, double breaded in corn starch, flour and numerous spices then deep fried. All the noms
pqtm we also have chicken soaking in buttermilk (and a splash of pickle juice too) ready for a nice fryup tonight
oh that sounds GLORIOUS
what spices? do you have a deep fryer or do you go stovetop?
Did you know the KFC twitter account follows 6 herbs (like Herb Sendek and Herb Albert) and the 5 spice girls (Geri Halliwell, etc) for 11 herbs and spices?
we usually do a mix of onion and garlic powder, something called Kickin' Chicken, Mexican oregano, salt and pepper. We use a pot on the stovetop to keep the oil splatter reduced
Oh perfect; I should give that a go! I got on a fried chicken kick over the winter but haven't tried it in a while. I would brine boneless breasts overnight, then just do cayenne, salt, and pepper in the flour. Got plenty of flavor, but I had a horrible time trying to keep the oil hot enough on the stove. New place hopefully does a better job than the stove in my old rental
Not really "test" since she's made it before, but the wife's spaghetti & meatballs is well nigh perfect. The method has evolved somewhat in that now she roasts all the veggies before combining them in the sauce. Had a couple of bottles of excellent Brunellos, daughter made cherry upside-down cake (plan was for plums, but they weren't ripe).
this weekend i made a Moroccan dish that older daughter requested. it is a little involved but always turns out good
- lamb kefta tagine
- marak of cauliflower and tomatoes
https://spadesspatulasandspoons.com/2015/03/22/march-in-the-kitchen-marak-of-cauliflower-with-tomatoes-and-olives/
comes from Paula Wolfert’s “The Food of Morocco” wihch itself is a gorgeous book that is fun to read even if you not going to cook anything.
Making Quiche Lorraine this eve. A few simple ingredients: six eggs, lightly whipped, 3 tbsp dijon mustard, 1.5 cups grated swiss cheese 1/2 cup diced red onion, 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, 5 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled. Mix all ingredients in bowl, pour mixture into a pie shell and cook for 1 hour at 340 degrees.
Sounds glorious.
340 degrees? Sounds oddly specific.
The result of some experimentation.
I can appreciate that.
I think sugars toast at 350, so 340 will render the fat out if the crust and leave a flaky lattice structure without burning it.
sounds amazing .. especially so since i need to cut back on eating such fantastic foods w/ a moderately high cholesterol report.
My favorite quiche hack is to dice the cheese (pretty small) instead of grating it. You end up with little pockets of melty cheese that way and they're glorious.
Hmmm, I might try that :-)
Our Crumbling Democracy
GOP megadonors flock to Tim Scott, building 2024 buzz
-Oracle's Larry Ellison is the biggest name in a group of major Republican donors sending big money to South Carolina's Scott-
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/09/tim-scott-mega-millions-fundraising-502764
Today in Covid 19
You know how I've been sitting over here in secure borders with barely any Delta variants . . . well we had an outbreak in Nanjing last week (while I was traveling) and now all the loosened restrictions are back. Health codes + masks to go into malls again. Pretty dilligent checking of health codes when they had relaxed so much that only 1 restaurant and trains/planes required them. A bunch of co-workers went to Beijing on a business trip but because they had Shanghai origin health codes - they were turned back from hotels . . .because there was one case of local transmission in Shanghai. (the total outbreak is approximately 100 for now)
In other news, Fosun Pharma (Shanghai) is about to spin up production of Pfizer BioNTech's mRNA vaccine to stack on top of the inactive virus SinoPharm and SinoVac vaccines that we have here. So I'm double vaxxed right now - and when it becomes easily available I'll add Pfizer as a booster.
For the first time this entire pandemic I had to show a health code to get into my office building (which is a crappy chinese building with usually super low security)
Pro
Reading the stories below with Gomes and Harrison on the A's and Scherzer and Turner on the Dodgers, it seems the ex-Nats are doing well on the left coast.
Game #112: A’s sweep Rangers! Win finale 6-3
https://www.athleticsnation.com/2021/8/8/22616033/oakland-as-game-112-texas-rangers-score-result
How well are things going for the Oakland A’s right now? Not only have they won four games in a row, and eight out of 10, they’re even getting the benefit of replay reviews.
The A’s challenged two calls in the 1st inning and won both of them, helping them post an early crooked number en route to a 6-3 victory over the Texas Rangers. The triumph completes a three-game weekend sweep of the Rangers at the Coliseum.
Oakland’s lineup is hot, and once again some of their newly acquired hitters were in the middle of the action. Starling Marte got things started by bunting for a single and then stealing second base — he was initially called out at second, but the A’s challenged and it was correctly overturned to safe.
The A's are getting a lot of production from Marte, Gomes, and Harrison. Pinder and Piscotty should be worried about getting playing time and being mostly irrelevant.
Giants beat the Brew Crew 5-4
Aubrey Huff suspended from twitter
https://twitter.com/LoneCzarState/status/1424890024701489152?s=20
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy...
I was listening to the game while doing work around the house.
Apparently Eduardo Escobar had a base-running flub in the Brewers' half of the 8th inning. I haven't been able to find a good replay of what happened.
Escobar walked to lead off the inning. Narvaez then struck out swinging. Which brought up Rowdy Tellez. As I understood it from the radio play-by-play, Tellez hit a deep fly ball to left. Escobar took off from first before the ball was caught, and rounded 2nd then stopped. When the ball was caught, Escobar retreated directly to 1st base without retouching 2nd base. He was called out for failing to retouch 2nd base.
Anyone see this who could comment on what happened?
And chorizo won the sausage race.
Dodgers wow moments stand out to finish off Angels
https://www.truebluela.com/2021/8/8/22615901/dodgers-wow-moments-trea-turner-albert-pujols-angels-recap
The Dodgers took care of business on Sunday, as expected with the best pitcher starting against a middling team. But two plays stood out in the 8-2 win over the Angels at Dodger Stadium.
Woosh
Trea Turner’s speed was on display in Saturday’s win, but on Sunday he made Dodger Stadium collectively gasp.
After a one-out walk, he scored from first on a single. Yes, you heard that correctly.
GBBR
GBBR
Dodgers ball girl tackles the fan running on the field!
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1424768182288457734
The one with Jim Ross commentary overlaid is the best
https://twitter.com/ChadBlue83/status/1424499693535604743?s=20
Trea Turner is fast!
https://twitter.com/SportsNetLA/status/1424478400907935749
He appears to glide, like Russell White did. He also makes the distance between bases look, well, short.
Turner also got a jump by attempting to steal 2nd with 2 outs, and the infield misplayed the ball. Consequently, the ball dribbled off into left field where the left fielder had to run in to field it.
Perfect set of conditions to accomplish the feat.
Joe Davis did say that his whole family ran during his youth. Maybe that's why he appears to glide.
I was thinking this is something Puig would've tried to do early in his career.
Puig was like a big running back - speed, but all from power. Turner is much more like a bullet train - speed but without a ton of visible effort
It was so much fun watching Puig though. Unfortunately he thought talent meant he could succeed. That first month was glorious.
Other College
we just *today* mandated employee vaccinations (previously, we just mandated it for students, and strongly encouraged it for faculty/staff). Classes start 8/31 fully in-person, fully masked, and hopefully we won't have to switch to Zoom partway through the semester
I mean if they're mandating it for students how can they not mandate it for faculty?
are you still at random small state school in New England?
yup, heading into year 3
I'm wondering if ASU is going to be a smoldering crater by the time football season starts or if things will mostly be status quo until then
Not sure either way but it will be interesting to see if Edwards can squirm his way out of the predicament.
Only articles today seem to be about the former FSU coach passing away.
Cal
Go Bears!!!
Nick Kranz previews the Bears
https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/season-preview-2021-will-the-real/comments