Please allow me to draw your attention to my late-breaking post on the Gwyneth/Chris divorce, which is mostly just jubilant shouting of Mountain Goats lyrics.
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Really powerful account of post-concussion syndrome; we actually have an upcoming piece by a young woman who continues to have real cognitive deficits as a result of her concussion, and my niece was derailed by hers for almost a year. BE CAREFUL OUT THERE, kids!
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There is a mountain lion wandering around the backyards of my neighbourhood, and even though I know it would kill me with very little fuss on its part, I have these recurring fantasies that this would happen instead, because of my physical fitness and also my really deep-seated and repressed bloodlust:
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Jamelle Bouie on Rand Paul saying something not completely ludicrous for once.
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I subscribe to every cosmetics-subscription-thing there is, and I don’t want to hear if it’s dumb, because my guests enjoy having thousands of weird little bottles at their disposal.
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Which Toronto neighbourhood should you live in? I got Queen West.
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“From Peyote to Plan B”: a Supreme Court primer
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In the course of seven weeks, Waterson interviewed a hundred and twenty-seven families about their reaction to articles that begin with a wryly affectionate parenting anecdote, segue into a dry cataloguing of sociological research enlivened with alternately sarcastic and tender asides, and end with another wryly affectionate anecdote that aims to add a touch of irony or, failing at that, sentimentality.
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The grad student debt bubble.
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The rise and fall of professional bowling:
In the “golden era” of the 1960s and 70s, they made twice as much money as NFL stars, signed million dollar contracts, and were heralded as international celebrities. After each match, they’d be flanked by beautiful women who’d seen them bowl on television, or had read about them in Sports Illustrated.
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You have a new Tennessee Williams story to look forward to!
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I peaced on HIMYM a season or two ago, but I’m casually following the dead mom? theories, etc., and VF (VANITY FAIR, people) did a GIF-y recap of the most recent episode, and I would like to hear your HIMYM thoughts.
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Would you like to watch Angie Jordan say “ham” for thirty minutes?
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
Apparently I should live in the Annex.
LOL j/k I can’t afford to live anywhere in Toronto! (Nor am I a big fan of Toronto, so this works out well for all involved parties.)
I have always loved Toronto, myself, but I know it is not for everyone!
I lived in Ottawa for years and years so I have a desperate love for Ottawa and a corresponding disgust with Toronto. I think it’s been wired into me and I can’t undo it. Every time I go to Toronto I’m all “Ugh but where is your canal??? Where is your massive river??? I SEE NO BEAUTIFUL CAPITOL PANORAMA!!!! Your buildings are too tall and there are too many people here!!!!”
So…..a snob, is what I sound like. But a reverse snob, instead of a “Where are all your stores and people????” type snob.
Now I sound awful!
I’m sure that the opinion of an American will help (when doesn’t it AMIRITE! AMERICUH! *high fives* *shoots gun into the air*), but I love Ottawa. I lived in super far upstate New York for many years and when I got tired of things like watching loons and contemplating my own existence in ear-deafening silence, I would go to Ottawa and bask in the polite urbanity of it all! The wonderful museums and capitol panorama! Once I was there during a busker festival and it was perfect.
Toronto, on the other hand, just reminds me of Buffalo, which is unfair, but they are linked in my brain.
Nooooo! I am the same way about Boston vs. NYC. It may be the parallel city competition to Toronto-Ottawa (and in fact, I love Ottawa too! Canal! Winterlude!)
BTW, I’m supposed to live in The Junction in Toronto, and I should date Cumberbund’s Little Charles character and be Marshall from HIMYM. Because apparently I’m a giant softie.
People are different! I LOATHE OTTAWA.
NOOOOOOOO IT’S SO PERFECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THINGS THAT ARE WRONG WITH OTTAWA:
1. It has always been cold and windy whenever I go.
2. It is filled with politicians.
3. All my friends live in Toronto except for the two in Kingston, so when I come home, if I want to visit my wonderful Ottawa cousins I have to GET to OTTAWA.
4. It is far too close to Quebec.
Things that are wrong with Toronto:
1. It is too big and impossible to get anywhere without spending hours on the TTC (“the better way” my ass) and getting lost
2. There are too many snobby Toronto people
3. Everything is expensive!
4. Not enough Tim Horton’s
5. The Toronto Attitude
6. No chip wagons
7. It is too far from Ottawa!!!!
As someone who has lived in both Ottawa and Toronto and loves both, I will agree that these are accurate lists of flaws for both cities.
Although, Ottawa is hardly abounding in Tim Horton’s — this Southern Ontario girl wandered around downtown Ottawa when I first move there — desperately trying to find a Tim’s among all the Second Cups and Bridgeheads.
And now I miss Bridgehead terribly.
Criticizing Toronto for not being Ottawa or vice versa is probably not the most fruitful exercise. One is a very large town that sprawled into a city and the other is a very large, dense, cosmopolitan city. They both have upsides and downsides. (And, really, measuring the quality of Toronto by the number of Tim Horton’s is like measuring the quality of any other city around the world by the number of McDonald’s or Pret a Mangers.)
Yes — that was the most notable transition from me from suburban small-towner to urbanite — drinking different types of coffee.
*sips her latter from her local indie shop pretentiously*
I do not judge any city but their abundance of Tim Hortons’ as I hate Tim Hortons but I feel as though saying so makes me a giant snob (but seriously though why does the coffee taste like it was made with tepid water and why do my cups always leak through the bottom????)
Yes, I am pretty sure anyone who has lived in either of those towns is aware of that already. But it is probably The Most Common Thing. So. We know.
ahhhhhhhhh I worked through university at a bridgehead, and while I met a lot of life long friends it was a horrid place to work. I was just gchatting with an old co-worker about that!
Ottawa is just close enough to Quebec! Just close enough to ride your bike there on a stat holiday when you realize all of the Ontario Liquor stores are closed! (or so I remember from being in undergrad)
OH HELLO SAQ! So nice to see you on this holiday!
I AGREE WITH ALL OF THESE THINGS
1. It is always cold and windy anywhere north of say Kingston, so that doesn’t count.
2. It’s also full of lovely civil servants and people who’re actually making the country run, and they’re considerably more pleasant than the standard politician.
3. I’ll grant you that having Ottawa be closer to Toronto would be nice.
4. However, it being close to QC has made my life considerably easier these past few years.
OTTAWA IS PRETTY ALRIGHT. (I’m one of the few people who wants to leave Montreal for Ottawa, so…)
“What do you mean, I can’t bike to work on beautifully maintained trails in and out of downtown?” “Look at your sad waterfront” “Your transit transfer system dates from the 1940’s and is about as effective!” “Your hockey team’s fans are just sad and obnoxious”
I love Toronto, but I miss Ottawa so much.
+1 all of this yes
I grew up in and around Ottawa, and was therefore bred to have an innate dislike of Toronto (but occurs to me that so is the rest of Canada). So I moved to Toronto expecting not to like it, and was suprised to find that I love it here and never want to leave.
Sure, TTC is awful, but I have never heard a good word about OC transpo either! Plus, have you ever been to an outdoor music festival in Ottawa? They get mad at people for standing! It is full of loveable, but annoyingly curmudgeonly government workers.
It IS beautiful, I will agree, but so is Toronto, in a lot of places!
I actually loved OC Transpo and never had issues with it! I relied on it exclusively for years, and my biggest problem was the transit strike. (Boooo.) (Also I volunteered at Ottawa music festivals and….we pretty much stood all the time everywhere!)
Oh man. So, I grew up in small town Northwestern Ontario (and I mean that North; further from Toronto than Thunder Bay). I grew up thinking of Toronto akin to a mythical mecca of amazing-wonderful-beautiful things. The first time I went there I was 8, and we went to the CN Tower and Canada’s Wonderland and that trip was a jewel I always kept in my pocket to show people when I wanted to be interesting. Then I moved to Hamilton for several years, visited TO a lot, had friends from TO, went to Canada’s Wonderland with said friends, and now it is just a city to me. A large one, with cool stores, but still just a city for which I have no great love nor dislike.
So I took the quiz on a lark, knowing nothing about Toronto other than what I gleaned from midnight viewings of Forever Knight (AMURICAH!!) and it put me in Leslieville? I’m not sure what that means, but it’s probably better than where I am now, so, I think I should go visit.
Leslieville: brunch places, parks, family business, kid friendly, art stores. Nice neighbourhood.
I used to live in Ottawa, and then moved to Toronto, and I love both!
(And let’s be real, both transit systems are incredibly, woefully inadequate for their ridership, though OC Transpo is marginally more efficient thanks to the Transitway.)
I also got Queen West! Which makes sense as I spend a lot of time there!
House-wise, it would cost us somewhere around double for a house in Toronto that would match the house and neighborhood that we have here in Chicago. 🙁
We want to move home, but we know we’ll have to downgrade substantially in neighborhood at least.
Hamilton!
…. just kidding.
…. Although, Hamilton does have ridiculously cheap beautiful houses.
I went to Mac for undergrad and actually really love the city. I think it has an unfair reputation. There are parts of the city that are awful, but I think it’s got some of the most beautiful neighborhoods and views in the country (nestled in around the escarpment).
Oh, yes, I did Hamilton for my grad, and it is distinctly unappreciated. The gentrification is starting to take off, though.
What do you think about going to McMaster’s but living in Toronto? And going as a humanities grad student, so probably only having to make the commute 2-3 times a week? Plausible though annoying, or a very bad decision? Asking for a friend.
Um, it depends where in Toronto. If they’re on the west end, with a car — totally doable, but they’ll miss out on a lot of the social aspects.
East or north, and on GO Transit, it’ll be pretty miserable until they make the GO Train 24 hours (not till 2016 or so).
I think with Hamilton, there are parts that are lovely, and parts that are not so much (although as another commenter noted, the gentrification is starting to take off). When I did my undergrad at Mac, I lived in Westdale very close to the Library, My Dog Joe’s, etc. I absolutely loved living in that area.
When I lived in Victoria, my grad school department had this woman who was homesick for Hamilton, and refused to see Victoria as anything but a low-class backwater in comparison. The various Ottawa and Toronto transplants were constantly confused by her.
(Not that you can’t love your hometown! I sure love mine, but I also don’t think it’s the cultural capital of the universe.)
HIMYM thoughts: I’m sticking it out till the bitter end, because I’m stubborn and there are still nuggets of something great there–and the occasional solid episode. This season’s mostly been a retread of Ted letting go of Robin, which, BORING, WE GET IT. But there have also been some delightful cameos, and Lily and Marshall are still one of the more convincing couples in TV comedy, and there were at least two terrific episodes (one all about The Mother, who’s just wonderful, and one that heavily involved Taran Killam, who always makes shows better; see Community for more information).
I have such a weird relationship with HIMYM. I think I like it? Even though I really don’t like any of the characters except Lily and Marshall and I really fuckin’ hate Ted. I don’t watch it regularly, but I’ll occasionally binge watch it on Netflix and, yes, I am curious about how it will end.
Ted is so awful that my ex and I started referring to any awful main character anchor on a show as “a Ted.”
Classic Schmosby.
Ted is a nightmare hellscape.
Indeed. I wrote a blahg post a long time ago about shows with protagonists that are significantly weaker characters than the rest of the cast, and I think I subconsciously wrote it just so I could slam Ted. Get. Over. It, Man.
I feel like Ted should get together with Jess from New Girl and the rest of the characters in both shows could just move on without them.
Except that would be super unfair to Jess because while she’s a weak, but otherwise nice character, he is terrible.
I WAS ABOUT TO START FIGHTING. Then again, people super judge me for New Girl love, so fistbump. Maybe something with the cast of the Mindy Project which I cannot decide if I like or not UGH.
I LOVE New Girl but compared to the rest of the cast she is the weakest, by far. But she’s actually a nice person who, now that I’ve thought about it, doesn’t deserve to get Nice Guyed into popping out babies so Ted can have the Wife tm he always wanted.
The New Girl problem for me, right now, is that season 2 was just so, so good, at times damn near perfect. Now, with no Schmidt/Cece conflict and a lot of cutesy smugness, it’s just not as terrific. But we’ll get there, I think. I hope.
“a lot of cutesy smugness” YES this is the issue I have with it. The Schmidt/Cece conflict was one of my favorite things about the show. Plus I feel like they are struggling to integrate Coach into the cast (although I did like the episode where he worked as a gym teacher for a day) and the Jess/Nick relationship is getting a little boring. But I’m so conflicted because, like you said, season 2 was excellent!
Ted is the FUCKING WORST and I have lost all interest in seeing him end up happy in any way.
Ted is awful, but I personally hate the way Barney treats women the most. There are a lot of things I like about the show though, such as Lily and Marshall’s relationship.
See, for me, the way Ted treats women is much more sickening and insidious. He has this creepy White Knight Nice Guy complex that just about makes me want to throw up. Yes, Barney treats women as sex objects, but Ted is the one who really objectifies women–it’s never about whether he has a strong, mutually-enriching relationship with a person, it’s IS THIS THE GIRL I CAN MARRY AND HAVE BABIES WITH?
YES, this exactly. He’s also spent damn near the entire series attempting to force Robin into his perfect-mate mold, despite the fact that she has been incredibly consistent and clear about what she wants (no children, no settling down, no thank you). He’s ignored what she wants because he thinks he’s in love with her and that must mean that she is the perfect wife and mother for him, because he LOVES HER and that’s what matters, right?
UGH, Ted, get out.
YES to all of this though. Like, in what season is it where Robin breaks up with that guy because she doesn’t want/can’t have kids, and Ted responds to that by being like, “Well, I love you,” even though Ted has always wanted kids. ARGH.
(See, I do hate Ted too. I suspect my hatred towards Barney is more visceral simply because I am a single, often out and about and drunk woman, whereas I’ve never been in a more relationship-y thing, so the Ted hate feels less personal.)
ETA: I also *wanted* to like Robin and Barney, but I am Not A Fan of how the show has handled their relationship. But that intersects with the issues I have with Ted’s character, so…
What, you mean the whole I Am Going To Completely Fuck With Your Emotions And Manipulate The Hell Out Of You In Order To Get You To Marry Me Instead Of Acting Like A Goddamn Adult About It thing didn’t pull at your heartstrings?
Of what we’ve actually seen, I hate Ted the most (with full understanding/endorsement of the visceral anti-Barney-reaction) because of the insidiousness.
HOWEVER. They’ve given Barney a couple of throwaway lines that if true would be so horrifying that there would be absolutely no coming back from it. I’m thinking particularly of when he’s ‘apologizing’ to a random blond and says something like “I’ve done a lot of really bad things. I once sold a woman, I don’t really know, I didn’t speak the language, I just took the new car and left her there. But I NEVER thought I’d be the kind of guy who forgets entirely about a woman he slept with, so I’m sorry.”
I know it’s a sitcom, so I choose to be delighted by Neil Patrick Harris’s general performance and assume Barney-him is wildly exaggerating for effect. There are those moments, though, when I can’t help my earnestness from bubbling up and saying “Wait. Seriously? We’re just going to blow by Barney SELLING a person and congratulate him for saying the words ‘I’m sorry’?”
Yes, this! My bff was like, eh, start watching it, you won’t have to think much about it during grad school (we were REALLY into Scrubs in college) and like, I didn’t binge on it because I just … didn’t care. Like, I dunno, white people? New York? Relationships? Big shrug.
However, I finally got to the end on Netflix and was like, oh, now what will I do when I’m washing my dishes? Plus, yeah, I gotta know the end.
I will say that my other bestie and I sing the “bang-bang-bangity-bang” song all the time, especially when I’m going through a casual sex tornado. And Cobie Smulders can GET IT.
There are some good running jokes that are excellent to be able to reference with friends. Bangity bang is chief among these, but I also reference The Funk, The Whole Funk, And Nothing But The Funk more than I maybe should.
I sometimes think of Marshall songs and just grin.
Marshallllll versus the machineeeee.
I sing “Let’s go to the mall, let’s go to the ma-a-allll” every time I go shopping with my bestie. Especially when we aren’t going to the mall.
I want someone to do a super edit of the show, like those super edits of the Star Wars prequels, that excises Ted completely from the show. This would be extremely difficult given that he is the main character, the title character (that “I”), and the narrator, but it would be extremely worth it. Just a few seasons of Barney, Lily, Marshall, and Robin, hanging out and having adventures in NYC with no douchebag hanger-ons?
It would called SUIT UP and it would be TV Gold.
SUIT UP in all caps, right?
I’d watch.
Yeah! I keep fantasizing about a spin-off show called Everybody But Ted, but your idea works even better.
I was home and watched the Taran Killam one with my mom after having given up two seasons ago, and enjoyed it so much that I went back and tried to catch up. Sadly, the rest of this season was not at that level. You’d think that since they knew when it would be ending they would have been able to craft season-long storyline more interesting than “but seriously, should Ted and Robin get back together for the 3rd time? Even though she’s getting married and he’s the worst? Let’s really hammer this out.”
I’m sticking it out with HIMYM as well, though I’m totally irritated by it at this point. I cannot and will not get over the fact that if Ted and Robin don’t end up together, HIMYM spent basically every episode up until the last one, (and a half hour before Robin’s wedding) drawing out their will-they-won’t-they relationship and then dismisses it with one hokey Ted speech… and that’s supposed to be satisfying? And every lie Barney ever told is wiped away with one “I’m going to be honest, now” line, that we believe is real because…?
Vanity Fair thinks them finding each other again after the mother dies would be the worst ending ever, but I think it is the only ending that makes any sense. Otherwise we just spent 9 seasons following an inconsequential relationship blown up to epic proportions for nothing. “How I met your mother” is really the story of “how and when I loved your aunt Robin, before,” in any practical sense. Besides, for a show that’s all about timing, it’s a satisfying ending to think that both Robin and Ted were able to come and leave their relationship when it made sense to them, but after their separate lives/marriages, they can find each other again in the end.
I cannot support this viewpoint, though I totally respect your right to it–I feel like the show has spent nine seasons talking about how much Ted Loves Robin and how much Robin is not right for Ted. (I am totally with you that this means we spent nine seasons following an inconsequential relationship blown up to epic proportions for nothing.) They’re all wrong for each other!
Of course, this is part of the reason why Ted annoys me to NO END, because he cannot/will not realize the truth of this.
It is my least favorite part of the show (even over Zooey), and I want to throw a shoe at the screen every time Ted confesses his love for Robin AGAIN.
I stopped watching around Season 5 when it was going totally nowhere (and Season 6 was terrible). And then I picked up mid-way through Season 7 when I realized that I was a sucker for reformed rake narratives and wanted to see what they’d do with Barney.
Seasons 7, 8, and 9 have been pretty good. My opinion is that it was good, not great, in its heyday, and many of the people who complain about how much it’s gone downhill forget about a lot of the issues Seasons 1 -3 had (including some of the most worst Ted-Barney moments).
Watching through to the end.
I recently did a binge re-watch and it’s in season 6 that the writers completely forget about the characters they created and give them all these weird flaws/traits that weren’t around for the first five years. THE WORST SEASON.
I can’t rewatch any of Season 6. It’s all so pointless.
I stopped watching after Barney’s HORRIBLE engagement episode, but I’m going to mainline this season when it’s finished because ugh I can’t just not see how it ends.
TWOP alerted me to the “Your Mother is dead and this is the story of why I’m marrying widowed/divorced Aunt Robin now that you’re grown up” theory this week and that would a) explain why Barney is never in any flashforwards and b) BE HORRIBLE. ROBIN IS THE BEST. TED IS A PLAGUE. what did robin do in this world to deserve that kind of punishment? how little she knew that going to maclaren’s for a drink would lead to an eternal struggle against Ted, The Dark Prince of Nice Guys.
The Mother is totally dead, though.
This is the type of twist that I can see happening. The writers will think it’s brilliant and cutting-edge and sadly romantic. Anyone watching will think it’s a BIG LOAD OF BARF. The mother is so coooool, her backstory episode was the best this season by miles. I don’t want her to die!!
I haven’t seen any of the current season, but I am way more prepared to believe that Ted is dying than that the mother is dead. Because if she was dead, I think Ted would have spent eight years talking about her, not about himself and his friends. Quite frankly, my dad would have to be dying before I’d listen to him tell a story that long and that asinine.
Also, I just really hate Ted and I don’t think he’s good enough for a woman as cool as The Mother is made out to be. He should be the one to die.
HOLY SHIT, TED DYING IS MY NEW FAVORITE THEORY. DEATH TO TED
I don’t really share everyone else’s intensive Ted hate, but I love this theory.
He dies, The Mother marries Robin, everyone lives happily ever after the end.
Also acceptable: she marries Lily and Marshall.
I really like the mother but I was kind of disappointed by her episode because it basically seems like they kept her near virginal for Ted. Her first real boyfriend dies, she spends like 5 years not dating anyone because she’s sad, and then she dates one other dude in a relationship serious enough that he proposes to her. Meanwhile Ted is you know, fucking her roommate and all sorts of other people. I don’t think I’d be disturbed by this storyline in anyone else but given that she is The Mother it really just seems like she’s saving herself for him.
I see what you’re saying, and it’s a valid criticism. But hers is the only romantic history on contemporary TV that has ever looked familiar to me. I was side-swiped by that backstory because it so closely echoes my life, and the tone of her behavior rang really true to me. Like, true enough that I spent that evening sobbing.
Obviously, everyone reacts to grief differently and I’m not saying “This is how it happens.” I’m just saying this is how it happened to me, more or less. And it was a curious relief to see it depicted in a modern TV show, where usually every single character is a hook-up machine or a sad damaged creature to be pitied.
Yeah, I don’t think I expressed myself very well. I thought her storyline was very realistic and touching and I think it addresses issues that, as you say, aren’t really discussed in prime time tv shows. I just think that it would be better if she were any other character, having that storyline be attached to the mother, the person who Ted’s been waiting for, the one true wife and mother of his children, is what disturbs me because it does seem kind of like a convienant way to keep her pure until she meets him.
I think your point is pretty clear and really, really good: that the show uses her entirely possible and realistic backstory to create a presumably less-sexually-experienced* woman for Ted to fall for because that might strike some viewers (or the writers) as obscurely feeling more “romantic” when it’s really just sexist to expect her to be comparatively more chaste than he has been. It’s an insightful point!
*Though of course the number of romantic relationships doesn’t necessarily correlate with the number of sexual relationships, that’s the implication that most viewers will take away without even registering it.
Ugh, these are GREAT POINTS I never thought about before! Poor Mother!
Back over on the Sorting Novelists post, Bittersweet hooked us up with her sorting opinions on British mystery authors, which you should catch up on, and then I added:
Colin Dexter (RIP) – Ravenclaw
RD Wingfield (RIP) – Hufflepuff
And then, obviously:
MYCROFT – Slytherin
SHERLOCK – Slytherin
JOHN WATSON – Gryffindor
MOLLY – Hufflepuff (look, some of y’all are gonna say Gryffindor, but that’s nonsense and also demeans what Hufflepuff stands for, honestly, like Hufflepuff has to mean Hans Moleman or some shit)
LESTRADE – Hufflepuff (bless his sexy heart)
John Watson is the Gryffindoriest Gryffindor to ever Gryffindor.
WE GOT LESTRADE. This pleases me greatly.
I love when Hufflepuff gets the good ones. BOO-YAH.
The Perfect Fic has Lestrade as a Gryffindor, for which a strong argument could be made, but I think he’s kind of a Hermione in that he would fit in one house as well as another.
Also, Anthea is a Gryffindor, Mrs. Hudson is a Hufflepuff, and Moriarty got sent to Durmstrang before the hat even hit his head.
My… friend is intrigued by this “Perfect Fic” and would love to know the name??
This is all Nicole’s doing. She linked to it on Twitter over the weekend, and I fell in love with it over the course of Saturday (thank goodness I limit my weekend plans to very little of anything at all).
It’s a giant series called At Least There’s The Football, and it’s right here: http://archiveofourown.org/series/9540
Ah, thank you!!
You miiiiight be interested in this: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3542099/1/How-I-Lear…
I have not yet read this particular fic, but it is very well regarded – it was billed as “Harry is Watson and Voldemort is Sherlock, they save the world” which seems to dovetail nicely with your theories here.
I’d put Sherlock more into the Ravenclaw crew. Slytherin makes sense, too, but his disinterest in using his noggin for power (as opposed to Mycroft) makes me think he’s more Ravenclaw. The others are spot on.
Strongly agree; I also feel Sherlock would strongly rebel against being Sorted into the same house as Mycroft.
AGREED. Although I have visions of Young Sherlock trying to get Ravenclaws to go on adventures, and most of them just looking at them blankly over their giant, ponderous tomes.
My friend had a concussion in April 2011 and continued to feel its effects well through the end of the fall of that year. It was nuts.
My mom got a concussion from hitting her head on the lift-up back door of her SUV 12 years ago and has post concussion syndrome. She takes meds for it every day, struggles with migraines, and sometimes has a hard time thinking of the right word for something.
Growing up in small-town Texas, FNL style, you could easily recognize when your classmates had been knocked upside the head in the game the weekend before because concussions were that common (and frequently ignored by the coaching staff). It’s kind of startling to be in Texas History and the dude sitting next to you zones out in the middle of his oral report on the Alamo. Then again, a girl on my club soccer team had to quit the sport entirely because she had received so many concussions and it was taking her longer and longer to recover from each one.
Basically, all contact sports terrify me now.
Soccer=TERRIFYING. A girl I knew in college took a kick to the face and it shattered her cheekbone. You absolutely cannot tell now but it was incredibly freaky before it got fixed.
Right?! It’s nuts. And that’s not even counting how basically all of my teammates tore at least one of their ACLs.
From the article: “in 2012 researchers discovered that female high-school soccer players have a concussion rate lower only than that of male players of American football, ice hockey and lacrosse.” !!!
Oh, the concept of “contact” sports. I was very lucky in that regard (possibly because I was never good enough to consistently be in the thick of action) but I had a rugby teammate in college who quit because she got her sixth concussion.
The kicker is that she got concussions 1-5 through playing high school field hockey. o_O As a fellow lifter friend of mine says, field sports = death sports.
Oh my GOD. That’s terrifying. Brains are so important.
Can I just briefly confess that whenever I get to do ridiculous posts about nonsense only I care about, or Mallory yells at General McClellan for several hundred words, my inner monologue is just chanting Miley’s flat affect “it’s our party we can do what we want it’s our party we can say what we want.”
I can’t remember the last Toast articles that popped up on my Facebook feed, but I’m pretty sure the McClellan one was posted or shared three times this week by different people.
I see what you are doing, Nicole. I love it when you troll me.
GUYS, READ THIS INCREDIBLE THING ABOUT MOJAVE LANGUAGE AND LOVE AND HUMMINGBIRDS :
http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_ameri…
The author is Mojave woman who played professional basketball and now works with the three remaining humans who speak the Mojave language. AMAZING. AHH.
“Three remaining humans who speak the Mojave language” 🙁 🙁 🙁
This piece is really beautiful though; thanks for posting!
That’s a wonderful piece. Thank you so much for the link.
I can’t watch the video right now but I am hoping it’s just this for ever:
?
Yeah, its perfect.
Is it wrong that I’m hoping that she is saying it in Ponyo’s voice?
No, but Angie Jordan has an imitable charm that is wholly separate from Ponyo’s. Plus, it’s hard to picture her running around on sofas with a pail and a portable light on her head.
Is anyone else getting a loud video automatically, every time they open The Toast? It’s making reading at work more difficult for me – I need my computer’s sound on to monitor emails.
Can you screencap if you get it and send to pavich at the-toast dot net? We try to get them down ASAP.
Sorry – I was away from my desk. It isn’t making noise now, if it does it again I’ll screencap and send to Nick.
yeah, I got that yesterday when I accidentally un-muted my sound.
Or click on it and give me a URL. That’s also a good way for me to figure out what it is.
Unrelated technical thingy, I keep getting an error message (script is not loading, stop script or continue) when I try to click on a link from the Toast homepage. It usually pops up after the browser gets laggy and freezes up for a few seconds. I can screencap it if it happens today!
Nicole, because of that amazing post yesterday I am now spending my Wednesday listening to the entire Mountain Goats discography.
Now I can rest.
Huh, I got a concussion in my last year of high school, and now I’m wondering if my inability to remember the year of 15-16 with any real clarity is related.
I cannot read anything about the Hobby Lobby case without a red mist of rage descending. Believe whatever you want, but YOU DON’T GET YOUR OWN GODDAMN SCIENCE. “Believe” Plan B and IUDs cause abortions all you like, but 1) they motherfucking don’t, 2) it’s none of your business anyway, 3) I’m a knitter and your yarn is shitty.
Also you can be a for-profit company or you can be a religious entity but YOU CANNOT BE BOTH.
Very much enjoying hearing about how the revered Lady Justices of the Supreme Court are coming out swinging on this one. Team RBG for LIFE.
The Slate article compares each Justice to a contraceptive method. RBG is an IUD – tiny but powerful.
Those contraceptive comparisons fill me with such joy. RBG 5ever.
Now I want to think of ones for the male justices.
Scalia (rhythm method: seems well reasoned at first glance, is actually completely wrong)
Thomas (pullout method: not even fucking trying)
The article has some for the male justices, actually, though I like yours better. Here’s what Slate has:
Alito (morning-after pill: always in possession of the power of perfect hindsight)
Kennedy (the sponge: soaks everything up)
Scalia (Depo-Provera: painful but it sure works) (Yours is MUCH better here)
Breyer (NuvaRing: slight tendency to go round and round)
Roberts (rhythm method. Because science, law, and doctrine may change, but he’s going to be around for a long, long, long time.)
Thomas (abstinence)
Thomas as abstinence is perfect.
“Justice Stephen Breyer asked whether, as lawyers for Hobby Lobby have suggested, there is a method of providing contraception coverage for Hobby Lobby employees that is less restrictive of the owners’ rights. Namely, have the government pay for the coverage.
This isn’t very expensive stuff, chimed in Justice Antonin Scalia.”
BURN IN HELL, SCALIA.
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I WANTED SINGLE PAYER INSTEAD OF OBAMA CARE 4 YEARS AGO, HOBBY LOBBY?????
Is he volunteering to pay for it? That’s really nice of him, thanks, Tony!
UGH I know. I live in the middle of Texas and people DO NOT GET things like, “Why I won’t eat at Chic Fil E” (sp? who fucking cares) and “I no longer buy yarn at Hobby Lobby.” BECAUSE THEY ARE ASSHOLES, MY GOD, IT’S NOT EXACTLY ROCKET SCIENCE.
PREACH
I spent WAY TOO LONG yesterday scrolling through the #hobbylobby tag on twitter where a bunch of idiots were going on about how “if you don’t like it, you shouldn’t work there!” and “why don’t you buy it with your own damn money!” UGH YOU CAN’T JUST GET A JOB WHEREVER AT ANY TIME AND YOUR INSURANCE IS YOUR OWN DAMN MONEY IT’S HOW THEY COMPENSATE YOU FOR YOUR WORK and that’s when my vision blurred out and I don’t remember the rest of the day.
Right?! This is what I don’t understand – how did the Supreme Court even decide to hear the case? It is scientifically WRONG that Plan B, IUDs, the pill cause abortions, and beyond that, a corporation cannot have a religion. I’m really afraid for what might happen if they rule in favor of Hobby Lobby. Not only would it be a devastating blow for reproductive rights but my god, let’s please not give corporations any more rights that should just belong to actual human PEOPLE.
Have you read about how their religious beliefs dictate that they must provide health care to their employees, they just won’t include these types of birth control because they cause abortions?
FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE, forever.
I’m pretty sure they are just trying any method they can to drive up the sales of knitting needles.
D:
Jesus, that was my exact face.
“Nickman called his wife and started to shout, “Make the kids go outside and get them to build a giant wall out of dirt and lawn furniture and frozen peas!” He added, “Get them to scale it, and then make them go to the town zoning board to get it permitted, but don’t let them know it was your idea!” Nickman has no idea how many minutes passed before he realized he was standing in a fountain outside a European Waxing Center, rending his clothes.”
…I’m sorry, I’m in love with that entire piece.
Yeah, it’s pretty interesting how Rand Paul is right about 10% of the time. I’m not sure it means a lot, but it is interesting.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Bingo.
I don’t trust that man any farther than I can throw him.
Angie saying Ham is my wife’s new text-tone. It has yet to get old, and I can report that I really enjoy sending her texts saying things like “Do you like green eggs and…” because I’m clever goddammit
Hey! I wanted to post about my own damn text-tone!
I really like when I forget that I have sound on and then Angie yells “ham!” at me.
“It’s fucking good…”
“Ham!”
Pft, whatever Billfold, I found the best lip balm ever and the very best conditioner for my been-bleached-and-dyed-crayon-colors-once-a-month-for-the-past-year hair, AND the best face wash for my weird combination skin (my t-zone is the dry bit!) through Birchbox, and that alone is worth the $10 a month to play with little bits of body care things. And the stuff I don’t use and will never use? I gift them out to friends who are interested. WE ALL WIN!
Also, Church and Wellesley Village, but I think I was meant for Vancouver. Moot point though, Canada doesn’t want me. (I’m not being self deprecating, I’ve just actually looked into immigration because I really love Vancouver, and I don’t meet ANY requirements.)
I think you and I have the same weird combination skin. PLEASE TELL ME WHICH FACE WASH YOU USE.
http://www.birchbox.com/shop/liz-earle-cleanse-po… (except I use Dollar Store dishtowels/washcloths for the “polish” portion, instead of overpriced muslin.) Fricking AMAZING, not greasy, doesn’t dry me out at all. The scent is more herbal, and does have a pretty strong eucalyptus note, though it’s never set me off (I’m slightly allergic to eucalyptus).
If you want to try before dropping $20, I think I still have like one or two uses in my tester, and if you don’t mind a slightly used product (squeeze tube, no actual touching of product), I can see if I can send to you? Hit me up at lyzzh13 at gmail..
Oh my goodness, you are so kind! I won’t put you through the trouble of sending the tester – plus I found $10 on the ground today so really I can treat this as only spending $10. That’s how it works, right?
I’ve never tried Birchbox, but not that long ago I subscribed to a monthly-perfume-sample-box service, and it’s been glorious. So many scents I’d never heard of! So many I might not have tried because high-end perfume shops intimidate the hell out of me! So many things I didn’t expect to like! Plus, getting little presents in the mail regularly is just so *nice*.
I might need the name of this wonderous box…
It’s Olfactif: http://www.olfactif.com/ I’m about to buy my first large bottle from them.
This is related to nothing, but they now have a GIF of the train escaping its tracks and bounding up the escalator to freedom and it’s amazing. http://voices.suntimes.com/news/breaking-news/sur…
As you all may have noticed, I am obsessed.
Why am I laughing so much at this? Why?
BE FREE, TRAIN. (Escalators are not for trains, etc.)
I mean as long as we’re discussing train gifs
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Fp-v0LWQI2M/Tp…
what what what what
No one has discussed how, by going up the escalator, the train saved lives. I like to think the train chose the escalator option opposed to crashing into the wall on purpose.
SCREAM!!!!!!!!!
I could watch this all day.
It’s interesting to me that we have readily accepted that other traumatic brain injuries (such as those from car accidents, etc) will cause changes in mood, personality, etc… but we expect athletes to be magical beings who can “walk it off” and get back on the field.
Also, SPORTS ARE SCARY.
I should apparently live in The Annex, which I…sort of do? I mean, boyfriend lives there, and I am there at least half the week, so this quiz is both perceptive and unimaginative.
Also, the description for The Annex is inaccurate. It should say, “Populated by students/the cast of Portlandia but when they hit their 50s”
I’m in Toronto for work RIGHT NOW. It seems rather bland, but I think I’m just stuck in the business district, which is always bland no matter what city you’re in. Everyone I’ve spoken to here has been delightful, however. (Canadians — friendlier than New Englanders.)
The Finance/Business district downtown is pretty terrible. Nothing but suits and businesses aimed at people with suits. (I work there — every time my friends and I go out to lunch/post-work drinks, it’s with a half-hearted sigh as we walk to the nearest chain).
There are some pretty buildings though.
I used to live somewhere rural enough to have mountain lions out in the woods (you could hear them screaming at night! It was…actually sometimes terrifying). But when I tell people not from the rurals about this, they’re like “omg did you ever hike out there to look at them, or go camping near the caves and take pictures of them” and I’m like uh did you miss the part where they are mountain lions though? They can and will eat you! They snuck up onto our land once under cover of night and tore our rabbit hutch apart (and the rabbits as well, sadly). Not pets, mountain lions. Not for cuddling.
Also, not easy to sneak up on to take pictures of. I grew up in a city with loads of cougars around. They were regularly hanging around the house, around the campsite I worked at, and I’ve been stalked by one. I’ve also never seen one except the time I surprised one driving down the highway and got a glimpse of its butt as it disappeared into the woods.
Exactly. That is kind of their whole deal! Being big cats and so on. Our neighbor had one stalking back and forth at the treeline, watching her toddler play behind their glass sliding door. !!! That was a real blood freezer. They are very pretty, no doubt, but if I saw one my immediate response was always going to be GTFO first, revel in their predatory beauty from a safe distance second.
TOO MANY PEOPLE on here have one-time-I-or-someone-I-know-personally-was-stalked-by-an-actual-mountain-lion stories! Toasties pls do not get eaten by mountain lions okay
Right? And here people are worrying about stuff like muggers or smog or tax season. Really we should be concerned with the mountain lions hiding behind every available surface, probably.
Do not think you’re safe because you’re in a city. My hometown has a population of 350,000, so is not miniscule, and when I was a kid a mountain lion walked into an office building in the middle of downtown. They locked it in someone’s office and called the SPCA to come get it.
Canada!
My mother called me one day while Eldest child was over visiting to let me know they had gone for nice hike the day prior and oh yeah that morning she saw a mother cougar with cubs take down an elk on her lawn.
An elk, people. Why they went after the elk when my folks had snacks-on-a-rope in their back 40 I will never know, unless elk are tastier than tied up hunting dogs or something. But fuuuuck all the same.
California, summer. Twilight. I am in the garden, weeding. I feel that odd, prickly, someone-is-watching-me feeling. I stand up, turn around and see a Mountain Lion in the shrubs across the garden twitching her tail and staring at me. Stalking me. I hold up my shovel,try to make myself look bigger and fiercer than I am and back toward the house. Heart racing, I get to the door and slither in, grabbing the phone and calling for help.
Official Hunting Creek Stance: Do not Mess Around With Mountain Lions
Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiit.
!!!!!!!
I was once awakened in the night (in July in the north Michigan woods) by terrifying blood-curdling screams that sounded like a woman being horribly murdered. The internet suggested this was possibly a mountain lion or maybe just foxes gettin it on. That was CLOSE ENOUGH TO MOUNTAIN LIONS FOR ME, thanks.
Foxes do make an unearthly shrieking on their Date Nights.
Mountain lions straight up sound like women screaming – apparently when the females are looking for mates (so like the female mountain lion equipment of hollerin’ at someone). The first time I heard it, I nearly swallowed my cigarette whole. It was some straight up Wendigo-Pet Sematary-murder shit out in the woods.
Awww, Billy Hardwick. 🙂
I already live on Queen West, heeey! But apparently, I should be living in Leslieville instead.
The quiz said I should live in The Junction. But all the Toronto places I know are downtown-ish, so I immediately went to look how long it would take me to get from there to parts of Toronto I know. It would be half an hour by transit to Kensington Market! Which I guess is not terrible, especially compared to taking transit in Edmonton, but still.
I got the Junction as well. Never having been to Toronto I have no idea if it’s accurate. I can’t even get downtown in half an hour via transit in my current Prairie city either.
I mean, Edmonton sort of has the bones of a decent transit system. Some of the bus routes are weirdly long and winding, but if they ran the buses and the LRT about twice as often it would still work ok.
It takes me about half an hour for me to get downtown, but I live in a vaguely central-ish neighbourhood. The other issue is that downtown itself is weirdly spread out, and transit is mostly not worth taking from one part of downtown to another.
Edmonton is not intuitively laid out (although easier to drive around than Calgary). Calgary has a focus. I don’t know if I could point to the “centre” of Edmonton on a map. I mean, everything’s super organized with the grid and the street numbers, but there’s no nonwritten indication where the Important Things are. If that makes sense.
I think it’s partly that it’s grown in weird ways. My parents lived here thirty years ago, and they claim that downtown used to actually be downtown-like, I guess with shopping and restaurants and bars and such. Now most of the restaurants and bars and parts of the shopping are on Whyte Ave, and the rest of the shopping is in malls scattered through the suburbs. Central downtown is pretty deserted in the evening.
I blame the flatness for most of the things I dislike about Edmonton. It’s too easy for the city to expand outwards, and everything gets inconveniently spread out.
I live in the Junction! The Junction is great! There’s so much to do there that you don’t need to go downtown-ish if all of your friends live there, but they will only come out to your area like every few months they don’t because, you know, buses. It’s about a 20 minute walk to the Bloor line, if sidewalks are passable (which they are not right now).
That does sound kind of nice. If I ever seriously look at moving back to Toronto, I will consider the Junction.
I know this is an old comment but oh saints preserve me from ever having to take transit in Edmonton again. You’re right when you say if they ran everything maybe twice as often it would work out.
I literally froze my Kindle waiting for a bus in Edmonton once.
I had 2 concussions about 6 months apart when I was 5 or 6 (fell off the monkey bars; was fighting with my little brother and hit my head on the fireplace; have not had any since) and now I’m wondering if there’s anything I can blame on this….hmmmm.
I’ve had SEVERAL concussions over the course of my life and have always been turned down for medical studies and never understood why. Thanks for sharing that story about concussions.
That article is why the Tap on the Head. drives me bonkers. It must be on TV at least once a night, and it must die.
No, but Angie Jordan has an imitable charm that is wholly separate from Ponyo's. Plus, it's hard to picture her running around on sofas with a pail and a portable light on her head.
Is he volunteering to pay for it? That's really nice of him, thanks, Tony!
Nooooo! I am the same way about Boston vs. NYC. It may be the parallel city competition to Toronto-Ottawa (and in fact, I love Ottawa too! Canal! Winterlude!)
BTW, I'm supposed to live in The Junction in Toronto, and I should date Cumberbund's Little Charles character and be Marshall from HIMYM. Because apparently I'm a giant softie.
I think with Hamilton, there are parts that are lovely, and parts that are not so much (although as another commenter noted, the gentrification is starting to take off). When I did my undergrad at Mac, I lived in Westdale very close to the Library, My Dog Joe's, etc. I absolutely loved living in that area.
Oh man. So, I grew up in small town Northwestern Ontario (and I mean that North; further from Toronto than Thunder Bay). I grew up thinking of Toronto akin to a mythical mecca of amazing-wonderful-beautiful things. The first time I went there I was 8, and we went to the CN Tower and Canada's Wonderland and that trip was a jewel I always kept in my pocket to show people when I wanted to be interesting. Then I moved to Hamilton for several years, visited TO a lot, had friends from TO, went to Canada's Wonderland with said friends, and now it is just a city to me. A large one, with cool stores, but still just a city for which I have no great love nor dislike.