As many as 3.5 million people gathered in Paris on Sunday for the Unity Rally and several world leaders including Angela Merkel and David Cameron were in attendance.
Responding to terrorist strikes that killed 17 people in France and riveted worldwide attention, Jews, Muslims, Christians, atheists and people of all races, ages and political stripes swarmed central Paris beneath a bright blue sky, calling for peace and an end to violent extremism.
At The Nation, Laila Lalami writes about how we must resist simple explanations for last week’s terror attacks in Paris.
To make sense of the senseless, we tell ourselves stories. The story is that this is the latest salvo in an ongoing clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. The story is that the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was the last bastion of free thought in a cowed press, a press that has bowed to political correctness and is now too afraid to criticize Islam. The story is that Muslim leaders remain silent about this atrocity. The story is that France has failed to integrate its Muslim citizens, descendants of immigrants from its former colonies. The story is that France has sent troops to fight in Muslim countries. The story is that there are double standards.
Teju Cole also offered nuanced thoughts on Charlie Hebdo in The New Yorker.
This week’s events took place against the backdrop of France’s ugly colonial history, its sizable Muslim population, and the suppression, in the name of secularism, of some Islamic cultural expressions, such as the hijab. Blacks have hardly had it easier in Charlie Hebdo: one of the magazine’s cartoons depicts the Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira, who is of Guianese origin, as a monkey (naturally, the defense is that a violently racist image was being used to satirize racism); another portrays Obama with the black-Sambo imagery familiar from Jim Crow-era illustrations.
People have strange obsessions and in Portland, there is a communal interest in the airport’s carpet. True story.
Portland Monthly has extensively profiled and memorialized the carpet, which was designed by SRG Architects in 1987. The composition reportedly reflects the airport’s intersecting runways; the color scheme most definitely bucks the tradition of using neutral colors for something more in keeping with the city’s quirky Pacific Northwestern identity. For a carpet pattern, it almost looks like aSuprematist painting.
That hotel in The Shining? They are looking for someone to build them a maze.
The more I travel, the more obsessed I become with airline practices so I was totally fascinated about this New Yorker piece about hidden city tickets.
In the summer of 2013, after graduating with a major in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York, Zaman was searching for a flight from New York City to Seattle and found that the best deal, for less than two hundred dollars, included a layover in San Francisco. On a whim, he searched for flights from New York to San Francisco and discovered that the New York-to-San Francisco leg of his flight was priced, if it were purchased as a single direct flight, at nearly three hundred dollars. This struck him, he told me, as strange and inefficient: Why wouldn’t someone simply purchase the two-leg flight, if it were cheaper, and then just not fly on the second leg? He learned after some research that this practice is well documented and has a name: hidden-city ticketing.
Last night was the Golden Globes and it was a pretty good ceremony, particular during the first hour when Jill Soloway won for Transparent and Gina Rodriguez won for Jane, The Virgin. These wins felt important because they represented how when we’re allowed to tell diverse stories, great art can be made.
Prince also showed up.
**image via Dodai Stewart
I want to watch Jane the Virgin but the earliest episodes aren’t on Hulu anymore. Can anyone who watches tell me if I’ll get confused if I start now? I’m thinking that since it’s adapted from a telenovella their may be a lot of plot to catch up on.
Its perfect because each episode starts with a 1 min summary of everything that has happened, there is a lot but I think it is pretty easy to figure out what is happening.
This! There is a lot of tangly plot, but the amazing narrator gives the summary at the beginning and tends to remind you who characters are throughout each episode.
The early episodes are good though, so watch them if you find them eventually!
But watch it because it is AMAZING. I was so happy when she won last night. The show is perfectly cast (except for maybe Rafael, he doesn’t do much for me).
First 2 are airing tonight. Watch them!!
They’re also really great at self-summarizing, in case you’ve missed something. Easily the best use of a narrator since Arrested Development.
Forgive the blasphemy, but perhaps an even BETTER use of a narrator than Arrested Development. *Perhaps.*
Any idea if they can be watched online anywhere (legal)? I don’t have any broadcast channels 🙁
If you have the CW app (phone or tablet), you can get the last five episodes via the app. The ad manager is AWFUL (I’ve seen the same ad four times in a row), but it’s free and legal.
Do you have an add blocking app? I have AdBlock Plus on Chrome and it let’s me watch TV with no commercials on the sites that broadcast the show (CW, ABC, CMT, VH1, MTV, etc).
Ugh guys, you need to be a government before it’s ok to murder journalists. Like, duh!
I didn’t get to watch the Golden Globes, but I was very excited to hear Julianne Moore won last night for “Still Alice.” The fight to end Alzheimer’s disease is a very important cause to me, and I hope this movie does big things to help advance public awareness and increase research funding.
I had no idea that was the subject matter of the movie. My late grandfather suffered from Alzheimer’s and I often have trouble watching anything concerning that family of disease. Would you say it’s worth watching despite that difficulty?
I’m sorry to hear that. My Grandfather passed away from complications of Alzheimer’s disease 10 years ago, so I haven’t seen it yet, much for the same reasons. I was completely blindsided by the Alzheimer’s subplot of 50-50 and spent most of the movie as a blubbering heap. I have, however, heard Still Alice is a great performance and portrayal, so I may try to see it. I may wait until I can watch it in the safety of my own home, though.
If you’re worried, you can try reading the book first. It should give you a good idea if you’re comfortable watching the movie.
the carpet, which was designed by SRG Architects in 1987
YOU DON’T SAY. GOSH I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.
I’ve never consciously thought about the carpet at PDX but an image of it instantly appeared in my mind when I read the headline. So, good job, SRG Architects of 1987? I guess?
I LOVE THAT CARPET
also the replacement screams 1991 to me
Also, a friend of mine literally dressed as the carpet for Halloween: http://anomalily.net/tag/pdx/
“Sure, if you look closely at it you might be able to make out the shape of a demonic skull staring right back at you, but what self-respecting carpet these days doesn’t have a subliminal occult message woven into its weft?”
“It has been described as “autonomous, convincing and relevant” as well as “little black and white blocks all stacked up one on top of the other.”
How I lived in ignorance of the Carpets for Airports website is just beyond me, it’s amazing. (Via the Portland carpet piece) http://carpetsforairports.com/
Fun fact: actor Hugh Dancy has taken several airport carpet photos for that website, and spoken about the experience in interviews. Stars, they’re just like us!
ETA: check out SLC
PWM too!
Am I not able to figure this out or is there really no way of moving the globe by yourself and you just have to wait for it to turn, if you want to check out a specific airport? I’ve only managed to make the globe bigger but surely there must be a way to make the globe turn.
I managed to make it move, but it was really jerky and slow (like, a full second after click-and-dragging, it moved). Also, I dragged it in the direction it was turning, so maybe that is also necessary?
Hmm, I just hover my mouse over the globe and then click down the mouse button and hold it down while I drag to one side (like you would when you’re using google maps or something like that). I haven’t had problems with it but my work internet is pretty fast so maybe that contributes?
[disclaimer about how I know this isn’t the open thread, etc]
Toasties, I am so sick of being late for work because the only bus I can take cannot be bothered to show up on time. I’ve started leaving home earlier and earlier in the morning but it’s like the earlier I leave, the later the bus is. Today I got to the stop at 8:35. The bus is supposed to arrive at 8:40. It didn’t make its appearance until 9 – which is when I have to be at my desk. >:(
Oh, that’s the worse. Is it only a winter problem or does the bus also have delays in the summer?
In the winter, I find employers can be more understanding of transit delays …
The bus system here in general is not particularly reliable but it gets worse in winter because of poor road conditions. I really miss the days when I had a walking commute…
Oh, that’s dreadful. I hate the feeling of standing around waiting for transit to show up, and not knowing when it’s going to.
Are you sure you don’t live in Saskatoon? Transit here sucks, and winter is so much worse when you factor in bad roads with poorly designed routes and a large chunk of bus drivers who just do not give a shit.
I don’t know if this is feasible for you, but I started biking to solve this problem! My bus app used to show that the bus was on time….on time….on time…. hey now it’s gone and the next one is in 30 min! So, I bought a bike, a pannier bag, and some nice gloves, and started leaving when I felt like leaving!
me too! I am my own commuting destiny now.
Ugh, that sucks. I used to have to depend on a bus like that. I discovered that a) it was 2+ miles to work from where I lived, but that b) I could get there in the same amount of time walking as waiting for/riding the bus. I wasn’t pleased about that revelation, somehow.
If it helps, I am actually working from home today because the walk to the train tried to kill me today, and I pulled a muscle in my knee. Bad weather/lousy commute solidarity.
This happened to me today and I think the only solution is that you start billing the transit co/org/city for all the time you miss.
Tea Update! : If you take black masala chai + chocolate tea blend + orange blossom honey = You will not care about the ice on the street or the fact that you are in the office even though the Fed Gov has a 2 hr delay. No ma’am! You WILL call American Airlines to check the status of your missing bag (going on wk 3!) and update the payment plan on your student loans. Tea makes everything better is what Im saying.
brb need some tea after the morning I’ve had
Oooooooh. Do you have brand recommendations?
World Market in-house brand!
Okay okay but my throat hurrrrrrrts & I only have vanilla chai + boring regular honey. Though I also have a nice black mango tea that’s making life a little more bearable. I need magic tea to make this day more productive.
You know what will cure you? GINGER TEA which you can buy in a little bag (any brand is fine!) or make by just grating/ chopping ginger root + lemon + any kind of honey you have. It will force your body to be better. Your body will have no choice.
Can confirm. This is magical stuff.
You are an angel & a genius! Spicy ginger tea + honey and I am almost my normal self again. Going back for seconds now.
That speech Jeffrey Tambor gave was just pitch perfect. And Gina’s was just adorable. I know the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is a joke, but they did a good thing here, drawing more attention to Jane the Virgin and Transparent.
BTW, this probably doesn’t need saying, but don’t read the comments if you look the speech up on youtube 🙁
The NYT has released their list of 52 places to go in 2015 so now I am torturing myself by planning imaginary, unattainable vacations. There will never be enough time or money to see all the beautiful places on this little planet. (Or enough Ativan to get me through all the flights I’d need to take.)
What looks tempting to you from this roundup, friends? My shortlist would be Singapore, Macedonia, Alentejo, Shanghai, Rome, Caceres, Baku and Kas.
So many!! My favourites would be Tanzania or Patagonia. Or Baku!
But I think I’d settle for Quebec City or Philadelphia which are a little more manageable.
I can’t get over that Tulsa is on that list. I spent Xmas in Tulsa and … no.
But Chengdu! Would love to see Chengdu. And I live close enough to it that Steamboat Springs might actually be possible.
I’m going to Cuba and (hopefully) Australia this year! But I would not turn down a loop through Alentejo and Caceres.
However….Squamish? Really?
The pictures are gorgeous and a lot of the places look really interesting…. but some of the descriptions sound like Stefon from SNL got a job as a travel writer…
ALENTEJO IS THE BEST. OMG. My father-in-law took the whole family for like ten days over Christmas a few years ago and it was AMAZING. I cannot recommend it enough. Assuming you like pork and red wine, that is.
The Faroes!! Baku! Cuba, Yellowstone, Bolivia, Macedonia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Peru, Oman, Sri Lanka, Republic of Georgia, Greenland, and Kas.
Oh, hey, Manchester. I really like the place and it’s a good city to live in, but I’ve never really thought of it as a hotspot for tourists.
I didn’t look at the full list because I really would be torturing myself with vacations, but I’d like to go to Georgia, I think. And the Faroe Islands.
I’d love to go on a music tour of Manchester. So many of my favorite bands were from there!
I’m dying to go to Greenland and Yellowstone.
Confession time. I loved the first episode of Jane the Virgin and then increasingly lost interest as it went on. I think I abandoned it around episode 5? Please tell me things to change my mind. I really want to love this show, I just got bored!
A LOT of things happen in episode 6 that completely re-route the show. A LOT. After that, there’s three more episodes in which I can’t believe it’s only three episodes because holy crap so much happens. It’s like the show goes from 0 to 720 in those four episodes. So yeah, shit goes DOWN in the episodes after you stopped watching.
I feel like, if you were bored by the first few episodes, it’s not going to get better for you. There are some elements that shift–I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say they dropped one particular relationship that I disliked–but the tone and humor stay the same.
My work does a lot of international travel, and the American flight system always feels like the most convoluted of all. Seemingly no direct flights anywhere! And so many unpleasant layovers…
They sell PDX carpet socks! And mugs! I… I know this because I own a PDX carpet mug. (Well, my husband does, really; it was part of my birthday gift to him this year.)
I got a PDX carpet luggage tag as a Christmas gift, which I’m taking as a sign to travel everywhere in 2015.
The speeches in the early part of last night were absolutely STUNNING. Gina and Jill and Common and Matt all right on top of each other just blew my mind.
And yes, the first two episodes of Jane the Virgin air TONIGHT and you must, must, must watch because it is simply glorious and the characters are amazing and ROGELIO
AND RAFAEL AND THE FEMALE GAZE
JUST WATCH THE SHOW IT IS SO SO SO GOOD
I missed the first hour of the GG (the best part, apparently) but started in near the beginning of Bomer’s speech & was all happiness.
If there’s a channel dedicated to the female gaze, it is absolutely the CW. Wilson Bethel once said something to the effect that he understood the importance of washboard abs as a male CW star 🙂
I KNOW THIS ISN’T THE OPEN THREAD but ugh Toast I took the day off because I have an interview and OF COURSE it is snowing today. OF COURSE. STOP SNOWING. STOP IT. I’m going to leave a full hour early and bring a book so I can go super slow and ugh why can’t I go to my interview RIGHT NOW and ugh ugh ugh welllllll I’m probably not even going to want to take this job anyhow and SOMEONE JUST THROW ME AWAY ALREADY I GIVE UP.
JESUS I LIVE RIGHT ACROSS FROM THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPOT WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG TO GET MY DAMN STREET PLOWED
Good luck good luck good luck! Think about tonight, when it’ll all be over…
GOOD LUCK. You will ace your interview and then you will go home and drink tea and not have to go back out in the snow again and it will be glorious.
Good luck, kick ass on the interview!
PDX carpet selfies; also a thing, because you can take a Portlander out of Portland, but the love of the PDX carpet remains, forever. Or something.
Also, re: The Shining hedge maze, while I support the Stanley Hotel’s aims, I’m a little sad they’re not going with the evil topiaries from the book instead.
This is related to nothing, but I think I job I would like to have would be in urban planning or civil engineering. I just read an article about this cat in Japan who built an indoor lettuce-factory, and now I want to repurpose spaces in West Philadelphia as a series of indoor vegetable farms supporting by a network of small, solar-powered vegetable trucks that sell produce throughout the neighborhood. That’d be rad, right? What if your job was to just figure stuff like that out?
I expect in reality, 90% of your time would be spent listening to blowhards in city hall tell you about sweetheart deals that they want with big development magnates to build new condominiums that are going to stay empty for fifteen years until the market crashes again, though.
Well. Maybe I can find one of those free online courses about it.
I am in the Philly area and I actually have a couple of friends who are doing exactly that. So, what I’m saying is, if you want some serious feedback about the feasibility of a career shift, etc, let me know and I can put you in touch with people! I know for one of my friends in particular, he has never been happier doing what he’s doing now.
Oh, uh, you know yeah, actually I would be interested in that. I am the kind of person that flits about from idea to idea pretty rapidly, so there’s a good chance I’ll have forgotten about all of this by next week, but I do keep coming back to this one, and it seems to inform even a lot of my other ideas about what I want to be doing.
Can I ask you to send me an email? I would love to be able to talk to someone in the field.
Sure! My email is pjwren1 (at) gmail, and I’d be happy to put you in touch with my friend.
oh indoor lettuce link please?
my niece is about to graduate w/ a degree in urban planning / ecology & that’s pretty much what she’s working on her job being. (she is rad, obviously.)
here it is! <a href="http://weburbanist.com/2015/01/11/worlds-largest-indoor-farm-is-100-times-more-productive/
http://weburbanist.com/2015/01/11/worlds-largest-… />
The guy built it in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, as part of a way to simultaneously reclaim empty spaces, and to build a distributed network of robust food production systems.
(Which, if you think about it, it’s kind of crazy that everybody hasn’t been doing that for the last twenty years?)
Here’s another cool example: http://www.fastcompany.com/1575650/clevelands-gal…
It took me an embassasingly long time to realize you weren’t actually talking about a Japanese feline who happens to be an engineering prodigy.
When I was writing I thought to myself, “Oh, should I use this colloquialism that is typical of me, or should I say ‘guy’ instead? Japan does have a preoccupation with cats, maybe people will think I am talking about Hello Kitty or something!”
I mean there is at least one cat in Japan who’s a train conductor or something, I see no reason why Japanese cats couldn’t expand their interests to lettuce farming.
Yeah, well, ultimately I decied to go with “cat” just because I thought, even if there was confusion, wouldn’t it be funny if there was a cat going around sponsoring all these urban renewal projects? That’s a pretty good thing to imagine on a dreary Monday morning (it is very dreary where I am), so we sort of win no matter what!
I’m also in the ‘I really thought you were talking about an entrepreneurial cat’ group, and I snort laughed for a long time at work at that image. I bet he or she would wear one of those cool cat berets that was linked in the knitting projects post.
Am very into imagining the career trajectory of this cat. Maybe he is elected mayor at some point? After some pretty impressive projects in Fukushima, he gets elected to a position in parliament, and is later sent as a UN representative for their global anti-povery project.
I was going to say, if it turned out to be an actual cat, would we really be that surprised?
Oh thank God, I’m not the only one.
Not alone! And I’m gonna be humming “Ziggy Stardust” all day as a result, so this was pretty good all around.
I was confused, but thought, “Well, it is Japan …”.
I’m a land use planner, if you want to build veggie farms, just do it. Don’t get a degree in land use planning (lots of people call it urban, but I work for rural communities, and I don’t love the implication). We don’t really do that kind of thing you are thinking of. Get in with a non profit that does urban space stuff. If you are going to end up being paid 28k a year to work harder than you’ve ever worked, there’s no need for the grad school debt.
I’d go in for master gardening or general contractor or permaculture or solar panel installation and wiring instead if I were going to learn things to help with urban greening. The practical skills are going to serve you much much better.
In fact since I have the audience, I have noted since I got out of school, planning suddenly turned into a cool field and there’s a lot of people getting degrees in it or interested in it. Which is cool, but be careful, because its like being an architect, but with less practical knowledge that you can use to make real stuff, and the relationship between the COOL STUFF you read about on blogs, and what we do from day to day is pretty distant. Some people do the COOL STUFF, but they usually have a background in some other discipline that allows them to do it.
In my experience there’s a pretty significant disconnect between our schooling, which seems super awesome, and being paid to do what we do. A lot of the neat things you read about in planning come from outside our field, and the people doing that cool stuff are probably eventually fighting us gov planners to get the code to allow it. I’d never recommend someone become a “general interest planner” and go to grad school- that way lies some serious unemployment. If you want in, you should pick a hot topic in planning then learn the specialized software or other thing that makes you invaluable and use school to get those skills.
Our employment is directly tied to trends in the building industry as well. After 2007, when the housing bubble burst, so many people in my field got laid off. Which then completely blocked up the market for years, because any open position- you could snap up some community development director from a small town who had been working for 10 years for an entry level position, so new graduates have been really screwed. We’re not bounced back yet. So those are all things to think about.
I had actually been looking at architecture; there’s a pretty good community college architecture program around here, and the basic skills (CAD design, drafting, &c.) seem like they’d be applicable to somewhere else I might want to get a job, too. ON THE OTHER HAND, I hear architecture isn’t a great field to find work in, either.
Maybe I’ll just stay at the welfare office and dream…
Basic skills= very applicable. Its just when you are 100k in debt, working 80 hrs a week, making 30k a year, and have to take 8 years of certification courses, that being an architect seems…not great.
I’d really just recommend take the transferable skills- learn Adobe CS, learn CAD, learn ArcMap, and volunteer with the kinds of groups doing urban ag instead. If you like it, then you might even find a job without a degree, if you don’t, then you aren’t out all the money. Something like 2/3 planners are processing cases, which is taking in an already created design and checking it against the code and maybe suggesting some adjustments, based on narrow parameters, or writing environmental studies for big horrible projects. Not many of us are doing the truck garden thing, and even that is rarely fun, when it comes from the inside- there’s a lot of politics and things that hamper us, even when we agree on the outcomes. Academic planning is lots of fun! All kinds of zany cool trends! Wonderful ways of designing with nature! New ideas about how to use space to enhance community! Professional planning at a firm or for a city is about 25% that stuff or less, and 75%+ just a grind.
If you like change that comes very slowly, can handle that no will thank you, and are prepared to pay your dues processing liquor licenses and counting parking lot spaces on plans…maybe…. also do you like giving presentations? There’s a ton of public speaking in my field, and there’s a lot of planners who are like, “oh I hate giving presentations”, which ?? That’s a huge part of it. You have to present to commissions, to the public, and you take a real shellacking at times. So if you get flustered when someone says, “Why should we listen to you?! It’s all lies!”…then maybe this isn’t the right field.
Oh, hahah, my master’s degree is in theater. I’m ludicrously good at giving presentations.
Don’t get a community college degree in architecture! You need to have a M.Arch to actually become an architect, so a bachelor’s is going to be expensive & get you nowhere good. CAD draftsman is pretty good though; not too $$$, and can be interesting.
Signed, That Lady Architect
THAT TEJU COLE ARTICLE THOUGH.
“The only person in prison for the C.I.A.’s abominable torture regime is John Kiriakou, the whistle-blower. Edward Snowden is a hunted man for divulging information about mass surveillance. Chelsea Manning is serving a thirty-five-year sentence for her role in WikiLeaks. They, too, are blasphemers, but they have not been universally valorized, as have the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo.”
Each paragraph of this piece had me screaming FUCK YES!
Roxane is too modest to link to her own fine piece in the Guardian, but you know it is worth reading.
Roxane’s article is amazing (which is not a surprise nad goes without saying) and just encapsulates so much of what I have felt and much less artfully tried to explain on facebook to “friends”
What did we all think about Tina and Amy going after Bill Cosby? I myself cried laughing, because their impressions were so bad and disrespectful and just fucking perfect.
I’m glad they did it but I was more cringing than laughing.
Can a financial wizard please tell me how this sentence from the Hidden City Piece:
But with airlines’ profit margins as slim as they are, if enough people use the hidden-city method, United could be forced to raise prices to make up for the loss.
jives with the fact that United Airlines posted a 1.1 BILLION DOLLAR profit in the 3rd Quarter of 2014? (up from $379 million in Q3 2013). Is that really a slim margin?
I remember hearing lots of press last year about how airlines were making way more money in general now that they get to charge us for checking bags, having seats that recline, breathing, etc. Sigh.
It seems to me like the biggest issue it creates for the airlines is that it creates false data about the demand for certain routes, which I suppose could lead to cutting into profits. Like if….say a ton of people bought a ticket to Phoenix but then they all go off in San Diego then you could be sending a WAY bigger plane to Phoenix than you need, which translates to wasting money on fuel, having more personnel than you need, etc. It is true that operating an airline is really expensive so I suppose if the hidden city thing created enough problems with resource allocation it could theoretically cut into profits.
The big airlines all seem to scan a barcode on your boarding pass as they let you through the gate. They could definitely pull in data from that to analyze how much this happens and on what routes and so on.
Plus, in your example, presumably they set prices so that the bigger plane to Phoenix is paid for by the tickets people bought for Phoenix, regardless of whether people use those tickets.
Certainly it would be better to not spend that fuel to fly an empty airplane, but I’m not sure it would affect the airline that much.
I haven’t read the hidden-city ticket thing, but one time I changed plans on a European trip, and it would have been cheaper for me to just not show up on two of my pre-bought tickets (from Sicily to Paris, and then I was supposed to fly from Paris to London), and just buy a really cheap European ticket (from Sicily direct to London), and they told me they would cancel my London-Canada flight if I didn’t show up for the Sicily-Paris or Paris-London flights. So I had to change it, at cost to myself, and STILL by a cheap Euro-flight from Sicily to London because fucking Air Canada didn’t’ have a flight for me.
So be careful! They have ways to trick you.
Patricia Arquette! Grand Budapest Hotel! I didn’t watch, but the winners list is pretty great.
Small thread hijack: Seattle Toast meetup! Tomorrow, Tuesday the 13th, 5:30 until whenever, the new Elysian Bar on 2nd between Pike and Pine. 21+ only so if you are a wee toastlet and want to attend, we can find a different venue. If you think you will attend, either join the Seattle Toast fb group and let us know, or email me at lauren at myusername dot com so I can keep you apprised of any changes.
I don’t know, I think I missed most of the good parts of the Golden Globes and just noticed the weird, icky interplay between the presenters. Like Jeremy Renner commenting on Jennifer Lopez’s “globes” and Keven Hart making Salma Hayek (and me) uncomfortable.
I did love Jeffrey Tambor’s acceptance speech. And most of Amy and Tina’s opening. And Lily Tomlin should present at every award ceremony.
Off topic, I just noticed Nicole’s bio for the ToB describes The Toast as “a popular site for women and very strange men” which is perfect.
I've done it as a drunken jolly with friends and as a means to get to Ireland when there was no other feasible route. It always starts out well and descend to the depths of despair somewhere in the irish sea at 4 am. Once a year is the absolute human capacity – and I have done the 5 days straight on a train in Siberia.
The ferry is definitely the worst part. Probably not least of all because you start the 3-hour journey knowing full well that there is another ferry that only takes and hour and half but is so much more expensive.
Not if it's windy there isn't!
My brother once had to change with KLM because he was called last minute for a job interview. They refused to change his flight, threatened to not carry his girlfriend if she showed up without him and told him if he didn't show for his one leg they wouldn't carry him on the return. He ended up buying a whole new return flight from London to Tanzania. Ultimate insult: he ended up in a car crash and needed an air ambulance home so didn't actually use either of the return legs. (Thankfully can still use both of his though)
This happened to me today and I think the only solution is that you start billing the transit co/org/city for all the time you miss.
Why thank you! And yes, he was an amazing inspector.