Have you ever wondered about the eccentric person you see occasionally?
Churches in Texas take fitness seriously. There are churches with their own running tracks! Who knew?
There is a woman who lifts things with her vagina. Her vagina possesses a mighty strength. I don’t know.
I love SkyMall so it was with particular sadness that I read about the bankruptcy of SkyMall, purveyor of extraordinary nonsense.
Do not cross The Beyhive. Michelle Williams has words for Mike Huckabee who dared let Queen Bey’s name fall out of his mouth in a disrespectful manner.
This article says people who work from home get more done. I’m glad they didn’t study me for this piece.
Here is that fake boyfriend that will come in handy with relatives, strangers on the street, and the loneliest corner of your soul.
One of the core premises of Invisible Boyfriend, the wildly viral new service that invents a boyfriend to deceive your pestering family and friends, is that the user will not, under any circumstance, fall in love with her fictional beau.
But I’ve been using the service for 24 hours, and I gotta wonder: How can you not fall in love with him? After all, the service — which launched publicly last Monday — takes the concept of virtual intimacy further than basically any of the lolzy fake-date apps before it.
There are many pockets of curiosity in the world and this is where the bikini bodybuilding ladies hang out.
“Bodybuilder” is not the first word that comes to mind when you see Ashley Kaltwasser. She has a sprinter’s body and a pageant girl’s good looks. Her teeth are bleach-white, nails French-manicured, hair dyed black and Keratin-treated so it falls in a glossy curtain down her back. When we meet in her fifth-floor room at The Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas, she’s in her stage makeup — fake lashes, heavy powder. It’s a late September afternoon, the day before the 2014 Bikini Olympia competition, and Kaltwasser is already dark from her first layer of spray tan. She’ll get another layer before bed and one more the next morning. The contest rules call for “a natural and healthy tan,” but Kaltwasser always goes for Boehner orange because it looks better onstage. The table, the bed, and the bathroom are strewn with what can best be described as product: bottles of serums, sprays, powders, glosses, and scrubs.
Putting the small in small business.
Here is a great word.
There is some kind of international chocolate crisis brewing.
“Have you tried Hershey’s chocolate?” asked Nicky Perry, a longtime British expatriate living in New York.
“I’d never sell it in my store,” she said, using a string of imaginative expletives to describe how the ubiquitous American chocolate tastes to her.
Opera is pretty.
Maria Callas converted me to opera. I am sure I am not unique in this, except in the particulars. In my early college years I immersed myself in recordings of the nineteenth-century symphonic repertory—Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, the Russians—but for a long time I refused to listen to opera, would listen to an overture and then rush to change the record before the singing started. Then one day my roommate put Callas’s 1953 Tosca on the turntable and dropped the needle onto “Vissi d’arte.” I had no idea what she was singing, but near the conclusion of that imploring aria, as she comes to the end of the arching wordless phrase that soars from an A down slightly to a G, there is an audible intake of breath. She gasps—or is it a sob?
My mom’s suburban Texas church isn’t on that list, but they do have a running track, basketball court, and fitness center. I guess I just assumed all large-ish churches had those amenities! And it’s hella cheap too- something like $10/month, and you don’t have to be a church member or even religiously inclined at all to join.
My mom goes to the gym at the JCC, because it’s well-priced and it’s just old Russian ladies and not super-fit young people there.
I work out at my mom’s JCC too when I’m home! I really like it. When I work out at the gym at my school, I’m surrounded by hundreds of hot young people, and that motivates me to work out for a pretty vain purpose. When I work out at the JCC, I’m motivated to work out so that I can stand up straight when I’m 70.
I thought it was going to be the other Michelle Williams, for some reason.
There is a blizzard, and for once this winter, Buffalo isn’t getting it. Feeling some Schadenfreude right now. But also hoping no one dies. Stay safe, stay warm!
They’re expecting 36″ of snow in Monmouth County NJ where I am…leaving work at 11am-noon or so today and packing up my chinchilla and heading to my parents’ house. There’s a strong chance I’ll lose power, and if we do there goes my heat and it won’t be safe. Ugh, self-imposed evacuations suck. Stay safe everyone!
Lots of luck!
Yeah, we’re all feeling much the same way in Northern Michigan.
Last night, I checked my Twitter and saw the billions of tweets about stocking up for “the storm” and I almost yelled, “THERE’S A STORM COMING?”
Turns out I just follow a lot of people in NYC. (I live in Toronto.)
I had the same panic! (I live in Alberta.) I checked the forecast and nope, we’re going to keep having unseasonably mild weather for a while yet. Phew.
Same here. I moved to northern BC figuring I’d be weathering all sorts of storms, but the only bad weather we seem to get lately is the current “it’s so mild there might be floods and the roads are kind of icy from the rain!”
Same! Although I feel like after surviving that ice storm last year, a blizzard would be nothing (provided I could get by without leaving my house, of course).
Same! Cut to me at noon today taking a walk in a t-shirt because it is 58 degrees in Nebraska.
MrChouffe is so pissed about the chocolate thing.
I posted that very same article on my Facebook yesterday morning and my Scottish BFF has offered to send care packages. What a champion she is :’)
Good BFF! We’re hoping that the in-laws step it up. MrChouffe pines without his Yorkie bars and English Kit-Kats.
You can get English chocolate in Canada.
True, and we do have a lot of friends in Canada. I think the closest border crossing to us is Sault Ste Marie, so it’s probably worth a trip to stock up 🙂
The Bulk Barn has great selection
It’s terribly upsetting. British chocolate is infinitely superior to American! BUT starting today I am giving up sugar for awhile, so I guess the timing is pretty good.
I AM FULL OF RAGE. As it is, I haven’t found anywhere in/around DC that has lots of British Cadbury Dairy Milks, so I end up stocking up every time I go home to Boston (there’s an amazing convenience store that stocks ALL the Irish confectionary).
It’s kind of scary how bereft I’m feeling right now.
I am FULL OF ANGER about this. Hershey’s is crap, and making it harder for us to get non-crap chocolate is not gonna make us suddenly want to eat the crap chocolate, it’s just gonna make us mad! >:(
As one of my FB friends put it, “we would have never gone through with the Revolution had we realized this would be the consequence.”
God save the queen!
Oof, I visit a local tea shop that imports a lot of British sweets. That’s not the main part of her business but it’s certainly a significant part. I hope it doesn’t affect her much!
As a bald eagle eating flag hurling red blooded American, my knowledge of non American chocolate is admittedly scant. We had some in Ireland, but mostly spent a lot of time rolling our eyes at those candy bars that say “NOT FOR BIRDS” because…really?
I thought at first “well obviously, chocolate might kill birds”.
I guess what I’m saying is, I have no idea what I’m missing out on.
Maybe they were sexist candy bars and they meant birds as in women.
I also have no knowledge of overseas chocolate (chocolate is not my thing anyway) but I’m unreasonably delighted by “NOT FOR BIRDS.” If I was going to warn against giving chocolate to any one animal it would probably be dogs?
Unfortunately they meant “women”, as birds can mean women over there. I liked it better when it was just a weird warning about feeding chocolate to pigeons.
Re: British chocolate, this is, no joke, one of the main reasons I’m thankful to live in Canada.
Do we get British chocolate here? Is that a thing? Am I missing something important to love about my home country?
Tbh, everything sweet is done better there. COFFEE CRISP. Also, I never thought I would say this before I moved to the south, but butter tarts are actually an improvement on pecan pie. There, I said it.
In Huckabee’s new book, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy.
Of course.
Apparently I mentally block out the work Huckabee so I read that as “Ina’s new book, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy” and was both confused and distraught.
They’ve been going through the ridiculousness of that book over at Wonkette on a weekly feature called “Sunday With the Christianists” and it has been delightful. Fun times. Before Huckabee’s book they reviewed home schooling history books. The whole series is enough to make my head hurt.
My only exposure to this was on the Daily Show, and watching Jon Stewart just barely tolerate republicans is one of the best things there is.
As an American living in the UK, a pox on both their chocolate houses. German/swiss chocolate is where it’s at. I would definitely commit a misdemenor and possibly a felony if I could guarantee myself a lifetime supply of ragusa.
Still, I would suggest you toddle off to Holland & Barrett and get yourself some Green& Black-brand chocolate. A world away from Cadbury’s et al.
Indeed. I don’t like Cadbury at all, and I haven’t had a Hershey’s bar in a very long time, but RitterSport is the good stuff.
I don’t even care for milk chocolate that much (white chocolate is an abmonination). It’s gotta be north of 70% dark for me.
I think “pseudery” will be what I say in professional situations instead of “fuckery”… not an exact synonym, but if I replace pseudery with fuckery in the examples given in the definition, it seems perfect!
I have a box of Lindor pralines from my Christmas trip to Switzerland. It’s supposed to be a gift for my brother and sister-in-law, but I don’t know when we’ll have the opportunity to visit them (they live 2 hours away) and meanwhile it’s just sitting there in my apartment, in its shrink wrap, with its pristine green bow, taunting me.
I would eat it and pretend I got them something else. Maybe a nice candle. “Nope, I really got it in Switzerland! I know it says Bath and Body Works but it’s, uh, a Swiss version. Enjoy.” And just be sure to wipe the chocolate stains off your mouth.
Bad und Body Werks.
Unnecessary Literal German Translation: Bad und Körper Werke. Use this as you may…
I noticed two instances of weird German-to-French translations over there, both on food packaging. One was a carton of eggs that were allegedly laid by “a free-range Swiss farmer” and another was a carton of milk with a lengthy explanation about how the cows that produced it lead “draconian lives.”
Thank you, now I have tea in my nose *sporfle*
When I work from home, I spend more time goofing around on the internet (see: today) but I get more done overall. 8-10 hours of work in the office take me 3-4 hours at home, because I’m not distracted by phone calls and needy clients stopping by my office unannounced. I think my quality of work is better when it’s from home, too.
My productivity soars when I work from home, partially because I’m not distracted by office meetings, etc., and partially because I don’t have a freaking 3.5-hour commute to and from work. It’s the one thing that totally blows about living in the ruburbs (rural suburbs).
Me too! When I moved and started working from home, I also got back 2+ hours a day of commuting that I now spend working (and sleeping, to be fair). SO MUCH BETTER
I think it has something to do with that mentality of having to do it. You feel kind of rebellious when you know you’re supposed to be working right now, and you kind of try to see how much non-working you can get away with. (Or I did when I worked in offices, anyway.) Whereas if you don’t do the work at home, no one cares but you. It hurts no one but you. You’re not getting away with anything if you fuck around.
Not to say I don’t fuck around! But I definitely have less inherent rebellion against the idea of getting work done.
Samesies! I get more done at home because at work I resent that people can see my screen and I HAVE to be staring at the stupid screen all day. At home I can just naturally take breaks when I feel like it, and those breaks can be away from the screen more easily, so I get more done.
Yep. I like my work, but I hate my commute, and the office is always too cold.
And also “friendships and mentorships that naturally develop” my *ass*. Maybe at other jobs, or with other people, but…no. My co-workers and I sit at cubes with our backs to each other, exchange maybe five words if we cross paths at the coffee machine, and that is fucking awesome, because I *have* friends already.
(I’m going to try and negotiate for a more remote schedule soon, and if my boss brings up the “What if you’re chatting with co-workers and have an idea?” thing, I’m looking for a diplomatic way to say that we haven’t chatted in five years and I don’t intend to start any time soon.)
I find the whole world of female bodybuilding super fascinating, especially since now there’s a girl on my Facebook who is OBSESSED with becoming one of the bikini bodybuilding competitors. It still seems slightly bizarre to me, so I’m just watching with my chin in my hands and remembering the Real Sports piece on them from years ago (it made a serious impression on me).
That article was so good! I was all “life is a rich tapestry” until the quote “I like Sweden ’cause there are no homeless people” and then I decided I didn’t like the main girl anymore.
I…well, hate-follow isn’t quite the word since she seems like a genuinely nice if weird person, but I friended someone on Facebook just to side-eye her sparkly bikini bodybuilding career. That, and her wierd shilling for some company that sells literal buckets of egg whites and gifs of her working out with #Fit #Workout #Gym #LegDay #Glutes #BeefyQuads #IRLBarbie #ILuvMyFitFam #NoDaysOff #Blessed.
“One of the core premises of Invisible Boyfriend, the wildly viral new service that invents a boyfriend to deceive your pestering family and friends, is that the user will not, under any circumstance, fall in love with her fictional beau. But I’ve been using the service for 24 hours, and I gotta wonder: How can you not fall in love with him?”
I feel like if falling in love with your Invisible Boyfriend is a legit risk for you, you are probably not Invisible Boyfriend’s target demographic…
The piece briefly notes that it’s popular in regions where living as a lesbian is particularly difficult… and then goes on to tie it into the broader social trend of falling in love with people who only exist on screens. Swing and miss, I’d say.
I will literally fall in love with anything, especially if it’s fake.
Sorry if this is a repost, but I figured fancasting Kristen Stewart into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is something the people of The Toast would be interested in.
PUNISHER. I LOVE IT.
I will never not click on one of Roxane’s Rich People links.
Was anyone else reading the Haney piece and thinking she’s probably uncomfortable because a man she doesn’t know is talking to her on public transportation, not because she’s “eccentric”
Even American brands taste better overseas! I think they have rules about some of the ingredients we commonly use here, so the official recipe is altered for European tastes. Sugar instead of corn syrup, for a start. I remember being in a study-abroad program and getting a Twix bar out of a machine. I couldn’t believe how fucking good it was.
SAME. It was so good it was basically a betrayal.
Maybe! I find that sometimes the novelty is what makes it seem to taste better? Or there definitely seems to be a bit of “everything’s better in Europe” going on in these chocolate comments. I’ve been living in Germany for nearly five years now and I still request to be sent sweets from the US. Maybe it was the wine, but I shook my 6 x 6 packages of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups shaped like trees in triumph over my head when I opened up my Christmas package from my parents. This is my patriotism showing, I suppose.
Reese Cups were pretty much the only American candy I wanted when I lived in the UK. You can get them there now, but you couldn’t the first time I was there and I wanted them SO MUCH.
Otherwise, I mostly could do without American chocolates. I’m not too fond of Cadbury any more either (too sticky sweet), but if I had to pick between Hershey and Cadbury, it’d be the British chocolate all the way. Or, more likely, I’d skip them both and get a Lindt bar.
Yeah, you can get the Reese’s here too but they are crazy expensive, so I usually just get RitterSport or a Duplo, which are both under a euro. To move away from chocolate, the one thing I seem to really want SO MUCH are Cheetos (which definitely are not here), and I never bought in the US. Now when I visit my parents, I usually inhale a giant bag within 24 hours.
Go to Holland! There’s Cheetos here. Well, only the puffy kind, not the dense kind, but it’s better than nothing. (What I can’t get, of all things, is unsweetened iced tea. I go through gallons of it when I come home.)
I do find that people don’t like things to be as sweet here in the Netherlands as Americans do. Not sure about rules or anything like that.
Definitely the same for Germans. The number one critique of American desserts is ALWAYS that they are “calorie bombs” and too sweet.
Toasties, if you live in New England and you’re not following the French Toast Alert System on facebook right now, you should reconsider your priorities.
I need to know! – – how do I find it? Search isn’t working for me. I’m in NJ, but am from MN, so maybe I’m being overcredulous?
wait I found it! hahahah
the oxford link isn’t working for me, i want to know what the cool word is!
I didn’t get a specific entry, but the sidebar listed “Niflheim” as the word of the day, which is pretty cool.
This write-up on abortion education in Canadian med schools is really eye-opening: http://www.chatelaine.com/living/features-living/… Two standout bits of info:
1.) A new clinic will be opening in the same place as the Mortgentaler clinic, thanks to crowdfunding efforts last fall (yay!)
2.) Health Canada is going to rule on mifespristone this fall (right around election time, incidentally.)
I’ve read many articles claiming that Ottawa has extremely long abortion wait times, because only the Morgentaler clinic downtown and one hospital perform them… those articles are several years old by this point, but I haven’t read anything suggesting the situation has improved. :/
im so late and this is so irrelevant but i just read an untamed state, and PLEASE why is noone talking about what an ass michael is. like, everyone talks about how charming their courtship is but helloooo he is constantly not respectful of her personhood, doesnt let her in her car when they have an argument, is really forceful sexually in a not nice way when they hardly know each other. why why why has no one talked about this? i mean leaving aside him being shitty afterwards, he is a terrible person! PLEASE REPLY I NEED ANSWERS
I certainly didn’t write Michael as a shitty person. I respect that perception but he’s a guy, doing the best he can. Miri is 100% on board with his sexual style. She knows how to stand up for herself, particularly with Michael.
thank you so much for replying! i guess i think that because that is soooo not my sexual style. p.s. it is an amazing and powerful book xxxxxx
also, i didnt mean to address the all caps scream for answers directly to you, sorry that seems really demanding reading it back. but the standing in front of the car thing still bothers me. not as in the writing but as in i dont like michael. but thats ok
Opera is indeed pretty. (Says one who spent Saturday evening in the standing room area at the Met, weeping quietly over Sonya Yoncheva’s Violetta in La Traviata.)
I love opera. The first opera I ever saw was a local production of Faust and I just felt…..like, so GOOD. Like I had been missing this thing in my life and I didn’t even know it and it just clicked into my brain in this amazing way.
I will always remember the first time I heard Dame Joan Sutherland’s ’79 recording of La Traviata with Pavarotti. Chills. Chills. When she sang the Act 1 finale, listening to her cadenzas felt like there was an electric current going up and down my spine. She was literally mind-numbingly good.
“the Gwyneth Paltrow of vagina lifting”
O.o
Re: International Chocolate Crisis: it’s bad. British friends are super loyal to British choc and are in a state of panic (or writing home for shipments from family). I’m reading this right now, about the origins of the chocolate industry and how it all got so competitive: http://www.amazon.com/Chocolate-Wars-150-Year-Riv… (I’m still on the “origins” part).
Working at home more productive! HA! I tried it once, and was at one time both the worst employer and the worst boss I ever had. I had to let myself go.
My son uses one of those church gyms in the top 20 list! He’s not a chuch goer but joined there (something like $25/month) when a friend was training him. We used to go there for basketball games, too, in one of his youth leagues, and we’d see people jogging on their elevated jogging track during the games.
The JCCs here have great gyms, too, though my synagogue doesn’t have anything – well, it is near a nice park with a jogging path & tennis courts, and sometimes I go there while the other son is at religious school.
I didn’t realize this whole workout-where-you-worship thing was unusual. Oh, Texas, you contain multitudes.
I’m going to miss SkyMall so much, you guys.
I will literally fall in love with anything, especially if it's fake.
Oh, hagelslag is definitely a thing, but you'll note that it's put on bread (which is less sweet here, as I realized when I went home and made myself an egg sandwich) and not on top of ice cream. I'm not saying they don't like sweets, they definitely like sweets, they're just a bit less sweet.
I really wanted more details about the penthouse! Were there pictures? My computer loads some web pages really slowly, and I couldn't tell if it was done and that's all there was, or if there were pictures I was missing.
Thanks to the great word link (and it is indeed a great word) I have discovered that I can access the OED with my library card. Bless you forever.