elstaffe > Recent Status Updates

"The Metterses' home is beautiful—a Back Bay mansion with formally groomed grounds." (210) a Back Bay what now. Also, no way this family wouldn't be living on Beacon Hill.

"And so we go to Walmart to purchase cell phones." (57) I was told about this line and yet it still stopped me. Pray tell what Boston resident is going to drive to Saugus to a Walmart vs get overnight delivery or, I dunno, go to one of the many phone stores near Back Bay

"'The reality is, I suppose, that I am a straight white man with no diversity or disadvantage to offer as a salve for the fashionable collective guilt that rules publishing. I understand that popular correctness demands that men like me be denied to compensate for all the years in which we were given too much.'" (55) oh so he's a villain

"'Yes, some of these Brahmins are of very decent family,' admitted Lady Ambermere. 'I was always against lumping all dark-skinned people together and calling them n******. When we were at Madras, I was famed for my discrimination.'" (39) I BET YOU WERE EEEEEEEK

"'Beloved lady, I know him very well indeed. I see into his clear white
soul.'" (26)

"He did portraits as well in pastel; these were of two types: elderly ladies in lace caps with a row of pearls, and boys in cricket shirts with their sleeves rolled up. He was not very good at eyes, so his sitters always were looking down, but he was excellent at smiles, and the old ladies smiled patiently and sweetly, and the boys gaily." (20) as it were

"The front door ... that ... Mrs. Lucas had found there was too dilapidated to be of the slightest service in keeping out wind or wet or undesired callers. She had therefore caused to be constructed an even older one made from the oak planks of a dismantled barn, and had it studded with large iron nails of antique pattern made by the village blacksmith." (7)

"Two were of the grey stone of the district and the middle one, to the door of which led the paved path, of brick and timber, latticed windows with stone mullions gave little light to the room within, and certain new windows had been added; these could be detected by the observant eye for they had a markedly older appearance than the rest." (7)

"But the chief difference is that, in Lucia words, 'that horrid thing which Freud calls sex' is utterly ignored. No writer nowadays could allow Georgie to do his embroidery and dye his hair and wear his little cape and sit for hours chatting with Lucia or playing celestial Mozartino, without hinting at Boys in the background." (x)

"As a parting comment we would point out that in the first quotation of this chapter (Isaiah 36:12), the wording 'that they may eat their own dung and drink their own piss' is identical to that of II Kings 18:27. Apparently the later Biblical writer thought this repetition necessary and proper." (134) a good deployment of the necessary and proper clause

"On the ISS there is a limited amount of alcohol that is brought up by the Russians. The official Russian position is that they do not allow alcohol in space, but some of the cosmonauts have friends at the launch center." (170)

"The cans had to be measured, heated, probed, and otherwise abused to see what would happen to them in potential worst-case spaceflight scenarios. They even had to pose for engineering drawings before they could be approved. All space food items have special drawings made, just as if they were a bolt or other piece of flight hardware." (142) pose?

"I only recently figured out that the
'honk if you're horny' bumper stickers were not actually about indicating horniness, but are to make people less likely to honk angrily at you because it would imply that they want to have sex with you rather than implying how bad you are at using your turn signal." (106) today I learned

"The assumption of a nature/nurture binary underlies common debates about whether people are 'born' into a sex/gender, whether trans men and women are 'really' men and women, and whether certain gender roles are 'natural'. We can't know which aspects of our gender are down to nature or nurture, but even if we could tease these things apart, it shouldn't affect how we treat people." (46)

"3 tbsp Emeril's Original Essence[TM]" (103) I beg your pardon

"Caution: If you are in microgravity and plan on using your tortilla as a Frisbee, save the filling step for later. Unevenly spread filling can affect the flight handling characteristics of the tortilla Frisbee and may lead to scattered globs of filling or tortilla Frisbee art adhering to cabin walls." (80)

"Because of the odor problem, bananas and oranges have lost some of their popularity with crews. Some space shuttle commanders, whose word is final, have been known to order 'no bananas on my flight.'" (58) and yet they're chill with canned tuna??

"Some astronauts find the smells objectionable, especially if they become nauseated when entering microgravity (and about half of them do). It would seem like the solution is to seal the fruit and veggies in air-tight bags. Unfortunately, that speeds up the metabolic activity, and spoilage is accelerated." (58)

"'When the bears go,' Aunt Becky said with controlled anger, 'the mountains will fall.' She could not adjust to raped forests. Aunt Becky's shoulders slumped, and Spinner took her arm." (140) was the second from the last sentence supposed to be in the quotes or is that just an observation by the omniscient narrator?

"Spinner turned, put the line over her shoulder, and, slavelike, hauled it up the bar." (9) oh NO 1975

"'Do flowers HAVE bones?'
'Pretty sure flowers are boneless.'
'Like chicken tenders. Or decent mozzarella sticks." (156)

"[Chris Schweizer] lives in Madisonville, KY with his wife and daughter. Every once in a while he gets nominated for Eisner Awards but always loses, and he often has a mustache." (206)

Hard not to love a story that ends with Bees Ex Machina (Demane and Demazana, adapted by Katie and Steven Shanahan)

"1 cup .. cold cereal*
1/3 cup of powdered milk
2 tsp of sugar or 1 packet artificial sweetener
1/2 cup cold water
1 resealable ... bag
1. Put all the ingredients in the bag.
2. When ready to eat, add water and reseal the bag.
3. Shake the bag to dissolve the milk and sugar.
4. Open the bag and eat immediately with a spoon.
5. Write a note to yourself to never do that again unless you become an astronaut." (35)

"BACON BARS
...
After sampling the bar—so that you could say that you tried it—give the rest to the family dog. One nibble, and Fido will prance about the house barking (Translation: 'It's BACON!')." (35)

"The 'secret' was the second freeze drying. Otherwise, it takes boiling water to rehydrate them, and boiling water is not available on NASA spacecraft." (33)

"NASA freeze dries the eggs, adds water back, and freeze dries them a second time. ... The basic scrambled egg formulation has been around since the Apollo days. Originally a commercial company made them for NASA. When it went out of business the company gave the 'secret of the eggs' to NASA to use for space shuttle flights." (33) THE SECRET OF THE EGGS

"In the recipes that follow, the SS stands for 'space shuttle/space station.'
SS SCRAMBLED EGGS" (33) VERY IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION

"The great lifting power of the shuttles engine permitted food scientists to leave some of the natural water in space shuttle foods, which made them taste better and easier to prepare" (5) classic parallelism error

"No matter which profession you pursue, someone will always warn you about the danger of being perceived as 'too gay.' Take this advice very seriously, nod, and reply, 'Darling, I hear you.'" (102) Paul Rudnick