#yes it can look like shit but we prize taste in this household

[pastafossa]

What is this belief that Matt Murdock can't cook?

You're telling me the man who can sense the temperature of water just by radiant heat, who can determine the exact firmness of some cooking noodles from across the room, who can take a bite of an omelette and likely tell you where it was bought and how long it was cooked based on texture alone, the man who can detect the most perfectly ripe fruits and veggies by touch AND smell, the man who can sense exactly what and how many seasonings were used in a recipe he tastes and therefore replicate that seasoning blend, the man who can tell you exactly when your pie in the oven has achieved peak golden brown flakiness because he knows what perfect crust smells like... can't cook?

Horseshit.

Horseshit.

SHIRE HORSE HORSESHIT.

You want this man in your kitchen, even when his methods are unconventional.

He tends to pick ugly vegetables others skip over because he can't see color or shape but he knows they're ripe and flavorful.

He can't reliably flip pancakes or quesadillas on his bad days because he's tired and his radar senses are worn out and he's still blind afterall, but he can always make amazing soup instead because he can toss it all into a pot and rely on smell.

His cabinets have unusual ingredients until you realize it's because he can identify all the 'secret' ingredients chefs use to make their food taste amazing.

His plating methods are a mess but no one ever cares because in those rare times Matt can afford to cook for someone else, his food tastes too good to complain.

His cookies are mangled shapes, they look like mutated goats with 5 legs if he ever tries to do anything but round balls, but who gives a shit, you come to God when you taste them.

This man does not use a timer. He is a timer, and if you're willing to trust him when he says, 'it doesn't smell done, give it another 2 minutes' even when it looks done, you'll be rewarded with orgasmic level food.

MATT. CAN. COOK.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[sodomyordeath]

When was the last time you wore a full face of makeup? now. Do you own an iPad? Fuck Apple Who was the last non-relative woman you spoke to in person? Coco

What’s the most hours you’ve worked in a week? all week with 6 hours a sleep ever 2 days

Do you believe in karma? no

What temperature is your thermostat currently set to? winter’s over it’s off. What’s a topic you’ve drastically changed your opinion on? I still have the same opinions I always had only my disposition changed.

Are you a kind, thoughtful person? I’m kind to those who are kind to me.

What’s an achievement you hope to see humanity accomplish in your lifetime? I’m not that much of an optimist. If they manage to not wipe themselfes out that’s good enough.

Do you know anyone who has a PhD? Someone who has just one?

Who were you dating in July 2010? Or were you single? I don’t keep records.

How do you feel when you’re the center of attention? Depends, if I get paid for it or not.

Would you rather be a nurse or a mechanical engineer? Both are equally ill-suited for me. I don’t like people enough for the former and I’m bored by simple machines.

Do you like Starbucks chai lattes, or do you think they’re too sweet? I like real Tea.

Are you and your SO facebook official? Fuck Facebook

Do you know how to set a formal table setting for a 3+ course dinner?

Do 9 or none.

Are you in a good mood today?

Fuck No.

Do you know anyone who works as a lawyer?

Some.

Which would bother you more: being told you’re not likable or being told you’re not sensible?

Told by whom?

Do you have a difficult time relating to other’s emotions?

I have exactly no time for that. If I bother to pay attention it’s easy enough. 

How many bedrooms does your house have?

I have no house.

What was the last electronic item you bought?

A phone.

Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis?

I can remember only one time.

Are there any trees in your yard? I have no yard.

What are your most-used apps on your phone? ssh, chrome, tumblr, hangouts, mail

Have you ever bathed in a river or a lake? I took a swim in plenty a natural waters.

When you were 15, what did you want to grow up to be? I decided to go into Computer Science

Did you ever achieve that? yep

Have you ever had a dream in which you died? yes

Have you bought a bag of potato chips in the past week? nope.

Does the thought of having wrinkles when you’re older upset you? I’m in my 40s how much older do I have to get?

How often do you buy a new phone? When I need one

Would you rather live in an apartment in the city, or a cabin in the woods? apartment in the city.

Do you use Snapchat? for what? Have you ever driven or ridden on a motorcycle? yea

If so, what’s the farthest you’ve traveled on one? the fuck should I know?

When was the last time you drank coffee?

21 years ago

Are you in any physical pain right now?

let’s call it discomfort.

Have you ever used a dating app, like Tinder, Bumble, etc? For what?

Do you know anyone who’s struggling with addiction? Who isn’t. Our entire society is structered around us consuming large quantities of shit we don’t need. How more addicted can one be?

Are any other members of your household home right now? the number is one and one is the number.

What was your first job? And how long did you work there? A sweet consulting job took 3 month.

What was your favorite school subject when you were in middle school? Different school system here that doesn’t translate well. I’m an autodidact and very fast reader. When they were “teaching” us basic algebra and “geometry” I was already writing ray tracing renderers for fun in 68k assembler for some time. You can imagine that my questions have been less than welcome.  

“Oh we don’t teach that in this class”

“At what class do we get it?”

“University”

“What the fuck am I doing here?”

History got increasingly more boring as we looked into WW II and that more or less boiled down to “NAZIs Evil”. Once again my questions were less then welcome and I got an other pointer to”University”

I spent a hell of a lot of time in the library alas getting more and more frustrated with the little it had to offer ‘till the librarien had pitty on me and somehow managed that I got access to the university library. 

I discovered Spinoza, Leibnitz and Minsky and branched out from there :-)

the next couple a years I spent “learning” what we were supposed to know for the first couple a weeks of the school year and after I showed that I had enough “understening” of the subject matter I was left alone with my books. That said Theatre class and PE were fine.

My personal taste in music proved incompatible with the music teacher’s preferences (and he managed to spoil Mozart for me for some time) so that didn’t work out. 

The School Paper was fun to do and we won prizes for the time I was a part of it. I also learned that freedom of press doesn’t apply to school papers so I focused on the technical side, layout and typography ( Bézier curves can lead you to strange obsessions). 

Thankfully they did let me skip over 2 classes. It didn’t help much I still had no common ground with the other students and felt like I was surraunded by small apes, cute but not fit for conversations. Still the least fun time in my life.

My friends were usually 5 to 15 years older than me. Some I literally found by running into ‘em at the university library. Thankfully I always looked a good bit older than I was.

[cubaverdad]

To Live As Third Class Citizens

Cuba: To Live As Third Class Citizens / Iván García Iván García, 17 March 2017 — On a wooden shelf are displayed two bottles of liquid detergent, a dozen packs of Populares cigarettes, a packet of coffee, and, on a hastily-drawn poster, a quotation from the deceased Fidel Castro. Past 10:30 am, the hot bodega [in this case a store where rationed items are sold] is like a steam oven. Luisa, the saleswoman, seated on a plastic chair, tries to start up a rusty residential fan. In the background can be heard the baritone voice of an announcer narrating a soap opera scene. In the bodega's storeroom, stacked in random heaps, are 10 or 12 bags of rice, a half-empty container of vegetable oil, and several bags of powdered milk that the State provides exclusively for children younger than 7 years of age and for individuals who possess medical documentation of having cancer or some other grave illness. Sitting on the stoop at the store's entrance, two dirty guys knock back mouthfuls of rum from a small jug while a stray dog, old and ragged, urinates on the door. The monotony of the surreal panorama is broken when the saleswoman hurls a piece of hose at the dog to frighten it away. After a while, customers begin arriving, nylon bags dangling from their forearms and ration books in their hands. To all who were born in Cuba, the regime sells 7 pounds of rice, 20 ounces of black beans, a pouch of coffee blended with peas, a half-pound of vegetable oil, and 1 pound of chicken per month–and on a daily basis one bread roll, almost always poorly made. This subsidized market basket, if consumed in small portions at lunch or dinner, will probably last 10 or 12 days. After that, for the remainder of the month, people are on their own. Housewives and mothers who, after getting home from work, must turn on the stove should be given prizes for creativity. To feed a family requires 90 percent of the household income. Those who make a low salary (which is the majority of the population) have no choice but to purchase average to low-quality merchandise offered by the State. Those who receive remittances from family or friends abroad in hard currency can purchase higher-quality products. The ration book, which was implemented in March 1962, is the reason that thousands of Cubans have not died of hunger. Although what they eat remains a mystery. Luisa the saleswoman says that "for four months now, the rice we get at the bodega is dreadful. Nobody can eat it. Not even the best cook could make it better. It sticks, forming a sludge, and it tastes like hell. And don't even mention the beans. They've been taken from the state reserves, where they've been stored for ages. They have a terrible smell. And you could try cooking them for four or five hours and they still wouldn't soften. This is rice and beans that pigs would not eat." But Diego and María, a couple of pensioners who between the two of them take in the equivalent of 25 dollars a month, cannot afford the luxury of discarding the subsidized rice. "I mix it with the rice that's sold at 4 Cuban pesos per pound; it's pretty good, and this way we can eat it. If you live in Cuba you can't be picky. You have to eat what they give you, or what you can find," María emphasizes. If you go around inside any state-run cafeteria, you will note that hygienic standards are nonexistent: stacks of cold-cut sandwiches, fritters or portions of fried fish on aluminum trays surrounded by a chorus of flies. The elderly, those great losers in Raúl Castro's timid economic reforms, tend to eat foods of low nutritional value and worse preparation, just to lessen their hunger. There is a chain of state-run dining halls on the Island that serve lunch and dinner to more than a half-million people who are in extreme poverty. One of these facilities can be found in the old bar Diana, located on the busy and dirty Calzada Diez de Octubre street. The rations cost 1 Cuban peso. According to a Social Security roster provided to the administrator, about 100 Havana residents–almost all low-income elderly people–are served there daily. At two steel tables covered with cheap cloths, three women and four men, holding their old metal bowls, await the day's rations. "The food isn't worth mentioning. A bit of rice, often hard, watery beans, and a croquette or a boiled egg. Sometimes they give you a little piece of chicken," says Eusebio, a retired railway engineer who lives by himself. A dozen people interviewed complain more about their bad luck, about having no money and being dirt-poor, than about the bad cooking. "Yes, it's bad, but at least in these dining rooms we can count on getting lunch and dinner," notes Gladys, a single mother of four daughters who receives Social Security. A staff member admits that "it's very difficult to cook well without seasonings and condiments. Nor do we get vegetables and fruits. On top of that, the administrator and the cooks make off with the oil and the chicken when we get them." In Cuba, what is bad, unpleasant and incorrect goes beyond food preparation. You can find it in the dirty stands that hold vegetables and fruits, in the sale of unwrapped goods, or the adulteration of standards for making sausages and weighing them appropriately at the point of sale. "It shows a lack of respect towards the population. Anything that you buy in Cuban pesos is of horrible quality. It's the same for clothing, hardware items or household items. In general, what is sold to the people is shit. Look at these bags of watery yogurt," Mildred points out while standing in line at a state store to buy whipped yogurt at 15 Cuban pesos per bag. Even when purchases are made with convertible pesos*, it is hard in Cuba to buy items of assured quality. But Cubans, who must eat, dress and enjoy their leisure time by paying for it with the national currency– the Cuban peso–must make do with devalued merchandise. They are third-class citizens in their own country. Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison *Translator's note: Cuba has two currencies: Cuban pesos, worth about 4 cents US, and Cuban Convertible pesos, each worth 25 Cuban pesos, or about one dollar US. It has been a longstanding, but as yet unfulfilled, promise of the government to move to a single currency. Source: Cuba: To Live As Third Class Citizens / Iván García – Translating Cuba - http://ift.tt/2nxNITm via Blogger http://ift.tt/2mMPOKE