^ Clicky.
I am fascinated by refrigerators. Not in the sense that they keep our perishable food from spoiling ultra-fast, or that they keep our Ones cold (because a One that is not cold is scarcely a One at all). It’s because they almost always become a reflection of our personalities without us even realizing it. Living alone, this is especially true (I believe when multiple people share a fridge, the most dominant personality rules the exterior of the fridge, but that should be another study). Apparently others also think about this topic…
When I moved into my condo a whopping three and a half years ago, I began placing magnetic articles and other accoutrements on my cold-box. This included transplants from my previous refrigerators; going back to my dorm room from the first year of college! Like a black hole of all things magnetic and interesting, not a thing has come off of my beacon of auto-defrosting magic since!
Looking at the various paraphernalia on my fridge, I initially feel a deep sense of familiarity and warmth (ironically). On it are various memories from my past; magnets from the pizza places from college, elections of yesteryear (and the year before that), pictures of my buddies at the local winery, and postcards of random vineyards the world over. For a while, America Express was sending me magnetic versions of their credit cards… since the retail workers didn’t like me running them through the machine they ended up on the fridge (I didn’t take heed of the “THIS IS NOT AN ACTUAL CHARGE CARD” warning). There’s checklists and serving tips from my adventures in working at the wineries (Have fun - if you’re not enjoying it, how can they enjoy it?). Also included are my lolcat lolmagnets, which I have as of yet, not done a whole lot with. Finally, there’s the practical whiteboard with handy dry-erase marker attached, where I can record my grocery shopping list (I’m still trying to figure out why it regularly has “tampons” written on it), recipes (yum - Shade Mountain Mint Mojitos), or random thoughts (about 2.5 years ago I spontaneously remembered the Latin name of an outdoor perennial I liked and I will not erase it until I acquire that plant).
What does this all say about ME? Well… nothing I didn’t already know actually. I’m a politically-minded, scatter-brained pack-rat, who fondly remembers good times with friends and family. And I need tampons for some reason. (I’ll find the whiteboard violating perpetrator one of these days.)
Feel free to share images of your fridge too… What does your refrigerator say about you?
People who are using a winter of heavy snowstorms as rationale against the concept of climate change are morons. If they truly want to stand out there in the blizzard in Washington DC, attacking Al Gore and saying “global warming” is false, they should do the same thing in the summer when it’s 98* outside. It’ll be just as invalid then.
I’ve previously said that I wouldn’t want a Kindle… but hey, if they want to give me one free, I’m sure I’ll buy a book or two from them!
The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
—
Treaty signed by George Washington, 1796.
[Our Founders Were NOT Fundamentalists | The Smirking Chimp]
(via nickdouglas)

A long article, but wow. It’s amazing how much power the Texas Board of Education has over the general education of our entire country.
And how different their own perspective of history is from my own.

Lindsey Van holds the record — among both men and women — for the longest jump off of Whistler, B.C.’s normal ski jump, built for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The 25-year-old skier trains six days a week, 11 months a year and has been jumping for the past 19 years. But when games kick off on Feb. 12, the 2009 women’s ski jumping world champion will be nowhere in sight. That’s because women aren’t allowed to ski jump in the Olympics.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1963447,00.html#ixzz0fRmNvhIp
A response to my recent post regarding a gay adoption battle:
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”
Steven Weinberg, Physicist
Rachel Maddows lists GOP congresspeople who trashed the stimulus bill, then shows them holding giant checks with stimulus money and talking up the stimulus to their home districts.
For ten minutes.
YES!
One last pic of yesterday… I sure hope these people are proud of themselves. Why do I get the feeling that they didn’t have emergencies requiring their presence at a far off location? I have a hunch they needed more French Toast.
And now… the day after:
Just FYI… all these images have been clickable thumbnails. High resolution awaits you!
A little common sense for the masses… don’t put your hand where there are gears and blades moving furiously! Also, don’t put your hand where gears and blades SHOULD BE moving furiously to clear the area. When they start moving again, DUH!
Also: don’t drink and plow!

Good movie… and I think a good man. A self-described “unapologetic sexist, chauvinist redneck,” he certainly did some questionable things, including supplying arms to the Taliban. But back then the bigger evil in the world was the Soviets, and in his defense, he didn’t want to leave them to their own actions. All the schooling and continued aid he recommended was shot down once Russia left Afghanistan.
What’s really interesting about this story, though, is that it actually hasn’t been published until tomorrow, February 11, 2010.
3:13pm - OK… this is a decent snowfall… these cars were cleaned off once today already. Bobcat gave up trying to keep the road clear - we’ll see him again when it’s done snowing.
I made a path along the curb so they plow the whole driveway. There’s also a cool drift on my 3’ wide balcony. Still not the end of the world yet, though.