Musings on the sex life of dinosaurs

The Wild Side
Olivia Judson
A Tyrannical Romance

If Charles Darwin were alive today, he’d be turning 199: like Abraham Lincoln, he was born on Feb. 12 1809.
I considered observing their joint birthday with a discussion of slave making in ants, but rejected that idea in favor of another. For later this week is another Big Day: the feast of St. Valentine. With apologies to Lincoln, I’ve decided to hold a Darwin-Valentine celebration by revealing one of my more tyrannical romantic fantasies. More

Da Couch Replacements

C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E

Dark May Be King, but Milk Chocolate Makes a Move
By JULIA MOSKIN

CHOCOLATE’S dark mood is lightening at last.

Until recently, midnight-black, bittersweet bars with punishing percentages of cacao were, like coffee and wine, on a quest for brooding intensity. Milk chocolate was left behind, dismissed as child’s play, an indulgence in sweetness and nostalgia.

Chloé Doutre-Roussel, a Paris-based expert and former chocolate buyer for Fortnum & Mason in London, says that in a snobbish phase of her youth, she even turned down milk chocolate made by the legendary Robert Linxe of La Maison du Chocolat. “I was in his shop in Paris,” she recalled, “and he offered me a taste of anything, and I put my nose in the air and said, ‘Of course, I only eat dark.’ And he said: ‘Really? Why?’ And I had no idea.” Ms. Doutre-Roussel said that she, like other purists, believed that the lean amalgamation of cacao and sugar that is dark chocolate did not need the addition of a fatty, bland element like milk. More

( Read more... )

WTF

It's not just that I dislike sports or think that they're a colossal waste of money, now we have grown up people in congress holding hearings about it and idiots (even on MPR) pontificating about it.

More Bread! I'm already bored with this Circus.

Hotels...

Tip the housekeeper

Knowing people in high hotel places is fine, but it also pays to know — and to reward — crucial folks much further down the food chain, specifically, the housekeeper. No single person has more impact on the quality of your stay than the person tasked with keeping your room fresh and clean. And in case you’ve forgotten, these women — and most housekeepers are still women — are often minimum-wage workers.

The messier you are, the more you want to tip. The more services you desire — extra towels, off-hours cleanups — the more you want to tip. And leave your tip every day, not at the end of your stay, because the housekeeper may change from day to day. How much to tip? I never leave less than $5 a day, more if I’ve been particularly adept at leaving newspapers and other bits of paperwork strewn about. Leave it on your pillow, so the housekeeper knows that the spiff is for her.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23148701

Tonight

1. Shopping for cheese dunking material


2. Packing for Beantown


3. Resisting the march of a couch to the snowbank


4. Filling out that Medical Savings Form


5. Hauling ass to bed.

Recession?

Lunds is closing from midnight to six am! O! The horror!