On full vs. partial RSS feeds

tl;dr: If you use partial RSS feeds, I hate you.

Unless you're living in the year 2005, don't give me the bullshit about needing to track clickthroughs.  You know and I know that every RSS tracking tool like Feedburner makes counting clickthroughs unnecessary. 

And if you're a small-time (yes still fabulous) blogger and you're using a partial RSS feed, you have no excuse.

Here's another argument you may not have heard: corporate firewalls.

I spend 99% of my Internet time at work behind a corporate firewall.  So no YouTube for me.  Which is (usually) fine.  But they also block a random assortment of sites like LiveJournal and Tumblr.  DeviantArt, Blogger, Wordpress, Wimp, Liveleak -- those are A-OK.

So if I have the forethought to add an RSS feed of from a blog on one of the forbidden sites to Google Reader when I'm at home I can at still read them at work.

But if I only get the first sentence or a paragraph or two and am expected to click through to the site to read the rest, that's the end of the experience for me.  If you need to put an ad in your RSS feed, fine.  I'm going to block it with a browser plug in anyway, same as the ones on your main page.  Just put the damn content in your full feed for fuck's sake.

So to you partial RSS feeders, I say fie!  FIE ON YOU!

I'm looking at you, The Sneeze, Mila's Daydreams, Waiter Rant, Black Agenda Report, John K, Mom-101, A. Lee, and Blah Blah Babycakes.

Those are just the blogs.  The Kitchn does THE MOST ANNOYING THING IN THE WORLD.  If they cross-post something from Re-Nest or Ohdeeoh or one of their other sites and I don't notice that it's a cross-post, not only do I have to click through to Kitchn, but then I have to click through AGAIN to get to the actual content.  This is the WORST THING EVER.

I stand with Planned Parenthood

I stand with Planned Parenthood because I know firsthand how scary and frustrating it can be to not have health insurance and need basic reproductive health services that are offered on a sliding scale.

 

This is part of Fair and Feminist's I Stand with Planned Parenthood Blog Carnival.

Monday Meal Plan

Here's this week's meal plan.  (Full recipes and shopping list here)

Tamale pie
Creole codfish
Welsh Rarebit
Honey-Jalapeno Chicken with Sesame Soba Noodles
Boston baked beans and Outback Bushman Bread
Corn Chowder

The first three recipes are from Foods That Will Win the War and How to Cook Them, and I'm very excited about it.  They are cheap, easy, and above all, fast.  We've been struggling with getting dinner into Lily early enough to head off her post-six-PM-breakdowns.  I definitely need to do more cook-ahead recipes but who has the time for that?  Hey look, here's a timely article about this problem that every parent seems to have.

I want to cook more vintage recipes.  I'm not sure why.

Something I've kept my mouth shut about

I just read the most amazing thing.

I've been out of roller derby for about 3 years now... more if you count my last active season where I was hurt and sick for most of it.  Now that I've been out of the game for this long, severed almost all derby ties, and finished up my derby-related physical therapy (waited years too long to get on that...), I feel like I might be able to talk about it a little bit.

The decision to walk away from derby was not an easy one.  But at the same time the decision to quit brought me the greatest sense of relief I've ever experienced.

I almost went back after the fact.  And when they asked if I wanted to play in an exhibition game, I almost didn't delete the email.

Firstly, I absolutely don't have time to commit to derby any more.  It would be like having a very intense second job, only I'd be losing money to it hand over fist.  When you have a husband, a toddler, a full-time job, a weekly D&D game, a growing social life, and plans to go back to school, that shit just isn't going to fly.

But my time aside, I don't know if I can handle the disappointment.

One of my major character flaws is that my default belief in people is that they are all kind, decent, intelligent human beings with common sense and everybody else's best interest at heart.  That's why I'm disappointed so often.  I just can't bring myself to be jaded all the time.

After dealing with the gossips, the attention whores, the cliques, and the mean girls for three 2-hour practices a week plus committee meetings plus charity and PR events plus the actual bouts themselves, I just couldn't do it anymore.  I wasn't asking for my hand to be held and my back to be pat every single moment of every single day, but I certainly wasn't prepared to be written off as a socially retarded, untalented failure so quickly.  I'll own up to being socially retarded any day of the week, but it's not like I didn't try to talk to people.

Once your team gives up on you and decides that you're a liability, you get pushed into the background.  So you need more practice on the track?  Too bad -- they're putting in the best girls all the time so they can use the time to get better.  So you need some pointers every now and again?  Too bad -- they don't have time for you since you'll probably only be skating in two jams a period anyway.  Maybe it would have been different on a different team.  Maybe not.

You know when I knew I wasn't valuable to my team?  When I started being put in the penalty box as a sub (when that was allowed).  I took that, wrapped it into a ball, put it inside of me, and used it to fuel my rage.  If I was putting 80% of my effort into practices before that started happening, I started putting 200% of effort in afterwards.  And that was great for a while.  I got stronger, I got faster, I got more confident.

But I was already written off.  So every day that I'd come to practice and be made to sit out longer and longer during practice bouts, I'd give less and less of myself to the game.  I'm not going to lie -- I was sort of relieved when I injured my wrist and ankle, as much as that fucking hurt.  At least then I had a good reason to be on the sidelines.

Don't think I'm whining or complaining about my derby experience.  Really.  Don't.  This is what happened and I learned from it.  I haven't given up on humanity yet.  I'd love to say that I made a ton of good friends and had a great time 100% of the time but that's just not true.  I'm still glad that I did it.  I proved to myself that I was stronger than I thought I was.  Making it on to a team was the toughest thing I've ever had to do until I gave birth.

Actually, birth was less exhausting than tryouts.

Love,
Kim Jong Kill (1/2 - Dagger Dolls)

P.S. LOL at the Excel Energy Center that has a huge MNRG mural in the lobby that has me skating in the background.  Time to update your photography, yo.

Surly Brewing and a very important MN business rights issue

UPDATE: Here's how we can help.

We went on the Surly brewery tour on Friday.  It was long overdue and something I look forward to doing again.  Mostly because you get to drink free beer with Omar, the owner.  He seems like a seriously nice dude.

We happened to go on Surly's 5th anniversary.  It was also a few days after they announced plans to build a "Destination Brewery, Bar/Restaurant and Event Center".  Such a thing would bring:

1. Jobs.  About 85 temporary construction jobs and about 150 more permanent jobs thereafter.
2. Economic stimulus around whatever part of the Twin Cities it ends up being built.
3. More delicious Surly beer.
4. Surly beer that's easier to find in liquor stores in the metro and once again in out-state MN and around the region. 

There is no downside, folks.  They're not asking for any tax breaks or public money.

But in order to make this happen, MN law needs to change.  The Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association does not want their cartel interfered with (even though Surly would have to give up their self distribution model and move to the MLBA system) and are going to be standing in the way of new legislation.  They don't have any kind of rational, coherent argument but they do have deep pockets.  Here's more details on the situation. Here's even more details from Omar.  And one more article here.

Omar giving the "tour"

The first thing that needs to happen to get these laws changed is to get a proposal into a subcommittee.  Surly has hired a lobbying firm and we are all awaiting their further instructions. 

Omar's dad

Omar again, by the boiler and fermenters

Husband and the wall of cans

Yours truly and the wall of cans

How to help, Part 1:

Stanley's Northeast Bar Room is having an event to support Surly this Saturday the 19th.  They will be collecting signatures to send to the MN Capitol.

Contact your legislators.  Surly just released the how, why, and what.  This will be easier once we have a reference number of some type but it wouldn't hurt to do it now and again later.  

Time for my Monday compulsions

I'm writing this on Monday but I'm going to space out my posts so I'm not spamming my RSS feed all in one day. 

Every time I think that I've finally got this OCD thing stuffed back down inside, another Monday rolls around to prove me wrong.  My compulsions haven't gone away completely but I've got it down to one that's on pretty much full time that I can completely hide from the world.  If it means I have to deal with that all the time or go back on medication, I'll just deal with it.  As compulsions go it's fairly inane.

No, I won't be discussing what it is.  I'm already self conscious enough about it.

So Monday rolls around and suddenly I'm "on" again.  I feel like some kind of tweaker has taken over my brain and I'm all twitchy and jumpy and start freaking out about labels being on straight (gotta do it seventeen times just to make sure it's "right") or the imaginary dust on my desk or whatever.  I have to brush the imaginary specks off my paper until it's "right".  I have to breathe a certain number of times in a certain number of steps.  I can't have anyone else's "air" in my lungs when I pass them in the hall.  I'm just north of being completely out of control.  My body tightens up, my breathing gets shallow, and my head feels claustrophobic.  The claustrophobia gets tighter and tighter until all these dumb things are "right".

All of this usually subsides by lunchtime, thankfully.  But it's stupid scary as hell when it's happening.

The first of two important issues this week

It was a tough week

Last week wasn't the best.

I was coming back from a cold/stomach illness from the week before.  I was ready to get back to the gym all week and get on with week 4 of C25K.  Then on Monday morning Lily started running a mild fever.  We sent her off to daycare with a dose of acetaminophen and all was well that day until about 5:00 that night.  The fever returned with a vengeance.  Ibuprofin didn't seem to touch it but acetaminophen did the trick.  She woke up with a 103 F fever on Tuesday morning so I stayed home with her.  She was in good spirits despite the fever coming back every 3-4 hours.  We played with her toys and watched Yo Gabba Gabba.

She still had a fever on Wednesday and it was barely being controlled by Tylenol.  All she wanted to do was cuddle on the couch.  I spoke to an after-hours nurse and did an over the phone triage.  She was fine but the nurse wanted us to bring her in on Thursday if she still had the fever because 3 days is getting into not-a-virus territory.  We didn't make it that long.

She woke up crying at 1:00 AM.  I took her temp with a temporal thermometer.  Surely that reading can't be right... this thing is kind of wonky anyway... let's do under the armpit then.  It hadn't even beeped yet when I saw the temperature: 104.3... meaning her internal temp was above 105.  I didn't wait to find out how high it was going to go.  I very quickly gave her another dose of acetaminophen and woke Husband up.  "We need to go the hospital."

Husband: "We need to go to the hospital?"  He repeats things when he's sleepy.

Me: "NOW."

We got everyone bundled (it was SO COLD) and drove to Abbott Northwestern, a hospital I'm not super wild about but is the closest to our house.  We were informed that they don't see children at that ER because Children's Hospital right next door handles them.  What?  There's a Children's Hospital in Minneapolis?

They took her vitals (thankfully the fever was already down below 105), gave us the transfer paperwork, and sent us next door.  After dealing with a grumpy triage nurse we were taken back within five minutes by a delightful young man who told us we just missed a huge rush.  If we had gotten there an hour prior we would have been in the waiting room with 40 other families.

It turns out that Lily had a double ear infection.  Which was news to me because in the entire time I had her at home she never touched her ears or indicated that they were bothering her.  I was asking:

"Is your stomach owie?"
"Uh-uh!"
"Is your throat owie?"
"Uh-uh!"
"Is your head owie?"
"..."

I figured she had a headache.  I should have known to ask about her ears.  This isn't her first ear infection.  Bad Mama.  But in my defense, I was a strep throat kid.  I didn't have an ear infection until well into my late 20s.  It just doesn't even occur to me that an ear infection is a thing.

Now all is well and she is happy and normal more than she is cranky once again.  She's even enjoying her medication, which is a relief since we had to physically hold her down and shove the syringe into her mouth the first few times.

That night at the hospital was the most scared I've ever been.

So I'm out three vacation days and an ER co-pay (possibly two).  It was worth it.

There's hope out there

By far the scariest part of this article is this:

I marched into my college women’s health center–oh, thank God they had one–and I got my first pap smear and the Ortho-Evra patch and talked to the nurses about STD’s and pregnancy and how to take care of my body. I had never had any of those conversations with my family or church or friends or teachers back home in Texas. I learned more in a two-hour visit to that college women’s health center than I had in the 19 years leading up to it. And yet as a passionate anti-choicer, I had considered myself an expert on sex and reproductive health–my own and everyone else’s–because of a few pamphlets and preachers.