Via Pandagon comes the good news that The Christian Civic League of Maine has given up their attempt to repeal the state’s LGBT rights laws, due toa near-total lack of financial, voter, and volunteer support.
The group collected only a third of the 15,000 voters’ signatures it had set as a goal for primary election day June 10, said Heath. He added said that potential volunteers “don’t want to be aligned with bigotry and homophobia and hatred,” tags their opponents had applied to the initiative backers.
Stephen King once said something about Maine that’s always stuck in my head. I don’t remember the exact quote, but it was about racism and it was along the lines of “We don’t do racism in Maine; we hate everybody equally here.” I imagine that quote also works for homophobia.
Yankees are an aloof, suspicious bunch of people; but at least they don’t single people out for it.
The cheese and cookies are leftovers from last week. No sense letting them go to waste.
My recipe for the meatballs:
Mix 2 lbs. lean ground beef, 1 8 oz. can water chestnuts (drained and finely chopped), 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1/2 tsp each onion and garlic powder. Form into golf ball-sized balls, space at least 1/2″ apart on a baking sheet, and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
Mix 1 cup apricot preserves and 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar, then toss the meatballs so they’re well coated. Return to baking sheet and oven, cook for another 5 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen.
I can’t take credit for this recipe, but I don’t remember where it came from. Probably allrecipes.com.
Natasha’s back in town (or maybe she never left), so we went out Saturday night. She suggested seeing The Hulk, but that just looks boring-bad, so I said how about The Happening, which looks hilarious-bad. She wanted Italian for dinner, so we went to Massimo’s, which is pretty pricey and usually a special occasion place, but what the hell, it really is the best food to be had in Fremont.
Let me tell you chickadees, The Happening is exactly as bad as you probably heard it was. Marky Mark constantly has a facial expression like he’s trying to figure out who farted and talks to everyone like they’re 5 years old; Zooey Deschanel spends the movie acting and looking like a total halfwit (“Close the doors and windows!” “Why?” OMG ZOOEY HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION AT ALL.)–and I don’t mean in the typical horror movie “This chick is an idiot” way, I mean she literally seems “special”; and both of them, in a bizarre directorial and/or acting choice whose reason I can not fathom, speak in a register way higher than their real voices. It’s like the set had a slow helium leak from somewhere the whole time. It’s CRAZY. Plus there’s some freak obsessed with hot dogs, and Betty “You’re outta the prom, Hargensen!” Buckley acting totally insane and accusing people of eyeing her lemon drink.
Anyway, you just GOTTA see it. Natasha and I were cracking up the whole time, and probably coming off as really obnoxious to everyone else in the theater. But it was the last showing, and there were only like 6 or 7 other people there anyway.
Also, on weekends of triple-digit heat, this is my new favorite thing:
So, this would have been a great weekend, except that George Carlin died on Sunday night. That totally sucks, it’s not like we have so many iconic and truly great comedians that we can afford to lose any of them. Who’s going to take his place, Larry the fucking Cable Guy?
Here is Carlin’s most famous bit, the 7 dirty words you can’t say on television:
