Jeff Goldblum for the win!

Disclaimer: before anyone reads further I want to fully acknowledge that this post is about social media use, and I realize that I am using social media as a platform to criticize it in the first place.  The irony has not escaped me.
Now for the good stuff.  All irony aside, I wanted to relate a interesting video is stumbled along this morning while downing my coffee.  It featured a father ranting about how his son embarrasses him at school.  The father was going to teach his son a lesson by shaving his head and sending him to school that way, as a shaming technique for discipline.  As quickly as he snaps on the shears and the low steady buzzing starts it is over a done with!  He promptly stops and excuses his son from the video, lovingly telling him to go play.  He explains that he was never use social media to shame his son and goes on to articulate why and how he has seen the platform for its use of shaming so often.
What resonated with me was the shaming aspect.  I was at Arisia this weekend and while there I was very keen on attending the slut shaming panel.  However, I was hanging with some really rad folks I had met at the lobby bar and thought I was having so much fun with them that I stayed.  I am remiss that I didn't get to enjoy the panel.  However, I always feel it is better to interact with people actively than passively sitting in on panels at a convention.  Indeed, it is always they people I meet at these events that make them memorable.
Anyway, getting back to my point.  We have social media today and it is powerful.  I worry that the power it offers people is not taken seriously and without thought.   I hope you all out there reading this consider that in the future.  I'm don't want to tell folks how to live their online life, but I can only say that I want to be more conscious of my choices in this realm.  To quote the great Dr. Ian Malcolm;  "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."  What up, Jeff Goldblum.  You called it, way back in the 90's.

The Revenge of the Recipe!

Since it dropped to a new low today (11 degrees F) I thought I would write about all the new recipes I'm trying.  Since the summer has long left me, my house is no longer the fire pit of despair, and as such baking and cooking has returned!  I'm super excited, but it'll damage my waist line.  I can try healthy stuff, true true, but what fun is there in that?
So far I made a buffalo chicken pull apart bread, cinnamon bun french toast muffins, a new cranberry harvest stuffing and some pretty tasty greek yogurt dips.  I've also cranked out a few batches of vegetarian chili (ask me for the recipe - so dang good!) and even my Mass Corn chowder.  I love this chowder because it isn't a super thick stewy one.  It is still hearty, and super savory!
Maybe now that I am making some yummy food I will be able to sit down and crank through a lot of my netflix backlog.  I just posted on social media the request for 'must watch' shows, and it has definitely expanded my already extensive watch list.  There just isn't enough time and I want to enjoy so many fun shows.  I feel like a jerk even complaining - what a putz.

What is the last thing you made?

I Can't Repel Firepower of that Magnitude!

Okay...another dorky title to this blog.  Please, let me explain.  I just signed up to GoodReads and I cannot resist all the time suckage.  I just can't repel its power!  I feel like Ackbar did in ROTJ because I simply can't fight against the power of GoodReads.  My friend Ginny said she used it to track her book reading.  I decided, since I am trying to read 26 books this year, that I should track them, too.  I already had a record from OverDrive reader, but it doesn't give way in the much of organizing or helping me find more books.
GoodReads - its nuts!  I just spent only ten minutes -only ten, mind you- and I added 88 books alone that I want to read this year.  I also used some of those ten minutes to add the 27 I read last year.  Well, okay...20, really.  Seven were graphic novels and I am not really counting them, or maybe I'll count them for a quarter of a book.  That feels like cheating.  Let's just call it 21 books.  It's a good number.
Well....bring it on.  26 this year - that is a book every fortnight.  According to the Pew Research Center's 2013 reports, the average number of books the average American reads is 12 a year.  The median number is 5 per year.
Where do you stand in those numbers?  What is your goal this year?