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thebloggess_feedscalziwhatever_feedI woke up this morning and there was a whole new blanket of snow on the ground. Which I don’t love! Here in March! But I guess it is still technically winter for another three weeks, and also, it made this particular cover song I was working on more appropriate. The original is from Fountains of Wayne, which is best known for “Stacy’s Mom,” although songs like this one are rather more in line with the songwriting typical of the group. This is one of my favorites, and a little bit of a deep cut. But deep cuts can be good sometimes. Enjoy.
— JS
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oursinTwo reading groups - one in person, one online - on consecutive days - plus various assorted frazzlements - has left me not feeling like coming up with the wonted witty badinage and repartee to delight dr rdrz.
(Who said 'What witty badinage and repartee'???)
Moderately entertaining coincidence: RL book group was being hosted in a part of London in which (lightly disguised) work discussed in online group takes place (snarked at by the author). I suspect it has changed Quite A Lot since those days....
***
Talking of London: Square Mile strikes back: how the City of London is fighting disinformation about crime. I discover from that that we have a Lady Mayor of London, and upon further research, she is not even the first woman to hold the office but the first to take the style of Lady Mayor, go her.
***
Do we not find it annoying when academic publishers do not reveal, until you have actually made a purchase, that their ebooks can only be consumed via their walled-garden app? In this particular instance at least the work was open-access and I had not taken a loss except in the expenditure of time in the process. But really. If you are offering your product as a ebook, I think this should be made clear from the outset.
roadrunnertwiceI've been loving Greatures, the current KC Green comic. It's a gag strip that takes place in some kind of purgatorial labyrinth that gradually reduces the people and objects caught in it into strange archetypes. (Much like a continuity-free gag strip does, now that I think about it.)
rmc28I had a little run of "brief meetings with old hockey friends" in the last two weekends. A few words, a hug, sometimes just a wave in passing while we both briefly occupied the same ice rink. All of them put a smile on my face.
Saturday before last was the Varsity matchup between Oxford Vikings A and Cambridge Narwhals at Cambridge rink, before my Kodiaks 2 team played visiting team Invicta Dynamics. Three of my tournament buddies from Biarritz were on the Vikings team. The next day Kodiaks were away at Bristol. I had an expected brief chat with my friend C from Hull camp but also complete surprise appearances from M who coaches Hull camp and goalie J, both of whom are tournament buddies. M was there with the away team for the previous game, J now lives in Bristol, which I theoretically knew but had forgotten.
Saturday just gone I had an evening game in Peterborough with Warbirds. I arrived a bit early and saw the previous game in progress: Phantoms Dev women were playing Streatham Storm Dev (my first ever hockey team). I recognised the jerseys first, and then a bunch of the faces. I dumped my kit in the changing room and went to lurk next to their bench and cheer them on for their last ten minutes. The timing worked out for me to see the end of their game (they won!) and walk with them back to their changing room before I needed to join Warbirds in ours.
jazzyjj posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
awesomeersfull_metal_ox posting in common_naturecosmolinguistHey guess which fuckwit totally spaced on agreeing to a meeting in London this afternoon!
Entirely self-imposed stress. Some combination of agreeing to a thing in March a few weeks ago when that felt very far away, and having last week off.
Starting work this morning after my week off, I settle down to go through my million emails and spot that one of them says"hey Erik I'll be there at 13.54"; "there" is London Bridge and the "today" is unspoken!
Luckily I was, barely, able to get a train there in time (glad it wasn't a morning meeting!), with D kindly getting up early to give me a lift to the station that's most useful: there's trains every 20 minutes to London but now I'm effectively on the 10.15 train when it would have been the 10.55 without his help. Makes a big difference when I would've been getting into Euston about the time I want to be at London Bridge...
I spent the first hour on the train triaging emails (and Teams messages). I'm a little frazzled now so I might give myself the gift of just staring out the window a bit now that we're leaving Rugby (about halfway through my train journey).
mdlbearWelcome to March, 2026! Beware the Ides!
Does this count if it's a day late? OK, it's still the first in Seattle. I'll take it.
redbirdWe’ve been in New Orleans for a few days, enjoying warm weather and eating outdoors— cattitude in particular needed to get away from winter. Not as much interesting food as we’d hoped, but lunch today was at a lebanese restaurant, where we tried Lebanese iced tea, made with rosewater— the server apologized because she thought we had asked for it instead of ordinary sweet tea. My grilled shrimp and rice were also excellent.
Then we wandered through the French Market, and bought hats, a shoulder bag, and a smaller cros-body bag.
We rounded the afternoon off by listening to the drum circle in Congo Square, which has been weekly for more than 300 years. My brother suggested than because our hotel is across thethe street street from the park.
More when I get home ; we’re flying back tomorrow
merrileemakes posting in common_naturecosmolinguistCould not be more perfect after my last post. Maybe I should do this every week...
2. What made you sad?
Remembering random things from my childhood that involved my grandparents looking after my brother and I, and being the only person who's still around to remember those things.
3. What made you angry?
The U.S. and Israel making the lives of people in Gaza as well as Iran harder.
4. What are you looking forward to in the next week?
In a way, I'm looking forward to D having a medical thing done next Sunday, even if it'll mean some discomfort and disruption for the next couple months. Because it's been going on for years and could've been sorted ages ago. But now it finally will be.
5. What are you not looking forward to?
Going back to work after a week off that felt more like three days off.
swingandswirlumadoshiscruloose last weekend. But I think that's it.)
oursinLast week's bread held out, unto there being (just) enough for frittata (onion &thyme) for Friday night supper.
On Friday evening I made some Famous Aubergine Dip (had wild pomegranate vinegar, yay) to take to book group (happening this evening), but have not made foccaccia due to other attendees' gluten issues. Will take carrot sticks instead.
Saturday morning breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, 3:1 strong white/dark rye flour.
Today's lunch (a bit early because of having to set off to book group): partridge breasts rubbed with crushed white peppercorns, thyme, rosemary and salt, panfried in butter and olive oil, deglazed with madeira; served with kasha (have now discovered the correct proportions, and this sort does not go mushy, either), purple tenderstem broccoli, for which I sauteed chopped ginger and fennel seeds in olive oil and then added the broccoli and stirred around for a bit, then added a few tablespoons of water and steamed for half an hour, and gingery-grilled baby courgettes.
mdlbearNot a very good week. Lots of anxiety -- my impending trip to Seattle, income tax, events in the world, and phone calls to repair places. We got (scooter)Lizzy back from getting her flat tire repaired, but now she has an electrical problem and won't go. We were supposed to get Scarlett-the-carlet back this week, but she still has an electrical problem. I need to make another call about Lizzy. Tomorrow.
On the other hand, I did go for a walk six days out of seven this week. It's better than usual, and about time. The only way I can do it appears to be going out before breakfast. Any later and I run into deliveries and appointments.
Substack is using Persona for age verification -- that's the same one that exposed 700,000 Discord users' data a while back. So has LinkedIn. There are plenty of good alternatives to Substack -- you're reading one right now. Discord is another matter, but people are looking. In either case, moving a community never goes well.
I've ordered a copy of "The Magic of Code" by Samuel Arbesman. See also, The World Inside the Crystal. I started working on a book based on that idea, a long time ago.
If you're an Emacs user you might want to look at This bad -- it says so on the tin -- version of emacs implemented purely from Unix shell commands I'm not sure I would advise it. If you're a web developer, you definitely shouldn't look at this 8086 emulation written entirely in CSS and HTML5. There are some things...
If you're into sewing, you definitely should take a look at FreeSewing, a collection of free parametric sewing patterns.
jazzyjj posting in awesomeerspassingbuzzardsWe finally got around to watching the latest John Wick installment, Ballerina (2025)!
Given how great Wick chapters 2 through 4 were we naturally had high hopes, but what ended up being the real delight of this film is how it treats its female lead, and especially how it dresses its female lead. I can honestly say that this is the only action movie I have ever seen where a female lead gets to dress badass in exactly the same way that a male lead gets to dress badass, as opposed to either a) femme fatale shit or b) Sexy Paramilitary. You know how people used to be like, “I wish we could have female James Bond, but not the way the movies would inevitably do this, just, everything is literally exactly the same, but James Bond is played by a woman”? James Bond may never have the balls, but apparently John Wick of all things does, because Eve Macarro spends 90% of this film dressed exactly like Keanu Reeves, murdering like Keanu Reeves, and, for the most part, being treated by the narrative like Keanu Reeves, which is not at all what I was expecting. I had been sure that we’d get something in the vein of Rina Sawayama in Wick 4—who was phenomenal, and I can’t imagine a cooler first-ever-film-role for someone to have, but who was definitely still doing those spectacular fight sequences in sexy elven archer armor while Keanu Reeves was in his usual black suit.
I have just never seen a female lead in an action movie about whom it is possible to have the “I want to be that” reaction before! Absolutely female power fantasy material. And seeing as, in the year of our lord 2k26, at the age of thirty-something, I can still count the number of actual female power fantasies I have encountered in the media ON ONE HAND (three. This film perhaps makes three, and one of those doesn’t even really count, because Mass Effect was literally written about a male character and then they decided to add a female voiceover option at the last minute), that earns this movie so many points from me, even before you get to the part where it has a flamethrower fight. (And the flamethrower fight was awesome, once again I can’t wait to look up the BTS.)
——In light of all of which it is absolutely killing me that the Blu-Ray cover and most of the theatrical posters for this film use the one (1) total scene where Eve wears a dress, lmao, marketing really went “Wait, we can’t just tell people we let a woman Be John Wick, quick, make it more male gaze—”
Some spoilery comments
The fact that Wick appears in this film and ends up saving Eve a couple times at the end (rather than the film giving her truly equal status as The God Mode Player in a First-Person Shooter) perhaps slightly undermines this, and it’s undeniably a bit lol that they make her, technically, an Elite Bodyguard as opposed to an Elite Assassin (and at least marginally concerned with the welfare of a little kid, yes yes). But also a) we all know Keanu sells tickets, in-universe Wick IS the god of all assassins, and anyway the moment he had his one fight sequence I was saying to Gregory ugh he's just so fun to watch, keanu is so GOOD at this, which makes it difficult to complain; b) I did actually like the whole Kikimora thing + Eve not being a total psychopath, she reminds me of Jyn Erso rather; c) NOT THAT YOU COULD TELL, ANYWAY, given the amount of carnage she causes from about the 30% mark, lmfao; and d) at no point in this movie is it remotely believable that Eve’s motivation is anything other than Revenger Murder Revenge. The bad guy may think she’s after Elle, but both Gregory and I were like—uhhh, my guy, are you sure she even remembers that Elle exists?? And indeed there is every sign that she doesn’t, right up until she literally trips over her at the end, lol.
All this just to say that on the whole these decisions don’t actually detract from Eve being treated basically like the male lead of this same series; on a meta level I’m sure these probably were rooted in attempts to gesture towards [the caring feminine nature] or whatever the fuck, but in actual practice they are uhhh, mostly not there at all, and also this stuff does work well within the story, obviously Eve having some humanity in addition to being a murder machine is not actually a bad thing. And also the ending implicitly puts her on equal footing with Wick by also making her hunted by the Continental! Love that!
The bit of “fight like a girl” dialogue and the end credits song were the only two moments that felt really ham-fisted about Female Power™, but these are such minor points in the grand scheme that I’m whatever (and obviously fact that weight devisions exist in judo + men are usually physically heavier is true, it’s just that this really does feel like the cheesiest most Girl Power way they could have possibly phrased this problem).
Anyway! Was this as great as Wick 3 and 4, perhaps not, but it was good and absolutely stylistically on-theme and I enjoyed it a great deal. This is the right direction!! More of this please!! I would absolutely watch three more films of Eve Macarro murdering her way through assorted mooks. (Oh, and of course Le Castle Vania’s soundtracks were terrific as always, no notes, the bass drop in that club scene was [chef’s kiss].)
Obligatory Russian language note: every single person in this film puts the stress on the wrong syllable of the word “kikimora” and it is physically painful to me, it is keeKEEmora (кики́мора) (and with o -> a vowel reduction in the last syllable so it sounds more like “kikimara,” but never mind), not kikiMORa, please, I am begging. You gotta pronounce it as if it is a Japanese surname! (And also Wick should still be the Babai, not the Baba Yaga, I will die on this hill.)
nanilarmc28Books on pre-order:
The release of the third Heated Rivalry book - which was only announced in January after the TV adaptation got wildly popular - is pushed back by eight months. I'm assuming this is to allow Rachel Reid more time to finish it and/or engage with the adaptation of the second book, The Long Game.
Books acquired in February: none (wow)
Borrowed books read in February:
It's been a really intense month, mostly with ice hockey commitments, so what reading I have managed has been entirely the ongoing Riordan read-through. Trials of Apollo successfully grows Apollo from intensely irritating in the first few chapters of the first book to someone I cried over in the last book. Plus I have now watched both seasons of the Disney+ adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians and oh boy do I have Opinions, especially on the second season. They get a lot of details right, the casting is excellent, and yet they get the heart of the story so so wrong. (Will I still watch season 3 when it comes out? Probably! Maybe they won't mess it up as badly?)
Anyway. Onward into March.
[3] Physical book
silveradeptadrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
troisoiseauxcosmolinguistThanks to otter for sharing this video the other day: Emotional Neglect: Healing from the Hidden Trauma of What Didn't Happen
I got around to watching it and it hit me so hard I needed to write this huge long thing about it. It's mostly transcript of the parts of the video that I wanted to make a note of, because it's not very accessible to me otherwise. But my thoughts are sprinkled around the block quotes of course.
( Emotions Draw Our Attention to What Matters to Us )
( Shame, and Phobia of Inner Experiences )
( Unconscious Self-Abandonment )
( Using Emotions to Connect Your Inner World to the Outer World )
cosmolinguistI started getting a migraine halfway through lift club this morning.
I ignored it of course -- just the aura, at that point -- knowing that I'd have a while before it got, y'know, debilitating.
I enjoyed the rest of the exercises. I did nearly fall both at the beginning and the end of the escalator I took to get from the tram to the train, oops. But also I got home fine, via B&M for medicinal snacks -- mostly sugar, which I often crave during migraines, but also one particular 59p instant ramen thing that I suddenly needed, and enjoyed very much for my lunch.
It was that rare rough day for the whole house: D's IBS was playing up and he had to make his brain work on paperwork so much this afternoon that when he finally emerged I wondered if migraines were contagious (luckily he perked up a little after eating something). V slept through all their alarms and so has been off-kilter all day. I slept for four hours this afternoon and after that reached the point where I felt okay unless I tried to move or even think too hard.
Then we watched a Starfleet Academy episode and as soon as Sam mentioned Our Town I was like ...you come to me, on the day of my migraine, and now I'm gonna have to cry? (Crying is fine but a physically unenjoyable experience for me at the best of times. Which, we've established, today is not.) (I got a tear in my eye, but even that was only at the very end.)
Like I've said here, Our Town is largely responsible for why I write almost every day here. "I can't look at everything hard enough" fucking haunts me (of course we heard that line in the episode), and it's important to me to look at things as hard as I can while they are happening.
tl;dr: People are actually bad at predicting how much they'll enjoy reading back what they've written about their lives! Writing about the ordinary experiences of your life can be even more cheering to you when you go back and read them than the extraordinary ones.
A nice reminder on an excessively ordinary day.
cosmolinguistI slept like ass again, but if I'm gonna wake up at 6am it was nice to wake up to good news: the obvious bigots of Reform didn't win, and the more normie bigots of Labour didn't win either -- the Greens won!
I don't really care what this means for Labour or Keir Starmer -- it has never in my 20 years of living here made much tangible difference who the Prime Minister is -- I'm just glad to have an MP who might not be totally useless because I've had enough of that the last couple years! We've had a functionally useless MP in Gorton and Denton since Gwynne lost the Labour whip and his ministerial post but kept voting along with Labour anyway. Worst of both worlds: he couldn't really advocate for us any more but still voted like he would've before. Not that he was much use as public health minister: my hopes were high when he first got the position, especially as he was open about his Long Covid (which I think ended up being why he had to resign on health grounds), but he was a real disappointment to people I know who have ME or LC who'd also expected him to help, and he wasn't interested in advocating for clean air in public places or anything that would help with the ongoing pandemic, and my attempt to explain to him the public health implications of transphobia-as-policy (like the totally-predictable spike in teen suicides) didn't get anywhere either.
And more widely, of course, this is making some people feel more hopeful than we have in a long time. My queer and community-defense group chats were full of relief, congratulations to the volunteers we know who knocked on doors and did other thankless work for this (in the rain! even for Manchester it's been rainy lately), and a little bit of giddy meme-making.
There's all kinds of speculation now on what this means for the upcoming local elections in England (and devolved government elections in both Wales and Scotland, but they get to have nationalistic parties to vote for there too), as well as for Labour and Reform and so on.
But for now, there's a lot of hope in a lot of people who didn't have much (I caught a link to this video and watched it before I realized it's Owen Jones, heh), and that is a great gift.
nanilaofearthandstarsthefridayfive:
1. What made you happy this week?
I managed to knock out a fair amount of tasks at work, and also achieved some monthly goals (planning for upcoming trips/birthdays). Feeling accomplished is good.
2. What made you sad?
I can't say that I've felt particularly sad over the last week, but I've been doing a lot of continued grieving over work and personal life changes in the last year.
3. What made you angry?
The news—from Kansas, from Minnesota, from EPA, from Iran, from everywhere. I'm so tired of terrible people being terrible.
4. What are you looking forward to in the next week?
My SO has a birthday next weekend, and we'll be celebrating that as best we can.
5. What are you not looking forward to?
My daily work is a bit of a slog right now, and it's hard to stay mentally motivated and engaged.
harpers_childrmc28Both finals ended up being USA-Canada. Both finals I expected USA were more likely to win, actually wanted Canada to win, felt it was possible Canada might actually win for a majority of the game, only to have USA win in 3v3 OT. I didn't manage to watch either game entirely conventionally.
The women's final was on at the same time as Women's Blues "strength and conditioning" at the university sports centre. (The team gets an hour a week in term time in the Team Training Room, supervised by a personal trainer who's developed a programme for us to follow that's tailored to the needs of ice hockey. I love it, it's such a great perk of playing for the university.) My friend C and I arrived early and asked Will the PT to get the game up on the big screen, so we could follow it while we trained, and it was very exciting. A hardcore of about six of us then watched the last five minutes or so of the second period on a laptop at the end of the room, and then scattered at speed to bike to our respective destinations before the third period started.
The men's final took place while I was driving a large vehicle full of Kodiaks to Bristol (nine people: eight players with kits, one coach). My phone was paired to the car sound system, and I had the iPlayer coverage playing through it from our last pickup point (because obviously I didn't want to be messing with my phone while on the motorway). We had about half an hour of curling commentary that we only half-listened to, and then I turned up the volume for the game itself. With excellent timing, the game-winning goal was scored when we were a few minutes away from arriving at Bristol ice rink. I would still like to watch back at least the highlights of the game and actually see the bits of skating that had the commentators get especially excited.
oursinWe Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe:
In his groundbreaking documentary, We Were Here, Kuwornu shares the diverse African presence in Renaissance Europe that he found: princes, ambassadors, saints, artists, scholars, and knights—all revealed through art from the period.
This is an older piece but I don't think I've posted it before: Taking Photos of the First Women’s Liberation Conference
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Q&A: Bidding farewell to the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust:
The Shropshire site, which comprises 10 museums and 35 listed heritage buildings, is transferring to the custodianship of the National Trust on 2 March after a challenging period that saw it grapple with severe flooding and falling visitor numbers.
Supported by a £9m government investment, it is hoped the takeover will secure the site’s long-term future and enable it to benefit from the National Trust’s high profile and visitor expertise.
Ultraprocessed food: whaddya know, It's All More Complicated.... People want to avoid ultra-processed foods. But experts struggle to define them - not all are junk foods.
***
swingandswirlnanila posting in awesomeersradiantfracturealatefeline
davidgillon... had me competing in the Olympics.
Dream-brain seemed somewhat hazy on whether this was summer or winter games, and normie or paras.
I'm not sure of the event either, possibly the Biathlon? Though skis seemed an afterthought and I don't recall any rifle showing up.
However in a firm nod to real life I was late for my race by way of being unable to negotiate athlete registration.
scalziwhatever_feed
I used to eat sunflower seeds when I played softball as a kid, and I can’t say I’ve ever eaten them since. For some reason, I was getting advertisements for Smackin’ Sunflower Seeds on Instagram. In that moment, I thought, you know what, sunflower seeds sound kind of good to snack on right now.
I would say in my life I’ve only had regular sunflower seeds, ranch, and BBQ flavored, so when I saw Smackin’s array of flavors, I was certainly intrigued. I am someone who believes variety is the spice of life, so of course I couldn’t choose just one flavor. I went ahead and bought a variety pack that included all their flavors (except the OG Original), and my dad and I gave them all a try.
I let my dad pick the first flavor we tried, and he chose “lemon pepper.” These definitely had a strong flavor, as advertised, and the taste actually reminded me a lot of a steakhouse. The peppery-ness wasn’t overwhelming, and my dad and I gave these ones a 6.5/10.
Up next, we went for a classic: Ranch. The ranch flavor reminded me a lot of a Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning packet, like the kind you mix into dips or salad dressings. Surprisingly, the ranch flavor was very subtle, which is certainly something that ranch never is. You get a Cool Ranch Dorito and that shit is RANCHED UP. In the case of these seeds, I could’ve used more ranch flavor. They were kind of weak, but the flavor that was present was good. These were a 6/10 from both of us.
We switched to a sweet flavor, their Cinnamon Churro. This flavor was actually really nice, it wasn’t just straight cinnamon, it had that nice churro-vanilla sort of flavor. I will say that the flavor wasn’t very long lasting, though. Like it wore off very quickly. The taste, while it lasted, was very nice and not too sweet, with just a little bit of saltiness to have a nice sweet-and-salty factor. This was a 7.5/10 from my dad and a 7/10 from me.
My dad wanted to get the Cheddar Jalapeno out of the way, since he feared it would be really hot and we’re not exactly known for loving spicy stuff. I’m happy to report that while these ones do have a real kick with a heat that lingers just a touch, it has a really nice actual jalapeno flavor and isn’t just hot to be hot. While there’s not so much of the cheddar flavor present, if you’re someone who likes a little bite in their snack, this one would be a great pick for you. I wouldn’t eat a whole bag, but they were pretty tasty. These were a 7/10 from both of us.
Onto Dill Pickle, which was one I was very excited for. Lemme just say, these bad boys were picklelicious. These had a super solid, bold pickle flavor that was very enjoyable and not too acidic, just had that nice dilly briny taste. These ended up being in my top two favorites overall, and we both gave them an 8.5/10.
Over to the Cracked Pepper, I was curious how this would compare to the Lemon Pepper. If you are someone who puts so much pepper on their steak or eggs that people around you are sneezing to high heaven, then this is the flavor for you. These were so peppery, like pretty overwhelmingly so. I honestly didn’t care for them, and gave them a 4/10, but my dad gave them a 6/10.
Next up was the Backyard BBQ. I do love barbecue chips, so I was looking forward to see how these compared flavor-wise. The BBQ was super bold! Just one seed was absolutely packed with BBQ flavor, and it was very tasty! More long-lasting flavor and very strong, these were super good and ended up being another favorite. My dad gave them an 8/10 and I gave them an 8.5/10.
Back to the sweet ones, we tried the Maple Brown Sugar. Like the Cinnamon Churro, they were really nice but not long-lived. They’re a bit subtle, like not a huge amount of maple flavor or anything, but still pretty good. My dad gave them a 7/10 and I went with a 6.5/10. The rating would be a lot higher if the flavor lasted longer or was stronger.
Starting to wrap up our sunflower adventure, Sour Cream and Onion was next. These tasted so classic and recognizable, like if you enjoy sour cream and onion chips, these are for you because they taste absolutely spot on. They honestly reminded me a lot of Philadelphia Cream Cheese Chive and Onion flavor. These were a 7.5/10 from both of us.
The final flavor before trying the mystery flavor was Garlic Parmesan. These were super garlicky, but didn’t offer up a whole lot of parmesan flavor. The garlic really stole the spotlight here, but it was still a tasty flavor, earning it a 7/10 from both of us.
Finally, the mystery flavor! I truly had no idea what to expect. Do you know how DumDums make their mystery flavors? Well, I can only assume that Smackin’ does the same thing, because the mystery flavor tasted exactly like the Cheddar Jalapeno and Ranch mixed together. It was like the Cheddar Jalapeno but less hot, and somehow even better! The mystery flavor earned an 8/10 from both of us.
Well, there you have it! Eleven flavors of sunflower seeds. The only one I didn’t get to try that I would’ve loved to is Cheeseburger! Honestly, these were pretty solid sunflower seeds. It felt kind of nostalgic to eat them, even if they are kind of tedious to get through. I felt like one of those dogs that has a “slow down” bowl because you can’t just plow through them like chips or crackers.
Anyways, if you’re interested in trying some for yourself, I have a 10% off code for you! Yippee!
Which flavor sounds the best to you? Do you eat sunflower seeds often? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
oursinThis seems somehow to link on to earlier posts this week - a lot of my memories of childhood reading/being read to are associated with episodes of illness!
Posted in a group on Facebook: 'A book you read as a child yet still think about today'.
WOT.
Just So Many.
The various classic works of children's literature that have become culturally embedded in references and allusions - the Alice books, the Pooh books, The Wind in the Willows, the Jungle Books, The Secret Garden, Little Women et seq, the Katy books -
Ones that are perhaps not quite so iconic? like the Little Grey Rabbit books.
A whole mass of girls' school stories and pony books. A fair amount of Enid Blyton though I'm not sure I think about any specifics there.
Various anthologies and collections - some stories still remembered - classic fairytales, myths, etc.
Plus things like Pears Cyclopaedia and The Weekend Book
And I do, in fact think about things like, the attitude towards The Scholarship Girl in The Making of Mara in what is actually the unposh, girls' day school, to which her father sends snobbish Mara. (Only this week when thinking about educational privilege....)
Plus, I will mention yet again being absolutely traumatised by Marie of Roumania's The Lily of Life.
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