A Momentary Pause
Posted on January 18, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 42 Comments
So, there was a story on a moderately contentious subject I was going to link to and comment on, but then I remembered I was at a convention with real live people and I didn’t want to spend the day babysitting a comment thread online. So you’ll get it on Monday! Lucky you.
Have a good Saturday.
Look here man, I paid eight pounds for a full course of ten arguments!
Assuming the subject is stll contentious Monday, of course.
Either that, or you’re seeding your readers to find a contentious subject for you!
OH GOODIE! Lets spend the weekend speculating on what it could be. Did the RSHD poke the tiger gain? Is it the micro-peeped guy that paid 350k to shoot an aged, infirm, black rhino? The disputed goal that gave MN a 1-0 victory over OSU in the Hockey City Classic? Ayn Paul’s statement that majority rule is wrong and we have to be ruled by the Constitution (nobody tell him that it requires majority rule)? The possibilities are endless!
The Kellers and that lady with cancer? The fact that Bill de Blasio eats pizza with a fork?
Please, please have fun instead of diving into more moderately contentious subjects. You babysit enough contentious threads as it is (which as I’m learning on my own, is not all that fun at all).
You never let us have any fun.
Good on you, enjoy real people and the real world. IF it wasn’t below freezing outside, I’d be doing the same
Do I get to guess the subject? I am going on vacation today, how am I supposed to follow this while I’m in Mexico! So mean!
Did your secret rutabaga pie recipe?
Churro Waffles, @Christopher Geoffries – now THOSE are as contentious as you’d care to get!
I hope the other side(s) of the story get attention similar to the initial wave of controversy. On Monday is fine.
It’s the toast thing, isn’t it. You were totally horrified, I can tell.
Have fun! I look forward to Monday, words I never thought I’d type.
Oh fine! Enjoy your real, live people, with their interesting conversation and their amusing stories and their recipes for delicious cinnamon toast! Actually, that does sound kind of fun.
Well, I was going to post a contentious comment, but now I’ll just wait until Monday! So there!
Please, please, please let this be about merkins on mannequins. Please!
all I can say is thanks for sparing us the drama. I would much rather read about how the con is going and the fun there.
You tease, you.
Okay, that’s funny. At least you had the presence of mind to put that together before committing. Good on you, though the distinction has been slowly whittled down over the last couple decades. First, there was ‘RT’ or ‘real time,’ and ‘IC’ or ‘in character,’ Then, it became ‘offline’ and ‘online,’ respectively. Currently, there doesn’t appear to be much distinction between the two. ‘Online’ is just another location.
Is it going to be RSHD and his craven lickspittles? Will it be some racist idiot politician? WHAT WILL IT BE?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?? I MUST KNOW!!!
Yeah. I can wait. I will eagerly anticipate your thoughts, Mr. Scalzi, sir.
The criminal denial of an Oscar nomination to American Hustle for hair design?
There are neither grapes nor nuts in Grape Nut cereal! Oh the humanity.
I’ve got $5 on the journalist outing the trans scientist.
Good for you. Hope you had fun at the convention. Remembering why we do all this Con-stuff is important.
Yes, because Scalzi just HATES all that controversy that gives him that awful, awful attention /sarcasm
Well, it’s ok for him; he’s probably sitting there happily eating pie, while we tortured souls struggle on through the vast desert of teh Internet, trying to find something intellectually interesting to dull the pain of Sherlock departing for an unspecified period of time, yet again.
Damn him!
Having lots of people guess would probably be a bad idea, but I think it’s close enough to Monday to say that my money’s with infinitefreetime on this one.
I had a pretty good… errr…. Sunday, actually. There was an Asian Expo at the L.A. County Fairgrounds over the hill in Pomona — four of those big buildings crammed with (mostly-interesting) Asian stuff, and people. Actually, overwhelmingly Chinese, with probably the majority of the booths having signage _entirely_ in Chinese. (I found it especially interesting that the Morgan, Stanley (I think it was) Investment booth and one ginseng-seller used the traditional calligraphy rather than the ugly new simplified form.) And it was incredibly crowded (I have to suspect that the County Fair people have arranged some kind of long-standing payoff to the County Fire Inspectors). And I’m pretty sure I observed at least a dozen cases of Phobia Initiation among kids who were exposed to hours of facial contact with thousands of people’s crotches and butts. On the plus side, the two-story carousel was operating, and the high temperature must have been well into the 80s.
Hey, it’s Monday! Let’s have a mildly contentious subject!
Chili. Beans or not? Discuss.
I happen to have made chili last night, Cincinnati-style, and it’s chilling in my refrigerator as we speak. It’s beanless. However, my mother’s chili always has beans, and I think that’s great too.
Fight with me! I dare you!
Chili. Beans or not? Discuss.
Silly, Susan – everyone knows that the real question is “Beans. Chili or not?”
8-)
(For the record, I made beans over the weekend {no chilies included} and ate them with a heaping stack of hot johnnycakes. Yum!)
John needs an intern to babysit us on the forums.
Aaaand now it’s Monday! (Looks hopeful ….)
Hey, JohnD, I’ll see your plain beans and raise ’em: I made a black bean, rice, sweet potato, and pork casserole in the crockpot last night. But no chili powder in it.
between the Ohio execution and the “journalist” hounding the scientist to suicide. I’m going with the journalist guess.
Infinitefreetime: Isn’t Cincinnati chili the stuff with spaghetti in it? That’s not chili, that’s just spicy pasta sauce. :-p
(You *said* fight with you!)
i would be interested in your thoughts on Amy Wallace’s Op-Ed piece on the NY Times re: life as a female journalist on the Internet.
It matters not at all whether Cincinnati-style “chili” has beans in it, as it is not really chili anyway.
Any good Texan can tell you that it is fine to have beans with your chili. On the side, that is, with the rice and tortillas. You want to mix ’em in, that’s your choice and just fine. But you don’t cook the beans IN the chili. That there is heresy!
Susan, your casserole sounds yummy! My beans were a mixture of ten different types of beans with hamhock and eleven herbs and spices mixed in. So we’re both good!
Tully, though I agree that the best chili is made without beans, there are many Texans, born and bred, who disagree.
JohnD, as a former Texan I am aware that there are those who find it perfectly proper to cook their chili with beans in it. I think it is perfectly fine to put beans in your chili after you cook it, especially if you serve no-bean demanders first before so doing. I often do that, even though I do not cook the beans in with the chili. I also often eat it poured over rice. With beans. Growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast up near Louisiana, our regional cuisine variants admittedly may well have been influenced by Cajun culture … and most of Texas would disown us for that.
So I am a self-admitted heretic … and a local and regional winner and runner-up of chili cook-offs sponsored by the International Chili Society and the Chili Appreciation Society. The rules of both organizations are adamant that beans and pasta and other “fillers” are not permitted in the cooking of competition chili. The sole exception is that the ICS allows an optional “People’s Choice” side category (only when sponsored by an outside group at an ICS event and never ever sponsored by the ICS itself), which category MUST contain beans.
Texans did not become truly religious on the beans/no-beans heresy question until roughly mid-century. Historically, the Chili Queens of San Antonio of the 1800’s (arguably the best-documented origin of the dish) served meat chili, with beans and tortillas on the side. By better than a 2 to 1 margin, Texans prefer chili no beans to chili with beans. The original commercially-available chili, Wolf Brand of Texas, was first sold commercially in brick form then began canning in 1921 … both with no beans. To prop up the sans camp a bit more, the official state food of Texas is chili … without beans.
So yes, cooking your chili with beans is heresy in official chili circles. And I freely admit to often preferring heretical chili. Unless you’re competing, make it how you like it! Even if some purists sniff that you’re making “stew” and not “chili.” You don’t get in real trouble with me until you start claiming that that goulash-spiced stuff they pour over spaghetti in Cincinnati is “chili.” :)
So yes, cooking your chili with beans is heresy in official chili circles.
Only if you grant that the ICS and CAS are “official”. 8-)
You don’t get in real trouble with me until you start claiming that that goulash-spiced stuff they pour over spaghetti in Cincinnati is “chili.” :)
Having looked up a recipe for Cincinnati chili, I have to agree. It might be a mole but it sure ain’t chili!