Lazy post, cheap eats

sanmich, a photo by B_A_Dxxx88 on Flickr.

Sorry for the lack of posting life has been crazy hectic and with working 7 days a week I feel like I rarely make anything post worthy.

Here is a terrible cell phone photo of my breakfast/lunch today, but it was such a good quick cheap last minute grab I had to share.

Running late and having not gotten groceries in a while, I was pretty hard up for food and have been taking instant costco oatmeal to work for breakfast and eating out for lunch.

BUT! This morning I stopped into pete's frootique to look around and decided to splurg on some 9.99/lbs guacamole. Finding pita chips at 3-4$ a bag, I decided to try to find corn chips when I happened by the bread section and found focaccia for 3.15 for a bag of 8 rolls from a local organic bakery.

So basically, these babies consist of toasted Focaccia, Guacamole, sliced organic tomatoes, dab of regular mustard and salt/pepper. So good, I'm eating one now for breakfast and toasted/wrapped another in the lunch room to take with me during my break along with the 2 costco kwiwis I am still trying to finish.


Here's the final score

8 Focaccia Loaves from a local organic bakery 3.50$
3 organic tomatoes 1.60$ (reduced produce score)
1 tub of Pete's Guacamole 6.15$
My total came out to around 11.60$ with taxes etc.
Added some mustard packets from the food section and take away salt/pepper and we are golden.

I figure it's not bad because this will make 6 meals because I'm generous with the tomato slices/guac, if I skimp I could make a full 8 meals, which for last minute 11.50$/8 =1.44$ a meal is pretty damn good.

Conversely I would now finally have bread for my veggie burgers if I decide to skip a meal or bulk one of the meals up with the frozen patties.

Fem Fest 2010

Fem Fest 2010
Originally uploaded by B_A_Dxxx88

Femfest is a celebration of female artist this year to raise money for Barry House a local shelter. So come out for a great night of music, side show, and dancing!
Starts at 7pm
At the Gorsebrook Saint Mary's University

Performers include
-Miss Molotov
-Shannay Smith
-The Keats
-DJ Goldilocks
-And MORE!

It will be $2 at the door or a quality garment donation

There will be door prizes, and all proceeds raised will go to the Barry House, a local women's shelter

When dogs think they are parrots?

Seriously, Party's identity issues are expanding.
First he was a lap dog, ok sure fine.

Then a cat or cat-o-weiler?

now he's a parrot or perhaps Rot-a-rot?

Don't know if you can tell based on these pictures, but this is Party my 80lbs Rottweiler sitting on my shoulder.

After slowly sliding himself over the back of my chair, from the couch 3 feet away, to slowly climb onto the top of this chair to drape himself over my shoulders before finally kicking his barely touching the couch feet and pulling himself onto the back of the chair/my head.


photo details

Halifax's Vegan Association Recipe Zine! Call out for Vegan Recipes, Stories, Articles etc

The Halifax Vegan Association (and yours truly) are putting out a vegan recipe zine for free distribution to the public. I'm hoping to get both zine copies printed to be sent up and maybe host a scanned version of the original for an e-zine and so other groups will be able to re-print and distribute the zine to spread the vegan love.

As such I will be hosting a Vegan Recipe Zine Workshop on Sunday January 31th 2pm-6pm at the Dalhousie Women's Center in Halifax N.S., including Pizza and a community Potluck.

More importantly, for the extended vegan community (This means YOU! Internet) I am still looking for any recipe submissions, going vegan stories, articles, art work or simple zine pages you would like to have published in this zine.

Feel free to send me submission via e-mail (bad_blanch_amanda at hotmail).

Stay Vegan!

Kindness of Strangers/Gamers

Kindness of Strangers and Gamers.

Best thing that has ever happened, I think my housemates are scared for life over how much excitement and shrieking this caused.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Letter to Fox Network/Broadcasting: Please save Dollhouse

I wrote them a quick e-mail, telling them how annoyed I am that Dollhouse is being put on hold for a month and an appeal for a third season.

If you haven't already, guys please tune into the show, tivo it, watch it on hulu and show some mad love for this series. Maybe even write your own letters, phone calls or e-mails.

Thanks

I just have to say that I was extremely upset and disappointed to learn that you will be withholding episodes of Joss's Dollhouse for an entire month. Surely, you have seen what an amazing program this series is. You have a really amazing opportunity to be part of something great, yet you seem to be consistently taking this for granted. Let's face it, the majority of your programing is just plain awful crap. Followed by remakes and re-packaging of the same crap. There is only one night a week I would ever dream of tuning into your network and that would be Friday nights for Dollhouse.

This series has so much potential, and its story is only just developing. You've seen the fan base Joss's series generate, the long lasting and loyal viewer-ship and fans his shows earn. The quality writing is something that is solely lacking from broadcasting today, and I would sincerely ask that you think about that when considering to re-new this series. It is worth it. Please re-new an amazing series and be one of the few networks to actually provide some quality broadcasting. I would hate to have my only reason for tuning into your station taken away. We all know these shows get better with time, please allow Dollhouse to get there and you will have thousands of thankful fans like me.

please carefully consider dollhouse's fate for the upcoming season. I will be anxiously awaiting novemeber's end so I can tune back in for my favourite program to return. And I hope it will continue to return again after that. Please, Please, Please give this amazing show a chance for a third season and keep your viewers happy.

Thank you for reading this and please remember that there are all kinds of fans who are hoping that you save this show.

-Amanda Dickie


With Love, Amanda Dickie
"As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together."
- Isaac Bashevis Singer,Writer, Nobel laureate (1904-1991)

On Something Important that was Recently brough to my Attention

Although I identify as pansexual, I was recently made aware that this term might create problems with transitioning individuals as it tends to imply that they somehow do not fit onto the traditional gender bi-nary of male and female. This possibility of misundcerstand made me realize just hot problematic labels can be, specifically when I decided to attempt to re-classify myself in a way to avoid alienation and groupings myself with those in the queer community who exclude these individuals.

Needless to say it proved to be extremely problematic.
Pansexual is generally used to categorize a person who is interested in both males and females, from my understanding the term was changed to acknowledge that gender is fluid and that trans folks deserve equal play.

On second thought, that's not the best way to describe the label. Essentially, bisexuals may or may not be accepting of transitioning partners and cannot grasp the idea of being born biologically male and identifying as female etc. I know at least where I'm from the queer community can be a hostile place for identifying males/females, despite the person in question being female, people tended to get hung up on appearances and other labels from which they excluded trans people.

e.g. "I'm Bi, so i like both girls and boys. But those trans folks are "freaks". "

This kind of attitude was not something I wanted to be associated with, especially when trans friends of mine felt isolated by the community at large. I decided to adopt the term in support and just to distance myself from some of the queer based hatred/misnomers. Although bi-sexual in itself would include trans folks, many self identifying people in the community considered bi-sexuality to exclude trans people. I find that form of exclusion ridiculous, which is another reason I was drawn to the 'pan' label.

My friends and I also developed issues in our small area regarding personal pronouns (a whole other issue). Where despite the number of times we would correct people they still insisted upon applying their own interpretation of gender to individuals who have explicit-ally expressed their female identification (or their male identification). Certain individuals would even get angry when we applied proper (i.e. pronouns that matched the identification) to the point that a few individuals cease to communicate with us.

However, you make a really good point. I have never considered how applying the term PanSexual might make it seem as if I see trans folks as separate gender/sexuality category. Words and labels are tricky like that, I guess. Maybe I'll have to do some further defining to find the correct words to project my sentiment and push forward progress.

I personally have issues with the idea of gender and sexuality binaries as I'm not a firm believer of the all or nothing. I think most people have multiple sides, many of which could be male, female, butch, fem, gay, straight etc. Although biologically I would be classified as female, I have many classifiable "male" traits. So the idea of all or nothing doesn't seem to offer an apt description.

The option to choose a gender that exists outside the binary, from my limited perspective, would allow identifying males to choose male, identifying females to choose female, and those that would choose a third option the chance or even the opportunity to not disclose that information.

I guess from limited (and relatively privileged) stand point I hadn't considered how the term pansexual might add to the implication that trans individuals are different from "other" individuals. And how the term might add to feelings of exclusion and difference, the adverse effect of why I used the term in the first place. I guess defining my sexuality might not be able to be achieved in a single label, as labels present a plethora of problems. Identifying female and being born biologically female may not be mutually inclusive, however that doesn't mean that someone who is 'only' identifying is any more or less female or that they should ever fall into another classification. Both individuals are identifying females, they are equals and there is not one who is 'more' female than the other. Perhaps we need a term that redefines gender as a whole. Or a term that expresses direct inclusion of all groups without marginalizing anyone. Pansexual was a term I used to express an attraction to both genders with the attempts to explicitly state this
included all males and all females regardless of biology but perhaps by adopting a term to explicitly include trans people it aids in contributing to their exclusion in a third gender slot.

Classification is a bitch. Perhaps the best bet is to simply avoid labels at all, what a commotion that'll cause ;).