Nova Classical Academy

Posted on January 12, 2016 by naomikritzer

Nova Classical Academy is in the news today. This is the school both of my kids attend and have for years. It’s in the news because a few families have responded to anti-bullying efforts at the school by renting space and bringing in the Minnesota Family Council (sponsors of the Parent Action League, named as an anti-gay hate group by the SPLC).

Nova’s facility rental policy left things open to anyone who showed up with the necessary insurance and a check. I think this type of scenario didn’t occur to anyone when the policy was written.

The Minnesota Family Council does not represent Nova. Not only does it not reflect Nova’s values, it is antithetical to the values my children are learning at Nova. MFC is explicitly pro-bullying; they want to see GSAs (supportive organizations for queer kids and allies) eliminated and books censored. They endorse completely discredited, abusive tactics such as conversion therapy, and they want to force teachers to be their mouthpiece for homophobia and transphobia. None of that is what Nova stands for.

Not only do I stand with the targeted family against bullies both inside and outside the school, I will stand between those bullies and the vulnerable kids they are targeting any chance I get.

Whimsical Gifts (for people you hate), 2015

Posted on December 3, 2015 by naomikritzer

It’s December, and do you know what that means? That means it’s time for my annual very special article on gift shopping for people you hate.

In a better world, we’d only ever have to be presents for people we want to buy presents for. But the sad fact is that sometimes, presents are obligatory. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that sometimes, giving a present is a whole lot less trouble than the inevitable drama that would result from not giving a present.

Let me just reel out the usual disclaimers before we get started. I love everyone I give gifts to: if I have given you a present and you hated it, I swear I tried to get you something you would like (or at least find briefly amusing) and for heaven’s sake please feel free to donate it to a thrift shop or something if you’ve still got it. And if you’ve ever given me something that could possibly fit one of these categories, I am not talking about you, your gift was lovely and I do not suspect you of passive-aggressive malice, I promise. IMG_20131225_201536

I ran across this totally fascinating document from World War II earlier today. (Props to the Central Intelligence Agency, for sharing this riveting bit of history!) This is a guide to “Simple Sabotage,” which I guess was covertly distributed in occupied Europe as a guide to sabotage for the motivated layperson. Probably the funniest part is the section where they talk about how to use office politics as an engine of sabotage against the Nazi war effort. “Insist on doing everything through ‘channels.’ Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.” “Make ‘speeches.’ Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate ‘patriotic’ comments.” “When possible, refer all matters to committees, for ‘further study and consideration.’ Attempt to make the committees as large as possible – never less than five.” “Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.”

Anyway, the relevence here is that Resistance members and Allied sympathizers in Nazi-occupied Europe could get away with dropping wrenches into machinery, breaking drill bits and dulling saws, tying up phone lines with wrong numbers, and making lots of time-wasting patriotic speeches to avoid decision making because that sort of thing legitimately happened on a regular basis just by accident. That same basic principle is at work here. People get terrible, inappropriate gifts all the time; usually, it’s not because anyone was trying to give them a bad gift, it’s just because buying good presents for people we don’t know well is really difficult. All those inadvertant bad gifts are your camouflage. Adhere to a certain degree of subtlety, and no one needs to know that your goal here was to make your target unhappy with your ~~Simple Sabotage~~ Christmas largesse.

ON TO THE GIFT IDEAS.

Sports Memorabilia

Many people have a favorite team, and if you buy a thing with their team’s logo on it, this shows that you have paid attention to something they like, and are trying to please them. The thing is, even very devoted fans don’t usually want everything in their house to be dedicated to their sports team. (There are exceptions. You probably already know if you’re dealing with one of those, though.) You can find a Tiffany-style table lamp with a sports team logo. A curtain valance. A wallpaper border. A light switch plate. A spandex throw pillow that looks like a giant baseball. A wall clock! A SHOWER CURTAIN. A pot holder and kitchen towel set. The list goes on, and on, and on.

My favorite item on this list, for sheer WTF value, is definitely the Tiffany-style table lamp with the team logo, but it’s $129, and gifts for people you dislike should always be inexpensive. There are far more reasonably priced items.

Like duct tape. Duct tape is not normally something you would give as a Christmas present, probably, but you can present this with the air of someone who’d never seen sports team duct tape before and got overexcited. Use the statement, “when I saw this I knew I HAD to get it for you!” Which is probably a statement you’ve heard a few times over the years, usually just before being handed a terrible gift. See what I mean about camouflage?

Whimsical Housewares

There are well-designed whimsical kitchen items that are both cute and functional. And then there are whimsical kitchen items that will take up space in a drawer or cabinet without being good for anything at all.

1. Mugs are pretty dang basic, you know? How do you even screw up a mug? Well, you can make it take up the space of two mugs or you can give it a handle that you can’t easily slip your fingers through.

2. Oh look, a hedgehog cheese grater! So adorable, but try to picture using it. How do you even hold onto it while grating cheese with it? If you read the reviews, the answer is, “argh!”

3. The Nessie ladle looked so adorable in the magazine articles about it six months ago — I totally wanted one. Too bad they’re apparently both runty and flimsy. (Small ladles can be functional — we have one that we use for gravy — but it sounds like this one comes in an awkward size, too big for gravy but too small for soup.)

4. A sculptural dragon that will embrace your salt and pepper shaker like they are part of its hoard. Okay, to be fair: I totally know people who would honestly love this item. Use your own judgment here.

5. Even most of the people who would love a dragon salt and papper shaker holder are not actually going to install a dragon TP holder. Especially since, according to the reviews, it’s really pretty annoying to install.

6. In the “easy to install but WHY WOULD YOU” category there is a Santa toilet decal. If you give this for Christmas, it’ll already be too late to stick it on when they unwrap it; they’ll have to save it for an entire year in order to get any use out of it.

7. A decorative tabby cat wine bottle holder. This is a bulky storage gadget for a single bottle of wine that also makes it look like the cat is drinking wine directly from the bottle. Note that the five-star reviews are entirely from people who gave it as a gift and say that the recipient just loved it (except for one person who cheerfully notes that his girlfriend thought it was hideous and “mysteriously lost it.”) If you need a present for someone who’s more of a dog person, you can get a dog version and somehow the wine-sucking golden retriever puppy is even more disturbing to look at than the cat.

8. In the “whimsical wine” category there are also whimsical wine bottle covers. What are these even for? Is there a reason that wine needs a cozy? Are these to dress up gifts of wine because you don’t like wine gift bags? My suggested strategy for bad wine gifts is to go to a wine store or Trader Joe’s and tell them that you need a bottle of wine for a stage set, it needs to not be a recognizable brand (so no three-buck-Chuck) but it doesn’t have to be drinkable and you don’t want to spend more than $5. Then stick a sweater on it, I guess. (WHY. WHY DOES WINE NEED A SWEATER?)

9. Whimsical nested measuring cups. Because you totally want to play “Take Apart the Matryoshka Dolls” before you can measure 1/4 cup of flour, and put them all away again every time you wash them rather than just throwing them in a drawer.

10. Whimsical dinosaur fossil ice cube trays. There is a huge selection of whimsical silicon ice cube trays out there. I spent some time last summer in a rented apartment that came with silicon ice cube trays, and I went out and tracked down a real ice cube tray because life is too short to pry whimsically-shaped cubes out of those stupid silicon trays. They are a complete pain in the ass and no one cares about whimsical ice.

Cookbooks

Rather than linking to specific cookbooks, I’m going to suggest that you visit your nearest chain bookstore and check out the discount section, although before buying, make sure that the discount sticker can be easily peeled off.

There are people who love to cook and disdain any recipe that calls for Cream of Campbell’s or Lipton Onion Soup Mix as ingredients. For those people, you want to find a cookbook where the recipes mostly involve assembling the contents of cans. The whole “Dump Dinners” series is arranged around this premise but there are plenty of others out there.

There are also people who really hate cooking and for them, you want to find a cookbook that claims everything in it is “quick and easy” and “ready in ten minutes” but also assumes that you just happened to stumble across 2 finely diced onions, 10 peeled and minced garlic cloves, 2 chopped green bell peppers, and four deboned ducks before you started the process of cooking. If you’re not sure how to identify those, look for cookbooks produced by Cook’s Illustrated or America’s Test Kitchen. (I have a copy of the America’s Test Kitchen Family cookbook, and I even use it, but they have crock pot recipes in there that call for, I swear to God, two hours of prep before you turn on the crock pot. That is not why I have a crock pot. That is not why anyone has a crock pot.)

Alternately, I’m pretty sure that It’s All Good: Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great, Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook, could successfully irritate anyone who is not already a member of Gwyneth’s personal cult. Especially as it’s apparently about 2/3 pictures of Gwyneth.

Charitable Gifts: Wildlife Adoptions

Yesterday, someone on my Facebook shared an article about how the Bronx Zoo lets you name their Madagascar Hissing cockroaches after people for $10 per named cockroach. That is an awesome, if thoroughly unsubtle, gift. However, when I visited the Bronx Zoo website I couldn’t find any links to do this, so I think it may have been a limited-time deal last February. (Too bad, because with some effort you can sell it as not an insult, I think. You’d want to focus on the whole “only thing that will survive a nuclear war” aspect of the cockroach personality.)

It’s especially too bad because when you browse Wildlife Adoption options they tend to overwhelmingly focus on cute, appealing animals like tigers and panda bears. No one lets you adopt a blobfish. The World Wildlife Fund (logo animal: the panda bear) has 125 species available for wildlife adoption, but the blobfish is not among them. Dear WWF: I think you are missing an opportunity here. I know (I am sure) that as an organization you are strongly committed to saving ugly animals just as much as cute ones. You could even do one of your themed wildlife adoption buckets with the theme “save the uncharismatic fauna, too!” but for sure you’d need a blobfish in there.

Wildlife adoptions from the WWF are available at various price points — they push the $55 option, which comes with a stuffed toy, but you can also do a $25 option, which is just a photo and a certificate. And while they do not have blobfish, they do have some animals available that might suit your gift-giving needs.

Bonobos. “Bonobos are highly social animals,” the WWF tells you on their bonobo page, leaving out the part where they socialize primarily by having sex all day long. “They communicate in a variety of ways–visually, by touch and vocally,” they say, delicately leaving out the fact that bonobos in captivity have been observed using a self-developed sign language to proposition one another sexually. “Male bonobos stay with the group that they were born into; a male’s dominance is based upon his mother’s rank,” they say, leaving out the detail that bonobos live in a lesbian matriarchy. Get your homophobic bigot relative a bonobo wildlife adoption, and get yourself a copy of Biological Exuberance, which was where I first heard about bonobos. Fun additional fact: they’re our closest primate relative. (Well, they’re probably tied with chimps. But they are definitely at least as closely related to us as chimps are.)

Anacondas. If you think about it the right way, giving an anaconda adoption is a very subtle way of calling your recipient a dick.

The Great White Shark. If you have to give a gift to someone who’s ever cut you down emotionally, give them a Great White Shark adoption and think of this lovely image of a Great White Shark every time you look at their shark stuffie. (SUPER GREAT.)

Vampire Bats. This one is maybe a little less subtle, but hey, you are RESCUING ENDANGERED WILDLIFE IN THEIR NAME.

Honey Badgers. Not surprisingly, the WWF page does not quote this excellent educational video about the personal strengths of honey badgers.

The Sierra Club also does wildlife adoptions and lets you adopt tarantulas, which is awesome. However, Ed and I used to donate to the Sierra Club and they would not stop calling us, so I hesitate to suggest donating to them. Although they will send you a tarantula puppet, and how cool is that? Also, if you can figure out a way to sic their phone solicitors onto your recipient, that would definitely be a gift that would keep on giving, but I’m not sure how you’d get them to do that while not also calling you.

If you want a stuffed blobfish for a do-it-yourself wildlife adoption, by the way, you can order one. It’s kind of astonishing how cute it is, while also being recognizably a blobfish. You could pair it with The Ugly Animals: We Can’t All Be Pandas, a book by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, which sadly is an educational comedy group and not an actual non-profit. That’s less a gift for someone you hate and more a perfectly fine gift for anyone cool enough to appreciate it, though.

Uncategorizable

I made a note of this one months ago because it was inexpensive and kind of awesome. These are super cute, but they are also spikey cacti in tiny cases. Available as either key chains or jewelry, and there are teeny tiny holes in the case so you can water them occasionally by immersing them briefly in water. Nifty, cute, suitable for stocking stuffers, but there is something subtly hostile about giving someone a tiny cactus.

Happy holidays to everyone!

Passive-Aggressive Gift Giving Guides from Previous Years:

2010: Beyond Fruitcake: Gifts for People You Hate
2011: Gifts that say, “I had to get you a gift. So look, a gift!”
2012: Holiday shopping for people you hate
2013: Gift Shopping for People You Hate: the Passive-Aggressive Shopping Guide
Gifts for People You Hate 2014: The Almost-Generic Edition

Also, if you’re amused by my writing, check out my science blogging at Bitter Empire: http://bitterempire.com/author/naomi-kritzer/

My (kind of low-volume) Twitter feed: @naomikritzer

And my fiction that was published online this year:

Cat Pictures Please (Clarkesworld, January 2015.)
Wind (Apex, April 2015.)
So Much Cooking (Clarkesworld, November 2015.)
The Good Son (Lightspeed, March 2015 — reprint. Originally appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, 2009.)

And if you just can’t get enough of my writing, you could consider buying:
Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories (short story collection)
Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories (short story collection)
My novels (there are five of them)

Naomi Kritzer’s Fiction, 2015

Posted on November 30, 2015 by naomikritzer

Wondering if you missed any of my stories that came out in 2015? Here is a handy list with links!

Short Stories

Cat Pictures Please, Clarkesworld, January 2015.

Wind, Apex, April 2015.

“The Silicon Curtain: A Seastead Story,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August 2015. You can buy the back issue online.

“Cleanout,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November/December 2015. You can buy the current issue online.

Novelettes

“Jubilee: A Seastead Story,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 2015. You can buy the back issue online.

So Much Cooking, Clarkesworld, November 2015.

Reprints

The Good Son, Lightspeed, March 2015. (Originally appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, 2009.)

“Artifice,” ESLI (“If”), translated into Russian. I have no idea how you’d get your hands on this, if you really wanted to read me in Russian. The magazine’s website is here. (Originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September 2014.)

I’m attempting a fundraiser…

Posted on March 2, 2015 by naomikritzer

My daughter Molly is part of a group of Urban 4-Hers who’ve been raising money for a trip to Washington DC since last summer: they sold water and soda at the county fair, they raked leaves, they ran a (really amazing) haunted house at Halloween, and sold nuts and other goodies.

They are getting down to the wire; they have raised $5,500 but still need $1,500. If you click over to the GoFundMe site, you’ll see a picture of the group.

To support the trip, I’m offering Tuckerizations (your name inserted into one of my stories) as well as custom-written short stories (you can pick theme, character, whatever it is you want. If you want fanfic and it’s not one of my fandoms, however, my knowledge of the fandom may be based on what I can glean from Wikipedia.) You can also get custom-written short stories or sonnets from Molly, or a Manga-style portrait of yourself.

Or, if you’re feeling really flush and have always envied Minneapolis and St. Paul for the incisive election commentary they get from yours truly every fall — you can donate $500, and I’ll do a write-up of YOUR district for the next election.

Anyone who donates $5 or more can get a copy of the sonnet Molly wrote on why haikus are a better poetic form than sonnets.

Thank you for reading and passing it along, even if you can’t donate!

Again, the fundraiser is here: http://www.gofundme.com/nem210

Gifts for People You Hate 2014: The Almost-Generic Edition

Posted on December 7, 2014 by naomikritzer

Hey, someone on MetaFilter found my gift-giving advice posts and linked them! This is both exciting…and made me realize I needed to get a move on for this year’s helpful gift shopping post. Thanksgiving was really late and I was sort of surprised today to realize how little time left there is.

So, to recap: sometimes, you have to give gifts to people you dislike, because your family dynamics or unwritten workplace rules require it and not handing over something wrapped up in a box or gift bag would be a THING, and it’s worth spending some money (as little as possible, of course) to keep the peace.

The basic principles are the same every year. (1) Cheap, but untraceably cheap; if you buy them some bad wine, it can’t be Charles Shaw, because everyone knows that was only $3. (2) Minimal effort; should be something you can buy on your other errands or order online with everyone else’s gifts. (3) Something you might have plausibly thought they might like, since if you wanted to be confrontational you could have just refused to buy them anything.

As always, I want to note that I don’t shop for anyone I don’t like — this annual series came out of hearing a lot of friends talk about the annual trauma of buying something for their obnoxious BIL or their least-favorite coworker they somehow drew for the office Secret Santa. If I do give you a gift, and you hate it, I swear it was accidental. The vast majority of bad gift-giving is accidental, which of course is the cover you need for your deliberate bad gift.

This year’s theme is “Almost Generic.” Even more common than the “I really don’t like this person” problem is the “I really don’t know this person all that well” problem, which is why every store from Walgreens to Macys is loaded up with the sort of generic gifts that satisfy a general recurring need in some way, or accomplish some common yet specialized task in a more-efficient way. (Key chain fobs that will talk to your smartphone and tell you where your keys are! Freezable wine chilling tubes!)

Gloves, Scarves, Hats

If you live in a cold climate, you probably go through a fair number of gloves, hats, and scarves, because this stuff gets lost a lot. It also gets dingy over time. Some people like to have multiple sets in various colors to coordinate with outfits. (I care about color only in that I’ve started buying all my gloves in pink whenever possible, because Molly won’t borrow pink stuff.)

Here is a very inexpensive “cashmere feel” acrylic scarf that can be dropped into a gift bag and presented to just about anyone who doesn’t live in Miami as a perfectly acceptable winter gift. Available colors include traffic-cone orange and a shade of purple that will only appeal to people who truly love the color purple. This scarf is cheaper and available in some really unappealing moss greens.

You could also give these budget-priced leather driving gloves” which, according to the reviews, will fall apart within days. They’re also available in a women’s style; these are better reviewed overall aside from not fitting people with adult-sized hands. (Note: you can’t actually order these for this Christmas; they’re shipped from China and won’t come from January. However, low-quality leather driving gloves are available all over. If you’re trying them on in person, you can pick some with a scratchy tag and a stiff feel.)

For a hat, look to Land’s End. Usually, they’re a source of high-quality merchandise, but the reviews for their fleece hats complain vehemently that they are too small for adult heads.

Slippers

Slippers are a classic Christmas gift. Who doesn’t like a nice pair of slippers? The thing is, most people have some fairly strong preferences, first among them clog-style vs. NOT. Think about the shoes and slippers you’ve seen your recipient wear in the past. If they’re full-coverage, go for clog style slippers: men’s women’s.

Wallets

Wallets are one of those “you had one job!” items. You carry it in a pocket or a purse and it’s supposed to hold your credit cards and cash so they don’t fall out. This one is apparently oversized and made of unattractive materials (but one of the reviewers will also assure you that it’s “manly,” so no worries about the “purse” bit in the description.) This one is apparently put together in such a way that if you don’t fill it up, your stuff will fall out, and if you do fill it up, the clasp won’t snap. (Alas! You won’t be able to get that one for Christmas this year — it’s shipped from China and they don’t appear to have a “priority shipping” option that would get it here in time.)

Watches

I have a friend who fixes watches for a living. He will tell you that a Timex is better, in the sense of accurately telling time, than any expensive watch; expensive watches are mechanical, cheap ones use a battery, and battery-powered watches keep better time. (The purpose of a Rolex isn’t really to tell time, obviously.) Anyway, you’re obviously not going to buy an expensive watch for someone you don’t like. But you could totally buy a fancy-looking watch for less than $10 (or this manlier-looking model for under $15.)

You could also give someone a watch that requires you to tap the screen before it actually tells you what time it is, or this weirdly badass-looking model which claims to be water resistant, totally looks like it ought to be water resistant, and according to reviews, is not even remotely water resistant. Finally, this one is outside the usual price range I shoot for, but if you’re willing to budget $40, you could give someone a world of frustrationwith an alleged smartwatch that arrives with poorly written instructions badly translated from Chinese, that relies on an app that may or may not actually exist, and has been known to break after two charges. (Note: go to the “other sellers” and find someone that’s offering it with Prime Shipping — if it ships from China, you won’t get it until after Christmas.)

Finally, for a watch that’s super fancy looking yet frankly useless to the vast majority of people in 2014 there’s the pocket watch. These are terrific for people who do Steampunk cosplay or who enjoy being extremely retro. For most people, though, if they want to pull something out of their pocket to find out what time it is, they pull out their cell phone. And they definitely don’t want a pocket watch in their pocket because it might scratch the screen. In fact, apparently most people my age don’t wear watches at ALL (I find looking at my wrist more convenient than pulling something out of my pocket, but I also get a newspaper delivered to my house every day, even though I’m only 41.) Anyway, the other thing about a pocket watch is that if you actually do use it regularly, it will die quickly because pocket lint gets in there.

Heated Travel Mugs

Who doesn’t need a travel mug? (A few years ago, during the after-Christmas sales, I discovered a pile of gift-boxed travel mugs at OfficeMax that had been marked down to $3/mug or something like that. I bought six. I’m down to one. I am pretty sure I lose more travel mugs than gloves.) For the passive-aggressive bonus, gift a heated travel mug that will plug into the car outlet and keep the drink warm except that this one, according to reviews, will break almost immediately.

External Phone Charger

If you have a smartphone, you could totally use a compact external rechargeable battery. Unlike most of the products I suggest, I have actually owned this one (not a gift — I bought it for myself) and can personally vouch for it being a complete piece of crap. (It looks like you can spend $7 more and get a very similar item that usually works instead of one that usually doesn’t work — so if you’re giving to multiple people, you could give nearly identical items to the people you DO like, which seems like a passive-aggressive grand slam.)

Gift Cards

People who dislike gift cards describe them as being like given an errand. So make sure, if you give someone a gift card, to pick something that really is an errand. For example, you could give someone a gift card for an oil change. Or a gift card for a set of car washes (you’ll need to buy that one locally to you). A gift card for a dental cleaning is probably more than you want to spend, but it definitely says, “I care!” while at the same time offering up a genuinely unpleasant experience. Office supplies are one of those things everyone needs (printer supplies, if nothing else) but are always annoying to go get. (At least around here. They’re perpetually understaffed and so the wait for service is always too long.) Speaking of long lines, if the person’s crafty you could give them a gift card for Jo-Ann Fabric. (I’ll go there for other craft supplies if I’m near one and I need something, but I refuse to shop there for fabric; life is too short to stand in that cutting line. Ever.)

Passive-Aggressive Gift Giving Guides from Previous Years:

Also, if you’re amused by my writing, check out my science blogging at Bitter Empire: http://bitterempire.com/author/naomi-kritzer/

My (kind of low-volume) Twitter feed: @naomikritzer

Or my fiction that’s free online:
Bits (possibly NSFW)
The Good Son
Honest Man (downloadable audio)
Comrade Grandmother
St. Ailbe’s Hall

And if you like that you could consider buying:
Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories (short story collection)
Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories (short story collection)
My novels (there are five of them)

The new Android OS update broke my phone. Completely.

Posted on December 3, 2014 by naomikritzer

I have a Nexus 4. This is a somewhat obscure Android-based phone — I got it because it was reasonably priced and available without a contract. This was significantly cheaper in the long run because I could use a T-Mobile pay-as-you-go plan for $30/month that got me unlimited texting, 100 minutes of talk, and 5GB of data. It is an annoying phone for several reasons: it’s too big, and doesn’t fit easily into my pocket. Also, the camera’s not very good. But I love having a smartphone and overall I’ve been happy with it.

A week or so back, my phone downloaded the latest Android update, Lollipop 5.x. And bugged me about it constantly. I finally caved last night and went ahead and installed it. This morning, I was a little startled to see how much it changed the look and feel, but it seemed to be working fine. There was one really odd thing: Lookout phone security (this is an app I installed at some point) told me that my SIM card had been removed at 1:30 a.m. Obviously, no one in the house was messing around with my phone (let alone removing my SIM card) at 1:30 a.m., so I figured this was some weird quirk associated with the update and didn’t worry about it.

The first thing I noticed was not working: Words With Friends. I was using the old version because I’d found the new version incredibly irritating. I started trying to re-install the new version, and it didn’t work. I needed to get going so I didn’t worry about it too much; I figured I would troubleshoot it later.

I had a trip to the dentist this morning and spent a lot of time waiting in the chair (I was having a night guard made) and used my time to play with Facebook and Chrome. At one point, I tried to e-mail a link I’d found on Facebook to a friend, and when her address refused to insert itself, I sent it to myself. It didn’t show up, which was weird, but just then the dental person came back, so I didn’t worry about it. On my way home, I stopped and made a phone call; that worked fine.

When I got home, the message I’d sent myself was in the e-mail on my computer, timed-stamped properly, so I forwarded it on to my friend. When I went out again, I noticed that my phone was running extremely hot. I was having issues with this a month or two back (in addition to providing me with an overly warm phone, this drains the battery like whoa), downloaded GSM Battery Monitor, and kept an eye out to see if there were specific apps that made it do that. Turns out WWF was a frequent culprit, so if I noticed it was running hot, I’d force-quit WWF. That seemed to largely solve the problem. Only today, the culprit initially was Google Play, which was super weird, and then later the Android OS.

When I got home a second time, I realized that I’d had a whole bunch of messages show up that hadn’t come to my phone. On closer inspection, sync was not working for any of the Google applications. I was getting error messages about verification issues, only when I tapped the error, instead of giving me a dialog box to put in my password or something, it just re-tried and gave me the same error. I thought maybe it was an issue with Two-Step Authentication (which I use) but when I pulled up my devices in my Google profile security page, my phone was still listed, plus according to Google, it had successfully accessed my account less than an hour ago. (And incidentally, I did receive the message sent FROM my phone even though it was refusing to show me stuff coming in.)

So THEN I tried some troubleshooting, using Google help. That was problematic because the help page wanted me to try to turn sync on and off a few times and the path to doing that does not appear to exist in Lollipop 5. I eventually got to the “try rebooting your phone” spot and thought, “oh, of course I should try rebooting!” And did. At which point Gmail stopped working COMPLETELY — I couldn’t even get it to load.

At this point:

* It has locked up repeatedly at the “enter your unlock code” screen when I try to wake it. Though sometimes it’ll do that, then work again 5-10 minutes later.

* It can’t decide whether it talks to the cell network, or not. I tried sending two texts to Ed. It told me it sent one, but not the other. In fact, it sent both of them twice.

* I have repeatedly gotten messages from Lookout telling me the SIM card has been removed. (I think this may be connected to the “maaaaaaaaaybe I’m a cell phone or MAYBE NOT!” issue.) I did, at one point, pop it out and re-seat it but this doesn’t seem to have fixed anything.

* The battery continues to burn like a fire built entirely out of crumpled newspaper.

* NOTHING RUNS OMG NOTHING except, curiously, Facebook. (So long as it’s connected to a wireless network OR talking to the cell network.)

On one hand, I’m pretty sure this update hosed my phone. On the other hand, I’m not sure how. I found other people in the Nexus 4 forums whose phone was rendered basically useless by this upgrade but they can all still make calls and send texts.

So! I guess this is all by way of saying, if you need to get hold of me? Don’t call my cell. Also, if you have an Android phone: FOR ALL THAT IS HOLY JUST SAY NO TO THIS UPGRADE.

Election 2014: U.S. House in District 4 and District 5

Posted on September 8, 2014 by naomikritzer

Both District 4 (St. Paul and some suburbs) and District 5 (Minneapolis and some suburbs) are rather solidly DFL districts. The 4th District was last represented by a Republican in the late 1940s; the 5th in the 1960s. We do have Republicans running in both these districts this time around and strange things do happen, but these are not generally considered to be competitive races.

In District 4, here’s who’s on the ballot:

DAVE THOMAS – INDEPENDENCE
SHARNA WAHLGREN – REPUBLICAN
BETTY MCCOLLUM – DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR

Dave Thomas

So whereas the Independence candidate in the Senate race was running somewhere to the right of the Republican, the Independence candidate here (who is actually endorsed by the Independence party, unlike the guy in the Senate race) is running to the left of the Democrat. Whereas the Independence guy in the Senate race is your embarrassing bigoted uncle, the Independence guy in the Congressional race is your extremely liberal and overly enthusiastic very young cousin whose Facebook feed has more than its share dubiously sourced re-shares about the dangers of plastic water bottles or whatever it is this week. When you talk to him at family parties, he wants to buttonhole you about some ISSUE that he is currently passionate about. One Thanksgiving it was the paleo diet; another it was marijuana legalization. You don’t actually disagree with him about much of this stuff, mind you, but his passionate declarations of fervent belief make you realize that you’ve gotten old.

Dave Thomas doesn’t give a bio on his campaign website, which had me wondering if he was still in college. His Facebook page, however, says that he is “an Iraq War veteran, volunteer firefighter and works in the special education department at Brimhall Elementary in Roseville, MN. He is happily married with two beautiful children.”

Anyway! He wants a system of state-funded tuition-free public higher education, and in the meantime we should forgive all loan debt. He wants universal paid maternity leave. He wants a manned mission to Mars and a 5% increase in our National Park lands. He wants energy self-sufficiency in eleven years, he wants marijuana legalization, he wants the NSA to be defunded.

To pay for the stuff like tuition-free college, he wants a new tax code: “A sliding scale, percentage-based flat tax on all income generated (from the federal level) would rectify most of the problematic situations that our current code perpetuates.” I’m not sure what a sliding-scale flat tax is, other than contradictory sounding.

Under Veteran’s Affairs, he suggests that when members of the Armed Service go through extensive training equivalent to a technical degree, we call it an Associate’s Degree. This strikes me as possibly really reasonable (and wouldn’t cost anything extra — essentially it’s a way of upgrading the credentials soldiers are already coming home with into something employers recognize). I wonder why this isn’t what they do now?

Possibly the funniest, from the National Security section “It should be illegal to sell any seed which is unable to produce viable offspring.” So just to be clear: he thinks it should be illegal to grow seedless watermelons. (Marijuana: legalize and tax. Seedless watermelons: BAN.) (I’m sure he’s actually thinking of some of the varieties of corn developed by Monsanto that are specifically designed to make it impossible for you to save seeds. But his proposed legislation basically bans hybrid garden vegetables.) Dammit, Dave Thomas, YOU CAN HAVE MY SEEDLESS WATERMELON WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS.

Sharna Wahlgren

Sharna is the Republican. She provides a fairly standard political bio (community service on non-profit boards, work ethic honed by high school labor at the State Fair) and states that her priorities are fiscal responsibility, local solutions, and job growth. She’s got a paragraph about each. I salute her willingness to run in a race she’s going to lose, and her pragmatism in accepting that this is not a campaign worth investing a lot of time in.

Betty McCollum

Betty is liberal and hardworking, and has so far avoided embarrassing us with any scandals or criminal behavior. I kind of preferred being represented by Keith Ellison just because he upsets so many Republicans just by existing, but I really have no complaints about Betty. I’m going to vote for her.

In District 5, here’s who’s on the ballot:

LEE BAUER – INDEPENDENCE
DOUG DAGGETT – REPUBLICAN
KEITH ELLISON – DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR

Lee Bauer

I clicked on Lee Bauer’s website with trepidation, eager to find out which variety of Independence nutbar I’d find.

I don’t really want to make fun of him, but I wouldn’t vote for him, either. Lee is a blue-collar, working class, gay single father. (Based on the age of his kid, I’m guessing he had a brief marriage to a woman.) He’s earnest and means well but is overly fond of exclamation points and doesn’t know much about most of the issues.

For example, here’s his comment on drug costs: “Prescription drugs, by bring down the price of will benefit the ones with chronic symptoms and the older folks. How about asthma for instance, There is a drug called Albuterol, it was put on the market 1968, the year I was born, Albuterol 5 years ago was $17.00 cash with no insurance, but today it’s $57.00, and if you were to buy in Mexico its less than five dollars for three bottles. One bottle would last a month for most and this is one drug of many that can be lowed.”

I had basically the same question last year — WTF is up with albuterol prices? This is not a new drug; why does it cost so goddamn much? It turns out that this is due to environmental regulations. The old inhalers contained CFCs. CFCs were banned by an international treaty in 1996 because they were causing ozone layer depletion; the albuterol inhalers that used CFCs were phased out in 2008. The new formulation is legally a new drug and so it’s under patent again (or maybe it’s the inhaler design that’s new? I am not 100% sure.) Anyway, that’s why albuterol suddenly costs so much. There were a lot of things that the government could have done differently to mitigate the situation; I would be a lot more interested in his ideas if he got into any of that, but he doesn’t.

Anyway, a lot of his website is like that.

Doug Daggett

Doug has another fairly standard political bio (his first job was delivering the morning paper). He’s 50, married, a tech sales person, and reasonably competent with Twitter. He presents himself as a fairly moderate Republican, suggesting changes to the Affordable Care Act rather than demanding it be immediately repealed. (He thinks people should have catastrophic coverage policies and HSAs.)

The bit that made me roll my eyes and think, “so very Republican” was this bit on education:

We all want our children to have a great education and great opportunities. Yet in Minneapolis, most likely 1/2 of our children (46%) will not graduate. This is an economic and social disaster for all of us in the 5th Congressional District! We need a leader who will get Washington DC out of our schools and allow teachers and parents to decide what’s best for our children. Doug Daggett is that leader.

Minneapolis is doing a crap job, therefore get Washington DC out because local control is the answer!

Keith Ellison

Keith is a solidly liberal, hard-working Representative who so far hasn’t embarrassed his constituents with scandals or criminal behavior.

But what I really adored about Keith Ellison back when I was living in Minneapolis was being able to tell my out-of-town friends that I was represented by a pro-Choice pro-marriage-equality Muslim black guy. Keith Ellison has been making right-wing heads explode since he took his Oath of Office on Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Koran.

Were I living in Minneapolis, I would definitely vote for Keith.

Election 2014: Missed the Primary

Posted on September 7, 2014 by naomikritzer

I was ambushed by the August primary and failed to post anything.

I also, for the first time in many years, failed to vote in the election — I was out of town that week, and by the time it dawned on me that the primary was going to be in freaking AUGUST, it was too late to get an absentee ballot.

Fortunately, the only actual contest happening on the DFL side of the ballot was for State Auditor. For reasons that in retrospect only seem even more mystifying, former State Rep Matt Entenza ran against the endorsed incumbent, Rebecca Otto, on a platform that seemed to suggest that he didn’t really understand the job functions.

I’ll note that a former State Auditor race is one of the handful of times I’ve voted for a Republican. I voted for Judi Dutcher against a DFL incumbent — although Judi had switched parties before the next election, which I thought vindicated me rather thoroughly.

Anyway, Matt spent busloads of money in order to get about 324 votes total. (OK, I am overstating things, but only slightly; Rebecca got 80% of the vote. Though in an August primary with no real headliner races, only the party diehards are even paying attention.) Over on the Republican side, the endorsed candidates for Governor and Senator took it. I’d say the early evidence suggests that moving the primary back a month has made the party endorsements significantly more important.

I’ve been thinking I should get started with my election blogging; I’ll probably go top to bottom. The thing about starting early is that there’s less information available. “Less” in the context of the U.S. Senate race is not a problem given that there’s no shortage of data out there about Al Franken and McWhat’shisname, the Republican running against him. (I’m not being snarky here, I am legitimately having trouble remember his name. I got a push poll the other day and they asked me what I thought of McWhat’shisname and I said, “um, I’m not sure who that is. Is that the guy running against Al Franken?” Yes. And now I’ve forgotten it again. McConnell, maybe?) ANYWAY. Down-ticket races, “less” sometimes means “none.” There are apparently some competitive judge races this time, though, so I’ll definitely try to get to those.

In Minnesota this time around, we are voting for a U.S. Senator, a Governor, all the big state offices (people! pay attention to these! it really does actually matter who our Secretary of State, State Auditor, and Attorney General are!), all our U.S. Congressional Representatives, all our State Senators, and all our State Reps. Also a bunch of judges, and Minneapolis is having a school board race, and we have County Commissioners and County Sheriffs and (naturally!) Soil & Water Commissioners. AND, for your additional reading pleasure, Minneapolis has TWO yes/no ballot questions — one that’s hoping to solve the Mayoral Clown Car problem for future years, and one that seeks to make it easier for wine bars to operate, I think. (“REMOVE MANDATORY FOOD REQUIREMENTS FOR WINE LICENSES. Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to remove the requirement that businesses holding on-sale wine licenses in the City must serve food with every order of wine or beer and to remove mandatory food to wine and beer sales ratios?”)

If any city resident outside either my St. Paul precinct or my old Minneapolis precinct has a special request for a race for me to cover, let me know via e-mail or comment. (I don’t generally do anything outside the core cities, because I am inadequately informed on the crucial issues. It just takes me a long time to get up to speed on what people are talking about, in the local races. It’s been hard enough getting up to speed in St. Paul — in Minneapolis, I could look at the people endorsing someone and know a bunch of things right off, whereas in St. Paul I totally lack that knowledge base. But I LIVE here now, so I’m actually motivated to acquire it — whereas for New Hope or Eagan, that’s just never going to happen.)

And for new readers who don’t know how this works: I research the candidates, make fun of them, and do endorsements. Most people actually reading these for information are here for the down-ticket writeups; there are very few sources for information about the down-ticket races like Soil & Water Commissioners. (Okay, and last year, I had the distinction of being one of the ONLY one-stop sources for ALL the Minneapolis mayoral candidates.)

For candidates who want to make a case for my endorsement (which you totally should; I am pretty sure I swing DOZENS of votes) or anyone else who wants to get in touch with me about this, my e-mail is totally not a secret. My username is naomi dot kritzer, and I use Gmail. You can also find me on Facebook, and I know about the Other message folder now so I will probably see your message within a day or two.

Convergence programming schedule

Posted on July 1, 2014 by naomikritzer

Convergence — our ENORMOUS local summer con — is this weekend, and as usual, I’m going and will be on some panels. Should you wish to find me, here’s where to look:

Thursday, July 3rd

5 p.m. Sci-Fi Mirror

How does the sci-fi of an era reflect society’s concerns, hopes, dreams, and politics? Panelists: Elizabeth Bear, Naomi Kritzer, Haddayr Copley-Woods, Ozgur K. Sahin, Kenneth Konkol. Atrium 4.

10 p.m. Ultimate Evil Overlord 101

An interactive guide to becoming the ultimate evil overlord – with audience participation. Panelists: Naomi Kritzer, Brian Salisbury, Craig Cormick, Laura Thurston, Christoforo Pasquarette. Atrium 6.

Friday, July 4th

8:30 p.m. Tell Me That Again

Most stories have been told before! What folktales, myths, and legends did Shakespeare tell in his plays? What classic stories are being retold in episodes of Star Trek, the Avengers, or the Big Bang Theory? Panelists: Naomi Kritzer, Sarah Prentice, Joseph Erickson, Tex Thompson, Aimee Kuzenski. Atrium 7.

Saturday, July 5th

I have nothing scheduled but might do the Steam Century mystery. Molly, having played the mystery LARP for years and years now with great enthusiasm, has now joined the cast. Ed is predicting that I will lose miserably because Molly will conscientiously refuse to tell me ANYTHING.

Then again, if the weather’s nice, I may try to lure my friends into coming and hanging out with me on the patio (last year the RadishTree had a lovely, lovely patio off the back end of the hotel, with comfortable furniture and fresh-grilled food for reasonable prices. There was even a bar out there. Smokers were all off in their special corral where their fumes would not irritate anyone else.)

Sunday, July 6th

2 p.m. Women in Genre Not Talking about Women in Genre

Panelists talk about everything EXCEPT what it’s like to be a woman working in genre! Which is better, Star Wars or Star Trek? What YA series will be made into a TV show next? Audience questions will be drawn randomly and answered by the panelists. Panelists: Martha Wells, Damarra Atkins, Lynne M. Thomas, Danielle Indovino, Naomi Kritzer. Edina Room.

3:30 p.m. Urban Legends: Myths, Facts, and Half-Truths

From alligators in the sewer to clowns in the attic, urban legends walk the line between total absurdity and being just so outrageous that they might be true. Where do these stories come from, and why do they capture our imaginations so effectively? Panelists: Jason Thibeault, Anne Sauer, Naomi Kritzer, Bug Girl, Shawn van Briesen. Atrium 6.

In the try-on room at the thrift shop

Posted on May 11, 2014 by naomikritzer

1. How did I not notice the enormous stain on this item when I took it off the rack? Oh, AND it’s ripped. Excellent.

2. When it won’t even go on over my hips, that makes it easy.3. This makes me look fat. Ginormous, in fact.

4. What on earth happened with this seam? Skirts should flow down over your hip, not stick out at a right angle. Was this an intentional design or some sort of sewing mistake?

5. I can envision a woman of my exact size and shape who would totally ROCK this item of clothing. And I sort of wish I were that woman, but I think I need to just accept the fact that I’m not.

6. This doesn’t even REMOTELY come CLOSE to fitting….oh, that would be because it’s a children’s item that got hung with the adult women’s clothes by mistake…

7. What was I even thinking when I took this one off the rack and put it in my cart?

8. It fits me and feels good, but I wanted pockets and a different color. I’d be sold if it were $5, but it’s $10.

9. Wait, this item I grabbed impulsively actually looks AWESOME on me! …naturally, it’s one of the $14 items instead of one of the $7 items.

(Shout out to Erin Jeffreys Hodges, who could probably add to this list.)

Will Tell Stories For Food

Naomi Kritzer's blog

Category Archives: Uncategorized