attn tommdroid: Darkraving

Thought you'd enjoy the creature on this party flyer I peeled off of cyberwearz. Coincidentally (or not), this is happening in Toronto - maybe we ALL ought to go back up!

Also, don't forget to follow the links - Plastik Wrap in particular has some pretty, gothy things.... and no pink in sight! ;)

when research falls in your lap

...it's a beautiful thing :)

jadecat9 kindly left a comment to one of my dressdiaries posts suggesting a book written by a late 19th century tailor who patterned out a lot of the British military uniforms, including trim placement (!!!)

An obvious must have! A quick Google search found scans from the book, which I've downloaded but have yet to unzip. Nice to have a sneak preview before I go to the effort of asking for an inter-library loan!

As it's out of print I should also go slinking through jlsjlsjls' list of online libraries. I'm very interested in trim placement, if only because I'm still not sure at which stage of creation it was applied, or even how it was fixed to the jacket.

what, no men with buns?

( my sci-fi tee vee show )

and in actual news

John Kerry grows some balls (!) It is so refreshing to hear about this guy finally getting pissed off - more like this, please!

Understand, I'm not a devout Kerry-ite - indeed, I wasn't ever really solidly wedded to any of the Democratic candidates (though Dean's ability to get grass-roots support was really impressive). I'm just tired of watching the majority of Democrats roll over and take partisan attacks, and it's nice to see one stand up finally!

Haven't found a full transcript yet.

(And yes, Lister is my more or less permanent "politics" icon, even when it's good news, just because the whole process is such a mess).

the hallowed object: the Southern biscuit

I was pleased to see that Alton Brown devoted one of his shows to the the subtle art of Southern biscuit making. It was a treat because he had a "bake off" against his own grandmother, who, in true Southern grandmotherly fashion, didn't really measure, and has used the same baking pan, mixing bowl etc. for years!

I remember when I first begged my mom for her biscuit recipe, and she couldn't give it to me, because she never measured anything! She finally came up with a recipe (provided upon request), but I've never been able to make mine as good as hers. I'm guessing this is the sort of thing that is really best learned from your mom or grandma, and not from a book.

AB demonstrated some cooking tips that might help (use aluminum pans, as dark/teflon pans can burn the bottom of biscuits; use the right kind of flour), but it almost feels like a betrayl to consider following his recipe to the letter - you just don't blithely choose someone else's biscuit recipe over that of your own mother unless you've tried absolutely everything to get mama's recipe to work! :P

Got me craving biscuits now, though.