My grandma and your grandma, sitting by the fire

Perhaps unintentionally, but definitely awesomely, Jezebel has accrued a lengthy collection of amazing “my grandma…” stories in the comment section of this post. Who knew that Grace Kelly could be such a conversation starter (although she was actually pretty interesting, too)?

Stupid hackers!

The Gawker Media blogs are back up. Word on the street – and by on the street, I mean Gawker – is that hackers trying to block access to Consumerist (which isn’t even a Gawker Media blog anymore, but is still hosted on the company’s servers) effectively prevented people from accessing anything. Although I missed checking these sites while I was at work yesterday, I feel even worse for the many Gawker Media bloggers, who I believe still get paid on a page view model. This cannot be good for them. Bummer all around.

Sounds like some shady company is trying to prevent people from learning of their suckitude.

A day without Gawker

I visit various Gawker Media blogs multiple times during the day on weekdays, and usually at least once every weekend. This morning, upon starting my workday, I fired up my personal and work email accounts, the interlibrary loans window, Metafilter, Jezebel, and Gawker.  Those last two didn’t work. I gave it ten minutes, and tried again. Same deal. I googled Jezebel.com and saw the beginning of a post  from yesterday that mentioned technical difficulties. So I waited a couple of hours, and checked again. Still not working. I remember that this once happened before and I was able to find a backdoor link to Gawker, but that’s been years and now I don’t remember how I found that link (possibly Jossip, but since that site is now dead, that’s no help to me).

It’s kind of sad how much I missed these blogs. It’s not just the gossip or the ridiculous content; I actually like the people who post on threads and appreciate learning about things I would otherwise not know.

Right now it is 3 pm EDT, and these web sites, as well as Lifehacker and Gizmodo, are still not working. I never realized how much time I spent checking these blogs until I couldn’t look at them.

Bummer.

A thorough ribbing, not necessarily undeserved

I like to read the Food section of the New York Times when I have a few minutes and find myself in front of the computer. I bake and cook when I get the mood, and I’m always looking for good recipes. This week’s Frank Bruni column focused on a challenge given to two food writers: feed a party of 8 for less than $50. I thought the article was interesting, and liked the ideas that I got from it, even though I know that it’s not at all difficult to serve 6 people a complete meal for $50 or less.

Still, I got a kick out of the way that the Jezebel community reacted to the story. In addition to being up in arms and making fun of stupid food reporters, chefs, the New York Times, and printed media in general, the Jezzies added something of even more value than humor: recipes. Most of them were in the vein of “tostitos, dip, coffee, etc” but a few (including Sadie’s recipe that she posted along with her reaction to the article) looked like something I’d in all seriousness make and eat. Thank you, Jezebel! I shall be eating cheaply for ages, now!

Too Funny Not to Share

I wanted to share a video that I first saw on Jezebel, because it is just that hilarious.