Category Archives: raincoaster

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Operation Global Media Domination: The Bubble Bath Situation

Bathtubs of Glory

Bathtubs of Glory

One hates to begin a blog post on a tangent, particularly when it is a blog post about one’s self, but sometimes one’s self’s gotta do what one’s self’s gotta do.  In this case, one’s gotta point y’all to the amazing web ad copy for this loverly, New Agey bathtub, for lo, it is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, unless you like the English Language, that is.

The Florentine company realizes, thanks to skilled craftsmen, the tanks that are works of art to decorate your bathroom with a unique touch.

Baldi, the company made in Italy, proposes luxury furnishings in addition to producing high-value and visual impact has also introduced some time to create baths that are sculptures. Built from blocks of precious rock crystals found in the Amazon, the ultra-luxury tubs signed Baldi become protagonists of the bathroom and create a refined and unique moments of relaxation.

“Protagonists of the bathroom.” I’m pretty sure that was a scene in the Satyricon, wasn’t it?

Where was I? It was a blog post about me, wasn’t it? Oh, right.

Baths. Let’s just say that there was a day last week that was particularly “Fridayish” even though it was not technically Friday. I’d done another of the “stay up all night working after staying up all day working” things that I do from time to time. Like, now. Anyhoodle, I had also gone for a long walk, and was pondering…a bath, certainly. But a bubble bath or a scented epsom salts bath? These are important questions, so naturally I took them to Twitter. One does not make raincoaster soup without adequate research.

To my surprise, the consensus was that both, simultaneously, were not only permissible but positively desirable, and therefore I signed off and took their advice literally, and although it took ten hours for my fingertips to unwrinkle, it was worth every moment. I never used to love baths, but that was before I spent four years in an apartment that only had a shower. I got very good at offering to help around the houses of such friends as had tubs, and availing myself thereof.

A kindred soul is Holistic Sailor, who lives on a sailboat which also lacks a proper soakage receptacle, and who therefore feels my pain. She not only felt my pain, she prescribed for it, and created this fabulous raincoaster bath blend which I intend to try just as soon as I don’t have a mere $1.65 to my name. So THIS, people, is how you make raincoaster soup:

So in honour of @raincoaster’s appreciation for the bath, I offer this aromatherapy blend. Blend the essential oils together first and then add them to 1 1/2 – 2 cups of epsom salts. We all know what happens when you mix water and oil, so add the essential oils to the salt first before adding to the bath.

@raincoaster Bath Blend

  • 4 drops lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
  • 4 drops rose 10% (Rosa damascena)
  • 2 drops jasmine 10% (Jasmine grandiflorum)
  • 1 1/2 – 2 cups epsom salts

Enjoy.

Tasty!

In other Operation Global Media Domination news:

Someone wrote a song for me!

My last major article for the Daily Dot, a report of Anonymous taking the Kremlin offline, got retweeted 54 times, including once by the former Ambassador to the UN of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In somewhat more mysterious news, somebody mentioned my ManoloFood blog on the media in New York last Wednesday. Five times the normal hits, all going straight to Manolofood.com, meaning it was on tv, radio, or in the paper somewhere. No idea who said what about me, but I wish they’d held off till I’d gotten some fresher posts up. Ah, well.

And in related and even more dignified news, I was profiled in Ayoudo’s House of Splendour, and you just know I’m all about profile roundups with grandiose nomenclature!

Sure, Bobby Flay AND Angry Bobby Flay may both be evading me on Twitter, but do they live in a House of Splendour? With mysterious media shout-outs? with their OWN BATH MIX?

I think not. I very much think not.

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TG to the IF!

Friday

So, you know what today is, right?

Today was particularly “Friday” if you know what I mean. Really, you’d think by this time I’d know that if I don’t have time to talk to editors, I should just get off the damn internet, because you can hardly just hang up on them or refuse to answer once they know you’re online. If it means you don’t sleep, that’s what it means.

And if, like me, you didn’t sleep (except during workshops at a conference you paid good money for) then you’ll need this, for energy.

A Jackson 5/Beatles mashup to bring some energy back into your life.

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The Shape of Things to Come

Mylene Farmer could never be called modest

Mylene Farmer could never be called modest, but if YOU looked like that, would YOU be?

Followers of the ol’ raincoastersphere, specifically Manolofood.com, will be aware that I recently did a 48-hour hunger strike, and only cheated once. During this fast, I gained three pounds. I do not recall any victims of waterboarding complaining about weight gain, and most hunger strikers of my acquaintance have been precisely the sort of ectomorphs who should be raising awareness by running across InNeedistan or something instead of indulging in calorie deprivation. When you’re fat, seeing skinny people go on hunger strikes is really under the aegis of the Department of Insult to Injury. As is the gaining of three pounds on a hunger strike.

Okay, okay, when I took off my Thuggie I discovered that I’d actually lost four pounds (and also that Thuggies weigh seven pounds!) but still!

Given that I spent all of last year obsessively tracking my calorie input and output with the LoseIt app and averaged 1100 calories a day and did not lose a single pound, it’s quite clear that if I’m ever to get to my ideal, or even a slightly improved, shape, it’ll take actually breaking a sweat. More than once a month, too.

Speaking if ideal shape…the one in the above photo is pretty much it. Mylene Farmer is older than me, and she still has that figure. This one.

Of course, she has those legs; that helps. Unless my pal Anthony Youn comes up with a clever, painless and cheap leg-lengthening procedure, I will never have legs anywhere near that good, but mine when in shape are not to be sneezed at. Especially if you don’t cover your nose. But hey, I got a start on the look: I bought the lipstick!

The current fashion for bowlegged rickets victims is not one which meets with my approval, in case you were wondering. I’d love to know which photographer we can blame for a generation of starlets who all pose as if they were about to lose bladder control. When in doubt, blame everything on Terry Richardson.

Knock kneed hipster girl

Knock kneed hipster girl

So Mylene’s shape is not achievable for me, which is too bad not only for me but for everyone who has to look at me. My current shape is quite perogy-like, and everybody likes perogies, so that’s something, but it’s not what I want.

This is what I want.

Ginger Spice would be nice

Ginger Spice would be nice

Believe it or not, for me, this is doable. Hell, I already had the hair! This will take, if I keep on schedule (which I will not and let’s be honest about it, you wouldn’t either) about a year. So I’m giving myself two years, because I’m like that with myself and you would be too, if you treasured me the way I do.

And if I looked like that, you would, wouldn’t you?

If Perez Hilton can do it, so can I.

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GPOY: Solution Mapping Edition

GPOY solution map

GPOY solution map

Among my friends there is a certain consensus of opinion, and they are unified in their belief that this is one of the smartest things I’ve ever said about myself: That, if I weren’t so confident in my ability to cope with crises, I’d put more effort into preventing them. Here we can see that principle expressed in the 21st Century’s highest art form, the Infographic.

Apropos of nothing, I will here list the words that I learned from the internet yesterday. You may find them amusing. Given my problem-solving style, I have no doubt I will find them critically useful at some point in the future.

As the great prophet Phyllis Diller once said, “I don’t merely believe in miracles. I rely on them.“

  • auto-mythocredititis, otherwise known as believing all your own spin [from the Guardian]
  • opuloconfundosapiensis – the tendency to confuse having lots of money with being very clever [same source, and I can hardly wait to incorporate this into an attack on the 1% on a dilapidated cardboard sign for Occupy Vancouver]
  • mon-orchid, meaning having only one testicle. Not exactly sure how I will bring this into a political discussion, but then there is no low to which I will not stoop in the fury of a firefight, so who knows? I may even lay it on Christie Clark. [from a fascinating Fortean Times article on the blue dogs of Texas]

and yes, I do read an eclectic collection of sites recently. I got bored with the usual Gawker/Awl/Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr round and decided to branch out, starting with solid, hard news sites and ending with amusing ones. No idea why I’m so fascinated with portraiture lately, though.

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and just as I say that…

stop poisoning your body with FOOD!

stop poisoning your body with FOOD!

And just as I update you all with my busy, busy life, it all comes to a complete stop, thanks to a bout of food poisoning. This wouldn’t normally be a big deal, as I AM trying to lose weight except:

  1. Thanks to construction on the building, there’s no power in my apartment right now, and it’ll be Monday before the power is back.
  2. Meaning it’s pitch-black in there, and I have no candles, batteries for flashlights, etc, and it’s a long way till payday
  3. The toilet is blocked. Parse that: I have food poisoning and the toilet is blocked.
  4. My plunger moved to the West Side when the neighbor I’d loaned it to moved away.

So, typical for me. I finally get a computer that works like lightning AND a wind stick so I can work at home, and the power goes out so I can only work for an hour off the battery AND I get brutally sick so I can’t go work in cafes.

Typical. See the well-known sociological principle of the Law of Conservation of Catastrophe.