Amber

From Drinks

[Photo: Jennifer Hess]

I find that it's easy to overthink the simple things. For example, I work from home while caring for two small children. Jeans and a black t-shirt are now my daily uniform at home. Why buy button-downs and polos and sweaters just to wear at home, when they'll just get jam and drool and Angostura on them anyway?

It's also all too easy to overthink the home bar, and to assume you need to spend a couple hundred at the Liquorteria just to get started. Here are some tips on the essentials you really need.

Stocking Your Bottles the Smart Way

[Photo: Maggie Hoffman]

It might feel like a home bar should have one of everything, but the best way to stock your bar is to start with the cocktails you love to drink. Plan your cocktail shopping the way you plan your meal shopping. If, say, you're making a lasagna, you'll make a list of the things you need for that, and you'll shop accordingly. So when you want lasagna, you buy what you need for the lasagna; why buy ribeye steaks and turkey breast and spare ribs when all you really want is lasagna?

Shopping for drink supplies should go the same way: why should you go out and buy gin and tequila and rum and Irish whiskey and scotch, when all you really want is a Sidecar?

I love Sidecars, so when I started into cocktails, I bought a good cognac and a bottle of Cointreau. Those lasted me for a while, so one night, I bought some tequila and used the Cointreau to make Margaritas.

Subbing In

And this is where it's good to have some idea of when you can make substitutions. Sidecars and Margaritas are both classic Sours—aside from the base spirit, the only difference is that one uses lemon juice and the other, lime juice.

Remember the first rule about substitutions: You don't talk about substitutions. Wait, that's not right. The first rule is: like replaces like. Tequila replaces brandy. Lime replaces lemon. Use other fortified wines (port or sherry) in place of vermouth in cocktails such as Martinis and Manhattans. Any brown liquor can be quite tasty in Manhattans and Old Fashioneds.

So in this way, if your bar has bourbon OR cognac OR rum OR tequila, AND a gin, AND a couple of different fortified wines, AND a good triple sec, you can make a good variety of cocktails without repeating yourself that often. I mean, you can make two different sours (a gin sour and, say, a bourbon sour); you can try a couple different variations on a Manhattan; and you can try a couple different variations on a Martini. Just for starters.

Pantry Staples

[Photo: Maggie Hoffman]

Now of course, in the kitchen, it helps to always have some pantry staples around, such as various dried beans, pasta, canned tomatoes, spices, and so on. In the same way, it's always good to have bar staples around. The two most important bar staples are bitters and simple syrup. The latter's easy. Add one part water and two parts sugar to a saucepan, heat it long enough for the sugar to dissolve, and then let it cool long enough to be bottled.

Bitters? Well, what do you really need? I'd start with Angostura aromatic bitters and also a good orange or citrus bitters. Next step is Peychaud's, if you like a Sazerac. Beyond that, I'd wait until you find a cocktail that uses something funky, and only then go shopping for the more obscure stuff, such as celery, grapefruit, or rhubarb bitters.

Truly Essential Tools

[Photo: Jennifer Hess]

When it comes to bar tools, only a few items are truly essential.

Glassware: stem glass (coupe or V, not both), rocks glass (or old fashioned), highball. That's it. You can do anything with these glasses, pretty much.

Measuring tools: Don't bother with jiggers, not for making drinks at home, anyway. To measure 1.5 ounces in a jigger, you have to fill it to the top. Unless you're holding the jigger over the shaker/mixing glass as you measure, you're going to lose some booze. Jiggers are designed for professional bartenders who work in fastfastfast where's-the-martini-for-table-12 environments. At home you need one tool and one tool only: an Oxo mini angled measuring cup. I only have one problem with it: there's no mark for 3/4 ounces. I usually eyeball it, or if I need more precision, I measure 1/2 and then 1/4 ounces.

Knives: Chances are, you can get away with a paring knife, at least to start. With a paring knife, you can cut citrus for juicing, pare off bits of peel for twists, and cut wheels and wedges for garnish. If you need a larger knife, a basic chef's knife will do. They're helpful for larger citrus fruits and also for bigger items, such as pineapple. If you want to get fancy with your lemon and orange twists, a channel knife is helpful, but it's certainly not necessary.

Shaker: I continue to believe that a basic Boston shaker is the best tool out there for mixing drinks. You can stir a drink in almost any vessel that's large enough, but for shaking, the Boston can't be beat.

Bar spoon: You don't need a fancy bar spoon to stir a cocktail, although I would say that you probably shouldn't settle for the cheap type with the red plastic cap on the end. I'd go with something like this.

Strainer: Traditionally, a Hawthorne strainer (the kind with the looped spring attached) is used in a mixing tin, when straining shaken drinks, and a Julep strainer (the kind that looks like an oversized perforated spoon) is used for stirred drinks. I don't really understand why. Right now I'm using a Hawthorne for everything because I can't find my Julep. I think one strainer is enough, though it's up to you whether you prefer the Hawthorne or the Julep.

Swizzle stick: Do you need a swizzle stick? I don't know. Do birds need hang gliders?

Got More to Add?

Tell me, my friends. What truly necessary bottle, bitters, or tool have I forgotten to mention?

About the author: Michael Dietsch lives with his wife and kids in Brooklyn. His first book, Shrubs, is due in October 2014. You can reach him on twitter at @dietsch.

As Keith Olbermann made abundantly clear, Sochi is basically Russia’s Detroit right now. It’s swamped with controversies and complications, which itself is a major complication considering the 2014 Winter Olympics begin there in, oh, two days. The only person who thinks things are going swimmingly is Vladimir Putin. We’ve devoted individual posts to all the #sochiproblems, but let’s round them up.

1. No. Gays. Allowed.

Russia passed a new law last year banning what it termed “homosexual propaganda” targeting minors (Russian citizens under 18). Mr. Putin has insisted gay athletes and spectators should feel “relaxed” about coming to Sochi, but confusingly then commenting that they should “leave the children alone.”

The mayor of Sochi has previously said there are no gay citizens in his town. (Via)

2. The toilet situation is a disaster.

3. The Games are insanely over-budget.

When Russia bid to host its first Winter Olympics back in 2007, the document quoted an expected cost of around $12 billion. However, as the extensive renovation of the city of Sochi has unfolded in the years since successfully winning the rights to stage the Games, that number has ballooned to around $50 billion — more than four times over budget. It will be the most expensive Olympics yet, surpassing Beijing’s 2008 Summer Games. (Via)

4. Dogs and cats are being murdered by the thousands.

Reports have now surfaced that Sochi has hired a company to carry out mass extermination of thousands of dogs and cats leading up to the winter games, sparking outrage from animal rights groups and basically anyone who isn’t a heartless sociopath. (Via)

5. Most of the hotels are either not finished or in complete shambles.

6. The water might kill you.

7. Watch out for manholes (that’s Putin’s campaign slogan, too).

8. Don’t be proud to be an American.

The U.S. State Department is warning our Olympic athletes not to wear their uniforms outside of Sochi’s 1,500-mile secured “ring of steel,” as American officials fear they will not be able to protect Americans in the violent region. The Wall Street Journal reviewed a memo the Olympic Committee sent to athletes, which said that “the U.S. Department of State has advised that wearing conspicuous Team USA clothing in non-accredited areas may put your personal safety at greater risk.” (Via)

9. Cramped rooms that make the Budget Inn look like the Hilton.

10. The slopes are death traps.

Only days away from the beginning of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, the slopestyle course will undergo changes. International Ski Federation official Roberto Moresi declared that due to the multiple concerns and complaints coming from the athletes, the steep hills on the course will be trimmed at the top and bottom.

The modification was brought about by an ugly crash during practice runs Monday, when Norwegian hopeful Torstein Horgmo landed hard on his face and right shoulder, breaking his collarbone. He will miss the Olympic games.

Many snowboarders in Sochi have expressed concern about the way the course is set up. (Via)

11. Look out for the Black Widows.

With three weeks to go before the Olympics begin, new threats — and a possible security breach — are placing a troubling cloud over the upcoming Winter Games. A video was posted to a Jihadist website over the weekend, in which two young men take credit for two recent terrorist attacks in Volgograd, and promising more bloodshed in Sochi next month.

And in another disturbing report, police in Sochi say they are desperately searching for Dagestani woman known as the “Black Widow” who may have already entered the city undetected, despite being wanted for her connection to previous plots. (Via)

12. The environment is being destroyed.

Environmental experts warn that the construction of a new road and a high-speed railway has damaged Sochi’s Mzymta River and the fragile local ecosystem of the surrounding Sochi National Park. The dumping of illegal construction waste and the construction of power lines have resulted in landsides, causing homes to sink and partially collapse, threatening residents’ health and safety. In one village, Olympic construction destroyed local drinking wells, leaving villagers with no reliable drinking water source for years. (Via)

13. People are being thrown in jail for swearing.

Vitishko’s Sochi lawyer Alexander Popkov said his client was arrested as he was about to leave the town of Tuapse, 72 kilometres (45 miles) northwest along the coast from Sochi, after formally filing for permission to travel to the Olympic host city. He faced court Monday and was found guilty of swearing at a bus stop, a hooliganism charge. (Via)

14. Corruption runs rampant.

Russian opposition figure and former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov renewed his allegations of massive corruption linked to the upcoming Olympics.

In an interview with RFE/RL on February 4, Nemtsov said $25 billion-$30 billion has been stolen from Olympic funds.

He alleged the funds were stolen by officials linked to Putin and his business cronies. (Via)

15. Migrant workers aren’t being paid.

Since 2007, when Russia won the coveted bid to host next month’s Winter Games, thousands of laborers have traveled to Sochi–a Black Sea resort community and one of the warmest places in the country–to build two clusters of venues, packed with over 100 Olympic sites. They came looking for work from countries like Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. But hundreds have since complained about lack of pay, excessive hours, overcrowded housing, inadequate food, and, in recent months, unlawful detentions and hasty deportations. (Via)

16. Families are being evicted from their homes.

About 1,000 families have to be relocated under eminent domain to make room for Olympic venues and roads that are part of Sochi’s 2014 Games development plan.

A letter sent late last year to the IOC by the Human Rights Watch said that “in most cases, expropriation takes the form of a forced sale” that is neither transparent nor fair. (Via)

17. I have no idea.

Banner via Getty Image

In Focus has posted some shortlisted images from The 2014 Sony World Photography Awards. This wildebeest photo by Bonnie Cheung stopped me in my tracks...it looks like a painting (or a cave painting).

More here and here.

Great thread at Reddit about true facts that sound made up. And here's a similar slightly older thread. A few favorites:

When you get a kidney transplant, they usually just leave your original kidneys in your body and put the 3rd kidney in your pelvis.

IPv6 would allow every atom on the surface of the earth to have its own IP address, with enough spare to do Earth 100+ times.

The Ottoman Empire still existed the last time the Cubs won the World Series.

The United States in World War 2 created a bomb that used bats. The bats would be carrying small incendiary charges and would be released from the bomb in mid air, causing them to fly and scatter to different buildings in the area. The charges would then detonate and set all the buildings on fire. It was tested and proven to be very effective.

Russia is bigger than Pluto. (Surface area of Pluto: 16.7x10^6 km^2; Surface area of Russia: 17.1x10^6 km^2)

If you melted down the Eiffel Tower, the pool of iron would be less than 3 inches deep (in a square area the same dimensions as the tower base).

John Tyler, who became president in 1841, has 2 living grandchildren.

Mammoths were alive when the Great Pyramid was being built.

If an atom was the size of our solar system, a neutrino would be the size of a golfball, to scale.

Humans share 50% of their DNA with... bananas.

That first one still has me shuddering. Also, I have no idea if all of these things are actually true (because internet) but if so, amazing. (via @dunstan)

Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch is the latest in a long, long line of celebrities to swing by Sesame Street, as he joined Murray (‘Murray-arty”) and The Count to solve the mystery of “Are there more apples or oranges”? It’s all very cute and fun, especially the part where Murray insists on referring to him as “Benedict Sherlock,” but it also taught me an important lesson: I am incapable of watching Sesame Street videos without turning back into a four-year-old. I say this because I spent the majority of the clip thinking (spoiler alert, btw) “APPLES. THERE ARE MORE APPLES. FOUR APPLES, THREE ORANGES. I GOT IT RIGHT” even though I am a fully grown adult with a college degree. I bet I got it faster than any of the stupid kids watching the clip, too. TAKE THAT, TODDLERS. SCORE ANOTHER ROUND FOR ME. OH, ARE YOU CRYING NOW? GOOD. YOU SHOULD CRY. YOU LOSERS.

I will take my rocketship sticker and chocolate milk now.

Source: Vulture

Tina Fey is Jerry Seinfeld’s latest guest on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (which is a huge hit, by the way), and over the course of their 17-minute conversation they discuss everything from feces to cronuts to social media to their shared relief about having a successful sitcom in their rearview. I actually kind of like Tina’s proposal to fix Twitter, which is to have everyone who wants to sign up send her ten pitches for things they’d like to tweet, and then await her ruling as to whether they’ll be allowed to begin. It should probably a three-judge panel, though, to be fair. I’m thinking, like, Tina Fey, Val Kilmer, and Florida Man. That would be a nice mix.

Anyway, the conversation is interesting and funny, as they usually are in this series. I recommend finding 15 minutes to watch. Especially if you want to hear award-winning comedian and actress Tina Fey say the phrase “Feces are my purview.”

The OKCupid statistics blog, by Christian Rudder, is amazing. Sadly, it hasn’t updated since 2011, around when OKCupid was bought by Match.com. (Rudder says the timing was a coincidence—he took time off for another project, and the blog may return soon!)

In the meantime, I’d like to recommend another unexpectedly engrossing blog: The Baby Name Wizard blog, by Laura Wattenberg (creator of the amazing Name Voyager graphing tool).

I find the Baby Name Wizard blog fascinating because, like the OK Cupid Blog, it combines two key ingredients:

• Access to rich data about something that comes up all the time in our lives
• The ability to find and tell the stories in that data

The reason I like the blog has nothing to do with naming babies. (I’m not allowed to name babies, anyway.)

I like it because we all encounter names every day, all the time, in every part of our life. We all have feelings and opinions about what names mean, but if you’re like me, they were mostly unconscious, unquestioned, and never subject to any statistical rigor. (Freakonomics has a well-known chapter about naming trends, which Wattenberg takes issue with).

Nevaeh (“Heaven” backward) is currently a more popular baby name than Sarah.  Brooklyn is more popular than either, and Sophia is more popular than all three combined. In 20 years, those names will conjure up images of college kids, and Brandon and Sarah will sound as much like Mom and Dad names as Gary and Debby do to my generation.

For example, you may have heard the urban legend about a mother who named her daughter Le-a, pronounced “Ledasha”. Wattenberg dissects this urban legend in an insightful essay (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), which explains how apocryphal names like Le-a serve, across a wide variety of communities, as proxies for talking about race.

Here are a few of the other things I’ve learned from the blog:

• The complaint that nobody has “normal” names anymore is surprisingly universal and timeless.
• The All-American name Samantha was virtually unknown before it was used in Bewitched—for 1960s viewers, it would have sounded as obscure as Permelia.
• The popularity of Ava and Olivia aren’t signs of a Victorian revival in naming—they’re 40 times more popular now than they ever were in Victorian times.
• There’s a reason you hate your parents’ taste in names (and they hate yours).
• These days, people in the UK prefer cute, diminutive nicknames, whereas Americans prefer more formal names.
• Fictional female politicians and real female politicians have very different types of names.
• There’s a reason you can’t find a license plate with your kid’s name on it.

That’s just a tiny sampling; if you think any of it sounds interesting, I recommend browsing through the blog’s extensive archives.

hermionejg:

Why is everyone talking about who I should or shouldn’t have gone out with when clearly what we should be focusing on is how I was the brightest motherfucking witch of my age and made a polyjuice potion when I was 13?

About 95 percent of students enrolled in free, online courses from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropped them before getting a completion certificate.

Out of 841,687 registrants in 17 courses offered in 2012 and 2013 by the universities’ joint EdX program, 43,196 saw the classes to conclusion, according to an e-mailed statement from the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based schools. Some of the students signed up for multiple courses, according to the statement.

The researchers note that this doesn’t mean that online courses aren’t working—just that there were a lot of curious people who were browsing and dropping the courses as they became available and mentioned in the news cycle. Still, it seems like there still needs to be a lot of tweaking done. Maria Bustillos wrote about her experience with an online course last year and had mixed feelings. Anyone else tried signing up for these courses?

Photo: OCLC Research

One of the internet’s favorite Bromance’s is between Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen, and when they take a picture, it dominates the internet. It’s one of those dreams come true when you’re watching a movie, and you hear an 8-year-old yell out, “Do you think they’re best friends?!” and the wonderful reveal is that they are. Just look at that pic of them in Super Bowl gear while holding a soccer ball. They’re so cheeky, Gov.

I’m ultimately torn, who do I root for now? Team P-Stew, or Team I-Mac? Decisions. I had a dream about hanging out with them in France, one time. It always just turned into the scene from Inception where the dream collapses and everything starts exploding. The real thing that explodes when that happens is my emotional state. That’s the real kick.

Image Via Patrick Stewart’s Twitter

Whaddup, BABs? This wintery weather has me cooking up a storm (soups, pastas, even a pot roast!), but sometimes I’m a little slow in the prep area because I’m so cautious with how I handle my knife. I take FOREVER slicing and dicing to perfection. And with the amount of veggies I like to pile into my dishes, the cutting often eats up the vast majority of my time in the kitchen.

So when I saw this nifty little email touting Craftsy’s class, Complete Knife Skills with Brendan McDermott, I got uber excited. And of course I couldn’t keep it to myself.

Not familiar with Craftsy? Welp, you should be. Especially if you’re planning on DIY-ing shizz for your wedding day. Craftsy offers lots of free mini courses and many more full-length courses (the priciest I saw was $59.99 for a studio photography course) in areas ranging from knitting to cake decorating to paper crafts and more. So whether you’re planning on making paper flowers for your wedding decor or would like to create some bling for your bridesmaids, and you don’t really know how to go about it, check out Craftsy and learn how to do it all yourself.

In 1976, legendary cosmologist and astronomer Carl Sagan tried to recruit a 17-year-old Neil deGrasse Tyson to Cornell University. In April of that year, Tyson wrote Sagan a letter informing him of his intention to enroll at Harvard instead:

The Viking Missions referred to in the letter were the two probes sent to Mars in the mid-1970s.

Tyson occupies a role in today's society similar to Sagan's in the 1980s as an unofficial public spokesman of the wonderous world of science. Tyson is even hosting an updated version of Sagan's seminal Cosmos series for Fox, which debuts on March 9th. Here's a trailer:

Letter courtesy of The Seth Macfarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive at the Library of Congress, which is chock full of great Sagan stuff. And yeah, that's Seth Macfarlane, creator of Family Guy and much-maligned host of the Oscars. Macfarlane was a big fan of the original Cosmos series and was instrumental in getting the new series made. (via @john_overholt)

“It Happened To Me: There Are No Black People In My Yoga Classes And I’m Suddenly Feeling Uncomfortable With It.” That headline would be peak trolling, if the accompanying essay wasn’t so painfully earnest, and troublesome, and goddammit, white people. Jen Caron, an essayist for XO Jane, was at an “exceptionally crowded midday [yoga] class” when she saw a “young, fairly heavy black woman put her mat down” behind her.

Jen quickly surmised that this woman was at her first class, commenting on her “panic” and “despair.” Poor Jen had “no choice but to look straight at her every time my head was upside down,” due to where she was positioned in the room, and she couldn’t stop thinking about her. Because Jen is white, the woman was black, and she needed help.

I was completely unable to focus on my practice, instead feeling hyper-aware of my high-waisted bike shorts, my tastefully tacky sports bra, my well-versedness in these poses that I have been in hundreds of times. My skinny white girl body. Surely this woman was noticing all of these things and judging me for them, stereotyping me, resenting me—or so I imagined…I thought about how that must feel: to be a heavyset black woman entering for the first time a system that by all accounts seems unable to accommodate her body. What could I do to help her? (Via)

If I were her, I thought, I would want as little attention to be drawn to my despair as possible—I would not want anyone to look at me or notice me. And so I tried to very deliberately avoid looking in her direction each time I was in downward dog, but I could feel her hostility just the same.

I got home from that class and promptly broke down crying. Yoga, a beloved safe space that has helped me through many dark moments in over six years of practice, suddenly felt deeply suspect. Knowing fully well that one hour of perhaps self-importantly believing myself to be the deserving target of a racially charged anger is nothing, is largely my own psychological projection, is a drop in the bucket, is the tip of the iceberg in American race relations, I was shaken by it all the same.

I am 100% certain that Jen’s favorite movie of 2013 is 12 Years a Slave. As for the anonymous black woman, I look forward to her essay, “The Day I Slapped This Racist White Girl in the Face at Yoga.”

Banner via Getty Image, via XO Jane

It’s here! It’s here! The full #tfios trailer in beautiful high definition!

Anaheim Angels slugger Albert Pujols isn’t going to let little things like the worst season of his professional baseball career and the constant media criticism of his absurd 10-year contract get in the way of him remaining positive and upbeat about his team’s chances this season. That’s why the kind-hearted Halo took some time out of his busy training schedule to ask a few people how to get to Sesame Street for an appearance on tomorrow’s show.

Pujols teamed up with Grover to tell kids what it means to be an athlete, with Grover handling the majority of the acting requirements, as he showed just how terrible he is at various sports. But Pujols saved the day by telling us all that he is “very good at baseball” with a delivery that would make Daniel Day Lewis die of jealousy.

Take notice, Emmy committee, because athlete acting performances of this caliber only come along once every several decades, so make sure that you start shining some statues for Pujols now.

Beverly Hills 90210 was hands down my favorite show. I knew it was slightly inappropriate for me to be watching so every Thursday night I would sneak into our loft and watch it on low volume with my face inches from the TV.

What follows are my comments on each week’s episode with a summary of the actual show that aired on that date:

Brandon dates Trish, an Olympic figure skater.

Nat purchases a karaoke machine for the Peach Pit.

Brandon stages a protest to save the Peach Pit from being torn down by mall developers.

Color Me Badd makes a guest appearance.

The Peach Pit is robbed and Brenda confronts the robber.

Andrea goes to the horse racing track with Nat.

Brandon goes undercover for The Blaze to expose the school’s steroid problem.

Brenda worries that her and Dylan spend too much time making out so she makes him go to the opera.

Andrea heads up an initiative to introduce condoms into the school.

Kelly hits it off with a man building her mother’s wedding canopy.

Jim prohibits Brenda from dating Dylan.

I have spent far too much of the past hour taking this quiz from the University of Vermont that I found on Reddit (sssh, don’t judge me):

We are computer science researchers at the University of Vermont and have created a website that can predict the amount of money you have in your bank account. The website consists of a simple survey with questions posted by other users. The computer has been programmed to predict your personal savings based on your survey answers and statistical data of each question.

Well, I do love quizzes! Okay and now I am 91 questions in, with 61 to go. A half hour of my life is now missing and and I have answered such questions as:

- How many hamburgers do you eat in the average week?
- Do you keep a journal?
- Do you have an IRA?
- Do you own a car?
- How many inches is your TV?
- Do you prefer to write with a pencil or pen?
- Are you gay?
- How much student loan debt do you have?

One of the cooler parts of this quiz is that after you answer it displays the average response. So far it’s told me that the average person taking this quiz does not have an IRA, has just over $17k in student loan debt, and spends just over $27 a week on gas. It’s also obviously fascinating to see what people think will be a predictor of wealth (or lack thereof).

Their estimate right now is about 150% higher than my actual account, but only time will tell if they get it correct! I don’t know why I feel so compelled to finish it but if you want to give like 45 minutes of your time to the University of Vermont today, here you go.

If you’re a streaming subscriber of Netflix, you’ve been paying $7.99 a month for going on three years now, and you know what? Given the huge amount of television shows that you are given access to, and your ability to use Netflix as an inexpensive babysitter, $8 a month is a goddamn steal. But you should prepare yourself to pay more, according to The Atlantic“>The Atlantic, and truthfully, a modest price hike is not unreasonable.

During a discussion last week with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, he dropped a few hints suggesting that not only is a price hike coming, but pricing options may be in our future. The service is already offering a $6.99 plan to subscribers, which only allows streaming on one platform, but Hastings also suggested a “good, better, best price tiering” structure may soon arrive for new subscribers. Hastings also offered that Netflix is “willing to take on a slightly richer offering and realizing that that might be better for consumers and for us.”

What does that mean? It may mean that new subscribers can get the $7.99 subscription fee (or the $6.99 fee for one platform), but that option may no longer be the best one. Netflix, it appears, is preparing to offer a premium option, and since Netflix is already offering everything we could want from the service for $7.99, it’s safe to assume that that that option may soon be hit with some limitations that may compel new subscribers to pay the premium tier option. What might those limitations be? Who knows? A limit to the number of hours one can stream per month, or delayed access to certain shows, or perhaps certain original programming will be only available to premium subscribers?

Existing subscribers, however, will likely be spared from paying for a premium subscription, at least initially. As Hastings says, “we’re trying to figure out some models of good, better, best price tiering that makes sense and provide some flexibility for our customers, at least for our new customers. Our existing customers of course we would grandfather very generously.”

So, if you’ve been putting off a Netflix subscription, now may be a good time to subscribe, so that you’re grandfathered in before the price hikes. However, one would imagine that, after 3 years of $7.99 access, even existing subscribers may face a modest price increase, if only so that Netflix can continue pouring money into new programming. With competition from Hulu and Amazon, right now it’s Netflix’s original programming — which is leaps and bounds above the other streaming services — that makes it the most compelling service. It’s not terribly unfair to ask us to pay $9 or $10 a month, which still makes it a far better deal than cable.

Source: The Atlantic

(via Getty Image)

A few weeks ago we told you about Louis C.K.’s never released first film, Tomorrow Night. Written and directed by Louis, the 1998 black-and-white film stars then-unknowns Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, JB Smoove and Wanda Sykes. In an interview with Jay Leno earlier this month, C.K. described it as a “big, funny movie,” because what else would you expect him to say about it?

Well, Louis just announced that the film is being released for download tomorrow at noon on his website for his usual asking price for content: five bucks…

Well hello. This is Louis CK writing to you again to let you know about new stuff coming on my website. Mostly I would like to tell you that starting tomorrow (Wednesday the 29th) at noon, (New York time) my first movie “Tomorrow Night” will be available for download and streaming for the usual five dollars. As always you can buy it from anywhere in the world with no digital restrictions.

I made this movie, meaning I wrote and directed it, back in 1998. I was a struggling comedian and TV writer at the time and I pulled together my savings and some of my fiends money to make this movie on black and white 16mm film. There are some great people in this movie. Steve Carell, JB Smoove, Wanda Sykes and Conan O’Brien are some that you might have heard of. Robert Smigel, Chuck Sklar, Rick Shapiro, Heather Morgan, Nick Diapolo, Martha Greenhouse, Greg Hahn, Carey Prusa and Joseph Dolphin, you may have heard of a little less but they are all terrific. In fact all these people are comedians and actors I had been working with and around back in the 90s and I wrote all of their parts for them specifically. To me, that’s what this movie was for, to create performance opportunities for all my favorite funny people. And to photograph them with prime lenses on Black and White reversal film.

Tomorrow Night is a bizarre little indie film and it gets pretty weird. It was a labor of love for me. It’s how I learned to direct and there are some wonderful performances in it. The crew included some folks that still work with me today on my FX series “Louie” including director of Photography Paul Keostner and production designer Amy Silver.

Tomorrow Night screened at the Sundance film festival as well as other festivals from Seattle to Sweden. But it never got distribution. Any black and white movie is tricky to get a market for and this one is particularly strange. But it’s funny and it’s well worth watching. That’s what I think, anyway. It certainly isn’t for everyone.

In any case, Tomorrow Night has been sitting in storage in film cans for 15 years. No one has ever seen it. There are no tapes of it or even clips of it anywhere.

This year, I decided to get it out by putting it on my website. I had an excellent digital transfer made from the negative. The sound is the original Mono mix which is fitting for the style of the film. Be prepared to sit through people dialing rotary phones, which takes a while. The pace is sometimes slow and deliberate. Sometimes crazy. But it’s exactly the movie I wanted to make and I’m proud of it. I’m putting it on my website with the hopes that I can continue this way of distributing stuff. I’d also like to pay back some of the people who helped me finance the film. I’d also like people to finally see it so that the performances can be awarded with applause and laughter. I’d also like to make a profit from it so I can use the proceeds to make a new movie and release that on my website as well. Wouldn’t that be something? Ok, so buy it tomorrow. and tell your friends to do it also. Or don’t. It’s really only partially up to me what you do with your time and money.

Also, my latest HBO standup special “Louis CK – Oh My God” is available for the same 5 dollar download. You can’t get Oh My God on video anywhere else (unless you have HBO and want to watch it there) I put it up a couple of months ago and we had some website traffic issues but we have completely rebuilt the site and it’s far, far stronger than before (yes that’s 2 fars) so if you tried to downloaded and had trouble, please try again now.

Once again, TOMORROW NIGHT will be available tomorrow at noon (I know that sounds funny) at louisck.com for 5 dollars. You can pay with paypal, amazon payments and odwalla or whatever that other one is. I think Odwalla is the company that makes fruit smoothies.

Thank you for receiving this email. If you hated it, or you hate me, feel free to unsubscribe. Keep in mind that I am personally informed whenever anyone unsubscribes and I cry very hard every time it happens.

sincerely,

Louis CK

And here’s the trailer for the film in the event you haven’t already seen it…

Celebrity Equations have been seemingly circling the internet since the dawn of time. And I think we can all agree that they — at the very least — borrow from a formula Conan O’Brien invented back in the 20th century.

Someone on Tumblr just put all these together and — despite the fact that they’re nothing new and clearly all from different unnamed sources — they’re burning up the Tumblr interwebs. Probably thanks to llamas on motorcycles. It’s Friday so of course I’m going to share.

Via Tumblr

Sheryl Canter extensively researched the best way to season a cast iron pan and here is what she recommends you do. (Because science.)

I've read dozens of Web pages on how to season cast iron, and there is no consensus in the advice. Some say vegetable oils leave a sticky surface and to only use lard. Some say animal fat gives a surface that is too soft and to only use vegetable oils. Some say corn oil is the only fat to use, or Crisco, or olive oil. Some recommend bacon drippings since lard is no longer readily available. Some say you must use a saturated fat -- that is, a fat that is solid at room temperature, whether it's animal or vegetable (palm oil, coconut oil, Crisco, lard). Some say never use butter. Some say butter is fine. Some swear by Pam (spray-on canola oil with additives). Some say the additives in Pam leave a residue at high temperatures and pure canola oil is best. Some say it doesn't matter what oil you use.

They are all wrong. It does matter what oil you use, and the oil that gives the best results is not in this list. So what is it? Here are some hints: What oil do artists mix with pigment for a high quality oil paint that dries hard and glassy on the canvas? What oil is commonly used by woodturners to give their sculptures a protective, soft-sheen finish? It's the same oil. Now what is the food-grade equivalent of this oil?

The oil used by artists and woodturners is linseed oil. The food-grade equivalent is called flaxseed oil. This oil is ideal for seasoning cast iron for the same reason it's an ideal base for oil paint and wood finishes. It's a "drying oil", which means it can transform into a hard, tough film. This doesn't happen through "drying" in the sense of losing moisture through evaporation. The term is actually a misnomer. The transformation is through a chemical process called "polymerization".

Those before and after photos are hard to argue with. (via @akuban)

Update: Canter wrote a bit more about seasoning and added an extra step to the process. (via @_Atticus)

The 71st Golden Globes Awards ceremony has come and gone, and thanks to the several thousand awards ceremonies that have already taken place since then, we can barely even remember who the big winners are (except Brooklyn Nine-Nine, woohoo!). Although he wasn’t there, George Clooney still remembers the monologue, though, as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler delivered arguably the best joke of the night at his expense, as they described Gravity as the story of George Clooney choosing to float away into outerspace, rather than spend one more minute with a woman his own age.

Obviously, they tell it much better than I can write it.

Well if you thought that G-Cloons, AKA Hollywood’s Master Pranksman, was just going to sit by and let the ladies take hilarious shots at him, you’re wrong. In an interview with Access Hollywood this week, the 52-year old lothario admitted that while he thought the joke was indeed great, Fey and Poehler better watch their backs.

“They have poked the bear with a stick. Oh, they have poked the bear,” he jokes. “I don’t want to scare Amy or Tina – I don’t want them to be afraid at all – but they’ve poked the bear.” (Via People)

As Clooney described, he once pranked Matt Damon by having his tailor take the waist in on his pants every day to make him think that he was gaining weight, and while filming Ocean’s 12, Clooney slapped a bumper sticker on Brad Pitt’s car that read: “Small penis on board.” Another time, Clooney and Pitt were on a flight with producer Jerry Weintraub and they convinced him to play a drinking game with them. Except while he was slamming shots, they were drinking water. Eventually Weintraub passed out and they filled his pants with M&Ms. The list goes on, just in case Fey and Poehler think that Clooney isn’t good on his word to retaliate with extreme hilariousness.

(Banner via Getty)

memorylikeaweapon:

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the Fuller Projection?

This map presents a world that is nearly contiguous and at accurate sizes and shapes to the continents.
And there is no “correct” orientation for it (the directionality of north/south being arbitrary after all )

The downsides are that it cuts up Antarctica and distorts the size of oceans, which is bad news for sailors and penguin researchers, but for geography in general it’s AWESOME

(X)

Created by Buckminster Fuller, writer of a gajillion books, owner of a gajillion patents, and the man whose name gave us Buckyballs.

I have a few questions about Dannon Oikos’ Super Bowl commercial:

1. Are Bob Saget, John Stamous, and Dave Coulier playing themselves, or are Bob Saget, John Stamos, and Dave Coulier playing Danny Tanner, Jesse Katsopolis, and Joey Gladstone?

2. If they’re playing Danny, Jesse, and Joey, when did they move out of their old house?

3. Where’s the rest of the family?

4. I mean, it’s the Super Bowl. Where’s Becky? Comet? Mr. Woodchuck? DID THEY EAT MR. WOODCHUCK?

5. Is this image, from Dannon’s website, the most horrifying thing ever?

That last one I can answer myself: yes.

Richard Sherman sort of took most of the ire from your common everyday jackasses this MLK day, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t get a few memorable gaffes to keep us mildly entertained. Sarah Palin provided one of my favorites on her Facebook page:

You never seem to disappoint, except during political elections and your tenure as governor. On the PR/Media/Entertainment circuit, you’re basically Depeche Mode. I just can’t get enough, even if there are more credible things to criticize the president about.

I like to imagine that you’re basically the smart gremlin from Gremlins 2 and you’re aware what all of this does to people. Taking joy in chaos and rabble rousing in a way that one kind of has to respect. Not everyone shares my sentiments of course:

Why, Katy? This is no time for rational thought! If we did that, we might start paying attention to all these crowded prisons and ruin the economy even more. Eat your pink slime and read these Harlequin romance summaries I wrote for you.

(Lead image via gettyimages, Sarah Palin)