Day: March 12, 2016

rembrandtswife:

Or, things you can learn while watching Leverage with commentary.

• John Rogers and Nate Ford have a lot in common, especially when it comes to alcohol. Not only does Rogers usually tell the listener what he’s drinking, you can often hear the ice clinking in the glass when other people are talking.
• Take away Eliot’s disastrous military career and stint as assassin for hire and you basically have Christian Kane: musician, chef, brawler, actor. The man does all of his own fights, I swear.
• Sterling never loses, but he sometimes admits Nate is right.
• At the beginning of each episode, the commentators introduce themselves. At the beginning of “The Frame-up Job”, in which Sterling thinks Sophie has stolen a famous painting, every commentator impersonates Mark Sheppard as Sterling during his introduction.
• Portland is full of good actors.
• Every instance of fraud on the show has real-life counterparts, most of which are far worse than what the show portrayed.
• The heartbreaking detail of Hardison, Parker, and Eliot holding hands in death was *not* in the script, but came from the actors.
• Pretty much everybody cried on set during the filming of the final episode.
• Gina Bellman decided on Sophie’s real name.
• John Rogers subscribes to the Smithers Hypothesis, which is that shows are more interesting if you assume the bad guy’s sidekick is secretly in love with him. (This applies regardless of the genders of the bad guy and the sidekick.)
• Rogers also subscribes to the theory that the characters’ sex lives are “whatever makes you want to watch the show”.
• Rogers really is the Anti-Moffat. I came to this conclusion after noticing how often he compliments Gina Bellman, Beth Riesgraf, and Jeri Ryan on their appearance, then listening to how he does it and what he says about the men on the show. The right pair of boots on an actress will make him fervently exclaim, “Jesus Murphy!” He seems to think Beth Riesgraf has the best smile in the world. But he’s full of praise for the skill of Nadine Haders, their chief costumer, and he lavishes much  more praise on the actresses’ work than on their legs. He also repeatedly calls  Christian Kane “charming” and acknowledges that women go for him. He openly admires how Aldis Hodge looks in a suit. And he’s lavish in praise for the men’s acting as for the women’s.

I have actually not once heard John Rogers say anything skeevy about women, in four seasons’ worth of commentaries. (I don’t have season one yet.) All of his female characters have depth and agency. None of them is ever merely a damsel in distress, not even a 12-year-old girl. Nobody, male or female, ever gets shamed for having sex. Set the number of times he admires an actress in boots or remarks on her charisma next to the number of times he praises her ability and craft as an actress, and his praise for ability and craft weighs far more.

John Rogers is the Anti-Moffat, and this is another reason why you should watch Leverage.

Anonymous:

I would really, really like to hear the story of why Clod doesn’t like the mailman.

teashoesandhair:

wintersummer–3232:

teashoesandhair:

artemisgarden:

teashoesandhair:

OK, so. 

It is a very well established fact that Clod, feline prince of my heart, is ridiculously adorable. He is a squishy grey blob of brain-melting cuteness and fluff. 

He does have a naughty streak, and his favourite hobby is walking along one of our shelves and knocking every single item off individually, but he’s generally a congenial chap. Sometimes he purrs so hard that he drools, he rubs his face on things so happily that he leaves trails of spit, and he’s more than once headbutted me so hard in greeting that I’ve winced.

However, he is also on the Royal Mail’s blacklist of dangerous animals.

This is because he is deathly, singularly obsessed with post.

We have no idea why. He doesn’t react this way to anything else. He is pretty chill about most things. Post, though? He cannot fucking deal. It works him right up into a terrifying feral frenzy, and god forbid anyone in the vicinity when the postman cometh. 

Before we got Clod, we just had a slot letterbox of the kind that’s more common in Europe (y’know, this sort of thing, but in a less fancy door, because we live in Cardiff and have hardly any connections to royalty at all):

This was all fine and dandy, until one day Clod noticed that, when the postman was putting the post through the door, it could be turned into an absolutely fabulous game of life and death called ‘Mauling the Mailman’. Clod used to sit by the kitchen window and watch for the postman, and as soon as the letters poked through the door, Clod would run over and grab the postman’s hand, attacking it with a crazed fervour hitherto unseen outside of a One Direction concert (may they rest in peace). It wasn’t playing at all; it was genuine attack mode. I’ve seen less vicious attacks on Black Friday news reports. It was horrendous.

We tried keeping him away from the door, which meant shutting him in the kitchen, but the post doesn’t come at a set time and we weren’t always at home (and obviously didn’t want to shut him up in one room all day, because no) so we weren’t always successful, which meant that Clod probably managed to wreak havoc about 5 or 6 times before we even really knew there was a problem. The postman, bless his little bearded face, tried a host of things to stop it. He tried poking the letters through with a stick. He tried pushing them through super slowly so that Clod didn’t hear it from the kitchen. He tried prayer (probably). None of it worked, and it came to a head one day when we heard a knock at the door and saw the poor dude standing on our porch, cradling his bleeding hand, and mum had to give him first aid. The blood stayed on our porch for weeks. Not because we’re lazy, you understand. We really gave it a good scrub. There was just a lot of it. How those people on Medical Detectives manage to clean up whole bodies’ worth, I do not know.

After that, we installed a mailbag inside the door so that the post could go into that and the postman’s hand wouldn’t be exposed to Clod’s wrath. It didn’t work, because Clod – who is usually an absolute idiot, and has been known to run into walls – figured out how to open the mailbag and maul the postman again. This also introduced an additional problem in that whenever someone tried to open the mailbag to get the post, Clod would attack them too. And to reiterate, by ‘attack’, I don’t mean that cute half-assed bite that cats do when they hold onto your hand and gently gnaw you. I mean he yowled, kicked, scratched and bit, often drawing blood. So, obviously, this solution did not work quite as well as we’d hoped. 

Around this time, we got a message from the Royal Mail, informing us that – totally understandably – they would have to stop delivering our mail if we didn’t get our cat the fuck under control. So we did the only thing we could do, and installed an external mailbox. It is a pain in every single one of my limbs, and it was expensive and it looks ugly, but at least the postman isn’t at an elevated risk of tetanus any more.

Clod still watches at the window for the postman, seeking vengeance, but our porch is now blood-free.

For now.

I’m laughing so hard there are tears. I fucking love cats.

I forgot to mention that our regular postman applied for a change of route and was accepted, and so now we have an entirely new postman who has no idea of the wrath of Clod. I pray to god that he never does.

I will pray for the poor sod who is yet to meet Clod

I’m so upset that this post has so many notes because I feel like it misrepresents my beautiful boy, and so I feel honour bound to defend his character

– one time Clod climbed on my boyfriend’s shoulders and breathed really heavily in his ear

– whenever we eat dinner, Clod sits on a shelf above the table and tries to put his paw in our food

– he sleeps on my old blanket in the kitchen

– he smells dusty, musty and a bit like toast

– sometimes he sits in the bread basket and pretends to be a wholewheat loaf

– he was born to a rescue cat who had been abandoned by a house of irresponsible students

– he is an amateur philosopher and has devised his own theory, named Cloddic Thought, in which it is supposed that the root motive of all actions is cat treats

– if you throw a treat, he can often catch it in his paws

– he once tried to be an economist but gave up when he realised he had no concept of money

– the white spot on his chest is his tie pin

– he is a CINNAMON ROLL and please Clod, I’ve told them all now, can I go home to my family, oh god please I have told them the truth

shadesofmauve:

aiyestel:

pacificnorthwestdoodles:

rooted-and-reaching:

pacificnorthwestdoodles:

thegardendiary:

pacificnorthwestdoodles:

kihaku-gato:

rooted-and-reaching:

solarpunkpunks:

But seriously guys, dandelions need more appreciation. People treat them like weeds when they have SO MANY USES

1.) The amount of pollen they produce attracts bees. This helps the bees, helps them thrive, and helps the motherfucking planet.
2.) They produce really pretty flowers that smell really nice.
3.) Literally every fucking part of a dandelion is edible. The flower, the leaves, and even the roots are edible. Just make sure you wash it off first.
4.) SERIOUSLY HAVE YOU EVER HAD DANDELION TEA BEFORE?????? ITS FUCKING FANTASTIC AND HAS SUCH AN INTERESTING FLAVOR TO IT I FUCKING LOVE IT
5.) It’s super easy to find, easy to grow, and has a fairly long growing season.

Seriously guys, dandelions need some more appreciation.

my dad juices yard dandelions into his juice. He says it makes it very bitter, but the health benefits are worth it. I’ve been told they’re excellent to make tea out of when roasted, especially the roots.

Fact: there was Dandelion ice cream at the garden festival. Still haven’t tried it, but am curious.

I make dandelion jam. :D

There are very, very few medical cautions in regard to dandelion consumption.

If you’re not a fan of bitter greens and end up harvesting dandelion leaves a bit late in the season you can always quickly blanch them. Takes the bitterness down quite a bit.

Dandelion wine is also super easy to make.

I have always wanted to try dandelion anything.

i guess it’s never too late to start or try!

My yard is 90% dandelion. I can send jam. :D

How do you make it? You need a pulp to use, don’t you? Do you just jam some roots and leaves into a blender to creat pulp? :P

Oh dear, no roots! You use the blossoms!  If you have made floral jams before, it’s a similar process. I should have a floral jam recipe link somewhere. I did a huge WALL OF RECIPE LINKS a year or so ago.

I strain pulp through cheesecloth, so the one I make is clear.

I made a dandelion green risotto (and plan to do so again). It was most excellent!

@Pacificnorthwestdoodles you made blossom fritters too, didn’t you? Those are on my list to try this summer. :)