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Open Thread

It’s Open Thread Time!

We made it through another fantastic day here at Persephone and we’re turning it all over to you to play in the comments. Various staff people will be around most of the evening, so we’ll get new commenters approved ASAP. I’ve seen a couple people I’ve had to approve twice, and I have no idea what the deal is there, but don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away; it should only take a few minutes as long as it isn’t the middle of the night.

Open threads, for those who aren’t familiar, are for whatever you want to talk about. There is no such thing as going off topic in an open thread. Get advice, talk about your dog, share recipes, what have you. I’m still working on the ability for you to add pictures/videos without borking our server with your inevitable .gifs.

You can make pretty links with a little HTML, however.  For example, to get this Persephone Magazine you’d type < a href= “http://persephonemagazine.com” > Persephone Magazine < /a >  without the spaces after the < and before the >.

You can also use the HTML tags listed under the comment box.  These are tiny, gray and hard to read so here they are:

<em> or <i> will make italic text

<strong> or <b> will make bold text

<strike> will make strikethrough text

These are all simple tags, you use them by wrapping the text you want to modify in an opening tag (like <em>) and a closing tag (which for <em> would be < /em >, but without spaces.) The other tags are a little bit more complex, if you want to learn how to use them, I recommend searching them out on W3C Schools HTML tutorials.

The image HTML tag does not work in comments at all; I just tested it in a couple places.  We’re working on that one!

Okay, enough jibber jabber, on with the show.  Commence commenting!

Image Credit from Flickr

By [E] Selena MacIntosh*

Selena MacIntosh is the owner and editor of Persephone Magazine. She also fixes it when it breaks. She is fueled by Diet Coke, coffee with a lot of cream in it, and cat hair.

217 replies on “It’s Open Thread Time!”

Hello everyone!

I’m yet another Jezebel refugee. I hate the new headache inducing layout, but I was also tired of the ever-lighter content (ie,Kardashians), shorter articles and lack of news. Seriously, there’s been like one update about Egypt.

This is my old Jezzie handle, so hopefully someone will remember me!

I’m very excited to be on this site, I’ve been browsing and love the content. Looking forward to getting to know everyone, and I hope to see other Jezzies around.

I think “Lindsay-Lohan poisoning” perfectly encapsulates the way lots of us have been feeling about Jez lately… Between the short, inane articles with lots of links, the shitstorm-baiting crossposts and the Cosmo-esque advice, I’ve been going straight to GroupThink without even looking at the main page for MONTHS! And now that the redesign has effectively killed the feeling of communitiy we had created over there, I don’t think I’ll be going back. Plus, I’ve outgrown celebrity, sex and fashion, I want clever and bookish stuff now!

Yes! Honestly it made me feel dumber to read it sometimes. Gosh right now there’s a feature on Jezebel about Jennifer Aniston and how she touches her hair a lot. And I wasn’t starred so the new format made groupthink really unnavigable for me.
Then, I click over here and it’s a huge tribute to black American women for Black History Month (which I don’t think Jez even knows about) and a debate about feminist characters in literature… it’s a breath of fresh air.

I guess I am, and always will be, late to the open thread. Damn you, round, slowly-turning planet with different time zones! Also: hey there, non-USians and/or US insomniacs! I’m thrilled to see that some of my favourite (ex-)Jezzies have already made it over here

Question to any staff people still hanging around: is there going to be another open thread during the day? Or can we just hang out in the one from the previous night?

A friend just posted this on FB:

Isaiah 19
See, the LORD rides on a swift cloud
and is coming to Egypt.
The idols of Egypt will tremble before him,
and the hearts of the will Egyptians melt with fear.
…“I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian—
brother will fight against brother,
neighbor against neighbor,
city against city,
kingdom against kingdom.

It’s not my timing. It’s HIS.

Resist. Urge. To. Comment.

I have the boredom munchies. I am using all my willpower to resist because I would like my pants to fit. However, if I fail should I eat english cheddar with crackers or fresh popped popcorn (none of that nonsense in the bag with the fake butter) with very light butter and salt?

Oh popcorn! My neighbor is perpetually making delicious smelling popcorn, and it’s never something that I remember to get when grocery shopping.

AND, since it’s fresh popped, you can add all kinds of tasty things to the butter when you pop it. I’m crazy for jalapenos in my popcorn.

Holy baking success batman!

I think my bagels turned out. I mean, they look like bagels. Round. Hole in the middle. etc. As long as they don’t mold overnight, I might be on to something.

And then! riding high off my bagel win, I whipped up some oatmeal cookies with the ridiculous amount of oatmeal I have lying around. Especially considering no one here eats oatmeal.

Nothing has burned. It may be a personal best.

I’m a total carb addict. It’s mostly the need for grocery shopping that is fueling my baking. I was desperately craving bagels and happened to have yeast.

But this baked kale idea. I like it. I, wary of all things that are not battered and fried, have always been skeptical of kale. But baking it leads me to believe I could put a cheese/bread crumb crust on it ala green bean casserole.

Zomg. Thank you for putting a name with this random image I have! I love the photo, but it just ended up in one of my bottomless image folders and I had NO IDEA what it was. And now, I have a name to take to the library. bad. ass.

Also, bagels are not as hard as you would think! The first time I tried them it took forever, but I’m notoriously slow in the kitchen. The really only tricky part is boiling them, and that actually was kind of fun the second time around. Even if you’re a casual baker, I encourage you to give them a shot! They’re immensely rewarding, and the potential for gourmet doughs is endless (I see rosemary garlic in my future).

I keep thinking it’s Friday night and getting excited for the weekend, only to realize it’s Thursday. Boo. This week has been too busy. I currently have a full time internship and it’s ending soon. So I’m applying for jobs in my free time, which is limited. I’ve already had one interview this week, and I’m stressing applying for a fellowship which is due Tuesday. Job searching is a full time job in itself and I’m finding it hard to juggle that with my intern responsibilities. I can’t wait until I’m gainfully employed.

So, I quit drinking soda at the beginning of last year because I had a serious problem. Like, 4 or 5 cans of Dr. Pepper a day, would wake up at 5:45 am to get ready for work and I’d be jonesing for a Dr. Pepper in the shower. Anyways, I don’t crave soda at ALL anymore however, I keep having dreams where I’ll realize that I’m drinking a pop and then think, oh no! i’m not supposed to have that! And then I’ll wake up feeling intensely guilty. Does anyone have ANY idea what this means?!

The hardest part of addiction, any addiction, is the emotional memories and some of it is neuropsychological. It’d say you have some associations and during the random firing that usually guides dream, evidence that you still have some feelings associated with drinking soda and what it evokes.

My husband is big on Valentine’s day, however, this year I will have to work all day. He is bummed out and I feel bad, I want to make it up to him at a later date but wonder if that’s lame. I wish I could think of something super duper fantastic for him. Any ideas? Thank you in advance.

Everyone loves coupon books! Actually, that’s probably not be true.

I just fantasize about being handed a stack of coupons that entitle me to winning a trivial argument, hands down, no questions asked. I would only use them with sinister intentions, like when I knew I was wrong about when a tv show got cancelled or something, but had already argued myself in too deep to get out gracefully. Then BOOM! coupon.

That was not helpful. Sorry.

Awesome! Love being helpful.

My husband has a similar love of all things coupon and deal related. Grocery shopping is filled with such wonderment and delight for him “Buy one, and you get one FREE?!” “Two for only FOUR dollars?!?”.

Personally, I only get that excited in the fancy cheese section of the grocery store. Where nothing is on sale. Ever.

I have a love of fresh mozzarella that can.not. be denied. I’ve stood in the kitchen, and eaten an entire weeks worth out of the grocery bag.

More than once.

Most of my daydreams involve myself with au lait colored goats, happily making cheese in the French countryside.

I just don’t know what people aspire towards if cheese isn’t involved.

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