Jun. 4th, 2012

Good morning kids, it's time for Radio Free Monday!

Ways To Give:

[personal profile] rae333 has been denied a transit card due to chronic illness that prevents her from being a full time student, but she needs the E1200/year card to get to school and her job, without which she will have no income. She's asking for donations or loans and offering proofreading, tarot readings, and other skills here in comments.

[livejournal.com profile] idancewithlife linked to a Kickstarter for ClassRealm, a web-based educational management program for students, based on roleplaying games. It looks awesome!

[livejournal.com profile] snufflesdbear linked to a Chip-In to help a Dallas-Ft. Worth woman get a pet-sitting business started. I'm not sure how much backstory information I'm allowed to share, but this business could help someone getting out of a bad situation get back on their feet, and apparently there's a demand for it in the area. You can read more and chip in here.

[livejournal.com profile] lunar818star linked to a Kickstarter for a noir film entitled The Poisoner, which is being made locally in Chicago. The production space is donated and the cast and crew are volunteers, but they need money for post-production and distribution. If you're not intrigued yet, check out this summary: It is the story of a woman who enters into a contract authored by a man who asks her to both be his wife and to slowly poison him over the course of his remaining years.

Help For Free:

[personal profile] holli is looking for beta readers for her 50K-word YA novel she'd like to polish and self-publish. Her summary: it's basically about a girl who reads a lot of SF/F, and finds out that her bratty little sister is the lost princess of a magical kingdom. One of her friends is kidnapped away to said kingdom, and she and her sister have to go and rescue her. If you enjoy Extribulum, go and have a look at her post!

News To Know:

[livejournal.com profile] madripoor_rose linked me to a good summary of the recent to-do over DC rebooting one of the Green Lanterns as gay. The hate group One Million Moms posted a "warning" about it, which...happily backfired.

Just For Fun:

[livejournal.com profile] stgreyhounds linked me to How OK Went Global, pursuant to my interests in the word "Okay".

[personal profile] tealin posted this on her journal and I am ALL EXCITE: a trailer for the new film version of Les Miserables.

Check out these awesome babies chillin in goggles. I'm sure this was a horrible thing for their skin health, I mean surely they should have had vitamins or something instead, but at least they're having fun?

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can always post items for my attention in comments here (or on any post) or email me at copperbadge at gmail dot com. If you're not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help (or ask for help!). Remember, brevity is the soul of RFM.
So, I don't think it was my fault, but somehow my mother got hooked in to Downton Abbey and admittedly I did not discourage her. She got so excited about the show that she ended up buying a book entitled "Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey", by the Countess of Carnarvon (it's kind of charming she doesn't use her name; it's like reading a book by A Gentlewoman).

And she sent it to me, because while she has a learning disability that makes it nearly impossible for her to read entire books, she knows I will at least make a go at anything that's put in front of me.

Spoiler: they find Tut's Tomb.

So, this book is "not fiction, and not nonfiction" according to the Countess. I'm not sure what's left after you clear off those two options, but it seems to be speculation rooted in fact, primarily. It tells the story of Lady Almina, the fifth Countess of Carnarvon, who came to Highclere castle as a young woman with a fortune but in need of social currency. Which worked out well because her husband had social currency in spades but needed a fortune.

This Lord Carnarvon is the Carnarvon who sponsored Howard Carter on his search for Egyptian antiquities, but that's just one event in the exciting life of the Carnarvons. Almina was the illegitimate daughter of Alfred de Rothschilde, which was why she needed to marry well, but apparently she loved the shit out of Lord Carnarvon and their marriage was a happy one. I think we can all see where Downton Abbey got the idea.

Anyway, the book talks about the symbiotic relationship between upstairs and downstairs, as well as estate and town, and chronicles a very adventuresome life, including Almina's converting the castle to a hospital during the first World War. It's an interesting read, though there are a few places where it drags, and really it's only of interest to a) people who are fascinated by Downton Abbey or b) people who are fascinated by Victorian-to-interregnum-era English Country Houses. It's an excellent book to get from the library, but I wouldn't buy it myself.

Mum was thrilled I enjoyed it, mind you.
I got dinner at Which Wich this evening, which (ha) is a sandwich joint I've been meaning to try since I saw it in the basement of Block 37 about a year ago, I think. But I was scared, because there's a very strange, arcane method to ordering food at Which Wich, involving locating your sandwich under one of several categories and then writing what you want on a paper bag.

(These paper bags apparently also entertain you, as demonstrated on the Wall Of Art photo I took and posted to Twitter, garnering me a tweet from the official Which Wich twitter account.)

Anyway, Serious Eats said it had one of the top grilled cheese sandwiches in the city, and I love me some grilled cheese, and also I was skeptical because they don't actually grill the sandwich, so I had to try it out. Which Wich is a sub place like Subway or Quizno's or Potbelly's, and they toast the sandwich instead. But they have a Three Cheese sandwich they will toast for you, and it turns out once you figure out the Bag System, it is a very, very good sandwich. You get to choose from like eight kinds of cheese, and you can add stuff like avocado or bacon or mushrooms or whatnot, and the cheese actually melts.

So, Which Wich: intimidating but delicious!

Though I am sad their milkshake machine was broken.

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