Annoying New York Times articles

[Reed John]

Annoying New York Times articles

Renart wrote:

Anyone who starts a paragraph, let alone an article, with "Ah," (unless it's part of dialogue) should DIAF.

You're always so moderate, Reed. Are you sure that punishment is painful enough to fit the gravity of the crime?

Maybe not. I hadn't given it too much thought.

[Incandenza]

Annoying New York Times articles

Renart wrote:

He's a former NYT media writer who has a show on CNN now. He willingly is obsessed with morning television and TV news.

Jesus Christ, that's my idea of Purgatory.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116304/brian-stelters-remarkable-rise-goosebumps-cnn

Look upon his works and despair

[Reed John]

Annoying New York Times articles

Incandenza wrote: LOL, they think that Brian Stelter and whoever his partner is are famous and should be listed alongside Kim and Kanye.

According to his own website:

"In January 2004 Stelter created TVNewser, a blog covering the television news industry. At the time, he was a freshman at Towson University. He sold TVNewser to Mediabistro.com six months later and continued to run it until May 2007, when he graduated from Towson with a degree in mass communication with a concentration in journalism. He joined The Times two months later."

So it's a blog about TV news. I can't imagine a worse hobby. Towson, incidentally, is the school that had a few kids that wanted to start a White Power club. So that's the kind of rich intellectual environment he chose to launch his media career.

His fiance is http://jamieshupak.com/
Traffic anchor, food blogger, and former dating columnist. They live in the West Village.

So it's now possible to get through life and live in the West Village having done nothing of value whatsoever. Good to know.

From that NR linked above:

“My openness evolved with the web,” he says of his highly mediated public persona. Facility with social media is part of Stelter’s job, of course, but at this volume it occasionally seems like a highly choreographed exercise in personal branding (and mutually reinforcing power-couple branding). There is a classic Internet gambit of getting people interested in the mundane details of your life by operating under the principle that people would be interested in those details. Warhol, again, would be proud.

Worst dinner party guests ever.

[Incandenza]

Annoying New York Times articles

I don't know, I think I'd rather talk to him than Darren Rovell.

[Reed John]

Annoying New York Times articles

Good point.

[Reed John]

Annoying New York Times articles

Not in the NY Times, but the idea seems like something for, an Onion piece on hipsters.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-27/adrian-greniers-new-retro-beer-requires-a-can-opener

[Incandenza]

Annoying New York Times articles

The point, Grenier says, isn’t to make another beer for binge drinking. “I think it’s a new experience that helps build community.” By working with home brewers and reviving the old flat-top can, “it’s strongly connected to a heritage that we’re all proud of. A real American heritage.” But, he repeats, “I don’t think it’s nostalgic.”

Hahaha.

Speaking of the affectation of using outdated containers, the NYT had an article on the resurgence of Mason jars yesterday:

The personalized food movement, as Mr. Scherzinger calls it, began to emerge. According to him, 82 percent of Jarden Home Brands’ customers have their own gardens, and many patronize farmers’ markets.

“They want to get their hands dirty; they want to be involved in the process, selection and the making of their food,” he says. “And canning is an extension of that.”

The darlings of that movement are members of the millennial generation, and Jarden has aggressively marketed to them. It has stepped up its presence on Facebook — its page has attracted more than 500,000 fans — and its website offers a Pinterest-like look, with boxes containing product photos, videos and recipes.

Mr. Scherzinger also says the idea of publishing your own content online has parallels to the canning of food products. “It’s a natural extension of the idea of participation and creation,” he says. “I can’t create my own iPhone, but I can certainly create my own food.”

The jars’ revival has also been stoked by entrepreneurs who are incorporating them into product designs. Eric Prum and Josh Williams, two friends who graduated from the University of Virginia in 2008, just as the economy was starting to decline, had been in the habit of storing cocktails in Mason jars for the catering business they started as students. In 2012, they created and began selling a cocktail shaker they called the Mason Shaker.

“The functional side of it is that the Mason jars are heavy in weight, and they can withstand cocktail shaking and muddling ingredients,” Mr. Prum says. Beyond that, the glass is clear, which means that customers can see its contents while they froth up their drinks.

There are a few people in my office that use Mason jars instead of mugs or water bottles. The woman that started the trend once brought a jar filled with tea to a meeting. Since the tea was hot, she had to put on gloves to hold the jar to drink out of. That seemed like a big refusal to see the obvious and to just use a mug with a handle.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Annoying New York Times articles

Oh wow, that is another winner Inca. Especially the really tall guy and the really short guy who invented the Mason jar cocktail shaker, which is basically just a Mason jar:

[Reed John]

Annoying New York Times articles

What makes a Mason jar a Mason jar?

I've used pasta sauce jars for beer glasses (having scrubbed them out, of course). They serve the purpose and were, essentially, free. If one breaks, it doesn't feel like a loss.

Any article with this phrase:

The darlings of that movement are members of the millennial generation,

is DIAF material.

[WOM]

Annoying New York Times articles

Mason jars are a Pinterest favourite. One that actually caught my eye uses them as patio lanterns, with strings of icicle lights tucked inside. As icicle lights have started popping up for cheap at garage sales, I may give this one a go.

[Incandenza]

Annoying New York Times articles

WOM wrote: Mason jars are a Pinterest favourite. One that actually caught my eye uses them as patio lanterns, with strings of icicle lights tucked inside. As icicle lights have started popping up for cheap at garage sales, I may give this one a go.

You're ready for Brooklyn! From the article:

Maybe you’ve sipped a beer from a Mason jar. Or fished out a pickle swimming in brine from one. Or dined under illuminated clusters of them, dangling in chandelier formation, at a restaurant — especially if you dined in Brooklyn.

[Renart]

Annoying New York Times articles

We used Mason jars as drinking glasses at my poverty-stricken redneck stepfather's house in backwoods Texas. Not the greatest connotations for me, but consequently their trendiness is very funny to me and I don't really mind them.

(The reason, of course, that they were used a lot in the rural south is because people canned a lot of food they grew in order to preserve it. If one of your jars got a slight chip on the lip it was no longer good for canning because it couldn't create an airtight seal, but you could still use it for drinking iced tea or moonshine or whatever.)

[WOM]

Annoying New York Times articles

I wonder if hipsters would find it as cool if they realized that places like Chilis and TGI Friday's were using them for Long Island iced teas about twenty years ago.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Annoying New York Times articles

Mason jar knick-knacks to waste money on.

There's also at least one brand of bourbon that's currently being sold in mason jars.

[WOM]

Annoying New York Times articles

Drifting farther from the point, but...

Heard a great piece on the radio the other day about all these 'hand-crafted bourbon' makers throughout the US. Turns out that most of them are buying their hooch from the same mass-producer that makes, you know, the Kirkland brand. The hand-crafted part is simply the packaging and bottling.

The guys said "When the label says 'Founded in 2006' and they're selling a 12 year-old whiskey, that's your first clue...".

[Amor de Cosmos]

Annoying New York Times articles

Kirkland's made by Jim Beam I think — as are about 80% of the locally available bourbons. There are more (and better) small batch ryes, in these parts anyway.

[caja-dglh]

Annoying New York Times articles

WOM wrote: Heard a great piece on the radio the other day about all these 'hand-crafted bourbon' makers throughout the US. Turns out that most of them are buying their hooch from the same mass-producer that makes, you know, the Kirkland brand. The hand-crafted part is simply the packaging and bottling.

I am glad that blog guy is getting a bit more coverage. He did some solid investigation work.

[Renart]

Annoying New York Times articles

WOM wrote: Drifting farther from the point, but...

Heard a great piece on the radio the other day about all these 'hand-crafted bourbon' makers throughout the US. Turns out that most of them are buying their hooch from the same mass-producer that makes, you know, the Kirkland brand. The hand-crafted part is simply the packaging and bottling.

The guys said "When the label says 'Founded in 2006' and they're selling a 12 year-old whiskey, that's your first clue...".

I love those kinds of stories. (Because I am a cheapskate and skeptical of much food and drink connoisseurship.)

[San Bernardhinault]

Annoying New York Times articles

The Mason Jar thing actually seemed very cool, the first time I was served a drink in a mason jar. By the second or third time it happened, it stopped being cool and started being slightly annoying. Now it has all the charm and novelty of the hipster moustache.

As for bourbon, I am astonished at the prices being charged right now for "high-end" small batch bourbon. I know America wants its own (and to love its own) high end products, but that creates a massive imbalance of supply and demand which means that very mediocre whiskey is sold at crazy high prices.

[Reed John]

Annoying New York Times articles

Amor de Cosmos wrote: Kirkland's made by Jim Beam I think — as are about 80% of the locally available bourbons. There are more (and better) small batch ryes, in these parts anyway.

I posted something about that on facebook back when I was doing facebook. It was brought to my attention by the husband of my former boss who, along with his dad, runs a small distillery in Kelowna, BC. They make their own.

There may be a lot of bullshit "craft" distilleries, but I do know that due to some changes in the law, distilleries are popping up all over Pennsylvania. I guess the mid-life-crisis-fuck-it-i'll-start-a-winery market is played out and now the mid-life-crisis-fuck-it-i'll-start-a-brewery market is played out so this is the last frontier. Of course, a number of the new distilleries are off-shoots of successful micro-breweries.

I'm starting to think I like rye more than bourbon.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Annoying New York Times articles

What's the name of their company?

Most distilleries here are in the start up phase, it'll probably be five years or so before they have serious product. But there are one or two early-birds. I can really recommend Mcloughlin & Steele if you can find it.

[Reed John]

Annoying New York Times articles

http://www.okanaganspirits.com/

[Amor de Cosmos]

Annoying New York Times articles

Thanks. I'll keep my eyes open for them.

[Reed John]

Annoying New York Times articles

Not sure if they're doing anything in the Vancouver market. I've never had their stuff.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Annoying New York Times articles

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I know you’ll walk away from mason jars eventually. One of these days, you turncoat fucks will be done with your mason jar snow globes and spice planters, and you’ll move on to vintage soda bottles or pewter beer steins or whatever other trendy container gets you rock hard for a while. But until you do, we’ll just go right on fisting porn stars five at a time on the 160th floor of the Burj Khalifa—put a picture of that on your little Pinterest page under “Cute Wedding Ideas.” When we at Ball Mason Jars finally go down, we’re doing it like the Vikings fucking wish they did.

We’re Going To Enjoy This Cocaine-Fueled Mason Jar Rocket Ride For As Long As It Lasts