Pickled Greenland shark for breakfast?

Window trees building clouds

Contest Reminder:  

Really bad photographer | Icelandair US

When RantWoman travels, RantWoman likes to immerse herself in local cuisine, culture, and history as well as geography. Consider the question, delivered to Gemini "what do people in Iceland eat for breakfast?" 

At home RantWoman cycles among homemade porridge of the week, cold pizza, and sometimes other leftovers, often with a banana or hard-boiled egg.

Thank you Gemini, sort of. Submitting the question in natural language is cool. Here are a couple snippets from the first screen of results.

Why you should be eating an Icelandic breakfast

(summary: the basic low-fat, high-fiber, high protein regimen recommended in many places.

I tried a traditional Icelandic breakfast, and it was nothing short of intense — especially when the fermented shark hit the table. From creamy skyr, fresh rye bread, and liver pâté, to the infamous hákarl (a national dish made from fermented Greenland shark), this meal is unlike any breakfast I’ve had before. It’s all part of the unique and bold food culture of Iceland. #IcelandFood #IcelandBreakfast #TraditionalIcelandicFood #Hákarl #Skyr | Strictly Dumpling | Facebook

Thank you Gemini? 

Porridge or muesli? Checks out.

Good yogurt? checks out.

Rye bread or rye crisp: RantWoman likes both fine.

Pickled Greenland shark? RantWoman likes pickled herring on flatbread but does not eat it very often. As for Greenland shark...? 

How I Learned to Eat Fermented Shark with Iceland ProCruises - Food, Wine & Travel

So definitely a bit more of a big deal than mere pickled herring. RantWoman is fascinated to learn more about Greenland sharks. RantWoman also hopes that pickled Greenland shark is not an every day menu item.

As for Gemini

1. RantWoman is still not sold on Gemini offering to "help" abut email.

2. RantWoman appreciates getting info from multiple platforms but is lazy about wanting to sign in or even to read user agreements for these same platforms, especially since one BIG driver of whether RantWoman is going to come back to a site or portal is how easy it is for RantWoman to use. This is probably a trial and error iterative process. Most of the time RantWoman can live with that except RantWoman tends to want info NOW and in easily digestible form.

But speaking of easily digestible, RantWoman will check out other meal customs another time.

Bad photographer cred?

 

Again with the tree photo
this time basically
at the crack of dawn

Still a few days left to enter the IcelandAir "Really bad photographer" contest, and RantWoman is trying to demonstrate quirky skills.

RantWoman again encourages everyone who might be intrigued or even just slightly interested to read the contest guidelines.

Really bad photographer | Icelandair US

The contest does not want anyone who has ever done professional photography. Do the following comments mean RantWoman might be over-qualified? 

Part of the instructions ask for a one-minute video about a bad photography experience that still turned out well. There is also the part about other skills. One of RantWoman's skills is going on at length. Hence the multiple blog posts.

First Prize in the 4H photography category at the county fair: there were no other entries. 

This happened decades ago at an age when RantWoman officially could see enough with glasses to maybe do decent photos. RantWoman remembers giving a speech about sewing. RantWoman may have entered some baked goods. But the blue ribbon went to an album of black and white photos. RantWoman has long since lost the actual album but remembers that it was in black and white. Some of the composition was less than perfect, though RantWoman also remembers at least one shot of one of the town mountains that she really liked

The fambly reunions:

RantMom, may she rest in peace, and her siblings had a tradition, after their kids were grown and everyone was on less tenuous financial footing. of getting together every couple years with at least a few at a time of the cousin generation. So there RantWoman was recently looking at photos ahead of RantMom's memorial. Quite a bit of the time, RantWoman found herself thinking "who are theese people and why can't anyone take decent photographs? RantWoman can tell that photographs of people standing with light behind them in front of various forms of scenery do not do justice either to the people or to the scenery. Does that observation already make her overqualified for the contest? The memories are FUN regardless.

The cat and the disposable camera. 

While RantWoman was trying to land on her feet after her midlife vision-related DNA kicked in, RantWoman signed up for a workshop series called "Getting involved in your Neighborhood." Part of the project involved handing RantWoman a disposable camera with instructions to document one's surroundings. Very funny. RantWoman really could not even locate the camera viewfinder and took a few pictures just by framing the camera based on externam things she used to orient the camera. The Queen of Meow, RantWoman's cat overlord at the time liked to jump up onto the railing of the balcony across from RantWoman's apartment. To RantWoman's surprise, a couple of RantWoman's cat photos showed the Queen of Meow proudly strolling along the railing, oblivious to the 4-floor drop to the patio.

The incision at the bottom of RantWoman's neck.

Scroll forward a couple decades. Add a smartphone so theoretically RantWoman can better use her limited vision to frame the photos at least a little better. Oh, but wait: a new task. Recently RantWoman had a surgery related to a different strand of DNA lotto. The surgery involved a small incision at the base of RantWoman's neck, sealed up with surgical glue and steri strips. RantWoman lives alone and cannot really see into the mirror to monitor healing. RantWoman an also has a smart phone that attempts to tell her how to capture her face. RantWoman did not want to capture her face. RantWoman wanted to capture her incision as it healed. To do that RantWoman basically had to ignore the instructions offered. RantWoman probably would have been able to tell if she were developing a raging infection without photos. Luckily, RantWoman has a coupe people in her life willing to receive daily photos and comment on the evolving color palette. The doctor was impressed at the follow-up visit.

The daily tree motif

RantWoman's apartment looks out on a tree, actually more than one tree. RantWoman does daily tree photos more or less just for fun. RantWoman is not preoccupied about the quality, composition, contrast of the photos. RantWoman's task is to write alt text for the photos. Alt text is description used by screen reader users to describe content of photos. Nowadays, a lot of platforms have AI which automatically does a mediocre job. RantWoman's efforts are also possibly inadequate. Sometimes the descriptions include details like the building in the background or the plants growing on the window ledge or some observation about weather conditions. There is some dance of messing with AI, attempting to improve on AI, and meditation about how much description is just right for different situations. Does RantWoman just have weird ideas of fun?

Vocabulary in case one winds up in a Russian prison

RantWoman posts this purely for lexicographic interest. If Russian prison jargon has no appeal, please feel free to skip the video below.. 

Trigger warning: reference to multiple traumatizing topics

Trevor Noah speaks "American"

 RantWoman is out of town for a few days and leaving clips to make people smile.

Icelandair bad Photographer Contest

One of RantWoman's
daily tree(s) photos

There are only a few days left to enter the IcelandAir "Really bad photographer" contest.

RantWoman encourages everyone who might be intrigued or even just slightly interested to read the contest guidelines.

Really bad photographer | Icelandair US

The only small accessibility blip: Must be able to interact and choose one of 5 emojis to respond to one of the questions.

Need some tips?

• Just be yourself, no script needed.

• Share any other skills you have other than being bad at photography.

• What excites you most about this opportunity?

• Got a memorable photography fail? Tell us about it!

   

So there RantWoman was one night watching volcanic eruption videos, one of RantWoman's fave diversions from other horrors of the current timeline. There was a volcano erupting in Grundjavik for several days. The eruption was the kind of slow meltdown that opened wide features and crept closer and closer to a village until part of the village had to be evacuated. 

That eruption has faded from RantWoman's media streams, but along with the eruption videos YouTube sent RantWoman several videos of things one might do while visiting Iceland. The videos featured a certain amount of rugged hiking, sometimes in rainstorms, as well as ordinary daylife activities such as going to the grocery store or swimming in a completely non-chlorinated geothermally heated pool. 

The rugged hiking sometimes in pouring rain sounds like maybe not the biggest sell, but a possible trip to Iceland in June when days are longest still intrigues RantWoman enough to do a couple posts turning over the idea of entering the contest.

And why the tree motif? STAY TUNED.

As long as its AI slopaganda anyway, WHY can't it be audio described too????

 Is it okay to admit that the barrage of AI "slopaganda" related to the war in Iran are a bit of a guilty pleasure?

Some of the videos are so dead-on that RantWoman wonders where the authors are getting their cultural insights?

In some cases, RantWoman would be just fine with the content if it were not for the certainty that the content is coming from forces that probably do not have US interests at heart and are happily playing into multiple fractures in US society.

Never mind all that.

RantWoman has one simple question: as long as all the videos are all AI-generated anyway, can't SOMEONE add an audio description track for all the viewers who can't follow the frenzy and probably couldn't stand some of the imagery even if we could follow it?

Pretty please.

Here are a few examples just to fire up everyone's literary instincts and try to tackle the visual complexity.

Nice music. What is on screen?

RantWoman realizes that the audio experience is a little less frenetic if RantWoman listens at noraml speed than if she were to listen at her usual 1.5x

A collection of the Lego Iran War Movie bangers

At least some of the clips here have subtitles but RantWoman is thinking of Bad Bunny's halftime show and all the different rounds of cultural examination she has seen about it. Do some of these clips need that much cultural interpretation too? OR based on subtitles RantWoman manages to read, is it safe to just file it as dueling war propaganda in the same bucket as the Secretary of #WarCrimes praying?

TRUMP Blocked IRAN.. But Tankers KEEP COMING 🚨 - LEGO EDITION

Who did this one. Several comedy lines.

Iran Answers Trump’s Blockade With a LEGO Diss Track

US Blocked the Strait… Then Everything Went Wrong

The U S Blocked the Strait… Until This Happened

HE SAID HE WAS CHOSEN… Then Lost Everything

Trae Crowder distills the state of the war

 #Iran #Ceasefire

Get into Good Trouble. Get into FUN trouble.

 Another RantWoman YouTube channel rec.

Content warning: clips of President #StableGenius talking. Enough said?

RantWoman does not have time to wade through / curate all the internet content out there. The Dangerous ones apparently do. They present new collections every few days.

Here is their take on the Monday presser by President #StableGenius. 

They also have a vid about best signs of #NoKingsDay, complete with decent description of what the signs say, as well as a weekly compilation of videos that have gone viral. RantWoman finds some of the compiled videos more digestible than others. Oh Well

The Week's news distilled by Belle

One of RantWoman's favorite YouTube channels: concise, on point, frank. 

And plenty to seed those break time conversations....

Video meanderings for Holy Thursday.

 Does RantWoman have other things she is SUPPOSED to be doing, up to and including some formal way of observing Holy Thursday / Maundy Thursday / the version of Passover sometimes observed by Christians contemplating events leading up to Easter.

RantWoman went looking for info about Easter witches, a custom in Finland and Sweden.

Please enjoy the fruits of RantWoman's internet peregrinations.

RantWoman apologizes: she has not been keeping up with the ins and outs of sharing content across different platforms. Blogger may ask readers to click on a link and go directly to YouTube. The link works great.

Easter traditions in Finland and how you can take part of them - Nallikari

How to Celebrate SWEDISH EASTER | Traditions and Folklore

Swedish Easter tradition - Weird things Swedish people do - Learn Swedish in a Fun way!

10 Well-Known Passover Rituals That Are Surprisingly Profound

Every White-haired protestor and lots of others: protesting one person

 If you watch one #NoKIngsDay video, go for Lawrence O'donell.

From Glenn Kirschner

No Kings, No Trump!

Bernie Sanders and others in Minneapolis

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at No Kings rally in St. Paul at the Minnesota State Capitol

bernie sanders is going mega viral..

Bruce Springsteen performs “Streets of Minneapolis” at No Kings rally in St. Paul; LIVE VIDEO

Live at the Minnesota Capitol: Joan Baez and Maggie Rogers perform at No Kings rally

No Kings: Ilhan Omar, Bernie Sanders, Bruce Springsteen, Jane Fonda, Joan Baez at St. Paul Rally

And from random red state media

No Kings rally protest coverage in Kansas City

12 news in Phoenix

No Kings Day protests across the Valley

ARKANSAS

Latest News | 'No Kings' protests held in Arkansas and around the nation

with a segment on soccer / futbol and Latinos

Another round of 'No Kings' protests ignite throughout the US in key cities

Great clips!

Omaha

Thousands turn out for 'No Kings' Rally in Benson

Iowa City

DITV: 'No Kings' Protest Returns to Iowa City for a 3rd Time

Rockford IL

Thousands gather in Rockford for “No Kings” rally, part of nationwide protests

Boise / Twin Falls (oops: No Kings 2.0, a few months ago.)

No Kings Protest in Boise & Twin Falls

Thousands rally in Seattle during nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown speaks at No Kings Rally | Seattle No Kings Rally

The dangerous ones

The FUNNIEST Signs From No Kings Day

Stephen Colbert

Millions March Against Trump’s War & Deportations | Trump's Improv War | Global Helium Crisis

Jon Stewart

No Kings Rallies Can’t Stop CPAC's Trump Glazing & Iran War Hits One Month | The Daily Show

Nope. Not COVID, but...

    

#pandemic #COVID19 #COVID 

What's left of RantMom
in her new home

Possibly of interest:

RantWoman and the RSOF: Jessie Cornwell Memorial Invitation, updated

RantMom "departed for other realms exactly two months ago. Therefore, we interrupt the daily war coverage for...

--meditations on obituary writing process wrangling a whole life story into plausible obituary versions for different platforms

--effort both to collaborate with Little Sister and to tread among family religious and other emotional landmines.

--inchoate ranting about one popular obituary platform whose accessibility for RantWoman SUCKS.

Uhhh, how about just do the COVID piece?

Ding! Ding!

Adapted from the current draft of the obituary:

(RantMom) became good friends with the first Ida Culver Ravenna Resident to die of COVID. She tested positive herself cleared the virus and did not develop symptoms. The pandemic lockdown was very hard for everyone. The staff's meticulous observance of rules and safety practices as well as use of vaccines as soon as they became available ensured that COVID did not hit that community nearly as hard as other retirement facilities. 

(RantMom) and several other residents of Ida culver Ravenna moved to The Lakeshore, along with numerous other residents of Ida Culver Ravenna. At the Lakeshore, residents enjoyed an expansive view of Lake Washington and resident bald eagles nesting in a tree near the dining room. Art shows, special speakers,  music and dance performances and other activities kept life as lively as (RantMom)  wanted. 

The last year of RantMom's life at the Lakeshore was rough: Her younger brother died of prostate cancer. She had a lingering bout of actual COVID, not just testing positive and clearing the virus without symptoms as she had done previously. 

Other chronic issues were becoming more and more draining. Even so, she continued to volunteer weekly at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. To RantMom, this was a means to pay forward the excellent medical care she had received during her multiple battles with cancer.

RantMom's last few weeks were a blur of hospital, skilled nursing, and ultimately placement at the Agape Senior Care at Montlake -- with its extremely loving directors and staff -- where she passed away peacefully thirty years and six months to the day after (RantDad).

Reprise on the topic of RantMom and #COVID

Adventures of RantWoman: Dinner and Plague

Adventures of RantWoman: Tested Negative!

(Part of RantWoman's own experience with "the 'rona."

There are probably other posts that reference both COVID and RantMom but this has to be enough for now

Adventures of RantWoman: Virus plus car ride plus pastor plus pandemic and worship plus pentecost

Adventures of RantWoman: Today in Corona Virus News

Adventures of RantWoman: Data Dump plus Neil Degrasse Tyson suggesting people listen to Science

precautions at a different retirement community

Adventures of RantWoman: Pollen or Plague? With a side of #DigitalInclusion

Ai Ai Ai: Elon tripping over his own hubris.

In case RantWoman has not been sufficiently clear, RantWoman is a GIANT AI skeptic. RantWoman blesses the video below for addressing Elon Musk and Grok in particular. The video is a literary delight, a rant fully worthy of RantWoman's endorsement.

RantWoman has also remained on X, or as RantWoman is prone to say when not reverting to Twitter, Elon's sandbox. Recently someone has been dumping AI related curricula from several major universities. Also, a whole slew of articles has appeared about fatal flaws in various AI models. 

Theoretically, if RantWoman wanted to sound fully informed and use the jargon of the moment, she could read up. RantWoman is, though, going to take the chance that meaning can be generated with or without the most current jargon.

Basically, Elon's promise to rewrite the whole corpus of human knowledge sounds to RantWoman like hubris. RantWoman already once blurted out, in one of her X accounts, that Elon needs to STOP PEEING ON  HIS BRAND.  Perhaps if Elon would take the following commentary to heart and let the community of users do our thing, knowledge would get transformed without him needing to fall on his face tripping over his hubris.

With that as intro, please enjoy the following commentary.

Elon Musk just lost everyone

"Elon is the biggest welfare queen in history."

"...addict...with a bunch of baby mamas...."

And as a digression, DOGE staffer about "rooting out DEI"

Elon Musk's Orders BACKFIRE As Damning DOGE Staffer Video Goes Public

For anyone who hasn't noticed: linguistic circumlocutions US style

One of RantWoman's go-to voices about #Russia, Russian culture the #SpecialMilitaryOperation and related topics

Roman is a Russian expat currently living in Portugal. If you like his content, please like, subscribe, pick a financial support option.

And a side of Desi Lydic

Desi Lydic Foxsplains Trump's Iran Not-War | The Daily Show

Order This month's Pagliacci seasonals!

The short version of this screed:

Feast on the March seasonals from Pagliacci--or if spicy is not for you, there are other options. 

The longer version: there are genetic reasons that people have wildly divergent views of both broccoli and cilantro. RantWoman knows of no such genetic explanation for the magnificent way mention of pineapple on pizza, say during an icebreaker, will turn a room instantly into vehement factions. RantWoman is definitely in the pro-pineapple camp with one asterisk: RantWoman would definitely add another vegetable to hawaiian pizza but RantWoman has not found a way to do that on the Pagliacci options.

RantWoman also tends to order from the website because RantWoman would have to turn Talkback off on her Android phone to order any size but large.

With that, to quote from the Pagliacci blog.

(Use the scroll bars for best viewing. The text sounds great for screen readers.)

Calypso

One of the most reliable pleasures in eating is the way sweet and savory and spicy come together to taste like so much more than the sum of their parts. Trigger warning: the new pie contains fresh pineapple. No, we’re not looking to revive that old debate, but rather to stimulate your taste buds.

Pineapple caramelizes in the oven, and picks up a deeper, almost tangy sweetness. Paired with soppressata — salty, garlicky, a little funky — it becomes a bright counterpunch. Add the heat of sliced jalapeños, mozzarella for that creamy savoriness, and a drizzle of hot honey, and you’ve got a pizza with an irresistible balance of sweet-salty-spicy. 

If you’re firmly in the no-fruit camp, we respect your boundaries. But if you’ve ever loved a sweet-savory-spicy combo give yourself permission to try the Calypso.

Our Sicilian Cauliflower, the second seasonal pie, riffs on a classic Sicilian flavor combo, leaning into Sicily’s Arab-influenced sweet-and-savory tradition. We pile tender roasted cauliflower, golden raisins, mozzarella, fontina and Parmesan on our chewy crust with a Calabrian chile olive oil base, then finish it with parsley after the bake. One taste will explain why this recipe has stood the test of time.

Last May, we added a few Molly Moon’s flavors to our dessert menu. The response was overwhelming: customers asked for more. So we kept going. Now we’re going all the way and making Molly Moon’s our house ice cream. You’ll find the new flavors on our dessert page.

“I can’t think of a more fun, classic Seattle combo of comfort food than ordering a Pagliacci pizza and salad with a pint of Molly Moon’s for dessert,” says Molly Moon Neitzel, founder and CEO of her eponymous company. “I told my daughters we’re doing it tonight and they squealed with delight!”

Our rotating seasonal flavor is Molly Moon's Cookies & Cream. They bake the cookies themselves, then fold them into the ice cream for chunks and speckles in every spoonful. Order a pint while you still can.

Former President Obama ahead of Presidents Day

 

Posted without further comment.

From Bad Bunny to Don Arcadio

Fast initial commentary about Bad Bunny at the #SuperBowl

Screen size matters. 

RantWoman still does not want a big television in her apartment.  RantWoman saw #BadBunny perform via a very large screen. RantWoman found the production visually confusing. It probably would have been equally confusing viewed from a seat further back from the screen where RantWoman viewed some of the game with slightly more comfortable results.

Honestly, no matter what efforts are made in collaboration between @NFL and @ACBNational about #accessibility, with #SuperBowlLX, as with many other events rich in detail, RantWoman relies A LOT on social media commentary. This does not distress RantWoman. In fact, the discussion helps RantWoman feel included and feeds RantWoman's capacity just to blurt out opinions.

Audio / song:

RantWoman was part of both an in-person conversation and two text chats. English monolinguals were, to put it politely, confused. In RantWoman's case loud chatter made it hard to parse the song.

RantWoman solicited commentary from people in her circle and from one single voice on X. Commenters included two native Spanish speakers and two others with different levels of Spanish fluency. The verdicts: 

Rap is not anyone's most familiar idiom. One commenter observed that probably a string quartet would be an unlikely sell at the Super Bowl

Something was muddy

Many people have trouble understanding song lyrics, especially the first time one hears them.

RantWoman caught "Nunca! Nunca! Nunca! (Never, never, never) as well as a long list of countries in the Americas where futbol means something completely different from the Super Bowl.

On social media, mainly Elon's sandbox:

numerous hashtags

MUCH praise.

Lots of haters in the replies in AZ Rep. Adelita Grijalva's feed on X. RantWoman DESPERATELY wishes people would make at least minimal effort to listen about actual culture before spouting opinions RantWoman definitely consider disagreeable or weird at best and generally tiresome and hateful.

Thank GOD, no posts YET from CO rep Lauren Boebert.

A word from an NPR addict

RantWoman has a hard time simulating interest in football, even when the #SeaHawks are winning. After a delicious bowl of turkey chili assembled in fine and ingenious form by some of RantWoman's neighbors, RantWoman fled the watch party and went back to her apartment and NPR.

Latino USA was playing...

La Brega: Campeones | Episode 1 | Who Represents Us? 

La Brega: Campeones | Episodio 1 | ¿Quién nos representa?

And even more delightful if also in the weeds away from the #BenitoBowl, a trip down memory lane to the first college Spanish literature course RantWoman jumped into. RantWoman arrived at college having placed out of the language requirement based on high school Spanish and acutely aware of inability actually to understand anything. So RantWoman jumped into a course with Don Arcadio.about literature of the 17th and 18th centuries. Readers are invited to enjoy both segments above and Prof. Quinones discussion below of Puerto Rican identity.

Arcadio Díaz Quiñones y "El Arte de Bregar" - 22 años después

Muppets FOREVER and premiering TONIGHT on ABC and Disney Plus

RantWoman seldom flaks this blatantly for an entertainment venture, but the world needs MUPPETS right now.

Kermit the Frog on Return of The Muppet Show, Working with Seth Rogen & ...

Hologram Weather Forecaster? According to Stephen Colbert

Georgia's Trees Are Exploding | The End Of Groundhog Day? | Year Of The ...

February 1, 1960: desegregation sitins begin

 

#OnThisDay in 1960, four Black freshmen students from North Carolina A&T — Franklin McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, David L. Richmond and Ezell A. Blair Jr. — began to ask themselves what they were going to do about discrimination.

“At what point does a moral man act against… pic.twitter.com/06patLkzlT

— Jerry Mitchell (@JMitchellNews) February 1, 2026

February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four | Civil Rights Sit-In | Indpendent Lens | PBS