13 December 2000
So looks like the court battles are finally over, and Dubya is our president-elect. makes me unhappy--damn Supreme Court and their politically motivated opinion. But, I have faith in our system of checks and balances, and while this is not the result I wanted, it's not the end of the world, either. At least SNL will be funny for four years...
The civics lesson we've all gotten as a result of this election mess has been worthwhile, I think. Anyone who's been paying the slightest bit of attention knows, now, the hows and whys of the Electoral College. As a nation, we can now (hopefully) have an intelligent debate on the merits of our electoral process, and maybe decide to replace what we've got with something better.
I propose that that "something better" is: an election by popular vote, in two stages. Stage 1: as many candidates as we want run. We vote. If one candidate gets a majority, he/she wins. Stage 2: If (more likely) no candidate gets a majority, there is a run-off election approximately two weeks later between the top two vote-getters from Stage 1. What does this get us? It gets us the ability to be able to vote our conscience without the fear that we're throwing away our vote. In Stage 1, we can vote for who we really want to be President, regardless of how likely that candidate is to win. Then, in Stage 2, we can vote for the "lesser of two evils". Having only two candidates in Stage 2 means that one candidate is guarenteed to have a majority, and thus a mandate. To sum up: we get the benefits of a multiparty system (more parties means more points of view are represented) and the benefits of a two party system (someone gets a majority). Ta da!
Has anyone else noticed that we haven't heard a word from/about Ralph Nader since the election? His message, that the Democratic party has moved to the political right enough so that a large chunk of liberal America is no longer represented by a major party, has gotten lost in the avalanche of dimpled chads and disenfranchised senior citizens. Notice, if you would, that he was basically arguing that the leftmost segment of the poplulation is not represented properly. His solution? For the Democratic party to move back toward the left. What he failed to mention, however, was that if the Democrats move back toward the left, sure, they'll better represent the left fringe, but they will in the process cease to represent the politically central Democrats they now do. Get some, but lose others. This is why we need multiple parties, and a multi-stage electoral process. Does anyone out there agree with me?
3 October 2000
The first debate between Al and Dubya was tonight.
Most used phrase: "the wealthiest 1%." Every chance he got, Al mentioned that Dubya would be spending more money on a tax cut for the wealthiest 1% of Americans than he would spend on a bunch of other programs combined. Silliest phrase: "that fuzzy math," (do they sell that in pet stores?) which is how Dubya responded to Al when he mentioned the wealthiest 1%. Though he repeatedly protested that Al's math was "fuzzy," he did not deny Al's allegations.
Bully of the evening: Al. Everytime Dubya said something that Al disagreed with, I could hear Al's exasperated sigh. Al repeatedly interrupted Dubya, and managed to sound condescending on more than one occasion.
Issues on which Al and Dubya are in agreement:
--programs that help
poor families pay their heating bills should be funded.
--Milosevic
should get the heck out of office, but neither candidate would use
military force to achieve that end.
Issues on which there seemed to be a clear difference:
--Appointing Supreme Court justices. Al is pro-choice, Dubya is
anti-choice.
--Future energy policy. Al wants to focus on decreasing our dependence
on oil and non-renewable sources in general. Dubya wants to explore new
sources of oil in our own country, even if it requires risking the health
of the wild places in this country. (Give the man a break--he is from oil
country...)
--Tax cuts. Al wants a tax cut for the middle class. Dubya wants a
tax cut for everyone.
On the surface, Dubya's tax cut for everyone sounds like a fair, democratic proposal. But an equal tax cut (percentage-wise) means that the rich save alot of money, and the poorer people save a little bit of money. And where does that money for the tax cut for the rich come from? I'm not sure exactly, but it's clear that that money wouldn't be used to fund education, social security, medicare, or to pay down the national debt. And while I don't want the government making decisions for me, I do, as an educated, civilized person, feel that those of us in the upper economic classes (not that I, as a graduate student, am in the upper economic classes) have a duty to see to it that those less fortunate have the basic needs of health care, housing, food, education, child care, etc taken care of. I think that one of the hallmarks of a civilized society is that everyone is guarenteed some basic standard of living (whatever that may be). Don't take this to mean I'm a proponent of communism--I do think that as intelligent, inquisitive beings, we need the motivation of being rewarded for hard work and innovation to be happy and productive. If you are able to provide a skill or service that only a few people are able to provide, you should be rewarded for that. But you also have an obligation to those less fortunate.
26 September 2000
The Olympics are on, and they're great. The usual assortment of realized potential, surprising upsets, and crushing mistakes. And NBC is putting some underecognized sports on MSNBC and CNBC during the day. Still saving the most popular stuff (i.e. swimming and gymnastics) for prime time on NBC. I still have to wonder, however, if it's really necessary for them to show all the qualifying heats of the men's 400 meter race, and fail to even show the medal rounds of sports like dressage or archery. Urg. Oh, and re: trampoline as an Olympic event: I'm starting a crusade for Red Rover, Red Light Green Light, and Duck Duck Goose to be medal events in Athens 2004.
And in election news, I continue to hope that the nation's democrats get themselves together and get out the vote enough to put Gore in office rather than (shudder) George Dubbya (aka Mr. Subliminable). Though I don't think Gore would be my first choice for President, he is certainly the lesser of two evils. It irks me that I feel like I have to vote for him because a vote for anyone else is essentially a vote for Dubbya. Alongside Medicare and Taxes and Campaign Finance Reform this issue is never going to get any attention, but I think it's time to revamp the nation's electoral processes. They encourage a two-party system, which is good in principle--ensures a majority. However, in practice we have other parties, and thus neither main party gets a majority. I suggest the following system instead. The election is held as usual, with all candidates from all parties running. If one candidate gets a majority, that candidate wins. If (as is more likely) no candidate gets a majority, there is a run-off election between the top two candidates from the first election. Everyone gets to vote again, for one of those two candidates, thus ensuring that one candidate gets a majority, but allowing the populace to vote how they really want to in the first election. This system is actually in place in Russia currently. I know Russia's got a lot of problems, especially in the government, but this is something they've got right. Anyone with me here?
13 April 2000
I got the following over email. I don't know who originally put this information together so I cannot credit them, nor can I vouch for its validity But, I thought I should share.
If you were thinking of not voting in this election....
The State of Texas, under the leadership of Governor George W. Bush, is ranked:
50th in spending for teachers' salaries
49th in spending on the environment
48th in per-capita funding for public health
47th in delivery of social services
42nd in child-support collections
41st in per-capita spending on public education
1st in air and water pollution
1st in percentage of poor working parents without insurance
1st in percentage of children without health insurance
1st in executions (avg. 1 every 2 weeks for Bush's 5 yrs.)
5th in percentage of population living in poverty
Just think of what he could do for the country, if he were president !!!!
9 April 2000
Been a long time since I've written anything here. Lots has happened, but not stuff I've necessarily wanted to share with the world.
So this morning, the alarm goes off and John stumbles out of bed and
looks out the window. From the bed, I'm thinking that it looks very
bright out and I'm glad that it's a beautiful, sunny day.
John: "Oh my God."
Karen: "What?" (I'm thinking he's going to say that the
window thermometer says it's 80 degrees or something)
John: "You've got to see this."
Karen: (stumbling out of bed) "What is it snowing or something?"
In fact, it was snowing. Note again that it is the 9th of April.
Also note that I live in Delaware, not Russia, thank you very much.
I'm shocked and amazed. Grew up outside Washington DC, where it doesn't
snow in April. Occasionally it'll snow in March -- we've even seen
blizzards in March. But I've never seen snow this late in the year.
Also, it was 75 degrees yesterday! 's up with that?
All the flowers, which had optimistically started to bloom, will be
frozen. I don't like it.
January 2000
Alright, this entry is really being written in May 2000, but I'm sticking it in here because it's about New Year's 2000. It was a good time,
We (John, Jan, me, etc etc etc) went to a party on the lower east side at a bar called Arlene's Grocery. There were bands (okay, but annoying in the not-really-dance-music-and-too-loud-to-talk-over kinda way) and booze. And lots of people that I a) knew and hadn't seen in a while, b) had met briefly before and c) didn't know from Noah. We talked, laughed, "danced", drank, got alcohol of varying types spilled on us--you know, your basic party. At midnight the bands stopped, the TV got turned on, and we all stood there and watched the ball drop in Times Square. Then we all had champagne and a group started up a drunken rendition of the Good Ol' Song (UVA's song, sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne) to which I have never learned the words (had to read them at graduation, doncha know) except for the part that goes "dear old yoo-vee-aaay". Then the music started up again.
At about 1:45, John and Rich and I decided to go see what was up in Times Square (we had tried to go earlier--at say 5pm, but couldn't get anywhere near the place). We picked up a guy named Mike (I think) from Jan's house (where her roommate Sarah was having a party) and off we went. There were still lots of people there, or rather, there were probably a whole crowd of new people there, who had the same idea that we had had--I imagine that everyone who was actually there at midnight had been there all day and was by that time long gone home to a warm brandy--but not so many that we couldn't get to Times Square itself. The streets were, as you might imagine, completely covered in confetti, noisemakers, funny glasses, plastic hats etc. There were performances going on all night. We got there just after 2 am, and saw some native american dancers. They were all very surreally wearing shimmery, brightly colored (but stereotypically styled, with the feather headdresses and all) costumes instead of the usual (stereotypical) costumes in shades of tan. We stood around until the 3am new year's countdown (hey--if you were in california, then we celebrated together!), then decided we were cold and tired and went back to the apartment and went to bed--about 4 am now.
There are some pictures, thumbnails linked to bigger images below.
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2 September 1999
So, I'm safely back from Colorado and my backpacking trip. Mostly, it was uneventful and a generally good time. Ingrid and I were backpacking in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, near Boulder. We hiked from the Fourth of July Trailhead to Diamond Lake to Jasper Lake, where we camped, then headed back again.
So Far, So Good
We experienced almost the full range of weather, from overcast and drizzly to just overcast, to overcast and threatening to unleash barrels of rain, to sunny and beautiful, with just the right amount of breeze, to cloudy/windy/cold/frozen rainy. We car-camped the first night, then headed up the trail the next morning, stopping at Diamond Lake for lunch. I couldn't help snapping pictures every 20 feet, as we came upon one beautiful vista after another. We hiked up over a pass ( > 11,000 ft) then back down to our campsite at Jasper Lake (10,814 ft). When we arrived at Jasper Lake, it was overcast, as it had been the whole trip, but the clouds broke up towards evening and treated us to a mountain sunset and a clear view of the stars. We awoke the next morning to a beautiful day, and cheerily had breakfast, packed up camp, and headed back up the mountain.
The Marginal Situation
As we got within site of the pass, I looked at my watch and thought "What great time we're making!" Famous last words. As we stopped to put on jackets (it's a bit windy on top of a ridge above treeline), the clouds rolled in. Below us. So, within minutes, we were surrounded by cloud, and could only see a few feet in any direction. Unfortunately, the trail up there wasn't marked as well as one might hope (rock cairns marking the trail were placed 50-100 feet apart, visibility was 5-10 feet. You do the math.) So, we got lost.
Of course, we didn't know we were lost at first. We thought if we just headed up and over to the right a bit, we'd hit the pass and be fine. Heh heh. After following that plan for a while, we realized that we were lost. Didn't recognize the ground, hadn't seen any trace of a trail in a long time. And it was getting colder and wetter and windier. See, when you're above treeline, there's of course no windblocks, and when you're at/near the top of a mountain the wind is even worse since there's not even the mountain to block the wind. And when you're in the middle of a cloud, it's basically like being rained on, except the rain isn't falling down, but is just all around you. And, the clouds that high are cold, so the rain tends to be frozen. Fun.
So I'm thinking we're going to end up having to camp up on this mountain top for the night. We could've done it, though I was not excited about the idea. Plus, we didn't have much water, and there weren't any water sources (streams, lakes, puddles) up there. But, it was only 11 am or so, so we had hours and hours of wandering around to do before it came time to set up camp. Still, thoughts of Blair Witch came into my head. Didn't their downfall start by getting lost and having to spend and extra night out in the woods?
Walking around some more, we came upon a skeleton. A big skeleton. It had obviously been there for a very long time. There was only the spine, part of the skull, and a femur left. The spine was about 5 feet long, with individual vertebrae 5 inches in diameter. This was a big animal. This discovery, of course, does not help with the state of mind. How did an animal this big die up here? Is the next lost hiker going to find 2 human skeletons next to this one? Are there live animals like this one up there to skewer/eat us? Of course, in our state of mind, we didn't take a photo of the skeleton, or for that matter, ourselves. (Two hikers disappeared at the top of a mountain. A year (10 years) later, their footage was found.)
We left the skeleton (it was probably from a previously undiscovered species that died out 100 million years ago, and we didn't even get a photo), and continued our wandering. A look at the map and compass suggested that vaguely northwest was a promising direction. Assuming we were in the general vicinity of where we thought we were. So, we headed of northwest. And came to a cliff. This is not good.
At this point, I had lost all sense of direction, and didn't even have any idea if we had crossed over the pass or not. But the cliff was definitely a bad sign. We walked a little further. Still cliff. Hmmm.
Blissfully, the clouds chose that moment to start to break up. We could see several hundred feet. We could see what was at the bottom of the cliff. A lake!! Possibly Diamond Lake!! Little people!! When we turned around, we could see the ridgeline, and what was probably the pass we were looking for. It was about 1/4 mile away. In the cloud, we had gotten 1/4 mile off trail. That's a lot. Anyway, we headed off toward the pass, found it to be the correct pass, got our bearings, and headed down the mountain. Finally hitting treeline, and a clearly worn trail, was when relief washed over us. Nervously giggling about the skeleton, we walked down to Diamond Lake, and looked up at the cliff we had been standing on.
Epilogue
It was an easy hike back down to the car, and a wonderfully uneventful drive back to Boulder. The most exciting thing I did the next day was to take a tour of the Celestial Seasonings tea factory, and take a big deep breath in the peppermint room. I know where to go next time I need my sinuses cleared!
24 August 1999
Winner of the "doh" award:
I'm going camping in the woods of Colorado this weekend.
I went to see The Blair Witch Project last weekend.
18 August 1999
John and I went to Toronto a couple of weekends ago. My thoughts: I know it's a stereotype, but people there seemed generally more pleasant than people in a given US city. On three occasions, John and I were mumbling to ourselves about how to find a particular place or some such thing, and friendly Torontonians volunteered the needed information. The homeless guy sprawled on a sidewalk in Chinatown was very pleasant. People were better behaved while driving on the highway (slower traffic stayed to the right, allowing people to pass on the left, a behavior that has become all but extinct on my daily commute from Delaware to Philadelphia, and turn signal usage seemed to be much more prominent).
Generally Toronto and the area around it seemed to be a mix of US and European culture and products.
Niagara Falls was one of the most amazing sites I have ever seen. The power of the water as it goes over the edge is scary. To give you an idea: until recently, the falls were receding at a rate of between 3 and 5 feet per year. This rate of recession has caused the falls to move 8 miles in the past 11,000 years. It's true that 11,000 years is a long time, but it is also true that 8 miles is a long way for a waterfall to travel. The Canadian side of the falls is certainly prettier, but the town of Niagara Falls, Canada is just as tacky as the town of Niagara Falls, USA, though apparently not as X-rated.
We went to the top (well, not really the top, since the top is an antenna) of the CN Tower, which is the tallest freestanding structure in the world (for now). Nice view of Toronto. Parts of the floor are see-thru, and are therefore terrifying. There is a sign reassuring tourists that the floor was made to withstand the weight of 14 rhinocerouses, but that doesn't seem like quite enough when there are a bunch of teenagers jumping up and down on it.
At the foot of the CN Tower is SkyDome, where the Blue Jays play. Bonus points for the openable roof, and for our $6 seats (though way at the top of the stadium, they provided an excellent view of the game). We only moved down to lower seats to get out of the sun. More bonus points for seeing the Blue Jays win (against the Detroit Tigers). Not that I'm a Blue Jays fan, but it's nice to see the home team win. However, the stadium gets minus points for having astroturf instead of real grass. First, they can let the grass get real sunshine by opening the roof; second, grass can grow under artificial lights for the times when the roof is closed. But the bonus points outnumber the minus points, so I give a thumbs up to SkyDome.
To sum up: Go Canada!
I got an a message today about the God billboards. Apparently, someone who wishes to remain anonymous walked into the Smith Agency (a Ft. Lauderdale based advertising company) and hired them to do the God Speaking campaign. The website says that there were 18 messages, (here's a list), though the first one I saw ("I don't question your existance. --God.") isn't on it. Anyway, visit the webpage for more information.
25 May 1999
A Frenchman named Jean-Marc Philippe and his wife Karin Jestin need your help. They are designing a time capsule/satallite that will orbit the earth for 50,000 years before returning. It will contain samples of air, water, soil, and blood from earth as it is today, as well as a sampling of current knowledge, culture, and technology. Most ambitiously, Philippe wants it to contain a message from everyone on earth. He has set aside space for everyone on earth to contribute a 4-page letter. This is intended to be a work of art and history for us and our descendants. It is called Keo. To learn more about it, and to contribute your 4 pages, go to www.keo.org.
22 April 1999
Today I want to sing the praises of VarsityBooks.com. They are an internet company that sells university textbooks. There are several great things about VarsityBooks.com:
1. Their selection is vast. If your university happens to be one that they work with, then they have all the same books that your university bookstore does, even arranged by class and teacher. If your university is not one they work with (mine isn't), they still have a huge selection of books--some teacher at some university they do work with is probably using the same book that you are.
2. Their prices are low. Their prices are 15%-40% lower than list price. That sounds pretty good all by itself, but it gets even better if you consider that your university bookstore might be charging more than list price. The University of Pennsylvania Bookstore, for example, charges $75 for a particular book that I needed to buy last semester, but the list price is only $66.95. And VarsityBooks.com has this same book for only $56.91! So I saved $10.04 off the list price, but I really saved more, since I would've had to pay $75 at the bookstore. You may be saying, "Yeah, that's great and all, but you have to pay shipping, which adds on to that final cost." Yes, I did have to pay shipping, but it's only $4.95 (flat rate, no matter how many books!!) for regular UPS delivery. So, even with that added on, I still saved $5.09 off the list price and $13.14 off the bookstore price. And it was delivered straight to my door! And since the shipping is a flat rate, the more books you get at one time, the less shipping you pay per book.
3. The customer service is top-notch. My latest book order got "lost in the mail." UPS came, I wasn't home, they left a note that they had come. I had 2 options: I could sit around the next day, waiting for UPS to show up again (out of the question for a busy grad student), or I could sign their note saying that they could leave the package the next day without handing it to an actual person. I chose the second option, of course. So the next day I get home to find the note gone, but no package. I asked all my neighbors and the apartment manager if they had seen my package. Nope. I called UPS, who claimed the driver had left it on the porch (I don't really have a porch, since the door to my apartment is inside the main door to the building). UPS told me I'd have to call the shipper. I emailed VarsityBooks.com and got an answer within the hour, saying they had gotten in touch with UPS and were working on it. Several days later, Noah from VarsityBooks.com called me to find out if I had found the books. I hadn't. Noah said he would ship out a new order of the books, overnight. Best customer service dealings I've had in a long time.
Moral of the story: stop buying books at the university bookstore, and start buying them online, at VarsityBooks.com.
19 April 1999
I saw my third God billboard yesterday. This one wasn't on the Schuylkill. In fact, it was in Delaware, on Rt. 202, near the intersection with Murphy Road. Here it is:
Keep using my name in vain,
I'll make rush hour longer.
--God.
I actually think that whoever is paying for these monstrosities should have put this one on the Schuylkill, since rush hour there is way suckier than rush hour on Rt. 202 in Delaware.
14 April 1999
I saw another God billboard this morning on my way to work. It is also on the Schuylkill Expressway, and is also all black with white type. It says:
What part of "Thou Shalt Not..."
didn't you understand?
--God.
I would love to know who is paying for these billboards. If you know anything about them, or have seen others, email me.
25 March 1999
I've been meaning to say this for a couple of weeks now. There's a billboard on the Schuylkill Expressway that I find a little disturbing. It's all black, with white type that says:
I don't question your existence.
--God.
That's probably true. God probably doesn't question my (our) existence. But I don't think God would take out a billboard on the Schuylkill to tell us that (there's too many traffic hazards there already, without distracting people with messages from God). So, under that assumption (that God doesn't go around taking out billboards on the Schuylkill), someone else has taken out a billboard and signed God's name to it. Awfully presumptuous I think.
I spent the weekend in New York, at the CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing (why they feel the need to specify "human" is beyond me). While there, I saw evidence that the world is coming to an end:
Stretch SUVs.
Like stretch limos, except sillier. What SUV drivers don't realize is that SUVs are no longer cool. They used to be cool, back when they were trucks, before they were the status symbol of upper middle class America. Before they were equipped with heated leather seats and moon roofs. But now, everyone knows they are just a minivan with big wheels, a taller station wagon. The ultimate in suburban uncool.
Read what Dave Barry has to say on the subject.
See what Ruben Bolling of the comic "Tom the Dancing Bug" has to say on the subject.
13 March 1999
I had a run-in with a brush today.
I got up too late to take a shower before heading off to Philly and the gym. No prob. I'll just shower after the gym, like I would've anyway. I only shower before the gym to save my workout partner from my greasy morning self.
But the gym was closed.
Workout buddy offered me her shower. I accepted and off we went. After getting clean, I needed to comb out the tangles, and asked to borrow a brush. She supplied a small round brush.
The brush got wound up in my hair, and refused to come loose. After 15 minutes of yanking at the tangled mess, and facing the threat of scissors, we called the local hair dresser. After the woman on the other end finished laughing, she told us to come on down.
So I wrapped my brush-encrusted head up in a scarf, tried to go incognito with sunglasses, and walked the humiliating distance to the salon.
"We're expecting you, aren't we?" she said as I was directed to the back room. "Let me see....&*%$@*! How long did you yank at this before you called?" I hung my head in shame. "I've been doing hair for 7 years, and this is my first round brush extraction." "Mine too." "I'll be able to get this out, but you might want to take some Advil for the pain." "Huh?" Ten minutes later I found out. Professional yanking made my head feel like McGwire's #71.
Today's moral: Next time you get your hair caught in a brush, declare a hair emergency and waste no time getting to a salon.
27 February 1999
Every time I tell someone I'm a graduate psychology student, they immediately assume I'm a clinical psychologist. People invariably bring up their niece or neighbor who counsels children of divorcees or girls with eating disorders. No one has ever heard of psycholinguistics. Sigh...
26 February 1999
There were two pigeons in my semantics classroom this morning. One of them left through the open window fairly quickly. The other just didn't get it. He wouldn't even be lured by crackers on the window sill. After several attempts to exit from the closed window, he managed to fall out the open one.
24 February 1999
I've spent all week reanalyzing the data for my Ambiguity Avoidance study, dropping subjects for various reasons, reanalyizing, getting worse results than before, manipulating the data, reanalyzing, getting worse results than before... I actually like this data analysis part of research the best--it's always a surprise what I'm going to get. Of course, it would be nicer if I got good results instead of null results, but it's still fun. Anyway, the end all of this whole escapade has been that my results are more meaningful and will stand up to criticism more, but that's a little bit moot (can something be a little bit moot?) considering I don't have much at all. Next step is to run some more subjects and see if I can get better effects.
In other news, I got the buttons sewn on my long winter coat again. I told the tailor the sob story of how they've come off twice already this winter, and how I would prefer if they'd stay on this time, and she said she would use leather thread. Super, I thought, leather thread ought to be pretty strong. Well, I got the coat back yesterday, and upon examiniation, the thread did not appear to be leather. Hmmmm... I finally got it. She meant that she would use thread that is used on leather, not thread made of leather. Hopefully it'll stay on. But I kept my receipt in case they don't.
10 February 1999
My father recently attended his 27.5 business school reunion. While there, he and a fellow classmate talked about their daughters (as fathers are wont to do) who both attended that very same university. Coincidentally, both daughters live/work in the same area of Philly. Fathers suggested that daughters should have lunch.
We planned to meet outside the local restaurant M__ M__ at 1. At 1, I show up and find another person outside, but she doesn't fit the description I was given of my lunch date ("in case we don't recognize each other as strangers looking for strangers, I'm about 5'9" and have dark hair" --I didn't think her hair was "dark"). And when she doesn't come over and ask if I'm me, I figure she's waiting for someone else (either a man or someone she knows). 1:20 arrives, and I figure she's not coming, so I make a quick visit to the lunch carts, go back to work and proclaim myself "stood-up."
You know the punchline. Of course the other woman who stood outside M__ M__ for 20 minutes was my fellow alum, and of course neither of us bothered to ask the other woman obviously looking for a lunch date who she was. Of course.
4 February 1999
I had a really good goat brie on Monday night. I liked it better than traditional brie, actually. It was exceedingly creamy, and the rind was not offensive in the least.