so, i've gots a question.

do you ever read those eating in articles on DCist, written and cooked admirably by scott reitz? i tell you, the recipes always look fantastically delicious (though i've never gotten past my laziness to make one) and everybody loves them.

anyway, i was talking with kanishka and scott and they suggested that one day i should do a baking in, since i do love the baking. it took me a while to come up with a semi-well-known D.C. dessert, but then it came to me: i should take on the cupcakes from cakelove!

for those who don't know of cakelove, it's about a five year old enterprise. a lawyer quit his job to open a bakery, bought a store on U street, made great cakes and cupcakes, etc etc, and everybody raves over the baked goods. a few years back he was named one of the most fascinating entrepreneurs by inc.com.

so i went in there the other day to test these things out for myself. and don't get me wrong - they're pretty good. but they're also $3 a pop. for a $3 cupcake i better be getting, like, an eyebrow wax, silk pajamas and a puppy. additionally - i just tasted a cupcake again (the research is demanding), and it had been in the fridge, and the icing - the icing was literally like a slab of butter smeared on top of the chocolate. i can't necessarily say that this is a bad thing. but the cupcakes, for the money, i just don't know.

anyway, i've never made cupcakes outside of a mix box, so the attempt to make cakelove quality ones should be interesting. but i'm pretty sure that as long has i have several slabs of butter on hand, i should be okay.

I usually try to keep my mouth shut about abortion issues, but this post over at Kevin Drum's place is horrifying enough that I feel compelled to link to it.

taking a page from susan's ET-concern about mary-kate olsen...i don't think things are likely to get better.

she looks like she raided all the curtains from her grandmother's house and just decided that swadling herself in them was as much effort as she was willing to expend. i mean, count it. she's wearing like 5 scarves.

why didn't he just release them earlier?

WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry, ending at least two years of refusal, has waived privacy restrictions and authorized the release of his full military and medical records.

The records, which the Navy Personnel Command provided to the Globe, are mostly a duplication of what Kerry released during his 2004 campaign for president, including numerous commendations from commanding officers who later criticized Kerry's Vietnam service.

The lack of any substantive new material about Kerry's military career in the documents raises the question of why Kerry refused for so long to waive privacy restrictions. An earlier release of the full record might have helped his campaign because it contains a number of reports lauding his service. Indeed, one of the first actions of the group that came to be known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was to call on Kerry to sign a privacy waiver and release all of his military and medical records.

But Kerry refused, even though it turned out that the records included commendations from some of the same veterans who were criticizing him.

come on, mainstream media. you can't have it both ways. is it "why does everyone hate coldplay?" or "Coldplay is admired by everyone - everyone except me"? you know, there's a reason we don't trust the MSM anymore. and it's cause you can't make up your mind about the appropriate amount of hate to level at this british band.

related is this heeeelarious irony about the pareles article from stereogum.

i just want to note that i wouldn't have a problem with a review of coldplay's newest cd that said "this cd sucks because of x" or "the arrangements on this album are a bunch of hokey bullshit." what i can't stand are the articles that level criticism at coldplay because they are successful. they're only insufferable because they've made millions of dollars. nobody would be bothering writing about coldplay in the nytimes if they were toiling away at the level of relative obscurity (in the US) as a band like travis (which, by the way, mr. pareles cited as having been spawned by coldplay when in fact they were around well before coldplay).

i mean, come on. if you're going to hate on coldplay, do it because martin makes annoying political statements or wears stuff like this on his hands.