It is, indeed, the flamingo

Goodmorning to the Anthropic Claude AI training scraper that suddenly decided to request 660 thousand pages (exactly the number I had remaining on the starter plan) and brought Pikiwedia down. 

Sudden switch from diverse user agents like chrome, safari, messenger preview to Just Claudebot. I'm not even mad though, this is maybe the funniest thing possible, because I've inadvertently poisoned their training data with thousands of fucked up articles with normal urls. 

"Free Gaza"

31 Days of Bond Fashion

DAY 13: THE VELVET GOWN as seen in Goldeneye (1995).

In GoldenEye, filmmakers returned to the Good Bond Girl vs Bad Bond Girl trope, pitting Izabella Scorupco's Natalya Simonova against the formidable – and formidably named – Xenia Onatopp (played by Famke Janssen). Only one woman, however, came out Onatopp as a fashion icon.

In designing Xenia's wardrobe, costume designer Lindy Hemming took inspiration from Mugler, Montana, Galliano and Prada, wanting Xenia's outfits to accentuate her height and give her an aura of mystery and danger. She was to be the height of fashion, in contrast to Natalya, whose wardrobe was modern and ordinary, reflecting her status as a working-class Russian.

During her character's introduction to Bond in Monte Carlo, Xenia wore an unforgettable panné velvet gown, which Hemming noted was intended to evoke "Cruella meets Morticia Addams." Other production notes liken it to the dress of the Wicked Queen in Snow White. As a result, her wardrobe was as camp as it was chic, but then, what's a Bond film without a camp touch or two? It was the ideal wardrobe for a woman whose signature move was crushing men with her thighs.

*Panné velvet is velvet that’s been crushed in one direction for a smooth, high-shine finish.

*

when peggy and jarvis are fighting the dc agents, there’s upbeat jazz music playing and peggy is kicking dc’s ass. it’s SUCH a fun, “good-for-her” moment. and she wins! as she should! hooray! and then she runs into jack, and it suddenly starts getting personal, especially as they only JUST became allies. but she still makes it out. it’s still fine. she’s still winning. and then, daniel. and she still makes it out. and suddenly, it doesn’t feel like a win anymore at all.

as for the line itself… oh, daniel. daniel sousa, you stubborn, loyal little son of a bitch. daniel has single-handedly unearthed what ivchenko puts next episode as a massive wall of evidence against peggy. he’s got witness confirmation and everything. but when he makes mcphee id her, he implores him to look again at the photograph before making a positive id, because he so doesn’t want to believe it. 

and then mcphee confirms it, and daniel does his job and tells dooley, but when he finally confronts peggy, who is standing over jack’s unconscious body, and for all daniel knows at this point she’s actually killed jack like she may or may not have killed krzeminski, he still begs her to tell him he’s wrong. he has this mountain of evidence, but there has to be some other explanation. there has to be, because otherwise, he’s going to have to fight his best friend. if she even is his best friend anymore, because he’s now realizing he might not actually know her at all.

and peggy apologizes, and means it, and runs anyway.

A dozen DC agents are dispatched handily, easily and the real dilemma is what it does to her relationships with both these men.  Ultimately Peggy chooses her own actions because those relationships are so lopsided.  She can’t trust that they will believe her quick enough to catch Dottie and she runs off to do it herself, with zero resources.  If their relationships had been less one-sided - if Daniel had come to her sooner, if Jack had given her any real credit, she very well might have made a different decision.   (That’s not to say it’s completely one-sided, Daniel is quite open with her about his injury, how he feels about their coworkers, and his struggle with Ray K’s death.  Jack shares his deep private shame about Iwo Jima… but while emotionally they trust her, they’ve given her little trust in the work/intelligence realm specifically.)

Ultimately, post-interrogation she does open up just enough for the men to trust her in return enough to investigate her claims.  She hands over Steve Roger’s blood and that one act is enough to sway Daniel and to cause Jack to doubt her guilt enough to convince Dooley they need to investigate Ivchenko.  It’s commentary both on how important trust is AND how much further women have to expose themselves to earn trust from men. 

it would be so awesome

-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)

-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt

-ayran: yogurt, water, salt, mint