Monthly Archives: November 2005

Personal Blog

Plug plug plug

So, we all know I hate competition, and I have never been fond of the mentality behind sketchbattle and sketchwar, however playful everyone involved claims to be.

Buuuuuuuuut, Will has done an exceptional job clambering through the ranks of SketchWar, and I was witness to the crazy amount of work he put into his last entry. But, as per usual with the popularity-based nature of the internet, his competition’s massive fanbase is becoming an overwhelming factor in the vote outcome.

So! Hop on over to the SketchWar Grand Finals and vote as you see fit.

Personal Blog

Pandora

Inspired by Maria and indirectly through Ken, I’ve found that Pandora is perhaps the best thing ever.

My musical preferences are so scattered and picky and eclectic that I have a very difficult time discovering new music that I like. I usually just always rely on chance discovery via the musical tastes of a friend. Now I at least have a foothold.

This time I’m actually writing these DOWN so that next time I venture out to buy music, I won’t totally blank.

Personal Blog

Darren is smart!

Darren has a paper published!

Mode-locked fiber laser frequency-controlled with an intracavity electro-optic modulator

I….have no idea what it’s about. But it sounds cool!

My most prevalent memory of Darren the physicist is a tie between him riding up and down the hall of Acheson on his scooter, capped in an ushanka and wielding a bull whip, and him stuffing the half-emptied bag out of the box wine down his pants, spigot out the crotch, and inebriating the masses thusly.

Glad to see you are making something of yourself, Darren!

Personal Blog

Mr. Laguna

It’s been a whole year since I started my newsbruiser journal, woo! I contemplated celebrating the anniversary by changing the timing of my year-end review, but I’ll hold off. A lot could happen in a month and a half, yes?

Mr. Laguna is sick. I nursed him back to health from some bloating issues, and then all of a sudden there was a really rapid onset of finrot and fungus. Back to the hospital tank he goes. He looks absolutely miserable–he always had the habit of biting his own tail, so the pretty crowntail fins you see in the picture never lasted very long, but otherwise he’d been fairly spunky.

Mr. Laguna will always remind me of how people in a place where I just never quite fit in strove so desperately to make me feel at home. I’ve been intending to write to the Long Wharf folks to say hello and give them a rundown of how things are going for me, but I would hate for my contact to be in the form that something has happened to the beloved former office fish.

Mrs. Laguna spends most of her time in the wrong side of the big tank, swimming up and down and back and forth to try to find a breach in the glass wall that will allow her to cross over into the hospital tank where Mr. Laguna resides.

Spaz and Ottobot seem oblivious, as catfish tend to seem, though I found that yesterday when Mr. Laguna was still in the big tank and I discovered him being sick, he was laying on the floor of the coral castle, and Spaz was laying next to him. (I’ll keep an eye on Spaz to make sure he didn’t catch anything)

Update:
I should have known better that this sounded like a preemptive eulogy. Mr. Laguna died today.

Personal Blog

Hmmmm

I snagged this from Denali Kat

“Indisputably, however, France has handled the resultant situation in the worst possible way. Unless it assimilates these millions successfully, its future will be grim.”

This article was written in 2002. It is lengthy article but a good one. Would I have paid as close attention to it if I’d read it 3 years ago? Probably not, but then there’s that whole 20/20 hindsight thing, yeah?

http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_4_the_barbarians.html

Personal Blog

Ramblings

I was so close to making a productive dent on my horrible messy room! Then all energy was lost. It’s okay, right? I have a cold, and I don’t have to clean with a cold (plus, the bathroom got cleaned, that’s a big step, yes?)

I’ve been trying to break out of a chronic habit of work-sleep only days (JamJams counts as work), but it’s not been easy. I used to play video games for fun and relaxing, yes? But not so much anymore. Hands and all. This distresses me greatly, and I tend to sleep when I’m distressed, and there I am back to the beginning.

Also, I was cleaning some things out of my car today when I found two pumpkins that escaped the knife! They were right behind the driver’s seat, so I never thought to look back there. What on earth will I do with them? I suppose I could make pumpkin pie. I mean, I’m not a huge fan, but what else am I going to do with two pumpkins after halloween?

Personal Blog

Cookins

Brendan frequently nags me to start a recipe blog, since I love to cook so much. I do not do this because most of the recipes I cook are not my own, there are ones I have found (and generally modified).

Tonight, however, I cooked a meal of my own devising (although I did sort of borrow the spices from that chicken curry recipe, but that’s because they were here in the house). It was geared specifically to help the cold I have right now. Here are three recipes for you…

Sage and Ginger (if I were a tea snob I’d call this an infusion, but I’m not a tea snob) tea

4-5 fresh sage leaves
bunch of grated ginger (maybe 2 teaspoons or a tablespoon)

Put the sage and ginger into a tea infuser, pour over boiling water, steep for at least 30 minutes. Not very exciting, I know, but it really makes my throat feel a lot better. It’s very yummy with honey.

Fried Banana Yogurt Goo

We tried fried bananas the other night at Brendan’s and they were delicious! I threw on a variation. This serves one.

1 banana
cinnamon
plain yogurt
honey
vegetable oil

Pour about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch of vegetable oil into a smallish skillet. Heat on medium-high. Cut up the banana and sprinkle the pieces with cinnamon. Fry the banana slices in the oil, a minute or two each side. Transfer to a bowl. Cover the bananas with plain yogurt and then pour on some honey. Mix it up with a spoon.

The yogurt dish was so I would have something to rescue my mouth from…

Clear-your-stuffed-nose-right-up Pork Chop (this also serves one)

1 pork chop
olive oil
Chopped onion (I used 1/4 of a great big red onion, half of a medium onion would probably do fine)
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 Tablespoons of grated ginger
1-2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2-3/4 can of crushed tomato (I ended up using one can, but it was a bit much) salt
pepper
1/2 cup water
steamed rice for serving

Heat olive oil in a medium skillet and brown the pork chop, about 5 minutes each side. Move the chop to a plate. Add onions to the skillet and brown them, about 5 minutes. Add ginger and garlic and stir. Add coriander, cumin, turmeric, and cayenne. Add the tomatos,water, and salt and pepper to taste. Return the chop to the skillet. Cover and cook until the chop is cooked through, like 10-15 minutes, until the temp inside is 160 degrees. Flip it over once or twice during this time, and add water if the tomato stuff starts getting too pasty. Serve over rice.