I baked pumpkin bread yesterday, and it is AMAZING. ^______^ Tom doesn't like pumpkin in anything but pumpkin pie (for being such a hungryboy all the time, he has some very strict dislikes :p), but I have no problem with that - that means I get it AAAALLLLLLLLL, and it'll last more than, y'know, a day. hee. I'm glad I was smart enough to read through the reviews on the site before I picked a recipe, though - the first one I looked at got terrible reviews, and, I realised, had nooo spices in it. Forget that. The one I went with has nutmeg and allspice and cinnamon on top of the canned pumpkin. ghee. <3 I got worried though, I was doing up some dishes while waiting for it to finish baking, and forgot to check on it, and suddenly flipped out cos it seemed I'd not checked on it in a good long while--- and took it out of the oven to find the top DARK. Like really dark. Like chocolate dark. --then I looked at the clock and realised it was just when I needed to take it out, hee. I didn't have time to even take it out of the pan before work (went in to cover for another girl), but had a slice first thing when I got back. And omfreakingguh, it is awesome. RIDICULOUSLY moist (I followed the comments' suggestions, and used applesauce instead of oil), and so rich, and so tasty, and so much fall. Yay.

I have some cookies planned, but not sure when I'll get a chance to make them - my work schedule is insane for a bit again. I had Tuesday off, and don't have another day off until next Friday (was supposed to have yesterday off, but, Nikki called). Half of them are the shorter evening shifts, but still. The closer we get to Hallowe'en, the busier it gets in there... it was pretty nuts yesterday evening, even upstairs, which's unusual. (But it also helped that we had one nearly-scary-and-unhappy customer, the copy machine acted up at the same time, and then just before 9, the woman-who-never-leaves showed up yet again with her two quite-spoiled-and-bratty daughters..)

Tom, meanwhile, has been keeping crazy busy too - starting on his capstone waaaaayyy early, like the much-more-reasonable-person-than-me that he is. ^^; Though, granted, he also has a lot more work to do, that he can't really fudge (like I did a bit of). He's making an online card game, complete with betting system, multiplayer.. only, it's not going to look a thing like the usual card games, he's going worlds away from the top-down green table approach. It's going to look like you're actually sitting there, different rooms are really going to be different rooms visually (some grungy and run-down, the higher-stakes tables all gold and plush and sleek), when you bet the chips really add onto the pile in the center of the table. It's going to be freaking awesome - he's only just started really *working* in 3D, and his first project looked SO great and clean and realistic. (This is not mere girlfriend fawning, this is media arts student awe.) Also, he has me to help make things look pretty. ;) I did up the card backs for him already, and while there's some tweaking to do, they look really good.
---and how, you may ask, is this Art? Easy. The game is Sabacc, which exists only in the Star Wars universe, and whose rules have been implied and semi-codified by the fanbase. It's not physically possible to play the game (though you can alter a deck to do an approximation, as Tom and I have) - cards occasionally change in your hand, like a 9 becomes a 2, or something more drastic. So while his primary motivation for this was simply that he'd become sick of waiting for someone else to make an online version of the game ("Spoken like a true Linux user", Eliot pointed out, hee), he then realised it'd be really freaking cool if he could draw in *non*-Star Wars people with it. There's not going to be anything overtly Star Wars about it - no Star Wars font, no bad color scheme, no Boba Fett in sight. He's going to try to pass off a fictional game as a real one. That's the Media Art part. ;)
But goddamn is it complicated, he's got 400 lines of coding done in Flash already, and that's just for a REALLY simple crappy-looking version of the game. He's got a server program all picked out that looks pretty reasonable, re-learned ActionScript, and is learning whatever it is the server uses, Eliot (who was in Tomorrow is Forever, graduated the year before me, and is currently our one true Media Arts prof) has offered him storage/server space/anything he needs to get this going.. I'm so totally psyched about how much he's got done, and how perfect it's going to be months from now.

Also, Media Arts club is going to be making a 3D animated sitcom about some guys stuck living in a bunker with zombies. The trailers have been storyboarded, characters are being worked on, and I am so freaking thrilled that they're doing it - we never quite got a project going last year, and there's some really amazing 3D people kicking around the lab right now. (Also, when Jon proposed the thing in Ferraro's class last year, we all thought it was the greatest thing ever, and it's really kinda gonna be.)

Got up at 6.30 this morning, to walk to Dunkirk in the 40-degrees and rain for an 8.30 appointment. ^^; Wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared, though, I bundled up a bit and borrowed Haruna's umbrella (one of these days I'll get one), and goodness an umbrella makes all the difference, apart from my shoes I stayed mostly dry. :) (And I had my mp3 player with me, so Alice Cooper got me most the way there and back, 'til my battery died.) Not being a student, I can't use bcic on campus anymore, so it was suggested to me that I try the county family planning clinic. As soon as I fill out a lil more paperwork and bring in a little more paperwork (like pay stubs), I've got a bit of health care through them, and free! (Because Melissa has a very, very little income still, and Tom's still drawing off savings, not having heard back from the computer places yet.) Everyone was very nice and very helpful, and Melissa is a healthy thing - and even ideal weight for her height, yay. :) I was really fretting about going in and getting everything sorted out, but it went much better than I'd feared, and I'm so glad to have it all done.

Jeffrey won Project Runway. I was fucking flipping. I couldn't believe it, I was so happy. ^______________^ I love that boy, and he makes such stunning stuff. I wouldn't've minded Uli winning though, she's a sweetheart and her final collection looked fantastic. (Though Laura really got me with the feather-topped dresses.)

Been watching old cartoons (like really old, like '20s-'50s) via the ReFrederator podcast, and playing Pokemon Sapphire still (aaalmost to the Elite Four, but Victory Road is still kicking my ass a lil just yet), cooking fun things when I can and making interesting ramen or rice concoctions between. My giant bag of rice is almost gone. ^^;; Have a handful of books out from the school library, mostly fairy tales and things because they're sweet and wonderful and I lov-- LIBRARY! That's right, I think I figured out what my password was for their site, I should go see if that works.

This is more than long enough anyway. ^^;; But, there, that's basically all the news I haven't posted in weeks. I should really spread things out a lil more...