Music nerd folks! Check out In C Remixed. If you're familiar with the Official Classic Piece "In C" (aka, the song where each instrument is given a bar or two to play over and over, at whatever tempo and durations you feel like), you, like me, will find this a much pleasanter sounding way to ingest the random beauty of the thing. If you're not familiar with it, the remixes are still pretty gorgeous. Make sure to snag the free download of "Zinc" by Zoe Keating. I like it so much that I nosed around to find her album, and put it on my wishlist.

In other news, Tom left for his trip to North Carolina to visit his dad and grandma this morning. We ran through a checklist before he left: phone, phone charger, laptop, laptop charger, shower stuff, deodorant, clothes. I gave him a stack of change for tolls, an ice-cold bottle of water, and some... well, they're rice cakes, only not-rice cakes. Kamut, stuck together with agave nectar. (Yes, I habitually buy even-healthier versions of health food. But these are freaking delicious.)

Fifteen minutes later, there's a frantic pounding on my front door.

"Give me keys to my car! - I locked my keys in the car when I went to get gas - someone was nice enough to give me a ride back - but I didn't have your phone number because my phone was in the car too - I need keys."

Laughing, I disentangled my set of car keys from my ring, and gave to him. He sped back out again. I posted this on twitter, and continued my morning internetting.

Ten minutes later, I hear the back screen door swing open, and speedwalking clunking footsteps. "NOW what'd you forget???" "Shut up! Headphones! ... ... ...stop laughing at me!"

I'm still giggling, an hour later - though I do really hope he's actually on his way now. ;) He's always such an insane control freak about traveling (as noted in a previous post about hotel reservations), and I'm always the spazz who suddenly remembers things as soon as we pull out. This is such a lovely little bit of "HA! YOU DO IT TOO!" bwahaha.

Labels: music, product whoring, silliness, storytime, travel

 
Tom's verdict: "A little snicky-snack like this, is not worth risking your dishes."

He also pointed out that the picture on the box? does not show properly caramelized sugars anyway.


In totally unrelated news (really!) - my brother has confirmed my suspicion. He has, in fact, seen someone get a DWI for riding their bike while intoxicated. (Tom has always argued that the problem will kind of take care of itself, so there's no reason to have a law on it. I was pretty sure it was possible.)

Labels: cooking, life in general, silliness

 
Melissa is looking at things on her computer. Tom is downstairs having some coffee.

Tom is bored.

Tom darts over and steals one of Melissa's slippers off her feet. Melissa doesn't see what he does with it, but as soon as she realizes it is not, in fact, on his person, she knows right where to look:

On top of the blades of the ceiling fan.

Which is about an inch out of her reach.

After much pleading, and much amusement on Tom's part, he returns the slipper.

Five minutes later, on pretense of picking something up off the floor, he steals it again and puts it on top of the fan.

He now refuses to get it down. "I want you to figure out how to get it down yourself! Problem-solving!"
"I don't want to turn on the fan and have it come flying down and break something. I don't think I have anything long enough to---" and she spots the bicycle pump two feet away from her.

After a few seconds of simply nudging the fan blades into spinning, Melissa knocks down the slipper.

Tom: "There, see, you can do it. I'm just trying to prepare you."
"For WHAT?!"
"For when I'm no longer here, and my ashes are in an urn on the shelf, and you have to do things all by yourself, and---"
"IF YOU'RE NOT HERE, MY SLIPPER IS NOT GOING TO BE ON THE CEILING FAN!!!"

Labels: life in general, silliness, storytime

 
Because I do not trust facebook to not decimate the quality and sharpness etc. of my awesome, awesome birthday drawing for Mel:



Love you kiddo. ;) Happy birthday. Your REAL birthday present is currently stretched out on my blocking mats - are you visiting soon, or should I mail?

Labels: art, family, photoshop, silliness

 
Tom describes his thought process while in the act of doing something gross and annoying (in this case, spitting out rice into a bowl I was about to use, like a five year-old):
"I had to do it before I had time to think about all the repercussions, because then I wouldn't do it. I thought about doing it, and then I started thinking about all the reasons I shouldn't, because it would be too mean. So I had to hurry up and do it before I talked myself out of it."
Melissa did not have much of a response, besides rolling her eyes and silently taking back the freshly-rinsed bowl.
Tom, in a light and cheerful tone: "Go ahead and say it. I'm a horrible person. Just say it."
Melissa: "You, are a horrible person."
Tom makes a ridiculously girly little "whee!" noise and flings his hands up in the air, then flounces off toward the stairs.
Melissa: "WHY does that make you giggle like a little girl??"
Tom: "Because people are horrible! It's a double-negative!"

He then flounces the rest of the way up the stairs.

Melissa contemplates making an "annoying things my boyfriend says" twitter feed.

Labels: life in general, silliness

 
Roasted Potato Salad with Chutney Dressing is the recipe I was making while on the phone with my mom.

It is DELICIOUS. But be mindful of how much chutney + curry powder + cayenne you use... I didn't taste-test my chutney first, and got a nice whallop of heat against the back of my throat. While talking to Mom on the phone. (This is very unusual for something from BHG - their recipes are notoriously bland.)

This was after the LONG, long, arduous task of opening the jar of chutney. Beware of jars from India! Especially if you do not already own a rubber gripping-thing! (If you do not own one, btw, you are at the mercy of logo-ridden giveaways. Neither my grocery store nor my drug store carries them, as I discovered this afternoon.)

After the hot water trick failed, I sat down with a screwdriver, and the lid and I eventually came to terms.

Labels: cooking, silliness

 
DAMN YOU WINDOWS!!!!! Computers are supposed to know what time it is. Especially when they have the internet. My iPod syncs to my computer-time. I do not stare at my cellphone 24/7 - I glance at it like twice a day, when I remember. My coffee-maker and microwave have long-since succumbed to blinky-red-12:00 hell.

I STARTED MY HAM AN HOUR EARLY THANKS TO YOU, WINDOWS!!!!

...Obviously, this is not really a major issue, it's ham and a slow-cooker. Exact timing = not an issue. But I'm so confused now! It's an hour earlier than I thought it was!!! This is actually good, but, omfg I just mentally plotted out my afternoon and now there's an extra hour in there. I think. Is there really??? DAMNIT!!!!

(I've had an ongoing issue with my clock not syncing up correctly. It likes to ignore daylight savings, or have it happen when it's not supposed to, or just generally be an hour off one way or another whenever it feels the need to SERIOUSLY MESS WITH MY HEAD. >_<#! )

Labels: cooking, life in general, silliness, spazz, technology

 
me: Thought For The Day [snagged from someone's facebook]: Women are Angels, and when someone breaks our wings....We simply continue to fly ......... On a broomstick...We are flexible....

Tom: good. you start with your own kindeling. makes it easier for us



...this, is what I put up with. Sheer, unavoidable, obnoxious brilliance.

Labels: life in general, silliness

 
This is what happens when I am asked to edit a story.



This is only two pages.

What you probably can't make out, is how many suggestions and explanations are in brackets after all the blue highlights (which are things to change; yellow are simple additions)...

...

...I had to make a KEY at the top of the file explaining the highlight colors. That's how much of a psycho-editor I am.

I am enjoying the power-rush far, far too much. XD

Mel, I apologize in advance for how soul-crushing this is going to look to you!!! (I promise, I am not lying or exaggerating when I say the story is still amazing. My changes are things like sentence structure. Awkward sentences happen when you're good enough at writing to understand that you *can* mess with sentence structure. Most people aren't. You're awesome. Really. If you were not, I would not spend two hours on my day off to deal with ten pages of story.)

Labels: family, silliness, writing

 
This is going to be short, because I'm too lazy to plug in the laptop, and its battery life is... well, an hour and a half tops, when I'm only typing, with no wifi/networking enabled. ha.

I worked normal-people hours, while Tom's working his normal night shift, so after work I went over to Tim Horton's to write for a few hours, and finish catching up for the week. (Also, I will need to get a bit ahead, with Thanksgiving and some other things looming.) But I am SUPER happy with what I wrote today, I'm actually terribly amused by the banter among the historical society members.

Yes, historical society members. Sounds dull, I know, but who else is going to know all the hundred-year old gossip?? They're awesome. And I get to flesh out my backstory, huzzah!!!


While I was sapping Tim Horton's electricity (offset by the coffee, soup & bagel, then hot smoothie & donut I bought - it was dinner-ish time, and I need to munch when writing), I got a phone call. Actually, I should back up a bit. Did I mention that Tom and I went to Dave & Buster's again the day after I went with the Paper Factory crew? We did. I was talking to Tom about it, and he got all excited, and, discovering we both had the next day off, we decided to go. We also decided it would be more fun with more people, so in the end, he got his buddy DJ to come, and I got Mel to meet us up there.

Jokingly, Tom and I threw around the idea of trying to set the two of them up. We thought this was hilarious - really, Tom, a matchmaker? Terrifying. And funny as hell.

But then when we all got there... the two of them genuinely seemed interested in each other. It was really freaking cute. Cuter still, was later in the week, when Tom got obsessive texts from DJ about Mel, and I was getting texts from Mel about DJ, and Tom and I were sitting in the same room sharing notes on the whole situation.

(Finally, we got them to exchange phone numbers, so they could waste each others' minutes instead of just ours.)

So the two of them have been talking all week. They're both somewhat spazzy, but deep-down really good, kind people. Neither one has the attention span of a gnat. Tom and I are endlessly amused by all the shy little cautious repartee that the kids trade back and forth, instead of just being blunt like he and I are now. It's freaking adorable to watch.

So. DJ, wanting an excuse to visit Mel, sees on Facebook that she has a band concert today. He decides to go. Now, I had heard Mom mention that she might go to the concert, but that she wasn't sure she was going to make it. I decide this might well make the already-nervous DJ not go, and anyway I'm not sure, so I keep my mouth shut. (The kids need to handle their own relationships, Tom and I will be there for each of them and give advice, but we're making sure they run their own affairs here.)

Now, DJ is a pretty attractive kid. Even Tom is always going on about DJ's absurd powers of attraction over women. (For which Tom gets all kinds of gay jokes from me, ha.)

[plugging in the laptop because I'm enjoying this story too much to stop now.]

DJ, however, is a fan of anime, and must know a bunch of girls who are as well. He also lived in Japan for a handful of years, not sure if this has affected his viewpoint. As Tom has told me numerous times, DJ likes playing up the image of the cute anime boy. Sometimes this means good things like wearing tiny little clingy black t-shirts. (This happened one day at work, and the conversations Tom related to me when he came home were insanely entertaining, consisting in large part of Tom saying he could well be gay for DJ. Or at least that's the impression I insisted upon getting, because it makes Tom feel so awkward. ;)

Most of the time, however, it also means he spikes his hair. And not your normal little emo-kid mini-spike. We're talking all-out, electrocution-style spike, hair sticking out like four, five inches from his head all over. Sometimes with a long bang combed diagonally down.

This works in drawings, and it works in anime. It's a bit of a shock to walk into the Fredonia Applebee's, and see this skinny but muscular 21-year old boy leap out of a booth, literally bouncing in place, waving like a maniac, with electrocuted hair, "TOM! TOM! I'M RIGHT HERE! TOM!!!". At a distance of maybe six feet from you.

That is DJ.

He's an incredibly sweet kid, but he is also somewhat insane. Half puppy-dog, half hummingbird.


SO, to finish the story I actually meant to tell. While sitting at Tim Horton's, I get a phone call from my mom. She just got the shawl I made her for her birthday, and absolutely loves it, which makes me really, really happy. :) After talking for a few minutes, she tells me she and grandma went to Mel's concert today. "Oh, and I got to meet DJ."

Mom. AND GRANDMA. Met DJ.

Apparently, they saw him before they met up with Mel. (DJ is rather hard to miss.) Grandma spotted him, and said "What is that???"

This is where I started totally losing it in the middle of Tim Horton's.

Mom rather calmly explained that well, they were on a college campus, kids do all kinds of crazy things... And then Mel came over. And then DJ came over, and she introduced them.

Oh, that poor, poor boy... but I've been giggling to myself every five minutes for what, the last two, three hours now? just trying to picture Grandma seeing this kid. oh my dear lord. I called Mel after talking to Mom, and suggested that she call DJ and reassure him a bit, because I can only imagine how totally freaking panicky he'd get from meeting a girl's family like the second time he even saw her. She told me that she actually had left him some kind of message already, which eased my mind a bit.

On Tom's dinnerbreak, we traded the sides of the story we'd each heard. I freaking love stories. Between that and just a touch of facebook-stalking (I refuse to feel guilty if people have things posted right on their walls - there are options for private conversations, if people talk in public, and I happen to read things sometimes before I even realize what I'm reading...), it looks like all is well so far. And I may actually get to see my sister a little more often thanks to all of this. :)

Labels: being social, family, life in general, nanowrimo, silliness, storytime, writing

 
DEEENNY'S LEEEEAVES THEIR WIIIIIIFI OPEN, DEEEEENNY'S LEEEEEAVES THEIR WIIIIIFI OPEN!!!!!

(And they're JUST close enough to Tim Horton's, where I am curled up with coffee and much novel to write, that I can jump on their signal. mwahahahahhaha.)


...admitedly, this is freaking crazy. I'm in Fredonia, the back-end of nowhere for tech things. And yet here there are like SIX OR SEVEN wifi networks, most weak, but within range of my wimpy lil laptop. Most are locked, which is a surprise, but something I have to approve of. They're not stupid people.

But Denny's... Denny's I can borrow. I feel like Tom. ^~_~^

Labels: nanowrimo, silliness, technology

 
Kellie wanted to hear the costume-theft story. :)


So, it was either Halloween or the day before Halloween, I forget which offhand. Both days were equally nutzoid at The Paper Factory. I was behind the register at the time, helping the kids running register keep up - checking to make sure all the costumes we sold had the right parts in the package, bagging up rental costumes, running off copies of paperwork. It was during the afternoon, so eeeeveryone was working, all the adults and experienced people were in the basement - even Chad (who rarely works up in the front of the store) was going between the registers downstairs and upstairs, directing traffic when needed.

At one point, I heard someone near the check-out line being rather loud, and looking up, I saw Flyer (one of the grown-ups) standing beside a rather large black woman, who looked defensive. I heard something like "don't you touch me!", and next thing I knew, the woman was running up the stairs past Chad, with Flyer not far behind her, yelling for Bruce to call the police, telling Chad to follow her - "she's got a costume".

There was a good bit of confusion for awhile, everyone wondering what was going on, and half the grown-ups disappeared. Five minutes later, Flyer came over to the desk and asked if any of us had the keys to the dressing rooms. "No... Mac had them."

Sue Mac (another grown-up), in the heat of the moment, had gone after the woman with the costume.

Sue Mac had, in her hands, the keys to the dressing rooms. Halloween afternoon. One of the four rooms was unlocked, the rest locked to prevent college girls from going in unsupervised and snagging costumes.

As you can imagine, mild panic ensued.


Later, I got the full story:

Flyer had been by the dressing rooms at the time, though Mac had the keys. The afore-mentioned black woman had gone into the dressing room with I believe three costumes - some of which were obviously not the right size for her. (This is never a good sign, we had another incident this season with customers taking wrong-size costumes into the dressing rooms, but we watched like hawks to make sure nothing vanished.) When she came out of the dressing room, Flyer noticed that, while the woman handed back one costume, she was still carrying two packages - and they were empty. The bags had the cover-sheet, showing the picture of the costume, facing out, so it wasn't immediately obvious that the bags were empty, but Flyer is sharp. :)

She walked up to the woman, and asked where the costumes were. She made some excuse, her daughter had them, or she'd given them back, or something, but Flyer demanded to see the costumes that went with the empty bags. Seeing that the woman was getting antsy, Flyer put a hand on her arm - this was the part where I heard "don't you put your hands on me!", but apparently I missed the "bitch!" that was attached to the end of the exclamation.

Obviously, this set off alarm bells for Flyer. The woman pulled away, and took off up the stairs. Mac took off after her, and Chad followed as well, while Ann found Bruce and they called the police.

The next parts, I never heard told consecutively, but as near as I can make out:

The woman took off running across the street. It is not a quiet street. Just as she ran across the road, a giant truck came barrelling out of the intersection, around the corner and onto the street she was running on - it honked, and wasn't that far from hitting her. Mac, not far behind, apparently flung her arms out to the sides, gesturing for traffic to STOOOOP!!! as she jogged across the road.

Rumor has it that people leaned out their windows and cheered her on.

The woman kept running down the road, pausing briefly at Burger King, then seeing Mac was still following her, kept going. The two of them ran all the way down to Denny's... (According to google, this is just shy of half a mile. The black woman was..fairly hefty. Mac is not exactly a skinny teenager herself. I know I'd have been seriously winded myself.)

Meanwhile, in our parking lot, a subplot developed:
Unbeknowst to me, a day or two before, Flyer and Mac had been keeping an eye on some sketchy looking customers in the basement. They were suspicious enough about something or another to follow the customers outside, and take a peek at their car's license plate.

Once this woman took off, Flyer went out to the parking lot, to see if that car was there - some of the girls in the group looked familiar. The girls that had been with the woman came out of the store, and Flyer confronted them. "Were you with her?" "No! No, we don't know her at all..."

There's a Wendy's right next door to us - the girls took off toward *that* parking lot. Flyer followed, and sure enough, the car with that license plate was there, and the girls piled into it, then took off after the woman.

Chad, meanwhile, having a slightly saner mind than Mac, had gotten into his truck to follow the woman.

When he reached Denny's, he found Mac screaming at the woman, and claims he had to physically haul her back before she did something really rash. The police had caught up by this point, and were not at all surprised by the situation (everybody knows everybody in this town).

...I'm not entirely sure the resolution of the story, but we did indeed get the costume back, and Mac and Chad reigned as heroes for the rest of Halloween. At Dave and Buster's, the story was the highlight of the evening, with Ann pantomiming Mac stopping traffic, and Chad mimicking her shouting match with the thief.


The most ridiculous part of the whole thing? It couldn't have been more than a $30, $35 costume.



I find this totally not worth an arrest. We had so many cuter (and more expensive) costumes! wtfh.

Labels: life in general, silliness, storytime, work

 
Posting this here so I can find it later to show Tom. (And on the off-chance anyone else is geeky enough to get it and have a few giggles.) The Babel Fish on my laptop [the program is called Wanda I think, but I re-named the fish - it's a random fortune/quote generator for linux] spat it out at me while at Starbucks novelling, and I had to be good and not giggle out loud, and risk scaring the swarm of music kids at the table next to me.


      Seems a computer engineer, a systems analyst, and a programmer were driving down a mountain when the brakes gave out. They screamed down the mountain, gaining speed, but finally managed to grind to a halt, more by luck than anything else, just inches from a thousand foot drop to jagged rocks. They all got out of the car:
      The computer engineer said, "I think I can fix it."
      The systems analyst said, "No, no, I think we should take it into town and have a specialist look at it."
      The programmer said, "OK, but first I think we should get back in and see if it does it again."

Labels: silliness, technology

 
KEEPING THIS SHORT, I swear, I'd like to get some writing done at least before I conk out tonight.

Today was the Paper Factory trip to Dave & Buster's, which was freaking amazing. Ann and Bruce decided to treat the entire Halloween crew, which was absolutely incredible of them. So after the store closed up at 4 today, we all gathered in the parking lot, and piled into the balloon delivery van and A&B's SUV. Those of us that had worked today were struggling to stay awake on the drive up, but I managed to get some work done on a rush crochet project.

Most of us had never been to Dave & Buster's, but, it was pretty darn awesome. Even more awesome, because Bruce was ridiculously generous. We had a whole little party room for just us, they gave us surprisingly yummy food (chips and dip, chicken fingers, these amazing mini-pizzas, that sort of thing). Bruce specifically told us that anyone legal could have whatever drink they wanted - poor Sam, who's newly 21, begged me and Ashley (the only other two "kids" who are legal) to sit with her at the young'ins table so she wouldn't feel so awkward. I had no idea what to ask for, since I'm not big on beer, but Sam saved me with the suggestion of a rum and coke, which Tom and I have found we really like.

Through most of dinner, the grown-ups involved in the costume-theft bust told a very dramatic (and hysterical) version of the story, which was awesome. As one of the other girls pointed out to me, Halloween stories are so much better outside of the store, and after the fact. (Not quite so kosher to be THAT blunt about your customers when you're in the store. ;)

And theeeen, there were the games. HOLY CRAP. I haven't been in a place with that many games...probably since Chuck E. Cheese. Sam and I were totally psyched to go find DDR... but it was awhile before we spotted it. And then! It wasn't DDR, but... crap I've forgotten already. I have a hunch it was a version of "Pump it Up" (the thing looked pretty much like this), because the arrows? WERE ALL ON THE CORNERS. Diagonal arrows. I was confused as hell, I've neeever played one of those before! The first few tries were pretty atrocious - but I was still better than poor Sam. ;) I played a few more solo rounds, determined to get my head wrapped around it, and after a few songs, I had it down fairly well. Managed an A on a 5. :) 6s were iffy, and one 7 that I really liked the song to, I think I managed to pass. Played again later with one of the new boys, and he actually did pretty well.

But Mac took pictures of me playing. I am freaking terrified. I had a whole little crowd of onlookers, the grown-ups were all totally bewildered by my ability to play this thing.

I did have one of the Guitar Hero obsessed kids run me through a game of that - and once I got the hang of hitting the strum-button at the same time as the fret-buttons, it was actually pretty fun. The way the sound in the game is manipulated, getting *so* much louder and fuller when you're playing correctly, is absurdly rewarding and goes a long way toward making it addictive I think. (The theory, though, is DDR, only without flailing like an idiot. I understand why it's as big as it is.)

Lots of Skee-ball, some other random games... lots of the silly "stop the light at the number to win buttloads of tickets!1!!" games, which I always fail at. Ashley and I played a round of an alien-shooting game - and were glad that a) we could tell our gamer boyfriends we played something they would find fun, and b) that said boys were NOT there to witness the atrocity of us playing. It was freaking bad.

BUT, while everybody else was playing those silly games where you drop a coin in, and hope the moving metal shelves push coins down into the basin to get you tickets (which they were MASSIVELY addicted to, though watching, I couldn't quite see why)... I found the retro games. ^_______^ Sadly, not the original arcade boxes, but a re-release of them, bundling 2-3 games in each case. But! I GOT TO PLAY SPACE INVADERS. On an arcade machine. It was AWESOME. (And seriously freaking difficult!!! I tried like six times, and the closest I got to beating the FIRST level was like, four aliens left on the screen.) Also played some Pac-Man, which I was totally rocking.

When I mentioned to the grown-ups later that I'd found these, they all flipped out and were upset that they hadn't seen them (we'd all cashed in our tickets and were on the way out at this point). Chad used to play Centipede obsessively, and Ann was addicted to PacMan. Ann! I would never have guessed.

...so, end of the evening, everyone was piling up their tickets. They give out these oversized paper cups to carry your tickets in, and everybody's was overflowing. One girl had two cups, both overflowing. (Bruce... had been more than generous in buying all of us game cards with a looot of credits on them. And then gave out second ones! Absolutely amazing of him.)

Everyone else had totals in the thousands (each ticket was 2 points) to spend. I think the evening's record was 18,000, by Eric, who was massively determined to amass tickets. Me? I had 102. lmfao. It was ridiculous. But the DDR game and retro games didn't give out tickets! And the games where you have this iiiitty bitty chance of scoring big just don't interest me, I so rarely win. What I did win, for the first time in yeeeears, was the crane game. So while all I could afford in the ticket redemption area were two tiny pieces of candy, I have myself the most adorable little frog plush. (It's definitely supposed to be a baby toy, but I refuse to care. He has overalls and he's adorable.)

We all played the name game the whole way home (me giving "Micky Dolenz" was followed by a grown-up giving "Davy Jones", which so made my night). And then a few of us girls swung by Burger King, where they currently have BIRTHDAY CAKE SUNDAE MILKSHAKES which are freaking amazing. On the drive from there to my apartment, Sam cranked up "Mmmbop", and we both sang along at the top of our lungs, which was totally the perfect end to the evening. (The one bizarre part though.. also in the car was one of the new girls. The song started playing, and she wasn't sure she knew it. "Oh, you've definitely heard it before... though you might have only been like four," I told her. Once we reached the chorus, she answered, "Oh yeah, I've heard this... but I really do think I was about four." OH GOD feeling so old.)


So, it was a veeeeery good day, but I am tired as hell. I don't think I'll write much today - my whole getting-ahead of schedule was intended to cover me yesterday (when I had to go to sleep early) and today. But I might try to write a little bit of my scene with the semi-crazy psychic. :)

Labels: being social, ddr, life in general, product whoring, silliness, travel, work

 
HULU HAS INSPECTOR GADGET NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The whole first season!!! eeeeeeeeee!!!



*curses her internet even more vehemently than before, for conking out every 20-30min*

Labels: silliness

 
Tom and I just watched AMV Hell 3 (again). (Highly recommended, but only if you've got a good handful of anime-watching under your belt. And tired/drunk/stoned.) There were several clips of girls with ridiculous boobs shooting guns, and then reloading those guns with bullets that magically fly out from between said boobs, and bounce off of said boobs into the gun. Tom immediately announces, "Oh I am SO watching that anime!"
Melissa, while always up for the completely ridiculous, is skeptical.

Tom: "Oh come on, honey, it'll be educational! You can learn how to bounce bullets off your boobs!"
Melissa: "Nooo, because my boobs are not made of rubber. We've had this discussion, you don't want me to have fake boobs."
Tom: "Well... if it meant you could bounce bullets off of them..."
Melissa: "Honey. You know me. Would you REALLY want ME handling a gun?"
Tom: *laughs* "Y'know... you can't even carry the teapot upstairs."
Melissa: "I KNOW."
Tom: "About as coordinated as a feather in a tornado."

I think that's pretty much the most apt metaphor ever.


[And now that I've typed all that, Tom's computer is being grumpy about playing mkv files, so YAY, no bullet boobs tonight!]

Labels: silliness

 
Tom got out of work at 4. I was working until 5. Tom decided not to drive around back and forth, partly because his car battery is currently iffy, and partly because he is lazy. Tom was bored, poking around the store. Tom looked at our coffee selection. "I want coffee. How much is coffee?" 8.95 a pound. "What would you recommend?" Uhhh... what do we have left that is not boring? Chocolate Caramel Truffle. "Okay I want two pounds." Uhm... that bag we have bits left over from our anniversary, in February? was only half a pound to begin with.

As he watches me coerce the beans out of the dispenser: "We should probably have a grinder." I can grind it here... "Nah, I want an excuse to buy a grinder anyway." Okay, so after this, go buy a grinder while you're waiting for me to finish working.

Is .95lb enough? "Nooo, I want a pound!" Okay well now you have 1.3lbs.


5:10, I stumble out of the store, where there had been a bit of a gift-wrapping rush/certain employees being slooooow when customer was in a hurry. I get into the car. Tom points at the back seat. "Look at the espresso maker I got! Oh and look at the grinder! That was the cheapest grinder they had. But I was looking at it, and saw that it has an espresso setting. So I thought hmmm..."

And I get harangued (teasingly!) about my $30 yarn and/or t-shirt splurges.

So now we have an espresso/cappuccino maker sitting next to our big ol' coffee maker. Tom not only likes espresso, but also feels it is more *efficient* than coffee. Less to make and drink, same amount of caffeine.

I will make coffee (because Tom doesn't measure amounts), and I will be the expert on tea. This persnickety beast? Is allllll him.


I do not currently own a dresser, but we have an espresso machine. Oh priorities.

(Okay granted espresso machines are way easier to move than giant chunks of furniture. still. I do not see making seriously concentrated amounts of caffeine available to Tom as being a good thing.)

Labels: cooking, life in general, silliness, work

 
GRATUITOUS DESKTOP ALERT

Penguins!!!1!



Base is a photo I took on Long Island, cropped to horizontal. Mostly just messed with the lighting, sharpened it all, aaand messed with dark/light more. Then threw in a bit of extra texture just for fun.

Labels: art, silliness, wallpaper

 
*The military junta running Myanmar (despite a democratic party being elected, oh, a decade or two ago) is trying to put Aung San Suu Kyi into prison. Again. Send an email via Amnesty.


- In other news, Tom and I made a day-trip up to Buffalo, and saw the Star Trek movie. It is AWESOME. Whether you're a Star Trek person or no, it is quite enjoyable. The character continuity is phenomenal, the characters shown in the movie are so perfectly younger (and thus more volatile) versions of everybody. Tom wants to watch it again just so he can memorize more of the "Scotty-isms". It's a wonderfully fresh take on the whole Star Trek universe, and it's been a long time since we've seen that, and god is it great to see. At the same time though, there are still elements to tie it to the previous things - the style of the music, the way certain shots are set up, the vaguely-plausible science, the same cross-screen linear lens flares... Also, the whole intro-bit where Kirk is born, made me cry. Star Trek doesn't usually do that. It was pretty awesome.

- I was going to post a picture of the dress I bought, but I can't find one. Least-painful dress shopping I have ever managed - once I, uh, actually *found* the dress-section in Macy's, the first dress I spotted was the one I ended up with. It's really simple and un-fussy, but very cute and very me. Olive green with dark brown trim, and this intricate geometric pattern in dark brown on the green. And I found shoes to match nearly as quickly! This was all still too long a process for Tom ("Wait... you're not going to try that on, are you?"), but he is a boy and doesn't understand these things. (Though he did luck out, I only went into the dressing room once, since there was a freaking line. The one I tried on was just a *bit* too small, and I could tell going a size up would be perfect, so I just snagged and bought.)

- We also bought more tea! And it is DELICIOUS. Samurai Chai Maté - *awesome*. We love the Maté Vana they sell, and this is similar, but with a slight citrus twist, instead of the more chocolate-nut flavor of Vana. We're finding that herbal teas are too weak, we're tea-wimps and need something with some... depth? to it, something with the substance that coffee and hot chocolate and things have. The two maté teas we've had totally fit the bill. I also got a rooibos chai, which I think is delicious, though Tom's not so keen on. But the boy is freaking adorable - mostly, the tea is my thing, inasmuch as I'm the one who knows how to make it right, and am more interested in reading through all the descriptions and picking things out and whatnot. But Tom wanted to be in on it too, so he made me spreadsheets with allll the different teas they offer (with hyperlinks to the corresponding webpage), and columns for us to rate and put in comments. We are actually kind of considering their Tea of the Month thing - though it seems a little pricey, it actually averages out pretty nicely, given how expensive some of the teas are. Plus, it would be shipped to us. And a good way to sample different things. I'm also considering getting one of their travel tea mugs, so I can have tea at work on days when I'm feeling icky. (Heating a paper cup of water in the microwave and dropping a teabag in feels pretty sacrilegious even to me - and doesn't taste a tenth as nice.)

- It would appear - so far - to be a calmer week at work, which is good. I have a big pile of paperwork still, but I'm waiting for people to send photos on most, and none of them need done before June. (I have most of the layouts done already anyway.) The princess banner, I've been poking at on and off for like a week or two. I made a freaking awesome tiara, but, it doesn't fit into the space I need it to very well, so I'm kind of butchering it now. I may have gotten a layout that works today, but, we'll see what I think of it tomorrow. I am also feeling better after talking with the other girl who does banners the other day. Chad showed her how to use the giant laminator and the cutting machine, both of which I am not at ALL comfortable handling on my own. She, on the other hand, said she'd rather do that kind of thing than the designing. "YES! We are going to ROCK IT this summer!" I'm really enjoying the designing lately, I've got a good handle on our fonts, and every now and again I get a new and interesting idea about how to set things up. Plus I somehow manage to come up with decent graphics under the gun, which is a great feeling. :)

- I am, however, going to lose my temper with a couple of employees in the near future. I got pretty exasperated with one girl today (she was the THIRD interruption while I was on my dinner break - BREAK, people, that means I AM NOT WORKING), and while it's not entirely her fault she doesn't know how to use the fax machine...it still kind of *is* her fault, because the main reason she hasn't been shown is because everyone knows it's pointless because we'll have to show her AGAIN every freaking time she goes to do one. x_____X

- This Tamir Trilogy I'm listening to? Is freaking awesome. This is the kind of fantasy I like - there are no elves dwarves ditzy knights and corseted princesses with swords and really, REALLY cliché storylines. It's a fully-realized world, with believable magic, and believable people who get trapped by circumstances and political machinations and unsought destiny. In some ways, it's like the Earthsea stuff, only more accessible - the oooonly time I felt overwhelmed by weird names and references to things not explained was in the first ten minutes of the first book. That didn't last long. The characters are believable and people you care about. There are some seriously strong emotions all through it. Very vivid ghosts and spirits. And playing with gender roles! Fantastic stuff. I'm halfway through the second book, and it is damned hard to press pause. The writing style is seamless, I haven't even thought about it in awhile, which is a very good sign.

- I just realized what the little silver round thing on the floor is. It's my computer's power button. I have no idea how that fell off, and if I try to put it back on I'm going to turn my computer off. damnit.

- Food! I have made some awesome food again. I fiiiinally made it to the organic food store in town. Dad came down to visit...a week ago? and we actually made a fantastic afternoon of it, going to the organic store, and down by the pier in Dunkirk, checked out the gift shop on the Boardwalk strip that went in last year (allll locally produced goodies! yay!), and had a really nice time. It made me happy. :) Anyway, I FOUND AMARANTH FLOUR!!! So I finally got to make the ginger-amaranth shortbread I've had on my list since Christmas, and it is delicious. (WAY ginger-intensive, which's fine by me.) The flour has a really rich nutty flavor, I'm looking forward to making more with it. I also found several types of seaweed and other odd goodies, and! Tom and I made a trip back a few days later to pick up REAL WASABI. (Well, 45% real wasabi anyway. Which's a vast improvement on the 0% real wasabi in eeeevery other jar of wasabi we've ever found.)

- So, yesterday, I made up a big delicious casserole for the week (Ground Turkey Noodle Bake, which is far more like lasagna than it looks - just throw in more spices and more mozzarella than called for), and then I made us a dinner. I don't usually do more than one dish, since there's just the two of us, but this time I had a gut instinct that a few things on my list would go nicely together.
- Middle Eastern Turkey Dogs: These required me handling raw meat again, but I managed 3/4 of the mixing with a fork, so that helped. These were freaking *delicious*. I popped them onto bamboo skewers, and we didn't actually need any condiments, though I suspect flavored mustards would be good with them.
- Satsumaimo Amani: I spotted "Japanese Sweet Potato" at the organic store, and snagged one on a whim. I got home, and Google gave me its actual name of satsumaimo. From there, I found recipes, and this one looked both simple and *awesome*. Which it was. I did finally make my own dashi, though I kept it simple (i.e., cheap) by just making it with some kombu (seaweed). I have yet to tackle the giant mound of scalded sugar I accidentally ended up with in my littlest saucepan, but oh it was so worth it. Quite like the candied sweet potatoes with marshmellows, only a little less intensely sweet. I nibbled at a bit of the satsumaimo before I cooked it, and it has a *really* great flavor, it has a bit of a sweet spiciness to it.
- And to round things out, I whipped up a batch of rice (holy cow has a rice cooker been an awesome investment for us), throwing in some leftover coconut milk and just a touch of garam masala. It came out a little less flavored than I'd wanted, so I drizzled it with some of the Samurai Chai Maté tea I'd just made, and *oh* was it perfect.
- And it all tasted so good together! I was bouncing off the walls, I was so excited at how well everything complimented each other. I so rarely make full meals, and that one worked out so, so well. YAY.

- Quinoa! That was one of my other new foods. Heidi always uses all sorts of grains and things that I've never tried, so I snagged one to give a shot. I kept it simple for my first try of the stuff, to see how it tastes on its own, so I went with her Delicious Big Bowl of Quinoa recipe. Veggies and olive oil and quinoa. It *is* delicious - the quinoa has a great nutty flavor to it, about the same consistency as rice and couscous, but a little more stable, a little more solid flavor. (Plus, it is super-fun to cook: You start out with these perfect little spheres, which you need to rinse, and it is super-addicting to run your fingers through the stuff under running water. Then, as the perfect little beads cook, they uncurl! And there are little spiral-y bits that show up as they expand! ...I was seriously entertained by all this.) Tom is not a big fan, but I'm pretty sure if I flavored it up like I do with rice, he'd eat it. Put a sauce over pretty much anything and he'll eat it.

- Picked up the latest R.E.M. album, Accelerate, which came out not too long ago. It is GREAT. All of their albums for the past decade or so have been pretty wimpy, each has had like two really great songs, and then the rest very dreary and thin-sounding. This album really does sound more like their older stuff (offhand, I'd say a halfway between Monster and Automatic for the People), it's nice and dense and has their trademark harmonies and there is guitar and volume and it is GOOD. I'm so glad to hear them back again. I've only listened through to it once (and that via my craptastic laptop speakers), so I haven't analyzed anything in depth, but I've heard enough to be happy about it. :)


- And it is time for me to stop putting off washing dishes. booooo.

Labels: activism, books, cooking, life in general, movies, music, printshop, product whoring, silliness, spazz, storytime, work