Close Encounters of the Internet Kind

So we're listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra and wow does their song "Wizards in Winter" sound like a Power Rangers fight song.

I really like this zombie Scooby Doo picture. It's one of those pictures that you can just stare at and it makes your imagination do all sorts of wonderful, zombie-licious things. There's just so many little details and you can't help wondering how things got to that point.

Here's another fun link: Symbolism on crack meets children's book Good Moon. Or why you should back away from the English-major slowly.

Then we have Stereotyping People by Their Favorite Author, which is half "That is so true" and half "Wow, they really don't like that author."

Merry Christmas, everyone.

You really can't go wrong when you mix muppets and Queen.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant, (Excepting Alice.)
You can get anything you want,
at Alice's Restaurant,
Walk right in, it's around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.

Happy Eat a Bunch of Yummy Food Day!

Oh Stargate writers, SGU makes me so sad for you. You're trying so hard to be cool and cutting edge and yet.... so sad.

It's like that creative writing class back in college with the professor who in a bout of extreme bitterness over the unpopularity of his literary works set out to study all of the popular authors and splice their techniques into what he thought would be the next uber best-selling mystery novel. [One day I might buy this book for its truly awfulness. The cliches flowed like beer at a frat party and his idea of a plot twist was a crocodile at the bottom of the snake pit. His self-justifications were both the best - "It's still a mystery book even though I told you who killed the guy on the first page because it's a mystery to the protagonist." - and the worst - "Readers just don't understand how much skill it takes to write really short chapter. It's extremely challenging and technically difficult."]

Having two women kiss does not in anyway alleviate the ick factor of having people running around doing things of a sexual persuasion in someone else's body. That's just not cool. And when did lesbianism become faux-chic anyway?

I still haven't decided if I like SGU what with the boringness and the bah, I don't care about those people why can't we go back to something interesting-ness. I do like Eli. He's that socially awkward geek friend that you're always kind of sort of embarrassed to take in public because you never know what's going to come out of his mouth. He reminds me of the Eli from Top Chef, that way. Still, don't think that I don't know that Eli represents what you think of the viewers, Stargate writers. You are not being the least bit sneaky, nor is he a very good homage. A proper fan stand-in would have been modeled after, say, David Hewlett in real life.

The multiplicity livejournal is such an odd place. Newcomers really are throwing themselves to the sharks because it's just not a place where you should interact with the other members unless you're willing to track what they do from when they enter the community as they progress over time. You get Newbie coming into the community with Lambchop in their head (You remember Lambchop, right? The little puppet on PBS with that really annoying song.) and OK, give them the benefit of the doubt, personal identity, blah blah blah; but eventually they let slip that their talking to Lambchop really consists of a fluttery sensation in their belly that they'd assigned emotions and yes/no responses to based on location. Next thing you know Newbie's picked up all of the community lingo and Lambchop's borrowing Newbie's body and going out for parties. Flashforward a year and Newbie's changed Lambchop's name to Sirloin, gotten a new username, and supposedly let Sirloin take over living the life. A newcomer into the community would have no idea when they make friends with Sirloin that they're talking to Newbie's indigestion!

It's fascinating how everyone comes into the community different and the longer that they're there they all end up sounding the same. The product of conformist sheeple? The negative effect of using a flawed, limited fabricated language? Iatrogenic progression? Who knows why but it's interesting to watch. It's like a social experiment gone wrong with periododic asides where you get a brief, genuine glimpse at the subject experience in someone else's head. A bit like fandom, that way, ain't it?

They're just so strange. Do they really believe what they say they believe? Do they really do what they say that they do? Does a spoonful of sugar really help medicine go down?

Ha, definitely too late at night to be writing this and it doesn't say anything that it was supposed to say. Ta.

Postscript to justify the icon: I can't believe that SGU did that last night. That's so icky and wrong. And then him at the door. Don't, just, don't.

My mom likes eating full normal dinners, but she hasn't cooked any of them, so I've been making lots of yummy things lately.

Taco Salad:

(Look, it's pretty!)



It has chopped lettuce on the bottom. On top of that in the base of the bowl is hamburger browned with taco mix. In a circle around the hamburger is taco sauce which acts as the dressing for the salad. Black beans are the outer most circle. On top of the hamburger and sauce, I have diced avocado, onions, and tomatoes with a spoonful of sour cream on top. The tortilla chips are a tortilla cut in half and then thirds which I baked until crunchy. It was so good and best of all didn't look disgusting once you stirred it all together like taco salads from mexican restaurants do.

Stuffed chicken:

2 chicken breasts
1/2 package of frozen spinach (cooked)*
2 spoon full of sour cream
1/3 -1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
garlic powder
paprika

Use a filleting knife to cut a pocket in the chicken. Mix the spinach, sour cream, and feta cheese together and squish it into the chicken. (This part's kind of gross but oddly fun.) Then sprinkle each side of the breast with garlic powder and paprika and bake for 40-45 minutes at 425 F.

* I used the rest of the spinach as a topping on pizza and (mixed with sour cream and ranch dressing) as a dip for crackers.

Mustard chili:

I don't really measure anything when I make chili but it had: browned hamburger, beans, at least 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar, browned sugar, soy sauce, garlic powder, chili powder, mustard, and honey mustard dressing (about 1/3 of the amount of mustard used.)

The honey mustard dressing did a good job of cutting some of the tang from the mustard. I think I could have substituted some sour cream to get the same effect.

Bulgogi/Korean BBQ:

2 cups low sodium soy sauce
1/3 - 1/2 cup sugar
1 clove minced garlic
1 large sweet onion
~ 1 lb of steak quality beef
1 quart of sticky rice from local chinese restaurant

Freeze the beef for 45 minutes then slice it as thin as possible. You may need to refreeze it. Slice the onion in long thin strips. Mix with the beef in a seal-able container. Mix soy sauce, sugar, and garlic together then pour over the beef and onions. If the beef's not completely covered, add water. Refrigerate overnight. Fry the beef, onions, and 3/4 cup of the marinade in a nonstick frying pan or wok. Serve over the sticky rice. Serves four.

I used regular soy sauce so mine was way too salty. The low sodium should work, though, or use 1 cup regular soy sauce and 1 cup water. I also used round steak which was a little tough so definitely pick a high quality steak like sirloin. Aside from the salt, mine tasted pretty close to what I get in restaurants.

Single serving chocolate chip cookie dough:

1 spoon butter
1 spoon sugar
1 spoon brown sugar
1/2 tsp vegetable oil
4-5 spoons of flour
chocolate chips

It tastes like cookie dough should taste like but there's no eggs to give you salmonella. You can't bake it but you can roll into little balls and freeze it to make toppings for ice cream.

And a gratuitous Cat picture:



Why? Because I can.

We had exactly one trick-or-treater, an adorable little Elmo boy who was too busy staring wide-eyed at Cat to accept his candy. It's a good thing we didn't stock up on candy this year.

Old people make nice companions at history museums. My mom decided we'd take my grandfather to see an exhibit on the great depression since I was already going to be towards that part of town for a job interview. (BTW, group interviews are the weirdest thing ever.) It was neat to look at all of the old film and photographs but it was better listening to my grandfather. He'd been to those places and even knew some of the people.

We got to hold a butterfly at the other museum. It landed on me all by itself so I wasn't breaking their don't touch the butterfly rule. Ha! They're kind of weird looking up close. I'd never held one before...unless you count the time as a kid when I managed to catch one not knowing that it would destroy its wings and kill it. We didn't stay long as the place was overflowing with costume-garbed children. And the gift shop stopped selling astronaut ice cream. Very disappointing.

I decided that someone should make a really scary semi-realistic haunted house type attraction. The jump out and startle you kind of scaring just seems silly. You could take one of those giant buildings like an old jail or mental asylum like the ones Ghost Hunters visits all the time and lock people in overnight with just a flashlight. That would scary me.

But then I had this great idea: You have people pay thinking that they're going on a nighttime hike to some sort of haunted site or a clearing for seances, whatever, followed by refreshments and ghost stories in a nearby lodge. The tour guide and assorted members of the hiking group are actors in the scenario. At some point during the hike, this thing will leap out of the trees and attack the tour guide snatching him away. After letting the group react for a few minutes, one of the actors in the group announces that they know how to get to the lodge and proceeds to lead the group. Along the way, the tour guide comes back all zombie-fied and attacks other actors in the group. Unless there's an emergency or someone really panics, no one breaks character until the lodge is reached and fortified.

Having exhausted all of the options for places you might like to work with no luck, it's infinitely harder to get the motivation to apply at places where you don't want to work on the off chance that they might pay you.

This has been an odd week in terms of old acquaintances. One of my old friends from college whose friendship had ended in a quiet but nasty implosion contacted me out of the blue wanting my help finding online episodes of The Invisible Man of all things. Weird. Cue polite small talk while I tried to pretend that I didn't still have a bit of a grudge over all the old uncomfortableness of our old friendship. And he's spawned. That poor child.

Then an old friend from middle school friended me on facebook which is fine because while I wouldn't have sought him out, it's nice to be in contact with him again. Unfortunately, he put me on some list for my old high school so the slow trickle of ex-classmates friending me went from a trickle to a waterfall. I don't want to talk to these people! They're all just Jesus-loving baby popper-outers, anyway. I don't even really want to talk with the few that I'd kept in contact through college until they got girlfriends and 'mysteriously' stopped talking to me. (OK, and one of those has pictures of his girlfriend on his page and the two of us could totally share the same police line-up. I knew he always had a thing for me and I was his type but that's just creepy. And my mom told me last night I should go hang out with his mom. His mom!)

Yay! I just got Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog in the mail. Originally it was supposed to be a late Christmas present from Laura and then a birthday present. Well, technically it's still a birthday present. See, we have an agreement that no matter how late it is, we have to give each other a birthday present in order to get a birthday present, so we each have six months post-birthday to get the other's present.

I think Kelly needs to come visit me and her other friend. The fair's coming up and we have lots of museums, some of them are even free.

I really don't get the whole fuss over the arrest of that Harvard professor. He was seen breaking into his own home! It wasn't like someone had reported two suspicious looking black men lurking at the door. How is it possibly racist for the cops to show up and demand proof that he actually lived there?

And then he refused to show them ID. What if he'd been a real robber who was quick to think up a lie? I bet he would have been pissed if the cops had caught someone robbing his house and just let them get away with it because they were the same race as him and claimed to have lived there.

And I don't get how it could be called racial profiling. It wasn't like it was his neighbors' house that had been broken into by a black man and the cops made him show identification while he was hanging out in his yard.


With all of the examples of real racism in our society, this is what gets the press. Stupid people. It makes me feel sorry for the cops but they were idiots too for arresting the guy; I don't care how disorderly he was. If someone is calling you a racist just for asking him to show you ID; you have to know that he's going to raise twice the fuss if you actually arrest him and people with money can make really loud fusses.

We just got home from watching Harry Potter. My mom won a bunch of tickets to an early preview. It was very exciting. The Men In Black proctored our viewing experience.

I really liked the movie. Snape was the coolest he's ever been which is fitting for his titular book. Half-blood Prince was definitely funnier than the others and didn't have that cliff-notes feel that Order of the Phoenix had. Still, there were some major changes which I'm not sure how I feel about them, other than making me curious about the final movies.

I found a really great recipe for custard pie. It’s so incredibly easy and fast to make that even Melissa wouldn’t mind baking this pie.

pie crust (doesn’t need to be thawed or pre-baked)

Mix together:
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp cornmeal
1/8 tsp salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) melted butter

Beat well. Then blend in:
6 oz can of evaporated milk or ½ cup half & half or heavy cream
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla extract

Pour into pie crust and bake in a pre-heated oven at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes. Take it out when it's no longer liquid at the center, and the top is warm brown. It will have risen, but as it cools the filling will collapse back down.

The original recipe is the best. It’s buttery and creamy with just the slightest hint of lemon; just perfect for dessert or breakfast. The first time I tried the recipe we expected a much stronger lemon flavor which was a bit disappointing so the second time I tripled the amount of lemon juice used. The second pie was very lemony and delicious but it lost the buttery flavor that made the first pie so wonderful. For my third attempt, I made the custard in chocolate by decreasing the lemon juice by half and adding a tablespoon of cocoa. This was the least successful version but I still like it. It’s buttery like the first pie but the chocolate isn’t very strong. I think it would be better with a larger amount of melted chocolate instead the cocoa powder.

I came home tonight from watching the Penguins win the Stanley Cup – I’d say ‘Go Pens!’ but I hate bandwagonning so, instead, ‘Yay, Detroit lost!’ I hate Detroit. – to find the bag of cat food, that I’d purchased earlier and left in the bag on the table, in the middle of the floor with a hole in the middle as though a giant rat had nibbled upon it. Cat‘s such a naughty, fat, little monster. (I always have to preface little with some reference to his massive size for fear that someone would misinterpret and think he actually was in any way small.)

Watching the Atlantis marathon today reminded me of all the reasons I liked and disliked the show. I don’t think any of the people on Atlantis have ever heard the phrase: “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” It makes me hope that I’ll like the new SGU but I have to admit that I’m worried. There can’t be that many scifi premises left for the new show to “homage”. I hope the writers have figured out that if they don’t want the fans to write slash with their male leads then they need to back away from their current model of two guys whose greatest bond will always be each other who also happen to be incapable of obtaining any sort of chemistry with their supposed heterosexual love interests. And that slash is inevitable but I already know how good they are at plugging their fingers in their ears and humming loudly.

In other television viewing, I hope that Top Chef Masters is not a replacement for the next season of Top Chef. I liked the first episode well enough but without the added dimension of following the same contestants week after week the show is more like watching Iron Chef. I’ve tried to watch Fashion Show but wow is it a craptastic replacement for Project Runway. The show I’ve really been enjoying recently is Life After People on the History Channel. It’s just neat. The premise is that all of the people on Earth have inexplicably vanished and they’re timelining how all of the remnants of civilization will breakdown and decay. It amuses me that all of the ancient mummies and dinosaurs won’t last in museums if the environmental controls failed and kudzu’s going to eat Atlanta and the rest of the South.

I want to dress up like a Pirate and go eat here.

My life is the adage when it rains, it pours. Cliff notes version:

My mom bribed me home with tickets to a hockey game. It was an interesting trip. My trusty car broke down about an hour from my destination. Yay for AAA Plus. The Devils lost because they were hung over and the goalie we wanted to watch didn't play. He'd set the league record for career wins the night before so we couldn't really blame him for sitting out nor for their drunken celebration. Then she made me clean and inhale dust and sneeze. I hate allergies.

She forced me back home a couple weeks later to baby sit her after her minor surgery. I spent all day in the hospital waiting room in utter, exhausting boredom. Thank the creators of Mahjong Titans. The return trip a few days later for Easter yummies was much more enjoyable. Still, the time spent with my mother this month has been higher than I wanted.

Laura had another party which I actually enjoyed myself at for a change because a) I wasn't sick and b)I actually knew most of the people at the party from working with them. Strange how not being surrounded by a bunch of strangers makes a difference. One of her friends had a total fan boy moment when he found out that one of her other friends was some local gaming legend. It made me laugh, a lot.

This week was Piratefest which involved a carnival, food, belly dancing, and pirates. Lots of pirates. Yay, Pirates! (Speaking of which, we want to learn how to say a few phrases in Somalian [or you know, whatever language they speak there] before the next Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day.) The festival would have been more fun if I hadn't been in pain for half of it. See we took the dogs to the carnival and were walking back during the fireworks when I tripped at the same time the dog yanked me. I fell so fast that I couldn't even put my hands out to stop my fall so I look real lovely with a giant bandage on my chin. Fun times. Had to go to the doctor, got a tetanus shot, all that fun stuff.

We still went to the next day's festivities even though I have enough bruises scattered around my body that walking hurts. I was pitiful, though. We made it to the football stadium and got a delicious plate of barbeque. I was all ready to pig-out only to learn that it hurt too much to open my mouth wide enough for the fork to enter. I had to pinch itty bitty pieces of meat then shove them in my mouth and chew very slowly because that also hurt and the whole time Laura was laughing at me because she's evil like that. It was cruel. But I have cotton candy. And then we went to the International Festival and there was all this yummy food every where that I couldn't eat. But there were pirates and bagpipers and strangely no ninjas. If South Carolina had had this festival, which we wouldn't have because our mascot's not a pirate, but if we did, there would have been at least one ninja running around to harass the pirates.

I might be making a facebook page. Hey, people that are my friends off the internets, should I make a facebook page?

This is a really cool version of Little Red Riding Hood.



Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

For the ex-roomies who may or may not miss the great fat beast:

Cat has finally learned, for the first time in all the years that I've owned him, that the big bag I go to every time he gets fed contains cat food. Sadly for him, he didn't figure out that he can eat from the bag until this one was almost empty. It's quite humorous watching him push the bag around the room as he tries to shove his whole head down far enough to get a single bite of food. I think he's actually burning more calories than he's taking in.

As mentioned before, there's a new dog in the house that Cat does not like. Cat doesn't want to sleep on the floor like he normally does where Buster might get him which means this past week he's started jumping on the kitchen counters to sleep. Now the new roommate has this odd habit of leaving things open like the dishwash, our silverware drawer, and the upper cabinets. So Laura came home last night to find Cat smooshed in our cabinet on our formerly clean plates. If she can figure out how to transfer it from her phone, a photo will be forthcoming.

Crap, there was a third Cat related thing I was going to share but I can't remember it. Oh, well.

Oh, snow, how I've missed you. The best thing is you'll be gone in two days.

Yes, it is in fact snowing in the state of North Carolina. It's even real snow not the three-flake panic that happens every few years. It's wonderful. People don't know how to drive in it though. Seriously people, it's not that hard. They kind of scare me. Just on my little side road I've seen one person hit a curb, one spin out in a parking lot, and another literally take five minutes to turn at an intersection. It's hilarious. Who knew the Yankees were right for laughing at us all these years?

This is big news here. I think it might be a record. We walked down to the park to play with the dogs and got photographed for the paper and everything. It's kind of weird. It's also the first time I've worn my coat since I left New York.

In other news, I lost my job again. It was really strange how they did it given that everyone but the bosses thought they were keeping me and I was informed via a Dear John letter. But whatever, I'll keep looking. We have a new roommate. She reminds me of Kelly because she's living the life that Kelly wants to be living. [She moved here after living in a cabin in the woods for six months and when she leaves here in four months she's going to Bolivia.] On the other hand, she's a little odd and she's brought yet another dog to add to our household. Cat has decided that he dislikes the new dog enough that Laura's dogs are now acceptable and he'll let them slobber and chew on him as they nap together.

Crazy times. Crazy times. There's nothing like a Thanksgiving where your family talks about how hopeful they are that Obama will be killed before taking office.

Worked yesterday. That was a bit nuts. It took over fifteen minutes for the line of people outside to get into the store once we opened the doors. They were pushing each other and running into each other. It was one of the funnier things I've ever seen. I didn't have a single rude, bitchy person come through my register. I was rather surprised. I had to get up early today to drop Laura off at six so I could use her car to get to my shift at ten only to show up and get told that I've somehow vanished from the schedule. Grr.

Laura's boyfriend made her watch Twilight last week so now she's obsessed with the movie, the books, and the soundtrack (the last of which is excellent, btw). She keeps going on and on about how much hotter Pattison is as a vampire than as Diggory and how I should be excited because "I" was obsessed with him in Harry Potter. Thanks, Courtney. Although in Courtney's defense, she was never really that big into the actor, just Cedric. Long story short, I was forced to go see the movie last night. It wasn't that bad. Twilight was decent enough to make me want to read the book to compare. On the other hand, there were some incredibly cheesy special effects, a good half hour of the movie consisted on different characters staring longingly at each other, and sections of the dialogue were Lifetime quality bad that made me laugh out loud. I never realized how many immature, juvenile romantic ideals are things that qualify as stalking.

Alanna

It's so sad to look back and realize that not much has happened since the last entry umpteen billion months ago.

August was a nice month. I had a job opportunity that was just perfect for me. Didn't get it, of course, but the period of hopeful anticipation was nice. Laura and I took a day vacation to Wilmington to see the USS North Carolina. We didn't find any of the pictures of our grandfather but touring the ship was neat. I don't think I would last in those tiny cramped spaces for extended periods of time. From there we went to the beach where I was very adventurous and wore a bikini, of which I almost lost the bottom. Won't be wearing that suit any more. Later, an adorable old priest lured us into one of the historic downtown churches to admire the stained glass. This seems to be a weakness of mine as that's how that cute old lady got Kelly and I into the church by the Strand Theatre. Damn the old people and their stained glass religious buildings.

Absolutely nothing happened in September.

October mostly sucked. I got sick the day of Laura's birthday party, not a very good combination when you add a house full of drunks. At least they were mostly nice drunks with the exception of our creepy 40 year-old neighbor who crashed the party. And people hugged me. I hate hugs. I spent a week sick, a week well, then Laura and I both caught some bug at the fair and I spent another week sick. So, yeah, really not a good month. The fair was fun, at least.

November's looking better. I got a job. Yay, income. It's at Target. Boo, holiday retail. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. Laura's taking her boyfriend home to meet the extended family so there'll be drama. For the most part he falls under the at-least-he's-not-black clause but my aunt's convinced that men from the middle east only date/marry women to steal their babies so you should be wary even being friends with them. Plus, my cousin might come out. It should be fun times and they don't involve me.

Hi, I'm Bob. I'm a figment of your imagination. Every thing's still really boring. Let's see, what hasn't been happening.

Months ago we had a birthday. The brat took us strawberry picking and there was llamas. Well, a llama. His name is George.


Llama!

The city here has had issues. First the forest fires filled it with smoke that tried to choke me to death. Ick! Then all of the water was contaminated with mutant bacteria. Yuck! Then our house was infested with fleas. Gross! So the last one wasn't the city's fault but it did make Cat pull his fur out. Bald kitty! I really should stop writing these things on no sleep and with caffeine.

Laura dragged us home for the fourth of july so she could buy a new car. We tried to go see fireworks at the fairgrounds but they got rained out. I got cotton candy out of the trip at least and we got to go "home" aka the arena where my hockey team used to play. It's hard to believe they've been gone ten years. We sat in our old season seats while trying to wait out the rain, not that it worked. I swear I've been drier while swimming.

I'm addicted to Mahjong Titans. It's the best solitaire game since Freecell.

I think that's about it. I really should just start making things up. Maybe if someone gave us topics to write about...

- Pretending to be Bob