Happy Thursday! Do you know what kind of Thursday it is? It's a BLACKJACK THURSDAY. I don't think we've had one of those in years. And I wouldn't have noticed except for I was looking up movie times yesterday. What did you do to celebrate Thursday the 21st? I didn't do much, I only got dressed to walk to CVS, and then I put pajamas back on. =/
Since last week, I tracked down and subsequently watched Superman III, Superman IV, Superman Returns, and Superman: Brainiac Attacks!. From best to worst they were: Superman Returns, Superman IV, um, and the other two tie for worst ever.
I guess I'll have to go back to Salzer's and rent the Donner cut of II, though, and then I can tell you which one's my favorite. (But it's going to be I or II).
But then I also watched Megamind, which is about superheroes/villains, and then Dylan Dog and Scott Pilgrim, which are both comic book movies. (You may also notice the Brandon Routh theme in the last two as well) Well I guess I just like comic book movies.
But I still need to see Thor and the Green Lantern and Captain America's coming out tonight. Not enough time for all this. Too busy Minecrafting.
I mean working. Today is my only day off this week! $$
Been listening to a lot of John Williams and Mumford & Sons. Played some guitar today. I even tuned up the ol' bass and tried to remember what to do with it after that. I forgot there was a bass battle in Scott Pilgrim, and that was cool. I want to say "I forgot how much I love bass," but that's something that's impossible to forget so I'll skip it.
I guess Comic Con's going on right now. Maybe one day I'll make it down there. =/
Earlier this week it was very warm and sunny and almost very much like summer, but now it's gone all misty and gray again. I just...what is this I don't even
Well. I've rambled on enough. Not really feeling it today. Maybe something cool will happen this week.
-Steph
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Late oClock
Happy Thursday! I would have been here like fifteen minutes ago, but it seems like they're paving the whole world these days, and my exit was closed off and I had to go halfway to downtown and then circle back on surface streets. I was in so much of a hurry once I got here that I almost didn't stop to wash my hands--but then I noticed that they were literally streaked with a blue-black...ness, so sanitation won out in the end.
Speaking of, I got some new wart removy pads for my mystery wart (for those of you who don't know, I started the summer after high school with at least three on each hand, which is like, I don't even know how that happened) and they're very much more effective than the ones from six years ago. That is to say, I've put two on, about 30 hours each with a day in between, and now I have to wait for my disc of skin around the wart to grow back before I can put on another.
Don't be ashamed of warts, just informed! They are spreadable! So don't go touching people with it if they're not okay with that! I broke out with them due to stress, since I'd had the first one as long as I could remember (no one ever told me it was a wart). But if you pick at them and medicate them, your immune system will kick in and get rid of it for you. They're sorta gross, but they have no nerve endings on the surface so they're not too much of a bother if you don't care either way.
That's my public service announcement for the day.
Gee. Now I don't know what else to say, with this deadline of about thirteen minutes and all. I picked up the first two original Superman movies the other day on a whim, and aren't they just the cutest. Nobody in town has III, which is evidently because it's the best and I shouldn't bother with the fourth. But I will, because I'm a dork like that.
OH Sorry, Facebook, for spamming these over the last week. For some reason a backlog of about a month and a half of blogs were never imported. And I wanted to tag everybody in the AX review, so I had to get all the others in first. Hopefully this will import quickly, or at least ever. If not, I'll just have to do it myself in a couple of days.
Speaking of hooray!technology, Windows update restarted my computer in the middle of the night again and BROKE everything. Firefox, MSN messenger, Hamachi, WMP. It deleted some .dll that is normally in some specific folder AND and less specific folder, so it took like two hours of more and more furious google searches (in IE) to find the fix. And even then Hamachi wouldn't work, so that had to be deleted and reinstalled. Before I could start up my Minecraft server and see if that had been broken...which it wasn't! And then me and Carolyn went exploring and found all the secrets.
Ok, have a lovely.
-Steph
Oh, and I sat through Transformers 3, and was terribly terribly bored.
Speaking of, I got some new wart removy pads for my mystery wart (for those of you who don't know, I started the summer after high school with at least three on each hand, which is like, I don't even know how that happened) and they're very much more effective than the ones from six years ago. That is to say, I've put two on, about 30 hours each with a day in between, and now I have to wait for my disc of skin around the wart to grow back before I can put on another.
Don't be ashamed of warts, just informed! They are spreadable! So don't go touching people with it if they're not okay with that! I broke out with them due to stress, since I'd had the first one as long as I could remember (no one ever told me it was a wart). But if you pick at them and medicate them, your immune system will kick in and get rid of it for you. They're sorta gross, but they have no nerve endings on the surface so they're not too much of a bother if you don't care either way.
That's my public service announcement for the day.
Gee. Now I don't know what else to say, with this deadline of about thirteen minutes and all. I picked up the first two original Superman movies the other day on a whim, and aren't they just the cutest. Nobody in town has III, which is evidently because it's the best and I shouldn't bother with the fourth. But I will, because I'm a dork like that.
OH Sorry, Facebook, for spamming these over the last week. For some reason a backlog of about a month and a half of blogs were never imported. And I wanted to tag everybody in the AX review, so I had to get all the others in first. Hopefully this will import quickly, or at least ever. If not, I'll just have to do it myself in a couple of days.
Speaking of hooray!technology, Windows update restarted my computer in the middle of the night again and BROKE everything. Firefox, MSN messenger, Hamachi, WMP. It deleted some .dll that is normally in some specific folder AND and less specific folder, so it took like two hours of more and more furious google searches (in IE) to find the fix. And even then Hamachi wouldn't work, so that had to be deleted and reinstalled. Before I could start up my Minecraft server and see if that had been broken...which it wasn't! And then me and Carolyn went exploring and found all the secrets.
Ok, have a lovely.
-Steph
Oh, and I sat through Transformers 3, and was terribly terribly bored.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
AX 2011: a look back
Happy Thursday! Before we get into the good stuff, happy Thursday birthday to Ringo! 71 today! Here's to 71 more!
So this Anime Expo was full of ups and downs. Some would say it evened out, but it's the AX so it still was amazing. Let's start.
Early Friday morning I arrived at Carolyn's to help finish the costumes! They'd been up most of the night working on them... and we mostly got them done before we headed off to Rina's. Steven's a better driver than last year! Then we headed down to LA.
We got there quick enough, and got into our room rather more quickly.... but it wasn't the upper floor room that has access to the free food! Seems as though the AX is still as unorganized as ever, and out of the three different prices they quoted to Carolyn, what they ended up charging was something else entirely! But it was a junior suite and we had two bathrooms, and there was still plenty of room for the eleven of us. ^_~
Carolyn got to work hot-gluing the last of it together, while me, Steven, and Rina wandered around downtown looking for more glue sticks and a box. We went to Ralph's, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and a mini Staples, and we did find a box.
When Minecraft happened, I had the crazy idea that I wanted to be a Creeper for the AX. That faded, but after a while we did find some Creeper cosplayers and said, well, it can't be that hard. THEN Pokemon came along, and everything went crazy. So my cosplay was as Red, the original trainer from the first series games. With a Creeper head. Carolyn and Steven went full-box cosplay, dressing up their characters like Team Rocket, which is something you can actually do in Minecraft. Steven got a Creeper head, and Carolyn used Israphel from the Yogscast youtube videos, so she's actually got three cosplays in one. Rina put together a Professor Oak costume together, and her sister grabbed a Charmander. The last box we found was for Rina, so she could fit in to our Creeper family.
What I liked the most about mine was that I had the box head on -- which was great on its own, having a masked costume really frees you up -- but I could leave it at the hotel and still have a complete cosplay. Secondarily, I loved having a backpack full of supplies, and I never had to take it off, just order people to get this out or put that in. :3 Thirdly, I loved having regular clothes, so I could wander around downtown or even back and forth from the hotel without being too hot or uncomfortable.
What I liked the most about our group cosplay was the smiles we brought to the faces of those who recognized it instantly. Pokemon AND Minecraft. One one else but us! Plenty of people in box heads, and plenty of both Pokemon and Ashes running around, but we had this complete anomaly thing going on, drawing in stares from everyone, whether they recognized one, or the other, or both, or none. (Believe it or not, but there was a guy who recognized the Minecraft side, but didn't know what the Pokeball was). We got to hiss at a lot of folks, stare at them as they passed, and everyone wanted a picture WITH us, which hardly ever happens.
Since the boxes proved to be rather impossible to travel in, our game plan was to pack up the legs and stuff into the main box, walk it all down to the expo, assemble, and then traverse down the hallway to the exhibit hall in costume. I generally wore my head there and back because it was easier than carrying it. Then just to get across the convention center, it probably took half an hour each time. Shuffling along and then stopping for pictures every three feet. That's my favorite. ^^
So we cosplayed down to the exhibit hall lobby and back (except for that one time where it was blocked off at the end for the "bomb threat"), because it would have been impossible to get those costumes through the exhibit hall aisles and crowds. So that's another trip to the hotel and back each day. Exhibit hall was super crowded the first day, and carpeted, which was new. I haven't really seen any new anime in a couple of years, so it was hard to be super interested in the wares. But I did finally buy the Cactuar plushie I've had my eye on for a while. In years past, its always either been like 40 bucks or sold out. I got mine for $20.
But the exhibit hall hasn't been my focus since we started cosplaying seriously and going for more than one day at a time. I love cosplayers! But again, since I haven't been keeping up on anything other than Naruto, I didn't see too many people who wowed me. It was more like there was just the same cosplays as ever, and I didn't need their picture because there were fifteen more of them around every corner. So I ended up mainly taking pictures of Pokemon, because, hey, I gotta catch 'em all.
We forgot to watch any new anime, too. Last year we watched ICE, which was horrendous, and Ninja Nonsense, which was amazing. (But I made up for that this week, because I just watched all of Durarara!! in the last two days. WATCH IT IT'S SO AMAZING WHY DIDN'T I WATCH IT A YEAR AGO) We saw some of the AMVs, but some of those were the same as last year, and the rest weren't outstanding. We waited in the standby line for the Masquerade, so at least it was free, but the cosplay and the skits were pretty bad here, too. So those are a couple of the "downs" of this year.
Oh, we also managed to get into the Hatsune Miku concert, who is a computer-based pop star I'd never heard of before. The singing is all this software, and she was a hologram prancing around on stage. The audience was IN LOVE. I.... liked the glow sticks.
The funniest thing that happened was this little boy who asked me if I had a knife. His mom had told him that we were Team Rocket Minecraft, and so I told him that they were, but I was a good guy. This was in the street, so Steven and Carolyn weren't even in their costumes. But I was. He said "do you have a knife?" and I put my face closer to see if I could hear him correctly, and he backed up a step lol. No, did I have a bat? I thought he said "hat," so I said "...yes?!"
"What can I use to fight those bad evil people?!" he asked with much seven year old angst. Apparently he'd been raised in a household were it was common -- nay, expected that upon meeting Team Rocket, for one to knife them.
I told him not to attack bad people, but to report them to his local police officer. "Nurse-- Officer Jenny" I managed at last.
His mom finally coaxed him away, and I said, "Have fun!"
And as he skipped away, towards the convention center, he said in quite a gleeful voice, "What a FRIENDLY Creeper!!"
XD
My other favorite quotes of the AX:
*Steven and I are sitting there with our Creeper heads on*
Steven: You're quite handsome.
*Alex asks if the ground is sloping, which it is*
Rina: I don't know. I don't have a level.
*The morning is bright so Carolyn asks Steven to punch the sun. He tries and fails*
Steven: I can't reach.
*Some cosplayer at the Masquerade is taking off parts of his/her costume*
Me: Oh no, your hat! Oh no, your...thing!
Kid on the street: Do you have a knife?
And our collective motto: ADVENTURE ON, (name here)!!!
Oh, another high point was during the intermission of the Masquerade, things were so disorganized that we all ended up watching Youtube on the MC's iPhone.
Oh, they also tore out our food court, which was the source of equal joy and despair in years previous. It was a creepy three stories into the ground, the bottom level hosting a semi-deserted food court with three or four intermittently shut down eateries. All gone, our beloved AX hangout. Shocking.
So we spent a lot of time walking back and forth, walking to find new foods, sitting in lines, and sitting in event rooms. Seems that between all this, somehow, we hardly spent any time at either the convention or the hotel room. But we were always back so late, and woke up rather early (for us) so I don't know where the time went. It was also a shortish AX altogether, since on the last day we just packed up and went home, instead of scouring the exhibit hall for last minute deals like we regularly do.
So that was my... 11th Anime Expo, twelve years since my first time. Hahaha, that's half my life so far. I was a tiny 12 year old, between 7th and 8th grade, and I cut my hair short to cosplay as Omi from Weiss Kreuz. I know it was that year because our 8th grade graduation/dance photo has me with the longest hair I've had since I cut it short the first time, and every summer after that it's been as short as it is now. That was so long ago--I remember searching fansites on my dad's computer for Weiss songs, and letting them load in the browser-based WMP for like two hours just for one four minute song. Those were the DAYS.
Oh man, I found it on Youtube, and just listening to it reminds me of all the stuff I was into back then, like reading those FFVIII fanfics that don't exist anymore. And if you ever wondered why I go by "Aya" or Ayan on the internet, you have Weiss to thank for that.
It's good, getting back to ones roots. Another year, another experience. How different will next year be!
-Steph
So this Anime Expo was full of ups and downs. Some would say it evened out, but it's the AX so it still was amazing. Let's start.
Early Friday morning I arrived at Carolyn's to help finish the costumes! They'd been up most of the night working on them... and we mostly got them done before we headed off to Rina's. Steven's a better driver than last year! Then we headed down to LA.
We got there quick enough, and got into our room rather more quickly.... but it wasn't the upper floor room that has access to the free food! Seems as though the AX is still as unorganized as ever, and out of the three different prices they quoted to Carolyn, what they ended up charging was something else entirely! But it was a junior suite and we had two bathrooms, and there was still plenty of room for the eleven of us. ^_~
Carolyn got to work hot-gluing the last of it together, while me, Steven, and Rina wandered around downtown looking for more glue sticks and a box. We went to Ralph's, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and a mini Staples, and we did find a box.
When Minecraft happened, I had the crazy idea that I wanted to be a Creeper for the AX. That faded, but after a while we did find some Creeper cosplayers and said, well, it can't be that hard. THEN Pokemon came along, and everything went crazy. So my cosplay was as Red, the original trainer from the first series games. With a Creeper head. Carolyn and Steven went full-box cosplay, dressing up their characters like Team Rocket, which is something you can actually do in Minecraft. Steven got a Creeper head, and Carolyn used Israphel from the Yogscast youtube videos, so she's actually got three cosplays in one. Rina put together a Professor Oak costume together, and her sister grabbed a Charmander. The last box we found was for Rina, so she could fit in to our Creeper family.
What I liked the most about mine was that I had the box head on -- which was great on its own, having a masked costume really frees you up -- but I could leave it at the hotel and still have a complete cosplay. Secondarily, I loved having a backpack full of supplies, and I never had to take it off, just order people to get this out or put that in. :3 Thirdly, I loved having regular clothes, so I could wander around downtown or even back and forth from the hotel without being too hot or uncomfortable.
What I liked the most about our group cosplay was the smiles we brought to the faces of those who recognized it instantly. Pokemon AND Minecraft. One one else but us! Plenty of people in box heads, and plenty of both Pokemon and Ashes running around, but we had this complete anomaly thing going on, drawing in stares from everyone, whether they recognized one, or the other, or both, or none. (Believe it or not, but there was a guy who recognized the Minecraft side, but didn't know what the Pokeball was). We got to hiss at a lot of folks, stare at them as they passed, and everyone wanted a picture WITH us, which hardly ever happens.
Since the boxes proved to be rather impossible to travel in, our game plan was to pack up the legs and stuff into the main box, walk it all down to the expo, assemble, and then traverse down the hallway to the exhibit hall in costume. I generally wore my head there and back because it was easier than carrying it. Then just to get across the convention center, it probably took half an hour each time. Shuffling along and then stopping for pictures every three feet. That's my favorite. ^^
So we cosplayed down to the exhibit hall lobby and back (except for that one time where it was blocked off at the end for the "bomb threat"), because it would have been impossible to get those costumes through the exhibit hall aisles and crowds. So that's another trip to the hotel and back each day. Exhibit hall was super crowded the first day, and carpeted, which was new. I haven't really seen any new anime in a couple of years, so it was hard to be super interested in the wares. But I did finally buy the Cactuar plushie I've had my eye on for a while. In years past, its always either been like 40 bucks or sold out. I got mine for $20.
But the exhibit hall hasn't been my focus since we started cosplaying seriously and going for more than one day at a time. I love cosplayers! But again, since I haven't been keeping up on anything other than Naruto, I didn't see too many people who wowed me. It was more like there was just the same cosplays as ever, and I didn't need their picture because there were fifteen more of them around every corner. So I ended up mainly taking pictures of Pokemon, because, hey, I gotta catch 'em all.
We forgot to watch any new anime, too. Last year we watched ICE, which was horrendous, and Ninja Nonsense, which was amazing. (But I made up for that this week, because I just watched all of Durarara!! in the last two days. WATCH IT IT'S SO AMAZING WHY DIDN'T I WATCH IT A YEAR AGO) We saw some of the AMVs, but some of those were the same as last year, and the rest weren't outstanding. We waited in the standby line for the Masquerade, so at least it was free, but the cosplay and the skits were pretty bad here, too. So those are a couple of the "downs" of this year.
Oh, we also managed to get into the Hatsune Miku concert, who is a computer-based pop star I'd never heard of before. The singing is all this software, and she was a hologram prancing around on stage. The audience was IN LOVE. I.... liked the glow sticks.
The funniest thing that happened was this little boy who asked me if I had a knife. His mom had told him that we were Team Rocket Minecraft, and so I told him that they were, but I was a good guy. This was in the street, so Steven and Carolyn weren't even in their costumes. But I was. He said "do you have a knife?" and I put my face closer to see if I could hear him correctly, and he backed up a step lol. No, did I have a bat? I thought he said "hat," so I said "...yes?!"
"What can I use to fight those bad evil people?!" he asked with much seven year old angst. Apparently he'd been raised in a household were it was common -- nay, expected that upon meeting Team Rocket, for one to knife them.
I told him not to attack bad people, but to report them to his local police officer. "Nurse-- Officer Jenny" I managed at last.
His mom finally coaxed him away, and I said, "Have fun!"
And as he skipped away, towards the convention center, he said in quite a gleeful voice, "What a FRIENDLY Creeper!!"
XD
My other favorite quotes of the AX:
*Steven and I are sitting there with our Creeper heads on*
Steven: You're quite handsome.
*Alex asks if the ground is sloping, which it is*
Rina: I don't know. I don't have a level.
*The morning is bright so Carolyn asks Steven to punch the sun. He tries and fails*
Steven: I can't reach.
*Some cosplayer at the Masquerade is taking off parts of his/her costume*
Me: Oh no, your hat! Oh no, your...thing!
Kid on the street: Do you have a knife?
And our collective motto: ADVENTURE ON, (name here)!!!
Oh, another high point was during the intermission of the Masquerade, things were so disorganized that we all ended up watching Youtube on the MC's iPhone.
Oh, they also tore out our food court, which was the source of equal joy and despair in years previous. It was a creepy three stories into the ground, the bottom level hosting a semi-deserted food court with three or four intermittently shut down eateries. All gone, our beloved AX hangout. Shocking.
So we spent a lot of time walking back and forth, walking to find new foods, sitting in lines, and sitting in event rooms. Seems that between all this, somehow, we hardly spent any time at either the convention or the hotel room. But we were always back so late, and woke up rather early (for us) so I don't know where the time went. It was also a shortish AX altogether, since on the last day we just packed up and went home, instead of scouring the exhibit hall for last minute deals like we regularly do.
So that was my... 11th Anime Expo, twelve years since my first time. Hahaha, that's half my life so far. I was a tiny 12 year old, between 7th and 8th grade, and I cut my hair short to cosplay as Omi from Weiss Kreuz. I know it was that year because our 8th grade graduation/dance photo has me with the longest hair I've had since I cut it short the first time, and every summer after that it's been as short as it is now. That was so long ago--I remember searching fansites on my dad's computer for Weiss songs, and letting them load in the browser-based WMP for like two hours just for one four minute song. Those were the DAYS.
Oh man, I found it on Youtube, and just listening to it reminds me of all the stuff I was into back then, like reading those FFVIII fanfics that don't exist anymore. And if you ever wondered why I go by "Aya" or Ayan on the internet, you have Weiss to thank for that.
It's good, getting back to ones roots. Another year, another experience. How different will next year be!
-Steph
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Gotta Mine 'Em All
Happy Thursday! I think someone should make a PokeRap about all the different ores in Minecraft. Internet, get on this.
So tomorrow we're headed off into the wild wonder of the Anime Expo! It's that time of year again, and even though I tried to get a head start on my costume a while back, today still found me painting and sewing my lil' heart out.
Although, to be fair, I only utilized the sewing machine twice, and both times it was for using binding as an easy hem. Quite a bit of spray paint, though! My shirt/vest is like, solid now.
Want some progress pictures?
Ok I still gotta pack. And get up sooooo early. But it's gonna be great. It's gonna be really hot and summery and I'll have a box on my head. Gonna take every picture. Gonna buy some snacks. I'll have a backpack to carry stuff in. I can't wait.
The nice things about this cosplay, in addition to the backpack, are: they are regular clothes, so I won't be having to change into something more comfortable; no weapons to check; no props in my hands; pockets; no one else will be dressed like me.
I'm going as the original Pokemon trainer with the head of a Creeper from Minecraft. Carolyn and Steven are going as box-form Minecraft players painted like Team Rocket.
We're gonna be awesome.
-Steph
So tomorrow we're headed off into the wild wonder of the Anime Expo! It's that time of year again, and even though I tried to get a head start on my costume a while back, today still found me painting and sewing my lil' heart out.
Although, to be fair, I only utilized the sewing machine twice, and both times it was for using binding as an easy hem. Quite a bit of spray paint, though! My shirt/vest is like, solid now.
Want some progress pictures?
Ok I still gotta pack. And get up sooooo early. But it's gonna be great. It's gonna be really hot and summery and I'll have a box on my head. Gonna take every picture. Gonna buy some snacks. I'll have a backpack to carry stuff in. I can't wait.
The nice things about this cosplay, in addition to the backpack, are: they are regular clothes, so I won't be having to change into something more comfortable; no weapons to check; no props in my hands; pockets; no one else will be dressed like me.
I'm going as the original Pokemon trainer with the head of a Creeper from Minecraft. Carolyn and Steven are going as box-form Minecraft players painted like Team Rocket.
We're gonna be awesome.
-Steph
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Triple Play Thursday
Happy Thursday! 100.3 The Sound (of southern california) plays three songs in a row by the same band. One up on 2-for Tuesday that KLOS and KTYDE have. So on the way to work we had a Stones set, and another one for my lunch! Good timing. And on the way home it was Cream, The Turtles, and the Beatles in that order. 10 at 10, by that time, ten songs from the same year. 1967 today.
But the rest of the day I was either clothes shopping or at work :< Happy Thursday.
But my sister's in town for the week! When she descends, we shop. I mean, I love it when she's here.
An anecdote:
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
She has put something in her hair to bring out the blonde (which is already is). I said to her, "Your hair is so golden," and "Like a princess!"
I once wrote a story about a princess as tall as she was kind, just fyi. For true.
But speaking of princesses, I started reading Game of Thrones. I'm trying to "read my eyes out" like Anne McCaffrey allegedly did. I was disinclined to like it based on the writing style in the prologue, but now I'm like a quarter of the way through with no intention of stopping.
My next day off is the Anime Expo. Counting down the days.
Ok. I'mma go sleep or read or both at once!
-Steph
But the rest of the day I was either clothes shopping or at work :< Happy Thursday.
But my sister's in town for the week! When she descends, we shop. I mean, I love it when she's here.
An anecdote:
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
She has put something in her hair to bring out the blonde (which is already is). I said to her, "Your hair is so golden," and "Like a princess!"
I once wrote a story about a princess as tall as she was kind, just fyi. For true.
But speaking of princesses, I started reading Game of Thrones. I'm trying to "read my eyes out" like Anne McCaffrey allegedly did. I was disinclined to like it based on the writing style in the prologue, but now I'm like a quarter of the way through with no intention of stopping.
My next day off is the Anime Expo. Counting down the days.
Ok. I'mma go sleep or read or both at once!
-Steph
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Everything smells better in the rain
Happy Thursday! Welcome, June, aka the Cold and Spooky Rain month. Any more of this winter nonsense and I'm going to demand a refund.
But the single pine tree and all the juniper on the way to Lowe's smelled sooo good.
Happy Captain Picard Day, while we're at it.
The AX is only two weeks away. They're still out of the spray paint I need to finish my vest. I still need to acquire shoes to paint, and I still need to paint my box head. I've got my eye out for a yellow backpack, but that's not strictly necessary.
Me and Carolyn went to Walmart, Joann's (which is actually called Jo-Ann), Sport-Smart, Ross, back to Walmart, Target, Claire's, Payless, Sears, Justice, and Old Navy looking for costume pieces today. I found some binding (at Joanns, which is what I went there for) and Carolyn found a hat at Ross. It needs to be spray painted.
But it'll all get done, and it will all be amazing, I promise.
Then we hung out with Jacqi at Green Forest, which is still a place to which you need to go. I tried the frozen yogurt today, and it was pretty darn good. I don't even like frozen yogurt. They also have waffles now, so go ask for one. It's between the CVS and Vons by Buena.
Just watched The Adjustment Bureau. It's cool. I didn't love it.
People always seem put off when I haven't seen any of the new releases, especially the one they already think is cool and are asking me about it for no reason at all. But I'll tell you why I don't. Because most movies disappoint me. Most movies I don't care about. It has to be real special for me to even be interested in seeing it, like Adjustment Bureau, what with its Matt Damon and its sci-fi. But even then, if I don't love it -- love the story, love the setting, love the characters, love the humor -- then I'm going to be disappointed.
Long story short, I hate watching movies that I don't love. This is why I only watch things I've already seen and love (Lucky # Slevin, High School Musical, Hot Fuzz, Sunshine, Open Season 2, Speed Racer) or movies I can get angry about how bad they are. Because then at least I'm engaged, through my disgust. If it's neither here nor there, I won't remember it, and, well, wasn't that a good two hours wasted.
:/
In Bruges, The Prestige, The Incredibles, Batman (1966), A Hard Day's Night, Shaun of the Dead, The Lion King, Iron Man, House of Flying Daggers, Casino Royale, Stranger Than Fiction, Ocean's 11, Casablanca, Donnie Darko, Boondock Saints, Akira, The Fall, Serenity, these are the movies I will recommend for you over whatever might have just come out yesterday. I want to say that these are better than those, but nobody knows that movie choice is only a matter of taste better than I do. So if you want to see Just Go With It, you don't have to ask me for my opinion.
Just get out. XD
Also, look at how they're either action movies or kids movies? I don't know. Preferably, I like a good sci-fi/action/comedy/drama aka Firefly. Oh man, don't get me started on tv shows.
-Steph
But the single pine tree and all the juniper on the way to Lowe's smelled sooo good.
Happy Captain Picard Day, while we're at it.
The AX is only two weeks away. They're still out of the spray paint I need to finish my vest. I still need to acquire shoes to paint, and I still need to paint my box head. I've got my eye out for a yellow backpack, but that's not strictly necessary.
Me and Carolyn went to Walmart, Joann's (which is actually called Jo-Ann), Sport-Smart, Ross, back to Walmart, Target, Claire's, Payless, Sears, Justice, and Old Navy looking for costume pieces today. I found some binding (at Joanns, which is what I went there for) and Carolyn found a hat at Ross. It needs to be spray painted.
But it'll all get done, and it will all be amazing, I promise.
Then we hung out with Jacqi at Green Forest, which is still a place to which you need to go. I tried the frozen yogurt today, and it was pretty darn good. I don't even like frozen yogurt. They also have waffles now, so go ask for one. It's between the CVS and Vons by Buena.
Just watched The Adjustment Bureau. It's cool. I didn't love it.
People always seem put off when I haven't seen any of the new releases, especially the one they already think is cool and are asking me about it for no reason at all. But I'll tell you why I don't. Because most movies disappoint me. Most movies I don't care about. It has to be real special for me to even be interested in seeing it, like Adjustment Bureau, what with its Matt Damon and its sci-fi. But even then, if I don't love it -- love the story, love the setting, love the characters, love the humor -- then I'm going to be disappointed.
Long story short, I hate watching movies that I don't love. This is why I only watch things I've already seen and love (Lucky # Slevin, High School Musical, Hot Fuzz, Sunshine, Open Season 2, Speed Racer) or movies I can get angry about how bad they are. Because then at least I'm engaged, through my disgust. If it's neither here nor there, I won't remember it, and, well, wasn't that a good two hours wasted.
:/
In Bruges, The Prestige, The Incredibles, Batman (1966), A Hard Day's Night, Shaun of the Dead, The Lion King, Iron Man, House of Flying Daggers, Casino Royale, Stranger Than Fiction, Ocean's 11, Casablanca, Donnie Darko, Boondock Saints, Akira, The Fall, Serenity, these are the movies I will recommend for you over whatever might have just come out yesterday. I want to say that these are better than those, but nobody knows that movie choice is only a matter of taste better than I do. So if you want to see Just Go With It, you don't have to ask me for my opinion.
Just get out. XD
Also, look at how they're either action movies or kids movies? I don't know. Preferably, I like a good sci-fi/action/comedy/drama aka Firefly. Oh man, don't get me started on tv shows.
-Steph
Thursday, June 09, 2011
June Gloom
Happy Thursday! So summer has rolled in with its full force chilly overcastness. It even rained some. Summers have been dark and downright cold the two or so I've experienced since I came back. I don't remember them being like this when I was little, so I'm going to blame Global Warming?
Well, I do remember summer mornings being cloudy, and then the afternoons would be sunny after summer school got out. But it wasn't really cold. Not like this nearly-50-degrees of yesterday. It should be 80 and 90 like last November was. Why can't you do it right, Ventura??
Started running in the mornings. 2+ miles. Gonna see if I can get fit!
Some of the sunflowers I planted last week have sprouted. And there's a whole mess of little sproutlings in the back by the plum tree? They might be weeds but there's so many of them I get the feeling they were sown by humankind. However, on the other hand, there are a few viney melon types popping up in the near vicinity, and I'm sure those came to be all on their own. I don't remember what we might have thrown out there. Watermelon? Pumpkin? It'll be a fun surprise.
Let's see, Steven's home for a week of summer vacation. I was invited to go with them to a cool restaurant on Sunday to have good lobster. And yesterday we hung out and watched Shaolin starring my favorite Andy Lau. And today me and Carolyn got some boxes to start our AX stuff, which will be epic. Just you wait.
Oh I made a good dinner the other day. Salmon and a Trader Joe's grains mix and a fruit/microgreens salad. The theme was apricots. I watched two straight hours of Food Network the day previous.
I would like to go to the South and eat every food. I will even go to Paula Deen's house if I have to.
That's srs bsns.
-Steph
Well, I do remember summer mornings being cloudy, and then the afternoons would be sunny after summer school got out. But it wasn't really cold. Not like this nearly-50-degrees of yesterday. It should be 80 and 90 like last November was. Why can't you do it right, Ventura??
Started running in the mornings. 2+ miles. Gonna see if I can get fit!
Some of the sunflowers I planted last week have sprouted. And there's a whole mess of little sproutlings in the back by the plum tree? They might be weeds but there's so many of them I get the feeling they were sown by humankind. However, on the other hand, there are a few viney melon types popping up in the near vicinity, and I'm sure those came to be all on their own. I don't remember what we might have thrown out there. Watermelon? Pumpkin? It'll be a fun surprise.
Let's see, Steven's home for a week of summer vacation. I was invited to go with them to a cool restaurant on Sunday to have good lobster. And yesterday we hung out and watched Shaolin starring my favorite Andy Lau. And today me and Carolyn got some boxes to start our AX stuff, which will be epic. Just you wait.
Oh I made a good dinner the other day. Salmon and a Trader Joe's grains mix and a fruit/microgreens salad. The theme was apricots. I watched two straight hours of Food Network the day previous.
I would like to go to the South and eat every food. I will even go to Paula Deen's house if I have to.
That's srs bsns.
-Steph
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Dance Party
Happy Thursday! The Playstation Network is back up, so I've just spent this entire evening on it having a dance party with strangers. Oh, the internet. How beautiful you are.
Did a lot of other exciting things this week, too. On Memorial Day 100.3 the Sound was wrapping up their top 100 best rock albums of all time countdown, as in on my way to work at 10 in the morning they were at 21 (Rubber Soul) and when I got home we listened to the top 14 or so. The listeners voted Dark Side of the Moon #1, and listening to the handful of songs they played off it, it did seem pretty epic.
Listened to 12 through 8 whilst gardening, and the for the rest my dad and I broke out the cards and played some Hold 'Em. I had to teach it to him, but now he's better than me. :<
On Tuesday Carolyn and Jacqi came over and we made Korean barbecue style food. Bulgogi and some potatoes and some scallion pancakes and some salad and some quick pickled daikon and carrots. Quite good! Potatoes could have been a bit less crunchy, but next time. Next time it will be perfect.
Wednesday I went to work all day and then -- wait for it -- I hit up the bar with Josh and Brian. Played some pool. Had a drink that was decidedly pink in color. It was pretty cool.
Then today I went back to my roots, interacting with others almost exclusively through an electronic buffer. Carolyn was helping Jacqi design a poster, and I was brought in as an auxiliary through the webchat. Follow that up with PSN dance party, and that about wraps up my day. We did go for a walk around the park and then to Foster Freeze, so don't worry about me not getting out at all!
It's June now, but it still feels like winter. Too windy! I need a summer, someone call me a summer.
-Steph
Did a lot of other exciting things this week, too. On Memorial Day 100.3 the Sound was wrapping up their top 100 best rock albums of all time countdown, as in on my way to work at 10 in the morning they were at 21 (Rubber Soul) and when I got home we listened to the top 14 or so. The listeners voted Dark Side of the Moon #1, and listening to the handful of songs they played off it, it did seem pretty epic.
Listened to 12 through 8 whilst gardening, and the for the rest my dad and I broke out the cards and played some Hold 'Em. I had to teach it to him, but now he's better than me. :<
On Tuesday Carolyn and Jacqi came over and we made Korean barbecue style food. Bulgogi and some potatoes and some scallion pancakes and some salad and some quick pickled daikon and carrots. Quite good! Potatoes could have been a bit less crunchy, but next time. Next time it will be perfect.
Wednesday I went to work all day and then -- wait for it -- I hit up the bar with Josh and Brian. Played some pool. Had a drink that was decidedly pink in color. It was pretty cool.
Then today I went back to my roots, interacting with others almost exclusively through an electronic buffer. Carolyn was helping Jacqi design a poster, and I was brought in as an auxiliary through the webchat. Follow that up with PSN dance party, and that about wraps up my day. We did go for a walk around the park and then to Foster Freeze, so don't worry about me not getting out at all!
It's June now, but it still feels like winter. Too windy! I need a summer, someone call me a summer.
-Steph
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Handheld Thursday
Happy Thursday! I'm writing this to you on my phone because my computer is busy being backed up because of the disc error report I found when I got home from work! My favorite fish died today, too.
I'm just stashing away any photo folders that might be important, my whole folder of writing, my MDMB folder,my Minecraft world. If it's older than two years I already have it on the external, and if it's not in My Pictures or My Documents I probably didn't need it anyway. My music I can glean back from friends.
But at work I played with stickers for 8 hours. And on my lunch I had cookies and played Pokemon. True story.
Good news is I don't have jury duty, and Carolyn graduated on Saturday. Other than that...
Bah.
-Steph
I'm just stashing away any photo folders that might be important, my whole folder of writing, my MDMB folder,my Minecraft world. If it's older than two years I already have it on the external, and if it's not in My Pictures or My Documents I probably didn't need it anyway. My music I can glean back from friends.
But at work I played with stickers for 8 hours. And on my lunch I had cookies and played Pokemon. True story.
Good news is I don't have jury duty, and Carolyn graduated on Saturday. Other than that...
Bah.
-Steph
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Dusty
Happy Thursday! We had a terrible wind around town this week, which is my least favorite thing. Blows the door open at work and gets the counters all covered in dirt. But even just the sound of it, knowing that you can't go outside because the air is moving... makes me uneasy. But it did rain quite a bit, over a couple of nights. Ninja rain. It was nice today, but last I saw there was some weird high fog coming in.
So who's ready for summertime?!
You know me, I'm always ready for it. I was spoiled at school, inland north of LA, where summer started in February and went straight through to November. I feel like I've been waiting for summer since I graduated. :< Coasts.
I cleaned my room the other day! To the extent where you can see my whole floor, and you can even see that my desk is made of wood! 60% was papers to be thrown away, 5% to file, 10% clothes, um, 60, 65, 75... and 25% CDs and their cases. Not together, of course. But shoot if there weren't ten stacks of CDs satting around in here. Where did I get all of them? Well, a good half of them were burned, and half of those unlabeled.
If you noticed some videos go up on Facebook this week, that's where they came from.
The closet's next, but I've had enough dust for one week.
All my tv is over for the year. I'm rooting for Barney/Robin still, and how crazy would it be if Andy got to be manager?
The funniest part of the Office today was this ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HrQbjPjbBA
I found a $50 gift card while cleaning! What should I get?
-Steph
So who's ready for summertime?!
You know me, I'm always ready for it. I was spoiled at school, inland north of LA, where summer started in February and went straight through to November. I feel like I've been waiting for summer since I graduated. :< Coasts.
I cleaned my room the other day! To the extent where you can see my whole floor, and you can even see that my desk is made of wood! 60% was papers to be thrown away, 5% to file, 10% clothes, um, 60, 65, 75... and 25% CDs and their cases. Not together, of course. But shoot if there weren't ten stacks of CDs satting around in here. Where did I get all of them? Well, a good half of them were burned, and half of those unlabeled.
If you noticed some videos go up on Facebook this week, that's where they came from.
The closet's next, but I've had enough dust for one week.
All my tv is over for the year. I'm rooting for Barney/Robin still, and how crazy would it be if Andy got to be manager?
The funniest part of the Office today was this ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HrQbjPjbBA
I found a $50 gift card while cleaning! What should I get?
-Steph
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Whoops
Totally forgot to post this here. Well. Better late than never.
Happy Thursday! Blogger is down at the moment, so this'll go on Facebook first and then I'll get it on the blog whenever that becomes available.
So Torchwood. lol. Turns out it's really good! Not that those bad episodes weren't bad -- ohhhhh how they were bad -- but the few suddenly good episodes weren't a fluke. Just finished season 2 like half an hour ago. Preeetty epic.
This week I made curry for Mother's Day and carrot cake cupcakes for Jacqi's birthday.
I'm going to get a haircut tomorrow and start cleaning my room.
Disc one of Carnivà le arrived today, I'll be getting on that soon.
Oh and I beat Batman: Arkham Asylum. 100% on the Riddler's stuff. Watched quite a few of the 60s Batman while it was still in my system. Speaking of good shows -- there's one.
There's an internet cafe in town called GreenForest Cafe and Jacqi sorta works there now. She made me a Lich King's Revenge which was wonderful, and then I got my 8th Gym Badge in Pokemon. It was thematic. Oh, my point was, you should go there! Play computer games or whatever, have some frozen yogurt. It'll be grand.
I love me a good sci-fi character drama. When is somebody gonna buy me BSG?
-Steph
Happy Thursday! Blogger is down at the moment, so this'll go on Facebook first and then I'll get it on the blog whenever that becomes available.
So Torchwood. lol. Turns out it's really good! Not that those bad episodes weren't bad -- ohhhhh how they were bad -- but the few suddenly good episodes weren't a fluke. Just finished season 2 like half an hour ago. Preeetty epic.
This week I made curry for Mother's Day and carrot cake cupcakes for Jacqi's birthday.
I'm going to get a haircut tomorrow and start cleaning my room.
Disc one of Carnivà le arrived today, I'll be getting on that soon.
Oh and I beat Batman: Arkham Asylum. 100% on the Riddler's stuff. Watched quite a few of the 60s Batman while it was still in my system. Speaking of good shows -- there's one.
There's an internet cafe in town called GreenForest Cafe and Jacqi sorta works there now. She made me a Lich King's Revenge which was wonderful, and then I got my 8th Gym Badge in Pokemon. It was thematic. Oh, my point was, you should go there! Play computer games or whatever, have some frozen yogurt. It'll be grand.
I love me a good sci-fi character drama. When is somebody gonna buy me BSG?
-Steph
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Geeking out pretty bad this week
Happy Thursday! We've been having lovely springy/summery weather this week, just a bit windy, really dry and warm. But today I walked to Trader Joe's and watched this massive fog mountain roll towards me. I got all the way home before it got to my house, but soon after that it got dark and damp and spooky. Weather. So whimsical.
I'm on a major Batman kick (literally?!) this week thanks to Batman Arkham Asylum. Swooping down on escaped inmates and kicking them in the face. It's good times. Or sneaking up behind a guy, smothering him, dropping him gently to the floor and then grappling up to a gargoyle to watch as his comrades discover his unconscious body and freak out. Batman's my kind of guy.
Probably the best part about the game, though, is the voice acting. They got Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman, which is the dream team from the animated series back in my golden childhood. Same Harley, too, but sometimes she delivers her lines pretty bad. The rest of the voice acting is spotty, a lot of bland readings, really. Wish they'd got someone of the Hamill/Conroy caliber for the Riddler, because he's my fave and his voice is alllllllllllll over the game.
Haven't seen him yet, though. I wonder if he's even on the island??
The computers were down at work on Tuesday all day. It was pretty crazy. It wasn't too busy, but the weight of knowing you couldn't just scan things and make everyone happy instantly was sort of unsettling. But it's all better now!
Been watching Torchwood. Bah, it's pretty bad. ALTHOUGH the one I just watched today was the best so far, being that it was actually average+ and I liked it. It was legitimately spooky, and not cornylololol in the slightest (which the one before last was OH SO MUCH). So maybe its cult following has some sense, if it continues to improve.
I guess I'll keep watching.
-Steph
I'm on a major Batman kick (literally?!) this week thanks to Batman Arkham Asylum. Swooping down on escaped inmates and kicking them in the face. It's good times. Or sneaking up behind a guy, smothering him, dropping him gently to the floor and then grappling up to a gargoyle to watch as his comrades discover his unconscious body and freak out. Batman's my kind of guy.
Probably the best part about the game, though, is the voice acting. They got Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman, which is the dream team from the animated series back in my golden childhood. Same Harley, too, but sometimes she delivers her lines pretty bad. The rest of the voice acting is spotty, a lot of bland readings, really. Wish they'd got someone of the Hamill/Conroy caliber for the Riddler, because he's my fave and his voice is alllllllllllll over the game.
Haven't seen him yet, though. I wonder if he's even on the island??
The computers were down at work on Tuesday all day. It was pretty crazy. It wasn't too busy, but the weight of knowing you couldn't just scan things and make everyone happy instantly was sort of unsettling. But it's all better now!
Been watching Torchwood. Bah, it's pretty bad. ALTHOUGH the one I just watched today was the best so far, being that it was actually average+ and I liked it. It was legitimately spooky, and not cornylololol in the slightest (which the one before last was OH SO MUCH). So maybe its cult following has some sense, if it continues to improve.
I guess I'll keep watching.
-Steph
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Happy Birthday Mom!
Happy Thursday! And happy birthday to you, Mom! A little redundant, but pleasant all the same. Her new laptop came today, so they're down there trying to figure it all out.
Have you seen the "ribbon" thing in the new MS Office programs? Where instead of a functional toolbar you have a bit mess of trash? Windows 7 seems a little too spacey for me. C'mon, Windows. Some people like you because you're not a Mac.
So today I made cake and ice cream, and my mom had a half day for parent teacher conferences which she didn't do any of. We watched Morning Glory which was not half as bad as I expected -- I actually laughed quite a bit. Played around with the new laptop, had dinner at Mimi's. The phone was ringing all day with family calling in. Presents and cake and ice cream just now. A million flowers are sitting on the table, some from the store, some to plant, some from our own yard.
Happy Birthday!
Didn't do too much else this week besides beat Portal (well, Carolyn did, I watched and back-seat portaled) which was A) amazing and B) hilarious. Topped it off by playing a ton of Minecraft where several Portal references took form, to the point where I dreamed about using the Portal Companion Cube as a block in Minecraft. Which I suppose is actually something you CAN do in Minecraft, with a texture pack.
Easter happened. I went to work. I broke my headphones. I met Jacqi at Foster Freeze for lunch.
Pretty good week. Gonna go have a food coma now.
Peace,
-Steph
Have you seen the "ribbon" thing in the new MS Office programs? Where instead of a functional toolbar you have a bit mess of trash? Windows 7 seems a little too spacey for me. C'mon, Windows. Some people like you because you're not a Mac.
So today I made cake and ice cream, and my mom had a half day for parent teacher conferences which she didn't do any of. We watched Morning Glory which was not half as bad as I expected -- I actually laughed quite a bit. Played around with the new laptop, had dinner at Mimi's. The phone was ringing all day with family calling in. Presents and cake and ice cream just now. A million flowers are sitting on the table, some from the store, some to plant, some from our own yard.
Happy Birthday!
Didn't do too much else this week besides beat Portal (well, Carolyn did, I watched and back-seat portaled) which was A) amazing and B) hilarious. Topped it off by playing a ton of Minecraft where several Portal references took form, to the point where I dreamed about using the Portal Companion Cube as a block in Minecraft. Which I suppose is actually something you CAN do in Minecraft, with a texture pack.
Easter happened. I went to work. I broke my headphones. I met Jacqi at Foster Freeze for lunch.
Pretty good week. Gonna go have a food coma now.
Peace,
-Steph
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Excel-ing
Happy Thursday! I had to wake up at 7 this morning, which was something new. Tomorrow it'll be back to the regular 9:30 if I have any say in the matter.
The early hour was on account of the sort of job interview I had scheduled this morning. Where they said "show up at 9," and I did and they were all "........we were expecting you later. Come in anyway I suppose we can fit you in." It was a good start.
I did some silly tests which included checking a list of number pairs to see if I could recognize whether each pair was identical or not -- actually a little challenging with my late-blooming dyslexic tendencies! Another was choosing between a pair of words from a list of word pairs, which one appealed to me more. A. forest B. trees. A. discuss B. consider.
Then there was the Word test, which was to copy a memo from the paper and format it and insert a picture and all that. Their stupid programs were set up with the menu bars all disjointed and "user friendly" so that slowed things along quite a bit. They were like tabs across the top, the tab for regular tool bar, tab for the drawing tool bar. So I couldn't find anything.
And then Excel. Copy the data table over and format it, find some totals. Make a chart. Too easy, it was tripping me out. You see, my resume implies that I know my Microsoft Office programs, but when they announced to me last week that at this interview thing there would be an exam on Word and Excel, I ran to Youtube only to find that I actually had no idea at all how to use Excel.
For example: it can do math for you!! I didn't know that before.
If you don't know how to use Excel, and would like to, here's the youtube channel that made me a pro in under a week: MotionTraining's Channel. Informational without being dry, each topic is covered at a nice easy pace. He's British, too, if that helps. But seriously, I watched all his tutorials and already feel pretty confident about using that program.
So the test part went alright, I suppose. In the actual interview I got the feeling that I wasn't exactly the person they were looking for as well as that this wasn't exactly thedroids job I was looking for.
But another experience under me belt. And now I know how to use Excel.
After that, at around, say, tennish, I went home and watched non-educational youtube. Then I took a nap. Then I went to Carolyn's and we beat the Portal 2 co-op. Only took two sessions. And only about two of the puzzles were time consuming. And one of those was the final challenge, so that's understandable. But it was really fun, figuring out how to work the playing field and talking each other through the logic maze that is a successful portal deployment.
Earlier in the week my mom's yogurt maker arrived. It's really more of a yogurt incubator, and it has such a cute sciencey pod shape. But it came with a recipe book filled with uses for your shiny new yogurt, and one in particular stood out. They call it "Greek Macaroni and Meat Casserole." Where basically it's meat and macaroni, only the meat is seasoned with oregano, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and the whole thing gets a yogurty white sauce on it before it bakes. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude it's so good. I'll make it for you some time.
Oh yeah. I was looking up the facebook album if you want to see pictures, and I'd already forgotten I made a cake, too! A roll cake, flavored with instant coffee. Coulda used more. The filling was home-made whipped cream with some cocoa powder and cinnamon. Because normally you might have a chocolate thing with a coffee accent, I wanted to switch it around. It came out alright! More coffee next time, and I'll roll it up better.
Come on over and we'll have a food party.
-Steph
The early hour was on account of the sort of job interview I had scheduled this morning. Where they said "show up at 9," and I did and they were all "........we were expecting you later. Come in anyway I suppose we can fit you in." It was a good start.
I did some silly tests which included checking a list of number pairs to see if I could recognize whether each pair was identical or not -- actually a little challenging with my late-blooming dyslexic tendencies! Another was choosing between a pair of words from a list of word pairs, which one appealed to me more. A. forest B. trees. A. discuss B. consider.
Then there was the Word test, which was to copy a memo from the paper and format it and insert a picture and all that. Their stupid programs were set up with the menu bars all disjointed and "user friendly" so that slowed things along quite a bit. They were like tabs across the top, the tab for regular tool bar, tab for the drawing tool bar. So I couldn't find anything.
And then Excel. Copy the data table over and format it, find some totals. Make a chart. Too easy, it was tripping me out. You see, my resume implies that I know my Microsoft Office programs, but when they announced to me last week that at this interview thing there would be an exam on Word and Excel, I ran to Youtube only to find that I actually had no idea at all how to use Excel.
For example: it can do math for you!! I didn't know that before.
If you don't know how to use Excel, and would like to, here's the youtube channel that made me a pro in under a week: MotionTraining's Channel. Informational without being dry, each topic is covered at a nice easy pace. He's British, too, if that helps. But seriously, I watched all his tutorials and already feel pretty confident about using that program.
So the test part went alright, I suppose. In the actual interview I got the feeling that I wasn't exactly the person they were looking for as well as that this wasn't exactly the
But another experience under me belt. And now I know how to use Excel.
After that, at around, say, tennish, I went home and watched non-educational youtube. Then I took a nap. Then I went to Carolyn's and we beat the Portal 2 co-op. Only took two sessions. And only about two of the puzzles were time consuming. And one of those was the final challenge, so that's understandable. But it was really fun, figuring out how to work the playing field and talking each other through the logic maze that is a successful portal deployment.
Earlier in the week my mom's yogurt maker arrived. It's really more of a yogurt incubator, and it has such a cute sciencey pod shape. But it came with a recipe book filled with uses for your shiny new yogurt, and one in particular stood out. They call it "Greek Macaroni and Meat Casserole." Where basically it's meat and macaroni, only the meat is seasoned with oregano, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and the whole thing gets a yogurty white sauce on it before it bakes. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude it's so good. I'll make it for you some time.
Oh yeah. I was looking up the facebook album if you want to see pictures, and I'd already forgotten I made a cake, too! A roll cake, flavored with instant coffee. Coulda used more. The filling was home-made whipped cream with some cocoa powder and cinnamon. Because normally you might have a chocolate thing with a coffee accent, I wanted to switch it around. It came out alright! More coffee next time, and I'll roll it up better.
Come on over and we'll have a food party.
-Steph
Thursday, April 14, 2011
More Village
Happy Thursday! Don't make coffee frozen yogurt with day-old coffee and honey flavored yogurt. :<
On one of the last days Steven was here, we went to this Indian restaurant on Main street I always drive by and want to go to but never do. We just missed the lunch buffet, but we had some pretty delicious stuff. The garlic naan!!! The korma I had!!! Best any sort of food I ever had. You guys, we gotta go there again.
So then I tried to make my own korma, but it came out as a bland curry, really nothing like the korma I expected, which was too bad. Tried some naan, too, but the dough seemed too dry. Looking back, it's probably because I used Greek yogurt, which is way thicker than the yogurt we normally get here. Baked it was alright, but after it cooled it sorta picked up this funny flavor.
Indian food, why you no cooperate?
But you can get frozen naan at Trader Joe's and stick it in the oven for a few minutes, and that's almost as good as you find in a restaurant. They just put in a Trader Joe's up the street, and if it wasn't so crowded with hippies all the time I'd definitely go there and stock up on naan and stuff. But Indian food would be something I'd like to know how to make at home.
Oh, but I did make some pedas, which I had never heard of, but this site taught me how to make a quick version. I don't know how they're supposed to taste, but these are pretty good. Very sweet. I might have over cooked them a tad.
This week I had two days off at the start, and then the full work week to follow....but halfway through Tuesday they called and said the other store needed a shift covered, did I want to do it? 4 til close, 11 PM. Sheeeeeesh. So I did it. What a busy store! What crazy customers. But I survived. Hoorah.
Oh that's what I was doing on Tuesday. So remember several months ago, when AMC showed their miniseries The Prisoner? Remember how I was all "Seriously, when I get it for my birthday, we are all sitting down and watching it." Well I didn't get it for my birthday, but I did get it for Christmas. And just this last week we watched it for the second time.
It was actually worth the wait, because some details were fuzzed, and there's nothing like watching something again for the first time. Especially something really good that had super strange things and mysteries around every corner. So let's watch that again!
Oh, speaking of, I've got to go catch 30 Rock. The shows are new again this week! How do you feel about Will Ferrell on the Office? I don't think he'll last, personally. I don't think he's meant to, I think he's just a gag filler until they finish this arc and get someone permanent. That's just the vibe I got from the episode, I haven't been reading the trades. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.
Be seeing you.
-Steph
On one of the last days Steven was here, we went to this Indian restaurant on Main street I always drive by and want to go to but never do. We just missed the lunch buffet, but we had some pretty delicious stuff. The garlic naan!!! The korma I had!!! Best any sort of food I ever had. You guys, we gotta go there again.
So then I tried to make my own korma, but it came out as a bland curry, really nothing like the korma I expected, which was too bad. Tried some naan, too, but the dough seemed too dry. Looking back, it's probably because I used Greek yogurt, which is way thicker than the yogurt we normally get here. Baked it was alright, but after it cooled it sorta picked up this funny flavor.
Indian food, why you no cooperate?
But you can get frozen naan at Trader Joe's and stick it in the oven for a few minutes, and that's almost as good as you find in a restaurant. They just put in a Trader Joe's up the street, and if it wasn't so crowded with hippies all the time I'd definitely go there and stock up on naan and stuff. But Indian food would be something I'd like to know how to make at home.
Oh, but I did make some pedas, which I had never heard of, but this site taught me how to make a quick version. I don't know how they're supposed to taste, but these are pretty good. Very sweet. I might have over cooked them a tad.
This week I had two days off at the start, and then the full work week to follow....but halfway through Tuesday they called and said the other store needed a shift covered, did I want to do it? 4 til close, 11 PM. Sheeeeeesh. So I did it. What a busy store! What crazy customers. But I survived. Hoorah.
Oh that's what I was doing on Tuesday. So remember several months ago, when AMC showed their miniseries The Prisoner? Remember how I was all "Seriously, when I get it for my birthday, we are all sitting down and watching it." Well I didn't get it for my birthday, but I did get it for Christmas. And just this last week we watched it for the second time.
It was actually worth the wait, because some details were fuzzed, and there's nothing like watching something again for the first time. Especially something really good that had super strange things and mysteries around every corner. So let's watch that again!
Oh, speaking of, I've got to go catch 30 Rock. The shows are new again this week! How do you feel about Will Ferrell on the Office? I don't think he'll last, personally. I don't think he's meant to, I think he's just a gag filler until they finish this arc and get someone permanent. That's just the vibe I got from the episode, I haven't been reading the trades. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.
Be seeing you.
-Steph
Thursday, April 07, 2011
抹茶
Happy Thursday! It got cold, and my phone thinks it's going to thunder tomorrow. What happened to the summer I was waiting for? :<
I had Spring Break this week because Steven is home on his real one. Super time for adventures!
It started over the weekend where we gathered at Carolyn's house and played her giant Risk game. The thing is flippin huge. There was five of us, and it took about three hours for Steven and Carolyn to jointly take over the world before calling a truce. (Jacqi was allowed to keep a bit of Australia) It was pretty epic.
Tuesday we (same peeps minus Jacqi) woke up hecka early and drove with Carolyn to school. Steven and John and I played pool in the student union, a really fun game called cutthroat. Then Steven's friend who actually attends that school came by and we played regular doubles. When that got old we tried some ping pong, and then we took naps.
When Carolyn finally got out of class we booked it on down to Little Tokyo to see Steven and John take on the Special 2 challenge at Orochon ramen. They've got ramen in increasing levels of spicy, starting at 7 and going to 1, then BEYOND 1 there's Special 1 and Special 2. If you can at Special 2 in a half an hour you get your picture on the Wall of Bravery. I had a 6 and that was spicy enough for me. Steven and John's was a brick red and had sliced jalapenos coating the surface. But Steven did it! And lived! It was extremely impressive and entertaining.
Bought an anpan from the supermarket down the stairs from there after, but it wasn't too great.
Today we attempted panda bread again. Tried different yeast and added more water and a bit of sugar to the cocoa powder before mixing it with the dough. The cocoa modification seemed to work, but the yeast didn't seem to activate this time either. We also did all the kneading by hand, so it never got as rubbery as when we left it to the bread machine. So flavor-wise, today was an improvement, but it's still not yet something I'll consider conquered.
Since Carolyn doesn't really like the tea made from her giant canister of matcha (抹茶) powder, I used some to make some other green tea flavored treats. Chucked some in some ice cream, which didn't follow any recipe but still turned out as ice cream.
Also attempted to make my own anpan, with matcha in the bread. I'd already wanted to make a green tea bread, since that was my favorite part of the original panda bread, so when I was looking up recipes I came across the idea of doing the red bean paste bun with green tea bread. IE matcha anpan.
Used this recipe, which was marvelous. Bought some smooth red bean paste from Mama-ya, which is something I also want to use in anman if I can ever not kill yeast again. The tea flavor and color is really subdued, but the bread itself is probably the best bread I've ever made by hand. Even though I almost ruined it because it was sooooo sticky that I think I must have originally put in two cups of flour instead of three. But we fixed it and they turned out great!
When I put the pictures in Facebook just now I realized those hot cross buns have to be from nearly a year ago -- time to make them again!!
I don't know why no pictures from my six weeks as house chef didn't make it into the album. I only took one of St. Patrick's Day green food. I guess because most of it was salads and economical foods rather than neat looking things like soup in a pumpkin. Because according to that album, I only make snacks and desserts! Which is almost not true at all.
Going to make coffee frozen yogurt with honey blended Greek yogurt when the frozen mixing bowl is frozen again. :3
-Steph
I had Spring Break this week because Steven is home on his real one. Super time for adventures!
It started over the weekend where we gathered at Carolyn's house and played her giant Risk game. The thing is flippin huge. There was five of us, and it took about three hours for Steven and Carolyn to jointly take over the world before calling a truce. (Jacqi was allowed to keep a bit of Australia) It was pretty epic.
Tuesday we (same peeps minus Jacqi) woke up hecka early and drove with Carolyn to school. Steven and John and I played pool in the student union, a really fun game called cutthroat. Then Steven's friend who actually attends that school came by and we played regular doubles. When that got old we tried some ping pong, and then we took naps.
When Carolyn finally got out of class we booked it on down to Little Tokyo to see Steven and John take on the Special 2 challenge at Orochon ramen. They've got ramen in increasing levels of spicy, starting at 7 and going to 1, then BEYOND 1 there's Special 1 and Special 2. If you can at Special 2 in a half an hour you get your picture on the Wall of Bravery. I had a 6 and that was spicy enough for me. Steven and John's was a brick red and had sliced jalapenos coating the surface. But Steven did it! And lived! It was extremely impressive and entertaining.
Bought an anpan from the supermarket down the stairs from there after, but it wasn't too great.
Today we attempted panda bread again. Tried different yeast and added more water and a bit of sugar to the cocoa powder before mixing it with the dough. The cocoa modification seemed to work, but the yeast didn't seem to activate this time either. We also did all the kneading by hand, so it never got as rubbery as when we left it to the bread machine. So flavor-wise, today was an improvement, but it's still not yet something I'll consider conquered.
Since Carolyn doesn't really like the tea made from her giant canister of matcha (抹茶) powder, I used some to make some other green tea flavored treats. Chucked some in some ice cream, which didn't follow any recipe but still turned out as ice cream.
Also attempted to make my own anpan, with matcha in the bread. I'd already wanted to make a green tea bread, since that was my favorite part of the original panda bread, so when I was looking up recipes I came across the idea of doing the red bean paste bun with green tea bread. IE matcha anpan.
Used this recipe, which was marvelous. Bought some smooth red bean paste from Mama-ya, which is something I also want to use in anman if I can ever not kill yeast again. The tea flavor and color is really subdued, but the bread itself is probably the best bread I've ever made by hand. Even though I almost ruined it because it was sooooo sticky that I think I must have originally put in two cups of flour instead of three. But we fixed it and they turned out great!
When I put the pictures in Facebook just now I realized those hot cross buns have to be from nearly a year ago -- time to make them again!!
I don't know why no pictures from my six weeks as house chef didn't make it into the album. I only took one of St. Patrick's Day green food. I guess because most of it was salads and economical foods rather than neat looking things like soup in a pumpkin. Because according to that album, I only make snacks and desserts! Which is almost not true at all.
Going to make coffee frozen yogurt with honey blended Greek yogurt when the frozen mixing bowl is frozen again. :3
-Steph
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Doodles
Happy Thursday! Winter is finally over! It was actually hot today! Let's hope it keeps it up and doesn't run out of steam before summer hits. I don't think I could handle another cold summer.
It's great weather for wandering around, but it would be better if I hadn't ruined my knees the other day doing chalk drawings in the driveway. Not from kneeling, but from crouching and/or standing up and down. Can't go down stairs or bend down to pick something up from the ground anymore. :< I never would have expected chalking to be such intense consequences.
Must practice.
So while we were accompanying Jacqi to the WalMart for some reason, a little box of chalk jumped out so we bought it. This is me and Carolyn. Only a dollar! Put to great use, graffitiing all over my driveway with poorly remembered geek imagery. My favorites are the zombie Charmander and the right-hand curve on the X360 controller. Carolyn especially likes her Pokemon trainer.
Can't wait to recover/buy more chalk, and then we can deface Jacqi's property!
Hung out with them-all today, pretended to play some old boardgames and stuff. Broke me away from watching the Yogscast and listening to the YoGPoD.
Oh also Minecraft updated today to Beta 1.4, and now there are wolves! I tamed some. Very exciting. They are useful because they will fight for you, but that's sort of less useful these days because I've started cheating and setting the time back to morning every night. Ah, the power.
Sad that all my tv was reruns this week. This is why internet programming is catching on -- here I am watching the entire backlog of this one youtube channel on my own time, while they're adding new content almost daily. Wait a week for the new installment of your favorite show? That's so outdated.
-Steph
It's great weather for wandering around, but it would be better if I hadn't ruined my knees the other day doing chalk drawings in the driveway. Not from kneeling, but from crouching and/or standing up and down. Can't go down stairs or bend down to pick something up from the ground anymore. :< I never would have expected chalking to be such intense consequences.
Must practice.
So while we were accompanying Jacqi to the WalMart for some reason, a little box of chalk jumped out so we bought it. This is me and Carolyn. Only a dollar! Put to great use, graffitiing all over my driveway with poorly remembered geek imagery. My favorites are the zombie Charmander and the right-hand curve on the X360 controller. Carolyn especially likes her Pokemon trainer.
Can't wait to recover/buy more chalk, and then we can deface Jacqi's property!
Hung out with them-all today, pretended to play some old boardgames and stuff. Broke me away from watching the Yogscast and listening to the YoGPoD.
Oh also Minecraft updated today to Beta 1.4, and now there are wolves! I tamed some. Very exciting. They are useful because they will fight for you, but that's sort of less useful these days because I've started cheating and setting the time back to morning every night. Ah, the power.
Sad that all my tv was reruns this week. This is why internet programming is catching on -- here I am watching the entire backlog of this one youtube channel on my own time, while they're adding new content almost daily. Wait a week for the new installment of your favorite show? That's so outdated.
-Steph
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Panda, go Panda
Happy Thursday! What have you been up to this week? Got any rain like we did?
Took some rain walks today which were very nice. Feels like Christmas. Went to Fresh & Easy for supplies, and after dinner my mom and I walked to Starbucks. Got to wear my hat all day.
So tomorrow is my last day of my six weeks as house chef. Thanks to me, I lost three pounds! I'm sorta burned out on coming back from work at 10:30 and http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhaving to make lunches for the next day, but I'm also wondering what I'm going to do with all my free time next week.
Minecraft?
Carolyn came over the other day and we attempted panda bread. Historically, I am a yeast-killer, but I tried real hard this time to be gentle. It might have worked, but there were a lot of other wild cards, like the original recipe (though translated from Japanese) being in metric measurements. And also we left the dough unsupervised to go to the post office, and later left it to proof in a coldish place.
There's also that we only got as far as the eyes and forgot to layer the ears in. Oh well. Oh. And how I was trying to bake them (we each made a loaf) at 200 degrees F, instead of 200 degrees C.
Tasted mostly like bread! Any future attempts will most certainly go more smoothly.
I watched three Pokemon movies this week, and one of them I liked quite a bit. I also loved this Pikachu moment where he impersonates Team Rocket's Pokemon. Ahaha. I watched that a million times.
Wrote a song about trains. Played some Borderlands. Played some guitar. Went to work. So exciting round these parts.
-Steph
Took some rain walks today which were very nice. Feels like Christmas. Went to Fresh & Easy for supplies, and after dinner my mom and I walked to Starbucks. Got to wear my hat all day.
So tomorrow is my last day of my six weeks as house chef. Thanks to me, I lost three pounds! I'm sorta burned out on coming back from work at 10:30 and http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhaving to make lunches for the next day, but I'm also wondering what I'm going to do with all my free time next week.
Minecraft?
Carolyn came over the other day and we attempted panda bread. Historically, I am a yeast-killer, but I tried real hard this time to be gentle. It might have worked, but there were a lot of other wild cards, like the original recipe (though translated from Japanese) being in metric measurements. And also we left the dough unsupervised to go to the post office, and later left it to proof in a coldish place.
There's also that we only got as far as the eyes and forgot to layer the ears in. Oh well. Oh. And how I was trying to bake them (we each made a loaf) at 200 degrees F, instead of 200 degrees C.
Tasted mostly like bread! Any future attempts will most certainly go more smoothly.
I watched three Pokemon movies this week, and one of them I liked quite a bit. I also loved this Pikachu moment where he impersonates Team Rocket's Pokemon. Ahaha. I watched that a million times.
Wrote a song about trains. Played some Borderlands. Played some guitar. Went to work. So exciting round these parts.
-Steph
Thursday, March 17, 2011
I Wanna Be A Pokemon Hero
Happy Thursday! And happy St. Patrick's Day! Did you see the green food I made for my parents? So festive. Torn between wearing green and wearing brown and red... such struggles.
So me and Carolyn went and got Pokemon Black and White, respectively. There goes my Minecraft hours. It's a lot better than the last one I played, where everything was so new and confusing. In this one, everything is new but well manageable. The new Pokemon are not so strange, and some are pretty cute! Wanna battle or trade?
I accidentally wrote a song about Pokemon, too, and it's been stuck in my head something fierce. I'm gonna make MDMB record it. HAhahahaha.
What else happened this week? I watched Swordfish and Traitor which were really bad and only okay, respectively. Swordfish was, like, amazingly bad. So bad. Even though it was shot in Ventura and showed my favorite storefront (RIP, Nicholby's). And Traitor was a deep character drama that brought up many interesting discussions in a very bland way.
Can anyone recommend me any good Don Cheadle movies? Or do I have to watch Ocean's 11?
We also went to Jacqi's one day and washed her and Carolyn's cars. And at some point we went to Border's and I finally used the last of a giftcard I'd had for like ten years. I got Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys and Boston's Don't Look Back. Quality albums, the both.
Haha, so that's about how I spent my first week of being 24. Classic rock and Pokemon.
Best Wishes,
-Steph
So me and Carolyn went and got Pokemon Black and White, respectively. There goes my Minecraft hours. It's a lot better than the last one I played, where everything was so new and confusing. In this one, everything is new but well manageable. The new Pokemon are not so strange, and some are pretty cute! Wanna battle or trade?
I accidentally wrote a song about Pokemon, too, and it's been stuck in my head something fierce. I'm gonna make MDMB record it. HAhahahaha.
What else happened this week? I watched Swordfish and Traitor which were really bad and only okay, respectively. Swordfish was, like, amazingly bad. So bad. Even though it was shot in Ventura and showed my favorite storefront (RIP, Nicholby's). And Traitor was a deep character drama that brought up many interesting discussions in a very bland way.
Can anyone recommend me any good Don Cheadle movies? Or do I have to watch Ocean's 11?
We also went to Jacqi's one day and washed her and Carolyn's cars. And at some point we went to Border's and I finally used the last of a giftcard I'd had for like ten years. I got Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys and Boston's Don't Look Back. Quality albums, the both.
Haha, so that's about how I spent my first week of being 24. Classic rock and Pokemon.
Best Wishes,
-Steph
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Welcome, 24
Happy Thursday! I'm so so soooo so full right now. It's disgusting. !! What a crazy and interesting and nice birthday.
So let me tell you about my car. She's a pleasant old boat that my brother used to drive, and before he did, an old lady didn't. She's got a sparkly blue paint job, a real character.
For the past ...forever, she's also made this lovely terrible screeping sound in the engine. It's the belt! people on the street shout to me. I know, I know, I say. So put a pin in that.
My dad's car was in the shop, so we drove my car into LA to go see Eric Clapton yesterday. My dad had a meeting in the afternoon, so I drove out to Chatsworth and lounged in my car listening to the LP concert I had attended (the free download became ready just that morning). Finally it was time to head towards City Walk and see what there was to see before the show.
We got... two miles, and at a stop light something fell out of the engine. !! Lost power steering and the fan, the battery light started blinking because the alternator wasn't running. The needle on the temperature gauge started rising steadily. We limped into a Shell station that seemed to have a mechanic, and got it sorted out:
The screeping sound had been caused by a pulley that had been drifting out of place, pulling the belt out of alignment. This rubber bit inside the pulley had finally melted or snapped, and the pulley itself and just fallen out of of the belt system, just hanging out in the engine. So he ordered a new pulley and we ordered a rental car, and we left my sweet baby in Woodland Hills overnight.
The rental car was a massive minivan with satellite radio and automatic sliding doors on both sides. Meh. It got us to Universal Studios just fine.
Ohhhh Eric Clapton. Where do I start? The Gibson Amphitheatre was a classy venue with nice seats and great sound. Here's a picture. I would guess I was sitting right to the right of that aisle where the shot was taken from. Possibly another section over? Not bad, though. And what with those giant screens, there weren't really any bad seats.
I don't have as much to say about Clapton as I did about LP, because the day had started so early and been so distressing. But I mean, the man can play the guitar. I mean, in case you didn't know. I would say he's just as good now as he's ever been. And in my opinion, the strength of his voice last night was even better than any track or youtube performance I've heard. Maybe it was the sound system? Either way it was amazing.
He was wearing these old jeans with holes in the knees and a green pukka shell necklace, and he looked very sleepy. But he rocked the house. Played Layla unplugged style, played Old Love and Badge and I Shot the Sheriff and two songs from the new album. Before the encore of Crossroads, he finished with Cocaine. It ended like this:
Eric Clapton: She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie...
Crowd: COCAINE
Eric Clapton: *smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile*
It was really great, he's a master. Definitely worth it. Thanks for going with me, Dad!
So today I had to drive the rental car back and pick up my car, and that went okay (as okay as could be expected, but whatever, at least there was a bank within walking distance). Carolyn went with me! And then we swooped by and picked up Jacqi and then my mom from my house and then my dad from VC and we went to the Greek at the Harbor.
Cake and ice cream at my house, and presents! That's why I'm sooo full. From the cake, not so much from the presents. Although Jacqi did bring me cookies. Thanks everybody, for your thoughtful gifts! It was nice to spend the evening with you.
And thanks to everyone else who wrote on my wall and all that, and to my sister who sent me like a million texts. And if I hadn't been on the road all day, I would have talked to more of you on the phone. I'll call you tomorrow!
Right now I think I'mma go pass out in a food coma. Happy 24, everyone!
-Steph
So let me tell you about my car. She's a pleasant old boat that my brother used to drive, and before he did, an old lady didn't. She's got a sparkly blue paint job, a real character.
For the past ...forever, she's also made this lovely terrible screeping sound in the engine. It's the belt! people on the street shout to me. I know, I know, I say. So put a pin in that.
My dad's car was in the shop, so we drove my car into LA to go see Eric Clapton yesterday. My dad had a meeting in the afternoon, so I drove out to Chatsworth and lounged in my car listening to the LP concert I had attended (the free download became ready just that morning). Finally it was time to head towards City Walk and see what there was to see before the show.
We got... two miles, and at a stop light something fell out of the engine. !! Lost power steering and the fan, the battery light started blinking because the alternator wasn't running. The needle on the temperature gauge started rising steadily. We limped into a Shell station that seemed to have a mechanic, and got it sorted out:
The screeping sound had been caused by a pulley that had been drifting out of place, pulling the belt out of alignment. This rubber bit inside the pulley had finally melted or snapped, and the pulley itself and just fallen out of of the belt system, just hanging out in the engine. So he ordered a new pulley and we ordered a rental car, and we left my sweet baby in Woodland Hills overnight.
The rental car was a massive minivan with satellite radio and automatic sliding doors on both sides. Meh. It got us to Universal Studios just fine.
Ohhhh Eric Clapton. Where do I start? The Gibson Amphitheatre was a classy venue with nice seats and great sound. Here's a picture. I would guess I was sitting right to the right of that aisle where the shot was taken from. Possibly another section over? Not bad, though. And what with those giant screens, there weren't really any bad seats.
I don't have as much to say about Clapton as I did about LP, because the day had started so early and been so distressing. But I mean, the man can play the guitar. I mean, in case you didn't know. I would say he's just as good now as he's ever been. And in my opinion, the strength of his voice last night was even better than any track or youtube performance I've heard. Maybe it was the sound system? Either way it was amazing.
He was wearing these old jeans with holes in the knees and a green pukka shell necklace, and he looked very sleepy. But he rocked the house. Played Layla unplugged style, played Old Love and Badge and I Shot the Sheriff and two songs from the new album. Before the encore of Crossroads, he finished with Cocaine. It ended like this:
Eric Clapton: She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie...
Crowd: COCAINE
Eric Clapton: *smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile*
It was really great, he's a master. Definitely worth it. Thanks for going with me, Dad!
So today I had to drive the rental car back and pick up my car, and that went okay (as okay as could be expected, but whatever, at least there was a bank within walking distance). Carolyn went with me! And then we swooped by and picked up Jacqi and then my mom from my house and then my dad from VC and we went to the Greek at the Harbor.
Cake and ice cream at my house, and presents! That's why I'm sooo full. From the cake, not so much from the presents. Although Jacqi did bring me cookies. Thanks everybody, for your thoughtful gifts! It was nice to spend the evening with you.
And thanks to everyone else who wrote on my wall and all that, and to my sister who sent me like a million texts. And if I hadn't been on the road all day, I would have talked to more of you on the phone. I'll call you tomorrow!
Right now I think I'mma go pass out in a food coma. Happy 24, everyone!
-Steph
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Good Eats
Happy Thursday! My sister-in-law is having a Thursday birthday today, so let's all wish her well. Happy Birthday!
Pleasant walk to Target, construction started on my ghost town, dinner with friends and lunches all set out for tomorrow. A nice day off.
So I was never much into salads. Until like, I don't know, maybe within the last year they've started to be okay. Now most days I'm usually making one and sometimes two. My go-to salad filler is romaine, because that's good, it seems more nutrient-filled than iceberg (which is what I grew up on), but not too bitter like some of the darker stuff. Crispy, too. For the three of us, per salad, I'm chopping up an entire romaine heart.
But then what? I started out cutting it with spinach, but my dad wasn't too big on that. Tried a fish salad this week, including cod flakes and steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and green summer squash. A lot of times with chopped nuts and dried things like blueberries and craisins and stuff. We've had a Greek-style salad at least once a week so far, with the tomatoes and cucumber and feta. The one today also had mushrooms and olives and celery, and was strikingly good. I think because it was a combination of vegetables (and fungus!) rather than a heap of lettuce with things in it.
Does anybody have some fun salad ideas? That use lettuce to its full potential or perhaps are some interesting vegetable combinations?
Oh here's one:
Have I told you about Russian potato salad? It's the best. Basically it's all these chopped things, but crazy things, like potato and carrot (boiled), cucumber AND pickle, boiled egg, um, ham. Onion? I like to add frozen peas, give it a nice pop. And it's got a mayonnaise based dressing like regular, and also dill? I forget the recipe I originally used, and there are so many versions out there. It's fun to just put whatever you want in it. I like it with a dash of mustard.
So I made that this week, what with the potato and the egg (I forgot to buy ham or even turkey :< ) and then all the vegetables it would be a full enough meal. Chopped some celery as small as the peas, for a nice crunch. But I wanted to do right by my family, and so instead of using a heap of mayo, I used a heap of garlic flavored hummus. !! Protein boost right there, as well. It worked out just fine, and my mom didn't even realize. That particular hummus had a strong...pickly? flavor to begin with, which I attribute to the garlic. They use garlic in pickle brine, don't they? So it was able to contribute that potato salad tang with, like, a third of the calories.
Also, I like to think that adding celery to anything automatically cuts a portion of the caloric content, being as you burn more calories digesting celery than you got from eating it. Fact.
Dinners have been pretty easy since I've been relying on the frozen Dream Dinners bags for the main course. Dream Dinners is this place where you go and package a bunch of fresh-cut ingredients into dishes they've set out ahead of time, and then you freeze 'em and use them when you want. At first I was all mlehhhhh about it, but now that I'm putting on a nightly show, their convenience cannot be overstated. I just provide the vegetables (mostly salad although today was also grilled summer squash), and maybe a grain product of some sort.
The other day I used their salmon fillets, and added a mushroom and spinach couscous as well as a bag salad. They make 'em with the dressing and stuff, and sometimes that's an easier alternative to chopping the romaine and trying to figure out what else needs to go in it. Gotta start using more of those steam-in-a-bag vegetables, too. Bought one for today but it was too small for all of us and it was delicious. Yellow carrots and navy beans and spinach. Gotta get more of that.
Don't get me wrong, it's not all salads and fish around here! This week we had spaghetti (omega3 grains) and jello and tomorrow they get roast beef sandwiches and chocolate-yogurt covered raisins.
And so do I. :>
-Steph
Pleasant walk to Target, construction started on my ghost town, dinner with friends and lunches all set out for tomorrow. A nice day off.
So I was never much into salads. Until like, I don't know, maybe within the last year they've started to be okay. Now most days I'm usually making one and sometimes two. My go-to salad filler is romaine, because that's good, it seems more nutrient-filled than iceberg (which is what I grew up on), but not too bitter like some of the darker stuff. Crispy, too. For the three of us, per salad, I'm chopping up an entire romaine heart.
But then what? I started out cutting it with spinach, but my dad wasn't too big on that. Tried a fish salad this week, including cod flakes and steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and green summer squash. A lot of times with chopped nuts and dried things like blueberries and craisins and stuff. We've had a Greek-style salad at least once a week so far, with the tomatoes and cucumber and feta. The one today also had mushrooms and olives and celery, and was strikingly good. I think because it was a combination of vegetables (and fungus!) rather than a heap of lettuce with things in it.
Does anybody have some fun salad ideas? That use lettuce to its full potential or perhaps are some interesting vegetable combinations?
Oh here's one:
Have I told you about Russian potato salad? It's the best. Basically it's all these chopped things, but crazy things, like potato and carrot (boiled), cucumber AND pickle, boiled egg, um, ham. Onion? I like to add frozen peas, give it a nice pop. And it's got a mayonnaise based dressing like regular, and also dill? I forget the recipe I originally used, and there are so many versions out there. It's fun to just put whatever you want in it. I like it with a dash of mustard.
So I made that this week, what with the potato and the egg (I forgot to buy ham or even turkey :< ) and then all the vegetables it would be a full enough meal. Chopped some celery as small as the peas, for a nice crunch. But I wanted to do right by my family, and so instead of using a heap of mayo, I used a heap of garlic flavored hummus. !! Protein boost right there, as well. It worked out just fine, and my mom didn't even realize. That particular hummus had a strong...pickly? flavor to begin with, which I attribute to the garlic. They use garlic in pickle brine, don't they? So it was able to contribute that potato salad tang with, like, a third of the calories.
Also, I like to think that adding celery to anything automatically cuts a portion of the caloric content, being as you burn more calories digesting celery than you got from eating it. Fact.
Dinners have been pretty easy since I've been relying on the frozen Dream Dinners bags for the main course. Dream Dinners is this place where you go and package a bunch of fresh-cut ingredients into dishes they've set out ahead of time, and then you freeze 'em and use them when you want. At first I was all mlehhhhh about it, but now that I'm putting on a nightly show, their convenience cannot be overstated. I just provide the vegetables (mostly salad although today was also grilled summer squash), and maybe a grain product of some sort.
The other day I used their salmon fillets, and added a mushroom and spinach couscous as well as a bag salad. They make 'em with the dressing and stuff, and sometimes that's an easier alternative to chopping the romaine and trying to figure out what else needs to go in it. Gotta start using more of those steam-in-a-bag vegetables, too. Bought one for today but it was too small for all of us and it was delicious. Yellow carrots and navy beans and spinach. Gotta get more of that.
Don't get me wrong, it's not all salads and fish around here! This week we had spaghetti (omega3 grains) and jello and tomorrow they get roast beef sandwiches and chocolate-yogurt covered raisins.
And so do I. :>
-Steph
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