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
Thursday, May 26, 2011
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 Carnivàle 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 Carnivàle 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
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Linkin Park at the Staples Center
Happy Thursday! I just entered my code to redeem my free download of last night's audio. Hooray, the internet!
So my ticket says this:
Since this is me leaving suburbia and arriving in downtown LA at 7:30, what can be an hour drive was sure to be closer to two. So I left a little before 5:30 (after cooking all day lolol so precious, off to my big bad rock concert).
It was pretty backed up, and there was at least one crash on the shoulder. But it was alright, I had Mumford & Sons to chill me out. Did some impressive and dramatic lane changes getting from the 101 to the 110 and then again to the 110 three yards later. Actually! I ran into the most trouble of the day once I actually got into the Staples Center at around 7:20.
(Side note: as I was waiting to get in the doors, the plaza started playing Mumford & Sons' Little Lion Man, which had been playing in my car when I parked, so it was a little surreal.)
I've only been in there once before, back in highschool when we took the Germans to a Lakers game. (The Timberwolves won) And even though the streets and area around it are fairly familiar (the AX is right next door at the Convention Center), the interior was a big ol' mystery. I wandered around and around, all the while the clock ticking closer and closer to 7:30.
My ticket says PR13, and all these signs say, like m115, so I had no clue where I was supposed to be, and mentioned as much to at least three ushers. Finally it was revealed to me that I was in "VIP" seating! And need not traverse upon this level, among the crush of the common folk buying their hotdogs and beer.
But seriously, the one lady told me to "turn right, go past the kiosk, and then turn left." And this is with the auditorium behind me....I followed those directions and it was still behind me, so you can see how I might have been confused. I went up escalators. I went down them. Finally when I found the VIP doors, the honest to goodness directions after passing through were "go down, then up."
At 7:42 I texted my mom: Ok I finally found my seat. It's pretty awesome
The PR on my ticket stood for Premier seating, which was the second tier of bleacher seats. I was one row down from the top, right on the aisle, which was cool except for the rail in the aisle was a touch into my line of sight. But that ended up to be not a problem at all.
The stage seemed really close, probably even closer than I was at the Citizen's Business Bank Arena. It was actually set, um, diagonally into the floor? Like instead of being this platform across the one end, it pointed out into the middle, so the farthest spot forward was the corner of the stage, and it tapered back to the sides, so there were people seated nearly behind it, but I bet their view wasn't so bad.
At around 8:20, the opening act took the stage. I think they were called The Prodigy, and they seemed to be some sort of... band... from England. This is what I recalled about them, to entertain you with.
There were two guys in the band. One was the drummer, and he really owned those things. Really impressive to watch, he was a madman. The other guy seemed to be running at least four Macbooks, a keyboard, a synthesizer, and a sampler, and who knows what else.
Oh, there were also two guys whose job it was to hop up and down, holler rhythmically, and point at the audience. There was also a guy who did a fair amount of hopping, and he wore a guitar. Sometimes he wore a bass at around his knees, to little or no effect.
They had the most ADD strobe and lights effects I've ever seen. I had to look at the audience on the floor or else I might have had a seizure and/or exploded. They didn't seem to be too into it. As I watched, a lone man started heaving himself against those around him, all of whom gently swayed back into formation. He tried again (moshing and surfing were actually plainly discouraged by signs all over the doors), until a guy in a white shirt shoved him pretty hard. They faced off for about two seconds, and then everything went back to being perfectly still, like ice frosting over a deep and silent lake.
They played until almost 9:00, and I clapped when it ended. They were to Linkin Park what John Mellancamp was to Bob Dylan: something I wanted to nap through.
But the boys took the stage about fifteen after, and the house went crrrrazy. Apparently it was sold out, and LA is the band's home turf. And Chester's son (his youngest, I gathered) was in the audience with his buddies, and it was his first LP show. So it was really special.
So, you have Joe Hahn running the turntable and the touchpad synthesizer and stuff like that, Rob Bourdon back there on drums, Phoenix on bass, Brad Delson hopping around all over on guitar and also some drums and the megaphone, Mike Shinoda singing and rapping and rocking the keyboards and also pulling on a guitar, and Chester Bennington singing and screaming his lungs out and also drumming and a tiny bitta guitar.
Everybody was singing/shouting along. I didn't, at first, because I wanted to listen, but then it just got impossible not to go along with it. And also because Chester wears himself out and stops being perfectly in tune with the rest of the guys (something I knew from videos), so by singing with him, with everybody, it wasn't so much about listening to the performance but more like... experiencing the experience.
But dude it's soooo much fun to keep pace with Mike during, say, When They Come For Me or Bleed It Out.
They played most of A Thousand Suns, out of order, starting with Wretches and Kings. I know they didn't play Burning in the Skies, probably not Robot Boy, and I don't think I heard Blackout. But the rest of it was all there, including the historical spoken word, which was accompanied by the actual footage of the recording on the big screens behind them. Joe remixed some of it (I think? audio and video) on the fly, to great applause.
Actually, there wasn't much that happened that wasn't received with wholehearted screaming. Well, it's not the Beatles, so maybe not screaming, not like that. More like a mixed-gender, mixed-age crowd roar. But it was like
Chester: You guys are f***ing loud.
Crowd: SCREEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM
Chester: Thank you!
They did quite a range of numbers from every album, even though mostly it was ATS. They are touring for that album, after all. But there were three or four, four or five from each older album. At least from Hybrid Theory and Minutes to Midnight...songs from Meteora I forget which album they came from. But they did Breaking the Habit, and that's surely off that one. But no matter what song came next, be it something brand new or that song from the second Transformers movie (or the first) or track one off album one, it was the right one.
Their first album, Hybrid Theory, came out ten years ago, so the older stuff was pleasantly nostalgic and appropriately so. They wrapped with... was it Crawling? I think so, because that has been a long favorite of mine, sort of the one you're subconsciously waiting for -- are they going to play my favorite? And it's excellent, and then they left the stage, leaving one guitar ringing on an endless reverb loop.
But I knew that wasn't the end, the perfect end would be the last two/three tracks off the new album, they were designed to end a concert. So they came out, and what do you know, Mike's in the spotlight at the keyboard, playing Fallout....then it builds and you're in the middle of The Catalyst... and then it roars to a close and Chester starts The Messenger, giving an warmhearted intro to it, saying it was written like a letter to his kids who are starting to grow up.
And even though this was the encore, and they just performed the ending of all endings, The Messenger isn't the end. They do...something old, I think. At this point, I was just trying to appreciate every moment because I hadn't realized time was almost up until it was too late (luckily the encore was like, 20 minutes. Or seemed that way). I don't remember what they played between The Messenger and Bleed It Out, but suddenly that's rolling along, and everyone's energy is back up to 120%. And then that ends, and in the middle of the noise, Mike steps up and says something about bringing us all back ten years, and then suddenly we're playing A Place For My Head. And then that ends and we're back inside of Bleed It Out.
Oh goodness, so amazing. Looking at other setlists from the tour, I feel like they did In The End and What I've Done in the encore. Probably their most popular singles of all time, now that I think about it. And In The End is so iconic of "Linkin Park." I was pleased and surprised that they played it-- played their older material with as much enthusiasm and energy as anything else. And man, those ones really stood out, with their undefined genre style and unrelenting force. ATS, that can very readily be labeled alternative or electronic, but olden Linkin Park.... there just are no words. Just sit back and listen to them blast it at you.
And then it was all over. Super happy I went.
Oh wait, I forgot about during Crawling, Mike was so excited about the crowd singing along, he stepped down off the stage and sort of...on top of everybody. Immediately sixty hands came out to grab him and pull him into them, but a guard clamped his own hand on the back of Mike's pants and held him in place on the edge. So Mike just slapped hands and waved the mic over them all, and it was super exciting.
It was a really great, enthusiastic, and appreciative crowd. Of all ages, but mostly people in their 30s, I'd say. Some younger kids--when the young Bennington was allowed up to the side of his stage to hug his dad before the encore, he looked ten or eleven. No elderly people, but everyone else from there on down. Not really at all the crowd I had been imagining and fearing all this time. Well, I mean, look at me, I was there.
A Thousand Suns, as an album, was a surprise, something that caught me off guard but in the right frame of mind. It's probably my favorite album out of any album out there, from any artist. This was the right time for me to go to a concert like this. The right time and place, everything. I can't wait to see what they do next.
-Steph
So my ticket says this:
KROQ/GOLDENVOICE PRES
LINKIN PARK
A THOUSAND SUNS TOUR
WWW.LINKINPARK.COM
STAPLES CENTER
WED FEB 23 2011 7:30PM
Since this is me leaving suburbia and arriving in downtown LA at 7:30, what can be an hour drive was sure to be closer to two. So I left a little before 5:30 (after cooking all day lolol so precious, off to my big bad rock concert).
It was pretty backed up, and there was at least one crash on the shoulder. But it was alright, I had Mumford & Sons to chill me out. Did some impressive and dramatic lane changes getting from the 101 to the 110 and then again to the 110 three yards later. Actually! I ran into the most trouble of the day once I actually got into the Staples Center at around 7:20.
(Side note: as I was waiting to get in the doors, the plaza started playing Mumford & Sons' Little Lion Man, which had been playing in my car when I parked, so it was a little surreal.)
I've only been in there once before, back in highschool when we took the Germans to a Lakers game. (The Timberwolves won) And even though the streets and area around it are fairly familiar (the AX is right next door at the Convention Center), the interior was a big ol' mystery. I wandered around and around, all the while the clock ticking closer and closer to 7:30.
My ticket says PR13, and all these signs say, like m115, so I had no clue where I was supposed to be, and mentioned as much to at least three ushers. Finally it was revealed to me that I was in "VIP" seating! And need not traverse upon this level, among the crush of the common folk buying their hotdogs and beer.
But seriously, the one lady told me to "turn right, go past the kiosk, and then turn left." And this is with the auditorium behind me....I followed those directions and it was still behind me, so you can see how I might have been confused. I went up escalators. I went down them. Finally when I found the VIP doors, the honest to goodness directions after passing through were "go down, then up."
At 7:42 I texted my mom: Ok I finally found my seat. It's pretty awesome
The PR on my ticket stood for Premier seating, which was the second tier of bleacher seats. I was one row down from the top, right on the aisle, which was cool except for the rail in the aisle was a touch into my line of sight. But that ended up to be not a problem at all.
The stage seemed really close, probably even closer than I was at the Citizen's Business Bank Arena. It was actually set, um, diagonally into the floor? Like instead of being this platform across the one end, it pointed out into the middle, so the farthest spot forward was the corner of the stage, and it tapered back to the sides, so there were people seated nearly behind it, but I bet their view wasn't so bad.
At around 8:20, the opening act took the stage. I think they were called The Prodigy, and they seemed to be some sort of... band... from England. This is what I recalled about them, to entertain you with.
There were two guys in the band. One was the drummer, and he really owned those things. Really impressive to watch, he was a madman. The other guy seemed to be running at least four Macbooks, a keyboard, a synthesizer, and a sampler, and who knows what else.
Oh, there were also two guys whose job it was to hop up and down, holler rhythmically, and point at the audience. There was also a guy who did a fair amount of hopping, and he wore a guitar. Sometimes he wore a bass at around his knees, to little or no effect.
They had the most ADD strobe and lights effects I've ever seen. I had to look at the audience on the floor or else I might have had a seizure and/or exploded. They didn't seem to be too into it. As I watched, a lone man started heaving himself against those around him, all of whom gently swayed back into formation. He tried again (moshing and surfing were actually plainly discouraged by signs all over the doors), until a guy in a white shirt shoved him pretty hard. They faced off for about two seconds, and then everything went back to being perfectly still, like ice frosting over a deep and silent lake.
They played until almost 9:00, and I clapped when it ended. They were to Linkin Park what John Mellancamp was to Bob Dylan: something I wanted to nap through.
But the boys took the stage about fifteen after, and the house went crrrrazy. Apparently it was sold out, and LA is the band's home turf. And Chester's son (his youngest, I gathered) was in the audience with his buddies, and it was his first LP show. So it was really special.
So, you have Joe Hahn running the turntable and the touchpad synthesizer and stuff like that, Rob Bourdon back there on drums, Phoenix on bass, Brad Delson hopping around all over on guitar and also some drums and the megaphone, Mike Shinoda singing and rapping and rocking the keyboards and also pulling on a guitar, and Chester Bennington singing and screaming his lungs out and also drumming and a tiny bitta guitar.
Everybody was singing/shouting along. I didn't, at first, because I wanted to listen, but then it just got impossible not to go along with it. And also because Chester wears himself out and stops being perfectly in tune with the rest of the guys (something I knew from videos), so by singing with him, with everybody, it wasn't so much about listening to the performance but more like... experiencing the experience.
But dude it's soooo much fun to keep pace with Mike during, say, When They Come For Me or Bleed It Out.
They played most of A Thousand Suns, out of order, starting with Wretches and Kings. I know they didn't play Burning in the Skies, probably not Robot Boy, and I don't think I heard Blackout. But the rest of it was all there, including the historical spoken word, which was accompanied by the actual footage of the recording on the big screens behind them. Joe remixed some of it (I think? audio and video) on the fly, to great applause.
Actually, there wasn't much that happened that wasn't received with wholehearted screaming. Well, it's not the Beatles, so maybe not screaming, not like that. More like a mixed-gender, mixed-age crowd roar. But it was like
Chester: You guys are f***ing loud.
Crowd: SCREEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM
Chester: Thank you!
They did quite a range of numbers from every album, even though mostly it was ATS. They are touring for that album, after all. But there were three or four, four or five from each older album. At least from Hybrid Theory and Minutes to Midnight...songs from Meteora I forget which album they came from. But they did Breaking the Habit, and that's surely off that one. But no matter what song came next, be it something brand new or that song from the second Transformers movie (or the first) or track one off album one, it was the right one.
Their first album, Hybrid Theory, came out ten years ago, so the older stuff was pleasantly nostalgic and appropriately so. They wrapped with... was it Crawling? I think so, because that has been a long favorite of mine, sort of the one you're subconsciously waiting for -- are they going to play my favorite? And it's excellent, and then they left the stage, leaving one guitar ringing on an endless reverb loop.
But I knew that wasn't the end, the perfect end would be the last two/three tracks off the new album, they were designed to end a concert. So they came out, and what do you know, Mike's in the spotlight at the keyboard, playing Fallout....then it builds and you're in the middle of The Catalyst... and then it roars to a close and Chester starts The Messenger, giving an warmhearted intro to it, saying it was written like a letter to his kids who are starting to grow up.
And even though this was the encore, and they just performed the ending of all endings, The Messenger isn't the end. They do...something old, I think. At this point, I was just trying to appreciate every moment because I hadn't realized time was almost up until it was too late (luckily the encore was like, 20 minutes. Or seemed that way). I don't remember what they played between The Messenger and Bleed It Out, but suddenly that's rolling along, and everyone's energy is back up to 120%. And then that ends, and in the middle of the noise, Mike steps up and says something about bringing us all back ten years, and then suddenly we're playing A Place For My Head. And then that ends and we're back inside of Bleed It Out.
Oh goodness, so amazing. Looking at other setlists from the tour, I feel like they did In The End and What I've Done in the encore. Probably their most popular singles of all time, now that I think about it. And In The End is so iconic of "Linkin Park." I was pleased and surprised that they played it-- played their older material with as much enthusiasm and energy as anything else. And man, those ones really stood out, with their undefined genre style and unrelenting force. ATS, that can very readily be labeled alternative or electronic, but olden Linkin Park.... there just are no words. Just sit back and listen to them blast it at you.
And then it was all over. Super happy I went.
Oh wait, I forgot about during Crawling, Mike was so excited about the crowd singing along, he stepped down off the stage and sort of...on top of everybody. Immediately sixty hands came out to grab him and pull him into them, but a guard clamped his own hand on the back of Mike's pants and held him in place on the edge. So Mike just slapped hands and waved the mic over them all, and it was super exciting.
It was a really great, enthusiastic, and appreciative crowd. Of all ages, but mostly people in their 30s, I'd say. Some younger kids--when the young Bennington was allowed up to the side of his stage to hug his dad before the encore, he looked ten or eleven. No elderly people, but everyone else from there on down. Not really at all the crowd I had been imagining and fearing all this time. Well, I mean, look at me, I was there.
A Thousand Suns, as an album, was a surprise, something that caught me off guard but in the right frame of mind. It's probably my favorite album out of any album out there, from any artist. This was the right time for me to go to a concert like this. The right time and place, everything. I can't wait to see what they do next.
-Steph
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Housewifing
Happy Thursday! For the next while I'm the house chef! Or, housewife practice, as some would put it.
Let's see, this week for lunch we had tuna sandwiches, modified cobb salad, salmon sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, tomorrow is peanut butter and jelly. Also salads and little carrots and celery with peanut butter and fruit cups and cookies and asparagus and broccolis.
For dinner we had um, was it meatloaf from the freezer, then leftovers, then ..leftovers again? And then something else from the freezer and then ?? Hm. Dinners I will need to work on.
But the general idea is vegetables, vegetables, also fruits, and then something with protein. I spent sooo much money on vegetables this week. It's pretty fun. I've dropped like a pound.
How was your valentine's day? I watched the Grammys the night before and the folk music performances inspired me to pick up the guitar again. Wrote a song! But it took until today for my hand to heal enough to play it well enough to record. Kids, if you're learning the guitar, don't take breaks! The guitar will not forgive you.
Last... Friday? Saturday? We went over to Jacqi's house and made Korean food. I mostly watched. It was rather good! I think my favorite was the tofu, which was fried in like soy sauce/sesame seed oil/garlic/green onion. I think it must have been Saturday.
And yesterday? Was it only yesterday? No it must have been Tuesday, Carolyn and I saw Harry Potter at the cheap theater. Gonna go see Tron there tomorrow, maybe.
Today I watched Alfie (sorta, after 30 seconds I realized I had in fact seen it all the way through before, so the rest of it was at 10x speed) and The Fountain. My favorite Aronofsky work to date (but that's because I did't like Pi and Requiem for a Dream was well made but sosososooooso dark).
Oh, speaking of the Grammys, check out this band. Can't stop listening.
And Linkin Park is in LESS THAN A WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK.
In Minecraft news, my computer restarted itself the other night and made the server sad. So half my park is destroyed and all of Carolyn's water trap is gone, and my box of treasures is alll disappeared. :< But the church is done, and the graveyard, so people who die in the game can go over there and record it for all time. Or until the server decides to go crazy and move mountains into other people's houses again.
Ok, I got to be packing lunches! Like a boss. I mean, a mom.
-Steph
Let's see, this week for lunch we had tuna sandwiches, modified cobb salad, salmon sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, tomorrow is peanut butter and jelly. Also salads and little carrots and celery with peanut butter and fruit cups and cookies and asparagus and broccolis.
For dinner we had um, was it meatloaf from the freezer, then leftovers, then ..leftovers again? And then something else from the freezer and then ?? Hm. Dinners I will need to work on.
But the general idea is vegetables, vegetables, also fruits, and then something with protein. I spent sooo much money on vegetables this week. It's pretty fun. I've dropped like a pound.
How was your valentine's day? I watched the Grammys the night before and the folk music performances inspired me to pick up the guitar again. Wrote a song! But it took until today for my hand to heal enough to play it well enough to record. Kids, if you're learning the guitar, don't take breaks! The guitar will not forgive you.
Last... Friday? Saturday? We went over to Jacqi's house and made Korean food. I mostly watched. It was rather good! I think my favorite was the tofu, which was fried in like soy sauce/sesame seed oil/garlic/green onion. I think it must have been Saturday.
And yesterday? Was it only yesterday? No it must have been Tuesday, Carolyn and I saw Harry Potter at the cheap theater. Gonna go see Tron there tomorrow, maybe.
Today I watched Alfie (sorta, after 30 seconds I realized I had in fact seen it all the way through before, so the rest of it was at 10x speed) and The Fountain. My favorite Aronofsky work to date (but that's because I did't like Pi and Requiem for a Dream was well made but sosososooooso dark).
Oh, speaking of the Grammys, check out this band. Can't stop listening.
And Linkin Park is in LESS THAN A WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK.
In Minecraft news, my computer restarted itself the other night and made the server sad. So half my park is destroyed and all of Carolyn's water trap is gone, and my box of treasures is alll disappeared. :< But the church is done, and the graveyard, so people who die in the game can go over there and record it for all time. Or until the server decides to go crazy and move mountains into other people's houses again.
Ok, I got to be packing lunches! Like a boss. I mean, a mom.
-Steph
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Eerie
Happy Thursday! Are you enjoying Triple Play Thursday? I am.
Cold lately, no? I was rather enjoying our 70 degree winter. Honestly, I think the average temperature of this winter and fall has to be higher than that of last summer. Remember, remember, the fifth of November gunpowder, treason and plot and its days in the 90s? Everything's backwards.
Slowly but surely I'm converting my workplace into a Minecraft cult. Two down, another about to give in in a matter of days, and the last will have to follow.
:)
I made some ironing beads craft creepers, and a coal. Carolyn printed out some paper craft templates of cute cute creepers and diamond and stuff. She came over on Monday and worked on those, while I did crafts for my mom's play thing she just did at school. Carolyn also came over today, to "study" and do more crafting while I chopped up a bunch of lamb.
Irish stew! Lamb and Canadian bacon. Nice. Irish soda bread (which certainly didn't turn out the way it should have) and Champ, which is just mashed potatoes with other vegetables in it (green onion and cabbage today). Soup had a nice smell, I bet the flavor will really set up over night.
Aaand the other day me and Jacqi hung out at the mall! It was just meant to be because my mom was going to go there, to the Target, so I went along, and while we were there Jacqi called and was all "what are you doing? I'm going to Target." We ate at the China Palace or whatever it's called, and it reconfirmed my suspicions about why I never eat there.
What. I don't know what it means, but there's definitely a penny standing on its edge under my desk. ????
-Steph
Cold lately, no? I was rather enjoying our 70 degree winter. Honestly, I think the average temperature of this winter and fall has to be higher than that of last summer. Remember
Slowly but surely I'm converting my workplace into a Minecraft cult. Two down, another about to give in in a matter of days, and the last will have to follow.
:)
I made some ironing beads craft creepers, and a coal. Carolyn printed out some paper craft templates of cute cute creepers and diamond and stuff. She came over on Monday and worked on those, while I did crafts for my mom's play thing she just did at school. Carolyn also came over today, to "study" and do more crafting while I chopped up a bunch of lamb.
Irish stew! Lamb and Canadian bacon. Nice. Irish soda bread (which certainly didn't turn out the way it should have) and Champ, which is just mashed potatoes with other vegetables in it (green onion and cabbage today). Soup had a nice smell, I bet the flavor will really set up over night.
Aaand the other day me and Jacqi hung out at the mall! It was just meant to be because my mom was going to go there, to the Target, so I went along, and while we were there Jacqi called and was all "what are you doing? I'm going to Target." We ate at the China Palace or whatever it's called, and it reconfirmed my suspicions about why I never eat there.
What. I don't know what it means, but there's definitely a penny standing on its edge under my desk. ????
-Steph
Thursday, February 03, 2011
I'm Back!
Happy Thursday! How have you guys been this week? Good? Good, me too.
Today in Minecraft I'm harvesting trees. But trees take a long time to grow, don't they. Not if you grind up some zombie bones and slap that on your little sapling! I have a little bowl in the sky, surrounded by a cactus army, so if anything comes for me they get demolished down below while I'm safe growing trees by torchlight.
This week, after I was sick, I put all my Minecraft hours into a subterranean park. The spawn point on my server is on a narrow bit of coast between two mountains, so our first base is right in between. The mines go off to the east, and on the top there is the fort, and Carolyn's houses are off past there.... So I went into the original base and started excavating to the west.
One hollow mountain later, we have a lovely botanical garden! It has every form of Minecraft flora except for red mushrooms. I did find one in a cave over the lava cavern, but a creeper busted out from nowhere and destroyed everything. :< Creepers be creepin.
I'm not sure what I want to built next. Maybe the lighthouse? Any suggestions? My dream is to build stately Wayne Manor with the Batcave underneath, but it needs the right conditions and the right location to really work.
This week I watched The Who's Tommy with Beth. I quite liked it! Surprisingly edgy. And on Blu-Ray it looked like it was shot this year; astounding. Check it out, man.
My sister got me a Rolling Stone calender this year, right? And it came with a subscription to Rolling Stone, and I'd been looking for the card to mail in.... but it was nowhere because my first issue just arrived so I guess I was one step behind. But, so, the calender is of past Rolling Stone covers, so there's different bands and artists and stuff every month, and my sister told me I had to listen to whoever was up there each month. January was the Stones, so that was easy peezy. February has Bowie, Rod Stewart, and Elton John up there. Bowie, sure, I'm all about Bowie. --But then, this issue of Rolling Stone that just came features Elton John on the cover. So I guess I can't get out of it.
Two different stations played Tiny Dancer on the way to the theater this morning, it's a conspiracy.
Oh so I thought it was 11:45 but evidently I have a reading disability because I walked into the theater at 11:35 just in time to miss the Disney logo. (because it started at 11:25) I saw Tangled! It was actually really good, simple but captivating. All about how best to manipulate the emotions of a all-too-trusting young girl. Also edgy, in its own way. Voice acting was amazing, and the animation matched it punch for punch--so much so that I'm not sure a live performance could have captured half the emotion exhibited by these characters at times. Truly fluid and nuanced animation, that film.
I guess other than all that, I was just a sicky all week. Amazing how much time it takes up, being sick.
Oh, the one night, though, with the fever, I woke up in the middle of the night in my pitch-black room. "Why didn't I put up any torches!" It was a very serious question, at the time. I mean. CREEPERS coulda been spawning all up in my room!
This game may appear to be simple, but it just chock full of things to keep you entertained.
-Steph
Today in Minecraft I'm harvesting trees. But trees take a long time to grow, don't they. Not if you grind up some zombie bones and slap that on your little sapling! I have a little bowl in the sky, surrounded by a cactus army, so if anything comes for me they get demolished down below while I'm safe growing trees by torchlight.
This week, after I was sick, I put all my Minecraft hours into a subterranean park. The spawn point on my server is on a narrow bit of coast between two mountains, so our first base is right in between. The mines go off to the east, and on the top there is the fort, and Carolyn's houses are off past there.... So I went into the original base and started excavating to the west.
One hollow mountain later, we have a lovely botanical garden! It has every form of Minecraft flora except for red mushrooms. I did find one in a cave over the lava cavern, but a creeper busted out from nowhere and destroyed everything. :< Creepers be creepin.
I'm not sure what I want to built next. Maybe the lighthouse? Any suggestions? My dream is to build stately Wayne Manor with the Batcave underneath, but it needs the right conditions and the right location to really work.
This week I watched The Who's Tommy with Beth. I quite liked it! Surprisingly edgy. And on Blu-Ray it looked like it was shot this year; astounding. Check it out, man.
My sister got me a Rolling Stone calender this year, right? And it came with a subscription to Rolling Stone, and I'd been looking for the card to mail in.... but it was nowhere because my first issue just arrived so I guess I was one step behind. But, so, the calender is of past Rolling Stone covers, so there's different bands and artists and stuff every month, and my sister told me I had to listen to whoever was up there each month. January was the Stones, so that was easy peezy. February has Bowie, Rod Stewart, and Elton John up there. Bowie, sure, I'm all about Bowie. --But then, this issue of Rolling Stone that just came features Elton John on the cover. So I guess I can't get out of it.
Two different stations played Tiny Dancer on the way to the theater this morning, it's a conspiracy.
Oh so I thought it was 11:45 but evidently I have a reading disability because I walked into the theater at 11:35 just in time to miss the Disney logo. (because it started at 11:25) I saw Tangled! It was actually really good, simple but captivating. All about how best to manipulate the emotions of a all-too-trusting young girl. Also edgy, in its own way. Voice acting was amazing, and the animation matched it punch for punch--so much so that I'm not sure a live performance could have captured half the emotion exhibited by these characters at times. Truly fluid and nuanced animation, that film.
I guess other than all that, I was just a sicky all week. Amazing how much time it takes up, being sick.
Oh, the one night, though, with the fever, I woke up in the middle of the night in my pitch-black room. "Why didn't I put up any torches!" It was a very serious question, at the time. I mean. CREEPERS coulda been spawning all up in my room!
This game may appear to be simple, but it just chock full of things to keep you entertained.
-Steph
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Fever
Happy Thursday! Or is it? I guess it's okay. No work, just sat around and was freezing all day, nice 65 degree day. Sick, you see. But no work tomorrow, either, so here's for three days off this week!
I felt it coming on last night, so today I slept until noon. Read some of Keith Richards' book, some of Stanley Booth's book on blues music. Watched a whole passel of Firefly in spectacular Blu-Ray. Just sat there and looked at nothing.
It was the best day ever.
I was planning on getting a haircut today, but hopefully tomorrow. I feel like the kid who has his birthday rained out.
Watched a bit of Who Wants to be a Millionaire today with my dad. It's way different these days. My dad, too, was home as an invalid. He sprained his knee yesterday! :< Poor pops. Sad sack house today, that's for sure.
Blegh I gotta go to sleep. I'm over.
Here's some Peggy Lee to brighten your day.
-Steph
I felt it coming on last night, so today I slept until noon. Read some of Keith Richards' book, some of Stanley Booth's book on blues music. Watched a whole passel of Firefly in spectacular Blu-Ray. Just sat there and looked at nothing.
It was the best day ever.
I was planning on getting a haircut today, but hopefully tomorrow. I feel like the kid who has his birthday rained out.
Watched a bit of Who Wants to be a Millionaire today with my dad. It's way different these days. My dad, too, was home as an invalid. He sprained his knee yesterday! :< Poor pops. Sad sack house today, that's for sure.
Blegh I gotta go to sleep. I'm over.
Here's some Peggy Lee to brighten your day.
-Steph
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Short Week
Happy Thursday! It's a little chilly right now! I'm sad about that. But I guess it is the dead of winter.
Well the other day, Monday, it was super nice out, and we even went to the park and got smoothies and everything. It was a real California Dreamin' sort of day.
We also almost finished Gurren Lagann, three episodes left. It's... hm. I won't exactly be sad it's over.
Yesterday I made waffles for dinner, which were good after I used the newer baking powder. And it turns out you need to leave the waffles in there for a solid ten minutes before they're done. I also made a lovely salad, and I was going to have some of it today, but it was all gone! So sad.
Other than that, I think this week has been work and Minecraft. I'm building a castle! Working on the upper hall, which is made of glass and is practically floating over the rest of it. Then work will commence on the secret dungeon, ooooh.
OH OH AND. I also bought a ticket to see Linkin Park next monthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh WHO'S EXCITED I AM.
Yep, that's it.
-Steph
Well the other day, Monday, it was super nice out, and we even went to the park and got smoothies and everything. It was a real California Dreamin' sort of day.
We also almost finished Gurren Lagann, three episodes left. It's... hm. I won't exactly be sad it's over.
Yesterday I made waffles for dinner, which were good after I used the newer baking powder. And it turns out you need to leave the waffles in there for a solid ten minutes before they're done. I also made a lovely salad, and I was going to have some of it today, but it was all gone! So sad.
Other than that, I think this week has been work and Minecraft. I'm building a castle! Working on the upper hall, which is made of glass and is practically floating over the rest of it. Then work will commence on the secret dungeon, ooooh.
OH OH AND. I also bought a ticket to see Linkin Park next monthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh WHO'S EXCITED I AM.
Yep, that's it.
-Steph
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Minecraft
Happy Thursday! It's unusually warm this week! Terrific. Keep it coming, please.
There were two things I did this week:
A) Watch anime and
B) Play Minecraft.
Oh there may have also been a cooking party. That was this week, right? It had to have been. Okay, we'll start with that.
Jacqi was sick, so that was sad. But she and Carolyn came over, and we tried cooking out of my Asian Grandmother's cookbook that my sister got me for Christmas. We ended up making chicken and waffles. The chicken was from the book (more or less) and the waffles were in my cute waffle maker I also got for Christmas. It was a whole lotta fun, and it wasn't too terrible a meal.
Day before last, it was not warm at all, in fact it was dark and creepy and cold all day. So I watched movies and then made matzo ball soup with the leftover chicken. Curry and matzo ball soup are probably my two favorite foods, and a day like that needs one or the other. And then me and my mom watched a whole disc of Firefly! It was pretty great.
The movies I watched were The A-Team and The Other guys, which were pretty cool and alright, respectively. The day prior I watched Shrek Forever After and The Social Network, which were pretty funny and highly interesting, respectively.
Okay, so I don't remember what day cooking day was, and I don't remember when me and Carolyn watched all that Ninja Nonsense. That was one of the shows we started at the AX this summer, and just now remembered to finish it. I think we finished it...yesterday? And also watched the rest of ICE yesterday?? I don't even know. Ninja Nonsense (or Ninin ga Shinobuden) is ridiculous in the perfect way; conversely, ICE is ridiculous in the worst way. Ninja Nonsense is lolololololol and ICE is ????????????????
Today we ... started? Continued? Gurren Lagann, a show we first heard of/decided to watch at least two AXs ago. It was not exactly what I had expected, but I was starting to get into it...and now we're in the second half and it's a little bit of a disappointment. It started out lololol/wow and now it's mostly ???????
So Minecraft. That's a game where you mine for things with which you can craft. Very simple concept. Oh, here's a good fan trailer. Most of the things you craft are meant to be used in building structures, and here's where it branches out, because if you can imagine it, you can build it. You may have seen my pictures? There's some pretty intense things that people have built, out there on the internet.
Oh yeah, and if you play in Survival mode, when the sun goes down at night...the zombies come.
So that's where my nighttime hours have gone this week. Mining, smelting, building. Setting islands on fire. Punching sheep. It's like childhood adventure play plus legos plus the future. My next projects will be a floating glass ball in the sky and a castle. And a giant sand castle out in the desert. And a secret island you can only get to by tunnel. And a giant chess board. And a lighthouse. Maybe a floating glass castle. It's gonna be great.
-Steph
There were two things I did this week:
A) Watch anime and
B) Play Minecraft.
Oh there may have also been a cooking party. That was this week, right? It had to have been. Okay, we'll start with that.
Jacqi was sick, so that was sad. But she and Carolyn came over, and we tried cooking out of my Asian Grandmother's cookbook that my sister got me for Christmas. We ended up making chicken and waffles. The chicken was from the book (more or less) and the waffles were in my cute waffle maker I also got for Christmas. It was a whole lotta fun, and it wasn't too terrible a meal.
Day before last, it was not warm at all, in fact it was dark and creepy and cold all day. So I watched movies and then made matzo ball soup with the leftover chicken. Curry and matzo ball soup are probably my two favorite foods, and a day like that needs one or the other. And then me and my mom watched a whole disc of Firefly! It was pretty great.
The movies I watched were The A-Team and The Other guys, which were pretty cool and alright, respectively. The day prior I watched Shrek Forever After and The Social Network, which were pretty funny and highly interesting, respectively.
Okay, so I don't remember what day cooking day was, and I don't remember when me and Carolyn watched all that Ninja Nonsense. That was one of the shows we started at the AX this summer, and just now remembered to finish it. I think we finished it...yesterday? And also watched the rest of ICE yesterday?? I don't even know. Ninja Nonsense (or Ninin ga Shinobuden) is ridiculous in the perfect way; conversely, ICE is ridiculous in the worst way. Ninja Nonsense is lolololololol and ICE is ????????????????
Today we ... started? Continued? Gurren Lagann, a show we first heard of/decided to watch at least two AXs ago. It was not exactly what I had expected, but I was starting to get into it...and now we're in the second half and it's a little bit of a disappointment. It started out lololol/wow and now it's mostly ???????
So Minecraft. That's a game where you mine for things with which you can craft. Very simple concept. Oh, here's a good fan trailer. Most of the things you craft are meant to be used in building structures, and here's where it branches out, because if you can imagine it, you can build it. You may have seen my pictures? There's some pretty intense things that people have built, out there on the internet.
Oh yeah, and if you play in Survival mode, when the sun goes down at night...the zombies come.
So that's where my nighttime hours have gone this week. Mining, smelting, building. Setting islands on fire. Punching sheep. It's like childhood adventure play plus legos plus the future. My next projects will be a floating glass ball in the sky and a castle. And a giant sand castle out in the desert. And a secret island you can only get to by tunnel. And a giant chess board. And a lighthouse. Maybe a floating glass castle. It's gonna be great.
-Steph
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Adventuring Day
Happy Thursday! This week was terribly cold, but it seems a little warmer now. Almost like our fake summer this last summer. I'm pulling for an early spring.
Today me and Carolyn went on an adventure! For 8th grade graduation, they took us to this park in Ojai, of which our memories are limited. All I remember is the off ramp (not the one we normally use to get to Ojai), and jumping onto a butterfly to the absolute horror of Mrs. Mittelholtz. So we set out to find it.
Turns out that off ramp takes a 20 minute windy drive from the coast in, and I really really really don't know why you'd take a bus full of kids onto that road, when the regular way is much quicker and safer. And we didn't find the park because we didn't know where to look. So we just wandered to the back of Libbey Park and followed the bike trail all the way to the end. That bike trail, in the other direction, goes all the way to Ventura and ends where my band hangs out, and down onto the boardwalk.
We saw a number of squirrels, some of which were closer than expected. We found an athletics club and a humane society and a golf course and a power plant. It was a good walking adventure. There was also a fake Rocket Fizz, which had its sodas in order by brand rather than flavor.
We took the sane way back to Ventura and stopped off at Mimi's cafe before going to the fish store. I got a cute new catfish! This isn't mine, but that's what he looks like. Just named him Nixonde, where the -de is silent. That means he's Donnie's Nobody, what with the X in there, and if you don't know what a Nobody is, then you really gotta sit down and play Kingdom Hearts as soon as you can.
Then we played some ping pong--did I tell you we got a table for Christmas? We did. And we played on it. Which was very time consuming because it was as good a mind-blanker as Tetris. But then we figured out something better to do, which also got sidetracked by the epic sunset and then cheetahs.
But we finally got to our master plan, which was to watch something of our super long list of things to watch. Well, Ninja Nonsense wasn't exactly on that list, but it's super good and hilarious, so that worked out quite well. Ahahaha so much ninjas and so much nonsense. A+
This was the first week of the new year, wasn't it? Seems like it's been longer than that already. It was a pretty chill start of the year, reading and listening to the BSG compilation CD I made for my mom. People set off fireworks in my neighborhood, which was cool and also I think very illegal.
I think the only other really eventful thing I did all week was to beat Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories. Now I can continue on in 358/2 Days, which I incorrectly identified last week as 356/2 Days. And then play Re:Chain of Memories, Reverse/Rebirth. So many games in one franchise.
Speaking of, I might just go do that. Happy Thursday!!!
-Steph
Today me and Carolyn went on an adventure! For 8th grade graduation, they took us to this park in Ojai, of which our memories are limited. All I remember is the off ramp (not the one we normally use to get to Ojai), and jumping onto a butterfly to the absolute horror of Mrs. Mittelholtz. So we set out to find it.
Turns out that off ramp takes a 20 minute windy drive from the coast in, and I really really really don't know why you'd take a bus full of kids onto that road, when the regular way is much quicker and safer. And we didn't find the park because we didn't know where to look. So we just wandered to the back of Libbey Park and followed the bike trail all the way to the end. That bike trail, in the other direction, goes all the way to Ventura and ends where my band hangs out, and down onto the boardwalk.
We saw a number of squirrels, some of which were closer than expected. We found an athletics club and a humane society and a golf course and a power plant. It was a good walking adventure. There was also a fake Rocket Fizz, which had its sodas in order by brand rather than flavor.
We took the sane way back to Ventura and stopped off at Mimi's cafe before going to the fish store. I got a cute new catfish! This isn't mine, but that's what he looks like. Just named him Nixonde, where the -de is silent. That means he's Donnie's Nobody, what with the X in there, and if you don't know what a Nobody is, then you really gotta sit down and play Kingdom Hearts as soon as you can.
Then we played some ping pong--did I tell you we got a table for Christmas? We did. And we played on it. Which was very time consuming because it was as good a mind-blanker as Tetris. But then we figured out something better to do, which also got sidetracked by the epic sunset and then cheetahs.
But we finally got to our master plan, which was to watch something of our super long list of things to watch. Well, Ninja Nonsense wasn't exactly on that list, but it's super good and hilarious, so that worked out quite well. Ahahaha so much ninjas and so much nonsense. A+
This was the first week of the new year, wasn't it? Seems like it's been longer than that already. It was a pretty chill start of the year, reading and listening to the BSG compilation CD I made for my mom. People set off fireworks in my neighborhood, which was cool and also I think very illegal.
I think the only other really eventful thing I did all week was to beat Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories. Now I can continue on in 358/2 Days, which I incorrectly identified last week as 356/2 Days. And then play Re:Chain of Memories, Reverse/Rebirth. So many games in one franchise.
Speaking of, I might just go do that. Happy Thursday!!!
-Steph
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