Hope you are all enjoying your holiday. I love long weekends. I can sleep in for FOUR days... yes! Such a bonus. pharmaoffshore.com
Today was Buy Nothing Day, of course, and I hope that everyone was able to steer clear of the retail hells out there. I saw many a automobile driving on the streets, the back windows packed to the limit with shopping bags. Pretty sad.
But hey, we honored BND for ourselves, and it was really a good choice. We drove down to Castle Rock State Park (which is down towards Big Basin) this afternoon, to take a hike, enjoy the views, and possibly go Geocaching. Unfortunately, we were a bit late in the day, so the sun was setting fast. We took the scenic route, and stopped along the way to enjoy a lovely valley and ocean view.
Once at the park, we scurried along the Summit Rock trail, with the last fingers of daylight disappearing more and more every minute. Lovely trail, I might add... especially with all the golden leaves falling about. The blue haze of the imminent evening was all we had to see us along the trail... I had to start using the backlight on my GPS to help us along. Hmm. Not too good of a sign, but we pressed on, with about .39 of a mile to the cache.
Darkness was falling. Fast. I could barely recognize the forms of the barren trees around us, and I had to squint to see. My GPS read .28 from the cache, and I peered in the direction that the GPS was pointing. It wasn't comforting to see a fairly large hill ahead... this meant a quarter of a mile uphill? I was afraid that this was not feasible at this point.
Yup, it was. It was a sliver away from darkness, and we would barely make it back to the car before then. So I made the executive decision to turn back. I had almost forgotten that the hike in was mostly downhill, so we had a nice(?) challenging climb back. Jeez, I am so outta shape. I was horribly winded, but we made it back to the car as the day turned into night.
Oh look, a present.
We got a parking ticket for having the car parked after sunset. Grrrr. I guess that Buy Nothing Day bought us a lovely parking citation!
Oh well, I wouldn't trade this experience for shopping any day.
Pretty busy 'round these parts (as it is everywhere), but I wanted to take a minute to shout out to ya folks...
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
I would say "Turkey Day", but I'm actually in the process of making my first Tofurkey. I figured, there will be two turkeys at my family's gathering, so I need to have an alternative as well. I'll still eat some of the bird, tho... especially the fried one.
*drool*
Okay, so I haven't eaten all day. Two loaves of pumpkin bread in the oven that'll be ready in half an hour from now. Then, we feast!
Enjoy your day!
I was honored to be mentioned in Robyn's blog today and I didn't even know it.
Robyn's blog, Ain't too Proud to Blog, is the Second Best Known Blog in "Name that Blog", as well as the woman who brought you the Boobies to Florida campaign that I mentioned a coupla weeks ago.
Here's a link back, cos I share the love... plus, it's her birthday! Go and share your love. Now.
Sorry, I can't stop talking about our favorite roasted bean. This made me snicker.
(snipped from The San Francisco Comic Strip)
I think I'm gonna create a new category in this blog for caffeine. Hey, wait, here it is!
Grr. How annoying is this? They're taunting me, I tell you! I professed my weakness for shiny new things with buttons, and what does Apple go and do?
They have a special sales event on the 29th... which, as you may have read the other day, is Buy Nothing Day, of course.
Yes, it's tempting, but I made the vow. And I'm sticking to it.
Damn you retail devils.
I don't think I've worn my retainer for a couple of months. Bad, I know.
I put in on last night, and to my dismay, the bottom row of teeth were horribly misaligned with the retainer. Grr. Bad me.
So I woke up this morning with incredibly tender teeth... I was groaning from the pain pulsating within my gums. Bleh. I could hardly stand to munch on my toaster waffle (not an Eggo, mind you, but a generic freezer section toaster waffle). At least I don't have to chew my Peets House Blend.
I have decided to try to wear this bad boy all day today. This means that I will have a minor lisp until my tongue gets used to speaking with it in. Bah! Everyone knows that I sound different, but no one says anything... they just look at me funny until they realize I have an appliance in my mouth.
I feel like I'm in Junior High again.
The holidays are upon us. For many, this season brings joy.
Throngs of shoppers have descended upon the shopping meccas of our cities and towns. Strings of Christmas lights, images of a rosy-cheeked Santa Claus and a barrage of holiday sales have been foisted upon us. The commercialism of the holidays are unavoidable. For many, this season will bring stress and empty pockets.
I heartily encourage all of you out there to participate in Buy Nothing Day on this upcoming Friday, 29 November.
Simply don't buy anything. Go outside, spend time with loved ones, read a book... just don't succumb to the retailers' "First Offcial Christmas Shopping Day of the Season". Please do visit the Buy Nothing Day web pages to find out more information, download materials, and read about the history, debates, reports and news about this day.
This year, my holiday gifts will mostly consist of mostly yummy cookies of all sorts and hand-printed photos. Not just because of my lack of fundage, but also to minimize my consumerism during this time. I think that everyone should do something to curb their consumption, especially at this time.
It's especially hard, for the geek in me, who always wants shiny new things with buttons, but I do try. :)
What will *you* do?
This is to compliment the boobies post from last week.
Gucci Hoochie.
If you really need to know, it relates to the, um, other major part of the female body. And plastic surgery. And some bizarre reference to Picasso.
(via email from Tonith)
After over two months, I broke down and bought a cuppa Starbucks today.
*gasp*
I had really been into buying local coffee lately, from the obvious Peets to the awesome Coffee Society (which, I will add, is where we usually have Weblogger Meetups... there's one tomorrow night!).
Tonight, convenience ruled over me. There is a drive-thru Starbucks on the way to my class in Cupertino, so given my lack of time and craving for caffeine, I drive thru. What can I say, the beans were calling my name. At least I had the opportunity to try the newest concoction, the Peppermint Mocha. Pretty good... it made my lips feel all tingly.
I worry that I have been sucked back in. Damn those drive thrus.
What's *your* favorite way to have your coffee?
I have food on the brain.
I so totally diggin' The Sandwich Project (aka the URL of Sandwiches, haha). This site features recipes for many delicacies, such as...
And some strange concoctions such as:
Make sure you visit the site and enter in your own sandwich creations! I'm interested in learning what you peeps pile between a coupla pieces of bread. Heck, I might even try it out, if it sounds appetizing... share some of your faves with me in the comments!
Since this is a UK site, there's plenty of Marmite sandwich recipes for the connoisseur of brown yeast spread... which I do partake in occassionally.
This is the reason that I haven't seen a lot of Kev for the past coupla weeks.
Tonight is the release party for the GeForce FX, which is the first major product release he's worked on. Now it's here, and he can finally sleep.
If you're too lazy to poke through the info, I've run down the juicy info for ya:
Had enough Switch ads? I found a really good one today... and it's an official ad!
Could Momoko Kikuchi be the Japanese Ellen Feiss?
I'm kinda excited. I can understand some of what she's saying... ^_^
... so says the Girl Scout motto. This is a story of my good turn today.
I had some free time this afternoon, so I browsed a coupla Thrift Shops (whoo hoo! A set of art pencils for thirty-five cents!) and drove around the neighborhood. I passed CompUSA once, thought for a second about browsing around in there, but didn't stop.
15 minutes later, I was back.
I was curious to see if The Sims Online was available yet, since I had lost track of it completely. So I found my excuse to go in.
Nope, no Sims Online yet (I know, it's not being developed for Mac, grr. But there is a Windoze machine in this house just for gaming, heh). So I wandered into the small Mac section to see how it was doing.
CompUSA is notorious for not encouraging Mac sales. Their salespeople cringe when customers ask for Mac hardware, software or accessories. You'd think you had just asked them to pull their toenails out or something. Scott Kelby writes about this in his book Macintosh: The Naked Truth. He also suggests ways for us Mac Evangelists to improve the situation. One of these ways is to visit your local CompUSA store regularly and tidy up the Mac section.
Only a die-hard would do that. I guess I'm a die-hard now.
I went around to all the stations... I think there were 3 iBooks, 5 iMacs, 2 G4s and 1 Ti... and I cleaned up all of their desktops, filled up the docks (they were empty, save the trash and the finder icons), and did a general tidying of the area. It was really sad... all the hard drives were named gobbledy gook like "sadfg" or "../.,;". The desktops were chaotic. Open windows everywhere! A nightmare for this minimalist Mac user! It made a difference... even though I didn't physically do much, the section looked clean and consistent from mac to mac. I grinned to myself and walked out of the door, without buying anything, after about 15 minutes.
Who knows if this service will accomplish anything... will someone buy a Mac just because I made them look good? I have no idea. If it helps influence one person's decision to buy a mac, that's good enough for me. Someone has to care, and it ain't gonna be the workers at CompUSA.
So I did my good turn... and a geeky one at that. Maybe tomorrow I'll save the world or find a cure for the common cold.
Nah.
Disclaimer: The following is not an exciting story, but just some venting of frustration. Feel free to skim.
We've had this clog in our kitchen sink for a coupla weeks now. I take responsibility for this one, cos it started after I stuffed some pumpkin guts down the garbage disposal. Not a lot of pumpkin guts, mind you, and I also took care to run the disposal every time I put a scoop full of the orange pulpy mess in there.
Yes, I know, I shouldn't do that again. I don't know why I did it... the 4 previous pumpkins had their guts stuffed into the trash can.
Anyways, the water has been running really slow since then. We used the Drano... twice. Maybe even more over the past coupla weeks. I now know that this is not a good idea. Not only could this junk eat away at the plumbing, but the fumes can be nasty, and the chemicals aren't exactly earth friendly. Couldn't afford a plumber just yet... so we just dealt with the slow running drain for a few weeks.
Last night, we ran the dishwasher. I think that this was the breaking point for the ol' kitchen sink. The basins filled up *completely* and didn't look like it was gonna drain. Lovely. I carried buckets of the murky water to the bathroom to dump it into the toilet. Gross. Once down to a managable depth, I stuffed a towel down into the disposal and started plunging the other basin. A little better, but draining was still extremely slow.
Next came the run to OSH. I picked up a plumber's snake and a Drain King to try to do this myself.
This project was over as soon as it started. I had Kev help me feed the plumber's snake through the drain, only to be greeted by a puddle of water at our feet within seconds.
Oh crap.
The snake had broken straight through through the U-pipe. Happy day.
The pipe was so thin and brittle, I thought it was cheap plastic. Turns out that the pipe is really brass, and it was really really old. We have the plumber here now trying to remedy the situation.
At least we get to deduct this from the rent now.
Happy Friday!
Lots of boobies talk in the blogging world this week.
Boobies will get you everywhere.
Marge Simpson has realized this as well.
(via FARK)
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I just made the weirdest typo ever.
I am answering some review questions for my unix class, and I meant to type "yes".
Instead, I typed "teat".
WTF does this mean?
duh. I iz 1337.
I felt like baking tonight, on a whim. So I took a gander at All Recipes' Cookie pages for something yummy.
I didn't have a lot of ingredients on hand... so I just went with the first recipe that I found that I could make. What I found was Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies. I had just enough stuff to make half a batch.
Holy. Freaking. Crap.
These cookies r0xx0rs my s0xx0rs. Enough so that I had to post about them! I could eat these all night. That prolly isn't a good idea, tho.
I'm running outta milk. ^_^;;
I love Zippy. This strip merits a post:
The question that is burning in everyone's mind is why we're invading Iraq. Zippy and Zerbina help to answer this question.
Or not.
It's been raining a LOT since last night... and it's all windy and thundery, too.
I love this.
Throw a log in the fire, some hot apple cider, warm cookies and ER tonight... what could be better?
The only bummer is that I have class tonight... gotta be there for this one, cos it's midterm time. Weeee!
I'm looking forward to a nice cozy weekend.
I got the ol' trusty Powerbook back today... AppleCare had it for about a week! They had claimed that they couldn't duplicate my problem, so they had to keep her for observation. Sounds awfully serious, donnit?
Well, she showed up with nary a scuffmark, and a new clamshell display. W00t! I think I no longer have an stuck pixels in my LCD. No mention of what the problem actually was, though. *shrug*
So far, so good. Cross your fingers that the problems are over.
Back to work now... I'm back to full capacity, which means I have no more excuses for late work. ^_^;;
So a certain tweenage girl has decided that to rid the house of the smell of her pet mouse, she must spray cheap perfume all over the house. And I mean ALL OVER.
*choke*
I came home from class this evening to find the horrid scent wafting through the front door. My nose wrinkled in disgust. This wasn't gonna help my allergies at ALL. I made Kev open all the windows and doors, as well as turn on some fans. Never mind that it's frickin' cold outside and that it's the windiest day of the year. The house reeks!
I think I spent well over an hour in the garage just waiting it out. While I was at it, I started cleaning the garage. What the heck is wrong with me? Oh well, I guess it was as good of an excuse as any to tidy up the messiest area of our home.
I was hungry for dinner, but I was being driven outta my own home by the sickening smell of "champagne". It's still pretty bad right as I type this... hope I can survive the night.
I just looked at Kev and said, "Hey, she's not *MY* kid, I dunno where she gets her crazy ideas."
I guess it's appropriate, with elections right around the corner, to have a discussion about justice and values. We all know that the elections are full of justice an values, no?
*cough*
Um, so yeah. Here's the Monday Mission 2.44...
1. Have you ever had to appear in court? What was the reason? How did it turn out?
The only time I appeared in court was in Junior High, when we held "Mock Trials" as a part of our Social Studies cirriculum. Otherwise, I've been a good girl.
2. Ever been accused of something you never did? Were you able to convince anyone?
Oh, plenty of times. I guess I shouldn't count all those things I thought were unfair in grade school. I swear, Mrs. Hall, I didn't put that earthworm in the drinking fountain spout. There are always minor mistakes in accusation from day to day ("You left the water running last night!" or "You didn't fill the gas tank!"), but I don't have anything spicy and exciting that I've been accused of, sorry.
3. When it comes to crime and punishment, do you agree with the saying "An eye for an eye?"
I think it depends on the crime. I think hate crimes, murders, rapes and child molestations are unquestionably the crimes that should be most severely punished.
4. Are you a judgemental person? Do you ever make up your mind about a person before you know them? When was the last time that happened? Or if not, how do you keep from being judgemental?
I try to keep an open mind. It's a lot easier now that I am older(!) and wiser(?). I will also say that it is *definitely* easier once you are not living with your family and under parental/familial influence. I try not to let myself judge people before at least having a face-to-face conversation with them. I tell ya, though, it's hard to maintain that standard when it's the jerkball who cut me off on the expressway, or the lady who's screaming at her child in the middle of the supermarket. I guess that doesn't really count, does it? I love meeting and talking with new people... celebrating the diversity in this world is one of the pleasures of life.
5. When I was in 6th grade I lit a match in class accidentally and was given the choice of having my folks called or getting 10 "swats." I took swats and damn, that wooden paddle with the holes drilled in it hurt like hell (not to mention the horible whistling sound it made before impact). I don't think they allow "swats" anymore. Ever get "swats" at school? How do you feel about children being spanked in school. Is it best that they don't do that anymore? How about parents spanking kids? Good or bad?
I don't think I ever got "swats" at school... although the stories of them were greatly exaggerated, since I attended Catholic school for 8 years. Everyone always feared getting whacked with a ruler, but it never happened. My older sister and I got "swats" as kids, but I think my younger brother was free of them. I'm not sure when the age of spanking ended. I think a single swat on the bum, firm but not violent, is okay to get a kids' attention, but NOT putting them over your knee and smacking them till they're red.
6. What is your favorite "Chick Flick?"
Umm... I don't really watch chick flicks. If this counts, I would say Amelie. (Sorry, Promo, I know you didn't care for it!)
7. Describe the last situation you were in that can best be summed up by the phrase "seemed like a good idea at the time?"
I know... stuffing pumpkin innards down the garbage disposal. Why not? I had already thrown out the guts of 4 other pumpkins in the trash, so this shouldn't overload it. I was carving the last pumpkin of the night, and decided to cram the guts down the drain. I thought I was doing the right thing by running it every time I put a spoonful of stringy orange pulp into the disposal, so it wouldn't clog. Wrong-O! It ended up backing up the U-pipe under the sink. We're still trying to recover from it... the drain runs awfully slow still.
BONUS: Who will bury us when we die? Actually... I hope that I get old before I die.
SFGate: 'Fair trade' fan puts coffee on: Berkeley coffee measure gives brewers jitters
We're not in Kansas anymore. I know I'm back in California when a local city's ballot features a measure to regulate what is poured into their coffee cups.
Does this mean that your favorite barista (hmm, Eric?) is gonna get put behind bars for serving you that cup of Major Dickason's Blend? Extreme cases say yes.
Farking absurd, I tell you. What happened to freedom of choice? Something as simple as our morning java will be decided upon by our government? Feh, I say... FEH on all of them!
I think that it should be a matter of educating the customer... let them be aware of what it takes to make their cup o' coffee. What exactly is "Fair Trade" coffee? Let the consumer make the choice on his own terms.
Most of you who are loyal readers know how important my coffee is to me. They can take my travel mug when they pry it away from my cold, dead fingers, that's for dang sure!
