It Started with a Journal

I swear I used to be more interesting...

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:01:52 GMT

...or at least made myself post regardless.

1) Work is still insane. I don't even want to get into it except to say that I am a stressball almost all of the time. I haven't been on Tumblr in WEEKS -- that should tell you something right there.

2) I'm also stressing about my Secret Santa fic. It's LESS THAN A MONTH BEFORE IT'S DUE OMG. I just have zero inspiration to write. I mostly know what I want to DO with the story, which is better than where I was two weeks ago, but still. Why can't computers just read the pictures in our brains, then spit out words to describe those pictures? It would make writing so much easier. >.>

3) For those of you who have Xboxes -- first, I hope you are taking full advantage of its free abilities, both gaming and non-gaming. I loooooove using my Xbox as a multimedia beast. Second, if you've ever considered Xbox LIVE Gold subscription (which costs, for a year, less than what you'd pay for about 4 months of World of Warcraft), but aren't sure if you actually want to get it, it's being unlocked this weekend. Actually, it started this morning and will run through Sunday. What that means is that you can just sign in per usual with your free Xbox LIVE account, and all the Gold features will be available to you to check out.

4) I recently watched Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, which is basically an 80-minute movie broken up into five parts. It was really, really good -- surprisingly so. I'm not a Halo player and barely knew any of the story when I watched, but I still totally got into it. It reminded me of BSG, in a good way -- it's just excellent sci fi. The main male star is pretty cute, and the main female star is Anna Popplewell, whom most people know as Susan Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia. There's a cute friendship between them.

It was originally posted as a Web series on YouTube, but only the first two parts are available there now, probably because it's going to be released on Blu-ray in less than a week (and I'll probably get it). The other parts are still available on DailyMotion at the moment. Here's the first part (I recommend watching the series in 1080p):

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

They created it as a promotion for the Halo 4 game, but again, you don't need to know anything about Halo to enjoy the series, and it's complete with the 5 parts. (Just think of it as a movie broken up into 5 segments.) It's gotten great acclaim from the fanbase as well as critics, and I'm here to tell you -- IT'S FAB. Waaaaaaaaatch iiiiiiiiiiit.

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time for some Friday randomness!

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 02:27:12 GMT

I seem to be the only person who's ever on the internet on Fridays. Hello? **echo echo ECHO** But that just means I can be as random as I want.

1) Today was a pretty awesome day. I didn't get into the office until after 9:30. A bunch of people are out of the office, including my two immediate managers, so I took a 2-hour lunch. On the way back from lunch, we decided to get some coffee at the cafe, and on the way we were randomly stopped by a guy who was giving away fancy cupcakes (he was a vendor who was here to schmooze clients). I mean, talk about serendipitous!

2) I sound like the worst employee ever, but you have to cut me some slack. One of my coworkers has left the group for a new job at the company, and until we hire someone to replace her I am doing two jobs. I'm already fairly stressed out about it. :/ And while August was fairly quiet, we are rapidly approaching busy season. I don't know how I'm going to survive.

3) I was also bummed to miss our intern -- it was her last day today as well, and I didn't realize she was going to leave so early. She left a card on my desk, along with some Lush (Whoosh) shower jelly, which was super nice of her. I LOVE LUSH. I'm not as obsessed with it as I once was, but I still love their bath products.

4) I was watching Psych last night (S5E02), and out of the blue, Shawn and Gus are eating hot dogs, and Shawn goes, "These Japadogs are delicious." And Gus replies, "You know, I almost took Lassiter to the Japadog cart once, but I felt like I was cheating." !!!!!!!!!! The show takes place in Santa Barbara, and I was like, whaaaaat Santa Barbara has Japadogs?! (This was one of the places we went to in Vancouver.) Except they totally don't. JAPADOG is only located in Vancouver and New York (and that location only opened this year). Then I remembered that adelagia told me Psych films in Vancouver. So it was a shoutout to that city. :D I love the idea of the whole cast/crew sitting around eating Japadogs.

5) There's a new meme, similar to the "Hey girl" Ryan Gosling meme, only this one involves Jeremy. They all start out "Woman--" and use f**k liberally. And is most decidedly not PG-13, because of language and suggestiveness. Here are a few of my favorites so far. ( #FLAIL )

6) ( Can't get enough of Hawkeye. )

7) I have absolutely nothing going on this weekend. It is great. Maybe I will make cheese, like carrie_leigh did. Maybe I will watch Bourne Legacy for the fifth time. Maybe I will just make some pour-over coffee and read some bad teen lit. WHO KNOWS. THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER.

8) OMGGGGGGGGGG I love my new Blu-ray player. I guess I'm just totally behind the times and don't keep up with technology, but I had NO IDEA you could do so much stuff with them now. I only just figured out how to wirelessly connect my Xbox 360 to my computer so I can watch all the stuff on it; I didn't know you could do that with Blu-ray players now too. WOW! It took me a little bit to configure the settings on my computer and on the player to make it work, BUT NOW IT WORKS AND IT'S AWESOME.

9) I saw this today and totally thought it was Jon Snow. Seriously, doesn't it look like it?! But no, it's not. It's fake Jon Snow.

10) I have just ordered more fancy coffee. I'm so Seattle.

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I have never been nothing. I am the blood of the dragon.

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 16:56:36 GMT

You guys... I had the most unrestful sleep ever last night. Don't you hate it when you dream that you're *doing things*, so you spend the whole time doing those things and wake up feeling like you haven't slept? Well last night I dreamed that I was moving to another country and had to pack up the entire house. Into like, one suitcase. It was 1pm and I had to leave by like 7pm. I was so incredibly stressed out, because there was so much to DO and think about, and I was being all Dudley like, "Can I get my TV into my suitcase?" CRAZY DREAMS.

I swear, I have the worst luck with eBay/Half.com. Jade says that if people had my luck with them, they'd never use them. Anyway, the latest thing is that one of the Xbox games I ordered arrived yesterday. It was the case, the manual, and the bonus disc. NO GAME DISC. Hello that is the most important part!! So now I have to go sort that out. So annoying! The most stressful part is in waiting for the other person to reply, wondering if they're trying to con you (or think I'm trying to con them), or be cool, or if it's going to turn into this ugly contentious thing.

I can't believe how close the deadline is for the dgficexchange. I often wonder, if I were a mutant, what power(s) I'd want to have. Right now it's the ability to turn back time. (A la Curtis from Misfits, except with the ability to control it.)

Though actually, the best power would be Peter's power from Heroes, the ability to absorb and use other powers. Kind of like Rogue, but not as deadly, and he gets to keep the power forever (iirc).

Okay, I finally watched episode 9 of Game of Thrones. Obviously, nothing happens that I didn't already know was going to happen from reading the books, but they did a really great job with it. I'm really looking forward to next week. ( Lotsa spoilers. )

It's the worst time of year here at work... self assessment time. Ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhh. I HATE IT. I feel like it happens *so often*, even though it's only once a year. I feel like it always comes again so quickly. Sigh.

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true fax

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:42:35 GMT

I am not a good person. Today is bagel day and I split two different bagels in half (one cheese, one sesame) and took the tops of both. I wish I could say I'm sorry, but I'm not.

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Recently I upgraded my computer at work. My previous machine had a battery life, of, oh, 2 minutes if it wasn't plugged in, 2GB of RAM, and a 100GB hard drive. Now I have a battery life of 9 HOURS (no joke) unplugged, 8GB of RAM, and a 300GB hard drive (you'd actually think that would be bigger, given the other improvements, but oh well). Speaking of massive hard drive space, over the holidays I got myself a 2TB external hard drive. It's so awesome.

Anyway, because of the new work computer, I had to give my desktop printer away. It was fairly old (though still in great working condition) and the cable was a regular printer cable, not USB, and the new computer only has USB ports. Now I have to use the regular network printers. WOE IS ME. Anyway, an admin from another group said that she wanted it for her team, so last week she came by to pick it up. And I realized that I knew her! From years ago, she actually used to work on our team (not as an admin). We're going to lunch at Pearl in downtown Bellevue tomorrow (she claims they have a wonderful cioppino... my favorite cioppino is at Etta's so WE'LL SEE how good it really is) to catch up. I'm super curious to hear how/why she went from where she was then to where she is now.

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Got an awesome deal today. There was a Groupon for a local movie theater -- 2 adult tickets and a large popcorn for $10. I bought it using the Swag Bucks special offers link, which gave me 315 SBs, which is 135 away from a $5 Amazon gift card, which means a fab deal overall. Woot!

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I'm getting pretty darn good at doing eye makeup by watching those YouTube vids, I must say. It's just that as with most artistic type things, I'm better at imitating than creating. If you gave me an eyeshadow palette and told me to create a unique look, I wouldn't be able to do it. At least not one that looked good, lol.

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I am going to make up a meme from various ones that I've seen. I'm going to list 5 true things, and 1 false thing, from the point of view of a fictional character. You have to guess who the fictional character is, and identify which statement is the lie. :D This might end up being really hard, so let's see how it goes, lol. I'll start with a fairly well known, less obscure one. Let's go!

1. I say I have trouble trusting people, but it seems I don't, really.
2. Sometimes it looks like I got my hair cut by a lawn mower.
3. I have a younger brother.
4. The more preposterous the claim, the more I'll believe it.
5. I like short, smart girls. I mean women.
6. I prefer snacks that are salted and shelled.

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O captain, my captain!

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:49:15 GMT

Tonight corianderstem is taking me to the Stone House for a bday celebration. Woot! I just love that place.

I haven't cooked anything in a really long time... there was Restaurant Week and then my mom and aunt being in town, then it got so cold that I don't really want to be anywhere but under my covers! But last night, after getting my Amazon Fresh groceries, I made a complicated red sauce (recipe given to me by a coworker) that involved pancetta, Italian sausage, and country-style pork ribs. PORK! Also an entire bottle of red wine. The pork rib meat isn't even used in the resulting sauce; you take them out after two hours (and eat them!!); their only point is to infuse more flavor into the sauce. How hardcore is that? The resulting sauce is extremely complex and delicious.

I'm already wibbling because I won't be able to watch Merlin 3x10 at the earliest until late tomorrow night. That means I must avoid LJ like the plague for fear of being spoiled.

All right, you coconut haters, I will admit that coconut shavings are not my favorite. But the FLAVOR of coconut is so awesome!! In fact, I got a Ciao Bella coconut gelato in my Amazon Fresh order. All the flavor of coconut without the shavings. MMM.

Dead Poets Society: one of the best movies of all time. Y/Y?

Tomorrow: massage, pick up chocolate cake, B.'s birthday party, Merlin 3x10. SWEET.

I just found out that these extendable lamps on all our desks that no one uses are these designer ones that cost $375 each. WTF. Seriously, what? I can think of at least 10 better ways to have spent that budget.

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Time for some thrilling heroics.

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:16:35 GMT

The video shoot went REALLY well last night, so I am pleased. Sometimes, I really love people. Basically, when they do what I want. :)) Cab fare, in case you're wondering, was $53.

I've heard/read that cats are nocturnal creatures, aka they sleep during the day and go prowling around at night. Jaime just sleeps when Talis and I sleep. Sometimes he's not in the room when I'm watching TV or writing on my Netbook or whatever, but when the lights go out, he comes in and sleeps with us. On the weekends when I tend to sleep in late, he'll wake up earlier than me, but otherwise sleeps through the night (and on weekdays, I get up before either of them). He doesn't wake me to be fed or anything. This is good because when I start turning on the heater, I'll need to close the bedroom door in order to maximize energy, which I can't do if he needs to come and go.

I was at Walmart last night to pick up toothpaste and a soap dispenser, so I checked the cat toys area and they had the Bouncy Mouse again!!!!!!! This is the beloved mouse that turned all grimy and disgusting that Jaime once liberated from a trash can. I've never been able to find it anywhere else, and the first one I got was the very last one they had, found in a pile of toys like junk. Every time I've checked after that, no Bouncy Mouse. But yesterday they had 4!! I bought all of them. >.>

Alaska has a sale going on for Seattle-Cali right now, and I was just able to buy my winter vacation tickets for $65/one way! :O

akscully just forced me to read spoilers for Merlin 3x10, and ... holy cow. I'll say nothing more. ( Okay. I lied. ONE spoilery comment. )

I've started rewatching Firefly because I got it on Blu-ray, and I'd forgotten HOW MUCH I LOVE JAYNE COBB. And I'm even more into Jayne/Kaylee this time around. I never liked Simon/Kaylee.

I'm SO TIRED this morning despite going to bed at 10:30p last night. Hasn't anyone invented a coffee IV drip yet?

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Only a madman hears the truth as treason.

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:38:34 GMT

I am having work stress. Typically this happens when I am asked to do something that is not a part of my job description, that I've never had to do before. This includes, but is not limited to, managing a video crew and having to edit release forms for participants. WTF? Am I now a TV producer/lawyer? I am really not paid enough for all these massive skills I bring to the table, y/y?

To make things even more fun, I took the bus in today, but the last one leaves before I'll be done, so I have to take a taxi home. And it will be on the company's dime, but it's a PITA and also kind of ruins the dinner plans I had with K. to go to Tavolata. I mean, those probably would have fallen through anyway, because her mom arrived today, but STILL. I don't like options being taken away from me. :P Tomorrow night though, K., our moms, and I are going to Crush, one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle. Psyched for that!

I wrote over a thousand words last night for this Merlin fic I'm working on. I thought it was going to be hard to make sweet and innocent characters like Arthur and Gwen cooperate with my dirty mind, but it turns out they're not so sweet or innocent! Well, okay, they are, but my dirty mind easily overwhelms their feeble protests. HAHA!

I've purchased a hoodie. IT'S PINK. But I bought it online so I don't know if it's going to fit right. Some mediums are really small, whereas others are just right... and then some larges will dwarf me while others are just really roomy and comfy, you know? Last night my ears were fine, but my nose was cold. Really what I need to do is turn on my heater. I'm still resisting though.

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Should we be picking out china patterns or what?

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 22:13:34 GMT

OK all you people who live in Seattle and enjoy food: Restaurant Week is back again! Oct. 17-28 (minus Fri. & Sat.). WHO'S WITH ME?? $25, 3-course meal, awesome restaurants! You know you want to go! I am keeping that entire week+ open so I can go to as many as possible. <g> So let me know if you're interested and we shall plan to go. There are a few restaurants I want to hit for sure -- Dahlia Lounge, Mistral Kitchen, Spring Hill -- but am also open to anything.

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Speaking of food, I've actually been cooking quite a bit, and have just posted a big roundup about it here.

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Dealing with some work insanity the past couple of days. Sigh. And I so tried to avoid having this happen. I wish my work didn't so often consist of making sure other people do their jobs. You're not in control of your own destiny when that's the case, and there's a lot of sitting around worrying about how other things are going so that your bigger picture can fall into place. The good news is that everything went well, despite Murphy's Law coming into play.

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Did someone recommend Patricia Gaffney's To Have and To Hold to me? Was it maybe when I was talking about Laura Kinsale's Seize the Fire and that novel's bastard of an anti-hero? I ask because it was apparently in my library queue so I picked it up yesterday. But what I found odd was that it was an "inter-library loan" (meaning not one of the 16ish libraries in the Sno-Isle library system that basically share a catalogue) -- it's from Harvard-Westlake School in California. O.o How random is that? For that reason it cannot be renewed, so I pretty much have to read it right away (there is a serious back up in my reading queue).

The problem is that there's another one I also have to read right away -- I just got Tongues of Serpents! I think there's a big waiting list for it right now, so I probably won't be able to renew and if I wanted it again would have to wait in the queue all over. It always takes me a page or two to get back into reading a Temeraire novel, because of the language. But it's cool because once I'm back in it, it reads like any other book.

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I finally caved and bought the BSG series on Blu-Ray. There's conflicting reports on exactly what's included (The Plan y/n?), so I'll have to see when it gets here if it's missing anything.

Finally on S6 of XF. I know a lot of people didn't like that season... but I don't know why. It's hands down my favorite season. Almost every episode is totally rewatchable (unlike the second half of S5, after Bad Blood). I guess I like the lighter fare, though I will admit that the lighter fare wouldn't be as good if all the dark stuff hadn't happened to them before that. Still, just last night I saw Triangle, the two Dreamlands, and How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, and I'm only on disc 2! I LOVE YOU SEASON 6, I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS.

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And the VERY LAST TV Show Meme!! I started this way back in June. Wow. O.o I took my sweet time with it, didn't I?

Day 30 - Saddest character death

Since this is potentially spoilery, ( my answer behind a cut. )

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one of my favorite romance novels

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:12:44 GMT

I am filling in for a colleague this week for the first time ever. I had very little insight to his work/processes before. Prior to leaving, he was like, "Should be a pretty light week." Famous. last. words. HE SO OWES ME. It's been completely insane. Talk about trial by fire. His whole team's like, wow, what a time for you to cover for L.! It's been interesting to gain some insight to what he does, though -- and next time I have to cover for him I'll know what I'm getting into.

One day soon I am going to make this chocolate Guinness cake. I'm not a fan of drinking alcohol (mostly because it only takes like two sips to get me buzzed, and soon after that it's tomato face and headache), but I LOVE cooking with it.

I'm re-reading one of my favorite historical romance novels, one by Laura Kinsale called Seize the Fire. In general, Kinsale's heroes and heroines are not cut from the usual romance novel cloth -- she seems to go out of her way to be unique. Even so, this is NOT a romance novel for the typical romance novel reader. The reason I say this is because the hero is such a bastard of an anti-hero. It was the first time I'd ever, EVER read a romance novel with such a hero. I mean, it's *unheard* of. I think I pretty much stopped reading traditional romance novels after this book, because I liked this hero so much -- it was so refreshing -- that traditional heroes just became uber dull. Many people have the opposite reaction as me. :-) Many people hate the book, rant about how it's Kinsale's worst work, etc. Instead, for me, it showed me that I like imperfect, flawed, edgy heroes who might not fit into the traditional description of "hero." Such as, say, Draco Malfoy. :-)

The novel opens with the hero (Sheridan Drake), on a ship that's being attacked. He's just finished his naval career in the British Navy (which he got into because his asshole father tricked him), and he's super pissed off at the idiot whose fault it is that they're under attack and fuming about the fact that he might actually die at sea after finally getting out of the Navy (he's a Captain). Since he figures he's a goner anyway, he whips out his sword "for dramatic effect" and in a rage goes to attack said idiot, but the pitch of the ship prevents the actual attack and he knocks down the guy, effectively getting the latter out of harm's way of a falling mast. After that accidentally he saves everyone from a bomb. Then we see a series of letters from the idiot he had meant to attack, commending Sheridan to the King for his heroic and selfless actions (for which he gets knighted). Hilarious.

A bit further in, there's a heavy petting session between Sheridan and the heroine, Olympia, who is a princess of some tiny country she's never seen but wants to bring them democracy. She's consistently described as "plump," which also goes against the grain of the traditional romance novel heroine, who's usually willowy. In any case, after this session Sheridan's all -- ahem -- worked up, and he says shortly to his valet, "I want the maid. Lily. Lavinia. What the devil's her name?" And the valet's like, "Mary." It's fun to read and I'm sure it was fun to write. Olympia initially thinks Sheridan's a swell guy, hero of the nation, etc. etc., but eventually learns what a bad, bad man he is. And then the fun really starts.

I'd rather be immersing myself in THAT than what I'm currently doing, that's for sure.

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I guess I'm just not hip

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:33:13 GMT

My latest confession: I hate social media. ( Rant under cut. )

So the big hush-hush thing at work yesterday was that my manager is leaving. Sigh. Better than me being fired, but still not great news. He's a really good manager, I like him both personally and professionally, and while I'm happy he's moving on to something he wants to do more, I'm also very wary of what this means for our team. More specifically, what sort of person they'll hire to replace him and how I will get along with this person personally/professionally (because as we all know, asshole/bad managers are the WORST), and more generally, are they going to try to use this opportunity to change our group composition?

This week seems to be crawling by. The last two days I kept thinking/hoping were Fridays. Sigh.

I think I know why I've been feeling particularly tired the last few days. Not only am I kind of an emotional wreck, but Talis has been getting up 2-3 times during the night to drink water. It wakes me up because I'm a light sleeper (and his slurping up water is loud), but what's really irritating is that I usually also have to lean/get out of bed in order to pull him back onto it, because it's too high for him to jump, and he just stands there and whines and whines until I do it. Interrupted sleep is the worst; it makes me feel like I haven't gotten any sleep at all.

While my cousin's here, I'm thinking of taking him to El Gaucho, Steelhead Diner, and Senor Moose. I know, I'm totally obsessed with SM. Maybe after going again on Saturday I'll get over it and won't want to go again so soon w/ my cousin... but I doubt it.

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the only bright spot: garlic

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:12:43 GMT

So very tired today. I don't know why; I didn't get less sleep or anything. In fact, I might've gotten a bit more than I usually do with my new go-to-work-every-day schedule. Still don't feel 100% in terms of emotional health, but I just have to accept the fact that there is absolutely nothing I can do or could've done to make things better. This was just totally out of my hands, and while that in itself brings its own kind of hurt, the sooner I accept it the better I'll be. Of course, it's always been hard for me to trust people and now I imagine it will only be that much harder.

The handyman came this morning to check things out, but not much came of it. He's sure that the insulation in the yard is from the birds, but that doesn't discount other critters. His recommendation is to go with someone who can do the extermination (if any's needed) and the handywork at the same time, and he's going to put me in touch with someone. I don't even want to think about what all this is going to cost, especially if the critters have done any structural damage to the house. He and most people I've talked to about this have all assured me that this is really common stuff. I guess I've just been lucky in that the 5 years I've had the place there really hasn't been all that much work to do... now it's all falling apart! /dramatic He also suggests cleaning the moss off the roof come summer and powerwashing the deck.

Oh but I didn't note the most exciting thing about the yard... the garden! Okay, it's mostly all dead from winter frost and what looks like critters chewing on stuff, but guess what's growing! The garlic I planted! I am very excited about that. It was the crop I really wanted to do well, and which I planted that weren't from seedlings (not that it was hard). The shoots are several inches long now. I should have about 12 garlic bulbs once they're ready to harvest (need to recheck the timeframe, though I know they need to grow a lot more and dry out, that I remember). I'll probably save 3-4 of them for replanting in the fall. The best thing about garlic, other than being delicious, is that it keeps critters away; they don't want to eat it. I do need to get on top of planting other things though, otherwise the lovely garden romanticalgirl's hubby helped me build will go to waste, and it'll be the most expensive garlic ever. LOL. What I'd really love to plant are tomatoes and basil. Need to find out when to start planting those.

Did I mention that I finished "Eclipse"? Thank god it's over. I haven't started "Breaking Dawn" yet and probably won't until next month, after I've written my D/G Exchange fic (which I am behind on and am trying not to freak out about it) and after Esalen. There was a very short period in Eclipse -- about 5 pages -- that I kind of got into and thought, hey, maybe this will turn out to be OK. Nope. SM lost me soon after that. I bet I'm the last person in the world to read this book, but just in case, ( cut for spoilers. )

Hmm, have the sudden awful feeling I might be fired or something. My manager has requested two sudden, out of cycle meetings with two of my coworkers (the 'stars' of our little group) while me and an underperforming coworker did not get any such invite. Ugh, I hate this feeling. Though at this point it might even be a welcome catalyst for change.

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a very long weekend update

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:17:32 GMT

On the TV front:

- Started this show called Pushing Daisies. I'm not sure how old it is, but it's no longer airing and I think it was only on the air for 2 seasons. It's cute, but I find the lead heroine fairly annoying. It's narrated by Jim Dale! I love Kristin Chenoweth (her character name is Olive Snook -- how great is that), though of course I always wish she were singing.

- BSG season 3 FINALLY finished downloading. ( Spoilery comments. )

On the food front:

- Julie and I went to this AWESOME authentic Mexican place in Ballard this weekend, Señor Moose Café. ( My raving gets a little long. )

- I don't think my boeuf bourguignon came out the way Julia Child intended. It's good, but it's not fabulous, and I think it's supposed to be fabulous. Her recipe seems to indicate that there should be way more sauce than I had. Every step of the way it seemed like the heat I was using was too high, even though I was just following instructions. I think I need to use less heat next time. And I confess that due to the Señor Moose excursion, I may have taken the boeuf bourguignon out of the oven 30-60 minutes too late. Also, I have to say that some of the instructions are not as clear as they could be.

- The snail butter came out great. It's really just an herb butter. It smells terrific, and the specks of parsley, garlic, and shallot dotting the butter just looks sooo good. I haven't downloaded the pictures I took yet, but I'm definitely making a post to the food porn community about it.

- Currently I'm soaking beef marrow bones. You have to soak them in salted water (with several changes) for 24 hours in order to get all the blood out. I plan to roast them. This is my second attempt at this; the first time I didn't like it much, but I don't think I followed the soaking instructions so I'm giving it another shot. It always sounds so good when I read about it in Jennifer McLagan's book Bones.

On the work front:

- I celebrated my 10-year anniversary here on Friday. I cannot believe it's been 10 years. My manager's manager joked that I'd been here for 40% of my life, but actually I thought about it, and it really IS 33% of my life, so it wasn't that much of a joke. It's kind of wild to think about, and strangely depressing (even though I'm glad I've had a very good job for so long). I got my 10-year crystal sculpture thing, there were drinks and chocolate cake, and it helped keep my mind off of things going on in my life that could totally cripple me if I let it. So that's good. :-)

On the writing front:

- I have a basic outline worked out for my dgficexchange story, which is a Good Thing. Jade is always a great sounding board for this kind of stuff. Sometimes I use her ideas and often I don't, but everything she brings up is worth thinking about, and it helps me hone exactly what I DO want to do, which is usually the hardest part.

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Funny headlines and other stuff

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:27:08 GMT

So on MSNBC today I read about a woman who ate her ex's goldfish after a spat. Crazy headlines remind me of my favorite one ever: Oregon woman obsessed with rabbits again arrested.

*Again* arrested. "Ranger said she found no rabbits when she finally got inside but did find a half-empty 10-pound bag of carrots." :)) Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

So INSANELY busy at work. The other day consisted of wall-to-wall meetings with 2 half-hour breaks. The one project that came up suddenly went OK, it was delivered yesterday, but one thing went wrong (it always does ... and the aftermath was everything I remembered about this project and why I hated it), and I was so stressed out from that and all the meetings (and some personal stuff) that at the end of the day in my office I just started crying. Luckily it was dark and no one saw me, but I just bawled. And it's not over yet. The other project I'm working on is for Monday. Also, I'm in the midst of switching office phones, but something has gone awry with that so I can't receive incoming calls (but can dial out). Can't anything go right?

I also bought some wall decorations from Blik, and something went awry there too, but luckily not for me so much. They sent me a package that was intended for another customer (when I opened it, I was like, WTF is this? Oh great, they sent me the wrong thing) -- the packing slip has her name/address on it, but the outside packaging had my name/address. Luckily, my actual order came in other packages, so I got my stuff OK.

Here is the cast so far for the HBO pilot of "A Game of Thrones." I'm okay with pretty much all of them except ... is Lena Headey going to dye her hair blonde? I also agree w/ the other fans on the Jamie casting; the guy they chose is a little too ruggedly handsome, Jamie is supposed to be a pretty boy. I don't have any problem with the Jennifer Ehle casting, but I had to crack up at this: "Some see her as a good choice, others say she isn't "pretty enough" or isn't Gillian Anderson." :)) Also, Ray Stevenson as Sandor Clegane would have been SO GOOD ... but I shall endure. Also, the actress they got for Daenerys is nowhere near as pretty as I was imagining in my head. I definitely pictured someone whose features weren't so sharply defined; someone softer.

I'm not too far into A Storm of Swords but I do have a couple of comments. ( Spoilers. )

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Wheee and Grrrr

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:44:38 GMT

I am very proud of something that happened yesterday. I beat Guitar Hero 3 on medium! I know, I am very impressed with myself. The reason this is a big deal is because when I first started playing the game, I breezed through Easy and every level of Medium except for the last. Then I was stuck. The songs I had to beat were, to me, impossibly hard. I was like, I can't friggin believe this is MEDIUM, it's insanity! (I SO cannot get through the Muse song.) Then, a couple of days ago, for the first time in months, I picked up the guitar again and played. And pretty much sucked. But then, yesterday by some miracle, I beat the last song I needed to beat (Metallica's "One"), and faced the devil dude, who I managed to beat on the first try! Victory!! Of course, then the first song on Hard totally kicked my ass, but I worked at it and managed to pass (seriously, that fifth "chord" or whatever is so hard). Woot. Small victories, guys. They matter.

Today I made buttermilk pancakes. I had buttermilk that needed using, and in fact still have a little more left. I don't know what else to do with it as I cannot just drink it straight up.

So I started A Storm of Swords... ( Two minor spoilers. )

My reading on this one may be delayed a bit because I have a library book due that I haven't yet read and I can't renew it because other people have holds on it. It's called The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim. If I don't get into it, then I'm not going to force myself to finish.

Speaking of library books, I really want to get some of that clear plastic film covering they have for their dust jackets. Specifically for my cookbooks, but other books also (because I'm anal that way). With my cookbooks they're in the kitchen a lot and get opened/closed/splattered/moved around, and I want to protect them. I asked two librarians and neither of them could tell me what it was called/what they use. Seriously, USELESS. I consider that kind of basic information, even if they don't do any of the binding themselves. Went to an office supply store and a craft store; neither had it either. Finally I had to go online and find something that I THINK is it. I wanted to be able to see it/touch it though, because there are also those really hard/thick vinyl type covers and that's not what I want.

( And now for a work gripe. )

P.S. State license plates up to 38!

P.P.S. OMFG Barristan Selmy can't possibly be Sean Connery can it?! GRRM, you and your mind games! Someone else suggested Derek Jacobi and that seems far more likely. Still, how awesome would that be??

P.P.P.S. Oh right, they're only casting for the pilot and it's unlikely Barristan would be in it. So the role would more likely be Ser Rodrik, which makes a Connery casting far less likely. Oh wells.

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