sweetmercifulcrap: the meringue on the key lime pie is underdone, the meringue and chocolate chip cookies are overdone, i think i mistakenly added the sugar meant for the carmelizing step on the crème brûlée to the custards themselves, i only just realized that i have to buy butane for my culinary [blow]torch, and i have a splitting headache. :(



i hope to be back to my regularly posting schedule tomorrow, thursday latest. i'll post pics of the food if they actually turn out to be pretty and/or edible. ;)

at least a foot: i may be walking in a winter wonderland, but Cleo needs to be carried—the snow's much deeper than she is tall! poor little poochie...

did i tell you i would be working from my Massachusetts satellite office all week? i'll be working from my Massachusetts satellite office all week. ;)

Did I say death camps? I meant happy camps!



Bush Ordering Limited Missile Shield



Hundreds of Muslim Immigrants Rounded Up in California



Bush Administration to Propose System for Monitoring Internet



Orwell was only about two decades off.

bah humbug: don't take this the wrong way, but i hate doing Christmas cards. ...mostly when i get this late of a start and have sooooo much other $#!+ to do. ugh...



but many thanks to herself for sending me a holiday card! i find that i'm typically rendered momentarily speechless when my internet life manifests itself in the off-line world. get well soon, Nicci!

dear St. Anthony... i don't know why i even bother cleaning—it's the best way for me to lose stuff. :(



who knew there was a patron saint for nursing mothers?



addendum: once again, ol' Tony comes through in a pinch! i'd missplaced one of the rent checks i've been mailing for a deployed friend. where did i find it? in the file of car-related paperwork i'd organized yesterday. waHOO!

Crete pics are live! just so you know, the majority of the pictures were taken on my last day in Hania, after J. had already returned to work. please excuse my beginner's attempt at being "arty."

arrgh! i am unbelievably swamped with work and other things and am going to have to pull my first all-nighter since my freshman year Philosophy exam to get everything done before leaving for MA at o'dark hundred on Saturday! bah!

it's just been a Cleo kinda day:

Settlement Drops Charges Against 'Miss Cleo'



LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - The TV psychic known as "Miss Cleo" won't face charges in a Florida lawsuit after the company that put her on TV agreed to a settlement.



Access Resource Services Inc., the company that trademarked the Miss Cleo name and bought countless late-night TV ads marketing her phone psychic services, agreed to a $44 million settlement with the state of Florida. The state attorney general's office had brought a suit against the company, charging it engaged in deceptive trade practices.



The company was also involved in a similar federal suit, which was settled last month when the company agreed to forgive $500 million in customer bills, the AP reports. Access Resource Services agreed to give refunds to customers and stop its pay-per-call services as part of the settlement.



Miss Cleo, whose real name is Youree Dell Harris, was dropped as a defendant in the Florida case after the settlement was filed. Her lawyer, William Cone, says Harris is happy with the outcome and will continue her "active practice as a shaman."

don't squeeze the shaman. ;)

old habits fade quietly: i just realized that i haven't logged on to Metafilter in weeks.



that's all i have to say about that.

to reserve or not reserve, that is the question.

Christmas comes early for Cleo: i never thought i'd consider buying a sweater for my dog, much less owning one small enough that necessitated outerwear, but it's getting pretty chilly 'round these parts. at least i didn't get her one of those embarassing ones, with a christmas motif or some other such canine fashion faux pas.



i haven't had her try it on as yet, but i have serious doubts as to if she'll actually stand for wearing the dang thing. hopefully she'll sit still long enough for me to snap a pic.



while i at the Care a Lot warehouse, i also picked up a few decorations for the kitchen! where else can you get sock monkeys for so cheap? i still want to try my hand at making one one of these days...



addendum: oh she is so pissed at me!

reflections of our Cretan vacation.

color me impressed: get a load of this—i'm posting from my frickin' car dealership! the 'Ssat (as opposed to the 'Scort) was just shy of overdue for an oil change, so i thought i better haul her in before my trip up to the 'rents (third time in as many months) this weekend.



turns out the dealership got a major facelift (i hardly recognized the place!) and has a fantastic waiting room which includes two computer terminals connected to the internet! you know i like that. unfortunately, that gives The Mister a little leverage in making car maintenance my chore... ;)

Thank you for your purchase! Your order is being processed. i finally got my act together and just purchased the TiVo Series 2 60-Hour DVR from Catalog City!



between the $50 TiVo rebate, the $25 discount code that i used, and the fact that i shopped through Ebates (2% discount), i should get a pretty good deal on this thing. let's just hope that all of my thrifty wrangling doesn't bite me in the end.

get your mind out of the gutter there, guy. from the work wire:

Although Fox News has reportedly attempted to exploit a slip-of-the-tongue by anchor Shepard Smith last month, during a report about Jennifer Lopez, Smith himself is insisting that the flub was simply embarrassing.



In a Dec. 13 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Smith called the incident "really awful," adding, "I would never do anything like that on television intentionally. ... We do a lot of joking on our show, but our show can't become a joke."



He told the Times that on the night of the incident (Nov. 4), he canceled dinner plans and returned home, where he worried that his career might be over.

planning a wedding before the ink is dry on your second set of divorce papers might be expensive, but being called out [via a Freudian slip] on your 'ho-ness by an anchor on the top-rated cable news channel? priceless.



[via Show Biz Data]

rock and a hard place: a friend of mine from school (Lynch, for those in the know) has been working out of his comany's Bosnian office in Sarajevo for the last week or so and is due to come home soon. while coming home usually feels pretty good, something's holding him back.



in the last few days he's been swept away by a brown-eyed heartbreaker, and no matter how much she wants to return his love, their relationship is sadly doomed. he's given her more affection that she's probably ever had in her life, and she's done all that she can to return it in kind. for as open as the borders are, she will probably never leave her war-torn country, much less move to the U.S.



see, a few nights ago Lynch met Bosna, a poor stray pooch that a woman said would be killed if it were found after dark. with a dog of his own at home, he got the ok to bring it back with him to his hotel where he bathed it several times, has been feeding it virtually nonstop, and even scheduled for a vet to pay a housecall so she can get a check-up! he's looking for a home to adopt the adorable mutt, but only has one semi-decent lead thus far.



any ideas on how to either get Bosna a good home in Sarajevo or back to the States would be greatly appreciated.

"Yo, Dan, just give her the Wand already." Katie's over the $5—it's payback time.



[via defective yeti, the latest discovery by kris]

the many facets of drawing blood: word to the wise—the next time you need to look up the phone number for your local blood donation center, check out givelife.com or redcross.org, but don't click on blood.org ...unless you like a little more pain than your average needle-stick.



i didn't link it for good reason—porn pop-ups abound. ugh.

Born. Eat. Shag. Die.He’s been gone.

A LOT.

But I’ve managed to stay distracted:

Friends new and old, projects, travel…

Thirty-nine days left!





Sum up your 2002 in 20 words.[via everybody]

MacArthur: and i'm not talking Christmas shopping.



so i'm back and surprisingly not all that exhausted. especially considering the fact that i followed up 21 hours of travel with dinner & drinks with the Wicks and then several hours on the couch to stay up for and watch the season finale of the Sopranos. then again, i don't know if i ever switched over to Crete time, what with all of the afternoon naps and insomnia that respectively indulged in and dealt with over the last week.



now i can give you the details without having to subsequently kill you: flew out on 12/6 to meet my man in the town of (C)Hania (pronounced han-YAH), which is in the prefecture of the same name in Crete, current property of the Greeks (much to the apparent chagrin of the Turks).



i flew in a day early to give my body a chance to adjust to the time change, but didn't really think about the fact that that meant i would be spending the first night at our hotel all by my lonesome. fortunately it was already mid afternoon by the time i got settled in the hotel, so i just spent the evening putting clothes away, getting myself all clean and spiffy, and sleeping...



J. had said that he would try to "leave the office" before noon on 12/8, so when eleven o'clock (four am my body time, BTW) came and went without any word of any kind, i started to get a little worried. then I remembered that E. always builds two hours in to her husband's ETA, and tried to convince myself that i wouldn't start my worrying [in earnest] until 2pm (aka 14:00).



CNN World News (the only English-speaking channel on the satellite TV, save a few American movies & shows that were aired with Greek subtitles) kept me company for the next hour or so, until i got a knock at the door. i answered it to find The Mister and just about knocked the both of us over giving him four and a half months of hugs and smooches right there in the doorway. ;)



i'll spare you the full recap of our trip, but suffice it to say that we wandered the length and breadth of the Old Town, did zero shopping (even if i did see something i wanted, the shops keep the oddest hours and were never open when we actually left the hotel), had our fill of fantastic (and cheap!) Greek food (with off-the-beaten-path Tamam being our favorite restaurant), and spent a lot of time together in the hotel...reading, napping, blahblahwinkblah...



The Mister looked great and seemed to be doing just as well. he said that the hardest part of the six months is over with and sees no reason why he won't be home on schedule.



any attempt by me to describe how elated and relieved I was to see and be with him will decidedly fall short of the mark, but then i think those of you who are up to speed on the last few months have an idea. ;)

i deserve a break today: one leg down, two to go and i already feel like poop. i think i'm gonna go scare up an egg mcmuffin before trading these euros in for greenbacks. see you in the states. :)

coming to you live and direct... (if anyone can catch the late 80's reference in that, i've got some sort of prize for you)



anyhoo, just wanted to give y'all the brief travel update: i made it to my hotel without too much incident, The Mister arrived the following day as scheduled, a lack of transport and decent weather made for a wonderfully lazy week together, he made it back to his "office" this morning and i'll be making like a tree myself tomorrow and getting the heck outta here. killing time alone in a strange city is unnerving, but at least the sun is out and i've got six days of smooches under my belt to make the time go a bit faster.



i'll post again from the athens (and yes, kris, i'm talkin' GREECE) airport, time permitting, and then get back to my regular blogging scheule just as soon as the jet lag wears off and i'm able to string coherent sentences together once again.



one word of warning: stories and anecdotes will be few and far between as we really did spend the whole week holed up in our hotel. ;)

OMG! i'm in freakin ATHENS--how knice am i?



yeah, and what am i doing? posting to my site (from a free internet terminal in the airport--you know i'm wherever web access is) and trying to check e-mail...too bad this terminal is running an ancient version of explorer that hotmail no longer reconizes so i can't check my usual accounts... :(



i'm in freakin ATHENS! puck yeah!!!

again, with the crazies: working on getting everything—work, cleaning, laundry, packing—done at the last minute before leaving tomorrow afternoon to start my journey that should (fingers crossed) lead me straight to The Mister. wish me luck! :)

Godspeed, Harry—get home soon, George (and especially Art)!

when we gonna pay the guide dog? SING IT! To Hell With Good Intentions. listen to it.

'tis the season, part deux: for the second year in a row, i am buying myself christmas presents and not feeling bad about it. see, last year The Mister was hardly around and this year...if i have to spell it out, you're visiting me for the first time, so be a love and check out a few posts, will you?



anyhoo, i'm excited to see that i've been properly self-shopping thus far, as i've already bought one "gift" off of the Morning News' Holiday Gift Guide can you guess what it is? the list is short, many items can be eliminated straight off the bat, and i have nothing but faith in the brainpower of my readers. ;)



note to self: scam some La Mer samples the next time i shop somewhere fancy...

mmm...Virgin Mary: no, not that Virgin, this one. Spicy Hot V8 is soooo tasty and it has the added bonus of helping to ward off any possible colds that could make my upcoming visit less than smooch-tastic.



google bonus link: (Virgin) Bloody Mary Sorbet. part of me is revolted at the thought of it, the other part is trying to figure out how much vodka i could put in there and still have it freeze properly... ;)

you know i was hoping to be cookie monster:

The Count's Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: It started with a simple affection for counting and the terror it induced in others, didn't it? But now it's turned into a full-blown life-consuming chaotic nightmare of order, repetition, zealousness, and perfectionism.



You used to be so grand, but now you find yourself obsessively worrying over the littlest things—like, maybe if you don't check the light switch at least once every two minutes, the electricity will go out (and damnit, you're a vampire—that shouldn't be a problem!), or maybe if you don't wash your hands until your seams are coming out, you'll get some fatal disease. Get yourself some treatment.

Which Sesame Street Muppet's Dark Secret Are You? Brought to you by Quizilla



oh, i'll be getting myself some treatment, bub, in about six days.



Six! Six days until sex! Mwahaha!



google bonus link: The Count vs. Count Chocula.

'tis the season: i love me some advent calendar. it's only day three and i already have a favorite!

you can take the roomiefriend out of college, but you can't take the roomiefriend out of the girl. turns out i accidentally took HH's denim jacket upon my departure from her house two weekends ago, leaving my own behind. now, i'm not a total idiot—they were the same brand and size—but you think that i would have looked for my jacket somewhere other than their closet.



my reasoning isn't totally whacked—i just assumed that they were all neat and tidy, what with their grown-up home-owner lifestyle! not that they're not neat and tidy, by any means... ;)

kinda like looking under the bed and snooping through the closet, but not: i just hacked into my mom's amazon.com account to take a look at what i thought was her wishlist—i had caught a peek of it when i was logged on to her laptop when i was home last week—only to find that it was actually a list of recommendations. curses!



keep in mind, that when i say "hacked" what i really mean is "correctly guessed her password by using the PIN that everyone in the family uses for their ATM cards."

just sign here, here, and here...and initial here: does anyone have a pool started on how long J Lo and Ben will last? good frickin' gravy.

note to self: frost those windows. techniques 1 and 2, courtesy of not martha (who else?)



ps—i'm home!

it's anything but wafer-thin: the ND vs. USC game is making me physically ill. call me a traitor, but i think i'm going to bed.

USNA drama off the work wire:

NAVAL ACADEMY SEIZES STUDENT COMPUTERS



The U.S. Naval Academy has seized computers from the dorms of some 100 students, claiming that they contain illegally downloaded movies and music, the Capital-Gazette reported Saturday.



The raid on the dorms was carried out on Thursday while the midshipment [sic] were attending class and were prompted by letters the Academy had received from several entertainment industry trade groups including the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America.



Academy spokesman Cmdr. Bill Spann told the newspaper that punishment for illegally possessing copyrighted material could range from a court-martial to loss of leave.

the chances of this kind of thing happening at a state school? zero. those poor mid$#!++ers just can't catch a break! but then i guess if the MPAA and RIAA are going to make an example of college students, it should be the future leaders of our country. still...



just an aside, in addition to the misspelling of "midshipmen", the article made the factual error of referring to the students' domicile in the plural. there's actually only one dorm—one enormous dorm—on the USNA campus, Bancroft Hall.

crankypants: it's been almost four days since i last heard from The Mister...which, if i stopped to think about it, could really be a good thing, considering we're almost into countdown mode for my TransAtlantic visit. i know no news is good news, but when J. goes this long without even a quick "i'm busy—love you" e-mail, i start checking CNN for ship news. i hate that i'd hear something from the mainstream media before the horse's mouth...

next phase: now i'm working out of my satellite office in the Berkshire Hills of Masachusetts, also known as the 'rents' house. not a whole helluva lot to report other than the fact that i'd forgotten how frickin cold it can get up here!

in brief: i arrived in the greater boston area on friday afternoon, exhausted from the 10.5h drive that i managed to do on less than four hours of sleep. my already late bed time on thursday was exacerbated by the fact that i was on the phone with the cops way past midnight since i caught some guy across the courtyard from our condo yanking his own chain in my general direction.



i caught him after pretending to go to sleep after having heard a few wolf-whistles and i wanted to see what the hell was going on. curiousity may not have killed this kitten, but it sure did turn her stomach and piss her off but good.



whacked out perverts aside (looks like i picked the right time to get out of town!), i've been having a great time with H&G (their pooch, Wrigley, seems to have a puppy-sized crush on Cleo the Ice Queen) and am looking forward to heading west to see my folks tonight.

that familiar feeling:

Fucking up my own life wasn't enough. It was imperative that I include other people into the equation.

was this guy following me around during my roaring 20's or is that whole self-destructive streak just some sort of maturational cliché?



ok, so when i'm not proving myself a liar re: my blogging abstention claim, i like to make-up words and check out this guy's gallery of cartoons drawn on the back of business cards. starting right. now.



aside to Jenny G. (and Rob, if you're still around)—you especially should check these out. example:

New York is magical. In a "who are these people in my fucking way" kind of magical.

[via freakgirl]

brigita went to Greece and all she got me was this Illegally Acquired "Living Dead Doll"

"These toys constitute a serious threat to the smooth formation and development of the child's personality and mental health," the Development Ministry said in a statement.

i'll tell you what constitutes a serious threat to the smooth formation and development of the child's personality and mental health—childhood, which of course is quickly chased with the pains of adolesence.



and yeah, i'll be keeping my eyes out for these buggers in a few...er... oh, nothing. ;)

afflicted with a case of the crazies: i'm trying to fit in two days worth of work between this morning's yoga class and this afternoon's massage (i know—poor me) before heading off to MA tomorrow (Boston for the weekend, Berkshires for a few days, then back to Boston for the Big Eats)... busybusybusy!

smells like late-twenties ennui: something stinks. literally.



this is terribly embarassing, but a few days ago i noticed an slight odor here in my home office that just won't go away. i've taken out the trash, wiped down my work station with yummy Mr. Clean, and tried to sniff out the source to the best of my ability, but to no avail. the smell is actually strongest when i'm just sitting at the computer—and yes, i've showered within the last 24 hours, thankyouverymuch.



i think the offending stink might be coming from the potted tree just behind me as i dumped several tablespoons of worm tea into its soil a few days ago. the fact that i neglected to dilute the stuff before applying it may both be causing the odor problem and be the reason why one branch of the tree dropped all of its leaves the other day. live and learn [to live with the nasty smell]...



BTW, i found another great vermicomposting resource, for those so inclined. ;)

again, with the timing: so i've finally decided to give in to temptation and buy a TiVo—the free shipping, $50 rebate, and complementary DVD of The Lord of the Rings definitely greased my wheels—only to realize that i won't be around for delivery next week! that's right, i'm going out of town for the holiday and will only have a four day window upon my return before heading off to see The Mister (fingers ever crossed). i guess i should just wait until i get back from my trips to take the plunge.

Never Again Volunteer Yourself. i was poking through old e-mails when i came across the following. i thought you might like a little peek into what shipboard life is like for The Mister:

1. Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 6 months straight.
   
   
2. Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the outside of the walls.
   
   
3. Pump 10 inches of nasty, crappy water into your basement, then pump it out, clean up, and paint the basement "deck gray."
   
   
4. Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go the scummiest part of town, find the most run down, trashy bar you can, pay $10 per beer until you're hammered, then walk home in the freezing cold.
   
   
5. Perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower.
   
   
6. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays turn your water temperature up to 200 degrees, then on Tuesday and Thursday turn it down to 10 degrees. On Saturdays, and Sundays declare to your entire family that they used too much water during the week, so all showering is secured.
   
   
7. Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling.
   
   
8. Have your next door neighbor come over each day at 5am, and blow a whistle so loud that Helen Keller could hear it and shout "Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up."
   
   
9. Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in the back yard at 6am and read it to you.
   
   
10. Eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days straight, then lock the bathroom door for 12 hours, and hang a sign on it that reads "Secured - contact OA DIV at X-3053."
    
    
11. Submit a request form to your father-in-law, asking if it's ok for you to leave your house before 3pm.
    
    
12. Invite 200 of your not-so-closest friends to come over, then board up all the windows and doors to your house for 6 months. After the 6 months is up, take down the boards, and since you're on duty, wave at your friends and family through the front window of your home...you can't leave until the next day.
    
    
13. Shower with above-mentioned friends.
    
    
14. Make your family qualify to operate all the appliances in your home (i.e. dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc)
    
    
15. Walk around your car for 4 hours checking the tire pressure every 15 minutes.
    
    
16. Sit in your car and let it run for 4 hours before going anywhere. This is to ensure your engine is properly "lit off".
    
    
17. Empty all the garbage bins in your house, and sweep your driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not.
    
    
18. Repaint your entire house once a month.
    
    
19. Cook all of your food blindfolded, groping for any spice and seasoning you can get your hands on.
    
    
20. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, randomly losing every 5th item.
    
    
21. Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch CNN and the Weather Channel.
    
    
22. Have your 5-year-old cousin give you a haircut with goat shears.
    
    
23. Sew back pockets to the front of your pants.
    
    
24. Spend 2 weeks in the red-light districts of Europe, and call it "world travel."
    
    
25. Attempt to spend 5 years working at McDonald's and NOT get promoted.
    
    
26. Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house after your neighbors have gone to bed.

64 days and a wakeup...

i put the @$$ in classy:







You're classy! You're smart, suave, sofisticated and probably think you're better than everyone else. There's nothing wrong with being picky and having high standards, but get real. The world is not as perfect as you.



oh yeah, i'm one "sofisticated" lady.



What kind of girl are you? brought to you by Quizilla

i know he's not a monster, he's just been "surgically enhanced," but i still couldn't help but think MJ was threatening to drop the baby out the window when i first saw this picture.

Kato!

sleepyhead: i didn't wake in response to my 5am alarm to see the meteor shower this morning. now i don't feel so bad about it.

bored now ^*... bored now? indefinite break? come back soon, Nicci!

brace yourselves for impact: just a bit of warning that brigita might be experiencing a major mental meltdown in the next few days. take a look at what i woke up to this morning:

don't be alarmed yet, but we may need to look at Red 8 for our visit. is our tix changable? this is definately for sure, just want to cover our bases.

yes, we have a code set up for all of the potential port visits. too bad my International Mister of Military Mystery can't spell or get his verbs to agree properly and left out the "not" in "this is not definately [sic] for sure..." but he's no dummy—just rushed.



after taking the dog out for a dry-eyed and only moderately cuss-filled stroll, i returned home to the following:

I think it's a false alarm. details being worked now. things look okay. I may be talking to you sooner than expected though.

just a peek into what we military spouses (ok, wives but don't you dare throw around the term "dependent" within earshot of me—i'm dependent upon my sweetlovingman, not his friggin paycheck) have to deal with on a daily basis, whether our man is in port or at sea, constantly being jerked around and having even the most reasonable of expectations plowed under.



ever the strategist, i did poke around to find that the flight that was supposed to deliver me to Blue 4 does fly into the Red 8. so if, if things need to be changed, i won't be totally screwed.



well...

flipping the bird: if you're thinking about doing a little something different with your turkey but are a little intimidated by the thought of deep frying it or assembling a Turducken, why don't you try my mom's cheesecloth trick?

• Unfold cheesecloth to a single thickness and cut into a length that will cover the turkey.
  
  
• Melt 1/2 lb. of butter in a small saucepan and add 1/2 tsp. each of fresh or dried sage, thyme, marjoram and crushed rosemary. Place cheesecloth in the pan and completely saturate.
  
  
• Place turkey breast side up on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Add 1/4 inch water and several quarted onions to the pan.
  
  
• Place turkey in oven and reduce heat to 350 degrees. After 10 minutes, drape butter soaked cheesecloth over the bird so that it is completely covered.
  
  
• After an hour, baste turkey every 30 minutes, keeping cheesecloth moist. Remove cheesecloth for the last 30 minutes of cooking time to crisp skin.

i'm pretty sure she stole the recipe from Martha, but who's counting? MMM used this method when making his first turkey a few thanksgivings ago and it came out great. well, it looked great (i even have pics, but not online) but i didn't actually have any since it was my first thanksgiving as a vegetarian.



incidentally, that was also the very same thanksgiving that The Mister told me that he loved me for the very first time. obviously, i did get around to saying it back, a little more than a month but a whole lot less than a whole year later. ;)

Les jeux sont faits. Translation: the game is up. Your ass is mine. who knew Ed Rooney would be saying this kinda stuff to kids for real? yikes.

it does a body good: i stopped by to check and see when the Great Guinness Toast would be this fall/winter with little luck but still spent way too much time surfing the website, perusing possible Christmas gifts—for myself, of course—(i'd buy this face plate in a heartbeat if i had a compatible cell phone), was surprised to find a total lack of nutritional information to dispell the 1000 calorie per pint myth, and and for one of the first times ever, i've been determined to be "The Quiet One."

Holds his pint tilted inward, close to his chest under his chin, with his elbow tucked in as if attempting to protect himself from unwanted advances (unless, of course, someone wants to shoot him a pint). Instead of bringing the glass to his mouth, he brings his mouth to the glass. Hand not holding pint is often stuffed into pocket.



Maybe he’s shy. Maybe he is a man of mystery. Chances are he just needs another GUINNESS®. They always tell you to watch out for the quiet one…

maybe i'm the quiet one since i tend to spend more time drinking than chatting when i've got a pint in my hand.

call me now for your free reeedin'! no wonder our Miss Cleo was acting out so much last night. she owes a lot of people a lot of money. ;)

smaht @$$^*: so i'm not going to talk specifics about the results of my five minute IQ test, but i will say that my score perfectly intersects my SAT score from back in the day. crazy, no?



[ via freak girl]

It eats you, starting with your bottom: everyone who was wowed by last night's episode of Buffy, raise your hands.



yowza. Jonathan's dead body provided the blood necessary to do something really Armageddon-esque to the talisman that he and his hallucinating Troika buddy uncovered, Spike's fallen off the chip wagon and gotten his evil back, and Buffy got her head shrunk by a newbie vamp that i couldn't help but find kinda sorta dreamy, even if he wasn't all that cute in the face.



oh yeah—Dawn actually kicked some @$$! remember how no one would let her do "research" during the Glory days? how has she been able to practice all of that hellraising magic (or should i say "magicks?" erg, the pluralization bugs) without the Scoobs knowing? i'm glad that i actually care about the series again, first time this season. bring on the bloodlust Spike!

rude, crude, and socially unacceptable! ever wondered what the legal definition of obscenity and indecency in regards to television and radio broadcasts is?

Obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time. To be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test: (1) an average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. See Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

i won't get started on the whole warped "sex bad, violence good" puritanical nonsense that plagues the American legal system, but it is kind of funny to see some of the fines that have been levied against a number of radio stations, including a few that i used to listen to from time to time.

aside to my crafty mamma: you really have to get your bridal tiaras and headpieces on the web, mom. the ones you did for meg and i (no good pics for me) are so much better than these $250 oogli tiaras.



speaking of all things bridal...







i couldn't be bothered to complete the rest of the BrideAudit™, being that i couldn't estimate the annual income of my friends even if i wanted to.

true to form, here's the weekend report a day late. ;)



after a particularly rough start, i had a most wonderful time up in the Greater Baltimore area this past weekend. after having tied a few too many on on thursday night celebrating E's 30^th birthday, i actually managed to crank out a decent amount of work friday morning, get packed, drop the pooch off at the spa (aka E&D's place) and get on the road before 2p.



between the traffic (three cities worth of weekend rush hour, two accidents, and some snarling in B-More) and my raging hangover, i was very happy to arrive at my destination both safely and soundly. we out-of-towners were staying with our good friend J9, who lives with two roommates in a very cute brownstone in a gradually gentrifying neighborhood.



we took it easy that night, just grabbing a bite of Greek food and spending less than an hour drinking macrobrews at a loud, crowded, stinky, and sweaty bar. we spent the majority of that time marvelling at how old we've become and how surprisingly happy we are to be boring.



the next morning, we were up pretty early, although no where near as early as J9 and Lan, who dropped the car off in the Ravens' lot for later tailgating. we taxied over and spent the morning stuffing our faces with various foodstuffs from the grain group: bagels, doghnuts, beer...



now this is where i need to give you guys the schpeal (sp?) i'd been giving everyone else who would listen that morning. not only was i down because The Mister wasn't there—that fact glaringly apparent considering who we were playing—but that was also the weekend that i was originally supposed to be with him over in Gibraltar (the mystery port)...for our anniversary.



blahblah pitypartycakes.



for as much as i tried to control the outpouring of virtiol, frustration, and sadness, i think i did way more than my share of dumping on the people around me. and for that i apologize, guys—thanks for listening and putting up with my "poor me" whines.



i surprised myself that day by actually rooting against the Irish for the first time in a decade, hoping that The Mister's alma mater and team mates would be able to pull it out against ND for the first time in almost 40 years. ND's winning streak in its series with Navy series is an NCAA record for most consecutive victories over one opponent. the last time the Midshipmen beat the Irish was in 1963, led by Roger Staubach at quarterback.



but enough with the history. it was a beautiful day, we had great seats in the shade, and Navy had put together a handful of really entertaining "spirit spots" (including a Lego mock-up of a scene from Goldfinger, starring 003 (as in 2003) and Greenfinger, as well as a Middy vs. Domer take on Officer and a Gentleman) which definitely helped sway me to the Navy side. the clincher was when they put up a bit announcement on the JumboTron™ that if Navy won the game, all the students would get a liberty weekend. talk about tugging at this Navy wife's heartstrings!



we were all pretty worn out that night and were just barely able to stay upright during a party thrown by J9 and her roommates. after a solid night's sleep, we had a fantastic brunch at a local café, said our goodbyes, and i hit the road. i'll spare you the details about my pit stop at Ikea. :)

Happy Birthday, Dad! i hope the card made it in time. :)

roll call: if you surf this site on a semi-regular basis, would you be a doll and sign in under the comments (click on the number or Ø to the right of the time stamp)?



i learned this past weekend that i have a lot more visitors that i know [from my off-line life, and yes i do have one] and would love to see y'all post every once in a while. give it a try!

the insult/injury equation: what's worse than going to the dentist to find out that you have to have a troublesome filing replaced again (and will probably have to pay for it since you're unwilling to go back to the same hack who ruined your teeth in the first place)?



coming home to find that you missed your husband's call. here's to hoping he really will be able to call back later.

damn the liquor, i miss my husband!!

further proof that i am the best girlfriend (and wife) ever: i am indulging The Mister's love for 70's game show kitch (especially Match Game—we love that Charles Nelson Reilly) by taping the E! True Hollywood Story of Family Feud as well as Most Outrageous Game Show Moments on VH1 (to be broadcast Sunday 11/10 at 6p and Thursday 11/14 at 3p).



while i completely recognize that a healthy marriage isn't all about quid pro quo, i have to admit that i'm fully looking forward to making a few sizable withdrawls from our joint Emotional Bank Account upon his return. i'm just sayin'.

the dark side of telecommuting: it's not so much the fact that i got an e-mail from one of the higher-ups way late (we're talking after 10pm) to crunch a bunch of numbers [that i didn't have, BTW] by first thing this morning, it's the fact that this isn't the first time he's pulled this kind of $#!+ on me with no regard for my own personal schedule. good thing for him that i wasn't all that boozy last night and that i was able to grind out the majority of it before my 9am chiropractic appointment.



oh yeah, forgot to mention that i've been seeing a chiropractor for a month now (three times a week for four weeks). she's done a bang-up job of straightening me out, but i still need a little work in the whole pain/strain/tension department, i although might be better served seeing a therapist for that stuff. bah.

currently playing: "Laid" by James. lots of memories with this song, the most recent being that our faithful wedding DJ played this song ten minutes into the dancing portion of the reception, at which point i quickly broke the bustle on my dress. good times. :)



let me know if you can't access ofoto...

more of a woman than you'll ever get and more of a man than you'll ever be. ...or something like that.





Which Hedwig & The Angry Inch Character Are You? Yet another test brought to you by Quizilla.



aside to mom—i promise to drop the DVD in the mail soonest.

you're a tiger! you're tony the tiger!



sent this to The Mister last night. he misses his girls.

voilà!







i think i spent more time trying to take a decent pic than i did on the magnets and it still didn't come out all that great. the upside is that i finally figured out to adjust the camera settings and dial down the resolution so the pics are <100K as opposed to upwards of 1,000K. it's the little things, ya know.



my favorites are the Madeline and the one with the Flying Monkeys (they're next to each other on the left above the fortune teller). the Flying Monkeys are definitely hard to make out in this pic, but trust me, they're there. i also love the Churchill (top left)—i made that one special for The Mister.



ps—i apologize if my images keep flaking out. i guess when it comes to image hosting, you really do get what you pay for.

running interference: looks like my friends over at WHRO are causing a bit of a disturbance on the airwaves!



no, this isn't a pledge-drive related ruckus, it would seem that their federally mandated digital broadcast signal is interfering with the analog output of another station 125 miles away. and they aren't the only ones causing trouble—the local CBS affiliate is accused of similarly disturbing a station in Wildwood, NJ, of all places. (shout-out to Jenny!)



apparently "hot, humid weather and large bodies of water may help extend signals and thereby cause interference," all of which we have (or more accurately, had) in spades.



this is probably non-news to most of you, but it's not every day that Hampton Roads comes up in industry articles.

don't believe the hype: i finally got around to renting Monster's Ball this past weekend, and although i'm not exactly sure what i was expecting, this definitely wasn't it. to be perfectly blunt, i found both the characters and storyline to be pretty unremarkable and two-dimensional.



between the heavyhanded set up of the Thornton-Berry relationship (good LORD, could this woman have anything more go wrong in her life?) and the big issues i took with a few apparently minor but pretty significant plot pivot points (how many brain cells do you have to have in your head to walk against traffic?), i was too exhausted and distracted to really get into the story or care all that much about the characters.



and could someone explain to me what was so Oscar-worthy about Berry's performance? sure, it was a somewhat risky and challenging role, but i just didn't see it...



speaking of Oscar-worthy, do yourself a favor and go see Secretary the first chance you get. unless of course you really, really didn't like Kissed, in which case this might not be a good pick for you. as the Salon review noted, the two movies are very similar in that, for as sexually shocking they may be on the surface, the films' themes are rooted in the search for love and fulfilment, albeit in unconventional and somewhat off-putting ways.



anyhoo, let it be said that that Maggie Gyllenhaal is really something else. i need to go rent Donnie Darko again. ;)

in other news this evening, i worked up a bunch of marble magnets while watching the game. at least something good came of those four hours. i'll be sure to post the pics just as soon as they all have magnet backs—who knew i was going to make 30?



i'm also watching an eBay auction verrrrry closely. it's set to close tomorrow. i'll be sure to let you know how it shakes out.



addendum: i got 'em! they're even better than what i'd thought about getting previously. :)

damnit. damnitdamnitdamnit!!!

DREAMLOG: let's just say that this one was about my reunion with The Mister. all i'm gonna tell you is that the meeting took place somewhere that was supposed to be my old college apartment—yet another dream where you knew it was a certain place even if it didn't look anything like it, what with the big room, big bed, and loads of sunlight.



as for the rest of the dream details...well, let's just say that i like to think of this website as a family place.



ok, so i don't think that in the slightest, but i'm still not gonna share. ;)



sure do miss the bugger. 102 days down...

realityworldtv.com: i stumbled upon this 'blog whilist doing research for an article for work and thought that some of you reality-tv junkies might enjoy taking a gander.



i found this one, too, but didn't like the look of it nearly as much.

there's nothing good about a tie, but we love Ty! another great article about the man who is leading our boys out of the darkness and into the light.



still, there's the chance that this week's Catholic Battle Royale could reverse our fortune in the same way the Eagles did back in 1993. there'll be time to rest on our laurels after the last of the BCS games have been played.



[courtesy of the site-less HipHop]

rabbit rabbit! for the first time practically ever i remembered to say that this morning. it's sure easier to do when you don't see people for hours after waking up, although chatting with Cleo over our morning coffee usually tosses that advantage right out the window.

this has nothing at all to do with Front 242: random industrial/techno/ electronica reference aside, what would you have done differently?



[via MeFi]

european vacation, take two: since our original plans got flushed by TPTB, i've research and studied and waited and strategized the best rate possible, $90 less than the best rate i'd seen posted prior and over $200 less than yesterday's rate for the very same flight. now i just have to wrestle our hotel into giving us a lower rate and we'll be good to go!

just hold still... this won't hurt a bit. ;)



[via SireMoire]

towel not included: after having read about the application at individual and community weblogs alike, i've finally gotten around to installing Trillian. i think i'm gonna like this time waster... ;)

funny for more reasons than i can count:

There's no doubt about it: you're eccentric. You wear your heart on your sleeve. You don't hesistate one bit when it comes to talking about squeamish topics. Although you like to have peace and quiet, you often find excitement in a random crisis or two.

Take the What Pulp Fiction Character Are You? quiz.



see, when i wear a stud, he's usually... oh, nevermind. ;)

got ink? something tells me that if you have to ask MSN's WomenCentral whether or not you're ready for a tattoo, you probably aren't.



speaking of which, i kinda want to get another one but have no idea what or where. maybe i'll get one on my 30^th birthday. that should give me enough brainstorming time.

Have yourself a terrier little Christmas... i know i'm getting ahead of myself, especially considering how behind i am on other projects and plans, but tell me the truth—are these Christmas cards mockery worthy? i suppose i could always send the more tradidional cards depicting ice skating nuns falling on their @$$es.

e-mail from my bosses' boss:

We should not be using company email for non-business use, someone could be watching.

eew.

Account expiration notice from Match.com:

brigita, your Match.com account is set to expire on November 20, 2002. Want to keep your Match.com membership? Just log in! Otherwise, your account information will be permanently removed.

considering i haven't logged into that account in over three years, yes, for the love of all things holy, let the account lapse.



and while you're at it, will you turn the spam stream off as well?

magnanimous or just can't be bothered? after scheduling a pick-up a few weeks ago, the thrift store mover guys arrived promptly at 1pm to remove our crappy old couch. little did i know that my act of goodwill would be two-fold—i didn't pitch a fit when they gouged the hell out of our hardwood floors in the process of wrestling the uncomfortable monstrosity out of the study.



i will readily admit that my personal investment in the condition of the floors isn't all that high since we rent...but i did manage to mention twice that i was able to move the couch into the den without too much trouble by myself.



hmm...i guess i just opted for pride as opposed to wrath, huh? i'll stop patting myself on the back now.

woaaaaaaaaah! we're half-way there! three months down, three to go.



trip delay silver lining: i've got one more month to get my bod back into running shape for The Mister. hell, it's something.

no good, just bad: guess who might not be going overseas to see her husband two weeks from tomorrow?



i'm going to start drinking now.

but in the meantime...



What fast food condiment are you? brought to you by Quizilla

what goes up must come down: i'm experiencing yet another one of those productivity lulls, expecting to ramp things up mañana. in the meantime, go be a good citizen and pledge some $$ to your local (or not so local) public radio station.

"When we label people, we close our eyes, we close our heart. If we take a minute, we find out that everyone belongs to someone."



proof that, while this world of ours may very well be in a handbasket, we have a long, long way to go before we actually get to Hell.



[via harrumph!]

ignorance is bliss: apparently, Guinness isn't vegan. good thing i'm not, either.

let's get caught up, shall we? i had gotten it into my head to paint the main non-cabinet or window wall in our kitchen a while ago but finally did something about it this past weekend. Cleo and i walked up to our local Benjamin Moore store to pick up some paint chips. after much deliberation, i decided that Chili Pepper—a deep red with hints of orange, brown and pink in it—would best match both the lettering in the oft-mentioned monkey poster and the fabric on the chairs.



so after rushing (i probably started too late in the afternoon...) through a half-assed paint job (...and was thoroughly distracted by the football game), the wall actually came out pretty damn good! of course i cropped the pic so you can't see how uneven my edges are. ;)



the color kinda changes throughout the day, what with the pink showing up in the natural light and the more earthy tones coming through in the evening. now all i have to do is assemble a sock monkey and figure out how to best display a beautiful set of french-themed cheese plates we recently received as a wedding gift and we'll be all set!



we wives met at the Botanical Gardens this past sunday afternoon for a tour, lunch, debrief, and chat. despite the majority of the park not being in bloom the rose garden was in full swing, my chicken quesidilla special sans chicken was extra yummy, and it was good to hear what was going on with our respective mens.



the meeting started to drag a bit when the topics of conversation were centered on the roles of parent and homeowner, of which i am neither. hopefully my eyes didn't glaze over too much, tho i think i had fully recovered from my earlier hangover by that point.



mom rolled into town that evening and chatted up E. and her out-of-town [and accomplished author] friend J. during a stitch 'n bitch session. the next day we struck out to check on a buffet/sideboard thingy i had seen at a thrift store the week prior.



now, The Mister loves my thrifty ways and buys except when it comes to furniture, so i wanted to get mom's seal of approval before investing in some furniture that isn't worth a whole lot.



the buffet passed muster, so we hauled it home in mom's pick-up truck and managed to wrestle it up the stairs without any damage to us or the buffet. mom pulled another household hint from her bag of tricks and showed me how one can clean the gunk off of wood (and even out some of the scratches and dings in the process) with some super fine (#0000) steel wool and GoJo Orange, a hand cleaner that can be found in any hardware store—just make sure you get the stuff without the pumice.



after about an hour or two of moderate cleaning and a thin coat of butcher's wax (aka bowling alley wax) that we also picked up at a hardware store, voilà!



this is where i should mention that the picture hanging above the buffet is a seattlized version of diVinci's Last Supper that was made by none other than our very own Renaissance man, psorr. i'll have to take a better pic one of these days to show you all just how much work he put into that, but i'll just leave it right now saying that i'm [in St. Matthew's place] third from the right with the blue robe and Jeff is second from the right. i don't know why i bothered mentioning that since you can't see our faces, but anyhow...



but back to matters at hand. mom then went above and beyond the call of being crafty and helpful when she installed a writable drive into the computer yesterday. is there nothing she can't do? ;)



thanks for everything, mom! i hope you had a good visit and found some good buys on the drive home. call me later so i know you got home safe!

I had tried singing once and they threw tomatoes so after the show. I had a nice salad. while watching one of my all-time favorite movies on DVD with mom last night (definitely in the Desert Island Top 5), i realized that Hedwig (rather the actor who portrays her) reminded me of someone i'd seen in film or TV very very recently.



fortunately this thought didn't torture me for the rest of the night as i quickly figured out that the person i had been thinking of is none other than one of the leads from one of my all-time favorite TV shows. what do you think—were John Cameron Mitchell and Rachel Griffiths separated at birth or is it just me?

whatta weekend: ND is 6-0 for the first time in almost a decade, i painted the kitchen (just a wall, but still), attended the first wives meeting since The Mister deployed, mom is in town for a visit and we just returned from purchasing a buffet/sideboard thingy for the dining room! details and pics later. :)

what's wrong with this picture: while checking out my plastic bucket, chip clips, and gum at the dollar store today, i saw pregnancy tests on display in the impulse section of the check stand.

but they don't fight crime:



i am a postage stamp that tracks infra-red and automatically updates your weblog when used, while the mister is like a normal football, but it can bring down an elephant.



using our real names, i am a hearing aid that tells you when people are lying, while he's a pudding that's voice-activated.



mmm...voice activated pudding.

[MeFi]

i caved: a tomato/mozarella/basil sandwich just sounded too good to pass up. consider my dairy experiment concluded.



i'm not sure exactly what i was trying to discover (or prove, for that matter) by abstaining from dairy, but the frustration caused by the process was more than i could handle. i started the whole thing intending to do it 100%—reading labels, not cutting corners, and sacrificing a little flavor in the name of science. or something.



i didn't realize just how prevalent dairy—milk, cream, yogurt, whey protein—is in [processed] foods. i still think that the consumption of milk is kinda funky, but i'm not willing to be inconvenienced (or to inconvenience those around me) three times a day. so bring on the ice cream!

wanna know what else is [not so much] funny? starting the day planning on going to bed before 11p but then actually hitting the hay after 1a. now that's funny.

NSM-IM: it's funny how you send the love of your life a long and drawn out mush-mail expecting to receive an immediate response, only to sit around until a way-too-late hour to realize that he's probably checking in on his missiles or some such thing.



an yet, it's so not funny. at all.



we're standing at 78 days, folks. i don't know which is more pathetic: the fact that i'm all kinds of broke up long before the half-way or that i had to use a calculator to figure that out. i'll be glad to take your pity either way.



(i'm only 53% kidding.)

glad i forgot to pack my jinx: the past weekend can be best illustrated by the state of my nose [of all things]: raw on the inside from my cold and burnt on the outside from the game. while my cold only got worse over the course of the trip, it fortunately didn't hinder me from having a great time. the crew was thankfully feeling pretty mellow themselves, so we didn't bother with the smoke and crowds of the local bar scene. we were already with the people we wanted to see, anyhow.



the weather was absolutely perfect on saturday, sunny and clear with a slight breeze blowing every so often. after a pleasant morning of tailgating, we trucked off to the stadium where we weathered a pretty rough first quarter to ultimately cheer the Irish on to a 31-7 victory. i don't even want to think about what our record would be if it weren't for our defense.



as for my dairy diary, i tried my best to be lactose-free for the weekend—first eschewing all dairy, then just the stuff apparent to the naked eye (cheese, milk, etc.), then chucked it all together. because when a thoughtful friend goes to the trouble of making a separate soy sausage lasagna for you—the only vegetarian in a group of almost twenty—you don't want to be ungracious...especially when it was so frickin' delicious you go back for seconds. ;)



i'm pretty sure that my cold is on the wane, although i'm hoping that the new chill in the air will stick around for some time.

bitter? check:





Which Personality Disorder Do You Have?

brought to you by Quizilla

ah-CHOO! i'm home but sicker than ever. more about the weekend when my head clears.

mmm...shopping: all of kris' shoe talk has made me want to get a pair of novelty mary janes for myself.



i know—they're leather. believe me, you wouldn't want to spend more than five minutes in a closed room with me after i've been wearing a pair of shoes made from "man made materials." my piggies gotsta breathe.

how much do i love my husband? i figured out how to program his (ok, our) VCR so i can tape the Alabama vs. Georgia game this weekend. now, if that isn't love, i don't know what is. ;)



ok, truth be told, it really wasn't all that hard.



still, it's a good thing i got that all squared away as it looks like there's a lot on the line with this game, even though 'Bama can't go to a bowl game as a result of its probation. funny thing is, The Mister's dad—who works for the SEC—may have had something to do with that.



both funny strange and haha but not so much jackass.



speaking of NCAA football, i'm heading back for a game myself this weekend. wish us luck!

it doesn't count as cheating if you didn't really know, right? and while the calorie count isn't all that bad, the fact that half of the calories come from fat is. i guess it's a case of "if you have to ask..."

that tickle? yeah, it always turns into a cold. :(

first travel wrinkle: LHR --> LGW. no check-through luggage and i have to pay £14 for a shuttle both ways? what a load of horse crap.



on the bright side, i have an excuse to buy a brand-spaking new carry-on.

ice ice baby: i know Valentine's Day¹ is a long way off, but i'm putting my holiday request in early, despite the fact that The Mister is not one to visit my little corner of the 'net and his internet access at work is, shall we say, severely limited at the moment.



unfortunately, he's more the type of guy to take direction when buying gifts as opposed to using creative inspiration, so let me just say straight out that i want ice for V-Day 2003, and lots of it.



but i'm not about the "MTV Cribs, bling-bling, conspicuous consumption, yeah-your-house-is-big-but-you-RENT" variety of ice, i want it by the acre. glistening, sparkling, pure ice for as far as the eye can see.



afterall, a trip to Québec is much cheaper and easier than a flight to Lapland.



previously mentioned here.

hot off the [work] presses:

TIVO INCREASES REBATES



TiVo kicked off some good old-fashioned discounting today. The company announced it will increase a rebate plan and offer more capacity. Its latest unit will offer 80 hours of storage and a $50 rebate.



The DVR specialist is running out of time to prove that it can capitalize on the hype of the technology with a standalone unit, and discounting is the most direct route to increased sales. Their pricing is as follows:



  Size   Retail   W/Rebate

40 Hour   $299     $249

60 Hour   $399     $349

80 Hour   $399     $349

is this a sign that it's time for me to surrender to the TiVo borg?

glad to know i wasn't the only one who heard it like that:

Dude, forget the fan fic. I want to be punished, and if raising a evil, phallic temple is all it takes to get that sort of attention from Giles, I'm so there. -- Ace



The line starts behind me, sister. -- Sars

God bless TWoP.

damn the torpedoes! full speed ahead to European Vacation [and Sailor Smooch-a-Thon] 2002!



the Nav had better be kind and refrain from pulling a fast one on me as i bit the bullet yesterday and bought my tickets to go see The Mister this fall.



exact locations and dates are confidential (loose lips and all that stuff) but i can tell you that it's going to be quite the Mediterranean adventure!

not that there's anything wrong with that:



I'm Diana, which ambiguous dyke are you? quiz by Turi



i guess Carmex could count as a lipstick, yeah?

yoga can only do so much:





Take the What Sex Position Are You? test by Ley Ley.

biological horror story: getting back to the topic of plagues, don't read this tale of smallpox unless have a very strong stomach and are not prone to nightmares. seriously. and you hypochondriacs? don't even think about clicking that link.



[via MeFi]

how cute is this? but way out of my knitting league for now, unfortunately.



[via the one, the only, Not Martha]

forget earthquakes, plagues, famine, and war, this is the next sign of the coming apocalypse: After 21 years, Nebraska falls out of AP poll. the sign after that? ND going to and winning a decent bowl.

i got yer hobbies right heah:

1. yoga.
   
   
2. knitting.
   
   
3. vermicomposting.
   
   
4. reupholstery.
   
   
5. papermaking?

that's right, couple my environmental compulsion with the boxes of packing paper left over from the move (which happened a year ago next weekend) and my recent DIY streak, and you get papermaking.



i've been soaking several sheets (torn into 1" squares, or so) in water this weekend with the intention of tackling it today, but i kinda got carried away with getting the chairs finished. i hope to give it a shot sometime this week, once i've collected some itty bitty flower petals off of a neighbor's tree under the cover of darkness.



up next (in no particular order): complete the kitchen plans, take a stab at making a peasant blouse (linked by kris), make placemats out of curtain remnants and old jeans, and possibly create something that our retro fabulous society is just screaming for. more on that later.



...then, of course, i should take the bikes in for a tune-up, consign that pile of fall clothes that are crowding my closet, touch up the paint jobs from December, teach Cleo that "BANG!" trick that E.'s been trying to get her to do (the dog lies down and rolls over on her back after you "shoot" her)...



am i forgetting anything?

monkeys are go! this was one of those household projects that i neglected to mention at its conception—which was what, a month ago?—but here i am at completion! i was tired of looking at J.'s kitchen table which was too big for our actual kitchen and never had a set of chairs to go with it. i had been threatening to donate it to Goodwill ever since moving in a year ago, but it was only recently that i cam up with a design scheme good enough for me to take the damn thing out.



the inspiration for the kitchen's theme, "Monkey Café," came from a poster i had bought J. several months ago. the thought was for me to find a cheap dinette set of some sort and then recover the chair seats in this fabulous fabric.



well, after picking up a ugly but sturdy table for $7 and a set of two chairs for $30, i was off and running! it wasn't until this weekend that i dismantled the chairs and tore off all of the old layers of upholstery—a layer of thick plastic over a nice green stripe which was stapled to cover the original stained burlap (?) seats. after a few close calls removing the staples, i purchased a bunch of batting today to fluff up the seats some.



in just a hour or two of batting & monkey fabric stapling, look how i did! the tablecloth in the picture was also purchased off of eBay to give it that café feel.



next in the design plan: paint the wall that the table is up against a nice brick red (probably the same red we have in the dining room, assuming there's enough left) and either put up some shelving or score a verrrry narrow wrought iron-looking baker's rack upon which i will put a smallish vintage oak picnic basket containing a sock monkey of my own creation. such fun, this housewifery! ;)

Twiggy says she felt short and fat next to the new generation of models: short? 5'6" is the average height for women (or so i've heard). fat?! puhleeze, she looks like she could actually menstruate, assuming she hasn't gone through The Change yet at the age of 53. i hope i look so good at that age.



but sure, compared to 5"11", 112 lb. models, i can see how she might feel a little bit out of place on the catwalk.

fashion impaired: is it just me, or are these sweaters on the way out? i've thought they looked too much like bathrobes when i first started seeing them, but my stance on the subject is being softened somewhat by the low low sale price of $9.99. i should probably pass since i doubt that i'll be able to wear it well...maybe the rest of you will jump all over the bargain. :)

no leg pulling here: if you aren't doing anything tomorrow at noon eastern time, tune in to WHRV to hear me talk about the new fall television schedule on the local version of HearSay. keep your fingers crossed that i don't come off as a total braino. ;)

fun food facts: did you know that October is National Dairy Month? just change "National" to "I" and "Dairy" to "won't be eating or drinking it."



yes, that's right, as a part of my grand While the Husband/Cat's Away the Wife/Mouse (not to say i'm mousy...) Will Tackle Long Standing Projects, Work on a Little Creative Home Improvement, Go on Spontaneous Road Trips, Generally Take Care of Business, Go on Unusual Diets, and—on the rare day she's not reveling in her hermitage—Play plan.



i will be the first to admit that my decision has been greatly influenced by the work—i might even go so far as to call it propaganda—of fellow Norfolk resident PETA and the anti-dairy info posted at Milk Sucks. it goes without saying that PETA has a serious agenda-slash-chip on their shoulder and isn't afraid to grind the axe in any form of media possible.



whether PETA tries to scare or seduce you into becoming a vegetarian, their delivery is heavy-handed and the message is way in your face.



note to self: send the mister one of these postcards.



see, the thing of it is, the crazy folks at PETA (as in "craaaaaaaaazy") can point to people like me as an example of a success story. admittedly, i was more than half way to veg when i converted three years ago, but it was sites like Factory Farming and Meat Stinks that sent me over the edge.



and before we go any further, let me just establish right now that i am more of a pescatarian than a true-green veggie since i really really love me some sushi, but as my vegetarian sponsor Dave said back in the day, every little bit helps. i do get serious fish guilt when i eat anything but sushi (which tastes too good to be guilty about it), and i can also say that i've only purchased one or two pairs of leather shoes since my conversion (god bless Doc Martens). even our wedding album is cruelty free!



of course i've yet to put the damn thing together but that's another story entirely...



right—the milk thing. all cruelty, negative environmental impact, hormones & antibiotics, aside—and let's not forget that veal calves are the unwanted male byproducts of keeping dairy cows perpetually knocked-up—i really do find it strange that humans are the only creatures which consume milk beyond infancy, not to mention milk of a different species. i think the comparison of milk to pus by the militant vegan camp is a little extreme, but if you really stop and think about it...



so, my plan is to eradicate all forms of dairy from my kitchen, with the exception of butter buds which might come in handy down the road. most of it is already gone, actually—just the last few schmears of a small tub of cream cheese, a smidge of half and half, and a yogurt or two remain. i'm already a huge fan of soy milk, and making the switch from butter to margarine is really no big leap.



i will admit to choosing October for its convenient distance from both the ice cream season as well as the major holidays, but there's always Tofutti and soy cheese (ok, so it melts like crap) if i really need it.



one pre-dairy abstension discovery: while cooking with Crisco Sticks makes for a damn good cookie, the batter tastes like ick. major drawback...i'll have to try cooking with margarine next time.



i'm already taking a multi daily and have recently been supplementing that with 1000 mg of calcium since i started getting leg cramps at night (bad conduction in the muscle fibers or some such thing). with the pantry stocked and the majority of my nutritional bases covered, i think i'm ready to rock!



quick FAQ:

Q: are you going vegan? what about eggs?

A: i could never go vegan since i just think cutting eggs out of one's diet would be very very difficult, not to mention that they're a great vegetarian form of protein. ok, and i like my baked goods. and then there's that thing with the sushi.



Q: is this just an experiment or are you going to try to make it a permanent life style choice?

A: i've actually given this a good deal of consideration. i had thought if i did decide to cut dairy out for good that i could cut myself a little slack with goat milk products, but then E. told me a goat horror story so i'll have to see how a life without cheese looks in a month.



Q: will it gross you out if i eat or even talk about eating meat in front of you? do you think i'm a bad person for eating meat?



you're judging me, aren't you? you're sitting there, quietly judging me, thinking that i'm a bad, selfish, carnivorious lout who eats steak and eggs for breakfast and could never muster the will power necessary to put down this drumstick, don't you? don't you?!

A: could you repeat the question?

so i think that's about it, folks. you can consider this my vegetarian rant for the decade. and for those of you were wondering, its actually June.

true to form, i've waited a day before posting the less-than-sordid details of my weekend exploits. actually, i've been getting pretty lazy about posting in general, something i hope to tighten up on.



as a matter of fact, i've been so bad about posting, that i didn't even bother to post my social brainstorm which played out this past weekend. see, long story short, my friend's husband was going to be out of town for the weekend so i somehow came up with the bright idea for us to attend the Annual Zoo To Do, taking place at the only zoo in the state, if the zoo's URL is any indication.



the website itself isn't all that exciting so i'll summarize it for you: at the member's price of $40 we got unlimited food and beverages, the option to take a tour through the new Africa exhibit (which we managed to completely miss—who in their right mind would begin tours just as the party starts?), as well as casino gambling and live entertainment.



all in all it was a good time as i got to meet some new folks and had the opportunity to relive the 1993 ND vs. FSU game with the wife of a subway alum, but it was tough getting all gussied up in my black tie-optional dress without The Mister by my side...



speaking of the attire at the function, guess i should have cut myself a lot more slack when choosing my outfit. i should have known by the attire specs ("be creative!" "animal prints encouraged!") that there would have been a lot more leopard-print skank wear than tuxes and gowns. i did love the older gentleman who was wearing a tux and a faux-leopard fez with horns sticking out of the side ala Fred Flintstone's Water Buffalo Lodge Hat...i should have had gotten a picture with him. :)

will she or won't she? get sucked into Survivor: Thailand, that is. i fear that that will be an affirmative, especially i find that my resistance to reality tv is weakened the more i actively dislike the contestants/roommates/houseguests/etc.



and i gotta tell ya, the Survivors really are a bunch of winners this season. stand-outs include the bartending @$$-clown whose luxury item was a skateboard, and of course the infamous porn star-turned-used car salesman. here's to hoping the Navy swim-instructor makes a go of it—represent! although her being from RI is already a stike against her.



ok, so maybe the survivors aren't all that bad, but their bios on the official site are:

in college, [the future twice sleazy Brian] studied finance until a knee injury during his sophomore year ended his football career.

funny, The Mister's college football career was cut short by a knee injury his sophomore year, but he kept on studying poly sci...did Brian have to drop out of school because he lost his scholarship or because he couldn't get hisself to class? i think an easier question to answer would be, "do i really care?"