dreamdweller

amanuensis1 @ 12:52pm: Don't eat while reading this. Eeesh.
By the way, hearkening back to my earlier post--this doesn't spoil anything, since you can see on the Yuletide list of requested fandoms that no one asked for it--I did not get assigned to write for Richard Adams's The Plague Dogs. I decided, when I accidentally included it in the list, that rather than redo my list I'd just go read the book once and for all, even before the assignments came out, so I got it from the library.

I got through Ulysses easier than this. This is...guys, I have written some interesting metaphors myself in my time, some of them admittedly more purple than should be seen outside of crackfic, but this takes them all:

...Rowf's rump slid suddenly forward as smoothly as a turd from a healthy anus...

I can't even facepalm. It's too squicky.

cluegirl @ 9:02am: Nobel Prize? For a human rights activist in Iran? U Can Not Has!
You stay classy, Ahmadinejad, you just stay classy...

ponderosa121 @ 9:51pm: oh hell yes, I have a Snuggie
We went down to Salinas to J's sister's new place, and holy crap is it huge. It's got a nifty layout, and infinitely more space than their old house. We hadn't seen Natalie since before she was walking so it took a while for her to stop giving J and I the suspicious eye, but by the end of the night it was lots of carry-me arms, and where Sophie is usually all about her Uncle J, somehow this time I ended up with her hanging on me more often than not. I suspect it was that I was wearing a pink shirt so that boosted my coolness rating. It's interesting to see the ways her personality has changed now that she's a big sister. Sometimes I wish we lived a bit closer in order to visit more often.

Anyway, we hung out, ate food, played with dolls, tried to devise a plan to steal their adorable pug, and at the end of the evening I got the bonus of belated b-day gifts. See subject. I have also increased my fuzzy scarf collection by one, so I should probably put out some of the ones I don't wear often out onto the curb.

The drive was nice, and J and I talked a lot about the ways in which we'd like to focus on our projects for school and general creative things. I'm back to having a solid idea of where to go with my current assignments so I'm feeling very rejuvenated about them. Which is good, as I need to be doubly-focused this weekend, since I didn't actually get any extra days off, and the lab is closed tomorrow which is typically my dedicated time to go in and work all day on my homework!

cluegirl @ 10:28pm: And six days later, she exploded in a great cloud of superannuation!
That's right! In six days, on December second, I, Cluegirl, shall spontaneously become The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. (Line forms to the right, gratuities are appreciated.) For those hoopy froods who don't speak Hitchiker, I'll be turning 42.

I expect it to be nothing at all like being 41 has been, but just in case, I've liquidated my assets, put everything into canned goods and shotgun ammunition, and have stapled my towel firmly to my elbow. With that, and my wand in my back pocket, I expect I'll be ready for anything. Except possibly zombies. Zombies take a little more preparation.

As for what I want for my birthday?
No frelling idea.

I mean, there are the old standards, of course; I always get a bit giddy at just the notion that someone might illustrate one of my stories, or conversely, might write a story for one of my drawings. Collaboration is highly squee-some in my little world, y'see, and I swear that one day SOMEONE will illustrate the mirror scene from Pink Slip, and I shall expire of Happy on the spot.

I could wish for world peace and the brotherhood of man, but I've noticed how shittily brothers treat each other, and as we all know, the last time the matrix was configured for world peace, it crashed and we lost whole crops to the logic failure. So that's out.

But reining things back into the realm of the distantly plausible, I'd say I want for more or less nothing of note. I want to keep rolling on Tempus Fugitive. I want my cats and my snakes to stay healthy in the coming year. I want the resources to close up the hole in my house properly, and to begin the next major set of repairs (Hopefully before the porch falls entirely OFF Mandala House, thanks!)

And most importantly, I want my friends who are in reach to join me for a Solstice party on December 19th, to celebrate both my birthday, and the Sun King's in one swat. The date is positive; December 19th. Save it, and if you can possibly make it to Troy, NY, do consider coming! And don't worry if you're not of the witchy persuasion -- I plan no heresy, just cake and shenanigans.

amanuensis1 @ 10:07pm: Also, being by myself, I got to watch anything I wanted on tv, not football. Anime yaoi, ho!
I had to work part of the holiday, so I just counted the time I did have off as a good thing, and took it easy rather than make plans with others. I did make time to make a yummy dinner for myself from scratch:

Chicken with sun-dried tomatoes in dijon-riesling-cream sauce
Sesame noodles
Spicy peanut butter soup
Tart green salad with proscuitto and asiago and warm balsamic dressing
Warm butterscotch-maple pudding

I love mixing cuisines.

cluegirl @ 10:43am: Kitchin Witchin! -- Clue Hash; it's what's for breakfast!
A note of explanation: Dominus is a boy scout. As such, he has the requisite Scouting addiction to Corned Beef Hash. Anywhere we go to eat, if it's got hash on the menu, I immediately know what my husband will be ordering, no matter what else they may serve. Seriously, he loves the stuff so much that from time to time, he'll scratch the hash itch with tinned. Clearly, this was a situation I could not abide. I mean, if you're gonna feed your monkey, feed it the good stuff, right? So here's what we're having for breakfast today.

* Go to your deli, and ask for a butt end of corned beef. Anything over a quarter of a pound is great, and they don't need to slice it for you. You'll be mincing it up at home yourself.

* If you are pork-compliant, then chop up three good, fatty strips of bacon, and put them in a BIG, flat-bottomed pan on low heat. (The object here is to render their fat, not to cook the bacon; cooking the bacon is a side effect of the rendering.)

* If you are pork-resistant, then do the 2 - 1 mix of olive and sesame oils here, to add the smoky taste of the bacon.

* Peel a few cloves of garlic, and crush them with the flat of your knife. Throw those in with the bacon to render.

* go out to the sage bushes, and get a handful of fresh leaves. Throw those in whole too.

* Add a generous drizzle of oil into the pan to help the bacon give it up in case it's a bit chary. I think I put about two tablespoons of olive (because I keep olive oil ready to hand. You can use whatever kind of oil you fancy, really.)

* Rough-chop a medium onion (red ones are tastiest!) and enough potatoes to match volume, then half again. In my kitchen, that was three small blue potatoes, and one large red. (I have goth tubers. No one's surprised, I know.) You want to cut them fairly large, but fairly thin -- that is to say, quarter each potato longways, and then slice the pieces about half an inch thick at most. They need to be large enough that they'll hold together, but thin enough to cook all the way through. In my case, the blue potatoes were a bit elderly, so they didn't need any pre-cooking, but I slung the red in the microwave for two turns at 30 seconds apiece, so its texture would match the others. You do as you see fit.

* Take your biggest kitchen knife -- this is the time to break out your cleaver, if you've got one, -- hack your corned beef into crumbles. There's no rhyme or reason to this, you just whack away, and try not to let it fly all over the place.

* Once the bacon's not showing any white anymore (that is, all its fatty rind should now be caramel coloured and kind of translucent) you can dump the onion, potatoes, and beef into the pot. If you don't have enough oil to lightly coat everything, then add just a little more, but otherwise, just turn the lot to get it evenly mixed and coated, throw in salt and pepper to taste, pat it all down flat in the pan, and walk away.

* Ignore the sizzling, and the searing smells from the pan for a good long time. Hash is SUPPOSED to be kind of scorchy and burny, remember? If it really distressed you, you can fuss it about for awhile first, to try and get everything to cook up, but that's kind of redundant, since you're going to settle it to scorch soon anyway, and when you flip it over to do the other side, everything else will cook up then.

* Fry up an egg for each person you'll be feeding. (From our stovetop, it looks like this is going to feed four, which means two for us today, and two lunches for Dominus later on.) Scrape all the good stuff up from the bottom of the pan, and ladle the hash into the plates, then slap the egg on top.

* Serve with tabasco, worchestershire sauce, and ketchup on the table, but don't be surprised if your guests don't even notice they're there all.

* Make this noise: OM NOM NOM!!!

* Wish you were eating breakfast with Clue and Dominus today!

cluegirl @ 7:50pm: Forcibly postitve...
Things for which I am thankful this evening:

* The Litter and the Leaves, by Enter the Haggis (And as you can purchase their albums directly from them, or, should you prefer it, cherrypick their song library at a buck a pop, YOU SHOULD BE DOING THAT!)

* That I have a husband who will close his computer and help me figure out why I'm grumpy when there's no easy answer, instead of taking it personally, or hiding in his WoW.

* That I have a husband who will close his computer and march straight into the kitchen with me when, upon failing to nail down a smoking gun, I give up and say "Let's go cook something." Didn't even ask what, or why, or complain that he'd rather be doing else. In short, he loves me, AND he loves cooking with me, and how can that not cheer me up?

* That I did not burn the orange peel when I forgot it was boiling away on the stove. I caught it JUST before the water was all gone, and the caramel began to really scorch, so there'll be no using the leftover syrup as I'd intended, but at least my candied orange peel survived!

* That Hilfy is here to inform me of the error of my ways, with her adorkable sulky-duck miao. *Snoodlesthekitteh!*

* That I did not burn out the blender motor when I made it pretend it was a food processor, and grind up all my carrots and ginger for the carrot cake I've just decided I'm making. That thing SO does not owe me!

* That I am living a life which allows me to concern myself with unfairnesses to other people, instead of having to focus on injustices against myself or my family. That I can afford altruism, and idealism, and pride. These things are so impossible, so out of reach in so many other people's lives, I can't help feeling gratitude that I can reach them, and I can afford to speak to them as well. I have the luxury of being able to DO something that is not just for me.

* That I live across the country from any of my birth family, and so will not have to eat their idea of Holiday Food tomorrow. Nor will I have to endure the casual, unthinking racism and sexism over the table, either. Which is good, because getting arrested over Thanksgiving is bad for the digestion, I hear.

* Giada Dilaurentis. Nuff said.

* That we've had contractors actually return our calls on the house issues, and it looks as though we'll have managed to save enough to cover the sill replacement by the time they can schedule us in. And once that is done, we can repair the great, gaping HOLE in our house! Hooray!

Okay then. That's lifted my mood from the stew. Time to go assemble my carrot cake now!
Avaunt!

cluegirl @ 8:37am: What's this? Clue's linking to some GOOD news for once?
Yes. Yes, she bloody well is.

UN unveils Network of Men to fight abuse of women
UN Secretary-General Bn Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon said men's attitudes to women needed to change

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has unveiled a Network of Men Leaders to act as male role models in a campaign opposing violence against women.

He urged all men to join the campaign, saying about 70% of women experience some form of physical or sexual violence from men.

The 14 men currently in the network include Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Wednesday is the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women.

This is the 10th anniversary of the founding of the day.

'Global chorus'

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho and Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget are also among those chosen for the new list.

They had all demonstrated a commitment to oppose violence against women, said Mr Ban, adding that the group was expected to grow.

"These men will add their voices to the growing global chorus for action," he said.

Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, the secretary-general called on men and boys around the world to join the campaign.

Victim of violence (posed by model)
Women are most at risk from violent partners or a man they know

"Break the silence," he said. "When you witness violence against women and girls, do not sit back. Act. Advocate. Unite to change the practices and attitudes that incite, perpetrate and condone this violence."

He said it was unacceptable that so many women experienced some form of physical or sexual violence from men - mostly from their husbands, intimate partners, or someone they knew.

He said men must teach each other that real men do not violate or oppress women - and that a woman's place is not just in the home or in the fields but in schools, offices and boardrooms.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel Peace Laureate, said: "You are a weak man if you use your physical superiority to assault and brutalise women.

"I will continue fighting until the end of my days for the right of women and girls to live a life free from violence and abuse."

stephenfry @ 7:59am: Digital Devicement: Part Three – BlackBerry Picking Time

http://www.stephenfry.com/2009/10/05/digital-devicement-part-three-blackberry-picking-time/

http://www.stephenfry.com/?p=1481

It’s only mail and text, but I like it, like it…

I remember attending a Rolling Stones concert at the Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles last year. When it was apparent that the final encore had been given and that the event was over, the audience stood to leave and the darkness was punctuated by the twinkling of ten thousand BlackBerries: the Rolling Stones generation checking their inboxes. No cigarette lighters held up in the air to honour the band (there probably wasn’t one smoker in a thousand at the venue), just handsets held up to their own faces to honour the bandwidth. The moment seemed to distill some truth about our culture that simultaneously amused, depressed and delighted me. Go, as they say, figure.

The Canadian company Research In Motion introduced its first BlackBerry, a duplex pager, ten years ago. Since then RIM has established itself and its device as one of the great success stories of the digital age. BlackBerry is a kind of cult – a verb, a metonym, a synecdoche for corporate life on the move.

Under the RIM

For those of you unconnected with business, the way Blackberryists interface with their phones may be unfamiliar. Typically he or she will have been given the handset by their employer. This is not an act of generosity. The device is a kind of leash, a digital ball and chain not far from the electronic tag that convicts on parole are forced to wear. The email and calendar accounts are controlled by the company, via BlackBerry Enterprise Server connections. Each handset can be zapped, nixed and deactivated by the corporate IT people whose hands are ever hovering over the kill switch, awaiting the command from the Fifth Floor. Or so it must seem to some employees. Like the bonds of marriage, the connection can be seen as a welcome tie that binds you with ribbons of gold to the company you love, or as a set of shackles that confine you for ever in a hateful prison from which there is no escape.

There is a civilian way to own a Blackberry, however. You or I can walk into a network provider’s retail operation and sign up for a BlackBerry enabled account.  Nowadays the configuration for this is done Over The Air: fire up the device for the first time, follow the email set-up wizard and voilà! – you’re a BlackBerryist. RIM calls this a BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) connection, in contrast to the BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) connection for the corporate user.

In either case RIM’s own servers ensure that their unique email system works on your device and delivers the authentic BlackBerry experience that many find so addictive. Essentially your handset is in a state of constant connection to these servers, which will ‘push’ emails to you the moment they come in. You can as-good-as-replicate this on a non BB phone by setting it to connect to your email server as frequently as once a minute say, but that wouldn’t be true push and tends to be more wearing on batteries. Google, expanding into all areas of online life as it is, does now offer genuine Exchange server push email to iPhones or other platforms for those with Gmail accounts. I have to say I’ve found this service so far a lot flakier than either BlackBerry or the standard iPhone ‘fetch’ IMAP4 or POP3 connections, just as Google’s CalDAV syncing is also prone to arbitrary disconnection and failure. The Big G get away with this kind of unreliability by being a) free to use and b) in a constant and eternal state of Beta. GoogleSync also offers calendar and contact syncing with a number of platforms including RIM, but we’re wandering from the subject…

The appeal of BlackBerry has always been simple: secure push email without frills. From the corporate point of view it’s a one system solution with an admirable data security record and VPN-style command and control capabilities. For the individual who is hooked on their CrackBerry, it’s all about eliminating frills and fancy folderols and concentrating on text input and output.

For years any clamour for music, video, third-party applications or even basic colour and HTML browsing was met with raised eyebrows. “This is a business tool, not some student gaming platform,” the shamed enquirer would be told in the scandalised tones of a butler who has just been asked for ketchup. Indeed, a proud feature of first, second and third generation BlackBerries was that they had no camera. How did this give bragging rights, you may wonder? Well, it meant that when you visited a factory, a boardroom, a government department or any secure or sensitive area, you didn’t have to check in your phone:  “I’m so important, my work is so sensitive,” was the implied Blackberry boast, “that I have a camera-less phone. Kneel before Zod.”

Over the years RIM have bowed to pressure, reluctantly found that bottle of ketchup in their pantry and, with something of a disapproving sniff, served it up on a silver salver with as good a grace as they could muster. Their somewhat ancient Java operating system has been regularly updated and the product line these days includes phones with cameras, media players and an OTA store called BlackBerry App World. Why, their websites even carry banners now that cry: “Works with Mac straight out of the box!”

Convergence has many faces. A printer, a scanner and a fax machine can easily converge into an All-In-One machine; a hip, fun, flashy media-playing, super-browsing communicator and app-platform like the iPhone can converge with business devices by getting all VPN and Enterprise friendly and a grim corporate tool like the BlackBerry can fluff and frisk itself up with Facebook apps and games and video and ask to be played with. But there are ontological baselines and last year RIM made a disastrous attempt to cross a BlackBerry with an iPhone and came up with one of digital history’s all time dogs, the Storm, an example of those wretched, cursed mutants that slip from the womb, writhe and thrash for an instant as they struggle for air and then die screaming – to the eternal shame of the diabolical genetic manipulators who dared interfere with the natural order of things. The Storm was (and is – for they have been cruel enough to keep it alive) blushmakingly dreadful. It was as if the butler answered the door wearing trainers, ripped jeans and a beanie with a cry of  “Sup, bitch?” Embarrassment all round. I reviewed the benighted beast here and while I wasn’t kind, I hope the glowing encomia I heaped on the BlackBerry Bold in the same blog shows that it I am certainly no BlackBerry hater.

I think RIM have understood that messing with the core appeal of the BlackBerry in this way was a bad idea. It may be that somewhere in the future they will develop a successful hybrid, a phone with either a proprietary (web-based, like Palm’s?) or existing OS which will be capable of delivering the usual BES or BIS connections on a modern, games and app-savvy platform. For the moment they have in recent months concentrated on bringing out true BlackBerry devices that offer the limited bells and whistles that their venerable Java OS affords but which tweak, streamline and refine that system in an elegant and consistent manner. Twitter and Facebook clients, RSS aggregators, utilities and games all work on these new generation devices, but never as well as they would on an iPhone or Android phone. There again, push email won’t work as well on iPhone or Android platforms as on a BlackBerry. For the moment, true convergence between Work and Play hasn’t been effected by either side and the BlackBerry still reigns supreme as the professional business phone par excellence.

Given that: what choices are there? The Bold offers quad band, 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, a 2MP camera and 1GB of onboard memory (supplemented by micro-SD) and is still a champion device, the complete package. Version 4.6 of the OS gives a smooth, balanced look and feel, there’s power and speed enough.

Speed is an interesting issue for BlackBerry. RIM has always exhibited a schizophrenic attitude towards wireless protocols. The true BB experience doesn’t really require 3G speeds, EDGE is easily good enough for push email and conserves battery power so much better: indeed pointing at the four-fifths full battery icon at day’s end is one of the BlackBerryist’s favourite occupations. But 3G is “today” and not to offer it would seem perverse. It is really most useful for Over The Air downloads of applications and updates or web browsing — only of course the proprietary web browser, while it may have improved, still sucks big time stylie. Too many random fails and “XML is not well-formed” error messages.

So: what flavours and functions of BlackBerry handset are available? More cut-down models than the Bold offer either a configuration which is 2G only but has WiFi built-in for downloading and power-browsing or a configuration which offers 3G but no WiFi. Of course, in America (and parts of Asia) there is the option of CDMA (more later) which until now has only been available for the senescently gray 8830. Which brings us on to the two models under advisement.

Graceful Curve

The Curve 8900 is the 2G with WiFi option. Its 480 x 360 display is bright, crisp, clear and colourful. Best ever. The operating system is 4.6 for my Vodafone badged model, but it may be that you can update it to 4.7 if you search about and trust one of the fan sites like the ever irreverent but never irrelevant (say that five times fast when drunk) crackberry.com. Everything works well, you can download the iPhone apps that have now been recoded for all the major smartphone platforms: Shazam, Evernote and so forth as well as a slew of Twitter clients (TwitterBerry, TweetCaster and twibble seem to be the most popular) are all available, as are Facebook, the Google suite of mobile apps, dictionaries and language learning apps from Beiks, Oxford Duden and Collins, and games that can be chosen from eight categories ranging from Arcade to Strategy. That once frosty butler is now in a muscle vest, boogeying and writhing on the dance-floor in the most unlikely fashion.

The Curve 8900 can be regarded as a replacement for the highly successful 8300, 8310 and 8320 Curves (the later versions adding WiFi and/or GPS). Also this year, just to confuse everyone further, RIM have produced the 8520 – a low end EDGE Curve that comes with a 2.0MP camera and WiFi, no GPS and no 3G but which still manages to excite interest and curiosity in that it features an optical trackpad to replace the now venerable trackball. The trackball first appeared in 2006: a white granular navigation sphere that gave the neat little BlackBerry 8100 line its name of ‘Pearl’. While it has undoubtedly been a great success, most users report that after time the trackball loses precision: dirt + grease = grinding paste = poor performance. It is also frankly a matter of good fortune as to whether you get a good one or a laggardly imprecise little bleeder out of the box, so delicate is the mechanism. So my advice to anyone buying any BlackBerry is try it out first: check the running of the trackball.

Back to our Curve 8900: this comes in a configuration that includes a 3.2 MP camera, video camera and audio recorder, various other bundled goodies like the obligatory BlackBerry Maps and Docs To Go (pay for full functionality) and  one’s sense of it really comes down to how well you get on with the 35 key, backlit keyboard. It’s full QWERTY and once the fingers are used to it (a much shallower learning curve than that necessary to accustom them to an Android, iPhone or Palm handset), they can fly back and forth inputting at furious speeds, which is just how BlackBerryists like it. The superb fully editable glossary (Apple, I’m on my knees, please take note) can increase the input speed enormously. If you have a regular home and work WiFi network then the lack of 3G really isn’t a problem. This neat, elegant and highly desirable smartphone is slimmer, shorter, narrower and a whole ounce (27 grammes) lighter than the Bold. Available in the UK from all the major network providers and through the usual retail outlets.

Grand Tour

If you live and work and the United States of America, you may have become attached to the CDMA protocol, unavailable in Europe. Many Americans (rightly, for the most part) bemoan the backwardness of the United States when it comes to telecoms. This is obviously less to do with American technological know-how than with the problems of infrastructure presented by so vast a landmass. The US can boast however, choice in basic wireless protocols. There is the one we in Europe are familiar with: GSM (incorporating GPRS, EDGE and 3G in the form of HSPA and UMTS) and there is the alternative available in the US and parts of Asia: CDMA. Typically CDMA handsets do not contain SIM cards (unless they are sold as “global” phones which can also speak GSM) their connection to the network provider – Sprint, Verizon, AT&T etc. – is built in. Their equivalent of 3G is CDMA 2000, or EV-DO (standing for Evolution Data Optimised) and is generally considered by aficionados to be faster, stabler and more reliable. Certainly when I have used CDMA phones in large American cities I have been extremely impressed.

The all new 9630 Tour replaces the silver 8830. Like its predecessor the Tour is dual mode, allowing the American traveller to access GSM networks when abroad. My Verizon Tour worked straight out of the box and with almost alarming speed.

For most users the modality of wireless protocol is no more central to their experience than whether their car engine is diesel or petrol these days. Never mind what goes on under the hood, what are the day to day differences between the Curve and Tour in terms of use? Well, aside from the fact that the Tour comes without WiFi but with 3G, the differences are really quite small: the same familiar candybar form factor, though with darker skirting on the Tour. They both enjoy the one physical feature of the Storm worth keeping, the  shiny black sloping ‘roof’ where the lock and mute buttons live. There is the same superbly bright and clear 480 x 360 display on each and the same 3.2MP camera (although there is the dazzling option of being able to buy a Tour without a camera which will undoubtedly impress your friends) and the same suite of bundled applications (give or take a network specific doodad here or there). The Tour is a mite heavier and a snidge thicker than the Curve and being 3G is more demanding on the (identical) DX-1 battery. I prefer the slightly more scalloped keys on the Tour’s keyboard. The sharper edges offer a better tactile feedback which imparts greater confidence and ultimately therefore, greater speed.

If I lived and worked in the United States and visited Europe from time to time I would certainly choose the Tour as my BlackBerry of choice. Meanwhile, in Europe there is no reason not to be drawn to the Curve. Just don’t even think of getting a Storm. Unless you enjoy swearing and throwing things out of the window. Which some people do.

Before the year is out RIM’s OS 5.0 should be available (it already is if you are prepared to hunt about and live with a beta) and we can also expect the possibility that at any moment they will offer a Curve with trackpad but no GPS and a Tour with WiFi and 3G but no trackpad and a Pearl with EDGE but trackpad and GPS but but no WiFi and another with …. oi, you get the idea.

Coming next … a look at the Palm Pre and LG Watch Phone.

cluegirl @ 10:09pm: No diploma for you, Fattie!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/obese-students-may-be-barred-from-degree/tough-love/

You know, I'd still have a problem with this, even if they made UNDERWEIGHT students take the same 'health and fitness class' in order to graduate as the so-called "obese" students. Less of a problem, but still a problem.

Because by this university's flawed standard? I am obese. Meaning that, had I given the school my thousands of dollars and four years of my life, I would be barred from graduating too. I am a size 14 - 16, and am over the 30 bmi limit.

Methinks this university is going to spend a whole lot in legal fees, and soon!

cluegirl @ 8:41pm: Kitchen Witchin -- Spanish Rice casserole
Tonight's dinner was a triumph of improvisation, ergo I want to record it before I forget the details of what went into the pot.

* 1 lb ground chicken

* 3 smallish cloves of garlic, minced. (For once, I did NOT salt-grind them.)

* One poblano pepper, chopped.

* One small yellow onion, similarly chopped.

* A drizzle of sesame oil. I'd guestimate between a teaspoon and two.

* One 15 oz can of tomatoes. (I used Muir Glen's fire roasted with green chiles, but you should use whatever you fancy.)

* One wee can of sliced black olives, drained of its brine.

* A cup, more or less, of chicken broth (I eyeballed this. Sorry for the inexactitude.)

* One cup of long grain brown rice.

* Black pepper (five grinds,) cumin ( a very light dusting over the top,) and crystalized garlic (a generous dusting over the top,) to taste.

Prep is ridiculously easy. In a very deep frying pan, saute the chicken, garlic, onions and pepper in the sesame oil. Once the chicken is not very pink anymore, add the rice, and saute for as long as it takes you to get your cans open, and your broth measured out. (The extra saute induces the dry rice to take up the liquid easier, which, being brown rice, it really could use the help.)

Dump the tomatoes into a two cup pyrex glass measure, and then add chicken broth to the tippy top. Dump that in, then splash another third cup or so in for good measure. (Consider using that to rinse the dregs out of the tomato can. Cos it's yummy, that's why.) Stir in the olives (which will bring all the boys to the yard with their saltiness,) Bring it to a boil, then down to a simmer, and cover the pan for 25 minutes. I put the dry spices in about fifteen minutes before serving, but really they can go in just about any time.

Overall simmering time was around half an hour to 40 minutes, with three stirrings in, and the lid left off for the last ten minutes.

Try not to be appalled by how much like boxed mix the result will look. Fact is, it tastes worlds beyond better. And what's more? Gluten free.

If you're a lightweight, you can replace the poblano pepper (which ain't that spicy, really,) with something like a Romano, Anaheim, or Cubanelle pepper. If you do it with a bell pepper though, I will scorn you from afar, so it's best you don't tell me that detail. However, as usual, I want to hear the REST of how it comes out if/when you try this in your own kitchens.

Om Nom, my darlings!

cluegirl @ 4:52pm: ZOMGNew Moon is the best movie EVAR!!!
No, really. The bum says so!



(Thanks and a million more thanks to debitha for posting this. I lolled so hard I might have sporfled a little. Srsly.)

cluegirl @ 10:46am: With a smile on my face, and a bottle in my hand, you'll find me in the gutter in the morning...
I am SO crushing on Enter the Haggis's newest disc, Gutter Anthems! We listened to it pretty much nonstop on the drive back from Boston, and sure enough, it's back in the player again this morning, with no sign of galling yet.

It was a strange venue -- all baby boomer, arts council sort of crowd, butts planted firmly in seats, and no room to get up and dance. NOT the kind of environment which comes naturally to EtH, or the HaggisHeads (the latter of which were moshing and jigging about in the corners anyhow, by the end of the show.) I bruised the everlovin out of my hand with all the clapping though, and that is a surefire sign of a great show. Brian, the great woobie, clearly has someone in his life who's Taking Care Of Him now -- he's put some flesh on his face and frame, and no longer looks starveling thin. Myself, I find it cute, but I know there are some who'll be having the "he got all fat!" reaction. I say fuck em and feed em fish heads; he looks HAPPY! And of course he's still musically brilliant, as well, going from fiddle to vocals to keyboards to rhythm guitar to percussion with misleading ease. Oh, I am quite content to fangirl him from afar, though it would be quite the fun thing to seissun with him just the once. I've no intention of working that closely with another genius again though. I've done my time in that salt mine, thanks!

So the concert was great, the company was great, both our overnight hosts, and our lunch date as well. It was great to see Spider doing so well, and to get to meet, and highly approve of Boy. The ride home was pretty as always, and filled with New Music, and once we got home, the Faithful were so happy to see us they decided to forego the Rite of Shunning altogether. So they were underfoot and Helpful while we made ourselves a supper out of brussels sprouts, shallotts, quinoa, and ham. And then we had DVR'd episodes of NCIS and Criminal Minds to get caught up on, and the cherry-on-top of an early bedtime, and our own bed to have it in.

Perfect Weekend. Yesh.

I even got some work done on Tempus Fugitive on the drive out there, so that's good.

And now Godric is holding down the arm of my chair, and conspicuously leaning on my elbow, since I won't let him sleep in my lap. Should I move my arm out from under him, he'd fall against my ribs without noticing, however should I use my elbow to nudge his arse back up onto the chair arm, he'd get offended and bail. Just like that. *sneerk* Kitties are so funny!

And best of all? Dominus is taking the week home from work. So I have companionship which is conversant in English! Woo Hoo!

ponderosa121 @ 4:55pm: in order to avoid homework
bulletpoints!

- Although I managed surprisingly well on cards last year, there's no way I'm going to manage this year. I'm slightly bummed about this, but I think I'll just resolve to send more random letters throughout the year as that's way more fun to receive.

- I made adorable cupcakes at work again. I wish I had an excuse to make them at home, or a whole lot more people to foist them off on.

- The last two episodes of Fringe made me all excited and giddy, even with a brief Not Sure If Want moment in there. I need to get over my tendency to want to fit things neatly in canon and just write the smushy porn that I want to write.

- There is absolutely no way to reply to an anon thread with you as the subject without a) being a dick, b) encouraging the drama, and c) being a dick. I replied anyway.

- There is absolutely no way to blog/tweet/mention replying to an anon thread with you as the subject without encouraging the drama and being a bit of a dick, but it made me laugh. Oh, people.

- I had this big complicated adventure dream with JDM in it last night. It was awesome. Then I had to get up and go to work, which was less awesome, even though our new brunch cook made me Huevos for breakfast.

- Speaking of our new cook, she's been teaching J how to make stuff. Including this awesome grilled tomato salsa which is downstairs right now, calling to me. She's the best.

- I severely need a nap, but if I sleep now I'll wake up at the time which I should be going to bed. Conflict.

ponderosa121 @ 5:31pm: [FIC] Batman - Batman/Joker - The Frayed Ends
Spam! Wrote this not long after TDK came out but never posted it. Since the evil twin just wrote Joker/Scarecrow with similar elements, I knew I had to post it as the same time as hers or I'd never do it. Team Porn does Arkham. Arharhrh.


The Frayed Ends
Batman. Batman/Joker. R. ~1000 words. Nolanverse. Violence.
Darkness gathers into a swarm around them and Bruce doesn’t want to let the bastard take one more goddamn breath.


( Read Me. )

ponderosa121 @ 2:31pm: [ART] Steve & Tony Warmup Drawing
Just a little something to get me in the groove for doing homework. Done without access to my usual brushes so there are several big things that make me go DDDD:, but I didn't want to spend more than an hour on this. Warmup means warmup, Pondy.

Avengers. Steve/Tony. G.



( Steve & Tony Warmup Drawing )

cluegirl @ 3:43pm: ?tihs lautcae ht tahW
!!!EIREE si tihs isht esuaceB ?SIHT gniod si ertupmoc ym yhw nialpxe ydobyna naC

cluegirl @ 3:31pm: I'm a one-hit wonder, and you are softer than you think.
You stay classy Harlequin! You stay classy!

What gets me, is that they've the nerve to be upset that the RWA's taken away thier princess points for that stunt. Did they somehow think that authors would APPROVE of Harlequin pimping (and yes, I mean that 'pimping' in the most denigrating way possible, by the way,) a brand new vanity press at its slushpile? Of COURSE the RWA's disgusted!

Harlequin's spin doctoring attemtp is even worse, given that it's more or less like Huggy Bear trying to deny the existence of his stable of whores to his wife when she busts him at work. It's a plain sign of disrespect, and I look forward with schadenfreude to Harlequin's authors jumping ship in hordes over it. (Not that that'll actually happen, of course. Authors are too desperate, generally, to continue seeing their works in print once they've got a taste of it. Still, chance would be a fine thing.)

In other news.

I lost yesterday to being eaten by a grue. I lost today to a migraine. I got more or less nothing done on either, and am therefore a Very Bad Girl. Now who's going to write my spanking? (Leers at Certain Demographic of my Flist.)

This weekend will involve a drive to Boston, during which I expect I shall write some. We're going to see Enter the Haggis, and that'll be a good pick up to wash the dirt off the shovel with which I'm burying the dismembered corpse of this past week. (And how's THAT for a metaphor? Cause I mean every word, thanks.)

ponderosa121 @ 8:09pm: Things what I have been doing
Attended a benefit dinner last night with J, maiki, and Susan for a non-profit that we've done a lot of work for. Materials that both Susan and I had designed were all over the place and it was really nice to see it all out and looking snazzy. Susan's done a lot to get their informational materials/reports looking clean and professional. I did the benefit's programs, invites, and carried over from last year was a set of promotional posters which I'm still proud of. The project, per usual, made me gnash my teeth at times, but I do enjoy working for them, and it was flattering when people whom I didn't expect compliments from told me they were impressed by the invitations in particular. :D Leading up I had this worry about the pagination on the program booklet since I worked entirely remotely and never saw a proof (or even had time to run one myself!) but everything turned out beautifully and typo-free. By this point, I've done enough recent work to have a solid design portfolio again, so with so few classes left ahead of me it's nice to have that in addition to what's shaping up to go on my reel.

I didn't mingle much, as J and I were introduced to some great people early on and there was no incentive to bother straying away from the interesting conversation to rub elbows with people outside my industry. It was somewhat fascinating attending something like this after so long, and also after now having worked on catering from the serving end! The appetizers, by the way, were awesome. I wish we offered some of them on our own menu, especially the warm cranberries and almonds in phyllo cups. Yum.

My shoes were remarkably comfortable. I haven't worn actual heels in forever and it's nice to confirm that my knee can handle hours standing around in 3" heels.

ponderosa121 @ 5:10pm: [FIC] X-men RPS - Hugh/Liev/Taylor - Boys' Club
This was supposed to be anon commentporn, but then it wasn't fulfilling what the OP had asked for so I wrote it for Blue instead.

Boys' Club
X-men RPS. Hugh Jackman/Liev Schrieber/Taylor Kitsch. NC-17. 3400 words.
God, tonight he'd be a slut for it if that's what they wanted.

( Read Me. )

stephenfry @ 11:28am: Social Media – A Force for Good

http://www.stephenfry.com/2009/11/19/social-media-force-for-good/

http://www.stephenfry.com/?p=1829

There may be a short delay while the video loads.

Location: London

Stephen Fry, Biz Stone, Founder and Chief Executive of Twitter; and Reid Hoffman, Founder and Chief Executive of LinkedIn will discuss the phenomenon of social media and its future impact.

You can also join the conversation by posting a question for any of the speakers – all you need to do is add #svuk to your question on Twitter.

This event forms part of NESTA’s Silicon Valley comes to the UK event programme.

For more information: http://www.nesta.org.uk/assets/events/social_media__a_force_for_good

cluegirl @ 10:51pm: Windy bus stop click shop window heel
So. I appear to have fallen off the NaNo wagon. Kind of. Except not in such a way that it means I'm not still working on Tempus Fugitive every day or anything.

I'm strangely at peace with this realization, actually. I had thought that if I pussed out on NaNo after having committed to doing it, that I would nosedive in my motivation, and wind up tanking or abandoning the book out of sheer self-disgust. However all that's happened, is that I actually seem to have internalized my ideal pace for this thing, and have managed to more or less divorce it from NaNo's daily grind mentality.

I do not seem to be a Death March sort of writer. That's not to say that the wordcount is anything unapproachable -- for Cod's sake, I wrote Tower of Air in one day, and that story was around 10,000 words. It's the every day without a break thing that seems to be the dealbreaker for me. It's too much like monogamy. That is, the 'you may only focus on this one thing, forever' vibe that makes my inner magpie screech and hurl itself against the bars.

The reason I didn't write yesterday had a lot to do with burnout. I discovered this when I stopped staring hatefully at the blank screen and flashing cursor, and just cracked open hobbitdragon's The Bondage of the Mind (which is the best Snarry I've read all year, by the way,) instead. I gave up. Did you catch that? I gave up on TF for the day, and went to read porn. And suddenly felt immeasurably better, and less like just hitting delete until the entire manuscript and all its generative notes were gone. (Lo, the healing power of pr0n...)

Then today, I woke up with a new take on the scene that had been flummoxing me yesterday. I spent most of today finishing the read (yeah, it WAS that good,) and letting that notion percolate in the back of my head, and then this evening, I started outlining it. Which turned halfway through the outline into proper prose, and even in its half-finished state, is still comfortably within wordcount for the night. Mind, that's WITH all the blogging and thread-debating I was doing today.

So... NaNo. Not exactly my thing. It's not quite as supportive as I'd imagined, what with everyone focused (rightly) on getting out their own wordcount, and therefore not able to talk much. And I do tend to obsess rather awfully about that bar graph on the 'writer's stats' page. However, it did absolutely serve its purpose. It kicked my arse into gear, and it made me get past that fight scene I had stalled out on months ago, and underway. And I intend to still make a concerted effort to have my wordcount at or over 50g by the end of the month, however there's no BLOODY way that number will mark the end of the novel. This is me, after all. My idea of a middling story is around 65,000! My current guestimate has Tempus Fugitive coming in somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000 words. Which is long, yes, but not out of the question for a first novel.

And I'm still going to maintain my wordcount on the NaNo site as I get sequential scenes finished. And I'm still going to be doing updates on cluewrites as I go along. (Although not today, because of that whole 'the first half of this scene is an outline' thing. I have to fix that first.) Only now I'm going to go ahead and let myself TAKE days off when I need them, and to read other things when my brain aches from all the sameness, or when my subconscious knows there's something off in the outline, but can't get its fingers round exactly what it is. (That happens to me a lot, I'm afraid. I have a plot sense that will sometimes just stop me DEAD until I figure out what aspect of the upcoming scene needs to change. It can be vexing when it hits me in the middle of a deadline crunch, but it's never steered me wrong yet.)

So la.

In other, related news, Mr. John Robert Rose, Fenris of the Blackwatch Council, has stepped up and made it known to me today that he is one FUCK of a sexy beast, and Mr. Remus Lupin only wishes he'd been this hot.

Hee!

cluegirl @ 1:13pm: And for today's special: Survey, with a side of discussion!
Let's talk about insults, shall we?

One in particular, for today. Please tell me, in your own words, just what is meant when one is called a "slut".

I am aware that circumstances of activity, surroundings, and relationship to the speaker all have bearing on how the word gets used, and just how much of an insult it's meant to be, but let's discuss its worst first, shall we?

Linguistically and historically, a slut was a lazy maidservant. (This shows up in the word's Middle English origin, of slutte, or dirty) and through use, it expanded to include whores, prostitutes, and Ladies Of Negotiable Affection.

But what I want to know, is what's supposed to be meant by it -- really meant by it today. If some stranger spits the word at you on a bus, what's the first thing your brain's going to seize on as far as meaning? What would bring such a word from you, in anger, with intent to wound? What words go along with it, snugly nestled in the vocabulary arsenal like grenades in a belt? What softens it? What gives it teeth?

And -- this is the discussion part, -- how could we in the world who do not find sex and dirt equable, go about reclaiming the word from the public's vernacular of scorn? Has the process begun already? Even now, girls will sling 'slut' and 'ho' at their best friends by way of a compliment -- is that normalizing patriarchal attitudes of inherent female unworthiness, or is it pulling yet another bolt out of the old Scold's Mask?

Share me your thoughts; I really do want to know.

cluegirl @ 11:27am: Sad, isn't it?

see more Lol Celebs

cluegirl @ 6:54pm: Well fie.
Well THIS has been a rotten week already!

The bloody chiropractic appointment was the only thing to go well today.

I got to the coffeeshop to find that I'd forgot my computer cord, and only had 25% battery life left. So I did today's work on paper, in longhand, and yes, my wrist is killing me, thanks.

Then I met Dominus for dinner, just before he headed off to catch his plane... with his boss, so there wasn't even any real room for shmoopiness.

Drove half an hour home, only to realize that I left my glasses at the restaurant.

Was met by Godric upon arriving home, whose left foreleg has swollen to grotesque proportions in the space of one day. I found an abcess on his shoulder and picked it until it began to drain, but he's still going to have to go to the House Of Pain in the morning, so they can drain it properly, and get him on some antibiotics. Which means, because of the infection, I won't be able to get his shots updated until ANOTHER visit, with ANOTHER office fee. We've had a big orange tom that showed up this morning. I've never seen him before, but apparently Godric takes his existence personally. *Sigh* Well, at least he isn't in pain, although I'm not sure I want to know what that bastard's been eating if his bite is THAT septic!

So tomorrow is apparently going to be centered around running errands, instead of making up wordcount from this weekend.
Sorry NaNo.

So now I'm going to open Word, and transcribe today's work, and hope I can manage it without triggering a headache. Better than falling THAT much farther behind!