Book of the day

I was just going through some new books and ran across this guidebook for micronations:



How wonderful is that?!

Book donation of the day

We get many donations at the library, but today one book stuck out (pun intended).

What if the Beatles were Irish?

Oh, BoingBoing, you bring me such joy. This week I found this video:

Passover Peeps

I know it's a bit belated, but I just ran across this at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and I needed to share. Because the 10 plagues are always more enlightening (and funny) when they come in Peep form. Trust me, check it out!

I know I've had too many blood tests when...

...I can judge the skill level of all three phlebotomists at the lab. Sigh.

Supermarket 2.0

Bump!

Girl's night last night was at Bump, the lounge with pricey food and $3.00 martinis. Much fun was had by all and much drinking was done by most. Not that unusual occurrence, but what makes this night different than all other night (hee, Passover reference) is that sebethis was approached by the waiter and asked if she was from Kansas City. Turns out he lived there for six years and was on a radio station called "The Buzz" as Scoops, the morning guy. Holy coincidence, Batman! sebethis used to listen to him all the time - and they knew the same clubs, the same people. Here they are, reunited at last:



After some power martini drinking, some clumsiness from a participant who shall remain nameless, and much laughter and inappropriate conversation, Liz, sebethis, and I ended up at Capogiro for delicious gelato and conversation that skewed a bit more disturbing than I was expecting.

If you're one of my Flickr friends, you can see the photos online (Passover seder pictures coming soon, as well)

Sheer genius

I found this on Boing Boing today - a brilliant way to recycle those empty CD spindles lying around the house:



On another note completely, I've been told, yet again, that 300 is fabulous. I decided not to go last night with some friends because after a wonderful seder Tuesday night, and a week of having the amazing climbing_junkie visiting from Edmonton, I needed some quality me time watching the last few episodes of Project Catwalk Season 1 and going to bed early. Besides, my shoulder to bury my head in during the gory scenes couldn't come, so I'm going to wait for him.

It's raining 300 men

Thanks to bonemot, the following video caused much hilarity at the Chicken Soup cook-off (Jen won) and Coffee Cake bake-off (I won) last night:



I decided a while back that I wasn't going to see 300 because it looked way to violent for me. I have since reconsidered my opinion and might be easily convinced to go, even if it means having to hide my head on someone's shoulder for most of the fight scenes.

Present to myself

I've been coveting a stand mixer for a while now, as my little hand mixer was just too awkward to make cakes with. I was contemplating a kitchenaid, but the pricetag was really making me pause. And then I was inspired by human_loser and his new pet. He reminfded me that I love the mixer we had at home while I was growing up, an old Sunbeam Mixmaster. So I decided that since I have a cake to bake for this weekend, I was going to get one for my very own. Introducing my new kitchen toy:



Today I also used it for the first time to make the brownies that I loved growing up as well. And since I do not want to gain 500 pounds due to my new toy, you can see that they are already packaged up to take to work tomorrow so other people can gain weight instead:

My mallows are dreamy

I have the best friends in the world!

I was telling sebethis about Viva Puffs a while back, and about how much I love them. They are a graham cookie bottom, then a layer of jam, then a big puff of marshmallow on top, all covered in chocolate. They're delicious, and I've been unable to find them or anything like them in the States so far. I've been told that they sound like Mallomars, but Mallomars don't have the jam filling.

Anyway, on Monday sebethis walks up to me and hands me a box of Dreamy Mallows, which she found at Shop-Rite. Evidently she remembered me talking about Viva Puffs and realized that Dreamy Mallows might be pretty much the same.


Hopefully I'm going to get a Canadian care package from my sister soon, as she said that she would include Viva Puffs for me. Then I will have a side-by-side cookie taste test!

Queen of willpower

Sebethis went to Chicago last week and brought me back chocolates from Ethel's. They're amazing, but I only have one box. To make them last, I've been rationing them out. I got the box on Monday, and I've managed to only eat one a day!

See - only six gone (so far)!



Oh, and this has been a crazy weather week. On Wednesday it hit 28 celsius, and on Friday we had a huge snowstorm. Here's a picture of it what is was like walking home.



Bear in mind that it was more like an ice storm, and the snow was stinging. And the winds were crazy. Of course, I was just being a masochist deciding to walk home, but the good Canadian blood has to be handy for something.

I'm sad...

...because my favourite cafe in Philly - Dessert - is closing. We went there yesterday night to celebrate some good news, and there was a sign in the window saying they would be shutting down on March 31st. I'm so sad! Dessert is a great place to go and spend a few hours eating delicious sweets and playing trivial pursuit, or gathering with a group of friends for high tea. The atmosphere is fabulous and the owners are sweeties. I'm going to have to find a new place at which to be a regular.

Me Generation

According to that bastion of accuracy and comprehensiveness - Wikipedia, I am a member of the Me Generation. Or the Consciousness Revolution, or the MTV Generation,or Generation X, or Generation Y. I feel very confused.

Meme-alicious

Comment with the words "Top Ten" or "Top Five", and I will reply with a subject for which you will generate a top ten (or top five) list. Post the list and instructions in your own journal.

bonemot asked for the top 5 meals I'll never forget. Here they are in reverse chronological order, with one more as a bonus.

1. My first Passover seder last year. I took the day off work and cooked a full dinner for ten (with outside contributions for the soup and dessert). We had a bunch of little lesbians and one actual Jew at the table. Plus the best brisket ever.

2. Birthday dinner with Jen at Morimoto - $120 dollars (each), 11 courses, and no idea what we were going to get. Plus we got to say hi to and shake hands with Iron Chef Morimoto himself.

3. Birthday dinner in Scotland with Ruthie - I went traditional for this one. Deep fried Mars bar for starters, then after a cheesy movie we moved on to haggis and trifle. We didn't have birthday candles so we stuck an emergency candle in the trifle. Haggis is yum!

4. My first sushi experience with Susan just south of Whyte Ave - she ordered a plate of the stuff, sat me down, and wouldn't let me leave the table until I ate my half. She set me on the path of liking fish, both raw and cooked.

5. This one's fuzzy - I was in Israel with my family and was a bit overwhelmed by all the different food. I was about nine or ten at the time. I spotted pizza at a little food court type restaurant was relieved that it was something familiar. Unfortunately for me it was made with goat or sheep's milk, so that was an unpleasant shock when I started eating it.

Bonus round: Amy and I crashed a private dinner party that a Very Famous Canadian Actor was attending. It was very disillusioning as the actor, who is enormously talented and very very handsome, was also a chain smoker; swore like a sailor; and greatly enjoyed pontificating. Woe betide anyone who held a different opinion that he did.

Ew.

I am now extremely glad I do not eat pork. Usually.


What Happens When You Pour Coke On Raw Pork? - A funny movie is a click away

And the winner is...

aNobii!

Shelfari might look pretty, but it doesn't have the organizational abilities of aNobii. I can mark my books as finished (with date completed), reading, not started, or unfinished. Global editing is easy. Tagging is a breeze. There's a ton of sorting options. It warms the cockles of my little librarian heart.

Now, I wouldn't use it for cataloguing my complete personal library because it doesn't have some of the more powerful applications and tools, but that's why I'm a charter member of Librarything. But for compiling booklists, and especially for keeping track of what I read no matter who owns it, aNobii is the one for me!

Hermetically sealed

If I've ever lent you a book in the past, you know that I'm very stringent about what condition it needs to be in when it is returned. Pretty much if you break it (or crumple it, or dog-ear it, or heaven forbid - break the spine), you've bought it. I'm completely anal about keeping my books in the condition they were when they were acquired. Even bathtub reading is done very carefully and I'm a HUGE bathtub reader.

So, for those of you on my shortlist of people I'll lend books to - take a giggle at this entry I found on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books Read the post. Then read the comments. Then run out and read Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris, which is a wonderful book for those of us who love books.

Mission Accomplished!

For those of you following my 50 Book Challenge, I'd like you to know that I have achieved 50 books as of today! The 50th book was Dark Mondays by Kage Baker. Now that I have completed the 50 books for the year, I am going to continue to log all my books that I read in 2007 to see how much (and what) I actually read in a year. So far, I've read a lot of JD Robb (thanks, Jen) and smut.



On a related note, I've been experimenting with different websites to track my books and display them to you. I started with bookswellread, but decided after a while that I didn't like their interface or how slow it was. I then found Shelfari, which is pretty but does not allow you list books not in it's database (plus, it's count of how many books I've read is one off). Yesterday I discovered aNobii, which doesn't have the pretty interface that Shelfari has but is more powerful. I can list the date I finished the books on, and it keeps track of how many pages I read as well!

So now I'm torn between Shelfari and aNobii (and leaning towards aNobii). Which do you prefer?
Anobii
or
Shelfari

Adaptation

I just watched the BBC production of The Ruby in the Smoke, based on the first Sally Lockhart book by Philip Pullman



Philip Pullman is, of course, better known for his His Dark Materials trilogy, the first of which, The Golden Compass, is being adapted into a film with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

This series, however, deals with a plucky Victorian-era orphan. No, it's much darker than you might imagine.

Anyway, aside from having to cram a novel's worth of plot in 95 minutes, it was a fun movie to watch, and I look forward to the next one in the series, The Shadow In The North, later on this year.

My brilliant solution

For the past few days I have been craving chocolate. I've been haunting the vending machine at work, I've been daydreaming about chocolate at home in the evenings. Today I finally had a brilliant idea. I don't really need to eat my body weight in chocolate, thinks I. But evidently I need something chocolatey. So I went out and bought Dove Rich Dark Chocolate Flowers. How is this a solution, you might ask? Because I really do not like dark chocolate at all. So I figure I'll have one and it will give me my chocolate fix, but I won't be tempted to eat more than one. It worked quite well tonight - I had one and it was quite satisfying.

Of course, the plan would have worked better if I hadn't also bought a Cadbury Fruit and Nut bar...

Can't resist the library humour

Dewey Decimal System Helpless To Categorize New Jim Belushi Book

French Toast Experiment

Sebethis and I were talking at lunch yesterday about peanut butter, and the topic came around to what whould make a peanut butter sandwich better. We ended up thinking up a peanut butter and apple butter sandwich made into french toast. I think it sounds delicious and healthy, she's not so sure on the healthy part.

Anyway, I was inspired to give it a try tonight for dinner. Voila! Peanut butter and apple butter french toast sandwich:



I made it in a sandwich maker and although it didn't seal properly I was able to put it back together. It was very good - I will definitely make it again.

Lesbian romance

There's an interesting post over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books about the dearth of good (or any) lesbian romances published. There's lots of straight and gay male stuff out there, but the people discussing the topic are having a hard time coming up with much lesbian stuff. The one traditional regency romance that happens to be lesbian that was mentioned is Pembroke Park, which I've decided I need to read in order to be a completist.

I've run across some gay romance (usually with ludicrous covers that make me want to run screaming in the other direction) and bi and gay erotica, but I've never read, or even come across, a lesbian romance. I'll let you know how Pembroke Park is when I finish it.

Anyone else know any other good lesbian romances?

Blood Ties

One of the earlier vampire/detective paranormal suspense series is coming to a TV near you next month. Blood Ties is coming to Lifetime in March. It's based on a series of books by Tanya Huff which started back in 1991, Pre-Buffy!

Anyway, it looks interesting and stars Christina Cox, who also guested on Due South, so it's old home week for me!

Friday

The perfect way to unwind after a stressful week:

Pizza (Fra Diavolo from La Fourno)
Cider (Woodchuck raspberry)
Introducing a friend to Shaun of the Dead for the first time

Brilliant. Can't wait for Hot Fuzz!

And after it all, a hot bath and a copy of Entertainment Weekly

My tastes are simple.

I wanna be a science scout!

Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

This looks way better than the girl scouts (although I don't know if they have cookies). They have niftier badges.

Plus, they are in general agreement with the Truth

Bureaucracy in action

BjorkDiddy

Oh, my, fricking, hilarious!

Amazing Race All-Stars

Tonight is the premiere of Amazing Race All-Stars, which marks the return of Kevin and Drew, Danny and Oswald, John Vito and Jill, and Team Guido (and some other teams I don't care as much about).

Which also means it's the traditional Amazing Race Premiere Party tonight (now on it's 5th incarnation), so I'm in the middle of making a vat of chili to bring to the gathering.

Yay!

One, Two, Three, FOUR, Five

Remember the funky number song from Sesame Street?

Now you can immortalize it with a fabulous t-shirt! Hurry, it's a now-or-never shirt from Glarkware, so you only have 'til February 28 to order.

Hair! In Japanese!

Oh my god, what else can I say?



Seeqpod Music Playlist

Oh, and how much do I love Seeqpod? I just discovered it this morning and have already found a ton of cool stuff.

Memes-a-go-go

This survey stolen from: human_loser and jugglepants

YOUR REAL NAME:
Dena

YOUR GANGSTA NAME (1st 4 letters plus izzle):
Dena-izzle. That sucks.

YOUR DETECTIVE NAME (fave color + fave animal):
Red Panda

YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name + childhood street):
Blank Harmer (Short first name, no middle name - I'm screwed in this!)

YOUR STAR WARS NAME (last 3 letters of your last name + first 2 letters of your first name + first 3 letters of Mom's maiden name):
Likdeing

YOUR SUPER HERO NAME (2nd fave color + fave drink):
Orange Margarita

YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM NAME (Grandma/Grandpa's first name + Jones):
Ida Jones

YOUR GOTH NAME (Black + name of one of your pets):
Black Fishele

Oy.

Delicious heart attack on a plate

This is a little belated, but I felt like sharing. I was going through all my old emails at work today and ran across this recipe for Cheeseburger Pie that one of my colleagues shared after bringing said pie to the Christmas Party. Thank you Lynnace!

CHEESEBURGER PIE

1 1/2 - 2 LBS OF GROUND BEEF
2 ONIONS
1 GREEN PEPPERS
1 RED PEPPERS
1 YELLOW PEPPERS
2 TBL SP. FRESH MINCED GARLIC
1 STICK BUTTER
1 VELVETA CHEESE-BLOCK
2 ROLLS OF CRESCENT ROLLS- PREFERABLY PILLSBURY
SEASONED SALT
PEPPER
ACCENT
WHITE COOKING WINE

Chop up onions & peppers very finely. In a sauce pan brown onions peppers and garlic in butter. Once browned pour in cooking wine and let simmer. Brown ground beef in large frying pan with the seasonings (you may want to add your own to your taste). After onions and peppers have cooked down add to browned ground beef and stir cover and let simmer.

Into a 10in. pie pan press crescent rolls together to form crust letting 1/2 in. hang over the edge of pan. This takes practice so you might want to buy extra crescent rolls in case you find you can't make it stretch far enough.

Turn off meat and drain after letting simmer for 10 minutes.

Into pie shell put a thin layer of meat mixture in the bottom enough to cover it well. Then slice Velveeta cheese thinly and place a layer of cheese over the meat. Put the rest of the meat into pie pan and spread evenly over the rest of the cheese layer. Place another layer of cheese over the meat but make your slices thicker.

Here comes the tricky part. On a cutting board piece together the other crescent rolls to form the top of the crust. Pinch together the ends and stretch lightly it takes time but you can do it.

Some people prefer to roll it out like a regular pie crust but it may prove to be more difficult since crescent roll dough is kind of sticky. You will need to add flour to keep it from sticking so much to the roller & the flour will diminish the taste of the crescent roll. Any way do what you feel like is best for you in order to make it work. Once you have the top on roll the ends together and press down to seal it. Beat 1 egg in a bowl and paint it over the crust with a pastry brush to give it a golden glow. Bake in the oven at 350 until golden brown. If your crust starts to brown faster on the outside. Cover the ends in foil to prevent from burning and continue to bake until middle of pie is brown.

Tini-terrific

I had a hearing test today and I officially have tinitus. I also learned a new pronunciation, as I have always pronounced it "tin-night-us, but everyone at the hospital pronounced it "tin-nih-tus". Of course with that diagnoses comes the explanation that they don't know what caused it (it wasn't noise induced, they say) or how to fix it. At least I don't notice it except when I'm in a dead silent room. Then it just sounds like a low electrical hum.
I also found out that my hearing is above normal, so for all those times as a teen-ager when I said I didn't hear my parents, I guess hearing gets better with age :)

My need/want scale was completely out of whack this weekend. I needed to do laundry and chores, but I wanted to snuggle on the couch and nap and watch TV. Needless to say, the laundry still needs to be done and I'm woefully short on socks.

Camel Bookmobile

I just ran across mention of a new novel coming out in April called "The Camel Bookmobile" by Masha Hamilton. It's based on a real-life camel bookmobile service in Kenya near the Somalia border.



It sounds fascinating, especially since when when I was in Library school I saw a job-swap ad for a book-burro librarian in the Andes.

There is also a “Share Your Favorite Books” Drive, where you can donate books to the Camel Library.

Candid, biblical advice

I get the Ingram Advance magazine at work, and I just started flipping thought the Romance Magazine Supplement 2007. On the back page is a book that makes my giggle and roll my eyes at the same time. It's called "Is that all he thinks about? How to enjoy great sex with your husband" and the copy reads like this:

"With candid, biblical advice, author Maria Taviano helps
married women understand the Creator's view of sex, discover
ways to fulfillment for themselves and their husbands, and
embrace God's plan for women to be godly and sexual"



Oy.

Word of the Day

I just took out neat looking cookbook called "Starting with ingredients: quintessential recipes for the way we really cook".



It looks really interesting because each chapter has recipes based on a different single ingredient. What really got me though, was that I realized that while I know what "quintessence" means, I did not know why it means what it does.

So, being a curious sort of librarian, I looked it up on the Online Etymology Dictionary and found out.

"quintessence
c.1430, in ancient and medieval philosophy, "pure essence, substance of which the heavenly bodies are composed," lit. "fifth essence," from M.Fr. quinte essence (14c.), from M.L. quinta essentia, from L. quinta, fem. of quintus "fifth" + essentia (see essence). Loan-translation of Gk. pempte ousia, the "ether" added by Aristotle to the four known elements (water, earth, fire, air) and said to permeate all things. Its extraction was one of the chief goals of alchemy. Sense of "purest essence" (of a situation, character, etc.) is first recorded 1570; quintessential (n.) is from 1899, in this sense."

Cool, huh?

Snark that makes me happy

I admit it - I like a good catty comment about sad sad fashion choices as much as the next shallow person. And that's why Go Fug Yourself warms the cockles of my bitchy little heart. They say everything I'm not witty enough to come up with on the spot, and they can bring the snark like nobody's business. Celebrities + bad fashion + snarky commentary = sheer hilarity.

For those who thought I was kidding...

When I was a kid there was a group called the Mini Pops. I have mentioned this a few times to friends here and no one has ever heard of them. I thought maybe they were a Canadian novelty act, but recently I did a bit of digging and found that they were actually from a UK TV show. Evidently their albums were very popular in Canada and they even went on tour there. I know I had at least two albums and played them incessantly.





You can even check out some of their fabulous vocal stylings!

The Story of ISBN-13

Once upon a time there was a lonely 1...

...and a lonely 3

One day their eyes met across a stretch of filing cabinet

They liked what they saw and went on a date...

...leaned in for a kiss...

And the rest is history!

Welcome to the world, ISBN-13!

(thanks to Jen for bringing me the most adorable ISBN-13 plush toy in the world from ALA Midwinter)

Finally cooking!

It's so easy to get really good food in my neighborhood, and I realized that it has been weeks since I've actually cooked something in my kitchen.

I decided that I'd start back into it easily and made a nice lamb dish in my crockpot this morning so we had food ready and waiting for us at Girl's Night tonight.

A few people have asked for the recipe, so I've scanned it in for you here. It's from the book "Not your mother's slow cooker cookbook" by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann. The only change I made is to use boneless lamb stew meat instead of lamb shanks. I also forgot to add salt and pepper and lemon zest at the end today, but it was still delicious.

I feel old

I was discussing Gardasil today with a colleague, and I am too old to get the vaccine. It's recommended for girls 9-26, so I can't be vaccinated against HPV. That sucks.

For Alex

It tastes like toasted coconut in liquid form, with little pieces of coconut meat floating in it.

Coconut overload

I've acquired a fondness for Roasted Coconut drink.

You can find it at Asian grocery stores, but lately whenever I go in I can't find the right type. Friday Micaela and I went for pho (at Viet Huong, which is delicious) and stopped in to the supermarket next door just to check. We found one dented can of the drink, but Micaela went on a mission to find more. I am now the proud owner of entire case of Roasted Coconut drink! Yay Micaela!

Snow!

'Tis the first snow of the year, and almost the first snow of the winter. We had a teeny flurry in December that melted as soon as it hit, but this looks like it might actually stay around for a few hours. Yay! Winter might actually be arriving (with a whimper)

Another reason I'm sleepy

Friends who call me at two in the morning.

I have a new rule effective immediately. If you are not in immediate physical distress or need to go to the hospital, do not call me after midnight. It's not polite.

Things that make Dena sleepy (part 126)

Staying up 'til 2 am playing with my new Sony Ericsson Walkman cell phone even though I needed to get up early for work this morning.

The weekend of meat

This Sunday marked the first annual Martin Luther King Day Turducken Dinner. We all got together and purchased a turducken and had a lovely potluck turducken dinner Sunday night.

And just to keep the stereotypes going, the girls were in the kitchen cooking and the guys were playing football on the Xbox.
Much good food was made and had by all, including rosemary foccacia with blue cheese and honey, brussel spouts, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, cheesy corn (Karin will not give us the recipe for this, but has promised that upon her death we can ask her mom for it), green bean salad, tofurkey (for the vegetarians), homemade black forest cake, and bread pudding with whiskey sauce.

After eating so much that we could not move, I broke out my brand new Cranium game and proceeded to be soundly beaten by the unstoppable team of mAy and Gridley. Sebethis and I made a remarkable comeback late in the game, but were unable to overtake Team Smarty-pants.


The feasting did not stop there! Yesterday (on the actual MLK Day) we traipsed off to Fogo de Chao for all you can eat meat. Dee-licious! As you can see by Steve's face!

And now I should go on a diet for the rest of the year (except for Dining Days this week and Restaurant Week at the end of the month). But I won't. I know myself too well.

50 Book Challenge

So, it looks like some people are working on a challenge to read 50 books during the year. I laugh at such a paltry number, but it did get me to wondering how many books I actually do read. I'm going to keep track of all the books I read this year and you can follow along by visiting my book journal page, which I have also listed in my sidebar under "50 Book Challenge"

Life theme song

So, supposedly the number one song on the day of your 18th birthday is your life theme song. And I get:

Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-lot


And yay, my pretend boyfriend Jonathan Coulton has done a cover of my theme song!


Check your life theme song out here

Happy New Year!

Many many happenings in the past week or so, so hold on to your hats:

Christmas Karaoke - I had the traditional Christmas sleepover this year with Jen and Kim, and spent Christmas Day morning rocking out with Kim's brand spanking new karaoke machine. God, I suck at singing!

Saturday I screwed up my courage and went to Ansill, a restaurant specializing in the icky parts of animals, with Grimmgirl and her friend. They don't actually advertise that way, but that's what it is, pretty much. The ickiest stuff I tried: bone marrow and sweetbreads. The bone marrow was surprisingly yummy, and the sweetbreads were okay, but I didn't like the sauce they were in that much. I'd actually go back again. It was a day of foodiness, as that morning I went to a Korean grocery store with Micaela to shop for her New Year's blowout. I bought some delicious radish kimchee and marinated beef, she bought a ton of Bul-go-gi and spicy chicken.

Which leads me to the party. It was a nine o'clock do, so one would assume that people would have dinner before going, no? Anyway, here's some of the food that Micaela made:

Anyway, it was a fabulous party and we watched the fireworks from her rooftop and we all drank way too much and got home way too late.


New Year's Day was the second annual Corner Gas-athon, so I spent a lovely day lying on a couch watching 11 episodes of the show and eating leftovers. It was exhausting, I tell you!

And the big News of the Week:

Welcome to the world, baby Simon!

He looks just like his dad - Congratulations Alex and Janet!

A strange sense of melancholia

I'm feeling... strange. I just got back from seeing "The History Boys" with Sebethis, and I thought it was brilliant. Thought-provoking, uplifting and then... the ending. It wasn't bad, far from it. It was just that the whole movie had such a sense of hope and aspiration and dreams as the boys went through the preparations for taking their entrance exams for Oxford and Cambridge. And at the end (stop here if you don't want to know)...

...we find out how mundane their lives turn out to be. Even if they aren't mundane. Even though they did succeed, it felt like such a loss. Of the possibilities that are there while going to school. Of the potential futures. Of the subjunctive moments. I feel sad and as if I've lost something. I was choked up at the end not because of any one event, but because of the loss of something ephemeral and something that I felt very personally. And it's not that I'm unhappy because I'm definitely not. It's that there's part of me that I was that I'm never going to be again. There will always be possibility and moments, but those particular ones were a product of a very specific time and place, and they can't be relived, only reinterpreted.

The agony of being a cover model

How Did I End Up On The Cover Of This Romance Novel?

Last week at the supermarket, while shopping for my weekly supply of three dozen eggs and 12 pounds of mutton, I spotted a rack near the checkout...

Funny by itself, even funnier when you go to Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and read about the Duncan Larksthrush fanfic contest.

I used to know these...

I got hooked on the Geography Challange this week. Disgustingly, my highest score is 80%, and my average is around 50%. I might suck at it, but it's highly addictive.

How awesome is this?

I get a daily email newsletter called Shelf Awareness, and in today's edition was the following article. What a brilliant idea!

Weller's Readers in the Window
Cool idea of the day. Every afternoon through Christmas Eve, volunteer readers sit in the windows of Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore, Salt Lake City, Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

"Decorated like a living room, the window is warm and comes stocked with snacks and hot drinks," the paper wrote. "When the store set out criteria for the window, it asked for all kinds of families--however people defined the term. So far, readers who signed up range from teenage friends to couples on dates to a grandfather and his grandson. 'It's everyone,' said Jennifer Nielsen, who is in charge of decorating the store's windows and coordinating the readers' shifts. 'All the customers have loved it.' "

Most people read, silently or aloud, but some have played board games or chat. Friends and family of readers receive a discount on purchases while the readers are reading. Readers themselves receive a discount after their face time is up.

All better!

Everything is back on track and I'm no longer depressed (or very stressed). Yay! That was a bad six days I just had, and it was more than enough anxiety for one lifetime.

Now back to our regular programming:

Cute baby animals!

I have a acquired a food fairy

Yesterday at the end of the day there were two massive chocolate bars waiting on my desk. Today I step away from the department for five minutes and when I come back there is a slice of cherry cream cheese bread on my desk. A girl could get used to this...

I guess the upside to being awfully stressed and depressed is that people feel the need to feed me. They also do lovely things like arrange to have an adorable two-year-old pay me a cheer-up visit.

I'm trying not to be tiresome about everything that's going on so as not to become that whiny girl. Times like these make me realize what wonderful friends and family I have. Thank you everyone - I do love you all, and I'll try not to take advantage of your broad shoulders too often.

Oh, for goodness sake

Sometimes there just have to be common-sense limits, don't you think?

Lawmaker aims to allow the blind to hunt

Durian

Smells bad, bad for you

Sing it out!

I saw this on Neil Gaiman's blog right before Thanksgiving. I think it's fantastic!

After the hordes descended

Saturday was the big Thanksgiving Potluck/Leftover Party, and it was a smashing success. We had tons of food and about twenty people to eat it all. Check out the table near the end of the festivities:



I do so love that all my friends are total foodies!

When they get it wrong, they get it really wrong!

Part of my job is ordering paperback books for the library. To do that I use the Ingram iPage website. Today I was going through my booklist for the week and pulled up Linnea Sinclair's new book. Cool. I really like her (and if you like romance and science fiction you will too). As part of the promotional blurb, the page has info about the author. It says at the end "Fans can reach her through her website at www.starfreighter.com"

Um, no they can't. Because I, all innocent, went to that link. And instead of science fiction, I got "SUPER GAY COCKS!"

I'm not quite sure how much of an audience overlap there is between straight romantic science fiction and graphic gay porn, but I'm guessing that it might be small.

Why I love my friends, exhibit A

Conversation (almost verbatim) with Micaela on the phone at work tonight:

M: Remember the best turkey burger in the world I told you about?
D: Um
M: From Delaware. I brought you half.
D: What?
M: I ate half and saved you the other half. I'm bringing it to you right now
M: I'm right in front of the library. Bring napkins and come out and eat in the car.
D: I'll be right out!

And she even got the timing right - just as I was about to go on my break.

Much as she would protest the characterization, Micaela is one of the nicest, most generous people I know.

Jingle hell

I stopped on the way to work to pick up a wrap today and inadvertantly stepped into the beginning of Christmas hell. The radio statio playing in the deli was B-101, which is now all-christmas music, all the time! until Christmas day. And it's not even Thanksgiving yet! Argh!

On a happier note, I finally used the gift certificate some of my wonderful friends got me and went for an aromatherapy relaxation massage at Terme di Aroma. I've never had a massage that wasn't dep tissue/therapeutic before, so I was stunned to realize that massages don't have to hurt!

So true!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
Philadelphia
The South
The Inland North
The Northeast
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Zombie Singalong! (...or, this is the week that was)

Tuesday I had an unfortunate peanut brittle accident. Don't ask - it was embarrassing and my finger still hurts.

Wednesday I had an evening of consolation drinking and greasy food with a friend who got bad news.

Thursday was Girl's Night - Indian food from Lovash (yum) and the first episode of Project Catwalk (the British version of Project Runway)

Friday I'm pretty sure I did something, but I don't remember.

Saturday I joined Sebethis going out to Ardmore to see Jonathan Coulton, my new singer/songwriter boyfriend. It was a great show, and he ended with an audience participation zombie song, so we ended the set singing "All we want to do is eat your brains!" Sebethis was ecstatic, as she is a HUGE zombie fan. Here she is squeaking with pleasure because she gets to sing about zombies:

And Ninja Stan, I remembered you - I have an autographed cd for you!