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.