With unspoken insinuation of desire for elaboration

Overdue updatiness

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:26:25 GMT

Whew. So! I'm not dead. I regret that most of my LJ posts a) require stating that, b) are probably somewhat surprising when I do make that statement.

Things that have been going on:
1) I am posting this from my new laptop. A Lenovo ideapad. Not meant to be amazing - not gaming on it or anything, but I wanted a laptop I could screw around with, and given that this was on a fairly deep discount, I won't feel any compunctions about not attempting things with it. My plan is to partition my harddrive fairly evenly and then finally take a second look at Linux, given the last time I looked at it was uh. 2003? There have um. Been some advances since then, one hears. :P

2) Life is still going well. I'm spending not enough time being social and too much time at work, but I largely enjoy work, and home is good, so y'know. It works.

3) This past weekend was my birthday, and it was the sort of birthday I'd wanted to have for about the past five years. Seriously good times - on the evening before I went to a club for goth night with a few folks and we danced until something like 1:30. Went home, slept about 6 hours, then went back out with a bunch of friends to King Richard's Faire, and after many hours of that, the rest of the evening was spent generally hanging out and playing board games. It was pretty much solid packed funtimes. And then on Sunday I completely crashed and did nothing of any worth, which was a good thing.

4) I saw a great concert last night - Carbon Leaf plus Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers. Both groups were enjoyable, and good performers. I liked Carbon Leaf better, but then I also actually knew them before the concert. Earlier in the month I went to the ballet with genarti and we saw Giselle. There was also a Vienna Teng concert a while back... it's been a pretty good time for entertainment.

5) Today we had our IT team build at my workplace. We went en masse to this corn maze at Connors Farm, then got on a brief hayride tour of the farm before heading over to Alfalfa Farms winery for a brief tour, some wine tasting, lunch, and subsequent wine purchasing. Yes, shockingly, I actually bought wine. I don't generally like wine at all, but they had a blueberry and a cranberry wine that were excellent. I am highly enthused about this.

6) Oh right. And there was Dragon*Con. I dressed up as Edel, a doll character from the awesome anime Princess Tutu, and we had a group, including the eponymous Princess Tutu in the form of a bookelfe, her nemesis but actually totally her friend, genarti, their perplexing feline teacher, jothra, and the eternally terrifying Drosselmeyer, rushin_doll. I really enjoyed doing the group thing, as well as other bits of the con (and of just the people attending the con), but I do think next year I am taking more damned time off beforehand. I was way too tired on getting there, and hadn't had time to finish all of the costume beforehand. August? Was crazy.

Going up to Maine shortly, supposed to be working on decorating Halloween-wise for work, should be getting together my hopefully not too time-intensive Halloween costume, will be heading to NY the weekend after this one... it's going to be a bit busy. On the whole, though, life is good.

Also? I may be slow to learn here, but I kind of love Pandora now. It introduced me to Echo Slightly, whom I am enjoying the hell out of. I feel like Not To Have To Lie is roughly the best thing in the existence of ever, but I sort of want to get other people to listen to it and tell me if I'm crazy for thinking that.

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:28:07 GMT

I have arrived in DC. Well, College Park, Maryland to be exact. I got weirdly misty-eyed when I passed through Rosslyn, and actually it doesn't look to have changed too much, from the half dozen streets I caught.

I really want to wander around through my old haunts in Arlington, but I'm also fairly sure I'm just not going to have any time. /: Also, I am currently exhausted from having left at 5:15 AM in order to get to the airport on time.

Oh, I should perhaps mention - I doubt I will have time because I am down here for my second ever business trip. It's almost like I have a real job or something. <_< I'm mostly looking forward to this week, but I do expect to come out of it looking like I've been beaten about the head repeatedly with an aardvark. Ah well, at least it's pretty down here.

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:24:53 GMT

...I had a dream last night, which I have only just now remembered part of. Don't know what the bulk of it was, but there was this detail wherein I was talking with my old housemate, Saurabh, and he was living with someone I don't think I knew, and owned a Wii, and made some offhanded comment about how they had stopped playing because it was such a timesink (I have had this conversation about gaming systems in geenral about ten times in the past two months). I offered to buy it from him, and he declined, and I was sort of sad.

How random is that?

So my life has been crazy stupid crazy busy lately, and training the new person to take over my job has been making for long hours at work, 'cause I'm supposed to be learning my new position and doing some, but nowhere near all the responsibilities for that job, as well, plus I'm sometimes doing a little extra work for my old job so we don't fall behind. Aie.

Meanwhile, I got summoned to jury duty, got a postponement, didn't get a confirmation that it *was* postponed, so ended up going anyhow (bless Beth for taking me at arse o' clock Wednesday morning), only to get in line and have them look at me funny since my name wasn't on the list, and tell me to come back in May. Yay. /: Also, we've had a few small chorus concerts, one in this rose garden-focused art gallery showing, and another in a presentation hall in a library. We're doing another short thing at that library this coming Tuesday.

I'm at my mom's house, and listening to her on the treadmill while waiting for my dinner to cool a bit. But it's definitely about time for dinner.

I'm so, so pleased that the sun is still up at seven PM these days. Can't wait for spring.

Hope you're all having good weekends. :)

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:52:14 GMT

I interviewed for and got a new job today (at the same company). Promotion of happiness and professionalness+6! It is the most exciting thing ever.

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:40:36 GMT

This month=brainsplat.

I dropped a commitment and am *still* simultaneously behind on everything at work and in my personal life and not getting enough sleep. Why is the holiday season so damned stressful? /:

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:12:32 GMT

Thank heavens. Also, FUCK YEAH.

And now to becalm myself enough to sleep.

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:55:29 GMT

This is wholly stupid, I admit.

I'm going down to NY tomorrow. I cannot decide whether or not to take my laptop with me. This is so comparatively trivial a question.

Pros:
Bus trip goes really quickly when you can watch anime the whole way
I know I'll have all the music I want to listen to
I might be able to get internet on the bus on the way down - yay internet

Cons:
Laptop in its case is heavy and awkward
Net connection at home is complicated and it's easier to just not deal with it, so no internet at home on it anyhow
Possible to get hijacked by work if I have it.

I have an iPod, but it hasn't been synched up to anything lately because what I'd want to synch it to is currently on three separate hard drives. Man, do I have to do something about that. Also, iPod is being quirky lately, and doesn't want to play in stereo out the headphones unless the jack is being held at a weird angle.

So, laptop. Should it stay or should it go?

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:43:02 GMT

Weekdays are so much less interesting than weekends. It's only been a few hours, realistically, and yet I can already very certainly conclude this. I had fun every evening this weekend, though I didn't get enough done the entire time. All I've done besides hang out with people is read books and catch up on internet stuff. I need to get my Halloween plans going very soon.

Also, I am very, very glad I decided to take off both Thursday and Friday to go down to NY, as I forgot we're having this big to do related to work on Wednesday night, and now it means I can go to that and not panic about not having packed by Wednesday night. :P

I had a really great birthday, for I think the first time in several years. If I recall correctly, last birthday I was so tired I fell face down onto my bed and was dead asleep at 7 PM. The birthday before that I spent with my mum - 'nough said. The ones before that I don't quite remember.

That said... damnit, I want to still be 27. 28 is a totally uninteresting age to be.

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 19:01:25 GMT

Y'know, it occurs to me... I never actually posted to say that the summit of my life has been reached: I now own Rock Band.

Unsurprisingly, I adore the ever-living fuck out of it. I spend waaaay too much time playing in band mode by myself by singing and playing bass at the same time. (I can even do this on Hard now for songs I actually know the vocals to at all. Trying to do songs I don't know at all, though, is horrifying.) I also habitually dragoon Beth into playing with me. Poor thing. Seriously, though, playing with multiple friends is the most fun ever, and more people should come over so that I can dupe them into playing as well. :)

There was this ongoing saga wherein I tried to open "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria for days and days without actually having worked out how the gaining new songs mechanic worked. Then I finally pulled up the internets and figured out how I was *supposed* to get new songs and did it in short order. Except I had to fumble my way through Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld by myself on both vocals and bass, and it was some sort of travesty. Still worth it, though. :D

Also? Me singing "Wave of Mutilation" in my quasi-operatic voice=funniest goddamned thing ever.

Also, also? I made a whole playlist of a bunch of Rock Band songs on my computer so that I can learn the vocals better. *is not pathetic at all, no really*

So yeah, come over. Friiiieeeends!

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:37:23 GMT

Meme from juldea
Classical Music
So here we go. Strike through I couldn't hum it to you or recognize any of it, even if I might recognize the name or the composer. Regular text means I've heard it enough to recognize or even hum it. Italics means I have a copy of it in some form of media. Bold means I've played it in band or on piano or something.

1. Symphony #9 (Beethoven)
2. Four Seasons (Vivaldi)
3. Egmont Overture (Beethoven)
4. Canon in D (Pachelbel)
5. New World Symphony #9 (Dvorak)
6. Symphony #5 (Beethoven)
7. Adagio For Strings (Barber)
~~8. Symphony #7 (Beethoven)~~
9. 1812 Overture (Tchaikovsky)
~~10. Pastoral Symphony #6 (Beethoven)~~
11. Moldau (Smetana)
12. Rhapsody in Blue (Gershwin)
13. Bolero (Ravel)
14. Appalachian Spring (Copland)
~~15. Piano Concerto #2 (Rachmaninov)~~
16. Clarinet Concerto (Mozart)
~~17. Rage over a lost penny (Beethoven)~~
18. Fur Elise (Beethoven)
~~19. Piano Concerto #1 (Tchaikovsky)~~
20. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (Bach)
21. Messiah (Handel)
~~22. Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky)~~
23. Clair de Lune (Debussy)
24. Meditation from Thajs (Massenet) (isn't this supposed to be spelled "Thaïs"?)
25. Symphony #1 (Mahler)
~~26. Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Rachmaninov)~~
~~27. Symphony #1 (Brahms)~~
28. Symphonie Fantastique (Berlioz)
29. O Carmina Burana (Orff)
30. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Serenade #13 (Mozart)
31. Fanfare for the Common Man (Copland)
32. Blue Danube Waltz (Strauss)
33. Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)
34. Trout Theme & Variations (Schubert)
35. Brandenburg Concerto #5 (Bach)
~~36. Lark Ascending (Vaughan Williams)~~
37. Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky)
~~38. Piano Concerto in a-minor (Grieg)~~
39. Finlandia (Sibelius)
~~40. Unfinished Symphony #8 (Schubert)~~
41. Brandenburg Concerto #3 (Bach)
42. Eroica Symphony #3 (Beethoven)
43. Jupiter Symphony #41 (Mozart)
44. Water Music Suite (Handel)
45. Carmen (Bizet)
46. Magic Flute Overture (Mozart)
47. Moonlight Sonata #14 (Beethoven)
~~48. Piano Concerto #21 (Mozart)~~
~~49. Warsaw Concerto (Addinsell)~~
50. William Tell Overture (Rossini)
~~51. Piano Concerto #3 (Rachmaninov)~~
52. Concierto de Aranjuez (Rodrigo)
~~53. Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn)~~
~~54. Pathetique Symphony #6 (Tchaikovsky)~~
~~55. Piano Concerto #5 (Beethoven)~~
56. Ancient Airs and Dances (Respighi)
57. Pictures at an Exhibition (Mussorgsky)
~~58. Nessun Dorma (Puccini)~~
~~59. Symphony #4 (Tchaikovsky)~~
~~60. Hebrides Overture (Mendelssohn)~~
61. Symphony #40 (Mozart)
62. Peer Gynt Suite (Grieg)
63. Symphony #8 (Dvorak)
64. Pie Jesu from Requiem (Faure)
65. Air on the G String (Bach)
66. Danse Macabre (Saint-Saens)
~~67. Piano Concerto #2 (Brahms)~~
~~68. Heroic Polonaise #6 (Chopin)~~
~~69. Intermezzo from Cavaleria Rusticana (Mascagni)~~
~~70. Organ Symphony #3 (Saint-Saens)~~
71. Jupiter, the bringer of jollity (Holst)
~~72. Piano Concerto #2 (Chopin)~~
73. Prelude and Fugue in g#minor (Bach)
74. Prelude to the afternoon of a Faun (Debussy)
~~75. Romance #2 (Beethoven)~~
76. Romeo & Juliet (Tchaikovsky)
~~77. Symphony #4 (Brahms)~~
~~78. Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis (Vaughan Williams)~~
~~79. Violin Concerto in D (Tchaikovsky)~~
80. Brandenburg Concerto #4 (Bach)
~~81. Don Giovanni Overture (Mozart)~~
~~82. Eclogue (Finzi)~~
83. Ride of the Valkyries (Wagner)
~~84. Italian Symphony #4 (Mendelssohn)~~
~~85. Piano Concerto #4 (Saint-Saens)~~
86. Pomp and Circumstance (Elgar)
~~87. American String Quartet (Dvorak)~~
88. Barber of Seville overture (Rossini)
89. Candide Overture (Bernstein)
90. Enigma Variations (Elgar)
91. Fantasia on Greensleeves (Vaughan Williams)
~~92. Fantastic Scherzo (Suk)~~
93. Fledermaus overture (Strauss)
~~94. Florida Suite (Delius)~~
95. Goldberg Variations (Bach)
~~96. Grand Canyon Suite (Grofe)~~
97. In the Steppes of Central Asia (Borodin)
~~98. London Symphony #104 (Haydn)~~
99. Marriage of Figaro Overture (Mozart)
~~100. Nocturne in E Flat (Schubert)~~

Things I have learned from this: a) I own, representationally, more classical than I usually listen to. b) I do not admit to the existence of piano music. c) wow, I really don't listen to enough Tchaikovsky.

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:08:38 GMT

So I've registered and bought airfare for and gotten vacation days for Dragon*Con. I do not, as yet, have hotel rooming set up. I am not exactly made of planning. /:

Is anyone looking for another person to split rooms with?

There's been talk of a bunch of us all dressing up as the women of Avatar. This would be awesome, though I'm sure we wouldn't be the only ones.

In other news, our cat is both adorable and completely freaking ridiculous.

In other, other news, I am far too much out of the habit of practicing flute. I got home after some brunch and general hanging out yesterday and decided that since no one was around, it'd be a good time to practice. So I pulled out some stuff, old pieces like Faure's Fantasie and Doppler's Fantasie Patorale Hongroise (I swear it was not a fantasy theme) and worked on those until the sixteenth runs and whatnot sounded even vaguely convincing.

Things I have (re)discovered:
- I can apparently pick this back up pretty quickly, despite literally months of not practicing
- My right forearm still doesn't like the amount of tension I have in my hands when I play
- Oh yeah, I always did do things like forget to eat while playing, didn't I?

After looking for an hour or so last night, I have come to the conclusion that finding a community orchestra in this orchestra that actually *wants* a flute player is HARD. *sigh*

Maybe someday I'll be a real girl. :P

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:54:53 GMT

Y'know, on the whole, my life really rocks. And it's June and it's Friday and other than needing to catch up on sleep, everything in life is great.

And can I just say? I recently got my work laptop replaced. Current laptop? Totally makes me happy. And has most of my music on it, now. Huzzah. (Also a working sound card and DVD player, unlike my last one.) Pretty much best perq ever. And that's specifically beating out the semi-constant offering of free gelato at my office. :D

This post brought to you by my semi-constant feeling of well-being these days, plus a hazy feeling due to lack of sleep.

Yay vacation

Wed, 21 May 2008 05:04:05 GMT

So that wasn't bad. And yesterday I got into work and reviewed all that I relaxed past... and oh my god, I felt retroactively more relaxed. Apparently I missed hell. :P

The joke has already been made - yes, I have no tan from my trip to Alaska. It was raining a good percentage of the days. I think at least three of seven, possibly four?

Regardless, it was a good time, and largely stress-free (certain familial bullshit recurring nuisances notwithstanding).

The last day was actually a bit more of a mess than any of the previous. I was supposed to have this luggage program where the cruise sent my bags on to the airport and they would already be checked when I got in. I found out at something like midnight that they were refused, so I ended up having to bring my too-heavy luggage with me for Sunday. This wasn't so bad, though. Then I overslept (not horribly). When initially I woke up (but didn't get up - far too tired), my mum got a call from my sister, saying that Rob (her husband) had managed overnight to come down with a stomach virus that the crew at large had been warning us against all week, and was not feeling well. I fell back asleep, woke up in time to hurriedly shower, and spent the time in the shower unsure of whether I'd dreamed Rob's illness, as it just seemed such an absurdity to get the thing on the day of departure. Apparently not. /:

So Rob and Debi ended up going straight to the airport, rather than spending any time in Seattle. This was unfortunate, as there were several things Debi had wanted to do, most of which I was interested in as well. Well, it's a norovirus, what can you do? </random in-joke poking fun at the ship's captain>

Mom and I went to the hotel she was staying in that night, since she was leaving the next day, and dropped our luggage off. I then took a good long walk, went to the market (around Pike st, Pine St and the waterfront past 1st avenue... it sort of goes on a while). They were having some sort of cheese festival, which is such a fabulous idea, really.

Anyhow, I picked up some comics, a small watercolour by a local artist, two books (Neuromancer by Gibson, which I've been meaning to read forever, and Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis, which I haven't read in forever) and a cafe mocha, and a sort of artisan-type grilled sandwich with cheeses and The Most Delicious Strawberries Ever. They were amazing! Then I set off toward the central library. Honestly, this is not a far walk, really, and it was pleasant, though I did have a heavyish bag with me... but walking up from 1st Avenue to 5th is quite a steep uphill, and I was actually singing the whole way, so by the time I got the library, I was actually a bit red-faced. *pathetic*

I love that library. It is possibly the best library ever. Honestly, it alone is almost a reasonable incentive to move to Seattle... except I fear I would spend so much time there that I would no longer have any friends. Seriously.

After the library, I headed back to the hotel my mom was at and kind of low-keyed it for a while. We went to dinner at a Moroccan restaurant which was thoroughly awesome. Mom and I both enjoyed the music (!!?) and the food ended up being really appropriate to our shared interests, and also quite tasty - they served three sort of pre-main-course dishes, one of which was a lentil and chickpea soup we both got a bowl of (yum!), one of which was a salad plus vegetable puree that my mum wasn't as interested in, and I cheerfully took the lion's share of, and the other was a strange phyllo-egg-almond-sugar concoction which I left to my mom. We ate the whole meal without utensils, which is a lot harder than you'd imagine it to be, somehow. Likely it was inhibitions getting in my way, and not actually any physical difficulty.

The other really neat thing about dinner is that in the middle they played a song by an artist I recognise. Hearing Akhenaton, I was all, "HEY! They're playing I'AM! Best restaurant ever." It was a song I don't have, and I couldn't find out what it is, though, so I guess I'll have to hope I stumble across it again one day.

Shortly after dinner, I was intending to head down to the bus stop to make my way over to the airport. Unfortunately, the airline called to say the flight was delayed quite significantly. Fortunately, however, I was assertive and managed to get myself on another flight, which was actually direct. (Score!) Unfortunately, my luggage didn't make it on that flight with me. Fortunately, however, it arrived at my doorstep later last night, which really is a more simple/easy option than had my luggage traveled with me, forcing me to drag it to work via mass transit.

On balance, everything went fairly well. Though I guess I'm more sanguine about whatever mishaps now that I've actually slept in the last 36 hours.

Best parts of the trip were getting to spend so much time with my sister (it's been a couple years since I last saw her), and the bits where we actually got *off* the boat. I enjoyed the sled dog camp excursion and the boat/wildlife/fjord thing quite a bit. Also, during various dinners they had a couple really nice dishes in the middle of a week of actually fairly consistent good food. Also, also, I had enough downtime to read four books, which is definitely my idea of relaxation, and to do fun, silly things like play shuffleboard and ping pong in high wind. (The latter particularly does not work well, but is highly amusing.)

Most unfortunate things were basically related to it being a bloody boat. The constant rocking motion didn't make me sick, but it definitely disoriented/dizzied me, and made me want to spend a lot of time not dealing with it, which resulted in lying down a bunch despite not being tired. Also, there wasn't that much walking to be done. I did a few circuits of the ship on a few occasions, but honestly my ideal vacation would involve a lot more walking tours of cities and a lot more cultural immersion. Being holed up on a moving hotel filled largely with Americans is not exactly my idea of a good visit to any place.

Actually, I think *the* most unfortunate bit is that in nine days, I think 40% of my enthusiasm was for the two days in Seattle. *sigh* I honestly had a pretty good time, but also don't ever want to go on a cruise again. At least not until I'm enfeebled and can't walk.

Anyhow. Very glad to be back. There's nothing like being across the country in a really marvelous city, having a good time, and still thinking to yourself, "y'know, I'll be so happy to be home." Later this week is Neil Gaiman's talk at MIT, which I'm very excitedly anticipating. And I missed rambling walks from Harvard square to Boston (crossing the Harvard bridge on a good, windy day is one of my favourite things), good mass transit, having somewhere to *go* on good mass transit, friends, and, yes, this makes me a sick person, work. Mostly, though, I missed friends. Life is good. :)

Only problem? Somehow I'm still on west coast time. Why am I up at one am when I didn't get enough sleep last night?

Wed, 07 May 2008 03:42:59 GMT

I burned my lip. From this I have learned that I am a big wimp. Yay for self-knowledge. <_<

I'm also procrastinating. I should be getting ready for my vacation (cruise to Alaska), or at the very least sleeping, so I'll be more likely to do prep work later. Honestly, though, I find most vacations to be stressful, and I'm finding this one to be doubly so before even having left. I think I'll refrain from getting into the why of this.

I think I need another vacation at some point in the near future that involves traveling somewhere I specifically want to go, and with a friend or two, not family. Even after I take a week off for Alaska, I'll still have four weeks of vacation, so this is feasible, really.

Where should I go?

On the mundane and simple side, it'd be nice to see Montreal and Quebec - I went briefly in eighth grade, but didn't see any of Montreal, just bits of Quebec for two days.

I'd also really like to go back to France (yes, yes, I'll stop with the French-speaking countries any time now).

I've also never been to the UK, which is sad.

And I also have this insane desire to go to Morocco (okay, I liked about stopping with the French-speaking countries).

Bets are good that I won't get around to this any time soon, though.

Internet! Lol, internet!

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:49:51 GMT

So ROFLCon has been sort of from the sublime to the ridiculous thus far. I need to get back over there soon and continue to experience the internet in the form of Other peoples' t-shirts.

Yesterday I did two panels and a concert. The first panel was on the history of memes and transmission thereof, and it was freaking AWESOME. There's nothing better than someone passionate about a topic you know very little about, who speaks well about it, and has a sense of humour. I mean, sure, I'd heard of BBSes, but that was about as far back as I'd considered geekiness. This guy was talking about stuff from the nineteenth century in a really engaging way, and making me think, "hey, I bet those telegraph geeks would have been pretty nifty!" I left with this "humanity is awesome!" feeling. (Also, subject is a really catchy and entertaining video, if you've not seen it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=xHw5T4_JmmM&feature=related )

The second panel was largely crap, actually. BUT! I really wanted londo's cell number to mention that I saw MC Frontalot start playing turns in KoL in the middle of it. Amused me, and I just thought he'd appreciate that somehow. The panel itself was blah, and later got pretty effectively highjacked by someone really intent on discussing Net Netrality. I mean, a) not the topic of the panel, b) preaching to the choir.

Concert was largely enjoyable. In case you didn't know this, Lemon Demon is surprisingly awesome. (They're the ones known for "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny," but I really, really enjoyed the rest of their live set, and they do tons of mixed meter stuff, which is always fun.) We only caught three acts before leaving for a movie, but I'm pretty sure nothing would have topped Lemon Demon for me, anyhow.

Also, MC Frontalot is still fabulous, and I totally enjoyed Nerdcore Rising (documentary very largely focused on Frontalot, though theoretically pertaining to nerdcore in general, as well).

I should get going. Except I don't have any socks. *sigh*

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 03:18:57 GMT

You know those semi-ubiquitous signs that say "WE BUY HOUSES!" that people continually hang on telephone poles and pretty much anything that isn't moving? Somehow already knowing what they say didn't prevent me from double-taking on reading one as "WE BUY HORSES!" today.

Damn. I had so been hoping to unload the massive string of horseflesh camping out in our backyard. :P

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:30:09 GMT

I know I post proportionally too much about work and not enough about Other Stuff. I swear this is not an accurate representation of my life.

So, to attempt to balance, while I am feeling compelled to ask for good mojo on my yearly review (doing that in about an hour with my boss), I will also post my egg curry recipe here, which I now owe two people, anyhow, and which I will presumably follow tonight.

Egg Curry (Unless you want to feel cool and cultured and call it "Anda Masala")
Ingredients:
eggs - hard boiled, then halved (between 9 and 12 is my usual batch)
tomatoes - chopped (I usually use either four or five plum (roma) tomatoes, or two to three if they're larger)
onion - chopped (half a decent sized one)
ginger - grated (a thumb's worth)
garlic - finely chopped (I'm a four or five clove kind of girl)
cilantro - coarsely chopped (to taste - if you don't like it, leave it)
whole spices - I use cumin, cardamom (seeds, not pods, but as you like), cloves, mustard seeds (a lot!), a cinnamon stick (sometimes), and occasionally toss something else in, but these are my standards.
asafoetida
salt (to taste)
coconut oil

Okay, so I recommend chopping up as much as you can beforehand so that it doesn't mess up timing, but I don't actually follow my recommendation. :P

Grab a frying pan, put enough coconut oil in it to just grace the bottom with a layer and put the stove on medium high heat. Once your pan is warmed up, toss in all of your whole spices and wait until they've started popping a bit. Once those are good, toss in your chopped onion, and get that cooked down enough to be somewhat translucent. You want to be stirring pretty frequently. You can toss the ginger and garlic in when the onion is off to a good start.

Once your spices have seasoned the pan, place your halved eggs in (I usually start with them flat side down, then try to rotate them once they've cooked somewhat) and turn down the flame just a bit (to medium). You'll probably end up having bits of yolk fall out as you're cooking the eggs - I am wholeheartedly in favour of this. I think it makes the sauce better. I usually over-encourage at least one egg to lose its yolk entirely.

Once your eggs have gotten a little browned and gotten seasoned a bit, toss in your diced tomatoes and put the flame back up (medium high or high). At this point, toss in your salt and asafoetida and just keep the thing going until the tomatoes cook down into your sauce. Season with cilantro (if you like), and serve.

ETA: I forgot serrano chiles (diced, if you like spice, which I do, though I usually seed them as a concession to a) my teeth, and b) genarti who isn't quite as much of a spice nut as I am).

Also, I got a ten percent raise and glowing review. Yay. :D

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:08:30 GMT

Happy Pi Day Friday. :)

This is why I hate having classical music in iTunes with the pop...

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 07:43:56 GMT

I sorted my music by genre and looked through what I had that was labeled "Classical." After listening to all my Josquin (not much), I scrolled to the end of the section, where I have the Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem immediately followed by Gunther and the Sunshine Girls Ding Dong Song starting a new genre: "Club."

I'm pretty sure this is some sort of sin.

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:32:40 GMT

I have invented a new word, and wish to spread it as much as possible. I do, however, recognise, not all of you will have the use for it that I do. "Craberdashery" is my new word, prompted by too much caffeine and sugar, too little sleep, some silly friends, and, of course, my beloved crab hat. Clearly in order to help me in my cause you all should go out and purchase crab hats as well. :P Actually, I should go into the crab-hat-making business so as to be able to order business cards for myself where I get to title myself a "craberdasher" and sell you all your crab hats. Obviously.

On a completely unrelated topic, I'm wondering if there's any way for searching for music not by artist or style, but characteristics. I can almost guarantee anything with a decent amount of syncopation in a minor key will at least entertain me. Odd meter? Ditto. Ideally, I'd love to find a random stash of minor, melodic music with syncopated bits and mixed meter. I know this will never, ever happen, but still.

It just seems there are a bunch of one off songs that I really enjoy while not particularly caring about the rest of the bands' works. This is not ideal, clearly.

Anyhow, happy Tuesday. And back to the grindstone. /:

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:02:49 GMT

So after some epic wandering around for no particular reason (featuring multiple bridge crossings in high wind - seriously my favourite thing ever), I bought Singstar yesterday. This puts me in the stone age as compared with everyone who has Rock Band, yes. But it also costs significantly less, so y'know. In a cost benefit analysis wherein it comes to light that I don't *want* to buy Rock Band for the PS2 (PS3 would clearly be a better idea), suddenly it seems very clear what my choice is.

But dude. It has Don't Fear the Reaper on it, and I am quite afraid my love of this song has not diminished at all in at least five years. I mean, I like other BÖC stuff, sure, but I am completely addicted to this song and it can do no wrong in my eyes.

Beth says I have a problem. Or I'm a dork. Or something. On the other hand? Beth says that "Eye of the Tiger" is "glorious," so I think I need not comment.

I have two versions of Singstar - "amped" and the eighties one. The eighties one is about twenty times more fun, but does not include Don't Fear the Reaper, and so eventually must lose out anyhow. :P But it does include The Final Countdown, which means of course that if Stenny ever comes to visit again, we'll totally invite him to play. Graciously. With pure motives.

Before buying Singstar, I tried out Rock Band in the store. I like playing drums on that because I can't quite do it. I picked Dani California, first thing I've ever tried, but figured "hey, I'm a musician, and it doesn't look *that* hard..." Yeah, so I failed halfway through the song because apparently I have no conception of what rhythm is going on in the chorus of that song. And again, it didn't look that hard, so now I feel doubly dumb. Yay! If I could work out if it'd be reasonable to get a mic stand and sing and play drums simultaneously, I might some day actually get a PS3 and Rock Band. If not... I don't think I will unless we move somewhere closer to the T - no one ever, ever comes to our house.

In other news, superbowl who what?

Here in Boston, the entire world is excited about this. I just totally don't understand peoples' fanaticism regarding sports. Ah well, I'm sure my fanaticism about music is equally incomprehensible to others. But it does not lead to me showing up at work in knee high red socks, white spats and a blue coat with tails sporting a tricorner hat. Some of you may argue this is because I am lame.

Apparently, though, I'm hearing that Animal Planet shows a "Puppy Bowl" same day. This intrigues me in a "no, why would I ever watch that?" kind of way. But still. It's entertaining as a tip of the hat to "we know we will have absolutely no audience during this time slot," then finishing off that thought with "but here, have some puppies!"

It's Sunday. I'm pretty sure that's not allowed. It ought to still be Saturday. Ah well. Happy weekend. :)

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 17:30:05 GMT

Happy Christmas, for all you happy Christmas type folk out there.

So weird to have been in Boston where it would have been a white Christmas, then to specifically leave and go to NY, where it's so, so not. I don't think these people realise how warm forty degrees is.

Good times - have seen all my good friends from high school (yes, all four of them) and haven't killed my mom yet, so y'know, all is well. Spoke with my father last night, and I'm hoping to see him next weekend. Should be all snugglypuffing warm and cozy holiday visiting loveliness. And then my wise, wise father intends to leave before New Year's Eve because, and I quote, "My idea has been that you might like to celebrate New Year's Eve with your contemporaries." Who's a good dad?

Anyhow, I'm only grabbing the time quickly to note this, and mom and I will soon be headed out to see the Golden Compass, which mom will likely not enjoy, but which is a much more likely shot than going with my aunt and uncle to see Sweeney Todd, which I expect she would walk out of. *sigh* If only she hadn't already seen Enchanted, I could manage to save a movie I want to see with friends *and* know she wouldn't be unhappy with the movie. Plus I wouldn't care if she *did* complain. Oh well. It can't be worse than her reaction to Howl's Moving Castle.

Happy holiday-type-thing, all! <3

Woohoo!

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:49:49 GMT

So as I've mentioned, I was without a computer specifically of my own for some months, relying solely on my work laptop. I finally bought a new one. I had been thinking about going in for a mac G5 tower, but in the end opted for a mac mini. Why? a) wow, the cute, b) wow, the lower amount of spending, c) I've decided I can deal with the "no can self upgrade" bit, as the last mac I had, I never, ever had the thought, "gosh, I just don't have enough processing power/memory/hard drive space etc."

It is wee. *grin*

So question! I just picked up Adium and X Chat again... what programs for 10.5 (or OS X in general) are absolutely awesome and do I require though I don't know it yet? (Also, what's the likelihood I remember my IM logins and whatnot? /: ) I don't even remember what I was using a few months ago.

I probably have done eight million things since I last updated, since, well, let's see, updating when where who what? But largely life hasn't changed. Still here, still listening to genarti's cat whinge, still not getting enough sleep.

I did notice, though, that not having a computer meant I read a heck of a lot more, on average. Not really any higher quality, unfortunately. I am currently reading Carl Sagan's The Dragons of Eden, though (and pretending this book makes up for having re-read a bunch of Mercedes Lackey recently). When I'm done I'll just have to work my way forward another three decades worth of advances in three or so fields, and then I'll be partially non-ignorant!

Ugh. Tired. Is quarter to eight PM too early to go to bed?

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:25:10 GMT

Alright. Put me down on the record for saying that tapioca pudding DOES NOT GO with whipped cream.

I think at least 70% of desserts and probably 90% of puddings go with whipped cream. Tapioca? Not one.

Also, quiches are not meant to be "egg-and-vegetable-cake-bake." They are meant to have cheese in. And not occasionally and by accident. They also shouldn't be that spongy. O_o

This rant brought to you by my work cafeteria, which honestly isn't all bad by any means, but today was a strikeout.

No, I have not died and am not haunting you all screaming for vengeance

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:11:45 GMT

So, my mac is broken. Which is the suck. And it's either the logic board or the processor, which is further suckage. And I absolutely refuse to buy a new mac right now because the next version of OS X is due to come out in October.

Some of you may recall that I also own a PC. Guess what is also currently not precisely functional? S'weird - USB ports, ethernet and a few other things are just not being acknowledged as existent by my system, and I don't really have the patience to deal with it just now. Plus it's a Pentium 4 - no way am I dealing with any level of expense for that system unless I do it with my own two hands.

So I have my work laptop. Which sucks. Heartily - it has no functioning sound card. And which I constantly feel like if I'm using, I'll be looking at work email.

Anyhow, I am dying with very little internet and no music except what's on my iPod which technically came off genarti 's computer (shh, don't tell). I seriously have virtually no metal and no electronica on here... so I'm listening to Tool - Aenema on repeat today because it is for to be more well-adjusted yes good sir.

Been spending all my excess free time (when not at work, yes, which does happen) a) reading. Rather a lot, and b) doing real life things. On the whole this is sort of cool, except I haven't spoken with so many people in eons.

HI PEOPLE WITH WHOM I HAVE NOT SPOKEN IN EONS! I MISS YOU!

Life is still going well over here. Still in Somerville. Still at my job of happiness and good times (okay, death of boringness and good coworkers, which is a reasonable substitute, I figure).

Chicago was lots of fun. Have since gone back home to NY for a weekend as well, and seen some folks from high school, who I haven't seen for about five years (O_o). That was totally awesome as well.

My current life consists of:
lots of work
many books
a small variety of iPod-derived music
Thursday nights of Buffy-watching and spilling water on the floor
various dribs and drabs of anime at home
as Beth mentioned, OH MY GOD, COOKIES (more than four boxes)
various weekend plottings with horribly evil people

So basically, life is good. Yay life. I just need to use my phone more often to make up for the dearth of internet. Too bad I loathe phones. *sigh*

iPhone dropped $200 in price... I'm still sort of on the fence about this, but I feel like getting one at some point would be a really great idea for me, personally, as I'd have a phone which I had a personal interest in keeping charged and on my person at any given point. :)

Okay, enough random blather while on lunch. Consider this my wave of "hi! Not dead!"