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Tidbits
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May. 18th, 2008 @ 02:35 pm
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![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) froggie444 and sugarbeet's wedding was yesterday and it was really nice, the music especially. Haha! I've played piano at more weddings than I can remember, I've been maid of honor three times and a regular bridesmaid at least once, but, in addition to playing piano this time, Jennifer asked me to be her personal attendant and that was a first for me. I got to do things like lace up her dress (way more involved than it sounds!), run around fetching things and summoning people, drive her to and from the park for pictures, and bustle her dress once she got to the reception. (I'd gone with her to a few fittings to learn how to work the dress, because I certainly wouldn't have known that stuff before!)
I was glad and honored to help them out on their special day, but it sure made for a busy weekend. (Admittedly not as busy as theirs, but still!) In addition to driving the hour to Red Wing Friday evening for the music rehearsal, wedding rehearsal, and rehearsal dinner, I drove back on Saturday, of course, for all of the main events. I left my house at 8:30am that morning and didn't get back until 9:30pm! (And that was with leaving the reception somewhat early.) Not surprisingly, I was asleep before midnight and slept almost 9 hours without waking up a single time. It was all worth it though and I wish Brandon and Jennifer the best!
It was probably good to have a distraction all weekend because I didn't really have a chance to get nervous about the fact that I start my new job tomorrow... on the three week anniversary of my layoff. (I'm still wicked proud of that quick turnaround!) I went clothes shopping again the other day and extended my business casual wardrobe even more (I think I'm even getting used to the clothes now!) and I got my bus pass last week as well. I'm totally excited to finally have a job downtown and to be able to use public transportation, especially since gas will almost certainly hit $4.00/gallon this summer. Ugh. (Not to sound all "back in my day" or anything, but when I first started buying gas it was less than $1/gallon.)
Oh, and since a few people have asked me about this already, Mercury is doing really well. She was pretty slow for a few days (I know that's perfectly normal, but she's usually so active it was weird), but now she's back to running and jumping and climbing all over me just like before. And Zinc has been super nice to her ever since I got her back. I haven't seen him swat or hiss at her a single time. He even goes up and checks her out sometimes. Before, he avoided her as much as possible. So yeah... they're getting along better than ever and she's not peeing on everything anymore. It's win win!
Here she is a few days ago (one of her slower days) hanging out in a plastic bag. I call this "A Four Pound Bag of Cute."
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Joss Whedon + Eliza Dushku = Potentially Awesome New Show!
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May. 16th, 2008 @ 03:37 pm
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First solid news I've heard about Joss's new show starring Eliza Dushku- Dollhouse. Looks like Amy Acker will also be in it! Awesome!
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/05/whedons-killer.htmlCurrent Mood:  excited |
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So... last night's episode of Supernatural
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May. 16th, 2008 @ 10:43 am
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Totally worth it, just to see them singing Bon Jovi... too funny.
But now I have to wait until October for next season! AAAAAARGH! Why is life so cruel!?!??!Current Music: "Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi |
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A recipe...
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May. 15th, 2008 @ 06:42 pm
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As we were putting away dinner leftovers tonight it came to our attention that somehow we had gathered a large variety of bread in our house this week and that we wouldn't be able to finish it all before it went bad. I decided to devise a brilliant recipe to take advantage of all this bready goodness!
( 4 Bread Casserole )
Or I could just make croutons or bread pudding perhaps... |
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Saw this on Penny Arcade
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May. 15th, 2008 @ 01:05 pm
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It is imaginative, impressive, disturbing and fascinating all at the same time. Be warned at points the audio gets a bit loud.
MUTO |
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Who's that bird, running around with you???
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May. 15th, 2008 @ 09:08 am
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OK, thanks to the last poll and guild member votes I named Nitesong's pet bat Drusilla. I tamed a boar and named it Spike, but even with it's great utility in the BG's the boar just didn't click. So in the tradition of running deep into enemy territory to tame... I went to Mulgore and tamed Mazzranache the rare pink tallstrider. Since the bat is named Drusilla I thought I'd go in the tradition of naming the pet after a character from Buffy. So here's the list, vote for as many of them as you like and Friday evening around 8pm I'll close the poll and name the bird! Thanks!
Poll #1188296 Who's that pink flamingo?
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, results viewable to: AllWhat shall we call this pink flamingo? Current Mood:  geeky |
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Shout out to xanthos32!
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We'll make great pets...
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May. 14th, 2008 @ 10:06 am
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So a week or so ago schneenet posted about how she picked up a Webkinz so she could play online with her niece and nephew.
I looked into the Webkinz (www.webkinz.com) and found that they were pretty much a cross between Beanie Babies and Neopets. You buy a little collectible stuffed animal (between $10 and $15 MSRP) and it comes with a code. You enter the code on a website and you get that stuffed animal as a virtual pet. It has it's own room and needs to be fed and played with.
In addition you can answer trivia questions and play games to earn Kinzcash which you can use to buy virtual stuff for you pet like furniture and food. Essentially, like Neopets, it's largely a timesink game.
Unlike Neopets there are many "multiplayer" minigames. You can have a friends list and if your friends are online you can challenge them to games of checkers and "Battleship" type games, pool and more.
They've made efforts to make it kidsafe as well, the online chat isn't typed, but your comments are selected from pulldown menus and are fairly generic in nature, so that kids can't give out personal information.
One of the fastest ways to earn Kinzcash is by taking quizzes many of which contain math questions, history/science questions and logic problems. So it's educational but provides good motivations for kids to do them.
The one aspect that I like is an in-game collectible dice game. Each die has a pet's face on one side and then various icons on the other sides that represent attacks, defenses and moves. There's a racetrack on the board and each turn you roll the dice and use the attacks and defenses to try and remove your opponent's move dice. Once both players pass on "attacks" then the remaining move dice are resolved and the pets move that many spaces on the track. First one to 20 wins. It's an addictive little game. If they'd release a non-virtual version of this game I think they'd do pretty well with it. Some interested game mechanics in it.
So if you're looking for a good kidsafe Internet activity this is worth looking into. Likewise if you're into the virtual pet scene with lots of cuteness, this may be worth investigating. Just a caveat. When you register your pet it says you get a year of playtime. Now whether at the end of the year you'll have to pay some subscription fee or just adopt another pet (you can have multiple pets- you won't lose your first pet) I don't know. I haven't really looked into it that far. |
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Relieved
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May. 13th, 2008 @ 04:49 pm
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I've got Mercury back home now and the vet said she did great! Thanks for all the "vibes" (luno :P) and thoughts. Luckily, I was busy and distracted all day and that really helped with my apprehension.
She looks skinnier than ever, if that's possible (still 4 pounds - at two years old), and she's not allowed to eat again until tomorrow morning. Poor thing. She's walking around all gingerly, which makes sense, but she's also kind of avoiding me. Is that normal after surgery? Is she associating me with whatever they did to her today?
Anyway, I'm glad to have her home safely (!) and I hope she's back to normal soon.Current Mood:  relieved |
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ABC fall schedule info-
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May. 13th, 2008 @ 03:14 pm
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So for any fellow Scrubs fan, YAY! They will get their final season proper, just on a different network.
And for any of you BBC fans (I'm thinking slashspouse and cereta here because they told me about this show...) looks like a US adaptation of Life on Mars is coming.
From Imdb news:
Frustrated by a writers' strike which forced it to postpone many of its development plans for the fall season, ABC announced that it will only air one new drama in the fall, David E. Kelley's Life on Mars, a time-travel tale about a police officer who is plunged into 1970 America from the current time. ABC will also air the final season of Scrubs, which was dropped by NBC. It is produced by ABC Studios, formerly Touchstone TV, a corporate sibling of ABC. Also making the lineup for the fall is the new Ashton Kutcher reality series Opportunity Knocks. |
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I R Smrt. I kin reed book!
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May. 13th, 2008 @ 01:23 pm
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Recently it has come to my attention that there is a book club in our office. Now, anyone who watches The Office knows that if there is a club in your office that reads books or otherwise celebrates the "finer things" in life, that these people are the movers and shakers and the real core "power" of the office hierarchy. So of course I wanted in on this...
The month I joined they had just decided to read "Delicious Conversation" by Jennifer Stewart Griffith.
Now at first glance, this may not look like a great piece of literature. In fact you may, just by reading the summary of the book, pre-judge it as a piece of fluff fiction, one that isn't even well written as far as fluff fiction goes, and believe that it's likely a steaming pile of crap. And you'd be right.
Well a couple of the members were reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen even though it wasn't a selection of the book club. They thought I'd be interested in reading it and one of them loaned me the book. They wanted to just have the three of us get together and discuss it. Now this, is more like it as far as book club reading material goes. An entertaining read, if a bit predictable in places (and unpredictable in others), it is very good storytelling and actually gives the readers some interesting topics to discuss. Of particular interest to me was the fact that many of the circus behind the scenes stuff in the book was inspired by anecdotes the author found while researching what circus/carny life was like.
I recommend this book for anyone looking for an enjoyable read with a bit of meat to it.
A couple of weeks ago I attended the first meeting where we selected the next book to read. Attendance for that meeting was a bit light as many people had other stuff to do, errands to run and the like. But the people who did attend were the more "literary" minded folks. The end result? The books to read for the May meeting are "1984" and "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. It was thought that since Animal Farm was relatively short it would be fun to read it to compare and contrast the two. Perhaps not coincidentally a few of the book club members dropped out of the book club for the summer...
jegie was kind enough to pick up both of the books for me this past Saturday while she was running errands for C's birthday party and heading into work for an hour or so. So I've started reading 1984 for the first time since I read it in high school. Perhaps I'm just a more mature and experienced reader... or perhaps "Delicious Conversation" has given me a baseline definition of "utter crap" but at any rate I find myself REALLY appreciating Orwell's writing style. I've always been into the Dystopian future concept which helped me thoroughly enjoy 1984 when I first read it. But now I'm really getting hit by some of Orwell's writing style. Very good stuff.
June's selection is Marley & Me by John Grogan. I plan to pick that up after the 22nd which is when we discuss 1984 and Animal Farm.
It's nice to be reading again. This is the first serious reading I've done since the last Harry Potter book came out. |
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Now THIS is a party game!
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May. 13th, 2008 @ 11:09 am
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Well C's Bday party is over, now we have to get ready for Z's Bday party this summer... I've just found a great party game idea:
http://iesb.net/filmgeekz/content/view/600/ |
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Mercury
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May. 13th, 2008 @ 08:33 am
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Teeny Tiny Tess (aka Mercury) is having surgery today and I'm somewhat apprehensive - even though it's just a routine spay - because she's just so small. Any health and strength vibes you want to send her way would be greatly appreciated! (And calming, peace vibes to both of us!)
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A Collection of Four Doofuses (and some faces to names)
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May. 13th, 2008 @ 01:27 am
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I asked the guys several weeks ago if they'd be interested in seeing the Red Sox play the Twins and then tonight we went! And it was fun! Then we went to Grumpy's afterwards and that was fun too!
I think these faces to names have been done before, but... Ric, Me, Kelly, Thomas:
I thought the Metrodome would be less sparse when the Red Sox were in town.
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I'm an altaholic...
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May. 12th, 2008 @ 01:31 pm
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Sickly
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May. 12th, 2008 @ 01:29 pm
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I've caught a cold. And it's extremely unwelcome. I just finally got over the deafness and congestion of the last one, and now I've got coughing, stuffy/runny nose and that not-quite-sore-but-tender throat, and I'm a little hoarse.
So here's my dilemma: I have students today, tomorrow and Wednesday. Of these students, 5 of them are going to state on Saturday. State is the biggest competition of the year, and last year I had a student get sick and be unable to sing at the festival, after paying over a hundred dollars to enter and for the accompanist. I'm not too sick to get up and go to work, but I'm worried about exposing these singers to this annoying head cold and cough. So what should I do?
Poll #1186665 Sick Teacher
Open to: All, results viewable to: AllWhen faced with this situation, what course of action would you take? |
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A Personal Best
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May. 12th, 2008 @ 09:38 am
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EMPLOYED!!
I got the job I interviewed for on Thursday and I start next Monday, three weeks to the day after I got laid off! My goal was to have a new job within six weeks, so I'm more than pleased! And now my dream of working downtown will be fulfilled!
My poor job search tag barely got used this time...
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Fights Like a Girl update
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May. 12th, 2008 @ 08:44 am
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Just a quick update on jegie's World of Warcraft guild Fights Like a Girl. The guild is now up to 65 members, which is reasonably rapid growth considering the guild has only been around a few weeks, only allows female characters (though there are some male players in the guild) and doesn't "blanket" advertise over the open chat channels but instead contacts individuals one on one for recruiting.
( An amusing anecdote regarding the guild )
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Fun!
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May. 11th, 2008 @ 03:43 pm
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This afternoon I played in Webkinz land for a long while with wulfgyr and jegie's son, Zac. We had a blast!
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Happy Mother's Day!
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May. 11th, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
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So this morning at breakfast C decided to wish jegie a Happy Mother's Day. She did so by saying:
"Happy Mother's Day Mommy! RAAAAWRR!"Current Mood: happy |
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