Enjablog

Wow, y’all are chatty today. :) Now I feel like I should be stealing more polls to keep things interactive.

Going out to watch Chelsea vs. DC United tonight, so hope for me that it doesn’t rain.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, everyone!

LOTD: Jerks at work:

Signs of jerkiness include purposely withholding praise, being excessively sarcastic, belittling or intimidating others, slamming desks and swearing, or stooping to passive-aggressive tactics such as loud sighing.

QOTD: “I’m a princess and it’s my birthday!” (Surprisingly, I was not the first person to say that today.)

Stolen from the Weingarten Chat:

I’ve been trying to catch up and re-categorize my entries, as well as plan my life and do something with my future. And that’s about all I have to say about that.

Last week, my brother returned from Afghanistan. The original plan was for my family to all go down and visit with him for the 3 or 4 day pass that he was expected to receive. The modified plan was my sister, Ian, and I went down to pick him up from Ft. Bragg, NC and bring him home for his 4-day pass.

Spent the weekend doing family bonding time. We had some interesting family discussions, discovered that people have flawed memories, and found that our parents very openly pick favorites. That was pretty entertaining, actually. Watched Fantastic Four with Yenny, Sonny, and Ian. Took a couple shopping stops and then hung out with the parents again.

Tuesday, the parents chauffered Sonny back to the base and I headed back to work on Wednesday. Tried out a new recipe that night with Ian and made some hummus. I went for a spicey pepper-y kick and Ian tried green olive. Both turned out pretty well, I think.

Made it to the annual SNAME turnover dinner on Thursday. Apparently keychains are gender-specific, so I got a special girl present. Not that I’m complaining. It’s actually a really cool necklace with a clipper ship pendant. It just seemed a strange way to single me out.

Friday night, did a double-date thing… Went to Founders in Old Town and wandered Alexandria for a little while afterward. Caught up on the week’s sudoku in the Washington Post.

Got up early to find some sandals to wear tubing with Ian, TLD, and some of TLD’s coastie friends. Headed out, sat in traffic for a couple hours, and ended up going out late. But once we got through traffic, it was a nice adventure down the Rappahannock River. The tubes were a little larger than I expected, so I had a little trouble reaching into the water to steer. Ian helped me out by allowing me to tether my tube to his and then acting as a dead weight pulling him in various directions. But once it got deep enough, I was able to hang through the middle and kick around some. This caused everyone to think that I was drowning, but I didn’t drown. Not even once.

Sunday did the family thing and then did some miscellaneous stuff/laundry, etc. before going over to Ian’s family thing. Pretty quiet Sunday.

Potential big news coming up, but I think I’ve already done enough to jinx it… So I’ll let you know when I know more.

QOTD: “Or maybe it’s mice with lasers.”
“Do you think they’re having a laser show for Bastille Day?”

LOTD: Psychic Cell Phones

Hummus
Ingredients:
1 (15 oz) can Garbanzo Beans (chick peas)
1/4 cup Tihini
3 tbs Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tbs olive oil
seasonings to taste

Directions:
1. Drain liquid from garbanzo beans in separate container.
2. Combine beans, tihini, lemon juice, salt, and olive oil in food processor.
3. Blend until smooth.
4. Add fluid from beans until desired consistency is reached.
5. Mix in seasonings — suggestions: cayenne pepper & chipotle seasonings, fresh jalepeno peppers, cilantro, paprika, dried tomato, green olives, ground cumin, or minced parsley
6. Allow to sit overnight to let flavors absorb thoroughly.

Note: Modified two recipes I found online and didn’t do much measuring. I reduced the oil and added extra liquid from the beans. Didn’t put in too much salt, may have added too much pepper… it all worked out. I might just try a dollop of salsa next time instead of picking different seasonings.

Grrr.

Windows Hosting Customers using .188 for MySQL
MySQL Database server .188 has now been rebuilt for your use due to unforeseen hardware failure.
Unfortunately customers affected will need to restore their database information using their most recent backup.
MySQL access details remain as they were previously.
If you do not know your MySQL login details please follow the MySQL link within your domain control panel http://yourdomainname.com:2002 and update your MySQL password from there. If you do not have a database listed then you will need to create one via the same section.
If you wish you may also reset your MySQL Database via the same link of your hosting control panel.

Engineers are now implementing a new backup system so that this issue will not occur again.
We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience that this issue has caused.
Posted by administrator.

Translation: We screwed you. Sorry.

So, yeah. They ate my blog. I should be able to recover most of it thanks to Ian, Blogger, and Rain/Livejournal. And Ian got me a doober to auto-backup now, so magical goodness in the future.

In any case, my brother is home for a few days, so I’m going to wait until he heads back to mess with this more. I’ll update when I get around to it. :) -j.

You all aren’t a normal distribution, but here’s my new quiz. Same options, new question:

I was surprised by the results of the last quiz I posted. I was thinking of this in terms of Americans only, though I don’t think that should affect the outcome much aside from the fact that people in 3rd world countries probably wouldn’t be concerning themselves with math jokes and such. But something like catching on fire could happen accidentally anywhere. Also, with the fire, I had originally pictured a stop-drop-and-roll kind of scenario. Just someone running around engulfed in flames. That seemed pretty uncommon to me. But then I was thinking about people who have an oven mitt on or something that they’re not paying attention to on the stove. And that could catch on fire. I think that would count as well.

So, then, I was thinking of this in terms of an average lifetime. How many times might this happen in a person’s life? How many people might each thing happen to? One night stand, I guess I’m not terribly familiar with and, as far as I know, few of my friends engage in this behavior. But people who choose to might hang out with other people who are more inclined to choose to, so my anecdotal evidence is not a good basis, though nor is TV and movies a good basis upon which to estimate. Smoking marijuanna seems pretty common, as was reflected in the responses, so I’ll just leave that alone. Math/Physics jokes… It’s just a joke. Doesn’t cost money so it doesn’t take much effort and you don’t really have to work for it, but you don’t tell one accidentally and likly only a certain type of person would do it.

New Toy: Waterproof MP3 Player with FM Radio

So cool. My sis got it for me so I can take it swimming. I might just use it when I go running in the rain for now though. I need to find a new gym/pool in the area.

QOTD: never have i felt like such a geek. discussing star trek over aim, while working on my EE thesis, in a coffee shop full of as many laptops as there are customers

I am astonished.
LOTD: Planetary three-sun baffles boffins:

A relatively large central star holds court. The planet orbits just eight million kilometres away from it, whipping around roughly once every 80 hours. Further out, at about the distance from our Sun to Saturn, the other two stars are locked in a binary orbit of each other, and whirl around the main stellar body.

I like the theory that the planet is just a sun that, you know, is a late bloomer.

I still maintain, though, that a small, earth-sized planet would not be able to survive within that orbit. I still don’t understand how these planets might have formed and then drifted or got pulled into those orbits, especially between the suns like that. But maybe that’s what the astronomers are unclear on too. I will do some calculations this weekend though. I’m sure it’s been done before, but I want to see.

Happy birthday, Auntie!

So, there was supposed to be a book club meeting last night. Book to be discussed: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. There was no response from anyone to the person planning saying they were going to be able to make it, so the meeting got canceled. Now, to be honest, I’m incredibly relieved. Partly because I didn’t finish the book, but mostly because of the reason I didn’t finish the book: it sucked.

To be fair, it’s far from the worst book I’ve come across (I hadn’t thought about it before though, so I don’t have a worst book list… yet.), but it was like a wannabe romance novel. That’s not to say that I like real romance novel. I’ve never really understood the appeal. But even so, the last chapter that I read is a great example of why this book is not my thing: A woman, after her husband dies, has an erotic dream where her husband comes back and “knows” her in the form of a moth. Uhh… Maybe I misinterpreted that. But if there is something in a book that could be interpreted that way, it’s not really my kind of book.

Ventured over to my parents’ house last night for some good old fashioned bilingual tongue-lashings. It seems as though some people still haven’t gotten the message yet that you’re supposed to announce big things to immediate family before telling distant relatives or even random people you meet on the street. But oh well. That’s what you get for having expectations of normalcy from family.

Glad it wasn’t me… Last time I was the center of a family meeting was due to some stupid indiscretions as a teenager. And I don’t think that story is going to get told here. I still haven’t told my parents what really happened… Hehe. Hi, parents! Suffice it to say, I was telling the truth when I said the Evian bottle I was carrying really had water in it. I was not out drinking all night. Though, if they were familiar with alcohol at all, they would have known because I didn’t have the stench of booze on me.

Anyway, went out after family meeting/dinner for free slurpee day at 7-11. (July 11th. Get it? Hehe…) I didn’t even know it was going on. But everyone else knew about it. Apparently this is an annual event. Ian and I pumped Stephanie for gossips on the way there and then my sister got her and Lenny on the way back. Don’t know if she got anything good out of them though.

Got home to see the excellent job Ian did on the lawn. He waited around for the window guy to come measure in the morning and mowed the lawn (front and back) and did some edging while he was waiting and after the window guy left. It looks excellent. Now I just need to get rid of this weird prickly weed that started growing next to the door.

Hm… Haven’t written a good rant lately. Someone give me something to be angry about besides my family. :) -j.

@ 2005-07-11 12:28:00

Last Thursday, went to the Improv with 2FG and Ian. The host was Jimmy Meritt and the headliner was Dave Siegel. Both pretty good. The other guy (I don’t even remember his name) was a bit disappointing. Maybe not so much because his material was bad; it just wasn’t geared toward this audience (which included 150 teenagers). It was interesting… There was this woman with a laugh combining Janice (from Friends), a hyena, and a woodpecker. It was… unique. Partway through, she started laughing when no one else was laughing and the headliner made a comment about it. Biggest laugh of the evening.

Friday, met up with Ian, and Daniel and some of his friends for dinner at Matuba Sushi. Right next to Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse. Good sushi, but nothing out of the ordinary. The people there were nice though. They brought remedial chopsticks out for one of the people in our group. After that, headed home and planned for my weekend cleaning extravaganza.

Saturday, got up early (for a Saturday, not actually early), headed over to fetch a lawn mower from Ian’s brother, but found that the grass was too wet to mow. It was warm, but a bit overcast, so we decided to hold off on the mowing until Sunday. Stopped by Wegman’s to gather cleaning supplies. Cleaning technology is amazing! Maybe I just don’t clean enough, or I’m just not the one who has ever bought cleaning supplies. They were just always around for whatever purpose I needed fulfilled. Anyway, I got myself some scrubbing bubbles, some super-powered Tilex which will eat through skin and will cause you to get arrested if you use it for anything other than the listed intended purposes, and some other miscellaneous things. Oh! Also, Sour Raspberry Altoids. So sour!

Partway through the day of cleaning, I got a call from my sister telling me to come over. Marc’s back!! Hung out the rest of the evening with the HOY crowd grilling, playing video games, Sorry(TM), and Uno. Longest Uno game ever. Maybe not the best idea to play Uno with 8 people at 2am.

Sunday, tried again at the lawn thing. Ian got stung by something while moving the lawn mower, but he persevered and finished up the lawn. I “helped” him get the mower into his car so he could mow the lawn at my place today. Headed over to the HOY. Met up with my sister after her “date.” And got stood up by SPJ again. Played Monkey Ball and then did the family dinner thing with his family.

Oh! And not to gloss over this part. Ian let me drive his car! Never attempted to drive stick before at all. So, my first lesson: When panicking, stomp on the clutch. I drove the back roads from my house almost to my sister’s. I decided at the end of my adventure that I did not want to drive across 4 lanes of traffic. And considering I stalled at the 2 stops on the way there, I figured that was the wisest decision.

Tonight: Family meeting. I’m sure there will be some gossip coming out of this one.

QOTD: “You have the panic reflex of a possum.”

LOTD: A Letter To The Terrorists

Current Books: Prodigal Summer
The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide
The Art of War

I don’t know what to say today…

London bombings toll rises to 37

“They are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to
frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do,” he said in a televised statement from Downing Street.

They “should not and they must not succeed,” he said.

“We know that these people act in the name of Islam but we also know that the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims here and abroad are decent and law-abiding people who abhor those who do this every bit as much as we do,” he added.

Thursday - My boss’s last day at work. Totally his style, but he snuck out without saying goodbye. We went downstairs and had beer in the middle of the afternoon his last 2 days, so we got a chance to hear his crazy stories one last time. But that was it.

Friday - Spent the day at the mall shopping with Ian. He got shoes and shorts. I got shorts and a skirt. I also found a scent which is so appropriate for me: Vanilla body spray. I smell like cookies all day long! Spent the evening in watching Gilmore Girls, The Graduate, and playing Boggle.

Saturday - Made some chocolate chip muffins for Jason. They turned out to be really easy. I was looking for a cake recipe and then a cupcake recipe, but it seemed like the chocolate chips would all sink. Or, at the very least, they would form a layer in the middle like when you make pan cookies. Anyway, after a half hour looking through recipes, I finally settled on a muffin recipe instead of cake.

Took a trip over to visit Ian’s grandmother. Called Daniel a bunch of times. Dropped off muffins at the HOY. Caught up with Daniel and SPJ for dinner at Sweetwater. We served as SPJ’s pity time slot, but got a chance to catch up for a little while.

Headed back to the HOY afterward for some challenging games of Sorry(TM). After that, played Crazy 8s and Uno for a while and then watched some crazy Thai movie in fast forward. Lots of fighting and chase scenes. It was entertaining.

Sunday - Family dinner at Ian’s place. Met his relatives from Brazil. Met up with Roy and some others after that at a Thai place in Vienna. Headed back to watch Gilmore Girls at the HOY after that. Played more Sorry(TM) and Uno(TM). Moved on to Trouble(TM) and Clue(TM)… Much more challenging to play Clue when people don’t follow the honor system… ;)

Monday - Breakfast at the castle. Hung out with the parents and got some naps in. Met up with the sis at Wegman’s to get BBQ supplies and free ice cream. Then hung out for the rest of the day eating and playing video games at the HOY.

LOTD: Tard-Blog is back!
QOTD: “I believe that the community is already in process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence, where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.” -Judge Learned Hand, 1872-1961

Chocolate Chip Muffins (Modified)

Original recipe yield: 1 dozen.

INGREDIENTS:
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup white sugar
* 1/4 cup brown sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
* 3 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
* 2 eggs, beaten
* 1 cup milk
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
* 1/4 cup vegetable oil

* 3 tablespoons white sugar
* 2 tablespoons brown sugar

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and chocolate chips. Add eggs, milk, vanilla, and oil; stir just until batter is moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling about 3/4 full.
3. In a small bowl, stir together 3 tablespoons white sugar and 2 tablespoons brown sugar. Sprinkle sugar mixture generously over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Remove immediately from pan.

Notes: Pick cinnamon or vanilla. Probably would be too much to have both. Only about half the topping is needed. Put too much topping on the last batch and it was a little over-powering. Some people like it that way… I flaked it off and ate the sugar separately. Doubled the recipe and came out with 3 dozen.