Enjablog

Thursday started out with breakfast with Ian’s parents. I got my first stocking and have plenty of Christmas candy to last me until the new year. :)

Thursday afternoon was with Ian’s extended family. The big differences from previous years was the musical extravaganza and birthday cake for dessert. We sang happy birthday to Jesus. It was a fun day.

Did Christmas with my family on Boxing Day. There was dancing, more snorking, and bingo! Plus, Anna had a chance to enjoy the activity book I received the day before.

Mac & Cheese (I made this for Thanksgiving too, but forgot to link the recipe. Thanks to Anna for sending this to me!)

INGREDIENTS
For topping
1/2 stick unsalted butter
2 cups panko (coarse Japanese bread crumbs) or 3 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs (from 6 slices firm white sandwich bread)
1/4 pound coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

For macaroni and sauce
1 stick unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 cups whole milk
1 pound coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (6 cups)
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 pound elbow macaroni

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle.

Make topping:
Melt butter, then stir together with panko and topping cheeses in a bowl until combined well.

Make sauce:
Melt butter in a heavy medium saucepan over medium-low heat and stir in flour. Cook roux, stirring, 3 minutes, then whisk in milk. Bring sauce to a boil, whisking constantly, then simmer, whisking occasionally, 3 minutes. Stir in cheeses, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper until smooth. Remove from heat and cover surface of sauce with wax paper.

Make Macaroni:
Cook macaroni in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (2 tablespoons salt for 4 quarts water) until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water and drain macaroni in a colander. Stir together macaroni, reserved cooking water, and sauce in a large bowl. Transfer to 2 buttered 2-quart shallow baking dishes.

Sprinkle topping evenly over macaroni and bake until golden and bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes.

NOTES: Add a tablespoon of mustard to the roux. I’ve been using progressively more pasta each time and I think for my taste, about a pound and a half of pasta with some ham mixed in was a good cheese ratio (can reduce final baking time to ~15 mins). I mixed whole wheat with regular rotinis and started that when I started the sauce and let it sit in the water to overcook the noodles until the sauce was ready.

Happy Saturnalia, Merry Christmas, Happy [Day 5 of] Hanukkah! :)

On Christmas night, Santa is in a superposition of quantum states, smeared out all the way around the planet, and each quantum state delivers presents to a single child. This explains why it is so important that children are asleep, because if just one child sees Santa, he immediately collapses into a single state, in accordance with Heisenberg. This would mean that no other children would receive presents that Christmas. This theory elegantly avoids all the flaws in the conventional theory. The only problem is that you will have to explain quantum theory to your children before you tell them about Santa.
The Last Resort dvdrip

• Night of the Living Dead film

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Blind Dating film

Pluto and the Gopher video

Sean Smeltzer, Croydon, Surrey, New Scientist, January 16, 1999

I’ve been going through a lot of pictures lately for a couple projects I’ve thought up recently. And among them was this one:
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I’m not sure where I got this or why I kept it around as long as I did. But it was my shaking stick. You know, to shake at the kids out in the neighborhood when they’re causing a ruckus or in my way. I’m old inside.Jane Doe on dvd

Friday night, 12/12:

Saturday, loafed around and watched a bunch of movies and waited for people to come pick stuff up through Freecycle

• The Parent Trap download

:

• Civic Duty trailer Zoo rip

The Journeyman

Sunday:

Monday — more giveaways:

Tuesday — Christmas tree decorating with Elf, Justin, and Ian:

The Crow: Wicked Prayer movie full

Day of the Dead movie full

Wednesday — SNAME Young Professionals happy hour:

Thursday — Went to the gym. Going to bed.

• See No Evil, Hear No Evil rip

buy The Defector

In Old California hd

Fei ying rip

Space Chimps full movie download Beauty and the Beast

My Daughter’s Secret divx download Singin’ in the Rain The Parent Trap rip

• Mamma Mia! ipod

Hookers Inc. move

Invited a couple dozen people over to my sister’s place today to head over for a tour at the Naval Academy. Pretty exciting day!The Monster video

• My Girl 2 ipod

Inland Empire film

Joe Dirt ipod

- Operating and Cleaning Your New Windows. Because, you know, “Open” and “Close” are very complex instructions.
- Developed pictures from Costco of the 2003 graduation that I thought were still in my camera. Now I have no clue what’s in there.
- Flyer for the “I can’t afford a place to live” scholarship. (Sorry, Sonny. Had to share it before shredding.)
- Think Before You Speak. Yeah, that’s an entire booklet I have addressing this.
- My 2001 SNAME Membership card.
- A bar of Dove soap. I don’t think it was mailed to me… so I have no idea how it ended up in that box.
- A brand new, unopened, unactivated credit card that expired in 2007.
- Grand Theft Auto Vice City postcards.

• Black Eagle movie download

The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning movies Stay Tuned video

Dark City film download Yoga Unveiled Other finds:
- 2 boxes of unopened mail; ~5 years of Marine Technology and Maritime Reporter
- 2 calendars from 2005
- 12 pads of paper, 20+ new postcards
- 2 AP review books for classes that I never took; 1 LSAT review book, which I also never took
- Sonny’s dimebagConfessions of a Dangerous Mind divx

20 Million Miles to Earth movies

In an attempt to use some of my use-or-lose PTO, I worked a half-day today and came home with energy and a vision. I decided it was time to face my closet.

When I moved into my condo 3 years ago, I unpacked most of my stuff, assigning each item a place. As I got to the end of my piles of boxes, I lost motivation and decided I could get to this stuff “later.” They were in the way, though, so I put them in the closet. You know, for later.

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Out of the 6 boxes I emptied, these were some of the highlights:
1. What is a gang?
2. Protect your family from lead in your home.
3. A film camera. I haven’t used this camera in 5 years. I also haven’t developed the film currently in the camera, which has pictures from my friends’ graduation in 2003. I didn’t develop them because the roll wasn’t finished. I didn’t finish the roll because I got a digital camera. So, I put it away in the closet. I don’t even know if those pictures will even develop now… or if I’ll even recognize the people in the pictures… Is it even worth it?
4. An emergency thermal blanket… for my car, boat, or camping.
5. My Smithsonian volunteer ID. I last volunteered with them in 2004 and was supposed to return it within 6 months of quitting.
6. A birthday card from Squidgey for my 23rd birthday.
7. Postcards from my trip to celebrate the centennial of flight at Kitty Hawk… in 2003.
8. Al-Qaida Tactics and Operation Enduring Freedom. I’m almost certain these belong to my brother from before his deployment to Afghanistan. I have no idea why I have them.
9. A Powerpuff Girls Valentine.
10. Two unlabeled floppy disks. I have no idea what’s on them or how to find out.
11. Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker. Don’t remember where I would have gotten this.
12. A canister of pepper spray that expired in 2006.
13. Headphones that have been missing since I moved in 2005. I knew I still had them. I was about 99% sure that it was in one of my boxes in the closet. I am so cheap that I refused to buy a new pair of [$15] headphones because I knew I had a perfectly good pair already. I just couldn’t bring myself to empty out the whole closet to find them. I sure showed me!
14. An issue of Psychology Today that belongs to my brother, dated December 2003.
15. A McDonalds pedometer, circa 2004.
16. Snorkel & mask.

The Black Knight rip

Oh my goodness! I can’t believe I forgot to write about boob tape when I blogged my high school reunion. Must not forget.

Dolan’s Cadillac movie full

The Pacifier dvd

Breakfast on Pluto video

On Saturday, there was a picnic in the morning/mid-day at TJ, which I reluctantly passed on so I could actually get stuff done that weekend. Ian and I met up with Elf, Justin, and Catherine for a quick dinner before going to the fancy night out at the Westin. I volunteered to set up a slide show on Dellilah (without previously considering the implications of a laptop around drunk people with finger foods, but it all worked out), so got my hands on some nice pictures from high school.

Much of the evening went as it did the previous night. We were dressed nicer, but the same cliques tended to migrate toward each other. As the evening wore on, the music got louder, and more and more people ended up in the hallway outside the ballroom. And then we joked about how our 20-year reunion would be at Bob’s Big Boy for the early bird special.

After the pseudo-prom came to a close, a group of us went in high school fashion over to Silver Diner for additional reminiscing. Instead of talking about embarrassing high school stories, though, we ended up finding out that my former classmate is the mastermind behind CupcakeFetish

• Cyclops movies

. Street Thief release The rest of the night was lost to cupcake-related inquiries. I am so jealous of her life.Angel Eyes ipod

A Perfect Day the movie

• Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood movie

Ian and my 10-year high school reunion was Thanksgiving weekend.

Friday night was at RFD in Chinatown — a casual evening that eventually resulted in the center of the room being occupied by the “cool” kids and the introverts clustering off to the sides. Ian had a great idea of writing our Myers-Brigg type on our name tags, since that would probably help us more than reading a name barely associated with distant memories. (It helped that we were standing in a group of 3 INTPs and one INFP.) Unfortunately, that didn’t catch on, so we were left socializing with the people we did remember. ;)

I caught up with a few people with whom I was mostly friends by association — nice people, but fell out of touch once we didn’t have required daily contact. Then, I moved on to talking with spouses. I’m not surprised, but it was interesting to see how much fun the non-high school spouses were having. They weren’t expected to know anyone and had plenty of easy conversation starters. I ended up talking with someone’s wife for half an hour without actually catching up with my classmate!

Embarrassing moment of the evening: Ian and I were in such a hurry to leave once we decided it was time to go that I forgot to close out my tab. Which meant that I left my credit card at the bar. Oops… (Thankfully I was seeing many of the same people on Saturday night, so I just got Elf to close out for me. *phew*)Witchboard movie

The Rebound movies

• The AbsentMinded Professor move

• Witchboard move

  School for Scoundrels hd

  The Kite Runner

  Crossover video

• Modigliani film

Happy birthday, BFF! :)The Magician of Lublin psp

Jolene release

Ian’s family did their annual Christmas cookie day this weekend. We spent the better part of the day baking all kinds of holiday cookies. But in the down time, we played Fireball Island

The Man Who Would Be King movie download

Death Proof (from Grindhouse) ipod Tom and Jerry Blast Off to Mars! dvdrip .

Witchboard movies

For Hire psp

This was apparently the greatest board game of all time, but I had never heard of it before Ian looked it up to show me. The game sells for well over a hundred dollars now. But fortunately for all of us, Ian’s mom made sure they put all the pieces away every time they were done playing, so they have all the original pieces, marbles, and cards.

The goal of the game is to capture the jewel at the top of Vul-Kar Point and make your way down to the docks for a speedy getaway. With four players and a little [bad] luck, the game can last hours. Ian, Jeff, Alice, and I played and got hit by at least 20 fireballs before calling it a night because we’re old and had to get up for work the next day. Sad.

The jewel has yet to be captured.Out of Time psp

From Thanksgiving #4:

Witchboard full

Woooooo!!

“Stop looking at me like that. Go back to Ian.”

Woooooo!

buy Good Luck Chuck

Wheeeee!

In Enemy Hands hd

Dog Watch movie

Jurassic Park download
Ahhh…
*Snork* Bedazzled on dvd

Spy School aka Doubting Thomas on dvd

Dangerous Liaisons dvd

“She’s gonna get whiplash.”

“People my age have to pay to go to amusement parks for this kinda action.”

“50 bucks. That’s how much it costs to get in these days.”

“You’re getting a 50-dollar value.”

“That’s right. That’s black Friday special.”