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Friday, July 10, 2009
Yes, it's July, and next week ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) esrblog and I will be traveling to the wilds of Michigan to spend nearly a week practicing our sword technique with our Michigan friends.
Although I hate the logistics involved, I'm looking forward to the break in routine. The weather there has been very fine; not too hot or too cold, and mostly sunny. Spending a few days outdoors engaged in vigorous physical activity should be lots of fun. (And if I'm lucky, I can instigate an expedition to see the new Harry Potter movie right before we're scheduled to come back.)
Current mood:  hopeful
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Last year, the guy on my block who decorates his yard and home for each holiday didn't do anything special for the Fourth of July.
So he's making good that deficit this year. He's got red, white and blue plastic icicles hanging on the trees in his front yard. Big red and blue five-pointed stars (some of which are decorated with little white five-pointed stars) are everywhere, as are red, white and blue pinwheels and red and blue bows. There is a parade of patriotically-dressed figures on the front yard. Several appear to be soldiers (I counted at least one Marine and an army officer), but two are Snoopies. I learned by observation yesterday that the figures are spotlit at night.
And the holiday tree is back in the front window. With more stars on it, naturally.
As I pointed the current decorations out to esrblog he said to me, "Where do they keep all that stuff?" Given the general tidiness and orderliness of the place, I'd guess they're packed into neatly labeled boxes in the basement, one for each holiday.
Current mood:  amused
Last night, esrblog and I spent... far longer than I care to admit, playing a silly game. It comes, from the I Can Haz Cheeseburger site, of all places, and is called "NOM NOM NOM 4 FUD!"
The object of the game, unsurprisingly, is to gobble up kibbles for points. Cheeseburgers give you points, and an extra turn, while balls of yarn just get you bonus points.
You aim a spherical, orange cat around a kitchen floor. She is powered by eating supernoms (yellow kibbles), noms (brown kibbles) and by bouncing off of metal water bowls. Other obstacles abound.
It sounds ridiculous, but it's fun, and a lot more challenging than you might guess from the description. You can find it here.
Current mood: amused
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Some of you know that I have a pet cat, named Sugar. Sugar is going on 16 years old, and, according to our veterinarian, has greatly diminished kidney function, for which I need to give her a special kind of cat food.
On Saturday, Sugar had her annual physical checkup. The vet was extremely pleased with her liveliness and physical condition. The vet's assistant was also pleased with Sugar's (relatively) polite behavior, even while having her claws trimmed--an act which has, in the past, sent Sugar into a struggling, screaming frenzy.
I am pleased to see that it continues to be true that, in some ways, Sugar is healthier than I am. We hope to have her with us in good condition for as long as that is possible.
EDIT: For those of you who haven't met Sugar, she looks pretty much like this, even though the picture under the link was taken nearly 8 years ago. I'm sorry about the size, and lack of quality, of the photo; if you want to see smaller photos of her go here. I'll be happy to supply explanations of what that page is about upon request.
Current mood:  pleased
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Both today and yesterday.
And my next door neighbor came by to ask me, politely, to sic my Landscaper Guy on eliminating the grapevine that's invading her yard. Eek!
Current mood:  demoralized
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.
Most of my LJ friends are people I met in the flesh first (and some of those are people I've known personally for a long time), but there are a solid handful of LJ friends who I know only through the Internet, and I'm proud and happy to know them, even if we never meet in person. The meme didn't say to identify them, but I'd like to: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) bippimalin, jenthompson, mc_cadieux, and last (but by no means least) pearl.
Ladies, it is wonderful to finally have a "peer group" that is interested in costuming--one of my favorite subjects, but a subject of little interest to most of my other friends. Thank you for existing!
Current mood: proud
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
the rain has abated a bit, the humidity is (temporarily, I'm sure) AWOL, and it's actually a bit chilly outside. Unnatural as that is, I'll take it; it's an improvement. With any luck, my poison ivy will have healed completely by the time I have to threaten the weeds again. :-)
Current mood:  resigned
Saturday, June 13, 2009
so I should post something.
Life's been kind of dull here. It's rained almost every day. esrblog has been sluggish and going to bed early. In an effort to keep the local plant life from swallowing the house, I nerved myself to undertake a bout of weeding last Sunday. Three days later, I finally realized that the patches of red lumps on my arms (relatively few of them, thank Ghu) were from poison ivy. The humidity is such that I never feel really clean--even right after getting out of the shower.
It's the weekend again. More weeding, and thundershowers, lie ahead.
Ugh. I can't wait for the weather to get drier, or something.
Current mood:  blah
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Okay, it's been a month now. Time to finish my Penguicon report.
( Read more... )
It is ironic, though, that despite all the wonderful activities Penguicon has, I usually spend my time there socializing, instead of going to panels, or buying from dealers, or even gaming. Since the con attracts the people I like, it's still a good time.
Current mood:  accomplished
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Today, in the course of grocery shopping, I picked up a dozen hard-boiled, shelled eggs. On impulse, I decided to try out a recipe I've had for years and never tried. For that matter, I've never made deviled eggs before, using any recipe.
Unsurprisingly, the pre-packaged hard-boiled eggs I got from the supermarket were kind of hard, so it was a bit of a challenge to get the yolks out of the whites, but I managed. Then, I mashed the yolks together with mayonnaise (Hellemann's, which like many folk esrblog considers a kind of gold standard for mayonnaise), Dijon mustard (Grey Poupon, ditto), and chopped chives. After that I added hot sauce (Tabasco, and Tropical Pepper Company's Trinadad Mustard Sauce, a favorite of mine). The resulting mixture was creamy (except for the chive-y lumps) and a bit runny, but very tasty and not as hot as one would expect, given the quantity of hot sauce I used. I suspect that the mayonnaise helped in that regard.
Normal people (read: people with little or no tolerance for hot pepper) sometimes dust their deviled eggs with paprika. esrblog wanted me to use habanero powder, but I had none on hand. So I used chipotle powder instead.
Since I made these eggs *after* having dinner, and had to do a fair bit of tasting to make them, I only had one egg after I finished, and I'm *very* full now. I'm not sorry I made them, though; it was a fun experiment, and now we have 23 deviled-egg halves to enjoy.
If I'd made these eggs for normal people I'd have probably left out the hot sauce and sprinkled them with sweet paprika. They were tasty with just the mustard, even before I'd added the hot sauce. However, these are mostly for esrblog and myself, and he's often wanted eggs that were truly devilish, i.e., hot. So far (he's had two already) these seem to fill the bill.
Current mood:  creative
Monday, May 25, 2009
Now we're home again.
I had a good time at Balticon, though it was more of the quietly-hang-out-and-game-and-see-old-friends variety, and not the bustle and excitement of a Penguicon. I think there were all of 10 parties throughout the three days of the convention, 6 of which were on Saturday night.
There were panels, but a look at the panel list turned up nothing that inspired me to go attend.
As usual, the Dealer's Room was excellent--both large and having a big variety of dealers carrying interesting wares. The Art Show was also large and very good as Art Shows go, but I've seen so many art shows that it's rare I see anything in any of them that impresses me anymore.
There was an anime room and a room showing old SF movies, but I was too busy gaming to stop by.
The gaming room, as always, had a great selection of games loaned by local fen, but was too small and thus too hot a lot of the time. (Not that this stopped us from spending a lot of time there. I don't think we went to bed before 3 a.m. any of the three nights of the convention.)
The con suite, which continues to be housed in an unused hotel restaurant styled like a 1950s diner, was more than large enough but didn't have enough comfy seats to be a good hang-out place.
As we were heading out of the hotel to head home on Monday, I overheard someone remark to another fan nearby that the same old gripes are made at every year's gripe session, e.g., "They didn't have raw vegetables when I was there!" (though raw vegetables were clearly stocked--I saw some when I stopped by last night). No wonder the con is changing so little from year to year. I wonder what would happen if I stopped by next year.
Current mood:  thoughtful
Saturday, May 23, 2009
So here I am on Saturday afternoon at Balticon, the Baltimore-area regional con that takes up the three-day Memorial Day weekend.
It's warm. It's sunny. It has a great dealer's room and a good art show. There are panels, somewhere, and I'm about to check the program to see if any of them interest me.
Contrary to what you'd expect, it's not *in* Baltimore per se. It's in a nice suburban hotel, that's about 10 minutes away on foot (and about a minute away by car) from a mall with lots of great restaurants of different types.
Last night, esrblog and I played Ticket to Ride and Power Grid until nearly 4 A.M. I won the first, and came in a heartbreakingly close second to esrblog, He's sleeping now, having had to get up a bit early to do a radio interview by cellphone.
Yes, I know I didn't do my Penguicon report yet. It's on the to-do list. Fun at Balticon now, more writing later.
Current mood:  cheerful
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
As esrblog and I were driving home from the Walmart near a local shopping mall, a family of geese nearly stepped in front of our car.
That's right, geese. On the highway. Two adult birds (a mother and father?) and about five or six fuzzy yellow goslings. I'd never seen goslings before; they were very cute.
Fortunately, the family refrained from stepping into my lane of travel, and thus did not become goose-flavored roadkill.
In retrospect, it's kind of surprising that I haven't seen more goslings around here, given how many geese we get every spring and fall.
Current mood: thoughtful
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
my con report for Penguicon. The fact that I got home midday Monday because of a flight cancellation (and had to get up at 5:00 a.m. for the privilege of making my rescheduled flight), had an early morning appointment today and have one tomorrow are contributing factors to the tiredness.
I will do a con report, and comment on the Penguicon mailing list about the beef. Promise.
Current mood:  tired
Saturday, May 2, 2009
At 3:45 exactly, I returned to the Beef Deployment Zone, to learn about salting Brazilian beef and provide other help with the next stage--the grilling.
Unfortunately, at 3:45 the grill was still heating up to the correct temperature--as it would be doing for the next hour-and-a-half or so. Grilling had been scheduled to start at 4 o'clock (and the fen had been told to expect meat soon after.)
We started out short of person-power to do everything other than the salting of the beef itself. The idea is to place the beef in trays, with a layer of rock salt above and below, for about 15 minutes before actually grilling it. This way, the salt softens the meat, and the excess salt either falls off or can be knocked off right before grilling.
But even after putting out successful emergency calls for volunteers, we still found ourselves way behind. Why? Well, unlike last year, we had only one grill available. Last year, we'd had two. Big, big difference. Everyone thought that the meat cutting, which took place while the grilling was going on, had been the bottleneck and reason for the delays.
Maybe it was then, but this year, we had the meat cut in advance. The problem we had was the grilling. Even as I type, people are still waiting for beef--and esrblog is still grilling.
I, sadly, had to leave at 6:30 to help judge the Masquerade. That seems to have been a roaring success. We got 18 entries (and 5 entries in the "Conjure up a costume" speed round)--possibly a Penguicon record. The room was packed with spectators, and the Dr. Horrible sing-along was quite entertaining and much enjoyed (verdict: acting, good; singing, inconsistent, but fun nonetheless).
So I've spent about 7 hours of my day on beef alone. esrblog will have spent more by the time he's done. There may have been panels, but I can't swear to it--the only program item I've made other than the Masquerade was Opening Ceremonies.
Still, it's been a good con so far--even if serving fen is more difficult than I'd realized.
Current mood:  drained
No, not in that sense, dammit. But I have spent the last four hours cutting 12-pound chunks of beef into strips, to feed hundreds of carnivorous fen....
Maybe I'd better explain myself. I am at Penguicon, the world's first combination Linux conference and science-fiction convention, which is being held this year in Romulus, Michigan, at a hotel less than two miles from the Detroit Metro airport.
Penguicon is known for having events and activities that cater to a broad range of interests--some of which have no obvious connection either to Linux or to science fiction. One of those interests is food. Food tastings and panels about food and food preparation have been on the schedule for several years.
More recently, one local fan volunteered to cook some beef, Brazilian style, from the terrace outside the con suite. That led to a mass feast, the following year, in which nearly 400 pounds of beef were cut, grilled, and consumed, all by eager fans.
When this year's convention was in the planning stages, one of the con committee members expressed doubt that we could do the Brazilian beef again. It had been a logistical nightmare, the fan who had spearheaded it would be unable to help, we just couldn't do it this year....
A number of us spoke out on the con's mailing list in protest, and volunteered to help with the actual production. esrblog and I were two of them. He had worked the grill for about an hour and a half last year, and really enjoyed it. And I thought that the beef I had eaten last year was yummy. I didn't want to see the tradition die for lack of a few pairs of hands, when I could dedicate at least one pair to the cause.
So this morning, esrblog and I showed up outside the consuite, along with four to six other fen, to help cut beef. Now, as I type, the last few chunks are being cut and bagged for refrigeration until late afternoon, when they will be coated in salt crystals and, ultimately, grilled. (I'll be back, of course, for the salting.)
In that sense, we are "serving" fen--helping to bring a tasty communal beef feast to the con. Fen, fortunately, are not on the menu. But the pun was irresistible, and after I'd voiced it, I knew I had to write this post.
There will be a Penguicon review later, after I get home.
Current mood: accomplished
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Today at 9:32 a.m. was the 50th anniversary of my birth.
It is somewhat out of character for me to discuss my birthday, but after half a century of reticence, I figure I should consider changing my tactics.
You see, I always thought of birthdays as the holiday that one's friends should always remember. In fact, I always thought that remembering someone's birthday was one of the things that defined whether somebody was your friend.
Except my friends never did remember my birthday, somehow, when I was a child. (It didn't help that I'm an only child, so there were no siblings to offer appropriate largesse bribes congratulations.) Maybe that was because I was too proud, or too couth, to say, "Hey, my birthday's on April 16!" But nobody ever asked me when my birthday was, either.
Until I was in college, only my mother consistently remembered my birthday. Even my dad generally screwed up the date (I think he went to his grave believing I'd been born on April 19), and I can't remember him getting me a birthday present, ever. (He was good about Christmas presents, though.)
Birthdays have been much better for me in adulthood. I have a wonderful husband who remembers my birthday; last weekend, he bought me a wonderful romantic birthday dinner at an exclusive, expensive local restaurant. My mother-in-law remembers my birthday consistently too, and sometimes the folk at my office pitch in for a birthday cake or some other communal treat. And at least 3 members of my f-list have remembered my natal day! Thanks again so much all of you.
I don't have much to say about what it feels like to reach my half century. One thing I do have to share is a great poem on that very subject by my favorite poet, Robert Frost. I found it by chance earlier this year while I was looking for something to add to the birthday volume that friends of my sister-in-law (who's also reached her half-century this year) were compiling. I'm not going to use an lj-cut, because it's very short. Here it is.
What Fifty Said
When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.
Now when I am old my teachers are the young.
What can't be molded must be cracked and sprung.
I strain at lessons fit to start a suture.
I go to school to youth to learn the future.
Current mood: thoughtful
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Some of you will remember my post on Gary Gygax, one of the co-founders of D&D, when he passed away last year.
Now his partner, Dave Arneson, has passed on. I feel a bit more inclined to mourn his passing, somehow. I like Rick Burlew's tribute to him in the latest Order of the Stick comic.
Current mood: thoughtful
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