Meow

Here I go perpetuating stereotypes.

Everyone knows I love my cardigan sweaters. My hair is probably the perfect length right now for a bun. I’m not married. I just went to the eye doctor and got a prescription (although I’m considering only getting sunglasses). And this little bundle of joy found me yesterday.

A stray had kittens, and we found them in the yard. Now I’m kitten-mom. The vet says she’s 3 weeks old. We have to bottle feed her for, probably, 2 weeks. Then we have to make sure grumpy old Dr. Claw doesn’t eat her when we let her live outside her carrier.

She doesn’t have a name yet. My dad wants to call her Delenn but I’m fighting as long as I can. It’s way too geeky for this cute little ball of fluff, and all the other cats will make fun of her. I wanted to name my next pet King Friday because one thing I just don’t say enough that would make my life better is “correct as usual, King Friday.” But I’m not about to raise a gender confused kitten.

Any suggestions?

I've never hated Catholics

But, if there ever was a reason to hate them, it's right here, their lactose intolerance:

Ice cream, cakes banned for pope visit to Wadowice

And so close to my birthday too.

The reason I don’t give blood

It is very difficult to get a needle in my veins. Before, they told me I have small veins. Today they told me my veins are far under my skin. I’m not sure if this is in addition to being small.

The first nurse tried. I warned her. I gave her every chance to back out. Instead, she fed me lies about how great she is, and how other difficult people were surprised she was able to do it so well… So I clamp my eyes shut, and let her proceed. And of course she can’t do it. So, she gives up, and while I’m recovering my strength she has the audacity to add insult to injury. “How old are you? …Are you married?… Oh, that’s good, I got married too young… Do you have a boyfriend?…”

So, she sends me downstairs to the real lab, and after a long wait, where I almost walked out half a dozen times, the top lab lady manages to find the only suitable vein on the top of my hand. Luckily, neither hole hurts much now. But there is still friction mark from where she tied the rubber thing around my wrist. I’m very self conscious about it. … Sure, it was from when they drew blood….

Boing Boing is so last year

Castle cake pan, you say? Really, Boing Boing? I'd expect better from you. You'd be more informed if you'd read my blogs!

Please, discuss

So much to do before the end of the semester (Sunday). And so much crap happening.

I don’t have time to do the research right now, so I’ll leave some tv related questions out for discussion.

Why is this Danica Patrick all over my TV and foodstuffs? She drives a car, yes?

What exactly is the correct response if you break up with your boyfriend and he says he’ll kill himself. Is it totally wrong to say, “fine, go ahead, as long as you get out of my life.” And then be publicly glad you’ve kicked a freakshow like that to the curb. It’s totally not your problem because you’ve washed your hands of the whole situation. Right?

If you give your daughter up for adoption at birth, and 26 years later you find out she’s your daughter, and that same day she goes into a coma, are you really next of kin? Are you really allowed to make medical decisions for her against her fiance’s wishes? Not to mention steal her from the hospital, and put her in some private medical facility, not allowing said fiance to see her at all? Aren’t you not allowed any legal rights to her?

That Elliot guy who got voted off Americal Idol last night, how, ever, did they think someone with teeth that bad could make it in America? And dude! Can you imagine how pissed you’d be if you got kicked off by two tenths of a percent. I saw someone who looked just like him at 7-11 this morning.

Seriously, how long does the white house think they can keep up with the whole “illegal wiretapping is legal” thing? I’ve read the court cases, I’ve read the laws. I’ve read the freaking constitution. This is what I get for making my semester long project on a current even, more crap and no resolution on the horizon. And have your heard about how they’re watching journalists? It makes me want to cry. I’d threaten to leave for Canada again, but I don’t have a passport. And since I’ve last threatened, they imposed that requirement.

Okay, maybe that one wasn’t TV related. I can’t wait for the semester to be over. I’m not sure how much longer I can devote myself to bad news. I was kind of dreading taking a YA class. But, right now a summer of watching movies, and reading books on the beach doesn’t sound too shabby. And AX falls right in the middle of the summer semester. What better study of YA is there? It's not like the popular kids read books.

Ice Cream Men

I tried 2 new flavors of Ben and Jerry’s this weekend, and they’re delicious

Dublin Mudslide isn’t actually new, but it’s new to me.

Irish Cream Liqueur Ice Cream with Chocolate, Chocolate Chip Cookies and a Coffee Fudge Swirl

I don’t really have much commentary on this one, the description pretty much speaks for itself. And it’s great! I might try my hand at an Irish cream ice cream myself.

And Marsha Marsha Marshmallow is new.

Chocolate Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks & Toasted Marshmallow & Graham Cracker Swirls

Cute name, yes. But I was more curious about the Graham cracker swirl. How do you make a graham cracker swirl, they’re not liquid. I’m still not sure how they do it, but the graham swirl is the best part. It’s not really graham cracker as much as it is extra crunchy crushed graham cookie swirl. It’s totally worth a try. I just wish the marshmallow swirl froze a little better, even when you take it straight from the freezer it’s just not frozen, and there’s a lot of it, so when you dig in with the spoon it comes out in layers.

Next I might try the Black and Tan although Vermonty Python sounds slightly more reasonable.

Don’t Thank Heaven

I’ve managed to keep my 7-11 exploits off my blog lately. But I can’t let this one go. Apple cider has been at my 7-11 ever since that fateful day in November when it replaced my beloved pumpkin latte. This week, I walked in to find a new advertisement on the frothy drink machine, and a new label on the button. Peach pie a la mode. (30 seconds of searching and I can’t find any kind of link. I’m sure it exists though) Rationally, I knew it was a bad idea. But evoke ice cream, and you have my interest.

So, I gave the button a quick push, and got about 4 sips worth in the bottom of my cup. Wow, was it weird! Who would drink that? Who would give it the ok to be shipped out to stores? That guy should be fired. It had the same taste as Quaker Instant Peaches and Cream oatmeal. This is a taste I’ve loved since childhood, but get very upset and disconcerted when it comes in forms other than oatmeal. It was warm, creamy super-artificial peach juice. Arrgh. I managed to choke down most of it, but left a little at the bottom, thinking it wasn’t strong enough to affect the full cup of coffee. I was wrong, so wrong. It was much worse than the Take-5 hot chocolate.

But, you know what would be a really cool job? Buyer for 7-11. Their stuff is always interesting, good or not.

And in other ice cream news, have you seen the commercial war between Dryer’s (Eddy’s for you on the east coast) and Breyers? Breyers came out with their slow churned product to compete with the product Dryer’s put on the market over a year ago. But Dryer’s is advertising like it’s something new. And then, on of the companies (can’t remember which one) has the audacity to say something like “in the future all ice cream will be made this way.”

Dryer’s slow churned is a very good ice cream. They slow churn it, putting lots of air into it, which makes it creamy and good, etc. etc. It doesn’t taste different from the regular “grand” product. Breyers, I hate, I’ve never liked their ice cream, and I’m not spending a cent to try the new one, but I’m sure it’s consistent with their brand. But these are premium ice creams.

Ben and Jerry’s, Haagen-Daaz etc are super premium ice creams. They are made with cream that has more fat than the premiums. And, therefore, will never be the same as the slow churned. The whole product would have to change. And do you know what happens when you take the chunky monkey from an army of housewives? I don’t, but I certainly don’t want to find out.

I haven’t made ice cream in ages, I’ll get on that after finals. I’m definitely going to try to recreate my dark chocolate with Cocoa Pete’s Malt. And I could definitely do with a little alcohol flavoring.

Nuts about Southwest?

Did you know Southwest Airlines has a blog. It's not bad. In fact, it's pretty good for someone who markets a product with such a big imagined death factor. But I guess this is why my last flight was cheaper with United.

I'd like to fly but I can't even swim

In case you missed the boingboing story:

Marvel's new series has your favourite superheroes fighting George Bush and the Patriot Act

It does seem strange that the most widely circulated link is Canadian

The story, though, focuses on the central issue of public security versus personal freedoms with two factions of superheroes battling among themselves on the question (with comic fanboys living vicariously through them).

But what does it say about us if Captain America and Iron Man start to occupy some readers' attention more than the latest real news?

"One of the best ways to broach these conversations and bring up this discussion is through entertainment and through characters that people are familiar with. And again, for us, it's communicating both sides of the argument," Quesada said.

In the end, one of the cleverest touches in Civil War may be a few panels, a momentary breather in the story, in which the giant figure of The Watcher stands silently in the corner of Doctor Strange's sanctum. As the Strange explains: "He only appears to record moments of great change and enormous upheaval. His presence now does not bode well."

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women

One of the blogs I read had this story about anime kids in mid-west Please enjoy. It's comforting to know that things are mostly the same everywhere.

Parental Control

I was innocently making a sandwich and watching my favorite guilty pleasure, My Super Sweet 16. And then the next show came on, MTV’s Parental Control It’s like Change of Heart, which I used to LOVE, only with parents, and slightly younger contestants.

Parents sit in a room interviewing potential dates for their children because they don’t approve of the current significant others. They show a long line outside, and clips of the Q & A.

I’m not paying much attention, and then I hear “I want to be a public li-bear-ian, because libraries change lives.” At least she didn’t say she wanted to be a librarian because she likes books.

She wasn’t unattractive, as far as librarians go. She was only a little mousy, but she could hardly compare to all the hot young things on MTV. And, she was auditioning for a reality show on MTV, she couldn’t have been that smart, even if she managed to pronounce her chosen profession correctly. What could she possibly have been thinking?

Obviously, since no one likes librarians, she wasn’t one of the chosen contestants to actually go on a date.

But, now I’m mildly interested in this show, even though it’s awful. The parents and the significant other sit together in the living room watching the date as it happens. And, my goodness is it boring. It suffers from the problems that all dating shows have. 1. 1st dates are boring, you’re just finding out stuff about the other person. Cool if you’re one of those people, but not so much otherwise. 2. The significant others are dumb as doornails. They make snarky comments about what’s happening, and the contestant, and even to the parents. But they’re not interesting, they’re just awful picking at physical flaws that the person doesn’t even have. One asshole boyfriend had nothing to say so these words came out of his mouth, “Chicks don’t dig being called females.”

At least the li-bear-ian hopeful wasn’t the lamest one on the show.

Welcome

There’s a bit more love in blogland today. First there was the lovely Disney man with nice things to say about me. And now there is Sumyunglibrarian.

I suppose having passable spelling, sentence structure and a few original ideas will get you somewhere, sometimes.

So, a big welcome if I have 8 shiny new readers today. I apologize for the weird template/sidebar at the bottom of the page issue. It ought to correct itself sometime. My interests include library issues, making ice cream, baking, reality type TV, Neopets, and belly dancing. And, If you found my blog by doing a search for something involving that Jell-O pudding commercial. Shame on you! You are not my friend! Do not encourage them!

As for the request for a story, It’s crunch time at the end of the semester now, and I don’t have all that much energy to be entertaining. But I’ll try to flush out my webpage story a little more.

My gov docs professor is a flake. In the end it finally worked out for me, because she decided to cancel one of our last 2 assignments, and give us full credit for the other one (so she wouldn’t have to redo the grading rubric).

I’m in a distance learning program. My classes usually meet less often than once a month, if at all. I’ve finally decided that not having that before and after class chatting time makes people panic. Also, some of the people in my program are not very tech savvy. And combine the normal panic with non-tech savvy panic, and you have panic 2.0.

So, Prof flake tries for weeks to squelch the panic, and after she realizes that people are not going to stop with the panic, and the school really won’t give us web space. She extends the due date by 2 weeks, and offers a completely different alternate assignment. The logical alternate assignment would be a paper (or word document in this case, because we turn things in electronically) pathfinder with the same info you’d put on a web pathfinder. That’s not what the assignment was. I’m going to the final class meeting tomorrow, I’m very curious to find out who opted for the much more annoying essay assignment.

I tried my hand at web page making back in the late 90’s, when that was what all the cool nerd kids were doing. It wasn’t hard then. And it’s even easier now. Have you tried Google’s new web space? It’s just as easy as anything. And I’m sure there’s tons of others just as easy. Did anyone bother directing anyone to them? Of course not. I dared not speak up for fear of provoking a good old fashioned tar and feathering mob. And I’m still a bit comment shy after totally pissing my online searching professor off by pointing out mistakes in the textbook, then asking why we were spending half the semester learning the ins and outs of Dialog Classic when a good 95% of us will never use it in the future, and it will most likely be dead in a few years.

I worry about my chosen profession. I hope the young, good and adaptable grow into positions of power. But based on my classmates, and my natural cynicism, I think we may have a better chance of robots taking over the world.

Pour some sugar on me

I tried to ignore it yesterday as an AP story, but today it hits home. I'm just fighting a losing battle. Sugar is not your enemy! And when you all die from cancer causing fake sugar, I'll be laughing and making cookies on your grave.

Locally, soda pop has already fizzled out on school campuses

The beverage companies agreed to sell only water, unsweetened juice and low-fat and non-fat milk, flavored and unflavored, in elementary and middle schools. Diet sodas and sports drinks will be sold in high schools.

In the South Bay and elsewhere in California, sugary sodas probably will be a thing of the past on public school campuses by the time the agreement kicks in. California law requires half of all non-diet sodas to be removed by July 2007 and the rest by 2009.

Do it Rockapella

Poll Shows Many Can't Find La. on Map

A poll of 510 people aged 18-24 has disturbing but not particularly surprising results. Thank goodness for my old age putting me out of this demographic. But, the next time anyone tries to lecture me about my not talking to strangers, please remember these are the type of strangers I am likely to meet.

Granted, you can’t poll people who don’t want to be polled, so maybe that demographic skews a bit smarter. I would never claim to know geography, but some things you should just know!

One-third of respondents couldn't pinpoint Louisiana on a map and 48 percent were unable to locate Mississippi.

Louisiana really? One of those retarded middle states, or confusing some of the small New England states, quite understandable. But Louisiana?? I’m embarrassed for America.

While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.

Same goes for India. All of those Middle East countries—totally understandable. And the borders change every week, who can be expected to keep up? But India. It’s giant, and recognizable.

Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

Ok, maybe I wouldn’t guess North and South Korea. In fact, Korea doesn’t really make a blip on my daily radar. But US/Mexico? Is that just the first border they could think of? Aren’t there like daily news stories about how unprotected it is?

I think it may be time to bring back Carmen San Diego

No Big Hair

Self-indulgence

It’s been just over a month, and my fancy new hair is just about to slide off the front page of my blog. Thanks everyone for your compliments. I thought I’d have a moment of reflection.

I totally don’t miss my hair. I thought I would. But I don’t. Most of the time I don’t even notice that it’s shorter. And half the time I’m too lazy to style my hair so I just pull it back into a ponytail anyway.

I still hate using the hairdryer, but combing through my hair is exponentially easier. And curling my hair takes a tiny bit less time, but brushing it out at the end is magical. My favorite style with my new hair is to curl it overnight, wear it in ringlets the next day, and brush it out the next day. That day it gets totally awesome and fluffy. I think I’m going to have to experiment with larger curlers. My hair curls much tighter without all that extra weight, and I’m a bit too old to look like Shirley Temple.

One thing that bothers me is that my hair falls out differently now. Before I’d just collect a ton of it on my brush. All the resistance just pulled out any loose hair. But now it just comes out whenever. My brush is neat and clean. And I’ll just get an handful of hair at odd times during the day. It freaks me out a little, and I keep having to remind myself how little is stuck to my brush.

Cutting my hair hasn’t really changed my life. Somehow I thought it would. Oh well. I guess my life changes have to be a bit less superficial.

/self-indulgence

Two Brothers

Two Brothers may just be the adorablest movie ever. I don’t understand why no one thought it was very good. I can’t believe I waited this long to watch it.

Warning: Nothing but spoilers—like you don’t already know how a PG movie about tigers will end.

I don’t claim to know much about history, and I know even less about French history, but who cares about a freaking plot when you’ve got a movie full of tigers?! We open to see a totally hot Indiana Jones type stealing sacred statues from some generic south east Asian country, presumably Cambodia or Thailand. I looked it up on wikipedia, and tigers do live in both countries. So as Indy is camping out with all his less white friends there’s a disturbance, a scuffle, and he kills the mother tiger, and manages to pick up a baby cub and keep it like a housecat for like a day. After a long series of events, the cub gets sold to the circus. Meanwhile the dad and baby are safe, for now. Do males care for their cubs? I seriously doubt it. And according to wiki, also a no. But this one does. And in a later scuffle, he gets shot in the ear by a rather ineffective Asian royalty with a complex, while his white dumbass girlfriend gets elephant-sick. (that’s like carsick, but when you’re riding an elephant). The dad escapes, but the second baby gets scooped up by Indy, and given to the French ambassador’s son (the kid from the commercial). He only gets to keep his friend tiger who he plays hide and seek with, and sleeps next to him in bed, for a short while. Their stupid yappy dog decides to be a bitch, so the tiger semi-attacks, and he’s banished from the house, and given to the menagerie of the ineffective royalty.

Some boring things happen between the people. Time passes, and the tigers grow to teenagers, or maybe full grown, hard to tell with tigers. And ineffective royalty man decides to put on a tiger show. In one of the best movie burns ever, ineffective royalty man opens a large jewelry box in front of dumbass white girlfriend. She thinks he’s giving her a gigantic diamond/emerald/golden thing. But no, it’s the collar for his winning tiger. Even though, it seems the tiger has never fought before, everyone knows he’s the winner. So of course, the other tiger is the one that was sold to the circus. Now Indy knows it’s his tiger because he knows the circus owners. But the boy knows it’s his tiger because he just knows. So everyone is at the tiger fight, and it’s a huge stadium type thing. And the tigers are put into the arena and they start to fight, but then stop. They know they’re brothers and start to play and snuggle and generally be adorable. The whole audience awwws. And mostly everyone is relieved, because no one really wants to see the majestic creatures fight to the death. Everyone except the guys running the show. So they go in to try to get the tigers to fight. But each tiger protects his brother. And they’re able to escape. They run through the town having a grand old time, eating, taking a bath, and generally being adorable while terrorizing everyone. And eventually they make it back to the jungle.

The villagers are not pleased. So they send Indy and a team of a gajillion to burn down the jungle. Obviously the boy is not happy. He loves his tiger, and Indy isn’t thrilled either, but tigers raised in captivity never learn to hunt, and they’ll either starve, or start eating people, so the movie says. So the villagers carry the cans of gasoline miles and miles until they get to the right spot and start setting things on fire. Gosh, I think, it’s a good thing the circus tiger learned to jump through the fiery hoop. And, a few minutes later the circus tiger leads his brother through the fire to safety, saving them and proving they’re still capable of learning. Later we see them bathing in the river. The boy finds his tiger, and the tiger goes to him, and they hang out. And it’s adorable. And Indy goes there fully attempting to kill the tigers when his tiger goes up to him and is adorable. And the boy gives his tiger a good lecture about staying in the jungle and never returning to the village, that way he’ll be safe. Somehow the audience knows the tiger understands the boy.

So, the tigers wander off, happy to have found each other, happy with their relative peace and they start making their tiger noises. And a tiger answers in the distance. Who is it? Their father, of course. And we end with them all snuggling together, and a beam of sunlight shines through the hole that was shot in dad’s ear. Awwww!

I don’t know how they got those tigers to act like that, but those people were geniuses! Anyone who likes cats should see this movie. Those cats are awesome! This movie is much better than PBS or the Discovery Channel. I’m totally putting a tiger cub on my birthday list.