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Alan Rickman’s Answering Machine

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

OK, not the life-altering year-end post I was envisioning … that’ll come later. Ray and I watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince last night, and I noticed a couple of things. First off, the cinematography is gorgeous. Maybe it was because we’d seen Avatar earlier in the day that I noticed it –the latter is lush and green and tropical, and Half Blood Prince is in muted tones of stone, brown, gray and yellow. It works. I was quite surprised to see that the films are growing up along with their characters–it’s not a kid’s movie anymore.

Oh, and, yes, Avatar is stunning although it’s about 20 minutes too long, and I realized at some point that it is a heavy-handed film with a strong anti-imperialist/anti-colonialist message–you’ve seen that before, but it’s done particularly well (although there was a cluster of “oh, come on” moments right toward the end).

However, the one thing I noticed most of all was that … is it just me, or is Alan Rickman starting to sound more and more like a caricature of himself? There were points in Half Blood Prince where all I could thing of is this scene from Family Guy:

It’s like Rickman saw this and decided to one-up Seth MacFarlane … and you should never try to one-up Seth MacFarlane. Because so far, the only person who has managed to do it successfully is Marlee Matlin (if you’re easily offended, you should probably just skip ahead to the 2.42 mark).

And that’s what I’m thinking about today. Probably wish you didn’t know that, huh?

Tags: art, cat, class, family, ice, life, me, media, men, Ray, rome, work
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12 of 12: December 2009

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

I was a bit stunned to realize that it’s December already! Winter has moved in somewhat, as evidenced by the blizzard we got a week ago down here in the ATX, but listening to NPR, I was shocked by the realization that it’s only been a year since Bernard Madoff entered the lexicon – indeed, it’s only been a year since the word “bailout” was introduced as well.

Does that mean it’s been a long year? Or a short one?

This is my 11th 12 of 12 for the year—my perfect record was ruined because I didn’t manage to do one in October (it would, frankly, have sent me ‘round the bend). Bah.

9:41 am: Coffee

Cafe Yaucono, imported personally by yours truly from Puerto Rico, where they know what coffee is supposed to taste like. (I brought back five pounds of the stuff and vacuum packed it). Cafe Yaucono was chosen as the unanimous favorite by five out of five supermarket employees quizzed by yours truly as they walked by and were asked, “Cual de estos cafes es lo mejor?”

10:20 am: Time to make the jelly

As I lamented the other day, shortly before the hard freeze that hit last weekend, I ran out to salvage what was left of the crop off of the chili and pepper plants that started to produce again in October. What this did was stick me with a half pound of habanero chilis, which are ridiculously hot – most salsas that use them call for half a chili, whereas I had over 30 to do something with. While I like to make my own salsa, the prospect of using all thirty up half a chili at a time was not one that I found attractive.

My Facebook pal Claire – haven’t seen her since high school, but that’s the beauty of Facebook – found a solution online in the form of a recipe for cranberry habanero jelly. Over the years, one of the taste combinations that I’ve grown to love is spicy/sweet. Not coincidentally, I’m a big fan of the locally produced raspberry-chipotle sauce, and its cousins that combine mango, ginger and habaneros, and peaches and habaneros. Problem is, when peach season hit (and it hits nicely in the Texas Hill Country – you can buy a bushel at a roadside stand very cheaply), I had no habaneros. Now that I have habaneros, the peaches are out of season. Cranberries are a nice, seasonal alternate.

10:58 am: Simmer down now

Admit it. You’ve always wanted to see what a slurry of 3 cups of white vinegar, two cups of seeded, diced habaneros, three cups of diced red bell pepper, and a cup each of fresh and dried cranberries looks like when it’s simmering in a pot.

11:11 am: My Smart Stick is Smarter than your Disco Stick

I don’t use my immersion blender nearly enough. This was right before I added the 14 cups of sugar.

11:30 am: A Wet Dog is an Unhappy Dog

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but Mocha hates water and getting wet. But she smelled, so it was time for a bath, which involved much sulking.

11:57 am: An Unhappy Dog is a Sulky Dog

Not to toot my own horn, but this may be the best photo I’ve ever taken of Mocha.

12:17 pm: The haul

_MG_5367

Back at the stove, with the fruit pectin mixed in and the jelly all ladled out into individual jars. It’s heavy on the spicy, that’s for sure. I bought a bunch of small jars that will be used as office gifts.

12:54 pm: Boil, dammit

It took forever for the water to come to a boil so that I could start sealing the jars. What they say about watched pots is true.

3:20 pm: Can we go now?

Lunch and a couple of shows on the DVR later, Mocha starts getting a little restless because it’s time for her W-A-L-K, and she’s not going to let us forget it.

7:51 pm: At the Cajun Christmas Party

Ray’s coworker Elisa throws a Cajun Christmas party every year, ‘cos she’s a born and bred Louisiana girl. And let’s be honest: Etouffe is just another way of saying “in lots of butter.” There’s absolutely no bad there.

For much of the evening, I was seated in front of the rum cake and other desserts. I was very good … although the yogurt coated pretzels did prove to be my weakness. Whatevs. I just won’t eat tomorrow.

10:07 pm: Homeward Bound

I don’t know why it is that I like playing with long exposures when I’ve been drinking (this one was a 2 second exposure … and, no, I wasn’t driving – give me some credit), but I do. I think it matches my state of mind.

And that was MY 12th. How was yours?

Tags: 12 of 12, art, bla, blog, blogging, bush, cat, chilis, christmas, coffee, dog, drinking, driving, fes, food, gifts, Home, ice, khowaga, lisa, love, me, men, Mocha, npr, party, plants, Ray, salsa, SHE, stuff, texas, weekend, Will, winter, work
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So … now what?

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

What if you threw a wave and no-one came?

I’m usually not one of the first adopters of new technology. Ray does not have this problem–he had a PS2 when they were still camping outside of Best Buy based on rumors that there might be one with a dented case stashed somewhere in the back. We did get the Samsung Instinct on the day of launch (and … I won’t say we’ve regretted it ever since, but it didn’t live up to the hype).

So, when Google announced its new “the future of e-mail” product, Google Wave, I wanted in. I begged, borrowed, and pleaded for someone to get me an invitation. It just looked so cooool. Plus, it took its name from the communication system used in the much beloved (by me, anyway) Firefly universe. What’s not to love?

After putting out feelers via Facebook, I eventually got an invite from a friend I haven’t seen since college who now lives in Brazil … and shortly thereafter was offered one by the husband of a friend I haven’t seen since high school, and I excitedly signed up.

And this is about what I saw:

“Helloooo?” I echoed into the empty void. “Is anyone in here? Is this thing *squeal* on?”

Indeed, far from being the future of e-mail, Google Wave has turned out to be this thing I look at every couple of weeks just to see if I have more contacts than I did before. I tried sending out a test wave to people that I know who are on it, just to see what the heck it does, and apparently they (*coughChristinecoughWillcough*) never check it either. Google Wave is supposed to be your primary communication system, but it doesn’t sync or notify your other e-mail accounts, and, of course, you can’t configure another e-mail program to check Wave since that would defeat the purpose of it being all Web 2.0-y. You have to log in regularly to see if you have another wave (funny, I don’t recall this ever being a problem on Firefly), which is easy to forget when you’re staring out at a vast, empty desert.

Googling (ironic, in’nit?) reveals that this, along with not understanding how the bloody thing works, seem to be the two most common reactions to the Future of the InterWebz.

Seriously, it’s starting to look like the biggest tech failure since HD-DVD or BetaMax. There might be a good idea in there somewhere, but half of us can’t figure out what the stupid program is for, nor do we know enough people with access to actually use the program appropriately. I think Google might have shot itself in the foot with the limited number of invitations.

Well, until yesterday. Now I have 20 more to distribute. E-mail me if you want one, but you have to promise to add me as a contact … and explain to me what the damned thing is for. OK?

Tags: art, cat, class, college, fun, funny, google, love, me, Ray, SHE, technology, Will, work
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OK, seriously…

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Khowaga is having a bit of a rough Monday morning.

I woke up from a bizarre dream in which I was in the company of Lisbeth Salander (the anti-hero and “girl” referred to in the titles of Steig Larsson’s best-selling novels The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire (and next year’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest)) being pursued around Stockholm (a city I’ve never been to) by the police. And, yes, and one point we did go to IKEA.

On my way out of the house this morning, I grabbed oatmeal and a couple of things that I needed for work, among them a Tide pen (I had to throw out a Brooks Brothers shirt over the weekend because I finally had to admit that a stain acquired at work was just never going to come out). And I’ve managed to misplace both.

It’s frustrating, because I have pretty clear memories of putting the oatmeal in my jacket pocket, but it wasn’t there when I got out of the car–nor did it appear to still be in the car. As for the Tide pen–God knows. I put everything down on the antique card catalog file outside my desk (which bears absolutely no resemblance to the collection that may or may not be on the reading room shelves). When I went back, it was gone. I checked the drawer in my desk where I intended to put it and it’s not there. What did I do with it? Beats the crap out of me.

Am I starting to wonder if there’s a connection between the shell-shocked heroine I dreamt about last night and my newfound forgetfulness? Yeah, just a little.

On another note.

My silly post liveblogging the “blizzard” on Friday earned a lot of hits, thanks to the newfound power of the Twitter. I went from my usual 50 or so readers each day to over 600. Nice for me! Sadly, my attempts to popularize my Egypt theme for Windows 7 were not as successful, and there was scant interest in my crop of habanero peppers, so I am back to my handful of dedicated, loyal readers who hopefully aren’t there just because they haven’t gotten around to clearing their newsreaders of the feeds they don’t actually look at in a while.

Last but not least in this Monday morning roundup of things before I set my sites on worthier (and more work-related goals): Ray and I watched Brüno on Saturday. While it was cringe-inducing, as I had suspected that it would be, a good number of the cringes came from people other than Sasha Baron Cohen (and I’m not talking about the obvious ones). There’s an extended scene of Brüno attempting to cast a baby photoshoot, and the parents of the babies who are auditioning are just freaking insane.

“Your child will be in an SS uniform, holding a wheelbarrow containing bodies in front of an oven,” Brüno tells one mother.
“Great!” she says.
“How do you feel about that?”
“I’m happy she got the part,” the proud mommy says.

If The Daily Show hasn’t picked that up as its moment of Zen … it ought to.

And on that note … happy Monday, everyone!

Tags: art, bla, blog, blogging, brother, cat, class, egypt, Friday, god, ice, ikea, khowaga, me, memories, men, news, novels, parents, Photos, police, power, Ray, rss, SHE, twitter, weekend, Will, work
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Egypt Theme for Windows 7

Friday, December 4th, 2009

I kinda geeked out last week when Ray installed Windows 7 on my laptop and I discovered all the fun international themes that you can download and install – and you can make your own! Wow. Geekiness ensues.

There’s no Egypt theme for Windows 7 on the Microsoft site, though, so I decided to make one of my own. You can download the themepack, or the individual images below.

Egypt Themepack for Windows (5.5 MB)