A little night music

Here's a sample of what's on my current playlist. These *.mp3s are available for the next seven days only and then they go poof!*

The Riddle by Five for Fighting -- absolutely gorgeous, beautiful melody, and I love the chorus: "There's a reason for the world, you and I." Very sweet. I can see this being a staple of weddings in the future, perhaps for a mother & son dance.

Full of Grace by Sarah McLachlan -- No one does melancholy as poetically as Sarah McLachlan. The lyrics "I know I could love you much better than this" get me every time because it reminds me so much of the relationship that could have been and that I still bleed over.

99 Luftballons by Nena (German version) -- This song was very popular when we were living in in Germany. It's infectious, catchy, but more than that, it was a commentary about the Cold War. You can read more about that here.

Angel of the Morning by Juice Newton -- The morning after has never sounded quite so forgiving, understanding and vibrant as it does Juice Newton style. I've always loved this song, even before I knew what it was all about (g).

Happy listening!

* Just an FYI -- I will not be sharing these files again after the download links expire.

LotD

This one gets filed under "TL;DR"*: The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War, and Illegal Domestic Surveillance.

Wondering

What part of 'compact car parking only' do SUV owners not understand?

Hee!

You can review milk on Amazon and 344 'people' did. It's hilarious. Sample review:

Oh Milk!
Is there nothing in this world more shiny?
Afire with such glinting glow.
What is more glinting than Mookoo?
Folly! Banish the thought.
Did he smile his work to see, Milkman?
I gulp and invite my soul!
Milk is like Rainbows.

This is right up there with the time Amazon was selling 'clean underwear' on its site (With apologies to all of you: I wish I could find my blog entry with the screen shot in it).

Are you nobody too?

Emily Dickinson, the recluse of Amherst, was always one of my favorite poets. Strangely, despite being in Amherst for four years, I never did visit her house and actually, now that I think about it, I don't actually know where it was. I guess I just figured it was a house, a structure filled with things, whereas what I admired and enjoyed were the words she left behind. For today, I've picked a different poem than the usual Emily Dickinson poems I trot out because it's nice to showcase something that's perhaps not quite as well known as I'm nobody! Who are you? and Because I could not stop for Death.


HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!

-- Emily Dickinson

Tuesday

I got nothin'. What's new with you?

Trading spaces

In a sign of growing obsession, I spent the entire day reading the local newspaper to find out whether our baseball team was going to trade anyone before the 3 pm deadline. I was so very nervous, especially since the rumors were we were going to lose three pretty decent players (including our best pitcher) for one player who apparently is God's gift to baseball or something. Big sigh of relief as 3 pm came and went; no trades, the line-up is intact, and I still have hopes that our boys can pull it together and make it to the wild card. Of course, I have this thing for underdogs, and I hated the idea of a struggling player -- who did *so* much for the team over the last couple of years -- on the trading block.

I think if you know you're on the trading block, that your team is willing to get rid of you to get someone better, emotionally that's gotta take a toll -- especially if you've spent most of your career with one franchise. I don't think you'd ever look at your team again in quite the same way. I understand baseball isn't just a game -- it's a business and the players know that when they sign up. They know it's possible to get traded, that if they don't perform, they'll get demoted to the minor leagues, but still. Hearing you're on the trading block has got to blow in so many ways.

Good thing I'm not a baseball player; my skin's not thick enough for this kind of thing. It's hard enough being a fan, wondering if your team's about to get decimated just to get one guy who may or may not get us to that magic 0.5.

Go me!

Yesterday was seriously the running around day from... I don't want to say hell, but it was pretty hectic, and by the time 10:30 pm rolled around, I was fast asleep on my futon, not even being able to make it through my customary episode of "Sex and the City."

Basically, the day started early, like it always does, around 7 am, and then by 9 am, I was at the gym for body pump. At 11, I was in my neighborhood again, picked up a couple of gifts, came home, made rice, cleaned the bathroom, hopped in the shower, made a shopping list and by 11:45, was on the road again. While on the road, I used my hands-free set to talk to Liz about our upcoming vacation, and at 12:20, I was at the restaurant, where I made another quick call to Florida Girl to see what she was up to. at 12:30, had lunch with some friends from the MBA program, and at 2:30 pm, was back on the road to my neighborhood again.

At 3:15, I was at my local grocery store; there were others closer by, but when I'm in a rush, I prefer my usual grocery store because I can whip through there fast and I know what they have and what they don't have. At 4 pm, I was at home, I made a quick call to the Fainter to tell her I wouldn't be able to join her on the Great House Search, and just a bit after 4, I started cooking. I made chocolate mousse, a cucumber salad, spankopita, rice salad, and mushroom soup -- all from scratch, with the exception of the mousse which I had a little help from in the form of powdered chocolate. And oh, I bought fresh mushrooms pre-sliced and washed, and bought roasted peppers instead of roasting them myself (price was comparable yesterday), but I did de-stem the spinach, instead of buying the already de-stemmed and washed bag.

I finished all the cooking, cleaning and gift wrapping by 6 pm -- the soup was still simmering on low, because it's a cream-base, it can't be boiled, so I needed to keep the burner on. At 6:01, I sat down, and watched the first inning of the Home Team meeting up with Liz's team, and then around 6:15, my company arrived. We watched more of the ball game, ate around 7:30, and then at 8:30, saw that the Home Team had won the game (finally!), and then we listened to a variety of music from Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman, trying to figure out which Sarah Brightman song had been in the background during PBS' fabulous series on "The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance."

They left around 9:45, and I made a feeble, half-hearted effort to clean up, but then decided I really, really liked my futon, and so that's where I ended up camping out and eventually falling asleep. Around 11:30, I got up and went to sleep in my bedroom. I slept like a log and this morning, annoyingly, I did wake up at my usual 7 am, but I was able, with some effort, to turn around and go back to sleep until about 8:30.

Today is going to be a more relaxed day. I plan to go to the gym (pilates), and then putter around doing some things around the house, including cleaning up after yesterday's dinner. I owe a few phone calls and emails, and I need to get some writing done. Also, I'd like to finally watch the last hour of the first "Pirates of the Carribean," which has been in my DVD player since... the first week of July. I also have "Bride and Prejudice," which is Aishwarya Rai's crossover from Bollywood films. And finally, of course, the last part of the Medici series will be on tonight.

Hey Andy, did you hear about this one?

Last night, the Fainter, S and I went to a fundraiser for the Red Cross, benefitting Indonesia, which has had its share of natural disasters in the last two years. The format was very cool -- Indonesian food, music, and arts and crafts for sale -- plus a pub style trivia contest. Twenty-percent of all purchases went to the Red Cross, as did the $3 donation required for each person who wanted to paticipate in the trivia contest.

You could take part in the trivia contest in teams, with up to six people on a team and so we were a team of 3. I said from the very beginning that I was going to be the purely ornamental part of the team, as I know nothing about Indonesia except its general location on the earth, that its capital is Jakarta, that there was something Not Nice (tm) happening for a long time with East Timor and... well, that's pretty much it. The other category of questions were going to be tea-related, and I know very little about tea except that I do like to drink it, preferably either Earl Grey (that would be the JLP influence), and/or English Breakfast (which would be the hangover from my massive UK crush). However, we got lucky and while some of the questions concerned tea (where was Thomas Lipton from? Glasgow -- we didn't get this; we guessed Edinburgh) and Indonesia (What was the loudest sound ever recorded? The explosion of Krakatoa -- which thanks to the wonder that is PBS, we *did* get), it turned out to be a more general trivia contest.

The contest was set up in five rounds, 10 questions each. We did well on the first round, getting five of the questions correct, including the answer to which queen was the state of Virginia named after (Elizabeth I). We managed to name three of the countries where German is the native tongue (we missed Switzerland -- said Luxembourg instead), and came very close to knowing just how far away the pitcher is from home plate. In rounds 2 and 3, we fell behind, earning a measly 2.5 points in each round. We didn't know what was the second largest island in the world after Greenland (New Guinea) and we (read: I) punted badly on naming the two countries which are bordered by the most countries (Russia, China). In round 3, our second 2.5 of the night earned us an editorial remark from the graders --- "Ooooh!" --- which didn't sit well with us at all. It was on.

Our new strategy was to go with our initial gut answers to the questions. The thing was, we'd come up with an answer, debate it, decide it was wrong, and then go with something else. This happened with the baseball question when I ventured that I thought the pitcher's mound was 60 feet away, but decided maybe 60 feet was too far, and let's do 50 instead. The answer was 60 feet and 6 inches, and yes, they were giving partial credit. The Fainter answered "The Dutch" on one question, but got overruled by us, and guess what the answer was? The Dutch.

In round 4, we came roaring back with 7 points out of 10, with answers to questions like name the five countries that start with the letters M, A, and L (Malta, Maldives, Mali, Malawi, Malaysia) and name the small country in the Pyrennees where Spanish, Catalin, and French are spoken (Andorra) and the longest river that ends in the same country it starts in (Yangtze). We also knew the ancient capitals of China included Xian and Bejing and that there are approximately 18,000 islands in Indonesia. I think at the end of round 4, we had a total of 17 points.

In round 5, we pretty much got all 10 of the questions correct, including the national sport of Indonesia (badminton), colonizers of Indonesia (Britain and Japan), identifying a quote of Abraham Lincoln's and the name of the volcanic formation Indonesia is part of (the Ring of Fire).

The cool thing is, we still thought we were in pretty much at the bottom of the heap, given our poor performance in rounds 2 and 3, and so when they started with the placements (last place = team 9), I don't know what we thought. I assumed we'd be around 5th or 6th place, because the few times they'd read the subtotals out-loud, everyone else was scoring gazillion points to our 2.5 points. However, place 5 went, then place 4, at and at third place, we just kind of stared at each other. Could we, the benefactors of the snarky comments in round 3, actually have *placed* high enough to win a prize? Could we actually have *won*? Third place came and went, and then, our team name -- Bambang, a reference to Indonesia's president -- was called. We'd gotten second place.

To say we were thrilled is a major understatement. We'd been so convinced that we were at the bottom of the heap that placing had never even occurred to us. And yes, while we'd done awesomely in rounds 4 and 5, we assumed that everyone else had too. Anyway, we won prizes -- a bag of loose leaf tea, a tea strainer, and little cake, all nicely packed into a cute pottery bowl. It was all very nice, but more exciting was the thrill of actually placing and the fact that we did it in support of a very worthy cause.

Good eatin'

In my never ending quest for good and healthy food that's easy to prepare and ideal for one person, I stumbled across a pretty tasty wrap this week, and so far so good. Total prep time is about 2 minutes, which is awesome, especially since it feels like my stomach is about to eat itself by the time I get home from work and the gym. My usual quick meal is sunny side-up eggs and toast, but this evening, I got creative because a salad, while planned, just didn't appeal to me. Don't get me wrong -- I like salad, especially creative salads that just pop, but the plain old lettuce, tomato, croutons and cucumbers get old after a while, and while I was surveying the contents of my fridge, I was suddenly inspired.

I spread salsa lightly on a flour tortilla, sprinkled shredded chedder cheese over the salsa, put fresh spinach leaves on top of that, and added sliced portobello mushrooms, and then wrapped it all up. It's amazingly tasty, and much more appealing than a plain old salad. I also tried this wrap with fresh diced tomatoes and roasted red peppers and that tasted good too. Plus, the clean-up time is next to nothing, and that's always a major plus. (I used, btw, the freshly washed and cut spinach from Salad Express, and pre-sliced portobello mushrooms; the chedder cheese was also pre-shredded. Tortillas were store-brand, and salsa was actually Pace picante, mild).

Down Memory Lane

I was re-reading some of my old entries, specifically some from the summer of 2002, and in retrospect, the heavy emphasis on fandom in those days is nothing more than escapism (much as it was during 1997-1998), with the occasional Real Life intrusion.

At the time, I had just returned from a couple of months in Europe and was struggling with the decision to leave my job for good. I was desperately conflicted at the time, and some of those old entries reflect that. Re-reading those entries tonight, I felt a tinge of sadness again because in between the fannish meta and the fic recs, I was awfully honest about what was happening and how horribly betrayed I felt.

Before I could get too sad over what happened four long years ago, I came across this little piece of fun from back then: The Mod Quiz: Which Zendom Mod are you? I retook the quiz and am very happy to discover that despite the passage of time and the change in attitudes and interests, I am still me (albeit no longer purple). And you are?

Writing

Recently, I re-discovered my folder of original fiction and it was shocking to me just how *much* of it there was. Usually, when someone asks to see my stories, there's a particular one I send out -- "Nocturne" (Harry, you may remember this one) -- and it's like the other stories just don't exist. So I guess it's not true that every writer has her favorite story -- mine is most certainly "Nocturne" (I'd even forgotten that I'd written a sappy, schmoopy sequel to that one because some now former colleagues of mine had disliked the ambiguity of the original ending).

It's been interesting to re-read them and figure out what's changed over time, what's stayed the same. As a writer, I don't think my focus has changed -- I still like writing about little moments loaded with meaning, little moments that can change a shape of a relationships. My momentary flirtation with space battles aside, I prefer the quiet and the ordinary, and I like dialogue that is restrained and held back, because in real life, I think we wish people would be honest and direct, but conversations don't always go that way; what people don't say is often just as important, if not more, than what they do say.

I was much more sparse with my prose back then than I am now. I don't think I'd quite accomplished the balance between exposition and dialogue and description is something I'm still working on. I was also seriously influenced by short shorts or 'sudden' fiction, and I've gotten way, way away from that style of writing now. I loved the idea of crafting a short story that encapsulated an entire mood or sentiment in just a few pages, and while I acknowledged it was difficult back then, I know even better now: it's very, very difficult to pull off a short story and make it work. Most of my stories now hover around around the 3,000-word mark at the minimum and I've written novels with 100,000 words or more. Medium-length to novel-length stories are much more forgiving, I've found (g).

I also realize that I drift from writing style to writing style, or maybe 'genre' is a better word, I don't know. There was a time when I only wrote news stories, and then I did some news mixed in with editorial, and then I was a full-time editorial writer with the very occasional news story (usually covering for someone else). Then came the burst of original fiction (helped by the creative minds and inspiration over at the dearly missed Story Exchange). Then came the fanfiction burst. And now, I think I'm a full-time blogger (stop laughing, everyone!*). I've never actually said *good-bye* to any of these forms of writing, because I think I'm still capable of writing in those genres if I wanted to. I just don't. I blog these days, and I don't write much of anything else.

That's one of the reasons why I'm really glad I'm getting involved in a writing group, and just how positive it felt to be around those women, and their talent and their ideas. I'd like to write something again, and not have this blog be my (mostly) one and only outlet for writing.** We'll see how it goes. At any rate, it's been both fun and scary to read some of that old, old stuff. It's always nice to have a roadmap of where you've been, so you can figure out how you got to where you are.

* I know one of the criteria of being a blogger is actually, y'know, blogging multiple times a day and not going AWOL for a week like I just did, but a girl can have delusions, can't she?

**Not, btw, that I have any intention of giving up this blog.

Link round-up

Links from this past week or so...

Here's an interesting article on a secret journalists kept years ago in the interests of national security.

I don't quite fit the portrait of a blogger.

The results of the Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest are available.

I blogged about modest swimwear way back when, but y'know a fashion's arrived when it shows up on the WP.

Glad to see Congress continues to worry itself about something important. I'll be really glad when this election year is over and senators and representatives on both sides of the aisle stop pandering.

Pop culture

Reading: Naked by David Sedaris
Watching: Narnia
Listening: The Wreck of the Day by Anna Nalick

An out of this world adventure

Got $15 million?

Better off I sparkle on my own

Last night, I went to a writing group meeting. It was my first time with this group, and it was at a Starbucks in a part of Sweat Sock City that has always existed in theory, but in practice I've never been. Anyway, I took the scenic route instead of the interstate and in the process, got lost. I pulled over and called the phone number I'd been given in the group email, thinking I was calling the group leader. Nope, it was Starbucks.

"I'm lost," I told the guy.

"Where are you?"

"Somewhere on Memorial."

"Where exactly on Memorial?"

"Uh..."

"Did you see an elementary school?"

"No... I'm trying to turn around. I have no idea where I am. Wait, how do I get to the Beltway?"

"Are you trying to get to Starbucks or the Beltway?"

"I'm trying to get to the Starbucks at the Beltway and Memorial."

"Okay, that's us. We're right next to the Beltway."

At this point, I saw a Starbucks next to a Blockbuster. "Are you near the Blockbuster?"

"No, we're a few blocks down from that."

"So I'm not really lost?"

"No, you're only a few minutes away."

"Great," I said. "Thanks. I bet this is the weirdest call you've gotten today."

"Nah, we get calls like this all the time. People have a hard time finding us for some reason."

"Whew, as long as I'm not the only one."

"No, no. Anyway, you'll be here in a few minutes. Can I take your order? It'll be ready when you get here."

Anyway, I gave the guy my order and sure enough, it was waiting when I got to the Starbucks. I was very impressed. Not only did the guy not laugh at my obvious flakiness and complete lack of knowledge as to where I was, but he was kind and reassuring, *and* was sharp enough to make the sale right there on the phone. Starbucks would have gotten my money anyway, but by asking for my order, he eliminated the whole standing in line waiting thing, which when one is already running late for a meeting is a very good thing. So kudos to the nice guy at the Starbucks!

Reach out and touch someone

Yesterday was my lucky day when it came to all things AT&T. AT&T, all is forgiven!

It started with the mystery cheque. I ripped it open, it was for quite a bit of money, and I was very confused. The usual deal is that *I* send AT&T money, not the other way 'round. Had AT&T, in a bout of generousity, randomly decided to send its customers money? And if so, for what? I called the phone company of AT&T and they denied all knowledge of said cheque. I had no promotion, no rebate, no nothing. But the service rep was very kind and tried about 80 gazillion things to figure out the cheque. I apologized for taking up her time and gave her my sob story about having all my identifying information stolen a few months ago, and was wondering if this cheque had something to do with that or was it one of those deals when I cashed it, I was suddenly and automatically locked into some hideous program, possibly one with the evilest of all evil, call waiting?

Finally, we figured out that the cheque had to do with my cable service, not the phone or the DSL (my phone and DSL are in my initials, my cable in full name). Turns out that AT&T had stopped charging for my level of cable service about five months ago and was refunding ALL THE MONEY BACK TO ME. And on top of that, they will NO LONGER CHARGE ME. I nearly fell over. "Are you sure?" I kept asking. Who gives away cable service for free? Granted, I only get local service, but *still*. For *free*, people, for *free*.

And then I wanted to get the DSL thing straightened out. The last time I'd talked to AT&T, they'd said if I added like 80 gazillion services to my phone, including the bane of my existence, call waiting, I could keep the $14.99 rate for DSL. Reasoning with the rep didn't seem to work at that time, because he didn't seem to understand the concept of math, and addition, and how adding $19 worth of stuff to my phone to get $15 worth of DSL still added up to $34/month and that was exactly what I was trying to avoid in the first place and in the second place, why would I -- a girl with TWO cell phones -- need $19 worth of stuff on a landline I barely use?

Anyway, yesterday, they re-upped my DSL for $14.99/month, up a nickle from my previous rate, but hey, I think I can find a nickle in my sofa cushions to pay for the increase. Turns out if you just *call* AT&T to renew prior to expiration, they will re-up you at the same rate. Plus, according to the rep I talked to, I'm not in a 1-year agreement either; I can cancel anytime without a termination fee. However, the rate itself is only guaranteed for a year.

So go me. Not only did I get what I wanted for the DSL, I now get free cable.

Maybe I should go play the lottery now.

LotD

How media leaks affect the war on terror. The headline is misleading as it's really missing the words 'or not as much as you might think', but it's an interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor, which makes the point these leaks are more of an embarassment or a PR nightmare, rather than a real security threat. Here's some background on the story, also from the CSM.

RiP

Death toll in Mumbai is now 190.

The tofu problem

As promised, today I'm addressing the complicated and sisyphean task of drying out a block of tofu. If you've ever tried this, you know it's not as simple as pouring the liquid out of the package once you've opened it. Nor can you be lazy about it, because wet tofu doesn't taste that great, and in some cases (especially when baking), the stuff can explode (and you guys know I'm totally speaking from experience).

Over the last year or so, I've gotten close to my dream of nearly dry tofu. I say 'nearly' because tofu is a sponge, which an endless and hidden source of water. You think there can't be any water left in the damn thing after wringing it endlessly, but oh grasshopper, how wrong you would be.

My method involves two plates (preferably plastic or otherwise unbreakable), four cans of various condiments -- I typically use a combination of black beans, Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable soup, chick peas, and Del Monte's diced tomatoes with garlic -- and two boxes of crackers (one mostly empty, the other brand new). I also use a small lid from a tupperware container. I also use at least one paper towel; your mileage may vary.

First, open the package of tofu and dump the water out. This is the easy part. Put the tofu on one of the plastic plates. Now take the second plastic plate, turn it upside down, and put it on top of the tofu. Now, weigh the top plate down with at least two of the previously procured cans. Slip -- gently -- the tupperware cover under the bottom plate. Now, you can walk away and answer email.

Come back fifteen minutes later, and drain the water that has pooled beneath the tofu. Wrap the tofu lovingly in the paper towel, pat it gently, and then remove the towel. Replace the tofu on the plastic plate, put the other plate on top of it, and this time, load it up with three of the cans. Again, walk away and do something nice for yourself.

Come back after twenty minutes, drain out the water, lovingly dry the tofu off, and then flip it over on the plate. Replace the top plate. Add four cans. For good measure, you can also add the two boxes of crackers on top of the cans. Walk away from another fifteen minutes. Come back, drain, and if you aren't starving by now, repeat one more time.

After the fourth time, I usually slice up the tofu into slabs and then pat each slab dry with the paper towel. In theory, every time I slice, I should pat it dry again, but I rapidly lose interest in this excercise, and rarely pat it dry after the slap step. Still, if you get through the four drainage steps, your tofu should be fairly dry enough to cook. It's never going to totally soak up the marinade (I've never tried, btw, the method of freezing tofu first, then thawing, and THEN marinating it), but getting a lot of the water out will increase the chances the tofu will actually absorb the marinade, rather than simply wallowing in it.

What's for dinner?

After having been online since the very early '90s, let's say around 1992 or so, I've reached the last page of the Internet, which means there's nothing left online to entertain me while I'm waiting for my tofu to marinate. So while I'm waiting for dinner, I thought I'd share with you tonight's recipe, which is from an awesome cookbook -- Simple Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin. If you're looking for a good vegetarian cookbook, 2 out of the 3 cooking members of the G family recommend this one because all of the recipes are fairly easy to prepare and they use a lot of the same ingredients, and in the tradition of Rachel Ray, Lemlin doesn't require you to buy weird ingredients either -- which is a really good thing.

Baked Thai-Style Tofu

The marinade
* 2 tablespoons tamari soy sauce (I use regular soy)
* 1 tablespoon oriental sesame oil
* 1 tablespoon canola oil (I use vegetable oil)
* 1/2 teaspoon minced gingerroot (I don't like ginger, so I usually skip this)
* 1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

* 1 pound extra-firm tofu, cut into 3/4-inch cubes and patted very dry (tomorrow's blog will deal with drying tofu)
* 1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips (I used 2 tonight, because I love red peppers)

The sauce
* 1 tablespoon natural-style peanut butter (I use creamy JIF)
* 2 tablespoons lime juice (eh, I used lemon juice)
* 1 scallion, very thinly sliced
* 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh basil, or 1/4 teaspoon dried (I usually use dried, but today I have fresh, and it smells absolutely wonderful)
* 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh mint, or 1/2 teaspoon dried (I usually skip this one, mostly because I forget to pick it up and I don't have any dried)

1. Combine the marinade ingredients in a large bowl. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the tofu and red pepper to coat them evenly with the marindade. Let sit 30 minutes at room temperature or up to 8 hours chilled. Toss occasionally (I deviate slightly here in that I mix the marinade in a small bowl, and then mix it with the tofu and red peppers right in the baking dish).

2. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the tofu mixture and any remaining marinade in a large shwllow baking dish so that the tofu rests in one layer. Bake 15 minutes, tossing once with a spatula after about 7 minutes (I use a 9 x 13 baking dish. I have a larger one, but the 9 x 13 is more cozy).

3. Meanwhile, make the sauce by stirring all its incredients together with a fork (::gulp:: I used a spoon). Remove the tofu from the oven. Spoon on the sauce, then using a spatula, tause the ingredients together until everything is well coated. Return the dish to the oven and bake undisturbed for 10 minutes. let the tofu sit at least 10 minutes before serving it.

Bon appetite!

LotD

What to do with 35,000 pounds of manure? Now you know.

LotD

Totally unplanned double-blog today (well, I guess that there *is* the definition of blogging, huh? Sometimes, I can't believe I've been doing this more than five years because honestly, it's like I just rolled off the blog haywagon). Anyway, I really enjoyed dooce's piece on Britney Spears and that I'd pass it on for any of you who are also fascinated by this particular trainwreck of a woman because somehow, dooce manages to redeem the poor girl (which I thought was next to impossible after the Matt Lauer interview and that awful, awful television show, "Chaotic", and the various babygates). Excerpt:

It was once Britney got pregnant, though, that I really had a hard time believing what I was seeing: the many, many times she was photographed barefoot in public or looking like she hadn't showered since last century. Why would someone as rich as she is, with as much fame and attention, walk out of the house looking like that when she knows a picture of her bra-less nipples are going to show up the next week in magazines across the country? It was less a disapproving reaction than a confused one, and I was fascinated with the anthropological implications of this superstar showing up in photographs screaming: PLEASE JUDGE ME HARSHLY.

CNN explains it all

CNN explains it all

cnn-typo,
originally uploaded by seemag.

I took this screenshot Thursday morning, because wow, that typo answers so many questions about the unknowns we know about and the unknowns we don't know about and everything in between. The typo was corrected about 5-6 minutes later, but the damage was already done. Hat tip to Jessica, my fellow media watcher, for pointing it out as I'd already been to CNN that morning and would have totally missed this absolutely wonderful typo*.



ETA: Here's the larger, more readable version.

*And yes, I know, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

America's got talent

In my summer doldrums, I've been watching bits and pieces of "America's Got Talent" on NBC. It's interesting because it's such a hodge-potch of stuff, and I'm not quite sure how you can compare an 11-year old with a fabulous voice with an young woman who performs a striptease. It seems all very... random. That and the fact it seems nearly everyone who performs gets through. Standards, people, we need standards! Didn't Simon Cowell teach us anything?

On this past Wednesday's ep, David and Dania performed. You can read more about this duo over here. What gets me is that these people aren't necessarily amateurs, but professionals and here they are on stage, going for a million bucks. Not, btw, that I wasn't entertained by them -- I surely was -- but I don't agree with professionals going head to head with amateurs. And now that I know more about them, I wonder if NBC even 'seeded' the talent with professionals just to put on a good show. In which case, hell with the contest -- just put on a variety show, right?

I also think this guy -- Skip Banks -- was on the episode and note that according to his website, he appeared on an NBC variety act show in 2002 (the pictures aren't clear enough to see his face, but really, how many people go around enveloping themselves in a Pepto Bismal pink balloon?) He didn't pass through to the semifinals like David and Dania did, but still.

"America's Got Talent" for sure, but I think some of it is rigged and that's totally not fair to the viewers or the contestants themselves.

Lay down your burdens

Ken Lay has died. Immediate reaction was cynical. One person thought the CIA had something to do with it -- kill off Ken Lay to protect the George Bushes, both of whom had a business relationship with Enron's founder. Another person thought Lay had faked his death and was probably sitting on a private island in Barbados, sipping margaritas and being fanned by grass-skirt wearing beauties. And yet another person combined all of the theories, warning that the coroner better take DNA tests and do a thorough autopsy and provide pictures of the poor man's body to the press so we can all see that yes, Ken Lay is dead. Me, I was crass enough to wonder how he *still* had a vacation home in Aspen when so many others were left penniless when Enron went under.

Very little sympathy for Ken Lay in Sweat Sock City, that's for sure.

That he died of a heart attack was not at all surprising. He's been under tremendous stress, and with what amounted to a life sentence coming his way in October, it was probably more than his 64-year old body could handle. Ken Lay should have been that story we all aspire to -- a man with humble beginnings, but tremendous intellect, but somehow, he let greed and personal gain motivate his actions, and in the end, it's not so much his philanthropy that people are remembering today, but rather that their 401(k)s were decimated.

Those summertime rerun blues

In an effort to defeat the dullness and tediousness that comes every summer with reruns (I am SO over Chef Ramsay's bullying on "Hell's Kitchen", I mean *really*. What's the point of a cooking show with NO COOKING? And "Treasure Hunters"? It's an "Amazing Race" wanna be, but the product placement is ugh), I've been watching little clips of shows on You Tube and then I went over to NBC to check up on "The Office". NBC has plenty of video goodies over here, including the fake PSAs. I'm especially excited for the webisodes that begin on July 13. Kevin, Angela and Oscar are on the hunt for a missing $3,000.

The webisodes should be interesting, not only from an entertainment POV, but how it does technology-wise. All three networks now deliver some kind of programming online, which signals a shift in behavior and attitudes of both networks and watchers. ABC is especially intriguing because it reruns episodes of four of its shows for free, though with commercials (which is a trade-off I'd make). Personally, I like this trend, because it means I don't have to worry about taping something if I'm out or if I don't feel like watching something, I can always find it online later.

(Wow, this sounds curiously like an ad for "The Office", doesn't it? I assure you all, I'm not on NBC's payroll and I'm certainly not part of that fake group of friends who chat about their favorite television shows every morning on the radio. I mean, we all know better -- aside from "My Name is Earl," "The Office," and "Deal or No Deal" -- who watches NBC for three hours a night anyway? Actually, a better question is, am I the only person who gets bored with three hours straight in front of the television? I have to be dead tired to be able to handle that).

Thanks for the memories

File this under "What was she thinking?" Connie Chungs sings. It's hard to take her seriously after watching this hilarious video.

Independence Day

I'm going on vacation through the Fourth of July. I'm really looking forward to some time off, but no, I'm not going anywhere exciting. I'm just not going to be near my keyboard. However, the blog will continue through my time away due to the magic of 'canned' bloggishness, but email responses will be spotty and AIM-presence non-existent; regular, uncanned blog programming will resume on Wednesday.I hope you all have a great holiday weekend and if you're traveling, be safe.

Politics and blogs

Funny how it is that after I say I'm not going to discuss politics, I always do. But I thought I'd explain in a little more depth about why I don't spend that much time anymore reading liberal or conservative blogs and why I've been shying away, for the most part, from discussing issues in my blog.

The first is a question of time and information. I still read about 6 newspapers a day, but I'm not as well informed as I was even six months ago. It took me forever to figure why everyone was frothing at the mouth at the New York Times, and then I couldn't even muster up the enthusiasm to read the story in question (I got the gist of it from The News Hour on PBS).

The point is, I don't like to talk about things I know nothing about.

Second, bias is evident in liberal and conservative blogs and that annoys me. I don't need to read Daily Kos or Michelle Malkin to know what their spin is going to be. I already know, so why waste my time? There isn't going to be anything original, only spouting the same old same old that their fans and adherents require. I want to be surprised and convinced, and biased forums aren't the place to get an objective view point. I'm not interested in reading what the choir has to say ("Stop triangulating, Hillary! Iraq bad! Marriage for everyone!), and you can only read so many "Bush is good! Questioning the war is unpatriotic! Down with the NY Times!" before you have to wonder, "Do these people have anything else in their playlist?"

To get a clear idea of what's going on, I'd have to read more than six newspapers (and the six I read daily are all US based, and unfortunately, none are from the midwest). A friend of mine was recently talking about the kidnapped Israeli soldier and how there are aspects of the story the western media isn't covering. Which makes sense to me as most of us can't keep straight what's going on in our own towns, let alone untangle the varying details of complex disputes in another country entirely.

The point is, every story is missing some element. You'd have to read an Israeli newspaper to discover what's missing from the story. Then you'd have to read a Syrian paper to get what's missing from the Israeli story. And then something from the UK, perhaps the Financial Times, to get the European view. Eventually, you'd get the whole story, but who has time for all that? Who can keep it all straight in their mind? And for me, as a former journalist, I *need* and *require* all sides and points of view in a story before I feel comfortable putting an opinion down in writing. Once it's in this blog, it's out there, available for people to debate and object to, and I'd better know my stuff. Right now, I don't.

As such, most opinions I currently hold about the current state of the world are probably half-assed at best and I don't want to embarass myself in public. I could fix the inadequacies by reading political blogs, but I'm not interested in parroting the party line. It's that simple.

LotD

Wearing flip-flops may be damaging to your career.

The blogging credo

Some of you already know this or figured it out already, but in a nutshell, this blog:

* is pretty much a summation of what I'm thinking and feeling the minute I sit down at the computer and open up the blogger screen. There's not a lot of forethought or drafting that goes into the entries. The blog is about me, it's an extension of my personality, and what you see here on the screen is every bit me. Unfiltered, uncensored, and not always as well thought out as it ought to be.

* is unapologetically liberal. That being said, you're not going to find a whole lot of rants again the Bush administration and now that Tom DeLay, my whipping boy of choice, has been retired to Virginia where hopefully he can do no further damage, there probably won't be a lot of anti-Republican stuff here (Sorry, fellow liberals -- there are others out there who do it way better than I do). Oh, except for Ann Coulter. She's fair game because she's just... out there.

* doesn't have theme. I occasionally post links to new stories I find interesting, but there's not really a rhyme or reason to what I post except for the fact that I found them interesting. I've got the attention span of a gnat so one day you might find fannish links here and the next day it might all be political news stories. Again, not looking for anything in specific -- just the bright and shiny.

* is PG-13. You won't find any bad language here, and I only put a PG-13 rating on it because I'm liberal and on rare occasions, I will voice my support for things like gay marriage (or civil unions) or abortion rights. I'm pretty sure I have other unacceptable opinions, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind that any discussion of could possibly ruin children for life. Parents be warned.

* does not discuss work. Yes, I'm that paranoid and you won't find any stories about my current place of employment in this blog. Past places of employment, namely Very Big Insurance Company and Very Big Publishing Company, on the other hand, are fair game. I will leave it at yes, I'm employed.

* All RL people mentioned in this blog know they're fodder for me and most honestly don't care. I asked one friend recently if she ever thought about that when we went out, that there was a good chance I could go home and blog our conversations. She said no. Me, if I knew I had a good chance of starring in a blog, I'd totally be scintillating and witty every single moment of the outing in hopes of a few minutes of pixelated online glory.

* Talk to me and I'll respond. Within reason. Death threats, spam, stupid comments -- I reserve the right not to respond to those.

* and yes, those pop culture entries are days when I really, really can't think of anything blog about. It happens. And yes number 2: I do 'can' entries for later use. Please forgive me. Sometimes I need a vacation from the interwebs. Scary, but true.

Miscellany

I took a few days off from the interwebs. No, I wasn't doing anything particularly interesting or time consuming; I just didn't log on. Which is very weird, because as most of you know, I don't have access to email or blogger etc., at work, so if I don't log on at home, I simply don't see the emails. There was a time when I was totally obssessive about checking email. And now I realize, I went from Sunday to Wednesday, with a COMPUTER RIGHT THERE, and I never turned it on.

Don't ask me what I was doing instead of blogging at you guys though. I haven't a clue.

In other news, TWO separate people in the space of ONE hour used the term "fussball" on me. Context told me they were talking about soccer so I'm guessing "fussball" means soccer in German. Because yeah, there's this thing called the World Cup going on.

The last time the World Cup was on (I say it like it's a television show and not this major international event played in stadiums around the world or somewhere -- I don't really know how this World Cup thing works), I was in France (check archive entries from May of 2002 to July of 2002, for those of you who missed my trip and are curious. Or not) and World Cup fever was sweeping the nation. We got into a little bit and we'd often check in with the locals to find out how the US was doing. The US actually did well back in 2002. This year, they fell to Ghana. No, I don't remember who they lost to in 2002.

I haven't been paying attention to soccer because I've been watching and DESPAIRING as the home team does its absolute darndest to NEVER win a single game. I mean, seriously. I've never seen a team so skillfully and elegantly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory EVERY SINGLE FREAKING TIME. Saturday, I was watching, and I was ready to go do something productive like mop the floors (ha!) because the home team was doing so well -- leading 5 to 1 -- and I thought, they're gonna win. Ha! That's when the bullpen came to the rescue, because heaven forbid if the other team can't hit the ball until seven innings in. And if that wasn't bad enough, they fell badly to another team, after being ahead, and then losing something like 100 to 2. And then there was that home game I attended where the not!home team scored 8 runs in the first inning and a half. Needless to say, the pitcher -- poor kid, but REALLY! -- was relieved halfway through the second inning. I hate to say it, but the home team is breaking my heart.

My brother suggests switching to soccer. At least then, the heartbreak comes around every four years, and not five days a week for six months of the year.

Stranger than fiction

Most of fandom has been gripped by the unauthorized biography of Msscribe, even those of us who know nothing of the people involved. It's just a crazy, crazy story, but meticulously researched and well-written about events that happened years ago. I was struck by the investigate quality (which reminds me very of my awe with "The Smartest Guys in the Room" -- which I highly recommend for anyone wanting to know what really happened with Enron), but at the same time, the story illuminates that true aspect of human nature that all of us feel, but none of us really want to admit feeling: the need and desire to be liked, to be part of a group, to be loved, admired, and respected. Most of us wouldn't go as far in that respect as Msscribe did, especially not with something so life unaltering as fandom (okay, some people may very well disagree with me on that fact).

I am fascinated by the story from a purely social anthropological view. Fandom is one of those places where you find instant community, a refuge from the trials and tribulations of the real world, where you can pretend for a while that RL isn't happening around you, but mostly it's the place to go to get instant adulation and adoration. You can make friends and some of these friendships actually have legs and are not fleeting. You post stories, and whoa, someone writes to you almost instaneously. Who wouldn't feel good about that kind of thing? Who wouldn't want to be a part of that? And who wouldn't want to take the average 3 to 5 pieces of feedback per story and turn into something amazing -- y'know, to be that author, no matter what s/he writes, gets 1,000 pieces of feedback?

I'm not saying that msscribe did was right, because hurting people to the extent that she did over something as trivial (to the non-fannish world) like sitting at the fannish table with the cool kids is twisted on so many levels. But the story is fascinating because it does illuminate psychology and in a way, makes me rather uncomfortable. I'd like to say I'm in fandom for the fic, for the experience of writing, but that's not entirely true. While I might say publicly and often that I write because I want to write, I'm also lying to myself. But while I admit to the desire, I also admit to wanting the feedback and friendship and awards to be genuine.

But I think the impulse and desire to belong is so incredibly strong that it's hard to push back those feelings of insecurity, especially when there's a blatant hierarchy, when you can see where people are succeeding when you are not, and you wonder, "What do they have that *I* don't?" There's a certain amount of patience required to succeed at pretty much anything you attempt in life, whether it's professional or personal or fannish, but time and time again, we see people do stupid things to get themselves ahead, at least temporarily. That's what happened at Enron, when temporarily beautiful financial 'fixes' elevated the company in a way that made it prettier, brighter, and more shiny than anyone else on Louisiana Street (not, btw, that I'm equating fandom with the debacle that was Enron, since Enron ruined lives in ways that cannot be quantified).

So is it better to succeed wildly and beyond expections on a fleeting and false basis, or is it better to toll steadily in obscurity, hoping one day, one day you'll get ahead and be able to claim what everyone who arrived before you already has? The good thing about the latter is that if you never attain it, you don't miss having it. But dang, it'd sure be nice to experience that high.

Take me out to the ballgame

I voted for the AL and NL All-Star Game. ::headdesk:: I apologize to everyone in the league that is not mine (ours?), as I have no idea who is cool on the Yankees, or White Sox (well, boo to the White Sox, actually. Boo boo boo!). So I did some kind of random picking thing until I got to the AL and then of course, I voted completely for our boys, including my favorite -- number 11. I didn't, however, vote 25 times as we're allowed too. Voting once, I think, is crossing the line enough.

Clickage

On our way back from the game Thursday evening, The Fainter and I were discussing -- as we're likely to do -- the idea of 'clickage', or specifically the phenomena when a happily married someone says something along the lines of, "Oh I knew s/he was the one the moment I met her/him."

Over the years, I've always wondered about the how. I've been out on dates and for the first few, there's this glimmer of hope, and then I'm forced to concede that while all looks good and well on paper, while all the evidence points to the fact I should like this person more than I do, I... don't.

I speculated to The Fainter that maybe the "I knew" comment comes of the hope we all have when we're meeting someone for the first time, no matter how many someones we're meeting for the first time. In that first 30 seconds during the greetings exchange, that's when you envision an entire life with this person, the fact you're going to tra-la-la happily off into Neverland, and finally, finally you can get off the dating Mercedes-Benz. Of course, that's all before you realize the person sitting across the table from you is crazy/mama's boy/boring/fill-in adjective of your choice.

But at least you had the thought when you first met, and that's what makes the "I knew" statement years on down the road so deliciously romantic -- that the initial spark of hope can and does become something greater and worth waiting for.

LotD

Of interest to Kizmet and possibly to others as well: AT&T rewrites rules: Your data isn't yours

Also, here's an interesting one of the war over the cervical cancer vaccine: Defusing the war over the 'promiscuity' vaccine.

If I have to tell you one more time...

Here's an article on how difficult it is to cancel an AOL account. I had a heck of a time getting rid of mine a few years ago, and even had the rep tell me that I would no longer be able to use the AIM handle I'd been using for years once I cancelled the account; that turned out to not be the case. Also, AOL billed me after I cancelled the account. They waived the bill after they realized I hadn't used the account in over a month.

And on a semantic note, here's an interesting language blog.

This DSL coil

I got my renewal DSL letter from AT&T the other day, offering me the option of renewing my same package without a contract at $34.99/month, up from $14.99/month, or if I was eligible, twice-as-fast package for $17.99/month. Yeah, I don't get it either. Anyway, I'm not eligible for the twice-as-fast package for $17.99, which leaves me contract-frei come August, though with a $20 bigger chunk of change leaving my wallet every month.

Now the thing is, I can afford the extra $20/month -- that's just one less dinner out a month; no biggie since I've cut way back on eating out anyway. But it's the value of the deal I'm missing and that's what gets me. I mean, there are new subscribers out there who are paying $12.99/month for the same package that I'm currently paying $14.99/month for. There are people out there who will be paying HALF of what I'll be paying come August for a better quality, faster product.

It's easy to justify an extra $3 in price when you know you're getting something that's twice as good as what you have for the price of a coffee and biscotti. However, it's not easy to come to terms with a price increase of more than 230 percent for no discernable value-added benefit? For people to agree to a price increase, you have to be able to put forth a strong case as to why; putting in the same letter that some people may be eligible for a lower price on a swifter product is not the way to win and influence customers into staying. Bad AT&T, no biscuit for you!

Why should I pay more for less? Would you? I mean, SERIOUSLY. Does AT&T think we're all on crack when it comes to this kind of thing? specially when there are other kids in town who may be offering something better. I'm not sure whether AT&T is just really cocky and thinks people love their service SO MUCH that they just won't dream of switching, or that consumers are too lazy to check their options, do the math and realize there are cheaper options out there.

I called Earthlink, the other major provider of DSL in my area. They're offering a DSL package for $12.95/month for the first six months and $29.95/month for the next six months. That's a savings of $160 over staying with Yahoo. And the rep also told me they'd waive the equipment and activation fees if I signed up. What's there to lose?

I do plan to call AT&T and let them know, because the whole deal makes no sense to me. As a consumer, it's irritating because it's kind of like of seats on an airplane. You know the person sitting next to you might have paid twice the price of your ticket or half the price of your ticket, but since you don't know for sure and you don't know how much exactly, and there are so many other variables -- you win some, you lose some -- you can't put much stock into it. But AT&T isn't bothering to even hide the ugly truth.

My ultimate goal is to stay with AT&T -- because on this point, AT&T is probably correct: I *am* lazy and don't want to switch -- and either keep the $14.99 rate or if I'm really lucky, get the $12.99 rate. I'd even take the $17.99 rate. But the $160 a year I'd save with Earthlink is a significant chunk of change. That's 80 kolaches at the Kolache Factory, 40 mocha lattes at Starbucks, 20 dinners out, 10 t-shirts at Ann Tyler or a plane ticket to Florida. If AT&T isn't willing to deal, then my option is clear cut. I go to Earthlink. Of course, I might run into a couple of days of no Internet access come August (wah!), but I can be strong. Indeed I can.

Interesting

Here's an article about 11 cousins who gave up their stomachs after learning they carried a gene that causes stomach cancer.

Writing descriptors

Like the word 'said', writers are constantly looking for ways to describe their characters aside from the usual fallback of pronouns and the characters' name. Occupations, hair coloring and relationships are the usual culprits. For instance: "The blond ran down the hall" or "The plumber pulled up his pants" and "His girlfriend pouted." All of these are fine, like everything else, in moderation, and it goes without saying using these kinds of descriptors is the anvil equivalent of 'telling, not showing'.

Descriptions of 'the red head' or the 'blond' are, mho, the worst of the three types of descriptors. Hair color is very rarely an element of plot or character development and is one of the easiest ways to describe a character's appearance; hence, constant mentioning gets annoying because it adds little, if anything, to the actual story.

Repeated use of the descriptors also runs the risk of reducing a character to that one phrase: The blond, the girlfriend, the plumber. These are all characteristics of the characters -- they are not *the* characters -- and indeed, these should not be the only elements of the characters we're told about (or rather, shown).

Overheard

While leaving the gym:

Boy: Don't be mad at me.
Girl: I am.
Boy: I saved your life.
Girl: But you said things that hurt my feelings.

I am dying to know a) what he did to save her life and b) what he said that was so bad that the act of saving her life was completely invalidated. Suggestions are welcome.

Up above the clouds

Mt. Everest has been in the news a lot lately. This morning the "Today" show interviewed the American who rescued Lincoln Hall, who amazingly survived a night out in the open, just a couple hours from the summit. You can read about it here. Also, another climb disputes that he left David Sharp to die on the mountain. You can read about that story here.

Orange clouds raining in my head

Reading: The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
Watching: Le Divorce
Listening:Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos

Scary

Nothing more heart-stopping than having passed the 10,000-word mark on a story and then accidentally hit CTRL-X, right after hitting CTRL-A. Thank God for the undo button.

Thar she blows

The first tropical depression of the season.

The Tupperware problem

Photoblog


Tupperware, anyone?

Easy on the taste buds

My new favorite treat is roasted red peppers and while you can buy them in a jar, I find it pretty easy and cheaper to just roast them myself -- especially when you have a fabulous sale like we did last week where red peppers were 2 for $1, rather than the usual 1 for $1 (green peppers were the usual 3 for $1).

To roast red peppers, I cut them in half, remove the seeds and stems from the inside, and usually wash them again just to make sure there's nothing clinging to them. Removing any stickers is also extremely advisable. I put the red peppers on a cookie sheet, cut side down, and put them in the oven, set on broil. I usually wait until that familiar scorched scent fills my kitchen and dining room before I check on them. The more charred the skin the better, I say, and all of y'all know, if there's one thing I do great in the kitchen, it's burning things.

Once the skins of the peppers are completely blackened, I remove them, and then using tongs, drop them into a plastic bag -- I usually use the same one they came in from the grocery store -- and then I tie off the bag and let the peppers sit for as long as 30 to 40 minutes. Once the peppers are cool to the touch, I peel off the charred skin -- it usually comes off pretty easiy - and then occasionally, I give it one more light rinse to remove any remaining ash. Chop up the peppers, and voila, you have a very tasty treat for sandwiches, pastas, pizzas and salads.

Today's link of the day is provided by Lori: a cooking blog called Chocolate & Zucchini.

This time with feeling

Best. Bookism. Ever.

Interposed.

"I was just saying," he interposed.

I'm so not making this up. You can find this example and other worthy ones in Richard North Patterson's Balance of Power.

Captains blog too, y'know

Jean-Luc Picard has a blog over here. I read the first entry and that was as far as I got before my "Canon Alert! Comma Alert! Character Alert!" klaxons went off. But all of that is understandable when you consider what various 'fleet members have to go through, day by day, while on the job, and with very little outlet for their various pent-up emotions. I'm glad JLP is blogging. Even Starfleet captains need somewhere (Sorry, Deanna) to air their feelings "after another hard day commanding the Enterprise."

Nostalgia

When I first moved into my dorm more than 10 years ago, I knew three things about my living arrangement: first, and foremost, I knew my roommate because we'd chosen to live together when we met at orientation, second, we were living in the honors dorm, and third, it was a coed dorm. The last was one of those theoretical pieces of knowledge, the thing that kind of buzzes by you when you're in the thrall of picking out new sheets for the extra long beds and discussing who's bringing the television/stereo/refrigerator.

So when we moved in that first day, we (and mostly our parents) were horrified to find out that our room, at the very end of the hall, was surrounding by guys. Guys across the hall, guys diagonally across the hall, guys next door. The guy across the hall was watching the US Open finals, and I was immediately drawn to the match, but my mom said, "No! Don't go in there! Don't ever go in there!"

Out of the ten rooms on our floor, only four -- including ours -- were girls. Over the course of the year, we -- guys and girls both -- got to know each other, overcoming our mutual fears of the opposite gender, and become very good friends. We got along so well that most of us never left that floor and finished all four years of college in the same dorm rooms we moved into as freshmen. I'm still good friends with most of the people I lived with that first year in college.

The guy across the hall, the tennis watching guy, turned out to be one of my closest friends in college, and he's the one who got me into journalism, and has made quite a name for himself in newspapers these days, including an appearance on the Today show a couple months ago. The guy next door, well, starting our sophomore year and to the day we graduated, we ate breakfast together every Saturday and Sunday. It was our thing, mostly because no one else would be up early enough to go with us. Today, he's a successful consultant in the DC area. And finally, the guy diagonally across the hall, I don't know where he is today, but he still makes me smile when I think about him.

We'll call him Doug and Doug was... well, he wasn't the LL Bean or J.Crew wearing type like the rest of us. Doug wore skirts. Regularly. When we asked him why, he just shrugged and said they were comfortable and didn't chafe like pants did. The skirt-wearing wasn't the only thing odd about Doug, but it was the most obvious one that people commented on. The skirt thing wore off pretty quickly because we were more fascinated by another aspect of Doug's appearance that to this day still remains unexplained.

During our first semester junior year, a freshman moved into Doug's room. Two weeks in, he passed out meeting notices for the Young Republicans club -- that we had such an organization at the East Coast's answer to Berkeley was a surprise to all of us -- and said, very politely, "I would love it if you could make it." He was so sweet that none of us -- almost none of us -- had the heart to tell him as a group, we were probably the Young Republicans' worst nightmare: pro-choice, anti-gun Clinton voters. The quality of the food in the dining commons was possibly the only thing that could arouse any kind of passionate political response in us. When it came to taking a stand against watery eggs, acidic melons, and undercooked bacon, we were *so* on-board. Protesting the new GLBT dorm on campus came a very distant last place to any of a million other concerns we had going on.

"Someone's got to tell him the truth," my friend the journalist said, staring at the flyer in his hand.

"But he's so sweet," Florida Girl said. I frowned at her. Of course she would call him sweet; she didn't have to listen to "I Saw the Sign" and "All That She Wants" 80 gazillion times a day. In the end, we all politely declined, but the invitations didn't stop coming, but somehow, we were always too busy to attend the meeting.

The kid discovered the truth about his doormmates accidentally. It was an unusually warm day for October, and most of us had ditched the turtle-necks for t-shirts. Then out comes Doug wearing his three-tiered paisley skirt in red and orange, complete with a little bell on the drawstring. The kid's eyes bugged, his mouth opened, but no sounds came out. Doug walked down the hall, past all of us. When Doug turned the corner, the kid slinked up to us and said, "Did you see what I saw?" And my friend, now the consultant in DC, said, "You noticed Doug only has one sideburn too?"

At the conclusion of the semester, the kid moved out, never to be seen by any of us again.

Quote of the Day

From today's Opinion Chat on the Washington Post:

Arlington, Va.: Somewhere there's a gay immigrant sneaking across the border while burning the American flag and singing the National Anthem in Spanish who is totally having the worst day of his life. Osama bin who?

Every time I read that quote, it totally cracks me up. It almost makes up for the bad taste in my mouth left from Ann Coulter's appearance on the Today show this morning.

While I don't want to pay too much attention to the woman (because she's quite frankly scary, and if Today wants a conservative viewpoint, what's wrong with Laura Ingrahm or Mary Matalin? At the very least, they are logical, rational and intelligent women with good solid facts backing up their argument), her comment about 9/11 widows was completely and totally awful. But the scary part is, there are people who will actually agree with her, despite the fact she is completely vapid and cannot seem to offer a coherent, logical or intelligent opinion about anything. Honestly, if I hadn't been so disgusted with her comments, I would have been embarassed for her since she was clearly out of her element.

Odds and ends

Last night in chat, we were discussing a long-ago Newsweek article that said single women 40 and over had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than getting married. Lori (one of last night's chatters) pointed me to this blog entry on the Newsweek article, which is infinitely more intellectual than anything we were discussing last night.

And in light of George W. Bush's sudden, albeit politically motivated, interest in the Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, I thought I'd point people in the directoinn of Stephanie Coontz's book, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage. It's eye-opening in so many ways and before anyone goes on about Donna Reed and "My Three Sons" being the cornerstone of American society, this is a must-read.

Technophobe

I just signed up for online banking. Completely freaks me out. Like, I know that I'm so 1999 when it comes to this stuff, but there's a certain amount of comfort (and annoyance) that comes out writing checks, stuffing them into envelopes, slapping on a stamp, and dropping them in a mailbox. That's conventional, that's security, AND it's supporting the USPS. But cheapness wins out every time and the bank is offering this for free AND offering a rebate if I pay 3 people through online bill-pay. How about that, money for nothing?* There's nothing I like better than a good and even profitable deal.

*But the bank can keep the chicks, free or otherwise.

The end of times?

The 'significance' of this coming Tuesday.

X3

If you're planning to see the X-Men movie and haven't already done so, you need to stay until the very, very end of the credits for the 'easter egg' scene.

Said bookisms

In recent days, I've come to realize not all said bookisms (or, alternatively, saidisms) are made equal and some are worse offenders than others. Saidisms like 'request' or 'asked' or 'observed' are so much more easy to slip by the reader than $10 words like 'extrapolated', 'expositioned', 'caterwauled', and 'ejaculated' (the last one is particularly tiresome and unfortunate). I'm not particularly fond of 'rejoined' either. That being said, it's still not a good idea to use them; even once a page can be jarring. Plus, most of the time, using a word other than said is redundant when combined with the actual line of dialogue. To wit:

"I'm sorry," she apologized.

"I would like five tickets to the play," he requested.

"The grass is green and the sky is blue," she observed.

"How about we get married?" he proposed.

"I'll be home for dinner," she promised.

"I'm so sad," he wept.

"Don't take my diary!" she caterwauled.

You get the point. It's clunky writing, can often sound silly, and in the above examples, can fall victim to the 'tell not show' pothole. The characters' dialogue, for the most part, should state exactly what's going on in their heads at that moment and what their next action will be. There's no need to back it up almost immediately with a 'saidism'.

Here's a more in-depth article on the evils of 'said bookisms'.

Boss lady

In my short career, I've had six bosses. The one I remember (other than the infamous Ossbay) and admire the most was boss #2. What I liked about her was no matter what, she had a sense of urgency when it came to dealing with her employees. If you walked into her office, no matter how simple the request, she immediately put everything aside and gave you 100 percent. And then she took action right then and there. You needed something from executive? She picked up the phone and called. You wanted authorization for a significant capital expenditure, done. The phones could ring, email could come in, but at that moment, she made you feel like you were the most important issue she had to deal with.

I try to do the same thing in my work life. It's not always easy because you're being pulled in 80 gazillion different directions with conflicting priorities. But I do want people to think when they're standing/sitting in my office that my attention is completely focused on them, that I'm not thinking about anything or anyone else except for them. I'll even shut the door -- despite the open door policy -- if I need to (or rather, if they need it shut). I also like immediacy of getting things done when the person is right in front of me; that way I can be assured that I've done what they need me to do so they can get on with their job. Boss number 2 often told us that she never wanted to be in the way of progress and I like to think that I work the same way. Some days, the most important thing I do is getting out of someone else's way.

Good night, and good luck

I actually felt sad saying good-bye to Katie Couric this morning. I don't know if I'll miss her (I'll find out tomorrow for sure), but she *has* woken me up for the last five years, and I like familiarity. Change is not something I handle well, not even with my morning news anchors.

What really started the tear ducts though were the videos of some of the events Katie has covered. There's something about 9/11 that makes my throat tighten up, and my face feel as if it's been stretched. I cried during the interview of a Colombine survivor and then again during the Oklahoma City bombings. It's strange, but some of those things still feel as raw and unsettled as the day they happened. You always remember where you are when you first hear awful news, and nothing brought that closer to home than Today's retrospective.

I'm not usually home in time to watch the evening news, but I wish Katie good luck. I'd love to see a woman succeed in an arena that has (with few exceptions) been dominated by men.

Link round-up

There are allegations that US marines massacred Iraqi civillians, including children in November. I can't believe I didn't know about this until today. I couldn't find a copy of the story that ran in today's newspaper, but it was horrifying and I can't believe our soldiers could possibly be involved in such a thing. I sincerely hope this isn't a true story.

In other potentially distressing and depression news, here's a story on ethics on Mt. Everest. What seems like conventional wisdom at sea-level isn't at 8,000 meters.

On the positive side, I also found a site for voluntourism -- basically you pay to go on a volunteer trip. It sounds pretty neat actually, and a few days in Provence, helping to restore medieval architecture sounds like fun.

Namibia

While we're waiting for the birth of the World's Most Beautiful Baby in what was up until now an unknown country in Africa, I did a wee bit of research* on Namibia. I originally thought Namibia was in western Africa, but I was only partially right. It is in southwest Africa, to the north of South Africa. Other border buddies include the countries of Angola, Botswana and Zambia. The Atlantic forms Namibia's western border.

Here is the CIA's write-up on the country. If it's going to become the new hideout for celebrity parental units to be -- judging by the call for a holiday the day Baby Brangelina is born and the fact journalists now need Brangelina's permission to enter the country -- this is a must read**.

*Research consisted solely of sitting in a room and staring at a world map mounted on the wall.

** After Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code, that is

Oh when does it stop?

Katie Couric interviewed the CEO of Shell Oil this morning and I was once again amused and dismayed by the fact her first question was along the lines of, "Why don't you use your profits to lower wholesale prices?"

The question demonstrated such a lack of understanding of fundamental economic principles, not to mention the fact that they have asked this same question of every single global major CEO who has endured the hot seat and neither Katie, or Matt Lauer, or the Today show seems to get the concept of supply or demand, or even how an international commodity market works (hint: NYMEX).

Anyway, even if the CEOs and Congress aren't giving Americans a gas rebate, GM is. Ah those crazy Detroit guys.

A horse is a horse of course of course

The amount of coverage for Barbaro is mind-boggling. I'd never even heard of the animal until today and boom, he's the most important story of the day, and the feature of Close-Up on the "Today" show -- a segment which usually deals with, oh, presidents, the economy, mining disasters... Katie Couric did ask at one point, "Why should we care?" but I'm not sure anyone actually answered her. While I feel bad for the horse and hope it doesn't have to be put down, is it *really* more important than the 80 Taliban who were killed in Afghanistan today (oh yeah, btw, the Taliban are baaaaaaaaack!)?

The Da Vinci Code

There's an interesting post here about Dan Brown's 'inepitude' when it comes to writing prose. I enjoyed the book greatly (have read it twice, listened to it on tape once), and yes, his wording is clunky and overblown and occasionally nonsensical, but Dan Brown managed to do two things successfully: a) he paced the novel and each chapter perfectly and b) he was able to throw together enough myth, history, art, and mystery together to build suspense. For me, that's the takeaway from "The Da Vinci Code" -- the awesome pacing and the perfect combination of ingredients necessary to create a riveting (albeit 'character poor') story.

And generally, I'm always going to come down on the side of a book that makes people read, no matter what its literary flaws may or may not be. I mean, even avid readers like me aren't rushing to the library to pick up James Joyce.

It's me, not you

Several months ago, a friend and I went out for dinner and I was discussing my misgivings about a certain situation. I wanted to do something, but I didn't know *what* to do that wouldn't hurt the other person. More than anything, I wanted to be fair and considerate and kind, and I genuinely felt badly that while I thought this person was very nice, it just wasn't working out, for any number of reasons.

My friend finally said at one point, "So why does his happiness matter more than your own?"

And that was the statement that put it all into perspective for me. Staying in the situation was stressing me out, making me feel discombulated, and I wasn't having any fun. I want things and relationships that add to my life, not take away from it, and over the past 18 months, I've been taking steps that reduce anxiety, stress, and general unhappiness and doing things that make me happy. It's a very selfish approach that doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room, but it's very necessary.

But just because I'm saying all of this doesn't mean I don't feel tremendous guilt. It doesn't mean I don't wonder if I made the wrong decision. I think about how I want to be treated, and realize that I'm not treating this person in the same way. But I felt a certain way at a certain time and I had to make a decision. When it comes to being happy, it's certainly always about me, and not the other person.

Hee

The Grey's Anatomy upfront presentation here; this makes the most sense if you've seen the Superbowl episodes, but it's still hilarious.

Word

So Cowboy Skinny, The Fainter and I went out for drinks and appetizers Tuesday evening. I hadn't seen CS in a while, so I gave him a rundown on what was going on with me, including the perils of jumping on the dating wagon. I said, "I'm taking a temporary break and hopping off the dating wagon. I'm just not in the mood to do the things right now to make a relationship work."

So he asked me what kinds of things. And I thought for a second and said, "Well, communication for one. I'm just not so much into the whole returning of phone calls and email thing."

Of course that's a vast exaggeration, because I *do* eventually return phone calls (and ::gulp::, there are two on my voicemail from last week I still need to get back to) and I do eventually return emails. But I admit it takes work to get to know a person, and the last four or five months have *not* been conducive to that kind of thing. I'm slightly obssessive-compulsive about my schedule (for instance, I call my mom at the same time on the same day every week and this has been going on for years), and I require lots of downtime and time to myself. And when I say 'lots', I mean entire evenings of time -- again, not terribly conducive to a relationship. "But," I said, "I believe these types of issues fall into place when you meet the right person."

CS nodded contemplatively, and I braced myself. Surely he would tell me to stop being so picky, or uptight, or judgmental. Surely he would say those things. But he just said, "You know what the real problem is? It's that you got on the dating wagon in the first place. You should have got on the dating Mercedes-Benz instead."

Insta-stupid

High gas prices are continuing to make people -- especially Matt Lauer -- stupid. I only caught the first part of his interview with Chevron's CEO this morning and honest to God, Lauer asked if the oil companies could subsidize the prices at the pump and discount them by 5 cents a gallon. Which would probably save the average American consumer about a $1 each time they fill up.

Here are the profit margins for some major corporations. No one is asking Microsoft, with its whopping 32 percent GM (which is, btw, WOW) to discount prices of their software by $5 or even $50. We just suck it up and pay it and this is when there is little to no competition for the product.

I get that the oil & gas industry is hard to explain. I've been in the industry for three years now, but I still have questions. No one wants to deal with geopolitical complications, or how much it costs to pull a barrel of oil out of the ground or how long it even takes, or all the regulations and capital expenditures required to even get that 42-gallon barrel of oil converted into something you can put into your car. It's hard to explain, hard to understand, but I also think people are in denial: they don't want to think the fact that they're driving something that gets 8 to 10 miles a gallon or the fact that they need to keep their ACs running at full blast during the summer dog days might have something to do with high natural gas and oil prices.

On the move

My brother, the administrator for this site's domain and hosting, has decreed that a move will be happening sometime in the next week. This will be the first time in five years that I'll be changing servers, and it'll be a sad, sad good-bye since Pair has been awesome and so incredibly reliable, but my brother has found another option that he likes better and will add more features etc., so we're moving!

In theory, this move will be seamless and all of y'all won't notice a thing when I actually make the transition. The URL will remain the same (including all internal links as I'm not changing any of the site structure -- oh no no no), as well as the layout (well, I may take this opportunity to redesign my welcome mat), and all of the content. The only thing I'm not 100 percent sure of is the blog, and how that will transition over.

ETA: I talked to my brother this afternoon and he assured me there won't be any problem moving anything over, including the blog. Whew! The last time we did the server swap, we had all sorts of nightmares, but that was mostly because the hosting company was teh evil, and not only had my site down for weeks at a time, but then reneged on a promise they made to my brother that they would allow him to move my site over before deleting it from their servers.

The rain in Spain

I'm not actually in Spain, nor is it raining, but today was absolutely gorgeous and from my office, I could see for miles. I judge the pollution/air quality by how far I can see and some days, it's really bad. You can see the clouds, edged with brown, the haze spreading across the flat horizon, and there's this feeling that the world stops where the clouds begin because it's impossible to see any further than that.

Today wasn't one of those days. It was beautiful, clear, a nice cooling breeze, and the air smelled fresh -- not like sweat socks, like it's apt to do.

Today the horizon ended at the limits of my vision. I could see the gleaming stacks of the refineries, the sun glancing off the chrome, and from my perch high above the city, I saw them as things of beauty rather than belching chimmnies of black soot.

I think that if everyone could see the air the way I see it, from more than 800 feet up from the ground, then they wouldn't argue against pollution controls or the fact perhaps all this stuff we're putting in the air isn't causing the weather to go haywire. Four days out five, the proof is out there.

That time of the year

We're under a severe thunderstorm watch right now. That's pretty much par for the course for this time of the year. This evening, the sky was a golden color, casting this glow across everything. My apartment complex is an adobe color, and it looked really pretty in the yellow light.

Thunderstorms here are marvelous to behold. Fierce winds that come at you sideways, hail the size of golf balls, and lightning bolts that slice through the skies. The roads flood within minutes due to the torrential rain, and you can always tell by the green-grey tinge to the sky that a tornado is nearby.

We get plenty of tornadoes in our area, but not the kind you see on the news. There are F0 or the occasional F1 tornadoes. Tree branches bend but don't always break, mulch spills over onto the roadways, and you see the occasional sign blown off its post.

Suffice it to say, when one of these comes roaring through -- and they do come at least once or twice a week in the months of May and June -- it's best to stay indoors, curled up on the sofa with a nice book.

Reading: Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
Listening: Love Songs by Elton John
Watching: The Amazing Race

Link of the Day

In a strange quirk, RL and VL collided today, with both Lori and my brother sending me the same link about getting through identity theft and the serendipity of it all was too good to ignore. Now, I don't know if my identity has been stolen and someone is buying a Porsche in my name. Until I see my credit reports (WHERE ARE THEY ALREADY?) and/or the institution of higher education from whereupon my identity was stolen catches the people responsible, I'm not going to know when I can breathe a sigh of relief. I mean, the credit reports could come out clean *now*, but who knows what it'll look like down the road?

I really don't like the whole 'hurry up and wait' deal that's going on. I want to take action now.

Damn it, Jim

I got the official word today. My social security number, birth date and email address were indeed stolen. Obviously, the email address isn't a big deal -- spammers have been spamming that address since I got it way back in the paleolithic days of the Internet. But someone out there is running around with BOTH my SSN and birth date -- which is bad in so many ways.

They think the theft was around April 11th, but I didn't receive preliminary notification until the 23rd. And now it's well into the first week of May. ::sigh:: I've already put the fraud alerts on my accounts, and now I'm waiting for the complimentary copies of my credit report to arrive. The question is, how long do I have to monitor my accounts? Do identity theft thieves wait for the 90 days for fraud alerts to expire and *then* hawk the SSNs and birth dates?

The thing that gets me, that REALLY gets me, is that database that was broken into? It's from my life five years ago. FIVE YEARS AGO. And I had that one and only contact FIVE YEARS AGO. What the hell are they still doing with my information? And btw, this is their SECOND break-in in several years, so obviously, their security leaves much to be desired. I'm already a nervous wreck when things are going well, and I'm paranoid under the best of circumstances. So to say I'm unhappy and upset about this latest turn of events would be an understatement.

Existence

On a story I'm working on, I wrote the line, "She existed." This a father said to a friend comforting him on the death of his child. It seemed like an odd line, and I stared at it for a long time because a) I didn't know where it came from and b) why would anyone say something so cold after such a traumatic event?

I pondered the line for a long time after I wrote it. And then I left it in, and came back to it this morning. Stay or go? Stay or go? And then I realized it had to stay because it's a true statement. Unexpected, but true, because we all have moments in our lives when we think, "Did that happen? Did it really unfold like that? Did I really feel like that?" And so when I wrote that line, unconsciously that must have been what I was thinking about -- the mere fact that a moment existed, that it happened, and now it doesn't; in other words, memory is a constant, bittersweet reminder of something what was, should have been, and now never will be. And constantly, we have to validate and acknowledge those memories because as time goes on, the emotions and events drift further away, leading one to question what is real and what isn't.

Of course, that's a lot of meaning to put into two words, a total of four syllables. But sometimes grief is that simple, that terse, and at a particular moment in time, that's all someone can say about an emotional upheaval. It just goes to show that sometimes your characters do know more about what's going on in their lives than you, the author, does.