lotus0kid

I had some leftover red bell pepper from my last cooking marathon, so I played mad chef a bit and cooked it up with diced onion, carrots, and chicken in olive oil, chucking in just for shits and giggles (more the latter than the former *crosses fingers*) oregano, garlic powder, some butter, and Lowry's salt (I pray at the altar of Lowry's salt, sprinkle it on a shoe and it'll taste good). I didn't measure anything, I just went for it. I mixed the whole mess in with egg noodles and the result is... well, still nothing that would've come out of my mom's kitchen, but not bad either! Honestly though, the idea of making a meal and just throwing in spices and stuff I liked and coming up with something tasty and interesting has always been kind of a dream of mine. I envy really good cooks the same way I do musicians.

Anyway, it was a long, frustrating, tiring day today, but it's almost over, I've got an episode of US Top Gear to check out whenever I feel like it, and tomorrow there is Rifftrax Live! Whooo! Jack the Giant Killer, which looks like someone trying to carry on the old Jason and the Argonauts style when that was still cutting-edge. It's really nice to have something special like Rifftrax Live right in the middle of the week, so rare that that happens. The day after I'm going to be enduring a seminar on payroll law... mostly for the brownie points and the possibility of going home early, but hey, especially considering what went down today, maybe I'll learn a thing or two. And then the day after that there's a comedy show sponsored by Planned Parenthood! Should be good times- I had no idea there was like an arts community maybe half an hour from my apartment. So, I've got a busy second half of a week, is what I'm saying.

Okay, I feel like US Top Gear now. Although, really, another "what's the toughest truck" challenge? Come on, guys. That other episode where you tested all of your first cars was great, I had never seen UK Top Gear do that! I don't need more friggin' trucks.

Man, there is some kind of freaky snow/rain/ice thing going on outside right now and I am not happy about it. Stop. Seriously, stop it this instant.

Moving on, birthday season's gone all right. All told I've had three parties with three songs and three cakes (well, two strawberry shortcakes and a French silk pie). That's one party at the office, one at my dad's house, and one at my uncle's house (that last to celebrate my birthday, my grandfather's birthday, and my sister's birthday). My best present has been the big KitchenAid mixer my mom and stepdad got me. I've been wanting to make my chocolate-chip cookies (it's kind of how I christen new kitchens), but really lacked the equipment. Now I've got this magnificent bastard- the box says it's got "unique planetary mixing action." I have no idea what that means but it sounds awesome.

Otherwise, I've gotten some fun stuff for myself:
1. Rare Bird Alert by Steve Martin (yeah, that Steve Martin) & the Steep Canyon Rangers. Really cool bluegrass album with fabulous violins, banjoes (banjos?), bass, and harmonies. Here, have Women Like to Slow Dance, it's fun on a bun.
2. Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell. I've wanted to check out one of her books for a while now, seems like she has that same wry voice and taste for the absurd that Mary Roach has which I love and really demand from my nonfiction books.
3. MST3K Volume XX. The special twentieth anniversary collection- Amazon's got it nicely discounted, so I figured what the heck. It should arrive in a couple of days. :D

I'm really dying to go see Paul sometime this weekend, however my mom, sister, and baby nephew will be dropping in on Saturday and staying until my sister and nephew's flight on Sunday. Yeah, ten-month-old baby crawling around my apartment for at least a twenty-four hour period. That's gonna go great.

And now, I can either watch The Daily Show, The Rachel Maddow Show, and/or Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil (thanks, zombres, I think this link'll work!), or I can write. Place your bets now.

Wow, I managed not to do a meme for over a month! Not that I was really trying not to- quite the opposite, actually, but still! Sometimes I get annoyed with myself, like I don't have anything to talk about, all I want to do is play silly lj games. But can I help it when they're so fun and interesting so often? No.

Anyway! From, most recently, visiblemarket:

1.) Comment to this and I will give you 3 fictional characters.
2.) Decide of the 3 whom you would marry, do, and dump cliff.
3.) Post this meme to your journal with your answers.

( DON'T JUDGE ME. )

Two for the price of one! I did this whole meme once a while ago, but it accidentally got deleted, so I half-way did it again later, but, well, it's really one of those memes that demand... I dunno, immediacy. It gets stale if you leave it alone and then you have to start all over. Anyway, for the third and final time, here's this, stolen aaages ago from hermione_vader:

1. Write down 20 of your favorite OTPs
2. Put your media player on shuffle. The number of the song corresponds to the number of the OTPs.
3. Quote a part of the song that you think has any similarity with the story of the couple.
4. Comment.

( Some of them were so far off I had to try again. Some were so spot-on it was scary. )

ETA: ( the questions )

( Day 11 - A song from your favorite band )

Hey, folks, what's up? Not too much for me- I'm overbooked on memes and fic, busy at work- but I've seen some cool things since my last post- or rather, zombres has shown me some cool things, and I feel like sharing.

Check this out. The climax of the radio play War of the Worlds done in typography:


How cool is that? ... Okay, maybe not that cool, but I like it. Here are other movie moments done in typography, if you're interested. Iron Man and V for Vendetta are a couple other pretty great ones.

Also, normally I prefer not to speculate on the early/private lives of famous people, but a lot of these photos are really worth taking a look at. They're pretty remarkable, if only for a few in a "Wow, I had no idea those two/more people ever existed in the same place long enough to have their picture taken" kind of way.

Okay, I better get at least one of the memes I've signed up for out of the way:

Icon meme RULES:
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee. Whoo!

( I've been thinking of overhauling my icons, but I know I'd just miss the ones I have too much )

1. Had an interview at this one place that.. was actually less of an interview and more like a skills test. I talked to the boss lady for a little while, and then she gave me a flyer about this event that will be happening soon and told me to write a thirty-second radio spot for it, make a brochure, and write a letter to distributors of said brochure. I think it went pretty well. It was fun to write a commercial again, took me straight back to my internship days. And I discovered my cell phone has a stopwatch function- neat! (ETA: Got a call back and it looks like I'll get a second interview that I have to schedule tomorrow. So, yay!)

2. I finally got my copy of Unseen Academicals! I scampered down to the store yesterday morning, but for whatever reason their shipment of the books hadn't come in yet. Luckily, the guy I was talking to (who surprisingly enough was a neighbor of mine I haven't seen or spoken to in years but used to be friends with as a little kid) put me on an email notification list and reserved a copy. It actually worked out nicely, because my route back from the interview place goes right by the store, so I just had to swing in and pick it up on my way home. And now it's here, in my hands, and I'm trying desperately not to idly flip through it and spoil myself as I've been so good about not doing so far.

3. My copy of the new Real Tuesday Weld album The End of the World came waaaay earlier than I expected it to! I would recommend that... uh, well, visiblemarket, since she's the only other person I know who listens to The Real Tuesday Weld... I would recommend she buy the actual CD, not the digital version. There's this awesome little snatch of prose written on the jacket that holds the disc. Very weird and cool. And in any case, my copy cost less than five dollars and I only had to wait four days for it, and I can listen to it while driving even when the GPS is plugged in, so overall, I'm a crafty consumer, yes I am.

4. New Mythbusters tonight! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Is it just me or does it seem like new episodes just cut out really unexpectedly and leave us with reruns for untold amounts of time? Can they really be that hard up for myths to bust that they have to cut each season short? Hmm...

Evidence that the next few days will be pretty good too:

5. I'll be hitting the Rifftrax live event encore tomorrow night, and this time I'll have company! It's gonna be great, visiblemarket, I promise. When do you want to meet? Do you want to try our luck at the food court again beforehand?

6. Last night I discovered an honest-to-goodness cornucopia of fabulous old movies on YouTube. At the time, I was looking for films Cary Grant was in, and came up with Holiday (him and Katharine Hepburn), She Done Him Wrong (him and Mae West- his break-out performance), Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, and The Philadelphia Story. I also spotted It Happened One Night (Clark Gable at his snarky best), A Song is Born (Danny Kaye being adorkable, plus superb old-timey music), and Shop Around the Corner (Jimmy Stewart also being quite cute). Fantastic stuff.

7. One of my most favorite plays, Much Ado About Nothing, is the Renaissance Festival's chosen performance for Shakespeare Weekend. I don't have any definite plans for going yet, sooo.. any takers?

Ah, I've been in the mood for a meme, especially one that'll get that bit of f-locked unpleasantness off my front page. Taken from corellianjedi:

SHARE!
Day one: a song
Day two: a picture
Day three: a book/ebook/fanfic
Day four: a site
Day five: a youtube clip
Day six: a quote
Day seven: whatever tickles your fancy

Okay, I almost included this on the "Seven Songs You're Currently Loving" meme- actually, heh, I made it my Current Music over on that entry. Well, here it is. It's also from the Wendy/Tyler mix Lovenado: "Zombie Pirates in Love" by Tom Smith.

IIRC, it was included in the mix not because it has anything in particular to do with Wendy and Tyler's relationship, it just seems like a song they'd like. And I definitely agree. Favorite line: "So let's hear all the cannons roar and let's all celebrate! / Raise the Jolly Roger Corman, I've acquired a mate!" *snerk*

Up next, a picture! Rather appropriate, in fact, as I'll be visiting the National Gallery of Art tomorrow.

Well, work tomorrow. Ohhh boy. I made a batch of cookies today- I'm thinking if I bring some in during the week it might buff up my dingy first impression. I do make some pretty dang good cookies. They may not be fancy, but they're soft where they should be soft and crisp where they should be crisp and there's cinammon and milk chocolate chips in them, not that semi-sweet garbage. And I've never burned a single one. I've burned myself, but not one cookie.

In other news, I think I'm going to get the Middleman/Better Off Ted crossover done before I focus on the Shrek!Plaude. The former won't be nearly as long and involved, and there are still some plot issues that need working out with the latter. Plus, I came up with the best covername for Wendy ever. Although, I'm minorly terrified of trying to write dialogue for.. pretty much everyone. Both shows have excellent writers that come up with some seriously clever, funny stuff. Ah well, maybe I'll get lucky.

In the meantime, I think, until the Rifftrax live event on Thursday, I'm going to have an unofficial MST3K marathon (BTW, if I ever get to ask Javier Grillo-Marxuach, creator of The Middleman, anything, it'll be if O2STK is a reference to MST3K. It has to be, right?). I'll watch an episode a night, which might also have the bonus effect of cheering me up for work. Last night I watched The Touch of Satan ("Did a plucked turkey in a wig just talk to me?"). Tonight... I'm thinking The Screaming Skull ("You know, the Gospel speaks of losers like you.").