Collected Thoughts

I made this the other day for a family dinner, Dad's still struggling to understand the whole veggie thing so I made this becuase quinoa is so jam packed full of good stuff and he wouldn't have to worry about protien, etc.

I made changes from the original recipe (it originally calls for a large bell pepper and 10 mushrooms, but I didn't but those)I found and next time I make it I'm trying more changes (which I'll include at the botton)

1 tbs oil
1 med onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 small zucchine, chopped
1 1/2 cups quinoa, rinsed
3 cups water
1 cup carrots peeled and chopped
2 cups butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced
2 cup chard (or kale) cleaned and chopped
Salt and pepper
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried sage


Preheat oven to 400F.

Place a large pot or saucepan on medium heat and add the oil. Saute onions, garlic, and zucchini for 5 to 7 minutes until soft.

Once the vegetables are soft add the quinoa, water, butternut squash, chard, carrots, sage, thyme, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Pour into a 9 x 13" casserole, cover, and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed.

I bought too large of a butternut squash and 2 cups of raw chard wasn't that much. I think next time I make this I'm going to add leeks, double the amount of butternut squash, add another cup of chard, and eliminate the zucchini.

The lovely permetaform has a new Equilibrium vid which you must see NOW!

Go here and download it. It's a zipped file so it wont't take that long and then you can watch it!

It's called Words of the Dead and the song is "The Chemicals Between Us" by Bush. I can't express enough how wonderful this vid is. If you haven't seen the movie, watch it any way because of the effects she uses and also it's a kickass vid. Then add Equilibrium to your Netflix queue or go rent it. It's not the best movie out there but it's got Sean Bean, Christian Bale, and Taye Diggs in it and it will make you love the vid even more.

If you've never seen any of her vids before after you watch this one go here and download her other vids. They are all worth it.

At some point I'm going to write about something else. At lunch I wrote 878 words! longhand! although 200 of it were the disclaimer and author's notes (which went quickly because I'd already planned on what I was going to write). Then I managed to write myself in a corner already, I've got Tara and Willow babbling at each other because I can't figure out where I want them next. I think I'm just going to make a line of stars and go on to the next scene.

And I've made a few changes -- Guillermo is now Alyx's lover/student and making him younger than Alyx but still really old. And I've decided to make The Initiative an off shot of Wolfram and Hart and trying to screw around with the Shanshu prophesy which is why they gave Spike a soul and not a chip (although how I'm going to work all this in I'm not sure but I have 49,122 words to figure it out).

I promise I'm not going to spam my flist with Nanowrimo related stuff, I promise. I'll cut tag every thing and try not to mention to too often. But I have names for my characters.

Main Character: Alyxandrya Lightly (her current name) her original name is Hjordis (but with the umlats over the o, I'm not sure how to do that), which according to behindthename.com is ancient Scandinavian for sword goddess.

Evil Immortal (aka Alyx's nemesis) is Vilko (Solvene for William), although he currently goes by something else (haven't decided)

Her Mentor/Lover is Guillermo , which is Spanish for William (I couldn't resist).

I still haven't figured out a name for my main character. Well, I have her original birth name, which I don't have on me, so I can't reveal it here. Originally I was thinking of something like Violetta Alyxandrya Truelight, but since she's an Immortal she doesn't want to be too memorable.

The Evil Immortal and her mentor/lover are both going to be named variations of William because I can't resist.

And I'm going to use up some words with the author's notes. The story is set somewhere during S4 of Buffy, but there's no Riley and Buffy never finds out about The Initiative, but they are still around and Spike doesn't get chipped, they give him a soul (I have no idea why) and continues to act like he always did because I like the idea of the soul being free will and Angel and Spike having choices and not just being "good". There is no Buffy/Spike and no Spike obsessed with Buffy. Oz never comes back, Tara and Willow are happy. I'm not sure about anya. Maybe Dru if I decide I want to write really bad Dru dialouge.

I want to throw in some kind of twist but I'm not sure. And since my Immortal is a Mary Sue she's going to enchant everyone and there will be badly written sex.

My superfantastic raise is less superfantastic in the light of federal taxes. I knew I shouldn't have been building up castles in the sky of buying a cheap laptop. I got my first paycheck (yay!) and it's more money, but the federal tax that was taken out is more than what was taken out in 2 weeks at my old pay rate.

Maybe I filled out the w4 (or whatever it is) differently so more is being taken out. I don't know. It doesn't seem right that instead of paying out about $60 every two weeks I'm now paying out about $70 per week.

Once I factor that in, instead of making enough to cover the increased insurance plus a little cushion the extra money will be about $20 short of covering the increase.

The temp agency does offer health insurance but they don't cover mental health so there's no reason in even looking at it because that's pretty much what I use it for. But I have to wait and see, because I didn't get a full pay check. So I'm going to see how much money I get from a full pay check.

What kills me is that the holidays. I'll miss three days in November - Veteran's day,Thanksgiving and the day after. Then Christmas will be a day, then 2 days in Jan -- New Year's Day and also Martin Luther King, Jr. I'll see if maybe my supervisor will be cool with me coming in early or staying late ot make up some of that time, but because they are paying an agency so much money she might be unwilling to do that for me. So I won't even be able to see what a full month's pay is like until Feb.

And I haven't been as frugal as I have been in the past. I've wasted so much money on stuff and let my utility bill creep up on me.

So I'm doing that this year. For real and not like last year when I didn't write anything. I was planning an all gay all mpreg cross over extravaganza but I've decided against that. Long time ago when I first started reading fanfic online (and read tons and tons of bad WillowSue/Spike stuff and thought it was good) I came up with a story outline for a Highlander/BtVS cross over (because I read a lot of that crap as well). So now i'm going to take the story idea and run with it as Badfic. I haven't had a chance to rewatch early BtVS seasons recently and havne't seen Highlander in years but that doesn't matter because I'm going to be that kind of writer --with a cutsey disclaimer and author's notes about what canon I'm following, etc and I'm not worrying about canon accuracy because that just gets in the way of the creative process. Plus my main character is a total Mary Sue from conception (this was before I knew the term Mary Sue).

The basic plot is: MarySue Immortal (I haven't come up with a proper name yet) is in Sunnydale hunting the Immortal who tortured and killed her mentor/lover. EvilKillerImmortal has been hiding out in the cemeteries like a coward (also because he can travel rather extensively around Sunnydale and manage to stay close to/on holy ground at all times) and bribing vampires (like Spike) to help him get stuff he needs.

MSI has been trying to catch EKI and kill him, and she's been hanging around Sunnydale for a couple of weeks before Buffy, etc sees a fight between the two of them and they think MSI is dead. She recovers and expalins the situation to Buffy. She's amused by all this because she knows about vampires and Slayers and their Watchers ('cause she's really old, but has never met Methos and not that old). Giles doesn't know about Immortals, well he thought they were rumors. MSI also knows about HER Watcher, but has never met any of them and likes to toy with them and then go and see what they've written about her.

So she enlists Buffy's help to try and catch EKI and take his head. In my original conception Spike was kind of good and aligned with Buffy but I like him better bad. Also in this Buffy would be for helping MSI, but now I've decided that she doesn't like the whole idea of Immortals and the Game, she's hung up on the "they have soul! it's wrong to kill them!" thing that plagued her in the later seasons (one of my major pet peeves, I wanted someone to point out that Warren came with a soul and but that didnt' make him good or anything..but I digress).

MSI knows Duncan, of course, she's older than him and they met/hooked up at one point. I need to come up with some names for her. She's not going to be like Duncan and just go by the same name all the time. I still need to figure out how old she is.

I figure I can get 50,000 words out of that.

On 60 Minutes tonight Andy Rooney called out the President. I don't remember his exact words, hopefully this will end up on YouTube or Crooks and Liars, but he said the President needs to come out and tell the truth about the Iraq war. He also mentioned the number of American soliders killed -- about 2800, to paraphrase he said: about because there isn't an exact number every day 6 or 8 more men are killed.

I hope that conservative Americans who would normally dismiss someone like Keith Olberman will listen to Rooney and really start to queston the President and how this was handled.

Also Pat Tillman's brother released a letter speaking out agains the war. It's a powerful letter that everyone needs to read. I've seen articles about this letter on espn.com and Fox sport's website. The espn.com article only used excerpts from the letter but the quotes used are: "Somehow, the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes," and "Somehow, the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country. Somehow, this is tolerated. Somehow, nobody is accountable for this.".

It's a short piece byt a good one. Again, I think this will reach people who are more conservative and think of liberals as being a dirty word. Hopefully Kevin Tillman's words will speak to them.

So frustrated. I'm supposed to be watching FSU v Boston College on ABC. It's a regional thing where most of the nation is watching Iowa and Michigan. HOWEVER, the local affiliate is not showing FSU but the Iowa game. They have no website up, just a white page that says the new website is coming and I called a number listed but I got some lady's voice mail and a choice to call another number for breaking news. I didn't write that number down and now I can't get through.

There should be someone who knows what's going on and AT least some kind of scrolling info. I just heard on the radio that they were taking a tv time out. (@#QY%@#*(@Y$#(Q$(GY$(!~~~~!!!!!!!

So unprofessional and so pissed off. And this is the local station that interupts jsut about EVERYTHING for dumbass vocal "extereme" weather updates. Usually warnings about thunderstorms and that lightning is dangerous.

My raise goes into effect this week. I'll see the money next week, which will be nice! YAY raise!

Of course the reason I needed the raise will suck most of the money away but there will still be extra money (esp if I go back to not eating out).

I want to do NaNoWriMo and I've signed up for it, but I'll be hand writing stuff since I don't have a laptop and don't want to do all my writing at my computer. With my raise this has gotten me thinking about buying an inexpensive used laptop I can use for online and wordprocessing. Nothing fancy, just something portable. I looked on ebay and there seemed to be some decent priced laptops but I'm not sure how to judge if I'm getting a good deal or not.

Anyone out there have suggestions on buying something?