Collected Thoughts

The Lightning got a shut out! I wish I'd taped the game because it was really fantastic! John Grahame made so many amazing saves --- he even jumped over as the puck sailed neatly underneath him and across to the other side rather than hitting him. Plus both goals came on the power play! Vinnie L had a great spinning backhand shot for the winning goal.

Also in an added bonus Bobby "The Cheif" Taylor only slightly bitched about the officating when one of our guys got called on holding (and it so was holding) rather than going on and on and on about calls. Although when I was flipping back after a commerical break it sounded like I just missed the tail end of a rant. Bad calls get made, it happens, but sometimes I worry he's going to stroke out in the booth in outrage over something.

Open iTunes/iPod or Windows Media Player to answer the following. Go to your library. Answer, no matter how embarrassing it is.

How many songs? 1036-- some of those are videos
Sort by artist:
First artist: Aimee Mann
Last artist: Zulya

Sort by song title:
First: 'Til I Gain Time again (This Mortal Coil) Last: Ziggy Stardust

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: Demonstrate (Kosheen) (37 seconds)

Longest Song: Never Let Me Down Again (Depeche Mode) (9:36)

First Album: 18 (Moby)
Last Album: Zen and the Art of Noise Maintenance (Bush) I actually have a ton of songs without album inf

First song that comes up on Shuffle: We are All Made of Stars (Moby). I almost always play stuff on shuffle.

How many songs come up when you search for "sex?" 4
How many songs come up when you search for "death?" 2
How many songs come up when you search for "love?" 38 (there are a couple covers)
How many songs come up when you search for "you?" 98
How many songs come up when you search for "why?" 15 but 13 are from the Cranberries "Everyone Else is so Why Can't We?
How many songs come up when you search for "God?" 5
How many songs come up when you search for "crazy?" 1

My HMO offers weight watcher style meetings. There's an initial thing that you do, but it's only offered at 6 pm on the first Tuesday of every month. Or at 4 pm on Wednesdays. So I went to the general meeting, there was food diary and a little check off thing for each day where you can mark carbs, water, veggies, etc.

Of course I go to the grocery store and get frozen pizza (on sale) and Buy one get one free Ben and Jerry's. But I can't eat a lot of ice cream at one time so it lasts. But I also picked up veggies I like to eat and I'm not going to do any more experiments with food for awhile.

Also, I have this book that's...it's beyond bad fic. I'm not sure how something like this gets published. It's one of those sexed up romanace novels. It starts off in the year 2502, the land of cliches. Seriously, everything is white, there's no violence, there's no disease, only a few people use water to clean the rest use Air Scrubbers and Evapo Driers. And the hero is a star athelete. In sex. For whatever reason I haven't been able to find out (because I can only stomach a few pages of this at at time) sex is the equivlant of football. There's even Monday Night Sex and the Sex Superbowl. It's a team sport. And this guy is getting his naked body on a cereal container. Really.

But, he decides to go back in time and visit his ancestoral home. Which happens to be a castle in Ireland. Where he meets a chick and her great aunt. I think the chick is a writer. There's a bit of role playing a lot of really really bad dialouge. The hero, ends most of his sentences with "babe" and WAIT! I just discovered that the heroine's life's been in danger and it turns out it's ex husband's new wife. Who is jealous about how "prefect" the heroine was for her husband and is now going to kill the heroine. The psychotic new wife tried several ways but in the end she's a demolition expert, except in the end the Old One saves the hero and the heroine and the heroine's great aunt and the psychotic new wife dies in the explosion. Which I saw coming as soon as I read the words "I'm a demolition's expert".

The hero stays behind in 2002 and becomes his own great whatever grandfather. The end.

I finished two books this weekend!YAY! Books 1 and 2 for 2006.

1. The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall. I picked this because I liked the title and was curious about these sisters. Unfortunatly the book left me with more questions than answers. Mostly because I was ignorant of who they are, I checked amazon.com and it looks like there are individual biographies, but this was the first one about the sisters and their relationship. The three sisters are Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia. Elizabeth was heavily involved in education and reform and also was a bookseller and publisher -- or got books published it's a bit fuzzy. Mary, the middle sister, kind of gets shafted in the book, she married Horace Mann and Sophia was very ill and married Nathaniel Hawthorne. Elizabeth never married. I'm still digesting the book and want to go back and find more books about them individually and also about the Transcendalists.

If you are interested in women's history, definitly read this.

2. Murder in the Marais : An Aimee Leduc Investigation by Cara Black. This book takes place in France, Aimee Leduc is a private investigator who is hired by a Rabbi to decrypt a photograph and then deliver it to a woman. When Aimee gets there the woman is dead and Amiee, on her own, investigates the murder. She has an assistant who is a dwarf and they are both very good with computers. I know nothing about France or anything French so I have no idea how accurate it is on that case. Actually I'm not sure how accurate the stuff about the computers is either. I maybe glad I'm not sure because otherwise I might want to throw the book across the room screaming "NOO!!! GAHH! It doesn't work like that!!" I have a feeling the decryption stuff is off. Also there's this bit about her eyesight going in the beginning so she has trouble at night and then it's not really mentioned again. There's one character who's never accounted for at the end the book and his story line is just left hanging.

I don't think I'll read the sequel.

I have an oven thermometer because my oven runs cold. Tonight I thought -- roasted veggies! Yum! So I cut everything up and I waited and looked and thought the thermometer said "400". So I popped everything in, set the timer, then went back to turn stuff and set the timer again. This time I noticed a distinct lack of roasting. Nothing turning brown, nothing really cooking. Everything had been in there about 30 mins. So I double check the thermometer -- 275F. No wonder nothing is roasting.

So...I took everything out, turned up the oven and I'm waiting for it to get hotter before I pop everything in.

I have a list of things to approach my landlady about and this stove is on the top of the list. I double checked my lease and it says that she's responsible for the appliances. I was worried because my Grandmother bought the stove. If Grandma E bought the stove then would I still be responsible for it? It's a generic lease and it does state appliances but I'm worried that my landlady will say that since Grandma Ebought a new one it didn't actually come with the house.

I ahve to stop experimenting with dinner. The other day I made a recipe that I wasn't sure I'd like and low and behold, I didn't like it. Tonight I deviated from what I was planning (my normal boring veggie bean burritos) and tried to do something vaguely Italian and failed. Now I'm stuck with a pan full of veggies that are over seasoned and wrong tasting. Right now I'm convincing myself to clean my plate and not waste all of it.

I'm spending the last bits of my Xmas money and gift cards. Today I bought a book and a magazine and Stargate Atlantis and BLACK BOOKS!! ! I'm so excited!!! Except I don't have it yet becuase I ordered it at Border's so they are sending it to me.

Black books! I caught it on Comedy Central some time back and then poof! After the first season it was gone and all I was left with were sweet, sweet memories.

I'm thinking about going back on the South Beach diet. Except something closer to the vegetarian version (I think there's one out there.) I've been eating way too many carbs and I feel gross from it. Plus this morning a couple of people at work wanted to see me with longer hair so I pulled up the only picture I have online of me with long hair (chin length from about 2000 -- almost 6 yrs ago! Damn time has flown!). everyone said I looked better, but I was also about 20 or 30 lbs lighter.

So, I'm thinking South Beach, if I could afford it I'd try Weight Watchers but I think I can do okay with modified (for my budget and tastes) South Beach. I'm going to try and convince Mom to go on it with me.

Dad had an exhibition thingie with Fred Astaire dance studio last night and I was freaking out because it started at 6 and who schedules something like that 3 days before Christmas!!!! Plus! It's semi formal ish! I ran home to change and ended up looking okay.

The food was omigod!!! So good!! They had wait staff passing around 2 kinds of appetizers --- these incredible prosciutto brie and scallion tartlets. The filling was so smooth and savory and the crust was really crisp. Also these little chicken kabob things. Then after everyone sat down we had Shrimp Martinis -- which is just a shrimp cocktail served in a martini glass with salsa instead of cocktail sauce. Huge shimp, every yummy.

Then there was the entree, I had steak. Perfectly cooked, very tender, with potato gallete, aspargus and a stuff tomato. Mousse for dessert.

Then there was general dancing, a demonstartion of several dances in groups (some couples some students and teacher combos), then the exhibition part. Dad has unfortunate luck with these. Last time his instructors zipper broke and she had to wear a dress that was cut too short for her to do some of the moves. This time with a different instructor, part of her top came undone and they had to fake it while she put herself back together.

But it was tons of fun and WAY WAY better than the Arthur Murry thing.

I got home in time to do some tidying (although there is still so much to do) and work on Dad's scarf.

Tonight I have to: go buy brother's gf a present, go get one more thing for Dad, brother, and Mom. Crochet some more. make something to eat. Clean some more.

Still haven't watched the Tower, although I think I downloaded it. And haven't had a chance to watch the rest of Scooby Road (I've seen 3 vids.) So much to do , so little time!

It's FINALLY here!!! YAY!!!!

now I just have to watch it.