Wednesday, November 29, 2006

I'm in UR internets, learning UR lingo


If you're like me, and own a bird, that Cute Overload photo is funny. If you're like me, and enjoy mangling the Queen's English with words/phrases such as "studying the chemistries," "making the sleeps," and yes, "feets," that photo is really funny.

But that photo becomes downright hilarious when you know the origin of the "I'm in UR..." phrase. It's an online gamer thing, originally "IM in UR base, killing UR d00ds." Translated, that means "I'm inside your headquarters, assassinating all your operatives and you, my friend, are totally unawares. HaHA!"

Now the "IM in UR" phrase has evolved to have general "I'm schooling your ass and you don't even know it" application. Refer again to the macaroni photo above. Hilarious, no?

For better examples than I can dream up, here's the very un-PC link with full info. (Yes, it's the reason I looked up "meme" the other day.)

Sunday, November 26, 2006

worterbuch

Words I've looked up recently:

1st - from Merriam-Webster:
colloid - 1 : a gelatinous or mucinous substance found normally in the thyroid and also in diseased tissue
2 a : a substance that consists of particles dispersed throughout another substance which are too small for resolution with an ordinary light microscope but are incapable of passing through a semipermeable membrane

2nd - from WhatIs.com; best tech dictionary out there
meme - an idea that is passed on from one human generation to another. It's the cultural equivalent of a gene, the basic element of biological inheritance...Today, the word is sometimes applied ironically to ideas deemed to be of passing value. Dawkins himself described such short-lived ideas as memes that would have a short life in the meme pool.

and 3rd - from the British-American dictionary:
minge n. This is a rather derogatory word for a lady's front bottom. Someone tells me the etymology is Romany.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

wake & bake

This year, I'm thankful I wasn't in charge of Thanksgiving dinner. All I did was take on Dessert, and that responsibility alone was enough to throw me into a complete dither.

Let me preface this by saying that even by today's lofty home-cooking standards, I'm a pretty decent baker. I know what I'm about, I know the science, the tricks, the shortcuts. And I didn't choose to bake anything particularly ambitious; I was reasonable. I decided to make 4 things - a chess pie (date/raisin/nut/bourbon/delish), apple cake, pumpkin cheesecake, and chocolate cupcakes (some kids will be there).

Monday: made a comprehensive list for all 4 recipes and went to do shopping early. Get to store, check purse, buggery! Left wallet at home. Thank lucky stars I didn't have a trolleyful of groceries yet. Ran home to fetch it, drove back, figuring "that'll be my hitch in this program. I'm done with errata now -- yay for me!" Enjoyed free samples of cider and beef nachos (?) with other, equally smug early shoppers.

Tuesday: cupcake recipe says bake *at least* 1 day in advance, so figure I can knock this one out early. Pull out hand mixer, and can't find the beaters. Search in vain for 10 minutes, then decide to head back out to Target and buy a new mixer. A peppy little number is on sale for $17.99 - great. Come home and WHOA has this thing got a great motor! I'm so excited, I test out all the speeds. As a result, the cupcake batter get some extra air whipped in, but I figure it'll just make 'em fluffier, like molten chocolate cakes. The cupcakes come out of the oven beautifully, but when I walk past an hour later? pffffft. All deflated in the middle. Frosting won't cover it. Possibly my cupcakes have a future as chocolate bread pudding, but that's it.

Wednesday: start off the morning making the apple cake. Not enough vanilla. How can this be? But wait, when I made my list, there were two bottles in the cabinet! I don't have to run out again first thing on my Big Baking Day! Triumphantly pull out 2nd bottle -- you guessed it -- drip drip drip. Virtually empty. Make mental note to speak to the Help. Pull on coat, back to the market I go.

Next up is cheesecake, so mix up the gingersnap crust. But when I try to put it in the pan, I can't get the springform to snap close. Hmm. Maybe the counter isn't level. Try it on the floor. No good, bottom keeps popping up. Try it on the table -- bottom pops up and smacks me in the nose. I attempt to close this thing for seriously 10 minutes, look it up on the web, you name it. Nothing. Bloody bugger won't budge, no matter what bizzare contortions of pressure I put on it. Set the cheesecake crust aside, and start the pies. Realize I'd left all the butter out to soften for baking, but you need ice cold butter for pie crust. Surely there's still some in the fridge somewhere...but no. Put a couple sticks (and marble rolling pin) in freezer and fix myself a cocktail, seeing as how the bourbon's right there out on the counter for the chess pie. (Mind you, it's 11:30 a.m., and I've only eaten a spoonful of apple cake batter.)

After an hour of bourbon and cokes and some internetting, head back to do the pie crust. Change mind and try the springform pan again, with similar results as above. Decide to go buy new springform pan. Realize I'm too buzzed to drive so instead, back to pie crust. That goes fine, it chills for an hour (more drinks, eat some beans and toast) and go back to roll it out. Immediately drop marble rolling pin on 2nd left toe which literally spurts blood across kitchen floor. Hobble to bathroom to bandage it, trailing blood behind me, and no band-aids. (Aren't I supposed to be some sort of future healthcare professional?) Toe throbbing, looks pretty grim. Determine yeah, that nail's gonna come off painfully in a week or two. Wad some T.P. around it, pop an ibuprofen, wash it down with dregs of oh, conservatively? my 4th bourbon and tromp back to that crust, undeterred. ( I must say it came out beautifully in the end.)

Realize pain has sobered me up enough to drive, so go get new springform. Score - only one left on sale and it's a mere $8. Kitchen store employees a little alarmed at my exuberant reaction to first triumph of the day. Belligerently advise them to man up -- it's only the day before Thanksgiving. You're gonna see worse than me rolling in here come Hannukah and Christmastime.

Back home, cheesecake glides out of oven, top unsplit. Pies look gorgeous, realize apple cake crust has carmelized once it *cools down* you idiot (didn't I say I *knew* the science?) and decide chocolate bread pudding will be just fine, thank you very much. Stay tuned however, there may be an hilarious postscript to report: I still have to transport everything over to Justin's.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

So I got that going for me


I have a minor skin infection known as perinasal dermatitis. It's the adult form of "cradle cap," believe it or not. It's no big but you gotta hit it on all sides. So I take some antibiotics, topical and oral, and it's gonzo. But the last course of treament I was on wasn't strong enough, so the doctor reworked my script. Since I have a bunch of drug allergies, I always look everything up. Here's what I got on my latest pill:

Doxycycline is approved to treat anthrax in all its forms [inhaled (lung), skin, stomach and intestinal].

{!!!)

It is the holidays -- maybe the post office needs extra help?

Friday, November 17, 2006

Oh, James.

007 casting finally took a cue from the collages of my ex-boyfriends I've been sending and found The Perfect Bond. To wit:

blond
light-eyed; preferably blue or true hazel
roughishly handsome
ripped; doesn't neglect isometric neck workout
sublime rear view
working man's hands
knows how to fix shit
biting sense of humor
rough around the edges
serious work ethic
bitter as fuck

The opening action sequence was brilliant in that it was physical, not techno - whoever Henchman #1 was, he's got to be a dancer or gymnast. And thank god they left out John Cleese as Q, which is just parody. As was Pierce Brosnan.

As for Mr. Craig and my knee-melting desire. I've been accused by someone or other of having "ridiculously high standards" when it comes to men, physical appearance thereof. Not Guilty, your honor. I can only plead No Contest, because I've never had a problem getting those standards met. So just putting this out there: to paraphrase the boys at Project: Gay: go ahead, call me shallow, Daniel. Just CALL me.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

if memory serves, I am a GEEEEnius

Hardly.

Prosecution Exhibit A: I just received my transcript from graduate school (circa 1992-1993.)

Now, I'm not one to romanticize my grad school experience -- it was fun, but it was rough, mostly for financial reasons, although for academic ones and geographic (Texas) ones as well. I had 3 part time jobs (at once) during undergrad, but in grad school I was 100% supporting myself for the first time. Within 2 months jam-packed with studying, teaching, babysitting, bartending and desperation, I had to call my dad and ask for help with my car payment. Also, against advice, I took 4 courses my first semester and ended up with my lowest G.P.A. ever -- a paltry 3.15. That's *exactly* the kind of performance that blackballs you out of the Rhoads Family Christmas Letter, I can tell you that right now.

getting pretty high tech here:

Check out my first YouTube upload...they provide you the code to embed it in yer blog.



You can check out the body of my video work via my YouTube name, Emmacious.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

>> Seven and the Ragged Arsehole <<

...from Popbitch....

Andy Taylor left Duran Duran last week.
Musical differences - he didn't want to
collaborate with Justin Timberlake -
was definitely part of it. Plus he was
somewhat under-whelmed that these days
Duran Duran was just Nick, Simon and John.
He and Roger were just employees. But Andy
wasn't the only person to walk out on the
band last week. Their web-mistress was so
upset that Andy left that she quit on the same
day, replacing the home page with a new message,
written in huge red letters, which had
Duran fans laughing all day long:

"Duran Duran Without Andy Taylor is Like
Anal Sex Without Lube.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

let go, let God


From Salon -- one of Pastor Ted Haggard's pals, a Pastor Mark Driscoll, is blaming Mrs. Haggard for her husband's infidelity because -- wait for it -- she let herself go. Gayle's pictured here. Pastor Driscoll says:

"At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either."

Read the Salon article for the full argument/outrage. I'm merely pointing out that my wide experience in meeting minister's wives (being a PK) shows that these women know they're in the public eye, and therefore take particular pains with their appearance. My own mother (pictured above) for instance:

1. Has never left the house without full makeup. I guarantee you if I called her to pick me up from the emergency room at 2 a.m., she'd show up in lipstick. Concerned, capable, and in lipstick.
2. Has never owned anything denim.
3. Is still a little sore at my dad for catching her in rollers in my first-day-of-school photos (circa 1976.)

Driscoll himself points out that minister's wives are often seen "as some glorified First Lady." Painfully true, which is why most of them look so perfectly turned-out. On the "letting yourself go" scale, I'd wager that minister's wives as a group far fall below the national average.

Since he's raised the question, here's the only picture of Pastor Driscoll's wife I could find. Leaving aside what looks like post-baby weight, those are some serious dark roots there, blondie. Couldn't you make a bit of an effort -- for your husband's sake?

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

ins Kino

Been doing a lot of chemistry and seeing a lot of movies. Here're the reviews in brief:

The Departed: Jack doesn't overdo it, and Leo kills me while in the shrink's office. I wish what's her face hadn't said that vulnerability line, though. Kinda ruined it.

Marie Antwatnette: Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, but read Antonia Fraser's book if you want any story.

The Prestige: I was very "eh" except for David Bowie, but Skott, Natasha & Mike all dug it. To me, the "twist" was so obvious it wasn't even a twist. Got the book on order at the "brary as per everyone's recommendation.

Flags of Our Fathers: Why isn't this getting more attention? Go see this; it's amazing.

As a belated Halloween, here's Wonder Woman skateboarding.