disease.

so, i've got a virus. and bacteria. i've been given a 10-day course of antibiotics, with a refill "in case it lingers." the idea is that the antibiotic takes care of the bacterial infection and gives my immune system a chance to actually make some headway against the virus. in theory, at least. in the meantime, i've got this lovely not-quite chest cough that really hurts and sounds wonderful.

i haven't run a fever since saturday, however. and my voice came back. sort of. i'm audible now, at least.

i forsee a lot more tea, cough drops, and yoghurt in my future.

stupid weather.

snoo.

view from my bedroom window. it's snowing.

they've closed the office. which is just as well, it saves me from having to use up another sick day. he has, as you can see, gone into work anyway.

they said "daytime accumulation 2-4 inches." except it's 10am, still snowing, and still below freezing. i think those estimates may need to be revised upwards. a bit.

my voice is slowly coming back, but i am still not, as they say, 100%. i think i will go make tea and enjoy my snow day.

the sound of silence.

i have been sent home from work with a cough and laryngitis. not having a voice is very frustrating; i am a fairly verbal person. the internets are now my only communications pathway to the outside world. and text messaging, i guess.

my thermometer has unaccountably converted itself to metric. i cannot figure out how to get it back to imperial. it's a thermometer! it only has one button, and that turns it on and off. i am confused. however, with the aid of an online converter, i have discovered that i am, in fact, running a low-grade fever. whee.

i'm thinking maybe i should go to bed. i will have another cough drop.

format wars.

i didn't quite call it nearly-two years ago, but i may as well have.

with wal*mart announcing today that they are going to go blu-ray only, the high definition format war is effectively over. i now regret that i wasn't more explicit in my hunch that this was the way it would turn out when i made that original post, but i admit i never expected it to happen this quickly. i thought (as is obvious) that the xbox's add-on unit would keep HD-DVD alive a lot longer, until HDTVs came down even more significantly in price.

i have to admit, assuming we had the money, a PS3 and a 40" 1080p tv would be a pretty attractive combination. but we don't, because he's in school, and only working 3 days a week now. school is a much better investment anyway :)

almost anything is a better investment than television.

the next format problem we're going to have to deal with here is a 5-year-old tv, analog cable, and the shift to digital broadcasts in a year. analog cable is a whole hell of a lot cheaper than the digital bullshit comcast wants to foist on you, so some kind of decision is going to have to be made about a converter box: government-provided vs. comcast-provided. since we don't watch that much tv anyway, i'm thinking going with the OTA box and dropping cable tv altogether. have to see what high speed internet prices look like in a year, i guess.

i think the only cable channel i watch is the weather channel. and the wii has that now, plus a neat spinny globe interface.

also, i rescind my previous statement. apparently, i mostly blog about books, food, and consumer technology *cough*

what's for dinner?

this is hopefully become a semi-regular "feature" of this blog, similar to the "current reading" posts. it will equally hopefully encourage me to cook more, since i'm not doing that so much since he's in class 3 nights a week. and since this is practically a food blog half the time anyway, i might as well make it its own category. also, it should alleviate some of the "i need to get your recipe for that!" requests.

so apparently i blog mainly about food and books.

somehow, this doesn't surprise me.

anyway. on to the food.

mac'n'cheese

1 1/2 cups uncooked macaroni or elbow noodles
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup shredded cheese - to get the kraft-boxed mac'n'cheese colour, use orange cheddar, but any cheese will do. blending is also a possibility.
1/2 T butter
1 t oil
1 1/2 T white flour
shortening

preheat the oven to 350F and grease with shortening (or butter) an oven-safe dish with a lid

1. boil water and add the noodles.

2. over medium heat, melt the butter.

3. whisking rapidly, combine the flour and oil with the melted butter to make a roux (the oil allows it to withstand slightly higher heat than butter alone).

4. continue whisking the roux until it has reached a rich golden colour. do not let the roux burn or darken too far.

5. whisk the milk into the roux.

6. keep whisking the milk while the pasta continues to cook. lower the heat and do not let the milk scald.

7. when the pasta has reached about the al dente stage, remove it from the stove and drain it.

8. go back to whisking the milk. it should be thickening by this time. whisk in the shredded cheese.

9. you should have a very thick cheese sauce at this point. dump the noodles into the greased dish and pour the cheese sauce on top. stir to combine.

10. bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes up to an hour.

num.

finishing steps include crumbling crackers or bbq-flavoured potato chips on top of the surface. you can also add tuna, cooked chicken, or hot dogs before putting it in the oven.

computers hate me.

so i thought i noticed there was something weird-looking about my blog. turns out blogger spontaneously reset the font it was using. at least none of the colours have been reset back to defaults. i don't have those recorded anywhere, although i probably should.

this comes on the heels of my computer at work deciding, all on its own, to turn fade effects and window animation on. i think i have an explanation for that, however: i have noticed occasionally that animations will turn themselves back on after windowupdate is run. at least i have the bounciness on the taskbar controlled by a registry setting. grr.

so far the mac seems unaffected. but i'm not holding my breath.