merry christmas.

yet another winter gift-giving holiday.

w00t, etc.

i'm not even awake yet ^_^

i don't know what proportion of you this is relevant too, but the 11pm christmas eve service last night came off really well. hopefully the podcast will be able to go up. it was just very, very cool.

time to wrap presents and make pancakes.

snow.

holy shit, it snowed. quite a bit. although we didn't get as much as some people. still going to have to dig the car out, nevertheless.

following the advice of some friends, who were also snowbound last night, we made a fire and hot chocolate. yum.

1 heaping t unsweetened cocoa powder
2 level t sugar
(adjust to you preferred levels of sweetness and chocolateyness)

1. put into a mug and mix together.

2. pour in just enough milk to make a sludge. stir vigorously until all the cocoa is wet.

3. microwave for 30 seconds to melt the chocolate

4. stir the hot mixture again until it's more or less smooth

5. while stirring, fill up the mug with milk. microwave for 2 minutes.

completion.

last paper finished last night. now it's just waiting to be taken to the post office (has to be postmarked by today).

first semester of graduate school completed successfully.

w00t. or something.

anyone know if starbucks is hiring?

happy hannukah.

since i'm going to be making latkes for a party next week, we just went to dunkin' donuts tonight. sufganiyot they're not, but they are fried.

also, via wired comes this. i don't know whether to laugh or cry.

fuck google analytics.

i am so sick of having firefox practically fucking hang because of google analytics. half the fucking time i try to load a webpage, i get the status bar stuck at "waiting for google analytics..."

yes i know, it's a great way to get info on your page visitors, stats, blah blah fucking blah. it's slow.

half the reason i started blocking ads was because i was getting sick of pages not being able to load because the damn browser was waiting for content from a third-party site.

come back tomorrow, and i'll tell you how i really feel ;)

cooking and papers.

do not mix.

put the stockpot on, go upstairs, begin to write paper...

i do not have stock. i have... carbon.

whoops.

experiment

i had both extra apples and extra pie dough. but not enough to make another pie.

this was the result. half pie, half dumpling. i'm calling it an individual deep-dish apple galette.

he ate it already. by all accounts, it was yummy. the pie itself turned out pretty well, except i forgot to dust the apples with a little extra sugar.

a suggestion.

dear quaker oats,

2 words: caffeinated oatmeal.

thank you.

oikonomia.

laws of the household indeed.

the problem with working for a completely donation-supported organization is that donations are one of the things people cut when times get tough.

as of december 1st, i will be officially underemployed.

one could argue i've been underemployed for years, but a bachelor degree in classics isn't exactly the beginning of the most lucrative career path.

as of january 1st, i lose my health insurance.

we have options, including the seminary itself, but the time crunch is making it fairly stressful.

i guess the bright side is that i'll have 10 hours more a week to dedicate to homework.

out of practise.

note to self: when writing a paper, don't forget the concluding paragraph.

good thing it's not due until tomorrow.

edumatcation.

i have now been a graduate student for a whole week.

i don't think it's quite sunk in yet.

and ikea is out of extra shelves for our bookcase. i'm going to need another one if classes keep going like this.

summer activities.

or not.

yeah, it's been a while. it's actually been a pretty uneventful summer. right up until today.

my greek exam is tonight, 5:30-9pm. i've been studying off and on for most of the summer, when i haven't been reading the dresden files (just finished #8 last night). so yeah. my summer has been fantasy and greek. how exciting.

on the other hand, we're going to the beach on sunday for 3 days, so that will be nice. it's going to be the only vacation we get this summer.

of course, it's raining. the last time i took an exam in august, it was calculus, and i got caught in a downpour on the mile walk to campus from my apartment, got completely soaked, and failed the exam.

this time i have brought my hat! and a jacket. w00t.

days and acquisitions.

so summer started last week. i was going to post in celebration of the solstice, but life started sucking. let's just say, i hate cars and need more sleep.

today is his birthday. so, logically, i got a new cellphone.

work with me here.

along with both cars breaking down last week, my cellphone also started to break. someone thought it would be neat to design a phone where one button handles both the select and cancel features. this is great, right up until it starts to detach itself, and your phone ends up in an infinite select-cancel-select-cancel loop.

as i think i've posted before, i'm very picky about my cellphone interfaces, and when faced with the necessity of replacing my phone, i couldn't help but go back to nokia. now i have too much phone. it has wifi. it browses the web. it text messages. it syncs (wirelessly!) with my mac (after downloading the appropriate plugin). but it's super-thin and not that big and actually fits comfortably in my pocket. i have joined the twenty-first century. or something. but damn, i love having a full qwerty keyboard back. don't let best buy sync your contacts for you, btw. i had to delete them all, download them from my old phone onto my mac, and sync them with the new phone. i don't know what software or device best buy uses, but it rendered my phonebook an incomprehensible garble with every single phone number categorized as "mobile." (note to nokia/symbian: have you ever considered letting someone re-categorize numbers along with just editing them?)

but it is synced and happy and useable now. and charging.

lest you think he was bereft on his birthday, he has received much birthday cash and bought new clothes. but clothes are not nearly as interesting as electronics ;)

return.

macbook is back. it is also now running leopard with time machine so hopefully, if it ever dies again, restoring it willbe significantly simpler. i believe in backups, but backups are infinitely easier if they are done automatically by the computer itself.

applecare, btw, is worth every penny. not only did it take 2 days (not counting the weekend), but they also gave me a whole new topcase because the old one had cracked and the mouse button was coming unseated.

now to set up backups on my windows box.

insewerance.

my mac is dead :(

well. not deaddead. but this morning while i was checking email, the harddrive started clicking, and when i rebooted it, i got the helpful folder-with-question-mark icon.

however, i have applecare on it, so all it took was a brief phonecall and a walk through the tech support script (they insisted i boot from a cd and see if the disk utilities included would find the drive), i have a support number and a shipping box on its way. he estimates i should have the mac back by friday or monday at the latest.

also luckily, everything was backed up, although in various places (photos, for example, are all still on the sd card in the camera). i need to get more assiduous about running my backup script. my excuse for not running it yesterday and almost losing a 7 page document (i emailed it to someone) is that i was also trying to not throw up at the time.

in the meantime, i have my windows box, and am now more than ever glad i bought that kvm.

they're even going to fix my mouse button.

home again.

got home technically early this morning (1am). photos are up on flickr. enjoy.

vacation.

leaving for LA wednesday morning for my brother's college graduation. since i've gone back to a five-days-a-week work schedule, and tuesday is now one of my days off, that means vacation started... 1 hour ago.

w00t.

government math.

so, seeing as taxes were due today, we went through our forms a couple days ago and filled out our FAFSAs.

being me, of course, i had to go look into the whole process. i found another website that purports to show you the inner workings of the FAFSA calculation.

if they are correct, and i have no reason currently to believe they are not, the government's math is... fascinating. specifically that it is assumed, somehow, that rent/mortgage, insurance, transportation, food, and all utilities will somehow be less than $800 a month.

what. the. fuck? where in this country can you cover all that for less than $800/mo? seriously. because i might think about moving there. that is an insane number. it's not even a pretense at being realistic.

i guess i'm ending up with an unsubsidized loan.

spring holidays.

every year i rejoice that coffee and chocolate are kosher for passover.

although now i have a headless chocolate bunny in the fridge, which is mildly creepy.

continuing with the creepiness thread, i see a new tab in blogger. it is titled "monetize." this is also creepy.

perhaps not as creepy as a headless chocolate bunny.

comfort of habits.

the windows box has been brought back into use.

it's not that i don't like my mac. i do. in general, i am perfectly happy to use os x over windows.

except for one thing.

it took me a while to figure it out. but i've been thinking about it more and more as graduate school looms in the fall. also, two years in a row of failed nanowrimo helped.

i'm a wordperfect user. have been for years. totally addicted to the "reveal codes" functionality. it's just the word processing/text tool that i am most comfortable with. i can use word, but i don't like it. i've been trying out scrivener for my novels, but it is a little too much for me, and the features i really wanted don't work the way i want them to.

so today, we went to microcenter, and purchased an iogear dvi/usb + audio kvm switch.

after a few mishaps, we got it installed, and it works perfectly. keyboard, mouse, monitor. i haven't tried audio yet, but that's because in general, i do not allow my computers to make noise. i'm really surprised, to be honest. it's a pleasant surprise, granted, but it's definitely surprise. kvms tend to be finicky, and this one is switching between a mac and a home-built windows desktop (i can't bring myself to actually call it a pc. technically, macs are also personal computers. plus, now they're even intel-based). but now i'll be able to use wordperfect again, plus play games using my nice wireless mouse and digital input to my monitor.

all this just because i'm only comfortable with an ancient piece of software.

if i'm not careful, i'll turn into my dad.

update.

congestion levels are going down and energy levels are coming up.

cough is still lingering, however.

in other news, my tulips are sprouting. this is my second time attempting to overwinter bulbs in a pot, and i was afraid they had died again.

happy spring.

sickness.

being sick is too much work. what with the cough and sneezing and chills and drugs and cough drops and fever and sleeping and the constant imbibing of hot liquids and vitamin c, bah. fuck it all.

i'm ready to get better. c'mon immune system, do your thing.

happy purim.

this is why i don't bake. i made such a mess.

but the cookies turned out well (this is a picture of them before they went into the oven). nomnomnom.

for the pedantic among you, yes, i am aware purim doesn't start until tomorrow night. but i have to work tomorrow, so hamentaschen were made today.

liturgical ignorance.

i come from a mostly non-liturgical background. well, from a christian perspective. jews have a fairly sophisticated and well-developed liturgy. but my church background never really featured things like incense, ashes, holy water, altar boys, etc.

however, since i've been working for a church, i've had to venture into the scary world of church supply websites.

i don't think i've seen so many words i don't know since i was learning how to read.

the following are a list of words currently categorized under the "wtf?" label (yes, i can click and see pictures, but they are still wtf):

Ambry
Ciboria
Monstrance
Ostensoria
Paraments
Patens
Pyxes

another one that gave me pause was "Cruets" but at least i know what a cruet is.

i think it's off to my favourite online resource for new words

v-day

home alone on valentine's day.

he's out spinning at a gay club tonight.

somehow, i don't think anyone reading this is surprised.

what's for dinner?

with roasting chickens, organic leeks, and potatoes all on sale last week, the stage was set for a perfect winter dinner.

step 1: roast a whole chicken

step 2: strip the meat off the bones and store for future use (chicken salad, chicken soup, chicken fried rice, etc)

step 3: simmer the carcase with an onion and a carrot in water until all the water becomes a rich stock. strain out the bones, gelatinous bits (ew!), vegetables and discard.

step 4: rinse the sand out of the leeks carefully and peel the potatoes. cut the leeks and potatoes into thin slices.

step 5: heat butter and oil in a pot until over medium-high heat until fragrant. saute the leeks and potoatoes

step 6: when the leek slices are wilted and the potatoes are beginning to brown, pour in enough chicken stock to make a good soup. add a bay leaf or two and simmer until the potatoes are cooked through.

step 7: pour the soup into a blender and puree until smooth, thinning with a little milk or white wine if too thick. return to heat and simmer again.

accepted.

got the phone call this afternoon.

i've been provisionally accepted, assuming i get a tetanus vaccine and test negative for tuberculosis.

at least the weight is off.

commence freakout in 10... 9... 8... ;)

also, it is snowing this afternoon. they came by and salted and plowed this morning. you can see a little salt left there on the ground (this is a view from our office). didn't do much good, apparently. it's a good thing i'm home from work today, or i wouldn't even have gotten that phone call. and the snow is pretty.

unspoken rules.

i have recently, as in in the past few months, been getting a lot of calls from numbers i don't recognize on my cellphone. i am at the point now where i have had this number long enough, that if your number doesn't come up from my phonebook on my caller id, i'm not going to answer. it's very frustrating to hear, "oh, wrong number," on the other end. repeatedly. like, a couple times a week. i've actually gotten into fights with people about, yes, this is my number, and yes, i've had it for several years now (2001, to be exact).

the really frustrating thing about this is that, according to my unanswered calls log, the same numbers keep calling me. but they never leave a message. is there some unspoken rule that if someone calls your cellphone, you're supposed to call the number back? see, i'm not real good with these social expectations.

the reason i ask is because this happens at work a lot. people will call and say, "did someone from this number call me?" when i am on the phones, i usually respond, "we have about 30 people on staff. did you get a voicemail message?" and, of course, they usually say, "well, yeah," because we are a business, and when we call someone, it's usually for a reason that has something to do with disseminating information. so i say, "would you mind listening to it and calling back and telling me who called you?" and they do.

but come on. i really don't understand this whole thing. why don't you listen to your voicemail? do people really, honestly, expect that whomever they called who didn't answer will just call back because the number appeared on their caller id? and when was this agreed on?