Enjablog

Deportation Party

2005-08-16T08:15:00.000-04:00

Friday -- Loafed around a bunch, but then made a Dulce de Leche Cheesecake for Eepie's deportation party. Ventured off to Wegman's to find some of the ingredients I needed and ended up having to wander around and ask a handful of employees where to find Dulce de Leche stuff. Some of the people had heard of it, some hadn't, so I had hope that they had it in the store somewhere. I just had to keep asking until I found the one person who would know. Eventually, it turned out that I had walked right past it like 3 times because it was half-hidden behind a display. Once I found my key ingredient (International aisle, Latin American section), I was off!

Baked up the cheesecake. Freaked out a little because I had no idea how to tell if it was done. I didn't know if non-jiggly meant it was set or if a toothpick inserted in the center would indicate anything. Turns out, when the whole cake rises, it's done. So, I ended up baking it for about 75 minutes, taking it out 3 times to check it.

Let that cool/refrigerate for a while and read/napped. Then, walked over to the HOY for more lounging. Read for a while and waited for the Asian Express to arrive. Adventures at Malibu Grill, then back to the HOY where there were way too many people to keep track of. Excellent turnout for Eepie's farewell. Lots of shiny new toys for her. Played video games, ate desserts, met new people... After the crowd thinned out, we headed out for some questionable activities, back for more video games, then home.

Saturday -- Breakfast with Ian and SPJ, then back to Wegman's for Peanut Chewies ingredients. Yeah, I probably should have planned ahead and gotten everything on Friday. But to be fair, I had enough stuff for one batch (except for the right kind of cereal). I just needed extra ingredients to make a double batch. Anyway, got stuff, made stuff, ate stuff.

Went with Ian to Mindless's going-away shindig. Overwhelming number of people there. It was a joint going away party, in addition to them having multiple groups of friends they were mixing. So, it was a pretty lively bunch. I ended up standing around with a small TJ clique and meeting some stragglers wandering about. Headed out of there relatively early and went to the HOY to meet up with people when they got back from their outing. Ian and I ended up hanging out with the dog and playing video games for a while before deciding to take a nap. Woke up when the gang returned and chatted for a little while before heading out.

Sunday -- slept away the better part of the day. Got some boots, visited ferrets, went with Ian to get his hair cut, and then family dinner time. Heard from scholarship winner. She will be moving in this week! That's about it for now. :) -j.

QOTD: "Friends don't let friends drive drunk."

LOTD: Gossip circulates crucial information...

After all, scuttlebutt is the most highly valued social currency there is.
...
"We all know people who are not calibrated to the social world at all, who if they participated in gossip sessions would learn a whole lot of stuff they need to know and can't learn anywhere else, like how reliable people are, how trustworthy," said Sarah Wert, a psychologist at Yale. "Not participating in gossip at some level can be unhealthy, and abnormal."

Dulce de Leche Cheesecake

INGREDIENTS:
Crust
* 1 cup graham cracker crumbs*
* 3 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling
* 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons vanilla
* 3 eggs
* 1/3 cup milk
* 1/2 cup NESTLE® La Lechera Dulce de Leche**

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Mix crust ingredients together, and press into a 9-inch springform pan. Place pan on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool to room temperature.
3. Reset oven temperature to 325 degrees F.
4. Beat cream cheese, sugar and flour together until well mixed and smooth. Add vanilla and mix until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix until smooth. Add milk and mix until well blended.
5. Measure 1/2 cup of the cheesecake batter and pour into a small bowl. Add Dulce de Leche and stir until well combined.
6. Pour plain batter over crust. Top with Dulce de Leche batter by placing rounded spoonfuls over the cheesecake batter and gently swirl into plain batter with the tip of knife or spatula.
7. Bake 45-55 minutes or until center is almost set. Remove from oven and gently run metal spatula around rim of pan to loosen cheesecake (this helps prevent cracking). Let cool 20-25 minutes before covering and placing in the refrigerator. Refrigerate 4- 6 hours or overnight before serving.

*Graham cracker crumbs can be replaced with crushed vanilla wafers.
**Other brands may be used. This is the most commonly available brand.
Note: Can need as long as 65 minutes. Just leave it in until the center rises. Cover edges with foil if it begins to brown.

Peanut Chewies
INGREDIENTS:

* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 egg yolks
* 3 cups miniature marshmallows

* 2/3 cup corn syrup
* 1/4 cup butter
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 2 cups peanut butter chips
* 2 cups crisp rice cereal
* 2 cups salted peanuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, 1/2 cup butter or margarine, 1 teaspoon vanilla and egg yolks. Mix on low speed with an electric mixer until crumbly.
3. Press firmly into bottom of 13 x 9 inch pan. Bake 12- 15 minutes until golden brown.
4. Immediately sprinkle marshmallows over top and return to oven for 2 - 2 1/2 minutes. Let cool while preparing topping.
5. To Make Topping: In a large saucepan over low heat combine corn syrup, 1/4 cup butter or margarine, 2 teaspoons vanilla and peanut butter chips until smoothly melted, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in cereal and nuts. Immediately spoon over marshmallows, spreading to cover. Refrigerate until firm. Cut into 36 bars.

Note: Suggestions were made for changing the kind of nuts to walnuts or cashews, other flavor chips, caramel instead of corn syrup, etc.

Grr

2005-08-16T07:46:00.000-04:00

Hostonce is being flakey. Can't access the database doober for wordpress again... We'll see how this goes... -j.

changes

2005-06-13T00:20:00.000-04:00

Will be back soon... comments might be slightly defective temporarily.

Weekend recap

2005-06-12T09:36:00.000-04:00

Friday night - date night. Went to Coastal Flats and had their fish and chips. Yeah, I know... I don't like fish. But their fish and chips are excellent. The tartar sauce was really good too. (Side note -- What else is tartar sauce good with? I like it, but I only ever have it on fish, which means I don't really ever have it.)

After that, headed back to my place and watched Closer. Such a depressing movie. Good, but sad and most of the characters were jerks. Maybe not the whole time, but they made bad decisions and treated each other poorly. Kind of a manual for what not to do when dating. Started The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, but ended up getting tired before it ended.

Saturday - Family fun day. Celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival holiday thing with my family. Made mousse for dessert with Ian and everyone else hanging out in the kitchen (came out really well). Stuck around a bit to chat with relatives and then went over to Ian's place to finish up Life Aquatic and then go to an engagement party thing.

Spent the evening at Oyamel in Crystal City. The food was very good, and since we had a large group, we were able to order practically everything on the menu and just pass the plates around and everyone could have a taste. Very cool restaurant pick. Went to Coldstone after that and then Bailey's. Called it an early night and headed home a little after 10.

Sunday - Tour de Cure today. I should probably actually get moving now. I've been sitting around reading blogs and writing this update... Gotta go make my mark on society. -j.

Hershey's ® Chocolate Mousse
INGREDIENTS:
* 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
* 1 tablespoon cold water
* 2 tablespoons boiling water
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1/4 cup HERSHEY®'S Cocoa Powder
* 1 cup heavy cream, chilled
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:
1. In small cup, sprinkle gelatin over cold water; let stand 1 minute to soften. Add boiling water; stir until gelatin is completely dissolved and mixture is clear. Cool slightly.
2. Stir together sugar and cocoa in medium bowl; add whipping cream and vanilla. Beat on medium speed of electric mixer, scraping bottom of bowl occasionally, until mixture is stiff. Pour in gelatin mixture; beat until well blended. Spoon into serving dishes.
3. Refrigerate about 30 minutes before serving. Garnish as desired. Cover; refrigerate leftover desserts.

Note: Make sure you measure out the right amount of gelatin. Came out a little pudding-y because we used a pre-measured packet and it was just under what we needed. Also, if mixer has more than three speeds, beat more on the high side than medium. Top with strawberries or raspberries.

Diabetes, Book Club, Traffic

2005-06-09T12:30:00.000-04:00

I went to a meeting Monday night for the American Diabetes Association Tour De Cure volunteers. They were so nice to us... I mean, I know most places are nice to their volunteers. But the past few things I have gone to have been disorganized and (perhaps unintentionally) neglectful of volunteers. This time, they acknowledged that making us come out for a meeting was inconvenient, gave us food, had handouts with information about where we were supposed to be and when (granted, this could have been done via email), and gave us a brief overview of how the day would go, where we were to check in, what we could expect when we get there, and even had "gifts of caring" (little girly teddy bears). They wrapped up relatively quickly and let us go so we could get out of there before that awesome storm rolled in.

Tuesday was book club night. We read The Bonesetter's Daughter. It went pretty well. Spent more time socializing than discussing the book, but we did get around to it and spent a lot of time discussing other books we've read recently and making suggestions for the next meeting. So, a pretty good night.

Wednesday, date night. Watched Gilmore Girls. Hehe... surprising, huh? Five episodes into Season 3, so this might possibly last us the summer. Possibly.

This morning was surprisingly pleasant. I risked taking 66 for a couple miles this morning and people left room for people to merge. At least 3 people let me change lanes and when I waved to thank them, they waved back. Yeah, I know. I'm so easily pleased. But it's little things that make commutes not suck as much and I think more people should be like the people I encountered this morning.

LOTD: New device gives women teeth where it matters

QOTD from one of the older military types at work: "Bush could make anyone a Democrat."

I didn't think people were supposed to say things like that at work. And especially where I work, I never expected to hear anything like that.

What is wrong with my neighborhoood?

2005-06-05T21:05:00.000-04:00

Got home... parked my car, walked up to my house... Was enthusiastically greeted by a child walking up to the tree in front of my house, who was being supervised by two adults in lawn chairs next door. They all waved and said hi as the child proceeded to pee on our tree. Really? This is acceptable behavior? Couldn't you at least go fertilize your own tree? Yeah, I know... I have such high standards of people.

Laugh off the extra pounds

2005-06-05T09:26:00.000-04:00

Laugh off the extra pounds:

"Dieters looking for another edge might want to consider exercising their sense of humor -- scientists have found that a good laugh is a calorie burner not to be ignored."
"Five different comedy clips, starting with an outtake from 'The Cosby show' -- minus the canned laughter -- were then shown for 10 minutes each, interspersed with five minute intervals of sheep wandering around fields in England."

Oh yeah... and remember how a couple weeks ago there was this huge buzz about how people who are a little overweight live longer than "normal" or underweight people? Dream on:

Overweight people live longer than people who are malnourished or dying of cancer:

"Many scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society now reject those conclusions. They said the study's main flaw is that it included people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease, who tend to weigh less because of those problems and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison."

Too bad I can't read road signs...

2005-06-05T03:20:00.000-04:00

Napped for most of the afternoon and then got up to shower and go party it up tonight. I ended up wandering Arlington for most of the evening before getting bored and just calling my sister to have her entertain me while I finished getting lost. Tried to go to a housewarming thing and never made it. I found the two streets before the last street I was trying to find. Missed one of the intermediate/connecting streets and somehow couldn't find that last one. And yes, I had map/directions/phone number/address/etc. I just physically could not find that street even after driving the entire length of the second to last street. Maybe it was one of those streets that disconnects somewhere and I just couldn't find where it reconnected. Oh well.

Ended up going over to hang out with Roy & Co instead. I figured since I had gone all that way, I should at least be a little bit social. Got there just in time to see JL2 and his girl as they were leaving. I gave him his Christmas present, finally. Which is fortunate because his birthday is this month and last year I got him a birthday present and I didn't get that to him until Christmas. I think I'm just going to stop trying.

Meh... No one's up. I think I'll read. This entry was boring. I apologize. -j.

P.S. All you people coming by here searching for "Darth Vader Cake" (or cake pan or recipes)... You're nerds. And that's cool with me. :) Sorry to disappoint.

Weird spam

2005-06-04T20:42:00.000-04:00

Weirdest spam to get by my spam filter today: a recipe for zucchini loaves. Nice trick, spam guys. But I did not fall for it. Into the junk pile you go.

Save the boobies

2005-06-04T14:54:00.000-04:00

Did the Race for the Cure thing this morning. There were some minor inconveniences and I felt it went more smoothly last year, but overall, it was a good race. Met up with Ian, his cousin, his mom, and a bunch of her co-workers for the walk.

On the down side, Ian and I went last night to pick up my race packet. I figured if I picked it up early, I wouldn't have to get there extra early in the morning and have to wait in line. Unfortunately, there were no packets left when I got there. I got my bib, but they were out of shirts. And bracelets. And safety pins. But I got my bib. They said that I could go pick up a shirt in the morning. Yeah... in the crowds and stand in line again... Woo.

There was a nice person on the metro who overheard Ian telling my tale of woe and gave me her t-shirt because she didn't want hers anyway. She said it was too big for her. So nice of her. :)

Get there in the morning and from pretty much the metro exit to the end of the race, it was jam packed with people. So many people.

So, I didn't get a chance to see Ricardo Chavira of Desperate Housewives. But, I did see Jaclyn Smith of KMart (Just kidding... I know she's done real stuff.):

She happened to be walking right behind our group for a little while. I was lucky to get her in that shot because I just held my camera up and took a picture of the people behind me. Ok, so not at all subtle, but I didn't want to stare and gawk or bother her... so I just took a random picture.

Anyway, nearing the end... They stopped collecting bib numbers after the first 45 minutes, so a good 75% of the people don't get to find out how they placed. Sure, it doesn't matter for anything, but it's still fun to find out. And then you know how many people walk. Now we'll never know.

After the race, I went to the prize tent to get my prize for raising money and they ran out. Don't they know ahead of time how much people donated? Oh well. Like I said, seemed less organized this year, but it all worked out overall. So many people.

After that, wandered around to some of the sponsors and then headed out. So sleepy. Had to wake up in the morning on a Saturday. I don't know what I was thinking. At least they'll be just that little bit closer to finding a cure.

Thank you to everyone who donated! :) -j.

QOTD: "I wish I could say I got [my gf] pregnant, and then everything would be okay, but it's not like that."

Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

2005-06-03T13:43:00.000-04:00

Oh. My. Goodness.

I just came across this list and I'm just sputtering. I don't know what to say. Are these people serious?

Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries:

HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries.
1. The Communist Manifesto
2. Mein Kampf
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
4. The Kinsey Report
5. Democracy and Education

I guess if I were a conservative scholar, I would be apprehensive about people reading about different ideas too.

And don't miss the honorable mentions, including:
Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner
Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

Wow. Anyway, go hug a librarian. Yay for Banned Books Week! (Sept 24-Oct1)

What kind of person doesn't have a jack in their car?

2005-06-02T22:47:00.000-04:00

I am sad to say that today, I had to play the part of damsel in distress.

I got to work this morning and when I went around my car to get my bag out of the passenger seat, I noticed that my front tire was a little low. Eh... I'll just fill it at the gas station after work and get it fixed tomorrow on my day off.

*Fast-forward through [adjective] workday.*

Head out to my car and check on the tire before I get in. It's a little low, but doesn't look significantly lower than when I left it this morning. I get about halfway up the ramp when I realize what a big mistake I made.

I definitely have a flat tire.

Ok, so I was overly optimistic. I'll fix the tire and then be on my way. Too bad I have so much stuff piled up in my trunk. I'll just move it to the back seat. No big deal.

Call the roadside assistance people. They're very nice and very concerned about my safety. First three questions:
"Are you safe?" Yes.
"Is your car safe?" Yes.
"Are you off the road?" Yes.

Talk to them while I get stuff moved and get the spare tire out. It'll be 60-90 minutes. Look around for the jack... I can fix it myself by then. Maybe... Still looking for the jack. Why can't I find the jack? Where would they keep the jack? There are only so many places to hide stuff in my car. I know my car came with one... didn't it? I can't find the jack. Where could it be? Call my dad. Call my boyfriend. Call my sister. Nada.

Fine, whatever. I can do this. I go up to the parking attendant guy and ask him if he has a car nearby (duh, of course) with a jack I could borrow please. "Do you have a flat tire?" Yes. He directs me to go around the corner and look for the building engineer. He'll change my tire for me. Oh! People are so nice!

Go around the corner and don't see anyone. Look around, wander some... No one. Go back to the attendant. "Did you find him?" No. "Ok, I'll get you my jack." On the way to his car, the building engineer happens past. The attendant asks him if he has time to change my flat for me. Of course.

Take him to my car and tell him that my jack is missing, so I might have to borrow his. I take one last glance in my trunk to make sure I'm not just blind and, well, turns out I am. There's a little compartment off to the side with a cover on it to make it blend in with the rest of the bottom of the trunk. And inside that compartment? Yeah.

So he takes that from me and proceeds to change my tire for me. I tell him it's ok. I just needed the jack. (I'm really not as helpless as I seem most of the time. Really.) But he assures me that it's no trouble. (His name is Kurt, btw.) So, 20 minutes later, I've called to cancel the roadside assistance guy and I'm on my way.

I, of course, drive safely and stay on the smaller roads so I can drive annoyingly slow without angering too many people. I got passed by a metro bus. How sad is that? Anyway, an hour and some later, I arrive home. Success!! Well, that is, until I get to my front door.

But... I have my keys. And my wallet. And my phone. And everything else I take with me to work everyday. Except I took my housekey off my keyring yesterday when I went running so I would only have to carry that one key with me. The one key that I need. The one key that lets me get inside where the food is. The one key to rule them all!

Sigh...

Call my sister. She'll be home in an hour or so. I have a key to her house, so I go hang out, eat her food, and watch her TV.

10pm and I just got home. You want to know who I blame this all on? TLD.

From an email he sent:

* [Friend1]'s car was broken into some months ago
* [Friend2] is almost totalled in an accident that, thankfully, leaves [Friend3] pretty much unscathed.
* [Friend1]'s car starts having trouble starting, due to a loose battery connection. Specifically, just before and during times when I was riding in the car.
* [Friend4]'s car door breaks, forcing him to gain entry "Dukes of Hazzard" style.
* [Friend4]'s car is stolen, and the entire drivetrain stripped, down to the CV joints.

Oh, but his car? His car is perfectly fine.

TLD: He spreads bad carma.

QOTD: "I saw something that made me think of you yesterday... embryos for sale."

LOTD: Wachovia ties to slavery! *gasp*

Childhood flashbacks

2005-06-01T21:49:00.000-04:00

I have no idea why I started thinking about this the other day, but I was trying to remember books that I read growing up. It started with Bunnicula (Like I said, I have no clue why) and I tried to remember the author and then went off on a tangent trying to remember other books I remembered reading or being popular when I was growing up. So far I have come up with this list:

Berenstain Bears
Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel
Amelia Bedelia
Miss Nelson is Missing
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Where the Wild Things Are
Encyclopedia Brown
Baby-sitters Club
Bunnicula
Chocolate Touch
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Ramona
Anne of Green Gables
How to Eat Fried Worms
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
A Wrinkle in Time
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Chronicles of Narnia
Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys

I know I read a lot more than that, but those are the ones that stand out right now. And yeah, my "young adult" reading list is lacking. I think I kind of skipped the angsty section of the library. (Why didn't I do that in my life too..?) I did read a bunch of the Fear Street books and (I'm ashamed to admit) Sweet Valley High, but that was mostly limited to the summer before 8th grade.

Anyway, just reminiscing. Let me know if there are others you remember that belong on this list. :) -j.

QOTD: "It's ok to hit someone as long as they're wrong."
LOTD: Throw Paper

*Disassemble, Stephanie. Disassemble.

2005-05-31T22:19:00.000-04:00

QOTD: "It seemed to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth." --W

LOTD: PostSecret

*5 points to the first person to place the reference. 5 points to Ian for coming up with it (And disqualifying him from getting the other 5 points).

Memorial Day

2005-05-30T00:56:00.000-04:00

You know who you are,
Thank you.

LOTD: Memorial Day
QOTD from a bumper sticker: "I may be slow, but I'm ahead of you!"

The Riots of the Faithful

2005-05-29T01:15:00.000-04:00

The Riots of the Faithful - The Ornery American: Orson Scott Card on the "uncorroborated allegation about American interrogators flushing Qurans down the toilet in order to get fanatical Muslim prisoners to talk..."

If you like Card's work, take a look at this article. It certainly made me think twice about him. I couldn't pick out a good quote to paste in... You kind of have to read the whole thing to get the full impact.

Postcard!!

2005-05-28T12:16:00.000-04:00

I got a postcard from my brother. He's in Paris. Ok, well he was when the postcard was sent. So cool. :) -j.

Just Finished: Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton - Geektastic. I laughed... I cried... I geeked out. It's a quick, fun read.
Up Next: The Art of War by Sun Tzu - My boss told me to read it. I guess I should start listening to him.

Office Shenanigans and the Delinquent Bear

2005-05-27T23:04:00.000-04:00

While I was at work today, there were some guys working on the new secure room which is straight down the hall from my office. As I was working, out of the corner of my eye, I see a gargantuan person. Now, I know Ian is tall, but this person's head was inches from the ceiling. It looked like he was going to bump his head, not on the doorframe, but on the ceiling. Which is why I had to turn and look to see what was going on. They were putting up some reinforcements in the ceiling so people wouldn't be able to break into that space from above. In any case, when I looked over, I saw that they didn't hire a giant to do this one task. They gave an average, everyday shorty a pair of stilts. It was like the circus had come to work. They even had someone sitting in a chair in the middle of the hallway to supervise in case he needed help or fell over or something. At least that's what I assume she was doing.

Then, on my way home from work, I saw a handful of police cars. One of these troopers I saw flying past me in the separated HOV lanes and I swear he had arrested a teddy bear. I only had a few seconds to look, and there's no way I could have caught up to him without bringing attention to myself (though, with the barrier, what could he really do?), but I saw a stuffed animal situated in the back of the car such that it was looking out the window. It was probably sitting on the armrest of the door or something. But... why?

In other news, Va. Won't Pay for Viagra For Violent Sex Offenders:

"Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) signed an emergency order Thursday that prohibits the Virginia Medicaid program from paying the costs of Viagra and other prescription erectile dysfunction drugs for 52 men registered as violent sex offenders."

On the one hand, I'm appalled that this happened. On the other hand, I can understand, with the number of different organizations this information would have to come from, how this could have gone without consideration. Glad they're being quick about doing something about it. And, yes... It should apply for all sex offenders, not just the violent ones. I guess unless they have shown that they have reformed. Opinions?

LOTD: Gumwall -- Is it art? Is it vandalism? One thing's for sure: It's gross.

QOTD (totally out of context, of course...): "You look 100..." -GWB to a healthy-looking 70-year-old woman (1:50-2:25)

20M licensed drivers may lack basic safety knowledge

2005-05-27T12:40:00.000-04:00

Study: 20M licensed drivers may lack basic safety knowledge - May 27, 2005: "According to the study, many drivers find basic practices, such as merging and interpreting road signs, difficult.

For instance, one out of five drivers doesn't know that a pedestrian in a crosswalk has the right of way, and one out of three drivers speeds up to make a yellow light, even when pedestrians are present, the study said."

"Bottom five states for driver knowledge:
1. Rhode Island
2. Massachusetts
3. New Jersey
4. New York
5. Washington D.C."

I guess you need to conduct a scientific study to reliably show something, but this all sounds consistent with anecdotal evidence. I'm kind of surprised California isn't in the top five because of LA though and that Rhode Island is, but the rest is pretty expected. I guess the size of California would even their numbers out. In any case, safety first. :) -j.

Life update

2005-05-26T20:45:00.000-04:00

FYI, I may be looking for a new job in the near-ish future. Yeah, I know... I've been "looking" for a new job for like the last 6 months. This time, I actually mean it. Chances are pretty good I'll stay where I am. But for my own growth, I think I need to update my resume a bit and poke around some. I was thinking about this on my 75-minute drive home today (left the office at 7:15pm. Why was there still traffic?), and realized that I know someone who's a somebody at almost every big company in my industry in this area. And yet, I'm still debating whether this is what I want to do.

Career ideas welcome. Things I have rejected so far: joining the circus and tech support. Everything else is fair game. Thanks! :) -J.

Stupid spams and the stupid spammers who send them

2005-05-26T20:39:00.000-04:00

I am on a certain email distribution as a representative for my family. As such, I receive these emails and forward as relevant to our situation. This list consists of 261 email addresses (yeah, I tallied it up today). Proper etiquette would dictate that a list this size should be used for its intended purpose and for nothing else: Disseminate relevant information, not jokes, feel-good forwards, or support for your personal agenda (i.e. "Don't watch the news. It will make you sad."). Common sense would also tell you that, instead of sending emails by CCing everyone, you should BCC them so when the stupid people on the list get viruses, they don't get sent out to everyone.

I have asked the moderators of this list on numerous occasions to do this. I explained spam and viruses. I even chose an opportune time to send one email after they had to send out notifications to people about a virus that had previously been sent out. Then, after letting me know that they weren't as computer-savvy (huh... I would never have guessed) as they "used to be" (wow... that is surprising), I sent detailed instructions on how to select BCC. Still, they apparently don't think this is important.

Now, there have been a couple occasions where they asked for feedback and, surprise surprise, people clicked "reply-to-all" and a discussion ensues for the rest of the day. And for people who don't obsessively check their email all day long, they come home to find a couple dozen emails from this list. Yay.

After the last debacle, they sent an email to someone asking her not to reply to all and that there were some people who were not interested in receiving all these emails. All of which could have easily been prevented if they would just not send everyone's email out with each announcement. But no. Yell at other people for doing what they want when you just as easily go along doing what you want.

Today (yes, of course something happened today to get me all riled up again), we receive an email from someone upset about something and wanting input from others. The replies come rolling in... For the next seven hours. At which point, there's a reply from those in charge, obviously agitated that this person had sent out unauthorized information, which may or may not have been skewed by her personal opinions.

They are, again, upset that people are sending out information that doesn't go through them first. They are, again, having to send out disclaimers and clarification because people are getting worked up about the previous email and they're getting the brunt of it. They are, again, at fault because they let this distribution list get out by sending it to everyone each time they had an announcement. Honestly, people. What did you expect to happen?

EDIT: I am so pleased to announce that as of the last email, they have finally figured out that difficult BCC function. She was unable to do it before because it wasn't available as an option for her email. But when she uses aol.com, which "must have a more up to date version," she can do it. She also received a virus in her email today. Surprise. I think this debacle has made them appreciate the reach of that mailing list. Too bad no one ever listens to me... ;) -Less Than Nothing

LOTD: Ask the Pope (May be blasphemous to some.)

Weekend

2005-05-23T21:13:00.000-04:00

Saturday, went over to the parents' place for a "party" in celebration of Lenny's graduation. There was a less than entertaining family fight. Not as spirited as usual, but, again, like Thanksgiving, it may have been because the whole family wasn't together. In any case, there was lots of food and quantity family time.

Afterward, went with Yenny, Lenny, Ian, and Squidgey to see Unleashed. Weird movie. Good, but strange. Hung out with Ian for a bit after and watched last week's Numb3rs. Happened to see this article in the Post today. Yay math! Finished reading Cat's Cradle. Also strange. Very cool though. Haha cool... I didn't even mean it like that, but now I wish I had.

Anyway, Sunday started Just a Geek and hung out with Ian and his family for dinner. Listened to The Big Broadcast for a little while after dinner and then headed back. A pretty lazy Sunday overall.

QOTD: "As a youngster Lenny was an avid soccer player, now he just takes advantage of the youth at church." Uhh...

LsOTD from Squidgey: puppywar and kittenwar

Emergency Petition to Save the Courts

2005-05-23T18:59:00.000-04:00

Emergency Petition to Save the Courts:

This Tuesday, the Senate will vote on Republican Leader Bill Frist's "nuclear option" to break the rules of the Senate and give the Republican Party absolute control over appointing federal judges.

For 200 years the minority's right to filibuster has kept our courts fair, by making sure that federal judges needed to get at least some support from both sides of the aisle before they were given life time appointments.

If Frist eliminates the filibuster, his next step would be to force far right partisan judges onto the powerful U.S. Courts of Appeals. The real targets, however, are the four seats on the Supreme Court likely to become vacant in the next four years.

With that much power on the Supreme Court, the far right could strike down decades of progress on labor rights, environmental protections, reproductive rights, and privacy.

Star Wars sparks US political storm

2005-05-22T12:02:00.000-04:00

Star Wars sparks US political storm:

"The new Star Wars film is causing a political storm in the United States, with one group calling for a boycott of the film, which they say is unpatriotic.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith includes a scene in which Darth Vader tells his former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi that he is either with him or against him.

Some US activists are comparing Darth Vader's actions to those of President George W Bush in persuading legislators to adopt the Patriot Act."

Cake adventure

2005-05-21T09:18:00.000-04:00

Baked a cake for Lenny's graduation celebration thing today. Went for a strawberries and cream cake (without the cream part), a strawberry whipped topping, and blackberries on top.

Now, for the adventure part... I will start closer to the beginning of my day. Went to Bombay Bistro for lunch with my family and Lenny's gf. After that, we parted ways and planned to meet back up to go over to the ceremony together. Went with Yenny to Wegman's to get free groceries and cake supplies. I had originally planned to bake cupcakes so I could decorate beforehand, but later realized that would defeat the purpose since my grandmother only likes the non-edge pieces of cake and a cupcake would essentially be all edge. Anyway, got stuff, went home, took nap.

Went to Lenny's graduation. Congressman Wolf spoke. Apparently, he uses the same speech for all the graduations at which he speaks. Kind of expected, but kind of funny since he also spoke at Lenny's girl's graduation a few years ago. Anyway, hung out for a little after for the reception and to take pictures. Then, off to acquire a house for my sister.

9pm: Realized that I needed a mixer to make a cake. Yeah, I know... You'd think with all the baking I do, I would have these kinds of supplies. You would be wrong. In any case, Yenny needed to go over to Squidgey's mom's office to get her paperwork done.

11pm: Borrow a mixer from Squidgey's mom. She's looking around for her mixer and the two beaters that attach to it... Finds the body of it, but only one of the beaters. She also offers me a hand blender doober. Well, that will have to do...

12am: Get home, get started mixing together ingredients. Start spraying things everywhere with the super-powered one-beater mixer (Ok, not really... It was all contained within the bowl, but only because the bowl had tall sides.). Apparently, the balance that is achieved from using two beaters in a standard mixer is for a reason and the power supplied is distributed evenly between the two such that there are different speeds available for use. Because I was missing that second beater, I had to stick with the lowest setting and only used it briefly so as to avoid making a mess. It did what I needed it to though, so that was good.

12:30am: Remember that the recipe is for a 3-layer round cake. I didn't even think about the conversion to a rectangular pan until I was almost done with the batter and saw how much there was. Call my sister in a hurry and she came over with her cake pan so I could make two cakes (Yeah, I only have one cake pan as well. I just bought three 8-inch rounds 2 weeks ago, but they're at Ian's.). This resulted in 2 thin cakes, but they're about the right size for a layer cake. Unfortunately, I am not making a layer cake.

Also, frozen strawberries should be thawed before use. Yeah, S-M-R-T.

LOTD: baby wear
QOTD by the mean guy at the Uptown: "I know every cop on the beat."

Strawberries and Cream Cake

INGREDIENTS:
* 2 3/4 cups cake flour
* 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 2 cups white sugar
* 1 (3 ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 4 eggs
* 1 cup milk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/2 cup strawberries, pureed

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 9 inch round cake pans.
2. In a large bowl, beat sugar, gelatin and butter until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition. Mix flour and baking powder, and beat alternately with the milk into the sugar mixture. Fold in 1 teaspoon vanilla and pureed strawberries. Divide equally into three 9 inch round cake pans.
3. Bake 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then remove from pans and cool completely.

Note: Makes 2-layer half-sheet cake or a tall half-sheet cake.

Cool Whipped Frosting

Ingredients:
1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl, combine pudding mix with milk and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Gently fold in whipped topping until no streaks remain. Spread evenly over cake.

Notes: Used strawberry flavor whipped topping (seasonal).

Star Wars Spoiler and Aaron Dugo Update

2005-05-20T02:30:00.000-04:00

Went out after work to catch Star Wars at the Uptown with Ian, Mindless, and a bunch of his WestWing Gang with others. Definitely better than the last two. There was a fair share of cheesy lines, especially in the scenes attempting to be romantic, but I think the good parts outweighed them.

*Spoilers*
Anakin turns to the Dark Side.
Padme got knocked up. *shocking*
Yoda kicks butt.
*End Spoilers*

And in other news, I got home to an email waiting for me... In response to this entry that the person found through Google, of course:

(Caution: There are some pictures on there that may not be suitable for some people at work.)
Aaron Dugo on a Friendster-type service.

Granted, that's not actually him (I can only assume). But someone is doing a good job of advertising for him. And news to me: "He has a May 23rd court date." Yes, folks. That's Monday. Someone go hang out in court that day and find out how things go? Thanks. :)

QOTD from May 4 Washington Post Corrections: "Articles on April 25 and 26 about Pope Benedict XVI said that St. Peter was the founder of the Roman Catholic Church. According to the church, Jesus was the founder."

LOTD from an NPR story last week: Typology Test Results -- Go figure... I came out a liberal.

All caught up

2005-05-18T22:36:00.000-04:00

I'm actually keeping up with one of my New Year's Resolutions! This is cool. Just finished The Bonesetter's Daughter for book club next month. Back to reading Cat's Cradle now. That's book #6 so far and I also have Just a Geek lined up after that. Picked it up from the library today. Off I go!

QOTD via email:
"Name
Date of birth
Security Clearance
Nationality
Mail/Femail"

LOTD stolen from VHMPrincess -- Ok, so I took this twice... The first time, I came out with Gluttony at 80% and died from diabetic coma. But the second one, I had to share:

Your Deadly Sins

Gluttony: 40%

Sloth: 40%

Wrath: 20%

Envy: 0%

Greed: 0%

Lust: 0%

Pride: 0%

Chance You'll Go to Hell: 14%

You'll die choking on a cookie in bed.

How Sinful Are You?

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

2005-05-17T22:03:00.000-04:00

This has been a weird week so far. Well, mostly stuff that happened last week, but I'm finding out about it/details today. Good news/Bad news kind of day. Former coworker got engaged. Former [college] classmate got engaged. Current coworker had "stress-related heart pains", but is recovering well. Relative of a friend in a serious accident. Relative of a friend of a relative died this weekend.

In other news, my big brother and my roommate graduate this Friday. Congrats!

In other other news, my #2 big brother got booted from Ultimate Blogger. See that? That was me not linking them. So there.

GG Season Finale tonight: (Don't worry. No spoilers) :O, *grumble*, aww, yay!, haha, what?!, grr, :O

And to close, some fluff... because we all need some fluff every now and then.

LOTD: Check out your Pink Profile (I am a bikini.)

Gentle Reminder

2005-05-16T19:44:00.000-04:00

Heya all,
Just a reminder that the Race for the Cure is in 2.5 weeks. Thank you to all the people who already contributed. (I have collected $220 so far!) I appreciate it very much. Anyone else who was interested in making a contribution, this is your chance. Thanks in advance! :) -j.

Weekend recap

2005-05-15T19:38:00.000-04:00

Friday -- Went out after work to meet up with Roy and his new girl. Ate at Bistro Bistro in Shirlington where they found mystery meat in the only non-meat dish on the menu and Ian and I had really sub-par Caesar salads. Mostly, the dressing was lacking. That would have made up for a lot, but the rest was pretty mediocre too. After that, headed across the street to Maggie Moo's and then to some sports bar/club/disco place in Clarendon. It was... different. Hung out there for most of the rest of the evening and people watched, then headed home.

Saturday -- Ran some errands in the morning and took my weekly trip to Wegman's. I finally broke down and bought a set of measuring spoons. Turns out my standard estimates with whatever spoon I find in the house is pretty accurate according to this set of measuring spoons.

Got home and finally saw the neighbor whose assigned parking spot is next to mine. She always parks crooked, ending up either on the line or partly in my space, even though her space is bigger than the rest of the parking spaces because hers is on the end and she has extra curb space in addition to the standard asphalt area. Squidgey and I ended up going outside to be intimidating because she came so close to hitting my car on her first 4 tries parking. Attempts 5-7 were barely better. She started catching on by attempt #8 and was able to straighten out a little. Then she finally decided that attempt 9 was acceptable enough to get out. After my sis and Squidgey left and I went back inside, she came back out for attempt #10, which wasn't much different from #9, but seemed to be more satisfactory to her. Apparently she needed to park without the pressure of spectators.

Anyway, then for the Cookie Fiasco. I attempted to make some oatmeal scotchies to take to a bbq that Jenn and Blake were throwing (they're very nice). It started off with the recipe calling for the oven to be set at 375 degrees. That seemed odd to me, but since I've used the recipe on the bag before, I figured it was the same and it'd be fine.

The first tray came out stuck to the try with the edges caramelized, while the middle hadn't quite settled yet. So, I thought maybe I would turn down the heat and they would be able to stay in for the requisite amount of time. Second tray, slightly less bad. They still came out really thin and crumbly. There were empty spots in the cookies, but at least they were cooked evenly. Third tray, I shaped them so they were little towers of dough so maybe they would spread less while they baked. Didn't help. Fourth tray, I took out early and let them settle, but they still didn't look like they were completely cooked, so I put them back in for two minutes with tray 5. Those came out with the best consistency, but they were still thinner and crumblier than normal. Tray 5 was about the same as 2 and 3.

So, I collect the cookies from the fourth tray along with some of the less offensive cookies from 2, 3, and 5 and put them in a container to bring to the bbq. I leave the lid on the container a little loose so the heat wouldn't get trapped in and make them stick together or get soggy. I, of course, then put the container down just long enough to knock the cookies onto the floor. Crumbling cookies spread out across the floor. Wonderful. I'm only running half an hour late at this point. Collect up all the salvageable cookies that didn't fall out of the box and transfer them to a new container. Pick up the rest of the floor cookies and sweep up. Put together a new box of passable cookies. Fortunately, through all of this, despite what the creation looked like, they still tasted like cookies.

Got my act together, picked up Ian, and off to the party. They had some excellent pulled pork and numerous side dishes that various people brought. I don't even know how many people ended up showing up... maybe a dozen or two throughout the day. Had to head inside when the thunderstorm rolled in, but stayed for a while after that. Met a few new people... talked to a few others who I never actually met. TLD got to tell people the story of my missed connection with the urination lady. (Urination lady... you're so crazy...) There was also some discussion of how horrible Dan Brown books are, Ian's differently opinioned grandmother, and some Turrettes-like outbursts. It was a fun time.

After that, headed over to the HOY for Matt's birthday extravaganza. By the time I got over there, I hadn't eaten anything but cookies for the past few hours, so I tried my best at the drinking thing with a mostly empty stomach. I was told I was a little red and I got really sleepy. I tried... Everyone else had a considerable head start on me though, so oh well. Matt got Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, so we attempted to play that. Somehow Squidgey and I got paired together and we finally resorted to answering JarJar Binks for every question. Surprisingly, we did not get many questions right. The game started to go downhill when everyone started cheating against Matt, Eepie fell asleep, and Squidgey and I got distracted by video games. Then there was Bracken's nipple discussion in the kitchen and John getting kicked in the box, but other than that, it was a pretty calm night. The rest of the evening was spent mostly playing video games.

Sunday -- laundry, dishes, reading, nap, yard work, talking to you.

QOTD: "Live this day! Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Never agonize over the past or worry over the future. Live this day and live it well." -Francis Gray

LOTD from Ian... my primary source for gossip: Breakup News -- Take pleasure in knowing that you are not as miserable as these people.

Nestle's Oatmeal Scotchies
1 1/4 cups unsifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups Old-Fashioned Quaker oats
1 cup (18.333 ounces) Nestle Toll House butterscotch-flavored morsels

Yield: 4 dozen cookies or bars

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl; set aside.
3. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract in a large bowl.
4. Gradually beat in flour mixture.
5. Stir in oats and morsels.
6. Drop by rounded Tablespoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet.
7. Bake 7 to 8 minutes for chewy cookies, 9 to 10 minutes for crisp cookies.
8. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes, remove to wire racks to cool completely.

9. Pan Cookie Variation: Grease 15x10-inch jelly-roll pan.
10. Prepare dough as above.
11. Spread in prepared pan.
12. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes or until lightly browned.
13. Cool completely in pan on wire rack.

Notes: I would recommend 350 degrees since the chips can't handle that high a heat and teaspoonfuls since these cookies spread a lot.

The Ultimate Blogger

2005-05-14T08:22:00.000-04:00

Sonny's latest post: "Meet Jane"

Hilarious entry. Go read it. Especially, you, parents. He says hi.

LOTD: World Fair Trade Day 2005

QOTD:
"Hey, I didn't know they offered beeyotch classes here... what do they even teach?"
"That's not beeyotch. That's biotech.

Drinking with Dr. JAWS

2005-05-12T21:12:00.000-04:00

After work last night, went and got drinks with a couple of coworkers and did the whole talking to humans thing. After some discussion about work, baseball, real estate, and traffic, I headed off into some traffic of my own. I was trying to get to my massage appointment, for which my sister so generously gave me a gift certificate. I however, showed up 40 minutes late because I sat in construction traffic for an hour to go two miles. Fortunately, the masseur was running late and didn't finish until about 10 minutes before I got there and [said] he didn't mind waiting.

Part II: Urination Lady

After that, went to go pick up a pizza for dinner. With all the traffic and everything, it was getting kind of late at this point... It was about 9:45 by the time I got to Papa John's. Fifteen minutes before they stop doing carry-out, so I got there just in time. The parking lot was deserted, but there were still a few restaurants and a grocery store open along that same strip. As I parked and went up to pick up my pizza, a couple of delivery drivers get back to do their thing.

I go inside and it's the usual crew (Am I eating pizza too often if I recognize the people working there?). I tell them what I ordered and the guy runs my credit card and hands me my pizza. Total time inside: approximately 4 minutes. I go outside and head toward my car and notice a large SUV parked next to me. That's odd... Of all the places to park in this empty lot, these people chose right next to my car? Oh well. People are dumb. Then I notice that the driver's side door is open. They're parked facing the opposite direction as me, so their driver's side is adjacent to mine. The passenger of the other car tells the driver to hurry up. Hurry up? Oh, yeah... there's the driver. Behind the open door. I didn't notice her before.

La la la... Go around to the passenger side to put the pizza on the passenger seat and walk around the car. At this point, the other car's passenger is getting a bit of urgency in her voice telling the driver to hurry up. "That lady wants to get into her car." I figure if they're not going to be considerate enough to close their door so I can get to my car, I can at least go around and get in. Oh, but no...

There was a point before I had gotten around the front of my car when I still couldn't see the driver. It didn't even occur to me to consider what this person was doing. Was she vandalizing my car? Was she getting her wallet in order to pick up her own pizza? Was she using my car as a shield so she could pee on the asphalt?

I'd like to say that I had thought to look at her license plate or get a description of her, but unfortunately I have nothing solid to pass on to you, dear readers. I have nothing else to make fun of. What I did see, I find more traumatizing than humorous. I walked around my car just in time to see this woman pull up her gigantic floral-print elastic pants over her pasty, cellulite-ridden derriere. I have no idea what she looks like, even how tall she is or what color hair she had. But I do have this image ingrained in my memory now. That is why I share this with you today.

Now, for the analysis. Why? Why? Why?

Driving along... and you feel an urgent need to urinate. What do you do?
Option 1: Pull over and find a bathroom. There are many public places still open. Try a grocery store, a restaurant, a fast-food joint, or a convenience store. All of which were available within that same stretch of parking lot.

No, can't do that. It would take too much time.

Ok, Option 2: Park far away from the one other car in the parking lot and pull up next to one of the many trees or bushes that line the empty parking lot and use those as a shield.

No. Animals pee on bushes. And they don't provide enough cover. Someone driving by might see me through the bushes. I can't do that.

Option 3: Park next to the one car in the lot, right in front of a carry-out/delivery pizza place, and hope no one will see you while you take 10 minutes to get out, make sure you are sufficiently hidden, and pee.

Yeah, yeah. That's a good idea.

Lady, you're worse than an animal. At least they urinate somewhere where their urine can be absorbed into the ground. At least that becomes fertilizer to continue nature's cycle. At least they mark their territory for a reason. My car is not your territory and I would like it to go unmarked, thank you.

I hope you peed on yourself and your car when you were trying to hurry away from me.

Speechless

2005-05-12T18:35:00.000-04:00

If you were in a situation where your need to discharge of bodily fluids was urgent, what would you do?
Go find a bathroom
Pull into an empty parking lot, bordered by trees and bushes and use the far corner
Pull into a mostly empty parking lot and park as far away as possible from other cars
Pull into a mostly empty parking lot and park next to my car and show me your ugly butt, while trying to hide the fact that you are desecrating the ground on which both our cars are parked

Current results

Yes, there will be a story to follow. Until then, check out these new bikes. Kids these days... they'll never learn anything if people continue to coddle them like this.

LOTD: No training wheels needed

QOTD Carolyn Hax about arguing with people who disagree with you:

She: "Retired space monkeys harvest the beans." You, unless you have certain knowledge to the contrary: "Really? I hadn't heard that." And when you do have knowledge: "The farm I work on doesn't use space monkeys, but maybe it's the exception."

They're not "wrong"... They're just stupid.

Birthday

2005-05-12T07:03:00.000-04:00

Happy birthday, Matt!

Birthday

2005-05-09T20:32:00.000-04:00

Happy birthday, Sean!

It's not even 9pm and I want to go to bed. G'nite. :) -j.

JOTD: "Do you know how fast you were going?" asks the cop.
And Professor Heisenberg says, "No, but I know where I am!"

Happy Mothers' Day!

2005-05-08T22:49:00.000-04:00

Hm... so this was a cake-filled weekend. Spent Friday running some errands and then baking cakes with Ian. We were both making cakes for our mothers for Mothers' Day. I also chose that day to head over to Cartoon Cuts and get my hair chopped off for Locks of Love (Wow! They've really updated their website. They have recipient and donor photos up now. They're really cute.).

After that went with Ian to Wegman's to get supplies for our projects. We ended up not buying buttermilk from there because they only had non-fat buttermilk, which we thought seemed odd, but we didn't want to mess with the recipe. We decided to wait and check another grocery store only to go to Giant and find out that they carry the exact same store-brand item. Apparently buttermilk only comes in low fat. I had no idea. Also, only in quart containers too. Oh well. I hope they have some use for the extra 3 cups of buttermilk.

Anyway, for Ian's family, we baked a three-layer red velvet cake that turned out really nicely. The recipe we used was a little unclear (said to preheat at one temperature and bake at another, but the conversion to Celsius was a constant temperature) and we forgot two ingredients (vanilla and salt), but it tasted good and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

For my family, I decided on a mandarin orange cake. It turned out to be really easy, but much improved from just a plain old box cake. It used a yellow cake mix as the base and mixed in canned oranges. The topping I left separate so my grandmother would eat the cake without making a big show of scraping off any excess sugar that "didn't belong." It turned out to be a good idea. She had a piece yesterday when I went over for family lunch and liked it enough to have a second piece when I went by for lunch again today. The topping turned out really well and that might be my standard topping from now on. It was really light and fluffy, not too sweet and complemented the cake well. The pineapple went well with the orange in the cake, but in the future I might try different flavor puddings with it or cocoa or something like that. There are many possibilities.

Yesterday morning was spent finishing up the topping for the mandarin orange cake and then hanging out with my family for lunch. The afternoon and evening was spent out in DC watching an ultimate frisbee tournament that Ian was taking part in. Got some sun, some entertainment, and some reading in. It was a nice day out, but a little bit windy, so that proved a challenge for some of the games. Went out to dinner with people after and then headed home for some reading before passing out.

Red Velvet Cake

INGREDIENTS:
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 3 cups white sugar
* 6 eggs
* 1 ounce red food coloring
* 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 cup buttermilk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 tablespoon white vinegar

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 8 inch pans.
2. In a large bowl, cream 1 cup butter with sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix food coloring with cocoa and add to mixture.
3. Add flour alternately with buttermilk. Add vanilla and salt.
4. Mix baking soda with vinegar, and gently stir into mixture. Be careful not to over mix.
5. divide batter into three prepared 8 inch round pans. Bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool.

*Notes: This is a lot of batter. 9" rounds might be better. Just beware the pans might overflow just a tad when baking. Also, they're serious when they say "large bowl."

Mandarin Orange Cake

INGREDIENTS:
* 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
* 4 eggs
* 1 cup vegetable oil
* 1 (11 ounce) can mandarin orange segments
* 1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
* 1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice
* 1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, eggs, oil and mandarin oranges with juice. Beat until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.
4. To make the topping: In a large bowl, beat together whipped topping, pineapple with juice and dry pudding mix until blended. Spread on cake.

Notes: So easy. ~5 minute prep time. This comes out to a lot of topping... could be used for round layer cake as well. Probably not enough for a half-sheet layer cake though.

Sonny update:

2005-05-06T10:08:00.000-04:00

Just in case you all aren't checking comments on UB, Sonny has arrived in France. In response to comments on his last post:

Reeeeaaarr! I'm gone for maybe 24 hours and look at this place. I'll try to answer all of the questions that were posted, but that may prove to be too difficile with this French keyboard. You see, in France, the letter Q is used so often, they swap it with the letter 'A' on the keyboard. Can you imagine that? There are maybe a half dozen other swaps, so this'll take some getting used to. The other thing throwing me off is that you have to hold shift down in order to get any of the numbers, unlike in the US when the numbers are automatic and you hold shift for all of the characters. That really throws me off because I don't actually know my password for my e-mail. I just know the numbers associated with the character...which screws me in France because they mix them all up over here. I actually had to ask the guy next to me for help typing the '@' key...which really hurts my pride being a nerd and all. I felt like Ben Stiller near the end of Zoolander trying to figure it all out.

French keyboard

*takes breath*

Okay, at 3 euros per hour, you all should be honored that I am taking the time to write. With that out of the way, I hit the ground in Paris yesterday afternoon, though I posted my last entry at the USO in Germany. Right now, I am at the XS arena, one of the only places with extended internet hours. The rest of Paris doesn't seem to wake up before 9:00.

Moving on, the rear is what we call any area that is not forward on the battlefield...and depending on what you do, you may have a different interpretation of the rear. But the main reason why people don't like it in the rear is because it tends to be very tight...as in there is a lot of brass around and they tend to be very strict and formal when it comes to regulations.

To answer Joel's question, my decision to join the National Guard came after the summer after my first year of college. It was the first time in my life when I was not either employed or going to school. I didn't like the feeling of being useless, so I decided to enlist. That was actually second on my list as I wanted to be a firefighter as well...but I'm happy that I made the decision that I made. It's been very rewarding and I get to make a very different impact on my soldiers' lives compared to the kind I have on my students' lives.

I think that takes care of the questions. Keep them coming if you have more.

If I were a proctologist...

2005-05-05T22:20:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to stay away from memes on here, but Carter asked... So, of course I will play:

What follows is a list of different occupations. You must select at least five of them. You may add more if you like to your list before you pass it on (after you select five of the items as it was passed to you).

Of the five you selected, you are to finish each phrase with what you would do as a member of that profession. Then pass it on to three other bloggers.

Here's that list:

1. If I could be a scientist...
2. If I could be a farmer...
3. If I could be a musician...
4. If I could be a doctor...
5. If I could be a painter...
6. If I could be a gardener...
7. If I could be a missionary...
8. If I could be a chef...
9. If I could be an architect...
10. If I could be a linguist...
11. If I could be a psychologist...
12. If I could be a librarian...
13. If I could be an athlete...
14. If I could be a lawyer...
15. If I could be an innkeeper...
16. If I could be a professor...
17. If I could be a writer...
18. If I could be a backup dancer...
19. If I could be a llama-rider...
20. If I could be a bonnie pirate...
21. If I could be a midget stripper...
22. If I could be a proctologist...
23. If I could be a TV-Chat Show host...
24. If I could be an actor...
25. If I could be a judge...
26. If I could be a Jedi...
27. If I could be a mob boss...
28. If I could be an Avon Lady...
29. If I could be a store owner...
30. If I could be a high school physics teacher...
31. If I could be an ocean engineer...
32. If I could be a multi-media strategist...

If I could be a chef, I would follow in the footsteps of my evil twin and become a pastry chef.

If I could be a TV-Chat Show host, I would invite famous guests on matched to face off. They would have impromptu competitions, such as kickboxing matches, cook off, or read-a-thon.

If I could be a writer, I'd make up all kinds of gossip that my friends don't give me now. There'd be monkeys and clowns and car chases... maybe even a drug bust or three. Oh wait, I already have that. Well, not the monkeys or clowns. I'll keep those.

If I could be an Avon Lady, I would try selling to the transvestite market. They need make-up, right?

If I could be a llama-rider, I would finally be skilled enough to have an alpaca farm! I could sell their wool and be rich! RICH!

Ok, and let's see... who do I get to burden with this? ;)
Eepie
Squidgey
VHMPrincess
Everyone else is, of course, welcome to play. Just picked these three because they update pretty regularly. (And probably check my blog regularly too.) -j.

LsOTD:
Happy Cinco de Mayo
Happy Space Day!
And... Holocaust Memorial Day -- Apparently the rest of the world observes this in January, but it's today around here.

Not a today thing, but what is wrong with kids these days? 10 Teens Arrested After Fracas at Metro Station: "Ten teenage girls were arrested at the Anacostia Metro station yesterday after a fist-swinging, hair-pulling brawl, authorities said."

Ugly Children May Get Parental Short Shrift

2005-05-03T23:56:00.000-04:00

Ugly Children May Get Parental Short Shrift:

"When it came to buckling up, pretty and ugly children were treated in starkly different ways, with seat belt use increasing in direct proportion to attractiveness. When a woman was in charge, 4 percent of the homeliest children were strapped in compared with 13.3 percent of the most attractive children. The difference was even more acute when fathers led the shopping expedition - in those cases, none of the least attractive children were secured with seat belts, while 12.5 percent of the prettiest children were."

Sonny must have been the smartest and the prettiest in our family... The rest of us fell down a flight of stairs on different occasions. Where's the love?

Time-Travel Convention

2005-05-03T07:08:00.000-04:00

MIT Student Holds Time-Travel Convention:

"Melissa Block talks with MIT graduate student Amal Dorai about the time traveler convention he's planning for this coming Saturday. Dorai hopes that news of his event will induce future generations to come back and join the celebration."

"You only need one Time-Travel Convention, so why not now? Why not here?"

Right... And why would they prove that they're from the future by giving you stock prices or cures for diseases. That would completely throw off the space-time continuum and make their futures not exist. Stupid guy.

Unwanted child forced to have unwanted child

2005-05-02T20:52:00.000-04:00

Totally forgot to be angry about this last week -- Florida's latest cry for attention: DCF out to block 13-year-old's abortion:

"WEST PALM BEACH -- As a 13-year-old Palm Beach County girl prepared this week to end a pregnancy she says she does not want, the Florida Department of Children and Families went to court to stop her from having the abortion."

So, let me get this straight. A 13-year-old girl was taken away from her parents 4 years ago because they were abusive and put into a group home, from which she ran away for 2 weeks, got pregnant and now the Department of Children and Families wants to intervene? They're stopping her from getting an abortion because she is not mature enough to make that kind of decision.

Well, she's also not mature enough to be wandering around without a guardian. She's not mature enough to be out on the streets on her own getting pregnant. She's not mature enough to be raising a child. But what do you want her to do about that?

Don't these people care how she got pregnant? Who the father is? What will become of the baby after the child delivers him/her? It's clear that she can't take care of herself. How will she take care of another human being? She's not old enough to work, drive, vote, or even open her own bank account. Who will pay for this child and her baby's medical bills?

In the case of the severely retarded woman who was raped and forced to carry the resulting offspring to term, the baby was adopted. So, fine... the highly publicized pro-life cases result in the child being adopted. What about the rest of the people in the adoption system? What about these children getting pregnant? These "troubled teens" that no one wants because they're a bad influence on other kids. They get into trouble with the law or they steal from their foster families.

Now what do you do?

LOTD so addictive from Squidgey: Grant Robinson : Guess-the-google launcher

QOTD: "I'm sorry you have a family."

The Ultimate Blogger

2005-05-02T10:16:00.000-04:00

Oh oh! Sonny is on his way to internet fame: The Ultimate Blogger!

His latest entry is up. Check out the contest if you get a chance. -j.

All my dimes, lined up in a row...

2005-05-02T06:27:00.000-04:00

Hung out with my mom yesterday morning walking for the March of Dimes. Apparently this was the weekend to do this kind of thing... There was also a walk/run for brain tumors and I think the Avon Walk ended somewhere near the mall.

It was a 5-mile walk starting from the Ellipse, going around the mall, around the Tidal Basin and FDR Memorial, and ending back at the Ellipse. Apparently somewhere in there they cut the walk route in half, but didn't make that clear to all the participants or reflect it in the map, so we ended up doing the whole route anyway.

There was also one lone protestor, which I still haven't figured out. She was standing by the start of the route with a sign that said something to the effect of, "My sister had a birth defect and our family is against the March of Dimes." Why? I don't know. What is the purpose of her protest? I don't know. Didn't have a chance or really feel like talking to her, so I guess now I'll never know.

And along came google... Hehe. I just thought to see what opposition there was for the March of Dimes and I found this. Catholic Tradition and Pro-lifers. Interesting.

Spent the rest of the day hanging out at my parents' house. Left to go over to the HOY and did math! That's about it. I'll have pictures from yesterday probably up tonight some time. Didn't bring a camera on Saturday, though I kind of wished I had. It was kind of cool with all those tents set up in the middle of a track. But I didn't want my camera to get rained on, so it worked out ok. -j.

QOTD from Numb3rs: "Applied physicists are from Venus..."
"And theoretical physicists wonder why it rotates in the opposite direction."

Not as tired as the participants...

2005-04-30T18:36:00.000-04:00

Just got back from a mud-filled day. Went out to Catholic University to help set up tents for people participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Those people are serious about this stuff. It's a 2-day 26-mile or 39-mile walk (You can choose to walk a marathon or half marathon the first day). Around 2200 participants and about 800 spots flagged off for (2-person) participant tents. There were about half as many crew tents set up too. After spending the morning walking in the rain, these people went on a search for their gear and then set up camp in puddles and mud so they could get up at 6am tomorrow morning and do it again.

Granted, there were a few dozen people who left today deciding to go home or stay in a hotel instead. But they're still coming back tomorrow to walk again. I, on the other hand, got tired of the rain and mud and came home. Most of the tents were set up by then anyway, though, so I don't feel too bad about that. I just skipped out on free dinner.

The cool part was that they had a massage tent, a yoga tent, and portable showers, which, from what I heard, were very nice. It was a fun day. :) -J.

Polite way to tell you to shove it...

2005-04-30T09:36:00.000-04:00

ASK AMY:

"Dear Amy:

I don't approve of same-sex relationships and am opposed to same-sex marriage. I don't wish to offend or hurt people involved in same-sex relationships and wonder what is the polite way to let them know that I do not condone their lifestyle?

Kind but Disapproving"

Oh, please. When was the last time someone went up to a person shoplifting to let them know that they don't condone stealing? Or someone dealing drugs? Or someone stopped a parent from hitting their kid [in public]? Or even someone abusing a pet...

Those all seem worse to me than people having a relationship. It seems to me, the people whose lifestyle this person does not want to condone probably aren't his/her friends. So, in what situation would it be appropriate to announce your moral judgment on them? Even if they were all friends, it still wouldn't be polite unless they were asked.

Go mind your own business and do something to help the world instead of imposing your beliefs on other people who are not hurting you in any way.

From an old article no longer linked on washingtonpost.com--Va. House Passes Gay Marriage Ban:

"'Today is one of those moments for which we shall one day be ashamed,' said Del. Adam P. Ebbin, D-Alexandria, elected in 2003 by voters who knew he was gay. 'I cannot stand by as this body continues to use gays and lesbians as scapegoats.'

He likened them to slavery, the forced Trail of Tears migration for Indians, lynchings, anti-miscegenation laws and Massive Resistance, Virginia's official effort to thwart court-ordered public school desegregation."

Arbor Day

2005-04-28T21:45:00.000-04:00

Daily Humor and Observations from Joel Achenbach: "...once again I'm going to be winging it at the last minute, which could lead to a repeat of last year's legendary faux pas (serving vegetables -- PLANTS!!! -- at the dinner. Hideously insensitive move. Why not just go cut down a 300-year-old tree with a chain saw?)."

Arbor Day: "Virginia adopted the concept and sets the last Friday in April as the day of our state Arbor Day." -- Find out when your state's Arbor Day is.

Why are you here?

2005-04-28T06:54:00.000-04:00

I've noticed a lot of new visitors are getting here by searching for Aaron Dugo on Google or Yahoo!. Just out of curiosity, if you don't mind sharing, why is everyone searching for him? Feel free to leave a cookie.

Weekend recap

2005-04-25T20:51:00.000-04:00

Thursday -- stayed in. Watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Friday -- Was originally supposed to be movie day, but then Ian and I kept fixing things on my computer and ended up going grocery shopping instead. Went to get my free groceries from Wegman's, stopped by my parents' place to drop off some stuff, and got beer and chocolate from Whole Foods. Ended the evening at Dominion Brew Pub where Ian made friends with the bartenders and "waitress"/brewer.

Saturday -- Family lunch day. Went over and hung out with the family. Then went over to Ian's to laze around... at least that what I thought was planned.

Ian and I ended up in some apartment building with sniper rifles. We were shooting bad guys, though I'm not sure how we were certain that they were bad. After a while, the police came after us, but they let us have a 5 second head start. Well, a 5-second warning, actually. "Come out in 5 seconds with your hands up, or we're coming in shooting." Ian got away through some ordinary means. I, on the other hand, thought it was a good idea to jump out the window and scale down the wall, Spiderman-style. (It worked, of course.)

I ran across a field toward where they were evacuating the people from the rest of the building. They were getting housed in a hotel nearby and by the time I got there, they were rounding everyone up for dinner in a large cafeteria-style room. As I was nearing the perimeter of the apartment complex to get to the hotel, I noticed some officers eye me. They must have been watching everyone though, because they needed to capture the snipers.

I see them follow me into the hotel. This isn't good... How will they be any good at detective work if they can't even follow me so I won't notice them? Oh well. I try to blend into the crowds of the cafeteria. I sit down at a table and start to eat. I see the police start from opposite ends of the tables and work their way systematically across the room. As they near me, I stealthily move down the table and avoid eye contact.

Not stealthy enough, I guess. An officer catches me as I make an attempt to move again. He grabs my wrist and I drop my tray. I use my knowledge obtained from childhood and scream bloody murder, "OWW!! That hurt! Why would you do that to me?"

He attempts to defend his action, "That's her! She's the one we're looking for."

I turn in toward him as he moves his hand and make a sound like he hit me. I fall to the ground, again crying out in pain. I start crying and yelling. "What kind of man are you? Please don't hit me." I cower away from him, looking around for help. I can't tell if they're buying it. The police officers close in...

They go for the other officer. "What kind of person does that?" "She's an innocent little girl." "That's not the kind of reputation we want around here. What are you thinking? And in front of all these people..."

I sneak away while they reprimand the other officer. I wake up reassured of my abilities to exploit my powers of being a little girl.

Sunday -- Watched Finding Neverland with Ian and then we hung out with Ian's bro and his bro's gf watching Rushmore. Went to Ian's family dinner night and then listened to radio shows the rest of the evening.

Ultimate Blogger competition

2005-04-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

For all you bloggers out there with too much free time: The Ultimate Blogger

Flashback

2005-04-25T06:15:00.000-04:00

I guess I should clarify for new readers (and the surprising number of google searches looking for Aaron Marcus Dugo) why I posted that last post. Just realized that not everyone knows the backstory.

Soon after I moved in with my brother, I was home alone while both my brother and our other roommate were at a Redskins game. I was in the basement watching the game and playing with stuff on my laptop. A person, resembling the person pictured, came into the backyard up to the sliding glass door and started doing inappropriate things.

Police come, K-9 unit arrives, description taken down. I found out that there had been 5 similar incidents earlier in the summer. A few months later, when a detective came by to have me do a photo line-up, I heard that there had been at least 30 similar incidents with a similarly described perpetrator. This all occurred in August 2003. The statute of limitations on this, however, is one year, so he cannot be prosecuted for my case.

So, now, a year and a half later, I can't definitively identify him as the person who was at my back door. But he looks enough like the description that I gave and what I remember him looking like to feel comfortable that justice is being served through him being charged with a similar offense. Unfortunately, the other 30 offenses from that summer will also go unpunished.

Busted!

2005-04-22T10:33:00.000-04:00

From an email I received from the Sully District Police distribution:

A man exposed himself to a 28-year-old woman in the Centreville area. On Saturday, November 11, 2004, around 3 a.m., in the 6100 block of Hoskins Hollow Circle, a woman heard knocking at her door. The man at the door asked for someone who did not live there and then exposed himself. An investigation led detectives to a suspect who was charged with indecent exposure on April 20, 2005. Aaron Marcus Dugo, 26, of 4916 McFarland Drive in the Fairfax area was arrested and held at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on a $1,500 bond.

And from 2/12/2005:

A Burke-area man was arrested after peeping into a residence. Officers were conducting surveillance in the 4800 block of Nash Drive in the Burke area after receiving information about peepings. They saw Aaron Dugo, 26, of 4916 McFarland Drive, looking into the basement window of a house. Mr Dugo was arrested for peeping into an occupied dwelling and drinking in public. He was transported to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center and held on a $2,500 secure bond.

So don't forget, if you're ever thinking of hiring this man or even just being his friend, Aaron Marcus Dugo allegedly likes to creep around at night and masturbate in front of girls who are home alone.

Monday, Monday...

2005-04-18T20:38:00.000-04:00

I'm totally liking this sunlight thing. Did the work thing. Went to the gym for kickboxing, but the class was completely filled when I arrived. :( But I suppose, for once, this wasn't my gym's fault. Although, there is a larger studio they could use for that class, but of course they don't. Anyway, biked for a bit instead.

I realized today when I looked at my calendar that this month is more than half over. The March of Dime walk is in less than 2 weeks and I still haven't convinced myself that I like to walk/jog. Oh well... Just 5 miles, right? Anyway, when I got home and it was still light out, I decided to take a jog around the neighborhood. Lots of little kids playing outside supervised by a couple of neighborhood moms. And no drug dealers that I noticed on my whole route. Excellent day. :) -J.

Tomorrow: New Gilmore Girls!

LOTD (the first blog of its kind that I have seen... though I don't particularly go around looking for blogs that often): The Grand Experiment -- A couple trying to conceive via the "Turkey Baster Method."

QOTD: "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?"
"No, no, no... maybe..?"

Yo...

2005-04-18T07:38:00.000-04:00

Hi all,
I'm still alive. I've been looking at WordPress thanks to Ian because I was complaining about blogger recently... Seemed to be loading slowly, comments weren't always working, and entries would get lost mid-publish. Anyway, he's in charge of it and I sit around making sure he makes the new page hokie-looking, so I'm being lazy about updating in the meantime.

Found out that the reason Sonny wasn't updating was because he couldn't connect to the server that hosts his page. He figured I was having the same problem, but I was just being lazy. Oops...

Weekend was cool. Played tennis with my parents and sister on Saturday morning. Haven't played in years and it wasn't as bad as I remember it. For some reason I have memories of playing and really not having fun. In any case, it was pretty fun and my mom made waffles. Tennis snack or something...

Did a few things for work and engineering society-related stuff then made a trip to Wegmans. Spent the evening with Ian watching Numb3rs and reading.

Sunday, sat out in the sun and "helped" garden. Hung out with Ian, his brother, and his brother's gf for most of the day. Then got sushi with Ian at Tono Sushi (near the zoo). Very good. They have these cool crunchy sushi roll doobers that are very tasty. Haven't seen those anywhere else, which is why we had to go to this place.

Went home and lost at Boggle(TM). *gasp* Anyway, that was about it for the evening. :) -j.

LOTD: The Annotated New York Times

QOTD: "Does workman's comp cover that?"
"...Ogres?"

Grossness at Princeton

2005-04-13T07:10:00.000-04:00

So gross... Good thing my cousin doesn't hang out at Princeton:

Local Student Charged With Despicable Crime: "A 28-year-old grad student at Princeton is under arrest tonight, accused of of acting out against Asian students by filling bottles with his bodily fluids and then spraying it on his victims. A disturbing story to say the least."

LOTD: GasPriceWatch.com - The Worlds Largest Consumer Advocacy Gas Price Site

Weekend recap

2005-04-11T06:36:00.000-04:00

Friday - tried to get lunch with Lenny and Stephanie, but they were too cool for us. Ended up going to Five Guys with Ian and then stopping by the HOY afterward to swipe some movies. Watched Top Gun and Shaolin Soccer instead of going in to DC to see the cherry blossoms. Got started on a new book (borrowed from Ian): A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Finished 1984 last week and also started Asimov Laughs Again : More Than 700 Jokes, Limericks, and Anecdotes. Stole the former from Squidgey and the latter from Sonny when I was hunting for a French/English dictionary for him. Spent the evening with Ian helping me install WordPress and picking a new template.

Saturday - Went to the MSWalk in Manassas. Too many volunteers, too many people not helping do stuff, too many people eating food that was donated for the walkers... ran out of food, got more food, ran out of food again. It was kind of sad. There were volunteers who were eating out of boredom before the walkers finished. There were people who had a class at NOVA whose teacher told them to just come over and take our food. There was a woman who yelled at us for not letting her take food that was not meant for general consumption because she was black. I was surprised by the entitlement people felt toward something that was not theirs.

After that, stopped by my parents' house and hung out with Lenny for a little while. Then went with Ian to Whole Foods in Vienna. Such a good trip! We got beers for him and chocolate for me. They had Organic, slave-free, gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate chips, which means we can make chocolate chip pan cookies like he's been wanting for a while now. They also had 3 different brands of slave-free chocolate bars. I'm very pleased with Whole Foods. Went back to the parents' place to trade cars and collect some gossip. Then to the HOY briefly to return movies and get another. Watched Se7en. Not nearly as scary as the first time I tried to watch and, this time, I got through the whole thing. Turns out, it's a really good movie.

Sunday - Hung out at Ian's place while he got the house ready for family dinner. I got some reading done outside while his brother and mom did some gardening. Went on a couple errands and got to stop by Wegmans! Hung out with the fam for the evening.

LOTD: April is National Donate Life Month

QOTD: "I'm not saying that I'm a big fan of incest either. I'm just saying that I don't like anti-incest propoganda."

Workiversary, Exercise, Death

2005-04-07T20:35:00.000-04:00

I remembered on Monday when I was filling out paperwork for the new company, but forgot today that it's my workiversary! Luckily TLD remembered and brought in doughnuts for everyone to share. :) It was also nice because today's the new Friday and I have tomorrow off to loaf around. And because of the company change-over thing, we get 3 pay-days in a row, this week being week 2. Yay Thursday!

Ok so last night there was this meet & greet with the new CEO. Everyone stands around making smalltalk for a while and then they all sit down for the presentation. Right in the middle of the CEO's talk, someone's cell phone rings. Now, as someone who hates ringing in public, I would try to silence my phone as quickly as possible so as to minimize the disturbance. This person, on the other hand, let it ring twice, then acted surprised when he received another telephone call 2 minutes later. How do I know, you ask? Because after the first phone call, he didn't turn his phone off. Then there were the other people who had forgotten to turn their ringers off too, but didn't get caught like that guy did. No no... Instead, they turned off their phones without turning the sound off first, so they made the shutting down music/noise. Good thinking.

In other news, I've been trying to be less lazy recently. I went to the gym once and jogging twice so far this week. And today I took a walk during lunch. I figured it only takes about 12-15 minutes to walk a mile, so that leaves me with plenty of time to eat my lunch still. At the very least, it helped keep me alert for a little while longer after lunch.

I got passed by a polite jogger last night. I guess I never knew what jogging etiquette was. By the time I was headed back home, the sun had completely set and it was dark. I somehow knew there was someone coming from behind me; I probably heard his shoes or breathing, but I can't recall exactly what tipped me off. In any case, as I started to turn to look, the person announced his presence by letting me know he was passing on my left. So, I got out of his way and all was well. I dunno... I guess that wasn't interesting. Oh well.

The new kickboxing instructor at the gym is a bit... um, hyped up on speed with caffeine and sugar on top? Maybe I'm just really out of shape (a very likely possibility), but his class seems to move twice as fast as the other classes I've taken. That's not to say that the time flies by quickly. Oh, no. It feels twice as long, probably because he does two moves per beat, whereas a normal human would do one. I may just be uncoordinated. In any case, I leave work when the class starts so I don't have to sit in as much traffic and end up doing a 45 minute workout instead of an hour. I think this works out better for me because I'd probably give up at the half hour mark if I showed up on time. If I show up late, I can somehow rationalize not being able to leave early. And when it gets to the point where I would want to leave, there are only a few minutes left anyway.

Seems as though the dying isn't slowing down any time soon. From the headlines: Two Dead in Cairo Bombing, Six Shot on Eastern Shore (kills 2, wounds 4), Coach shot at Texas high school. Yeah, I know I'm just looking for things now. But with all the deaths last week, then Saul Bellow and Prince Rainier this week, the 16 people in the helicopter in Afghanistan yesterday, and the other recent school shooting in Minnesota, it's kind of hard to ignore.

*awkward subject change*

The weather's been nice. Going to start raining tonight and tomorrow though, so I might not head out with Ian for date day with the cherry blossoms like we did last year. We'll see, I guess. Granted, even so, I kind of feel bad going to look at them when I read this article on how we're trampling all the roots and killing the trees.

LOTD: Overheard in the Office

QOTD: "There is no trust fund. Just i.o.u.'s that I saw firsthand." -W

Breaking News...

2005-04-07T18:54:00.000-04:00

Has Cookie Monster given up sweets?: "My beloved blue, furry monster -- who sang 'C is for cookie, that's good enough for me' -- is now advocating eating healthy. There's even a new song -- 'A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food,' where Cookie Monster learns there are 'anytime' foods and 'sometimes' foods.

"Sacrilege!" I cried. "That's akin to Oscar the Grouch being nice and clean." (Co-workers gave me strange looks. But I didn't care.)"

Very good article by Chelsea Carter. She said what I was thinking. I'm glad there are journalists out there like her. :) -j.

Moms across Florida are wrong!

2005-04-06T23:44:00.000-04:00

Florida to allow use of force even outside home: "Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday he intends to sign a bill that would allow people who feel threatened on the street, in a bar, at a ball game - or just about anywhere - to 'meet force with force' to defend themselves without fear of being prosecuted."

Right... Remember how when you were little, your mom would say, "I don't care who started it! You should know better. Go to your room and think about what you did. [Just wait until your dad gets home.]" Well, I guess Barbara raised her boys differently.

16 killed in Afghanistan copter crash

2005-04-06T16:06:00.000-04:00

16 killed in Afghanistan copter crash: "Sixteen people were killed Wednesday when a coalition helicopter traveling in 'severe weather' crashed in Afghanistan."

Also received an email stating: "NONE of HHC or 3/116th soldiers were casualties of this tragedy... Please relax and don't worry further that HHC or 3/116th soldiers have been lost, and please pray for the families of all the soldiers who were lost today."

Who else died last week?

2005-04-05T21:02:00.000-04:00

Johnnie Cochran
Terri Shiavo
Mitch Hedburg
Frank Perdue
Pope John Paul II

Posted anonymously in the Washington Post Weingarten chat:
Okay, am I the only one who sees a connection between Frank Perdue and the Pope? They were practically one nose job away from being twins, were born 10 days apart in 1920, died within days of each other, were avid sportsmen early in life who found another calling, were notorious workaholics, were the first in their chosen field to see the benefits of media exposure, had their darkest days in 1981 (the Pope got shot and the Justice Dept. charged Perdue with unfair trade practices), chicken and christian are similarly sounding words, and the Eastern Shore is unfairly considered the backward part of Maryland while Poland is unfairly considered the backward part of Europe. Plus, the Pope's would-be assassin was from Turkey, a poultry connection if ever there were one. I'm not quite sure how Johnny Cochrane fits into this celebrity death trio, except maybe he's up in heaven spouting stupid rhymes, like "When the smoke is white, the Cardinals have seen the light." And yes, I am going to hell, thank you very much.

QOTD: "They had to announce the Pope's funeral last week before he died. Prince Charles had to move his wedding and he'd lose his deposits otherwise."

LOTD: Etch-A-Sketch Art

"Why So Few Scientists Are Republicans These Days."

2005-04-05T07:35:00.000-04:00

An Academic Question: "In its April Fools' Day issue, Scientific American published a spoof editorial in which it apologized for endorsing the theory of evolution just because it's 'the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time,' saying that 'as editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.' And it conceded that it had succumbed 'to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do.'"

The quote doesn't have much to do with the actual bulk of the piece, but I found it funny, in light of recent conversations. Column touches on Republicans/Conservatives vs. liberal academia, the coming of lawsuits for what is (or is not) covered in class, and government imposing their beliefs on science:

"Think of the message this sends: today's Republican Party - increasingly dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not research - doesn't respect science, or scholarship in general. It shouldn't be surprising that scholars have returned the favor by losing respect for the Republican Party."

"Soon, biology professors who don't give creationism equal time with evolution and geology professors who dismiss the view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old might face lawsuits."

And, I had to find that article, so I stole it from here:

from their editorial

Okay, We Give Up

There's no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.

In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of socalled evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it.

Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.

Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed all life, and that's a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in details.

Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts. Nor should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do. Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without comment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions.

Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more discussions of how science should inform policy. If the government commits blindly to building an anti-ICBM defense system that can't work as promised, that will waste tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars and imperil national security, you won't hear about it from us. If studies suggest that the administration's antipollution measures would actually increase the dangerous particulates that people breathe during the next two decades, that's not our concern. No more discussions of how policies affect science either -- so what if the budget for the National Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will be dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the science that scientists say is science. And it will start on April Fools' Day.

Okay, We Give Up

MATT COLLINS
THE EDITORS editors@sciam.com
COPYRIGHT 2005 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.

Sunlight!

2005-04-04T22:22:00.000-04:00

Wow... I left work, went to the gym, went to my parents house and the sun was still out after I got there. I guess there is some good to daylight savings time.

Not much going on... Watched Magnificent Seven yesterday and probably going to get around to watching Seven Samurai some time this week. Had more family bonding time yesterday. Ate cookies.

I'm bored with this entry. I'm going to bed.

LOTD: An Apology: To the Girl in the Parking Garage

April Fools!

2005-04-02T14:03:00.000-05:00

I suppose I should apologize. My brother seemed kind of sad when he read my previous entry. I was just goofing around... kind of in jest of an email announcement I received earlier this week. Anyway...

Parts of the last entry were based on truth mostly to ring people in. My company got sold, so today is my last day with current employer. Starting Monday I will be working for a new company, but doing the same job. They do not have an office in Canada though. I have been looking to make some changes in my life, but I have been focusing more on filling free time with more productive projects and not so much on changing careers.

I do like Vancouver and think I would enjoy living there, but as of yet, I have no plans for leaving the country. I also like UBC and they do have a human-powered sub team. I did discuss this with Ian and he does also like Canada. I don't think he has any plan to leave the country together though. Things will be finalized next week and I will continue to work in the area in the same place and doing the same thing I do now. I will, however, have new business cards. Woo.

In case no one noticed, I was trying to go through the checklist of things that I said the other day should not be announced via blog/email: moving, leaving the country, leaving a job, starting a new job, going back to school, and moving with a boy. Not all on the list, but related ideas that probably also shouldn't be announced electronically.

Anyway, had date night last night. Went out to the Old Dominion Brew Pub with Ian. I tried their fish and chips. They were pretty good, but I think I'm going to go back to not eating fish. I do like tartar sauce though. Also, rootbeer on tap: GOOD. After that, headed out to see a movie...

Went to watch Sin City, but got there about an hour early for the showing we wanted to see. Got our tickets and hung around inside for a while until it got too warm, so we went outside to loiter until they started seating. It was a bit rainy so there was this mob of teenagers hanging out between the two sets of doors leading outside, presumably waiting for rides and such. Anyway, Ian and I go right outside the door and are just standing around when we are approached by these two rent-a-cops:

RAC: Are you here to see a movie?
Us: Yes.
RAC: May I see your tickets please?
Us: Yes. *shows tickets*
RAC: This movie isn't for another hour.
Us: The 9:30 showing was sold out.
RAC: Well, normally we don't let people stay around that early for a movie. You need to go do something else. But since it's raining, we'll make an exception this time. You need to wait inside though.

These guys were at most 25. I know I look like I'm 16, but I'm really not. I can go watch an R rated movie all by myself now. I was really tempted to let the guy know that we couldn't go anywhere else because my mom wasn't going to be here to pick us up until midnight after the movie was over and she told us not to go anywhere else. But I figured since he was being so nice to make an exception for us just this once because it was raining, I should be nice. What the doober? Ian and I were probably 5-10 years older than the other people waiting around (except for the one grandmother-ly looking woman), but whatever. We looked like a coupla hoodlums.

Anyway, movie was excellent. Very violent, very gory, very graphic novel-y. Probably only for the type of crowd who really enjoyed Pulp Fiction though. Not suitable for all audiences. :) -J.

LOTD: Thank you for not breeding -- If you don't read the whole thing, at least scroll about halfway down and take a look at the chart. Overly simplified? Yes. Do I agree? Mostly.

The end of an era

2005-04-01T07:06:00.000-05:00

Seeing as my family is "socially retarded," I'm going to make this announcement electronically, as it is the only acceptable form of communication:

Today marks my last day working for my current employer. I have been making some life changes and decided I wanted something different. I received an offer for a new job last week, but I have not accepted that offer yet. In anticipation of that though, I officially end my current position COB today.

I have put a lot of thought into this and I am planning on going through with my plans to move to Canada. The new company has a location in Vancouver, where I really enjoyed visiting my junior year in college. This would help with getting residency in Canada, since my immigration score is only borderline without an existing job offer. This also will open the option for me to attend UBC, which has their own human-powered sub team that I could get involved with again.

I have also discussed this with Ian, since he also expressed an interest in moving to Canada. We haven't worked things out yet, but there should be enough time between now and then to decide if he wants to look for a job up there and come with me.

In any case, this should all be finalized by next week. Hopefully, they'll be agreeable to allowing me to stay in the area and work at a local office until the end of the summer when Sonny returns. Then, I would take a month or so off to relocate.

QOTD: "That's what hippies do. No one likes hippies!"
LOTD: Museum of Hoaxes

Coolness

2005-03-31T07:11:00.000-05:00

I got a comment from Tina of Sardonic Sideshow yesterday! She's making her way to stardom, so that makes me on the fringe of coolness. Thanks to BFF for speaking up when she took offense to the quote I put with it a month ago.

Tina, if you're back -- I replied with a link to the post I quoted last time. Also, your archives are broken. -J.

QOTD: "You gave me a dime! I'm cheap, but not that cheap."
LOTD: Don't Tip the Waiter -- Angry Waitron meets The Onion

Yay ABc

2005-03-30T21:09:00.000-05:00

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist: When Marriage Kills: "President Bush is focusing his program against AIDS in Africa on sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, relegating condoms to a distant third. It's the kind of well-meaning policy that bubbles up out of a White House prayer meeting but that will mean a lot of unnecessary deaths on the ground in Africa."

Communication

2005-03-30T07:12:00.000-05:00

If I had to say one thing about my family, it'd be this: When there's news, they'll send an email. That way, it's not your fault if one person finds out before another. It's not your fault if they don't find out at all. You don't have to worry about people being out or not having time to get together for a formal dinner. You don't have to worry that people are too busy to listen to what you're saying. It's their own fault if they don't read what you had to write or if you sent to an obsolete account.

As Sonny said last week (in an email exchange, of course), "I don't think we talk about stuff like that enough as a family. I think we could probably work out a lot of problems if we had some more effective communication mechanisms. I mean...e-mail lists are great, but maybe not the most healthy." Add blogs to that too. So yeah, our family doesn't have the most "normal" or even "effective" communication skills. But at least the facts are conveyed, yeah?

For future reference, things that should not be announced via email/blog (at least to immediate family, unless in extenuating circumstances):
Engagements
Weddings
Pregnancy
Birth (especially if they didn't know there was a pregnancy)
Graduations (unless it's to send out info for attending. Hopefully everyone already knows that it is going to happen.)
Getting fired
Getting hired
Moving to a new area
Leaving the country
Diagnosis of (fatal) disease
Death (of someone close)

QOTD: "Politics is show business for ugly people."
LOTD: self-lighting cigarette - I still disapprove, of course, but that's a cool invention.

Cookies

2005-03-30T06:57:00.000-05:00

That second picture came out a little blurry, but starting from the top left, there's an egg world, a more differently colored egg world, a bunny who was just decapitated (so recently that the head hasn't fallen off yet), a bunny with eyes and teeth, a cross-section of an egg, and a poor, unfortunate bunny with a gangrenous foot and frostbitten ears who was shot. Poor bunny.

Marriage Poll...

2005-03-29T19:19:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I've probably already ruined this poll for most people, but I couldn't resist:

Who will get married first?
Yenny (Sister)
Lenny (Eldest son)
Sonny (Older brother)
Me
None of us... We'll all die alone and childless.

Current results

Cookie weekend

2005-03-28T21:19:00.000-05:00

Watched Silver City this weekend. Another movie that makes me feel like I need to be doing more with my life and I should be out there more making a difference in the world instead of wasting time arguing the same points with people who won't listen. That on top of reading about what Anoopa has spent the past 5 years doing. I feel so lazy.

Spent the weekend baking and decorating Easter cookies with Ian. Sent some over with my mom to the Valentines. Delivered some to HOY, but no one was around at the time. Dropped by my parents' house and hung out with my grandmother while she tried to force food on Ian. Brought some to a BBQ where there was some excellent food and we got to dye eggs. And brought some with us to Ian's parents' place for their Easter dinner thing. Will post pictures later when I stop being lazy. -j.

Why does God hate tsunami orphans?

2005-03-28T15:33:00.000-05:00

50 dead on island after quake: "The U.S. Geological Survey reported that an instrument near the Cocos Islands recorded the passing wave, but the magnitude of the 'small' tsunami was not clear.

The agency said no major tsunami has been observed near epicenter of the earthquake which was upgraded from a magnitude of 8.2 to 8.7. An aftershock measuring 6.0 struck 30 minutes after the initial quake.

Scientists say the threat of a tsunami striking Indonesia and Thailand may have passed because a wave like the one that hit the region on December 26 would have reached those countries almost immediately. Monday's quake struck at 11:09 a.m. ET (1609 GMT)."

Another day...

2005-03-26T11:09:00.000-05:00

Info: For anyone who knew Anoopa (Denise) Sharma, TJ Class of '98 --
Memorial Service
April 2nd, 2005, 3 PM
Rajdhani Mandir, Chantily, VA
Emory University article

Thanks to bff for the update.

Why I'm so angry...

2005-03-26T10:09:00.000-05:00

So, after my update yesterday, I went running, did some laundry, ran some errands, made some cookies, found out about a bunch of sick people and dead people, started watching a movie, and got a call from BFF to find out that increased use of Elidel resulted in higher rates of cancer and that a high school classmate of ours died. Great phone call. Maybe I shouldn't get so excited about waking up next time.

In other news, Lenny just called and we had a heated discussion regarding his latest update here, which turned into a debate on evolution vs. ID/creationism. I think it comes down to faith vs. science. I don't understand how people can accept that someone put everything here on earth just as it is, despite evidence that shows otherwise. But, I guess God could have planted dinosaur bones in the ground to test our faith. I will fail miserably.

Lenny said that evolution cannot exist without ID, but ID can exist without evolution. Then he fell back on his failsafe, "I don't know if evolution exists, so I don't know if I believe in that." It's like that game my sister and I played on a car trip a while ago... What does Lenny have an opinion on?

Oh well. I guess my liberal education has brainwashed me. I don't know how my brother got away unscathed. Maybe some day I will learn to think for myself.

Other things I'm angry about --
Kickboxing canceled again last week.
I know of 6 people who died this month. Granted, I only met 2 of them, but still... What's up with this month?
Forgot about my chiropractor appointment yesterday and missed it.
My medical coverage is getting changed, but I don't know when and I can't fill my prescriptions without a new card, which I don't have.
People driving the wrong way down my one-way street.
People putting trash in my recycling bin -- which has not been picked up for at least two weeks and won't get picked up for another week.
I was so excited about getting up yesterday, but not so much today.

QOTD: "Could Jesus create a burrito so large that even he could not lift it?"

My Morning

2005-03-25T06:33:00.000-05:00

So, I woke up this morning... and, get this, I got up! This is the first time in a really long time that I remember being awake when I woke up. So awake that I actually had the urge to crawl out from under the covers before my alarm went off. Not even before my alarm went off, but before it would have gone off had I been going to work today. What's up with that?

Well, I'll tell you what's up with that. I have eczema. This means my skin is dry and I scratch all the time. All the time. My mom used to get mad at me when I was little because I would just stand around scratching up my arms and I would wake up in the morning having scratched my arms raw. I didn't know I was doing it. I was just really, really itchy. I've seen numerous doctors/dermatologists over the years. A number of them told me that they used to have eczema, but grew out of it when they were teenagers. This gave me hope. But as I grew out of my teens (Yes, people. I am not really 16.), I continued to have this condition. So, that's just the way it has been.

Enter: Elidel. My brother gave me an information pamphlet on it ages ago when it first came out. I think he got it in the mail or something. And then I started seeing commercials for it that told me to ask my doctor if Elidel was right for me. "While there is no cure for eczema, there are things you can do to help control it." Great, right? Ok, so it sounded good, but I didn't have a doctor, so I didn't get around to getting it. Fast forward a year or so later. Ian finally convinces me to go find a doctor so I can ask if Elidel is right for me. Turns out: It is.

I've been using this new cream every morning for about 6 months and I have received a number of compliments from people on how well my skin is doing. I still wake up tired in the morning though, like I used to, and my arms feel like I spent all night scratching them. I have been blaming my grogginess on apnea, since I know that other people in my family have it and I've been known to snore on occasion. I figured I probably have it too (since I can't breathe through my nose without medication) and that was why I was always so tired during the day.

As it turns out, I tried using Elidel last night so I wouldn't be so itchy at night, seeing as it was working wonders during the day. I slept for about 6.5 hours, woke up, and actually couldn't fall back asleep. (Family, has this ever happened to you?) Apparently I spend so much time scratching at night that I never get any good sleep. I hypothesized this about 3 years ago, but at some point I was put on some steroid medication that cleared up my skin for about a week and I was still groggy. I guess I was still scratching at night; My skin was just healing faster from the drugs than I was scratching.

I have always been the kind of person who could sleep anywhere any time for pretty much any length of time. I have gotten used to the sleep deprivation and just go through life in this constant haze. It turns out, there are people who don't have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. People who don't actually use alarm clocks. There are people who feel refreshed when they wake up. There are people who don't fall asleep mid-conversation or while typing, driving, or biking. I don't know if this is what I have now, but for the first time that I can remember, I woke up and got up. I hope I wake up again tomorrow. :) -J.

LOTD: Caffeine Awareness - A little late, but this month was Caffeine Awareness Month.

Vegetable Poll

2005-03-24T07:29:00.000-05:00

If you were diagnosed by physicians as being in a persistent vegetative state with virtually no chance of recovery, would you want to continue living?
Yes.
No.
I'll wait until it happens so someone else can choose for me (preferably the president).

Current results

QOTD: "If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's all of those black, gay, liberal slave owners."

LOTD: Capitol bill aims to control 'leftist' profs

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for "public ridicule" - for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class - would also be given the right to sue.

Why are you so angry?

2005-03-23T13:36:00.000-05:00

Hey enjanerd,

I got you some oatmeal raison cookies from Kansas. They look really good. I haven't tried them yet, but your mother has. Please take it home if you want them, otherwise i'll eat them.

I read this article in the Washington Post about intelligent design. Thought you might like it:

Who's Afraid of Intelligent Design?

Len

P.S. I noticed you have a lot of drafts. Why are you so angry?

Happy poll

2005-03-23T07:04:00.000-05:00

What would you rather be?
Completely happy half the time and completely miserable the other half.
Partly happy all the time.
Completely miserable all the time.

Current results

LOTD (some of you may have seen this before... I took it down because of a complaint, but I'm re-posting with different, and hopefully, less offensive quotes.): Sardonic Side Show --
"California state lawmakers proposed giving 16-year-olds a 1/2 vote and 14-year-old residents a 1/4 vote to try to encourage teenagers to be more involved in the political process and learn fractions."

"My point is: yet again this country has been split into two factions. There are those praying and hoping that Terri stays alive long enough to go through menopause because they are caring and compassionate people. And those that have told their loved ones to unplug them at the first sign of drool. Probate lawyers are getting frantic phone calls for their services.

"Look, I'll pay you whatever you ask, just don't let me end up in Florida as a national wedge issue."

P.S. Back-posted and added in some cake pictures, if anyone wants to see.

In other news...

2005-03-22T18:25:00.000-05:00

Just found out this morning that a family friend passed away last Friday. John Valentine used to carpool with my dad and lived a few blocks away from us. Their family had kids around the ages of my siblings and me. I haven't seen him in a few years, but I had heard he was battling cancer for the past year or so. Haven't seen any of the family recently either. I guess I will this week...

His daughter, who married a former student of my brother, had another baby. He was born on Saturday.

Also, today is World Water Day.

Planning Poll

2005-03-22T07:02:00.000-05:00

LOTD: Please stop PATTING MY [expletive deleted] HEAD

QOTD (in the fashion of "yo' momma" jokes): "Your momma is so nice, she baked cookies for me."

Passing on the bad karma

2005-03-22T06:50:00.000-05:00

I have written up some complaints on here before about bad drivers. I still don't like bad drivers, but I can give them a lot more leeway now. At least they're either oblivious or selfish drivers. Yesterday, I encountered an antagonistic driver. I just filled out a Traffic Safety Report for an aggressive driver and unbuckled children, though, so I feel somewhat vindicated.

The complaint:

Silver Honda Civic
JLP-3532
Middle-aged woman with female teenage front seat passenger and female pre-teen in the back seat

This was on Beauregard St waiting at the light for 236. I was in the middle lane (straight and left turn) stopped at the light. The left lane had only 2 cars at the front of the queue waiting for the light to change (I was at the end of approximately 20 cars). The driver slowed down next to me just as the person in front of me inched forward a little. She proceeded to inch into my lane without signaling or waving and when she got fully into the lane, she flicked me off. Admittedly, I gave her a dirty look in return, but I did not honk my horn or return the gesture. Her passenger (who I assume was her teenage daughter) proceeded to flick me off and looked like she was flicking off people passing in the right turn lane.

As we turned onto 236 and onto the I-395 on-ramp, the passenger opened both her window and the sunroof to flick me off out both windows. The driver then cut me off in the merge lane and the adjacent lane so I could not pass them. The other passenger in the back seat continually turned around to check to see if I was still behind them. She may have had her seatbelt on, but I could not tell and it didn't seem like it from the way she kept turning around completely. The front seat passenger then proceeded to stand up, turn around, and stick her head out the sunroof to yell something at me. I could not hear or tell what she was saying though. I was finally able to get around them to exit onto 495.

The Cake Adventure

2005-03-21T07:24:00.000-05:00

Most of my weekend was spent working on two cakes. Ian's family was doing a thing for his grandmother's birthday and he was in charge of the cake. He found a nice recipe for a Danish Poppy Seed Cake which took us about 10 hours to complete. Went on a quest Friday night for poppy seeds and other ingredients.

Got some exercise in on Saturday morning/afternoon. Ian and his brother had an ultimate frisbee game and went out to watch and jogged a bit with their cousin. Went out to Irish Times afterward for a late lunch. Got started on the cake with Ian after we got back. The cake part of it turned out pretty easy and that finished without a hitch. Thanks to Ian's mom for lending us all of her round cake tins. Two of which were pretty old, but had a small strip of metal that ran along a radius of the pan and up the side so you could slide it around to loosen the cake from the pan. It works kind of like the ice cream scoops that have the little metal lever doober. Anyway, it worked splendidly.

Thanks to my mom for the use of her double boiler to make the filling. The filling took much longer than the recipe said (about 20 minutes instead of 5). It needed to be over boiling water as well, not just hot water. That took a while to figure out. Then, we had more filling than expected, so we sliced two of the layers in half and ended up with a 5-layer cake.

The topping, which we expected to come out as a frosting, resulted in a glaze that we poured over the cake and let solidify. The learning process for that resulted in added hours of preparation and a very concentrated topping mixture. Fortunately, it all went over well and I think people really liked it. Ian's grandmother seemed to appreciate the effort put into choosing the cake recipe too. It's a good thing it turned out well, since Ian and I didn't have a chance to try any of the cake before it was served. We had tasted a little bit of each of the parts, and it didn't seem like anything special, but it was much better combined. The cake was a little bland on its own, the filling wasn't that sweet, and the topping seemed a little too sweet (though that may have been our fault since we kept adding sugar to thicken the concoction), but all together, it seemed to work out well.

We made a second cake on Sunday to make sure there would be enough cake for everyone. We decided on something pretty tame: chocolate cake with a bourbon cream cheese frosting. Made that into a two-layer half-sheet cake without much trouble.

The evening was filled with Ian's immediate family and about a dozen of his extended family. Each of the family units prepared a dish to bring so there was lots of good food and just general chatting and catching up. That's about it for the weekend. Very cake-y. -J.

Poppy-Seed Cake - Valmuefrøkage

* 1/2 cup poppy seeds
* 1 cup milk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 3/4 cup soft butter
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 2 cups flour -- sifted
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 4 egg whites

* 4 egg yolks
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 2 tablespoons cornstarch
* 1 1/2 cups milk
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup hazelnuts
* 1 teaspoon vanilla

* 1 cup powdered sugar
* 3 tablespoons rum
* 1 tablespoon water
* 1/2 cup hazelnuts -- ground

Soak poppy seeds in the milk and vanilla overnight.

Cream butter until soft. Add the sugar gradually and cream well. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Blend the flour and poppy-seed mixtures alternately into the creamed butter mix. Blend well.

Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold into mixture.

Pour the batter into 2 buttered and lightly floured 8" layer cake tines, and bake 30 minutes in a preheated 350º oven. Let cool a little in the pans before turning out onto racks. If you wish you can cut each layer in half and spread filling between four layers. Whichever you choose to do, here's a suggestion for a mouth-watering between-the-layers spread:

Beat the egg yolks until frothy. Mix sugar, cornstarch, milk and salt with the beaten yolks and cook in the top of a double boiler over hot water about 5 minutes. Stir constantly to keep the mixture from scorching.

Grind nuts and add to cooked mixture with vanilla. Mix well, and spread between layers.

Top the cake as follows:

Stir the sugar with the rum until smooth. Add the water and beat well. Ice the sides and top of the cake. Sprinkle the ground nuts over the top.

Dark Chocolate Cake

INGREDIENTS:

* 2 cups boiling water
* 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 2 1/4 cups white sugar
* 4 eggs
* 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 3 - 9 inch round cake pans. In medium bowl, pour boiling water over cocoa, and whisk until smooth. Let mixture cool. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at time, then stir in vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture. Spread batter evenly between the 3 prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool.

Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting

INGREDIENTS:

* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
* 4 cups confectioners' sugar
* 5 tablespoons premium bourbon

DIRECTIONS:

1. Beat softened butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add confectioners' sugar and bourbon. Beat until creamy.

Meta Poll

2005-03-21T07:22:00.000-05:00

Today's poll is dedicated to Asma for all her whining. ;)

Do you like these polls?
Yes.
No.
I don't even read your blog. I don't know why I'm here

Current results

LOTD: Study: Risks Remain for Teens Who Pledge Abstinence: "The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens pledging virginity until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse. That behavior, however, 'puts you at risk,' said Hannah Brueckner, assistant professor of sociology at Yale and one of the study's authors.

Among virgins, boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely to have had anal sex, according to the study. Overall, pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge.

The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or get tested for STDs, the researchers found."

QOTD: "But that's an elected position... we don't vote on that."

Weather Poll

2005-03-18T06:53:00.000-05:00

Weather report: SE Winds -- Are they
Coming from the SouthEast
Going towards the South East

Current results

Olfactory Rant

2005-03-18T06:52:00.000-05:00

Read an article about having guests who smoke. The people quoted in the article seemed very considerate of non-smokers and made it out to sound like they have been guilted by society into doing so. Perhaps they have, but a number of the smokers I have come across don't tend to extend that same courtesy.

Sure, most of the people I tend to hang out with don't smoke. And the ones who do will do so outside. The occasions I have the most difficulty with are bars and restaurants where there are either no separate smoking sections (yes, yes... separate, but equal. Why should smokers have to be segregated, yadda yadda.) or the sections have no dividers keeping the smoke on the smoking section side. This seems to defeat the purpose of having different sections.

My worst experience with a smoker wasn't even with someone who was smoking near me though. It was a smoker who had smoker residue on him. I was tutoring in college and a student came in for help. So, I sit down next to him and find my eyes watering. After a few minutes, I found it a little hard to breathe. I finally realized that the guy didn't have BO: it was cigarette smoke. Maybe it was some brand I had never been exposed to before or maybe it was mixed with some other smell which made it not immediately recognizable. In any case, I gave him enough to work on so I could go in the hallway and take a breather before going back in. I know people can't always anticipate other people's allergies, but is homework really so urgent that you can't stand outside for an extra 3 minutes to air yourself off?

Other peeve: People who light up in bars right next to me. Yeah, yeah. I don't own the world. And I have found a couple of non-smoking bars in the area, so that's a plus. But come on... I don't even like it when the person across the table from me sighs too hard and blows air in my face (which has happened on numerous occasions, btw). But if there are a group of people just hanging out and not smoking, it's not very polite to start exhaling smoke at them.

I went to a happy hour with a couple coworkers and some chick came in, stood behind the barstool next to me and started smoking at me. Sure, it probably wasn't malicious and she might have faced the opposite direction if I had asked especially nicely (since the other end of the bar was deserted), but why should I have to ask her? I was getting ready to leave anyway, so it didn't really matter, but how do you ask that nicely? It's like asking someone with onion breath to breathe the other way. Which isn't polite, but still something I would want to do.

Speaking of onion breath, when I was volunteering at the Smithsonian, someone did come up to me with the strongest onion breath I had ever smelled. I didn't know if I should offer him a mint to let him know that I could tell what he had for lunch, or just answer his question quickly so he would go away. I went with the latter. Oh well. Alcohol breath... another reason I don't like bars. I probably should just stay home.

Granted, it could just be me. Strong smells do seem to bother me. Strong colognes and perfumes... even some deodorants. That usually just causes headaches though. Maybe I'm allergic, though I don't know what about strong smells would cause me to be allergic to anything. It'd seem as though I would need to be allergic to something in the smell that would cause the adverse reaction.

I used to have a roommate who would light scented candles almost every day and I'd have to keep my door closed just so I could function. I asked her a few times to keep her door closed when they were lit, but she never could seem to manage that courtesy.

When I was in college, I went into a room that one of my friends was sub-letting and after talking to him for about 5 minutes, I realized that my airway was closing up and I couldn't breathe. I ended up leaving before figuring out that the person who lived there previously had a dog sleeping in that room and the residual dander was causing my breathing problems.

Wow, I have a lot of issues... I think I need to get a SARS mask and fill it with mild soap scent to block out everything outside the mask. And next time you catch me with onion breath, please offer me a mint or ask if I have one so I'll know. Thanks! :) -j.

QOTD: "The genetics of being female is more complicated than people realized." -geneticist Laura Carrel (quoted by NPR's Joe Palca)

LOTD: National Corndog Day tomorrow, 3/19/2005

Fox "News"

2005-03-17T12:52:00.000-05:00

The Basic Idea of Marriage Is to Raise Kids: "Gays can't have kids - other than going to the abandoned kids store and getting one or two, or borrowing sperm from someone with more sperm than brains - so by definition they're out of the marriage game."

I guess I'm not tolerant. He's not allowed to believe whatever he wants. I don't consider this news and I think he's wrong. Stolen from another blogger, who says it much better than I could:

"Wait, there's an "abandoned kids store"? We love how that makes adoption sound like you're buying things that fell off the back of a truck. Only losers get abandoned kids. They're gross. What you want are the fresh, free-range kids they sell at Whole Foods.

As for "more sperm than brains," well, that's technically true of all men.

Really. Guys with the opposite problem have to go to the abandoned kids store."

PSA

2005-03-17T12:02:00.000-05:00

Free Taxi Rides Home: "If you need a ride home between 4 p.m. Thursday, March 17, and 4 a.m. Friday, March 18, dial 1-800-200-TAXI and you'll get a taxi. (Cingular users can dial #TAXI on their mobile phone.) As long as your fare is under $50, the program pays for it. If it's more than $50, you pay the difference. Simple and safe." Courtesy of soberRide.

Killer Poll

2005-03-17T07:30:00.000-05:00

Would you kill somebody for money?
Yes.
No.
Depends on the person.
Depends on the money.

Current results

LOTD: reverse games
QOTD: "Gamblers, strippers, and naval architects!"

Sleep

2005-03-17T07:23:00.000-05:00

Ever since my brother started his whole polyphasic sleep experiment, I've been noticing how sleepy I am. Dangerously sleepy, which is kind of scary. As opposed to the previously just annoyingly sleepy. I kind of want to try out that sleep schedule too, but unfortunately, my work schedule doesn't allow for mid-day naps. Too bad, really.

In any case, I'm looking for a sleep clinic now to find out if I can get some kind of diagnosis on my sleep problems and maybe get some kind of help for it. Most likely a CPAP machine, but hopefully just drugs or something like that. In any case, if anyone knows of a sleep clinic in the area, let me know. I tried going through my health insurance to see if there are any that are covered, but I haven't heard back yet. We'll see...

P.S. Happy St. Patty's Day! :) -j.

Most Boring Rant Ever

2005-03-16T07:38:00.000-05:00

Haven't had much interesting to write about lately and I realized that it was because I haven't been angry enough lately. Sure, I'm angry at traffic every day, but that gets pretty repetitive after a while. I happened to read a rant about the Atlanta courthouse killer and how people who commit crimes "*find God* and then bask in the attention of the people so happy to have found some wretch they can save and use to spread the word." In any case, I tend to agree with most of the things he said, but I still wasn't angry about it yet.

For whatever reason, the whole religion shpiel does tend to anger me. Not so much because I disagree with other people on this issue, but because I feel like I allow other people to believe whatever they want and expect the same in return. And, for the most part, I do receive that respect from others. But I have found certain groups of religions tend not to show that open-mindedness toward others. They want to "discuss" in a manner in which they're right, you're wrong, and if you don't believe what they believe you go to a bad place for eternity. Gee, thanks... why do I want to talk to you again? Then there are others who won't send you away, but just think they're better than you for knowing "the truth."

I can understand it as a cultural aspect for people who want to get married and raise their children a certain way, but would it be so horrible to raise children with open minds so that they can decide their beliefs on their own? Why does it matter if their parents believe in different things? Won't they come in contact with people in school or at the playground or wherever else who hold different beliefs?

Speaking of schools, I don't understand the belief that religion and science can't co-exist. Fine, there are aspects of the Big Bang Theory and evolution that aren't completely explainable. But you think that religion is flawless? If people want to bring that into schools, they're going to have to show evidence that demonstrates/supports their beliefs. Honestly, I wouldn't even know how to go about setting up an experiment to support or deny a God. I mean, aside from saying, if there is a God, strike me with lightning or something like that. And then when it doesn't happen, claim that I have irrefutable evidence supporting my claim.

Anyway, moving on... After reading my brother's update on the California court decision finding the ban on gay marriages unconstitutional, I took a look at the case where an interracial couple was found guilty of violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. The judge stated that:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

And that's basically the same argument that people are using today against gay marriage. God said it wasn't ok, so our laws should reflect that. I'm sorry, but what country do we live in? I thought we were allowed to believe in whatever religion we wanted for ourselves. I thought our government and laws were not to advocate one religion over another. I thought there was supposed to be a separation of church and state.

Anyway, I guess I'm not really going anywhere with this rant. Just wanted to comment on Sonny's update. The purpose here is not to legislate religion; it is to ensure civil rights. Kudos to California for their ruling. I hope they uphold it though the appeals process.

Baby Name Poll

2005-03-16T06:55:00.000-05:00

Do you have names picked out for your future kids? Or did you have names picked out before you started trying to have kids?
Yes.
No.
Don't want kids.
Adopted/Going to adopt (hope they already have names).
Going to let the doctor pick.

Current results

QOTD From Googlex: "Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you."
LOTD -- Kind of an old article, but happened across it recently... sounded very intriguing:

Beauty and the Brainy: "In the July issue of Intelligence, the sociologists offer a theory to explain the confluence of beauty and brains. Their argument, in a nutshell: Intelligent men achieve higher status and marry beautiful women, who pass their genes on to their disproportionately attractive and smart kids, who win mates who are good-looking or brainy, and so on. Or at least that's what they put forth in the journal article, 'Why Beautiful People are More Intelligent.'"

College Hacker Poll

2005-03-15T06:47:00.000-05:00

If you were applying to college and found out you could check your admission status before the official letters went out, would you?
Yes, and if I got caught, I wouldn't expect to be accepted.
Yes, but it's not a big deal. My admission status should stand.
Yes, and if I got caught, I wouldn't deserve to attend that school anyway.
No, but I don't think the people who did should be automatically rejected.
No, but I would want to.
No, it's unethical and the people who did deserve what they get.

Current results

Pi Day

2005-03-14T20:42:00.000-05:00

Happy pi day!

LOTD: Why Nerds are Unpopular: "So if intelligence in itself is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so consistently unpopular? The answer, I think, is that they don't really want to be popular.

If someone had told me that at the time, I would have laughed at him. Being unpopular in school makes kids miserable, some of them so miserable that they commit suicide. Telling me that I didn't want to be popular would have seemed like telling someone dying of thirst in a desert that he didn't want a glass of water. Of course I wanted to be popular."

Pet Name Poll

2005-03-14T06:54:00.000-05:00

"Why is Jesus so popular this year?"

2005-03-13T15:20:00.000-05:00

Friday -- HotPockets adventure with Iän. My sister found that HotPockets were on sale at one of the Giants near us, but not at the other. So, she bought a bunch and got an in-store coupon for $1 off 5 more. So, she bought 5 more. Then they gave her a coupon for $1.50 off 6. She didn't have space for more, so she gave me the coupon, which I used... then they gave me a coupon for $1.50 off 8. Not as good a deal, but still came out to about $0.81 a box. So used that coupon... and got another coupon for $2 off 10. At that point, Iän and I were unsure as to whether we could fit another 10 in my freezer, so we passed on that deal. But that took up a good 15 minutes.

Met up with BFF and her sis for dinner at Sakoontra. Interesting experience. Food was good, as usual. In the middle of the meal, though, we heard some shouting over by the bar. Couldn't really hear things clearly and the coatrack was in the way of our view of the show, but it was either shouting between a customer and the manager or an employee and a superior. Hard to tell. Got up to leave and noticed there was a TJ person sitting at the booth behind us. Went to say hi and found that the two people with their backs to us were TJ people too. Left there for ice cream and hung out at my place for a bit.

Saturday -- Went to watch Iän's ultimate game. Talked to strangers and met some dogs. Went to Wegman's!! And then, the highlight of the weekend: finished Cryptonomicon. I'm so proud of myself. It only took 6 months. And I have to read 2 books by the end of the month to catch up to my New Year's resolution.

Movies this weekend:
Anchorman - Dumb. Funny.
Outfoxed - Angry. Want to quit my job and be an activist. I won't. But I want to.
The Village - The Lottery 2.0
Shawshank Redemption - I can't believe I haven't seen this before. Very good.

Sunday -- Played the part of dutiful daughter and went over for lunch. My aunt, uncle, and two cousins were there. One of my cousins is leaving tomorrow for Peace Corps training, so he couldn't make it since he was at church and had other errands to run before leaving. Off to run some errands before playing the part of dutiful girlfriend... ;) Anyone with book suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment. I think I'm tackling Animal Farm next. :) -j.

Cavity Poll

2005-03-11T06:59:00.000-05:00

QOTD: "I didn't say I felt depressed and suicidal."
"It's something to do."

LOTD: Sharpton Diet: "Here is the Sharpton Plan: Set realistic goals. Exercise three times a week at the gym. Skip breakfast. Salad for lunch (maybe some chicken, too). Salad for dinner (maybe some fish).

And to keep those hunger pains away - cookies. Boxes of cookies. He prefers Aunt Gussie's chocolate chip and almond. To be fair, the cookies are sugar free and made with organic wheat. But his trainer, Ms. Ross, clearly isn't pleased. 'They're not carrot sticks, Al,' she said."

Dining Out For Life

2005-03-10T14:42:00.000-05:00

Stolen from Aaron:

Dining Out For Life - Washington

For the ninth year, Food & Friends and Washington, DC's top
restaurants will team up to serve a dose of humanity. Many of the
area's best restaurants – from Fairfax to Dupont and Bethesda to
Capitol Hill – will join in the battle against HIV/AIDS, cancer, and
other life-challenging illnesses by donating anywhere from 25 to 100
percent of their revenue from every meal sold during Dining Out for
Life on March 10th.

Phobia Poll

2005-03-10T06:34:00.000-05:00

What are you afraid of?
Insects/Arachnids/Animals
People/Public speaking
Robots/Sharp and/or shiny objects
Heights/Flying/Falling/Drowning
Fire/Oven/Stove/Hot things
Open/Closed spaces
Illness/Disease/Death
Sunshine/Rainbows/Spring/Happiness
Social Security

Current results

QOTD: "If only more boys were like Matt"
LOTD: Bison Porn

Grape Poll

2005-03-09T06:56:00.000-05:00

LOTD: Raffaele Iannello Knife Block : Gizmodo

QOTD: "I have shinguards; I just don't normally wear them to bed."

EDIT: Oh, and if you think you win, leave your name and number of grapes in a comment. And raisins do not count. I'm picturing white, seedless grape variety, but you can use others if you like. :) -j.

Happy birthday!

2005-03-08T07:19:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday, Ian! Happy happy Ian day!

And, Happy International Women's Day! :) -j.

Next Poll

2005-03-08T06:54:00.000-05:00

If I were to meet you next Wednesday for lunch, when would you schedule me in your calendar?
The coming Wednesday: 3/9
Wednesday of the following week: 3/16
Last Wednesday: 3/2 and pretend like I was the one who had mis-scheduled.

Current results

Which of the following do you have?
Will
Living Will
Completed power of attorney form
Passport
401K/IRA/equivalent
Obituary (/Draft)
Epitaph
Resume
Cookies

Current results

What do/would you call your significant other?
Sweetie/Sweetheart
Honey
Babe/Baby
Darling
Dear
Love/Lovey
Cheri
Pet-form of their name/Their name
Retard

Current results

How many cavities have you had?
0
1-3
4-6
7-9
All I eat is candy.
I wear dentures.

Current results

How many whole grapes can you put in your mouth at once?
0-10
11-15
16-20
21-25
26-30
> 30

Current results