Wacky Cakes

I'm hooked on this site! Cake Wrecks has pics of just about every horrible cake out there.

One of the scarier ones:

Kitties and Cakes

Stef is Super had a birthday bash last weekend. Baby G and I made a cake to celebrate! It's a Bette Midler cake. I baked the cake, iced it and added a tasty border of slivered almonds. Baby G did the Bette portrait in whipped icing. It was a success! Not only attractive, but tasty (thanks, Betty Crocker!).The kits have been using these hot summer days to perfect their lounging positions. As you can see, they're doing well.

Post-Holiday

This weekend was bliss. Everyone went out of town at our house, save for me and Baby G. We went a-hunting Saturday morning for the "best bbq in Texas" in Lexington. We managed to find the town, but the bbq was all sold out when we got there. So we drove NW to Taylor and had some yummy brisket and sausage at another of the top 50 bbq joints.

Sunday brought bike rides and swimming at Barton Springs pool. What a delicious afternoon! The sun was warm, the water chilly, and the quasi-napping state I tranced into after my swim rejuvenating. Shout-out to Nanny and JJ.

Monday Baby G and I did some shopping, dropped off a few bags of donations to Goodwill, and had a leisurely lunch. I took not one, but two naps yesterday. Decadent!

All in all it was a wonderful three days. As you can imagine, it's pretty hard to be at work today.

Food, Music, and Beer

• Raleigh NC has banned new sink disposals because too much kitchen grease is accumulating in the sewers and it costs too much to clean it out. Of course, people are upset. I, however, think this is brilliant! I mean, it's not exactly the most difficult thing in the world to scrape your plate into the trash after you eat, nor is it hard to drain the cooking grease out of the frying pan into a jar for later disposal. I can't tell you how many times in my life I've seen people put grease (and other things like cereal, lettuce, etc) down the drain. If you've ever had the unfortunate experience of a backed up sewer line at your house, you probably feel the same disdain I do about food in the drain. Drains are for water not food! Start a compost pile and become an even more friendly citizen.
• The bloated beast known as SXSW is finally over. Yours truly managed to avoid the mayhem and come out the other side in one piece (although I almost hit a couple drunk pedestrians, through no fault of my own). However Baby G scored a wristband and saw some shows! Maybe she'll even post a little something about it here....??
• Dublin Ireland hosts its annual St Patrick's Day Parade. Whaddya bet they don't drink green beer, instead going for the good stuff? Indeed!

Corn Pops

I've been eating a lot of Corn Pops lately. They're tasty. However, I still haven't figured out what "big yellow taste" means. Anyone?

WTF?

We've all heard of bridezillas --- but this lady's special day went a touch too far in this humble robot's opinion.

Put that slice down!

No, not you. You, with the frozen pizza! It may have been contaminated with e. coli.

Candy Hangover

Last night I had two of the last hot dogs from Dog Almighty's drag location for dinner. (Sadly, they're closing their 2nd of three locations.) They were tasty but I couldn't really enjoy them, as I kept thinking about how there'd be no more trips to DA for a long time (their only remaining location is wayyyyyy south). I also ate about 6 mini Butterfinger bars (damn, I love those things!), drank a couple vodkas, and made a pot of popcorn over the stove which I consumed hungrily.

Ahh, Halloween... I alternated between the six-hour GhostHunters live episode and playing Super Mario Bros on Debi's Wii. I finally went to bed around 11. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I also couldn't beat the damn game. I had a great time yesterday, but today's been tough. I took a nap at lunch, but I'd love another one.

Happy November, folks.

A week off the grid...mostly

I spent the previous 3 days traveling to, through, and from Oklahoma. A fairly boring state, yes, but mostly flat in topography, allowing for quick travel. I was sent there to learn how to cull data from our ILS via MS Access. Yep, a whole 6 hours of tables, queries, and SQL. My meager brain was oatmeal by 3:30 pm.

After the session ended I whipped my green name-tag holder off over my head and strode out of the very imposing, but aesthetically-lacking, OSU library toward my car. I had a very cold bottle of stolen water in one hand and a file folder of powerpoint presentation pages in the other. I made it to my car and of course, went the wrong way. Again. I got lost many times in the tiny town of Stillwater. It's small and everything looks the same: either small house or campus building.

Not all who wander are lost, but I certainly was. Fortunately, work is reimbursing me for mileage.

Some thoughts and experiences:

1. Students in the OSU library are allowed food and drink. Wild! And their library was quite clean. I checked. Yes, all five floors!
2. Oklahoma seems to be under threat of tornado much of the time, even when there are no storms nearby. Paranoid much?
3. It is somewhat dangerous to drive while listening to David Cross do stand-up. There were a few times I laughed so hard, I almost swerved into the other lane.
4. The Club Sandwich at Wendy's is pretty tasty and wayyy less fattening than a cheeseburger. (Although, I had a couple of those on the way home...)
5. No matter how soft the hotel bed, your own bed is superior.

What a weekend!

I ate delicious food all weekend, but then made up for it by going on a lovely 3 mile hike yesterday at St Ed's park. After, we stopped by one of the last Albertson's in the area to score some going-out-of-business groceries at low low prices. This morning I had Froot Loops for breakfast. It was awesome!

What a difference a day makes

I had a lovely weekend. We saw the Tom Waits Peep Show by the Broken Clock Cabaret on Friday evening. We had a lovely housewarming/birthday party on Saturday, complete with feta bacon burgers AND dinosaur cake! And we had another nice small gathering Sunday with some of stef-is-supr's out of town friends where we dined on leftovers. Yum!

I ridiculously stuffed myself with food all weekend. Thankfully this evening we are erecting (tee-hee!) the badminton net and holding our first match at the new house.

What a crock!

But seriously, Country Crock says it will donate meals to hungry families for every story about sharing food, nay, Country Crock spread, internet users submit. Hey, why not?

Here are my two stories:

1. One time I left a bucket of Country Crock in the sun and it melted. I gave it to some hungry homeless guys who live under the bridge behind my house. They ate it but said it sure made them thirsty. I said, "Too bad. I only brought you the buttery spread."
2. One time I left a bucket of Country Crock in the freezer and it turned hard as a rock. This guy came to the door to ask me if I was saved. I said no. Then after a second I said, "Wait a minute, I have saved something!" So I went to the freezer and got the frozen buttery spread and chucked it at his head.

Oh man, sharing feels good!

Things I am digging riiiiiiiiiight now!

• Patrick Wolf's The Magic Position. It's poppy, it's sad, it's a hot mess and I can't stop listening!
• Sugar. I think I've eaten 2 rolls of mini-Sprees and 6 Hershey minis. Drool...
• The Office. A new ep shows tonight!
• Moving into new digs. I can't wait to live in a new place; however, I am decidedly not digging the actual moving process.
• CafePress. More info coming soon!
• The Wizard of Oz. I'm currently reading a book of essays about Oz and L. Frank Baum. Very fascinating. Who knew my favorite children's series was so subversive? The books were definitely not about "going home." If anything, they were a call to children everywhere to run away! Wooo!
• Short sleeve shirts and comfy sandals. Summer is coming.
• Cake decorating. I have a feeling it's going to be my next crazy hobby.

$21 a week

Oregon food stamp recipients only get $21/week for groceries. (Wow, and I thought I was being thrifty with an $84 grocery tab last week! And I used coupons!)

To bring awareness to this fact, the governor of Oregon is living off food stamps for a week. An interesting stunt. Perhaps Oregon's legislature will take heed?

Chocolate Tea or Me?

Apparently, dark chocolate is better at lowering blood pressure than tea. I like this report; however, I'm sure in the next few years a new report will come out saying tea is better.

Ice?

This was a bizarre weekend. It dropped 30 degrees and ice (!) came plinking out of the sky. Two inches of snow fell in the towns just north of us. The Yo La Tengo concert we planned to attend was canceled and we spent a chilly night watching The Sound of Music. What happened to the 80 degree temps of just a few days before? The lovely patio chairs I bought Friday sat cold and unused all weekend.

The good news is Baby G and I finally finished filling out our income taxes. (I had to pay this year. Ugh.) We also hosted a tiny Easter brunch complete with mimosas and chocolate chip pancakes Sunday morning. Oh, and I completely rearranged all the living room furniture. (It's amazing how much energy I have when there are tax computations to be avoided...)

This week has the potential to be hell. Not only do I have to spend several thousand dollars in collection development monies before the 20th (damn you, cheap children's books!), I also have all the little loose ends of our anniversary party to attend to. (Next time I decide to craft party favors from scratch, someone please shoot me.) I still don't have anything to wear to this shindig either. If things keep going the way they're going I might just be the only naked person at this party. Not good. Heh.

Yes, we have no bananas

The weekend went well here. Got a lot of shopping and errands done, caught the next-to-last episode of the season of BSG, and even saw an Iron Maiden cover band crank it out Saturday night (as well as a couple other acts). For the most part, I avoided the crush of a local overblown music conference and enjoyed the company of pals and pets instead.

Today is back to ye olde grinde. I've decided to not drink alcohol until Friday. Yes, an entire week of sobriety. Can I do it? I hope so. It is definitely time for a 'reboot' on this body. It's gotta last me another 70 years, so I need to at least look like I care. So far, so good. I even got up early this morning.

And now for a restaurant review: Yesterday Baby G and I went to a local restaurant called Manny Hattan's with high hopes in our hearts for tasty NY-style deli food. What we got wasn't so good. In fact, we've decided not to return. Bypassing the menu offering of breakfast tacos (in a NY-style deli?!) I had a bagel sandwich with egg, cheese and pastrami, G had kerplatch soup and a chicken salad sandwich on rye. This food was okay; "fair" would be a good word to describe it. It was the 2 "fancy" pickles brought to our table on a bed of saurkraut when we sat down that did us in. We, being the curious eaters we are, of course ate some of each pickle. One was bland and very cucumber-y with a severe aftertaste of vinegar. Blech! The other was an overcured shriveled offering that had been seasoned with too much pepper. It hovered somewhere between "sweet" and "dill" without capturing the essense of either. This noncommittal pickle left both of us with a grimaced face. Even worse, the two samples of pickle kept repeating on us all afternoon, thereby erasing any goodwill inspired by the lovely subway tile decor of the restaruant, the one thing the place really had going for it.

whup whup

We watched the Oscars last night. Yes, the show was too long, yes, Ellen was funny, and yes, poor Jennifer Hudson peaked way too early. But, we had great company, great food, and great weather.

In our Guess the Winner contest we had ties: two folks both guessed the most correct category winners, and two folks had the same number of wrong answers. Unfortunately, I only had one prize and one booby prize. (Ooops!) Everyone was kinda blah about the movies of 2006...and rightly so. It was a boring movie year. Here's to hopin' '07 will be better.

Big shout-out to Booklahver --- we missed you, babe!

Tyra Banks

For anyone that cares.

The Automat

Just cataloged a neat book about automats. Of course, the art deco was the first thing to catch my eye, but the concept of self-serve "fast" food also piqued my curiosity. The original American automat company went bankrupt in the 80s. However, apparently the automat is back in NYC. Wish we had one. Thus concludes our history lesson for today. Happy weekending!