February 28, 2003BUMSPOTTINGi've another haiku for someone who knows who she is. just for her. (you were warned, remember.) more may or may not follow after this, depending on absolutely nothing concrete, corporeal, or otherwise of this plane... so how does it feel (hey, if you put Ms. M's bum and Mr. S' boobs together, would you build the perfect...nah, nevermind. XD) The Infliction EEEE! scary slash fic! Braincrack i'm lying through my teeth Thom Bumbattle (in three parts) two cheeky lasses who will win this fight? but wait! another (sorry you clicked in yet...? XD) "hai-q!" "no, hai-Q!"inspired by Fi, have indulged in haiku excess. this will probably amuse me more than it amuses anyone else; of this i'm aware. all hail blogwankery~~~! Congrats to the Donnas! it's the same old song Ladytron you're in town tonight McLusky i've not heard you yet snobby elitist half of the story of my life greatly appreciate silly giggling fangirl half of the story of my life piles of magazines inner 10-year-old-boy half of the story of my life haha barney's tits! my latent creativity with numbers "percents make no sense." a letter from momo to parties unknown let me get my hands probably more to come, oh yes. indeed, i just can't get it out of my head...this is purely silly, and mostly because i'm bored out of my mind. hopefully you'll forgive me if i tuck it away in the "more"... following up on yesterday's revelation in The Sun regarding loyal fans and Ms. Minogue's seemingly unending cheekiness, we have this article on how British men allegedly appreciate their bottoms more than women, according to a recent study. it also goes on to note that respectively, Ms. Minogue and Mr. Posh Spice are apparently in possession of that isle's favourite bums of the moment. ...which leads me to wonder. how does one conduct an even quasi-scientific poll about who's got the best bum? are participants chosen at random? who is making these decisions? and what criteria are involved, both for bums and for individuals polled? inquiring minds don't actually want to know, but idle minds do go on long, strange trips all over the map and back again, bringing over(t)ly silly thoughts with them (and particularly when given overabundances of caffeine in place of much-needed sleep). in other news, on at least two occasions this week, i have seen some girl who looks an awful lot like Susannah Constantine. but although it's been on the same train going home that i take most of the time, it hasn't been the same girl each time. how many of them are there? has the Chicagoland area suddenly been inundated with Susannah clones? EXPLAIN THIS TO MEEEEEEEE! oh, yeah. i need to stop drinking this coffee right now. o.o;; February 27, 200314 years in the life of...well, it's official. our 1989 Jetta has been declared totalled. we suspected this would happen. it's still quite sad, though. we hadn't owned it for most of its life, but we'd tried to treat it fairly well for the time we did have it. well, except for the fact that i was learning to drive on it. but. XD Spaz wrote something very sweet about it in the comments on one of the entries i'd written about the accident below; i'm going to move it into this entry here and now so everyone can read it... here it is:
i feel rather badly for the car; it's a good car, and it's led a rather difficult life. poor baby's been badly abused. its life definitely has not been lucky, and i feel kind of badly about that (although we didn't own it until a few years ago). Yes, it has had a difficult life. i feel so sorry for this car. However, i'd like to believe that it's had a relatively good time living out its final years with us. i've fixed and improved quite a few things with this car. In fact, just yesterday i replaced a piece of trim around the trunk latch that had been broken by some dude at a party. We just put a new CD Stereo in it too. Mechanically, sure it needed new V-Belts & pulleys, and probably a valve-job. But it had already received new radiator hoses, a new low-temp fan switch to help the engine run cooler, totally rebuilt shift linkage and new bushings to help it shift smoother, a new fuel filter, O2 sensor, and knock sensor, starter motor, battery & electrical cables, timing belt, brake pads, spark plugs & wires, distributor cap & rotor, etc... Oh, and a full exhaust system from the manifold all the way back to the tail pipe. A little less than a year ago it got a new clutch installed, and most recently it had all 4 wheel bearings replaced, and a 4 wheel allignment done. It got some hand-me-downs from the '98 too, like a shift knob & boot, headlight bulbs, a weighted shifter rod, and even 14" alloy wheels & Dunlop snow tyres. Of course, it had one of jan's first successful attempts at making car accessories! A very attractive & well made boot & handle for the hand-brake lever! Somewhat of a rarity, it was one of the last West German production cars to make it into the USA. Most North American market MkII Jettas were made in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania or Puebla Mexico. It was always fun calling parts departments at VW dealerships... i'd tell them "8v, engine code RV, West German production," to which they would always reply "really?" in a somewhat surprised tone. And it was a good car. We'd taken it to Indianapolis for the U.S.G.P., with absolutely no worries of getting stranded, and got 40mpg doing it! It always started, even after being burried in snow for a month when i wasn't driving it regularly. The engine ran strong, and reliably, and once i replaced the faulty knock sensor, had a rock solid idle and great throttle response. No, it wasn't a sports car, but it was great fun, totally tossable around corners, and infinitely reliable. Damnit... as old and beat up as the poor thing was, even the sun-roof (manually crank operated, thank you) still worked, and never leaked! ;) Before we bought the MkII, it was obviously subjected to some trauma. If i had to guess, i would say it's been broken into several times, as the windshield and both passenger side windows were aftermarket glass. Probably the result of vandalizm or 'smash & grabs.' There were a few small holes in the seats, which looked like cigarette burns. Obviously, it had spent nearly all of it's life parked outside, too. Poor thing. ironically, my brother had just bought my Silver '98 MkIII Jetta the day before, so the '89 MkII Jetta got to spend what will most likely be its last night with us parked in the garage, in the spot formerly reserved for the '98. It seemed to like this too, as it wasn't stuck out in the cold all night, and the engine ran much better today upon start-up than it ever had after being out in the cold all night. Poor thing... and i had just renewed the tags for another year not even two months ago. =( While we don't know for sure, i bet it'll be written off due to the extent of the damage and the cost of repairs vs. the car's current value. We'll miss you. You were a good friend, and one tuff little S.O.B. Goodbye, MkII. i'll probably post up a photo later. February 26, 2003OMG STFU!at long last, the band site has been overhauled. i wish i could take more credit for it, but the new layout is actually not my doing at all. i did contribute the content, though. ^^ go! visit! send your friends! and tell me what you think! (also, we now have the best 404 error message ever. short, sweet, to the point. try to get one and see for yourself. XD) BENTfinally got to watch our tape of the MINI snowmobile episode of Monster Garage last night. will put the rest in the "more" section in case of spoilers... for anyone not familiar with it, the concept behind Monster Garage is really cool. Jesse James, famous for his insane bike designs, assembles a different team each episode* to transform a stock vehicle into something completely different from what it was originally intended to do. such as making a school bus into a working pontoon boat, or a Ford Explorer (Eddie Bauer edition) into a working garbage truck. each team is given a budget of $3,000 which they must not exceed in acquiring anything necessary to make the transformation happen, and they're also given a time limit of 6 full days in which to get it done. on the 7th, their vehicle (if it's been successfully completed) participates in a competition against a real version of whatever it is they've transformed their vehicle into. so the Explorer garbage truck competed against a real garbage truck, etc, etc. (oh, and i nearly forgot the other very stringent rule regarding their creations: the vehicle must appear stock from the outside after they've modified it.) anyway, so the most recent episode featured the transformation of a brand new 2003 MINI Cooper into a snowmobile---something we knew would be both interesting and a bit painful to watch (i mean, they're tearing apart an innocent little MINI! ;.;). and it was a bit of both. it was also featured quite prominently in the MINI booth at the Chicago Auto Show this year, so we got to see it up quite closely (although of course we weren't allowed in it).** while it was loads of fun to watch them design, build, redesign when things didn't work quite the way they wanted, and finally get this project together, this episode was a lot less fun than i remember the show being previously. for one, since Jesse + the show have gotten to be so well known, they got a LOT of stuff for free. they've always gotten some things for free, due to Jesse's and other team members' connections---usually wheels and tyres and such. but this time round, they got nearly everything for free; and this really rather defeats the whole budgeting challenge, which was an interesting constraint. so there's that element gone. additionally (and i don't know if this has been the case in other more recent episodes, as i haven't seen all of them), it seems like Jesse's not really doing a whole lot and is instead having the team do all the work. it was much cooler when EVERYONE worked on the vehicle in question and put their hands all over it. at least, so i thought. from the MINI snowmobile episode, it seemed he didn't do much other than offer some suggestions here and there, put the roll cage in to stabilise the gutted MINI unibody, and then drive the thing in the competition on day seven. when the team decided to work through the night trying to work out the design flaws that had presented themselves on day 5/6, he went home and went to sleep. granted, the Discovery Channel pages refer to him as the "host," but they also always refer to the competitions as "Jesse and his team of blahblahblah," which makes you think he's doing more than just delegating. it's not much fun to watch someone with such talent just delegate and give go-aheads or vetos to other team members' ideas. perhaps it was only the one episode. or perhaps i'm asking too much. it's not bad, mind---it's still a really fun show. but it was a whole lot better before---at least, so i think. * = well, and the producers too, i'm sure. ** = what was PARTICULARLY funny about this was that when we first walked by it, neither of us saw the big sign announcing it as the Monster Garage MINI Snowmobile. instead, coming at it from the side as we did, we saw the paint job first. since it seems most things coming out of his garage have super-flamey paint jobs, i completely jokingly said "hey look, it's the Jesse James MINI!" Spaz and i giggled and walked away to look at other things. only upon coming back to the booth later on to drool in the MINIs some more did we see that in fact it was from Monster Garage. leading me to proclaim, "dude, i SWEAR i was joking!" XD February 25, 2003that's not to say that i'm not a swekno disco loveryep, here's what you're afraid of... last night: the aftermath. i know there were more than this, but i'm guessing they anyrate, here you go. click on the thumbnails to see larger versions pop up in new windows right before your very (blurry) eyes. 
come down in the street and dance with me......but wait! there's more to the weekend than what you've heard! yesterday was the final day of our four-day weekend. and although it was still pretty strange, given the events of the past day and the rental car retrieval and phone calls and all that, it still got even stranger late last evening. sometime shortly after 9pm or so, we get a phone call from Shin_Jon. apparently, Wired magazine was doing some sort of article either on anime cons or on Acen in particular, and so they'd been working on that all day with high-ranking Acen staff members, as well as taking photos and such. and then, he tells us, they decided they wanted to take some photos of SWEK. o.o;;; thing is, the article and all associated photos apparently needed to be handed in sometime today. which was "tomorrow" when he said it yesterday, of course. UM. O.O;;; so he wondered if it would be okay if everyone assembled at our house (since it's fairly central to the rest of the band) to take the photos, and apologised for it being such short notice and so late and all that. and if we had problems with it, we could use the cartoon drawing we've been using of ourselves for fliers and such---the main reason against using that is that we've no longer got the brass section playing with us, and they're very prominently included in that drawing. i replied sure, it's already been an amazingly surreal past few days---why not? appropriate phone calls ensued; everyone else was game, and thusly they descended upon Spaz' and my house. it was fun, and entertaining. i have my doubts as to whether or not the magazine will actually use these photos that we took, but if they do, the article's supposed to be in the May issue. and either way, provided Shin_Jon throws them up on the server sometime soon (which he said he'd do last night already, actually), i'll make sure you know. they were taken with a really nice digital camera, and i saw some of them already last night. most turned out quite well. Mike looks like he belongs in a L'Arc en Ciel video (well, he did after borrowing one of my glammier jackets...XD yay gunmetal pleather & black fake-fur collar and cuffs! XD XD XD); just needed some eyeliner. and Milo's in a couple of the photos! XD there was more i had to write, mostly just random stuff. i've forgot it all mostly, except to mention that i've watched a bunch of Willow/Tara-arc episodes of Buffy over the weekend. and i keep squeeing over how ky0000000t they are. <3 <3 <3 too bad i know how it ends. :P still need to see the beginning of the ep where Oz returns; missed most of it when it was on yesterday. and missed finding out why Riley's on the run, which seems like it might be kinda important. (even though i don't particularly care for him as a character; though he seems a bit more interesting now that he's on the run. XD) *coughs* anyone care to help me? *gazes pointedly in someone's direction* how to lose two cars in two daysso, needless to say (which of course is why i'm saying it anyway), it's been a weird past few days. 'twas to have been a nice and much-needed four-day weekend for the both of us, and while it was technically four days, er...something was a bit lacking in the latter half of it. i think the whole crash scenario is really what did it, although i could be wrong. XD i forgot to mention, though: one OTHER stupid thing the lady IIRC, it came after Spaz remarked on where the bumper of her car had hit ours. we were shocked the window glass hadn't shattered from the impact, honestly. her Blazer didn't make contact with it, but it was only a few inches below that. fat lot of good those disgustingly gigantic bumpers insisted on for all new vehicles sold in the US do then, right? it's such a complete and utter load of shit. apparently mounting the bumpers up as high as they are on SUVs sold here wasn't enough of a safety risk for anyone with the distinct misfortune of being hit by one of these things and not (gasp!) being in a gas-guzzling, overpolluting death hog on wheels (which should require special, stringent certification to drive in the first place, but mysteriously doesn't). oh, no---because of certain regulations here, our bumpers are HUGE by comparison with stock bumpers required in most other countries round the world. why? because we get in more accidents, and bumpers are thought to make us safer. which wouldn't be such incredibly flawed reasoning were it not for the fact that SUVs and other trucks here have their bumpers (and headlights, but that's less of a safety rant, really) mounted up so high that this makes them even MORE dangerous to anything out on the road that isn't a fellow SUV/truck. ANYWAY. so, Spaz commented on where her Blazer (which we found out was a '92 later on, in the police report---we'd initially thought it to be from sometime in the mid-to-late '80s, by body style and wear on the thing) had hit our Jetta, and she said something about how she'd been thinking about getting a new car, but she's got a bunch of kids and her husband to consider, and they just don't make station wagons anymore. which made both of our eyes pop out of our heads; it's been some sort of mission to get people we know who are considering buying giant SUVs to instead consider all the various station wagon options that are available. specifically, lately we've been trying to convince Spaz' mom of this, as the lease on her Chevy Blazer is up very soon and she had been looking for a new vehicle. now, it's understandable that if you've got a large family and/or drag a lot of stuff around with you on a pretty regular basis, you're going to want a vehicle with room to do so comfortably, right? this isn't the problem. what IS the problem is thinking that most SUVs are the way to go in order to achieve this. yes, they look big and imposing on the outside---but on the inside? most of them have an incredible amount of very poorly used space. you get MUCH more usable space out of a station wagon than you do out of an SUV that's virtually twice its size. so anyway, we ran down a huge, huge list of station wagons still being made today. until the WRX came out, Subaru was probably best known here in recent time for its Outback and Forester wagons---and you've got the bonus of all-wheel drive there as well, which i know would sell a lot of people on them. and although it's ass-ugly IMHO, there's also the Ford Taurus wagon. and the Saturn wagon. and i think Toyota still makes a Camry wagon, and there's always the Mazda Protege5 (which was the main competition in my head against the MINI Cooper as to what i was aiming to get in a few years). there's the Ford Focus wagon. there are slightly older Mitsubishi Diamante wagons, i believe. Volkswagen makes Jetta and Passat wagons which we get here as well. and if you go slightly higher up the line, there's at least one Saab wagon, the absolutely spectacular Audi All-Road (which we were trying to sell Spaz' mom on; honestly, i could totally see her in one of these, and it's comparable price-wise with the SUVs she was admiring pretty heavily), and of course BMW and Mercedes both make wagons in addition to their much newer entries into the SUV market. if i'd had paper, i'd have written her a list. but i didn't. she looked kind of dazed, though---but she looked that way before we started rattling off our huge list of wagons. drives me nuts---no, they aren't advertised nearly as well as SUVs and even normal passenger cars are. but they do exist. and i'm sorry, but if i were going to plunk down a large amount of money for anything, you'd better believe i'd want to do my research first and make sure i was making the best choice i possibly could. it makes me really sad, to realise that yes, there are people who are that brainwashed by adverts and "experts" and the like. ...utterly flaky bint. but as i said before, it's nowhere near as bad as it could have been. i'm still a bit sad, but we had been trying to figure out what to do with that car anyway---the '98 Jetta GT (in the lovely colour known as "silver arrow") had just been sold to Spaz' brother the day before this happened. yesterday, the lady's insurance company called to offer up a rental car, at their expense. we're not sure how long this'll last for, but they then called the rental place, which came and picked up Spaz so he could go pick out a car. due to their being out of all the cars in the $20.99/day range which the insurance company had agreed to pick up the tab for, they upgraded for free to the next higher class---which ended us up with a Saturn of some sort. it's an automatic (of course, it being a rental place and all), and it's in bad need of both a bath and an alignment. but it's a car, and will get us to work (well, me via the train) and the grocery store and such. trunk space is rather pitiful, though. reminds me of a Civic. XD probably more later; also probably less ranty. ^^ February 23, 2003LOTTERY OR CAR CRASHi hate playing the "if" game. but in some instances, it's very nearly unavoidable. we were in a car accident today. driving around a curve in a road we'd driven along many, many times before; in the '89 Jetta. suddenly, a lady driving an old Chevy Blazer is coming at us from the right, off of a side street. there's a big stop sign that she either misses or ignores, as well as notification on a large rectangular sign directly underneath the stop sign that advises drivers approaching from that direction that "CROSS TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP." luckily, there was no traffic in the opposing lane on the street we were on, so Spaz was able to swerve enough that the impact was taken entirely by the right rear quadrant of the car. because as you know, our SUVs here have bumpers designed to match up with those of other SUVs, not actual cars. so of course, the brunt of the damage was taken up rather high in the right rear passenger door, as well as on the section of car behind that (particularly the wheel arch). had there been opposing traffic, Spaz wouldn't have been able to manouevre the car in that manner, and i wouldn't be writing this right now---would more than likely be seriously fucked up and in the hospital. so i'm lucky. we're both lucky, really---neither of us was hurt. i think i've got some bruises that'll show up tomorrow on my legs, but that's not so bad, really. and even the birthday cake came out of it alright; we'd stopped to pick it up for Spaz' nephew, who's turning 4 tomorrow. the box got a little banged, but i marvelled that the cake itself was alright. it was a completely stupid thing, but i couldn't help but be amazed that the cake wasn't completely ruined. we're lucky in many ways---the lady had insurance, for one. this has been a problem in the past. also, she didn't run. this has also been a problem in the past; in fact, both have been problems more than once each. i had my cell phone with, so we called the police right away and an officer came and took our reports and separated us from the lady and such. at first, it seemed that the car would be okay to at least drive home on, but as we pulled it off into a nearby parking lot on advisement of the officer, we heard the fender grinding as the rear wheels spun, and it only got worse going over the kerb up onto the asphalt of the parking lot. so it ended up getting towed away on a flatbed, to a nearby emergency storage facility. we sat in the back of the officer's police car while waiting for Spaz' dad to come pick us up. never sat in one of those before; wow, those seats are hard. before the officer got there, the lady had said to Spaz, "serves me right for driving when i was sleepy." um. *.*;;; (shall refrain from comment here because trust me, you're better off. i'm sure you have an idea of what i'd say if i wrote about it. wench.) i don't think this'll put me off of driving. Spaz wondered if it would. honestly, while it's always difficult to trust people (and ESPECIALLY people driving 2,000 lbs. + of potential death machine around), i think if i were going to be put off of driving by anything, it would be by my own fuckups, not someone else's. and really, sometimes, there's nothing you can do. we were incredibly lucky that it wasn't worse. the car will likely be totalled; the insurance agent(s) have yet to look at it. that'll happen tomorrow. but it's unibody construction, and the damage that was done today will likely cost more than the value of the car at this point in time. i feel rather badly for the car; it's a good car, and it's led a rather difficult life. poor baby's been badly abused. its life definitely has not been lucky, and i feel kind of badly about that (although we didn't own it until a few years ago). but we were incredibly lucky, and i won't forget it. February 22, 2003love is in the airit's a very interesting feeling, this. and i'm quite sure i've never experienced anything like it. oh, i'd seen the new MINI Coopers. admired them in photos, in magazines, on billboards, in movie trailers, in TV adverts, etc., etc. in person, even---they're of course even more gorgeous that way. (which is in no way meant to discount old Minis. oh no. but.) yesterday, i sat in a MINI Cooper S. i'd never got the chance to do so before; nor have i ever sat in a regular one, even. it was lovely. i shall probably expound upon this at length later on. i will have a MINI Cooper. preferably the S. undecided as yet on the colour scheme (there are SO MANY good colours to choose from!), although i'm leaning towards British Racing Green with a white top and of course the white racing stripes on the bonnet. there are loads of reasons why this car is cool. fairly standard in BMW products is the drive-by-wire throttle system, which this has got (if working properly, will communicate more efficiently between the driver and the engine, thusly improving response time, increasing fuel efficiency, etc, etc.). it's also got equal length drive shafts (which are useful in eliminating torque steer, as both Spaz and the little MINI Book of Motoring told me at virtually the same time XD), multi-link rear suspension, a supercharged 1.6 litre 16-valve 4 cylinder engine (putting out 163 HP), and a 6-speed manual gearbox. which shifts quite nicely, provided you aren't a twit and don't grind the poor showcar mercilessly without holding the clutch down, as some individuals at the auto show were doing yesterday. speaking of which, the MINI booth was conveniently located right next to the Subaru booth, so we were able to run back and forth between the two at will, ignoring pretty much everything else. they had one of the Subaru WRC cars there on display, in full livery---it was gorgeous. and it was propped up so you could see underneath, where the underside of the body is all sealed up to protect everything against the rigors of rallying. and our version of the STI was on proud display as well---on a turntable, and of course no one was allowed in it or even really to touch it. absolutely gorgeous car (and with any luck, i'll soon be in v. close contact with someone who will have one...^^). and then, just for a laugh, we of course skipped over to the Mitsubishi booth to look at the LanEvoVIII in person. and yes, it is verily more ass-ugly in person than it had been in photos. the STI completely whups its sorry arse; definitely in looks, and i believe in performance as well. (although i don't know the specs on it; you'd have to ask Spaz about those, as the STI is his current great-reasonably-attainable-automotive-love. XD) but, as i said, a MINI Cooper will be mine one day. hopefully the S. it will happen. now i have a new goal to shoot for. how lucky that my dream car is, well, not outrageous...? XD (oh, yes, and there are roof racks available for them as well. unfortunately, to install them, holes must be drilled in the poor roof, but there are nice little covers that go over the mounting brackets, and apparently MINI has roof racks of their own and will install them for you. saw this lady's page and found that it's not so bad as you'd think, just hearing about how you have to drill holes in your roof. and $400 installed isn't so bad, especially when you consider that having MINI do it would mean liability if anything went wrong during installation would be on their heads and not mine---i'm very DIY, but i wouldn't really want to have to pay to replace the roof on my car right after i'd got it because of a stupid mistake i made in my newbieness at doing such things, y'know? rather expensive mistake to make. but hey, this adds to the practicality of it---i'll be able to carry stuff for when we go on road trips! ^^) ...listen to me, talking as though i'd already got it. this is some time off---a few years, probably. but. it. will. be. mine. ^__________^ February 20, 2003PSA (of sorts)for anyone else wondering what's been up with LiveJournal since sometime late last night, here's the scoop. just so you know. GIANT POT OF SOUPY GOODNESS, PART IIlast night, i finished off making this week's giant pot o' soup. i'd started it the night before, quite optimistic that i'd get it done in one night (and especially since i'd gotten home early!), but alas, it was not to be. this one takes awhile, but most of it's time you can pretty much ignore it and do something else for, so it's really not so bad. it's a very simple recipe, and it's also quite healthy and very cheap---what could be better? TIME REQUIRED: Either 1.5 hours or overnight for soaking the peas; your choice. The soup itself will take probably a good 2-3 hours to get to the nice creamy consistency you want, but again---you can ignore it while it simmers away peacefully; it only needs stirring once in awhile. Also, this recipe isn't kidding when it claims to be a giant pot of soup---it'll last the two of us a week, or thereabouts. Divide or multiply to obtain the amount you'd like. INGREDIENTS * 2 1 lb. bags of yellow split peas PREPARATION If you've never worked with dried peas (or beans) before, don't worry---it's really not very difficult. DEALING WITH THE PEAS Next, you've got two options for soaking the peas. Option one: Place them in a big pot, add a whole bunch of water (I'd say it's not possible to use too much, really; just make sure there's quite a bit more than is necessary to cover the peas), and bring to a boil. Let it boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and let sit undisturbed for an hour. Drain; sort again (if you'd like), rinse, place once more in pot for the actual soup-making. Option two: Throw the sorted peas into a big pot of water and let soak overnight (or at least 3-4 hours). Drain; sort again (if you'd like), rince, and place once more in pot for the actual soup-making. Chop the carrots, celery, and onion into smallish chunks and add to pot of peas. Add broth, kosher salt, and bay leaves; turn stove on to moderately high heat; lid pot. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Once it reaches a boil, turn heat down just enough so that danger of boiling over is averted; allow to simmer (still lidded), stirring occasionally, until the peas have softened and begun to disintegrate into proper pea-soupiness. If soup is not thick enough, sift in some corn starch and stir vigorously. This will probably take 2 to 3 hours. Serve hot; enjoy! This goes well with really quick and easy buttermilk biscuits, which i'll give the recipe for below. Seriously, this is yet another time where I find it difficult to believe prepackaged mixes for these things exist---this is hands down one of the easiest, quickest things I've made outside of standard chocolate chip cookies. The odds are that they'll turn out brilliantly the very first time you make them, and you'll thusly have the recipe permanently embedded in your brain after having experienced such a rush (ahem). And then you'll want to share with all your friends, etc, etc. TIME REQUIRED: Approximately 25 minutes. You could very easily throw these together at a moment's notice, provided you've got the ingredients in your house. INGREDIENTS * 2 c. all-purpose or cake flour (cake flour will make them lighter and fluffier, but all-purpose works well, too) * 1 tsp. baking soda * 3 tsp. baking powder * 4 tbsp. butter (you can use more or less as you like, but this is a pretty optimal amount) * just under 1 c. buttermilk (you can easily find powdered buttermilk in the baking goods aisle of your local supermarket; this stuff is brilliant because you can keep it for nigh on forever in your fridge and mix up exactly the amount of buttermilk you need, whenever you need it!) PREPARATION Preheat your oven to 450ºF. Next, mix together all dry ingredients thoroughly. Cut butter into small pieces and add to dry ingredients; use your hands to work flour and butter in together until butter is thoroughly incorporated into flour mixture (this is similar to making a pie crust, actually). Add buttermilk to mixture, stirring just until everything is mixed together pretty thoroughly. Form into a rough ball; the dough should be slightly sticky, but if it's too much so, add a tiny bit more flour. If it's too dry (which it won't be), add a tiny bit of water. Plop that dough ball down on your chosen lightly-floured work surface (countertop, pastry board, etc.) and mush it down into a flat, semi-rectangular shape; do not handle more than is absolutely necessary so that biscuits will be light and fluffy. Stop when the dough reaches a thickness of approximately 3/4-1". Use a biscuit cutter or handy drinking glass (or cookie cutter, if you'd like star-shapes, etc.) and cut out biscuits. Once you've gotten as many biscuits out of the dough as you can in its present shape, mush the remaining dough back together and continue cutting biscuits until there's no more dough left. Place biscuits on ungreased cookie sheet(s); there should be at least 10 of them, unless you've chosen to make them in a particularly gigantic shape. Bake for 7-10 minutes (depending on your oven) , or until they've browned quite nicely. Serve and eat as soon as possible after baking for best taste; if you must store leftovers, I wouldn't advise refrigerating as they'll get quite hard. WHICH ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER?via the Null Device, here's a fun little game to help you waste a few more minutes of your Thursday away: Despot or Sexpot? (i'd suggest the tagline as "the taches aren't telling," but that's just me. XD) in other news, why can't we all just settle our differences with pillow fort wars? i think i'm going to cry. XD more later, including (probably) another soup recipe! ^^ February 19, 2003SONG FIGHT ACADEMY (learn and sing)it is very much as they say: timing is everything. i'm finally beginning to appreciate Sleater-Kinney's One Beat. i didn't dislike it before. but i really wasn't sure how i felt about it. and there are still a couple of songs i really don't care for in the slightest ("Step Aside" being chief amongst them). but mostly, i do really enjoy it. i suppose this shouldn't really be a surprise, though---this is slightly similar to what happened with All Hands On The Bad One---but in a different way. i think the best way to explain it is that i needed to be in the proper state of agitation to really appreciate this album properly, and i guess i've finally reached it. there were some songs that stuck with me from the start, though; "Far Away," "The Remainder," "Oh!," "Combat Rock," "Light-Rail Coyote," and "Lions & Tigers" are chief amongst these. but i really didn't end up listening to it much until now. i was really glad they wrote a song like "Combat Rock," though. and still remain glad. we need more. here are lyrics (top of the right column); here is the song. also, creativity is mutancy. the Times told me so. XD February 18, 2003ROLLER-GIRLmade a quiche last night. have made soufflé(s...?) before, but never quiche. turned out really pretty and quite tasty, although the time it spent in the oven was more like an hour than 30-40 minutes. i know things vary based on your oven, but my oven is still pretty on-the-mark, as it's still pretty new. but. it had bacon, sauteed onions, and cheese (one of those mixed bags of cheddar, asadero, and i forget what else). will add mushrooms next time, which will make it even better. did a cornmeal & garlic crust for it, and it turned out quite tasty. i <3 what you can do with pie crusts. XD have also been painting! while it's historically been Spaz' Big Project to paint things around the house when the mood strikes him, i'm doing some as well this time. he's really good at it though; i haven't quite reached that level of mastery yet. hopefully i'll get there. the house is going to look really great, though; i'll take pictures once it's done. can't guarantee how great the quality of the pictures will be, but i'll try to make sure they're at least lit decently. XD other goings on have been afoot as well. have been organising and putting things away like mad, as well as compilating like mad...amongst other things. several Big Bad projects are underway even as we speak; most of these are things which i cannot speak about here, under penalty of death by severe sporkage. so i shan't. XD got a (much-needed) haircut yesterday; as a result, my hair now looks approximately 10,000.00935% better than it had been lately. have been asked if it was recoloured as well, which it wasn't---hasn't been for a few weeks or so (i've lost track already of when last i did it). it's kind of nice now, having dye that doesn't come out so easily---but i really do miss the colours from before. the purple was nicest of all. too bad there isn't permanent dye like that; i'd snap it up in an instant. am using a leave-in conditioner now too, on advice of the lady who cut my hair yesterday. and truthfully, i had known i probably needed one; so far, it's helping nicely. this is the stuff i got, although it's in a slightly different bottle and has the words "hair healer" before "intensive leave-in conditioner." it's nice; most leave-ins i've ever used thoroughly gunked up my hair, but this doesn't. it just makes it soft and silky and nice. it smells like some sort of cologne, but you don't end up using enough of it for it to be obnoxious and/or overwhelming. also, the bottle isn't kidding when it says you only need to use it sparingly, which is also really nice. (and i think i may end up sniffing my hair in a most unseemly WHERE HAS MY HEAD BEEN? IN A DISNEY TOILET....in other news, whilst i knew about A-Girl Studio. but it hadn't had a blog up as its main page last time i visited. i am also shamefully behind in Charm School. must remedy this situation at some point. most likely when i have money for such things. ^^;;; *adds to long, loooooong list* HITTING POLLS, DRIVING STAKES THROUGH OUR HEARTSquick question: which breaks your head more conceptually, the idea of a Missy Elliott/Joy Division mashup... ...OR... ...the idea of a Missy Elliott/Shellac mashup? just wondering. ^^ *whimpers fearfully* February 17, 2003DAMMITi know, i know...better to leave their fans wanting more and all that, but it still sucks. i still need to go out and get those Kitchen 7"s, though... bastard, bastard, bastard...--;;; strawberry milkspinning: "the headless waltz." voltaire. interesting article from Saturday's worldwide protest about the anti-war protest you didn't hear about. ...and i have nothing more to say right now, really. February 14, 2003CYMBALIC CHICAGO!further to my post below: via Rob, an interesting concept re: tomorrow's events which might intrigue you if you're in the general Chicagoland area: For a map of the route, parking, and information about the other groups WISE UP BOY, TIME'S AT ITS ENDas mentioned elsewhere by Fi and Jae Young, tomorrow is International Protest Day. it's difficult to hold out hope that i, personally, have any power. but we have power, and we have to believe that we have power, if there's enough of us in that "we". if you're in the Chicagoland area, info on the local event can be found here. the more of us there are, the more difficult it will be for us to be ignored. it is far too easy to have no hope for what's to come; i vacillate between this and wanting to believe innumerable times per day. i hope that if there's enough of us, we'll not only reinforce whatever tiny seeds of hope we might have, but also prevail, because this apathy is absolutely killing me. and all of us. what the hell is wrong with us? we absolutely should be afraid, but not of what we're told to be afraid of. February 13, 2003HYSTERICAL AND USELESSstopped by the newsstand in Union last night, as it was exceedingly cold and thus i arrived exceedingly early before my train was scheduled to depart for the evening. as a result, spent about 15 minutes flipping through one of those "great-to-waste-time-but-not-usually-actually-buy-unless-they've-got-pretty-pictures" magazines---namely, Q. but not the normal Q. there's a special edition out now, comprising their personal picks for "100 Songs That Changed The World." as for the list? it's not so bad. of course there are some things i'd agree with and some i wouldn't, and some i'd switch places around---but then, i'd have problems doing this in a hierarchical fashion of any sort anyway. i'm horrid with doing such lists. but they can be entertaining enough to waste a bit of time, so i did. probably everyone you'd expect was in there, and more. the top 10 got a few more pages each to their coverage (and yay! Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit." ^___^ that CERTAINLY belongs.) than the rest, natuerliche. and squee! HILARIOUS story about the Emu-dropping toils and tribulations of pulling "Blue Monday" together. eheh. and Kraftwerk! and god, what else? i can't remember. Otis Redding was in there somewhere. but! Billie Holiday! ^-^ (i decided it was time to put the magazine down and go get on my damned train already when the Kraftwerk photo actually made me emit the closest thing to a coo i think i've ever done unintentionally out loud. o.o;;;) February 11, 2003NOTHING NATURAL...perhaps the time has come for ecologically-sound hobbit holes? (taken from the Null Device) more later, maybe. February 10, 2003ALARM CALLspinning: "generation wrekkked." chuck d. echoing Jae Young's concern, for those of you who don't read her, please have a look at this: US Patriot Act, Part Deux (draft) how can one be made more livid? easily, apparently. as though previous efforts weren't enough, and as though our collective complacency and seeming willingness to roll over and take it right up the arse sans even a nice spitwad to make pretense of lubrication beforehand weren't enough, right? at the same time, one is left to wonder what one can do; it's difficult to hold out any hope that we as individuals actually have any say in how these things are being run. this has been proven to us time and again, and that's at least part of why i believe we have become even more complacent than we previously were as a nation. what is the point in acting when none of it does any good; these people are obviously going to do whatever they goddamn well please anyway, and fuck the rest of us bloody and sore and raw. i'd love to say this is unbelievable, but i really can't, in all honesty. it seems only the beginning of the inevitable conclusion. we are the nation of millions holding ourselves back. i feel so fucking hopeless right now. WHAT PLANET IS THIS?few things amuse me more than connecting things that i like. it's a special kind of amusement, to be sure---but it's definitely quite strong. so, er, awhile ago, Rob lent me this Ground Zero CD. apparently one of the last things they did, it was called simply "Plays Standards," and was loads of fun to listen to. i'll have to track it down when i've got some money, as well as listen to other things they've done. they unfortunately no longer exist, but the evil genius behind their formation (Otomo Yoshihide) is still wreaking plenty of havoc elsewhere. as are former members of Ground Zero. ...anyway, upon lending Rob the 4th disc in the Cowboy Bebop box this morning (the one with all the live Seatbelts goodness on), he mentioned that this had come up on a mailing list he's on. it seems that some of the members of Ground Zero were also members of the Seatbelts. well, only two that i spotted. but still. so, er, that's today's big revelation. ^-^ *goes off to g33k quietly elsewhere* [addendum: oh, and apparently somewhere in one of Otomo's projects, Tsuneo Imahori was involved. as in "writer of the score for Trigun." eheh. ^^] February 09, 2003IN THE INTEREST OF DEMONSTRATING JUST HOW EASILY AMUSED I AM...i give you the AOHell translation of the entry below: WEK3ND HASNT EXACTLY BEN UNPRODUCTIEV BUT IMM FELNG MORA AND MOR3 AS THOUGH I SHUD HAEV GOTEN MORE DONA THAN I HAEV BY NOW!!!111 LOL WHICH OF COURSE IS Y IMM WRITNG THIS HER311!1! WTF LOL XD FRIDAY NIGHT WANT 2 DA BIG BAD PLAEC OF AVIL 2 PIK UP A BOK ID ORD3RAD!1!1!1!! LOL THEN WENT 2 IEKA HAD1111! OMG WTF LOL ANOTHER V1!!1!11! OMG LOL SUC3SFUL AND PRODUCTIEV PRACTIEC YEST3RDAY THEYRE LOADS I NED 2 WORK ON BUT I y'know, now that i think about it, i ought to've saved that up till 1 April and done over the whole front page of HSL...oh well. ^-^ Emperor Norton's birthday is coming up in 5 days! prepare yourselves! HOWEVER I LOOK, IT'S PLAIN TO SEEweekend hasn't exactly been unproductive, but i'm feeling more and more as though i should have gotten more done than i have by now. which, of course, is why i'm writing this here. XD Friday night, went to The Big Bad Place of Evil to pick up a book i'd ordered. then went to Ikea, where we had nummy dinner and played with a fun light that has little plastic signs you can slip in---would be fun to make custom ones for it. >D (later found out ShinJon had bought one earlier in the evening, which is even funnier. XD) ate nummy food, found doorknobs, and heard "Getting Away With It" played in the store. i couldn't believe they were playing it. i giggled hysterically. man. had another v. successful and productive practice yesterday; there's loads i need to work on, but i think we're doing pretty well. hung out with Eric and Sarah afterward, where we went to the Billy Goat Tavern (the original one, down on Lower Michigan) and had burgers cos Sarah desperately wanted one (or two). they were okay; nowhere near the best burgers i've ever had, but alright. i think i don't have the hatred for them Spaz has got mostly cos it was never built up to be this Amazing, Great, Legendary Place to me. i sorta missed out on that whole thing. so it was sorta just like some new experience to me, with nothing particular attached to it except to remind me once again that parking downtown SUCKS. eee. but it was fun; good to see them. they dropped me off and i made two of the CDs i'd planned. also made tacos, frijoles negros y arroz. nummy dinner. loads more stuff to do today, since i didn't get much done yesterday. *yawns* eeeeeeee...i wish we had milk. :P February 07, 2003JITENSHA NI NOTTE(betcha that'll get a certain someone i know singing a certain song. XD) saw someone on the train this morning on the way in with a Birdy bicycle. i want one. badly. shall have to look into how much they cost. this would be BRILLIANT to have, especially the way i commute. and i wouldn't have to worry so much about it being stolen, since i could fold it up and take it with me wherever i wanted! and it's not a stupid obnoxious razor scooter! ^-^ more later, probably... February 04, 2003SHE'S RIGHT, YOU KNOW...perhaps i should become a sparks? i mean, if it would aid me in becoming this cool... am really exhausted for no reason whatsoever. perhaps it's something to do with brain breakage considering actually researching potential contrast and comparison ideas between the Manics and Malice Mizer. *hides underneath a stack of Atlases of Nontumor Pathology* in other news, my voice-changing megaphone has strange and vaguely unidentifiable goo all over the mouthpiece, i just realised. there's a bitsy smudge of lipstick, which does look to be mine---and all this other stuff that i can't quite explain, except to note that it did not come from me. and then i realised: Spaz' nephew. wow, it's been a long time since i played with this thing. it is truly one of the best toys EVER. must clean it off before this evening. am i a complete dork for having a small bottle of dish soap in my desk? ^^;;; February 03, 2003REACH YOUR FINGERS OUT TO MEspinning: "destiny calling." james. didn't get as much done over the weekend as i'd hoped, but nevertheless got quite a bit done. so am proud of that, although i still wish i'd done more. this week is going to be hellaciously busy, but i think (and hope) i'm up to it. i did get one CD done that i'd meant to for awhile, and made good inroads on another. which are the only two i really wanted to get done immediately, but that of course doesn't cover the tapes i'd like to make (of which there are currently only two). as has been mentioned in passing in various conversations i've had lately, there is a certain special beauty that can only be achieved via a mix tape, as opposed to a CD. i find it interesting that i (and many others) aren't particularly enamoured with audiocassettes as a format---the prerecorded ones, anyway. but when the topic of making mix tapes is brought up, universal joy is expressed. it's something that's difficult to put a finger on; i don't think it's merely the fact that more effort is involved, although that's certainly the case. it's all too easy to point, click, and drag your way to a mix compilation via CD, provided you've got the tunes you'd like in formats that are accessible via your computer, and of course that you've got a CD burner and blank CDs which play nicely together. it's got more to do with more of yourself being invested in making a mix tape for someone, as opposed to just mere time and effort. there's a lot more thought that might end up going into a tape, oftentimes through crack-addled Musical Wave-riding (ie, deciding on one song, throwing it on, and then instantly hearing something else in your collection that would flow PERFECTLY from what you're playing now). it's got a very similar sort of spontaneous energy to doing a live set (whether playing instruments or DJing or what have you), only with the added beautiful bonus of built-in failsafes: if you screw up, no one knows it but you! so you can easily rewind the tape, white-noise things you need to, and rerecord whatever it is you desire! additionally, it's much easier to get in and cut songs together so quickly and precisely that there's no dead space whatsoever in between them---something crucial when particularly working on your transitions between songs on a comp. true, you can do this with CoolEdit or what have you as well, if you take the time---but it's just not the same. again, it's the wave-riding thing. that lovely spontaneity that can yield up amazing things which you might never have thought of otherwise just isn't there, and never can be, due to the nature of the variances between methods of compilating. sure, it takes time---but it's worth every minute of it. even those painstakingly writing out your own extensive liner notes (because if you're going to do it analog, by all means, you can't cheat and type up those liner notes now, can you? XD). worth every second. February 02, 2003COVER US IN CHOCOLATE, SELL US TO THE NEIGHBOURS; FRAME US IN A VIDEO...well, i wouldn't say that i managed to utterly miss out on the Manics in the sense that i didn't know they existed. i was quite aware of it---but i never did get around to listening to them at that point, and though i probably did read a bit about them, none of it really stuck since i didn't have any music to associate with it, if that makes any sense. XD i probably had as much of an idea as to what they were about as one could without having listened to them, which is to say not tons. XD Raw seems to have been a failed experiment---the one and only issue we've got here is from the beginning of 1996, and it says "new" on the cover. but since it's got reader's polls inside, one would have to assume there were issues prior to this particular one, at least. i think your missing out on it as well makes me feel a little better; i actually spent time trying to fathom out how i could possibly have missed out on it. and then i realised the following: early 1996. this would've been fourth year in high school, and so i wouldn't have been going to Tower really at all, except on odd occasions. my favourite record store ever was still open, and they carried Select and Vox and NME and Melody Maker (and i loved MM too; NME was also amusing, but i think i liked MM more for some reason i can't put my finger on now; perhaps it's me making it out to be better than it was in my head out of nostalgia? don't know. ^^), as well as Seconds and the rather crappy Alternative Press (but hey, they'd run articles on Curve and MBV and Lush and others, so i'd have to pick them up once in awhile.) and loads of other stuff as well. so i would have been spending loads of time after school at that store, and probably occasionally at a store called Rolling Stone that was by my high school. there were also jaunts to Reckless Records, 2nd Hand Tunes, Disc-Go-Round, Record Exchange, and probably (VERY) occasionally, Dr. Wax. what does this mean? well, Rolling Stone wouldn't have carried it period; it just wasn't something they'd do. Blackout was so small that they probably didn't try to get many big publications outside of the ones they originally carried---they did concentrate on loads of local zines and stuff, however. Reckless, i fail to see how they could not have carried it, but i feel sure i would have noticed it if they had, given that it's got the big thing saying "from the makers of SELECT" underneath the cover. the other places mentioned wouldn't have carried it, either. Tower did, since that's where Spaz got it from (it's still got a sticker XD), but since i wasn't going there, no luck. and i hadn't forgot about Melody Maker, either---just haven't come across any issues of that lying around. although i think i do still have some featuring Bis in one way or another, and probably one with Garbage on the cover, towards the beginning of their career. it is rather sad that all those magazines went under. damnable nu-metal. XD ...right, then; my mission is clear. i have indeed had No Musical Education until i have partaken of the Manics...? XD FIRE ON BABYLONam currently in the midst of making another mix CD, contemplating the other CDs i want to make, and also contemplating a couple of mix tapes i'd like to attempt. not all today, of course. not nearly enough hours in the day to do that, even if i had stayed awake when first i woke up at approximately 2:56am this morning. >.<;;; have been pulling tapes out of storage and refinding things i hadn't thought of in years. suppose this will be an even stronger sensation once i get round to pulling all the 7"s and such out and putting them on. the first night the turntable was back in service, i was doing quite a lot of that already---and it's particularly interesting to listen to things i've got in multiple formats and hear the differences between them. eheh. XD Spaz has also been going through some of his old magazines. he's got all these old issues of Vox and Select, a few issues of I.D. and the Face and other scattered assorted things (usually to do with Björk). some of them, he's parting with---and in general, all are interesting to flip through. some of them i had copies of at one point, but unlike so many other people, i usually didn't keep my magazines intact. i usually tore them apart and cut pictures out, or articles, or what have you---mostly cos i had so many that my room would've been an even bigger firetrap than it was (i mean, the walls were fiberboard! XD) if i hadn't. which is kind of sad, but i couldn't do much about it then, cos we just didn't have the space. i miss Select. Select was highly entertaining. and it yielded some great posters. like the one of Mr. Cave drowning Ms. Minogue in the "Where the Wild Roses Grow" vid which i had lovingly plastered on my wall. XD and El Jarvo plucking the yew of Mr. Jackson! XD XD oh, oh, oh---and Liam Gallagher kissing Robbie Williams! XD XD XD and Vox was amusing, too. Spaz has also got an issue of Raw, which is something i missed out on---probably Harpy remembers it, though. was an offshoot of Select, and this issue dates from the beginning of 1996, with the cover banner proclaiming "Inside Planet Radiohead"! loads of entertainment there, including a photo of Ms. Polly Jean Harvey and Mr. Cave together which is even better than the one i used to have on my wall, of them at some concert singing together. so delicious! and since the Brit awards were coming up, there were results of a reader's poll inside---"Naughtiest Nibbles" yielded up plenty of assorted crisps and Cadbury's Dairy Milk, but no. 2 on the list was Damon Albarn! XD oh, and the photoseries wherein Liam Gallagher could not even purchase undies in peace was also quite entertaining. this post has just been meant to (rather gushingly) say, i really miss Select. ;.; February 01, 2003YOU GET THESE WORDS WRONG...I JUST SMILEjust installed the memory upgrade module in my happy little laptop, thus bringing me from a lowly 64MB of RAM up to 192. ^-^ 'twas fun and easy. and now i shall go on a mad installing spate. and make CDs! and do the other things i'd meant to do the past few weekends but hadn't gotten round to due to everything else getting in the way! also, potato/cheddar/kielbasa soup! num. have a hy0000000ge horchata sitting next to me, and had practice at the ungodly hour of 9am this morning (during which i conducted an experiment a la Johnny Marr: indeed, it's not entirely impossible to sing alright with a wad of gum stuck in your mouth the whole time. XD). so almost everything is right with my world. my 24HPP DVD is on backorder, which is kinda irritating, but whatever. my turntable is working, the band is functioning okay, and various other things are in pretty happy places. i still wanna whip out my guitar again---really ought to make time for that. and get my damn amp back from Eric. d'oh. this incoherent rambling brought to you by the power of squee! and getting stuff done! |
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