Hee hee

Well, the big news for today is that I haven't written anything at all. I did plant some of the trees mom brought home. I wish that I had taken a closer look at the elms before today. They had been "harvested" by someone who grabbed them and pulled them out by the roots. When I got to them, many of them had dead leaves and almost none of them had good roots. I planted the 10 or 12 best and I'll take a closer look at the remaining ones tomorrow to see if I can't do something to save some of them. I also planted a bunch of dogwoods that mom brought home yesterday. I got seven of ten in the ground today (I ran out of space.) I'll probably pot them. The nice thing about the dogwoods is that mom took them out of the ground herself with a spade so they have functional root systems. It looks like the wildflower seeds I scattered all over the inaccessable parts of the yard are starting to sprout! I'm hoping that mom doesn't notice the ones among her irises until they flower.
I need to slow down on watering the raspberries soon. I think they are well enough established that they don't need water every day and if I let them dry out occasionally they will be more likely to send out good root sets (in search of water.) On the other hand, since the elms hardly have roots at all, they get watered at least daily.

Oi. Mom bought some topsoil this morning. At least that's what the bag said. I think they put the wrong stuff in the bag. I wish I had been there this morning, I may have been able to tell. I thought it smelled funny when I was taking it out of the trunk. I'm pretty sure from the smell and the texture that the "top soil" was actually the manuer compost mix that they sell. I ended up having to do more work to use it than I would have with the topsoil. Oh well.

Well, it looks like I'll probably just overshoot my word cap.

I'm currently at 18,275 words on the story with the Wombat. Looks like I'll finish the plot at just over 20,000 with an additional 700-1000 for some transitions that I left to work on when I finished the story. Eva, it looks like I'll be able to e-mail/IM you your preview copies tomorrow, especially if you don't mind the place holders I put in for the transitions. (I don't know how long they are going to take to finish. It could be 20 minutes or it could be a day or more.) Do be aware that this is still a rough draft. There are parts that I've already edited a lot and am still unhappy with. The rest of you, well you can wait until I get it published (unless you really want to read a first draft of this. If so we can talk it over. I'm warning you that it still needs a lot of work.)

No, I'm not procrastinating.

Well, let's see, today I've toted baskets of wet clothing for mom and watched her make sugar cookies by a recipe that was badly flawed (mainly I left key steps and instructions out.) I've spent a lot of fairly unproductive time on the internet, tried to find the phone number of a guy I want to use as a reference but the university he works at is apparently having server problems. I cut a limb off of the mulberry tree and come closer than I like to think to knocing the power line off the house (I caught the limb in time, and I don't have any evidence that it would have actually taken the line down, but it was a nervous moment there.) None of the remaining limbs are over the power lines or in a position to fall that way. I should have waited for the ladder before trying to do it though. Oh well.
Anybody have any suggestions on how to explain folks who are obsessed with money and things that you really couldn't care less how much money they have? Oi. (No names, got to protect the guilty.)
Cash has not been a major goal of mine ever. I mean I have two levels of things I want. The first is fairly inexpensive items (computers reading materials etcetra. The rest are pie in the sky items. Stuff like the HMS Victorious (which was recently for sale.) In between, I don't really have anything I want. I mean, yeah I'll probably buy a house but I am not particularly stuck on having the biggest house in the best neighborhood. Home is where you keep your books. My origional course of study in college was Philosophy and microbiology. My goal was to become a professor. Yeah they make decent money, but not gobs and gobs of cash. I graduated with the Bio and minors in this that and the other thing. I'd still like to get the PhD (no idea in what field) but as for money? I'd really like to pay everything off and become a full time writer and maybe do some traveling on foot. If the writing doesn't pay enough, I'll probably end up working long enough to pay my bills for an extended period and then go become my tag above (a wandering masterless writer. How sweet would it be to do that till I got to old to do it any more?)
Oh well. Takce care all.

acquired from <lj user="pope_guilty">

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says.

Page 18 and half of 19 are a giant full color photograph, no subtitle, no identification of the plants on it. (The illustrated encyclopedia of trees and shrubs.)

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?

Mom's good photo printer.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?

Some law and order spin off. Don't ask me why.

4. WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what time it is.

7:00 pm

5. Now look at the clock; what is the actual time?

7:15 +/-20

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?

my 60 gallon aquarium filter splashing into my 10 gallon tank.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?

'bout 30 minutes ago. I was cutting limbs off of the mulberry tree in the back yard.

9. What are you wearing?

Socks, teeshirt, jean shorts, underware, and way too much hair.

10. Did you dream last night?

Yes. Do I remember the contents of the dream at 7:15 pm? No.

11. When did you last laugh?

You keep track of these things? Laugh more.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?

Book shelves, other shelves, lots of mom stuff.

13. Seen anything weird lately?

My 30 pound 10 year old dog ambushing the 90 pound 3 year old chocolate lab.

14. What is the last film you saw?

Hellboy

16. (no 15?) If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?

Either my student loans or the HMS Victorious

17. Tell me something about you that I don't know.

I watched almost the entire origional US release of Sailor Moon back in highschool while recording it for a friend without cable.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?

The space program wouldn't have ended in the 70s.

19. Do you like to dance?

Not particularly. Michael Not have ability to move in dance like motions without falling down on floor repetedly. Much prefer to fence.

20. George Bush: is he really doing Dick Cheney?

Yes.

21a. Imagine your first child is a girl. What do you call her?

Hum, whatever her mother decides on. I can't pick names for fictional characters for one shot short stories. I'm not saddeling a kid with one of my names. I'll give suggestions and veto stupid names, but...

21b. Imagine your first child is a boy. What do you call him?

Hum, whatever his mother decides on. I can't pick names for fictional characters for one shot short stories. I'm not saddeling a kid with one of my names. I'll give suggestions and veto stupid names, but...

22. Would you ever consider living abroad?

Yep. If the republic declines further it may become a necessity.

The solution was so obvious.

Mom has inadvertantly discovered how to calm down a pair of hyperactive dogs. A friend of hers brought over a bunch of boxes of spaghetti and stuff that were overflow from a meal delivery thing. We're not entirely sure why he does this, but that's alright. Well, this time there was a salad with Italian dressing in the boxes and in most of the boxes the two things mixed creating a truely bizzare food. We put it in a bucket in the fridge for the dogs. Now I want to make it clear that there was a lot of overflow and most of it was italian dressingy spahetti. Mom was cleaningout the fridge this morning and dumped most of the Italian dressingy sphagetti into the dogs' bowls. There was enough that they didn't even eat all of the dogfood that it had touched (usually when we put people food in their bowls they eat all of the dogfood in the bowl too.) After a mad dash for the door because of the sudden and unexpected bladder and colin pressure, they have just been sleeping all day. We gave them dog treats earlier and padfoot ate his own and didn't try to get Shep's which was sitting between shep's paws. I took it and dangled it in the air above Shep's head and he sat up on his haunches and wrapped his paws around my hand. Usually he dances around on his hind legs. (This is the one trick that he does better than Padfoot. Pad's back legs aren't really strong enough to hold his whole body weight, so shep likes to show off his one good trick.) (Remember while weight increases with the cube of linear dimensions, strength (muscular crossection) increases with the square of the same dimensions, so pound for pound shep is a lot stronger than padfoot. Doesn't mean it is a fair fight. Shep is a meaner fighter, that's what makes it a fair fight when they tussel. (As padfoot has gotten older, playfighting has become more and more often Shep's idea.)

Update

There are Artichokelings starting to pop up in my planter! Well, just one so far, but it means that the rest should follow shortly.

Bear and Grin it.

No. This isn't avoiding working on a story. How could you accuse me of such a thing? I've been slowly taking apart a mulberry tree in the back yard. Well, I'm only removing the limbs that are lying on the roof of the house, but still. I bet that Padfoot will be glad when the holly quits blossoming. It seems to be a favorite of the Bumble Bees, and he has this thing where he snaps at small moving objects. It is a reflexive action, just part of being a lab, but I doubt that it is in his best interest to attack large bees with stingers. (Though maybe he will be disapointed when they aren't there for him to try to catch. He is a wierd dog.)
Oi, Mom went up to Indy for the day with some friends. (Not sure who went. I know that Sr. Alice Marie went, and two other people were intending to go, but as for who was able to make it, who knows?) They are going to some exibits at the museums. I wish I had learned of this before yesterday evening. Maybe I could have arranged to be brought to Bloomington for the afternoon. Oh well. I should be here incase BSU calls with a job offer.
I guess I should get back to writing.

on the other hand

It is nice to see that the folks who want to keep women subserviant aren't the only ones capable of hosting a march in Washington.
Yay reproductive rights!

WTF!

I mean honestly
The kid's school called the police and are punishing him because he drew pictures of Bush that were critical and or negative.

The little bastards still haven't shown their heads.

Yeah, so the brocciflour has been up for three or four days at least, and the artichokes have yet to show up. This is fairly annoying. While I am interested in brocciflower, artichokes are what I'm excited about.
Still haven't heardfrom Ball State about the advisor position. That is a little disconcerting since it starts in very late May very early June. I need to send out some other applications. Anyone got any suggestions? (I'd really like to work for a university.) I guess there's always Peace Corps.
Well, I apparently didn't fix the Trillian makes random noises problem, I just changed the noises it makes. At least the noises aren't close enough that I mistake them for eachother.
Mom just got a bunch (I mean a LOT) of American Elm seedlings all of which come from an old healthy tree. This is exciting, though I am more leary of it than she is. I'm afraid that it could have just been an isolated tree, but time will tell. For those of you who don't know, American Elms almost died off a while back due to Dutch Elm disease. They had no immunities and the disease killed them quickly. American elms used to be one of the most common cityscaping trees, so much so that most towns to this day have an Elm Street which used to be planted with Elms. The Dutch Elm disease killed pretty much all of them. Sort of like (I think this is it) Chestnut Blight which came over with Chinese Chestnuts and killed off most of the native ones.
OOh, I was looking through a farm catalog and I saw a morell growing kit! Morells are wild mushrooms that are a fairly big buisness in this part of the world (so much so that there are problems on farms with morell poachers.) Well, when last I heard (more than a decade ago) no one had managed to cultivate them under controlled settings. If you wanted morells, you had to go wandering in forests looking for them. Apparently in the last decade someone figured out what was keeping them from growing. (I suspect that it was probably a case of there being some microbe that morells require in their environment to live. That's a major problem in mycology and microbiology. The basic tennents of the science include a requirement for Pure Cultures for research and growing, but in real life many organisims can't be cultured alone. Sure you can seperate them but they aren't going to grow. (Thank you microbial ecology)
The man who discovered the bacteria that causes ulcers ran into that problem. No one could culture a bacterium that caused ulcers so no one believed that ulcers had a bacterial cause (it failed Koch's postulates)
(1. The specific organism should be shown to be present in all cases of animals suffering from a specific disease but shold not be found in healthy animals.

2. The specific microorganism should be isolated from the diseased animal and grown in pure culture on artificial laboratory media.

3. This freshly isolated microorganism, when inoculated into a healthy laboratory animal, should cause the same disease seen in the original animal.

4. The microorganism should be reisolated in pure culture from the experimental infection. )

Well, the guy took a sample of his suspected materials and drank them and immediately developed ulcers. Talk about saccrifices for science. I guess that it did add the possibility of antibiotics to treat ulcers though.

Procrastination nation

I have successfully procrasted my way to 750 words in three days. That would be great if I was within 750 words of the end of the story, but I'm not.
I do have a new chair in front of my computer. No more typing in half lotus for me! Not that I'm using it right now, with me being wasting time on the internet. Actually even when I'm infront of the other computer, I have a tendancy to play Mariokart of Fzero 2 or something. The good news is that even with a keyboard I managed to get the gold in 100cc Mushroom Cup! 2 more to go to get the special cup (I hope that it unlocks special cup. I'd hate for it to unlock 150cc or something.) Mario Kart with a keyborad is all sorts of fun... F Zero is worse.
I just picked up a couple of old cartoon theme songs. thanks

Best Spam mail evar

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Hello,

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josef bp stokes lenin strongroom kidnapped tobacco workday mouthpiece chordal

There is but one true Gord

Just reread Acts of Gord I laughed until it hurt to breathe.

Musings from wonderland.

Hey, I was wondeirng if you folks could do two things for me.
The first is tell me who said "Begin at the beginning and continue on until the end."
The second is to give me the correct quote for the above.

Newses

Hey two things, if I can remember the second.
I now have a decent chair at my video game, I mean writing computer.
Oh damn, can't remember the second thing. Guess there is only one thing today.
Oh, yeah, this isn't it, but I wanted to ask. Who among you is a relativist? (Cause relitivism sucks in all of its forms.)

see post below

Well, you have 24 hours to post a first verse somebody

Kasen Renku

A kasen renku is a form of renga, or poem written by multiple people.
It is a poem of thirty six verses, each linked to the verse ahead and behind it in some manner. It is important (to avoid inane boring drivel) that while the verses are linked, each one be shifted some how. (If we are going to have drivel, let it be interesting drivel.) The only verse that must be immediate and clear like a haiku is the first one. the rest are fine sketchy, emotive of their theme without having to encapsulate it completely. I want to stress that the connection, the comonality between one verse and the next can be very indirect. Traditionally the seasons enter into the poem some how with spring and autum recieving 3 to five verses each and summer and winter recieving one to three each, but that is not set in stone, and it can be by the vaguest allusion. There are also traditioally verses including the moon (verses 5, 13, and 29) a blossom or flower (links 17 and 35), love (especially the absense of a companion, in small groups of verses) somewhere in between verses 7-18 and 19-30. Oh, one verse is traditionally about the autumn moon as well.
This is not to say that even if I were writing alone, I'd bother with all of this stuff, but at the least it is here as an idea. I'd like to do this here with anyone who wants to. If you aren't a live journal memeber and you want to be part of this, please sign your verses with at least your initials, and e-mail me with your name if needed. voiceofthepeople@hotmail.com. Traditionally, someone other than the host is supposed to start this thing with a 3 line haiku like verse (they predate haiku and are actually the source of the haiku format) which is replied to by the host. I'll give people 24 hours to get a first post up (remember, short long short, and 5-7-5 if you must, alternated by long long (7-7) is the pattern. Who ever posts first gets their verse and whoever wants to can reply to it, though I claim verse two (or if this doesn't happen, I claim verse one tomorrow.) I'll occasionally move the entire poem up my journal as a new post. Oh, they are also traditionally broken into three/four parts (6 verses 12/12 verses, then 6 last verses.)
Here's the first six lines of a contemporary renku taken from Bruce Ross' How to Haiku :

1
wet brown leaves
trampled on the boradwalk js
Seattle morning

2
mallards on the autumn pond br
so loud beyond the rushes

3
he turns down the radio
then carves a frown rk
into the pumpkin

4
a wedge of geese
slices the sunset jw

5
pizza shop
off the moonlit interstate tc
break from drifting snow

6
spare pillows piled up de
on the bedside chair

actually, if you want to do this, let's start it in a new post. I'll post it above

Hey Seiryu

Hey lady Read your rant today. Well, I disagree with the thought that you are waiting till next year to try it just because it doesn't work on the official date for you. Check out Barry Smith's answer to his similar problem.
Yeah, yeah, I know that you can say the same thing to me about me and nanowrimo but it's different because that's me and not you and it is longer than the 24 hour thing and and and. Okay, yeah you are right, it applies to me too. But, my response is "Nahhhhh" *sticks out tounge* Well, pax vobiscum all.

I'm back

Yesterday I got in one short entry. Oi. Mom was using the computer almost all night to work on her photography, and then she was on the internet for a long time. When she got done, instead of checking if I wanted to check my e-mail, she shut it down and went to bed. Which is a real pain since she was on during the hours during which I am most likely to catch my various friends online, and also the hours when I am most likely to get e-mail from my friends in Japan (none last night, but still.)
No Tanka yesterday, but then I'm not really doing them right. I've been writing them more like long Haiku than like Tanka, but that is in part because I really like Haiku better, but I like the longer format better too. I've been stuck on the syllable form which is pretty silly since even in Japanes, authors don't stick to it that strictly (they do them short long shor long long, but it doesn't have to be 5-7-5-7-7) and American Haiku and Tankas are less formal than that. The syllable counts are less important than the completeness and the experience evoked. (I hate it when people lose track of an artform for the rules that are supposed to guide it, and here I am doing the exact same thing. Oi Vey.) Well, I'd like to try a kasen Renku, but it requires audience participation. It is a form of syllabic poetry where you alternate authors and which has linked verses. It usually contains 36 alternating long and short verses (5-7-5 7-7 5-7-5 7-7 5-7-5 etcetra) and is broken up into three sections. I'll post more about it in the next entry. We'll see if it goes anywhere.) They can have any number of authors (though obviously 36 is a final limit.)

It has rained a lot in the last couple of days. The back yard has reverted to swamp mode again. My snow peas may have drowned. The sunflowers seem okay mostly, mortality is still below 20%. The tomatoes aren't dying but they certianly aren't growing either. The bushes and vines I've planted are doing very well, and the brocciflower has sprouted in the seed tray. I'm going to let it get pretty big before planting it.

I took down our old swingset yesterday. Killed a screwdriver doing it. Mom told the kids about my intention to dissasemble the non-functional swingset, and they asked her not to let me. My brother wanted to use it to jump off of onto the trampoline. Sometimes I wonder about his common sense though. He told her about falling off of it while trying to jump off onto the trampoline. Not the strongest arguement I've ever heard. Especially since he's the son who went to the hospital with a cracked skull because he was playing catapult with a swingset once, and the one with very little sense of mortality, or when to keep his mout shut about it. "Oh yeah, I did almost fall off the roof at dad's." One of the bolts holding it together was rusted so badly that it twisted in half before the nut came off.
OOh I just changed Trillian so that the sounds it plays when people log on and off of AIM and MSN and such are distinctly different from each other as well as the other trillian sounds!

The yard work continues (sort of)

Well, today the great quest to not get anything done with my writing continues full bore. As part of the general cleanup and getting things ready for spring, I decided to take the 12 year old rusted kiddy swingset apart. I managed to get some fair pieces off, dull a metal cutting hacksaw blade, break one screwdriver, bend the bit for another, and then retreat from the heavy rain withouth having taken off even one whole leg. The rain has quit for now, so I should go get my tools and have a nother crack at it. The only parts that I have to remove with a screw driver are held on by flimsey metal that I should be able to break by twisting back and forth.
You know, if productive is a mood, so should unproductive be.

Just another tanka in the dark

low clouds on the sky
a lone raindrop on my nose
soon a crowd has formed
crashing thunder crying out
a spring storm has come and gone

(these japanese poetry forms are easier in Japanese)

Procrastination, Making things happen.

Wow, it is amazing the sorts of things that I'll do to avoid doing something that is enjoyable just because I set myself a deadline. I mowed the yeard even though the grass was wet and thus a pain in the ass. I started the process of taking apart the swingset and rerigging mom's clothes line so it didn't include said swingset. It used to between two poles but one of them is missing. Then mom tied it to the swing set, giving a triple line, but making it fairly short. I have now attached it to a catapla tree half way across the yard. We have a lot more room on it, which is good since the dryer is not working. Actually it is working maybe, but the outlet for it was doing scary things and mom hasn't had the money to get it looked at. We use the laundry mat for drying clothes, but the line is good too when there is no incomming rain. I finished reading another Charles Scheffielf novel, making three in the last 5 days. I just started bejewling again. I planted a row of peas. I have done exactly zero writing of fiction. I can't say that today has been unproductive, but it has been productive in all of the wrong ways. Welcome to the true reason that my final papers for Environmental Ethics and Environmental Science were both started and finished in the same night, which, coincidentally ws the night before they were due. the EE paper was good. The ES paper (which I started at 3 or 4 in the morning and didn't proof read for grammer, spelling, logical consistancy, or even cohearent thoughts) is one of my best, though not as good as the things I wrote for Mrs. Dr. Eflin (as opposed to Mr. Dr. Eflin, I had classes with both of them. To make things even more confusing their e-mail addresses were like jkeflin1 and jkeflin2.) I was so horrified after I turned it in that I had possibly just said the same thing over and over again for eight pages, sometimes even rewording it. Having already turned it in, I decided not to check, and was pleasantly supprised when it was returned and I read it (it was too late to worry so I didn't.) The EE paper was a book report. That was the assignment, that is what I wrote. Not great, but not bad. It condemned one of the clasic pieces of environmentalist fiction. The story was good, but as a ptolemic it was lacking the ethical grounding it needed. (The Monkeywrench Gang by Edward Abbey. Since the book was written in part about events that did occur, and in which Mr. Abbey was intamently involved, it wasn't the author's fault that the book failed to live up to my standards. At least not his fault as the author.)

perceptual problems

I was just wondering something. Does anyone else ever have problems with the interface of memory and perception? Back when I was in highschool, I spent a summer on an odd sleep scheduel which combined with a fair amount of isolation from others lead to some really bizzare things. (It is part of why I haven't even tried drugs. My reality is fragile enough.) I'm not talking about hallucinations or anything. I was on a 30 something hour day cycle where I'd be up for 20 or more hours then I'd sleep for a long time. All summer I had a compressed time sense, a bit of bleed over between my dreams and reality, to the point that I was uncertian were the dreams ended. Not that's not right. It wasn't the dreams. I daydream a lot, playing with thoughts and scenarios and such, and these things would occasionally become partof my memory of the past. This isn't reading right. I don't have the words to describe it very well. The scenarios and such weren't well defined entities to begin with, and I wasn't usually consciously building them like I do while I write. The telescoping of my time sense caused me to have some questions as to which parts were real and which were fancies (at the time that they were occuring.) A sort of breakdown of causality, but that's the wrong word too. I'm sorry, I'm not getting the core of this down in writing properly, in part because either the language or I lack the words I need. It was more of a fuzzyness of the border of perception versus memory. Well, that is for the most part unimportant. What I really want tot talk about is now.
Since that summer, I have had similar things happen, usually when I'm tired, but some times just when things fall too much into a set pattern. I lose track of the sequence of events and in short instances I lose a sense of this point in time being unique. In the very rare longer instances I can get a serious sense of what is happening now has happened before is happening before has happened now. It isn't exactly a sense of loss of self, but more of a loss of the borders of self. I'm not claiming that I have visions or extended perception when these things happen, in fact all of it occurs within the same bounds of my skull that all of the rest of my perceptions do.
Ooh! I just remembered a third phenominon that is similar to the above. When I dream, sometimes as part of the dream I get memories of things past. Actually, that usually leads directly to a state of lucid dreaming for me. I am usually well aware that these memories aren't part of my daily life and that lets me realize that it is a dream. The problem is that when this happens I still can't determine of the memories are unique to this particular dream or if they are, as they seem when I examne them in the dream, memories of a previous dream in sequence with this one. That feeling is what I'm talking about above.
Well, last night I had another one of these perceptional glitches, and since I've given them no small amount of thought, I was aware of it while it was happening (by the way, they feel very similar to the mode I get in while going from plotting to fleshing a story out in my head, but they began well before I seriously started writing anything but adventures which I approach in a very different manner) and, like the last dozen or so tiems I have had this happen I tried to analyse/remember it. I jumped too soon on it and now only remember recognising it for what it was and none of the details of it. Well, anybody have sexperience with something at all like that which they'd like to share?

Arrgh.

As detailed in an earlier post, I intend to include the occasional falsehood in my posts. Some of them will be made up completely from my imagination (I hope that they are hard to pick out) while others wil;l just be modifications of things that really happened. Who knows, maybe sometimes I'll manage to tell the truth in such a manner that you completely disbelieve it. There is a small problem with this. I had thought of a story to tell, one fabricated but believable. I thought it through then put it on the back burner to mature, but now that I am writing my journal, I can't remember what the story was. Arrgh!

The dogs have been a bit of a pain today. Well, Padfoot, the chocolate lab has been a pain. First he tried to charge the door when I was going out to get the mail. I bounced him off the door frame (which doesn't even faze the dog. He plays rough.)
Then later he was on his chain and decided that eating the empty water bowel would make it produce more water (or give him something to do or something. Now the bowel is missing big chunks and has doggy tooth marks in it. I refilled it and put it back between the dogs, and Padfoot knocked it over and chewed on it some more. Fun.

Still no seedlings from the peas, artichokes, or brocciflower.

Even worse, no contact from Ball State.

Anybody know someone who wants to hire an academic advisor or a hall director, or a nature interpreter? Or a technical writer (I guess)?

Love the deficit spending/export jobs market model.

I've got nothing tonight. Be well. Be happy. (don't take any radioactive nickles)

annother day ends
achievements and failures both
new day tomorrow
for tonight there's only sleep
we begin anew at dawn

On topics somewhat different from the cultivation of plants.

Yep, I finally had an idea of something to write about. Movies.
I've only seen one movie recently, Hellboy. Now during the previews for Hellboy, there was an ad for I, Robot. Somebody needs to be kicked in the nads. I, Robot could be a wonderful movie with a spectacular Luddite theme, but the fact that it picked up Asimov's name then decided to ignore the most important aspects of his writing makes me want to cry. There are two scenes where there appears to be a general robot revolt! Gah, this is as bad as the farce that was Starship Troopers. I really wish that if these writers/directors wanted to make science fiction movies that told their own stories that they would quit suborning the names of other people's stories.
I remember hearing that the director of Starship Trooper decided to make the mobile infantry into cannon fodder because "the whole powered armor thing is overdone." What a fucking laugh. The whole powered armor thing is over done because of that book! The MI were special, the elite of the elite of the Terran forces specifically because they were mobile, specialists with the single most complicated piece of military hardware ever, and each individually more powerful than a tank and probably than a batallion of tanks. So the MI in the movie? Yeah, they get machine guns, rocket launchers, and helmets that aren't particularly improved over the ones we have today.
The same deal with I, Robot. It looks like some asswipe decided to take Asimov's vision of the future and reinterpret it through technophobic glasses. The whole point of the I, Robot stories was that while technology has dangers and unpredictable concequecnes, with proper use it can be a good thing. There are a few stories where one single robot has a messed up brain and doesn't follow (or at least doesn't seem to follow) the three laws, but none of them are the menace that this movie appears to be painting all of the robots to be. This seems more like a Bublegum Crisis movie with the Boomers going amok than an asimov story where people are confronted with unusual situations due to different interpretations of how robots (or the universe in general) works. It looks like we get an action film based off of a set of works that is primarily cerebral.
Ugh.
Still haven't seen Kill Bill or Punisher yet. Need to get to a decent theater for that.

Time for a bloody new topic

*crickets chirp*
Oh wow, single minded much?
Arrgh. I just told eva that I didn't want to just post my daily tanka as my second entry, but since mom wants to go to sleep I may end up doign just that. And arrgh again, I haven't had a chance to mix fictional accounts of my life into the narrative this time. Somedays just don't work out right. Guess that's what I get for not posting in the morning though.
Haven't heard from BSU yet. That is a little bothersome, though Adrienne hasn't e-mailed me to tell me that it is hopeless at least.
I finally finished Quick Silver and was elated for a moment, then I realized that there were going to be two more books in the story, both about the same size, and that they weren't going to be out any time soon. Elation fadeing.
I should do something exciting, but the whole waiting to hear about the job thing is taking away from my willingness to be too far from home at the moment. I should take Xris up on her offer to come and visit, though I am less fun than she seems to remember.
So, which one of you is going to start running a play by message board roleplaying game? Do I have to volunteer Rube-san?
Gah, another one without the narrative format that I had hoped to use to make my life appear interesting. Oh well. By the way, my life is intersting, it just doesn't look like it on tv. I end up almost every day falling asleep before I finish all of the things I wanted to think about/do/write/whatever.
Well, I guess I'm done for the moment. (The tanka below was written before the rest of the entry.)

a waxen candle
flame flickering in the dark
you dance in my breath
light and shadow mix as one
neither possible alone

The end draws near

Not half as important as it sounds at first, the end draws near. Well, maybe not the end. More like the final bits of the current phase that leads into the longer phase of waiting for other things to happen.
Looking over my last several days worth of journal entries, er, yeah I didn't actually look them over, I just kind of sat here and tried to remember them, so yeah, reminiscing about the last several days worth of journal entries, and I realized something. One could come to the conclusion that I spend a fair amount of my life growing things. In general this is false. What actually is signified by the recent flood of gardening entries is that I have picked up a project(tm). The way that projects work is that Michael happens to get an idea at or around the same time that he gets the funding needed to pursue said idea (not that they always actually involve a need for funding.) What ensues then is initial project research and the acquisition of project related materials (unless someone talks him out of doing so. That danger is why I usually don't mention my projects to others before I start them.) Then I begin to actualyl work on the project. If this doens't take much time, then the project has a fair chance of becomming a finished project. For all of my claimed incompetence, I am actually pretty good at things in general. What I am bad at is having the patience to finish an extended project. Well, the gardening project is approaching completion. It isn't time wise actually even half way done, but I have finished at least half of the origional goals. The raspberry bushes are beginning to grow a little. One of them actually has new leaves. The blueberries that I planted yesterday are actualyl showing more new growth than the blueberries. I am not as sure that the tomatoes will make it at all. Oh well I don't like tomatoes anyway.
I stripped most of the vegitation from along the east side of the fence that splits the back yard in half and have planted almost all of my sunflower seedlings. The remaining ones will go elsewhere probably tomorrow, but I ran out of sunlight tonight. The snow peas have dropped rootlings and now I wait for the cotyledons to split so I can plant them on the west side of the fence. I got the artichokes and brocciflower seeds planted in a trau and I breathlessly await their sprouting and eventual transplantation. I've got a humus/manure/topsoil mix sititng in the wheelbarrow weaiting to fill the various holes I make in the next few days (since I couldn't rent a rototiller.) All in all, I am almost done.

For anyone who is wondering, I don't actually like gardening as a pasttime. I never understood the folks who puttered around in a garden all summer planting and weeding and all of that. My entire plan is to:
1. remove all of the weeds at the get go.
2. plant seedlings and such that have had time to get bigger than the weed seedlings.
3. get rid of the occasional huge weed that appears before the plants are done (but hopefully the plants will take care of themselves in this matter.
that's it. I like landscaping more than gardening. Sure it is a lot of work at the beginning, but if you do it right, then you can spend the rest of the year watchign it develop and not bothering it. A few weeds and unplanned things makes it look much more natural (and a proper planting design makes it much mre resistant to pests. Things like me spreading the tomatoe and artichoke plants all over so that infestations won't (I hope) spread. I learned yesterday that artichokes are not annuals. That makes them perfect. I can plant them, take care of them as they develop, then just ignore them. Whoot!

After tomorrow, this project will probably have some downtime as the remainign seeds sprout. That is cool. I am not the sort of person who wants to make one great effort and get everything done today. I'd prefer to take it slowly so I don't grow sick of the very idea of the project.
I need to do some other thing.
For examples of other projects that I started and never have finished see Never Winter Nights, Baldur's Gate 2, the first Nes Zelda game, Lunar 2, Learning Japanese, translating my Ranma Manga to keep my hand in with Japanese, finishing my flipside story (see the entry below with the wombat in the lj-cut)
Lots of things I could do. Heh.

Another day another planting

So, today was fairly mundane. I did get mom to bring me out to Sam Goody's where I intended to buy the first issue of Ken Akamatsu's A.I. Love You. They didn't have it. Saw a cute gamer chick in an outfit that was sort of a combination of punk and goth. Was about to go talk to her when I realized that not only was she reading a vampire book (not fatal in and of itself, some of my best friends play WW games) but she was probably a student at the local highschool since this is most definately not a college town. Yeah, paint me scary old gamer freak. No offence to the younger readers out there, but keep in mind, I've been gaming possibly longer then she's been alive, and almost definately longer than she's been literate. And even though Heinlein is one of my heroes, I really don't have a thing for sixteen year old girls. On the other hand it disproves my thesis that there are no gamers in this town. I am holding on to my thesis that there are no gamers in this town around my age. Oh for outsiders, there are not enough gamers here to support a gaming shop, as evidenced by the three or four that have gone under since 5th grade.

After Sam Goody, I went down to a farm supply store to look for something to protect our wild dogwood that Padfoot's chain is slowly killing. They didn't have it but they had packages of Artichoke and brocciflower seeds. I bought the artichokes. Whoot. There are eleven seeds in the package and it says that they are perrenials!
Went to Lowes after that in my search for tree stuff. They had good plant materials at prices reflective of their quality and the quantity at which the chain buys them. (This means expensive for walmart, cheap for the quality.) I almost walked out poor but owning all sorts of neat plants. I actually only bought a bag of peat moss humus and a seed sprouting tray. I told mom about the broccoflower seeds and almost immediately we were back at the farm store and mom was buying them. Tomorrow she is going to get some seed starting soil. It is different from potting or top soil. Really. I'd recycle the stuff I'm sprouting the sunflowers in but they won't be ready for transplanting for at least two more days.
If all goes well, the various plants I'm growing for mom will take over the yard and next year no one will have to mow. And I can steal artichokes when I visit.
We were looking at the paper/silver maple in the front yard and complaining about how expensive it would be to get rid of. 400 bucks just to get it cut down without dropping it on the house. More to relandscape the front yard. I'm in favor of either an Acer saccharum or a pair of Malus sp. (apples) as well as some lower growing trees. It would be a pain to keep the others alive with the dogs in the yard, but it would be worth it.
During last week's freak snow storm a fairly signifigant limb came out of the tree. If it had been 30 percent larger, it would have been a threat to the house. People, never plant soft maples! Only plant hard ones (like A. saccharum ) or ones that don't get big ( A. palmatum or A. circinatum )

I used the peat humus to plant the blueberries on the island. I checked, the whole thing is clay. Icky.
I'm probably only making this one post tonight.

Oh, extra points for anyone who can seperate truth from fantasy in the above entry (and I'm hoping no one gets them, 'cause I mixed them up real good.) Extra points can be exchanged in person at the counter for fabulous prizes, and for a 30% mark up they can be redeemed via electronic communication.

Anybody got a copy of Colonial Diplomacy they want to part with on the cheap? There are none on e-bay!

my dog at my feet
a break from constant romping
moment of stillness
merest whisper can disturb
this moment of utter rest

oops

2 things
Mom reminded me that I dumped clay on the island, so maybe I just found that one spot.

I forgot my tanka

the yellow sunlight
supposedly it's spring time
red face denies that
eighty, thirty, eigthy five
odd weather in the April

At last, the pastries you've been waiting for

Yeah, I said that I think I have a sunburn. No thinking. It is a sunburn. All sorts of fun, and the aloe gel that we have ins't as good as the blue aloe gel we used to have.
The dogs are hotter than I am, seeing as they have those nice thick fur coats (I always felt bad for our Anatolian. He is a dog from the northlands with fur to match. Indian blows climate wise.)
So, I've been promising these for at least a day or so and getting side tracked. They will either not go in the book, or they will go in the last chapter for things that require extra implements.

Sopaipillas
Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp
2 tsp margarine or lard (not butter)
3/4 c warm water
oil for frying
honey, chocolate syrup, powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, strawberry syrup, whatever.
ground cinnamon

Utensils
Large clean flat surface (a dining tray will work in a pinch)
Second large clean flat surface, this time a tray is best,
margerine tub or small mixing bowl
rolling pin
tongs, fork, chopsticks, slotted spoon, your call
wooden spoon
knife
plastic wrap
small sauce pan (or whatever)
Plate
Paper towels

Mix flower, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
Rub/stir in margerine until mixture looks like crumbs (I am not always patient enough to rub it in, so I just stir and hope.)
Add water slowly, until you get a dough. (Stirring the whole time.)
Wrap in plastic and let sit for one hour.
Flour flat surface and rollign pin liberally.
Take 1/3 of dough and roll it out as thin as you can get it. You may have to add flour as you do this to keep it from sticking. Try to make it vaguely square, but no big deal if you don't.
Cut dough into three inch squares and flour the tops again (if needed)
Transfer squares to second flat thing and repeat with other two thirds of the dough.
Put paper towel on the plate.
Put at least an inch of oil in the pan and heat on medium high or high until a bit of dough turns golden brown win a few seconds.
Put as many pieces of dough in the pan as you can deal with at a time (in my pan, I do three at a time.
Cook until golden on both sides, turning once and watching the oil to make sure you turn it up and down as needed. (You will get a feel for this sort of thing after a little frying.)
Remove finished sopaipillas from oil and drain on paper towels.
Serve drizzled in toppings of your choice. I like chocolate and strawberry sauce because it looks pretty in lots of thin lines back and forth, but honey with sprinkles of ground cinnamon tastes better.

There you go Ness, better?

Welcome from Éire, where the men are all manly,

the women are all beautiful,
and the sheep don't have to worry about the God damned Scotts!

Went to the garden store. Turns out it is a landscaping store. They didn't even carry one and two year versions of most of their trees. I decided not to buy anything, mostly because of the difficulty in schlepping it home and the average fifty dollar price tag on trees that I am hopefully moving away from this summer.
Instead I bought three tomatoplanys at the grocrie store. They ended up cpsting 1.29 or something. I was going to plant one on Brienne's Island, but when I stuck the shovel in it, it was almost striaght clay. Maybe the blueberry bushes will have to go somewhere else. Or I can convince mom to invest in peat and topsoil and i can go through the joyously labor intensive task of mixing clay soil by hand. I wanted to lose weight anyway.
Ugh. Mom suggested a side of the house for some of the plants I have bought, and I put the raspberries there. She said it got full sun, and I didn't think any more of it. Well, it's the west side of the house. It gets full sun only durning the hottest part of the day. That means that during the morning where the water curve lets the plant keep the stomata open so it can actually photosynthesize, they are in shade, but when it gets hot enough for them to shut off their air/water exchange they are in the sun. Oops.
my sunflowers are sprouting in their pots. I'll probably let them grow for a week or two then transfer them to the yard. If I get a job in Muncie, mom has to bring me most of the heads.
I just started the snow peas, though I am going to plant them as soon as they sprout.
A couple hundred dollars and the rental of a rototiller and I could get mom's back yard looking nice again.
By the way, my philosophy of growing things is "get them set up so that they grow, make sure they have an initial advantage over the weeds, maybe even grow them among grass, then leave the plants the hell alone until they are pretty/need harvesting. It doesn't give the largest yearly yields, but it is less labor intensive during the worst part of the year, your plantings/garden/yard looks less designed and more natural (and to my mind much better) and I don't come to hate the plants I wanted to grow in the first place.

Anybody need/want a live in gardener/chef? I need 800 bucks a month, somewhere to keep my stuff and to sleep, and budgets for meals/gardening. Oh and if you have cable or DSL internet and I can hook up to via my hub, the price drops to 750. I also raise dogs. I don't teach them to be obedient servants, but pleasant companions. That one is no extra charge. Especially for big dogs. If you live south of the Mason Dixon line and more than 70 miles from the Pacific Ocean the price goes up to 2000 a month for abysmal climate pay. And if you live in the PNW I can drop the price another 50. I'll drop 20 more if you live within walking distance of a University (5 miles.) If you have all of the positives above, an anime library and a monthly budget for increasing it (and I can watch it) I need 150 bucks a month spending money plus what ever my monthly student loan payment works out to.

Got a bit of a sunburn today. Nothing overly painful, but kind of a "computer geek meets sun" general redening of my arms and face. Can't find the blue alovera gell stuff we used to have. I think I should have worn my Chinese Pesant's Hat if I was going to be outside. At least my face wouldn't have burnt.

Still no fried mexican pastry recipe. I'll do it this evening though.
Take care.

Good morning

So, I'm sorry I was rushed last night. I've been thinking about the live journal a little and I'm afraid that I've begun to have, as a friend of mine put it, "too many LJ entries that are like 'I woke up and got breakfast okay bye!' "
Part of it is that I've been posting at times that weren't really conducive to the efort required to make the mundane interesting, much less the effort to spin a proper tale from the threads of truth and fancy. I really shouldn't be posting about my life unless something more interesting that walking to the store happens, though the garden store from later this afternoon is fair game. Instead, I think I'll start making things up. If you aren't sure which stories are which, then I'm doing my job properly. Not going to start today though, I need some time to get my mind back in the mode of crafting proper lies.
Last night I did something I haven't done since I came back from Oregon. I bought a baguette and good bagles form the bakery. When iwas in the dorms, I always had fresh bread on hand, but since mom is footing most of the food bills now, we get things more in line whith how she shops (a lot more frozen vegetables, a lot less fresh. Oh well, it is a lot cheaper to buy them frozen. But back to the baguette. Well, this morning for breakfast I heated up the oven and threw it in. Almost as good as a fresh one. It has been far too long since I've had hot bakery-stile bread. I've made a few loafs of my own, but most of them have been experimental at best and inedible at worst. There are very few tings in life that compare favorably with hot fresh bread.
I should go outside and figure out where I want to plant the two new bushes I bought. Mom suggested planting one of them where an old rosebush is now, and I'll take a look at that, though I may plant it near the rose instead. The blueberry is a different story. No idea where to put it yet. We do have one raised region in the back yard, but I have other plans for it. Maybe I could mow Brie's Island and plant it as the centerpiece of a new garden there. That's not a bad idea.We aren't a perfect climate for it, but I could do some artichokes and the blueberry, or something. Ooh! Paw Paws! Maybe not, they take too long to mature. Actually, it would be cool to plant some nice sweet red grapes back there, but that is a project and a half. Not only would I have to buy vines, but I'd need to build grape trellaces, and my construction from "raw" materials skills are minimal. I can assemble someone elses parts, but give me a dozen two by fours, a tape measure, marking equipment, levels, saws, nails hammers, drills and all, and I'll have you a piece of abstract art before you can say "How the hell is that supposed to be a sandbox frame?"
Well, take care and I'll catch you later.
Still no sopapillias. I'll get to it soonish Nessie.

Well, the mexican food will have to wait.

Mom and I (and fred the destroyer) went to walmart this evening. My goal was to get some new shoes and some vegetable plants. The vegetables were more expensive than at the local grocerie store. So I bought the shoes, but I also bought blueberry and raspberry bushes. Tomorrow I'll hydrate properly then walk down to the nearest garden store (about 3 miles off.) No great desire to pass out and go into spasims because of dehydration and heat.
Oh I also bought snow peas and snopw pea seeds. We'll see if I can get them to root as well.

Not a lot tonight (it is after one after all. Sorry about the sopapillas, no time to hunt down my recipe tonight. I'll get it tomorrow.

brightly shining sun
too much hair a top my head
the barber soon calls
clip clip, the scissors tell me
my burden lessened for now

These are the days that never end

Acquired from
Recommend to me...
something from any or all of the following categories
1) a movie
2) a book or magazine or something else to read
3) a musical artist, song, or album
4) a LiveJournal user not on my friends list
5) a website
6) a comic
7) a game
8) a gadget or toy
9) a food, concoction, or cooked dish
10) a pretty or a shiny
...and put it in a comment and then put this in your journal.

So, here in Michael land, all sorts of stuff is happening. Not that it is of any particular interest to anyone except for the above mentioned Michael, but hey, who am I writing this for, if not me?

I got a check in the mail today. Dad had sent me some money to help decrease my debit to Oregon State University, but it took forever in arriving. That was alright since mom was able to loan me the money, but it isn't exactly like she can afford to spend any extra cash right now, so when my check for helping John and Deidre M. move came in, I gave part of it to her, and getting the check from dad means that I actually have money again.
I went for a walk, intending to go to the bank and a few other places. I had a little cash on me still, so I stopped at a local indoor flea market type thingy. I love looking around places like that because they are just about the only places to get some of the toys and gadgets I'm looking for. No Atari 2600 or neat old fantasy themed board games this time, but I got a 500 ml pyrex flask and a copy of X-men Children of the Atom for my Saturn. Yay! Not the Saturn Game I want most, but it is my favorite fighter for that system.
I walked down the street and decided to check the dollar general store. That's where I bought those sounflower seeds a while ago, and I was hoping that they would have a watering can to replace my defective one. No such luck, but I did buy the Samurai Jack movie.
Total spent: $11.10.
Got to the bank, cashed my check and headed for the last stop for the day.
I'd been to the grocerie store this morning while I was out on a walk, and they had just recieved their major shipment of garden plants. Before today they'd only had a few types on hand, and I figured that at a buck thirty five a tray, I could wait and see what they cost at Walmart. Well, I saw them and decided that I didn't want to wait till next time I was at walmart to get plants, so on my way home from the bank, I stopped by, and magically the prices had gone up to $1.95 a pot. I'm waiting for Walmart now.
Unless the brothers McClure call, I'm probably not going to see either of today's new movies yet. I don't want to watch them at the local crappy theater. Ooh, such a hard decision. Kill Bill 2 or Punisher.
*sighs* Oh well, that is a question for other days.
Later this evening, I'll be posting a sopapillia recipe, I think. Ooh, fried pastry with cinnamon sugar and or honey (or other things.)
Take care.
Damn Forgot another coke.

Behold and I called forth an asparagus chicken

Keep in mind folks, these instuctions are for the book, and thus comply with the equipment list below. If you are doing this at home, use a casserole dish and a 5 pound bird.

Ingredients
1 2-3 poundd young whole chicken
1/2 pound of fresh asparagus
some butter or margerine
salt
garlic powder
poultry seasoning (if you have it)
1/2 small onion
some mushrooms (if that's your bag, baby)

Utensils
Bread pan
2 forks
knife
tin foil
Meat thermometer (optional)

Instructions
Baking a chicken is a nice easy way to make a meal for several people or to ensure that you have leftovers for the rest of the week. While buying a whole chicken isn't necessicarily the cheapest way to get chicken, it is usually close. Whole chickens usually weigh between 4 and six pounds, but for our purposes we need something smaller. A 2 and a half pound young chicken is perfect for cooking in a dorm oven. Not only does it take less time to cook, but you can do it in a large bread pan, and there are fewer leftovers. I have already included instructions for a baked chicken earlier in the book, but it is a little different baking a chicken with vegetables inside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Take the chicken out of its package and rinse it well. Put a little butter inside the chest cavity, then put whichever seasonings you prefer in there.
Put the mushrooms and asparagus inside the chicken through the larger hole, making sure that the tips of the asparagus are inside the bird. You may have to cut the asparagus in half, which means you will need to use a little less asparagus.
Put the chicken breast side down into the pan.
Since we are working with a bread pan here, we won't put any potaoes around the bird, but when I do this at home with a casserole dish, I put other vegetables in there.
Smear some butter on the outside of the chicken and season it fairly heavily.
Cover the pan in tinfoil and put it in the oven.
After an hour take it out and turn the chicken over with the forks. Cover the chicken with foil and return it to the oven.
If you have a meat thermometer, the chicken is done whin meat in the thigh is at 180 degrees. Otherwise, make sure that it cooks for at least 25 minutes a poind (remembering the half pound of asparagus. When you poke it with a fork, only clear liquid should come out.
When the chicken is done, take the foil off and turn the oven up to broil. Let it crisp the skin before removing from the oven.
Put the chicken on a plate then cut straight down the breast bone and pull the chest apart with the forks. Take the asparagus out. The ends that were sticking out may be a little wilted. That's okay.

Some other things to try:
Put some whole waterchestnuts in the chicken with the asparagus.
Use brocciflower or cauliflower instead of asparagus. Broccili may not work well, and I don't think it would taste right.
Serve with bread or fresh rolls.
Stuff with sliced carrots and onions and peppers.

More chickeny goodness.

Well, it looks like I'll be making dinner again tonight. Mom bought a chicken last night and asked me if I could make my baked asparagus and chicken today. I know that I should be making new dishes if I ever hope to finish my damned cookbook, but hey, the supplies were free and she asked nicely. maybe I can come up with something to go with it that is new (though the need for a side dish when I just prepared a casserole dish full of chicken and potatoes is questionable).
I'll have the cookbook version of the recipe up tonight (or if someone asks before then, I'll try to post it so you can have it for dinner tonight too.)
I stuff the chicken with asparagus, but all sorts of other vegetables will work. I wouldn't put potatoes in it if you also put potatoes around it. The best things to use are vegetables that are usually difficult to bake without them drying out, since the inside of the chicken keeps them moist and cooler. I bet it would be really good with roma tomatoes and maybe some chopped bell peppers (though I would just eat the bird in that case.) Other things to try are broccoflower and caulflower. Broccoli might work too, but I hesitate to experiment.
Probably no bananas in the chicken. That just sounds nasty.
Stuffed baked chicken makes a wonderful single pan meal for those days when you aren't going anywhere, but don't really have enough free time to cook dinner.


Speaking of asparagus, the plants in the back yard are starting to pop up. One plant still doesn't have any shoots, and one only have 1, but the one on the right has litlte shoots all over the place, I counted 8, though there could be more. I'll give them a few more days and then start harvesting them. Got to remember to leave a coupleof stalks on each plant though. Asparagus is one of the only plants happy in the back yard or swamp as I like to call it. We should get some of the mesic relatives of blackberries and plant them along the back fence.
Anybody have some suggestions for neat wetlands plants (decorative or food?)

challange presented,
the warriors stomp and boast
words, clashing ideas
point and counterpoint sweep by
fighting soon fades, no victor

Nested assumptions.

Time to talk about the cookbook. I've been working on it off and on since just before the end of the last quarter last year. The whole concept is to produce a cookbook for someone who is living in a dorm or appartment and thus has limited funds and space for pots and pans and stuff. I am basing it on the stuff Ihad my last year in a Dorm. Except for the bowls, my entire cooking set fit inside a single dresser drawer. Here's the list:
1 pizza sheet
1 stir-fry pan, small enough for the pizza sheet to cover
1 metal or glass bread pan (as big as the store carries.)
1 small (one or two quart) pot.
Assorted metal forks, spoons, and knives (can be acquired from dining services if you are in a dorm.)
A large mixing bowl
A small mixing bowl (or a margarine tub)
A small cutting board (or a caffeteria tray)
a paring knife (the minimum knife needed. It is easiest if you can get some others as well)
1 spatula
1 wooden spoon
a pair of bamboo chopsticks (only if you are reltiively proficient in their use)
A set of dry-measure measuring cups
a set of measuring spoons
a roll of tin foil
zipper-plastic bags
at least 1 plate, bowl, and coffee cup, preferably two or three of each.
Except for the last chapter, every recipe in the book will be able to be made with just these items (all of the ones I have so far were either developed or at least tested with this set of gear.)

chicken strips

New recipe. I have a similar one in the book, but I think I will replace it with this one.

Ingredients
1/2 c flour
1/3 c cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt (or more)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 c sesame seeds (or cracker crumbs)
1/2 tsp schezuan pepper mix
1 egg
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, vut into thin (1/4 in) strips
cooking oil

Utensils
small sauce pan
plate
plastic baggy or bowl
bowl
2 forks or a fork and a slotted spoon
Plate
Lots of paper towels.

Mix the flour, cornstarch, salt, garlic powder, sesame seeds, and pepper in either a bowl or a ziplock baggy. Shake or mix well.

Crack the egg into the other bowl and scramble with your fork.

Heat the oil on high until it is very hot (I use a wonton wrapper to check the heat.)

Put a paper towel on the plate (or more than one.)

Coat 3 or 4 strips of chicken in the egg at a time, then put in the flour mixture. I use a bag and shake them up to coat them. Put the coated chicken strips in the hot oil. If it is cooking too quickly, turn the heat down to medium-high. (I switch back and forth a lot while frying chicken in oil like this)

After putting them in the pan, put the next strips in the egg and then in the flour.

Make sure that both sides cook to a golden brown then remove from pan with fork or spoon. Put them on the plate to dry.

This recipe makes enough coating for at least two chicken breasts, and more likely three, though you may run out of egg with three.

I like mine dipped in honey.

Clean up after yourself after this one. That means getting grease splatters off of the stovetop. I use two cookie sheets (one behind and one to the side, to keep the grease from splattering all over the kitchen.

Support Your Local Ska Band!

So, I haven't posted anything today. I'm slacking something big time here. I started to post earlier today, but the computer crashed and my endless wisdom about the newest book by Neal Stephenson was lost to humanity. Mostly i said that it is funny so far, but no on par with Snow Crash or Cryptonomicron. I think I've said that before to some of you.
Here's something a little odd about being an aspiring writer. I've been playing pencil and paper rpgs for at least 16 years now (gah, I have been playing for more years than I had when I started.) When I am working on settings instead of finishing stories in progress like a good boy, I find myself as often as not working on a campaign setting. This is very dangerous. I don't want my stories to sound like someone's D&D game (or GURPS or Shadowrun or whatever.) The worst part of it is that I'm not roleplaying right now, and each time I find myself doing this, my desire to be playing or running something gets really strong. I guess I could play with the McClures if they have any free time, but honestly, 3 people isn't enough, especially when two of them are related and live in the same house. I could play or run something for my sibilings and their friends, but (and no offense to you nessie) I really want to play with older folks. There is both the life experience gap that makes it akward to play with people that much younger than I am, and my hesitation to explore various themes with people that young (not that they aren't mature enough for anything I want to do in a roleplaying game, but I have a hard time getting past that block. I'll probably always treat the ones who stick around like they are a decade younger than they really are.) I could run a basic hack and slash game, but I don't like running them, and anymore, to enjoy that kind of gaming, I need to play with an experienced GM. Oh well.

Still playing Zelda. This time, I actually do have the Master Sword, and there are only two or three more dungeons before I am done with the first half of the game. My brother was asking how I managed to avoid the screens full of enemies. Gods, the kids these days have it easy with their gameing. I mean honestly, not only do his games have cheat codes, but he actually uses them. The screen he was talkin about wasn't even all that bad. He is sort of obnoxious when he is watching a game, and I wish he would kibitz less, but this has always been the case. His favorite is "You're going to die!" Which is almost inevitably followed by a massive set of me not dieing. He just doesn't have the skills. Shit. I mean honestly, what's he got? Spyro? Please! When I was his age, the games were harder. I mean, Megaman 1, the eight bosses are each harder than anything in spyro, and you fought them twice (as well as the wonderful rock monster.) Oh well. Got that off my chest. (He plays Unreal Tournament with cheat codes too. Yeah, there's a reason that dodging 8 or 10 krees looks hard to him, he hasn't ever actually played a hard game without cheating.)
Well, I should talk about something of intrest to Aundree and anyone else who isn't a gamer. Er...
Damn, I don't have anything right now.

Oh, went to the dollar general and bought another big package of wildflower seeds to plant in the back yard (that yard will be so pretty next year if they take.)

The snow has melted.
the leaves peek out at the sun
yesterday forgotten
a bird's song softly begins
has the spring returned to us?

I've got the Master Sword

Well not really, but I only need two more hearts before I can go get it. In my quest for the original Super Mario game, I stumbled on the first two Zeldas. I never really played them in the way back when, so I am having all of the excitement of playing a new Zelda game for the first time. Envy me! It is a little less fun than Link to the Past, though I understand that I am having more fun by orders of magnitude than if I was playing Majora's Mask.
Check out the new I'm Blue (esp the gamers among my unregistered friends.) She's doing a pencil and paper rpg story arc. 3rd edition not so spoony bard and all.

I just got to talk to Jessica H. over IM. This is a special occasion, almost as rare as talking to John M. Actually I guess that it is about exactly as rare as getting to talk to Rube. She had to go all too soon, but still, it is really good to be able to keep in (albet sporadic) contact with my friends from highschool.

Writing this at 11, and everyone's asleep or trying to be. It is a real pain that the only internet computer in the house is in mom's room. I've been less productive than I'd like this week. I need to finish up my Flipside story (excerpt posted below,) but most of my actual creative work has gone into working out how much energy you need to run biopowered electronics and detailing a potential story setting in my head (actually, workingout some gimmics for said setting. I'm thinking of a humanity that is very phobic of nano scale von neumanns because of an early grey goo incident on Mars. Not certain what angle I want to work the story as though.

The snow is still blowing my mind. The first owners of this house were dumb and planted a silver maple. I don't know why people like them. Their leaves aren't that pretty, and after they get big, you are just waiting for an 800 pound limb to fall through your roof. Big softwood maples are worthless. Well, two big brances broke off of the tree today (BIG Branches) and are lying in the yard. My brother, who was home sick today decided to move one of them. In sandels and shorts. *holds head*

Here's another recipe, nothing bread related this time.
Mike’s Quick Chicken and Egg Soup
Ingredients:
3 C Water
2 bullion cubes
2 eggs
1 piece of chicken (Thigh or breast or two drumsticks.)
1 chopped green onion
Ingredients:

Utensils:
Small Pan
Coffee Cup
Spoon
Knife

Instructions:
This is a fairly quick soup recipe; it makes a somewhat thick soup and can be made with raw chicken or leftovers. These instructions assume you are using raw chicken, for precooked chicken, use 2 cups of water, and add eggs and onions immediately.

Remove skin and cut up chicken. The pieces should be no bigger than your thumbnail, and even smaller than that is okay.

Crack eggs into coffee cup and beat until they are well mixed.

Put pan on stove and add water. Bring to rapid boil, and add bullion cubes. Put in chicken pieces, and allow it to come back to a rapid boil. Lower temperature to medium and cook for five minutes. Bring temperature back up to high and add eggs and onion. Once the soup returns to a boil, you can turn it down and let simmer for five to 10 minutes. Add salt, pepper and other spices to taste. If the soup is too strong, add water, too weak, allow it to boil down a little.

This can be served over a bowl of unseasoned ramen noodles as a meal for two or eaten by itself.

This one is straight out of the cookbook, and was chosen for me by my friend Eva.

everyone asleep
falling water and dog snores
are my companions
alone until the morning
pen, paper my company

What the Fuck? It is snowing!

Okay, yeah, yesterday was nice and warm, but this morning when I went to take the dogs out it had become chilly and it was raining. Mom brought some laundry to the laundrymat since our dryer isn't working, and when she came back, it was snowing. It was just little flakes back then and it was mixed with rain. Now, 5 hours later (or so,) there is between 2 and 4 inches of snow on the ground, and the snow is falling in these quarter sized clusterfucks of flakes (thanks for the word Rube.) I'm looking at the weather map, and there is this pseudopod of blueness extruding from Eastern Canada all the way into southern Alabama. It is warmer in Indianapolis than it is in Montgomery!
Hey, I've got a new reader. Good to hear from you Aundree. How's stuff in the deep south? Biggest benefit to joining up (if you aren't going to keep a journal) is that if someone replies to one of your posts, you recieve an e-mail about it. Oh and you can have a picture by your posts (like my Usagi Yojimbo one.)

Yesterday I was thinking about stuff. (Always a bad sign.) I have mentioned and linked to Life of Riley a lot in this Journal in the five or so days I've been keeping it. Well, that's cool and all, because it is one of the second set of webcomics I started reading (after Avalon, College Roomies from Hell, Megatokyo (my absolute first,) Penny Arcade, a defunct comic involving a sheep, and one I don't remember at all. But, it has come to my attention that other than a Quiz, I haven't mentioned this at all. It happens to be written and drawn by a friend of mine. Go check it out. I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue I'm Blue

Well, I'll try to have a second post later today. Have a good day.

A night out.

The brothers McClure and I went down to Clarksville this evening. We'd all just recieved checks for some work we did a while ago, though I hadn't cashed mine yet. It is probably for the best really. We went to a pair of Gamestops, an Electronic Botique, and a Suncoast, and well, I am not sure that I would have left having any money after that. I haven't bought any anime or Manga in a long long while, not to mention computer games, of which there are quite a few I want. Oh, and there are these Shadow Run figures by Hero Clicks that were on sale for 5 bucks each that would probably have made it home with me if I'd had the cash. We stopped at Logan's Road House and had us some good steak, the first I've had in a while. I eat a lot less beef than I used to. *chuckles* Dad always told me that would happen. It is harder to get really good beef dishes than it is to get really good chicken dishes, too much flavor overwhelming the seasoning. I was going to borrow ten bucks from the Oldest brother McClure to buy Megatokyo 2 from Darkhorse, but the Younger brother McClure held out his hand while I was looking at it and I automatically handed it to him, and since he had cash, he bought it. I would have complained, except I was going to haveto borrow money to afford it, so I decided I'd just wait.

We got to be total dorks. I love doing that. It isn't that I'm not a total dork when I am alone at home, it is just that it isn't as fun to be a dork by yourself. We didn't get too exuberant about it, so there was no great bothering of the normals, even at the resturaunt. We even toned some of it down for the sake of some youngsters at the table behind us. I didn't even sing the Vagina Dentata song when we were talking about bad things to get stuck in your head.
So We got home at about 9:40 local time, and mom was checking her e-mail. I went off to play Zelda on my box for a while. My brother was watching tv (still, again, always, whatever) so we had the door to our room shut, and mom ended up going to bed before I had a chance to come in and check my e-mail and post this. Oh well.

Rainy days again
a forest awash in green
a midwestern spring
the rebirth of the landscape
memories of western home

So you want to be a Hero?

Since yesterday, I've decided to look for a rom of super mario brothers. I headed over to cherryroms (where I happen to have an account) and found out that they were not what I was thinking of. They are only SNES, and being fairly public, they don't have any roms that the IDSA have under their protection, so I can't grab it as super mario all stars. Guess that wouldn't be legal anyway. But when I logged on, I ran across something that may be of interest to some of you. They had a news post about the Elder Scrolls games. It seems that right now is their 10th aniversery and to celebrate, they posted the first game on their site. As important as that, they have a link to a dos emulator! I don't know if it is any good, but if the game company liked it enough to link it with one of their games, it is good enough for me. For both of you who might be interested, The Game
I'll let everyone know how well the emulator works when I've transfered it to my computer. Oh yeah! If this works, I'll be able to play all of my favorite sb16 games again. I can even complete the QG series!!! No more ultra hyper fast combat for my budding warrior mage (who should have also had the paladin skills, but the game was poopy about that.) And if Matt still has it, I can play KQ6 with sound and video again. King's Quest 6 is one of my all time top 5 games. Hell, I liked it so much that I even liked the steaming pile of runny dog crap end song, Girl in the Tower.

If this piece of software works, that will just be the beginning. I have such a massive backlog of dos and w95 games that require a sb 16. I can also play gapper again as long as this controlls the speed as well.

I am occasionally glad that I don't have a gaming group here. I have been getting the itch to play pencil and paper again, and while I would be happy to play a regular game, If I had a party, I'd be tempted to run something, and right now, if I run something it will be some sort of angles and deamons game, and if I run some sort of angles and deamons game, I'm not using the In Nomine rules, and if I don't use the In Nomine rules, I have to make my own, and if I have to make my own, I'm not using the BESM rules (too limited) so I'd probably end up using FUZION, and well, if I use FUZION, I'd have to do a lot of work, both searching for modular rule sets that match my vision and writing new rule sets to make me happy. That's a lot of work. Maybe I'd be better off running something else. Oh, wait, moot point. No gaming group locally. Though an Immortal game would be sort of cool. I've even got a scenario set up for that one. Battletech/Mechwarrior could be neat, though I only have the main book for each rule set. So, anyone want to run something messageboard style?

Power Overwhelming

So, I finally beat the last mission of the Campaign Creator example campaign for Starcraft. The Zerg/Schezzar's forces fall down go boom before my onslaught of Protoss Carriers. It was a little touch and go at the end after my last Arbiter was made to go splodey, but the remaining badguys weren't quite numerous enough to take me. Nothing in the official campaign was as difficult as those missions. Of the building missions, there were none where you could build a fire and forget base, and the small group assault mission was a royal pain in the ass. I should get the Broodwar expansion.
In other notes, I made calzones for dinner yesterday. (before watching hellboy.) Well, I made a calzone and had enough dough left that I was able to make another one this morning.
Mike's Happy Happy Fun Calzone Recipe

Ingredients
Dough
1/2 c warm water
2 tbsp sugar
1 packet dry yeast
2 tbsp oil (preferably olive)
1 egg
1/2 tsp chicken bullion (optional)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
a handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
2 1/2 or 3 c flour
Something for texture (I like sesame seeds or some wheat berry that has been soaked in water for 4 or 5 hours.)

Filling
Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Fresh Shredded Parmesan Cheese
Seasonings to taste (Italian seasoning and stuffez like that.)
A pat of butter (or margarine or a bit of olive oil)
Other stuff (I personally go with pepperoni and black olives if I have them)

Utensils:
Solid metal fork
the regular large size of margarine tub (or a bowl at least that big)
Pizza Sheet (oiled)

Preheat oven to 350
Pour hot water in bowl and dissolve the sugar in it.
Add yeast and swirl until you have a brown liquid.
Add salt, bullion, garlic powder, oil, and egg.
Mix well with fork.
Add cheese and texture stuff.
Mix again
Add flour 1/2 c at a time, mixing well until you geta nice solid but not too sticky ball of dough. If you have a hand mixer, use it. It makes life easier. Use the bread attachment. It looks like a long helix of wire with a curve up at the bottom.
Make sure your pan is oiled.
Make a flat square or circle of dough on the pan. Use between 1/3rd to 1/2. It should be fairly thick, unless you want to make a layered calzone. If I am hungry I can eat one made from half a batch of dough. If I am having up to 5 friends over for dinner, I just make the dough thinner. (I use more filling in this case.)
Put the butter on the top surface of dough.
Add other ingredients (you know how much to use better than I do.)
Pull the edges together to make a sub bun shaped object. Pinch the edges and ends closed and flip over. Do this with each calzone you are making. Thick walls are better than thin.
Make sure there is at least an inch of clear space between the calzones (2 is better.)
Put the sheet in the oven and bake for 20 or so minutes. When the outside is a nice medium brown, the calzone is done.
By the way, if you want sausage or some other shit that starts like totally raw, cook it first. It is not going to be in the oven nearly long enough to cook itself.

Siblings are home again. I always forget how much I love it when my brother has my television on all day. It isn't really that bad right now. He remembered to keep the door shut.

Gah, I need to defuzz my face again. (The downside to balance the joys of the lawnmower no longer being a humongous task.)

In regards to my last entry

I just remembered which one I have here. I have Xenogears. And even if I do find my memory card, I think I'll holdoff. I promised dibs on that one to a friend of mine, and it'd suck if she took me up on it halfway through the game.

Well, I'm either going to go play Never Winter or Super Mario Brothers.
Maybe I'll beat it this time. So, yeah, I r0x0r at games like 19XX which is as scripted as SMB and harder too boot, but I have never beaten the last Bowser. This is pathetic.

updated
Well, I didn't play either. I really didn't want to play NWN and apparently I had Super Mario Brothers on the computer sometime before the last time I formatted the HDD. I may have a backup of it somewhere, and I am staring at the cartridge right now, but finding the cd or hooking up the NES are more work than that game is worth. I ended up playing some Super Metroid instead. Bloody hard without a controllwe and with the keys set up the opposite of how it feels that they should be. (Sort of like playing FF7 and FF Tactics togethere. The key settings are just about opposite of eachother which messed me up since I usually play with the controller behind my head anyway.

When was the start of this?

When did the cogs of fate begin to turn?
Perhaps it is impossible to grasp that answer now,
For deep within the flow of time...
But, for a certanty, back then
We loved so many, and hated so much,
We hurt others and were hurt ourselves...
But even then, we ran like the wind
Whilst our laughter echoed
under Cerulean Skies.
(Opening to chrono cross.)
I need to take up a new project soon. My room is fairly small, and I am sharing it with my brother. He has a fair amount of stuff, and well, so do I. It is, let's say, less than orderly in its distribution. Now, those of you who are thinking that my "new project" would be cleaning it up are pretty close to dead wrong. It is disordered, yeah, but it isn't anything that fifteen or thirty minutes of straightening up won't fix Yeah, don't laugh those of you who decided to "clean" my room when I was in Vegas. I still haven't found some of my stuff after that. My problem is that I am missing a moderately important piece of electronics. I have a PS1 multiple setting memory card (like 200 slots or some such.) The problem is that I can't find it. This is compounded by the facts that I want to play some of my PS1 games that won't run on my emulator, and that it has saved games that are about 3/4ths of the way through at lest 4 seperate (and fun) games. The second fact tells me that I need to find it instead of buying a new one. I now need to take all of the books and DVDs off of the bookshelves to find it. Oh yay! That is a project and a half.
On the other hand, upon completing said project, I'll be able to play Xenogears and Chronocross again. (Well, I'll be able to play which ever one I haven't loaned to Kevin (no not that Kevin, the one you guys don't know, unless you aren't from around these parts.)
Oh, yeah, happy Easter everyone. Yet another stolen holiday. At least this one wasn't branded a demon. (Like "Saint Bridget" Got to love any church with the balls to convert local gods and goddesses into saints and demons. Actually Estere (think I'm missing an a there) got a pretty good deal as these things go. Her day became one of the most important holy days for the christians.) though I did paint some eggs yesterday. Or dye them anyway. Ugh, I should have bought better egg dye. The stuff I used was weak. (There were 2 pinks. Or a purple and a pink, but the purple wasn't really purple, even when I left an egg in it for half an hour.) I didn't do as many eggs as I usually do. Too broke at the moment.
Been rereading the Life of Riley archives. I want to play a game like In Nomine (except completely different in the mechanics) now.

Well, more later.

As always,
Michael

Love the post date feature

Went out and watched Hellboy with Nick. Got home too late to post this, so I'm posting now and changing the date.
It was good to see Nick again. Sort of part of being stuck in the hell hole that is Indiana (and especially a small town in the south end) is that I don't see friends as much as I'd like. Oh well, I'll be back out west soon enough. Actually, it won't be soon enough at all, but I can pretend. I may go west via Muncie, but I am figuring on being within 100 miles of the Pacific within 4 years. It'll be good to get out of the midwest again.
Hellboy was good. Not great, but good. My main complaint was that it wasn't dark enough at all. I mean, for a film that rips off Lovecraft (and honestly folks, the Mythos is an open setting, couldn't we have taken it whole cloth?) the bad guys were just too warm and fuzzy. Not that the bad guys were warm and fuzzy at all, but they weren't nearly enough of the opposite for this to be a happy Michael.
We went to Dairy Queen before the movie and watched about 15 cars cruseing back and forth from the theater's lot to a highschool across the way's lot and back. Nick tried a Puckerberry Blizard. While we were ordering, I told him I was going to laugh at him when it tasted like shit. No more than three minutes later I got to laugh at him. Apparently in the special Dairly Queen language "Sour Rasberry" means unsweetened rasberry Koolaid mix. The one that got me was when he found a bit that hadn't dissolved into the Blizzard. Here, go try an experiment. Go grab a package of unsweetened Koolaid and open it. Pour the contents on your tongue. Now you know what Nick was facing.
We watched the natives do stupid things in stupid cars. Gas is like $1.70 a gallon right now. We watched fifteen cars go back and forth at under their optimal speed for an hour. We watched a 2 hour movie and when we came back out at least 3 of them were still at it. (One was a Diesal truck, I suspect borrowed from Daddy. Another was the most hideous green and orange shit-mobile I have ever seen. Several very rice cars. Love the midwest, I really do.) Okay, let's give these morons the benefit of the doubt. At optimum they get 25 miles to the gallon and are geared for about 50 miles per hour. Here they are going like 15 the whole time and doing stupid shit with their engines. Let's say 3 gallons an hour. So the ones still out there had used a minimum of 6 gallons of gas driving in circles. 6*1.70 (the cheapest gas.) is $10.20. So these dumbshits are spending ten bucks to drive in circles! That's just tonight! *sighs* Still don't know why a few of my friends are adverse to the idea of leaving the armpit of America.

Er, the green grass ain't growing all around and around now suckah

Just mowed the lawn. I remember how long it used to take when I was younger. I used to completely hate mowing the lawn. It is kind of neat being physically an adult and being able to do things like mow the lawn easily and get the thing to start on the first try (right after mom was talking about how hard it is to start.) There are some compensations for no longer being 12.
I do sort of still hate mowing the lawn still, but not becauise of the effort. I've always detested suburban lawns. Quarter acre monocultures of some overbread strain of perfect grass, not a weed or non-grass plant to be seen. Well I'll admit that our yard isn't like that, and in the back there are some places that never get mowed between our neighbors' privacy fences and our (failed) keep the gods in the yard 8 foot cage fences, and I leave some patches alone (like in the shadow of the house where it isn't grass anyway, and along the back where the garden used to be and now there is the Strohl Family (Yeah, everyone else in the family is named Strohl, poor saps) Unofficial small wildlife refuge (I think it looks neat, but I bet our neighbors disagree.) Oh there is also the island in the pit that never gets mowed. Beasty poo wanted to dig a pond there. After leaving piles of dirt around the yard and not being willing to have someone else direct her, mom told her no, so now we have the Island. (Following material cut because one of her best friends reads this.) We mow less than the neighbors, and with the various parts that get left alone we have more critters who make their home in our yard than is usual. (In 20 or 30 years, unless the next owner of the house kills them, there'll be a decent little forest back there. We have some catalpas and mulberrys as well as a nice oak tree (fifteen years old or so. Finally getting to be a shade tree.) There are maples just waiting for someone not to mow them for a few years as well as an alder or something like that. There's also some hollies that are having baby hollies in front. When this suburb finally gives up, our yard (and our neighbor's) will form one of the nucli of the forest that will replace it (unless someone pavees the whole thing.) Hanover is going to be a neat place in 3-400 years if something doesn't happen to screw things up.
Still no Asparagus. I'm thinking they are an early spring plant, but mom is not so sure. They are mortal plants, so they may have just died of old age (and they were wild so we aren't certian how old they are anyway)
Managed to spare a lot of flowers. Not as many as I would have liked, but there is still some color in the yard. (I am a heavily selective force for short flowering dandylions.) I love the fact that paches of lawn are being replaced with low growing flowering plants. Especially the wild ones. (Well, actually the little purple multiples sphereshaped flowers out near the watermain aren't wild, but we didn't plant them, and they look like grass when they aren't flowering. If they'd take over there would be no more mowing ever.

Pinus contortia
A tower in the mountians
a man by the beach
A gooey cone grabs my hand
where'd I put the turpentine?

Bring on the recipies

I was thinking about the whole recipe thing I mentioned somewhere below here, and I just had the most stupendaculous idea. Instead of starting with recipies of dubious providence like Mike's Scrumptus Gramcracker Banana Goo Marangue Pie with Minty After Taste (Known to extract comments like, "Ooh, this is nasty" *taste taste taste* "Er, maybe not. I think I like it," *Taste* "ick" *taste* "no, it is good" *taste* "Bleh" *taste* "er, I'm all out, could I have some more?") I'll test more regular recipies on you folks. Just a second as I rummage through the magicial recipe file.
*rummage*
Er, how about Hard Boiled Eggs? No too simple.
*rummage*
Hand Whipped Merangue Cookies? Oh, wait. I said I was never doing that with a fork ever again, right after I regained the use of my arm.
*rummage*
Mike's Not Spicy at All Seefood Gumbo? Oh, too much food you say? Okay.
*rummage*
I know! Jessica's*** Artichoke and other stuff party dip from New Years.* **
1/2 package of chopped frozen Spinach.
1 Can of Artichoke Hearts in Brine, drained and soaked in cold water for a while.
4oz cream cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup mayonaise (not fake Mayo, real Mayo.)
about 1 tsp garlic salt
1/4 c fresh shredded parmesan cheese (you can use it from a green tall dispenser, but, really, ICK.)
3/4 c shredded Motzearella cheese.
1 loaf of French or something bread
One large Bread Pan (Greased)
Medium Bowl

Preheat Oven to 298.7 degrees****
Prepare Spinach to the instructions on the package
Chop the artichoke hearts (I like big pieces)
Put All ingredients except 1/2 C motzerella in bowl , make sure cream cheese is buried in steaming hot spinache. Mix Well. Transfer to prepared pan.
Put remaining motzerella on top of dip.
Place in oven and bake for 25 minutes.
If the top isn't brown, turn the oven on broil and cook five or so more minutes.
Serve with sliced bread.

* Not actually the same recipie as the one that Jessica used for her dip at new years. That one was copyrighted and didn't fit within the restrictions of the Cookbook.
** Not actually in the cookbook yet. Try at your own risk. I am not exactly sure that it will come out perfectly.
***I also need to get Jessica's permission to use her name.
**** Yeah, just being a jackass there. 300 is fine. Not 301 though.

"I have a Plan!" "Is it at least a good plan?" "Er. Not really, but it is a Plan!"

I have, for now, decided what I am going to do with this thing!
I am going to try to post at least two substantive entries here every day. At least one of them will contain a tanka or (if I get some help) a renga. If I can only post once a day, I will post one. The rest of that entry, as well as the other one will be a quasi-random set of musings that is almost, but not quite, unlike an essay. I will of course post at other times as well, but I am hoping to make good on my promise of two entries worth reading a day (except when I don't.)
I was considering a third daily post of an excerpt from something in progress, but knowing the speed with which I actually get writing done, I'd run out of backlog and troublesome sections for you folks to read in a month. I will post snippets of stories and other things in progress from time to time (and probably more frequently in the next month or so than in the future.)
*evil grin* ooh! You can test recipes for the cookbook. (Ask nessie's sister about the calamari stir-fry. Actually she's the only one who ate it (other than mom and I.))

the bottle of sand
beaches from across the world
a seashore enclosed
the salty air a memory
blowing through the gulf of time