We’ll be out drinking (*shock*) tonight, so I figured I’d drop a quick Happy New Year to everyone. After the festivities are over, I’ll post our list of this year’s contributions to the alcoholic goodness (hint: we made pudding shots).
Monthly Archive for December, 2007
Current Mood:
Angry
I’m not one to advocate capitol punishment, but I think that if there’s a hell, there’s a special place in it for spammers.
I’ve implemented a CAPTCHA on guest commenting in the gallery. Sorry folks, but I just spent over an hour of my life removing around 500 spam comments on photos of our friends and family. It’s only been about 2 months since I last looked at the comments and everything seemed fine then (there were a couple of spam comments that I cleaned up) and I didn’t think it was bad.
I’ve been doing a little cleaning up around here and noticed the stupidity while checking on the gallery after an update. Hopefully the CAPTCHA fixes things up and helps avoid the spambots. If not, then we’ll have to turn guest comments off.
Funny thing is that after reviewing the search engine criteria used to find our site, one of them is a direct search for Wordpress Gallery installs with guest commenting turned on. Maybe we have been targeted. I guess Google can be a good tool for both sides.
As most of you have probably surmised or just plain ol’ knew, we have an early elementary school age daughter. Char has posted previously about the kid’s interest in Star Wars. One of the things that was on the MUST HAVE list this XMas was a couple of lightsabers “so we can fight.”
While the interest in Star Wars is pretty cool for me, it does sometimes boggle my mind to think that one moment she’s play-acting Barbie’s and the next moment, she’s bringing the fury with a noisy red toy lightsaber.
She is furious with a ’saber. And they are cool.
We picked them off of Amazon; mainly because their price was better than anyone we had seen. I was sure that I didn’t want to get the $10 lightsabers; one’s with no sounds, lights, or “force action”. For $10 more, you get a whole lot more. The $20 models are better built and include all the “bells and whistles” that make them truly a good toy.
These are highly recommended if you have a child that is a fan of Star Wars. Here’s a link to the Darth Vader lightsaber.
Current Mood:
Happy
The holiday continues, and so does my seemingly unending listening marathon. Today, our friends from Amazon dropped off a little package of joy that included the Harry Potter HD DVD set (Char’s XMas gift for herself) and a couple of CD’s including Donovan Frankenreiter’s “Move by Yourself”.
It’s jumpy bouncy music, contrasted by Donovan’s more-than-laid-back voice. Several of the tracks groove very hard for hippy white guy music. “Fool” could easily find itself on the soundtrack of a 70’s blacksploitation flick. The whole album is a great afternoon soundtrack; not a single track I find myself skipping past.
“That’s Too Bad (Byron Jam)” is one of the single best soul/rock songs I’ve heard in years. This album officially crossed into “heavy rotator” status upon hearing this tune. While he doesn’t really break new ground with this album, it is recorded well and is just plain good music to listen to.
I was first introduced to Frankenreiter on a television show called Live From Abbey Road on Sundance. His live band is amazing and he is as talented live as he is recorded. The recording engineers didn’t have to do much other than to make sure the tape was running.
I think Frankenreiter is unfairly compared to his buddy, Jack Johnson, simply because they are both surfers-turned-musicians and have a very laid-back Cali vibe. Frankenreiter, however, is very electric and blues/funk focused, more like G Love’s less hip-hop works than Jack Johnson. Though if you like Jack’s rendition of ‘Rodeo Clowns’ on G Love’s “Philadelphonic”, you’ll probably like this disc as much as I do.
Current Mood:
Chillin
It’s that time of year again. No. Not -that- time, but it has something to do with it. I’m given a good long stretch by the corporation between the holidays to sit on my fat butt and do a lot of things that I love to do, the most important of which is to get re-acquainted with my ever-expanding music collection.
A while ago, I lost a hard drive array; the one that contained all my music. I have ripped all of my CD’s to lossless format (FLAC) for playback via the various computers around here or for further processing to MP3.
Having lost all the lossless sources, I have set out to re-rip a good portion of the collection. A friend has a good portion of the collection backed up for me (we back up each other’s important data), but I have decided that many of the discs weren’t ripped with enough attention to detail and thus, the more important stuff is getting that attention.
This is an arduous task and presents me with an opportunity to spend some quality time listening to various records that I might not have had the time for before. For example, presently, I’m listening to “Sounds from the Verve Hi-Fi” by Thievery Corporation.
It is as excellent a jazz comp as there ever was. Very 50’s beat-jazz; almost “loungy”, but not cheeky. Considering the wide range of artists and timeframes (it spans the 50’s-70’s), Thievery has done an excellent job of putting together a disc that like all Thievery outings creates a certain mood from beginning to end and does not feeling jarring at all; unlike other “jazz greatest” comps we’ve all come to know and loathe.
Aside from the massive toy recalls in 2007, toy companies need to revise their packaging, which seems to get worse year after year. Clare got a Barbie Horse for X-Mas that is by far one of the worst examples of over-the-top, needless package engineering that I’ve seen yet.
Removing the horse from the package required de-twisting no less than 7 twist-ties that were held to the cardboard by those wonderful plastic twist-tie holders AND TAPED. Tape also held several plastic, throw-away “marketing enhancements” that had to be removed in order to get at the horse and the accessories.
On top of this joy, once you removed the horse, there were a plethora of those little clear rubber bands, more plastic and tape, and the hellish twist-ties holding the damned horse together, not to mention the plastic stitched into the hair to keep it in order while in the packaging.
This ordeal took me nearly 20 minutes; to de-package a $20 toy. So this is a plead to the toy companies of the world from a parent who has to deal with this crap. Kids are gonna want your toys if they are compelling and fun to play with (you -do- research that stuff, right???). Please make your toys easier to remove from the package. Then parents might not have to spend half of Xmas morning fighting with more packing by weight than the toys it holds.
Thank you.
Current Mood:
Martini Mood
We went down to Niles, MI to have Christmas with Brad’s side of the family on the 22nd. Originally we were going to go to Chicago to see 3 of our favorite bands: Hello Dave, Domestic Problems, and The Nadas. The 3 bands did a tour together many years ago, and of course Brad & I saw them perform together many times. They were set to play at the House of Blues in Chicago, and we had arranged to have Clare stay with the grandparents. Then I got to thinking about the cost and logistics of it all….gas money or train fare into Chicago from Niles, hotel fees, drinks, taxes, and all at Chicago cost. For anyone that has not been to Chicago, it’s rather expensive especially when you have to pay for everything plus their high taxes. So, we opted to just go down to the in-laws and keep our Christmas date with them.
Saturday was beautiful when we left town…sunny, 50 degrees Farenheit, and all of the snow had melted. Apparently over night the Artic front came through with over 60mph winds, and it brought a major snow storm with it set to arrive Sunday night. We had dinner, exchanged gifts, chatted, and then loaded up the car. As we were leaving Brad mentioned staying another night because of the winds and snow. I said no, because I had a ton to do on the 24th before “Santa” was set to arrive, and wanted to get it all done before things got too crazy on Christmas Eve. We loaded up, braved the wind, bitter temperatures, and set off. The roads were clear, it was flurrying a bit, but for the most part it seemed like it’d just take me a bit of time to get home because of the wind. Little did I know we were expected to get 3-7 inches flurrying down, and blowing around in the wind. We merged onto I-196 from I-94, and it got a little harder to see the road. For the most part I was doing okay, so long as I could see the solid white line on the right. We got to Saugatuck, and I couldn’t see anything. Mini snow tornadoes whipped accross the road, and car tail lights disappeared in front of me. I seriously thought we weren’t going to make it home, and that we were going to end up in a major pile up. I got off at South Haven, and we decided to call it a night. We went to 3 different hotels before we could find one that would take dogs (because we had Moonshadow with us), and one that would let us have a non-smoking room. It wasn’t too bad of an experience, other than everytime someone opened a door in the hallway Moonshadow barked. The Comfort Inn is highly recommended after our little adventure, and as a last minute decision it wasn’t too bad on the pocket book. Their continental breakfast had a pretty good assortment including make your own waffles (this reminded me of college), cereal, sausages (being Vegetarian we didn’t eat them…so I can’t vouch for them), coffee, juice, bagles, fruit, donuts, hard boiled eggs, and various other things I can’t remember. So, I took Clare down to get something to eat, then had to take the dog down to go out, grabbed some not so great coffee, changed cloths, packed up, and headed for home.
On our way we stopped for some brunch, stopped at the pet store because it was convienent & I had to get Moonshadow some stocking stuffers, ran to the office supply store to grab mailing supplies for my new at home business (as I had to mail out some items ASAP that were ordered from a party earlier last week), as well as some other things, ate lunch, and went home. I had yet to go out and get Brad’s & my stocking stuffers, and we needed something for dinner & breakfast today, so I braved Meijer on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t so bad, but there were more people in the Vodka aisle than I’ve ever seen in there on a regular basis! We had a simple dinner, watched Emmett Otters Jug Band Christmas Movie, put Clare to bed, and then it was time to wrap all the presents. Now you understand why I was so crazy in thinking I had to brave the winds and snow to get home on Christmas Eve!
For those that don’t live in Michigan, or SW Michigan, and don’t believe me when I try to describe the white out snow storm - head on over to this link. It should take you to a newscast from our local Wood TV channel 8. You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about!
Current Mood:
Tired or Sleepy
For passing germs! This week Clare came down with a doosey of a cold. Brad seemed to think she may have the flu…but she only threw up a few times. I think she mostly threw up because of all the mucus she’s had got flowing through her poor little body. The nights have been sleepless, for both her and I to top it off. She’s missed 3 days of school this week, and she probably should have stayed home yesterday…but she told me she was feeling good. I think it was just because she wanted to go to her school party and not miss out on the fun. So, I sent her to school yesterday against my better intuition, and during the party she threw up on the table. To top it off she did it at the cookie frosting table. Thankfully most of it was on the table, and a little bit of it was on her. We came home immediately and she slept on the couch for 2 hours. She did eat a little bit last night before bed, so I think she’s on the mend. This morning her nose is still a faucet full of snot….but I have hopes that it will be cleared up for the weekend. At least we got her fever to break. Ah the joys of having sick kids. Makes me kinda glad that I don’t have a job…especially being in a town with no family to just drop her off at. Hopefully nobody else is having to spend the week home with sick kid-o’s. I’m just really hoping that neither Brad or I get it!
Current Mood: Chillin
In my continued quest for the ultimate vegetarian breakfast food, I’ve concocted yet another creation. For my previous foray, see Vegetarian Biscuits and Gravy. This time, I’ve tackled the elusive breakfast skillet, and I think it came out pretty well. This recipe makes enough for about 4 adults, three if you are some hungry hippies.
Ingredients are as follows:
6 eggs
1/2 roll of veggie “sausage” (I used leftover from the Biscuits and Gravy)
1 small bag or “enough” of a big bag of frozen hash brown potatoes (the shredded kind)
1/2 of a good sized onion, well-chopped
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 tsp Sage
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/2 tsp Salt (or to taste)
1/2 cup shredded cheese (your choice… we use a Mexican cheese blend from Costco that is both tasty and cheap)
Olive Oil (a couple of tablespoons works fine)
Butter (a tablespoon is fine)
Destructions:
In a bowl, or on a cutting sheet, knead the sage into the veggie sausage. Add some pepper if you like. Oil on your hands helps to keep it from sticking so much (the stuff is like that paste you used in kindergarten when cold… very sticky stuff). I’ve been following this with the Biscuits and Gravy and it’s worked a lot better.
In a small skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat and crumble up the “sausage”. Fry until browned, but don’t over-do it. Overcooking can make it too chewy. Transfer this to a bowl or set aside.
In a large skillet, heat a small amount of oil over high heat and add the onion. As the onion begins to sweat, add the garlic. Combine well and then immediately add the frozen hash browns and turn over. Reduce the heat slightly and allow the hash browns to do what they do… brown. Add the salt and pepper. Potatoes taste like nothing without salt.
Scramble your eggs. This is something I’m a little particular about. If I’m really feeling cocky, I’ll use the blender on low to scramble, which yields the best eggs, but I ALWAYS add a small amount of milk AND water to my eggs as I’m scrambling. Most of the time, I use a good whisk. I usually add a little of the cheese directly to the eggs as well as a little salt and maybe some pepper.
Heat butter in a skillet until it’s melted and add the egg mixture. As it begins to firm up, add the sausage and transfer to the hash brown pan (you remembered to watch the hash browns, didn’t you?) before it is fully cooked. Spread the mixture around, add the rest of the cheese and cover the pan for about 6-7 minutes.
If you achieved what I managed to do, you’ll have a nice “crust” on the bottom and you’ll be able to almost cut it into pieces and serve it like pie. Mmmm… pie.
Current Mood: Tired or Sleepy
Here’s what I want to know…Who searches for such terms as “dad crossdresses tv show” and gets our website? I had to go out and use those search terms to find out what exactly someone would find if they had searched for that. Come to find out it brings up my previous post on Twin Peaks where I talked about David Duchovney. The clincher is though, that it was on page 3 of the Google search!
Another one I found about a month ago was the search terms “drunk moms that do crazy things”. Now, I know that I do crazy things when I’m drunk, but I don’t believe I’ve ever blogged too much about that. I try to keep this family friendly as my father-in-law & other family member read this quite often. Not that I have much to hide, because most of them have seen me in a drunken stupor during some phase of my life.
I just found it rather interesting what was in our our search terms on our word press dashboard. I also find it interesting that some days we have 40 hits, other days we have 5 hits. Kinda makes me wonder who is reading my thoughts on life.
