Wednesday: Writing is hard.

I also decided that the cardboard in my trash at work looks like a face.

Also, for future reference, `amixer -q set Capture,0 cap` seems to toggle the mute on my new laptop.

• Danbo.  Since I was talking about cardboard people.
• This is the story about how one very crazy person got banned from the Silent Hill wikia page.
• These are good questions about Star Wars.
• Lion is the best character.

Thursday: Thanksgiving

I only ended up eating like half of this.

Crap, I still have dessert to eat.

Anyway, thanksgiving food.  Rating things from best to worst

1. Mashed potatoes.  Steaming is always better, as it's faster and doesn't soak them so much.
2. Taro rolls.  I toasted them in the oven a bit too much, and discovered that slightly burned taro rolls taste delicious.
3. Turkey.  It's not very brown, but the strategy I used of just dumping the turkey parts in the cast iron casserole, slapping the lid on it, and roasting it that way seemed to work rather well.  I salted, peppered, and en-sage-enated the turkey as well, to get a bit more flavor in it.  Some of the edge bits are a bit dry, so that's a vote for brining.  Still, impossibly easy to deal with, and lazy is always good.
4. Gravy.  A bit salty, and given the option, don't buy whole wheat flour when you're expecting white.  How was this the only small package of flour?  The other options were five pound and eight pound bags.
5. GBC.  It's GBC.
6. Stuffing.  This ended up bad.  The flavor is just not good.  I think that I need to just toss all my spices and buy new ones.

Links.

• Bunnies.  Watch the bunny paws.
• I discovered this last night.  That is exactly the model that I have, that I used for the turkey.  I guess I should contact them, and see what the plan is.  If they're going to replace mine with a new one of equivalent size, then that's fine.  Otherwise, I may just keep and use this one.  I've had it for like six years now, and have never had any problems like that.
• I'm 99% certain Mr. Mime just stole that plate of spaghetti from Wooper.
• Squirrels.
• Thanksgiving.
• I noticed the same thing while watching the parade.  Way to hide the fact that you're bringing back Sharkleberry Fin, Kool-aid.  It's not Purplesaurus Rex, but still.

Oh, yeah.  I watched the parade.  Here's a cut so you don't have to load like 20MB of images if you don't really want to.  But really, what else are you doing right now?  Go on.  Click it.

Sunday: Yay three day weekends

Today was ramen day, but I didn't take any pictures of ramen.  I did take one of this giant karaage:

Here's a lion:

Rar.

• Comet PANSTARRS.
• Did you know you could download all your tweets?  I didn't until I saw someone else talking about it.
• It's been kind of interesting to see how slashdot has changed over the years.  It's clear now that it's degenerated into a bunch of people talking about things they have no clue about.  This article in particular seemed to be a good example.
• Wifi names.  Here are some I can see from my couch:
• ESSID:"BrightDeer-guest"
• ESSID:"Bitches Ain't Here"
• ESSID:"BadGirlsClub"
• ESSID:"Gustave"
• ESSID:"PotterNet"
• ESSID:"Hercules"
• ESSID:"jackal"
• ESSID:"Wilder Warriors"
• ESSID:"EmeraldCheetah-guest"
• So is there something that generates names using $adjective+$animal?
• Because everyone should read Brad DeLong's recaps. Not just because he finds a paper describing how to make pseudoephedrine from meth.

Sunday: Not Saturday

One problem with "not Saturday" is that I don't have lunch already planned out.  My original plan was to get pancakes.  Then it became like 5ish, and that turned into "maybe curry".  I drove down to the mall, and then discovered that the curry place is cash only.

So I had katsu don instead.

I did see someone who was dressed almost exactly like Marceline in that one episode.  She also had one of these weird fox-tail things on her phone. So:

She wasn't accompanied by floating words, though.  Also: unlikely to be a vampire. Or a queen for that matter.

• I woke up to find this discussion on slashdot.  It was at that point that I realized that people have no fucking clue how to make a burger.  You're not making meatloaf. You don't need to add things to make a burger tasty.
• Although you should add toppings to make delicious patty melts.  Now I want a patty melt.
• Damn it, Sasha. It's the blue room. Not the "screw up everything by wearing purple" room.
• I'm just kidding, Sasha. Everyone knows that purple is your color.
• The wisdom of Jake the dog.
• The lack of wisdom of professional economists.
• I like sushi. I like burritos. Even I have to agree that this is a terrible idea.
• Unlike mac&cheese pies. Which are a brilliant concept.

Since I don't have a pairing for this next link, I'll just show what I made, and link in the caption.

Make your own Pusheen you.

Tuesday: Problem solving!

I felt better today, so I made it in to work for the afternoon.  I decided to switch to problem B, which is similar to problem A, but different.  It turns out that this was the correct thing to do, as I was able to solve problem B, and use that solution to discover the solution to problem A.  That puts me far ahead of my expected weekly progress, even including missing yesterday.  Woo.

I've been thinking about making tacos for dinner this week, but couldn't remember what spices I'm out of.  I decided to skip this problem by making chorizo tacos.  A google search led me to the realization that this is apparently common with potatoes.  While doing so, the first image on this page came up during my search.  Who the fuck models t-shirts without pants on?

The tacos came out ok, but I'm going to need to think up ways to perk them up a bit.  I simply fried an onion, three small potatoes, and two things of chorizo (which turns out to be 20oz, not 1lb as I thought).  This works ok, but is a bit too monotone.  I bought an avocado, so I'll add slices of that, and I also picked up some limes, so maybe some lime juice, or thinly sliced lime supremes?  It needs something.

This sounds like an analogy for something.

The cutest omurice ever.

"Jerry, just stop. They're never going to come down far enough for you to get them."

• Dear the past, that is not how babies work.
• More tests need to be Pokemon themed.
• Best. Pun. Ever.
• Comic two is a bit of a downer.
• I really like old industrial films.

Thursday: I hate headaches

I had planned on going to see this show at the Academy of Art tonight.  However, after having a headache build up all day, and then dealing with the traffic results of people who don't know how to drive in the rain, I didn't feel like it.  I'm now looking for a biography that has decent reviews, but haven't had much luck.  Oh well.  At least I've already seen something that Thutmose III made:

In London, of all places. Turns out you'll never know where you'll be in 3500 years.

On an unrelated note, here's a sleeping Snorlax:

• TSA: still useless, now doesn't want anyone to know.
• Keri Byron from Mythbusters has a Boston Terrier.
• Wait, what? Who replaced the fascist Pat Robertson with the hippy Pat Robertson?

Saturday: There's a limit to how much fun you can have at the mall

I've been looking forward to the new Ghibli movie coming out for a while now, and so I wanted to make sure that I caught it when it opened.  While looking up show times earlier this week, I saw that the theater was showing a documentary about the National Gallery's Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, so I figured I catch that as well. The original plan was to start in the morning, but I went with the alternate plan of "sleeping in" instead.

That meant that I started with the Leonardo movie, and then had a two hour delay before Arrietty. This NYTimes review largely sums up my thoughts as well.  I'm glad I saw it, but there are some fairly major flaws that keep it from being what it could be.  Afterwards, I went to Kuru Kuru again, to finally get something to eat:

My favorites.

Next on the "waste two hours" schedule was the bookstore, but I think I might be reaching a saturation point with books.  It seems like a book has to be increasingly good or interesting looking for me to add it to the already giant pile of books I have.  This is probably a good thing, since I'm already seriously out of bookshelf space in my apartment.  I was a bit thirsty, so I figured I'd waste time at Jamba juice:

This confirmed what I've always thought about JJ: it's way too expensive and pretentious a place.  Still, it's next to a Starbucks, so it definitely tastes better than burnt coffee.  Had I actually been thinking, what I should have done was buy a new set of Set at the nerd toy store, and then grab a random table and played Set while waiting for the movie.  Hindsight, I guess.

Arrietty was as excellent as I was expecting.  Compared to the loud and crappy computer animation that gets churned out all the time now, this movie takes the time to capture how animation can be real art.  The goal of a cartoon shouldn't be to create a world of special effects that allows a lion to dance and sing and look realistic.  The goal should be to tell a good story with the help of beautiful pictures.  Like this one:

One interesting fact: the average age at Leonardo was probably around 55-60.  The average age at Arrietty was about 10.  The people at Leonardo had to rustle bags of food, talk to their friends, and send text messages throughout the entire film.  The kids at Arrietty sat quietly, with only the occasional, "what's that?" stage whispered to a parent.

After finishing the day of movies, I picked up groceries for the week.  I don't have a firm plan at the moment, but I bought a bunch of mushrooms.  I'm definitely on a soup binge right now, and so I think I'm going to use tomorrow to make a mushroom soup.  I also grabbed a flap steak, which I think I'm going to slice and quickly pan fry to go with the soup.  If nothing else, I can turn it into a beef and mushroom soup.

• Since google thinks I like Tanzania, I feel obligated to post this recipe/travel thing I got in my mail.
• Cops are crooked.
• Or, occasionally drunk.
• Or, alternatively, working for a major political campaign, while being secretly gay, and then threatening to deport his possibly illegal immigrant ex-boyfriend.  Wow, really? You'd think at some point he'd come to the conclusion that some of that is a bad idea.
• Puppy haet kitty!
• I really like old airplane advertisements.

Wait,

That's the best birthday dinner Banana-hand God can get for Kirk Cameron? Three and a half five-dollar-footlongs?

This would have been more timely on Friday:

Hurricane Irene was such a jerk that it went out of its way to hit Pakistan, then came back to beat up the east coast, and is about to take a jump over to beat up Russia.

Also, here's a gif of Natalie Portman crying, which she apparently does a lot more than I notice:

Yes, there's a cat in there too. I don't know. The internet makes silly things. I guess we can say "hi" when it flashes on screen.

I am sad for RoboSquirrel

His world is now only vengeance and pain. :(

Hey!

That's my cellphone background!

(So the sad thing is, I had to take this picture with my old cellphone camera, because my regular camera is somewhat broketastic, and needs batteries I don't have. Surprisingly, my old cellphone had 2/3 power bars despite sitting in a box since February. Also, I guess cell phone cameras like to autofocus on the reflections, because of the four I took, this one was the best. Oh well.)