Just moving over to another domain because it’s easier to type it out. Everything here will remain here, but any new stuff will be posted at the new domain.

Mmm. Shiny domain.

Of course, you LJ users get to have the same feed. But why oh why can’t you comment at my site? *sniffle*

Right On: The six day taper of prednisone has made the really sore spot on my spine disappear after having it for a couple months.

Right Off: My shoulder has tossed a mere glance in the direction of the prednisone and said “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’ll have nothing to do with the likes of you.”

So my THNGVBD:

1. First thing in the morning, have a misunderstanding with a best friend.
2. I spend a few hours in ignorant bliss of what was to come.
3. In my bliss, I decide to start on the major housecleaning we need to do and I go clean out my closet. In my defense, I figured it’d take about thirty minutes.
4. Two and a half hours later, I’m as done as I’ll be for that day.
5. I realize it’s now six p.m. and fencing starts at seven. I’ve yet to eat dinner and assemble the weapon I fixed.
6. I assemble said weapon. Said weapon refuses to work. In diagnosing the problem, I end up having to dis-assemble it entirely. The problem was a bad socket.
7. New socket grabbed from bin. Weapon re-assembled. I go to tighten the nut that holds the grip in place.
8. Nut spins.
9. Mind you, this is the same blade whose tang had to be re-threaded by me the day before, and that re-threading ended up with my screwdriver deciding to stab me in the left thumb.
10. I try another nut. Same thing. Tang is stripped again.
11. Re-rethread tang. Tang still stripped. Realize that I’ve A)at some point during the re-rethreading process, I’ve cut my right thumb and that B) we’re now nearly forty-five minutes late for fencing.
12. Patch up my thumb. Put on my knickers (you brits stop giggling). Go to zip them up and realize I’ve stepped through one of the suspenders. Have to take ‘em off and put ‘em back on again.
13. On the way out the door, fencing back gets caught on the latch and I’m momentarily stuck, tethered to the door.
14. After escaping from the clutches of the door, we go to fencing, now an hour late.
15. At fencing, it’s discovered that it’s wacky weapons week and everyone is fencing saber. Everyone. I’m Not Allowed to Fence Saber, Ever. Like the kid who’s punished for recess, I watch all the other kids play.
16. Finally, nathan says he’ll fence me in epee. We end up getting into an argument. We go home.
17. Now home, I attack the stripped foil tang problem once again, determined to win. As I’m re-re-rethreading the tang, the die-holder snaps in half.
18. Let me repeat that. The die-holder, made of metal, snapped in half.
19. Snapped in half.
20. I then make discovery that I’ve somehow unknowingly injured myself and scraped the skin off the top of my left index finger.
21. At that point, I called it a night.

I’d move to Australia, except they’ve got Huge Spiders.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup self-rising flour
• 1/2 cup oatmeal
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup skim milk
• chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Heat large pan over medium-high heat on oven range. Spray with non-stick spray. Basically, do whatever you normally do to make normal pancakes.
2. Beat egg in small bowl with whisk.
3. Add the brown sugar. Beat again until sugar is dissolved and mixture is light brown-ish.
4. Add the vanilla extract and the oil. Beat some more!
5. Add the milk. Beat beat beat!
6. Whisk in the flour. Aaaaand… beat.
7. Whisk in the oatmeal. Mix it up.
8. Pour the mixture into a liquid measuring cup of some sort.
9. Make sure the pan/griddle/whatever you’re using is ready by tossing some little water droplets on it. If they skitter around, it’s ready.
10. Pour some of the batter onto it, however big you want your pancake to be.
11. Sprinkle however many chocolate chips you want on it.
12. When some little bubbles break on the top of the pancake, flip it over.
13. When the pancake rises enough that it’s all puffed out on the top, flip it over again.
14. After… um… thirty seconds or so, it should be ready. You can check it out by cutting a bit into the middle and making sure it’s not batter anymore.
15. Wait about a minute until you start eating the pancake. Not sure why, but it tastes better that way (and has an added bonus of not burning your mouth!).

Dear Ron,

2008?

Why can’t you write and/or produce a crappy show? I mean, if you did, sure, we’d all be denied compelling, fantastic storytelling, but then April through December of 2007 wouldn’t feel so long and shitty.

And I thought the summer between the Best of Both Worlds I and II was long.

2008.

Ron, I’m sorry to say, I fucking hate you sometimes.

Best Regards,
Jamie

P.S. At some point in 2008, I won’t hate you anymore.

Enclosed: One of a Kind Cylon Flipoff

…the book’s title is How to Shit in the Woods.

And I must say, as someone who wants to go camping in the White Mountains and has not for a few reasons including the subject of the book, I was nearly compelled to buy the book.

Not sure what eye is dominant for you? test it here.

I’m one of those rare-ish people who are right-handed and left-eyed (and for those of you wondering, right-footed). For me, this impacts me in a couple ways. As a photographer, this means I’m looking through the viewfinder with my left eye instead of my right. For me to try and use my right, it feels incredibly uncomfortable. With my dSLR, this eye-orientation hasn’t been much of a problem since I can just shift the camera over a bit and still manipulate the controls with my right hand (this must be a problem for left-handed people though). Apparently (though this has only been googled and not researched by me in journal articles, though I might give that a whirl), photographers have a higher incidence of the cross-dominance. Maybe it’s that left-brained right-brained thing.

Lately, it’s been impacting me because of the dominant hand switch in my fencing. I’m right handed, so the entire time I’ve fenced (over two years), I’ve fenced right handed, with my right hand and right leg leading. Since I’ve torn my right rotator cuff, I’ve had to switch to left handed (left hand leading, left leg leading). I expected that the finger/arm control would be an issue and it hasn’t, aside from needing to build up that thumb muscle. However, leg control has been an issue since my right leg Insists It Really Wants To Be The Leading Leg.

Hmmm.

The rest of you, you fill this shit out, too.

All for my amusement.

And maybe your own.

This is xnera’s fault, by the way.

YOU’RE ON MY FRIENDS LIST, I WANNA KNOW YOU…
I want to know 34 32 things about you.
I don’t care if we never talk, never liked each other, or if we already know everything about each other.

1. Can you cook?
2. What was your dream growing up?
3. What talent do you wish you had?
4. Favorite place?
5. Favorite actor?
6. What was the last book you read more than once?
7. What zodiac sign are you?
8. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings?
9. Worst Habit?
10. Favorite snack?
11. What is your favorite sport?
12. Do you have a Negative or Optimistic attitude?
13. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14. Best thing to ever happen to you?
15. Tell me one weird fact about you.
16. Do you have any pets?
17. Do you know how to do the Macarena?
18. What time is it where you are now?. Booooring. I don’t care what time it is where you are.
19. Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21. Would you be my partner in crime or my conscience?
22. What color eyes do you have?
23. Ever been arrested?
24. Bottle or Draft? This question has been deemed boring by me because I cannot drink. Fuck you, liver.
25. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it?
26. What kind of bubble gum do you prefer to chew?
27. What’s your favorite bar to hang at?
28. Do you believe in ghosts?
29. Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30. Do you swear a lot?
31. Biggest pet peeve?
32. In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33. In one word, how would you describe me?

As for my answers…
(more…)

Since this is one of my favorite blades, let’s have another look at it.

It’s so pretty.

And no, that’s not the blade that’s now useless, or there’d be a lot more crying.

The blade I broke the tang off of was just a boring, stiff as a pole standard blade.

The two pieces together:

aaaaaaand, the two pieces apart:

The little blue things sticking out are bits of wire. And it was such a NICE wiring job.

One more view:

*sigh*

I will just keep repeating to myself that at least it wasn’t an expensive blade.

I like my plain cheese pizza, thank you very much.

Anyway, so we (nathan and I) went on a little culinary adventure this weekend. Saturday night we had Thai takeout. Nathan has previously had Thai food. Nathan loves Thai food, particularly pad thai. So we ordered. I got Chicken Garlic and it was okay. Not my favorite, but I didn’t hate it, either. You have to realize, for me, that’s impressive for a new food.

Nathan got thing dish called Yaki Soba Noodle.

The first thing I noticed is that it smelled like a barn. Not just some old, abandoned barn either, but a barn that’s being used. And by being used, I mean a barn with horses, cows, goats, sheep, chickens and pigs all in there. That’s what it smelled like.

Now, Nathan seemed to like it. So I figured, what the hell, I’ll try it.

I tried it.

Not only did it smell like a barn, but it tasted how a barn smells.

Barn Thai.

Then came Sunday and we hit up an Indian buffet. The restaurant itself was fantastic. The service was exceptional, the owner a great guy, the atmosphere very low-key, and the interior design quite nice. But… I didn’t like anything on the 28 course buffet.

Well, the naan bread was okay and the cucumber salad wasn’t bad.

But other than that, nothing. I even wanted to like it because the place was so relaxing and the people so damn nice. But nothing doing. I can’t remember any of the dishes we actually had (nathan liked all but one thing on the buffet) but I know we didn’t have tikki marsala, which is apparently everyone’s favorite.

So we’ll go back. I mean, the owner? He really was that nice. As was the restaurant.