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December 8th, 2009
aquamindy
 | 12:03 am
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December 7th, 2009
gieves
 | 08:35 pm - At the intersection of technology and introspection
This past weekend my life changed a little, hopefully for the better: I got my very first smart phone.
As an arriviste to this ever-less-exclusive group, I spend about half of my time being baffled by the things that result from my actions: multiple apps open, I accidentally send texts while only halfway through, I failed to figure out how to answer my phone THREE TIMES when people called me… in short, the learning curve is a fierce one for somebody unfamiliar with touch screens and tiny keyboards.
I also have grave concerns about the growing trend of data ubiquity, loss of privacy and sheer bad manners that I associate with smart phone ownership. But I have finally been seduced by the dark side!
So I got a Droid.
I originally was looking at the Droid Eris, but the physical keyboard (tiny as it is), universal inbox, integrated navigation options and 480x854 resolution screen (!!) on the Droid won my heart. The Droid camera has been panned hard, but I’m a woman who picks her purses based on their ability to hold a wallet, keys, water bottle AND an SLR with zoom lens… so I’m less concerned about my phone camera quality right now than some.
My biggest hope is that the phone will help me keep in touch better. Now that my (work) laptop isn’t my only source of internet access, it will be easier and more likely that I can hope onto LJ or Facebook and catch up with you all or make posts of my own.
But. As prone as I am to little bouts of optimistic self-delusion, even I am not so foolish as to think that technology alone will create such a miraculous change in my habits. So I am going to follow the advice of Mano Singham* and commit to writing every day. Now, this may not appear in a public forum. And I can’t say that these bouts of writing are going to be lengthy. (Mano himself advocates 90 minutes a day before he rewards himself with such treats as email or internet access. Hah.) But I think that it’s important to reach out a little more and to exercise my poor, atrophied writing brain.
And so, I’m going to give this writing daily thing a shot, with the hopes that I become a better blogger and a better communicator in the process. We’ll see if the Droid helps or not.
*One of my idols of intellectual curiosity, academic rigor and all-around-nice-guyness. He has a new book!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/twotone/hamsters/thoughtful_hammy.gif) contemplative
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reasie
 | 01:32 pm - Seeking Renown
Someone recently posed the question on the Armour Archive: Is it wrong to seek renown?
There was a bit of back and forth by the time I saw the post, and this was my reply:
De Charney would certainly say it is wrong NOT to seek renown. Certainly the romantic lays aren't fond of men who fail to be seeking glory - like how Erec is chided after his wedding for being more interested in sleeping with his wife than knightly pursuits. In all of my reading from the period, there is a pervasive sense of "Go. Do."
The disconnect with our discussion is that what they talk about as "seeking renown" is seeking to do the knightly job. Seeking the fight. Seeking to be where you are needed. This is seeking renown. Running forward when you see a break in the line that needs plugging, this is seeking renown. What gives 'renown' a bad name is the thought of those transparently seeking not renown, but approval. The knight looking over his shoulder to see who is watching before he takes the field, or waiting until everyone is tired to be seen vigorous in the last second of battle, is not seeking renown.
This is what people mean when they say "Do good deeds and renown will find you." The sin of not seeking renown is the sin of complacency and sloth. The glory of fortitude and diligence is to constantly seek to put yourself in the way of battle. It is not vainglorious to sacrifice time and effort to make it to "Pro Circuit" events to fight. It is not vainglorious to put yourself out there for champion's practices and "foreign wars". This is seeking renown. It is vainglorious to talk loudly of your deeds, and it is not seeking renown, because if you're talking about it, you ain't doing it.
... just my two cents.
.........
And now some after-post thoughts. It occurred to me recently that those we see as "belt hunters" (or in the arts as "Laurel Hungry" or what have you) are not people who are constantly stepping up to the plate to do the feats of prowess and creativity that will get them noticed - they are people wanting to get noticed for what they have already done.
An easy trap to fall into, I think.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/tired.gif) tired
Current Music: Open My Eyes: The Nazz
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December 5th, 2009
aquamindy
| 12:02 am
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December 4th, 2009
reasie
| 12:25 pm - Poem of the Week: Infernocrusher!
I'm in a silly mood today, and lately I've been trying to practice rhythm, so here ya go:
Praise Poem from the Mad Scientist to Her Infernocrusher
Brass gears 'neath which electric rapture rose,
The arms, hands, feet, that crush and lift all flesh,
All strength made weak and gravity beguiled
By science brought alive, my mind's own child!
And in wet gas fire the haughty world enclose,
That from worm-pump the filth makes fresh.
Now lift ye pistons, crank ye shafts!
Thou creature of mechanic's crafts,
Lay waste and reap the hearts of all mine foes!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/silly.gif) silly
Current Music: Faithless: Mass Destruction
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aquamindy
| 12:03 am
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December 3rd, 2009
reasie
| 11:02 am - Virtue Meme Part Deux
A word of warning, I get somewhat preachy and self-righteous on some of these questions. That's just how I roll when I'm inflicting my opinion on others.
( Wherein I contemplate what these questions say about the virtues they are categorized under )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/hungry2.gif) hungry
Current Music: Counting Crows: Big Yellow Taxi
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aquamindy
| 12:02 am
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December 2nd, 2009
cynic51
 | 08:16 pm - More Books
With a month to go I'm at 79 books and 25 graphic novels. Since last time, I've read several more books worth mentioning, and many not. Here are some highlights, in no particular order.
I'm pretty sure that Richard III is my favorite Shakespearean play, even if it's not the midnight cult classic here that it is in Jasper Fforde's world. Does anything match that opening soliloquy? Is any villain quite so much fun? Awesome. Now I'm slogging through the poem Venus & Adonis; I hit the halfway point and then got distracted.
I broke my long standing Harry Turtledove moratorium and read Ruled Britannia, an alternate history in which the Spanish Armada had better weather and conquers England. Shakespeare gets involved a plot to throw them out. "If You Want Your Freedom Go And Take It" is the final line of his play, and it helps start the revolution. Excluding only The Guns of the South, this is the best Turtledove novel I've read.
I picked up another Bill Bryson book; this time it was A Short History of Nearly Everything. He covers a lot of science in his very readable fashion; I highly recommend this to all Bryson fans and all science fans.
I generally enjoy Haruki Murakami and his South of the Border, West of the Sun was no exception, although it's got a lot of the same themes as all of his other books. At some point that will probably bug me, but for now it hasn't.
I recently met ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kylecassidy (although he probably doesn't recall me), so I snagged his Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes from the library. I'm not really qualified to critique photo essays, but the pictures are gorgeous and the quotes are relevant. Plus any book that describes zombies as "non-stationary cadavers" wins points with me.
Speaking of zombies, I read Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide by Glenn Kay. I now have dozens of ideas for future bad movie nights. Did you know Guitar Wolf made a zombie movie? How cool is that? Very cool - they are, after all, the coolest band in the world. It says so right on their promotional materials.
Continuing to speak of zombies, I read a collection of zombie tales edited by John Joseph Adams titled The Living Dead. Like most collections, it was uneven. My favorite was probably the reworking of Our Town as a zombie tale - the stage manager wields a shotgun, of course. Recommended for zombie fans only.
As you may have heard, Douglas Adams has been dead for nearly a decade. How then, can there be a another book in the Hitchhiker's Guide series, titled And Another Thing...? Has Adams come back as a zombie? Did they find a lost manuscript? Alas, no. Eoin Colfer of Artemis Fowl fame was commissioned to write a sixth book. Given the enormous difficulty he would have had in pleasing most fans of Hitchhiker, he did pretty well. Which is to say, it's sort of vaguely recognizable but not terribly good. In some ways he plays up the potential of "The Guide as Wikipedia" angle, which would be awesome if XKCD hadn't done it earlier this year. The Dirk Gently universe sort of makes a cameo appearance, or at least there are Asgardian mythos characters. I didn't dislike it, but I'm not sure it really succeeded either. YMMV.
As long as we're talking about continuing series, I'm pleased to report that Terry Pratchett isn't dead yet so it must be time for a new book in the Discworld series, Unseen Academicals. I read it, I enjoyed it, but it's the first Discworld book that didn't make me laugh out loud even once. Soccer is the nominal theme, and although some interesting things happen it's just not as good as the others. Which won't stop me from reading the next one or the ones I've missed.
Aside from Shakespeare, most of the books I've listed haven't been the kind of great books I resolved to read this year, but fear not, I've knocked off a few of those as well.
To start with, there's Wuthering Heights. I'd read Jane Eyre earlier in the year, so I figured it was time to move to the next Bronte sister. I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it was clearly compelling. I had trouble putting it down. On the other hand, the characters are all thoroughly unpleasant. I'm not sure that there was a single character who I cared about. Heathcliff is a whiny scumbag who wrecks other people's lives for relatively trivial reasons. Everyone else isn't much better. The book is pretty much the best Jerry Springer episode ever.
Apparently I'm unusual in that I didn't read Lord of the Flies in junior high; for whatever reason I missed that one. Having rectified this omission, I can say that while my 14-year-old self would have enjoyed it, I'm fairly certain that he wouldn't have gotten the subtext. It's suppose that it's no surprise that English teachers inflict a book about kids acting like savages on their pupils, is it?
And finally, I read more Steinbeck, specifically Travels With Charley, which may not be profound but is very enjoyable. Steinbeck writes as if he's chatting with a good friend that he hasn't seen in quite some time. Some times the chat is profound, other times it is almost silly, and he spends a lot of time talking about his dog, which I totally get. I quite enjoyed it and recommend it. It's an easy read.
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oogby
 | 04:42 pm - indie game catchup, again
Wow, I'm really behind again. I blame Wii Fit. ;)
* * *
Game #18: Arcuz.
Looks like pretty standard hack & slash RPG stuff. The graphics are nice enough, though the music totally doesn't go and the video makes everything look a bit repetitive.
I still find this rather appealing anyway; I have a soft spot for pixelly RPGs. :)
* * *
Game #19: Armor Valley.
Time for even more epic music. And spelling errors.
It say it's a shooter with RTS elements, though I'm not getting a sense of how RTS works into this from the videos or website. I kinda like the look of this, though; I like cute, boxy looking war machines, and the camerawork is nice and fluid.
* * *
Game #20: Art Mogul.
No epic music here. This sounds really... different. But all I've got is the blurb on the festival web site.
You play an art dealer, grabbing stuff at auctions and verifying the authenticity of your purchased art by looking for problems in your paintings, like a hidden object game. At least, that's what I think you're doing; it's hard to say..
* * *
Game #21: Art of Crime.
This is a point & click investigation game that revolves around looking at creepy drawing made by an insane girl.
It says it has a 'procedural' story, wich I take to mean that the main beats of the story will be the same every game, but the details of the puzzles you solve will be different each time. Sound interesting, and I'm very curious to see what they mean there and how well this is implemented.
* * *
Game #22: ASCIIpOrtal.
This is an all-ASCII take on the popular game Portal. I haven't played Portal myself, or any of the many Portal clones out there, so I don't really know what to say about that. The basic idea is that you can shoot teleporters at things, then jump into one teleporter and emerge from another to cross a board that you couldn't get around in otherwise.
I played a few levels. It's a neat idea, and for what it is, this is done well. But it's ASCII, and that makes it extremely difficult to tell what's going on.
Many of the puzzles revolve around playing with gravity. For example, imagine putting one teleporter on the floor and another on the wall. When you jump into the one on the floor, your momemtum carries you sideways out of the teleporter on the wall, and then you fall to the ground as normal.
ASCIIpOrtal rotates the view to show that this is happening, but the trouble is, ASCII characters arent square. They're not even close. So while the view is rotating, there's this weird distortion effect that makes it hard to tell what's happening.
You can see into one portal and out the otherside, which is pretty impressive for an ASCII game, and conceptually, this works well, though the edges of your view (the yellow and blue lines) are chunky and distracting.
I'd like to see something like this done with better graphics. Or maybe play the original game...
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/blue/blah.gif) bored
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reasie
| 12:39 pm - Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage...
I'm all angsty and weird today - mostly stress I think over getting this last-minute scroll made. So here is a meme to calm me down (and hopefully entertain you with my deep, personal thoughts.)
( A Virtue Meme )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/busy.gif) busy
Current Music: Wolfmother: Dimension
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aquamindy
| 12:03 am
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December 1st, 2009
eirias
 | 01:56 pm - evil credit cabal; also, a business opportunity
I spent six hours today running around trying to figure out why I couldn't get my free credit report online. I'll spare you the suspense and disclose up front that it was that nobody ever found me at my last address, so listing that as my "previous address" made me look like an impostor.
But the path to get that answer was really twisted and involved a few nice librarians and a lot of rude everybody else. Equifax makes their customer support number really hard to find. Don't believe me? Try to find it yourself. Every number on their website goes to an automated system, which is no help when the system doesn't believe you're you. A librarian was able to hook me up, but as soon as I got off the phone with that number, I wondered -- where did she get that number? "Google," she said. So how do I know for sure that it's really Equifax?
This is what I realized today: businesses who are difficult to contact comprise an utterly amazing opportunity for phishing. If you are energized enough to want to call a business, and to need to speak to a live human, it's probably because you are upset and anxious. In that state today, worried about my credit report, I was uncritical: when I found a phone number that was linked to the company, and I called and someone answered "Equifax, how can I help you," I didn't think to question their identity until I'd hung up the phone. That's a big problem. That's a fantastic niche for some enterprising person out there to harvest a whole lotta data.
In the end, verifying that I had not been phished took almost as much time as solving the credit report problem had. Once I got bona fide numbers for Equifax, I called, but the people had no idea how to help me. It had not occurred to them that people would not be able to find their main customer service number; they were certain that Equifax had no other phone numbers (!). I had to sit on hold for half an hour and wait for a manager to agree to check out the number I had dialed previously, and this didn't happen until he'd already yelled at me twice.
This is what else I realized today: the credit bureaus have absolutely no incentive to be nice to me. I can't tell them to shove it; they are my only ticket to some things I'd like to be able to do. I'm not a customer, I'm a datapoint. And, well, to tell the truth... that makes me feel kinda Fight Club.
Current Mood: angry
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oogby
| 10:01 am - I get by with a little help from my friends
Well...
If I'm going to spend 20-40 minutes a day taking better care of my body and have something resembling a social life, I'm going to have to cut back on pet projects a bit. It the whole idea of working on half a dozen things simultaneously was a bad idea before, it's an even worse idea now. So I'm going to just work on Celestial Stick People until it's printed. It's pretty unlikely I'll be able to get this out before Christmas, but I still want this done, with a web site, as soon as possible.
Let me make one thing absolutely clear: I'm totally ok with this. Given the choice between having good friends I see often and getting stuff published, I'm gonna go for you guys. :)
* * *
Here's what I've got so far on the Celestial Stick People book.
Much of the text needs to be edited or replaced entirely, but the layouts are nearly finished. I just need to figure out what to do with the court card descriptions. There are four cards, and the number of lines I have to work with is not divisible by four. Hm.
So while I was writing this up, I was thinking about the skilled/unskilled dichotomy I described a while ago. And I realized that that was exactly the wrong way t go about this, because that was a judgment call. And what's making the court cards different is different values, not different levels of competency.
I place a very high value on thoughtful analysis of problems, whether they're math problems or creative problems. I like listening to the directors' commentaries of people who are as analytical about film as I am about everything. I like reading game postmortems where people tear their work apart. I fall pretty cleanly into the 'skilled' category I set up.
But it's not about skill. Not everybody thinks this way. There are other people who place more value on 'gut' instinct, on internalizing all their experiences and doing problem solving on a more subconscious level. Method actors do this. Many athletes do this. They don't like to talk about what they do. They just do it, and if you want to learn by watching them, fine.
I have some trouble dealing with these sorts of people. But their values and mindset are just as valid as mine. The court cards should reflect this.
So instead of having 'skilled' and 'unskilled', I now have 'reason' and 'instinct'. And like the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, I've now got four nonjudgemental axes over which to sort people. The suit of a court card is two of the axes, and the specific court card sums up the other two.
I like that.
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aquamindy
| 12:02 am
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November 30th, 2009
cynic51
| 10:07 pm - A [Supper Club] Thanksgiving Menu
We hosted Thanksgiving for several of xhollydayx's paternal relatives (9 guests total). We broke out a bunch of recipes that we had served previously at supper club. Of course, we added some new ones too.
Appetizers - Pastry-Wrapped Chorizo Puffs
These went over well, as they always do.
Appetizers - banderdillas
I love these, but most other people don't like anchovies. Their loss.
Appetizers - Olives stuffed with feta
We bought these at the West Side Market. They're a bit pricey and I love them dearly, so I'm going to need to learn how to stuff my own olives.
Soup Course: Sweet Potato-Peanut Bisque
We took this from the October issue of Eating Well magazine. We'd made it several times previously and really like it.
2 large sweet potatoes (10-12 ounces each)
1 tablespoon canola oil (we use olive)
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 large clove of garlic (or 2 or 3 or 4, because hey, it's garlic!)
3 cups tomato juice
1 4 ounce can diced green chiles (mild or hot), drained
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger (we used ground ginger)
1 teaspoon ground allspice (we skipped this)
1 15 ounce can vegetable broth
1/2 cup smooth natural peanut butter
fresh ground pepper to taste
fresh cilantro to garnish (if desired)
1. Wash sweet potatoes. Prick with fork and microwave on High until just cooked, about 7 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
2. Meanwhile, heat oil in large sauce pan over medium-high heat. Saute onion until it just begins to brown, 2 to 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook for one minute more. Stir in juice, chiles, ginger and allspice. Adjust heat so the mixture boils gently; cook for 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes and chop into bite-size pieces. Add half to the pot. Note: we saved the peel for step 4.
4. Place the remaining sweet potatoes in a food processor along with peanut butter and broth and puree until smooth. Note: we didn't put the broth in the food processor; we just dumped it straight in the pot.
5. Add pureed sweet potatoes and peanut butter to pot. Stir well. Season with pepper. Heat until hot.
It makes 5 servings, so we tripled the batch to cover our 9 guests and ourselves. We didn't triple the chiles though, as xhollydayx didn't think they'd like it that spicy. Although most of the attendees said they liked it, nobody ate very much so we had a lot of leftovers, enough to freeze some and still have plenty for the next few days.
Soup Course: Matzo Rolls
I know, it wasn't close to Passover. But we had extra matzo meal, and they were so easy to make, and they are quite yummy.
2 cups matzo meal
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup water
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs
1. Combine matzo meal with salt & sugar.
2. Bring oil & water to boil. Add to matzo meal mixture and mix well.
3. Beat eggs thoroughly, one at a time.
4. Allow to stand 15 minutes.
5. Oil hands and shape rolls. Place on well sprayed cookie sheet.
6. Bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes or until golden brown.
Makes about 15 rolls.
Main Course: Turkey
Two years ago when we hosted Thanksgiving we purchased fancy Amish turkey and it was excellent. We did so again this year, but it wasn't nearly as good. I think I may have ordered the wrong thing, or they got a different supplier, or something. Oh well. It was still good, but just not as good as last time.
Main Course: Green Bean Casserole
I loathe green bean casserole, but xhollydayx likes it, and her grandmother volunteered to bring it.
Main Course: Baked Peppers
These have pretty much become our go-to side dish for events. They are super tasty and easy to make.
Main Course: Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes with Goat Cheese and Basil
I don't know where xhollydayx found the recipe, but it came out very well. khiron1416 would have approved.
2 1/2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
5 ounces fresh soft goat cheese
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
3/4 cup half & half
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1. Cook potatoes in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender, about 25 minutes. Drain well and return to pot.
2. Mix in cheese and butter. Mash until smooth.
3. Add half & half, basil and garlic and stir over medium heat until heated through.
4. Season with salt and pepper.
We made a double batch and had a lot left over. A double batch has 5 pounds of potatoes and 10 ounces of cheese. Unfortunately, goat cheese comes in 8 ounce packages. Rather than have 6 ounces of extra cheese left, we threw it in the pot. We also had an extra 1/3 cup of half & half, so we tossed in that in too. It was so creamy and smooth and wonderful. My mother had suggested using the Kitchenade mixer to mash everything, but I had no trouble whatsoever doing it by hand.
Main Course - Cranberry Relish
xhollydayx's aunt's mother makes this. It's delicious.
Main Course: Cranberry Fluff
xhollydayx's great-aunt makes this. It's very sweet and almost desert like.
Dessert: Pumpkin Roll
xhollydayx's cousin made this. It's a standard issue pumpkin roll, which if you like pumpkin roll (I do) is a good thing.
Dessert: Bakerella's Pumpkin Pie
My wife found the recipe and made it. It was pretty much the best pumpkin pie I've ever had.
Pie Dough:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, cold
1/2 teaspoon salt, cold
1 tablespoon sugar, cold
2/3 cup shortening, cold
4 tablespoon water, cold
1. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Add shortening and gradually work it into the flour with a fork or pastry cutter. The mixture should be crumbly.
3. Add cold water and stir until combined.
4. Roll in a flat disc-shape, wrap in plastic or zip lock and place in the fridge for about an hour or until firm.
Cream Cheese Layer:
8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon lemon juice
5. Mix the cream cheese and sugar using a mixer. Add egg and lemon juice and continue mixing until creamy.
6. Place in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Pumpkin Layer:
15 ounce can of pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs
1/2 cup evaporated milk
7. Beat pumpkin, sugar and spice with a mixer.
8. Add eggs and beat until combined.
9. Add milk and beat until combined.
Assemble Pie.
10. Preheat over to 375 degrees.
11. Flour surface.
12. Roll out dough in a 13-14 inch diameter to fit a 9 inch pie pan
13. Carefully place rolled dough in pie plate. Try not to tear or stretch it.
14. Fold the excess dough under or trim it and create a decorative border.
15. Spread the cream cheese layer in the dough covered pie plate.
16. Layer the pumpkin mixture on top and try not to disturb cream cheese layer.
17. Cover edges of pie crust with foil to keep from getting too brown.
18. Bake 20 minutes. Then take out to apply topping.
Topping:
1 cup pecans, chopped fine
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
19. Mix the ingredients in a bowl.
20. Remove the pie. Take off foil. Layer topping on.
21. Bake for another 25-30 minutes. Remove and cool on counter.
22. Cover and chill in fridge for a few hours before serving.
I really enjoyed this a lot.
Dessert: Pear-Cinnamon Crisp
xhollydayx found and prepared this one too, and it was a definite winner.
Filling:
4-5 large pears (Bosc work well)
2/3 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Topping:
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cups sugar
1/3 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cups pecans, finely chopped
1 stick butter, melted
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Peel, core and dice pears. Place into a bowl and stir together with 2/3 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans. Stir together. Drizzle melted butter gradually, stirring with a fork until all combined.
4. Pour pears into a 9x11 baking dish, top with crumb topping.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
6. Place pan on top rack of over for an additional 10 minutes or until topping is golden brown.
7. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
Three supper club recipes in one meal, and several new recipes. Not bad for a standard issue Thanksgiving, eh?
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oogby
| 08:54 pm - wii friend code
I haven't the foggiest idea what this means, but everybody else was doing it years ago. :)
4393 3173 6308 1068
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oogby
| 10:16 am - sorta lazy
Over the weekend, I worked a little on card descriptions for Celestial Stick People. And started redesigning a web site for a friend. And that's pretty much all the work I did. No Flex coding, no Torque scripting, no illustration or font wrangling.
(Though Positronic Toaster has already sold eight copies on MyFonts. A little less than one a day. Whee!)
So instead of doing my regular pet project stuff, I played with our new Wii exercise stuff. A lot.
I love Wii Fit Plus. It's fun, I love the graphics, the balance games are really challenging, and I like seeing little Mii Maries and Johns working out with me. It's silly, but that's a great motivator.
With EA Sports, I rather dislike the over-enthusiastic trainers, bland environments, and iffy feedback. Part of my resistance to exercising is the lack or mental activity while doing it, and the game elements in Wii Fit counteract that. With EA Sports I just feel like I'm in a gym, numbly toning my body while my brain cells get lazy.
For example, Wii Fit has several running games. In one, you have to pay attention to your suroundings becase you'll get quizzed on what you saw. In a couple others, you have to steer with the wiimote and hit different checkpoints as quickly as you can. In EA Sports, from what I've seen, you're running around an oval track. Booooring.
But despite all that, I'm sad to say that it provides a much better workout than Wii Fit Plus.
I'll probably do both for a while, and maybe try to be more picky about wha I do in Wii Fit. Sure, the snowball fight is fun, but it's not real challenging. If I stick to things like the obstacle course, cycling, push-ups and lunges, I might be able to get a workout that's as intense as EA Sports, but with game-like elements and more fun environments.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/blue/tired.gif) tired
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reasie
| 09:28 am - Keeping Fit
Despite the snow (SNOW???!!!) on Friday, it was warm enough on Sunday for John and I to toss the pigskin to each other during halftime of the Browns-Bengals game. It felt so good to just be outside, doing something active.
Yes, I am still watching all the Browns games. Yes, I am a masochist.
FYI: Footballs are hard to catch! Braylon, I apologize for everything I shouted at you on the TV. Not that you could hear.
In order to have a pigskin to toss nonchalantly about, Brian and I went to Dick's Sporting Goods on Saturday. It was a bit of an impulse; we were going to Arhaus furniture to buy new chairs for the living room, but the closest we could park was in front of the sporting goods store. So football shopping we went! And what an array of footballs there are! We opted for a "game ball" which is harder and heavier than the non-game balls. *shrug*
I've named him Brownie Wilson Pigboy, and he already has some attractive scrapes and scuffs from our flailing attempts to catch him.
In other news, Brian and I have officially entered the mainstream. Yes, we now have a TV. We bought a Wii in the hopes of using Wii-Fit to keep healthy ofter the winter, and it sort of requires having a TV. Three friends immediately offered their old CRT televisions for free. We just went with the first one to deliver one to our house. ;)
(Which, ironically, was already here - we were holding on to some things for our friend Geoff, including his 20-inch TV, which he said he no longer wants back. This all goes to show that no, you cannot GIVE these old TV's away.)
We moved the futon out of John's room to sit in front of the glorious glowing box, up in the attic room now vacated by Mommie-in-law. ("We're setting up an entertainment room!" John gasped in realization.)
We weighed in just before T-day, and of course, 2 out of 3 of us weighed more the day after thanksgiving. (Go me! I weighed exactly the same! And all it took was hours and hours of "basic step aerobics")
We had "Wii Sports Resort" on loan from Darrin and Nyla, and greatly enjoyed the sword-fighting and canoe-paddling games. We did a lot of "Wii Fit" - it had some cute games, especially the penguin balance game and "Balance Bubble" which we all found challenging. Brian just adored the obstacle course, which felt to him like first-person Super Mario. We also bought "EA Sports Active" - which... er, well, let's just say it's less user-friendly. The whole thing locks up if you don't do the move exactly as it expects - which isn't always how it is illustrated, as it only is looking at the position of the wii controller, and seems less sophisticated about this than Wii Fit. But it does seem to push you more. We actually got sweaty doing EA's exercises.
In general, I'd like it if all of these games had more customizable goals. You can pick between "Lose weight" "Lower your BMI (lose weight)" or "Improve your figure (lose weight)". EA Sports Active seems to not have a customizable workout - if it does, we haven't found it - it just gives you exercises every day to do. And with my bad knees, I can't do half of them. (It is awfully fond of lunges.) The only option is to skip the exercise. I wish it would substitute another.
Those caveats aside, we all had great fun playing the games, and competing with each other. I know most new exercise equipment is used vigorously for a while, then forgotten, but I hope we manage to use it throughout the winter and not get soft and marshmellowy in the 'off season'.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/amused.gif) amused
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aquamindy
| 12:02 am
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