Century club!

yes, I ks, have made history by finishing the ginormous box of freeze pops I bought at wal-mart like 2 years ago. It truly is the end of an era here at Casa di apathe'. It wasn't an easy job, but it had to be done.

This is pretty much the highlight of my weekend, it has been largely thus far time without result. My list of things to do is getting overwhelmingly long so I've spent the day trying to make a dent in it, with little success.

It's my fault, I took a lot of "personal time" this week, and now it's time to pay the piper. I unfortunately slacked myself into a corner, to a degree which is unusual for me, but I had a last minute trip pop up. Anyhow... I worked on documentation for work until 1am last night, and did more this morning. Before I go to bed tonight I will do more yet.

Then in personal matters I also tried to square my account with the Curtains of Doom and get them out of my life, but I have yet to succeed there. I just had to stop, I worked 5 hours today hunched over this table and I just want to set them on fire at this point. I had to put them somewhere else for safekeeping but I am almost done. There is hope.

Right now I'm taking a break from being goal oriented and having some dinner while I contemplate the most refreshing summer beverage, quite possilby ever.

Fresh Basil Strawberry lemonade. Trust me on this one.

Simmer 2 cups basil leaves with 1/2 cup sugar and 2 cups water for 30-45 min
strain out the solids and reserve liquid
pulp 2-3 lemons into this mix (more if you want)
add 2 cups water (more or less depending on how strong you want it)
chill. serve over ice with fresh strawberries mixed or, or possiby just use frozen ones like i did because i had no ice cubes. they were edible and delicious by the end.

also, add vodka if you like sometime.

and with that, im back to my torments.

The only good bug...

...is a dead one. That kitty killed and bit in half like 4 days ago, so it's all dry and not nasty anymore and can be tidily scooped up with an envelope or something. Just found one of those and I was being thankful for coming across the corpse this way because giant bugs are not nearly as fun to find when they're:

• a) alive and huge and coming right at you
• b) newly killed and stuck to the floor leaking innards
• c)in the process of being eaten by your previously cuddly looking cat who is in actuality a stone face killer and eating a bug with the same mouth that will be chilling out on your bed in 20 min. Don't get me wrong, the stone faced killer thing is dead handy round the house, and kind of a bad ass alter ego for the common cat but that live bug shit's happened to me before and it's just gross.

I fucking hate bugs. When I go camping, I stop drinking fluids at dusk and don't pee after dark because one time when I was backpacking and I went out to pee and looked down and the floor of the woods was COVERED with moving shit. Indiana Jones type stuff.

Anyhoo, I was cruising around and I tripped over some thing called "what's for dinner weds" where you show everyone something you made to eat. Since I decided people should know more about the mundane details of my life, I thought I'd institute a little venture called "what's for dinner when my lazy ass gets around to picture gathering" Tonight is the first episode, but look for more to come, because I just got this cookbook (for 8 BUCKS. I rule.)

So. Tonight's dinner is a yummy little Mediterranean medley brought to you by the fact that I love cilantro, it's too hot to cook, and I have 8 tomato plants growing in my yard.

1)Tabouleh salad
2)Diced tomatoes, because I pretty much eat them any way they go now.
3)Cilantro-Jalapeno hummus

I never pay attention to what I do but these recipes are close to what I made. I'm shoveling it in with a tortilla but a pita would do it too.

Cold, spicy and delicious. This might be a big summer feature. and you can pretty much put chopped frozen spinach into anything you cook I've decided, because I used it in the hummus and the tabouleh and I'm going to put some in the smoothie I'm making before I go climbing.

Cos that's how I do.

Patience children...

The desk will come. The things is, I really want you, my audience to get the full effect, so I'm trying to hold off until it's 100% done, including ergonomic devices installed, computers set up and shit (like POW, behold, for it is my workstation! and shit) , but I haven't been arsed to finish the cleaning of the room that I started when I undertook constructing the thing (there was a lot of stuff in there I didn't much need but having not seen it for so long as it was buried under piles of other stuff I really didn't need masked the depth of the project- it really turned into a major thing overall), BUT I'm making progress. Should be finished this week and I will for certain post pictures shortly. Then it will be a simple matter of finding the perfect stool to go with. I'm thinking Ikea, but will make the obligatory rounds at local thrift stores before shelling out. I will attempt to placate with this picture of the desk in the early phases of construction. I didn't think to take a total before picture (as in, when my bureau was poorly fitted into this cubby and it's potential was wasted) but use your imagination.

I have mounted the supporting boards. Titillating, no?*

In the meantime, sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I've spent lots of time away from the computer, and I've had tons of great ideas but unfortunately by the time I get back to my machine the ideas have deserted me. Terrible thing really, because some of that shit was funny. I don't remember what it was, but I remember cracking myself up over it. Not to worry though, I've found my microrecorder and am going to be carrying it with me from now on, to capture the pesky ideas as they come and transcribe and expand on them for your reading pleasure. I'm going to be like the Hunter S Thompson of blogging. Minus all the shooting at stuff and road trips, etc. (for now anyway, though hopefully the road trips bit will come in due time)

In the meantime, I was reading this story and all I can think is "I WOULD DO IT" and then "why???" I would totally take a menial job if the cash was decent. Sigh, where are my offers? Yes, rich people I will be the best fucking PA you ever had! It's like in Europe, where all sorts of jobs pay decent wages, so you don't just get the people who can't do anything else doing things like streetpaving and baristas, etc (did I just insult U.S. streetpavers and baristas? I didn't mean to...)

I was also reading this (thanks Mimi Smartypants) and wondering about this poor soul. He's way too cerebral about his Garfield. I mean, really is all. Seriously.

and in other news, I have added fish to my menagerie! yay! ok, I didn't really add them, they were castoffs from some animal behavior thing that went down but they are oh! so! pretty! and I don't mind telling you I made a sweet little pad for the one of them. The other is still in his institutional looking bowl, but I will save him soon. I've been scouring thrift stores and yard sales for more interesting containers but haven't found "the one" yet. but I will, and you know this. and more importantly, I know this. I believe in me!!

Anyhow, my fish. You should see his trick.

In fact, let me put you on hold and go download the pictures I took of cool fish. You'll see what's so cool about it in a minute and in the meantime, you just sit right there and think about what you've done:.....

So here is blue fish. I'm thinking of naming him Kitty because that always seems to want to come out of my mouth when I'm talking to him. I'm still on the fence though.

Check out his cool oversized barware shack:

Pretty

and for his first trick, magic fish will DISAPPEAR! (oooh, aaah, no?)

Sneaky

and then, he will come back IN DUPLICATE (the crowd goes wild!)

Rad.

You can't tell me that's not cool. or that I don't get out enough.

and the ants have given up! I basically put everything I had containing sugar in the freezer and I believe they have accepted that I am more stubborn than they are and gone to the neighbors house. SUCK IT EXOSKELETOR!

*I have been encountering many foreign people lately and I have noticed many seem to end their sentences with a question. I like it, I'm giving it a go for a bit.

There is every possibility I'm eating ants right now

Apparently I have an ant issue. It was more of a non-issue for me, because in my opinion the house is more than big enough for some guests but this morning they did the unthinkable. They messed with my coffee, invdaded my coffeemate! My beloved powdered cow! (I never use all of my milk when I buy it, so I've given up and just use the powdered stuff for coffee now. It never rots!)

Anyhow, I opened the container and see that the previously identified as not horrible cohabitants had helped themselves to my CoffeeMate without even asking. Bastards, there's plenty of crap on the counter they could be happy with but nooooooo, they have to eat my good stuff! Well fuck that. First off Do. Not. Fuck. With. My. Coffee. It's just not cool and it's not right and I don't care how cool you are with your fancy exoskeleton, I won't stand for it.
Tomorrow, it's Borax and sugar cocktails for everyone, my treat!

Second, the jokes on them. At 6am, I am utterly unable to come up with an alternative, so I just scooped all the ants I could see out with a spoon, and went back into the container like I hadn't seen a thing.

Then I put the whole kit in the freezer. It's a new jar, I'm not sure I'm ready to throw it all away so in the meantime I'm killing anyone who might be inside and not already dying a high fructose corn syrup solid smothered death. I'll decide what to do about it later, but I dont think ants are toxic. hmmm. mmmmm...

A lovely Sunday, come and gone. and oh, the linkage!

I'm feeling linky today. Click, click, click !

Today was a nice little culmination of the weekend. I spent yesterday around the house, being deskmaster (pictures to come) and yardmaster (no pictures, because there was poo and bugs involved, and well ick.) In the end it was worth the work, and it was actually nice to be home and just puttering but I hate to have a weekend full of that, it's just too much. Or not enough as the case may be.

So after a delicious breakfast, I moseyed on down to Bethesda to visit Mike and we hit the Capital Crescent Trail from Bethesda to DC. It was a lovely 7 mile jaunt, but bullshit hot out. The saving grace was undoubtedly the greenery. I didn't have my camera, but picture a nice verdant tunnel if you will, with a paved 2 lane bike trail down the middle. aaah.

Anyhoo, the universe gained another point on me with a particularly cruel joke. We stopped at a water fountain, both having neglected to bring water and everyone ahead of me stopped to sip some delicious beverage. When it was my turn to go the fountain did not work. I shit you not, and I wasn't using it wrong. sigh. I just laughed, because that is classic stuff. So on we went to a little lunchery in Georgetown, where I had a delicious lunch and some primo people watching, and 3 glasses of water.

I'm currently looking into some software stuff online, riding out the remains of the day. I should wrap up deskmastery tomorrow and present you with some results. Look forward to it, it's going to rock!

Self portrait in yellow

Houston, we have videoconferencing

hey people

in case i forget to mention it i have a webcam. well it turns out that my digital camera acts as a webcam. skype me bitches!

here's my dad and i having a hat contest. cowboy hat vs fez. point:fez for originality.