God Bless the Sex Pistols(even if they don't want him too!)

The vegan muffin of the week is carrot-raisin…but without the raisins and with walnuts instead because I have this thing about raisins in my food. It’s not that I don’t like raisins, I just don’t like them in food. They are fine AS food, but not IN food. Anyway, the texture of the muffins is really good but they are a little bland, and not sweet enough, which I guess is the fault of me leaving out the freakin’ raisins. I had actually intended to put in chopped cranberries and then discovered that I didn’t have any. I had dried cherries but they were not chopped and I didn’t feel like chopping them and thus they are carrot-walnut muffins and they are fine. They could be better but they are fine. Next time I will add the cranberries. Perhaps they will be better. Is this truly more about my muffins than you ever wanted to know? Because I will stop with the muffins now.

Oh, and god bless John Lydon (that’s Johnny Rotten to you and me) for knowing who he is and always will be.

Except for the massive amounts of rain yesterday it’s been awful quiet around here….hmmm…that’s kind of unnerving…

Comic Book Crushes

In response to me stating my swoonyness over Wolverine, Mr. Palmer suggested that it might actually be Hugh Jackman I was swoony for (but pointed out a beautiful Wolverine costume to see anyway). Here’s the sad thing, while Hugh Jackman is certainly swoon worthy, he is, after all, just a man. A real man of flesh and blood who has an actual life, a wife, and you know, all the crap that goes with it.

Wolverine now, he’s IMAGINARY. And if I want to believe I can change him, no one can tell me I can’t (or if they do, I don’t have to listen…why? BECAUSE HE IS NOT REAL!) And dude, he’s got claws and they are made of adamantium (which sounds like Adam Ant-ium, which is even cooler) or sometimes bone but yeah…NOT REAL. Can’t scratch me with those claws “accidentally”, won’t leave the toilet seat up or eat the last Twinkie or forget my birthday (although I have to believe that Wolverine would actually do all of those things if he were real). See the key here is to always remember that the crush is fictional. And even when crushing on a real life person, make sure you know NOTHING about them, it makes it so much easier to believe that they are the person you want them to be.

Even the most literate of women has crushed on Mr. Darcy or wanted to match wits with Petruchio! But comic book crushes…well…that’s another story. So, considering that I have thought all this now, here follows a list of comic book characters that I may or may not have had crushes on over the years. Oh, please, like you haven’t!

Richie Rich-Oh come on! He’s really rich, and I was seven. What more does a seven year old girl want than a man who has a sundae bar, a helicopter and his own dog?

Batman-- He IS the Batman, you know.

Hellboy- Oh how I love him. Both the movie and the comic book version. Hellboy, be mine!

Jeff Smax- Maybe I just want to be Karen Smax, because I do you know, and hard too!

Spider Jersusalem-- Oh he’s a horrible (fictional) person but ya gotta love him (if you even read comics, that is).

Bigby Wolf-Who is pretty much like Wolverine light, I think.

And of course, Wolverine.

(I was going to find pictures to link to all these but I decided that it was just too geeky and over the top. You know what I like I’m sure you can figure it all out or google it yourself.)

And yes, yes, FICTIONAL, I know. That is the whole point here. You show me a boy comic geek that hasn’t had a crush on Powergirl or Wonder Woman or Black Cat and I will show you a very bad comic geek.

Two points of San Diego Comic Con interest here. I am (and have been) working on a little book about this very subject, illustrating all my comic book crushes throughout the years. IF we ever get approved for our table you can look for it at the Tired Girl Collective booth in the small press area.

Also, remember a few years ago when the hip teenage girls were all wearing t-shirts that said things like “Mrs. Kutchner” and “Mrs. Pitt”? Schwee and I discusses how badly we wanted out own geek versions of these shirts, I was yeaning for a “Mrs. Wayne” or a “Mrs. Kirk” shirt and she longs to have one that reads “Mrs. Spock.” If that ain’t nerdy, I don’t know what is!

Daily Life

I love when people have a “daily” sort of aspect to their blogs. I like that justJENN puts up the first five songs on her ipod. I can’t do that; I don’t listen to my ipod that way and I still haven’t figured out the shuffle thing yet so my audiobooks keep coming up in the mix. I like that Brenda notes which coffee mug she drinks out of and what song she is listening to as she writes. I find myself looking forward to mipmup’s Friday Favorites (even though it’s usually stuff I can’t afford) and I like blogs like Eat Air and The Vegan Lunch Box that post…food. I guess I am more interested in how other people lead their daily lives (as opposed to their occasional lives? That’s a silly phrase “daily lives” but you know what I mean). I have never met Karenna but I was interested in what she eats for breakfast because it is nothing like what I eat (usually a cup of low fat soy milk, a homemade, high fiber muffin of some sort (this week it is pumpkin) and a lot of black tea--for the record) and I like reading what Jane had for lunch (it’s usually more interesting than what I had). It is fascinating to me how we all get through our days but I personally have no real rituals to speak of, the music I listen to is completely random with out being on shuffle and the food I eat is less than interesting. I have a morning conversation with the cat that generally consists of “Hi Buddy! How are you today?” I drink my soymilk out of whatever mug I can reach (and is clean), I listen to the radio but I change channels as soon as someone starts talking.

I would like to offer some sort of daily interest but I got nuthin’. I will now post the first ten random songs in itunes, which I am not listening to and tell you what I ate for dinner:

Ruunning In My Sleep-The Fighting Brothers McCarthy (I have never listened to this one, I just checked on it and it seems countryish)
Recondita armonia-Giacomo Puccini (I know this, well, I know that this is from”Tosca” and that I have listened to it before)
Sweet Afton-Nickel Creek (the ever lovely Jodi-odi-odi turned me on to Nickel Creek, They are good, listen to them)
Funky shit-Pilaseca (Here’s another one I have never listened to)
Eveline-Nickel Creek (more from Jodi)
Give Me Novacaine-Green Day (I often forget how much I love the Green Day but I was always kind of turned off by the title of that one album…”Dookie.” I like the poop joke as much as the next person but for some reason that one always bugged me)
Transition-The Longcut (Yep, never listened to this)
Bright Young Men-The Arm (I just listened to this one and it was pretty good)
Now-Viva K (Who? What?)
Rocking This Disaster-roue (You know, someday I will listen to all my music and I will start here because that’s a good title)

Most of these bands I know nothing about, last year I downloaded a bunch of mp3s from the South by Southwest festival with the intention that I would listen to them, decide what I liked, sort through them and be the coolest kid on the block for knowing all the new bands. That hasn’t happened yet. Of course, the Puccini, the Green Day and the Nickel Creek (thank you Jodi!) are things I actually listen to.

For dinner I had salmon, some sort of potato wedges with garlic and fresh, steamed zucchini. It was very good.

Wolverine is also less emo than he looks.

So, I have this label maker, which I really have for no reason other than to make a label that says “cat” and stick it on the cat. I have nothing of import to label and I am not organized enough to label the things I do have. Really, it comes down to labels that say things like “book” and “pie.” But I brought it to work the other day for labeling entertainment. It was only a matter of minutes before Chris was sporting a label that read “Candypants” and Ho had one that said “Jason is a dork” which I will admit is not terribly original but is terribly accurate. Lava Bear took a little longer for me to figure out but he ended up with “Less emo than I look” and after a while I was sporting a label that read “I don’t like to be labeled.” Which is true, I don’t. But here is a question for ya…when someone asks you to describe yourself, what words do you use? The first word that pops to mind for me is “nice” which would probably make anyone who knows me laugh. But, due to a missed question on my English Lit GREs many years ago, I can pass it off for the Middle English definition (look it up and laugh at me). It’s a pretty wishy washy description, I know, but when pressed to label myself, I don’t know what to say. I suppose now I can call myself a “Modern, Cool Nerd” but the only word in that description that seems to fit is “Nerd.”

In the past, I think I have been called bitter, grumpy, angry, scary, rebellious, winsome (that’s my favorite, although I won’t deny the others), serious, industrious and dependable. And I don’t doubt for a second that I have sported many labels that I never even knew about (I HOPE YOU KNOW THAT THIS WILL GO DOWN ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD! Heh, do you know what that is from?) but when asked to label myself, the best I can do is “Well, I think I’m a nice person…” Go figure.

Oooh, also, is is a little geeky of me that I saw the new X3 billboard with Wolverine on it and got a little giddy. Seriously, I have tried to take a picture of it twice but from my car with my cell phone, so it hasn’t worked. And I don’t even care about those movies much but Wolverine makes me all swoony…shut up.

I WANNA ROCK(But only until 9:30 because I have to work tomorrow)

First of all, is it wrong for me to really, really want a pink cell phone? How about if it has “I Wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister as a ring tone? Because I want that.

And speaking of pink…Jodi and I were out and aboot (that’s Canadian for about) in Beverly Hills-ish this weekend and we saw a woman completely dressed in pink, pink pants, pink shoes, pink shirt, pink hat and…a pink dog. How horribly, wonderfully, wrongly awesome is that? Very.

This weekend was a long weekend, which was nice. But I didn’t really get anything done or do anything of value. I did continue my experiment in vegan baking and I made pumpkin muffins. Much to my surprise they were damn good. Just a little sweet for my tastes but I could totally give you one (I could but I won’t) and you would never know they they had no eggs or dairy. Very nice. I also made a bunch of turkey meatballs, some mushroom barley soup, barbecue sauce for the ribs that are in my slowcooker right now and…something else that I can’t remember.

I’ve not been reading nearly as much as I would like but what I have been reading (The Scar, by my beloved/hated China Mieville and The American Way of Death Revisited by Jessica Mitford) can tend towards the slightly depressing so this weekend I decided to throw another book into the mix, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, by Laurie R. King. This is an interesting series concept concerning a young woman who becomes friend and partner (and eventually wife) to Sherlock Holmes. I am actually a fan of Sherlock Holmes as written by Arthur Conan Doyle and many of the pretenders to his throne don’t hold up to scrutiny. I think that the Laurie R. King books do a decent job. And they are fun reading to boot.

Ah, and today is a special day. Today my one true love (no…not that one…not that one either… no , no , no … YES!!) turns 60. And a very fine 60 it is too!

Kitties! And Non-Existent Bands!

Have you ever seen a cat look more like she was up to something?
Now this cat:That’s a sweet kitty. And a rough design for a picture book I am working on.

In the past three days I have made a few comments that people immediately said something to the effect of “that would make a good band name.” So far we have:

Pork Chops in the Crock Pot
Font Whore
and
The Owl is Kind of a Dick

Personally, I have belonged to many non-existent bands. The punk bad that I play the bass for is called “snapcrotch,” the all-girl heavy metal band that I sang for was called “Maidenhead”(I have since heard that a band with such a name exists.) I believe that I once belonged to a kind of emo band called “Tired Angels.”

And I still think that “Stranded Andy” is an excellent name for a band.

REALLY?

Ok, the first time I heard it, I kind of laughed and thought, “Oh man, I forgot about this song.” The second time I heard it I thought “Really? You’re going to play this again? Really?” But then I started to wonder if I would really hear it again. I put on that same stupid channel just to see. In L.A. it’s called JACKfm but I hear that in Philadelphia it’s BEN and in Detroit it’s DOUG. I keep meaning to go on-line and see if there are more but I don’t really care that much. But then…last night, there it was again. I don’t remember the very first time that I heard “Unskinny Bop” but I think I was pretty content for that to be the ONLY time I ever heard that song. Now I think I have heard it at least once a week for the past three weeks. Don’t get me wrong. I love Bret Michaels, Rikki Rockett, C.C. DeVille and Bobby Dall as much as the next girl (and the really scary part is that I did NOT have to look up those names) but really, JACKfm, really? No “Every Rose Has it’s Thorn?” No “Talk Dirty to Me?” When was the last time I heard “I Want Action?” and you really decide to play “Unskinny Bop” every week? Man, I hate the radio.

We do have Indy103.1 in L.A. and that goes a long way towards helping. But still, more music, less talk, even if I do love Steve Jones and Dicky Barrett . Even if they do reward me with regular doses of the Hoodoo Gurus, they need to shut up and play the music.

Chicken, Chicken, Chicken

In the face of doubt and mockery, whilst people told me it couldn’t be done …"You have to add liquid!” they said…and they were wrong…I cooked a chicken in my crock-pot. And it was good. Here’s how to do it to get an absolutely falling off the bone, then the bones all fall apart too chicken:

Crumple up a few pieces of tin foil and put them in the bottom of your crock-pot. This will raise the chicken up so that it doesn’t stew in it’s own juices (heh. I always wanted to use that expression and here it’s not even an expression!). Season your chicken as desired. I just used a little salt and pepper and some paprika (which is a good idea because your chicken won’t brown that much and it’s slightly less disturbing to look in the pot and see a reddish brown chicken then a pale wan looking one). Situate the chicken on top of the foil and do whatever else it is that you might do to a chicken. I tucked some unpeeled garlic cloves around it so we could have some roasted garlic with the potatoes that I planned to serve on the side. I think you could probably tuck a lemon or onion or whatever you like to tuck into chickens (I will not judge) at this point and it won’t effect the cooking time if you have a small enough chicken (ours was 3.5 lbs). Put the crock-pot on high for one hour and then turn it to low for about 8 hours. I put it on in the morning and turned it to warm when I got home. I have to say, it was an excellent chicken. It yielded about a cup or so of “juices” that, if I had actually been thinking about, I could have made into a nice gravy right in the crock pot, but I wasn’t so I tried to thicken them a bit with a little corn starch but couldn’t get them to a boil so it was pretty much an au jus sort of deal once I skimmed off the fat.

Excellent experiment and a meal I will certainly add to the repertoire. Just remember, you don’t HAVE to add liquid to your crock-pot. I checked it out and it’s OK. Clearly some people already know this but at least 3 did not because they told me that I HAD TO ADD LIQUID. They were wrong. Deliciously wrong.

DON'T LOOK, JAMES!

This is not the art for the Valentine I made for James, but it is part of it. His might feature the unicorn farting strawberry-scented rainbows (HI STEFFIE!) but I’m not sayin’.

More Valentine's love.

Just a little more love for your Valentine.

HAPPY V.D.!

Have a happy Valentine's day.

A really happy Valentine's day.

A really creepy Valentine's day.

High Hopes for Crock Pots

It was pretty quiet around casa de me this weekend. Just some hanging out and a trip to Target to get…bum bum bummmmmm…a crock pot. It seems like the ultimate in middle -aged hausfrau to me, that I now own my own crock pot but I am hoping that this will keep us from eating out quite so often. We’ll see. It’s not good to get one’s hopes up. BUT IT’S RED AND SHINY LIKE A RACE CAR…except it goes very, very slowly. I’m gonna chuck a chicken in there tomorrow and see what happens.

I did do a lot of baking this weekend but it was in a very short amount of time. I finally gave my tortilla press/baker a test run. Since the directions enclosed with the machine did not actually explain how the machine worked and actually told me to press my tortillas in a tortilla press and bake them on a griddle, even though this thing, it presses, and bakes, it was a trial and error process. By the time I got the errors out of the way it was too late for trials and we had to order a pizza. We will try the semi-fresh tortillas tonight as part of a fish taco extravaganza. I will purchase pre-made tortillas on my way home…you know…just in case.

I also made some muffins. First I made the lemon poppy seed muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance because I have this quest, this desire to learn how to make good vegan baked goods. I don’t know why. You go climb Mt. Everest and I will make a good vegan muffin, ok? I know, I know, I’m not a vegan, I’m not even a vegetarian…I just want to do it, OK? Jeez.

Anyway, when the muffins came out of the oven I tried one and…I was not convinced. So I decided that I needed to make some regular lemon poppy seed muffins with a stick of butter and 2 eggs for comparison purposes. Unfortunately, I didn’t like those either. Turns out I just don’t much care for lemon poppy seed muffins. So I made some butterscotch cookies, which I liked much better. Jason says that both variations of the muffins were completely edible but I noticed that the ones labeled “VEGAN’ are still sitting on the counter. Well, to be fair, there are a lot of the non-vegan ones hanging about too but all the butterscotch cookies seem to have disappeared.

I will try the carrot muffins next time. They actually are a totally different recipe so I have high hopes, which, as we all know, is very bad.

Why am I awake?

It’s rather late and I have taken some drugs to combat a lingering migraine and for some reason, even though I wasn’t tagged and you don’t care, I decided to grab this from Jodi and run with it. Whatever. I should really go to bed.


Four Jobs I've Had:
1. Like my friends, Jodi-odi-odi and Donovan’s Mom, I too sold shoes. But for some reason, I really, really liked it. Except when old men in shorts didn’t wear underwear…yeah, they do that all the time. Oh and the one time that within a few hours I waited on a blind man (YOU try to explain what “oxblood” loafers look like!), a deaf man, a man with one leg who only wanted to buy one shoe and a guy who wanted to bargain on the price of his shoes. That was a rough morning. And remind me to tell you about the cross-dressers sometime.
2. Text book illustrator. If you took a chemisty class in the early nineties, you have probably seen my work. I also did the ever popular illustration of “train A leaving Chicago at 8 am and train B leaving NY at 10 am…”
3. Pizza/popcorn/water ice girl in a small amusement park in New Jersey.
4. Sales girl at Spencer Gifts. We used to like to take all the price tags off the “personal massagers” so we could embarrass the people who were purchasing them. Go figure.

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over:
1. Yep, Empire Records
2. Yep, Sean of the Dead
3. Animal House
4. Spice World

Four Places I've Lived:
1. West Berlin, NJ
2. Salisbury, NC
3. Palmyra, NJ
4. Los Angeles, CA

Four TV Shows I Love:
1. Good Simpsons episodes (it’s kind of scattershot for me)
2. Futurama (sigh, in syndicated reruns only)
3. Dr. Who (sigh, not running in the US yet)
4. Creature Comforts (done running…for the moment)

Four More TV Shows I Love:
1. Waking the Dead (no currently running but they ended the season with Spence bleeding to death!)
2. Foyle’s War (not currently running. Rats!)
3. King of the Hill (I never think of this one but I do so love this show)
4. Veronica Mars ( I miss episodes every now and then but it’s good)

Four Places I've Vacationed:
1. Money Island, NJ (yeah, you’ve never heard of it)
2. Massanetta Springs, VA (you’ve not heard of this one either)
3. Isla Morada, FL (you might have heard of this one)
4. The U.K. & Northern Ireland” on a bus trip (all of it in 10 days, quite a whirlwind, it was)

Four Of My Favorite Dishes:
1. cupcakes
2. Pizza, especially with onions, mushrooms, pepporicini, or fish on it.
3. scrambled tofu
4. oysters on the half shell

Four Sites I Visit Daily:
1. Bookslut
2. Daily Poetry
3. Daily Gossip at Glamour Mag UK (I don’t care about American gossip but i can’t get enough of the British gossip)
4. all my links and than some!

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now:
1. Tintern Abby, Tintern Wales
2. mom’s house
3. The Red Eagle Bar, Cherry Hill, NJ
4. Puerto Rico

Hunh, I looked back at this and thought, "Gee, I need to make some bolds and italics and links in there" and then I though, "Screw that, I'm going to bed."

Nerds, Green Peppers and Sprouts

So I took the test and here is where I stand:

You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of:
Modern, Cool Nerd
You scored higher than 44% on nerdiness
You scored higher than 80% on geekosity
You scored higher than 38% on dork points

What concerns me is that so far this is where EVERYONE stands! I don’t want to be on par with Chris Palmer! Or wait…maybe I do? I don’t know. The test says he’s cool…but...
I like “geekosity” though. That’s a good word.

I am kind of a dork sometimes though. This morning I was going to check my email. Mind you, it was a little early for me and I didn’t have my glasses on but I read the announcement of “Chat is coming soon” as “Christ is coming soon” and I started to wonder why I hadn’t heard anything about that on the radio this morning. And if he was coming soon, do you think he would actually use Google to announce it? I just hope he wouldn’t use AOL. I mean you could make the announcement but then you couldn’t email any attachments of it to other…never mind. Personal bias.

OH! Hey, in my attempt to broaden my dinner horizons (but broaden my bum) I made something last night that I don’t like. I like vegetables and I only ever put two exceptions on that statement. I HATE bell peppers, just the smell of them will make me leave a room. I find it endlessly frustrating that they are a filler in so many things. I will eat stuff that other people find ungodly but just the mention of green peppers will make me queasy. I just won’t eat them. And I can be flexible about other things; if you serve beef I will politely decline and just eat sides. But bell peppers…yeeesh, don’t even invite me over if you are going to make those.

But I didn’t cook bell peppers last night. So that’s not really the point here. The only other vegetable that I use as an exception to my “I like vegetables” statement is brussel sprouts. I have tried them many ways and I just don’t like them but last night, armed with a sense of adventure and a new cookbook, I attempted to make “Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Toasted Garlic” and they were…completely edible. Good even. I won’t go as far to say that I loooooved them but I did eat a full serving. That was my limit, I tried to eat one more and that was sprout overload but in general…very good. So here is the recipe (more or less as I am reproducing it from memory). I say try them. I also say that Vegan with a Vengeance is a very nice cookbook. This is the first recipe I have tried from it, but the book itself is well written, nicely put together, not at all exclusionary (lots of things non-vegans (like me) will enjoy, I think) and just entertaining.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Toasted Garlic

1lb. Brussel Sprouts
1 tbs. Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp. Sea salt.

Halve Brussel sprouts and toss in olive oil. Roast at 400° for 10 minutes. Add garlic and salt and toss around a bit (in the pan). Roast for 5 more minutes and serve.

I hope I don’t have to add the stuff like using potholders and for you people. But hey, these were really good (for brussel sprouts) so I say give them a try. The only thing I have noted in my cookbook about the recipe is that I liked the parts of the sprouts that browned a bit, so I would make sure to put them all in the pan cut side down next time.

Ok, not so much a geek as a freak, apparently.

Um…hey…wow. You guys sure have something to say about being and or not being a geek. Let me just say that around here it’s just a term of affection, as is dork (Jodi) and jerkface. But that’s just around here. And you can be as geeky as you wanna be, I really just don’t care. BUT there is a difference between a nerd, a geek, a dweeb and a dork. I don’t remember what they are but I think nerds have something to do with being obsessive, dweebs are the ones no one wants around, even other dweebs and geek actually implies computer knowledge. Which…I don’t really have, so…whatever.

Labels have never really bothered me much. I always figured I had one in school but I never knew what it was. I was in the band and the drama club and I was an honors student, so I figured it was something along the line of “geek” or “dork” but no one really ever called me those things to my face…unless I’m just blacking all that out. For all I know I had pig blood poured on me at the prom.

I had friends in a lot of different cliques in school and I felt relatively comfortable moving among them. I had good friends who were football players, stoners, musicians, artists, good students, bad students and I was even friendly with that one dude that had the Mohawk who played in the heavy metal band…remember him? The one that no one else wanted to stand next to? Yeah, I liked him. He sold candy out of him gym bag for fifty cents.

It wasn’t until graduation that the truth about my status in the high school clique-ery came out. Somehow, during the graduation ceremony I got involved in a little taunt war with this dude I knew, and when I say dude, I mean duuuuuuude. When he walked past me I whispered “headbanger!” to him. He responded by calling me a “freak.” We continued to taunt each other during the whole ceremony because it was far more interesting than whatever else was going on. We were seated about 2 or three rows apart and knew that while we could hear each other (and the people around us could hear us), the parents in the stands could not.

Later we ended up at the same graduation party and I asked him why he called me a freak. I wasn’t bothered by the title; I just wanted to know how the dude with the long (feathered) hair and leather jacket in May defined “freak.” Turns out that was my “title” in high school. He told me that the headbangers were afraid of me because they couldn’t pinpoint me as one of their own but liked me because I could rock out when necessary. He went on to say that although the (very few) punks didn’t claim me as one of their own, they thought I was ok because I knew what punk music was. And then I managed to confuse them all by being a member of the marching band and drama club.

I guess I didn’t really fit in but I never really tried to. I did what I did and didn’t really bother with anyone else. It’s not really a philosophy or anything, I just do what I do and you are welcome to join me or not. If you don’t like to rock to Ratt then I guess we can listen to something else but the first thing I am going to suggest is probably the Hoodoo Gurus. And you know, if you want to borrow my comics, I’m cool with that. I don’t mind if you call me a geek, or a dork (Jodi) or a nerd. I’ll probably ignore you anyway. Hey, I said I was a geek, I never said I was a nice geek!

I am too a geek!

“You just lost all your geek points. :-( I don't know if I can read you anymore. There was not one SciFi show there--not even Battlestar Galactica on Friday. Ren, Ren, I am ashamed.”

So, Brenda snatched some geek points from me in my comments and I feel the need to defend myself…

I DO watch Battlestar Galactica but kind of whimsically. I like it well enough but I think its far more soap opera than sci-fi and sometimes by 10 pm on Friday night I feel like I have just had enough drama for the week. But that said, I do think it’s a very good show; I just don’t feel committed to it…, which is a common occurrence in my life (see also: vegetarianism, poetry, illustration, graduate studies and cleaning).

And hey! I watched it this past week and what the heck is up with Lieutenant Cat dressing down Captain Thrace in front of the teams and Thrace letting her do it? C’mon. I may have missed a few episodes here and there but I don’t for a minute believe that Starbuck would let her get away with that, alcohol and grief or not.

What other sci-fi (both on SciFi and on other channels) is out there that I should be watching? I do often indulge in the Sci-Fi Channel movie and while I would never claim that they are good, they can be darn entertaining. I don’t watch any variation of Stargate because I just have no freaking idea what is going on in those shows (ok, I did watch the one with Colm Meaney but you know….that was because Colm Meaney was in it).

Please don’t mention Lost to me. I don’t care for it. I won’t go into in and I certainly won’t criticize anyone else for liking it (I watch Reba for heaven’s sake!) but I just can’t watch that show and although I guess it’s got some sci-fi elements to it, I don’t know that I would call it that. And I did try to watch Invasion and Surface but what actually stuck was Threshold and they took that one away. And what I liked about Threshold was that it wasn’t “Hey, do you think there could be aliens?” “Gee, I don’t know, do you think I’m an alien?” but rather the “OHHOLYCRAPWEGOTALIENS!WHATAREWEGOINGTODO?” aspect of it. And the Peter Dinklage aspect too. But that’s all gone now.

AND HEY!!! DOCTOR WHO! I watch Dr. Who and yes, I will watch them over and over and I will watch them when they start running on Sci-Fi because they are good. And I hope I can still find a sneaky geeky way to get hold of the upcoming season.

And P.S. I’d just like to point out that there is a SciFi movie on the 18th called Rottweiler. I’m just sayin…

P.P.S. Yeah, right, Brenda. I’ll try to write a book because I see just how much fun you are having with that. HA!

EVERYONE IS A WINNER WHEN IT'S THE PUPPYBOWL!

Yeah, yeah, Superbowl…schmooper…bowl. That one doesn’t work so well but who needs the Superbowl when you can have the Puppybowl? Who needs the Rolling Stones censoring themselves when you can have the “Bissell Half-Time Kitty Show?” Did I actually watch it? Yes, but not all the way through. I did watch the half-time show twice, however. I like to watch insane kittens beat the crap out of each other, what can I say? And as far as the puppies go, I think the poodle totally rocked it (but I have a crush on the Shiba Inu ).

I do like football but I am by no means a fan and since I didn’t care about either team (I may have watched if it were the Bears or the Dolphins or the Eagles) and my house was incredibly dusty and disorganized, I didn’t watch the Superbowl.

But on Saturday night, as part of my ongoing quest to re-live my teen years, I went to see Howard Jones with Jodi-odi-odi and Eric. It was good. Very good. HoJo stands the test of time. He still has a lovely voice; he’s an amazing piano player and a good entertainer. A brilliant guitarist accompanied him as well. In fact, there were times when the composition brought the two instruments together to sound like a harpsichord. Not that I am a harpsichord fan, far from it. All those years of playing “Baroque Flute” really made me not love harpsichord OR flute. But Howard can make anything work.

The concert venue was kind of odd. I had never been to a non-Las Vegas or Atlantic City casino before and I will only say that I don’t need to ever go to one again…unless Howard Jones is playing there, I guess.

On a different topic here…I am bored with the food that I cook for dinner. I have gotten in the rut of cooking the same 4 or 5 meals over and over again. I need some fresh ideas. Any suggestions? The real problem is that I am more interested in veggies and James is more interested in meat. I don’t much like rice and he won’t eat pasta. So meals that we both like get a little tricky. I make a lot of fish generally grilled and sometimes put into tacos, we do eat some chicken, sautéed, fried, taco-ed and stewed, and then things like veggie chili, French toast (I eat mine with veggie bacon, he gets sausage), eggplant parm…I just have run out of interesting ideas. I hate to cook pork, I don’t like beef and I could eat beans and tofu everyday and he doesn’t care about either one. What ever shall I do?

Hot "Chicks" in Fast Cars.

How L.A. am I? Not really that L.A. at all but a few months ago when a hot little convertible zipped by me on Sepulveda, heading into the Valley, I noticed the license plate XXXTSY and the massive amount of fluffy blonde hair of the driver and I thought “Ooooh, porn star!”

So yesterday, when a bright yellow Ferrari (with the top down) flew past me (again on Sepulveda) and I saw the sexy tumble of auburn hair the driver kept fussing with at red lights, of course I thought she would be a supersexy xxx chick with highly inflated breasts. After a little bobbing and weaving in traffic I managed to get next to her at a stoplight. She turned her head to look in the mirror and eeeek. NOT A GIRL! NOT A GIRL! Big hairy moustache! Of course my first thought was still “Ooooh, porn star!”

What was really fun was watching all male drivers on the road try to get close to “her.” I got cut off more than once by a jeep that was darting in and out of traffic until it got up next to the little yellow car. I wonder if he was as shocked as I was.

When you start to think that every sexy “chick” in a sexy car near the San Fernando Valley (porn capital of the world), that’s a little too L.A.

Oh yay! Another poem.

This article doesn't give much credence to poetry as panacea but I know that when I read a really good poem, or a good book, or see a bit of art or even read a comic strip that I like, it can change my mood.

I don't think this will change your mood but I felt like posting a poem I wrote about 15 years ago. I wrote it for my nephew and still intend to eventually illustrate it and make a little book of it, just to do it. I think it's maybe a little too precious (and by that I mean cutesy, not "Oh my precious, wonderful poem!") but I do like it and I just thought I would share rather than make another list...

A monster crawled out
From under my bed!
A big ugly monster
With eyes of bright red.
A monster with teeth
Down way past his knees.
And what did he say?
"Turn the lights back on, please."

A monster so huge
And so truly scary.
A monster so creepy
And scaly and hairy.
A monster with sad eyes.
A monster in tears.
Who said,
"I'm afraid of the noises I hears.
Things go bump in the night,
Things go boom in the dark.
Please turn on the light
and calm my poor heart.
It's spooky and scary
Here under your bed,
And humans bang round
And scare me half dead.
So turn on that light
If you would so please.
'Cuz I got chilled nerves
And I got weak knees."

So on went the light
And back under he ran.
And I never did see that monster again.