Saw Cloverfield - no spoilers

After being scared for that long, I'm totally primed to be jumpy and overly concerned about things under the bed. I'm glad I have someone to cling to tonight.

Devon had to peel my fingers off his arm several times during the movie. I'm not a fan of 'unsteady cam' and covered my eyes several times to ward off the nausea. It had a blair witchian feel.

It had more scary moments than Sunshine, but then, I hated the whole sun zombie thing in that movie. I made the mistake of going into Sunshine thinking it was sci fi, not horror. I don't do horror, except on rare occasion w/ drinking buddies, and even then it's cheesy, chainsaw, buckets of blood, b movie horror. The gratuitous special effects in Sunshine, like when the frozen astronaut goes floating into space and smashes into bits, burns itself into my memory and I hate that kind of visual. See, I'm trying to talk about another scary movie in the hopes that I will distract myself from Cloverfield. My jaw hung open several times during Cloverfield, and my mouth was dry afterwards. I guess that's as good a response as any to this kind of movie.

We saw it at a free Paramount screening, after some (always) excellent food at Crown of India. They make curries thar are lick-the-bowl good. I wanted a spatula when scrapping leftovers into my box, so I wouldn't miss any sauce. Yumness.

Thing a day

On the 21st, sign up opens for http://www.thing-a-day.com/

For 29 days starting on February 1st, participants are invited to create one thing every day and post it on the thing-a-day.com blog.

I think I can do that. It will certainly be good momentus to get my creativity going again. Since there is no way I can just cook every day. And all the knitting projects I have will take more than a day to complete.

Now they need to come up with a 'Thin a day'. Maybe I'll do that in March.

the last one

Who leave 1 single ibuprofen in the bottle? It's as bad as leaving 3 sheets of toilet paper on the roll, as if that somehow neutralized the obligation to replace the roll.

I don't take a lot of pharmaceuticals, but when I need ibuprofen, I need a lot of it.

Punch up and tweak chocolate chip cookies

The standard recipe for Nestles chocolate chip cookies (the one on the back of every bag) is too greasy, sweet and bland for me. I find I'm always trying to adjust it. I have a more European than American palate, which means more flavors and less overpowering fat and sugar. Most american candy is just too slap in the face sugary for me. I need caramelization, salt, citrus, nuts or something else in the mix.

Brown Sugar
I never use brown sugar. It's 3 times the cost of regular sugar, and all it is is white sugar with a few drops of molasses added to it. I'm not talking about the fancy 7x more expensive specialty brown sugars (which I think is equally ridiculous), just C&H. How can you check? Put a pinch of brown sugar in your palm and rub your finger against it. In a few seconds your palm will have molasses on it, and there will be plain white sugar crystals on top of it. Rip Off!

Just add a teaspoon or 2 to to a recipe that calls for 'light' or 'dark' brown sugar. Molasses keeps forever (as opposed to brown sugar which goes rock hard after a couple months), and can be used to liven up the flavor on myriad recipes from sweet to savory.

My newest cookie recipe tweak.

Carribean Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

cream:
1.5 sticks butter
1.5 cups sugar
2 T molasses

Add:
2 eggs - 1 at a time
1 t vanilla
2 T espresso or coffee concentrate (I always have some coffee toddy in the fridge)

Mix together, then stir into liquid in 3 parts:
1 t fine sea salt
1 t baking soda
1/2 c cocoa powder
1 c whole wheat flour
1 c white unbleached flour

Stir in:
1-2 c chocolate chips ( lately I like Guittards bittersweet, the large flat chips are a nice change in texture) depending on your chocolate craving.

Dollop onto parchment and bake at 350 for 10-12 min until slightly firm to the touch. They are not radically different, but they don't leave a greasy slick in your milk when you dip them, and they have a nice depth from the interaction of the molasses, cocoa and coffee.

I like to freeze the dough in a long roll and wrap it in plastic wrap. Then I can take it out, cut as many cookies off of it as I want, and bake a single sheet of them. Fresh cookies whenever I want, and only as many as I need.

How useful is a blog?

At Haliewa Joe's in HI.

I see more blogs that focused as tools for selling than journals about the authors life. Barely anyone I know uses them to about people in their lives. Sure they cover the big events like births and weddings, but I always thought a journal also contained your thoughts on other people, what you did or didn't like about them, your learning experiences about them. We're tribal, and before stuff and work comes how we socialize with others.

But the blogs I read are mostly about careers, art, crafts, tech, and 'big' social events. Do the same people who write those blogs write elsewhere about their lives,
their travails, the gossip? Or do they just talk about to their friends, and then its' gone, never to be read about by them or others, years later when they wish to retrieve that moment. Sure they knew what recipe they were experimenting with, or what shop they visited or cheese they ate or who's book was recently published back in June 2006, but who were they fucking, and was it good? Was it different than it is now, and what did they think about that person?

I certainly want to know about the recipes and cheese and books, which is why I subscribe to those blogs. But I wonder if they keep their other personal info on those blogs as well (as private entries), or write them in a private place and put it on a shelf (always nice to write by hand, but you can't do a fast search for a name or place by hitting ctrl +F, you have to skim shelves of pages of scribbles), or don't even put them to paper at all. Letting those moments that truly define their humanity slip away, to only be half-remembered decades later as a fuzzy recollection mixed in with the definite sharp knowledge of a cheese they discovered around the same time.

MTG - end of an era

I use to play MTG when it was BIG. It peaked just around the time the Ice Age expansion came out. MTG was the only card game out there, there was nothing like it, everyone I knew who collected comics or was into D&D also played. I collected until Urza's Saga came out, and the addition of yet more stupid annoying rules made me quit collecting and playing altogether. I should have sold my cards then. But I was hoping that either they would make a comeback, or I'd be able to play again w/ some regularity. So I kept them.

Not that I played a single game of magic in the last 10 years, but I've kept them close to my heart. Hoping some day that I could find people to play with, people who were not impatient impolite teens with $400 decks that had all the time in the world to study the new rules that come out every 3 months, and no time for old codgers like me who just wanted to play open, unlimited, for fun. I tried a few comic stores that had an extra room for Magic The Gathering back in the 90's, and had no luck finding the right vibe.

Today I sold them to a college student who supplements his income by reselling them. He paid cash, and I am now out 1 entire box of magic cards. A file box full that I didn't have to part out card by card, look up, research, package, and sell individually. Sure I could have gotten 5x what he paid, but it's out, gone, and it won't be looking at me with big 'MTG' in red ink every time I walk by the bookshelf. It won't taunt me any more with potential playability. I have too many other projects and art and things to do.

I dreamt about the cards all last night, of selling them or of keeping and selling them myself. That I'd make so much more if I focused on just selling them, time I don't have, and when I woke I knew that I was getting time back by getting rid of them. If I really wanted to put in the effort to sell them, I had a decade to do it, and didn't.

I did spent 2 hours last night taking one last loving look at the cards, remembering favorite decks, long hours playing with friends, the first few excited days of learning what the hell the game was all about with a friend who was equally lost, the days when I would eagerly await the next expansion, of saving for a handful of booster packs.

OK, I did keep 4 cards. I sold over 3000 of them, so it's not like I kept a whole card box. It was an odd 4, nothing rare, just because I loved the cards, not the art (otherwise I would have dug out all the Quinton Hoovers, and it would have been another couple weeks before I got around to posting the ad) and used them a lot.

Now I wish I could hand every box I have to a college student and he'd pay me that much. I'd much prefer the space than the stuff.

New Years Day

What did I do new years day? I spent it sleeping in, then putting away boxes of wrapping paper and holiday decorations. Then I played the last and best hours of Mass Effect, until 1:30am. I am not a big console gamer, but I am a sucker for a good choose-your-own-adventure game. That was tremendous fun. The last time I enjoyed a game that much was Planescape: Torment. Funny enough, it was made by the same people. Thank you to the entire studio for making a very entertaining, dramatic, and in depth game.

If only school could be as much fun as video games, I think our kids would be a lot smart and more involved in the learning process. I spent many hours reading the codex and planet informational blurbs in Mass Effect. Besides being entertaining, all of it completely useless for every day life. But like a good book, I could focus on nothing else.

And like Planescape: Torment, it has great replayability, you want to play the full Renegade character, then Paragon, chose different love interests, and different responses. But I'm done with it for a while, I didn't do much else all week and need some time away from the TV.

Now I have to scream through Something Wicked This Way Comes for the bookclub tomorrow.

knitting in the post office

My printer is down, so I am forced to go stand in the xmas lines at the post office to send out ebay packages. To ease the pain, I bring my knitting. I dont' have to look at people, I have no idea how much time passes, and I get to focus on getting several more rows done without other leisurely tempations around, like food and video games (am loving Mass Effect).

Today I was in line and there was a man n' woman in front of me, dressed in white. From her platinum hair and rhinestone 'bebe' cap, to his shock of grey hair and weird sleeveless parka vest (that made him look like his arms and head were protruding from a giant marshmallow), they were a vision of winter in LA.

She had turned slightly to see me, and was using a low voice so I thought she was talking to her guy. But I glanced up and she caught my eye, repeating 'what a good idea, bringing that along'. I said it was easier to focus on than reading when in line, and asked if she knit. She said she just started and is working on a scarf, but won't have it done for xmas because she has no idea how to finish it. We did a mini workshop right there and I showed her how to cast-off. Then they were called to the next window and we smiled and separated.

Then the older lady behind me piped up with 'My husband use to knit', and I spent the rest of the time in line hearing a delightful little story about her husband's exquisite seamless sweaters and his attempts to teach her how to knit.

I had avoided going to the post office for most of the day, because it's usually such a chore. But it was downright pleasant today.

Finesse and Warmth

I tend to be heavy handed in a lot of things, spices in food, starting too many projects at once (I have 3 knitting projects going and all my good needles are now indisposed), eating too much good food, exercising until I can't see straight, getting emotionally wrapped up in things that should be the most minor of priorities. Which makes for a never ending string of suprises that I can lose weight by reducing food by a little, that exercise is just as useful if I do it in moderation, and that spices can be marvelous even when they are subtle.

For some reason, my heavy handedness tends to make some things less believable to me to. Like fingerless gloves. If my whole hand and fingers aren't covered by an insulating glove, how on earth are fingerless gloves useful? It makes no sense to me. I like the concept, but it seemed more fashionable than useful to me.

I've been sitting at this keyboard for the last few days freezing my fingers off, even w/ socks, slippers and a hat, my fingers won't stay warm. And gloves make typing impossible.

On a whim I decided I'd try to make handwarmers. Cause I have a lot of little balls of yarn that are not quite being enough for scarves or hats. I did a gauge, measured up my hand and whipped one up in about 2 hours. It fits my hand snuggly, stays in place, and only needs minor adjustments for the next one. I can type and knit with it on, and my left hand is now significantly warmer than the bare one. Surprise, fingerless gloves work, even without fingers. I've converted myself into a believer. And now I can't knit the other one fast enough.

Color Schemes, pleasant vs itchy

Went to the Christmas Castle Green tour on Sunday. It was a good turnout, but the apartments themselves were not as interesting as the last time I went. Since the last time, a few of the apartments have changed hands, and they are not as impressive. Also, many of the places were just open houses, and some heavy on the ikea. Not as many were decked out in holiday splendor, perhaps because this tour was not as close to xmas as the last one.

Castle Green attracts people who are not just buying a house, but buying into a community. The community being both the Castle itself (home to many artists, designers, interior decorators, architects and other art/craft related careers) and old town Pasadena, which is less than 2 blocks away. You don't need a car if you work nearby (or can take the rail) or in your home office, and you can walk to anything you need to buy. The condos start about 500k, the smallest being less than 800sqft, the largest being twice that. Still quite small. And no amenities other than the grounds and common rooms. Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live there. If someone handed me one of those condos I would certainly move in, but I'd have to seriously cut down on the amount of furniture and kitchen gadgets I own.

One place was deep Moroccan colors and designs the last time I was there, and I was excited to see it again. It had changed hands to a local designer, and was done up in my least favorite color scheme ever, pink and turquoise. Those colors are not attractive to me separately, and together they synergize into foofy poodle nastiness that made me back out of the space. They are good colors when blended with others as accents, but when they are in the majority they make me almost nauseous.

Went running today, and after the weekend rains, the skies were crystal clear and bright rich blue. Rare in LA, especially in the valley. The Sycamores are getting ready to drop their leaves, and though they don't really change color much (sycamores leaves are slightly fuzzy so they have a greyness to their pale yellow green), they do take on a crunchy rumpled shape and a mix of ochre, sand brown and dusty yellow. Mixed with the stark white bark on the upper branches and crisp sky, it made for a very pleasant SoCal color scheme. I need to capture it.