Monday, November 30, 2009

my skillz

Aside from solving problems with Excel and organizing my closets, I can also bake and knit. Although I am not claiming to do any of these things successfully. This past holiday weekend I tried a new cookie recipe - Cinnamon-Ginger Cookies. We ate them all that night. I recommend this - the recipe that is, not eating all of them in one sitting with only one other person.



I also spent about 90 minutes trying out various knitting patterns for this spare yarn I have in an attempt to put it to good use (besides sitting in a storage bin in the closet). This is what the temporary working space looked like:

I have several other projects going but have grown a bit bored of them...maybe those projects will be lucky enough to be featured in a future blah post.

If only I had a maternal instinct, I'd be all set with my knitting and cookie skillz.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Three Movie Weekend

Hi Folks, G here, reporting live from 306. This holiday weekend we went out to three movies. This is abnormal.

Wednesday, November 25:

1. Fantastic Mr. Fox: The latest Wes Anderson film, his first animated film and his first main stream (non-indie) release. I give it 4 stars. Aside from the horrible previews for bland kid movies, I enjoyed it, but then, I haven't seen a Wes Anderson movie I didn't like. Wes Anderson's attention to detail is something I appreciate. The movie is based on the Roald Dahl story of the same title. I'll let the preview speak for itself.




2. (same night - we got two free passes after the theater had a few blunders during the Fantastic Mr. Fox) 2012: By any standards this is not a "good" movie but it is worth seeing in the theater. There are so many ridiculous things in this movie that I found myself chuckling at the parts I don't think I was supposed to be chuckling at. Three stars and, though ridiculous, a fun movie.





Sunday, November 29:

3. The Road: I read the Cormac McCarthy book (by the same name) about a year or so ago and could not put it down - the fastest I've ever read a book. I have to admit part of the haste was the fear - it is a frightening film. The movie does right by the book mostly and I give it 4 1/2 stars.





Other than movies we ate and ran a bit and walked here and there and read books and listened to music as well as podcasts. A very mellow and fantastic Thanksgiving weekend.

I am thankful.

Monday, November 23, 2009

H - this is for you.

Look closely at the photo below (taken in September 2000) - "Quinn's Pet Hamsters" are awesome. This was hanging in the basement of the church where Sandy's sister got married.


I am a real sunshine (ha).

Good day!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Guess who cooked!

I did! I made two new recipes this weekend, which is two more recipes than I made this whole month! Don't quite know what motivated me.

I made Ginger-Lemon Pinwheel Cookies which are a serious pain in the ass to make. You're really making two different cookie recipes at the same time and then combining. Something went awry with the molasses dough. They look interesting (I would have loved looking at them in my high school years) but are a bit hard. I don't recommend the recipe unless you have a lot of time on your hands and enjoy frustration.



The second recipe was a Breakfast Tortilla, which, surprisingly, is a Cooking Light recipe. I say it's surprising because of the amount of fat and cholesterol in it but I guess you're supposed to eat it in moderation...This is a hard task because it was tasty. The end product is here:


I made if for a knitting get together and it looked much nicer on the table with the other treats:


This is the real money shot though - a yuppie's dream :) - some Darjeeling tea, quiche, fresh strawberries and breakfast tortilla. It was so tasty and satisfying.


I think I probably gained weight today.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

utube

More evidence of my exciting life: I found some funny shit on youtube. Yeah, I know I'm not alone but I mean LOL kind of funny, which is rare for me. Sure, I chuckle quite a bit and think to myself "that's funny" often but don't regularly laugh out loud at things. That said, I laughed at this:




This guy has several other short films of equally funny stuff but the astronaut one is my favorite. A runner up is the snail:



Stay tuned - more useless stuff coming your way soon! right here!