Steal These Books
So, 'fess up? Ever stolen a book? If so, what title? I can't remember ever swiping a book, but I would not be surprised if I managed to do so at some point when I was a little kid.
Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Little Red Riding Hood (sans hood)
The Queen of Hearts and Rapunzel!

More dorkiness.
And more.
"You know, I'm going to be sad if you can't get your meds. I'm kind of getting used to you not being crazy all the time."
This from the same man who was telling me a few months ago that he was sure I could moderate my behavior by myself, I just needed to really try. I'm glad he's happier. I know I'm happier. He's looked at me funny a few times over the weekend. Once when he mentioned he didn't appreciate something I was doing, which before would've sent me over the edge, and again a few times throughout conversation. So I guess my behavior's been noticeably different in some ways. I think I'm going to ask Kevin about it because I'm really curious. The only thing I've noticed is I'm not depressed all over the place and I've actually been getting up and doing things like cleaning and exercising again.
As for the Yesterday bit, Winter and I made gingerbread. Winter wanted to make gingerbread pirates to go with the gingerbread house. I suggested we make the gingerbread house on fire because, you know, pirates. So I measured out the sections on a piece of paper and cut them out to make stencils, then cut out the pieces. We got them in the oven, and I discovered that gingerbread expands a LOT when you cook it. I made icing and we colored bits, and cut the corners out of plastic baggies to make a do-it-yourself decorating kit. I glued the bits of the house together with the icing and then started... putting icing on it. I can't really say 'decorating' because a brain-damaged chimpanzee could probably do a better job decorating than I can.
So I let Winter decorate the house. And she makes with her perfectly-formed windows, and perfect little dots and puts me to absolute shame. So I just let her decorate the cookies, too. She named one Captain Cookie and gave him a chocolate-chip eye-patch. And did an Amazing Job, especially for an eight-year-old kid. I will get pictures tonight. I should've just let her do the entire gingerbread house, 'cause I shouldn't be allowed to touch desserts.
I also made 'Holiday Crescents' for the bowling leage pot luck tonight. What you do is get 6 oz of cream cheese and beat it together with one cup of margarine. Add in 2 cups of flour, and beat that all together, then refrigerate it for two hours. In the meantime, you get 2 cups of chopped pecans and blend it with 2/3 cup brown sugar, 3 egg whites, and 1.5 tsp vanilla. Once the dough is cool, you cut it into circles, add the pecan filling, fold the dough over, pinch the ends, and make crescents.
They look hideous. The crescents all popped open, and since I'd used the blender to chop my pecans, the pecan bits were very fine. More like pureed. So they look like dog doody tacos. D: I am going to have to add a sign that reads:
Objects in plate are tastier than they appear.
Oh, man, why did I choose to bring desserts? D:
Right around the Winter Solstice every year it just somehow feels like the days are too short.
- Location:in DAD with the SAD
- Mood:confused
- Music:Simon & Garfunkel - At The Zoo | Powered by Last.fm
For example, there was a case in Ottawa that went to sentencing a few days ago. A guy shot his ex-girlfriend in the neck hoping to kill her, and instead he just paralyzed her. Now she is in a long-term care facility and her kids don't live with her anymore. I guess you might say she was lucky because she survived. Sentence? Ten years. This means he will very likely get out in six and two-thirds years, because it's standard for a person to serve a third of their sentence on parole. So in 2016, he will be out playing tennis and dancing while she sits in a wheelchair peeing into a bag with her kids in foster care. Is it just me, or is this a little outlandish?
Here's another one -- a woman stabbed a guy in the neck and chest and head with a machete and a knife of some kind. One of the cuts was so deep that there was arterial spray. He survived and he's pretty much ok now. I can't remember what her sentence was, but one of the conditions is that she can't own a weapon for five years. WTF? Do I really want this woman walking around with a weapon in 2014? What's wrong with a lifetime ban on weapons? For that matter, why does anyone have a right to own a weapon?
Someday I am going to have to read up on sentencing and where these crazy sentences come from. There must be some logic that totally eludes me.
If you are a law professor and reading this, feel free to enlighten me.
So far our conversation has been idle, the latest movies, what books we like, and so on. The sudden serious tone catches my curiosity. I say, “You can tell me.”
“I want to tell you, but I don’t want you to leave.”
I smile, gently. “I’m not going to leave.”
He looks me steadily in the eye, and says, “I’m a vampire.”
( Read more... )
This post is 100% true,or at least this is how I remember it.
This was meant to be my Week 8 post for
- Mood:hungry
Lifewise? This was an another off-year...I didn't get too much done writing-wise except for finishing Love Like Blood (on New Year's Eve, mind you!), and a few other writing plans fell by the wayside. Jobwise I was getting frustrated, but that would fall into place quite nicely at the end of the year when I changed departments. Everything else was good (and we went on a great trip to Hawaii, where I met
So! Onto the music...
( I bet you know beef jerky has an aftertaste! )
Coming up next weekend: 2008-2009, and finally my Best of Decade list!
- Mood:entertained
I'm feeling GOOOD!
The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars
by Joel Glenn Brenner
I bought The Emperors of Chocolate because my accounting teacher offered extra credit to any student that read it and wrote up a paper comparing and contrasting the business practices described in the book. I figured it would probably be pretty dull, but hey, chocolate’s cool so it couldn’t be that bad, right? I certainly didn’t expect this book to become one of the most interesting and entertaining reads of the year.
In the United States, the candy market is dominated by two companies: Mars Incorporated and The Hershey Company. You know Hershey as the maker of Kisses, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kat Bars. Mars pops out M&Ms, Twix, Snickers and Milky Way bars. In 1999, when this book was written, their combined products dominated 75% of the candy rack. Mars is privately owned, and the Mars family puts great priority on protecting their privacy. With their top rival keeping mum on nearly everything, Hershey has also become intensely secretive, even though it’s a publically owned company. Reporter Joel Glenn Brenner spent over ten years on this book, interviewing former employees, combing through Hershey’s archives, and scoring an exclusive interview with elusive members of the Mars family.
It’s a fascinating read. Brenner studies these two chocolate giants and their effect on all fronts, covering their history, marketing, economic impact, social goals, and their products. The book is as much about the chocolates and sweets as the people behind them. It was almost scary to learn just how big Mars is; in addition to the candy line, they also own Uncle Ben’s Rice and Pedigree Petfoods. Likewise, I had known that Hershey, Pennsylvania was where the Hershey factory was located, but I didn’t know that Milton Hershey had also founded and funded a school that provided board and education for disadvantaged youth which is still in operation today. That was pretty cool to learn.
Brenner does an excellent job peeling away the mythology of Willy Wonka and his magical chocolate factory. Marketed as a business book, The Emperors of Chocolate does spend a lot of time talking about the management styles of Hershey and Mars, number-crunching, and failed/successful marketing campaigns. But it’s never boring, even if you haven’t the least bit of interest in business, because the companies are dominated by the personality and goals of the founders, whose influence has not diminished over the years since their deaths.
So, y’know, if you like candy (and who doesn’t?) check this book out. Even though it’s over ten years old, The Emperors of Chocolate still provides a lot of insight into one of the most fascinating industries out there.
History of Modern Art - A-
Statistics - Dropped
Managerial Accounting - C
Design & Color - A
Intro to Archeology l- A
Let's see. Do I have any regrets? Not really. Am I sorry that I dropped Statistics? A little, but I didn't understand anything. The teacher was kind, and he meant well, but it was a dull class and he had trouble answering questions, like he couldn't rephrase the concepts into different words. It was frustrating. Plus, the quizzes/exams were always on Fridays and I'd miss them because I was at work - he would never mention ahead of time that they were coming so I could request the time off. So I don't think I could have made that class work.
Managerial Accounting? Again, I had a lot of trouble with that teacher. (Instructors really make or break the classes at DeAnza.) She was NOT the teacher I wanted to take Accounting 1C from, but a few days before the quarter started all the classes got shuffled around, and my original teacher didn't even teach a section of 1C this quarter. My new teacher was well-rated on Rate My Professor, so I figured it would be OK, but it wasn't. She would insist on us asking questions, and would pause the class for 2-3 minutes of silence until someone popped a question out. She'd go off on tangents left and right. I was late to a class early on in the quarter and I always felt I was getting the stink-eye the rest of the year.
We had that stinkin' Cookie Project, for which we had to bake cookies and present them to the class. It sucked because in my group - all Asians, 4 guys and 2 girls - the boys would not do any of the baking, and I didn't have time with all my work, so it fell on the shoulders of the other girl. We also had a really complicated, expensive recipe so she had to spend HOURS on this project. I couldn't access the class website (all the information about the project was in a Yahoo Group, and the teacher never approved my membership WTF?) so I had to rely on my classmates to tell me what was required. I agreed to do the visual presentation in the form of a cheesy website, which would include all the info given to me by my classmates (recipes, spreadsheets, etc) and a mock order form.
Guy #1 did the job cost sheets, which were fine but even I could tell he'd done them incorrectly. Guy #2 wrote up a paragraph about 'sales forecasting' which was useful but not required for the project, as it turned out. Guy #3 BARELY managed to make a three sentence mission statement after literally taking a week to do it. Guy #4 was supposed to help me with the website, but I heard nothing from him. On the day our cookies were due, we had a craptacular presentation that managed to miss about half the basic requirements of the project. Guy #4 didn't even show up. Oops. Then, when I got home that afternoon, Guy #4 had e-mailed me the suggestion to change the color of the website. I e-mailed him back pointing out that there was little point changing it now, as we'd presented it to the class that morning. He then huffily emailed me back wanting to know why no one called him to let him know the presentation was today.
What am I, your babysitter?
Anyway, that project really soured the class for me, but I had determined waaaaay back that I didn't like the teacher anyway. With so many other interesting classes to study, Accounting really went to the backburner, and a C is the best grade I could have hoped for.
At least I passed!
The art classes are the ones that matter, and I got As in all of those. It does suck a little that I got an A- in Giles' class, but given that I got a C on the term paper (just as I predicted) I'm just glad I kept an A. Granted, I had an A+ on both the midterm and the biography paper we wrote for that class, but I doubt I got an A on the final (I was sick as a dog when I took it) which makes the A- more of a miracle.
Design & Color was definitely the most fun class and I think my only regret there is that it was over! My book turned out OK and I learned a lot, and this class combined withe Design8 in the spring have really rekindled in my interest in creating art as well as studying it. Archaeology was a great class, and I only wish I hadn't missed so many days because the lectures are fascinating. Too bad the only other class that professor teaches is one I've already taken...
I spent a brief period of time in a conflict zone in what is now Kisangani; it gave me a good close look at how much of the world lives. It also gave me a gut level insight into the kind of luck I had being born into a first world country. I also came very close to checking out early. Life since that point has been a gift and a bonus. I try hard to enjoy every single day.
- Location:safe back in the world
- Mood:contemplative
- Music:Phil Ochs - The Men Behind the Guns | Powered by Last.fm
Hmm. 2006. Kind of an off year, really, in terms of music I was listening to. I spent most of this year working on Love Like Blood, getting acclimated to my new surroundings in San Francisco, and working at my new job. There was also a bit of a change in the sound of indie at this point, with a lot of bands getting little to no radio play but were the biggest thing on the internets. It took me awhile to get used to some of these songs, and eventually I gave up actively looking out for them, leading me to realize that I'd finally outgrown my music obsession to some degree. I still listen to a lot of stuff, and still try out new things, but I'm definitely no longer the five-cds-a-week, listening-24/7 fan that I once was. *sigh* The price of growing up, I suppose. ;)
( Cause I'm a Punk Rocker, yes I am )
- Mood:entertained






