Not long ago I misplaced my lens cap again. Bob found it in the driveway.
I don’t understand why they don’t give you an extra lens cap with the camera.
They should sell them at Target in three packs and give them away free at restaurants in giant bowls next to the mints and toothpicks.
Other people assembling office furniture.
Now I can’t find my notes for my five second post this evening.
Very fun weekend hence not much sitting around the computer. My inbox is so depressingly full I’m considering nuking it and starting over.
When Mom and Dad are here we always have lots of fun adventures but never seem to get around to all the stuff we intend to do. Some things we did: tons of epic food, two excellent trips to downtown Portland to visit the new office and go to Powell’s. Things we missed: international food marts, walk around the fort.
They headed out early today to beat the storm.
View of the new office with furniture.
I’ve been intending to write about about seeing Revolutionary Road a couple of weeks ago but I just can’t seem to get to it. The short review is that I think the great acting and directing are distracting people from the idea that the story does not work. I do not recommend. Well, unless you like movies where you feel worse when you leave than when you went in.
I wanted to contrast that film with Wuthering Heights (09 Masterpiece Theater version) which I liked. I guess in tragedy it’s hard to get away from the idea that the people act like idiots. But there is something compelling about Cathy and Heathcliff’s passion. And I liked Heathcliff’s sexy lips. I still haven’t managed to finish the book. My book reading is appalling so far for 09.
The third film I was going to write about is Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson which in summary sounds silly and shouldn’t work but it’s a very sweet and satisfying movie. I recommend.
I have another epic busy week. Half-assed posting, if any, will continue.
View from the office window
Busy week. Parts of it extremely not fun.
Insomnia! I haven’t had sleeping issues since Clarion West last summer. Last night was night 4. woo!
Office is finally decorated. Photos to come.
Mom and Dad in town this weekend. Won’t be computing much.
Dad’s Workshop
I shook off my Saturday funk by making a brilliant dinner. The recipe was in the Oregonian but I can never find anything on their website. I found it on another site but the site had pop-up ads so I’m not going to send you there.
Here’s the gist of it, it’s really easy.
I used one of my pumpkins, I think the one on the far left. Don’t use a jack-o-lantern pumpkin or you will be sorry. Those don’t taste good. I think Cook’s Illustrated did similar recipe with butternut squash.
I chopped it in half and saved all the seeds for the garden. I chopped it into more manageable pieces, peeled and put them in a giant roasting dish. I added some shallots sliced chunkily and some fresh sage leaves. A half handful?
Then I drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with some salt and freshly ground pepper and roasted it in the oven at 450 degrees. Usually when I roast things it takes much longer than the directions say but this time was right on: 30 minutes. About halfway through I shook the pan around a bit.
At this point, the dish is completely delicious but if you want to take it to the next level. Boil up some pasta and crumble some goat cheese. Mix the roasted pumpkin with the drained pasta and goat cheese. I feel like I’m forgetting something but I think that’s it. The recipe said to reserve some pasta water but mine dish didn’t seem to need it.
My sweetheart is really easy to cook for and never says anything unkind about anything I make. If it’s something he’s not thrilled with he’ll say something like, “Maybe this weekend we can try something not so lentil oriented.”
He was a tad skeptical watching me shovel pumpkin chunks into the pasta and said he was still a little full from lunch and why don’t I give him a small serving. HA! He totally went for seconds.
Going over Greyback, November 2008
This day is not going at all how I wanted it to. I stayed in bed too long and I have just enough of a head cold to feel fuzzybrained and I can’t focus and I’m getting annoyed. I’m going to make a hot drink and curl up and watch last night’s Battlestar Galactica and try again later.
Dad’s workshop
A few weeks ago I went to the post office to mail some packages. The lady gave me this long spiel about the flat rate boxes and the priority rate boxes and how much this and that cost. At that point, since my stuff was already packed in boxes, it seemed pointless to unpack my stuff, throw my boxes away and then repack in their boxes just to save a two dollars and twenty-five cents.
I had some packages to mail today so I brought my stuff without boxes.
When I got to the window I said, “I’d like to try one of these boxes you’ve been trying to sell me on.”
Their reply? What box?
So I said, that flat rate box.
Then they held up a box so small I wonder what the point would be. There is nothing you would mail in that box that you couldn’t mail for a buck or so in a squishy envelope. We go around in a circle, they insisting, you have to tell us what box you want.
They finally tell me that I can mail my stuff in any packaging I want and I said: I didn’t package my stuff because you’re always telling me how great your boxes are.
These are the most anal retentive assholes in the universe. There is no way to win. I told them they were like the IRS and I would have to pay a trained professional to tell my how to fulfill my obligations. They finally handed me big old Priority Mail box and I got my stuff out.
Later today, I read about how much money the post office is losing and my cold heart felt nothing. (Sorry Kenman.)
When the news season of Flight of the Conchords was announced I started bugging Bob about getting HBO again. We haven’t had HBO since The Sopranos ended.
Bob called on the day the new season started which was the same day as the Obama concert and the person asked Bob if that’s why he was adding HBO. He told them no, his wife wanted to watch Flight of the Conchords. Then the guy agreed that HBO had many fine programming choices. Bob and I cracked up over that line.
Since we have a premium channel again, I did a quick scroll through the movies to see if there was anything I wanted to see and I added a few, mostly movies that are in my netflix queue.
And I added Ghost
Yes, the 1990 movie with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze. I haven’t seen it since 1990 and I think the first time I saw it was at a screening so I knew nothing about it except it was a new movie coming out.
I can’t remember for sure but I suspect I loved it when I saw it. I vaguely remember it being something of a phenomenon and making oodles of money. There were various analysis articles like in Time Magazine about women watching this movie and love and death and so forth.
This time I found it entertaining and thought it held up pretty well for being dopey romantic ghost movie. When I checked the Wikipedia entry I just about dropped my teeth when I saw that it had earned a best picture nomination. Yikes. It wasn’t that good.
But the leads were cute together. I love Demi’s adorable short haircut. And Whoopie was really good. The special effects were laugh-out-loud horrible and of course I was wondering how Molly could afford that fancy apartment after her banker boyfriend was killed and didn’t he have a family that wanted to swoop in and claim his assets?
The two decade old styles were more noticeable in some places than others. I loved the office for the bankers with the light blue carpet. Demi’s outfit in the final scenes is awful enough to earn special recognition. It was like a jumpsuit made out of black t-shirt material and the front top half was completely cut out in a goofy shape and she wore a grey t-shirt with no bra.
I have no concluding statement.
Shadow searching for something stinky to roll in.
It must be at least three months since I’ve complained about the Oregon State Bar.
I’ve been doing this work for something like 17 years now and I don’t think I’ve ever had a pleasant exchange with the OSB. It can’t be that terrible a place to work yet everyone you talk to is like an embittered DMV employee.
I’m sure they have to deal with lots of assholes. But I’m not an asshole. I’m always friendly and polite.
I always look for information on their mostly worthless website first. It’s filled with information that’s difficult to find. It’s as if the public library were a giant pit filled with books and papers and the librarians acted all surly and overworked and pointed at the hole and insisted all the information was there.
I think I’m done with them for this round. I hope.
Check out the local snow bunny.
I can never remember which weekend I’m supposed to prune my roses. I remember the lady in the paper saying something about a three day weekend in winter. Yesterday I checked my handy guide to roses and it said January but when the temperature is not near freezing.
I’m not sure what “near freezing” means but I’m guessing today isn’t the best day to do it.
It was pretty when we woke up. It’s all soggy and melty now.
