JT: Hey, yeah, so, can I get a vanity license plate that says "JT"? Because I'm JT.
Low-level bureaucrat: JT is taken.
JT: Um, ok, how about "IM JT"?
LLB: Taken.
JT, deep in thought: How can I let people know, with my car, that I'm JT? Hmmm . . . . Hey, I've got it!
58 MPG
The car with this one parks at the bank near my library. I don't know what kind it is, but I guess I'm supposed to be consumed with jealousy every time I see it.
What my friend asked me to bring to her place to unstick her bedroom door: a flathead screwdriver
What I brought to my friend's place to unstick her bedroom door, just in case: a flathead screwdriver three additional flathead screwdrivers of varying handle lengths a Phillips head screwdriver a hammer a pair of scissors a ruler a wire hanger a plastic hanger a flashlight a bag of small paintbrushes (in case something needed poking with something long and skinny) ninja star
What my friend used to unstick her bedroom door: a flathead screwdriver
After the door opened, I tried to convince her to let me remove her defective doorknob (with the Phillips head), but she (wisely) decided to wait til after the holiday weekend and let her maintenance people do it.
1. I just want to draw your attention to the sidebar link to Football Gal that says "Still Not Done with Conference Shenanigans." Or the link that I embedded right there. You know, just in case you're interested in that kind of thing.
2. A couple days ago I was making a cup of tea before work, as is my wont, and the kettle started whistling so I grabbed it and poured and I poured water straight from the kettle onto my left hand. I swore only a little, set down the kettle and the mug, shoved the hand under cold water, and . . . my hand was totally fine. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad I didn't burn the dickens out of my hand, but the whole incident makes me think a little less of my kettle.
3. Project Runway continues to be really good, you guys. Last week they had to make outfits from stuff they bought at a party store, and for the most part the dresses actually looked really good. I was impressed. Also, Tim Gunn cracked up really hard at one point, and it was awesome.
4. Well, when I said "a cup" of tea, I really meant like 15 oz of tea, because I like really huge mugs. Look at this one I got in Dodge City: It's practically the size of my face!!
5. And in case you're wondering, yes, that picture happened because I've finally discovered the camera in my computer. Neal has made me promise not to record any vlogs, though. (He thinks they're creepy.)
1. Somehow I just found TheBloggess.com today. I feel like this should have happened much earlier. She's very very funny. (She swears a lot, though, just so you know.) I feel like I've tried to get into blogs by a series of big-personality lady bloggers, and at some point they just get annoying. (I don't want to name any names, because I don't want them to Google themselves and get their feelings hurt.) I'm hoping this is the one that will finally be different.
edited to add: After posting this, I read this "advice" column piece The Bloggess wrote, and at the answer to the second question, I almost had some kind of attack, I laughed so hard.
2. The Fug Girls always have interesting links up on Fridays, and this week they sent me to Catalog Living. I read it all the way through and laughed so hard I thought I might throw up; then I read it all the way through and laughed even harder (though not, luckily, so hard that I actually threw up). I'd explain the premise, but it'll make more sense if you just start reading it.
3. I haven't told you about Wonderella yet! Oversight. The Non-Adventures of Wonderella is a pretty funny (and cool-looking, I think) webcomic. I recommend reading it from the beginning, less because there's an important overarching story (there isn't), then because of in-joke progression. Or look at this one if you want a good example. (I know there are better ones, but I lost my "really excellent comics" bookmarks when my last computer died. So many lost Dinosaur Comics . . . .) It's good!
I'm just finished reading The Happiness Project (and I'll elaborate on this later but, you guys, so good), and one of the topics the author address is what she calls "True rules"--statements of personal truth that you live by, even if you don't necessarily articulate them. (You could also call them rules of thumb or, if you wanted to be fancy, heuristics.) They may be helpful ("Whenever possible, choose vegetables") or unhelpful ("I'm in a hurry"); general ("My children are my most important priority") or specific ("Never eat hors d'oeuvres, and never eat anything at a children's party").
I think you know where I'm going with this--I decided to figure out some of my "true rules."
It never hurts to be polite.
Talk to children like they're people.
Most people are wrong about what the phrase "small town" means.
Don't shop any longer or any harder than absolutely necessary.
Don't think about money any longer or any harder than absolutely necessary.
1. I had a checkup at the doctor the other day (and by "at the doctor" I mean "at the place where doctors are, but really I saw a nurse practitioner, which is just as good, because I just like nurse practitioners for some reason") and one of the questions I asked her was about vitamins. Specifically, my friends have told me that I ought to be taking grown-up vitamins, so are they correct? The answer is no, I can take Flintstone vitamins if I darn well please. And I do! (Make fun if you will, but here's the thing: I've given them a couple different shots, but I have gotten an upset stomach on 100% of the days I've taken vitamins aimed at adult women. That's just a fact.) So now I'm getting all of the folic acid I need as a Woman of Childbearing Age, but I'm getting it in tasty chewable form! Score one for Rachel.
1.5. Another vitamin note: my NP also told me that there are new recommendations for Vitamin D (because it turns out that people who live closer to the equator and therefore get more sunlight have lots less of most common terrible diseases). All multivitamins still have the old recommended amount, which is 400 International Units of D, but the new thinking is that you should get between 1000 and 2000 IU a day. (That's so much more! Also, I asked her how much you get from, say, a glass of milk, and it's only 50. So much for my "I drink so much milk, I've probably got everything covered" plan.) So! Even if you're taking a multivitamin, maybe you should also be taking a Vitamin D supplement. I know I am. (By the way, if this is all super-old news to you, I apologize. I'm just trying to help. You know I'm just looking out for you.)
2. All the cool kids at my work bring environmentally-, budgetarily-friendly metal canteens for their water. (You know what they say: library circulation desk work is thirsty work.) So I bought one, too. Unfortunately, I couldn't get over the metal taste; fortunately, Neal really likes the canteen for both work and home use, so it was still a few bucks well spent. However! I still needed some alternative to buying Gatorade every day (if I'm going to buy a bottle of something, it is not going to be water! Water is free!) besides taking a travel mug of tea, rinsing it out once the tea is gone, and filling it with drinking fountain water. It's getting too warm for tea every day. I therefore decided to give canteens another shot, this time purchasing a super-girly pink-with-flowered-pattern one to differentiate it from Neal's. What I did not realize was that Girl Canteen came with a lid with a little spout in it--now I can drink from plastic instead of straight from metal! That makes all the difference. Now I can be cool too!
3. I really sympathized with this post MacKenzie wrote because I know all too well the woes of being Bad at Plants. I can't even tell you how many plants I've killed. (I still mourn you, little cilantro plant from last summer. Poor little guy.) Yet I want to be Good at Plants (one day, when I've got a house with a yard, I want to have a garden in which I grow all the ingredients for salsa. That's going to be the most delicious garden ever). I keep hoping, and I keep trying. My latest effort is a little azalea that I bought at the grocery store. And here's the good news: it's been in my care for almost two weeks, and it's still alive! It's not even droopy! I think these are the keys: 1) I only let myself buy the azalea because the little plastic information spike said it shouldn't get too much sunlight. My apartment has barely any sunlight, which I still think is the reason my poor little cilantro plant died. But the azalea must be a good fit. 2) I solicited advice from one of my plant-growing coworkers, and she suggested watering it from the bottom up. So I've been setting the azalea in a bowl of water every other day, and that keeps the soil fairly moist (which the spike also advocated). I'll let you know if I continue to keep the azalea alive, and I'll try to overcome laziness enough to take and upload a picture of it, because it's purdy.
In ascending order of awesomeness, here's how my first six boxes shook out:
6) China Oolong--I don't really care for it. I drink it sometimes because I bought it and I might as well, but I find it mostly bland and a little bitter. I'm sad its taste does not match the greatness of its name.
5) Ceylon Orange Pekoe--it turns out that I was mistaken and that this isn't orange-flavored tea, it's orange-colored tea. It, too, is a little bland, but I just add a little more honey than I do to other teas and it's a'ight.
4) African Rooibos--I started out not caring for this one (and unfortunately, I can't say how Twinings' rooibos compares to other rooiboses, as it's the only rooibos I've had), but it's grown on me. At first, it tasted like cinnamon with an aftertaste of medicine, but by about my third try the medicineyness went away and now it mostly tastes sweet. Still a little odd, but pretty good. (Oh, and I've been reading books about this African lady detective, and she drinks this tea, so I enjoy drinking it whilst I read the books. It's fun!)
3) English Afternoon--very good. I don't know what about it makes it afternoony, but I still like to drink it in the afternoon anyway, just for kicks.
2) Prince of Wales--so good! It tastes like the Platonic ideal of black tea. It's exactly how tea should taste. It's just so tea-like!
1) Lemon Twist--now, the Prince of Wales is probably "better" than Lemon Twist; I imagine that tea afficianados/snobs would sneer at pre-fruited tea (although I have nothing to base that on besides imagination). But I love it! Once you put the honey in there, it tastes like Froot Loops! But not like, if you dumped Froot Loops in some tea--more like the essence of Froot Loops as interpreted through the medium of tea. I'm drinking some right now!
Intermission: A Japanese Twinings Commercial!
When I saw my sister (who's been living in Japan) recently, she indicated that she has some hostility toward the Twinings company because of their terrible commercials. Then yesterday, she sent me a link to demonstrate.
I don't know what the problem is. That was adorable!
Tea Report: Second Shipment
For the second go-round, I reordered the favorites (Lemon Twist, Prince of Wales, and English Afternoon; since I started out slow and Neal doesn't touch it, I haven't run out of rooibos yet), got my other favorite that I could buy at the grocery store but which is cheaper online (Darjeeling--mmm, Darjeeling) and took a gamble on two new teas.
I ordered a box of Orange Bliss based on the success of the Lemon Twist and my affinity for orange-flavored stuff. So far, I'm a little disappointed; it tastes like orange Kool-Aid, which is fine for Kool-Aid but not a flavor I crave in tea. Of course, when I say "so far," I mean the one cup of it I've had. I've discovered that it often takes three tries for me to nail down a solid opinion on a tea flavor, so this verdict may yet change.
This next one will not.
In my previous tea entry, I mentioned I had to get one additional box to come up with the minimum order total, and I had to decide between the Ceylon Orange Pekoe and the Lapsang Souchong. Since Orange Pekoe carried the day last time, I wanted to give the Lapsang Souchong a chance this time. Well, it turns out that when the company describes it as a "an adventurous tea with a unique smoke flavor," they ain't kidding around.
I opened the Lapsang Souchong box and was immediately hit by the smell. (Keep in mind, when I say I opened the box, I mean I opened a box full of sealed envelopes of tea bags.) Neal was sitting halfway across the room and he could smell it. Smoke flavor? Yes indeed. You get anywhere close to this stuff, and it's like walking into a barbeque restaurant, if the hints of sweet and tomato flavors were somehow erased. It's so gross. I dumped the bags out of the box so I could put them in a Ziploc bag. Then later, I realized I needed to put the Ziploc bag inside another Ziploc bag, because the smell was still leaking out.
I had to try some.
Neal was not particularly supportive ("I don't even want to know what it's going to smell like when hot water hits it!"), but I was determined. I boiled the water (not opening the envelope to free the tea bag until the last second, and when I did yes, there was an even greater wave of Smell) and then poured it into the mug with the tea (and yes, there was more Smell when hot water entered the equation). I steeped it for awhile, not because I wanted to intensify the flavor, but because I had to steel myself to taste it.
I tasted it.
The biggest question was, did it taste worse than it smelled, or about the same? I went back and forth. Neal did try it, although I don't remember him weighing in on that specific question, just confirming that it was real bad. First I drank a little straight, then I added milk (it dampened the taste a little, but the pre-smell as I bent to drink was as ripe as ever) then honey (a lot of honey--it just tasted the same, except also with honey). I dumped most of it out.
So here's the new question: what do I do with it?
The most obvious answer is, of course, throw it out. I'm a big believer in throwing things away if you're never going to use them. But there are alternatives. Um . . . I could keep it around to try to get people to drink it on a dare! And . . . no, that's the only one I can think of. But if any of you would like to try it, send me your address . . . although I'm not sure if the USPS would approve of me sending that substance through the mail.
As the place where I saw it put it, this music video (by the band OK Go) features "the Rube Goldberg contraption to end all Rude Goldberg contraptions." (Indeed, there's so much stuff in it that it reminds me of Katamari.)
1. Lemon Twist (As the Tea of the Month, it's on sale.)
2. China Oolong (Oolong! OOlOng! Oooooooooooooo! Long!)
3. Prince of Wales ("[A] pure China black tea sourced from regions including the Yunnan province and other southern regions of China. This blend is light in color and has a smooth and mild taste, with a well-rounded character." Sounds delicious!)
4. African Rooibos (Pronouned "roy-boss." I make sure to roll the R, though, making it the second-most-fun to pronounce of the teas [Hint: Oolong].)
5. English Afternoon (I know I don't have to, but I'll probably make a point of drinking it between noon and 4 PM anyway.)
6. Ceylon Orange Pekoe (After English Afternoon, I still wasn't up to the minimum order amount. Despite my reservations about getting two fruit-themed teas, it beat out Lapsang Souchong--"an adventurous tea with a unique smoke flavor and a dark rich color"--because I'm not confident I'm adventurous enough for the Lapsang Souchong yet. Maybe if I really like the "flavor of smokiness" in the English Afternoon tea.)
Total price (including over $8 for UPS ground shipping): $25.41. I think even with shipping, that's less than I would have paid at the grocery store for my next six boxes of tea. (And the grocery store won't provide me with oolong, let alone rooibos.)
I have not exactly been blogging up a storm recently; I realize that. I mostly blame my computer. It's got a virus, and I know I should just call up somebody at Microsoft and politely ask them to kill the virus, kill it dead, but I know from experience that said task is going to eat up a couple hours of my life and I've been putting it off. My computer time is thus curtailed to my 15-minute breaks at work (and I often like to use five of those minutes to go next door to Walgreens, where the candy bars live) and the unpredictable amounts of time that I can use Neal's computer when he isn't using it (and he needs it to do, you know, actual work). Overall, this has been good for me. I was spending way too much time reading the internet (there's always more to read!). Alas, the blog has suffered. So now, whilst Neal is reading a book, I will tell you about how much I love tea.
I realized I had been remiss in announcing my new love to the world when I talked to my mom this week and it was the first she'd heard of it. When your own mom doesn't know something integral about your life, you know you've messed up.
Perhaps "integral" sounds like I'm overstating things, but let me explain: I am not a coffee-drinker. If I wanted something warm to drink in the morning (or anytime), I had no recourse but to drink some hot chocolate. Hot chocolate is fine, and all, but A) you can't drink more than a mug or maybe two without starting to feel a little gross and B) you feel a little ridiculous ordering it at coffee shops and C) even when you do order it at a coffee shop, you can't be sure it's going to taste good at all--it might be bitter or, worse, it might clearly be a three-cent packet of powder that they dump into hot water and charge you like they did something fancy. Oh, and D) it doesn't give you the energy boost that coffee-drinkers get, rather just a little bit of a sugar rush.
Now let me make clear: I still don't like cold tea. Iced tea still tastes to me, as it always has, like water with a little dirt in it. Sweetening it only makes it grosser. What I like is hot black tea, with copious amounts of milk and honey. (I've tried green tea a couple times with poor results. There are enough kinds of green tea that I haven't written it off, but I'm a little wary.)
I'm a big fan of Twinings brand tea. I have my internet BFF, ashpags, to thank for this, because she mentioned Lady Grey and I had to go out and try it. I wasn't a big fan the first two times I tried it, and then all of a sudden I was crazy about it. (It's weird--this exact pattern has repeated itself for most of the teas I've tried. The third time really is a charm?) (Weirder: apparently I could be making Lady Grey cookies?) (Oh man, just looking at the Twinings website makes me all giddy about all the different teas I want to try. Oolong?! What a great name!! I want it!!!)
I think it's a big part of the appeal that I enjoy making, not just drinking, the tea. That's why I bought an electric kettle from Target.com the other day. I had tried boiling the water with a regular kettle, but it's a pain and takes a surprisingly long time. The microwave, of course, only takes a couple of minutes, but it heats up the cup along with the water, which is not entirely pleasant. I got the kettle last night (as I complained on Facebook, I didn't realize UPS had delivered the kettle until I looked up its status online. I guess the UPS man didn't feel like ringing the doorbell when he left it, a good eight hours earlier) and I'm a big, big fan. The directions on teabags always say to put the boiling water over the tea instead of immersing the tea in boiling water (as happens with the microwave). I was unconvinced it made any difference until I used the electric kettle, but the tea actually does taste and look better this way. Weird! I guess it's like in science class, where it's super-important whether you pour the acid into the water or the water into the acid (I no longer remember which is desirable--oops).
So (going back to the "integral" thing) now I drink tea a lot--I make some in a travel mug to take it to work in the mornings, I drink a couple big mugfuls on a Sunday morning to watch football pregame shows (no longer applicable until September or so, but I did really enjoy it), and I make decaf in the evenings when I'm cold and want something to drink while I read. (Also, I'm now dependent enough on the caffeine that if I go a day or two without it, I get a headache. I should feel weirded out by this, but instead it just makes me feel like I've got solidarity with all the other grownups, since it seems like most of them feel that way about coffee). In conclusion, good times. Good tea times.
(Blogsplosion Post #16, and I think it's official that there's no way I'm getting to 27)
The trip from Madison to Knoxville is supposed to take about 11 hours. For whatever reason, it took us a hearty 14 this time. (There was some rain, and there was some traffic in Louisville, but that should not have added three hours--it's a real mystery as far as I'm concerned.) Basically, the background information you need for the following story is that we were bored.
In this age of the internet, one gets used to having almost all information one wants at one's fingertips. That is why KGB is pretty genius. Have a question you really want answered, but are out somewhere, not in front of your Google Machine? Text that question to KGB! (Well, I guess the limitation to this genius is that an ever-increasing number of people have phones that are practically computers anyway, but for those of us that still mostly use our phones to talk, it's very convenient.)
While we were bored, Neal and I got to wondering--how does KGB deal with questions that don't have easy answers? What would they say if you asked something super-obscure that's not on Wikipedia? What if you asked them something interpretative? What if you asked which came first, the chicken or the egg? What if you asked them something un-knowable? Then Neal came up with a question that I found so hilarious that I had to send it in.
"Was Jesus handsome?"
We wondered how they would answer this question. Would they have some cop-out, an "I don't know" dressed up with non-handsomeness information about Jesus? Or would they, as we hoped, just say, "Yes. Yes he was." (Or, more daringly, a plain "No"?) Instead, they exceeded our expectations.
"In a letter to Tiberius Caesar, Jesus is described as having golden hair and an angelic, sweet, and serene face. Sounds like someone the ladies could like!"
So we asked them a ridiculous question and they answered it. For telling me that Jesus was handsome (even if they made up that letter--I haven't verified that it's true--at least they went to the trouble to make something up), KGB has earned my undying respect.
I've decided to steal an idea from the A. V. Club again. This week, its writers answered this question: Do you guys have any incredibly specific micro-genres that you feel you might be the only fan in the world of?
Their answers include things like "movies about hitmen," "graphic non-fiction" (which I did not realize was a thing), and "old country and folk songs about mules."
I don't really care about superhero movies per se. But for whatever reason, I really like movies/TV shows (or the parts of movies or TV show episodes) focused on a superhero grappling with his or her secret identity. I mean, I liked My Super Ex-Girlfriend. And apparently, that's saying something. I still love Lois and Clark, because it's 75% Clark and 25% Superman. My favorite parts of Iron Man were the ones where Tony Stark interacted with his secretary, not the ones where he was building stuff and shooting things. And my favorite episodes of Darkwing Duck revolve around Drake Mallard dealing with being a parent. (What? Darkwing Duck is really good.) I'm sure there are other examples that I'm not thinking of right now, because I am a total sucker for watching the life and struggles of the meek alter ego.
Except in the Spiderman movies. I don't like those. At all, really.
The Onion's A. V. Club (a pop culture website that has become my go-to pop culture website now that all the funny, intelligent people have left Television Without Pity) runs a feature on Fridays where each of its contributors answers a specific question. Every week, I think "I should come up with an answer too and post on the ol' blog." And finally, this week, I have.
This week's question is "What story clichés do you actively enjoy, or at least usually find effective?"
I realized my favorite storytelling cliché right away: when the villain derisively addresses the young (and, of course, idealistic) hero as "boy." Explaining why I enjoy this is a little trickier Maybe it's because it's so effective at emphasizing the contrast between the jadedness of the villain and the innocence/vigor of the hero? Or maybe it's just because it happens so often to Luke Skywalker.
That question was a response to last week's: "If you could permanently wipe one cliché—character, plot, anything—from the future of culture, what would it be?"
I didn't realize until today that my answer would be actual tension turning into romantic tension. You know, when the male and female leads hate each other and squabble constantly, and then they're right in the middle of their biggest fight ever and BOOM! they start making out. I hate that, and I'll give you three reasons why. 1: It's been done to death. 2: It's lazy storytelling, because the writer doesn't have to show development of a relationship, they only have to write point A (fighting) and point B (totally in love!). 3: Does that ever happen in real life? My money's on no.
How about you guys? Do you have favorite and dis-favorite movie/TV/book clichés?
Well, I was gonna do a Monday Monarch Moment yesterday, since it was Monday and all. But I went into work an hour and a half before we opened, which meant I cleared out the bookdrop closet (I'm a terrible estimator, but I'm going to say there we 500 books, DVDs, etc. that I gathered up off the floor and stacked in bins and carts to check them in. Mondays are crazy). And then I had an eight-hour shift, which I know is not a terrible hardship, but it's a lot easier to go home at 1:00 than at 4:00 when you are so tired you could just puke. I hope my co-workers didn't get annoyed by my continual heavy sighing from 3:00 to 4:00.
So then I was going to an almost-Monday Monarch Moment today. But then I went grocery shopping. I was still tired and it took me a long time to convince myself to go. Here's the thing: there's this grocery store and its name is Woodman's. I have been known to call it magical Woodman's, because it is one impressive grocery store. It's huge, it has everything, and it's so cheap. However, because it's so awesome, everyone knows it's awesome. Woodman's at 2:00 on a Tuesday is like WalMart at 5:00 on a Saturday. I've never been to Woodman's at 5:00 on a Saturday because I am too terrified to try. So I was just dreading going today. And then it occurred to me: I didn't have to go to Woodman's! I could go to the more expensive, less conveniently located grocery store! I did, and at 2:00 on a Tuesday at Copp's, there were like four other people there. It was like grocery shopping in Heaven.
Also, I finally got us some reusable grocery bags! I wouldn't have cared particularly, except that one other flaw of Woodman's is that the paper bags don't have handles. That's just stupid. I can carry exactly one (1) handle-less paper grocery bag at a time. Well, without being in constant fear of dropping everything. I saw a big stand of reusable bags, but they didn't look good. There were little canvas one and medium-size plastic ones. I was unimpressed. But then I walked down a freezer aisle, and they had some bags displayed along the top--the medium ones and then some big ol' green canvas ones. ("Ooh!" I thought.) I walked back across the store, for back by the peanut butter, there had been a friendly grocery man. I asked him a leading question: whether the big green display bags were on sale somewhere else. As I had hoped, the friendly grocery man not only OK'd my buying the display bags, but reached up there to get three down for me. And then he even showed me how they fold up into cute little 6" by 6" squares! Thank you, friendly grocery man!
Then, once I got home, instead of Monarch Momenting, I made bierocks! (Bierocks = a delicious food of Volga German origin. It goes like this: make some bread dough--my granny's butterhorn roll recipe for preference; brown some hamburger; cook some cabbage [I usually boil it, but I tried cooking it in a frying pan with olive oil today and it worked very well]; mix the hamburger and cabbage and season with salt and pepper; wrap dough around a pile of cabbage beef; bake; cover with butter!) Bierocks are just as delicious as they are time-consuming to make, which is to say very.
And now I'm watching Project Runway (oh, Season 4, you're so wonderful)!
So perhaps there will be a Monarch Moment tomorrow but clearly, I shouldn't promise anything.
I found this video on YouTube (no, I don't even remember how I got there anymore), and I was enchanted.
I soon discovered that there are many, many, many, many Mario Paint Composer videos on YouTube and, unfortunately, not one of them is nearly as good (some people don't have a sense of rhythm and/or are incapable of delivering rhythm through the medium of Mario Paint Composer). Here are a few others I enjoyed (to a lesser degree):
Ducktales!
This "Thriller," though it does not make me feel warm inside like "The Maple Leaf Rag," is very well done.
1. As I mentioned a little while back, I've gotten back into newspaper comics (although I read them on the internet). And it's all because of The Comics Curmudgeon. It's this guy, see, and he has a blog where he makes fun of comics, hilariously. Here's an entry that's unusually long, but only slightly above-average in funniness.
One revelation the blog has presented me with is soap opera comics. It turns out that Apartment 3G and Mary Worth are secretly hilarious. The problem with that kind of strip (OK, the main problem) is that everything takes forever to happen, so it's hard to know what's going on at all. But ever since the 'mudge has explained the characters and general mission of the strips (via mockery, of course), I've found them pretty engaging. Well, engaging is probably too strong a word (especially for Mary Worth), so let's say amusing. Armed with the knowledge that Mary is a controlling butinsky/biddy and that she's been pushing her young friend Delilah into going home to her husband so they can work on their loveless marriage, I found this confrontation between Mary and Delilah's sleazy ex-boyfriend laugh-out-loud funny.
Look how angry! Mary hates it when you interfere with what she's busy interfering with!
2. As far as internet comics go, I've started reading another one: Octopus Pie. It's not out-loud funny, most of the time, but I enjoy the characters and the long-form story.
3. And in other newish-blog-links-on-the-sidebar news, one of my college friends has started a food blog. She got a real domain name and everything! It's FatGirlEats.net.
Rachel: I am very enthusiastic. I am such a nerd that I love reading, school, and was once on Jeopardy!. I am a Fightin' Texas Aggie. Many of the actions of historical figures make me laugh. "Weird Al" Yankovic is my hero.
Neal: In addition to being an Eagle Scout and a real-life Kentucky Colonel, Neal graduated from the University of Tennessee after reading a lot about history. Now, he is studying even more history at the University of Wisconsin.
We met at the University of Wisconsin and then a couple of years later we got married in Wisconsin. Adventurous!
It's practically the size of my face!!
I realized I had been remiss in announcing my new love to the world when I talked to my mom this week and it was the first she'd heard of it. When your own mom doesn't know something integral about your life, you know you've messed up.
I think it's a big part of the appeal that I enjoy making, not just drinking, the tea. That's why I bought an electric kettle from Target.com the other day. I had tried boiling the water with a regular kettle, but it's a pain and takes a surprisingly long time. The microwave, of course, only takes a couple of minutes, but it heats up the cup along with the water, which is not entirely pleasant. I got the kettle last night (as I complained on Facebook, I didn't realize UPS had delivered the kettle until I looked up its status online. I guess the UPS man didn't feel like ringing the doorbell when he left it, a good eight hours earlier) and I'm a big, big fan. The directions on teabags always say to put the boiling water over the tea instead of immersing the tea in boiling water (as happens with the microwave). I was unconvinced it made any difference until I used the electric kettle, but the tea actually does taste and look better this way. Weird! I guess it's like in science class, where it's super-important whether you pour the acid into the water or the water into the acid (I no longer remember which is desirable--oops).
