The Winner!

Posted on January 6, 2006 by Frog

Today was the kind of day that leaves everyone laughing so hard they spit Coke across the table. Seriously, Coke spewed at one point. Never let me say we don’t have fun at work.

My long suffering course is finally published. I’ll spend some time next week putting together course boxes and arranging for that course to be sent to the training centers and out of my sight. After having my course go live today, I walked into my boss’s office and said, I’ll need something to do. She looked right at me and said there’s not much until we get approval on some web courses and then you’ll be working on one of those. I told her I would finish creating an Access database next week and then I’ll figure out what to do until those web courses are approved.

We’re having a chili cook-off at work in a couple of weeks and the official entry form went out today. Some of the sponsors are: Charmin, Beano and Mr. Hanky. I submitted an entry and am calling my chili “The Winner!” with the exclamation point included. I have no idea what I’ll be throwing into the crock pot. When I make chili, I tend to just do what I feel like at the time.

On completely other news, Battlestar Galactica starts up again tonight. Totally fracking awesome.

Posted in Generic Thoughts | 1 Comment

Not Such A Good Thing

Posted on January 5, 2006 by Frog

I have supported Martha Stewart’s magazine for years and I receive emails that I usually don’t read because I just finished reading about something similar in the magazine, but I let the emails go into my hotmail account without giving them much thought. Today I got one from one of her special partners: Buick. Honestly, that pissed me off. Like I’m being taken advantage of. Naturally the bot that processes her email (and her spam) doesn’t know that I said supportive things about Martha during her trial and incarceration and I never let my subscription lapse but that Buick ad really chapped my lips. I opted out of the special partner emails and am now mulling over blasting off an email to customer service.

Posted in Thinking | 1 Comment

Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon

Posted on January 4, 2006 by Frog

I stopped by Target this afternoon and bought something not on my list. Which is simply shocking isn’t it? I broke down and bought another set of headphones for the portable music player. The better-half gave me a pair of Sony retractable headphones for the player for my birthday last year because earbuds suck. The headphones have been awesome until a couple of months ago the retractable part started retracting all the time. Even when my hand was nowhere near the button. Pete Townsend should be more worried about what that sound was doing to my hearing then about whether or not I’m listening to my not-an-ipod player at too high a volume. I tried tying the cord off at the ear piece but it’s the untying that annoys me.

The new headphones are larger but still go behind my head and over my ear. And, apparently I’ll be able to “establish a new look on the street” because we all know that’s what I’m after. I’ll probably leave them at the office since they won’t slide into my bag easily.

While I was waiting in line to pay there was a little girl and her mother at the cashier. An older woman buying cheese and lipstick (WTF?) had the pleasure of standing in between child and mother and me. The little girl nearly melted down because her mean-old mother wouldn’t let her have some peanuts off the rack. Her mother reminded her she didn’t like them and then the “do to” thing started and instead of wanting to stab them and then myself with a pen, I completely and totally tuned them out and didn’t even see them leave the store. I think I made them disappear just by ignoring them. I’ll have to see if that super-power stays with me.

Posted in Watching | 5 Comments

Put a Penny on the Arm

Posted on January 3, 2006 by Frog

This morning I woke up with Cher’s “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” going through my head only I was substituting Cranks for Tramps. I wasn’t repeating any more of the song then just those few words. It took more than an hour to get rid of that.

Work was much more lively today. Everyone was back except for a few people with the creeping crud and we were happy they stayed home. No sense in infecting all of us on the first day back for most people. I went in on Monday and there were only 2 other people there. Nothing like working on a day everyone else considers a holiday. The trip to and from work was a breeze. Today all the idiots were out in force.

Posted in Thinking | 1 Comment

Way Past My Bedtime

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Frog

Last night we stayed up until 4am and I’m getting too old to do that stuff. I’m already plotting a nap for this afternoon.

At midnight we rushed outside to hear what this area does to celebrate the new year and all we heard was the fire station’s alarm going off and then noises from our old haunts. We only moved 4 miles away so we could hear the fireworks/gun shots from over that way. Our neighborhood was tucked in like little old ladies. Even most of the Christmas lights were off. So, they don’t do Halloween and they are lame on the New Year. We, however, set off 5 bottle rockets. Then we called my sister and her husband. They were up to some insanity and we chatted briefly.

Here are some shots of dinner last night:

Roghan Josh (lamb in spices and yogurt) and saag (spinach):

Alu Bartha (spicy mashed potatoes) and Basmati Rice

The recipes were from The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon. We tracked that book down after reading about it on the In My Kitchen blog.

Posted in Eating | 1 Comment

That Peddler No Shoes Thing

Posted on December 30, 2005 by Frog

On Christmas Day we were creating a gift certificate for the better-half’s aunt and heard a loud grinding noise spit out of the late-1990s Dell we have. Good-bye hard drive. The old Dell is the machine that used to be our daily machine but has now become the storage shed for old documents, tons and tons of pictures, our household accounting software, etc. It also served as our print server.

Naturally, we do not practice what we preach and that machine had not been backed up in a long, long time (except the accounting software). The better-half found a hard drive on the Internet that matched our exact model and bought it for about $50. His plan is to take the board off it and put it on the dead hard drive to see if we can recover the data.

The death of the machine pushed us to buy one of these instead of waiting like we thought we would. I ordered it from Amazon yesterday. It is already out for delivery and we should receive it today. That’s pretty awesome.

Posted in Thinking | 1 Comment

Just Remember It’s The Only One I’ve Got

Posted on December 28, 2005 by Frog

The Niece spent Monday night with us and I feared the better-half was going to bludgeon himself after watching a few minutes of a Barney movie. I’m not sure why we turned it on because The Niece lost interest in about .003 seconds. And, who could blame her?

While she was here she dropped a stone cat we have and the already chipped ear sheared off. I scooped up the cat knowing I should have put the kibosh on playing with a very heavy stone cat and took the cat to the vet. Now staring in dual roles! Frog as aunt and as vet! As it turns out a huge amount of glue, some patience and the concern of a little girl does wonders for a stone cat’s prognosis. We decided to let the kitty sleep since he’d just had surgery.

The next day I had an dental appointment and, while I was gone, The Niece dropped a glass heart we have. (I gave it to the better-half one year for Valentine’s day back during the dating years–yes, a sappy gift but the heart is actually very cool and as it turns out very sturdy). After the crash, The Niece told the better-half she broke it. He was duped, though, because she followed up the bleak news with “just joking”. I was delighted to hear about that exchange. My heart grew three sizes.

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Peace Be With You

Posted on December 23, 2005 by Frog

Posted in Thinking | 3 Comments

Sick of Them

Posted on December 21, 2005 by Frog

The other week when we went to the movies we had to sit through the Coke commercial that’s running non-stop. The one with the polar bears and the penguins. Then we had to watch a trailer for some crack-headed movie coming out next year where animated penguins dance. When that trailer was over, I leaned over to the better-half and said, “I’d like to eat a penguin”. Enough with the birds already. So there was a feel-good documentary about penguins. Every. single. person I’ve heard talk about that movie has said something about the baby birds dying. I’d like to see the polar bears swig down their Cokes and then top off the evening with a nice snack of penguins.

Posted in Watching | 2 Comments

Only two things bound to soothe my soul

Posted on December 21, 2005 by Frog

Yesterday we went out to breakfast and then went to two different wine shops. One was a specialty store and the other was a big box wine retailer. When we want something really special we go to the little shop with the knowledgeable staff and the clean layout. As we had several people on our list that need to get wine as gifts this year, we purchased several bottles and also found a champagne for ringing in the new year.

We headed over to the big box store to stock up on our regular supply of wine. I’m sure there are knowledgeable employees there but they are usually busy stacking box after box of wine. The better-half likes to take his time and carefully select new bottles to try. I usually grab the 3 or 4 usual suspects and then head over to the beer section to see what’s new. That’s exactly what happened yesterday.

I entered the beer aisle from the front of the store and noticed an older couple stalled in front of the import singles. I knew they’d be there awhile so it took a little wind out of my sails. I like to get my shopping done fast. Then I can wander around with the better-half and prod him into shopping faster, faster. With the stall in front of the imports, I decided to look at the domestics.

I’m not overly found of American hops when compared to the smoothness of foreign hops in a good IPA from anywhere but here. I don’t usually spend a whole lot of time looking at the domestics because of that. Which is not to say that I don’t like to drink the domestics and some are quite good. I drank a Stone IPA last night-delicious. I digress.

I did a holy cow move right there in the aisle and was pretty glad the old folks were too busy fumbling through the stouts. Genesee Cream Ale, right there in front of me. I grabbed two six-packs and practically ran back to the better-half. I slid those cartons into the cart, smiled, and said, “Don’t Worry” and then scurried off. The better-half looked stunned and pretty happy. I scoured the case area to no avail and went back in for two more six-packs. I would have cleared the shelf but didn’t want to deprive other Genesee fans. Now all we need to do is to get someone to carry Strongbow around here.

Posted in Watching | 2 Comments