I'm not usually much of a joiner, but

I really liked this little project so I signed up. The page takes a while to load, as there are zillions of little tiny photos, one of which is me!


-via the Neurophilosopher's Weblog

I feel so modern

I got a new cellphone the other day. It has a camera.

I always wait until the service contract is about to expire and then get a new phone "free" for renewing the contract. This is the first phone I've had with a camera in it, so I've been amusing myself by photographing everybody. Which thrills them, I'll tell you what. As penance, I took some pictures of myself in the mirror [see below; I'm tired of trying to make the formatting work with this template, so I moved it to the end].

You can sort of see Hilda there on the bed behind me, wondering what the bloody hell I'm doing. You can't see the tennis ball she had just dropped on the floor, but she seemed to think that I might want to chase it and bring it back to her or something.

The pictures this phone takes are pretty lo-res, and a little Holga-like, I'm thinking. Also, it's hard to hold the thing still enough, which is why I'm doing that with my other arm.

Plus I've finally figured out how to send those text message things the kids are always going on about. And sending me. That I couldn't quite figure out how to open or respond to. I can even send e-mail from the phone! And I can send text messages to someone's email! And now with attached photos!!

I'm sure the thrill will wear off soon enough.

Friday Quiz: Shakespeare v. The Bible

First I find out I'm a closet Unitarian, and now I'm a student of the bible? I guess I have read the whole thing a bunch of times, in several different translations. Which, apparently, is more than average. I've gotta say though, that if I scored this high, I suspect that the bar is probably pretty low.

You know the Bible 75%!

 

Wow! You are truly a student of the Bible! Some of the questions were difficult, but they didn't slow you down! You know the books, the characters, the events . . . Very impressive!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

via L'Amour et le crane, formerly known as Ink and Incapability.

I've had the "If you could pick only one book to have stranded with you on a desert island what would you choose?" conversation several times lately. I got called a weinie for wanting some kind of scouting manual or one of those old hippie-survivalist 'how to build a shelter, purify water, find food, and heal the sick using only the contents of your handbag' type books. The kind with chord charts and lyrics for all the hippie folk songs in the back. Because of course I'd have a guitar with me, or could build one out of, like, bamboo or whatever. But no, my friend said, it had to be a work of literature. My argument that handbooks and folk music were literature was not purchased by my interlocutor.

Another friend of mine, an excellent writer, recently said that she'd pick the bible, on account of how it contains so many of what I guess you could call the foundational-type plot outlines that sort of define western literature. I don't disagree with her, not entirely, but if I've got to limit myself to literatary works, I'd probably stick with the complete works of old Will Shakespeare -- he's got all the same plots, but he's funnier. I'd want to bring an edition that includes the sonnets, though, in case I got tired of the plays. Check out that Shakespeare link, by the way; it goes to a site called Open Source Shakespeare, which is kind of cool.

Oh, and after you go there & brush up your Shakespeare, you can, if you like, go here and take a quiz. It's just a series of quotes to identify. I'm not clear about what my actual score is, but I got the response "Huzzah! You deserve most excellent accolades! A true Shakespearian Erudite!" Whatever an Erudite is. Watch out for the Chaucer they threw in there to try to trip you up. If you want more Shakespeare quizzes, there are plenty of 'em online. Watch out for the ones on about.com, though -- seriously annoying pop-ups and twitchy blinking items on the all the pages.

If you're looking for an online bible, this site has a whole bunch of English and non-English translations, and you can easily compare among them.

Liveblogging: Blueberry Slumber

I'm over at Julie's house just now, and we're watching Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life." Julie decided to make some kind of dessert-type thing from this recipe she's got. It's in an e-mail that she printed out on Tuesday, October 8, 2002 at 5:17 pm, and it's called Blueberry Buckle. But she wanted to leave out the shortening and/or margarine, etc. and use applesauce instead. Except the topping called for some butter and we decided that we needed to leave that in. So here's the new recipe:

350 OVEN; SQUARE PAN (8X8), LIGHTLY GREASED:

Mix throroughly:

• 3/4 c. sugar
• 1/4 c.shortening and/or margarine applesauce

Stir in:

1 lg. egg or 3 t egg replacer in 4 T. warm water
• 1/4 c. milk or soy milk

Mix & Add:

• 2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Gently Add:

• 2 c. blueberries (Fresh or thawed frozen - don't thaw)

After placing above batter in pan, mix & sprinkle on top:

TOPPING:

• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/3 c. flour
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 c. cold butter, cut in so mixture is crumbly, not smooth. (or substitute brown sugar)

Bake for 40-45 minutes -- 50 minutes if berries are frozen; until top crust is brown.

It's got about 5 minutes left in the oven. I'll let you know how it turns out.

UPDATE: Ta Da! Here it is! It's really pretty good, fresh out of the oven like this.

Julie says that it's a little chewier, with the applesauce, than it usually is. But nothing that a nice big scoop of vanilla ice cream doesn't cure.

Friday test results: I resemble that remark

This one's right on the money, except for the part about other people's grammar mistakes making me crazy, although I admit that I used to care a lot. Maybe you could say that other people's grammatical mistakes have made me insane; that might be more accurate. But nowadays I really don't much care about how others say what they say, to be honest, as long as their meaning is reasonably clear. I feel like it's a waste of time correcting people's grammar, unless of course they ask, in which case I correct them and then explain exactly why it's wrong and give them several better ways to express what they mean. It's fun to watch their eyes glaze over. I'll also correct grammar mistakes if someone is paying me to do edit their writing. Which happens, sometimes. I edit with a red Sharpie®, though, which some people have said makes me seem hostile and aggressive. Whiners.

Oh, and I'm not in the final stages of a PhD, nor in any stage of one. I do, however, read quite a lot for work. And for fun. Pretty much whenever I'm not doing something else.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Dedicated Reader
Book Snob
Literate Good Citizen
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

via Jane Awake

Say Ramen, somebody

Via the excellent Jane Awake I learned of the passing last Thursday of Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant noodles. His last meal, apparently, was Chicken Ramen, enjoyed with employees of Nissin Foods, the company he founded in 1958 to market his convenient, quality noodle product. He was 96.

As a pastafarian and a onetime college student who has been unemployed, underemployed, and an occasional freelancer, I am of course deeply saddened. The humble block of dried noodly goodness has sustained me through many a budgetary constraint.

In fact, one of my favorite ideas for cookbooks I haven't gotten around to writing and probably never will is "365 Ways to Cook Ramen." Try adding some frozen peas and half an apple, peeled and sliced, as you cook the noodles, and stir in a spoonful of chunky (unsweetened, if you have it) peanut butter and some curry powder along with the flavor packet thingy. Instant mulligatawny in a cup!

The good news? There is a Momofuko Ando Instant Ramen Museum in Ikeda City, Japan. I'm going to start saving up frequent flyer miles and vacation time now.

Belated holiday cheer

I had a party this year for the December solstice. I didn't want to get a tree, so I decorated the tripod that has been sitting in the corner of my dining room since I moved into the new house:



I gotta say I think it looks pretty festive. Click on the picture to see how it looks in the dark. I don't know how I'll be able to stand taking it down. I might just have to leave it up all year.

All I did was buy two strands of tinsel from the dollar store, borrow a string of red lights from Julie (thanks!) and place the Blessed Virgin Mary shrine my sister the mailman brought back from a trip to Mexico (here's a close-up of the shrine). So if you're looking next year for ways to avoid getting a tree, go out now and buy some tinsel and lights while they're half off, and then if you can find them next year, just decorate something that would otherwise be in the way. Easy, cheap, and excellent laughs.

Friday test results: the check's in the mail, right?

Found this one the other day via the Neurophilosopher:

My blog is worth $3,951.78.
How much is your blog worth?

Yeah, I don't like it either

I know this looks funny but I'm not sure I want to go back to the old template just yet. Not quite ready to throw in the towel or whatever. I hope I'll have a chance to work on it this weekend. Requests and suggestions are welcome.

I'm working on it

Crap-ola. I am trying to make this new template thingy look right, and I tried to replace the header image but it's just not working and I don't have time to wade through all that html to figure it out just at the moment. And then I've gotta go back through all the old posts to put labels on 'em. And maybe I'll even do some kind of actual work today, who knows? And what's up with this picasa thing? It tried to scan all the images on my computer and post them to somewhere. This is my work computer! Rocket surgery is just not pretty! I don't want all my images posted online!!

Anyway, I might just go back to the old template. I did save a backup, somewhere. It's probably posted to picasa, whatever the hell that is.

Happy New Year, etc.

I was just sort of I guess you could say forced to switch to the beta new blogger. I'm not having really great feelings about this, but on the other hand it might work out OK.

Please let me know if you're having problems commenting or accessing stuff. I had to get a new gmail account for this, so you can email me now at contact -dot- alphagal -at- gmail -dot- com. Or you can still use the old comments -at- alphabitch -dot-org if you like. Whatever.

Today is my first day back to work since about the 19th or 20th of December. I have to say I didn't really miss it much, but I'm happy to have a job to come back to & alla that. I was sick, though, so it wasn't much of a vacation. And I'm exhausted & wanna go home.