Bakin’

July 31, 2005 | 6 Comments

Give us this day our wheaty bread. :yum: I wish I had thought to grab the camera when I first started the process, but these fews pics are still fun.

After the first rising, it’s punched down and shaped into loaves.

Thirty minutes into the second rise.

After an hour, it’s ready to bake. So pretty…

Christine tested, Mammy approved!

I think we’ve only bought commercially baked bread twice since I got my Kitchenaid mixer for Christmas last year — and that was earlier this summer when I had my surgery and couldn’t do much around the house for a week or so. Homemade is so much better, less expensive and super easy to make with this mixer. It’s really spoiled us!

I used to make it all by hand maybe once or twice a year before; it was such a chore. I can’t imagine those poor women in the olden days. They even had to mill the grain first! Gotta love these modern conveniences.

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Sunday’s digital art

July 31, 2005 | 2 Comments

Slipstream
Manipulated Digital Image
Photoshop 7 & Flaming Pear Filters
400 x 400 px
July 31, 2005

Man, the house is a-rockin today; alive with music, art, and fun. I love Sunday afternoons like this.

Hope yours is going well, too!

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Snicker

July 30, 2005 | 2 Comments

One day a guy dies and finds himself in hell. As he’s wallowing in despair, he has his first meeting with a demon…

Demon: Why so glum?
Guy: What do you think? I’m in hell!
Demon: Hell’s not so bad. We actually have a lot of fun down here. Are you a drinking man?
Guy: Sure, I love to drink.
Demon: Well you’re gonna love Mondays then. On Mondays all we do is drink. Whiskey, tequila, Guinness, wine coolers, diet tab and Fresca… we drink till we throw up and then we drink some more!
Guy: Gee that sounds great!
Demon: You a smoker?
Guy: You know it!
Demon: All right! You’re gonna love Tuesdays. We get the finest cigars from all over the world and smoke our lungs out. If you get cancer - no biggie- you’re already dead, remember?
Guy: Wow…that’s…awesome!
Demon: I bet you like to gamble.
Guy: Why, yes I do.
Demon: Wednesdays you can gamble all you want. Craps, blackjack, Roulette, Poker, Slots, whatever… If you go Bankrupt…well, you’re dead anyhow.
Demon: You into drugs?
Guy: Are you kidding? Love drugs! You don’t mean?…
Demon: That’s right! Thursday is drug day. Help yourself to a great big bowl of crack, or smack. Smoke a doobie the size of a submarine. You can do all the drugs you want; you’re dead who cares! O.D.!!
Guy: WOW !! I never realized Hell was such a cool place!!
Demon: You gay?
Guy: No….
Demon: “Ooooh, you’re gonna hate Fridays.”

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Never tried this one before…

July 29, 2005 | 2 Comments

Thought I’d try a new meme for the end-of-the-week post. You can play along, too… just go to Scratching the Itch!

Are you more…

1. The Times Roman font or the Courier font?

Times Roman, I think. The taller height and crisper serifs fit me perfectly.

2. Garlic bread with cheese appetizer or french onion soup appetizer?

Garlic bread and cheese, of course. :yum: Unless the French onion soup is the really good kind like Julia Child used to make with a thick slice of bread soaking in it and swiss cheese broiled on the top. Bread… cheese… mmmm…

3. Preferring the really hard core porn or preferring the light soft core porn?

I’m not a porn connoisseur by any means, but from what I have seen, I’d say I found the hard core stuff far more interesting. You can see soft core porn on BET, VH1, or MTV any day.

4. 2-ply facial tissues or 3-ply facial tissues?

Uh…2 ply, I guess. If my snot locker’s full, I really don’t care about the ply factor — just give me something.

5. 2-ply toilet paper or 3-ply toilet paper?

Man, these questions are fucked up. :no:

6. Likely to enjoy a Disney (non-animated) movie marathon or a Jerry Bruckheimer movie marathon?

Bruckheimer… because it’s more like hard core porn. Hee.

7. Special or ordinary?

Special. I just am. And there’s nothing you can do to change that. Nyah, nyah, nyah.
8. Preferring to drink water that’s on the verge of freezing or preferring to drink water that on the verge of room temperature?

Give me the freezing stuff! Unless it’s a particular wine, I’d never drink anything at room temperature.

9. A fan of Spider-Man or a fan of Batman?

Batman. He’s dark and mysterious and drives a hot car.

Spiderman always seemed like such a pussy to me. I could be wrong. Maybe I’ve just seen this image around too much:

10. Likely to buy a High Definition (widescreen) TV in the next couple of years or likely to hold off buying one as long as possible (until your current TV breaks)?

I’m not forking over any jack for another TV until the one we have dies a slow, fizzled-out death. I can live quite comfortably without The Big Glass Tit. When was the last time you watched something really good on TV??

Posted by Christine | Filed Under Uncategorized

Well, hello again.

July 28, 2005 | Leave a Comment

It’s safe to come in and read again. :ok:

I think the reality of the situation of my friend’s illness is starting to sink in now; I’m beginning to accept it. (Funny, I don’t recall Elizabeth Kubler-Ross listing Freak The Fuck Out in her famous stages of grief theory, but apparently I felt the need to stray from the official list.)

One of the things I don’t like about the way I adjust to terrible news is that for a week or so afterwards, I have a hard time evaluating the importance of anything. Everything feels so upside down that I really have to watch myself and what I do.

For instance, I just got back from my office on campus, where I sorted through 2 enormous file boxes of handwritten lecture notes, old exams, and a variety of other paperwork that I inherited from my first art history mentor. I ended up pitching out 75% of it. (I am sure he was horrified as he watched me from whatever vantage point he now has, may God rest his anal-retentive soul.)

I also put 34 old resource and textbooks in the recycling bin and left another dozen on the freebie table in the hall.

As I was sorting, I kept thinking “Why am I holding onto this shit!? It’s meaningless dead weight!”

I never had any intention of parting with the same “valuable” stuff last week, though.

Now watch… with my luck, I probably tossed out an original Rembrandt etching that was tucked away in all that mess.
Hearin’ it: A mix of 70’s classic rock. The playlist I like to call “The Soundtrack to My Mid-life Crisis”. Hee.