So, we lost our court case, and we owe our landlord $538 plus $2500 in attorney's fees, since he decided he wanted a lawyer in small claims.

I'm not sure what we'll do.

i am actually in love with you.

Current Music: Bryant's Jubilee Quartette - I'll Be Satisfied

I think that if 2/3 to 3/4 of the office doesn't want to be at work we should get the day off. Yes? No?

Edit: Yep, should have just called in sick since it looks like i'm going to get fuck all done today

Current Mood: blah

--half a pound of bacon
--about eight to ten cherry tomatoes, halved
--about seven baby portabella mushrooms, rinsed and quarted
--fresh mozarella balls packed in some kind of Italian blend, in even proportion to the other ingredients (I didn't look at the weight on the package)
--worcestershire sauce
--some manner of vinaigrette dressing

cut the bacon into inch and a half bits and stir-cook in a skillet until desired doneness. Set aside on paper towel, leaving the grease in the skillet. Add the quartered mushrooms to the skillet, watch out for popping, and stir immediately. Add a generous splash of worcestershire and continue to stir fry for about three minutes. Add bacon, mushrooms, cheese, and tomatoes to a bowl, toss with vinaigrette dressing. serve immediately.

Nathan's first rule of Chili: No matter how good it is the first night, it's ALWAYS better the next day.

I apparently can't get any Abita products or any other Louisiana beer in Lubbock anymore, which means I am out both Abita Turbodog and Blackened Voodoo to use in my chili recipe. I also intended to try Redbridge lager in the recipe, but I can't get that here either. So instead I used a Scottish ale called "Wee Heavy."

...It lives up to its name. It'll put hair on yer chest. It was the color of tar, and my spoon stood up in it unaided.

But now, I've got capsacin all over the middle and ring fingers of my left hand from cutting up chipotle peppers (both for the chili and for my pickled sausages). And it FUCKING BURNS. I've washed and washed, I've wiped my hands down with vinegar, I can't think of anything else to do. Does it just have to wear off?

Tweaks and enhancements

• As a number of you reported, a service interruption impaired sending and receiving notifications for a couple of days. This was due to an avalanche of snowflake cookies. We've removed the free snowflake cookie and unclogged the pipeline. Timely notifications should resume shortly. Please note that there's a backlog in our queues, so you'll be getting earlier notifications first. For more details, check out this post at lj_maintenance.
• In anticipation of the new year, we've embarked on a self-improvement kick to boost our backend (pun semi-intended). This will allow us to offer you a holiday promotion in the next few weeks (yes, we're listening and working very hard to make it happen). We sincerely appreciate your continued patience and support.

Holiday vgifts are here!

We've added some fantastic new vgifts to help you spread holiday cheer. We also hope you'll honor AIDS Awareness Month by purchasing virtual red ribbons. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine.

Introducing: LJLimericks

We cordially here do invite you
To craft a fine limerick. Might you?
Each week, a new theme,
Then a poll, that's our dream
Winner posted on news to delight you!

In honor of all the brilliant writers on LiveJournal, we've created a brand new community: ljlimericks! Each week, we'll enter a handful of limericks into a poll (which we'll tuck snugly under an LJ-Cut). The winning poem will be published in the following newsletter. In addition, the author will receive a virtual blue ribbon! If you have the time, come drop us a rhyme. Please keep the "Nantucket" stuff on the downlow, since this is a youth-friendly community. Our first prompt is: Insomnia in winter.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible images from our global photography community. Congratulations to sempre_marseeya, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our second lj_photophile poll.

We hate to squelch your creativity, but, as a courtesy to other users, please post only one photo at a time and keep the main photo no larger than 350x350 (so images display properly via mobile and on friends pages). You can link to a larger image and/or post photos under a cut. Just so you know, we select photos for the poll blindly, based on user comments and staff feedback. Please continue to vote, comment, and, of course, enjoy. You can check out the week in pictures and view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay warm and safe out there!

Tags: handmade_gifts, holiday vgifts, lj_photophile, lj_spotlights, ljlimerick, notification fix, snowflake cookie avalanche, writer's block

perhaps one of the most disturbing things i've ever scene:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=17478573

Edit: Ok, not the most disturbing, but it is damn weird. And they made 40 sales.

Current Mood: confused

Snorg Tee makes me happy! These are two of my favorites:

Current Mood: amused

Making this wish list just because I can ^_^

Step One
♥ Make an LJ post. It can be public or friends only, whatever you’re most comfortable with. The post should contain your list of ten holiday wishes, and these wishes can be anything - from simple (a fan fiction written about your favorite pairing), to medium (a DVD you want), to really extravagant (a brand new laptop or car).
Just make sure these are wishes for things you really truly want.

Step Two
♥ Skim through your friends list and see who has posted their own wish lists.
Then - and this is the most important part - if you find a wish you can grant, and it’s in your heart to do so, make sure that person’s wish comes true.
Sometimes a person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
If you have a leather jacket you don’t want or a gift certificate you’re never going to use, give it to someone who wants it.

Step Three
♥ Post this wish list any time after November 1st. Then repost it two weeks before Christmas.

♥ You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to.
The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday fairy - to spread the joy.
Gifts can be made anonymously or not, it's your call.

♥ There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached.
Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive.
And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

( wish list )

Current Mood: awake

I didn't notice because you were smiling - but I think you must have slipped mittens around my hands when you shook them for the first time, so I'd never be able to touch you. Developing this acquaintance has been a study in finding your boundaries and barriers.

Your best defense is simply noise, your loud words and loud actions. Sound waves are as good as walls and fences, so you're never quiet. I didn't know if you could be; if the constant volume you produce had taken hold of you, and turned you into its own puppet. When you held me with my eyes closed and whispered words from Neruda, you may as well have been screaming with the intensity of your performance. I didn't know how to make you calm or still.

Then I watched you tango, and in the interdependence of the dance, I found your vulnerability. The small but present doubt, in your lead and in your follow, let your defenses slip; and I thought I could see you, because I thought I didn't hear you anymore. There were a few seconds of hush before you recovered, and broke the spell with a big laugh and a sonorous grin.

When you danced, I looked at your socked feet making patterns over the orange tile, and wondered if the shapes were an incantation. I thought about circles and spirals and how they must be secretly vulnerable as well. The ancient Greeks and engineers who celebrated the strength of arches, curves, and coils must have been seduced by these loud shapes. I feel like there must be a key to their destruction, some slight adjustment of angles and degrees that would submit our architecture to entropy, and silence.

Really brain? Fievel? Where on earth did that come from?

Current Mood: confused

Once upon a time, I was in love with a boy, and I correctly guessed when his birthday was. Yes, really! The conversation went like this:

Me: So I'm going to turn eighteen in a couple weeks.
Boy I Loved: Oh wow, happy birthday.
Me: I don't know when your birthday is, but I bet you were born in the spring.
Boy I Loved: Yeah, you're right actually.
Me: I don't think you were born in late spring though, you seem more like early spring. I think you were born in March.
Boy I Loved: Right again... are you going to keep going with this?
Me: Yeah, I think I will. I don't think you were born in either the single digits or the twenties. I think you were born sometime in the middle.
Boy I Loved: Uh-huh.
Me: Actually, I think you were born exactly in the middle. I think your birthday is March 15th.
Boy I Loved: ... I'm not sure how you just did that.

I was very impressed with myself, and I thought we had a special connection. He didn't send me a birthday card though.

note to self: please try to remember that shopping at Target on Sunday afternoon is a bad idea.......and its going to be much worse than normal this month *nod nod*

Current Mood: blah

should not have a negative connotation.

LiveJournal: The First Decade

Just in time for holiday shopping, we're thrilled to announce the release of our ten-year anniversary anthology. Published by Blurb.com, the book showcases a decade of extraordinary talent drawn from LiveJournal users around the world. This must-read compilation features stories, memes, photos, comics, editorials, graphic content, and more, including:

1. Excerpts from Oh No They Didn't (a/k/a ohnotheydidnt), the largest community on LiveJournal, covering celebrity gossip, entertainment news, and pop culture
2. A look at post-Katrina New Orleans from the journal of Poppy Z. Brite
3. Gripping narratives, including a poignant reverie on a blind date
4. Photography that spans the globe, ranging from old-fashioned Polaroids to underwater photography
5. Mouthwatering dishes from food_porn

What began as a late-night inspiration back in Brad Fitzpatrick's college dorm in 1999 has grown to encompass nearly 25 million users worldwide, with journals and communities covering every conceivable hobby, passion, and topic. To get your copy, please visit the Blurb Bookstore. For updates and entries from book contributors, please join lj_turns10.

Tweaks and enhancements

• You can now ban a user from all of your communities and journals at once. To access this feature, hover over the person's userpic and choose Ban user everywhere from the drop-down menu.
• Follow LiveJournal on Twitter!

Give a little to help a lot!

In honor of National AIDS Awareness month, we've added a new charitable vgift. For each red ribbon you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine (we'll cover credit card fees). You can read more about IAVI at lj_cares. While we're on the subject, we raised $740 from our November fundraiser for Love Without Boundaries, which supports emergency healthcare and adoption of Chinese orphans. We thank you for helping us help others.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible pictures from our super-talented LiveJournal photographers. Congratulations to ilya_gorokhov, who is the winner of our very first lj_photophile poll.

We hope you'll continue to post, vote, and comment! A gentle request: Please post only one photo at a time and limit size to 350x350 (so images display properly on friends pages). And now, without further ado, get ready to cast your ballot and view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay safe and snug out there!

Tags: aids vgift red ribbon fundraiser, blurb, livejournal: the first decade, lj_photophile poll

there's a reason we call him "breesus"

Current Music: dddddisco

For the record, durian milk candy tastes like coconut and sewerage.

Benevolent Society President Schapker’s speech from a few weeks ago went off without a hitch. He left out some of the grander language and stuck to his vision fo what Tulane campus could be like. President Cowen (a less impressive president) showed interest in juggling, and though most of us are certain it was for show, Schapker wants to invite Cowen to a juggling club meeting.

I support such an endeavor.

Long story short, though, no protest was needed. Schapker and the juggling club (myself included, to a limited degree) have a student-run garden in the works on Tulane campus now. Trees have been planted, all of them fruit trees, and garden beds are not shaded by offensive, ornamental beech trees. A bike trailer is being constructed to carry the horse manure from the Audubon stables to the garden. No need for pesky automobiles. A green garden is possible, if you work at it. And these kids, they’re clever.

After the photo-ops for the administration and the bullshit was out of the way, a small crew of jugglers and other adventurous sorts set out for a variety of ridiculous shenanigans that night. A few went to the radio towers on the river levee and learned to climb with proper climbing equipment so that their plans to build a tree house in an out of the way place could be attained. They learned to climb, but they’ve yet to find a spot for the tree houses.

Others of us, myself included, attempted to get to Bud’s Barge. It’s a barge anchored next to the river levee that a man named Bud has taken to painting on. One such bit of graffiti is an adaptation of a famous royal French quote, though I forget exactly how he put it. I want to say he put it as “Devant moi, le deluge,” but I could be misremembering. I don’t even know French, so what good am I? I do know it was not the original quote. "Avant moi, le deluge." (thanks Karin!) Point is, it’s a lovely little rusted tank of blight floating on the Mississippi and we tried to get into it.

You know the trash compactor scene in Star Wars? That’s what the water around the barge looked like. Heavy rains up north must have filled the river, because it was reported to be much easier to get into the barge. We found it surrounded by deep water and what can only be called cess. We attempted to stay dry and reach the barge by walking over the logs in the river, but we all quickly discovered the logs were not sturdy enough to hold our weight.

I escaped with only one sodden pant leg and some wet socks. Sarah found her whole lower body soaked. She and I never made it to the barge, being that we have sense. Jake and Mickey? Well, they made it to the barge a pair of sopping wet fools, and in getting back, decided to say “fuck it” and just swam. Their cell phones were royally fucked.

Did I mention it was about 60 degrees out? Beautiful weather if you’re dry and on a stroll. Soaking wet and on a bike? Well, it’s a bit chilly.

We then went to meet our friends at the radio tower. We were joined by a few others and made our way up the 10 foot concrete base of the tower where we enjoyed the weather, and Jake found it necessary to stay warm by stripping basically bare ass naked. He may or may not have teabagged another individual present who shall remain nameless to maintain what little dignity the puppy might have.

At this point President Schapker and Beermeister Menking decided, while drunk, that climbing the radio tower without climbing gear would be fun. After you get past the razor wire around the first stage of it, there’s a ladder more or less all the way to the top.

So these two German-descended lunatics made their way carefully up the first stage, less than gracefully danced past razor wire, and began their ascent in earnest. I think they officially made it up to about eight storeys up, but I can’t be sure, because I spent most of the time trying to ignore it and being very, very worried. They enjoyed themselves up there (not, sadly, in any sexual way, though I have vowed to write a slash fiction about just that) and came down.

Getting down past the razor wire was the real trick. First President Schapker took a look at the situation and was befuddled and cornswaggled by how to do it. So Beermeister and Minister of Minstrelsy Menking took a look at it, confidently ousting Grand Pooba Schapker and immediately finding himself stumped. At this point, Schapker bent over to get a good look at things, and promptly stabbed himself in the ass with razor wire.

They did eventually get down.

Current Music: krautrock

No sarcastic answers!

Poll #1493979 climate change
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 53

Is climate change impacted by human activity, such as pollution from industry and individuals?

Current Music: the dulcet tones of p.l. on the phone

My experiments have been successful in theory so far, which is to say, I can make quick pack pickles, can them, and they will keep on the shelf and be edible. However, I have been having to experiment by tweaking the recipe because the Ball book calls for way too much salt if you're not using sugar (and I don't use sugar).

My last experiment called for only a teaspoon of salt in the two-cup brine mixture. (experienced canners will say, "what, are you making only one jar at a time or something?" to which I say, Yes, I am, whilst I experiment with the recipe. I'll do full batches once I get a recipe I like.) This recipe actually undershot the salt by just a bit, but were still very delicious and highly edible. Next time I'll up the salt to a tablespoon.

--one cup purified water
--one cup distilled white vinegar
--one tbsp canning salt
--a garlic clove
--half a teaspoon mustard seeds
--half a teaspoon peppercorns
--a sprig of fresh dill
--a bay leaf
--two pickling cucumbers, or one large one, cut into spears right for your jar

simmer the lid and jar
boil the pickling mixture for ten minutes (everything listed above except the cucumbers
remove jar, dump out hot water, add in cucumbers, an extra clove of garlic, and two sprigs of dill
add lid, screw on band finger-tight
boil for fifteen minutes covered in water
remove, let cool.

Sometimes I'll stay up later than Justin. When I come to bed, I'll press my forehead between his shoulder blades and tuck a hand between his chest and arm, and he'll stay fast asleep (or, maybe, his fingers will flicker against mine, or his heels will kick back and brush my toes, before he sinks deeper into dreams). Other times, I'll go to bed before he does. The next morning, I'll try to remember whether I noticed when he joined me; do I ever wake up, even just for a moment, to check that it's him?

It wonder whether he'd be fine, and sleep as soundly, if someone who wasn't me padded her way into the bedroom to hold him in the night. Or maybe I could slip into houses in the dark, and climb under sheets and lay close to strangers, without causing any disturbance.

okay, i've given suggestions to everyone for my post of suggesting lj friends. now, all of you, suggest ME an lj friend or two, based on these interests:

* filling the world with wonder
* good long entries
* lists
* music music music
* hard line leftist politics
* polls
* puns
* high fantasy
* juggling, bicycling, and roleplaying (not necessarily in that order)
* romcoms and bollywood
* who dat
* historical oddities
* really long palindromes
* honesty

Current Music: Wolfe Tones - Many Young Men of Twenty

I'm not a particularly happy person, and I don't think anyone would ever call me a positive thinker. My thoughts usually loop around the ideas that I'm not smart enough, that I'll never accomplish anything, that everyone secretly hates me, that I look disgusting, that I'll get kicked out of school, etc. Justin likes to point out that the only thing I ever feel optimistic about is time. It may sound a bit strange to be optimistic about time and nothing else, but time is the only challenge that I never see as an obstacle. Thinking about time is how I cheer up. I distract myself from everything I hate about myself by making laundry lists about everything I'll take care of, and there's solace in the anticipated accomplishments.

This optimism is just as intense as the pessimism. When I'm not overwhelmed to the point where I want to get drunk and hide in closets, I believe I can do everything, instantaneously. It just doesn't process when I can't knock out papers in a week, when I can't read everything I want to, when I have to give in to sleep. These seem like exceptions to the rule, as opposed to a fundamental pattern. I honestly convince myself that in a normal day, I can do things like process data for twelve hours, stop by the gym, run errands, and cook enough food to have leftovers for the week. Bolstering up this belief is the fact that I can, occasionally, be that manically productive for a few days before reverting back to sloth and self-hatred.

Last weekend, I was in Virginia visiting for Thanksgiving while preparing to give a conference talk in Australia this Friday. And I got so much done at my parent's, and I worked in the airports and on the flights, and I still had so much energy when I got home. I kept working, and I packed, and I dropped off all my papers for the class I'm TA-ing. I had it all figured out - how I was going to work nonstop on the plane, then keep working when I got to my hotel, then conveniently find a print shop and make handouts, and still be standing by the time Friday afternoon rolled around.

A few hours before my flight I just cracked. Even with reassurances from other people that I was going to be fine, I knew I wouldn't be fine, because I'd lost the wave of confidence that came with my mental schedule. It was like some annoying little fear in my peripheral vision zoomed into full view and I had to face it. And I couldn't handle it. So now I'm in Houston, when I'm not supposed to be. And I haven't been in to the department today, because I don't know how to explain it. This is by far the least professional thing I've ever done, and I have no excuse.

On a different note, I'm nursing the mother of all UTIs, and at least I got to pick up antibiotics this morning instead of sitting on a flight for an additional 6 hours and then not knowing how to get medical care for another 5 days. Phenazopyridine FTW?

Sometimes I get reminders that I don't know anything about anything, and sometimes this is good. People are incredible.