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Zoinks! Random Observations!

First, if you missed the Simpsons on Sunday and were a part of the 90s, particularly a college student I suggest you find it now and prepare to be mocked. Hilarious, but disturbing.

Second, the cable company is stealing my childhood. There is an awful commercial featuring the Scooby Gang (Hanna-Barbera, not Mutant Enemy).

I noted that if cartoon characters actually aged, the aforementioned Scooby Gang would be in their 60s.
Shaggy would probably look like Keith Richards and would probably be about as coherent.
Scooby would have been dead for about 30 years, long since replaced by offspring created in a stoned canine haze.
Daphne would be one of those freaky plastic surgery women with too much collagen, a neck lift, botox, and a permanently surprised face-lift.

sic itur ad astra

“non est ad astra mollis e terris via“ — Lest we forget:

• Apollo I: January 27, 1967: Grissom, White, Chaffee
• Challenger (STS-51-L): January 28, 1986: Scobee, Smith, Resnik, Onizuka, McNair, Jarvis, McAuliffe

• Colombia (STS-107): February 1, 2003: Husband, McCool, Brown, Chawla, Anderson, Clark, Ramon

Thank you, and goodnight, ladies and gentlemen.

Damn you, Target!

Saturday I went I went to SUPER! Target to do some weekly shopping. Apparently, the merchandisers at Target don’t know what month it is. Next to the aisle with snow shovels, ice melt, scrapers and other assorted winter items were the aisles with charcoal, lighter fluid, fire pits, gardening gloves, shoes, tools, baskets, etc and other spring/summer items.
Like any normal person susceptible to marketing I had a craving for oh…grilled meat and playing in my garden.
But, it’s not even close to spring and it’s all of 24F outside.

So…. we wait and hope for a warm day for grilling in the next couple months.

Ho-Hum......

I’m not depressed or otherwise seasonally affected, but this winter is really starting to drag on. I know it won’t be “spring” for 2 more months and I try to not get too excited about spring and the idea of spring gardening.

I looked through local CSA websites trying to pick the best business to buy from. I worry, though, that having a CSA will negate the need to go to the Farmers Market on Saturdays and Wednesdays.

I guess the one “good” thing about the extremely frigid weather is that it means that winter is moving on and soon it will be warm, right?
You have to weather a few -20 days before it can be warm, right? Right?

I just don’t want to go outside until it’s warm again.

Taking my Dutch Oven Out for a Spin

I got a dutch oven for Christmas and I’ve been looking for the perfect recipe to try it out. First.. wow, this thing is HEAVY, and it’s imperative to wear my oven gloves the entire time I’m cooking because it heats up quickly and stays hot. Carelessly touching the pan could result in the sort of burn you’d get sticking your hand in a hot pan!

Anyway, chuck roast, onion, carrots, mushrooms, celery, garlic, red wine and beef broth turned into a pretty decent stew. It could have used less meat and way more veggies, but it was still really tasty!

If anyone can suggest a good 1-pot meal type cookbook, I’d appreciate the recommendation.

On Internet Addiction and Neti pots

As was alluded to, we were missing our Internet and phone access the last couple days. Despite my best efforts to connect to our neighbor’s network (with their approval, of course), I couldn’t connect and I eventually gave up. For 2 nights we suffered at our technological misfortune. Now we’re back and I can’t think of a single thing to do with our restored connection. Sure, I’m checking progress on an upgrade at work, and I caught up on LOLcats and some web comics, but I’m just wasting this connection…

Home sick, but with internets

I’m home sick today. Feeling like crap was not part of the agenda for the week.

The good news is that our our internets are back after two days. I was starting to have withdrawal. I had to resort to a yellow, paper, book-like thing to find the number for a local business yesterday. Barbaric!

K.U.I

Tonight for dinner we opened a bottle of New Zealand Pinot Noir. It was tasty.
We finished the bottle.

We ate some chocolate bits and opened a bottle of Australian Merlot. It’s antipodean wine night at the Bloy house.

After I finally got Adam to bed, I sat down with iTunes playing all the songs stuck in my head, my wine, and my knitting.

Intoxication + (The Fratellis, The New Pornographers, Neko Case, and HelloGoodbye) = super awesome knitting ability. My hands seemed more fluid and less clumsy. The music with something interesting to sing along to made the task go faster, too.

Two More, Cos They Make Me Giggle

It could be the excessive amounts of wine tonight, but probably not since I always giggle when I see these:

LOLCats

I feel compelled to share this image with you. It cracks me up every time I see it.

Happy New Year!

First – Happy New Year, everyone!
Mike and I celebrated our 8th anniversary last night. So glad I decided to come back to Madison for the Y2K New Years. Can’t imagine what life would be like if I hadn’t.

My stupid weather icon is telling me it’s 3 outside. That probably explains why it feels so f*ck*ng cold in the house. I can’t wait to see what sort of sub-zero temperatures the rest of January and February bring us. damn.