Oversharing since 2005

Old fandoms never die

brienze — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 16:37:37 GMT

This makes me nostalgic for dueSouth fandom.
http://m.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29131757

Shiny!

brienze — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 01:25:10 GMT

This is my favorite pendant from Wyrding Studios, and the earrings that kythryne custom-made to match.

She's posting a big anniversary update to her site in the next day or two... there's a preview pic here and I can already tell that they will be having a deleterious effect on my budget for next weekend's fiber fair if I happen to get to her update before other folks snatch up the pieces I have my eye on.

(And yes, I'm posting this for an entry in a prize drawing, but I wouldn't do it if I didn't genuinely believe it's a public service to point out her stuff to any of you who aren't already wyrding_studios fans.)

Absurd, or awesome?

brienze — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:56:55 GMT

Infrequent posts are infrequent. Also, if you only friended me because we were in the same fandom at some point and are disappointed by the lack of fandom content, every day is de-friending amnesty day around here. My widdle fewwings won't get hurt.

I've been knitting, and spinning, and watching TV while I do it. Mr. Brienze surprised me this year by actually watching lots of the new shows - he's incredibly picky, but we're watching Person of Interest, and Unforgettable, and Grimm, and Alcatraz. They're all watchable, but I'm not impressed enough with any of them to go see if there's fanfic. I really liked The Chew at first, but it seems lately there is too much talk-show crap and not enough recipes I would actually like to cook.

My Season 2 DVDs of Sherlock got here from amazon.co.uk earlier this week. This deserves its own paragraph. LOVE this show, but I don't seem to allocate my time so that I have hours at the computer anymore, so I haven't been reading fanfic. I should go looking for podfic at some point, though, because I've started listening to audiobooks while I cook.

The holidays were good: lots of cooking, no big arguments with the family, and thanks to two bits of advice I got last year, my foot cramps have almost disappeared, so I can actually spend hours on my feet again. For anyone who has muscle cramps, try magnesium supplements. I swear they're magic. The real test will be this Friday's TMBG show, though. I'm hopeful that my feet will behave.

In the near future I'd like to finalize a Fair Isle mitten pattern I've been writing since November(!!), and there's Superbowl cooking to do, but I'm kind of ridiculously excited about something I just agreed to do. Someone I knew in college has a friend who's a teacher in Trenton, NJ, and is going to be sending me a "Flat Stanley" paper doll to show around Austin and send back to her class with pictures of his adventures.

Guys, this is the best thing ever. I get to show 'someone' around town, and only go where I think is worth going, and not have to put up with family or children or having an actual houseguest. I'm torn about where to take Stanley out to eat, though... clearly I need to represent both BBQ and Tex-Mex, but is Rudy's more interesting than Mann's, or does Stanley deserve a trip out to Llano for Cooper's BBQ? Or possibly standing in line for Franklin's? And Chuy's is the Tex-Mex place we love the best, but the carved and brightly-painted furniture at Los Chilaquiles might be more interesting to kids from New Jersey.

I am hoping that at some point I can take Stanley to tsarina's and take a picture with all the bat sculptures, since it's too early in the year for the actual bats that live under the bridge downtown. And I'll have to scope out a firehouse or car dealership that has separate flag poles for the US and Texas flags to fly at the same height, so I can explain about Texas having been its own nation at one point. And take him to the lookout at Mount Bonnell to get a picture of Stanley with the 360 Bridge. (And no matter how many grammar problems irritate me in texts and FB and such, I will cheerfully begin sentences with 'and'.)

Ooh! And it just occurred to me, I should take him down to the Old Oaks Fiber Ranch to see the alpacas. I suppose I'll have to take him to the capitol and UT, but I'm less enthusiastic about those. I'm not sure Sixth Street is all that child-appropriate, so I'll need to figure out something for Austin's music scene. If any locals have suggestions (or non-locals have ideas about what in Austin they'd like to see), feel free to suggest.

I think it may be a little obvious that I don't get out of the house much. :P I've surprised myself with how I can occupy my day with making things, rather than sitting like a lump in front of the computer. But aside from Wednesday night spinning and Friday morning knitting group, I don't actually see other people or leave the house very much. My introverted soul is usually quite content with this, but I'm looking forward to Stanley's visit forcing me to get out of the house and go see stuff. (And possibly eating at ALL the Tex-Mex and BBQ places, to pick the best-composed picture instead of the best food story.)

I do still read my f-list and comment occasionally, so if you've friended me in the last couple of years and wonder 'who the hell is this person who sometimes replies to my posts?', well, this is me.

RIP

brienze — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:41:57 GMT

I think I'll go for a walk

brienze — Sun, 15 May 2011 04:02:11 GMT

Wow, this thing still works? *blows dust off "Post An Entry" page*

I would summarize the last *mumble* months, but it's really just a constant round of knitting, cooking, reading the Internets, etc. And, this week, dentistry. Which I would really, really like to whine about, but won't, because it is graphically TMI and at least one of my friends is dentistry-averse and I don't want to freak him out.

Instead I'm breaking radio silence to beg/plead/cajole you to go see Hesher if it's playing at a theater near you. The teeny tiny list of theaters it's playing in can be found on the movie's website, though I can't direct link it because of flash evilness. (Wake up and smell the 2011, guys.)

You can find a trailer at the same website. I encourage you to watch it. There's no big distribution deal for Hesher, probably because A) it credits the audience with having a brain, and leaves a lot of the backstory and plot unstated for us to fill in for ourselves, and B) it has more f-bombs and sexually explicit language than vintage Kevin Smith. So the only chance it has to get into more theaters is for people to go see it at the theaters that DO have it.

This movie deserves, but probably won't get, Oscar nominations. Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and if there's a category that encompasses general look-and-feel, then that too. There is only one tiny thing that dates the movie; in all other respects it could be set anytime between now and the mid 1980s. I just think that's kind of a cool trick. :) I realize I haven't said much of what the movie is about, but it's about a lot of things, and I'm pretty confident that anyone in fandom - any fandom - is going to grok why it's so awesome. We're already primed to recognize subtext and make our own meta.

Ok, my final endorsement for Hesher... as Joseph Gordon-Levitt himself posted on Twitter, "I'm half naked in it a lot." And he is. And I didn't even pay a lot of attention to looking at him, no matter how worth looking at he is, because I was just marveling at the story and the characters and how nice it is for a movie to treat me as though I have a brain.

Harry Potter Feast

brienze — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 02:05:04 GMT

I know a few people were interested in the Harry Potter feast I went to earlier this week, and someone at Alamo Drafthouse finally did what I've been wishing they'd do for ages... take pictures of the food! So you can check it out on their blog if you like. And they're not kidding about that wine that went with the halfblood sausages... most wines give me an instant headache, and even the ones that don't (mostly ice wines) I've never really enjoyed. I'm hoping when I track this stuff down it's A) readily available, and B) reasonably priced.

Non-spoilery review of the movie... I liked it much better than the book. But then, I liked HBP much better than the book, too, because I really did not like books 6 or 7. Malfoy Manor looks exactly like I thought it would, except for Tom Felton, who got odd looking as he grew up (and not Benedict Cumberbatch-style good odd looking, either). The location shots were gorgeous, and my favorite part was anything with the house elves, who are tiny, big-eyed bundles of awesome.

In other news, I have about three weeks before my parents get here for the holidays. There's a hole in the floor where the guest bathroom toilet should be. At least that means the moldy floor that had been absorbing a slow leak for the last several years is now out of the house. Tile guys come on Monday to give an estimate, so I'm hoping everything will be back together and working by the time anyone needs to use it. It looks like the whole job (including a new toilet for the master bath, one that actually fucking flushes the first time, thankyouverymuch) will be less than two thousand dollars. We'd saved money up intending to have our 'native Texas habitat' aka the back yard fixed up over the winter, so really, this was a best case scenario for major home repair.

That said, I cannot tell you how unpleasant and stressful it is to have strangers in my house. I had a mini-meltdown last weekend before any of the work actually started, and backed out of hosting a holiday party for the people I knit with. I like throwing parties, but I just couldn't cope with planning one while worrying about how many working toilets the house would have and whether the tub or vanity would have to come out (they didn't).

I'm still knitting lots, with just a manageable list of things to make before Presentmas. I'm going to try to surprise my mom by making and freezing cookies before she gets here, so we don't have to spend three days baking, and instead I can teach her to knit. Her friends from the motorcycle club want her to learn so she can commiserate with them over the lack of good yarn shops in their area.

I'm mostly managing to keep up with sherlockbbc_fic, but I've had to start a "To-Read" bookmark folder for anything over 10k words. I'll save those for January when I'm half comatose with cedar fever. It's amazing how good a delicious account is for keeping me honest about leaving feedback. I'd feel really guilty if someone noticed I rec'd their story without commenting.

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! (Showing my age here... anyone else remember Horshack? And not from Nick at Night?) Because everything circles back to the knitting in one way or another... I published my first knitting pattern, for socks based on Watson's sweater. Ravelry has a nice new feature that lets me show my project to non-members. It's fun to watch other people make my pattern, and a tremendous relief that someone, a non-native English speaker at that, has finished a pair of socks and not come at me screaming about mistakes in my charts or directions.

I picked up the new MCR album this week, and I'm surprised by how pop-y the songs are. I was never a huge fan of their music (too much screaming, and godawful mixing imho), but I think I really like the new stuff. And bless their hearts for being grown-up and moderately successful-at-life, unlike some other bands I can think of. Yes, entire-rest-of-bandom, I mean you.

I can't imagine I'll be posting much if at all until the new year, so let me wish you a relaxing, non-stressful season with good food (but not too much) and good visits with family (but not too long) and good friends who don't look at you funny for spending time on whatever fandom you're into these days.

Linky: Kitten in Austin needs a new home!

brienze — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 20:13:41 GMT

A kitten that I met at my knitting group needs to find a new home or she'll be going to a shelter. She was abandoned at two weeks old and would have died if her foster family didn't take her in and hand-raise her, but they're very allergic and can't keep her.

If you know of anyone in the Austin, TX area who might be willing to adopt an adorable white kitten, please link them here. We all hate the thought of sending her to a shelter, but no one in the knitting group is able to take her in. (I know my own cranky, elderly cats would chew her up and spit her out. DO NOT WANT.)

Update-ish thingie

brienze — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:33:07 GMT

We have tickets to Can't Stop the Serenity on Saturday (benefitting Equality Now). It's their fifth anniversary, and we've attended for at least three of the previous ones. This time we've decided to re-watch Firefly first -- got through "Serenity" yesterday, which had some great bits I had forgotten about, including Mal saying "I'm a bad man". Tonight we'll have "The Train Job", which is one of my favorite episodes. I love that Inara, not Shepherd Book, is the respectable one.

We've had over 12" of rain in the past 36 hrs, and in the last hour we got another inch or so. I went out to the grocery during a break in the rain earlier today, and when I opened the garage door coming home, earthworms rained from the bottom edge of the door. I knew you'd want to share that gross-out moment. =P Our pool pump isn't working, but my pool guy thinks it was probably submerged in standing water last night and should be ok when it dries out. I'm grateful that the pool overflowed into our overgrown and messy back yard, and not the other way around. Pool Guy says he has a customer whose pool was the high point on the property, so when it overflowed the entire front and side yards became part of the pool and washed all sorts of crud into it. I'm also grateful to last year's roofers, because none of the 13" of rain has ended up in my front room.

Fandom-wise, Sherlock owns my heart lately. (There's no danger of me writing for it, though, because I'm thoroughly American and increasingly Texan, and I'd just make them sound like a bad Douglas Adams ripoff.) I've designed a sock pattern based on Watson's sweater, and it seems likely that I'll actually manage to publish the pattern (unlike others I've created, which languish at 75% written up). You can follow my progress and the Watson sock's outings over on my knitting blog.

I just got The America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook, and I'm hoping that with the hint of cooler weather I'll actually do some cooking (we'll be back up to 97F this weekend, though, and won't get autumn weather for another 2 months or so).

I'm playing WoW a bit more seriously than usual lately. For the first time, I'm raiding a few times a week, using Frosts as fast as I get them, and I broke down and installed GearScore despite my philosophical objections. So there's been less knitting and less tv-watching, which my lap cat is not in favor of.

Good thing: football season starts Sunday! Bad thing: the Redskins season opener is against the Cowboys. We have a new coach and a new quarterback, though, so I spent the money for the NFL season ticket. I plan to knit and watch... that way, even if we suck as badly as last year, at least I get knitting time and nice finished objects out of it. Also, queso. Chips and salsa and queso and seasonal hatch chile pepper sauce are on my agenda for Sunday.

For the Sherlock fans

brienze — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:45:21 GMT

Guys, guys, you have to download the unaired pilot and watch it immediately. As a writer, it's fascinating to see which bits of dialogue were there from the beginning and which got added later. Hint: there's a major difference in the conversation in Angelo's cafe (also, a charming additional bit of characterization for Angelo). There are some new close-ups of Lestrade and a shot framed in a way that will make the Lestrade/John shippers squee. Anderson has a dead weasel on his face. And most of all, Cumberbatch's performance is NOT the same Sherlock Holmes that we got in the aired version. I won't spoil anybody by dissecting how I think it was different, but trust me, it was.

I really need a Sherlock icon. Possibly several. It feels like cheating to gank any of the ones I've seen so far, although the cartoon ones are my favorites... Sherlock with the shock blanket, and the eyeballs in the microwave. I'll do much more boring screencap ones on Wednesday, as a treat for finishing this endless (well, knee-length) argyle sock I'm working on. Yesterday I calculated that it needed 16.5 more hours... now I'm probably at 14 hrs or so. Self-imposed deadlines FTW! So if anyone wants screencaps of specific bits, let me know and I'll add them to my list.

Hmm, 14 hrs. I have two documentaries to watch, one on Domesday Book and one on Anglo-Saxon artifacts. That should leave enough time to re-watch the entirety of Sherlock twice more. OCD much?

Oh, and I finally got around to starting a delicious, for the sake of sharing Sherlock bookmarks. (Unlike most of my other fandoms, there's nothing here that I'd be reluctant to own up to in public.) It's at http://www.delicious.com/brienzeTX if you're interested.

A Couple of Links

brienze — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 13:01:53 GMT

Cat woke me entirely too early for a weekend, so I'm quietly killing time in the computer room until Mr. Brienze wakes up and I can turn on the teevee and knit. You would think knitting is a quiet activity, but you'd be wrong. ;)

I've seen several of my friends try out the "You Write Like" meme... I recommend this analysis of the site to you: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012502.html.

And I find it completely adorable that Patrick Stump mis-quoted one of my favorite chick-flicks (Playing by Heart) in this tweet yesterday.

Our youngest cat, who will be 13 on Sept 20th, has been losing weight for no reason we can discern. $1400 in vet bills, including two overnight hospital stays, an x-ray, an ultrasound, and potassium supplements later, she seems healthy enough, but... I'll find out sometime this weekend when I weigh her whether Fancy Feast tuna offered every three hours between 9am and 9pm is actually stopping the weight loss. Please cross your fingers for her.

PS - 9am to 9pm. You did get that, right, Cats? Feeding does not commence early if you wake me at 7:30am. So there!

Not Dead Yet (Not For Lack Of Trying)

brienze — Sun, 30 May 2010 19:38:10 GMT

Wow, I haven't posted in approximately forever. So, February I did the Ravelympics, finished a shawl, and spun my first finished skein of yarn. In March I recovered from February, and then my parents visited, which was lovely, but I spent April recovering from that. I'm not quite sure what happened to May, other than knitting and catching up with Tivo. Somewhen in all of that we got a new fence built, and Lily stopped taking her pill hidden in food, so now we play "catch the cat (she's really pretty slow) and stick a pill down her throat" twice a day.

We usually only go to The Emerald once a decade or so, since it takes about that long for our waistlines and wallets to recover, but Living Social had a deal just in time for my birthday.

The meal started with Irish soda bread and butter:

Mr. Brienze immediately noticed that the plate looked like it had a Celtic Flying Spaghetti Monster on it:

We ordered the chateaubriand for two, largely because it came with the soup appetizer and I remembered that the Mr really liked their potato soup. (He said it was better than my potato-leek soup. That's the sort of comment that sticks with a person.) I got the potato soup:

But the Mr, being contrary, wanted the onion soup instead. Presentation-wise, this was a good choice... flaming onion soup bowl!

Next was salad, with a tomato-based dressing that was sweet and a bit hot. Our waitress said there's some horseradish in it, which surprised me because I didn't think I liked horseradish, but I loved this dressing:

I already felt like I'd eaten a full meal at this point, and then the chateaubriand platter came out. Sorry for the blurry pic, I was trying to get a no-flash shot before the flaming orange garnish went out:

As the waitress carved and plated it for us, I was already planning the next two days of leftovers:

It's the sauce that makes a tenderloin, and this Madeira mushroom sauce was fabulous. I'd have been happy with no meat at all, though, because the carrots and broccoli were so good. I have never had better vegetables than at the Emerald. It seems like nothing fancier than steaming and then tossing with butter, but I've tried that at home and did NOT get these results. So very happy that Mr. Brienze doesn't like cooked carrots and I'll get his share of the leftovers. More than a fair trade for letting him have the potatoes (not pictured; the chef brought them out for us on a separate plate and I forgot to get a pic).

By dessert I was in such a food coma that we'd already eaten all we could of the whiskey cake before I remembered to take a picture:

An orange slice was about as much dessert as I could fit at the time, but the cake made a lovely breakfast today. :) Our leftovers:

I didn't want to do the whole bbq routine on my actual birthday (too much like work!) so in a few hours I'll go pick up an ice cream cake to share with friends. The decoration could have been picked by someone thirty years younger than me, but that's what makes it fun. I wish I'd thought to get balloons so we could have duck voices, too. :)

Oh hai!

brienze — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:28:19 GMT

It snowed today, for the first time since Valentine's Day six years ago. This icon is completely unrelated to today's content, but I baked my first challah and photographed it when I was "snowed in" back then (for values where snowed in = too sensible to be out on the road with the crazies).

I also finished a big shawl project today. It's blue. Blue is not white. I thought this presented an opportunity that should not be missed, so...

More and better pictures over at my knitting blog, which incidentally you can get on your LJ feed by going here.

Sorry I've been so boring. Haven't really been reading fic, still haven't watched past the pilot of Vampire Diaries. Playing altogether too much WoW and knitting lots and lots. Reading and commenting on LJ, though, and I appreciate each and every one of you. It's nice to read about people whose lives are more interesting than mine. =P

I suspect I've lost my way

brienze — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:52:58 GMT

There are all sorts of holiday fests and comms that I have barely begun to read my way through, and there are multiple sites with pictures and commentary of AFP and The Dress (NSFW) at the Golden Globes last night, but all I really want to do is look through six pages of shawl pictures to see if there's any good patterns I didn't already know about. The internet is for porn, but what they don't tell you is how very far afield the definition of 'porn' can extend.

Addictive personality type? Why yes, hello. Aren't we all glad I never messed around with alcohol or drugs?

Tivo update: still haven't watched Vampire Diaries. Still haven't watched CoE. Still haven't watched the Doctor Who finale. But I'm gonna watch Brett Favre beat the snot out of the Cowboys, ~~even though~~ because I know that's what happens, while I take down the Christmas tree tomorrow.

Quick Question

brienze — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:54:52 GMT

So, do I have to watch Children of Earth before I can watch The End of Time?

I'm only a little bit spoiled for CoE, but that was enough that I haven't really been eager to watch it, y'know? But something was mentioned in an article about the #biggaybattle about Barrowman and the end of The End of Time and Gareth David-Lloyd makes me think I should maybe be watching things in the order they came out. Y/N?

Thanks!

brienze — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:41:19 GMT

A quick "thank you!" to those who sent me snowflakes. I thought I was being very clever, figuring out that for them to stay on your profile till the new year, I would wait until Dec 17th to send snowflakes to all of you. But since eljay had to take them down for comment spamming, I won't get to. =(

I've been going nuts this week trying to get the house ready for my parents' visit, getting a head start on baking, and getting less dreadfully behind on knitting projects that I'd meant to have finished by Christmas. Haven't even played WoW since the patch. At least my kitchen is done, though! Need to get full-spectrum bulbs to replace the cheap incandescents, though... it's very yellow in there right now.

Even during the holidays I try to make time to read f-list, generally by sacrificing some sleep since the only time I get to myself is when nobody else is awake! This will be my first Christmas with an iPhone and a Twitter account though, so it'll be interesting to see whether those drop by the wayside as well.

Usually this is where I'd gloat about our wonderful weather, but it's 40F (4.4C) out there! Bah! Going to draft Mom into helping me finally sew the lining for my knitted Coat of Fuzzy Warmth so I can actually wear it.

I hope you're all having as much fun as you can manage during this stressful time of year. Take a break; eat a cookie, knit something, watch one of the excellent movies that all seem to be coming out on DVD right now.

Is this week over yet?

brienze — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:48:55 GMT

Guys are downstairs right now, painting my kitchen. They were here Monday drywalling, here Tuesday texturing, the guy doing my electrical work (who was actually a roofer, but that's ok because it was all off existing wiring) was here yesterday. I am very ready to be alone in the house again.

On the plus side, the tree is up and the entire downstairs is clean and ready for visitors. Now I just need to clean up the Christmas closet (anything not in use currently, not used to put presents inside of, or not used to wrap outside of presents will be thrown out) and the guest room will be ready, too. On the minus side, tomorrow is the only day this week when I could actually leave the house if I wanted to, and we're supposed to get snow. In Texas. I put up with ridiculous heat in the summer so I don't have snow, dammit. Time to hibernate on the couch with a bowl of chili and the newly arrived S1 Disc2 of Big Bang Theory.

I've had my iPhone glued to my side even more than usual this week because of all the workmen coordinating schedules, and because this morning was my first time hosting our knitting group and people might have gotten lost and needed to call. I've concluded that my default ringtone (Church Bells, comes standard on the phone) is too damn quiet.

So I'm taking suggestions for something nice and loud to use as my default ringtone. Mom's is the do-wop classic "Sh-Boom", Mr. Brienze's is "Nemo", by Nightwish. I use a clip from FOB's "20 Dollar Nosebleed" for all my doctors' offices, and a clip from P!atD's "Northern Downpour" for all my knitting buddies. At this point I'm devoid of inspiration. Something lyrically appropriate for a generic ringtone would be good, but really, I just need LOUD.

Lately I've been listening mostly to bandom, but every time I listen to FOB I get all distracted singing along and forget to, y'know, listen for what would be a good ringtone. I also like Good Charlotte, Bowling for Soup, Eve6, Matchbox 20, TMBG, The Refreshments, Caroline's Spine... none of which I associate with LOUD, particularly, and some of which are definitely not lyrically ok to have blaring out in the middle of a grocery store.

Lemme do it this way. First person to suggest something that is both LOUD and owned by me (or easily obtainable by me) and SFW, that will be my new ringtone until I can't put up with it anymore and have to find something else.

Hello, Tuesday!

brienze — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:14:31 GMT

Star Trek DVD and Fall Out Boy album on the same day? You better believe I just went and got both... and how lucky am I that my grocery store has an entertainment section? I scored their last copy of Believers Never Die at around 2pm, so it seems to be selling well. I'm about to go pop the DVD in the Tivo and knit a headscarf and watch the videos (most of which I've never seen, because somehow my stalking never includes YouTube stalking). Spoiler-free comment: I love what each of the band focused on for their liner notes... it's all very them, I think.

Tomorrow I'm taking a class in stitch pattern design from Cat Bordhi, a knitter famed for thinking outside the box and inventing wild and yet perfectly sensible constructions. Am very excited and hope to learn lots. And I finally did finish my first pair of socks from her new book (detailed here, but beware the tl;dr for non-knitters), so naturally I'll be wearing her socks to class. Fall weather has arrived in Austin, with highs in the 60s (18C) so socks are justified.

Thursday is my usual knitting group, so I'll be able to burble to friends about what I learned, and finally start a pair of house slippers out of this yarn that I got at a fiber fair last weekend.

Friday the roofers come to put on a new roof, and the drywall guy comes to repair my ceiling and prep the kitchen so the electrician can get rid of the godawful flourescents and put some nice can lights in.

Saturday I'm getting together with a friend to test out new holiday baking recipes while her husband cooks us dinner. Doh! I better have my list ready by Thursday afternoon so I can shop for ingredients. And my Sunday knitting group can expect to be beneficiaries of at least a few baked goods, since by the time I'm done baking I've usually reached my sugar tolerance and can't stand to actually eat what I made.

Busy week! I hope everyone else is having fun in the ramp-up to the holidays, and not getting stressed out about things. Remember, we have shirtless Robert Downey Jr to look forward to on Christmas Day, and shirtless Taylor Lautner even sooner.

Contrary to all that 'healthy eating' stuff...

brienze — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:25:19 GMT

This is the time of year when I buy a lot of cooking magazines from the racks at the supermarket. I've been a fan of the Better Homes & Gardens Special Interest Publications since the late 90s, and some of my favorite holiday recipes come from these books. Usually each year I find at least one thing that becomes a perennial favorite, a bunch of semi-interesting things that I never get around to making, and a bunch of things that don't interest me.

Seems like every time I've gone to the grocery store recently, there's a new magazine. (If I run out of yarn money, this will be why.) So far, I have:

BH&G Appetizers
BH&G Ultimate Cookies
BH&G Shortcut Holiday Cooking
BH&G Christmas Cookies
fineCooking Parties 2009
fineCooking Sweet Cakes

Amazingly, there hasn't been a single dud. The appetizer book has savory biscotti! Why did I never think of putting pepperoni and black pepper in a biscotti dough and slicing it just 1/4" thick? It also has three recipes Hubert Keller let them print from his Burger Bar book, and sections featuring cocktail meatballs, charcuterie, and everything-you-can-do-with-bacon. You know, all that fat-saturated, unhealthy stuff that doesn't count because it's 'holiday calories'. =P

The Ultimate Cookies book I haven't really looked through yet, but I bought it because when I was flipping through (to make sure it wasn't one of those reprints in disguise) I landed on Coconut-Raspberry Delights, which are an unholy combination of macaroon, thumbprint cookie, and black-n-whites. My love of crossovers extends to food as well as icons and fandoms. =P

Shortcut Holiday Cooking I thought might not turn out well, but it would be something I could pass along to my mother-in-law, who doesn't like to cook. It's actually got good food in it though - not "open a can of Campbells" stuff, but also not stuff that needs a ton of ingredients or fussy preparation. And there are lots of good-sounding salads and vegetables, like the parsnip and carrot shoestrings with cranberries, ginger, pears, and pecans.

I have so many cookie magazines by now, plus old family favorites, that I buy them more out of habit than because I expect to find anything that will make it into the rotation. But this year's Christmas Cookies has a feature on bar cookies that are candy bar-inspired. The Twix-like one and the Peppermint Pattie-like one have me drooling, because those are candies I can no longer eat (too sweet; too cheap chocolate). The idea of making my own with bittersweet chocolate and less sugar sounds fantastic. There's also an Apples and Oats Biscotti that looks really good... this must be the year for biscotti, again. I think the first time they were trendy was 10 years ago when I first started buying these magazines.

fineCooking's Parties has a reprint of their Green Beans with Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette, which is my very favorite sauce/salad dressing for just about any vegetable ever. I love Meyer lemons, and I'm so happy they're coming back in season. I have this recipe somewhere, but last time I wanted to make it I couldn't figure out where, in the teetering stacks of magazines, that particular recipe could be found. So now I have it again, yay. Again, now that I'm paying attention to vegetables I can see there's lots of interesting recipes, including shredded pan-fried brussels sprouts with crisp shallots. I'm definitely planning to make the turkey and sweet potato hash with Thanksgiving leftovers, too.

I'm not a huge cake baker, unless it's a flat cake done in a half sheet pan. Because I'm lazy. I've taken the Wilton decorating classes, and I'm not bad at it, I just usually can't be fussed. This is doubly true at the holidays, which is the time for pie (the only time for pie, other than 3/14) and cookies. So I'm not sure why I came home with fineCooking's Sweet Cakes, but there's actually good looking stuff in here. I might try the grapefruit upside down cake with rosemary, almonds, and browned butter. I like pineapple upside down cake, and I like lemon rosemary cake. More crossover food, yay! There's also a luscious chocolate mousse layer cake which might be a new launching point for trying to duplicate Chez Zee's Chocolate Decadence, and some sour cream coffee cake that I know my Mom would like for Christmas morning.

We had a leak in our bay window patched yesterday, in advance of today's rain. The ceiling is certainly going to have to come down, the rug may have to come up (please, FSM, don't make me move the books and the bookcases), and the whole roof will likely be replaced. So I don't know that I'm going to have time to try new recipes any time soon. OTOH I fixed the problems with my current socks after I discovered the leak, once the sock was not the biggest problem I had. So testing recipes might become a welcome distraction, I dunno. I'm going to bookmark everything with that hope in mind. =)

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

brienze — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:01:35 GMT

So far I've been doing really well on having veggies and/or fruit with every meal. The Cook's Illustrated Italian Sunday Gravy that I made Friday was the exception. A friend kindly tried to say the tomatoes and onions count, but I don't think they really do. I got to freeze a whole bunch of sauce to thaw out when my parents are here at the holidays, though, which will be convenient.

I screwed around with Alton Brown's Pearnsip Sauce recipe, and I really shouldn't have. I think made as directed would be really yummy... my version, with less cardamom, and half as much honey instead of maple syrup, was a little bit meh.

I have yet to find the perfect, homemade mac n cheese recipe. Mr. Brienze tolerates my efforts, but is just as happy with the Kraft yellow stuff. So it was easy to sneak Tyler Florence's Cauliflower Mac n Cheese past him. I never did get the texture entirely smooth - maybe boiling the crap out of it instead of roasting the cauliflower might've worked - but it tasted fine, and not cauliflowery. Probably won't be making it again, tho.

I made negative knitting progress last week, and got nothing else done aside from the aforementioned cooking and a whole lot of playing WoW. I got my Hallow's End achievement Friday and my albino drake today, so I think I can finally stop being tied to the computer and spend some quality time with, er, with the computer attached to my tv. Poor thing is seriously running low on disk space, and I haven't watched a Vampire Diaries since the pilot.

Have so much to do this fall that I started making a list for myself. Lists are lovely, optimistic things, that do not in and of themselves feel let down when you fail to accomplish more than half the things listed on them. Where did October go? For that matter, where did September go? Wasn't it just Labor Day?

Inspired

brienze — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:12:45 GMT

So I've been inspired by schmoo999 to start getting better about my diet and lack of exercise. Panting my way through mowing the lawn on a beautiful 75F day Saturday enters into this somewhere, too.

I get indigestion if I drink water without also eating food, which makes it difficult to give up soda. But I figure I could start drinking hot tea instead, especially since the weather is getting colder (hey, it's totally colder than it was two months ago, even if we're still in summer by New England standards).

So I'm looking for suggestions of good, storebought, bagged teas. There are several bulk teas I get from Whole Foods, but I want something simpler for when I'm feeling lazy, which face it, is most of the time. I know the trick to decaffeinating by steeping for 45 secs and throwing it out, so caffeinated or non-caffeinated is fine. Anything with chamomile is not. I want teas that taste good -- raspberry tea, for example, smells amazing but tastes like water that's walked past a raspberry scratch-n-sniff.

I want to start eating breakfast, and healthy lunches. Had a yogurt for breakfast today. Dinners are a lost cause, because Mr. Brienze does not eat vegetables and yours truly does not cook two meals for two people. But something else I'd like to start doing is to not buy from the bakery. If I don't get to eat sweets unless I take the time to make them myself, I'll eat less sweets. I've been assembling and freezing my own garlic bread for awhile, because the calorie and fat counts on storebought garlic bread is truly atrocious.

If I stumble across any really good, healthy recipes, I'll be sure to post them. After seeing Michael Chiarello hand-separate quinoa pasta on Top Chef Masters I'm not sure I'm up for dealing with that, but I'll try to reduce "white" food as much as possible. Which, really... doomed to failure, ok? I know this about myself. Giving up bread makes me sadface. I'll settle for significantly cutting sugars and upping food with actual nutritive content.

A Fandom Yarn Post

brienze — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:59:43 GMT

Thanks to an evil enabler friend of mine, I just snagged two skeins of DIC's Stardust in colorway "Atlantis" at $7 off each. You can see it here.

The week before Thanksgiving I'm taking a class in designing stitch patterns. Since the yarn is called Atlantis, I decided I must design my own shawl pattern for this yarn. With either a big ring shape, or a repeating pattern of clearly-defined rings. Because I'm cheesy that way.

But, er, I never watched all of SGA. So I don't know, are there any other iconic shapes, or images that could be translated down into fairly simple shapes? I'm not sure a MALP would be easily identifiable as a MALP, translated into yarn. And that pretty much exhausted my supply of ideas. I can haz suggestions?

Arrr!

brienze — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:39:08 GMT

I've been needing a WoW icon, and what better day to make one than when Mohair is all dressed up like a pirate wench? Also, note to self, figure out how to roast a whole suckling pig in a residential oven by this time next year, so we can have a PotC marathon and feast on Talk Like A Pirate Day. Also, learn how to talk like a pirate. Arrr. Have some grog, and ye'll not notice me word choice be lacking.

Not sure I mentioned it here, but I've got a new knitting blog over at http://thetexturedknitter.wordpress.com. As per usual, I'm about three posts/updates behind, with photos sitting on my camera or flickr waiting to be dealt with. If any knitting folk want to add me to their RSS through LJ friendslist, you can go here and put in that URL. The name of the RSS feed should be "tex_knitter" because the full name was too long, but I'm not sure you can use that directly.

All of a sudden it's become important to other people in my WoW guild (made up of knitters from Ravelry) that I get lvl 80 by next weekend, so Mr. Brienze aka Futumsh is poking at me to finish playing on the Internet and get back to the serious bizness of levelling. Yes, dear, coming. (MMORPG players are a strange and incomprehensible breed, but I haven't been really into WoW for awhile, so this is kind of fun.)

If anyone has seen Whiteout, Jennifer's Body, or Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, tell me if they're worth seeing in the theater? I'm discouraged by Whiteout's 7% rotten rating, but it looks like it's every Arctic/Antarctic horror movie/X-Files episode I ever loved, so I really kinda want to go anyway.

OOTP Feast

brienze — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:29:17 GMT

So I mentioned going to this year's Can't Stop The Serenity screening, but I was just cleaning up my tags (why is the tagcloud gone, LJ? Why?) and realized I never posted about the OOTP feast.

For posterity, the menu was:

Chilled Crab and Leek Soup,
paired with Speckled Hen

Seared Sea Scallops and Bacon on English Pea Puree with Honey Cider Vinaigrette,
paired with Black Thorn Cider,

Beer Braised Roast Beef with Stilton and Bacon Stuffed Twice Baked Potatoes,
paired with Hob Goblin,

and Butter Beer-Ginger Ale and Butterscotch Ice Cream Float,
paired with Wexford Cream Ale

Since the main course is all that the DH would eat, I went by myself this time. Before the show I exchanged iPhone game recommendations with the couple sitting next to me, and gave them all of my beer courses. I drank the cider myself, and it was yummy. Kinda disappointed that cider is outside the mandate of the beer/wine bar near my house where a knitting group meets each week.

The butterbeer recipe was a direct result of this show (and the glass in the picture is what the ice cream float was served in).

I don't know if I'll ever do an HP movie feast at home, but if I did I think it would definitely have to involve pumpkin soup and Yorkshire pudding, like Alamo's 2005 feast for Goblet of Fire. And we'd probably be watching an earlier movie, one with lots of shots of the great hall, and moving staircases, and kids who can't act but who wear house sweaters and get to do actual magic that isn't in a battle scene.

Silliness

brienze — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:17:12 GMT

I'm endlessly amused by crossover icons, like the one I'm using here. So I always giggle when I see icons that have someone wearing Aretha Franklin's hat from the inauguration.

In the last week, I've started seeing this little dude (NSFW if language is a concern) popping up on icons in the same manner.

What we clearly need is an icon of the squirrel wearing Aretha's hat. Internet, make it so!

PS - I'm too young to have any personal memories or attachment to the Kennedy clan (Katherine Kennedy Townsend speaking at my college graduation doesn't really count, because I just wanted to get my diploma and get the hell out of there). All the news coverage of the Senator's funeral keeps bringing this song to mind, though... kind of crappy audio quality, but it was the best I could find: Bobby and Jackie and Jack from Merrily We Roll Along.

Uh, folks...

brienze — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:09:52 GMT

This?

http://www.tmz.com/2009/08/26/fall-out-boy-the-mug-shot/

Fandom seems to think it's hysterical that wee little Patrick Stump would be the first Fall Out Boy to end up in jail, and how much fun it'll be to watch Pete making fun of him for the rest of forever, and pondering whether they'll start covering Jailhouse Rock or I Fought The Law And The Law Won on tour.

Speaking as a person who has less hair than I'd like, and increasingly terrible eyesight, I can't help but feel bad that his hat and glasses got taken away and the whole world gets to see the picture of it. I mean, it's all fun and games unless someone is genuinely traumatized by the pics -- ring any bells, Pete?

California's apparent bitchiness about people getting a California driver's license? One more in the long list of reasons to never, ever live there. It falls somewhere well after earthquakes, but before Paris/Perez Hilton.