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My farm share last week included, among other things, a cabbage and four apples. As I unpacked it, my thoughts immediately shot to "Apple Cabbage Stew. Restore 10 points Health. Restore 15 points Stamina". Because I am just that dorky as to see Skyrim everywhere. (Though to be honest, I don't see how this is really that different from

audiovile's urges to run through the CVS punching people in the back of the head after playing too much GTA:Vice City.)

Ground rules:
* All ingredients listed must be used, but proportions can be played with a bit. (One tomato, one head of garlic, and one leek would make a damn peculiar soup.)
* Ingredients can be added, but only if they don't exist in-game. (Broadly. Don't add Cheddar to your Grilled Chicken Breast and claim it's okay because it's not goat or Eidar cheese.)
* ...And they should be appropriate for a northern, semi-medievalish land. (Yes yes they have tomatoes and potatoes. They also have dragons. STFU.)
* When we get to it, suitable replacements for non-existent ingredients will be selected and defended.

And so, without further ado:
Apple Cabbage Stew
Cabbage (1), Red Apple (1), Salt Pile (1)
Redaction based on an Epicurious recipe

1. Take half a Cabbage, core it, and shred (4 c.)
2. Take a smallish onion, dice, start frying in 1.5 tsp butter.
3. Throw in the cabbage, let it wilt.
4. Add thyme, Salt, pepper; toss.
5. Add 3 c. water or, if you're rich enough to have bought a house, broth (I used mushroom bouillon).
5. Let simmer for a little while.
6. Core and chop your Red Apple (I used one and a half). In another pan, fry it up in a bit more butter.
7. Before the apple gets mushy, put into the soup.
8. Let it cook down however much you like.

My result looked less contiguous than the picture, so I immersion-blended it a bit. (Because that's the labor-saving equivalent of "pushing the food through a sieve over and over until it's pureed", which is period appropriate.)

Tastes pretty good, actually--and I tend to loathe cabbage. The apples make it a little too sweet, though. In my curried pumpkin-apple soup the curry comes over top and evens that out; I'm not sure what the defensible choice would be here.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: John Lee Hooker, "Dimples"
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/524138.html

1. Get antibiotics prescription filled. (For those of you not on Teh Facebookz, the condensed plot: got an infection in my cuticle, it was physic'd yesterday, this is follow-up care to drive away the fever demons.)
2. Laundromat, since I was thwarted in my quest last week, and I am now out of socks.
3. Change the sheets & duvet cover.
4. Mop floors, bleh.
5. First entry in Cooking With Skyrim series, Apple & Cabbage Stew
6. Maybe do some sewing, maybe some knitting, maybe play some Skyrim.
7. There is some work stuff I really ought to catch up on.

In between this I have to soak my finger 3x daily in "hot salt water".

I feel like doing very little of this.

Current Mood: lazy
Current Music: Yo La Tengo, "Seeing Double Or Triple"
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/523893.html

As the Gentle Reader knows, I have this past year been over my current domicile. Though the owners are taking steps to address some physical issues (the insect invasion, some building repairs, etc.), and some of the problems have gone away (the shrieking Russian chicks, Drunky McBuzzerPresser), the vibe has gone stone cold. Having come to this decision, and having the lease renewal I do not intend to sign staring me in the face, I am of course wigging out and second-guessing myself. Though I don't intend to start serious searching until after the New Year, it seems well to organize my thoughts now, both to have them organized (duh) and because burping them all out is likely to reduce the white noise in my brain.

( Location, location, location )

( Define your beast. )

( The silent screaming of the mind. )

I will create another spreadsheet to track the places I look at, as that worked well last time, and blort out my impressions here for reference. After the holidays, I will be severely curtailing my social activities and concentrating on blitzing this. If I don't have something lined up by March 1, I will dump everything in storage and crash somewhere until success is obtained.

Current Mood: stressed
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/523332.html

Tonight's creation is very, very loosely based on a vegan (!) intarwubs recipe for "Cajun-style rice and beans with collard greens", the latter being the operative ingredient I was trying to use up. I had no black beans, but I did have chickpeas; and fuck olive oil when you have andouille sausage. Thus:

1. Chop up about half a link of andouille and toss in the cast iron dutch oven, and let that get goin' while fending off the cat who has suddenly, miraculously got over his snit from having his paws washed because he is too Goddamn stupid not to step in his own peed-on litter on his way out of the box. Ahem.
2. Chop up some onion and red pepper (both farm share items too! whee!) and put into the pot. If the sausage isn't rendering enough delicious spicy fat, put in some olive oil anyways, fine.
3. Wash, de-stem, and coarsely chop up a mess of collard greens. Throw into pot and toss.
4. Once the greens have wilted somewhat, throw in half a cup of brown rice.
5. Add a can of chickpeas (include the liquid, we need some for the rice anyways).
6. Lacking crushed tomatoes, add a can (15oz) of whole peeled tomatoes, and just sort of moosh them up until they're sort of bite sized bits.
7. PAPRIKA, YO.
8. And some salt (but not enough, needed more later).
9. And some of the Auntie Arwen's Garlic Insanity blend, because why not?
10. Let simmer until the rice is done, adding water now and again because the rice is soaking up more liquid than you get from the chickpeas and the tomatoes.
11. About 40 min. later it will be all done. Consume while watching Young Justice on the YouTubes.

I really don't love the coarse leafy greens, but if one is going to eat them, this is a good enough way.

Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/523158.html

I still have some of last week's soup yet, and three winter squashes staring accusingly at me, so it seemed that the traditional way to deal with this was to put some in pickle. Therefore:

1. Peel, eviscerate, and cube 1 butternut squash.
2. Peel, eviscerate, and cube 1/2 acorn squash. Peeling raw acorn squash really, really sucks.
3. You now have about 8 c., or a little under 3 lbs, of orange vegetable. Put it in a bowl.
4. Put in a saucepan 3 c. cider vinegar, 2 c. water, 2 c. sugar, 20 peppercorns, 15 cloves, 15 allspice berries, and some cinnamon bark. Heat gently while stirring 'til the sugar is dissolved.
5. Let it come to the boil. This will take a bit.
6. Look around for something to put the end result in. There's a 1L mason jar, but what to do with the rest?
7. Start turning out cupboards and fridge and what-not. Put the remaining maraschino cherries in a pyrex bowl, and wash out the 3/4L jar they were in.
8. Take the two empty jars and put them in boiling water to sanitize.
9. Oh, the brine is starting to boil. Let it boil for a few minutes, then turn down to simmer.
10. Find a 3/4L jar that is mostly full of lavender simple syrup. Look around for something else to put that in.
11. Pour out the last bit of Benedictine, from a bottle that you don't even know where it came from but it was at least since you lived in Jersey City. There's only a half-ounce anyways. Wash the bottle.
12. The brine's done. Pour it over the bowl of pumpkin, which makes it more full than the measuring bowl. Oops.
13. Wipe that up.
14. Strain the lavender syrup into the Benedictine bottle. Wash the jar that the syrup had been in.
15. Extract the now-sterilized jars from the pot and put the syrup jar in it instead.
16. Fill up the sterilized jars with pumpkin and brine, and chuck them in the fridge.
17. Drink the Benedictine Shot of Victory.
18. Time passes. I think. I am not sure how long one waits before eating some.

Recipes differ as to whether one cooks the squash before or not. I am trying not, since I don't want mushy things.

Current Mood: listless
Current Music: Rainbow, "Vielleicht Das Nächste Mal"
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/522842.html

I looked forward to a nice lie-in followed by productivity, but this was truncated by Spinach Cat taking a leaf (haw haw) from Chaos Cat and dumping a pile of CDs off my dresser sometime around daybreak. Slogging towards functionality now. I am feeling a little bit enervated, though whether that's processing from the wake last night or hormonal stuff or what, I do not know.

Point of self-aggrandizement: my funky new galoshes came through yesterday's snow/sleet/rain/slush horrors with flying colors, and were therefore an entirely justifiable purchase. Because, honestly, the average snow boot is useful maybe once or twice in a New York winter (barring last year's silliness), whereas something like this will be useful on a near-daily basis.

Anyways, on to the list:
1. Pay bills, balance metaphorical checkbook (by which I mean Moneydance), go through paperwork, etc.
2. Make hotel reservation for next weekend.
3. Pickle the backlog of squash.
4. Tack down lining of red wool gown, and possibly the checked wool as well, so that they can be PUT AWAY.
5. Wind the 2nd skein of current-project wool into a ball.

Extra credit:
- Pick a day to hit up Butterfly Silks (anyone wanna go fabric shopping?)
- Pick a day to exchange camisoles that are too big, preferably before the 90-day return period is up, ahem
- Noodle a bit on rental sites, see where apartment-hunting efforts should be concentrated when the rubber hits the road.
- Morally, I oughta get some stuff written up for work.

Tomorrow's priorities:
- Procure and mail a birthday card for Mom
- Call Callen-Lorde and shout some more since it seems they still have not submitted the bill for various tests to the correct insurance company. (Quaere: does it work to call the testing company and give them my insurance info directly? or will it then be rejected because it didn't come through the primary care provider? YES WE HAVE THE BEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD)
- Send back the last Netflix disc lest I own a copy of it forever. When I switched my account to "no DVDs just streaming" the other week, I expected them to have the clue to say "oh we'll delete your DVD queue then". Not so much.

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: The Shins, "Split Needles"
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/522735.html

I thought pumpkin would last awhile, like the other squashes. Not this one. So, it was needful to deal with it. In addition, I have a terrifying amount of apples from apple-picking yesterday. There is an obvious solution to these issues.

1. Take thy pumpkin. Halve it, de-seed and de-pulp it, brush with oil and a little salt and pepper, and roast til done (I think I gave it about half an hour at 400 degrees).
2. Extract roasted pumpkin flesh, which was about 2 c. worth.
3. Peel, core, and chunk 1.5 large Jonagold apples, also about 2 c. worth.
4. Dice about, eh, 2/3 c. onion and a clove of garlic.
5. Take a 1" piece of ginger and grate it.
6. Fry those three items gently in some butter til they're all nice.
7. Add 2 c. of broth (I used mushroom bouillon), the pumpkin, and the apples. Stir up good.
8. Add salt, garam masala, thyme.
9. There's the tail end of some hot madras curry powder. What the hell, throw that in too.
10. Stir in maybe 2/3 of a can of coconut milk (I used lite, it works fine).
11. Let simmer 30 minutes or so.
12. Immersion blend to a nice soupy glorp, without splattering boiling liquid all over oneself for a change.

It is very nice indeed, the more so with a dollop of yogurt on top. I wish I had had real broth to use (whether chicken or vegetable)--the bouillonosity was coming through the other flavors, which is not preferable. Also, I may have gone a curry too far. Choose one, not both.

Current Mood: relaxed
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/522268.html

After a week or two of malaise, ennui, and what I would term "mopery" if that didn't already have a meaning which is entirely different, I seem to have my head somewhat back in the game, and hope to get this and that accomplished today:

1) Transform a nearly-gone-off pumpkin and some of yesterday's acquired apples into soup
2) FINALLY haul the two large bags of unwanted clothes and shoes to Housing Works (this still leaves a box of books, of course, but.)
3) Do something with the remaining 6oz of ground beef that is also about to go off; hopefully also to involve more of the vegetable bounty. I am thinking the head of cabbage is likely to be involved
4) Stop at store for flour, dental floss, and other necessities (this can be combined with #2, above)
5) Move furniture (and the jasmine tree) around so that the workmen who are coming tomorrow to fix the fire escape can reach the window with all their stuff
5a) Bring in window box still on the fire escape railing (maybe to take it into work for the nonce)
6) Launder ye unmentionables

Extra credit:
* Tack down lining on both wool dresses
* Have another go at spinning
* Get wine. WHY IS ALL THE WINE GONE? Let them drink prosecco!
* Answer some email that is owing
* Figure out some other errands this week that require, like, planning and stuff

If I am particularly moved, I may back-update with two more Experimental Kitchen entries from last week (Arabian-style baked beef and eggplant; fettucine con sugo di spinachi, only with collard greens).

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: le couch
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/522205.html

First pickup of the farm share was today. Included was a bundle of leafy green called "dinosaur kale". I had no idea what to do with it, so went to the intarwubs. The result is rather loosely based on the Portuguese calo verde; I didn't have chorizo, for instance.

1. Chop up about 1/4 - 1/3 cup of onion. Start sauteeing it in garlic-infused olive oil.
2. No chorizo but there is one remaining strip of slab bacon in the freezer. Pull it out, dice it, throw it in the skillet.
3. There are also spuds in the farm share. Take 3/4 lb. of them, scrub, chop into 1/2" dice. By this time the bacon is reducing nicely, so go ahead and throw the taters in.
4. One might add broth now, but one has no broth. Pour in 1/3 cup of rioja to get on with.
5. Put the kettle on quick and produce 1 1/3 c. of mushroom bouillon. Add to pan.
6. Hey idiot, this is soup. Maybe you should use the POT, not the SKILLET. Rectify the error.
7. Let cook ~15 min. until the potatoes are cooked through. Meantime, cut the kale (3 oz of it) into fine julienne. Kale HATES to be cut, by the way. Particularly the stems.
8. When the potatoes are done, bring out the immersion blender and start blending.
9. Rinse spatters of boiling liquid off self, tools, counter, stovetop, and cat.
10. Perhaps the potatoes, though soft, are too much. There is possibly a tool for this. Apply potato masher.
11. Round 2: Go! Immersion blender still not entirely doing its thing; perhaps insufficient liquid. Eventually bodge it into a stewlike state.
12. Input kale, stir around. Stare in astonishment as it inhales all the liquid. Keep stirring for a few minutes as the kale wilts a bit.
13. Add salt and a bit of fresh ground red pepper flakes because why not? Serve it forth.

The result is a thick porridge rather than a soup. But it is really, really tasty, and exactly what I needed after a rotten commute and a burgeoning cold and wah. The kale stems are a little over-crunchy, but it provides tactile interest, kinda like having nuts or something in. A+++ would cook again.

Current Mood: sick
Current Location: le couch
Current Music: something moopy by the Cure
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/521893.html

[In which I am describing to elibalin the cleaning out of my former henchperson's office, which office I have snarfed because it's one of the best on campus.]

serinde: I found a few items of interest.

serinde: E.g., a cute little palm-sized screwdriver widget. I will loftily ignore the fact that it's from Goldman Sachs.

elibalin: A Goldman Sachs-branded device for screwing. Indeed.

Current Mood: productive
Current Location: l'uffizi
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/521605.html

The general agita of the past week has led to some fridge cleaning, which leads ineluctably to "let's use up some stuff that is a few days from messy decomposition".

1. Chop up some old garlic, carefully removing the center bits which are sprouting, and also some slightly-withered red onion. Add to skillet with olive oil for gentle frying.

2. Quarter a half-dozen withered but still juicy cherry tomatoes. Reserve for the moment.

3. Step away to do something else for a few minutes. Come back to realize the garlic is now blackened. IT WAS ON LOW HEAT, DAMMIT. Curse a bit and dump in a cup or so of cooked brown rice from last week. Stir it round a bit.

4. Add the tomatoes, and maybe about 1/2 cup of leftover hake from last Thursday. Stir again.

5. Put in a splash of vinho verde because why not?

6. Season with salt, pepper, thyme, and a pinch of herb-blend-for-lamb that

nedlnthred brought back from Istanbul. Let cook a bit more.

7. Eat, accompanied by the last of the vinho verde, and while reading one's favorite translation of the Odyssey.

(Pretty good; in future I'd either make it the all-garlic channel, or go further along the lines of diverse green herbs, thyme and rosemary and maybe a touch of oregano.)

Current Mood: listless
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/521384.html

0. Have a bunch of de-fatted ground almonds left over from making orgeat during a hurricane. Wonder what to do with them. Ah hah! Crusted fish.

1. Fall into a fugue state at Gourmet Garage. Wake up with .36 lb of hake fillet. What's a hake? Well, the Monterey Bay Aquarium says it's a "good choice", so fine.

2. Combine ~1/4c. of the almonds with ~1 Tbsp of leftover flour-salt-pepper-thyme mix from an earlier breaded thing.

3. Crack an egg into the bowl. Realize the whole thing is not needed to gum up this fillet, and that the white could go into a Ramos Fizz later. Extract the yolk, beat with a little milk.

4. Dip the hake into the egg, then into the almond/flour mix. Stare in astonishment as the entire thing gloms onto the fish side. Whip up another batch for the skin side.

5. Press the hake skin-side down into the new almond mix. Stare in astonishment as none of it sticks. FINE.

6. Put the hake nut-side down into a heated skillet that has some olive oil in on eh, medium heat or so.

7. Pour a glass of a remarkably acidic viognier.

8. Start writing this post. Five minutes in, OH HEAVENS MAH NUTS ARE BURNIN'. Flip the fish.

9. After a few moments, realize the fillet is probably cooked through anyways. Yep. Extract to plate.

10. Wow, that's really good! Spinach Cat likes the cat yums, too.

Current Mood: full
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/520774.html

There is much to say about this little swath of desert that has had its fantastic, luxurious habitat pastede on yay. Others have said most of it, so here's a laundry-list of impressions.

( The Bellagio is not quite how it looks in the Oceans Eleven remake. )

We spent much of our days wandering through the other hotels (of which I have taken an infinite number of pictures). There's the obvious differences in theme, of course, but equally fascinating are the different vibes / markets aimed at...which may or may not seem incongruous with said theme. Excalibur looks like a kid's castle play set, but it's clearly aiming for the trashier, frat-tastic demographic. Treasure Island is trying to downplay the pirates thing and replace it with bQQbies. Monte Carlo looks as if it was built to be high-end, but based on the stores inside they're trying for the middlin' market. And then there's the newest places like Aria and Cosmopolitan, which are eschewing themes at all other than "sleek and modernistic".

I was surprised at how many older, skeevier-looking places are still interspersed with the mondo huge resorts. I'd just assumed they'd all been bulldozed in, but not so. Some have been borged by them--e.g., O'Shea's, at which outside bar I left my camera, is actually owned by the Flamingo next door; but you wouldn't know unless you happened to go on a merry backstage quest with a security guy to the Place of Lost And Found which leads you into the guts of the Flamingo--but I think some are still independent.

( People watching. )

This is not a cocktail society. Nearly everything is a stupidtini with flavored vodka. Save your effort and just get cheap frozen daiquiris. Though I made a connection with a bartender, who used to live on 79th and Amsterdam, and I said "here, do me a solid. Make this French 75 you have here on your menu, but give it to me in a champagne flute not a wine glass, and DON'T PUT ICE IN IT." We got on famously. I do not blame him for his employer's weird-ass ideas of what a drink looks like as long as he'll fix it my way on request.

Coffee is weak like most of the US. But there are Starbucks in many of the hotels (though not ours), so you can get something that doesn't taste like brown crayon. Exception: the French bistro in Paris Las Vegas had nice strong coffee.

The Grand Canyon is everything it says on the box. You get a hell of a view flying in by helicopter, I can tell you. I would like to go visit on foot at some point, though. And Lake Mead looks incredibly inviting when it is 115 fucking degrees.

So even when it's well over 100, you jump in the pool, and you're cold when you get out because the wind is usually so strong. Then there's a period of an hour or so where you're staying cool through evaporation (unless you're in direct sunlight, in which case you fry in about 15 minutes). Then it's suddenly too hot to breathe and you jump back in the pool and start all over again. But what really drives you back inside? You get so dried out from the 11% humidity that you feel like your skin is cracking...even when it's still wet from the pool. Terribly odd feeling, this.

We have not visited Fremont St. and the old downtown. Could have today, but opted for a lazy day instead. That's okay.

I have not gambled yet. The games seem to fall into two categories: "for suckers" and "for big-time suckers". Tonight I may try Bond's method on the roulette wheel (back two of 1-12, 13-24, 25-36; they pay 2:1) or I may not. Do you know, the baccarat they play here, you do not get to choose whether to draw another card or not? What bullshit is this?

It's been a really fascinating and fun vacation, but I think I'm ready to come home and get back to my modest city mouse ways.

Current Mood: tired
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/520560.html

Today's lesson is that doing a search for reviews of Bluetooth headsets / handsfree kits has a worse S:N ratio than, I don't know, "Obama birth certificate".

So, lazyweb: I took your advice regarding the headphones to get, and am deliriously in love with my MC3s. What say you for going cordless? Is the Ety-BLU2 equally magic?

Current Music: Grateful Dead, "Ripple"
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/520225.html

Gentle readers, I present you my commute home, in which I:
* walked across Central Park on a perfect evening
* ...stopping en route for a ginger ice cream cone from the Van Leeuwen truck
* threaded through a black-clad exodus of Orthodox oompah-band hipsters (with instruments) complaining about needing finding roommates or they'd lose their sweet apartment
* picked up my dry-cleaning, but didn't get to play with the adorable calico kittens
* picked up cat litter, and did get to give scritchies to the friendly black-and-white shop cat
* whooped in hilarity at the Pepto-Bismol-pink stretch SUV crossing First Avenue

I love it here.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: the balcony
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/520137.html

As most of the Gentle Readers are aware, I have been happy in my apartment for the past two years. I was wibbling a little bit when renewal time came around this year (which I must needs sign in January, for a cycle date of April 1), but that was because I could use just a little more space to get my sewing on and reunite the last of my stuff that

sweh is storing for me, not because I wasn't content. But because I was still happy, and because I knew that the winter/spring was going to be direfully busy & I would be in no shape to hunt a new place, I re-upped.

Immediately, of course, my DSL and phone line started having continual issues, my drains started blocking up, and a bunch of annoying people moved into the building, which also compelled the live-in super (who can be ... tricky to deal with, but who thinks I'm dandy and was always happy to sign for my packages) to retire because she was sick of dealing with their shit.

The telecomms have been fixed. The drains have been fixed (New Super managed that, and seems nice enough, though he's a bit of a dip). However, the crazy Russians on the fifth floor still have their periodic shrieking, door-slamming 1am fights into the airshaft, the drunken twat on the fourth floor still slams all the buzzers at the wee hours 'cause she always forgets her keys[1]...and then there's Downstairs Guy.

I met Downstairs Guy in passing when he moved in, and he seemed like an okay guy; bit awkward. Local gossip via ex-super says he's a divorcee who is Getting Himself Together and all--well, I can surely relate. However, we find that his method of Getting Himself Together seems to revolve around a relationship with Mary Jane, if'n you knows what I means. This is none of my business and I would neither know nor care, except that he leaves his back door, some eight inches below my window, standing open when he lights up, and the smoke comes right up into my window, permeating all the way back to the bedroom. Apparently he does not like his apartment to smell of ganja. WELL NEITHER DO I.

Anyone who cracks wise about "lol contact high lol" will get nad-punches, because I cannot stand the smell of pot smoke; I never could, and if there is enough of it I get sick to my stomach. Nor am I going to close my windows, because a) I live for fresh air, and b) I don't have aircon so the instant we stop being 55 and rainy the place will be deadly if I do. After a certain amount of agonizing and whining on Facebook, as one does, I penned a polite note in which I mentioned that I had no objection to his pastime but I really disliked having the smoke in my apartment, so if he could close his door when smoking up I'd really appreciate it; and this I slipped under his door one fine morning.

Mirabile dictu, it actually seemed to work for a time, but in the last two weeks he's started up more than ever. One evening, fortified by cocktails, I actually yelled out the window "PLEASE TURN YOUR WEED DOWN", but I have no idea if he even heard it... New York custom permits of some several responses to this situation. Passive-aggressive, sarcastic notes posted publicly in the stairwell is a respected art form. There is always shot-rolling, i.e. making horrendous noises on my floor/his ceiling at hours of day or night for equivalent annoyance. One could whine to the super and/or the landlord. There is the nuclear option--hollering copper--but I have moral objections to that (and it's not like they'll put it at the top of their to-do list anyways). Or creative, specific solutions such as reaching down through the fire escape slats with my broomstick and closing his door forcibly when the smoke rises.

Or, hey, I guess I could go knock on his door and try talking to him. I have all kinds of resistance to this idea, as I am still deep down a self-effacing, non-confrontational, good Midwestern child. (Not to mention, if he decides to get stroppy, he will know for sure who His Enemy is.) Tonight, however, I actually got to the point of getting dressed again in preparation of so doing, but by the time I did he finished his doob and the smell was gone so I didn't really have anything to propel me.

I have no idea what I'm going to do if this doesn't work, though. Can one break one's lease because of smoky neighbors?

[1] This is much more amusing in Breakfast at Tiffany's than it is in real life, I do assure you.

Current Location: le couch
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/519786.html

User: I keep getting this error with Firefox. {description elided}
Student Helper: This happens when Firefox detects another profile in use. {fix elided}
User: That didn't work. Also this started happening when we started using this application hosted elsewhere, and other schools are saying they're having the same problem with it too. So please come troubleshoot it.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: l'uffizi
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/519509.html

Unlike many of my icons, I have no particular Sekrit Meaning here. I just love Hellboy's first encounter with pancakes.

Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/519298.html

( Warning: this post is not for the squeamish, or for those gentlemen who prefer the illusion that the ladyparts they stick their wicks into are precious and genteel paradises. )

Current Mood: drained
Crossposts: http://syringavulgaris.livejournal.com/519108.html

I haven't really posted about work since starting the new job a year ago. (Then again, I haven't posted much about anything, so it's not that I've been deliberately exclusionary.) But it is needful to set up some background before getting to the actual meat of this post.

( Lo: Background. )

( Primal conflict: man vs. self. )

( What do you do when you don't know what to do? )

( Takeaway: )