If I want to find the right-leaning equivalent of the New York Times on the internet, where would I go? I'd like to read the campaign coverage from a McCain-leaning reliable source as well as my standard NYT, which appears to be heavily in Obama's favor.

The overhead fluorescent lights in our office are really, really bright. They piss me off sometimes. I'm considering erecting a makeshift tent over my cubicle with coat hangers and a blanket, but that might be a little... conspicuous. I need a sombrero, or Terminator sunglasses, or something.

There's something else that's been bothering me.

In Predator, after Jesse Ventura gets offed, Ahnold puts "Gonna Have Me Some Fun", whatever his name is, on first watch. But it's already clear at that point that Have Me Some Fun is the one team member who took Jesse's death the hardest, and in fact, has had some screws knocked loose by it.

Is it ever tactically sound to put your most grief-stricken guy on first watch instead of making him sleep some of it off? Or was this done merely for the pig's sake?

It's a beautiful day outside, the birds are chirping, I can smell the bonfire my uphill neighbors have going, the ground is warm and dry enough to sit on. Ahhhhh.

I strung the guitar with its new nylon strings last night, and discovered that what I had thought were three thick metal strings on it before were still just nylon strings. Interesting. I expect it to continue going way out of tune until the strings settle in or something. I hope I did it right... I'm not entirely sure whether the end with the ball on it was meant to go at the pegs or at the bottom. It was easier to string with the ball on the pegs, though, so that's what I did.

I went around taking photos this morning; I wonder if I can convince my mother's laptop to download them, and also to upload them into my iPod so I can take more photos. Haw haw! I think I can pull it off, we'll see. I'm going to try to nab some of Dad's music in the same manner.

I gave him my episodes of Heroes to watch on his iTunes, too, and discovered to my dismay that iTunes had already thought of this, and asked for the password to the account which had purchased the episodes. I apparently am allowed to authorize up to 5 computers to view episodes I buy. I can already think of five computers I might reasonably want to authorize - mine and Jerry's current ones, mine and Jerry's future ones, and Dad's computer here - so I shall have to think of a different way to give cliosfolly the copy I promised. Maybe she could watch it from her iPod if we sync it to my computer first. Or maybe she'll just have to come to my place and have a marathon Heroes-watching. After the marathon Battlestar-Galactica-watching.

I'm hungry.

Neat, I can finally friendslock about two years' worth of my first foolishly public LJ entries all in one fell swoop... all 1116 of them. BAM!

This post edited to a public lock so all those people who were dying for the username "tammabanana" but found it taken don't growl at an empty page and shriek, "She isn't even using it!" I am too!

This is the Sekrit Project for my mom, which is no longer sekrit, since she came to visit me. It's finally done! That's Scarlet, checking it out.

Jerry has diarrhea. Just thought you ought to know.

I love this dumb chicken dish I found in Fine Cooking. I couldn't stop myself making it over and over again even if I wanted to, which I don't, because it's just good. All it is, is chicken thighs marinated all day in this mustard sauce and then roasted in the same pan as some potato/veggie mix... but it looks real fancy, and it doesn't require any technique more complicated than stirring, and it fits in that Pyrex baking pan that comes with a plastic lid (the larger one of a two-piece set) so you don't even have to transfer the food and wash the damn cooking dish, you just snap the lid on and throw the whole thing in the fridge.

I guess there's something of a lie in what I just said: it does require something more than stirring. After about a half hour in the oven, you start taking it out every 10 minutes to pour its own chicken juices over top of the chicken (either with a basting brush, or a basting sucky-tube thingy [which I use], or a spoon), and stir the veggies. But I grew up believing that cooking is something you do at the same time as camping out at the kitchen table with a good book, monitoring the cooking progress by sound and smell and pausing every now and then to stir, so this seems no great imposition to me.

The mustard marinade is: 3 tbsp dijon mustard; 3 tbsp olive oil; 1.5 tbsp balsamic vinegar; .25 tsp salt. This covers 4-8 chicken thighs, and you let 'em sit for 2-8 hours. The oven temperature is supposed to be something like 400 degrees, but I think it's okay to give or take 25. (Our crappy fire alarm is a little sensitive, I think; I've been doing it at 375, and it only takes maybe 10 minutes more than the original recipe states it ought to.) It cooks for maybe an hour total (1:10 in my oven), and you're checking in on it every 10 minutes while you baste/stir for the last half, so you can adjust that as necessary. The marinade on top of the chicken almost-but-not-quite looks burned when it's done.
And I think that with this marinade it's best if half the veggies are sweet potatoes; I've done it with the other half being parsnips, or regular potatoes, or (tonight) asparagus, and they're all good.

Have I posted this recipe already? It occurs to me that I might have, when I first learned it, because I was so impressed. That awe has not diminished with time. Rather, it has increased; I seem to have forgotten how fancy this looks when it hits the plates, with a nice glass of wine. Fine Cooking recommended any grenache blend; the Australian winery Yellow Tail (the ubiquitous one with the kangaroos all over the labels) makes a shiraz/grenache that I haven't dared stray from since the first time I tried making this meal, 'cos it's really good, too. I'm not normally a fan of reds, but this is good and drinkable shit.

Completely by accident, my mother didn't know I was coming home this week. It was nice to be clomping up the stairs, hearing her tell the dogs, "Yes, you're right, someone is here. I wonder who it is?" as she came to open the door, and then to watch that surprise and that smile spread across her face.

She skipped the nap she'd been contemplating and sat at the kitchen table talking and drinking wine with me - and when sina_bean called we all three talked together. That, too, was quite nice.

I'm taking a poll on people's interpretations of King Kong's ending, but since I let my paid user status expire it's just a text-poll in comments, not a nifty self-counting thingy.

( Spoilers for Peter Jackson's King Kong )

I've told Dad how to get his own Livejournal, and given him mine and sina_bean's usernames.

Sure hope I didn't write anything inappropriate, because I don't really feel like going back further than six months hunting for embarrassing things I should be locking my parents out of. I still haven't finished just plain old friendslocking the first year or two of this journal.

*thinks*
*worries*
*goes back an extra six months anyway*

Future entries are friendslocked, and friends list adjusted by virtue of the People Who Have You Listed As A Friend thingy (with the exceptions of people I don't really know or talk to). I'll have missed anybody who's since removed me from their own friends list, so please let me know if you've just got me bookmarked but still want to keep up, or something.

Anybody know an easy way to friendslock the whole slew of past entries, too?

Ah, sweet internet, how I love thee!

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!

Maybe I should wash dishes before we leave town for the weekend, looking for apartments. That would probably be smart.

Every time I smell ground beef browning in an iron skillet, I question the sanity of vegetarians.

Cookie Monster eats healthy diet! Oh noez!!!!

I'm in favor, personally. Has there ever been anyone who loves eating as much as Cookie does? He's the man to go to, to encourage eating things cheerfully. And you never know. Maybe he's been eating salads and steaks off-camera all this time. A monster can't live on cookies alone.

And it's not like you can't eat three very healthy meals in a day and still scream "COOKIE!!!" at the end of it. Or in the middle of it. Or first thing in the morning. Lord knows it's easy for me, I bet Cookie Monster can manage.

"Sometimes the moon looks like a cookie, but you can't eat the moon."

My sister says that tonight there's a message when you update that reads something along the lines of "Processing your whining;" I'm just posting so I can see it, too. She laughed *really* loudly when she saw it.