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When it's really bitterly cold for a long stretch of time, I get depressed. I hate it when I can't be outside for 60 seconds without turning into an icicle, even when I have fifty layers on. Long periods of rainy weather can also get me kind of down. Snow's a bitch to drive in, but at least it is pretty. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| I went over to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) justphoenix's place this afternoon to watch the new Star Trek Rifftrax thingy with some people. It was pretty funny. Also, her cats are very cute.
When I was driving home, I saw a car with a license place that read: X SNIKT X
Hee.
Then at home I watched the Doctor Who Christmas special with Justin. It was...weird. Also, I am starting to feel like RTD has a bdsm fetish. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| The holidays are nearly over, but the main part of it is done. In retail land, things are starting to bleed into each other.
Sorry Alisha, I hope your family didn't beat you up too much.
Ungrateful ass family, My Aunt Judy asked for Oatmeal cookies for christmas. So I made them for her. I made 2 other types of cookies in quantity for them. What did they want, those damn oatmeal cookies.
I could cut their faces off. I made cookies for Thanksgiving, no one said they liked oatmeal.
So todays event will be with cookies. I may even complete them and add chocolate. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Today I opened a monster storm of virtual presents in Farmville, cleaned and packed some more things away, and then we went out to eat for dinner at Henrietta's Table, one of my favorite restaurants! They always have a yummy cheese plate! I had delicious salmon and "mocktail" and yummy tea and Tom and I shared a gingerbread cake dessert. And he got alcohol - they always have the best pairings there! He had some kind of iced cider wine with the cheese that smelled delicious. We can always go back! I can't wait to be NOT pregnant and not on the gestational diabetes diet - it has even less flexibility in it than weight watchers. Sigh. Only about a month and a half to go! Luna (my cat) is having a very hard time understanding that I no longer want her sitting right on my stomach - it really doesn't feel good any more! So I've been trying to get her used to sitting on the side of my tummy - half on the armrest - that works much better. Well, Tom is playing his Mario game, and I'm fiddling around on facebook, but I might go to bed early tonight, I think! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Had the fetal growth ultrasound yesterday. Looks like things are going okay in there. His head has turned down (yay!), and he weighs about 5lbs now. The maternal fetal medicine specialist (who's managing the blood clot risk) said I should start doing kick counts each night, and at some point I'd have to come in for non-stress tests (on the baby) about 1 or 2 times a week. I'm hoping we can roll the non-stress tests into my regular OB appointments. I'm about at the limit of what I can physically manage and still get to work with any semblance of actually working. I tried doing the kick counting last night and lost my place about 3 or 4 times... I'm going to have to get one of those clicky counting things!
This morning I met with the diabetes nurse to go over all my glucose blood tests. They are okay. She said I was doing a much better job tracking and especially with writing down all my foods with the carb grams next to them - that was really good. She said about a third of my dinners were too high, however and I needed to be more careful or they could be a problem. I've already started getting out of things I'm supposed to be doing at nights, trying not to have any nights out after work, so I have a more time to spend on it. She said during the holiday season a lot of women just go ahead and take insulin preemptively before dinners, but that if I could watch what I'm eating a little better, I wouldn't have to. It's just hard. At least I'm starting to find some things that work, that don't involve me cooking. She also said that insulin resistance goes up naturally during pregnancy and at some point it could happen that my fasting glucose levels will just go up, no matter what I do, and then I'll have to start taking insulin. Sigh. Guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there - less than two months left! | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I like to think I am a reasonable movie goer. I am willing to play along and go with it for the sake of art direction and plot. But Avatar was not good. I did not like it. Without spoliers, I will just say what I thought.
I have mental categories for judging movies.
Plot
Acting
Art Direction (or cinematography)
and on a pass/fail music.
Plot.
Awful. I am not stupid. Really! Gullible, yes, easily tricked, yes, stupid, no.
Acting.
Ok. No one was terrible.
Art Direction/Cinematography
Very good. I love the 3d and the seamless-ness of the animation-to-real life.
I was worried that it would appear more gimicky then valid, but Cameron did a good job between using the 3d to represent depth and the "ooh sparklie" aspect.
Music.
Sadly, this gets an incomplete. Either the music is good. You remember it, it highlights important scenes, or add emotion to (weak) acting. Usually, it's something you don't pay attention to. Then there are times where it's god-awful (Eragon) where it just hammers you with emotions you were not feeling. This movie had a bit of both. There are times where I didn't feel the music, it was part of the background, but during the epic battle scenes, they amped it up and I was annoyed.
This movie is long. While I like exploring worlds, seeing other peoples creativity, but this was very long. I felt the time. I saw this in 3d imax so near the 2 hour mark, my eyes got tired.
Verdict:
Worth seeing, if you want to see the possible future of movies technologically, but otherwise that's it. It's a must see at the movies 3d. Otherwise it's for tv with commercials.
also
I found super h mart. yay! | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | movie | | Subject: | Avatar | | Time: | 11:58 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v105/Coraline82/doctor%20who%20moodtheme/geeky.gif) geeky |
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| I saw "Avatar" today. I thought it was really good. The special effects were amazing. It was almost impossible to tell that it was CGI and not live action, except for the fact that all those cool aliens don't really exist.
The plot was kinda cliche, the whole "evil humans exploit innocent indigenous species" thing, but it was still enjoyable.
The world just looked so awesome, especially with the 3D. It's the next best thing to actually getting to explore an alien planet! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | What's the deal, and WTF? Since I started driving in the early 1970s, I was taught that when you pull up to the gas pump one is REQUIRED to turn off the vehicle's engine while refilling, because extremely flammable and explosive liquids around an active ignition source like the car's engine. HELLO!! Addtionally, even though current pump price is much less that about 18 months ago or so, it still strikes me as a wasteful practice. However, around here it seems to be fairly routine for people to leave their cars running throughout the refueling procedure; if I remember correctly, most states have statutes or regulations carry the force of law that make these scofflaws subject to police citation. Maybe these cars are so poorly constructed that within the the few minutes it takes to refuel their car will cool down to the ambient temperature and make the passengers uncomfortable; in other words, a little chilly? | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Jason (my brother) posted this, it is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life.
http://technochicken.com
You know how I am about chickens. Tasty!
We've gotten about 6 inches of snow here so far, and no signs of letting up. All the house shopping had to be cancelled. :-( | | comments: Leave a comment |
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I think snow is pretty, but I don't like to drive in it. And by February I'm pretty damn sick of it. If I was rich, I'd probably spend most of the winter in a warmer climate, like Mexico or Greece. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Got home before the snow started tonight! It's supposed to be a real blizzard! I'm so excited. Tom says that's only because I won't have to shovel - and that's certainly a big part of it!
I went out with my "Little Sister" for dinner tonight. We went to her favorite restaurant - "The 99". It was good. The first thing out of Shannon's mouth was - look at this delicious dessert - it's too big to eat alone! So of course we ended up sharing. We just talked and talked. I find that sort of just "girl talk" to be very relaxing. Then we went back to her house, and of course she got all hyper from the sugar, which was pretty funny. It was a good evening.
Now I just want to see some snow!!! | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | So would one necessarily think that Shojo Beat, a manga magazine put out by Viz Media, is the great source for book recommendations; well, you might be surprised. Some months back they ran a short interview and book announcement about Turning Japanese by Cathy Yardley? Basic plot outline a small town lady, Liz Falloya who is a Japanese/Italian/American, from upstate New York wins a manga contest put on by a Japanese publisher, and one of the prizes for winning is a one year internship with the publisher in Japan, and this book is the fictional story of her year in Japan. During her year in Japan she goes through huge homesickness, huge adjustments to her internship, but after a little while she connects some with her host family, and finds a reason to enjoy her internship besides as the chance to work on manga in Japan. But, she has some problems that were unexpected with the friends, family and fiancee she left back in the U.S. I enjoyed this book alot; in my opinion, this has potential to be considered the Bimbos of the Death Sun for anime and manga fandom, although it's a completely different type of story.
Since reading this I've learned that Ms Yardley is known as a genre romance writer, but this book would require industrial level shoehorning to fit this text into romance genre. Cathy shows an amount of famaliarity with geek culture, since there are appropriate references to Gaiman, Gibson and Sterling. However, it's not perfect in this aspect, the book's opening scene is in San Diego's ComicCon, because Liz and some of her anime friends from New York go the convention annually. According to anime/manga fans I know San Diego ComicCon is not really a big deal for their fandom. (I could make a geeky comparison using CreationCons as an example, but I'm not going to). I have no way of knowing if Cathy's description of life at a manga publisher is anything like she describes it or not. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Crack | | Time: | 02:14 pm |
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| Mister James Morrow, I enjoy your smack talk, sir.
SCOUNDREL OF THE YEAR
So there I was, all set to convert to Judaism, my war with God having finally ended, and then along comes the imperially pious Senator Joseph Lieberman. Sorry, Yahweh. Tough darts, Adoni. The deal is off. If You cannot be bothered to inform Mr. Lieberman that You are personally revolted by his gelding of health-care reform in the United States, then I’m going back to worshipping trees.
From this entry.
Edited to reflect updated formatting in original post. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| IOWA CITY (AP) - An Iowa City woman is charged with theft for allegedly failing to return 53 DVDs she borrowed from the local public library.
Authorities say Saira Virginia Denny-Cline was charged late Tuesday for failing to return the DVDs, due back at the library on Oct. 2.
According to police, the Iowa City Public Library staff sent a certified letter to Denny-Cline noting the items were "long overdue." The letter said the 53 DVDs, valued at $1,360, were to be returned or paid for within two weeks of the notice.
Court records indicate the notices also said a lack of action would result in the case being pursued as theft.
Iowa City Woman Arrested for Not Returning DVDs | KCRG-TV9 | Cedar Rapids, Iowa News, Sports, and Weather | Local News
Don't fuck with the library. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| I have been cooking a lot of recipes from my clean eating magazine and I am finding that it is lacking a lot of flavor. I need to add salt. Then it's pretty ok.
ah.
anyway I am not dead, tho I will pretend to be for a while.
Thanks and have a nice day. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Okay, this is a bit scary:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19777.cfm
"Bayer has admitted it has been unable to control the spread of its genetically-engineered organisms despite 'the best practices [to stop contamination]'(1). $2 million US dollar verdict against Bayer confirms company's liability for an uncontrollable technology."
Why are we allowing companies to test GMO crops out in the open again? What's going to happen to all the organic farmers at the farmers market, that I like to shop at? | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | I had a good time at Matt's movie night yesterday. We watched "Real Genius", I was one of the few who hadn't seen it already. Fun movie. Matt also made chocolate cakes for us, and we ordered pizza. Yum! And I got to pet the chinchilla. So cute! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Had another OB visit and also a childbirth class today. The OB said I was doing a decent job managing the gestational diabetes, and that I just needed to get more dinner readings in. So that was encouraging. It's very hard and I thought I was missing too many readings to do any good, but she said I was actually doing a decent job considering how hard it is and to just work harder on the dinner readings. So, yay! I gained 1/2 lb at this visit (the last one was two weeks ago) which with all the early weight loss puts me at about +2 lbs or so total. The baby's heartbeat was fine, his movements are fine, my blood pressure is fine, everything seems fine.
I had quite a bit of shortness of breath lately, and the doctors (almost my whole cadre - the OB, primary care, hematologist, and maternal fetal medicine specialist) checked me out and had a big phone conference and decided it was just normal pregnancy shortness of breath, and that the odds of it being a blood clot were so low as to not worry about it. So, I don't have to do further testing for that, yay! Apparently it is just 6 months of extreme motion-sensitive morning sickness and the resultant hiding in bed catching up to me. I've been walking 15 minutes or more most days, and the OB said to keep that up and just go slower and take it easy if I get short of breath.
I'm now looking for a birth Doula. I had no idea how expensive they are! Tom and I just think given how anxious I am, and how far away my own mother is, it is a good idea to have an extra support person around. It's too bad all my friends who've had babies have moved away!!! I think having someone experienced there will help me stay calm and focused, and maybe I can stave off the dreaded c-section! As much as that's possible. Watch me go and have a breech baby after all this. But even if I have to have a c-section, I don't want to be knocked unconscious because I'm raving like a panicky loon. I want to be awake when my baby is born and hold him and feed him as soon as possible afterwards. I think even then a Doula would help me stay calm. I've gotten some good recommendations, so now we just have to find the time to interview a few people for a good fit!
Also, I now have 99% of my holiday shopping done! I'm not doing very many Christmas cards this year, considering I'll probably be doing birth announcements in a month or two, so don't be disappointed if you don't get one from me - immediate family and grandmas only! And Amy, because she sent me the adorable picture of her kid. But that's it!
Childbirth class tonight was all about interventions, and I was so squeamish and obviously anxious the teacher came up and gave me a big hug afterwards. A doula definitely sounds like a good idea for me! We had infant CPR this week as well, at Isis Maternity, and the teacher was just hilarious. I'm glad I took the class. They also went over what to do if the kid is choking, and how to make your house safe (apparently latex balloons are the #1 baby choking hazard).
The only other thing going on in my life right now besides work is we are looking at selling our condo and buying a house. I have no idea what we'll be able to afford - we've started looking with a realtor in the suburbs, and have a big day planned for Sunday. Our seller realtor said that we should be able to sell the current condo at a high enough price to get our down payment back, which is nice. I hope it all works out! | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
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