I'm Laura, a 20-something geek from upstate New York now living in Missouri.
I can be found most often in my kitchen, on my couch with a good fantasy book and hot cup of tea, or playing WoW assisted by copious amounts of Mountain Dew.
I wrote this website to be my outlet to the internet. Anything is fair game here - rants, recipes, reviews or rambling. Browse awhile, and feel free to leave a note in passing!
Keep track of new posts!
05 Aug 2008 10:35:56 AM
My computer is finally up and running. New 500gb hard drive, clean install of Hardy*, so far so good. It has a stupidly-loud rear fan, 'tis true, but I poked a bit and discovered that what is screwed in can be replaced.
*I'm using a fresh /home for the first time since Slackware 7.0. It's shocking how much better the system runs once it's not tripping over bizarre .rc files...
Things to do today:
- Head by the clinic on the way home from work. I have had it up to here (*gestures*) with this cough.
- Go to the grocery store? Still not sure what my chances are of making dinner between whenever I get out of the doctor's and when raid starts. I'm guessing they're not very good, though.
- Raid (Hyjal again, finally.)
- Install various games on the new system. The latest cedega beta offers support for NWN2, which I didn't like much when I tried it on my old computer. That computer certainly wasn't built with NWN2 in mind, and it ran badly to say the least so I feel it deserves a second try. If it still sucks on the new comp, I'll chalk it up to just being a crappy game.
- Copy data off of the old IDE drives onto the new SATA one. I'm running on one 500gb SATA instead of 2 500gb IDEs, but they weren't close to full so I'm not really worried. Alternatively, I could buy another SATA cable and use the 160gb that came with the comp, which already has my mp3s copied onto it.
04 Aug 2008 10:54:16 AM
114.
That's the total number of potstickers that bbqdaffid and I made on Saturday. Phew!
Our recipe was based on Jaden Hair's (SteamyKitchen.com). We used chicken, turkey, bok choy*, green onion and ginger. If we'd remembered bamboo shoots, they would have been in there too. Wrapping them wasn't nearly as hard as I'd anticipated, and the only real 'gotcha' is that the edges of the finished dumplings like to dry out a bit. If we hadn't been making quite so many I doubt they would have been sitting out for very long, though, so YMMV.
A dozen of the first ones were cooked up on the spot and dipped in hoisin. We had to make sure they were edible, right? The verdict was 'darn tasty', so on we labored.
102 dumplings later, and we were out of filling. We froze them overnight, then foodsaver'd them up in packages of 10. We each took half - 50 apiece. I have plans for some of mine, accompanying a beef and asparagus stirfry tomorrow night.
31 Jul 2008 09:58:38 AM
Dan made a rule: "Until you can go for 24 hours without puking, you can't go to work."
I seem to have passed, so here I am, at work. Freezing, I might add, but that's par for the course even when non-sick.
I have tea. And Dayquil. And 7 hours to go.
30 Jul 2008 09:28:13 AM
Still home. Dan's rule: until I can go 24 hours without puking, I can't go back to work.
Still feel like crap. At least most of the dizziness is gone and my spine doesn't feel like I could rip it out of my body one vertebrae and it would feel /great/. Icy Hot pads are the greatest invention since sliced bread. Speaking of bread, we have none atm. I fail at toast. :(
Spent most of yesterday making envelopes - I'd had a feeling, feeling as I did while going to bowling on monday, that Tuesday was not going to be a good day, so I stopped at Hobby Lobby and picked up a big book and some loose sheets of patterned paper. Along with the envelopes for our wedding invites I'd ordered some pretty folded plain cards. Figured I could make some neat envelopes and liven up the everyday mail a bit. I like how they turned out... pics when I feel like standing again.
29 Jul 2008 11:32:21 AM
Whatever bug I was starting to get on Monday morning seems to have hit with a vengeance. Lying down makes my stomach and intestines work backwards, I weirdly dizzy; can barely stand or walk straight (something's wrong with my sinuses). At a few points during the night I had nothing better to do than hang around in the bathroom, figured I'd see whether my digital thermometer still worked. 'Bout what I figured, 100.3.
Staying home today, needless to say.
Rimsky-Korsakov - Ivan the Terrible
28 Jul 2008 09:39:00 AM
Today, I am: Sunburned.
Today, my perfume is: The Lady of Shalott.
Also, I have a sinus headache which is making me want to drive a spike into my head via my nose, the office is FREEZING, and I seem to have left both my sweatshirts at home. Adding insult to injury, Starbucks fucked up my cappucino. Today is starting off badly to say the least.
Re: the sunburn, the weekend at the lake was fun. As promised there was much lying in the lake on floaty things and drinking raspberry Smirnoff Ices. Dan and I stopped by this highly nifty outlet mall on the way back, at which I spent certainly more than I ought on various kitchen toys, a new cherry-red leather wallet and new watch (*squee* for my awesome Fossil cuff watch). Got home, went out to dinner as cooking was out of the question. Fell asleep at 9:30pm.
(Woke up briefly during the thunderstorm and feared for my tomatoes. Holy shit, midwest - what gave rise to thatparticular display of meteorological temper tantrums?)
Nightwish - Passion and the Opera
22 Jul 2008 10:03:20 AM
I am feeling decidedly witchy today. Not bitchy, necessarily, but close. More like... black clothes, black eyeliner, red lipstick, pentacle, hair kept in chignon-y place with my new hairsticks -- the ones with black cats on them.
Today is a don't-fuck-with-me-day.
It stormed last night. Rarely have I heard a storm that violent - I'm almost surprised that my garden made it through. I haven't checked, actually -- for all I know, it didn't. Heavens know the lettuce could do with some pruning, so maybe it's all to the good. However - between being woken up by crashes of thunder we had the cat alternately squeeking and sleeping on my arm, and the puppy alternately whining or squirming around when Dan relented and brought him in to sleep with us.
Sleep was not on his list of things to do, and he made sure that it wasn't going to be on ours, either.
On the list of shiny things -- I picked up my new computer last night, and had a start at setting it up. All looks well, if you discount my boneheadedness in choosing a motherboard with only one IDE slot >_< (This is fine for the built-in hardware, but my plan had been to chuck the 160gb SATA drive that the setup came with, and use my two 500gb IDE hdds instead. This is foiled by only having one extra IDE connector: the second one on the DVD drive's cable.) My choices appear to be:
1. Get an IDE -> SATA adapter. From the reviews on tigerdirect and newegg, these things are finicky at BEST.
2. Use the SATA drive for my mp3s - I was only using 120gb of the 500gb drive anyway - and hook my main 500gb to the second IDE channel and set the system to boot off of it.
Option 2 is the one we'll be going with for now. Ultimately I'd like to have my terabyte of hdd space back, so I'll be upgrading the pansy 160gb SATA to a 500 at some point in the future. But for now, this should work out alright.
(Anyone want a 500gb EIDE drive?)
21 Jul 2008 10:45:47 AM
We're back - had a great time seeing everyone and doing everything. :)
I have nifty presents from Lake George for other people, and nifty hairsticks and chainmail chokers from the renfaire for me.
Also a rather large case of apathy - really, I ought to learn to take off the day after vacation, too. Although with the cat and the dog, the house isn't exactly 'quiet time' anymore, either*.
In a nutshell:
Wandered Manhattan and saw Amy and Mike's new house (shiny!). Drove up with Mom and hiked around North Lake and Kaaterskill Falls. Ate a large quantity of wild blueberries. Spent a couple of days at the lake, took boat rides, went for aimless drives, wandered around Prospect Mountain. Watched Laura, which I'd been meaning to see for years (excellent movie). Drove to vkrafft's and went to Sterling Renfaire. Ate salt potatoes and steak-on-a-stake, saw jousting, disobedient red-tailed hawks, a sword swallower and an ironic circus-performer's balancing act. Caught the plane home on Sunday.
Flights were on time. Got a ride home from the airport.Kevin took spectacular care of the house, so we didn't have a mess or anything to deal with. Put stuff away. Hooked up the new** TV. Realized that the impending destruction of the old entertainment center meant "What do we do with the DVDs?!" Went to BestBaiBuy and picked up a black & stainless steel wire contraption which promises to hold something like 360 DVDs. Assembled it. Sorted DVDs. Filled contraption: I blame the VCR tapes. Had ravioli on the couch. Slept.
Bowling tonight -- wish me luck!
* I used to be able to put them both outside. Have I mentioned Ouiser's recently-acquired trick of sneaking under the chain link fence into the neighbor's yard? He's very proud of it: I think he can do it in 2.5 seconds flat. So, 'til we get that fixed he's not allowed outside unless on a leash.
** It doesn't work, yet. The appointment with the repair guy is this afternoon, and he promises that he can fix it. I still maintain that 56" is WAY too f**king large for our little living room and consequently looks completely absurd, but... gift horse, mouth, etc.
Within Temptation - Memories
10 Jul 2008 10:07:44 AM
Gave blood yesterday morning.
Annual OB/GYN appointment yesterday afternoon, including first stage Gardasil vaccination.
Result? Tired as fuck, with bruises on my upper arm from where the crappy phlebotomist squeezed the blood pressure cuff WAY TOO TIGHT in an attempt to get my vein where she could stab it*, and a sore elbow and shoulder from various needles being stuck into me.
The high point of the day was the bimonthly post-donation trip to Tucker's Place, which is the best steakhouse I've ever experienced. It's just ... steak. Damn good steak. And a baked potato, and a small salad, and a roll. Nothing else. No fancy crap, no massive portions, just normal food. Bonus points: the place is cheap. We can't get out of O'Charley's for less.
On the schedule tonight is laundry, in preparation for packing for NY, and prebowling.
* The eventually-summoned supervisor got it in 1.4 seconds flat, no random stabbing, muttering or squeezing. I'm not bitter, really.
Elis - Lost Soul
28 Jul 2008 09:25:31 AM
Dell: 0. http://www.ibuypower.com: 1*
I put together a modestly spectacular quad-core 2.66GHz, Nvidia 8600GT 1GB DDR2, SB Audigy system for less than Dell wanted for a lesser dual-core, and they had more little perks (better speaker system, pro wiring, cold cathode lighting, shiny case, etc). I skimped on the hard drive and just got a blank formatted 160gb, since I'm 99% confident now that my hard drives are just fine and it was the motherboard on the old system that died. I'll just reformat mine, put Ubuntu Hardy on it and be sitting back on my comfortable 1TB of drive space.
Glee!
*For what it's worth, I believe that every prebuilt computer company is going to have devotees who've had no problems whatsoever, and enemies who have nothing but horror stories. There's no way for a computer to be failproof, whether it's prebuilt or homebrew. You rolls the dice and you makes your choice, and you try not to spend too much on it that you're completely screwed when it inevitably breaks down. It's just machinery.
July 23rd, 2008
The 'addcomment.php' page necessary for replying directly to comments appears to have gone AWOL, and I've given up trying to figure out how. I'm hoping that I had it backed up on my [now-dead] main computer, but until I get an operating system on its replacement I won't know how much I've permanently lost. Worst-case scenario, I'll rewrite the script. You see?! This is why we can't have nice things!
July 10th, 2007
I know, I know, make up my mind! Anonymous commenting is now re-enabled, with a still fairly basic anti-spam routine involved in the add comment script. I'll be making it more sophisticated as crap filters through. If you get denied and you had a legitimate comment, please email me and let me know what it was?
May 13, 2007
Woah, hey, who's been playing with the CSS around here?!
Introducing: Soliloquy v. 3.
Links
Personal
My LiveJournal
My icon journal
MySpace
My Amazon.com wishlist
Code
Podcast Aggregator
Screenshots
Laptop: XUbuntu 7.04
Work laptop: Ubuntu 7.04, Gnome, embedded terminal and Conky
Desktop: Slackware 10.2, WindowMaker
Webby Stuff
Something Positive
Penny Arcade
Questionable Content
Ctrl-Alt-Del Comic
Real Life Comics
Two Lumps
VG Cats
MegaTokyo
Three Panel Soul
PVP Online
Slashdot
PerlMonks
MetaQuotes
PostSecret
Overheard in New York
OverClocked ReMix
My RSS List
CuteOverload! :)
Metaquotes
Cooking @ LiveJournal
Kitchen Wench
La Mia Cucina
Lucullian Delights
Farmgirl Fare
Jaden's Steamy Kitchen
MattBites
Married...with Dinner
The Sour Dough
Slashdot
Gizmodo
Slate - Human Nature
Shadow Muse
Mom Almighty
Bark Like a Fish, Damnit!
The LJDQ
Kalustyans
The contents of my kitchen! (TBC)