buttercup

Rabbit has developed a fondness for cooking shows, which is kind of fun. Unfortunately, her favorite is RACHAEL RAY. Whom I can only take in small doses. Ms. Ray, saying "extra-virgin olive oil" every time you say "e-v-o-o!" kind of takes away the whole point of making up an abbreviation. But usually her recipes make up for the cutesiness, and her enthusiasm can be catchy. And she certainly doesn't annoy me enough to make me join a community devoted to despising her.

I thank my lucky stars she doesn't prefer Everyday Italian Urchin or that horrible curse that has befallen food, Sandra Lee.

Psst . . . you wanna see something strange and a little not safe for work? Check out these pics from her FHM photo shoot. Eergh. She is cute, granted, but those pictures . . . just don't work. Creepy.

Rabbit has also shown good taste in her liking of Ina Garten and my boy Alton Brown, and her tolerance of Paula Deen. Her indifference toward Michael Chiarello needs to be fixed, though.

(We try to make Sundays lazy days and sometimes in the morning while we're still a little groggy we'll lay down together and watch a little cooking. It's actually a lot more fun than it sounds like it would be. And it's definitely better than watching "Oobi" aka that hand show that creeps me out even more than Rachael Ray in FHM.)

Welcome back, Mr. President. It's so nice of you to cut your absurdly long vacation short now, after the damage has been done. Hope you're not too tired from all the bike-riding and clearing brush!

(By the way, almost a year's worth of vacation days in less than five years' time? That's AWESOME! Rock on. Ignore all those haters -- they're just jealous because they don't get paid for vacationing and sometimes don't even get to take vacations at all. SUCKERS.)

I hope you didn't forget to sneer at Cindy Sheehan and call her Not A Patriot before you left!

XOXOXO

(like sunshine on a cloudy day.)

Oh, y'all, I'm so sorry. Flooding, looting, blackouts, busted levees, water that you can't drink, evacuation, and although this:

"Officials reported that a 3-foot shark had been spotted cruising the flooded streets."

is probly the least of your problems, it still creeps me out mightily. And martial law, that's just scary.

Normally I would go on a rant about the looters who are making the situation ten times worse than it would be otherwise (necessities are one thing, but this is another), but I think anyone who is not currently planning their next boys'-night-out sleepover looting spree is thinking the same thing.

I was worried enough when the tornadoes came close to us last night -- I can't imagine having to live through a catastrophe that is being described by FEMA as "the most significant disaster ever to hit the United States in FEMA's history." It's heartbreaking to think of people in that situation.

No, nothing I've posted here is news to anybody, I just couldn't NOT say anything. I wish we could do something, but all we can do is wait until we have money and send it where it's needed.

Thankfully, all of Ben's family in AL was far enough away from the Coast that I don't think they would have been hit. There's a small silver lining, but it's hard to be relieved, and it feels a little selfish, when everything else is a mess.

Okay, I haven't really been a Wallflowers fan since high school and my giant crush on Jakob Dylan. It was one of those crushes that sort of faded away without drawing any attention to itself.

But that cover, for some reason, has seduced me. Is it its birdiness? The color scheme? Who knows. I submitted because . . . I'm not sure why. Oh, I got the new Ben Folds free when I bought it, that's a pretty good reason. Especially since I've been waiting for "Songs for Silverman" for three thousand years. So long that I forget I DON'T have it, sometimes.

Maybe this is why I'm broke. Hmm . . . perhaps.

Turn your blog into a bound book. This is actually a pretty cool service, and not too expensive. You could do it yourself, yes, but I would really only consider doing that if my blog were some sort of intensely personal project; then I would print it out on nice paper and hand-bind it. I think this is a good idea for general blogs, or progress-oriented blogs.

If I knew someone in RL who had a blog that was very important to him/her, this would totally be giving me xmas ideas.

Oh, Festa Stuff, you had such potential. I'm always on the lookout for Virginia-specific tees because I have yet to find the perfect one, although the not-ironic one from the Cat and Girl shop was pretty dang close.

But nooo, you have no Virginia tee! And even worse, the Southern Girl tee, which would be my fallback, is dreck! Shall I quote?

Southern Girls! Here's your chance to tell the world you're...

"sweet, sassy, charming, classy, sundress-wearing, sweet-tea-drinking, bright, beautiful, belle-of-the-ball..."

...and the bottom of the shirt says, "do i look like i drive a pickup truck???"
(And if you do drive a pickup truck, more power, respect!)

Really? Sundresses? "Belle of the ball"? I won't complain about the sweet tea drinkin', I've done my fair share. The rest is generic. And the bottom, with the lame-ass pickup truck line? Hey, this is the bottom of the Kentucky Girl tee: "peace * love * horses * bourbon * basketball * bluegrass." See how much better that is? Still lame, but BETTER. The brainstorming session for the Southern Girl tee must not have generated too much electricity. East Coast Girl isn't exactly great, either.

So, uh, anyway . . . I was disappointed. But thanks for trying.

P.S. I really should have known better after spotting Trust Fund Girl and Country Club Girl. Sometimes I'm a little slow.

P.P.S. I know there are other things worth mentioning here, girl vs. woman and gender stereotyping etc., but I really don't think you're the sort of company to care, and also, this is supposed to be a fluffy post, so it will wait.

(link via Pop Culture Junk Mail)

Because I hadn't heard of this thing until today, and I'm not sure if that's because I'm living under a rock or if it just hasn't been hyped a lot, here's the info on Operation Ceasefire. The basics: free concert, September 24, on the Mall, anti-war.

I've heard Mom talk about stuff like this, and I know she and people like her will think this means that those involved aren't supporting the troops and are making them feel like they're over there for nothing. Oh bull. Sweet lord, I'm sorry, I know I'm not very pretty-speaking, but hearing my mom say things like that just makes me want to . . . bite something or cry, I'm not sure which. Does she think that I don't support my sister and brother-in-law? Just because I want the BIL out of Iraq, and I don't want my sister to go?

I CAN SUPPORT OUR TROOPS WITHOUT RINGING THE WAR BELL. It's "anti-war," not "anti-soldiers."

That is all. Now I have to find something non-political to post because I'm very frustrated right now with everything. And that includes my horribleness with words when it comes to explaining my position on stuff like this. I hope the message is understandable even if the wording is clear as mud.

Really, Rummy? A DoD-organized parade and concert (I'm sorry, "musical salute") to commemorate September 11th? Of all the crap. Tying in remembering that day with supporting our troops? More crap. How about throwing your "America Supports You" parade on, say, Memorial Day, or Independence Day, or even a random day, since the troop-supporting should really take place throughout the year?

Please don't get me wrong, I support our troops; I don't support the war, but I support our troops. But this is distasteful, tactless, and kind of revolting. Honestly, I'm not even sure why I loathe it so, I just do so instinctively, and am picking up on the reasons why as the day goes along and I stew over it a little more.

I would probably feel a little better about it if it were, say, the weekend after the eleventh. Or even the day before. But not on the actual day. And if there were no freaking COUNTRY MUSIC CONCERT.

The Post dropped its sponsorship because of the pro-war slant, leading to a Newspaper Guild rep giving us this gem of a quote:

"The Post has a code of conduct that says employees should avoid a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest," said Rick Ehrmann, a Local representative for the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. "In this case The Post was sponsoring the Pentagon's Freedom Walk, which ties the attack on Sept. 11 to the Iraq war, and of course, The Post's reporters have proven ... that there is no connection between the two, that that link is false."

Basically, because the event is pretty much political (pro-war), news media should not be sponsoring it. And I think it's pretty obvious that it's political. So, WTOP, since you're backing the Freedom Walk, are you backing Operation Ceasefire, too? (I would like to point out that Op Ceasefire is [decently] being held later in the month of September; if it were being held on the eleventh, I would be just as pissy about that. Well, maybe a little less, because Op Ceasefire is not being organized by the DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, but anyway . . . )

I don't know if my blood pressure is going to be able to withstand three more years. Really.

Man, I had a great TV night last night. First I watched the fourth disc of the "Joan of Arcadia" season one set, which was great in and of itself, but the commentary (Tamblyn, Steenburgen, Welch, Ritter and Mantegna -- but really, mostly Ritter) for "Recreation" put it over the top. Fantastic. That set is going on my xmas list -- actually, I might try to get it before then, I have to buy one more set from Columbia House before I'm allowed to cancel, anyway.

Then, THEN I got to watch "The Daily Show," which featured by far the best argument I've witnessed all week. The Stewart/Hitchens conversation was splendid, and Stewart said everything I was saying in my head to Hitchens. A little more eloquently, of course, since I was still a little angry about Bush's propaganda and the whole Sheehan vs. other-army-mom thing. Well, okay, more than a little angry.

By the way, here's a good general interview with Stewart from Wired. There's a bit of fun stuff about the "Crossfire" incident, too. And I got that link from the "Daily Show" community on LJ, if you're bored at work and want to clicky click.

. . . is the first movie in a three-picture Firefly contract with Universal," according to the IMDb. Holy flying monkeys of a lesser god! How do these things go over my head like that? I had no idea. But now, now I am going to explode. Joss Whedon + big screen x three = me imploding with happiness. Talk on Whedonesque is that it's an "if you make $x, we'll give you another shot" thing, and if that's the case, I am willing to sacrifice and see the film more than once. Hee.

And the River Tam Sessions, my first brushes with entertainment-related viral marketing, are extremely cool. If you have any interest in the series or movie at all, you should download the clips and watch them in the order they've been released. I have slow-ass dial-up, and I still managed to grab 'em and watch the creepiness. Eeeexcellent. (Bonus: the counsellor is played by Joss himself.)

There has been a little talk that it's part of an Alternate Reality Game, or ARG. That would be wicked, but I'm actually pretty content with them just being a little viral marketing. Now if we were talking about "Buffy," it would be a different story. I just don't think I'm far enough into the "Firefly" 'verse to really GET everything; I would basically be following clues left by others, which is fun, but not as fun as discovering it myself would be.

Maybe this is where I should admit that I haven't actually seen all of the "Firefly" eps yet. I don't want to Netflix them, I want to buy the set. But I have to wait til I have cash. Hopefully that will be before the movie comes out.

Oh yes, I am definitely seeing this one the first weekend it's out. Or at least the first week. I must commune with my fellow Whedon geeks. It'll be like geek church.

I'm grouchy. Call me Oscar.

(Yes, I'm aware that Sesame Street references mean I've either developed a strange fixation or have been watching too much kiddie TV with Rabbit. You choose.)

So you really don't want me to be chatting away on this here bloggy journal thing.

I will let you know what's going on, though, since that's the main point of it all.

Okay. I'm broke. It's mostly our own fault, bad planning and no emergency funds, but we are now broke. And you know what happened yesterday? My car died. While I was leaving work to go to Rabbit's follow-up appointment. Dad let me borrow his van, which was very nice, and damn if that vehicle is not a pleasure to drive. Ben came up to the shop after he got off work, and declared my battery dead, which is actually a plus because we thought it might be the alternator. Yesterday evening Dr. Ben frankensteined his truck's battery into my van, which is going to have to do until next week, since this week's paycheck is already spoken for by, oh, the electric company. (Not the fun kind, either.)

The freaking gas prices aren't helping either. I realize I'm driving a huge-ass van, it has low MPG, I'm killing the earth softly with my song, etc. etc. Here's the thing: In a perfect world, I would have a hybrid. I have wanted one ever since they arrived on this planet. However, in this imperfect world we're in, I CANNOT AFFORD ONE. I am driving a van because my dad sold it to me and is letting me wait until I have the money to pay for it. I bought it for $2500. And with the long road trips we have to take, it is nice to have a vehicle that will actually fit all of us and our luggage and allow us to nap in the back if we get too tired to drive. ANYWAY, the point is it's actually getting to the point where it's a struggle for me to afford to drive to work. And no, I can't bike -- it's a 45-minute trip by CAR. Not all of us live in the city. (That brings me to another rant-fueler, the lack of bike lanes in our city, but let's save that one.) I wish I lived in a place where I could walk everywhere, but I'm not willing to give up my land and the ability to see the night sky. Maybe that's a flaw. I don't care.

Also, the bank is screwing around with us again. We're trying to get a home equity loan, so we can pay off some of the 13883456 medical bills we have while they're still manageable. (And whee, we're going to have more coming in after the weekend's fun!) Plus we'd like to paint the house and get some cheapish but good furniture. Frivolity, I know. But the bank, the same bank we have our mortgage with, will not return our effing calls. We turned in the application papers two freaking weeks ago. We're not asking for a huge loan, either. Two weeks. It's ridiculous. And our rep keeps saying he'll call back and never calling back. (And it's not because we make late payments or anything, we always pay our mortgage on time.) This crap is why I hate dealing with banks. So if we don't hear back by today, we're going to apply elsewhere.

And Monday Rabbit has a sleep-deprived EEG, which will be enormous fun. Ben can't make it, of course, so I'm taking off work that day. Luckily I have very understanding employers. EEGs have apparently improved since I was a kid -- when I had mine, they wouldn't even let my parents in the room, and the tech told me over the phone today that I can actually lay on the hospital bed with Rabbit while they do the EEG. And I can read books to her and everything. So that's good.

The medication they gave us to give her when she seizes? Is valium. I found that out after we got to the hospital. So Rabbit had a nice dose of valium Saturday. That seems sort of barbaric, although I guess it's common practice.

Let me insert a(nother) tiny little bitch session here: what is up with eBay sellers leaving feedback AFTER the buyer leaves feedback? That seems crappy to me. And almost every single person I've bought from lately has done it. I've noticed it on etsy, too, but I think that's just because a lot of sellers don't leave feedback period. I'm not sure if they're aware that sellers can leave feedback for buyers; at least, of the five sellers I've bought from, only two have left feedback. And I'm a fast payer, so it's probly not because of my buying deficiencies or anything.

AARGH. I guess I'll end this now. Sometimes you just need to bitch -- I feel significantly less grouchy now. THANKS INTERNETS!

What? No updates? Such a shock.

Please stop reeling.

The good:
+ honey, herbs, fruits, and veggies from the farmers' market
+ the 'rents coming over (for the first time!) and proclaiming my cooking good
+ salmon, dill, zucchini, and lemons all broiled together
+ fingerling potatoes!
+ cheap fabric finds for holiday crafting
+ pretty pretty glass beads from Fire Mountain
+ fruit for preserves
+ Tahitian vanilla beans for homemade extract
+ do-nothing Sunday
+ purple bell peppers
+ thriving pumpkin plants
+ Bibliophil

The bad:
- Rabbit ending up in the ER again (seizures SUCK)

She's okay, just REALLY cranky because of the antibiotic she's on (they think the catalyst was a symptom-free ear infection), and tired, of course. And she'll only eat popsicles and berries right now, like a strange sort of bird. Poor Rabbit. Of all the genes to get. Luckily my mom and dad were there when she went into it; my mom handled it like a pro (it's all old hat to her) while I couldn't get two thoughts put together to save my life.

In more pleasantly worry-free news, the pumpkin plants are now enormous, but the bright orange flowers only open up in the early morning. It's pretty neat. I'll try to get a picture tomorrow morning.

Also, I would like to heartily recommend Alton Brown's "Perfect Fingerling Potatoes" recipe. Perfect is right. Even my dad was like, "what are these? I've never heard of these, and I'm a produce guy." In a good way, not a "what is this crap you're feeding me?" way. (I should explain here that my dad used to work in produce when he was a young buck -- very young. I think fingerlings haven't been readily available in regular grocery stores until recently, at least in this area.)

Anyway, it was nice to bask in a little cooking pride for a few minutes.

Texas, home of jackassery:

On Sunday, as about 60 in Sheehan's group held a religious service, neighbor Larry Mattlage fired his shotgun twice into the air. Sheriff's deputies and Secret Service agents rushed to his house but did not arrest him.

"I ain't threatening nobody, and I ain't pointing a gun at nobody," Mattlage said. "This is Texas."

Mattlage said he was initially sympathetic toward the demonstrators, but that they have blocked roads in the area and caused traffic problems.

He said he fired his gun in preparation for the dove-hunting season, but when asked if he had another motive, he said, "Figure it out for yourself."

Yes, THIS IS TEXAS, where we only care about rights if they involve guns. And maybe beer.

The whole thing, the Cindy Sheehan thing, is just making me insane. I seriously cannot listen to conservative talk radio anymore. Not that I really could before, but now, just listening to it, I can feel my blood pressure going up. Even The Daily Show doesn't help, it just makes me want to throw a big old liberal bleeding heart fit. When making it funny doesn't even help, you know it's bad.

I wish I lived close enough to go stand with them.

I am planning way ahead of time this year. I learned my lesson last year with the great banana pudding extinction incident. I'm getting half a dozen boxes of banana pudding at the grocery store today for the obligatory Thanksgiving hostess-gift banana bread.

We'll have the usual Thanksgiving spread, turkey, mashers, cranberry dressing, veggies, biscuits. And I might try out a few new things, like this Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Bisque. Or I might even try some stuffing -- I generally hate stuffing, but Sausage and Herb Bread Stuffing sounds pretty good. And of course pumpkin pie.

Maybe some peanut pie instead of pecan? Apparently it's a Virginia tradition. Ooh, the Cranberry Lemon Cake sounds tasty, too.

Then we can have all the leftovers I've been dreaming about having since last year. If we go to FL for Thanksgiving this year, I think I'll have my family over for dinner a couple of weeks beforehand. I really missed it last year. I loved the trip, and of course I love Ben's family and I'm glad he got to spend the holiday with them, but I'm a creature of habit and traditions are my cocaine.

I've been working on setting up a traditional Christmas Eve dinner since last year's fishy disaster. The mushroom bisque we had was effing delicious though, so I'll make that again. I'm thinking crab cakes, but last year I couldn't find any crab. Maybe if I start looking earlier in the week this year, I can find some. You can't freeze crab, can you? I don't think you can, anyway. The two recipes I'm eyeing are the MD Senator's recipe and a copycat Rainforest Cafe recipe. I figure anyone from MD has to know their crab cake stuff, right? And we loved the Rainforest Cafe crab cakes. The recipes look almost identical, so I'm not too worried about it.

Christmas morning, of course, is monkey bread time. When I lived with my parents, we had a brand new box of the holiday Cap'n Crunch every Christmas morning, so I put that under the tree because, like I said, traditions=crack, but I prep the monkey bread Christmas Eve and cook it while we open presents. The Cap'n Crunch gets snacked on later in the day. We usually have ham sandwiches on rolls and miscellaneous finger foods during the day, sometimes at my parents' house. I think I might roast a chicken for Christmas dinner, like Thanksgiving dinner lite.

I think we're going to try a lot of different holiday traditions over the next few years to see what sticks. But that's a whole 'nother long-ass picture-free entry. I think it'll be fun, though.

This will be our first complete holiday season at the new house; I can hardly wait -- can you tell?

All my plans for growing veggies and herbs to make preserve-y stuff for Christmas this year fell through, thanks to my heavy watering hand that killed all of the poor seedlings. But luckily we have a pretty great farmers' market twenty minutes away, so I'm at least getting to experiment with recipes.

We were supposed to go to the beach this weekend, but there was the threat of storminess, so we bailed. Of course, it only stormed at NIGHT, so now I feel like a sucker. Plus as an added bonus, I experienced my first night of terror waiting for a tree to get hit by lightning and crash through the roof, destroying our home beyond repair. I wouldn't give the three acres of woods around us up for anything, but all the big trees can make one a wee bit paranoid.

Anyway, so we went thrifting Saturday instead (and I found way too many books at the bazaar and the used bookstore). Then Sunday yawned before me, wide open and waiting, and I decided to put off cleaning in favor of trying my hand at canning.

My plan was to make bread and butter pickles, then Ben voted for dill. I only had six cucumbers, so I put three aside for each batch. Magically, Ben bought half-pint jars instead of the pints I wanted, which ended up working well because I'd be doing small batches. I was worried about the hot-water bath, since I don't have any official canning supplies, but I ended up just putting a thick dishtowel in the bottom of my stockpot, putting the sealed jars down on that while they were bathing, and using our metal barbeque tongs to lift the jars after they were done. The downside to using the metal tongs: I chipped an edge of the rim of one jar. But other than that, it worked out fine.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I made bread and butter pickles using this recipe, only I layered the pickles and onions in the jars first since they were such small jars, then poured the hot vinegar mixture into the jars. Also, I didn't have any cloves or celery seed, so I skipped them, and I used dry mustard instead of mustard seed. And I substituted white vinegar for cider vinegar. But other than THAT, it was the same, ha. And then I stuck them in the hot water bath for 10 minutes, took them out, and let them sit overnight. And this morning I checked and all the seals are good! Yay. They may taste like crap since I was missing or subbed half of the ingredients, but they sure are pickles.

After that, I blanched and froze some sweet corn and summer squash that was on the verge of going bad.

Then, since I had a bunch of cherry tomatoes laying around that we hadn't eaten yet, I made some dried tomatoes in the toaster oven. Basically, you halve and scoop out the tomatoes, then lay them hollow side up on a baking sheet and sprinkle with your mixture of Italian spices or whatever, plus a tiny bit of sugar and salt. Then bake at 225˚F for about three hours. Mine took less time because they were so small. You want them to look like dried apricots, essentially. Then you cool them off, put in a jar, and pour olive oil in the jar until the tomatoes are completely submerged. They can be stored in the fridge for three months; just make sure you let them come to room temp before using in a recipe so the oil can re-liquefy.

After that I chopped up the cucumbers for the dill pickles and stuck them in a bowl of water in the fridge to soak overnight. I'll work on them tonight -- I'm going to use this recipe, subbing red pepper flakes for the dried peppers.

Also soaking in the fridge is a bowl of watermelon rind in brine, for watermelon rind pickles. And the watermelon that was in the rind is in the freezer for future use as watermelon ice. Normally it would be eaten by now, but it was a bit grainy, so I think this will be a better use.

So I guess this weekend was productive, if you count discovering that you enjoy something you've never tried before as being productive. And I do, so it was. Even the clean-up wasn't all that bad.

Oh, and we capped off the night with no-bake oatmeal cookies. (Add coconut, use butter instead of margarine, evaporated milk instead of regular milk, and add enough oatmeal to make the mixture thick enough that it won't fall apart.)

That was a good weekend. I think before the markets close for the year I need to get enough stuff to make some Christmas presents. Very exciting. (For me, anyway.)

Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm trying to get a library together, both for myself and for Rabbit when she's old enough to sneak into my bookshelves and steal all my books. We never had a really extensive library when I was a kid, and I want Rabbit to have so many books to choose from that it makes her dizzy. So I'm stocking up on the classics; sadly, I haven't read many of them yet, but luckily they're pretty cheap.

So I was searching for "Penguin classics" since I found some good ones at Borders the other day, and was curious as to what other books Penguin considers classics, and I found the motherlode. You can have 1,082 classic books for the low low price of $7,989.99. I love that ".99" at the end, like that one cent is going to make a huge difference to a person who has $8,000.00 to blow on cheap paperback books. And hey, FREE SHIPPING. Although that's actually kind of good since the books weigh SEVEN HUNDRED EFFING POUNDS in all. My house would tilt on its side. We would fall through the earth. And yet it's kind of fun to think of having that many classics. However, I have enough books now that I'm getting the "this house is not the kind of house you build a library in" lecture. So I think I'll skip it. Plus, you know, eight thousand bucks.

Other highlights include: reviewers estimating how much space these would take up, how high the stack of books would go, and bitching about the quality of the Penguin Classic paperbacks. Sadly, none of these reviews are from people who actually bought the set, although one reviewer does mention that they're saving up for it. Hee.

I put the best of the Cities Swap 05 pics over in the crafty blog. Here's a random sample:

Man, Etsy is pretty cool, huh? I'm tempted to put some some stuff up there, but then I remind myself that I haven't MADE ANYTHING in the past three months. Maybe when I start making holiday stuff (which will be soon, hopefully -- I don't want last-minute stress this year) I can make some things to put up.

If I do, it will be under the shop name "good english" because I am horribly nerdy and really like my book blog's name.

For now, I am content to buy a few small things to sock away for future use, like this cute tooth pouch from Giddy Girlie:



Adorable, no? YES.

Okay kids, we have links now! Not as extensive as my crowded "favorites" folder, but the basics are all there. Feel free to comment if there are any broken links.

I think I will be busy avoiding reviews of Corpse Bride while I'm busy avoiding Narnia reviews.

These are two movies that I'd rather just anticipate happily; I'm sure the Narnia movie won't live up to the books and that Nightmare Before Christmas will still be my favorite animated movie ever, but I just want to look forward to the films, you know?

Ben started laughing when I said I wanted to see a movie called Corpse Bride. I'm still not sure why.

Oh, actually there are three movies I'm going into blind -- I'm also not looking at Serenity reviews. Mostly because it doesn't matter if it sucks, it's Jossverse on the big screen, and I am so there.

Plus if I heard that any of these movies sucked to the seventh circle, I would feel guilty doing the whole babysitting/ticket-paying thing. So, you see, my ignorance serves many purposes.

A few things I'm lusting after:

* The "Let's Get It On" garland/card from Knock Knock. I am also a fan of the "All Out Of" pad, but that's something I'd rather personalize and print myself. Because I'm a dork like that. I would try making the garland, but grommets + me = disaster.

* I have a difficult time deciding which of the shirts at the Cat and Girl shop I would order first, if I weren't currently broke due to book-buying. I'm partial to this Baby-Sitters Club one, but am also fond of "Capitalists do it Ruthlessly" and the not-ironic Virginia tee.

* Happy Kitty Bunny Pony with commentary by Mike Nelson of MST3k fame -- you know you want it. They're also putting out Goth-Icky and Love Sick, which are both being released next month.

* Anything by Eyeko; I've had the bubblegum perfume pen for a few years (I bought it before their redesign, apparently) and it's still good. And I have some of the mascara, which is in the cutest tube ever. It makes me feel like some sort of super-girlie superhero.

* Along the same lines, anything from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's perfume oils catalog. I know it takes months to get your order, but it seems worth it. I think if we get a bonus next month I'll order a batch of Imp's Ears; I have no idea how I'd choose the scents, though -- there are so many and they all sound so effing good.

* Right now I'm trying to organize my library, which is a mess after the aforementioned book-buying spree. After I get it organized (and entered into a database, because, like I said, I'm a dork) I want to get some bookplates, and these "french dairy lover" pretties from The Polka-Dot Life (found via UnBeige) are the first on my list. (And they're on sale right now, HELLO SIGN FROM GOD.) I've also got my eye on these beauties from McSweeney's (sold by Quimby's) because bat? Owl? Two great tastes that taste great together! And of course there are the bookplates at If'n Books + Marks. I'm leaning toward making my own right now, but these are all so great.

* It's back in stock! Glarkware finally got the baby dingo shirt back in stock and now Rabbit is too tall for it. Hiss. But that's okay because it means I can order "In Soviet Russia" instead. ALL FOR ME.

Okay, no more joy-of-consumerism posts for the rest of the month, I promise

I love online quizzes, probably because I am Narcissus reborn, but I don't think about that too much. I don't post many of the results here because, well, I know this sort of thing is boring to everyone else on Earth, the same reason I don't post my OMGWTF ISN'T THAT SO DEEP!!1!!! dreams. But I want to keep a record of this one because it's spot on, and because Ben took it and ended up the direct opposite of me, which I find amusing. Amusing and very correct.

Okay, so here are my results for The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman (on Ok Cupid). I recommend it; it's pretty fun. I had a very hard time choosing amongst the kitties, though -- I'm not too sure what that says about me.

the Wit (60% dark, 30% spontaneous, 27% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean you're pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion. Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

(link via senor coconut)