Friday, April 30, 2010

The video to bring me out of posting retirement...

Maybe A.J.'s mom would be interested in lining the pantry with this next time Courtney comes over.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM4eJ38S7Hw

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Attention Berkeley Residents:

I have some truly wonderful news. It's corn pizza time at Cheeseboard again.
Friday's pizza (04.30.2010): Fresh corn, onions, chile pasilla, mozzarella and feta cheese, garlic olive oil, cilantro, key limes.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Let's Get Flying!

$9 flights from the Bay Area to Long Beach on JetBlue! I went through with a fake booking to see what the true cost is, and it's $39.40 total for a roundtrip flight. Wonderful!

Dock Dock

Friday, April 23, 2010

Crayola Spectrum

I saw this chart of the progression of Crayola crayon colors from 1903 to present linked to on one of the blogs I frequent and I thought it was so cool and beautiful. Apparently the colors double once every 28 years.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Bananagramaddiction

Hoai turned me on to this game called Bananagrams and I love it. It's like Scrabble on speed. Please, someone come play it with me. Please.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Eagles Are All About Efficiency

This is the funniest grammatical commentary I've read in a while.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

"Curiouser and curiouser..."

Nothing made me want an iPad until I saw this app. Sure, the book is entertaining enough on its own, but I really like what they've done with the original 1865 John Tenniel illustrations. The coloring is so rich and wonderful.

Marooned

Wii Streaming Movies

If you have a Wii (which I assume you already do in order to play your daily Mario), Netflix just made your life a lot better. Whereas before your instant queue was only watchable on your laptop, they're now offering streaming videos through your Wii for your TV. We just got our setup disc in the mail today and within a few short minutes I was being disappointed by Julie & Julia* on the big screen. Technology is a wonderful thing.

*Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci and the city of Paris were great. Amy Adams was unbearably annoying.

Image from here.

Uncomfortable Childhood Memories, Part 1


Orange You Glad You Didn't Say Banana

Although my childhood height and physique suggested I would be a great dancer, my coordination did not concur. Nevertheless, my parents enrolled me in jazz, tap, ballet (with private lessons!) and gymnastics classes over the course of several years. Based on the number and variety of classes, their theory must have been that the dance style I didn't completely suck at was just one genre away. "Perhaps hip hop," they must have said with palpable disappointment. When I was in 3rd grade (and, in the interest of full disclosure, Ist-12th grade as well) I was always cracking wise. My gymnastics teacher, let's call her Ms. Anderson, was teaching us the proper form for round offs and a girl in the class piped up, saying, "I remember learning that you should try to brush the imaginary cobwebs off the ceiling with your toes!" Without a moment's hesitation I said, "Who taught you round offs?! A BANANA?!" At this time the studio grew tense and quiet and the girl just squeaked out, "Actually, it was Ms. Anderson."

Image via Natalie Dee

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Real Surprise

So I see a copy of the May 2010 Real Simple sitting on the table where my neighbors have an impromptu magazine exchange program going and I think, "I must steal this now before someone else takes this treasure!" I abscond with it and then, while reading it, got to wondering who in my building subscribes to Real Simple. I check the label and boom:

It turns out it's me! THANK YOU DANIEL! You're such a thoughtful friend.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Saturday, April 10, 2010

On Deadwood

I am so excited to start season two (again) tomorrow. Look at that promo! Come on! It's just so good!

Tagxedo

I read a rousing endorsement of Tagxedo on LifeHacker, and decided to try it myself. Since I didn't have anything in particular in mind to use as an example, I just put in the lyrics from The Ugly Bug Ball (because that song is stuck in my head so painfully frequently) and it generated the word cloud below. You can shape your word clouds into hearts, stars, rectangles, ovals and several other shapes including, sensibly, clouds. I hope you have a "ball" using it!

...I know. That was bad. I'm sorry. I'm groaning at myself.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Tracy Jordan is a character, you say?


I know this should be the least of my concerns, but who taught him that you say the state and then the city when saying where you are? "I'm in Texas El Paso! Somebody's gonna get pregnant!"

Where Past and Present Intersect

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Flat Bread, Not So Flat Abs

Tom and I have made this Butternut Squash Flat Bread with Cheddar and Pine Nuts twice since I spotted it in REAL SIMPLE magazine last week. Try it for yourself, or come on over for dinner because more likely than not we're ready to make and eat it again. It's so good.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Freeduce, Freeuse, Freecycle

Just this week I just started using this thing called Freecycle and I think it's a fantastic idea. I'm sure many of you have been using this forever, but for those to whom this is new, here's how it works. You sign up for a Yahoo account (if you're like me and didn't already have one established) and then you join your local area's Freecycle group. The site combines all the submissions ("Wanted" or "Offered") and sends you an email daily, or you can just check the site and opt out of the emails. It's surprising the things people ask for and offer- from TVs to bike wheels to furniture to sewing machines. I just started listing things I was hoping to part with this afternoon and I already got a taker within an hour or two of posting. A guy named Steve is coming tomorrow to pick up a duplicate pasta pot I had that was taking up our limited and valuable kitchen cabinet space. It's nice to know that someone who needs what you have is going to make use of it, and it feels good to cut back on unnecessary consumption if your neighbor happens to have just the thing you were looking to buy. I believe there's an old adage that addresses this perfectly: One woman's trash is another man's pasta pot. Something like that.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Where in the world is Rickeman? San Diego.

Over Tom's spring break we also had the pleasure of spending a day in San Diego with Tom's cousin Steven and his wife, Patricia. Steven took us all out on a sail around the bay departing from the Navy Yacht Club in Coronado. It was beautiful and sunny and we all had a great time when we weren't getting attacked by flying ropes. Thankfully the sail took place before we all binged on sour candies from Fuzziwig's and made ourselves sick. Ah, it was all worth it in the end because it was a great and memorable day.
Steven, our fearless Captain.




Our gracious hosts. Thank you again for a wonderful day.


Tom, the First Mate, taking a turn at the helm.


Guiness and Miller


Tom Rickeman, whose favorite show is Deadwood (true) and whose favorite movie is Blazing Saddles (not true, but let's let it go for the sake of illustration) had never ridden a horse before last week. Luckily he got Miller, a trusty old loper of a horse who was not as interested in illegally munching the new spring growth as my horse Guiness was.

Tom, mounting his trusty steed.


Guiness, as I mentioned, was a muncher. So much so that the lady who was leading our horse ride cautioned me to keep him back at least a foot behind her horse because mine liked to bite hers on the ass (you can say that when the topic is horses, right?) and then hers would kick mine in the face resulting, no doubt, in my death. Thankfully this did not happen.