Not too much going on; I've been really sleepy today and now I'm kind of not, which is stupid timing. I suck at Wii baseball and haven't drawn anything yet this break. and I did go out and buy a bunch of gifts downtown yesterday, though, which is good.

I still have to get more, though - but fortunately we aren't doing any more gift exchanges for another several days, so I've got time for things ordered to come in, yay.

Pups and Chicks and Frost

, which is not their title but would have been mine. It's an article taking apart am extremely expensive chocolatier's self-produced mythos. If you don't know much about chocolate (like me - I know I like it but haven't thought of it too much beyond that ^_^ ), it also seems to be a good primer on the basics of chocolate.

, but not really enough as far as I'm concerned. Still, it's a start.

Friday's token: 0.

1 miles
Saturday's miles: 2.7
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1457.5
Miles out of Rivendell: 999.

5
Miles out of Lothlórien: 545.5
Miles past Rauros Falls: 127.6
Miles to Isengard: 334.

1

Here, have something stupid and pointless.

[Anna] says "AMULET OF REFLECTION BABY"
[F] RAR
[M] says "Rawr!"
[Anna] picks up a new kitty in Sokoban, and heads on down.

Fort Ludios, here I come.
[M] yaaas!
[M] is rooting for you!

[Anna] yeek! Big Room on level 10!
[Anna] oh jesus christ there's an air elemental.

[Anna] says "AND a Rust Monster. GAH!"
[F] peers
[Anna] is going to have to think about this.

[F] says "What game, again?"
[M] says "Nethack"
[Solarbird] sends openly ** Blackjack. **
[Anna] says "nethack.

:)"
[Solarbird] sends openly ** dammit **
[Anna] bips Solarbird. :)
[Solarbird] sends openly ** Pong? **
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] 0-1
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[M] eyes Anna.

Is she like this in person? ;)
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Anna] says "Yes."
[Solarbird] 1-1
[Solarbird] bip
[M] says "Truer love I've never seen.

"
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] 2-1
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] 3-1
[M] is, mind you, laughing her ass off. :)
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] 3-2
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] 4-2
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[F] THWACK
[Solarbird] bzzzzt
[Solarbird] 0-0
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] 1-0
[M] kicks [F].
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] 2-0
[F] bites [M].

[M] can tell you've never had a 2 year old, and learned when to leave well enough alone. :)
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] bip
[Solarbird] 2-1
[F] will never have one either
[M] says "Wise man."

( ) I got some more battery lights, a replacement flashlight bulb and spare, recharged everything, built up a cooler's worth of ice, and verified that the other bottle of lamp oil I have is the right kind.

Now hopefully we won't need any of these things tonight. It's not supposed to be much of a blow, so really, we shouldn't - fingers crossed and all that.

Ornamental Grass

Taken at Shoreline campus, next to the administration building, the roofline of which you can see in the background. Two finals down, one to go - the big one being chem on Friday, which is my make-up final from this summer.

That's my biggest worry, since I haven't done any actual chem homework and such all quarter. O BOI!

Also, this powerbook-chained-to-a-desk-and-monitor thing suxx0rs.

But has a deal through work where she can get an employee discount on a refurbished MacBook (refurb by Apple, full warranty, all that) so we're spending money we shouldn't and getting one. I wasn't sure about that with all the hospital bills coming in (and with making real progress on the Visa card paydown) but then this one locked up twice in a day, which it's never done before, and that's scary and sounds like it might be a logic board problem instead of just the backlight, which is one of the ways these screens fail. So, um, yeah.

Poor powerbook, you have been to hell and back a couple of times but it's finally taken its toll, apparently.

I know, I know, no CWUs for a week and a half. I feel bad too.

I have a bit I want to talk about regarding the Sea-Tac kerfuffle. However, finals week puts the Worst Webcomic Evar on hiatus, I guess. Good news, though: no finals week next week!

Yay!

I still have flowerpics queued up. This one was from Shoreline campus:

Little Purple Surprises

Someone asked about this last year; that shows how much seasonal demand change there is in gasoline. This is one of the reasons why the price of gas changes so much within a year.

Check out the units on the left side of that graph; it's in billions of miles driven per day. To wit: damn.

Anybody know much about ?

I'd like this article to be more or less accurate. Wikipedia is less sanguine about it than this article, but it still sounds like a technology to explore vigourously.

Monday's miles: 1.

9
Tuesday's token: .4
Wednesday's miles: 1.4
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1445.

3
Miles out of Rivendell: 987.3
Miles out of Lothlórien: 533.3
Miles past Rauros Falls: 115.

4
Miles to Isengard: 346.3

( ) I have a final exam schedule, finally; Japanese on Tuesday morning, Bio on Wednesday morning, Chem on Friday morning. @whee.

Time to get off my ass and back to work at chem!

Monday's miles: 2.0
Tuesday's miles: 4.

6
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1434.3
Miles out of Rivendell: 976.3
Miles out of Lothlórien: 522.

3
Miles past Rauros Falls: 104.4
Miles to Isengard: 357.3

Went to a town meeting about the downtown Kenmore plan.

They've made a couple of changes that don't thrill me, tho' on the grand scheme of things they are tiny. Mostly I have issues with the placement of the commons and intensely dislike a little parking brick they stuck in the southwest corner. I asked wtf was up with that; they said that it's because said supermarket is pretty far back from the street, and if they have a building - or anything else tall - there, they won't be able to lease the space.

There are other changes, too, but they're things I don't mind. They're trying to model it after Westlake Plaza, and the plan is to have the entire area - commons + parking brick - available as a single unit for particularly large events, which is okay, but I really dislike the parking brick.

And I really wish that this one guy on the team wasn't from California.

I have a feeling a lot of that parking-brick more-car-space business is coming from him, and he didn't seem to think 68th was that hostile a road. He's wrong about that, of course. So I still rather wish the other group had one the bid.

Oh, and I asked about the potential impact of a 2007 recession - their economics guy says this project is sound, and that they don't see it being a problem at all. It'd take a retail collapse on the scale of 1973 or greater (which I have heard about in my readings) to give them problems. Hopefully we won't get one of those.

Anyway. Here, have another view of the same set of flowers as last time:

I have a decent number of pictures queued up, flower pictures and leaf pictures and a little assortment of random other photos too. That's good, since the time for leaves and flowers is mostly over already.

This flower picture came out grainy, but I like it:

Sovphoto Flowers

I suppose I should shoot at ASA200 when I can; I just leave it at 400 most of the time and never even think about changing it - I like having more shutter-speed options on the low light end, which we have quite a bit of this time of year. The camera has an "auto" setting for the ASA, which would partially solve this problem, I guess, but then I'd be fighting with it over whether the ASA should change or the fstop or the shutter speed, and I'm too much of a control freak in my photography to put up with that.

Mmmm, old-sk00l full-manual metal-body SLRs...

Tuesday's miles: 2.0
Wednesday's token: 0.1 miles
Thursday's token: 0.

4 miles
Friday's miles: 2.0
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1427.7
Miles out of Rivendell: 969.

7
Miles out of Lothlórien: 515.7
Miles past Rauros Falls: 97.8
Miles to Isengard: 363.

9

, I , why do you ask?

seem to have for making few or no real changes in Iraq. (Well, other than a large troop add, I suppose, which might actually help provide some security were they trained properly.

But that simply is not happening.) That's interesting.

Mind you, I halfway have to wonder whether the Saudi government wouldn't actually almost like doing something on their own - they have a lot of people of fighting age - which in that country, means young men - and war is a traditional way of giving them something to do.

But I'm also sure the Saudi government doesn't want so many people trained in military affairs coming back home, so I don't tend to think that's really very like to happen. So I really have my doubts about the credibility of these statements on their part, which is why I think it's more about political cover than anything else.