How to Prepare Absinthe

Per Trixie's request, I will explain briefly how to prepare absinthe in the traditional manner. Be warned: no matter how much you like licorice, nothing will prepare you for your first glass of absinthe. This liquor may be as much as 80% alcohol. Enjoy conservatively.

You will need
Absinthe (available from fine U.S. distributors and from more than one bottler)
A perforated spoon, a dripper, or brouilleur
A drinking glass
A 1 ounce shot glass or a willingness to estimate
A sugar cube
Ice-cold water


Pour 1 oz of absinthe into the drinking glass. Place your absinthe spoon atop the glass and place the sugar cube atop this spoon. Slowly drip 3 to 5 oz cold water over the sugar to dissolve it into the absinthe. (Some purist absintheurs abstain the spoon and sugar.) The water will cause the absinthe to louche, releasing the essential oils therein and becoming opaque - a milky yellowish green.

Rats!

That's all. I just thought that this was a cute picture. I'm trying out Google's news reader and it brought me here, to File magazine.

Reading Level

Kajukenbo

Since I haven't had time to train, I've really missed my twice weekly martial arts sessions. I hope to get together with my teacher again before I have to go back to work. In the meantime, I've been watching and rewatching this short video demonstration of Kajukenbo techniques.

Eerie silence

Several posts back, I turned on comments again.

I realized that there were two reasons I haven't been blogging.

I haven't had time.

I find the blog more satisfying when others read and comment on it.

My students don't read this blog, or even know about it.

My colleagues don't read it.

I write what I want.

I look forward to reading your retorts. . .

Yule Absinthe

I so wanted to share this with you before now since I've been bursting to share - I bought Shel a bottle of absinthe for Yule and gave it to her today. She was completely surprised.
Long thought to be illegal in the U.S., absinthe is 124 proof liquor distilled from Grand Wormwood, anise, and other herbs. Mistakenly believed to be a poisonous hallucinogen, absinthe is a distinctive drink with an elaborate ritual in its consumption. Playing on Shel's belief that absinthe was illegal, I managed to keep this one a complete secret. I gave her a package of half-a-dozen absinthe spoons first, and she instantly recognized them, compounding her puzzlement. When she pulled out the bottle, she asked how I had gotten it - given that it was illegal.
Interested in a bottle of your own? Check out the Lucid website, or that of BevMo, which sells both Lucid and another brand of absinthe, Kübler.

Neat Site

I found this neat site through an advertisement - though, come to think of it, that was a pretty poorly targeted ad, given that I was looking up the meaning of the word moue and an etymology for exacerbate. The site is called Black Jungle and they sell carnivorous plants, terrarium and vivarium supplies, and pretty, oxymoronically non-poisonous poison-dart frogs.

I Should be Working

I should be working, but I'm not.
I have papers to grade - what a chore.
Niacin flush makes my skin hot.

Powerpoint learning a little more,
But mostly just surfing instead.
I did find a site I adore.

Called Blogger Play, it is said
To have photos from all over.
And they quickly fill my head.

Gods, that's bad!

Anyway, neat site linked above. I'm turning comments back on and killing the link that points here from my school web page.

Back to work. 130 essays, 38 hours, 0 time to sleep.

I'm a new man

I retook the personality profile test at MyPersonality.info and this time, I got different results.Truth be told, I actually took the test twice and both sets of results were different from each other and from the original results. I think most folks' Myers-Briggs results are pretty consistent. I guess I'm just weird.

Coolest Advent Ever!

Yes, I'm blogging at 5:30 in the morning.

I got up to feed the dogs and discovered what Shel has been hinting at for weeks. She made me an Advent calender! This is the coolest thing ever, and I am very excited.

I love Advent. I always have. (Yes, it's a Christian tradition, and perhaps in its relative obscurity, should be regarded as even "more Christian" than Christmas - if Christianity is a sliding scale.) The anticipation of that which is to come is heightened by the gradual parceling out of goodies. I grew up with the little chocolate-filled paper advent calenders and, once or twice had calenders without candy but with carefully-placed doors which opened to reveal nativity scenes. When I heard about Suzanne's kid getting a Lego(r) advent calender, I felt some envy - I must confess. When Shel got annoyed at having to stop me from buying myself an Advent calender at Cost Plus International Market, I began to get excited.

As any of you who has ever received a handmade gift before know, hand-made is better by far than store-bought. No, I don't want a hand-made Tag-Heuer watch. You know what I mean. A gift assembled for you by someone who knows and loves you is really something special. This gift is a perfect example.

Shel knows I love Advent - or at least that I love Advent calenders. She knows that I prefer high-quality, durable things over disposable crap. She knows that I enjoy Lindt chocolates (Not rocket surgery, that - fish enjoy water, too. Who doesn't like Lindt?) Most of all, though, Shel knows that I have a deep and abiding nostalgia for G.I.*Joe. I spent many of the most enjoyable hours of my life playing with, posing, writing about, drawing, yearning for, talking about, arranging and rearranging, organizing, caring for, and destroying my G.I.*Joe toys and file cards. I even wrote letters to Hasbro suggesting new characters. While other kids were moving on to Michael Jackson and Tiffany and methamphetamines, I was typing file cards into the computer so I could quickly and easily select characters by their primary and secondary military specialties. When other kids were making jokes about Christa McAuliffe, I was plotting Destro's takeover of Cobra and trying to figure out how he would transform it from a terrorist organization into a profit-making enterprise. I loved me some G.I.*Joe.

This morning, I came into the den to discover the Advent calender below. I opened the door marked "1" to find Cobra Commander curled up in the fetal position inside next to a Lindt dark chocolate Lindor truffle! The fetal position!

Anyone who's ever played with G.I.*Joes knows that the old ones could never assume the fetal position and would not last long if one tried. This little guy is far better articulated than anything I played with as a kid. The sculpt is painstakingly done. The paint is almost perfect. It is too cool!

While the toy has been re-imagined to allow freer movement, the concept is the same, and the sculpt is obviously based on the same concept art that governed the creation of those toys all those years ago. Only one of the sibilant one's hands could ever hope to hold anything - the left one is curled into a fist, and his windswept hood is hard plastic rather than the fairly firm rubber or old, one can peek under this one's shroud to see some skin-tight red garment covering his neck. He still has the gig-line to make Tim Gunn cry and the silly leggings that strap under the heels of his boots, but now he also has ankle joints. Gone is the in-torso rubber band and the funky metal hip joint thing. CC now has a ball joint in his lower torso. The arms will lay flat against its sides. The sculpt is a little thin - his pants look like those skin-tight chick pants that kids wear now, but let's face it - if anybody was ever emo, it was Cobra Commander.

If I was bent on world-domination through terror and intimidation by the employment of overly-complex and needlessly public and hyper-dramatic plans that Dr. Evil himself would scoff at, I'd hope to be this cool.

COBRA!
(I think I might hire somebody to come up with a more imaginative war-cry, though)

Frustration

A coworker recently complained of his "fustration"[sic] with my work, explaining that, "Ray, I'm *fustrated - it's very *fustrating - and I'm not the only one. Your colleagues are *fustrated too."

I behaved myself. I didn't say what I wanted to. This was at the end of a long, hard day, and in the middle of a dressing-down sprung on me more-or-less out-of-the-blue indicating that dissatisfaction with my work has been kept from me by several intelligent, well-educated people with demonstrated communication skills and responsibility for helping me succeed as part of their team.

I refrained from saying "FRUSTRATING! IT'S 'FRUSTRATING,' YOU FUCKING MORON! I will not stand here and be told my business by a bucket-mouthed idiot who can't speak the fucking language! Your talking privileges have been revoked until you can demonstrate the ability to use them responsibly. I want to punch you in your fucking piehole for your assault against my language! Don't talk." That might have turned out poorly had I not exercised restraint.

By the way, prefacing a word or an utterance with an asterisk is a linguistic convention for indicating or acknowledging that the word or utterance is non-standard.

Some people need to be prefaced by an asterisk.

As promised

The Yolo county Fair was fun. It's the last County fair in California (and possibly in the country) with free admission, and we met up with some friends who live in Woodland and had a nice time wandering around, eating funnel-cake, and just generally enjoying the company of friends.

Policy Change

Sorry things have been quite around here for a few days - they haven't been quiet in real life - school starts tomorrow. At some point, I'll try to post some pictures of our visit to the Yolo County Fair this past Saturday.

School starts tomorrow and other teachers at this school encountered problems when students posted to their MySpace page.

As a result, I have changed the settings on my blog so that all comments are now moderated. Sorry. It's not a change I like and perhaps one day things will change, but for now, this is needed to keep me safe and fully employed.

Please keep commenting. I love comments! Just don't be hurt when the comments don't appear right away. Thanks for understanding.

Olive Cheese Crescents - First Draft

This occurred to me earlier today, so I tried it out tonight and it was a hit.

Slice some black olives.

Open a can of crescent rolls - I used garlic-flavored ones. Open them up and separate out into triangles as directed.

Spread them with cream cheese - as much as I like Garden Vegetable flavored, I used whipped regular cream cheese. It's the same price and it's easier to spread.

Arrange some olive slices on the cream cheese.

Roll up the crescent rolls as directed. Bake as directed.

Enjoy.
Like I said, they were a hit - but, to be honest, I was a little underwhelmed. Next time, I think I'll add some shredded Sargento Mexican Four Cheese Blend, and maybe some Italian seasoning. . .

I'll let you know how it turns out, but if you come up with an innovation, please do share.

Mule Racing in the Desert

*Sorry, if you're looking for news on the Democratic Primary or the California State Fair, this isn't it. Go back and refine your search.

The Pentagon is developing autonomous battlefield robots for combat.
I worry that
1. Americans will be over-eager to accept anything they think will diminish the need to put soldiers in harm's way.
2. Target designation is at least as significant stumbling-block as autonomous overland navigation.
3.Once technical difficulties are worked out, we will still face the moral and ethical difficulties of employing an expendable fighting force against human foes.

You have undoubtedly heard of the Pentagon-sponsored race in the desert where university researcher, gearheads, and hackers compete to get a car from point A to point B without driver or remote control over a designated route.

The idea is that the military wants an autonomous vehicle to navigate unknown terrain in battle. The races started in 2004, and for a while, no entrant managed to even finish the course. Some died of engine failure ten feet in and some wandered away from the course half-a-mile from the finish line. Eventually, though, some entrants did finish and it has since become a genuine race. Last year, five entrants crossed the finish line. This year, first place gets a US$2,000,000 prize. The top twenty (of thirty-six entrants) go on to compete again in November.

Turns out, the Pentagon is looking for urban navigation capabilities as well as desert.

The robotic vehicles will have to follow California traffic law while performing such tasks as merging into traffic, making sharp turns and avoiding obstacles such as utility poles, trees and parked cars -- without the help of humans or remote control.

At this point, maybe you're wondering where all this is headed - what the pentagon intends to do with the winners' technologies?

Meet MULE - (Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment Vehicle) I found this on IGN, a gaming site. The Pentagon means to put robots in combat alongside conventional infantry. Some of you may have the initial reaction "Hurray! Robots can take the risk so our soldiers don't have to." Note, though, that these robots will be fighting alongside conventional soldiers.

These descendants of technology that was running off the road not so long ago are now being sized up to wear machine guns and anti-tank missiles. Friendly fire is already the biggest killer of our forces overseas and I worry that this technology may take a while to get the kinks worked out. Moreover, assuming that we can quickly develop a means to designate allied soldiers so that the MULE won't shoot them, how much longer will it take to teach them to differentiate between crazy old ladies with George Bush effigies and teenage boys with rocket-propelled grenade launchers?

Don't get me wrong - I'm in favor of technological development and in favor of military technology in general. I believe that the United States' absurdly overwhelming military might keeps us from having to wipe out unwitting followers of a bunch of dictators who might otherwise do dumb stuff they shouldn't. I even like that the Pentagon sponsored a contest and made a gameshow of military technology development. This will undoubtedly save us all some money.

I also feel though, that autonomous target designation is a scary bucket of worms. The robot must choose enemy combatants from an array of friendly forces, bystanders, enemy combatants, inanimate objects, and more. With the perennial uncertainty of cheap farm labor, robotics researchers have been working for years to develop a machine that can identify and harvest ripe apples without damaging them or picking green ones.

The problems are by no means insurmountable. We will put robots on the battlefield. There will be technical problems that cause unwanted deaths. We will overcome those technical problems. These are things I'm sure of.

When we've worked out all the kinks, though, I fear that we will have a fighting force we can quickly dispatch to any part of the world which will suppress resistance and allow us to impose our will on our neighbors without fear of losing U.S. lives. I fear that we are on our way to a guilt-free conquest force.

My reading of science-fiction literature has trained me to consider the moral and ethical implications of unlikely situations brought upon civilization by the advancement of technology. Now, the U.S. military is forcing me to apply that training.

I ask you to consider this: If we'd had MULEs in time for the first Gulf War, wouldn't we have used them? Would we have used them in Vietnam? How much sooner would we have entered World War II if we hadn't feared for American lives? The Spanish-American War? The Mexican-American "War?"

More importantly, what wars have we simply not fought because we couldn't afford the loss of life?

What wars might we fight in the future because - well, Hell - why not? We got the MULEs!

Battlefield robots will soon be a reality that some people will rejoice in and others will bemoan. Technical difficulties will arise and be overcome. Ethical concerns over their use will outlive all my readers.

*I made the disclaimer at the outset that this was not an article about the Democratic Primaries or the mule racing at the California State Fair. Likewise, if you were looking for stories about a (non-military) combative mule, you were probably looking for this.

Blogroll

If you've seen more than three blogs in your lifetime, you've seen a blog with a long list of hotlinks down one side - hotlinked words like "Blahg," and "Tootsie's Tongue-Tied Toaster," and "Buble-Gum." You've likely never followed any of these hyperlinks.

That's fine.

Don't feel bad.

I'm convinced that they're not meant to be followed. They're meant to be fallowed. These links are there to recognize friends, business partners, occasional unwanted acquaintances, and people whose blogs the blog author looked at one time. They're there to say "There, there. I'll post a link to your site. Who knows? Someone might read it."

In my quickly evaporating Summer vacation, I've been checking out the blogs in the blogrolls of blogs that I read, including 32 Flavors (a frightfully long bogroll) and mosker (a more reserved and believable one). (Sorry Suzanne and Mom - your lists are positively conservative - it's like you only listed those blogs you actually read regularly.)

Anywho, I've discovered several blogs this way:

Stainless Steel Droppings is written by a voracious reader who is also a thoughtful consumer and reviewer of film - and of the kind of books and film I tend to be interested in.

Bitch Phd. is funny, feminist, free-thinking, foul-mouthed, and lots of other good things that don't start with the letter f. Very thought-provoking.

Best of all, my current new favorite, Blogography. Good photos, funny comics, terrific rants, varied topics and milk-out-your-nose-funny observations. Well-written.

Dang I'm Hungry

And this looks good.
Oh, yeah, and Veggie Meal Plans has moved and spruced up. Your old bookmarks and links should still work, though, so no effort, just salivating.

Revision: I just realized as a looked at the published post, it actually looks kind of gross if you don't know that it's Black Bean Tostada with Mango Salsa and Fresh Veggies.

After After Patio Pictures

So you've already seen the before, during, and after pictures of the new patio, both here and on my Mom's blog, but now I have two more to show off:
We picked up the canopy at Wal-Mart yesterday for about $300.

My New Classroom

So, I met with one of my department heads this morning; got my class schedule; got a brief outline on the year plan for the department; got some helpful advice, and I got some time (And some help, thank you Mom) to put together my classroom. I'll have tables this year, and while that was less than a stellar success last year, I have higher hopes this time around.

I'm excited about this year for a number of reasons: I have my own classroom, and I have it before the kids show up. (Last year, for those who don't know, I didn't start until the second day of school.) I get to teach a whole curriculum this year, including literature, instead of just grammar, spelling and vocabulary. That's cool. I'll get to meet a whole new group of kids and work in an environment totally new to me, and in a way, that's nice, too.

I have a mix of Hispanic and Anglo kids - no Hmong this year unfortunately, but I'll have a mix of struggling kids and kids at grade level. I'll have mostly eighth-graders and one section of seventh-graders. Best of all, from all that I can tell, I'll have a group of co-workers genuinely committed to working together as a team. I saw last year just how effective that can be and I wouldn't want to have to be without it again - though, with a greater number of kids who are academically successful, I can only imagine the potential for terrific things.

It's an hour away, and that's already a drag since I'm not a fan of commuting, but maybe I'll try an audiobook or something. I look forward to a great year and I'll try to stay close enough to being on-schedule to give you an occasional update.

Stay Tuned

I'll try to post later today with new patio pictures and an update on the new school.

300

It's been almost a week since we saw this, and I just can't get it off my mind. I think that I'll have to watch it again. The action, while stylized, was mind-bogglingly impressive. The story was clear without being simplistic. The characters were engaging
- and beautiful. The theme (freedom good, tyranny bad) was familiar and delivered so convincingly that I mused to Shel that perhaps every Marine should be required to own a copy.

Oh, yeah, and while Rodrigo Santoro is only 6'2", Xerxes is terrifyingly large.

Cooler Weather

Some really good friends from Seattle just stopped by for a visit en route to Disneyland on Saturday. It was wonderful to get to catch up with them, since we don't get to see much of one another since they moved up there. They got to enjoy a bit of our California heat, which I'm told is a nice occasional treat.

Now, we get their weather, and I couldn't be happier. It's 60 degrees out and it's delightful. The AC is turned off. I'm really pleased. August is usually my least favorite time of year in the valley, despite vacation, because it's just so bleeding hot - usually.

I think I'll throw on a sweater and take the dogs for a walk.
Update: The sun came out :(
Oh well; it was nice while it lasted, and Winter will be here soon.

To Be Like Trixie

Trixie posted yet another personality test and multiple-intelligences profile.

So before you ask, yes, as a matter of fact, if Trixie jumped off a bridge, I think I might look into it too. Who knows? Maybe it's just underrated. As an aside, Shel's came out INFJ (Confidant) and it turns out, unsurprisingly, that she is a Bodily/Kinesthetic, Naturalistic, and Verbal/Linguistic learner.

Before and After Patio Pictures

Before. . .

And after. . .
This has taken all Summer (like as in March 31st through today), but I think it looks pretty good. Tomorrow, we begin looking for a patio cover.
Update: My mom scooped my story! Worse, her pictures look better than mine.

Selling my Body

$4875.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

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The Deathly Hallows - No Spoilers

So, I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Sunday and have spent the last two days reflecting on this book in specific and on the Harry Potter narrative as a whole. I have to confess that one or two minor continuity details nag at me and there are, perhaps, a few minor questions that go unanswered, but overall, I feel tremendously satisfied with this conclusion to the story that has so pervaded the international consciousness these last few years.

The plot and themes are thoughtfully resolved and the reader has a chance to bid farewell to most of the well-loved characters. As for the setting - well, I did indicate that this would be a spoiler-free post.

I Grow Impatient. . .

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is due to arrive today.

I want to start reading now.

I could actually just run down to Wal-Mart and pick up another copy and start. . .

No, three copies is too many

I'll wait.


Don't expect updates for a bit, and when I return, watch out for spoilers.

. . .waiting. . . waiting. . . waiting. . .

Food Miscellany

Yesterday, I mentioned Veggie Meal Plans. On the subject of food, I really ought to mention the naturopathic food cravings table upon which I recently stumbled and also the Vegetarian Resource Group, which I've had bookmarked for some time, but which it never occurred to me to blog about.

Veggie Meal Plans

Pasta with Zucchini and Sun-Dried Tomato and Pumpkin Seed Pesto, Green Salad
Often, when people learn that I am a vegetarian, they ask what I eat.

Usually, I tell them that I eat the same thing that the eat, save meat, and will sometimes point out that most people eat far more meat than they ought to or that the AMA once recommended that most Americans eat one serving of fish a week, but otherwise abstain from eating meat.

I don't think that most people find that answer to be satisfactory, but I don't mind. I don't actually try to convert people.

Well, I am now prepared to give a more satisfactory answer. I have posted a link at the right to another blog here at Blogspot: Vegetarian Meal Plans.

Special Delivery

With just one more issue of both Dragon and Dungeon magazines, I eagerly await their arrival as much as I dread the premature end of their publication.

As Saturday draws nearer, I am already anxiously anticipating the delivery of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Today, though, I received in the mail something I've been waiting for for much, much longer. I am both delighted and relieved.

Old Photos

Web-surfing, I just happened across some photos Suzanne took for some plays I participated in when I used to act with The Acting Company.

Screen Cleaner

I've found that Swiffer Dusters are terrific for cleaning off the dust that builds up on the outside surface of both my computer monitor and the television screen. The cathode ray tube on the television is, of course, sealed, so it doesn't normally get dirty. I've only recently found a great way to get the back of the computer's liquid crystal display clean, though, and I couldn't be happier. Check it out here.

Science is Neato

I Stumbled Upon this cool Flash animation illustrating current thought about black holes.

Prurient Clusterfuck Galore

So, if you've never seen a reality television show before, let me be the one to tell you: the lower, the more outrageous, the more ridiculous, the better. The new rage in reality shows is gameshow-esque programs designed to find a significant other for a celebrity, idiot, rockstar, or reality gameshow winner. This is like The Dating Game, except done over the course of a season rather than during an episode. In addition to shows like The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire, examples include Flavor of Love and I Love New York. We have discovered a shamefully delightful trainwreck of a reality show - the newest in this same series, as a matter of fact. I think it might be my new favorite.


The show is called Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. If you're not familiar, let me enlighten you: Bret Michaels is the singer of the '80's hair band Poison. As it turns out, they never broke up; they've just been on tour all this time. He also has another band. He also has two young daughters. He wants to find a girl who can understand him, a woman who's cool with his rock-and-roll lifestyle, somebody he can settle down with.