| Thoughts on End of Time, Pt 1 |
[26 Dec 2009|02:58am] |
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Pre-First of all: Happy Christmas to everyone who celebrates. And, given the time -- I can wish a Happy Boxing Day as well. :^D
First of all -- sorry for the virtual radio silence. Semester ended, I think I did well, still waiting on grades... etc and so forth.
But life is good and I'm back in a pit. :^D I miss you guys and the next few weeks are going to be spent doing massive catchups and all that. ♥
Had a shitty christmas with the extended family but for those of you who know my family situation, that's not all-together surprising. But for the main thing -- thoughts on today's Doctor Who. Came home from ShittyChristmas(tm) to find the wrong episode had downloaded. Two hours later and I had my grubby hands on a fresh copy. So... yeah.
Not quite sure what I think yet. I'm very meh/wishy-washy/blank about it. It needs another viewing to be sure.
( Ahoy. There be spoilers around these parts! )
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| Brandy Snaps |
[25 Dec 2009|03:43pm] |
Brandy Snaps
140ml (¼ pint) Double Cream (optional)
55g (2oz) Butter
55g (2oz) Castor Sugar
55g (2oz) Golden Syrup
55g (2oz) Plain Flour
1 tsp Ground Ginger
1 tsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp Brandy [optional]
1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C: 350°F: Gas 4.
2. Grease 2 baking trays.
3. Heat the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan, over a moderate heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar has dissolved.
4. Add the lemon juice and remove from the heat.
5. Stir in the flour and ginger, mix until smooth. Add brandy (if used)
6. Place teaspoons of the mixture a few inches apart on the baking tray and bake until brown and lacy.
7. Allow to cool slightly.
8. Whilst still warm, remove from the tray with a palette knife and wrap around the handle of a wooden spoon, allow to become firm before removing.
9. If not required immediately allow to fully cool and store in an airtight container.
10. Serve with brandy butter or pipe with the whipped cream.
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| Chocolate Guinness Cake |
[25 Dec 2009|03:42pm] |
Chocolate Guinness Cake
Unusual, but with some cream cheese frosting, this goes down loooovely.
For The Cake
250ml Guinness
250g unsalted butter
75g cocoa
400g caster sugar
1 x 142ml pot sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
275g plain flour
2 1/2teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
For The Topping
300g Cream cheese
150g icing sugar
125ml double or whipping cream
1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C, and butter and line a 23cm springform tin.
2. Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter – in spoons or slices – and heat until the butter’s melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.
3. Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.
4. When the cake’s cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together. Or do this in a processor, putting the unsieved icing sugar in first and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese.
5. Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.
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| Shortcake Cookies |
[25 Dec 2009|02:39pm] |
Chocolate Chip Cookies
125g/4oz butter
55g/2oz caster sugar
180g/6oz plain flour
Chocolate chips, or nuts, or raisins or a combination!
Milk (a splash, but only if needed)
1. Heat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.
2. Beat the butter and the sugar together until pale.
3. Stir in the flour to get a smooth paste. If you find it hard to combine, try adding a splash of milk to help it gather together.
4. Add the chocolate chips, or whatever you decide to add in, and knead with your hands.
5. Turn on to a work surface and gently roll out until the paste is 1cm/½in thick.
6. Cut into rounds or fingers and sprinkle with a little extra caster sugar. Put on a baking sheet and chill for 20 minutes. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until pale golden. Cool on a wire rack.
You can dust these with sugar, or decorate with piped icing. I like to get interesting cookie cutter shapes (camels!) and decorate them.
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| D00d/ |
[23 Dec 2009|11:40pm] |
A crapload of snow.
Like...a huge crapload.
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| *flutters around* |
[22 Dec 2009|08:34pm] |
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I am wrapping presents and writing and cleaning the house and otherwise splitting my attention in numerous directions. SO. M-maybe gimme some love to keep me going?! (If you want.)
ANON CRUSH MEME
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| I am getting inklings |
[21 Dec 2009|09:59pm] |
...of ideas for Ruined.
I need to write more of that before this creativity spark dies a death.
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| Good Ol' Cap. |
[20 Dec 2009|09:20pm] |
I can 't say we're in for an easy time. Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D have advanced technology and almost unlimited resources at their disposal...But we have the moral high ground.
...
Bless.
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| This is my only gaming icon! |
[19 Dec 2009|10:17pm] |
Here, have something NOT made of hate:
The Border House is a gaming blog! Specifically, a gaming blog that is dedicated to -ism aware discussions and reflections on games, the gaming industry, and related social media. Which, if you know anything at all even peripherally about gaming culture, is a RAD and 1000% necessary thing. If you do not know anything about gaming culture just look at any given post on Kotaku (the interweb's ~*~first source~*~ for gaming news/opinions/etc.) and chances are you will immediately understand the issue.
It also happens to be a place where I very recently contributed a ~guest post~ about internalized sexism amongst female gamers!
So, you should check that out if it is relevant to your interests.
YOU KNOW. IF YOU WANT.
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| my imaginary sigourney/zoe buddycop movie that existed instead of this lives on in my heart |
[19 Dec 2009|10:15am] |
So that one movie came out yesterday! And I must say this so that I will never have to want to say it again and it can stop eating away inside of me at every terrible commercial and random reference I see.
This review at io9 entitled When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar? makes my heart sing because it says everything I would ever have to say on the subject. It covers pretty much every issue! From the general horrible offensiveness that is the entire gross What These Noble Savages Need Is a White Guy! genre of film to posing the question of why exactly Sam Worthington's character needed to exist at all instead of this movie just being about Zoe Saldana as a rad blue lady in touch with nature (IF YOU MUST) leading her people to victory over some assholes trying to steal their shit, gleefully absent some unnecessary fool dicking around in blueface. (SPOILER ALERT: I WOULD WATCH THE SHIT OUT OF THAT MOVIE.)
And indeed I have only two notes to add:
#1
#2
People kept referencing the bit where Sully (~SO SUBTLE~) gives the Noble Savages a ROUSING speech about how the other humans cannot just take whatever they want because "This is our land!"
And, you guys, hahaha every time someone mentioned it I would have a RAGE STROKE (tm ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) latropita). And then I would think, "Okay, I am calm. I am calm. The anger consuming my soul has settled for now." But then I would think about it again by mistake and the rage would return stronger than ever agjdhkjls
"THIS IS OUR LAND"
- some dickwad in blueface to the indigenous people whose resources he came to steal
until he changed his mind since there was a hot, exotic piece of blue ass to tap
and hey, BONUS, racial impersonation is also a ~*~miracle cure~*~ for his pathetic wheelchair-ridden human body cuz ableism is AWESOME amirite?
Why is this.
WHY IS ANY OF THIS!??!?!
I just... what I
how
why
A??AS?A?A?AA?!?!?!!?
this is OUR land
ahahsgjdhkshhahaa
hahaaghdgjhkbskjvd hatelaafffs sjahhs
whyyyyyy
i cant even ajks
asd
#murder
#worsethantiberius
I was going to put something else in this post, but fuck it.
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| HI EVERYONE |
[17 Dec 2009|09:25pm] |
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So, after having little to no idea what it even was or did for quite some time other than a place where sometimes there were feeds of awesome pictures of Mindy Kaling and stuff, I have INVESTIGATED and finding the entire affair intensely relevant to my intersts: I have a Tumblr now.
More specifically: http://glamaphonic.tumblr.com/
Do YOU guys have Tumblrs? Perhaps you should direct me towards them. Perhaps you should also direct me towards other Tumblrs (tumblelogs? happy picture whoosits?) that might be relevant to my interests.
Thus far, mine mostly consists of STXI Mean Girls macros, pictures of Zoe Saldana being hot, and desconstructionist meta about slash culture.
So...business as usual, basically!
BUT I HAVE SO MANY PLANS. SO MANY.
(I have many of them queued.)
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| So, I had a birthday. |
[16 Dec 2009|11:03pm] |
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I got another year older on Friday. I am now 1/4 of a century old.
It was nice. I got something I really wasn't expecting--a painting called Maltesered--that my parents have been holding onto for 2 years. Mental. It goes with my 'size matters' painting in my room, which I absolutely adore.
I got to see my friends on Saturday but it was sort of called short when baby B got ill. He has been sick pretty much since birth, throwing up, but then it got worse and worse lately, throwing up after every feed. NOT throwing up after food was considered a rare and unusual treat.
The night continued on, though, minus 3. We watched a movie, drank coffee and I soaked up the fact that I am so very, very lucky to have the friends that I do. To have people like this appreciate me. I feel so....blessed? to be wanted by these people, because they are the very, very best people I know.
My holiday over Christmas has been agreed. This is good.
I am, thus far, enjoying my extra responsibility at work. It makes me feel useful.
Watched Changeling tonight with mum. I battled tears and I'm pretty sure my mum did, also.
I need something to get my creativity back on a more solid track. This no-juice situation is depressing me.
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| how is it not january yet?!?!?! |
[15 Dec 2009|12:13am] |
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So, this week the CW is having a VAMPIRE DIARIES MARATHON. Two episodes every night for the whole week (thus burning through all currently aired episodes) in a bit of marketing blitz for their new ~*~top earner~*~. I approve of this. SO HARD.
I approved even more of how they showed a promo for the new episodes in January after the pilot and 1x02 tonight.
( I AM HAVING SOME FEELINGS )
So many feelings omg.
I am thinking of actually acknowledging the fandom's existence (such as it is) omg help me. ONCE I GO THERE IT CAN NEVER BE UNDONE.
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| Recap!~ (WoW, glasses, I haven't been reading LJ) |
[14 Dec 2009|06:51pm] |
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So a bit of a recap of the past weeks or so-
I removed Arlu from the guild she was in on Moon Guard. I'm more than certain it had, by this point, totally died because the former organizing GL had left. Long live the banner of Sunfire Skyguard. I spent about thirty minutes un-guilded before a raiding guild, a nice casual three day one which is getting ready for Icecrown, approached me. After a brief chat and making sure they were good with my on-call rotation, Arlu had a new home. And the guys in the guild, and it's mostly guys, are just as sarcastic and foul-mouthed as I like my guys in dungeon-running to be. I feel vaguely at-home and it helped that when I joined her up there were a few classes and a buttload of everyone signing on to their warlocks. Alts or not, we plotted world domination until someone pointed out we'd have to respec. There was a collective "Eh, fuck that" and then we were using warlocks to try and dungeon pug. Randomly fun times had by all. She's got two pieces of Guldan's set since I only just now started running dungeons and hot damn but I love that dungeon finder. In 40 more runs I could get my first piece of Citadel-level gear. Except I have Quel'Delar sooooooo~ yeah, omgquel'delar.
I had to drop out of the PR-DA which makes me sad, Project runway DA being run by a friend, but my glasses still hadn't come in and staring at Photoshop and the mannequin were triggering migraines. On the subject of glasses they came in, finally, last week. The lack of migraines, eye strain headaches, and everything else makes me realize how sodding used to them I'd gotten in the last two months.
My brother is coming home (maybe) for the hols and I'm happy and looking forward to it. And I stuck my tree up but I need ornament hooks to finish it. I put some lights up around the flaoting cabinet in my kitchen too and thinking of stringing some lights off my balcony. Cleaning will need to commence, too, to make sure that if my brother stays at my place for a while it's not a pigsty.
I am, like usual, massively behind on LJ. So behind in fact that it's time for another "crud" moment and to declare that if there's anything that happened on LJ that I need to know about (or that you want me to know about) please toss me a link so I can catch up. I have a few select folks I am going to try and read up on but no promises. e_e
In terms of writing I've been hashing out my failed NaNo idea since it still makes me giggle - that means I still like it. I'm working out my world mechanics and my character mechanics and my kingdom mechanics but I suspect I will hash it out and toss it on the back burner as I'm 3-4k into the current chapter of SunHeart and I'll be damned if I don't finish this story before I'm old, grey, and wrinkled.
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