Posted by Limegirl on Jan 31, 2010 in
Music I’m having a musical orgy, right here, right now. I realize that Das Racist – Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell was obsessed over by the whole world quite a while ago now, but I heard it for the first time today, so cut me some slack. I heard it playing on the local college radio station as I pulled into my parking stall, at which point I parked, ran into the house and googled the song while tearing off my jacket and twitching like a junkie.
I will not conceal the fact that I have been running around the house singing “I’m at the Pizza Hut (what?) I’m at the Taco Bell (huh?) I’m at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bellllllllll” like I have some sort of vocal tic. Yes, I do all the parts. Yes, I try to sound as “street” as I can, to impress the cats.
Also? Yacht is at the Pawn Shop on February 22nd. Christian Hansen and the Autistics are opening. I peed a little when I discovered this. My new-found employment will now allow me to afford this indulgence, and I am giddier than a 5 year-old running on 2lbs of solid chocolate bunny crack.
THE WORLD IS ENTIRELY IN CAPS.
Posted by Limegirl on Jan 19, 2010 in
Food I love Epicurious.com, but as with most things gourmet, some of the recipes are a little rich. I appreciate their recent initiatives to promote their lighter choices, but some of the lighter recipes miss the mark. One of them was the any-day alternative to baked macaroni and cheese. Two reviews seemed reasonably happy with the recipe, but two others were thoroughly dismayed by the lack of creaminess. Even one of the positive reviews commented on the lack of creaminess.
I like macaroni and cheese. I like it high brow, I like it low brow. I like the kind made with whole milk and cheese, baked until the cheese has a nice crispy crust on top. As much as I hate admitting it, I also enjoy the kind made with processed cheese, and even Kraft Dinner. What I’m aiming for, though, is something that is creamy in texture without being heavy. If I can give it a crispy topping without sending the calories through the roof, I will be mighty pleased. So that’s my mission. I’m going into the lab/kitchen, and I’m not coming out until I’ve found a way to make this.
Posted by Limegirl on Jan 19, 2010 in
Food I’ve gotten really excited about food lately. Okay, I’ve always been excited about food, but I’ve been super stoked about cooking. Being on a tight budget, cooking has become a hobby I can indulge in without any additional costs and the associated guilt.
Everyday I find something new to get excited about. Yesterday it was meatloaf, as I haven’t had it in years, and the cookbook I got for Christmas has the most beautiful looking recipe in it. Today it’s anything with lemon and lime flavours.
Look at that cake and tell me that doesn’t look gorgeous. Couldn’t you just live in that? That was inspirational enough to send me looking for various combinations, and I found some that I adore:
Lemon Meringue Custards – one could easily substitute half of the lemon zest and juice for lime zest and juice, thereby making the whole thing even MORE awesome.
Lemon Custards with Lemon Verbena – does that not sound gorgeous? Oh man.
Naturally, this amped up my enthusiasm for custard, which I adore. In my search for custard-related recipes, I found a recipe for Bittersweet Chocolate Soufflé with Earl Grey Custard Sauce. I’ve never made a soufflé in my life, but with a description like that, I’m sure as hell going to try!
Posted by Limegirl on Jan 19, 2010 in
TV So Seuss has been watching Fringe lately. I say that he has been watching it lately, because every time I watch an episode, someone makes some scientific claim that is so blatantly false, I want to jump through the TV and strangle them.
Apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way. I decided to look for Fringe TV inaccuracies, and stumbled across a thread at the Straight Dope forum. I’ve been reading this thread for an hour, and I can’t get enough. So many examples of factual inaccuracies, and so funny. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who twitches every time someone uses made-up science.
I’ll continue to passively absorb bits and pieces of episodes, if only so that I can feed the nitpicking fire.
—————–
Update:
Oh TV Tropes, how I love you and never knew. A quote from You Fail Biology Forever,
“Fringe. Dear god, the science in this is horrible. Given the premise it seems clear they are deliberately invoking Rule Of Cool, as they don’t even try to make sense. Perhaps it takes place in an alternate dimension with different rules…which would be appropriate for the show”
and
“Fringe is Hollywood Science taken to its illogical extreme – given time, it will offend all disciplines. Biology and physics are just the regular whipping boys.”
I believe J.J. Abrams lives by the Rule Of Cool, and would apply it in real life if he could. I believe he has a condo over the shark.
Posted by Limegirl on Jan 17, 2010 in
Life, The Universe and Everything How oddly appropriate that the same night I have an amazing chat with my mother, I stumble across a post about being a lifelong cynic.
I’ve always vacillated somewhere between skeptic and cynic, depending on where I was in my life. The above picture is the perfect example of how, at 3 years-old, I wasn’t buying all this Santa Claus jazz, and I certainly wasn’t going to sit on some strange man’s lap. Neither of my parents ever felt any need to carry on the charade, as it was obvious from early on that I wasn’t buying any of it. Tooth Fairy? Easter Bunny? Just give me the candy/coins, and I’ll play along if I must, but until my firmly skeptical father provides me with legitimate evidence of their existence, I’m not buying any of it.
My family never went to church, but my parents were always an amusing juxtaposition of belief sets. My father grew up in the Pentecostal Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, and later found himself disillusioned by organized religion. Science became his belief system, and he wasn’t going to believe in anything that hadn’t been extensively examined and scrutinized. My mother grew up Buddhist/Shinto in Japan, which while ever-present and permeating every part of the culture, was not particularly rigid. She has always had a flexible approach to spirituality, and has frequently incorporated new things into her belief system, whether it be a loose interpretation of Christianity, or all things paranormal.
Somehow this eventually resulted in a skeptical 10 year-old attending a bible camp without either myself or my mother fully realizing it was a bible camp. A Christian family friend suggested it, and while we understood that the camp was Christian, I was expecting a regular camp with the occasional prayer and grace at mealtime. Rather than the canoe trips and orienteering I had been expecting, we spent quite a bit of time memorizing bible verses in a camp-wide competition to earn the most points for our bunkhouse. This was novel and amusing, as I had never read a bible in my life, and the content of the verses floated entirely without context in my mind. Every evening, we were presented with an impassioned sermon from our pastor/minister about how failing to take Jesus into our hearts would result in eternity in purgatory. Some nights he would emphasize the tragedy of missing out on the experience of allowing Jesus into our hearts, other nights he would go on and on about the fiery terror that would await the non-believers among us.
I weighed these sermons rather heavily each night. In part because I was a compulsive people-pleaser, but also in the interest of covering my bottom-line. I wasn’t about to believe in something that I wasn’t being provided concrete evidence of, but I wasn’t keen on taking the chance of being wrong. I decided to make a bargain with God/Jesus, if he did in fact exist; I would do my utmost to be a good person and generally aspire to conduct myself as Jesus would, and he would agree not to throw my ass into the fires of Hell. I decided that God had to be a reasonable and practical guy, and would understand the arrangement.
Cynicism/skepticism rarely limits itself to the spiritual and fantastical, however. It wasn’t long before I was cynical about the institution of marriage, true love, the nuclear family, and any and all things that are found in Hallmark cards. Naturally, I somehow ended up with a romantic that I initially regarded as hopelessly naïve and in need of protection from the ugliness of reality. As much as we were opposites, my ex softened the cynic in me, eventually making me realize that believing in something can make a lot of things possible that my cynicism never did. Being hard and cynical didn’t spare me from sadness or disappointment, and having hope really didn’t cost me any more. He gave me a lot of courage to work towards things that I otherwise would have given up on, simply because I didn’t believe they were possible.
My cynicism/skepticism is still something I both value and struggle with. There are situations where it has protected me from unscrupulous people, but there are situations where it has also prevented me from connecting with genuine people. Today was a reminder that sometimes I need to set my cynicism aside and just let things in. I thank the universe for that lesson . . . and God, in my own way.
Posted by Limegirl on Jan 16, 2010 in
Uncategorized In spite of everything that has happened in my life, somehow my mother and I are still capable of having these amazing conversations that are both touching and inspirational. It proves that I am actually capable of being something other than snide and cynical about my family. It’s refreshing.
Posted by Limegirl on Dec 21, 2009 in
Limeworld The BBC had me thinking this morning about the end of the first decade of the new millennium.
This wee little website has become a fixture in my life, though my relationship with it has changed over the years. My motivation for starting it, oh so many years ago, was simply a place to air the contents of my brain and also a place to collect the plethora of amusing and interesting URLs that I kept digging up. It was also a convenient way to keep me occupied, as I was unemployed at the time.
When Forever North (my ex) and I broke up, the act of cataloguing the minute details of my life started to feel more awkward than it had before. Part of it was to maintain my zealous desire for privacy, but part of it was also to avoid treading on sensitive areas. Forever North and I spent 7 years together, and our shared memories seemed to permeate every part of my life. It was all I could do to keep my chin up and continue moving forward, without questioning or revisiting the past.
Things were further complicated when Seuss and I started dating. We met through our websites, and our websites became the talk of our friends and family. Consequently, I became self-conscious of saying anything that was either deeply personal, or in any way involving our relationship, particularly if it would embarrass my quiet and deeply private new boyfriend. I gamely continued documenting the entertaining aspects of our lives, particularly the many concerts we were photographing and attending, but the personal elements all but disappeared.
I think it has taken me the last 4 years to get to a point where I’m comfortable enough to share more personal thoughts and feelings again. Seuss and I are now content and secure enough as a couple that I’m not afraid that I will inadvertantly scare him into hiding, and I think it has reopened my relationship with Limeworld.
I’ve tried making it a music blog, or a place where I simply catalogue amusing things, but that isn’t me. Limeworld is a journal of sorts, one missing pages here and there, but ultimately adding up to a reasonable approximation of who I have been and who I am becoming. I’m eager to share a little more of my life again, if only to give my future self a window into the person I am.
There are some topic areas that I will generally avoid on Limeworld, but this has everything to do with the fact that I am aware that my audience includes family members who would really prefer to not read about things of an adult nature. For their sake, I save that content for elsewhere. If you are interested in knowing what I talk about over there, send me an email.
Posted by Limegirl on Dec 18, 2009 in
Music,
Random Shit 
Regretsy
I’m laughing so hard I’m crying.
This album immediately conjures memories of a cassette tape that fell into my possession some years ago. It was a self-produced album belonging to a family friend. Production values were identical, except that he was Hungarian, unable to speak English, but singing entirely in English.
Both my mother and my step-father speak English as a second language, so far be it from me to hold that against someone. The problem was, his use of words was so bizarre, and his pronounciation so completely garbled, that I swear that one of the songs was about goats and clouds.
I was 13 at the time. My step-father introduced the tape to us, proud of this tape from his musician friend. He started the tape, and the warbling of the sound quality immediately didn’t bode well. When he began to sing, the notes came out flat and wobbly, and the words sounded like he was speaking through some automated translator. I started to laugh. Hesitantly at first, watching my parents to see if my reaction would be received without incident. I tried to stifle my laughter out of politeness, but this only amplified things. It soon became contagious, as it quickly became apparent to my parents that he was singing about livestock and meteorological phenomenon. It wasn’t long before tears were streaming down all of our faces, holding our sides in pain.
Varga takes me right back, Casio and lo-fi recording to boot. This makes me do a little dance of exquisite joy.
Posted by Limegirl on Dec 18, 2009 in
Random Shit Don’t know what to get the family member you despise, but want something with a personal touch? Regretsy is here for you!
Save the attractive crafts for yourself and your best friend, Regretsy has itemized the worst of Etsy, from pet humiliation to all things vagina-inspired.
If nothing else, go just so you have an excuse to say “Vagtastic!”
Posted by Limegirl on Dec 18, 2009 in
Random Shit Seasonal WIN!
The Santa in my photo isn’t sketchy, but I was definitely unwilling to sit on his lap!