gmonkey42

I wanted Pad See Ew but the Thai place I like is closed on Sundays. I also wanted Thai iced tea. I suppose I'll have to find another Thai place.

I've been reading this blog Halfway There by a math teacher at a community college and the post linked above contains some great advice for getting things done: commit to spending 15 minutes on it every day. The idea is some days you'll only do the 15 but a lot of times you'll find yourself wanting to do more once you get started. I think it's a great idea and I'm going to do it with my thesis proposal, which I need to finish and turn in ASAP.

How to disable Facebook Places, a new feature - that's automatically turned on, as usual - where you or any of your friends can post your location. Super.

If it's not obvious why that's a bad idea, see this post.

ETA: lol, click on my location link!

This one's pretty simple - French toast - but I thought up a new twist that makes it awesome:

Brown Sugar Crusted French Toast
2 pieces of bread
2 Tbsp butter
the mix:
- an egg
- some milk
- some vanilla ("some" for the vanilla ≠ "some" for the milk)
- a spoon of sugar
- a dash of cinnamon
3-4 Tbsp brown sugar, spread around on a plate

...I never measure things when I make French toast. Guessing wildly, it's probably about 1/4 cup of milk, 1/3 tsp vanilla, and 2 tsp white sugar.

Mix together the ingredients for the mix in a wide, shallow bowl. Heat a skillet on medium and drop in 1 Tbsp of butter to melt. Dip the bread in the mix then turn it over and dip the other side. Here's the cool part: take the now-soggy bread and put it on the brown sugar, so one side gets coated. Then put it in the pan, brown sugar side down. Leave it a few minutes until that side is cooked golden brown then flip it over and cook the other side. Take out the first piece of toast then put the rest of the butter in the pan and repeat with the second slice of bread. Serve with a little maple syrup.

The brown sugar gets caramelized and gives the toast a thin, crunchy candy coating. If you want to be extra fancy, coat both sides with sugar but I liked it fine with just one.

I got my small boats certification today! I can drive the 16ft Boston whalers! That's just a name, they're not really for catching whales. You need a bigger boat for that.

We got to look at all the pieces of a disassembled engine and figure out how they went together. Now I know how an internal combustion engine works! That was almost my favorite part. But the driving-the-boat part was pretty awesome too. I got to drive around in the bay then back to the harbor and we got to practice parallel parking at the fuel dock. I bumped it a little on my second go because I approached it a little too fast but overall I did really well! :D

Well, except the part where I was driving in the harbor and the teacher unexpectedly threw one of the flotation devices overboard and said "someone fell in! What are you going to do?" I drove around towards it and he was like "put it in neutral, put it in neutral!" ...I didn't actually run over it but I drove right past. So then I circled around and came up to it slower and came to a stop by it and we got it. So he said the person survived. That's good.

And now I can drive the boats! I just have to reserve the boat and turn in a float plan! Ooooh, the power! Well, I can't exactly go joyriding in them. You get to use them for free two or three times and then the coordinator will start bugging you about funding. But it's cool, they work with you based on how much funding you're able to get and it's partly subsidized by the lab.

I can also be the driver for other people's projects if they need one - then I don't have to worry about paying for it. They need boat drivers for shorebird surveys coming up soon! I'm in!

Sometimes I don't know why I bother having the kirk/spock comm on my f-list. People keep making posts (or linking to them in this case) bashing other ships, especially Spock/Uhura. Here's the latest one [ETA: the post has been f-locked and I can't access it any more - see below]. Here's my rebuttal to the arguments that came up in this post, just like in every other anti-S/U post:

( Read more... )

So yeah. Ship Kirk/Spock all you want - I sure do - but I don't see the point of ragging on Uhura/Spock. They're acting like Harry/Hermione shippers. And I think we can all agree nobody wants to act like Harry/Hermione shippers.

ETA: Here's great post covering the race issues. Which are very important; I hesitate to talk about them myself because I feel like I'm not really qualified to talk about them in detail. But rawles is and she makes excellent points.

ETA: Ohh, the post on K/S linking to the essay in the OP's journal was deleted at the request of the OP who "did not intend to start a ship war." COULD'VE FOOLED ME! She didn't intend for anyone to disagree with her, you mean. Pff. And the OP has f-locked the post in her journal.

I saw a link on this Tiger Beatdown post so I read it and I like it. It's called Riot Nrrd.

It's cool. It's about a group of female nerds who decide to make their own superhero comic. I like the simple art style. And it's pretty new so you won't have to spend a lot of time reading previous strips to catch up on the story.

Dr. Who fans can just skip this...

Pointless internet poll: who's sexier, 10th Doctor or Spock?

Right now, the Doctor is ahead by 2%. Come on Trek fans! We can do it!

LOL, now I wish I'd gone to Comic-Con!

Pharyngula post: Comic-Con versus Westboro Baptist Church

There's a TNG Starfleet officer holding up a sign that says "GOD HATES JEDI," someone further back holding up "ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNO TOAD," and Bender holding a sign that says simply "KILL ALL HUMANS."

I had my test tonight and I got my high yellow belt! (There's a low and a high of each belt color.) I thought I was going to test last week but the scheduling didn't work out. Actually the head instructor wasn't there tonight - I think he has a respiratory thing, he was losing his voice last week - but the assistant instructor decided I could test with her. That made it easier, I wasn't as nervous as last time because she's not quite so demanding.

Since I was supposed to test last week, they already had me start learning the low orange techniques. So I know four of those. I think there's a new kata to learn too. The techniques all have crazy names. I just learned Rising Knee, Three Hands of China, Crashing Daggers, and... I can't remember the name of the fourth one. Three Hands of China involves punching your attacker so hard they poop their pants :D Oh, I remember the fourth one, it's just Two-Hand Wrist Grab. Some of the names aren't as fun as others.

So I had my private lesson, then group class, then testing; about 2 hours total. Woo! Time for sleepy now.