I got these Mint Crisp M&M's on a whim at the Circle K one morning last week on my way to work while getting my coffee and hot dog breakfast. I had them later in the day as a snack - delicious! Chocolatey, minty, crispy! They are a mint flavored chocolate around a roughly lentil shaped rice crisp core. Some of the candies have little Aztec images on them. Doesn't affect the taste, but they must put some ancient spell on the taste buds, and they sure are cute.

I started a new compressed schedule last week at work of 4 10-hour days which gives me Fridays off. Monday and Tuesday were rough, but by Thursday I was reasonably adjusted to my new schedule. When I woke up automatically at 5:30am on Friday, I was very happy to snuggle back into bed, satisfied to start my long weekend with extra snooze time. Nate and I picked up sandwiches and went to the greenbelt park around 1pm. We had a gathering of ducks and crows around us once Nate started tossing bits of the end of his hoagie roll around. We wandered around taking photos, and this pair of ducks continued following along with us. They hopped in the water to swim and forage a bit, but still kept track of us, letting Nate crouch down within 2 feet of them to get this picture. He said that it was like they were posing for him; cute!

After the park, we watched Lars and the Real Girl, which we both thought was boring and far-fetched in a bad way. Later, we went to Cz & PB's for another Wii & BSG night, joined by Wendy and Chris D.

Friday night: Gina's 40th birthday shindig at Sugar Daddy's. I haven't been to SD in a while, and they not only have hip-hop music on Friday nights, they now have some hip-hop scene. Some scene comingled with the old generic Scottsdale crowd. It made for some entertaining people-watching. I intended to leave early to go home and watch BSG, but I ended up chatting with other friends of Gina's and staying out until 2am. Then, I decided to try to watch BSG online when I got home. I was SO angry when it crapped out 30 minutes into the 45 minute episode! Once I determined that it was not my machine but either the connection or the site, I tried to go to bed, but had trouble sleeping; over-tired and anxious about the ending of the episode.

Saturday: I got up at 9am and watched the rest of this week's BSG. Then I ground 3 cups of almonds, drank 2 cups of coffee, packed up other cookie ingredients and drove to south east Gilbert for a lunch date. Drove from Gilbert to Tempe to meet BrienBear for dinner at Haji Baba. While waiting, I spotted Nowhere Man and a Whiskey Girl. Turns out that they were playing at the Lost Leaf later. Brien and I had planned on going to see the Breeders, but decided after dinner that we could go for something more low-key and opted to go to the Lost Leaf instead. We were joined at the Lost Leaf by a new acquaintence.

Sunday: Got up at 9am again. I was at Kat's at 11 to teach dance. Not long before 1pm, Czarina and I went to the Chinsese Cultural Center to meet Patrick and Darenna for some Dim Sum. It seemed to take forever to get classes of water then to get our bill settled. The staff seemed a little tired out, and I was as well. I went into the market to show Darenna where the tasty fake beef jerky was (made from soy!), I got a couple of packets for myself then took off. I had one last stop at the dollar store to get a gift bag before I could go home and have an hour nap before going back out to my brother's house. It was my nephew's birthday on Friday, but I elected to go to my brother's to celebrate it on Sunday instead. Alex really liked the two "Speed Racer" cars that I'd bought him, playing with them immediately once removed from their packaging. We had some good local pizza for dinner. I was glad that Gregg had work to do, so I could leave at 9 after I helped get the kids to bed. I was in bed by 10:30.

Today (Monday): I was really glad that I had been setting an extra alarm an hour earlier last week to get used to it. I woke up this morning in a panic when I read the clock: 5:35am. The alarm was supposed to go off at 5:30. WTF? Then I noticed that the other clock was blinking. I checked my cell phone: 5:05am. The power had gone out at 11:30 the night before and reset the clocks. I reset the alarms and rested until 5:45. Not the best start to first 10 hour workday of my new "compressed" schedule. Oh, well.

I bought all of these vegetables at the dollar store and made a big veggie stew out of them. Eggplant, "Mexican" Squash, "Italian" Squash, Roma Tomatoes, Pasilla Peppers, Ginger. I did add garlic and spices to flavor the stew that I didn't get at the 99 cent only store. An Indian co-worker said that it smelled good and asked to try it when I brought some for lunch last week; he said that it tasted similar to a dish that his mother makes. That was a big complement from him, and made me happy. He told me today that I inspired him to cook, that he bought similar vegetables to cook at home for himself. :-)

It has been an entertaining challenge to cook a good meal from ingredients predominantly from the dollar store. I'm also making an effort to eat healthier, and spending less is neat too! I haven't abandoned going to the downtown market for produce, because I still like to buy local, but this is another source added to my grazing rounds.

I feel compelled to share this link to The Hitchhiker's Guide Text Adventure that I saw on Digg this morning. They have a "20th Anniversay" edition of the game, and the original version.

I really wanted a pair of sailor style pants, but couldn't find them in my size. Then, I looked for a pattern, and couldn't find one of those in my size either. So, I made one up! I used my measuring, geometry, and wingin' it skilz to whip these up. I'm happy to say that they fit and are wearable. There are a few minor adjustments that I will do when making them again, but I am pretty pleased with the result overall. My shirt is half tucked in for the photo to show the button detailing. I'm not sure if these are "appropriate" for work, but I wore them anyway! (Such a wardrobe rebel. 8-)

Experiment: 96% of passers-by ignore famous artist's street painting: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/23/experiment-96-of-pas.html

"What if you take art out of its usual context and expose it in the street? Would people even notice it?" Apparently not! I've pulled my car over to park on the street to photograph interesting graffiti or pause in walking for a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk. It seems that people miss out on a lot of beauty around them in their daily lives.

I don't know if y'all will find this as hilarious as I did, but the internets hath delivered me an ironic, political, irreverent re-write of the seder haggadah (the book read at the Passover dinner), just in time for Passover, which begins Saturday night. Though, it's not at all appropriate for reading at my brother's house, where I will be spending the eve of the holiday. I don't think that my 8-year-old niece or 4 year-old nephew will understand the references to pot smoking and Condoleezza. There is also swearing involved. There is even a PowerPoint presentation of the 10 Plagues for your convenient use during the seder! Fantastic!

This photo rounds out the top 5 most viewed photos in my Flickr account. I've wondered how people find this photo, and have been checking the stats on and off. I am amused to note that it is most often viewed via image searches from Yahoo in Japan. I'd heard about the Japanese medical fetish before, and I think that it's kind of hilarious, but also kinda creepy.

Ok, I have to tell you guys this story while I hang my head in serious techie shame. I have cable internet and thought that I only get the fist 13 stations of cable TV. Well, I was talking to someone on the phone last night, and the cable thing came up in conversation on Battlestar Galactica viewing, and he said, “I wonder if there is a setting on your TV that you can change. I had to do that on my TV.” I was like, seriously? You have to change a setting on the TV to see all the channels? That’s silly! Can’t hurt to check, right? Lo and behold, there it was on screen 3 of the TV settings – “TV / CABLE”. BLAMMO! The stations shifted, and now I have 66 of them! Thank Hera!

The saddest part is that I have had cable internet for 5 years. The same TV the whole time, that I've had since I moved into my house 9 years ago. I’ve never had a cable box, which I thought that I needed for my older equipment to see the stations. I just didn’t know to change the setting on my fracking TV! When I first got cable internet hooked up, I didn’t have the splitter on the inbound connection to connect to the TV, because the nerdy tech that set it up told me that I’d get faster throughput for the internet without the split. I knew this to be true, because I hooked it all up and tested it. That was more important to me at the time. I even tried the cable hookup to the TV at the time (not knowing about changing the TV settings) and saw the seemingly 13 channels and disconnected it. With Netflix, I honestly didn’t care much about cable TV. Until I got hooked on BSG! I didn’t use the cable TV again until the whole mess with my roof and the antenna got jacked up (and eventually removed). I reconnected the cable to the TV in, I think, December.

So after watching my Netflick (Walk Hard) last night, I watched some Adult Swim, for the first time from my own living room. Duh.

The body fits great, but the armholes are a little tight. I'm hoping that I can stretch them a little in blocking, as I really don't want to frog. I broke my #2 circular when I was just past the arm pit and had to switch to a #1, which probably caused the tightness. :-S

Main yarn is Inca Wool, and contrast color is Koigu.

Arrived on Friday. I haven't had a lot of time to play with it yet, though.

Today is my niece's birthday! I'm going to my brother's tonight after work to see her and celebrate.

Happy Purim! Today is also my favorite Jewish holiday, Purim. Though it is hardly heard of here, it is widely celebrated in Israel with costumes, parades, and carnvals. I'm hoping that I can get some of my favorite holiday cookies this year.

Myrna, Carol, and I thought that it would be funny to try out Peeps Jousting at work after an email from Myrna's sister (the bank VP that we went to Mexico with) that they were setting up matches at their office. I picked up the Peeps at the dollar store, and Carol brought in a box of toothpicks Sadly, our bouts didn't go as excitingly as the video that we saw. I think that the microwave at work was too weak. Oh well. You can also check out the Peep Show.

This picture wouldn't post yesterday, and I don't know why...

After work this past Friday, I went with happinesstogo to the Roadrunners hockey game. The evening was off to an entertaining start when we got our faces painted; waiting in line after a couple of little girls for the old gentleman to paint our cheeks with a caracature of the team's mascot. Also, the 'Runners won, so it was a fun game to watch. Afterward, we joined the festivies at pattersonphoto's birthday party, which was also a good time.

Saturday afternoon, after picking up some supplies, I went to a craft Meetup to do beeswax collage. Alice was in town from San Diego, and she was also at the Meetup, which made it a heck of a lot more fun. The collage part was ok, I don't see myself buying the equipment needed for it. Alice and I met Darenna, Sue, Kat & Ben, and Ben's sister at Pasand for dinner. After dinner, Alice, Darenna, Sue, and I wnt to the Chandler Cinema to see the classic cheese film Rock 'n' Roll High School. Alice snuck in the bottle of Malibu that didn't get finished at the meetup. It was a really yellowed and scratchy print, adding to the cheesy nostalgia of the film.

Sunday afternoon, after veil dancing with the ladies at Kat's house, she invited me to stay for dinner. She and her sister-in-law prepared some dishes from Rick Bayless which came out pretty well. Kat also served drinks of freshly squeezed tangelo juice with Malibu, which were very tasty. I consumed a lot more Malibu in the past weekend that I think that I ever have before!

I still have some lingering congestion and hoarseness from that evil flu plauge and it's really gotten to be a drag.

I finished knitting a pair of socks that I started a few weeks ago, but now it is too warm for me to wear them. Oh well. Maybe there will be one last 70 degree day that I can wear them on before we are above 90 until October.

For the Knitting Nerds: They are knit toe-up magic-loop, both at the same time pulling from opposite ends of the ball. Short-row heel. Figure 8 cast-on. US 0 Addi Turbo needles. Knit toe-up magic-loop, both at the same time pulling from opposite ends of the ball. Noro Sock Colorway 184.

The yarn sticks to itself like velcro when pulling from the ball, but the colors are really pretty. I can say that I've used it now, but not in a hurry to knit with it again.

I managed to make it out to my main boss's wedding Saturday night. Not my immediate boss that I share an office with, but the main boss that originally hired me. Anyway, I got a ride from Myrna and her husband, stepson, and another co-worker to the wedding, which was nice. I wasn't looking forward to driving a half an hour to east Mesa. The downside was that they were going earlier that I planned to, giving me only 20 minutes to get ready to go. I was amazed that I managed to pull it together in time.

It was a nice wedding, at Red Mountain Country Club. happinesstogo and Al were there as well, and I sat with them at the ceremony, but I didn't sit with them at the reception. The most entertaining part of the party were the glowsticks. I managed to get a few entertaining photos, even though the lighting was not favorable. We left after the toast, when the music got started. Myrna was feeling crappy too.

That's all I managed to do over the weekend. I cancelled all other plans. Pretty much just napped, expelled phlegm, drank lots of liquids, expelled fluids, and zombied in front of the TV.