Ramblings of the Often Insane

Go Iowa!!!

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 07:02:21 GMT

'nough said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090404/ap_on_re_us/iowa_gay_marriage

Pet Picture Spam

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:08:40 GMT

Just pictures of the Critters.
The new puppy. She's a two pound fluffball.

The poodle Curly, he's the oldest of our dogs.

The sheltie is Laddie, and the little chi is Choko.

This is Little Kitty. It should be noted that Little Kitty has since outgrown her name. Fat Kitty would probably be more appropriate.

See what I mean.:P

This is Clover. I could have fixed the eyes, but since all the other animals seem to think she's a demon anyway I decided to leave them like that.^^

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:20:20 GMT

I'm bored, so I'll play:

Type your cut contents here.
A = Age: 22
B = Bed size: Twin
C = Chores you hate: Anything that involves cleaning.
D = Dessert you love: Dark Chocolate anything.
E = Essential start your day item: Find my Glasses
F = Favorite actor(s): Hugo Weaving, Alan Rickman, Jonny Depp
G = Gold or Silver: Silver.
H = Height: 5'6"
I = Instruments you play: Ocarina, plus a few tunes from the harp, guitar and piano
J = Job title:Student, Planogram Team Member for massive retail corporation that isn't Wal-mart
K = Kids: None
L = Living arrangements: My parents and a lot of animals
M = My name is: A----- K------- A------
N = Nicknames: I've had a lot.^^;
O = Overnight hospital stay: Too many too count, though I have spent an entire month in a hospital
P = Pets: 2 Cats, guinea pig, 4 dogs, and a pig.
Q = Favorite quote: "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." Douglas Adams
R = Right or left handed: Right.
S = Siblings: 1
T = Time you woke up today: 3 AM
U = Unique about you: I'm unique, just like everybody else.:P
V = Vegetable you hate: Any kind that's cooked
W = Worst habit: Procrastination
X = X-Rays you've had: Arm, leg, spine, plus countless MRI and CAT scans
Y = Yummy food you make: Baklava, Fajitas, and Chimichangas
Z = Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:46:59 GMT

Book Meme

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well, let's see.
1) Bold the books you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Copy, paste, & repeat.
5) Starred next to the books you're reading/have read some of.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (This is probably something half of the planet has read.)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (I Used to be a good little Christian Girl, then I actually read this)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (I had a huge crush on Heathcliff.)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (I keep planning to buy the omnibook, it never seems to make it into the shopping cart though)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Yes I actually read all of this after my mother gave me the huge book for Christmas, I appear to one of the few freaks on the planet who actually like Shakespeare^^;)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (My dad actually read some of this to me, I distinctly remember being amazed as a child, that my father was actually reading.:P)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (I loved this series, I read it so many times it ain't even funny)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (Doesn't this count as the Chronicles?)
37 The Kite Runner _ Khaled Hosseini (It was so hyped, I had to see.)
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (This was like the Bible ya'll when I was in Basic Training, every girl in the barracks was reading it, we were smuggling copies in like mad. I wonder if the Drills ever find the copy we left inside the water fountain.)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (I read this one to my little brother, and he claims I never did anything for him.)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Shhh, don't tell my grandmother I've read this, she's convinced it's the Devil's work. Actually both grandmothers think this.)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (Is there any girl who hasn't read this?)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (A neighbor is going to lend this one to me, as soon as she finishes.)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (The first book in the series was by far the best)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (I read all of her books.)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (This one we had in class, everybody else just watched the movie...I loved the book though.)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding (My mom watched the movie, I read the book.)
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (I heart Captain Ahab)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (Considering the giant Vampire phase I went through, of course I read the original vampire:P)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (I read this so many times as a girl.)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (Oh, this one nearly killed me, but once I start a book I have to finish it...)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (Somehow I managed to read every Dicken's book, some of them, like this one, I actually liked.)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White (Another one I loved as a Child, to this day I still can't kill a spider.)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (I had to see what all the fuss was about.)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I had a huge mystery phase, right before the vampire one.)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (another one I read a lot as a kid.)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (I actually won a Scholar's Bowl game with a question about this book. We beat the other team by exactly one question.:P)
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (One of my favorites from him)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (It has chocolate in the title, of course I read it.)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Yeah, I didn't do much as a child other then read, I read every fiction book in my school libraries and almost every fiction book in the town library. And I read a lot of non-fiction books, and I've read an entire encyclopedia set (I was out of other books in the house). I still prefer books to TV/Movies. I'm officially a book freak.

Housewife Meme

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:58:11 GMT

-55

As a 1930s wife, I am
Very Poor (Failure)

Take the test!

Yeah...housewife is so not my future occupation...

Fanart for Magic Rat's Phone Sex

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:00:47 GMT

Sketchy Version

Special Hell

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:26:06 GMT

I have discovered the perfect idea of punishment for those sent to the Special Hell. Wrapping very large, very awkward and heavy, strangely shaped Christmas gifts. This activity is indeed pure torture. And sadly I'm not even sure what I did to deserve this. Other then buying said very large, very awkward and heavy, strangely shaped Christmas gift. Mom better like it, is all I'm saying.

Divinity Recipe

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:07:54 GMT

Ingredients: 2 ½ cups sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
½ cup water
¼ teaspoon salt

2 egg whites (room temperature)
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

½ cup nuts or dried/candied fruit, or
½ tablespoon ground spice (All this is optional, Grandma just used walnuts or nothing, I like to experiment.)

In 2qt saucepan combine sugar, light corn syrup, water, and salt on medium low heat. Stir just until the sugar dissolves then leave it until it reaches 260-266 degrees.

When it's at about 250 degrees start beating 2 egg whites until really stiff peaks form, then beat at high speed while you gradually add the syrup to the whites. (This seems to be the point where it easily goes horribly wrong and you get something not-divinity. I've found the best method for me is to add no more then a tablespoon of the syrup at a time, make a couple passes with the beater then add another.)

After all the syrup has been mixed in, beat until the mix starts to look less shiny(2-3 minutes.) Add the vanilla(Also if you decided to try an additional spice, now would be the time to add it.), change to low speed and keep beating until the mix holds its shape, it will be really thick, my poor hand mixer always sounds like it's going to die at this stage.

Fold in chopped nuts or fruit if you wanted, and either use a buttered spoon to drop mix on wax paper or spread into a greased or lined pan. Either way work fast, if it dries too soon you can stir in a few drops of water, but try not to do that often. Then let stand until hard.

Possibly helpful hints for those who might not know:

Best to make on days it isn't raining or about to rain, humidity makes it not dry well. However, if you must make it on a humid day use less water, ¼ cup works well from my experiments. (I live in Alabama, we drink our air down here.:P) It's better to use less water if you aren't sure, if it gets too thick too soon, you can always add a little more, just make sure you stir it in gradually. Sadly I have yet to find a cure for adding too much water, other then the trash can anyway^^;.)

Also should your candy thermometer be broken, gone, lost, or stolen: when a drop of the syrup forms a hard little ball in cold water it's ready.

Fanart-Render: Master Erestor's A.C.o.t.E.R

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:02:57 GMT

A scene from an animation I'm working on, at the rate it's going I'll be finished in 2030.

Fanart: Render- Tifa's Gift

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:54:32 GMT

A simple rendor done in Daz Studio. I couldn't help myself.