My weekly 2011 updates continue with: baking!
This Christmas season, I wanted to make a contribution moderately more interesting than my usual iTunes gift card stocking stuffers. With that in mind, I decided to invent my own recipe, because I figure everyone’s gotta have their own recipe at some point. After many batches of tinkering, I ended up with this, a recipe for chocolate chip candy cane cookies! Continue reading Chocolate Chip Candy Cane Cookies
Happy New Year, The Internet!
Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. And sorry for an apology that followers of my works hear all too often. A lot’s been happening in my life lately, but I hope to make up for my varied absences with my New Year’s resolution of MORE BLOG POSTS OMG
What will this result in? Hopefully more frequent updates on this blog (and other projects)! When I decided on this resolution, my first thought was to post something daily, but I have a feeling that would get rambly-cluttered and also insane, so my current goal is one blog post per week. I may not always have major projects to discuss, but at the very least I’ll keep all my faithful readers appraised of goings-on like a good blogger should.
Which brings us to my first blog post of 2011, wherein I discuss: Internet Christmas carols!
For the holiday season, Blue decided to make video Christmas carols for her favorite websites. Seeing that this was an awesome idea, I humbly offered my assistance at sprucing up the videos with vocal accompaniment and jingly bells, with iMovie providing the picture-in-picture magic. Here are our collaborative results! Continue reading Internet Carols (and a resolution)
Roland S. Martin from CNN just posted this little commentary about how there’s a “push to remove Christ from the Christmas season”. I’m sorry, but is that actually true? I’ve never once been chastised for saying “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”. I’ve never heard anyone refer to a Christmas tree as a “holiday tree”. And which Christ-mentioning songs have been “axed”, and in what capacity? He’s not backing up any of his statements, he’s simply putting assertions out there and assumes that the reader buys into them.
Well I don’t!
The only situation where I could agree with him would be in the realm of marketing, but there’s a damn good reason for it. When a company is selling a product in the month of December, they’re potentially selling to people who observe other holidays as well as Christmas celebrators. Though he claims to be respectful of other religions, he’s basically saying that this time of year is about Christmas and Christmas alone (screw Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the Solstice). Do you think that maybe a gift being sold on Amazon or eBay that doesn’t contain some element of a Santa hat could be sold to someone that intends to give it to someone else on a day other than December 25th?
Because December contains so many prominent holidays, there’s nothing wrong with wishing someone “Happy Holidays”, because you very well might not know what the recipient of the well-wishing celebrates. That said, I’ll say “Merry Christmas” to anyone regardless, and I fully welcome them to return a “Happy Hanukkah”, “Habari Gani?” or whatever else they deem appropriate to the occasion. “Right back atcha!” or “Aaay!” would probably be okay too. But I’ve never felt any semblance of societal pressure to withhold my personal religious beliefs, so I’m really having a lot of trouble seeing where Mr. Martin is coming from on this one.
Also, what’s wrong with giving gifts? It’s not like I’m just hemorrhaging my hard-earned money for people I don’t even like. ‘m just hemorrhaging my hard-earned money for people I do like, because I think they’re awesome people that deserve it. I haven’t lost sight of what the holiday means to me, and I don’t feel any pressure to open my wallet any more than I’m comfortable doing; if I were broke, I’m sure my family and friends would understand receiving tacos on Christmas morning. I mean, tacos are delicious, after all.
You want something to complain about regarding Christmas? TBS has announced that they’ll once again be playing A Christmas Story for 24 hours straight, just a few days from now. That right there is an affront to the sanctity of the holiday. I love that film, but how many times in the same day can you watch Flick stretching his tongue in a vain attempt to excise it from the frozen pole? Apparently the answer is 12 times.
But I’m genuinely curious: anyone here bear witness to a war on Christmas lately?
MATT DID THE DRAWERATING FOR THIS ONE IN HONOR OF ALL-CAPS DAY AND INCLUDED AN EPIC SPACE JOKE DELIVERY
THIS IS WHY HE’S SO GREAT YOU GUYS
Continue reading MATT AND MARIO IN SPACE COLLEGE 3: ALL-SPACE-CAPS DAY
IT’S THE SECOND WEDNESDAY OF NOVEMBER. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS: WHENEVER YOU HAVE THE OCCASION TO WRITE OR TYPE SOMETHING, DO IT IN ALL-CAPS!
OKAY, A LOT OF PEOPLE PROBABLY DIDN’T KNOW THAT AT ALL, SINCE ALL-CAPS DAY WAS ONLY STARTED LAST YEAR BY STEF AND I, FOR KICKS, AMIDST OUR FORUM FRIENDS. BUT STILL… ALL-CAPS! START YOUR LIVEJOURNALS!
Sunday, June 14, 1998
Today was another Ponderosa day, the fourth one so far, and hopefully the last one for at least a little while (it’s fun, but it gets really repetitive!). We did the breakfast hay wagon, as usual, and got held up again, although he had some new jokes. The breakfast was pretty good, a sure plus. We didn’t see the gunfight, but we did get to see Buckaroo Beau, a new addition since our last three visits, where a cowboy by the same name does some fun rope tricks and gun-twirling stuff. That was cool. We left a lot earlier than usual.
Almost as soon as we got home, we decided to go to the beach. That was cool, because we got to bring out new 4-person raft. Only Carlo actually got in the water, but most of us got to paddle the raft (Donna mostly sunbathed). The paddling felt really good, because it helps me exercise my chest muscles, which is good, considering the trampoline incident. We ate some lunch there, paddled some more and went home.
Now it’s 8:00 PM, and we can’t find anything on the television to watch. What’s on Sunday night at 8?
Sunday, June 15, 1997 (Father’s Day)
Our second Father’s Day here was as good as the first and better. We gave Dad some Looney Tunes golfing equipment, but the practice putter doesn’t work very well. Dad still loves it.
After the celebration, we had eggs, sausage, and english muffins for breakfast. It was delicious. Then, we drove down to the Tahoe Gal for another ride.
The Tahoe Gal hasn’t changed much, although this time we took the North Shore cruise. The cool thing was that I got an adult ticket (I love growing up!). I had a nice big root beer to drink, and that was good. The captain had a funny Texan accent, and kept repeating things over the loudspeaker. Even so, I still had a great time. When we got home, we had a nice big lunch, sat around for a little while, and left the cabin again.
This time, we decided to drive Lucy to Ward Creek. It was okay, but there were mosquitoes everywhere! Then, we came home, which we were all very glad about!
Sunday, June 16, 1996 (Father’s Day)
Today, as it says above, was Father’s Day. The kids gave Dad two T-shirts, a San Francisco Giants one and an “I Am Father, Hear Me Snore” one. Donna said it was perfect. Grandma gave Dad a birdhouse with a wooden sailor on it. Donna and Kara gave him a green shirt and tan pants.
For most of the day, we stayed at the beach. Mostly I would paddy the raft, and my arms ached afterwards. Grandma had bought some woggles and a connector piece to float on in the lake, and they were pretty fun to use. She promised to buy another connector to use at her house (they have tons of woggles there!) For lunch, we had sandwiches, chips, and “Squeezit” drinks. After I was done swimming, paddling, and “woggling”, Grandma and I played a game of “Neverending Crazy 8’s”, but stopped after about four rounds.
When we got home, Kara and Amelia continued their game of Monopoly, which they had started the night before! After many a few arguments, they decided to call it quits.
