Category: Uncategorized

Primarily intended for me, , , and . I called it . WoW = world of warcraft. STAB = the first letter of the first name of the 4 of us, in order of signing on to the idea. Sometimes, life provides amusing little treats like that. I’m primarily planning on using it to set up future gaming times and to talk about playing times past. Others are welcome to join us, if so inclined. =)

So I made a big ‘ol pot of split pea soup and a tofutti cheesecake, hopefully I’ll finish them before I go. Any parties wishing to sample the cooking (help me get rid of the excessive quantity I produced) have only to ask. =)

One (16 oz?) bag of split peas
12 cups of water
8 oz sliced baby bella mushrooms
3 carrots, sliced
2 large potatoes coarsely cubed and not peeled
Bunch of collard greens, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1/2 medium yellow onion
olive oil
generous squirt of braggs liquid amines
oregano

put water & split peas in huge pot. Start to boil
Sautee garlic, onions, and oregano in olive oil until onions start to become translucent then dump into pot
add potatoes
Wait 10 minutes add carrots.
After 20 minutes add mushrooms and greens. Turn heat down to minimal.
Leave and watch animation shorts with , , and friend of the latter at nearby theater.
Return to find that stove has guttered out.
Begin cooking again.
Heat until peas are an unidentifiable green mush.
Salt to taste.

The carrots are way overcooked, otherwise it came out pretty well. It even came out as a soup, rather than a paste. Way more water than I usually use. Next time I’ll probably use a little less, but closer to this quantity than to what I was using before.

The tofutti cheesecake, the recipe for which I found via google on the humane society website is tasty. And, keeping in mind I haven’t eaten cheesecake in literally years, it tasted pretty right to me. I suspect it was significantly more expensive, marginally lower in fat, and marginally higher in carbs. Also, comparing it to other internet recipes, it seems pretty close to traditional cheesecake recipes, with a cream cheese substitute, and no egg. I’ll check the cream cheese price and nutritional information the next time I go shopping.

As I was eating my brown rice & beans for lunch today, I checked my account balance. Yay the feds have given me the flow. Now I can pay my bills, and rent on my sublet, and my roommates for the utils…

After that, though, there won’t be much left. *shrug* I gots to learn to manage my money better. Hopefully that maternal check will be here any day now….

It’ll be so nice to have a decent income again.

I was having an im conversation with earlier today. After much discussion of WoW, both last night’s session with him, , and in which we determined that a seperate lj group to arrange things might not be a bad idea, we got on the subject of politics, specifically his, and how they might have changed since last we spoke. He still identifies with the label of “a conservative conservative” and libertarian, but not Libertarian. He says his belief in universal health care, gay rights, and his extreme distaste for religion flow logically from this.

And I, the unabashed liberal, proceeded to defend religion as an attempt to make sense of the world that predates science, and provides answers (of unverifiable quality) that science is incapable of providing, for instance, where the world comes from. Both are sensemaking social constructs. Both have their own, usually separate, institutions and communities. And, for that matter, both types of community and institution have done bad things (the inquisition and skinner boxes/molgrim experiments) and both have done good things (public service including education, health care, and housing, granted all with a religious slant, and say, penicilin and the internal combustion engine).

I’ll summarize andrew’s side with a few quotes that I’m taking the liberty of reposting (and will edit if you want me to, Andrew). Here is his view when he’s had the time to carefully compose his thoughts, I’ll be more careful about reposting im conversations in the future, mi amigo.

Religion had its purpose, gave society the initial well being, be good to your neighbor laws, but it is time for us to find a new way to be moral and ethical, without relying upon religion to justify it.

Reason/science should supply what we need in this regard.

In response to the question if science can answer the origins of the universe and if there is an all powerful being:

Not currently, but those questions aren’t worth asking if youve thought about them enough (when compared to more relevant, pragmatic questions such as social issues and foreign policy in which religion plays a large role, and in my view most often negative) religion can’t explain them either, not the way youre asking science to explain it, with the burden of proof.

And, so, gentle readers, I ask you to share your take on religion, science, and their interrelations.

recently linked to an entry in blinkytreefrog about a book, published in 1951, called Becoming a Woman, which also contains a section on homosexuality. Fortunately, I believe the portion of society subscribing to these views has decreased markedly in the past half century.

It was better than episodes I & II, though not by itself worth the additional fucking of my sleep schedule that resulted. Of course, I was led to believe that it was not a midnight showing by a certain someone… *cough*. I think I managed to get 30-45 minutes of sleep in the theater while waiting for the show to start.

I’m not a midnight, opening night showing kind of guy. I prefer to go after the crowds have died down, where if you walk in as the previews are running, you can still find a decent seat. But, I do make exceptions for friends, particularly friends I won’t be seeing for awhile. =)

Anyway, as for the movie. As I said before, it was good. Not great, but good. Fabulous special effects and stunning fight scenes, of course. The most interesting aspect for me was the outlining of the process of transitioning a republic (what the us has, and rome had before it turned to empire) to fascism. Including a couple memorable quotes: spoiler quotes

I started off the day uncertain about my prospects for housing in chicago, and not having uploaded a single file (only fine tuning my little script). We now have maybe 50% of the files on the website, and I have a place to stay in chicago. $475/month plus 1/2 utils, furnished, swank little pad, very close to the kedzie brownline stop (near the end of the line, the brownline runs by my gymnastics location of choice and Whole Foods). Roommate sounds like a decent guy. Rockin’. Now to finish uploading webfoo, finish my paper, clean up the apartment and find a sublessor for my spot. No problem. =)

So, yesterday started off early. I went for a run with Scott. Then I headed over to campus to see the class ahead of me graduate and wish my friends good luck with their futures. Then it was grocery shopping with Joe, so we could make burritos, as well as an experimental double layered, tofu based, peanut butter chocolate pie. It came out alright. There are some ways that we thought of to improve it. Joe also pointed out an article from the new york times (mentioned to him by someone at the grocery store) on class in america. An interesting, if hardly in-depth read.

Then it was over to and ‘s place for gaming stuff. Gnulica is level 13 now, and becoming ever more aware of her ‘glass cannon’ role in life.

After my final on saturday, and a bit after graduation, I was working on paperwork. All my tax stuff has been mailed in, albeit a month (or two years and a month, in one case) late. And almost all of my gao paperwork is complete [and mailed]. Now I just need to finish up research assistantship stuff, deal with the subletting situation on both ends (I’m going to try to do a last minute sublet of my spot here, just packing most of my stuff into the closet) and write the final paper. Shouldn’t be too bad.