worryingly jolly batman

YOU GUYS ME AND caramarie FOUND A FLAT IT IS PERFECT AND AT THE CONVENIENT END OF ARO VALLEY AND CLOSE TO THE VEGE MARKET AND AN EASY EASY WALK FROM MY WORK

and I will take some photos NEXT WEEK because that is when we get to move in. :D

*twirls off back to work*

1. The other thing that is bugging me about new!LJ is the way that the "post to LJ" button in the menu bar at the top is now exactly where "friends list" used to be. I don't even post from LJ anymore, so this is extra bonus annoying.

2. My parents kicked us out of the house tonight because they're playing cards with their friends, and I was going to go to the Mean Girls Rape Crisis screening, but I think instead imma donate the $10 and stay in and catch up on Doctor Who and Game of Thrones.

3. It really bugs me that I'm going to be watching Game of Thrones without having read ASOIAF first, but GDI I've tried it and tried it and I just don't like it. But I desperately need another fantasy show, so.

4. We semi sort-of committed to a flat we looked at last week, and then I looked at it again today and was like, uh, the kitchen's smaller (and grosser) than I remember it and as for those floorboards and the insulation ... but. My sister LOVES it and I do quite like it so we're going to try to do a negotiaty thing where I'm like, I'd love it for a couple of years, but would you consider redoing the kitchen which my dad (former building contractor) would supervise, and in exchange maybe we'll paint it because it desperately needs painting? (This isn't as off-the-wall as it sounds because he mentioned redoing the bathroom in a couple months, which does need doing but not as badly as the kitchen.)

5. So uh, good luck with that, self. A bit scary but I feel like I can't be always lumping that stuff onto my parents, so.

6. Thanks so much for everyone's power and internet recs! You are all super super helpful (and the nearly unanimous rec for Powershop was very convincing).

I feel like such an absentee LJ-er at the moment. I'm barely commenting (but I am reading and I still love you guys, honest). I'm tweeting a lot of boring tweets, for those of you who might want to keep up with me in micro form, but the energy needed to do a LJ post - even a boring blah blah one - seems a little beyond me right now, and I also don't really have anything to talk about.

Except that's not really true, here are some things I've done in the past couple months:

- Got a job. Been in a job for a month.

- Started dating a lovely young woman. (ETA: Says it all:
).

- Read eleventy billion words of Inception fanfic. I have delicioused some of my favourites here, although I'm pretty crap at deliciousing so it's not comprehensive.

- Maybe, possibly, read a few H50 stories. I. YOU GUYS. IDK. I stand Morally Opposed to another freaking buddy cop show getting all the slash time. and I have loved some buddy cop show fandoms in my time!

- only read like three new books this year. TERRIBLE. I feel sick thinking about it. But today I got a bunch of new books out from the library - Kehua! by Fay Weldon, The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi, Double Vision by Tricia Sullivan, Wildseed by Octavia Butler, Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett (got to fit a re-read in there somewhere), and Natural History by Justina Robson. I'm pretty hopeful that I will be energised to read these ones, I'm excited.

I got the Justina Robson mostly because I saw it on the shelf and it's the next book to be discussed at Torque Control. After an extensive discussion of women in SF late last year, Torque Control has been doing a thing where they review and discuss the top ten SF books by women in the last decade. Anyway, I've only gotten a couple chapters in, but it's making me think a lot of things about disability, ablism, bodies, and, you know ... Anne McCaffrey's Ship series. (Also that post-Otherland short story Tad Williams wrote for Legends, "The Happiest Dead Boy in the World". That scene with Orlando's parents? Yeah.) So if anyone has any links for discussion about that I'd really love to hear them.

Anyway. I'm going to try to LJ/DW a bit more because I miss you guys. How are you all?

I have had the most blissfully unproductive weekend, it's been absolutely wonderful.

( friday night )

( saturday and sunday )

4. Sunday dinner was bacon and eggs on Awesome Toast. Awesome Toast is toast made out of Awesome Bread, which I made Friday and am now going to tell you all about. Because it's awesome.

About a week ago I made Dish & Delaney's Caramelised Onion Bread which, if you read the ingredients list, you will see is full of things that I enjoy having in my life in a very serious way (rosemary, salt, cumin, caramelised onion, yeast breads, etc etc) and indeed I adored this bread. But it's definitely party bread, not the kind of thing you make every day, and it's just not very versatile. Plus onion takes a really long time to caramelise. I wanted to make a bread with similar flavours that would be better for everyday use, like toast, or to freeze and eat in lunches, or with soup, or with bacon and eggs for a lazy Sunday dinner.

So as I was doing my weekly-ish batch of my standard bread (a great flexible recipe I got off my flatmate Lizzie), I made a few alterations, and I produced a loaf of bread I'm really pleased with. It was just darn delicious.

Awesome Bread
Note: Awesome Bread has quite a strong flavour and isn't recommended for most kinds of sandwiches. Make a judgement call. I do think it would be great for roast beef sandwiches &c, though. It's great plain or with a little butter or marge, too.
You can leave out entirely, or swap out for other things, the rosemary, fennel, cumin, etc. I mean your bread won't really taste like anything except flour, but on the other hand you will be able to put Nutella on it, so.

2 t honey
1 1/2 t dried yeast
1 C lukewarm water (you might want this to go up by 1/4 cup, which is what the recipe I based this on calls for; I personally find that too much.)

3 C flour
2 t salt
1 T poppy seeds
1 heaped t ground fennel (I had to go to Moshim's to get this, but it was cheap there anyway.)
1 t dried rosemary (if I had fresh I would have tried that, about 1 T)

olive oil
ground cumin
sea salt/rock salt/flaky delicious salt

1. In a small bowl, dissolve honey in 1/4 C of the water, and sprinkle yeast over. Leave for 5 mins or until foamy.

2. Sift flour and salt into a larger bowl. Add poppy seeds, fennel and rosemary and toss to combine.

3. Create a well in the centre of the flour and pour in yeast mixture. Mix to form a sticky dough.

4. Turn out on lightly floured bench and knead until smooth and elastic - about 2 mins. Rise dough in an oiled bowl until tripled in size - supposedly about 1 hour, could be more (I think my yeast is pretty ancient and this took awhile.)

5. Punch down, turn out onto bench again and knead for another two minutes. Decide at this point if you want a braided bread, rolls, or a loaf.

6. For a braided bread, separate dough into three, braid as usual, and place on greased baking tray (or whatever. I am becoming devoted to silicon mats for all cookie, bread, etc needs). For rolls, divide into eight portions and roll into balls, place on tray. For a loaf, divide in half, roll into two balls, and place in loaf tin. Cover with a tea towel and rise for 30 mins, or until doubled in size.

7. Brush loaf/rolls with olive oil and dust over the ground cumin. Scatter with sea salt.

8. Bake at 190 C (375 F) for 35 minutes or until browned; the bottom of the loaf should sound hollow when tapped (basically, it should be like bread.)

9. Eat it in the manner of your people. I personally am finicky about letting bread cool before slicing it, because I like my slices to be shaped like actual slices and to be fairly thin, not sort of thick squashed slabs. But I'm aware orthodoxy differs on this point. I recommend it with butter or marge.

Ta-da! Awesome Bread. I've been eating it nonstop for three days.

5. It really, really bugs me the way, when you're playing music in Windows Media Player and you've adjusted the size of the window, it's impossible to see what song is playing. Grrrr. Also I'm just generally not a fan of that thing it does where it flashes between title and artist. I want to be able to see the title, artist and album of whatever song I'm playing without having to wait fifteen seconds for whatever to change.

One of the things I've been thinking about lately while walking home (something I usually do between the hours of about 10pm and 2-3am, so that's the kind of thought processes we're talking about) is teasing out my online identity into my personal identity and my professional identity. I've noticed that this is a slightly different separation than most people's: a lot of people seem to have an online/fannish identity, and an offline/Facebook/RL identity. But I expect that in my future the ability to use a range of social networks (including twitter and blog software) is going to be a good thing to put on my CV. I'm a little bemused about this. I wouldn't mind a coworker reading my livejournal; I wouldn't mind a prospective employer reading [most of] my comments at, say, the Hand Mirror. On the other hand, I wouldn't be wild about a prospective employer reading anything under my rant tag, or even most of my book reviews - they're just not that measured and thoughtful - but I *do* want to have something to put on my CV to demonstrate, you know, willing.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that in, like, November I think I'm going to start a RL blog, something I could potentially put on my CV and show to my grandmother, and I've been noodling it out over the last week or so. What I imagine is that content here would stay basically the same. IDK people, what do we think about these issues? What do we look for in a blog, other than a certain standard of writing?

I know one-issue blogs are pretty popular, but I don't think I *have* a one-issue blog in me. I thought it might go something like this: Meander OR Media Monday (a TV or movie or music review), Wednesday Week (a links day), Friday Feed (recipe day), Sunday Read (book review). Optional in there would be a craft day. Social justice and fannish stuff would all stay here. But then this kind of blog is rubbish for the other thing I want to do, which is try to keep my parents vaguely up-to-date with my life. Maybe I want Me Monday! Sigh. IDK. Talk to me about what a good blog looks like to you, I wanna know.

So, I've been getting most of my bitching-about-my-life yayas out in lengthy emails to four lucky ladies who live in Wellington - my mother and three very old friends - so you guys have been spared (crowd goes wild!) But now I feel like I haven't had a lot of communication with y'all lately. This could be solved by commenting more in other people's posts, but... too hard basket! I suck as a person. Instead, you can have a meme, and some thoughts on the latest few episodes of SGA. Also, why not, let's do the ask-me-anything you think you should know about me, but don't meme.

( 20 Questions meme off paintmarks )

( Thoughts about SGA )

OK, go nuts, ask questions and whatnot.

XD 'cause I have to share! Unfortunately some of the best ones were on the crappy one-use-only camera, with film I have yet to develope, and of course the official Ball Photos haven't even been seen yet, but till then...

(I compressed them this time, so there are less bandwidth issues for you poor things without adsl... *loves broadband*

( hair. With curlers! ) ( pre-ball )

And also, Gian's been giving me the urge to post lyric snippets. So...

She likes listening to punk rock
Melancholic in the black frock
And she smiles when she sees me
intoxicated by her company
Splendid lady, lazy Sunday afternoon
Good fortune at the bar
Verona, Verona

That is an awesome song. yes. Verona by elemenop.

When they wake up,
they will find
all their personal belongings
have intertwined.

Rene and georgette Magritte, with their Dog after the War- paul Simon

You take two bodies and you twirl them into one
Their hearts and their bones
And they won't come undone

*sighs* Such a sad song. hearts and Bones by paul Simon.