Rebecca's blog

Edgar lives!

Edgar is alive and well...  on "Entourage."  Ha!

Cousin Ronnie

The boy got fat in death, but we forgive him.  He's Edgar.

Poor Edgar is dead

I must really love my wine class.

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QotD: True Saying

Which saying do you believe to be true, but just can't seem to follow? 
Submitted by Maxvan.

Oh, there are so many...!

"There's a lid for every pot, my dear." 

"God only gives you as much as you can handle."

"This too shall pass."

Bullsh1t.

Vox Hunt: The Moodiest Buttons

Show us some buttons.

Screw what the VH wanted me to post ...  These are the mood buttons we all wish we could wear to work but can't.

 

 

Troll

 

 

 

Giveash1t

You can't tell me that you don't agree, at least with some of them.  I have more, too - these happen to be the best.

Evil but necessary.

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Never going to finish

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T-storm in Miami

Rain in miami. Too bad you cant feel the 60mph winds.

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I'm going on sale!

Thanks for my dear NC friend for pointing this out to me ....

 

Roboco desktop pet coming from Tomy

Roboco will go on sale in August for about $10 per Amazon Japan. The new pet from Tomy Corporation is highlighted in a post on <3 Yen. its ears can flap, it can shake, and even sing a song.

 

 

Roboco_robot

Split Personality

This is how I know something is really wrong:

 

W:  "When is Happy Roboco coming back?"

 

Yeah, I've not been in a great mood this week.  I don't mean to be a Sad Sack about it and I certainly don't want to whine about stuff that isn't "major" by any stretch, but it's been a complicated week for me.  Here's how things have been going -

Weds AM:  after an extremely delayed evening the night before (due to standard Miami thunderstorms and flash flooding) and a late return to the apt, SA departed my house about 10.30AM.  I was clearly already running late for brunch.  I jumped into the shower nearly the same time that the door clicked closed, and when I got out I had 5 missed calls, one VM, and SA calling. 

"What's up?" 

"I think those bastards towed my car!" 

"Uh oh.  I'll take you over there." 

With dripping wet hair and no face on, mind you.  Forty-five minutes and $180 later, SA had his car back from the parking vultures - with a $25 ticket from the MB police.  How about an insult with that injury?  And of course I felt horrible.

Wed PM:  after brunch, my friend D said, "Hey - you have 2 screws in your tires."  Nice.  Gotta get them looked at ASAP.

Thurs:  phone call from the developer's front office, confirming my contact information.  You'd think this would be good news!  It was .. until she said, "We just want to be prepared to send you the necessary information for your closing, which should happen in late Sept or early Oct."  Groovy.  Another delay.

Fri, early morning:  I took the car to the local tire shop.  "Ma'am, we were only able to patch one of your tires.  The other screw punctured the sidewall.  We have your tire in stock if you'd like to replace it."  Do I have a choice?  Here's $215 for your trouble.

Fri, after work:  Working diligently on my Macbook, just responding to some last-minute emails.  Firefox froze.  Can't force-quit, so I powered down.  Waited the requisite 10 seconds.  Rebooted.  Grey screen appeared - with a flashing question mark inside a file folder.  Oh, this can't be good.  Totally in a twitter over it, I'm pretty sure that I ruined SA's mood over dinner.  (Oh, and I paid for dinner b/c I still felt guilty about the whole towing thing.  Just don't tell SA that that's why I paid.)  I tried to be OK about the Mac's death, I really did.  And SA was a good sport, trying to get me an appt at the Genius Bar at the local Apple store.  No luck, though.

Sat, AM:  Called Apple support.  "Your phone support has expired, ma'am, because your warranty has expired."  Oops.  Guess I should have bought the extended warranty.  Walked through a few things with them on the phone that I had already tried with my friend H the day before (thanks, dude!).  Nothing.  Nada.  Deader than deadwood.  "You should probably take the machine to your local Apple store so that they can give you an estimate on the cost to fix the dead metal brick that used to be your hard drive."  Ruh roh - that sounds like it'll cost some money.

Sat, AM:  Still in a twitter but starving, I tried to make breakfast.  I cut into an orange.  I also cut into my finger.  Deep.  Nearly lost the fingertip.  Uh oh.  Did I need stitches?  Didn't know, but I thought some Neosporin and a band-aid might help.

Monday, 9AM:  Walked the dead Macbook to the Apple store.  Genius told me that the dead metal brick inside is completely useless to me - he said that he wouldn't even refer to it as a hard drive anymore.  And he said that Apple would be happy to replace it for me - for $251. 

"But we'll keep the offending organ, because we consider it part of the core of the system." 

"But what if I want to retrieve the old data?  All of my contacts, music, and photos are on there!" 

"Oh, then you'd have to replace it yourself.  Go online and buy a blahblahblah with a technicalterm and thisthatandtheother.  Then you can give your old hard drive to data retrievers who will charge you somewhere between $2k and $3k to get your old info."

You must be joking.  On the verge of tears, I trudged back to the office.  I don't have the money for that kind of data retrieval, and I certainly don't think I can replace a hard drive myself.  I'm going to try, though - I bought one online yesterday, and my coworker Dr Pedro is going to help me.

 

Oh, and the other thing I forgot was this:  my friend D, the same one who noticed the screws in my tires and the one I wrote about a couple of months ago, is in deep trouble.  We thought that he'd have more success.  He hasn't.  He won't admit it, but he's freaking out.  I'm trying to go with him on Monday since I'm the only person (locally) who knows the whole story.  If the worst-case scenario plays out, (1) my life is about to get a whole lot more complicated, (2) I'm going to have a lot less time, and (3) I'm going to have more responsibility than I can handle.  Feeling overwhelmed by it all, really.  I know that D is the one with the big problems, but I'm admittedly having trouble with my own.

They say that "God only gives you what you can handle."  F**k that.  Now she's just sh1tting on me, and that's not nice.

 

Dessert rules

I just made what I think is a killer dessert.

SA invited me to attend his friend's BBQ tomorrow to celebrate July 4th.  I've never met any of the individuals who will be there (other than SA, obvi), so this is my big chance to make a good first impression.  AND since I never show up at a party empty-handed, I told SA that I'd make a dessert for us to bring.  (He was already planning something of his own, I could tell -- he asked me to pick up non-lethal ice cream.  Too bad.  I beat him to the supermarket, so we're taking *my* dessert.  Ha!)

Anyway, so I had to come up with something that went with their theme for the BBQ (yep, you guessed it: red, white, and blue) but I also wanted to bring something that I could eat.  No sense in making something I can't enjoy, right?  I was also concerned about subjecting strangers to non-dairy alternatives to regular foods ...  Not sure how they'd like it.

Too bad.  It's my dessert.

After a couple of different permutations, I finally came up with a spin on a traditional trifle.  I lined the bottom of the bowl with delicious pound cake, then added a layer of vanilla (soy) pudding.  On the pudding when a layer of raspberries and blueberries, and over the fruit went a layer of vanilla (soy) ice cream.  To top it off, I stood upright a bunch of really ripe strawberries.  You can see my progress here:

Dessert1a

And then the final product:

Dessert2a

I put the whole thing in the freezer, since the ice cream needs to stay hard.  The bonus is that the fruit, the cake, and the pudding will have time to soften in the car when we drive up to the BBQ.  My dessert should be ready to eat at exactly the right time!

I wish you could appreciate the layers ...  I think that when they dig into it with a giant serving spoon, they'll see how fabulous it is. 

Whatever - I'm excited about it.  I think it's a great idea on short notice!  And, by the way, YUMMO.