...with a sunny disposish.

College starts next week

2009-10-11T12:43:15Z

It seems that nearly all my favorite people here on Livejournal have updated yesterday which is all shades of wonderful. I felt bad for neglecting LJ for so long but I think I can once again use my journal to goad myself into working.
I have finally worked through the superfluous pain of my college failure of the last months. I nearly failed the oral lecture two weeks ago and then maybe you recall that Obama paper I worked on sooooo long and which muhsilisk and usomitai were so kind to look at? Despite alerting my lecturer that I would have to hand it in late, he didn't accept it and so I flunked. He of course told me that I couldn't hand it in late only after I handed it in and not at the time when I e-mailed him about the delay (which was still long before the dealine). Anyway, now I have to write a new paper but I went to another lecturer because I was so angry at myself and at him too because I have experienced it many times that it lies very well in their discretionary power to accept paper (in my case only ten days) late. (Ha, convoluted sentence! Eat this, twitter!)

So, new topic. Conrad, Baudrillard, Raod narratives. Deadline: October, 30th. Personal dealine: October, 23rd. Now that the theatre play I was working on as assisting director has premiered, I'm gonna make it!

In other news, I'm gonna be a tutor this year. I have before worked as a tutor to explain first year students how they should write papers (see, that kinda didn't really fit, did it?) and how the whole university circus worked.
But now I'm a tutor working on real texts and films of the introductory culture course. Of course, the payment is lousy.
I will also teach a real course together with a colleague. "Online-Journalism with Podcasts", the last time we only had four participants because we offered it so late in the year but this time it looks really promising and we changed a lot of the structure. Does anyone of you have teaching advice? It's hard for me to teach/tutor people who are of about the same age as I am.

Below is another one of the photos I took in London. It's been exposed too long and is all shaky but I still really like the structure. Big Ben and the Houses are just as impressive as I've always imagined they would be.

SDC10711
Originally uploaded by cadeirae

So, I have been to London.

2009-10-07T21:19:56Z

SDC10692
Originally uploaded by cadeirae

And I still haven't managed to write about it properly because there's so much college stuff going on at the moment.
However, I did find the time to sort through my digital pictures and wanted to share on of my favorites. It's not a particularly good picture but the moment just made me so giddy. I took it right around the corner of the British Library, where I went for no other reason that it's the effin' BRITISH LIBRARY!

the pleasures of entertainment pt. 5

2009-09-30T10:39:32Z

Oh House season, how I missed you!
Okay, yesterday's episode was awesome. Did you notice the virtual game room they were shooting in in the very beginning was the hospital lobby? Well, I didn't until the guy got his hallucinations. I loved the House/Cuddy/Wilson interaction. It was so late-third season. Man, and House & Wilson were just so cute together. Can I please have a picture of House as a grouchy retriever? I hate to admit it but I kind of missed angst-free House a bit. And how awesome that he's still at the institution; that the writers show that healing from such an incident does take longer than just a few weeks? I'm a bit reluctant to admit that the jabs at internet community culture were amusing. Foreman's way of dealing with the situation rang true to me but of course Thirteen was right. There was missing something crucial from the whole diagnostic procedure and it weren't the jokes. That she went to House to ask for advice was rather suprising but so was the advice he was giving her.
So, what's next? This whole "You're fired! I'm fired?! You quit?! I quit!" thing is getting a bit old. It was important for this episode how every character (the patient, Cuddy, House, Foreteen and Taub) defined themselves over their jobs or had issues with the way their work life influenced other parts of their lives. But I really hope we're getting away from this focus soon.

What else?
I had an oral exam yesterday I have been preparing for the last week. I've been reading tons of stuff about Gilles Deleuze's film theory and philosophical reflections on how the world is in constant becoming and whatever. I didn't fail but I was very close because I couldn't construct a coherent sentence in the exam. Do you know these moments when everything makes sense in your head but you just can't spit it out because it's toooooo much? Yeah. I had that during the exam. It annoys me so much that even in discussions where I should be able to voice an opinion I can't seem to be able to structure my thought so that other people can understand them. Anyway. Now I have one month to write another paper and then a shorter one and then master thesis.
On Friday we had premiere of the play and I assembled a soundtrack. Everyone involved contributed a song he or she thought fitted to te play and afterwards we guessed who gave which song. It's a great collection! If you want to listen to it, it's here: http://drop.io/fanilieneis

Oh Edward!

2009-09-10T13:54:13Z

Okay. Okay. I don´t even know what has happened here. The Internet kind of ate me up and I didn´t take the time to write anything decent here in my journal. Also, twitter does take up a lot of the spontaneous rambly sort of things that I´d usually put in here. But I yearn, I yearn for fandom and for you people who have so kindly not deleted me (*checks friends table*) from your flists. So how are you all? Like, seriously!

People I´ve been in London! Let me write about that in the next post or so because it has been aösdlkfjdlskfjamazing!

Inspired by muhsilisk 's brave example I started working through the Twilight audio books because everyone´s talking about it and I didn´t want to be a douche bitching about books I haven´t read.
I finished the first one in three days (13 or so hours) and am now 5 hours into the second.
Here´s the thing about Twilight: There´s this girl arriving in town who is soooo soooo average that all the boys love her immediately and all the girls want to be friends with her. But Bella doesn´t care about all the crab characters Stephenie Meyer created for her to be surrounded with and only has eyes for sparkly vampire Edward who wants to drink her floral-scented blood. She doens´t like snow for no appearant reason and there are so many redundant-redundant scenes in the book that all work after the same pattern:

When Edward gives her his "crooked smile" Bella says, "I love you."
Then Edward with his smoldering brown/topaz/butterscotch/honey-coloured eyes responds, "I´m dangerous. I could kill you."
Bella: That´s hot. Also, your breath smells good.
Edward: Right...

and so on.
Yes, I know everything that´s wrong about it. Yes, I keep noticing the strange world views that are inherent to the story. Yes. Yes. I know. I should not like it. Yes.

But I do. I keep wanting more of it. Sure, it´s easier to get through the repetitive style when listening and not actually reading.
I´m pretty sure that for me the great thing about it is self-indulgence. Like with the Potter books I love knowing that there´s this whole little universe I´m going to launch myself into. I like spending a long time with certain characters and despite all that is wrong with the relationship of the two main characters, Edward is a Byronic hero and I just can´t tear myself away from those. But maybe it´s just time that House starts with its new season, so I can have a clever Byronic hero back.
There´s more yet, being inside Bella´s head is like I can listen to a version of myself that´s being stupid and unlikable and selfish and over emotional and redundant (oh, redundant, believe me!). I´m glad I have Bella for that, that I can roll my eyes at her for being practically suicidal in her wish to conjure up hallucinations about Edward. You know what? In New Moon, the second book, I start feeling for her because she´s in this bubble of despair and hearing her bemoan her pain makes me sad, too. I feel that she had at least some reasons for being so moronic in the beginning. She becomes more and more flawed. And there are werewolfs. Good times.

The books are not what I would call "a good read" neither would I recommend anyone to spend money on them (I didn´t).
But it´s somehow a good feeling to know that I can indulge in trash and yet not feel guilty about it. And the do have a gothic touch to them that I´m really into. Sexual suppression is a major theme that has surfaced in every vampire story I know and I don´t see why people blame Stephenie Meyer for centering her story around it and with that, allegedly, showing young people a dangerous view of sexuality. Read this vampire story and tell me, the narrator isn´t kind of lunatic for being so obsessed with female vampire Carmilla. That´s right. The story is from 1872.
I also liked the film because it´s not so friggin redundant and is lightened in a way I really love. It really improves the book and I´m absolutely looking forward to the next film.

Knowing what I know about the creepy impulsiveness of the Twilight fandom I´m not in the least tempted to enter all the hoopla.
It´s great to know the story and what all this fuss is about and I can definitely see the appeal. So, yeah. What do you think?

Look, I made things to listen to.

2009-06-23T09:03:07Z

I really really wanted to participate in the amplificathon but school and charity somehow didn´t let me and I didn´t finish all the stuff I wanted to record in time.

However, I did just now finish a podfic for podfic_lover who won me in a Sweet Charity auction.
I recorded deelaundry's
Hello, Godot which is a cute House/Wilson story and you can download the podfic here on drop.io.
It´s about 25 minutes long and has some music in it.

In time I also finished the House/Wilson story Things to Do before you Die by thedeadparrot
It´s is already in the archive over here.

There's also A Storybook Story to which I don´t really have an opinion... I didn´t turn out the way I wanted but whatever. (Way to advertise my own stuff, I know, but the other two - I like very much ;-))
It´s a story for the Princess Bride movie and can be downloaded from the archive here.

Please comment to the author if you liked the stories.
Can I also point you to the awesome Internet Archive where I found a novella I had to read for class recorded as audio files. There´s much more than this first lesbian Vampire novella "Carmilla" by Le Fanu. Like the old episodes of the Humphrey Littleton´s British radio programme I´m Sorry I Haven´t a Clue and other amazing stuff. Go, Look, Download!

¿Qué? - Untertitel sind beglückend

2009-06-18T09:04:26Z

For the last days I have been working extensively on a subtitling project. La decima vittima (The tenth victim) is an Italian film with Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress. Very James-Bond-like, 1965 social critique with laughs and a bit of sexy romance. The tag line actually is: 'It's the 21st century and they have a licence to kill' Dudun!
I got the German subtitles which were the result of a workshop at my university and had to put them into the film with Adobe Premiere and Encore for the cinema screening on sunday (anyone of you near Duesseldorf on that day? Entry is free. Next week Spanish film Padre Neustro.) It was a lot of fumbling with anti-aliasing of colors and fonts and codecs which meant fun and frustration was guarantied for all.
I´m really into the whole idea of subtitling movies and there are also aesthetic film theories about the whole perception side of it. (book tip: 'Subtitles: On the Foreignness of Film' published at Alphabet City. 'Taking subtitles as their point of departure, the thirty-two contributors to this unique collection consider translation, foreigness, and otherness in film culture.')
Ever since I watched the English version of 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' on which someone had put hard (not removeable) Swedish subtitles, I know that the Swedish word for 'girl' is 'flicka'. I thought it was an amazing to see how the brain deals with the superimposition of mere writing on a screen.
What are your thoughts on the aesthetics of subtitles? Do they distract you from following the actual pictures? I think it´s a whole different viewing experience and I´m absorbing two (or three when I´m watching english or french with dutch subtitles like on the ARTE channel) languages at a time and feel how they struggle in my brain for some kind of weird dominance. It´s thrilling to see how much you actually understand of a foreign language. Basically to get your way around in Spain/France/Italy you only need to know one Romanic language properly and the rest kind of comes on its own. At least when I´m reading Spanish or Italian stuff, I can extrapolate so much from German/English/French I understand a lot than I thought I would.
Also: Subtitles as a source of humour.

"I´ll be back."

2009-06-10T21:01:04Z

I haven´t been updating my personal journal in ages and most of this is due to the possibilities of twitter, college´s delightful stress and the Charity Drive. But it´s just one more day to go and I´ll be rambling about films and books soon enough again.
In case you haven´t been over at the community page yet, check it out, we have a Candy Cane party going on there and generally love fangirlish flailing about our awesome donors who laughed in the face of recession and helped us to collect over $2500 so far.

See you soon!

And so I´ve come to the conclusion...

2009-05-17T12:54:45Z

I haven´t been to the cinema in weeks. The Boat that Rocked (mediocre but Emma Thompson and Ken Branagh) and Gran Torino(Clint Eastwood hilariously wonderful and tragic) were the last films I saw. I need a good recommendation though I´ve heard great things about Let the Right one In.
This Obama paper is driving me nuts. I need people to look over it because me+scientific English=no good.
And now on top of it all, I have to buy a new desktop Mac. It sure needs to be a G5 for all the video editing stuff to work and now I have to google my way through the different kinds of graphic cards that support at least three monitors and openGL 2.0 Can I please have cheap computer?!
Blergh.
But fandom makes me happy at the moment though it´s distracting as hell.
I´ve turned off LoudTwitter on LJ because it made so apparent that I don´t update my journal daily and it really looks ugly. I´m @cadeira if you want to follow me and need to know what I have for dinner.
Does someone of you need Dreamwidth invitation codes? Some were sent to me today.

Charity Drive

2009-05-16T10:31:49Z

Okay, so the hl_bday_drive for Save the Children is on and I offer a podfic for the Creations for Donations project. Any donation over $20 and I´ll record a podfic of your choice.
For the rules and in case you´d like to take part, you might want to look at the page of The Hugh Laurie Birthday Charity Drive

Dear f-list, it would be great if you could join into the drive with all your creative might an also spread the word! This is not a House-fandom-only drive, all fandoms are invited.
My thread is here: http://community.livejournal.com/hl_bday_drive/426.html?thread=1194#t1194

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

2009-05-15T16:07:46Z

21:05 @TheGreyElephant I got my Hugh Laurie episode via torrent download which I usually don´t like. Transmission proggie and is.gd/zTLE #
21:08 -@TheGreyElephant Well, I sorta look at the language, too...how is he framing his thoughts? But usually I´m more of a language philospopher. #
21:30 @Doris_Egan It seems like we need it to be painful. Your episdoses are depressingly beautiful and have sincere characterizations. Brill. <3 #
22:11 @queenzulu Bugger. Your motorcycle? Noooooo. Oh dear. I´m so sorry for you. #
22:45 Watching "Lost in Translation" for possibe master thesis. Outline due in 5 days.Not much so far. But cultural translation processes it´ll be #
11:23 @tjdietderich Greg´s girlfriend is the one with the boob pics I suppose? Also, Captain America watches your every note. And toes... <3 #
15:06 Anyone who can only think of only one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination. ~ Mark Twain #
15:43 Can people bitching about that writers don´t fulfil what the fans want, please read this NOW: is.gd/zo9K -True for TV writers, too! #
16:31 @triedunture If you don´t have internet, does that mean u haven´t seen the drawings @mxdp posted? She just broke the ultimate cuteness limit #
16:46 These things are essential: is.gd/zZbq I had a hard time boiling them down to five. How could I pick one weird guy out of these? #
18:01 @tjdietderich I´m not sure by what stretch of imagination you could top ninjas. #
18:07 I´m just too fast on enter with TwitterFox.I again accidentially posted and then hastily deleted a replytweet.How long do you shape a tweet? #

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

2009-05-14T16:09:19Z

19:00 @tjdietderich What´s ur formula?All I ever get: "My time´s too precious for that kind of thing." What can I say? I tried "Precious, my ass." #
19:02 @almostlucid Well, then hello to twittersphere. TJ gets them all, I s´pose. #
19:07 @tjdietderich Yeah, well. That´s the actual reason why I joined in the first place. #
19:10 @grooveriot Is that true? Having loved @Kal_Penn in House, I must now watch this film. #
19:14 I got all excited over #beatlesfacts till I noticed they´re just joking around. You don´t joke about The Beatles, folks. -Rita´s sister No.2 #

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

2009-05-13T16:09:06Z

18:35 @tjdietderich I dunno. Wouldn´t you agree on "Cubicle"? #
11:07 @Mxdp *trumpets salute your awesomeness* Permission to shout "Bravo" at an annoyingly loud volume, sir? #
11:12 @jwehm Re: song How thoughful of u. It was oh so bittersweet, wasn´t it? I was about to cry but couldn´t. Just the right kind of depressing. #
11:16 @usomitai I didn´t wanna say "I told you so" but... told ya so. @doris_egan did a great job tying up the inconsistencies of the last eppi. #
14:17 @Mxdp 'BRAAAAAAAVOOOOOOO!' #
14:24 @usomitai *silences her apparently boasting brain half* I was just so glad that they reastablished my faith in the writers. #
17:39 @TheGreyElephant Congrats! Did you switch or did you have a Mac before? For me it was a real eye opener after being on a PC for years. #

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

2009-05-12T16:09:34Z

18:14 I just squeezed film and screenwriting theory into my political speech term paper. Yes We Can. #
18:32 @so_zwitschert :-) is.gd/yT4j #
19:10 @so_zwitschert I thought you wanted to know how it works. D´uh. Sorry! I read mood stuff, not mod stuff. Brain is mushy. #
19:41 @stephenfry It´s close to the modern German layout. P and Ü normally follow O in the first row just as Ö and Ä follow L in the second row. #
19:49 @so_zwitschert Apropos mod, hast du die PM im studiVz gelesen? #
20:43 @tjdietderich Nooo, you´re not. I haven´t seen it either. I dig convoluted philosophical end time scenarios so I really want to see it. #
22:28 10:30 pm: I should stop pretending I get any writing done at this hour. Damn you, Twitter. What?!.... No! Come back! #
17:48 @tjdietderich The moments my thesaurus fails me are either the most amazing in life or the most depressing. #
17:51 Have all seen the Firefox zotero add-on? I threw out Google gears which slowed the machine. I felt like a Mini Cooper with heavy haulage. #

bzzzzz

2009-05-12T15:40:26Z

My head is buzzing and whirring like a... whirring buzz. And I still manage to let myself be distracted by Twitter. But it´s a lovely technology. I wish more RL people I know would use it.
I´ve also shugged out 8 pages of my Obama paper in three days which doesn´t sound so much but it really feels like an accomplishment seeing as I have trying to avoid it for three months and I won´t be able to keep the dealine... which would have been today.
One younger female prof is actually controling whether we´ve read our texts via test exams. Like in school. If it wasn´t so annoying I´d laugh. Any other than that, everything´s fine.
Dollhouse keeps to be getting better and better. I´m at episode 9 now and get more and more fascinated by every passing minute.
House finale for me is this evening with pizza and wine.
Charity project looks good, seems like we´re starting today or tomorrow. We will set up an Creations for Donations place so if you would like to participate just look out for the communities. We´ll posting an announcement soon.

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

2009-05-11T16:11:08Z

18:39 @stephenfry Verrätst du es uns auch nicht, wenn wir uns auf den Kopf stellen? #
20:04 Research fact of the Day: Reheated spinach is not toxic for the human body. #
22:38 Sorry y´all for Obama spamming but: is.gd/yj21 He´s also funny. What I´d give for a leader like this in my country. #
13:47 Yay, have written part of my introduction and my conclusion. Now, I just need the 15 pages in betwen. #
16:19 @TheGreyElephant Hi there! It´s "Obama´s Rhetoric and the Myth of Vituous Power" Hardest part: not allowed to write in German. #
16:22 @TheGreyElephant And when I say "Vituous" I mean "Virtuous". I analyse speeches. So not my cup of tea. But Obama´s great so tha´t kinda ok. #
17:13 @flimgeeks Ooooh, the things I´d watch to see Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen... #

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

2009-05-10T16:07:29Z

23:11 @stephenfry Someone was so clever to post the presumably correct answer directly under the boo. So, I´ll say Stavros because it´s in Greece. #
12:55 @usomitai Are you behind a mac, then there´s Audio Hijack which is many shades of nerdtastic. Or try this service: file2hd.com/ #
15:15 @usomitai .flv is a flash file, afaik, made by Adobe Flash. All you really need though is described here: http://➽.ws/㞡 #
16:43 I´ll soon go gaga over politics. I´m a culture, arts and media aesthetics student. Why do I have to mess with politics and rhetorics? #
17:14 @stephenfry "He´s a twitter user, too." Well... that sure was helpful... I´ve lost track of his twittering but it´s not Neil Gaiman, is it? #
17:44 Constitution speech cancelled for examination. Look at this: http://➽.ws/ I´m not supposed to cry at political speeches, am I? #
17:46 @TwitterFox Is it possible to make the links of tinyarro.ws clickable in TwitterFox? At the mo, they look like this: http://➽.ws/ #
17:51 Also, ribbon noodles, cheddar, blue cheese, spinach, small tomatoes, cream, red wine, bit of pepper, sage and sugar in a gratin dish = YUM! #

Batch-twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

2009-05-09T16:11:18Z

21:15 @usomitai But doesn´t it mean both: Still full of sleep as in drowsy after waking up. And devoid of sleep as in tired. Sleep is a hazy word. #
21:26 Sean Hannity makes me wonder how morons can be so influential in opinion making. A 50-year old throwing a tantrum. Only, like, all the time. #
13:24 LoudTwitter doesn´t work with my LJ. Test comes through fine but not the automatically set up ones. *scratches head* #
15:44 @so_zwitschert *pats* Reason and fandom don´t go well in your new fandom either, huh? You can still come back to the same old H/W madness. #
16:07 I just baked a cake solely for procrastination reasons. #

Booooookzzz. I say booooookzzz.

2009-05-01T13:40:04Z

This is what I have to read for university.

Although there are still two plays and something of Willam Blake missing. One course wants us to read three novels and a 200 page reader. I haven´t counted the theoretic texts that are still switling aroung online somewhere. Like Gilles Deleuze "Cinema 1". But I´m okay with the workload although I have to ask for permission to hand in my Obama paper a month or so later than planned. And I can´t podfic. And now, this is what I actually ache to read:

One more thing which made me ridiculously happy:

I bought "Last Chance to See" and found the book on the top. Somebody in university had laid out a heap of books he wanted to give away near the cafeteria of the philosophic faculty and I took this one. That reminds me: I have a sorted out about thirty books I wanted to lay out in the city with little notes. They´re mostly my old children books but nothing I really want to keep. I´ll probably go to kindergardens and schools and put them near the bus stops or something and hope the kids won´t use them to build a campfire or throw them through church windows because that would be kind of counterproductive. Ah well. More people should give away books they don´t want anymore for free. Always brightens my day.
And a new second-hand book shop opened in the old town and it´s called "Isabelle and ..." well, I have forgotten the second name. Anyway, it looks really cozy.

It´s about House again.

2009-04-30T11:00:10Z

I don´t know, usually when I look at fanvids I´m all for the fancy editing and great lyric-scene sync but this rather simple video made disproportionally happy and showed why I love my show and this pairing so much. It´s just so utterly cute and the right amount of angsty seeing these two characters interact.

Last episode? Creepy Amber was creepy and awesome. Spike Lee reference and Caligula (who killed his son) foreshadowing nerdtastic. Wilson bodyshots were kind of cool but I cringed. I just can´t stant seeing characters I love embarrass themselves.
Handling of deaf culture was so wrong, I´ll spare you the details. But, you know... I´m preparing a film project on the subject and I just tried to block it out for the time the eppi ran.
hl_bday_drive goes on quite well, I´m positive we´ll go public on May 11th. I already love our graphics made by soophelia.

a project and a meme

2009-04-26T14:21:05Z

The director of the play I took part in last summer asked me if I wanted to be his assistant for his next play again. Wheee!
And I still have this term paper to write but I´ll probably ask for more time seeing as I have had this other slightly monstrous project and very inconveniently both deadlines are nearly at the same day. If you like to see what that´s about you can look under the cut.
So I have decided to revive the spirit of the rsl_bday_drive and, with the help of poorfrances, soophelia and jane_hidell, have knocked up hl_bday_drive - A charity drive for Save the Children starting on May 11 and ending June 11 which is Hugh Laurie´s 50th birthday.
It´s all a bit in a draft state at the moment with but I´m positive we´ll be able to raise a bit of money with this page we set up here and shake up the communities a bit. Still, nothing´s really public yet, I justed wanted to let my flist know about what I´m going to be up to in the next time.
We already have some funny graphics and ideas to encourage people to donate. We will also be on the outlook for folks who are willing to write stories, make graphics or craft other awesome fannish stuff in exchange for donations *coughnudgewink*- just the way it was with the first drive. Okay, I´m a bit excited about this.

I also did a meme. Look!
iTunes Meme found at triedunture

How many songs total: 1556 + 665 in audiobooks
How many hours or days of music: 4.1 + 8.7 in audiobooks
Most recently played: 'Under the Boardwalk" by Ricky Lee Jones
Most played: 'Trapped Today, Trapped Tomorrow' by Fury in the Slaughterhouse
Most recently added: 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' audiobook

Sort by song title:

First Song: 'A-Punk' by Vampire Weekend
Last Song: '2080' by Yeasayer

Sort by time:

Shortest Song: 'Vitamin B' by The Seatbelts 0:11
Longest Song: Twilight Saga (Book 4 of 4) - Breaking Dawn, Part 1 by Stephenie Meyer (OH GAWD, seriously?! I haven´t touched this yet, I dread the consequences to my brain too much.)

Sort by album:
First album: Abigail Wahburn & the Sparrow Quartet
Last album: !!! by !!! (Chk Chk Chk)
First song that comes up on Shuffle: 'Secret Heart' by Feist

Search the following and state how many songs come up:

Death - 10
Life - 20
Love - 86
Hate – 4
You - 159
Sex – 6

Poetry

2009-04-18T18:40:51Z

Can I give you Poetry Month Contribution, too?

April Rain Song

by Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

And I love the rain.

Reading through some of these wonderful works I wonder why we don´t cherish the languages we inhabit more.

Food post with crispy stuff in it.

2009-04-08T20:38:34Z

I don´t know if anyone of you actually cares but WHEEEEEE! All Beatles albums will be re-released digitally remastered. My chance to get those LPs I don´t have yet.

There´s more... with food... under the cut...

I don´t quite see how I made it till 25 without using a wok when cooking because
Clearly whoever invented this thing deserved to be pampered and praises, instead he or she carved their existence probably unlauded reaping rice or whatever it is unrecognized geniuses do. And I say that because I was to lazy to look up who invented the wok.

The great thing about it is not it´s fancy look but that you can throw in everything raw you find in your kitchen and within five minutes it´s edible. Not only that, unlike a normal pan the extrem heat and the form of the wok cook the things well without drying them out. All the moisture stays inside the food and it stays crisp.
Of course if you´re a bit like me you will want to choose the ingredients so that they´ll fit together a bit. You really don´t want to take vegetables from the can or out of the glass because they become squashy so fast (exceptions are bamboo and soy shoots which are fine as a conserve)

What you do, is basically chop all the vegetables you want. Red Peppers, small onions, courgettes, broccoli and the meat of your choice. Or well not... you obviously can use tofu if you like. I took turkey breast meat because I get a kilo of it in our local supermarket very cheap and fresh and I freeze it in three portions. The meat should be chopped into very small pieces, the vegetables can be a bit bigger.

First you pick the oil of your choice and put a good amount of it in the hot wok. Sesame, peanut, thistle or sunflower if it´s that what´s currently occupying the last corner of your fridge.
At first you put in all the onion-like stuff. Garlic, if you´ve choosen to use it, spring onions. I´ve also put in the fresh ingwer at that point which might have been a bit to early because it got quite crunchy. Stir three minutes at maximun and then take it all out again. Put in the vegetables in small portions after a short time, take it out again. Don´t spare with the oil, the stuff is only 1.50€ the litre.
Now, you know that you have to take out the food you´re currently frying when it starts steaming like mad. Don´t take it out when there´s a bit vapour. When there´s really a lot of steam that´s the point where you can see that there´s actually moisture inside the food and because you want it to stay there you take the food out of the wok. Some vegetables like broccoli need to stay in just a tiny bit longer.

After you´ve stir-fryed everything, you can go and make the actually sauce. Curry paste, herbes like fresh basil into the oil, then deglaze with plum wine. Some soy sauce for good measure and then put everything you fryed before into the wook and reheat it for, say, five minutes. Above you can see the result. It´s actually quite simple, the chopping might take up a bit time.

Fresh ingwer instead of ready made, powdered one makes all the difference really.

I used loose basmati rice (1 cup of rice, two cups of cold water and then put on medium heat for 20 minutes until the rice has soaked up all the water, stir sometimes in between) but you can also take jasmine rice or mie noodles which to my delight can be found in ordinary supermarkets nowadays.

And yum. THX bf for posing so lamely. Really, I swear he just doesn´t curl his face in delight because he´s a photographer and they HATE being photographed themselves.

I already have plans for the next wok menu and it includes crunchy peanut butter, lime and orange juice and an aubergine.

edit: Lol, I wrote "ingwer" instead of "ginger". I woke up this morning thinking "Wait that can´t be right."

Damn.

2009-04-02T19:17:34Z

Damn! I just read the *asdaflkjh* biggest spoiler (which I´m not going to elaborate on of course!) for one of the next House episodes by accident. I could kick myself. It wasn´t here on LJ, so it came kinda unexpected. I´ll try brainwashing.

Anyway at least I saw a great video of how the House crew was sent into April, 1st.

It´s on again.

2009-04-01T14:24:31Z

I´ve been hyperventilating about amplificathon over at Twitter a short length already. The new podfic challenge is already running and I haven´t recorded a single word. Why is that, you might ask. Or you don´t because you don´t care. But if you do I´ll tell ya. The last challenge took place in the PC era. I used my old Skype head-set to record the stories and Audacity recorded everything I ordered it too. Now in Mac era you need a self-powered microphone because the MacBook has a line-in socket and a normal built-in microphone. Whereas the latter is perfect for voice chat, it´s not so great for recording your voice. So, I actually had to buy a new microphone. The price ranged from 8 Euros to WTF?-this is a microphone and not a whole recording studio. But at a point I thought: "Screw it. Get it right the first time and buy one that´s awesome." So I got myself the Sinn7 mPod. Shiny, isn´t it?

So could you be so kind to point me towards stories you like to be recorded? I´ve found some favorite stories I can do and also looked for some lesser known fandoms and found one or two stories there. And I can for the love of God not remember the titles and authors of these two or three zombie House fanfics I read quite a while ago. Although they´re of epic length I´d live to do one of those... or if not record at least read them again because they were quite amazing. Does that ring a bell with anyone? Oh my, 'Dead Set' really pushed all my zombie buttons.

Why don´t we do it on the road?

2009-03-31T07:11:05Z

The meme everyone seems to be doing: triedunture gave me John, Paul and George with a question mark. If you haven´t done it already, comment and I´ll give you three people to either throw off a cliff, shag or marry.

Throw off a cliff: Oh my, I can´t believe I´m actually saying I´d throw John Lennon off a cliff but there you go. We´re talking men right here, don´t we? From what I´ve read despite being a music genius, Lennon was a quite insufferable chap. Just like every-day people. Imagine... two of those in a relationsship. Sorry John, your music is all I need from you.

SHAG:
See here´s where I take liberty with the prompted names. I love to pretend that I´d throw McCartney off a cliff because I don´t really like his way he appears in public. I´ve been at a concert and it´s been huge. It´s like he´s a living legend and people who live that way just don´t impress me that much. (I also like to pretend that I wouldn´t be after his sh*tload of money but that would be a total lie.) That´s why I picked a more shagable Paul. Paul Bettany is everything I fancy in men. Funny, tall, that kind of good-looking that doesn´t intimidate ~~women~~ me, funny and British. And did I mention he´s funny? He´s also the only baddie I always wish to win in the end. He´s also already married so sadly that´s not an option.

Marry:
The second dead guy I make hypothetical assumptions about. I´d marry George Harrison. He´s always been my favorite Beatle and not because of that ridiculous cliché that he was the quiet one. He was the one with the dry humour, the one who didn´t voice his opinion every time he wasn´t asked. He was BFF with Eric Clapton (my one and only concert so I was swooning at guitars being played). His last album is my all-time favorite music album. And the younger George was also the cutest cute that ever cuted. See?

...with a sunny disposish.

College starts next week

So, I have been to London.

the pleasures of entertainment pt. 5

Oh Edward!

Look, I made things to listen to.

¿Qué? - Untertitel sind beglückend

"I´ll be back."

And so I´ve come to the conclusion...

Charity Drive

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

*bzzzzz*

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

Batch twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

Batch-twittering: I won´t promise there´ll be no moaning.

Booooookzzz. I say booooookzzz.

It´s about House again.

a project and a meme

Poetry

Food post with crispy stuff in it.

Damn.

It´s on again.

Why don´t we do it on the road?

bzzzzz