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December 29th, 2009
doraphilia
 | 01:56 pm - final resting place
My brother and I lowered the ashes of my grandfather and grandmother into the Pacific Ocean on Sunday. 17 or so extended family members participated in the ceremony and/or the reception at a nearby pub.
A lot of nice words were said before we scattered the ashes. My grandfather wasn't a particularly effusive person, and was hard to really know. Nonetheless, a lot of people had really nice memories of him. It was a really lovely day, and I am grateful to my father (and mother) for working so hard to put it together.
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electric_honey
 | 02:52 pm
books i read in 2009 (stars for true loves, reviews on my goodreads page):
1. the cardboard universe by christopher miller
2. twilight by stephenie meyer
3. the moonflower vine by jetta carleton**
4. the likeness by tana french**
5. new moon by stephenie meyer
6. family planning by karan mahajan
7. behind the scenes at the museum by kate atkinson**
8. the descendants by kaui hart hemmings
9. eclipse by stephenie meyer
10. human croquet by kate atkinson**
11. the avengers by rich cohen
12. nick & norah's infinite playlist by david levithan and rachel cohn
13. you remind me of me by dan chaon
14. the enthusiast by charlie haas
15. an abundance of katherines by john green
16. mine all mine by adam davies
17. a carnivore's inquiry by sabina murray
18. emotionally weird by kate atkinson**
19. foreskin's lament by shalom auslander
20. the sexual outlaw by john rechy
21. moments of clarity by christopher lawford
22. girlbomb by janice erlbaum
23. then we came to the end by joshua ferris
24. are you there god, it's me kevin by kevin keck
25. speak softly, she can hear by pam lewis
26. love begins in winter by simon van booy
27. the good parents by joan london
28. the lie by chad kultgen**
29. slanted and enchanted by kaya oakes
30. revolutionary road by richard yates
31. love in the asylum by lisa carey**
32. the addict by michael stein
33. sleep toward heaven by amanda eyre ward
34. not the end of the world by kate atkinson**
35. double fault by lionel shriver**
36. entering hades by john leake
37. the beet queen by louise erdrich
38. breaking dawn by stephenie meyer
39. sweetheart by chelsea cain**
40. unchosen by hella winston
41. mrs. kimble by jennifer haigh**
42. wait until twilight by sang pak
43. speak by laurie halse anderson
44. shelf discovery by lizzie skurnick**
45. lush life by richard price**
46. in n out burger by stacy perman
47. a common pornography by kevin sampsell**
48. genetic rounds by robert marion
49. i don't care about your band by julie klausner**
50. postcards from a dead girl by kirk farber
51. if you follow me by malena watrous**
52. more of this world or maybe another by barb johnson**
53. everything is wrong with me by jason mulgrew**
54. black water rising by attica locke
55. the dolphin people by torsten krol**
56. everything here is the best thing ever by justin taylor
57. a ring of endless light by madeline l engle**
58. the queen of palmyra by minrose gwin
59. in a perfect world by laura kasischke**
60. garbage land by elizabeth royte
61. 86'd by dan fante
62. lean on pete by willy vlautin
63. in the sanctuary of outcasts by neil white
64. the bird room by chris killen
65. newspaper blackout by austin kleon
66. lake overturn by vestal mcintyre**
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mark356
 | 11:00 am - how to organize a cookbook
It occurs to me that it's getting time for me to reorganize my cookbook.
I've believed for many years that the best way to organize your recipes is with a binder full of page protectors. You can put anything you want into the page protectors--recipe cards, handwritten sheets, photocopies from cookbooks, clipouts from magazines and newspapers, or even parts of the bag or box or label something came in, if necessary. And you don't need to worry about the pages getting stained or water-damaged or filled with flour, as inevitably happens with paper cookbooks; you just wipe off the pages. Best of all, you can reorganize the pages as you want. Knowing that this was my opinion, my sister gave me a binder filled with page protectors many years ago, and I'm well on my way to filling it all the way up.
So far I've just put everything in in chronological order. Flipping through the cookbook is like an archeology project. It comes in layers. Most recently is a bunch of hastily copied-out recipes on 4"x6" notebook paper, since I didn't have full-sized paper in Amherst, and now that I had a kitchen, once every week or two I'd call back home for a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks. "Open up The Joy of Cooking. Right in the middle, where the spine is broken, there should be a recipe for Brownies 1. Read me that recipe."
Right before that is a lot of photocopies from Indian Home Cooking and My Bombay Kitchen, two wonderful regional Indian cookbooks that I fell in love with over the summer. Before that, a mishmash of recipes for semifreddos, veggie burgers, and assorted puddings and brownie recipes that were magneted to the 'fridge or just floating around the kitchen: (We reorganized the kitchen early that summer, so anything that hadn't gotten into the binder by then that I wanted to keep went in then.) I've got a fair number of recipes printed from the internet, like a great recipe for pumpkin-cocoa cake from I forget which one of you in this strata. Lower is the layer that contains recipes in my now-dead grandmother's handwriting, like her recipe for her grandmother's gingerbread. Lowest of all is the first layer, when I wanted to type everything out before binding it here, and put in about a dozen standbys and recipes from my favorite books to get myself started right away.
This system was OK for a while, but now that there's so many recipes in the pile it's gotten kind of confusing. It took me about five minutes to find a recipe for pumpkin bread: "Well, of course I haven't called for it, it's older than this-- it's not an Indian recipe, so I'll flip past all these-- wait, I thought that I found this brownie recipe years before the pumpkin bread, did maybe I skip it?"
Then, besides the marginal notes that I'm always scribbling ("or 1 T vanilla"; "can add black pepper, cardamom, and lemon zest") there's a bunch of those recipes that aren't ever quite happy. I got a tabbouleh recipe off of the internet a while ago and since then have used it only as the broadest of guidelines, and I taste to see if there's enough olive oil or lemon juice. I asked a friend from Cyprus how she makes tabbouleh, and her comments ("It should be about half green and half white") are probably more stable than the text I've got here.
I think it's time for me to reorganize. I don't know if I should get rid of the recipes I don't like or don't use anymore, or save them anyway as a personal history thing. But more importantly, I don't know how I would sort the recipes. You find clumps of recipes coming from a single cookbook as is. Usually I'll go to the library, read a bunch of cookbooks, and if I really like one, I'll copy down the five or six that I want to try, whatever kind of food they might be. (There are scores of recipes in here that I'd like to try, but there's no easy way of sorting them out.) It would be easy enough to make up categories: pies and pastries, brownies, cakes and sweet breads, crunchy cookies, soft cookies, puddings, and non-dessert foods, for instance. But to do this I'd have to separate out, for instance, Niloufer King's recipe for date pastries, from the section containing Indian recipes and especially her recipes. The same goes with a lot of cookbooks: I copied a recipe for graham crackers, apple-lime mousse, chocolate terrine, and devil's food cake with whipped cream frosting from The Dessert Bible, for instance. I've even got a page from The Boston Globe Magazine about whipped cream, with a recipe for a rhubarb fool, a chocolate refrigerator cake, and a parfait with almonds and breadcrumbs.
How do you all organize your cookbooks?
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December 28th, 2009
electric_honey
| 10:01 pm - movies i saw in 2009
here are all the movies i saw in 2009, not in order. i saw 41 this year, down from 50 last year--i blame the fact that my life radically changed in the past two months:
the unborn (movie #1 that had nazis)
my bloody valentine 3D (just as crappy as the original)
donkey punch (lesson learned: don't let a dude punch you in the neck during sex.)
the uninvited (i still think emily browning should have been in twilight.)
he's just not that into you (maybe the worst movie i saw all year.)
friday the 13th (the original is one of my favorite horror movies. not this one. first movie of the year to feature a veronica mars alum)
fired up (cheerleading movies are awesome)
last house on the left (again, the original is one of my favorite horror movies. this one wasn't bad, but the best thing was the trailer set to the cover of sweet child of mine.)
sunshine cleaning (not as good as everyone said it would be, but maybe that's because it was in florida and i walked five miles to the movie theater.)
i love you, man (pretty good)
the haunting in connecticut (second movie of the year to feature a v mars alum. also, not good.)
adventureland (maybe my favorite of the year.)
observe and report (not offensive, just not funny.)
state of play (i'm still sad that this one didn't get more attention.)
star trek (out of all the star trek movies my dad has forced me to see over the years, this was the only one i didn't hate.)
dance flick (no, this was definitely the worst movie i saw all year.)
drag me to hell (at times too gross for me, and not kind enough to kittens, but i liked it)
the hangover (as good as everyone says)
away we go (i liked it)
dead snow (second movie of the year to feature nazis)
whatever works (painful. just painful.)
public enemies (eh)
bruno (also painful)
500 days of summer (i will go see joseph gordon-levitt in anything because he is my celebrity boyfriend, but this was not my favorite of his. still good though.)
g-force (you know, for a movie about guinea pigs that are secret agents, it was pretty good. better than A LOT of what i saw this year)
adam (loved)
funny people (disappointing)
paper heart (surprisingly nice)
district 9 (it's always nice to see an interesting horror movie. but i wasn't in love with it.)
inglourious basterds (one of the best. third movie of the year to feature nazis.)
the final destination (final destination 3 is actually a pretty good movie. this was not.)
extract (funny, but not that funny.)
jennifer's body (HUGELY underrated. third movie of the year to feature v mars alums.)
paranormal activity (this movie is only scary if you don't normally watch horror movies.)
whip it (loved it)
zombieland (loved it)
where the wild things are (seemed a lot longer than it was.)
saw vi (they keep making them, i keep seeing them. maybe not after this one though. i still believe that the original and the second one are good movies though)
fantastic mr fox (i liked it more than i was expecting to. also i want mrs fox's dress. also notable for being the first movie i saw with tom.)
new moon (exactly what i expected.)
brothers (the most harrowing movie of the year.)
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December 27th, 2009
poesian
 | 02:20 pm - where I have been
(The real answer to the question "Where have you been?" is "I'm in Miami, and I was briefly in Sanibel, on the beach; the weather is wonderful and I'm relaxing here when I'm not worrying about graduate school." But I'm thinking about "Why have you been away from the internet?" really.)
So at some point when I got home, Google Chrome (my web browser) stopped working. I could not figure it out. I ran an anti-virus scan -- nothing. I uninstalled and reinstalled -- nothing. I restarted a few times. Nothing.
Now, in and of itself this wouldn't be that big of a problem. I use Firefox most of the time; I just use Chrome for email and browsing when I don't want to deal with Firefox. But I figured it had to be a sign of something being wrong. I scoured some forums, and ended up figuring out that, yes, my computer did in fact have a virus. I'm still unclear about how I got it -- I don't think it was from an email, but beyond that I'm unclear. A number of people talked about finding a virus called SDRA64 that was causing Google Chrome to not work. It would open, but no webpages would load. Disabling certain parts of the browser made it work, but that was more like proof of problem than solution.
I also noticed that my windows firewall was being disabled -- a sure sign that there's something wrong going on. When I re-enabled it, it thought it was working, but either way it was obvious that something was wrong. So I followed instructions I found online, going to my registry and finding HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\userinit, a registry value. Now I don't entirely understand the Windows registry, but suffice to say that it contains configuration settings for Windows and for all windows programs. When you edit your registry, you can really fuck things up. Many viruses install themselves in the registry, because users don't usually understand it, and it means they're working in the background.
Anyway, as the online instructions suggested, there was something there: the string value of userinit (as in, user-initiated processes, I think) was "C:\Windows\system32\userinit.exe, C:\Windows\system32\mskdud32.exe" -- a different virus than the SDRA64, but hiding in the same place. Unfortunately, you can't just remove the second value -- it reinstates itself. Suffice to say that I ended up in command-line Safe Mode (press F8 as loading the computer), and from there was able to use the REG command to remove the mskdud32.exe line. I also deleted the file it points to. Now, what no one bothered to say was this: If you delete the userinit registry value -- as in, if you don't just delete the part that says C:\Windows\system32\mskdud32.exe -- your computer won't load. And, errr, I did that. So if for some reason someone ends up here at this site trying to figure things out: solution is to boot into command line Safe Mode, edit the registry so that the value of userinit is "C:\Windows\system32\userinit.exe" and nothing else, and then delete (rm) C:\Windows\system32\mskdud32.exe. Of course, I entirely deleted userinit.
So when I rebooted, I entered my password on the login screen, and found myself logged out immediately. And so forth. I actually realized immediately what the problem is, but it's actually not an easy fix. I ended up finding a number of fixes that didn't work (one that would've worked perfectly, except I realized it only worked for Windows 2000), and finally downloading a program (the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor) to edit the registry from CD, which I burned to a disc on my father's computer, and then booted to. (You can boot to CD by pressing F12 as setup.) Eventually, I figured out this program, which is mostly intended for changing your password if you've forgotten it, but also works for editing the registry. What I needed to do was this:
Hit enter twice, loading to the list of registry options under HKLM. Type: SOFTWARE and hit enter. Enter 9 for registry editor. Enter: cd Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and hit enter. (Capitalization matters. CD = change directory.) Type: nv 1 userinit and hit enter. (This tells the program: I want a new registry value, which will be a string, and is called userinit.) Edit the userinit value, and enter the value as C:\Windows\system32\userinit.exe. Then press q and enter, q and enter, y and enter, and then quit. (Quit, quit, yes I want to save, quit.) And restart with ctrl-alt-del.
Anyway, wonder of wonders, it worked. I appear to no longer have a virus. I'm not entirely trusting of that -- and I think my computer is going to die sometime soon, especially considering that it overheated the other day and ruined the battery -- but I'm pleased that I seem safe for the moment. Backup time!
Besides: it's nice being home. The psychology graduate process may be touched on in an entry someday soon.
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December 26th, 2009
December 25th, 2009
December 24th, 2009
December 23rd, 2009
iamoddd
 | 01:32 pm - I figured out
how the dogs can tell when we are about to go running, because today they FLIPPED OUT when they heard me take my inhaler. I was in the other room. But that's apparently what tips them off.
So it's not putting on shoes or gloves or running pants. It's BREATHING FUNNY.
Weirdos.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonsis/amused.gif) amused
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December 22nd, 2009
doraphilia
 | 10:14 am - best of 2009
December 17 Word or phrase. A word that encapsulates your year. "2009 was _____."
I've been thinking about this one a lot. And my answer is: 2009 was BORING. Not in a bad way at all- this was just so needed. Norman and I have had major turbulence in our lives ever since like, 3 months after we met. Not with each other, but with just about everything else. Not always bad turbulence (like getting married, or moving here), but huge transitions. From the beginning of 2009 to end, we have been married, had the same jobs, had Otis, lived in Chicago, had an incredibly stable life. This stability has allowed us to get ourselves organized to do important things in life, like start seriously saving money, make plans for the future, purchase our home (I guess that's somewhat turbulent, but not really), and for me to have the emotional headspace to consider school again. Throughout this "best of 2009" I've been coming up short on some answers, because nothing much about this year stands out to me. And while it feels a little lame filling out this survey thingy, it ultimately feels GOOD.
December 18 Shop. Online or offline, where did you spend most of your mad money this year?
The house. Not just in terms of the down payment which sucked away much of our savings, but also the renovations. Over the course of three weeks, we completely redid the floors, the walls, all lighting and faucet fixtures, and some new furniture. We spent about 8k on all that, an intentional amount of money since that's what we will get for the home buyer credit. While I take serious issue with that 8k politically ( I think it's a stupid waste of resources right now and doesn't really help the economy in general), in our case it was really helpful to us AND helped some small businesses (the contractors we hired).
December 19 Car ride. What did you see? How did it smell? Did you eat anything as you drove there? Who were you with?
When Norman and I drove back from Asheville NC to Chicago, we left very early in the morning and the clouds/fog hadn't quite risen out of the mountains. The drive through Tennessee was really breathtaking. 
Also, it was the first car ride that Norman did some of the driving, so I could enjoy the view for the first time in years. Yay!
December 20 New person. She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009?
My favorite new person this year did all of the above (changed my life, good customer service, total hero): our real estate agent, Kelly Leggett. He's our friend's uncle, and has now become an amazing friend to us. Who ever knew someone who works in real estate would be such an good person? He was so calm and rational through such tense negotiations, and was always there for us, even though he had a serious health problem of his own. We couldn't have done it without him. Everyone who meets him likes him. He donated a portion of his commission to greyhound rescue. Overall... a really great guy.
December 21 Project. What did you start this year that you're proud of?
This has kind of been the year of unfinished projects. really, I've had problems finishing books, finishing knitting projects, and more. I'm most proud of the sweater from Fitted Knits that I am about 7/8 of the way done with, but haven't touched it in about 6 months. Seriously, what gives??
December 22 Startup. What's a business that you found this year that you love? Who thought it up? What makes it special?
Most of all I'm really excited and proud of my friends who in 2009 started selling crafty things on Etsy and are doing well with it. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) disolvinggirl and adr0ck , your businesses rule! congrats!
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December 21st, 2009
iamoddd
| 08:22 pm - Now I feel ungrateful.
But I really wanted to record Christmas songs.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonsis/worried.gif) guilty.
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iamoddd
 | 07:06 pm - There's always something.
So my MacBook Pro came early today.*
And for the most part, it's great.
But a thing that I am disappointed about not having and really really used a lot is: dual audio jacks. Apparently the 13" model does not have that. Instead, it has one port that can be either an input or output, which on one hand is cute and a small triumph for technology, but on the other hand is COMPLETELY USELESS FOR RECORDING THINGS. At least for me. Because you can either have a good microphone input and no monitor and no way of recording along with a playing track without the track being picked up by the microphone because it has to play from your external speakers, or you can use the computer microphone which is not as good (and a waste of the money I spent on a good vocal mic) and plug headphones in and hear your monitor. If I would have known this, I probably would've paid for the upgrade to the 15", but now I have the 13" and I'm sick of mailing computers away so I'm keeping it.
I ordered a little USB thing to plug headphones into, so it should take care of the problem, but it still unsightly and still makes me mad that I can't just plug two things into my computer and I have to have a stupid, bulky, non-Mac add-on that is not streamlined and simple like I wanted. I know it seems like a silly inconvenience, but come on. If you're going to be recording something, how could you NOT also need your headphone jack. It irks me. But there is nothing I can do about it now. Plus, if I really want to seriously record things on this machine, I should get a real preamp, which would free up the audio jack, anyway. But I'm too poor for that right now.
On a more positive note, Snow Leopard is nice. Not crashing things is nice. On the whole I am happy. I will have to try harder to focus on that, but it is a challenge for me, being a glass-half-empty kind of gal.
* For those of you who did not know, Apple finally replaced my MacBook that never worked right, and this was the only thing they had available that wouldn't have been a downgrade.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonsis/okay.gif) okay; pretty good; okay
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December 20th, 2009
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