Begin Chastisement

You. Guys. Seriously. Just because my computer is not working and I cannot receive email notification of comments left on my blog does not mean that I won't know if you say anything or not. There is not, as far as I know, a blog out there devoted to my friends (real and internet) telling me I am cool, and that is the kind of reading I need to do every day.

Maybe you are not interested in my frank honesty about my silly internet crushes and how lame I was in high school. I get that, I really do. Then maybe you should say so, like "Erin, why don't you quit your bitchin' and stop stalking libertarians who are married to other people anyway." Or maybe you think you're so cool because you come over and read my blog, all smug-like, and think man, that drivel is so far beneath me I am going to go listen to some indie band no one has ever heard of over at Pandora instead of deigning to reply. To that I say, Yeah?! Prove it! If you're that much cooler than me, let's hear about it. Reading people's blogs is a privilege, guys; sometimes you've got to give a little in return.

So please. Give me something to do on the internet when I get home from school in the afternoon besides crossword puzzles.

/Chastisement

My Secret Internet Crush--EXPOSED!

Oh, man. I have had a mild internet crush on a certain self-described "nerdy libertarian lawyer" for about the past year now, and I have just today discovered that HE RUNS A D&D GAME AT HIS HOUSE. That, people who don't know me in person, is as close to a fetish as I think I have. It actually makes me feel sort of giddy, like I have suddenly become a teenager again and am unable to make eye contact--with anyone--when that boy is in the room. (Or in the next room. Or even at school that day. In fact, I seem to remember spending the entire three years of high school a sweaty-palmed, stammering mess. So I was never Captain Cool when it came to the boys, big deal.)

Anyway, consider this post my best blogger-geek attempt at a wink and a smile from across the bar.

It's a Birthday!

Tyson is having a birthday today. Go over there and remind him that, being 37, he's only got a few good years left in him.

I'm going open-source!

Which explains why I'm typing this post from T's computer, not mine. I was about ready to throw my stupid laptop from the window of a moving car after it got stuck--twice--during startup (among many other, more grievous issues), but since we're a bit short of the requisite $$ for the iBook I really want, T decided to install Linux on my machine. Linux has even more cache than Mac, so I figured it must be a good idea, plus I will feel so cool saying "Yeah, I'm a Linux user." I'd even start up conversations with strangers so I could drop that line in, all casual.

Except T is something of a tinkerer when it comes to computers. "Just do it, then fix it if it doesn't work--you'll learn more that way" could be his personal motto. Think of my laptop as a test batch of pancakes....and whoops, the griddle isn't quite hot enough yet.

Look what I can do!

Check out my tag cloud I just made. (The layouts function is being squirrelly, but I will put it higher in that right-hand column soon.) It is so awesome. I thought, as I was copy-pasting code into my template, that it was heady business, but then I did an actual google search, and I guess I could have put my stuff in and auto-generated one. Whatever. Mine will change when I have more posts in different groups, and I don't think the others will. And if they do, screw them anyway 'cause I just wrote (or inserted, anyway) my own code. Take that, bitches!

Waffles Woo Hoo!

I was so excited to find this in my inbox yesterday! This, my friends, is widely reported to be OMG THE BEST WAFFLE RECIPE EVAR (or so all the Switzerland people said this summer), and the translation from the French is really, really cute:

2 quarts and 1 pint liquid (half mineral water, half full milk)(2,5 liter)
2/3 ounce of yeast (20gram)
1 lb of flour (1/2 kg)
5 oz diary [sic] (cream) butter which you melt in a bain-marie (a "double" boiler)(150g)
1 spoon of (salad) oil
3 or 4 eggs, depending on their size
4oz of sugar (100 gram)
a pinch of salt

Heat the liquid up until it is tepid. Take a cup of it apart and let the yeast dissolve in it. Sift the flour into a bowl; sprinkle the salt around the edge of the flour and make a hole in the middle, where you pour the dissolved yeast and the melted butter.

Add the egg yolks, the sugar, and the remaining liquid in the hole. Kneed the mass from the inside out until you have a homogeneous dough. If necessary, dilute it with a little liquid.

The dough should not be so liquid as for pancakes. Whisk the egg whites and scoop them carefully with a slice through the tough [sic].

Cover the dough and leave it to rise in a heated place (if in winter) until its volume has doubled.

Pour some dough into the heated and greased iron. Close the iron immediately and bake until it gets golden brown.

Now, I have never seen a yeast-risen waffle recipe, but it looks worth a try. I will certainly give it a shot and let you all know.