too much caffeine??

this spider web is in the top corner of our kitchen window (this is the best photo i could get in the awkward place it was but the whole web looks like the bit you can see against the dark window sill background). i think the spider may have had some coffee before making this (if you google images of "spider web caffeine" it shows drawings and images of spiders affected by various drugs- the caffeine one looks a lot like this).

fear of germs

i don't know why but for some reason advertisements for cleaning products annoy me more than any other ad. on tv. especially the ones where it's a mother saying how she doesn't want her children exposed to germs that may be on the kitchen counter, the sofa cushions or, heaven forbid, in the toilet bowl so she likes to spray chemicals which claim to kill 99.9% germs on these things and let her family be exposed to those instead. i don't know why those ads bother me more than other ads which are also using fear of something to get people to buy a product but they do. why don't people realize, most germs aren't going to harm most people and that breathing in or ingesting chemicals from cleaning products is likely to have some negative reaction in a person's body (even if it does happen slowly over many years)?

scamming

i got a phone call this morning from someone claiming to be from microsoft trying to tell me there was something wrong with my computer and he needed to fix it and would walk me through the steps over the phone. sounded completely ridiculous to me cuz i'm pretty sure no where have we listed our home phone number with any sort of registration of our computer. i was pretty sure it was a scam when he said something like "...and it will shut down your whole computer. you don't want that, do you?" he started to tell me to press some buttons to help fix the problem but i just hung up on him. after doing a bit of a google search, turns out it was a scam. here's an article from the age a couple months ago. if i did think there was something wrong on our computer i would be either getting a friend in IT to help or taking it to a computer repair place, not taking advice from someone who called me. i guess there are people who would just assume it's legitimate though.

encouraging the opposite

i'm assuming they mean coverage before and after the hour otherwise it wouldn't be right:

canadian hockey pride

(probably best viewed on you tube cuz i don't know how to make the player fit here without making it small)

a little bit special

this is from a billboard near our house. every time i see it, it makes me smile (for the past few years any time i've heard an ad that says matt damon's name, i always have to say "matt damon" in a "lesser-than-average-intelligence" voice).

made my evening

our dog is wondering why i keep laughing while a look at the computer screen. if only she could understand pictures.....

more at faildogs

giant seagull

they showed this clip on the 7pm project last nite. even funnier is the quote from peter hitchener on the youtube clip:
"I was reading away, and it was a serious story, and I suddenly thought, 'Oh my gosh that seagulls back again', because we had bit of a problem last night,'' Hitchener said.
"About 50 seconds to 6 o'clock this seagull arrived and started pecking at the camera and it had the beadiest huge eyes you've ever seen in your life.''

(it's better viewing the clip on youtube cuz its widescreen but my blog is putting it in a square)

motivation part II (see below for part I)

i became motivated. the sun came out (briefly) and i did a nice 30 shred workout (mostly for the strength training).
after, i had a hair appt. i've been going to rising angel for probably a year now after going to cheap walk in places for several years. such a difference when you go to a good salon and get the full wash, cut and dry with someone who knows how to make your hair look good (i LOVE the wash/scalp massage and every time i go it makes me realize why wombat LOVES her baths even though she hates water-- the full massage she gets from us then must be good).
after that i went next door to radical grocery (waffles and vegan whip cream) and the few op shops in the area. i managed to find a pretty much new (with instruction booklet) rice cooker for $10 (zac has been wanting one for a while).
when i got home i made a pie crust (from la dolce vegan), cut, cooked and pureed some pumpkin and made a pumpkin pie from a recipe in how it all vegan (which is currently in the oven-- the pie, not the cookbook). turns out i don't have a 9" pie plate (just 7 or 8" ones) so i had some left over filling (which was quite liquid-y and i'm hoping is thickening up in the pie while it's in the oven). i decided to use the last bit of filling to make a spiced pumpkin latte. soooooo good! unfortunately there was only enough for the 1 but i guess i could always make a 1/2 batch of the pie filling and use it for lattes.
if the pie works out there will be photos (complete with vegan whip cream)

motivation

today is my RDO. i figured i'd get some things done since it's only tuesday and i'm not exhausted from a week of work (although yesterday was very long and involved a staff meeting/dinner after work). i woke up this morning and it's all grey and windy and COLD (the wind almost feels icy-- i'm sure it did feel icy at the time i would have had to ride into work). so far i've done nothing but make breakfast and try to fix things on the computer. i'm working up the motivation to do some sort of exercise. i also kind of want to make a pumpkin pie, which would have to be done from scratch (no canned pumpkin or pumpkin pie mix in australia but i do have a big pumpkin from our aussie farmers direct box that is waiting for a purpose). it's thanksgiving in canada so it would be fitting to have that today (no way i'm gonna do the full tofurkey dinner thing but a pie could be a little taste of thanksgiving). i just need to get out of this chair though.....

news?

the picture below is a screen view of the top news stories according to yahoo (the homepage when i log into my email). check out the second one up from the bottom:that's news?

random moment

we were watching the latest episode of the office and my mind started to wander for a second. it was just as dwight and michael were walking down the street. i think michael was trying to figure out what dwight was thinking about. michael asked dwight "are you thinking about nachos?" I WAS THINKING ABOUT NACHOS (dwight wasn't though). it was really weird. i don't think zac really believes me when i told him that i was thinking of nachos. right before that scene i'd noticed the beer can and mexican imported chilli beer bottle on the table from the other nite. it made me think about how we are going to a mexican bar later this afternoon for zac's birthday. i started thinking nachos (without cheese) might be good when we get there. that's when michael asked the question.
weird.

dying of laughter

funniest thing i've seen all week:

another good reason for coffee

apparently caffeine may be linked to reduced incidence of skin cancer. that's exciting. i almost always start my day with a "soup bowl" of coffee (the mugs in australia are generally little-- zac and i found these great big mugs at a $2 shop when we first moved into this house). i usually do a 1/2 caff. coffee in mine though since it fits 2 standard coffee cups (1 scoop regular coffee and 1 scoop decaf-- unless i'm really needing a caffeine hit). unfortunately zac's doctor told him to give up coffee completely for a while to see if it helps his weird heart palpitations that the doctors don't seem to know what it is. i think that may help since when he says he has 2-4 cups a day he means 2-4 REALLY STRONG cups that probably contain the caffeine equivalent to 4-8 regular coffees. maybe he'll have to start rubbing caffeinated sunscreen on him if scientists decide that's a beneficial product to make. future beaches will no longer smell like coconut sunscreen-- everyone will smell like coffee 8)

chatting

apparently i've taken up sleep talking. i'm pretty sure i've never done it before recently (i've had enough roommates that i'm sure someone would have heard something and said something to me). i've woken myself up doing it a few times in the past couple months. mostly its with this sort of re-occurring dream (which almost feels like an hallucination because until the last time i had the dream i always thought it was real and my eyes were open because in the dream its the exact view that i would see at nite with my eyes open in bed). in this dream a person, or monster or giant spider or basketball team (it's always different) comes into the bedroom thru the doorway and starts to step up onto the bed and walk over top of me to the other side of the bed. this is when i start yelling for them to stop. the last time i had the dream it happened just as zac was coming home from a late nite jam session with his band. i woke up to my yelling and realized i was sitting up in bed and the hall light was on (that's when i realized it hadn't been real because it was dark in the dream).
during one of the really hot nites a couple weeks ago zac woke up to me calling wombat (who was fast asleep somewhere in the house). he just told me to leave her cuz she was fine. i woke up to that and then fell back asleep (after reaching over the edge of the bed to grab what i thought was some magical "cool pillow"-- i woke up in the moring cuddling the dog's furry bed mat. not so cool but warm and stinky).
when we went to bed last nite i mentioned to zac that i was surprised didn't hear wombat get up in the middle of the nite the nite before (when zac's alarm went off we heard wombat jump off the couch and come into the bedroom. usually if she gets up during the nite she wakes me up doing her full body shake that she always does when standing up). zac said that i did hear her because i was talking to her (this was the first i knew about this). apparently wombat was sitting next to the bed staring at me and i was talking really loudly to her and making very little sense in what i was saying. that woke zac up. i woke up to zac crawling out of bed and saying something. at the time i figured he was telling me he had to go to the bathroom (and i couldn't figure out why he was telling me that in the middle of the nite). he was actually asking the dog if she wanted to go to bed or outside. she wanted out so zac let her out and then settled her back in her bed.
kinda funny that i'm doing this now. zac tends to sleep talk (especially when he's stressed). it always wakes me up and i just try talking back to him (its pretty entertaining). that usually ends up waking him up and then he gets annoyed that i woke him up (i just tell him he woke me up talking first). soon we'll probably start having conversations in our sleep (i've actually had 2 friends do this a few times when a bunch of us shared a room at camp one summer. me and another girl had insomnia and were usually awake when this happened. we would then try to join in and see if they were awake. they were definitely sleeping).

little gaget

i happened to come across these measuring spoons while getting some friend's wedding gift. i LOVE these spoons. i've been looking for a new set for months (half our last set is missing and they're all off their ring so i can never find the one i need anyway). my only criteria in finding a new set was that they had to have both metric and imperial (apparently that's generally too much to ask). my favourite part about this set is they're magetic! they all stick together at the center and make a nice neat stack and don't get lost. it's also great that the 1/2 tsp and 1/2 tbsp are green (easy to spot without flipping through them all). the narrow end is supposed to be for easy use in narrow containers but i just like that it has 2 ends so if i measure a liquid and later need the same measurement for dry it's nice and easy (just use the other end). funny that one simple little kitchen utensil makes things so much easier. now i gotta see if they make a measuring cup set like this......

uncommon

it can be a bit frustrating trying to use north american (or any other country/region) cookbooks in oz because not all the ingredients are available here. i have learned to omit things or alter recipes to fix this problem but sometimes it would be nice to just be able to get what i need.
i decided to make a stir fry for dinner last nite using a teriyaki sauce in one of my cookbooks (eat, drink and be vegan). the sauce called for molasses. i went up to the supermarket to get a few things including the molasses. i assumed the molasses would be in the baking isle since the only times i've ever used it was for pumpkin pies and cookies. i searched the entire isle. no molasses. then i thought maybe the sauce isle. not there either. then i wandered the store trying to find an employee. that took a while. i found 2 employees together and asked them. the guy just looked at me blankly. the woman thought about it for a few seconds then said "i know i've heard of it. what do you usually use it for?". when i said baking she said to try that isle. i told her i did. i decided just to give up. i knew i'd seen it somewhere in oz (and zac's mum uses it when she makes vegan pumpkin pie) but obviously not at safeway. i decided to try pedimonte's since i needed to go that way to return a library book anyway. i found it!! and they had 2 or 3 brands!! it was in the sugar area of the baking isle (i also learned that molasses is made from sugarcane). i might just have to re-check safeway near the sugar to see if it is actually there (not that i'll need any more for a LONG time).

the sky is on fire

i haven't changed the colour in these photos or used a filter or anything. this is actually how the sky looked a few nites ago. the air was yellow/orange-- it was weird.

the clouds:

i took this one about 10 min after the first few shots:

i should have gone down the road to a park where i could have got pitures without houses and telephone poles.

dizzy

last nite we went to the mountain goats gig. it was in this weird new venue that's more of a niteclub than a place for a band like mountain goats (or teeth and tongue who opened for them) but it did have lots of good places to see the band (and stupid bright lighting that was shining in our eyes on and off thruout the nite). we were right near the front and after a few people shifted i could actually see the band (that's been a really big peeve of mine lately and has actually made me not go to shows--- i ALWAYS end up with some really tall guy RIGHT in front of me and can't see a thing). unfortunately 3/4 of the way thru mountain goats set i suddenly got liteheaded. this used to happen occasionally at gigs (i've passed out at few gigs too). most of the time i've assumed it was smoky rooms but that hasn't been an issue since the smoking ban finally came in. it hasn't happened for several months or more. it was weird because usually it comes on slowly and i spend 5 minutes or so trying to convince myself i'm alright and then it gets bad and i move to the back of the room and find somewhere to sit. last nite i was fine and then suddenly the lites that had been going around for the song that was ending just started to really annoy me and make me dizzy. i looked down so i wouldn't see them. the feeling wouldn't go away. i looked up so i could get air. that didn't help. i told zac and turned and started pushing my way back thru the crowd. i found a space several meters from where we were that was open and had a fan blowing. i thought i'd be ok there but after a few seconds i realized i needed to sit. i started going back further and zac followed. just before i collapsed i found a step to sit on in a spot where security wouldn't tell me i was in the way and needed to stand. i sat for a couple minutes, felt fine, stood up, got dizzy, sat down for several minutes, stood up and felt fine the rest of the gig. i was sad we had to move from a spot where i could actually see (the new spot was kind of behind a mirrored post) but the gig was still good. not sure why i occasionally get these dizzy spells (there could be several reasons) . at least it doesn't freak zac out if i pass out (i think the last time i passed out he was so calm about it that it kinda scared the other people around him).

its true

the biggest search term that leads people to my blog is "mountain goats hooves fall off". its all because of this post. when i tried to find out if that was actually fact, i couldn't really find anything. finally, yesterday someone left an anonymous comment with a link to this site. down the middle of the page there's some facts about montana. towards the bottom is this:(click to enlarge)

now i wanna know what happens to the goat if he looses his hooves (i'd assume they wouldn't survive long).