Dana

Champagne Infused Strawberry Soup by Marcus Samuelson

Yield: 8 servings

4 cups of water (can substitute wine or champagne)
9 cups of strawberries (frozen can be used)
1 cup sugar
1 lemon, juiced
.5 cup champagne
6 mint leaves, plus more for garnish

In a saucepan, bring water, strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, and champagne to a boil. Let simmer until the strawberries are soft and squishy then add the mint leaves. Let cool to room temperature (we used an ice bath for this). Blend together with an immersion blender (ooh, powertools!), then strain through a sieve. Chill.

Serve soup bowls with a scoop of ice cream or sorbet. Garnish with mint.

**So my additional thought on this recipe was that it would be good if after you blended it, to put it back on the stove and cook it some more, reducing it to a syrup which you could use OVER ice cream. It was lovely.

Fennel and Mint Salad by Andrea Rappaport

Yield: 4 Servings

2 bulbs fennel, fronds removed
.25 cup extra virgin olive oil
juice of 2 lemons
8 large mint leaves, finely shredded
2 ounces shaved parmesan cheese
salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Shave the fennel as thinly as possible using a mandolin, a meat slicer or by hand. Place the shaved fennel in a bowl and toss with the lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Divide the fennel among four small plates, scatter some mint on top of each salad and garnish with shaved Parmesan.

Cornmeal and Rosemary Cake with Balsamic Syrup by Giada De Laurentiis

Yield: 8 Servings

For the Cake:
.5 cup fine yellow cornmeal
.5 cup cake flour
1 tbs minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 tsp baking powder
.25 tsp salt
1 stick of butter
.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
1.25 cups powdered sugar, plus more for dusting
4 large egg yolks
2 large eggs
.5 cup sour cream

For the Balsamic Syrup:
.5 cup sugar
.5 cup balsamic vinegar (we used 2 cups which were reduced to .5 cup on the stove)
.5 sprig of fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

For the Cake:

Butter and flour an 8-inch round cake pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, cake flou, minced rosemary, baking powder, and salt. Using a standing miser with a paddle attachment, on low speed, beat the butter and vanilla together until combined. Slowly add the podered sugar. Once the sugar is incorporated increase the speed to high and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg yolks and eggs, 1 at a time. reduce the speed to medium and add the sour cream. On low speed add the dry ingredients just until incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and smooth the surface with a spatula. Bake in the lower third of the oven until the cake is golden and pulls away from the sides of the pan, about 35 minutes. Transfer th pan to a wire rack and let cool. Transfer the cake from the pan to a serving plate and dust with powdered sugar.

For the Balsamic Syrup:*

Place the sugar, balsamic vinegar and rosemary in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer until the sugar is dissolved, about 5 minutes. Discard the rosemary sprig and let the syrup cool.

*When we made the syrup in class, we boiled 2 cups of vinegar with the sugar and rosemary on the stove for about 15 minutes or so (possibly longer, I didn't make this recipe directly. Will edit once I've experimented) until it became very thick and syrupy.

Have fun making interesting drizzle patterns on the plate and over the slice of cake when you serve it.

Apparently there were 3000+ midnight showings and around 100 3AM and 6AM showings around the country.

With a running time of two and a half hours, Medved is declaring "The Dark Knight's" opening day "Dark Friday," predicting attendance at work could be dramatically down.

I'm not quite sure what, except my own body clock, made me get up at 8 AM and actually make it to work on time. I'm goanna be so sleepy this evening.

Anyone want to see Dark Knight in IMAX on Monday, July 28th?

I know that's kind of long to wait, but Mr. Z will be here for one night and one night only, and we thought we might try to see it, together.

Though the notion of good and evil needing each other to exist and give each other a purpose, and the actual minute difference between them, is a commonly overused trope of literature, film, the stage, etc, I was pretty impressed with "The Dark Knight" and it's ability to continue to explore this concept.

Whereas in the first of Nolan's reboot films the psychological examination is of Wayne/Batman himself, this film is all about Harvey Dent. His presence, his courage and virtue and his deep flaws drive the film and I was thoroughly impressed with Aaron Eckhart's performance. The references to CIA extrordinary rendition/Gitmo/the morality and ethics of torture are referred to in a pretty obvious and not particularly insightful way. In spite of this, I think what has gotten lost behind the blinding glow of Ledger's complete disappearance into his own unique take on the Joker character is the power of Eckhart's transformation from a guileless and publicly hailed defender of the people to something much more tragic and, in the end, human.

The only real negative of the Harvey Dent character is the jarring use of CGI to display his disfigurement and the use of the half-perfect, half-tattered suit. This was an over-the-top affectation that was completely unnecessary and uncharacteristic in this film where realism is generally adhered to fairly strictly for a super hero film. They could have just used makeup and it would have had a better effect. Bad choice, Nolan.

I think the unfortunate thing about the Batman role is that it seems to have swallowed Bale whole, leaving very little room for his incredible acting range to be displayed. He becomes such a killjoy zealot and, I must say, the words that came out of his mouth sounded very stiff and contrived: people just don't talk that way! I think I liked the first of this series better because, well, he was just Bruce Wayne really though most of it and the Batman persona hadn't destroyed all of his human qualities.

I must also say that, for a 2 1/2 hour film, I think they underwrote the Rachel Dawes character. There was zero chemistry between her and either of the men in her life and, because of this, I found Den't later motivations less than believable, showing Dawes bit of a maguffin. Though, perhaps like many male writer/directors, Nolan just isn't good at writing and directing women. Not a fatal flaw by any means but definitely something that was lacking. This whole film was a giant testosterone fest.

Anyhow, Heath Ledger. I was surprisingly able to allow myself to take his character for what it was on the screen and block out most of the hype and drama surrounding him and the press he's gotten, which is really a testament to his acting ability. Behind the makeup, hair and different voices and tics and nuances, the Joker character was able to seem completely foreign to me - made into something almost completely novel. Whereas Jack Nicholson's take on it was as a wry and randy (to say nothing of sadistic in the most delightful way) glorified mob boss in a purple suit, Ledger's was a true sociopath. He's brilliant but generally not very funny or clever with a turn of phrase. He cares nothing for people, nothing for even material goods.

In spite of this, the Joker is, oddly enough, the most moralistic/preachy character in a film full of self-righteous do-gooders. His indictment of "commonplace violence" was pretty spot on though not something I think I'll be debating into the night. In the end though, he just likes to play his little games. He likes to manipulate people into doing what they don't want to do and using their own humanity against them. He likes being right. I enjoyed his little follow-up Milgram experiment with the people on the boats.

By the way, I don't particularly like the reading that his character is an allegory for terrorism. I don't think he has some agenda that he feels is godly/noble, and you cannot divorce this from the idea of terrorism that has developed in the west in the last 7 years.

Regarding the more technical/filmic aspects, it was pretty superb throughout. The secnes were well coreographed and the production values were off the charts. The climax scene with the Joker, in my opinon, utilized too much visual trickery and too-quick jump cuts that plague modern action movies, but in general Nolan avoids these eye-glazing techniques and uses as many sort of "fixed-shots" as possible. I suppose this negative is based much upon my own preferences, as I prefer this franchise to be more about psychology, motivation, attachment and personality than about explosions.

In all I think this was an excellent film, certainly worthy of a discussion as a successor to the Lord of the Rings series as one of the best big-budget epics of the new century. I think I like where the series is going here too, as the film ends with Batman's image taking a very unexpected turn and showing the fickle nature of public opinion towards those who act on their behalf.

When we last left this journal, we had the CrankyGram Update(tm) for Wednesday. It was a long day. I try to give you somewhat of an explanation here -- not, mind you, that I think I owe anyone one, but this is my journal, so you are bound to get at least some of what goes inside my head at least some of the time, both the good with the bad. You come here to read me, I don't feel like I have to apologize for giving you my opinion, not that I intend to be rude or anything. I put these accounts here less for y'alls information than for my own sanity, I need to remember, when things get a bit rough or worse that there's been way more progress -- it's the only way some of us have been able to stay sane and go thru seeing him in pain waiting for the Tylenol to start working, when there's nothing we can do, the medicine takes a few minutes, or having difficulties with motion etc. No one deserves to go thru his experience, even if intellectually we can accept that there are worse fates -- people die everyday for the most stupid reasons, and some people don't even have enough luck to die, but become trapped in a body that can't serve them. That we can do anything at all to minimize what we can for those patients in general, and this patient in particular, is something we should not discount lightly.

Here's something for you: sometimes even sane/reasonable people do strange things. One thinks one has seen everything, or at least enough, and then you get surprises. Surprises can be nice and fun sometimes, other times they can stress out a fragile system. Wednesday, someone showed up and was displeased at the ICU staff that told them that Dave was asleep and needed his blood pressure to come down before more visitors could come in and "would you please wait about 15 minutes in the Family Waiting Room and we'll call you when possible?" and the person apparently disappeared without talking to anyone in the family room. Never mind that high blood pressure might cause another stroke. Or that the ICU folks don't deserve being treated as if it was a hotel that has your reservation. Or worse, a restaurant that is late seating you. Thursday morning, before visiting hours start, a person (maybe the same person, I'm not sure at this point) showed up -- please let me be clear here, if you are not on the night rotation and you have not been called by the staff to help Dave, please do not show up outside of visiting hours. They were clearly posted all over the hospital and in the locked post. Visiting hours are from 11AM-8PM. Not that was hard to read in the locked post or anything. And no, I'm not bitter, or sarcastic, just dismayed. Hospitals are not places that tend to think of progressive things and try new things, they are afraid of liability issues, they are overworked trying to help people in real need. Here's a hospital that lets patients' friends and family do unorthodox things and they are truly amazed and psyched that at least some patients can be helped with no or very low dosage medication (thus avoiding side effects) simply by having the right folks to keep them company and calm them down, and at least in this one case the rate of recovery has been extremely impressive. The vast majority of the visitors were excellent, but if a few stress out the system as a whole, other people might not be blessed by the same chance. This is way beyond this one patient, it was a happy experiment that was totally not designed at any point, it's been fine tuning itself as it goes and it might help other patients. Other families that have relatives in a similar situation have told me that seeing what we've been doing has given them hope and altered their pattern of interaction with their patients a bit and the improvement was noticeable. I would be extremely bummed if the entire thing got shut down. Please keep all of the more sensitive data out of the public posts and stress to people you know personally that it's OK they have this info, but they need to play by the rules. We could easily have a deluge of people from the net who might not care at all for his well-being, just that he's an interesting/amusing guy on teh intarwebs, all overloading him with random requests, and if we can't trust people who know him personally (well, just a couple or two, but still), I don't think we should trust the web at large. Thank you.

Here's more information for you. I'm having difficulties expressing some stuff here. Partly is because people usually don't talk much about their feelings or all the details of what they feel and/or think. Part is because even if they did want to communicate about it, they'd be talking for days. Theater people often say "remember the way you are feeling now when you need it in your acting later" as a shorthand. I tend to mention music. I tend to notice that people often react and have similar feelings to music and songs. So here's how I've seen people reacting around me lately, and I'm not necessarily excluding myself. Most people who have visited seem to me that if we were in a musical, they'd burst into song with:

He's got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Now and then when I see his face
He takes me away to that special place
And if I'd stare too long
I'd probably break down and cry

Sweet child o' mine
Sweet love of mine

He's got eyes of the bluest skies
As if they thought of rain
I hate to look into those eyes
And see an ounce of pain
His hair reminds me of a warm safe place
Where as a child I'd hide
And pray for the thunder
And the rain
To quietly pass me by

Sweet child o' mine
Sweet love of mine

Where do we go
Where do we go now
Where do we go
Sweet child o' mine

_Sweet Child of Mine_ by Guns N' Roses, as sung by Cheryl Crow

Meanwhile, to be perfectly honest, and I think a lot of you will agree, here's what Dave would sing a few times a day:

The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path
The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon
The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me 'till I'm sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon

All that you touch
And all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
And all that you love
And all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
And all that you give
And all that you deal
And all that you buy
beg, borrow or steal
And all you create
And all you destroy
And all that you do
And all that you say
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight
And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

_Brain Damage/Eclipse_, by Pink Floyd

He said multiple times in as many words that he's terrified he won't be useful. Or he's afraid of being trapped inside his own body. I'm not saying this to make people feel bad, or guilty etc. I'm just trying to give you a tiny measure of what it's like to be him now. Sometimes he's hopeful and works really hard to recover, sometimes it's close to sheer terror. A lot of his questions have to do with "are you all sure there is hope for me?" and some of the questions get weird when he's lost in that strange little world of doubt.

So, just so we get everyone in the same page, and, trust me, it's been hard for his mom to get to our page, here's what we know so far. Mind you, I'm not here bitching about his mom (not entirely anyway), she's a sweet person most of the time and understanding where she's coming from might help us getting her involved with some productive things and not freaking out so much.

Wednesday morning, I got to talk to the neurologist, in front of his mom again. They tell me that the MRI showed no lesions that they could see, no signs of aneurysm. Of course it's hard to be certain with the blood there, and there is a very small chance that there could be residual effects, but for most patients in similar cases the most likely outcome is full recovery, after the blood gets reabsorbed (it's very much like a bruise) and the swelling goes down. The neurologist says her first choice would be New England Rehab when he leaves this hospital. She also says that she's extremely pleased with the rate of recovery, it's unusually quick.

He had had a rough night, I'm told, with some anxiety, enough so that he was given a very low dose of Ativan. I find him in the morning sitting on a reclinable chair for the first time since he was admitted, very pleased with himself, talkative and with pretty good motion on his right arm/hand and some motion on his right leg. He sat on the chair for longer than they expected him to, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. Late in the afternoon he could scratch the back of his head with his right hand, even if with difficulties. He ate at lot of his meals by himself. Also, he told us what he wanted ordered by reading the menu himself. In the afternoon he talked on speakerphone to his nephew for a couple of minutes. Transferred himself, with the help of one nurse, from the chair to the bed instead of needing several people to carry him. Propped himself up the bed a few times. Heard some music, tried to watch some video. Speech has improved a lot during the day, right hand much improved. Of course, the physical exertion gave him a nasty back pain.

Some of his anxiety is unfortunately related to the anti-anxiety medication, if you'll remember from MedlinePlus and/or Wikipedia, Ativan is a hypnotic that tends to erase/blur memories a bit before you took it until the drug wears off. Or course, that makes him anxious because he can't tell what is when or why some things seem disconnected, he's afraid it's a problem with his brain when it correlates strongly with the medicine.

If there is one thing that I had reinforced on me during these last few days, is that people get confused when one is not optimizing for one goal, but for multiple goals. Here's what's going on. They are trying to lower his blood pressure and keep it stable so he can move out of the ICU. Part of what they are doing is lowering the IV and giving him pills instead. So there's some titration effect, where they give them a small dosage in pill form, and wait to see how well it worked then compensate with the IV. Of course, the pressure fluctuates at this point,within a goal range that not only the staff knows, but the computers do to, and they make sure to scream bloody murder if it gets out of range. It's also not desirable, in his case, to lower the BP by more than 20-25% a day or so. If that's not enough to keep your interest, they also have as another important goal to keep his Heart Rate down.

OK, now we start the dance with the above instruments. Machines beep (loudly) if anything gets out of range. Let's introduce a hypothetical character whose demographics include people whose BP is to be kept within the "normal" range" and that's all that character seems to worry about from the audience's perspective, even if she deeply cares about Patient. Let's call her Well_Meaning_Person or WMP. So, now, when the machines beep, you either get a patient that was trying to relax and sleep, but gets startled and rolls around trying to "shut off his alarm clock", or gets weirded out by WMP panicking that his BP is slightly out of range and the machines are beeping. Patient's HR goes up and the Chorus knows that in a few minutes, when the computer takes Patient's BP again it will be higher, but out of phase with actual Patient's BP after that, when HR goes down.

WMP starts inquiring every single new nurse when the shift changes to turn off the machines beeps (they can't by regulations, not to mention the machines don't let the beeps turn off) or lower (it's as low as it can get, even if that means it's as loud as the common alarm clock). WMP also starts panicking that the BP is not as good as she thinks it should be. Eventually we learn that she's not only worried about all the people in FL who were a billion years old, had 36 heart attacks in a row and 21 strokes and didn't do so well. Nooo. Some doctor in Chicago who is related to her, and may or may not be a neurologist, but has never laid eyes on this Patient's charts, let alone the patient himself, told her on the cell phone the he doesn't understand "what those doctors over there are doing, uncontrolled BP for five days!"... well, first of all, it's been four days, and yes we are counting, second of all, it's going down at the rate it's been expected while, at the same time they've been using less medicine. The cardiologist (who showed up on Thursday, but we're getting ahead of the plot and "it's not that kind of movie") said "well, we could make it go to the normal range by just giving him a large dose of the medicine, but that could actually make things worse and ruin your plans" (either way, they'll run more tests to see if there's anything else wrong with him, like kidneys etc, which made her smug, but hey), and, in any case, he's making quick progress even the way things are. Not, mind you, that I don't have moments when I freak about it either, but that's for another time. So, I told her that if she didn't stop listening to random people hundreds of miles away, I'd take her cell phone away from her -- if the doctor from Chicago examined the patient in person or at least read his charts, I might take his opinions into consideration, but given how things seem to be going according to plans or better here, we'll listen to this hospital staff instead.

It's not that I think WMP is a hindrance -- it's that if she doesn't work herself down from the position she's putting herself in, our film could easily end up with main character in one part of the hospital and WMP with a cardiac arrest on another hospital floor, and I honestly don't think I have any time for that before the film ends.

Mind you, WMP today asked out of the blue, "I don't understand why don't they give him earplugs?" to which I said "good idea" and got the brightest orange ear plugs you can find in the entire Universe, under the hopes that they'll work for him but will be easily seen by staff that might think his hearing is getting worse.

Thursday night was rough enough that he wanted to see me at 6AM. I am happy to do anything he asks me, within reason (as long as it doesn't hurt him more). I wanted to be there early anyway for my devious plan of making WMP watch the doctors exam Patient instead of just talking to them about the results. Also to talk to the cardiologist. Neurologist comes with her team, does all the routine exams. She's pleased as punch with progress and talks frankly to him during the entire exam about what's wrong and what's right and what's wonderful about the results. Finally, finally, WMP seems happy with how strong the patient's muscles are, how good the reactions are and how coherent the patient is. Breaking News! Stop the Presses! There is hope that WMP can be happy about it. Excuse me while I blot the sarcasm that dripped on the carpet, don't want to put a hole in it. Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

When the dose of Ativan they gave him before I was called started wearing off, he was getting in and out of sleep.

Patient: "Describe the room."
Me: "You are in a hospital room -- it's an Intensive Care room with..."
P: "What are these?" grabbing a bunch of wires.
M: "Part of the monitoring equipment to help them see what's..."
P: "Take them off"
M, beginning to realize what's going on: "No"
P: "Take them off!"
M: "No, I'm sorry, I can't"
P: "I want them off, I want to walk around the room"
M: "You can't, the machines will beep"
P: "Oh..."
P: "Can I be twice as big?"
N: "No, you will be this size"
P: "But I want to be twice as big, y'know, do more"
M: "You are already working too hard, you will have to wait to be able to do twice as much, you will need to gather strength."
P: " I refuse to take this seriously! No, I don't want to participate! Logout! Logout!"
M: "I am sorry Dave, I can't let you do that. This is not a videogame, it's not a game. You are in the hospital and you are getting better, you will leave soon and go home and be happy."
Patient wakes up startled, but happy. I gotta give it to him, he logged out.

Later that same morning, half asleep, "Can you see the people floating near the ceiling?"
Me: "No. Do you think there's a chance it might have been a dream?"
P, waking up completely (for at least 5 minutes anyway): "Yes!"

More good news -- during the morning, he could barely watch 3 minutes of the Muppets Show. At the end of the day he was watching way more than that. He ate well. And, to rub it in, he could read the handwritten cards better than I can. I'll take comfort in the fact that he probably gets handwritten notes from those folks all the time and I'm not used to those particular people's handwriting. Just so I'm not too embarrassed.

Nurses will ask the doctors to make sure a couple of sites that were IV injection sites are not infected, instead of just reddish from the needle.

Drea asks that when people email her, that they please provide a phone she can reach them at, to speed up things.

When I was ready to leave for the evening, he was watching Muppets and almost asleep. I told him I was leaving soon to go have dinner and sleep. I told him not to worry, people are always just a phone call away, I can drive there pretty quickly if he needs me, and there is a Visit Dave Google calendar and people are lining up to do it. It was yet the biggest, happiest smile I've seen on him since he entered that hospital.

Save 20% on a Burdicks Frappe.

Thank you to cmeckhardt for the lead!

So I know this is super last minute, but Dana and I were wondering if anyone would be interested in little barbecue potluck at our place before heading over to ArtBeat for some music and such on Friday night. 7ish perhaps?

We're at 338 Summer Street, apartment #1. Our doorbell doesn't work, so just head down the driveway and we'll be out in the backyard.

Just shoot me a note if you're planning to stop by :)

[the preceding announcement was thoroughly plagiarized from she_ragroupie's journal]

This had better be good. Various reviewers apparently got so excited over it it's amazing they aren't stuck to their movie seat. It's being called the most accomplished blockbuster since Return of the King and The Empire Strikes Back of superhero movies. High praise. I hope it's epictasticness is not overstated.

I'll let you know with a full review tomorrow.

Some soverign wealth funds are starting to disvest from dollar-backed securities.

So states like China and the largest Soverign Wealth Fund, Abu Dhabi (yes, where Garfield tried to send Odie all the time) invest in US dollar securities. They essentially buy US dollars (or bonds guaranteed in US dollars; see the US national debt) when they have budget surpluses and little or no national debt.

The way I understand it, this, along with the large number of currencies who have pegged their value to the US dollar, do a huge part in keeping the US economy solvent and the value of the US dollar stable. The idea is, if all of these people have an investment in the value of the dollar then they will do their best to keep that currency valuable.

This also explains how our economy can be the biggest in the world in spite of our astronomical national debt. So long as people think their investment in our debt is good (i.e. we're not the National equivalent of a sub-prime mortgage holder) then people are cool with it. We'll keep paying our yearly payment on it and they'll continue to hold it.

So this is bad news. Some of these funds have lost faith in the long-term value of the US dollar and thus are dumping it. And, as it works in economics where value and price are in the eye of the consumer, once someone loses faith in the value of something and sells it, it's price does go down! (For a good example of this watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and the run on the "You old Building and Loan!" Once some folks started hearing from Potter that situational changes may bankrupt their bank, they all wanted their money back out of it, thus almost successfuly fulfilling the prophesy.)

Bad news. I'd heard recently that once the Euro got above $1.60, it would be a tipping point at which other world economies would then begin dumping the dollar. The value is now at $1.58, though it got to $1.60 briefly in March I believe and may get there again.

We're sliding ever so slowly into our new role as a second-rate economic power. Tally ho!

Cucumbers! But even moreso, POTATOES! Meanwhile, my garden is doing well, particularly the cherry tomatoes, where literally dozens are ripening. The cucumbers are creeping along, basil is getting big, jalapeños are weighing the plants down, and all sorts of goodness is happening in the ground and in containers. The blueberries have been ripening and getting et as appropriate, and I just noticed some raspberries are ready as well. Soon there will be blackberries, then grapes and apples. *bounce*

• 4 (hefty!) Cucumbers
• 4 Zucchini
• 1 head Cabbage
• 2 lb Potatoes! (measured by volume, so this is just an estimate)
• 2 lb String Beans (ditto)
• 2 bunches Carrots
• 2 bunch Beets
• 1 bunch Spring Onions

Meanwhile, there are still three songs left to be identified from last weeks lyrics meme, so I'm officially throwing it open. Go finish it off! (And if you haven't looked at anyone else's answers, feel free to guess at all of them if you want.)

Has there ever been a band called The Sofa Loungers?

Heh, the last panel of today's Questionable Content is so me.

The Smoking Gun has a collection of mug shots of people wearing sadly appropriate t-shirts.

HA! I *so* need this t-shirt.



Courtesy of http://www.torsopants.com

Account Structure Update
Back by popular demand, Basic Accounts will be available to all users again by the end of the (northern hemisphere) summer. More information on the decision-making process and proposals relating to the future of Basic Accounts are in lj_2008.

New Themes
Two attractive and all-new Flexible Squares themes, "Circular" and "Circular Brown" are now available.


L to R: Circular and Brown

New V-Gifts
Give someone you care about the gift of enticement. With the new Chocolate Ice Cream, Vanilla Ice Cream, Tea, Coffee, Curry and Sushi v-gifts, all the significant people in your life will be able to share in the longing for the tasty edibles below. Plus, it reminds loved ones you think they're really sweet, really savory or just plain satisfying.


L to R: Chocolate Ice Cream, Vanilla Ice Cream, Tea, Coffee, Curry and Sushi

Ж-Men...but not the ones you might expect!
This week LJ Russia launched Ж-Men, a new comedy series about superheroes, inspired by the LJ communities dedicated to superheros, comics and cartoons. The title's "Ж" comes from ЖЖ, the nickname for LiveJournal in Russia.

Ж-Men's script is written by a group of LJ enthusiasts who also happen to be television professionals. Who knew? Following the premiere, five more episodes will be broadcast over the next two weeks. We hope you find the series fresh and enjoyable.

This is, of course, an experiment for LiveJournal. As always, we'd love to hear what you think!

Main Menu: please pay attention, for our options may have changed. ;-)

Wednesday News will be brought to you later -- I'm way tired, it's been a long day, and my brain is full now.

The good news overshadow the bad news by miles, and overall he's doing tons better. Also, he was exhausted from all the work he put in.

He's been moved to another room away from the nurses' station -- it's quieter.

I'd like to bring to your attention again that he's in Intensive Care. We show our appreciation for the staff's hard work and dedication not by dressing pretty (although no one will mind), but by showing respect and consideration. If they keep being interrupted by the door phone, they can't take care of Dave or the other patients that are sometimes in even worse condition.

Please try the Family Waiting Room first and see if you recognize anyone there and/or ask if anyone is from our crowd. We'll tell you if he's asleep, or exhausted or getting visitors. We'll fill you in all the gory details, so you don't have to ask him, so when you see him your conversation can be more productive too.

Please remember that if we abuse the staff, their management can just say "sorry, nobody but the proxy", or, worse, not even the proxy. Traditional Intensive Care Units didn't use to let anyone but staff in, we're extremely lucky he's in a more progressive unit.

Thank you for your consideration and continued support. ;-)

The new breed of LJ spambot (the Nexus-6, if you will) cunningly creates free LJ accounts with vaguely human-sounding names, then posts comments that it's culled from other people's posts. Their profiles are always empty, but there's at least one entry in their journal which is nothing but keywords and then links to Sites You Probably Don't Want To Visit.

They're trying to be insidious, but they're really just incredibly annoying. I've had about 10 of them so far today (two of them posted the exact same thing to the exact same entry, how uncreative!) and it's a pain to manually delete them and flag them as spam and then make up mean cuss words to mutter under your breath. If anything, they've robbed me of that precious, delicious "Oooooooh!! Someone made a comment! In my LJ!" feeling you get if you've got email notification set. It's just not thrilling anymore, dammit. You get your hopes up and oh, look, it's "janisoxafu". ...whose journal still exists, even though I've flagged at least three comments as spam. Something tells me LJ ain't exactly got the best and brightest at work on this.

In other news, I've been super busy. I'm going to Readercon on Saturday to participate in a radio drama panel (12:00 noon in some room or another! Check your schedule!) and possibly actually say something useful and intelligent. The odds are 12 to 1 against Useful and Intelligent, so get your bets in now. Apart from that, I'm 13 pages into Episode 4 of RotRB and everything is almost resolved. I got to write a catfight tonight and you didn't. It's not exactly hard to do, all you have to do is write something like this:

/SFX/     AND HERE WE HAVE A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED CAT FIGHT WITH LOTS OF
             THE AD-LIBBED SCRABBLING AND THE SQUABBLING AND THE BITING

I also had written "TOO BAD NONE OF YOU LADS ARE PRESENT TO ENJOY IT" but that broke the page count and I don't like that, so out it went.

Judging from what we've done and what we're about to do, the final projects (both RED SHIFT Missions 1 and 2) will be real delights, I hope. Some of the cast members are quoting lines on the Internets already. That's a good omen, right? I mean, they like the lines and they had to say them over and over again into microphones! So maybe you listeners will find some to quote, too! And then there'll be t-shirts and memes and lolcats and I'll clutch my head and go OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I WROUGHT. And then I'll love each and every one of you. But probably silently.

Now it's off to bed where I'll read some amusing anecdotes about Al Boasberg or Bob Benchley, and then turn off the light and await the cat's 4 AM adventures. What a day.