Bloggerstock: The Story of What's on Your Desk

 

Hello everyone on Crayons and Cylons.  Before we get started, please read Kate's blog post over at http://www.booyabobby.com.  She did a wonderful job.  Ok, this month's Bloggerstock theme is called "The Story of What's on Your Desk.". This post is not really a story,  more like a list of crap of what on my desk.  I do have a lot of stuff on my desk.  Get comfy because this might take awhile. I am including a photo of my desk. I also numbered it to organize this post.  Let's start with number one.

1 - What you see is the basic stuff starting with my 20 inch Acer monitor. On top of the monitor is the web cam. That big black thing next to the monitor is my PC tower. My speakers are next to the monitor. Keyboard and mouse. Nothing to exciting. Ok, on to #2.

2 - I bet your wondering what that orange RSS icon is doing on my desk. Well that's my RSS pillow. Some of you may know it already. I think it's cute. To the right of the pillow is my 320GB external hard drive. Very handy.  Next to that is my bluetooth headset. There is an electric pencil sharpener but you can't see it because it's behind the bright orange pillow.  Every desk has gotta have a pencil sharperner. In front of the RSS pillow is my phone resting on a mini bean bag, an ipod touch, a remote, and an ipod touch car charger.

3 - Let's venture behind that door.  Basically there's some stuff from high school that I kept for no reason whatsoever.  Notebooks, papers, books, folders. Nothing too interesting. There are also some CDs and a CD player. Yes, I still have some ancient technology.

4 - Ok let venture back up to numero quatro. Here we have a vast array of computer stuff and non-computer stuff. First non-computer item is my fiber optic Christmas tree. I decided to keep the little tree up because it just adds a bit of color to my boring desk. To the right of that are my letters for Jury Duty that I kept just in case I need them sometime down the road. Left of the tree are my Sony headphones. Next to the headphones are my pencils and pens. That red and white box in the back is my box of rubber bands. My Uncle gave me the box of rubber bands a long time ago. Never know when you might need a rubber band. Also, I tend to find some laying around the house or at work so I pick them up and put them in the box. There also 3 thumb drives in there somewhere. Also in the back are more CDs.

5 - Now, downward and to the right of the desk is number 5! There are various items in this section. Mostly arts and crafts such as plain white paper, crayons and markers my niece left behind. You can partly see my mini paper shredder. It's a piece of crap. Eats up C batteries like crazy. Under it are some yellow legal pads. You can also see the case for my ipod touch. I need to throw that away. Under it are some dusty blank CDs in green and blue cases. There's also a crown royal bag of various erasers, lol.

6 - Nothing much in area 6. In the far back is the heavy duty 3 hole punch. In front of that is the Netflix dvd holder, my stapler and tape dispenser. That it for area 6.  That it for 6.  Let head on over to 7 shall we.

7 - Below the number 7, you see an array of brightly colored paper.  Those were given to me from my sister when her niece didn't want them anymore.  I decided to keep them just in case I need neon paper.  There also a few note pads.  Under those note pads is a old rewriteable disc drive.  52x max speed.  Above are 2 more disc drives.  One is rewritable and the other is not.  Also hidden from view is old floppy drive.  Some construction paper my niece left behind.

8 - Oh boy there a lot to type for number 8.  Ok let start on the left side.  There are 2 Maryland road maps.  Comes in handy at times.  Red box is what my webcam came in.  A box containing a backup mouse in front of the red box.  White box contains some floppy disks.  Haven't touch those in years.  Tiny mech assault toy.  A black container containing a lot of pencils and pens.  You can't see it but there is spongebob squarepants on a pencil.  It was a cereal prize.  Not sure which cereal it was.  Gonna say Frosted Flakes.  Next to that is the paper clip dispenser.  The 2 jars are filled with paper clips.  Seriously I'm set for life on paper clips.  The bright area in the middle is the small lamp.  Next to it is various items like pencils, pens, erasers, permenant marker, clips and my cute n fuzzy toy.  It doesn't have a name.  I should give it a name!  To the right, I got some books on basic html and javascript books.  Macromedia web publishing book.  Creating web pages for dummy book and a Lord of the Rings book.  There also a Textbridge software.  An old XM satellite reciever that someone did not want.

9 - Last but not least, that is my 25 inch TV/second monitor made by Sharp.  Yes you read that correctly.  It is my second monitor.  Connect via HDMI cable.  I won't name names but there is someone that is quite jealous of my 2 monitors.  Believe me, having 2 monitors is wonderful.  I can watch web videos on my big monitor while I work on my blog.  Like what I'm doing now in fact.  :)  Jealous now?  Muahahaha  Sorry.   If I'm not using it as my computer monitor,  I can switch over to regular tv.  Also comes with a built in DVD player in the back.

So that it of the tour of my desk.  All the stuff you saw was collected over the years.  I still have junk in this desk that dates back to high school, maybe middle school if I keep searching.  Sooner or later, it will get used.  I should really clean my desk but why should I?  I like to think it gives my desk some sort of personality.  Before I end this, I should give thanks to  Kara for hosting my blog.  Read her Bloggerstock post at Cerebral Lunch Box by Witless Exposition .  You can catch me at http://www.booyabobby.com.  Also check out Bloggerstock.net and sign up for future blog rings.  Thank you for reading.  Peace Out!

Handmade Geek

One of the best things about the blogging and Twitter world is that you come into contact with amazing people, like these crafters who make fun, geeky stuff.  Worthy, even, of a place on our shelves of geek toys in the living room!

First off, there are adorably evil crocheted Cthulhus. They're made by @ruthbeingruth who is also known as @cthulhuchick. If you're interested, you can find them on her Etsy page. She's also got a blog about the project which is quite fun! You can see the journey of CthulhuCthulhu, the conjoined-twin elder god.

Picture from CthulhuChick.com

There are also three incredible ladies who make geek soap! First, Kylee of Luxury Lane Soap. She's so amazing, FOX sent her a cease and desist letter about her "Fight Club" soap. Plus she's the proud owner of a seriously cool Boba Fett tattoo! She's also the one who makes Han Solo in Carbonite soap. You might've heard about it, if you're awesome. It's pretty incredible.

Picture from Luxury Lane Soap

Then there's @GeekyClean who has all sorts of amazing geeky clean soaps, but seems to be most known for her soaps that come with imbedded d20s, TetraSoap, and the Death Bar.

Last, but most certainly not least, is Lesley of GeekSoap. She and I both have schnauzers and are teachers. Yay! Plus her turnaround time on orders was seriously fast! I ordered her d20 soap on a rope and a <3 soap for the hub. She's also got Iron Man arc reactors, Dr. Who, Hitchhiker's Guide, and The Monarch soaps. How cool are those?

I got a few of these things for the hubs for our anniversary.

Kylee and Lesley also started a site to highlight cool geeks who make geeky stuff. Check out G33Kmade when you get a chance!

Good News, Everyone!

For those of you who have been living under a rock for a while, Matt Groening and David X. Cohen's awesome animated sci-fi series Futurama returns from the dead (perhaps as Zombie Futurama? I wouldn't put it past them...) tonight at 10pm EDT for an entire hour of parody-ridden goodness!

My love of this show is something I can definitely blame Hub for. I'd honestly probably never watched any of it (not much anyway) before we started dating. It was off the air, thanks to great executives at FOX who were later turned into Torgo's Executive Powder, by the time we started dating. He owned all four seasons on DVD, and we've watched them infinity times since then.

Then, in 2007, they released 4 straight to DVD movies that were later aired as 4 separate episodes each on Comedy Central in 2008. Then after that, Comedy Central picked up 26 BRAND SPANKING NEW episodes of the show to start airing tonight, June 24, 2010!

The last movie, Into The Wild Green Yonder, was treated as if it were the last bit of the show ever to be made, so the Planet Express ship got sucked into a wormhole, and as Professor Farnsworth says, could take them billions of lightyears away and they might never return.

In a recent interview at io9, Cohen answered a lot of questions about where the show's return will take Fry, Leela, Zoidberg, Bender, and that man without a name, Zapp Brannigan. He also mentioned that Al Gore will be returning for his FOURTH cameo, George Takei for his second, and they've also added Patton Oswalt and Katee Sackhoff to the ever-growing list of celebrity appearances.

Please, for the love of all things crude, crass, and ridiculously over-the-top in the world of science fiction, tune in!

Hump Day Hotties #10

Oh Em Gee! It's the tenth edition of Hump Day Hotties! And to commemorate, I give you something I've been saving: 

The Men of Firefly

(For Eleni ^)

(This is my fave ^)

This man is a genius! Thanks, Joss!

Harry Potter is My BFF

Before I delve into Harry Potter RP geekiness, check out my Harry Potter/Classical Lit geek tattoo feature by Amy at geek with curves. Thanks so much for featuring me! :)

For many summers (mostly, since I was off work/school and bored) I was a very active member of Envious Magic, a post-canon Harry Potter forum RPG. I had a few various characters, and even was a professor at Hogwarts for a short time.

My favorite part of the whole thing was the writing. It was encouraged that we write long posts in character, and it's probably the best fictional writing I've ever done. Not quite like fan fic, because we were characters of our own creation.

This is my favorite of all my characters, yes, a guy... Slytherin Drake Gordon.

See what I spent too much of my time doing? Here's my "Sorting Ceremony" post:

Why did it seem like every time that something important was happening to Drake, the weather decided to take a turn for the worse? Last year, on his 11th birthday, the day he got his Hogwarts letter, there was a blizzard! The day in June they were supposed to go shopping so he could get his first owl, the streams and ponds on the Gordon estate flooded in a torrential downpour! And here, the night that Drake finally arrived at Hogwarts for the first time, the dreary Scottish weather had taken an unusual turn to icy cold.

Here Drake was, in his school robes for the first time, shivering while standing outside the Great Hall, waiting for his turn to be sorted. With the drafts coming in through the windows and the cavernous stone walls, the cold seemed extremely uninviting. Drake was not happy. As a matter of fact, he seemed a bit...scared? He was very nervous about where he would be placed. He knew that the majority of the Gordons who had attended Hogwarts before him had been Slytherins. A few had been sorted into Ravenclaw every once in a blue moon. He even thought that there were a few Gryffindors in his lineage. But no Hufflepuffs. As a son of a long pure-blood line, he could not even begin to consider what being sorted into Hufflepuff would mean for his standing in the family.

Suddenly, he was jerked out of his deep thoughts and pushed through the door as the Sorting Hat called out, “Drake Gordon.” He shuffled his way to the stool on which the Hat sat. He immediately felt warmer in the Great Hall, but the nervous feeling in his stomach only grew worse as he saw the hundreds of eyes staring up at him. The Sorting Hat was placed on his spiky blonde hair and began to mumble to Drake.

Please put me in Slytherin, Drake thought to the Hat. I’d really like to be there, just like my dad. The Hat paused for a moment and then continued whispering in Drake’s head. He was to preoccupied to hear what it said. He just kept saying over and over to himself – and the Hat – Slytherin, not Hufflepuff. Slytherin, not Hufflepuff!

After a few more excruciating moments on the stool, the hat yelled out, “-------!” Drake pulled the Hat from his head, jumped down from the stool, and ran to join his new housemates that were all on their feet, cheering for their new acquisition.

And another class RP post for Muggle Studies:

Why the bloody hell did he have to take a class that studied Muggles?!  Did his parents know about this?  It would outrage them.  Of course, the one comfort that Drake got out of that particular thought was that his taking the course would outrage Mum much more so than Dad.  Dad, while not a Muggle superfan, could stomach them to some extent, when necessary, for business.  Mum, on the other hand, was a pureblood supremacist to the extreme.  She did not even like the fact that her only son had to fraternize with Muggleborn students at school.  Any pain and irritation that Drake could cause his mother was a good thing, so he knew he would suffer through Muggle Studies, if only for that one reason. 

As he entered the classroom and took his standard seat in the back corner, he remembered that he heard a new professor had been hired for this class, and his reputation was more along the lines of Monaghan than, say, Kamryn.  Drake thought he might actually be able to enjoy a Muggle Studies lesson if Monaghan taught it.  It wouldn’t be all about singing the praises of lowly non-magical humans, if one could even call them human! Once seated, he noticed a relatively young man lounging on a desk in the front of the room. He looked slightly too old to be a seventh year, so Drake assumed he must be the new professor.  The boy in green and silver robes shot to men a short, small grin, and then prepared himself for the lesson. Drake already felt as if he might just enjoy this professor’s class. There was just a certain vibe he was getting from the man.  

The professor’s tone enthralled Drake immediately.  He had a bit of a sarcastic sneer to his lecture.  Especially when he got to the part about some people thinking Muggles were capable of independent thought and action.  Drake smirked right along with the professor.  Then there was the standard talk of Muggleborn witches and wizards, along with their polar opposite, Squibs.  Thank goodness I was not a Squib! What would Mum and Dad have done with me?! he asked himself, careful not to break the no talking rule the professor apparently had.  

So, a foot long essay on what Muggles are to me, Drake mused.  This could be fun.  But at the same time, I might not want to alienate myself too much from the beginning.  I actually like this professor, whatever his name might be.  His ruminations were disturbed by Professor Torres finally announcing to the class what his name actually was.  He was no longer the mysterious new professor without a name.  He was Professor Isaiah Armel Torres.  So, Torres it is, he added to his earlier thoughts.  

Ready to start on his assignment, finally, Drake reached into his schoolbag and retrieved a roll of parchment, his knife, a quill, and his inkpot.  He unrolled the parchment to the one-foot marking on the edge and proceeded to cut off the portion he would need for this essay.  After a quick sharpening of the quill nib and a trip to the ink, and he was ready to write.  Thoughts were reeling in his mind, and he had to get them all organized.  He quickly threw out the things he disagreed with and put ink to paper.  The words just poured out of him.  And, unbeknownst to Drake, subconsciously, a slightly sadistic smile had crept over his lips.

 See? I'm an even bigger nerd than you all thought I was! My favorite reference source for all of this was the Harry Potter Lexicon. It's an incredible HP reference if you ever need ANYTHING Harry Potter related!

And I made Forum Graphics for various things:

I have to say, it was a lot of fun for about three summers, but sadly, the forum is pretty much dead now, and as it's changed hosts since I last RPed, all of my character background is gone. Just a little bit is left. Oh, well. Now I've got this to take care of all things geek.

Potter Party

A continuation of the HP geek-out...

My House-Elves Prepare... {via}

Many of you were seriously interested to hear about the HP-themed Halloween party we threw, so I'm gonna do my best to remember it all. This was 2007, I apparently had either a non-functioning camera or had tested the libations way too many times and didn't care about a camera at that point. So, no pictures, sorry. I'm seriously disappointed in myself for that faux pas!

Decor: 
For our front door, I made a wooden sign that said "Platform 9 3/4" on a scrolled wooden plaque painted with black and gold paints.

Then with calligraphy brush pens on "parchment" scrapbook paper, I made signs for various parts of the apartment. The living room, with our red sofa was the "Gryffindor Common Room." Our half-bath that happened to be under the stairwell was the "Cupboard Under the Stairs." The dining room was divided into four different "stations" labeled "Potions Dungeon" (the bar), "The Great Hall" (savory finger foods), "Honeyduke's" (sweets), and "Three Broomsticks" (HP-themed drinks).

Also, in the "Dungeon" and "Great Hall" parts of the dining room, I hung bulletin board paper (yes, I'm a teacher...) that looked like stone castle walls. We lit a lot of candles and turned off many of the lights.

Food: 
To be honest, I can't remember many of the savory finger foods I made, even though everything was inspired by the books in some way. I do remember making mini cottage pies.

The sweets, however... I bought some 1-quart Mason jars and labeled each one with a gold paint marker. There were licorice wands (Twizzlers), Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (Jelly Bellys with some actual BB beans thrown in for random surprises), Cockroach Clusters (Dark chocolate and Rice Krispies candies), and Blood-flavored Lollipops (got them at Borders, officially licensed HP candy).

Drinks: 
In addition to our regular bar set-up that we keep stocked, I made a few themed beverages.
The cold butterbeer was:
vodka
soda water
Torani English Toffee syrup
 It was fizzy and buttery, just as it should have been.

I also made a Dragon's Blood cocktail: (This was stronger)
tequila
rum
orange juice (just enough to make it slightly opaque)
Torani Blood Orange syrup
splash of grenadine (if you need to get it redder again)

There were also ale (bucket full of beer) and Firewhisky (Jameson, I believe).

Costumes: 
At the time, my hair was cut very short, so I thought I'd use Halloween spray-in color and make it pink to be Tonks. I wore my black graduation robe, had a wand, and wore jeans with a homemade black and pink "Weird Sisters" t-shirt.

Sticking to canon, Hub was a partially changed Lupin. Sprayed his black hair with white to make it gray-ish. He wore a robe, and we took werewolf costume gloves, cut one apart, and used the gray fur to make it stick out of places in his clothes. He wore the other glove.

The costumes I can actually remember our friends coming as: Grown up Harry and Ginny, a Firebolt (I LOVED the costume made out of a cardboard box at the last minute!), Rita Skeeter, Madam Rosmerta, and Professor Trelawney.

It was a ton of fun, and I love throwing and/or going to theme parties. What are your favorite memories of theme/costume parties?

Not-So-Secret Bacon Brownie Recipe

That was seriously fast! You all really want this bacon brownie recipe, huh? They are quite delicious, if you, in fact, love bacon, chocolate, or any combination of salty and sweet.

My recipe is incredibly top secret. (Note the sarcasm?) Here you go.

Kara's Bacon Brownies

Take your favorite brownie mix, whether it be homemade or from a box. I prefer the chewy, fudgy Pillsbury ones. 

Prepare the batter as you normally would. 

Cook up 4-6 slices of bacon, again of your choice, to be nice and crispy. 

Drain the bacon and crumble it. 

Mix the crumbled bacon into the brownie batter. 

Pour batter into your greased pan.

Bake as directed. 

I used Hormel Maple Bacon last night, and it worked incredibly well. If you really like lots of bacon, then you could probably add up to half the package, but I wouldn't go too overboard, because it could affect the consistency of the finished product.

Nom and enjoy!!

Busy as a Bee

Sorry guys! I've not had much time for reading blogs, let alone writing them this weekend. First, Hub took me out to dinner for an early anniversary on Friday, since he leaves next week for a long business trip. Then we had a little party that night to celebrate the fact that our really close friends found out they're having a baby boy! It was the day of the 20-week ultrasound.

Then Saturday, we had a friend's birthday party and Hub took me shopping all afternoon. :) For the party I made bacon brownies and raspberry mojitos. Both turned out well and were absolutely delicious. And apparently my right leg was also delicious, as it's covered in mosquito bites.

And today. Happy Father's Day to my awesome, spoiled-me-rotten-while-growing-up dad! He and my stepmom came over for a late lunch. Hub's parents are on vacation. Hub grilled tuna steaks and some veggie kabobs. I made a peach and raspberry custard tart. There are no pictures. We nommed it all. I'm crap at taking pictures of food I make before it's devoured. I need to get better at that!

Hope you all have had a great weekend. I shall return full-force to the Interweb world Monday. I'm pretty sure of that...

Also, I blame 3 World Cup games per day for much of my lack of productivity. Those guys are so fit!

Hump Day Hotties #9

Time for Hotties: World Cup Edition! (Thanks to my friend @metricmodulate for the idea...)

Iker Casillas

G Spain/Real Madrid

Lukas Podolski

F Germany/1. FC Köln

Victor Valdes 

G Spain/Barcelona

Cristiano Ronaldo

F Portugal/Real Madrid

Yoann Gourcuff

M France/Bordeaux

Carlos Bocanegra

D United States/Rennes

Fabio Cannavaro

D Italy/Juventus

Didier Drogba

F Cote d'Ivoire/Chelsea

And what kind of hot football (soccer to us Yanks) list would be complete without the man who made me drool over footie players in the first place...

David Beckham

Formerly of England

Currently of A.C. Milan

See? If you have no other reason to watch the World Cup matches, watch for the hot men! You can even mute the television so the bloody vuvuzelas don't give you a headache.

Wingardium Leviosa

Once upon a time, I was flying home from university for Christmas vacation. My dad thought I needed to fly because if I didn't, I'd lose my thousands of frequent flyer miles I'd been building since I was like, 10, so he bought me a ticket for what would normally have been a two hour drive. It was a longer flight! I had a seriously long layover due to bad weather and a flight delay in Cincinnati, and as I was bored, I sought our the nearest bookstore. What did I find? Something that I probably should have read in 1997 had I even known about it, instead of Christmas holiday 2001. Yes, I picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

I got the pocket paperback edition, as it was small and surefire, like me!

As I often get with something I enjoy, I was obsessive. And I had honestly never really read any form of fantasy lit before. I got the next two books from the public library once I got home. As GoF had just come out relatively recently, it was impossible to get hold of, and I didn't want to buy it hardback as I was a broke undergrad and it cost like $20. I was sad that I had to stop at book 3. 

Then Mom and I were at a used bookstore in the city, and I stumbled across a copy for $10! That was half-off the cover price. Worked for me, plus my mom paid for it. Even better!

And thus began the serious, deep Harry Potter obsession! 

Stay tuned to learn about: 

How I dreamed of living at Hogwarts

How I am apparently a member of Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw (oh, and I go to Beauxbatons)

How I threw a HP-themed party

How the Hub and I were total dorks about Deathly Hallows

How I was über-nerd with HP online communities

I'm only doing this in parts because otherwise one post about my HP obsession would be painfully long!

Riddle Me This

I am drawing a blank on pretty much any blog ideas right now, so I'm gonna let you all ask me questions today, and I'll get a post up with my answers once I've got enough stuff.

So, yeah, whatever you might want to know about me, my interests, my life, etc., just ask! I'm a (mostly) open book. Email your questions to crayonsandcylons@gmail.com.

I hope to be able to amuse you!!

I'm Hungry...

...and so I am subjecting you all to food porn, a la Anthony Bourdain! 

First up, some kind of Asian soup/stew/noodle something that looks absolutely delicious! 

{via}

Then how about both a Jersey Dog (with bacon) and a Chicago Dog! 

{via}

Then some planked salmon with lime and cilantro, anyone? 

{via}

After all of that, I'd like some figs. Yeah, because you can't get fresh ones around here.

{via}

And as if there'd be any space left, but I'd make some for my favorite fruit in tart-form! 

{via}

Yeah, so I'm hungry, and looking at these pictures definitely haven't helped, but I've not done decent grocery shopping in weeks, I'm lazy, and don't want to get off my butt. At least I found out Hub wants beer and pizza for dinner, so Mellow Mushroom, here we come!!

Stop Making Me Cry! (A Gleek-Out)

Dear Glee Finale,

You're awesome. Please stop making me cry! Yes, I'm a uber-emotional girl who cries very easily, but seriously, you're making me bawl like a little baby!! I've gone through at least three or four tissues watching you.

You've made me anticipate next season already. Hopefully FOX won't be dumb and take you away from prematurely like they did everything else I love that Joss Whedon has touched. (Beware, it's apparently FOX's kiss of death...)

I generally don't do the jump thing, but I'm doing this do avoid being spoiler-y...