Jellyn’s Collection of Curiosities

Maybe I can lay this book to rest now! I think the last time I bought it, I had a niggling feeling I may have had it before. But it wasn’t on my read lists. Somewhere along the way, I realized I did have two copies. I have one in my duplicates pile and I had one in an unread box. I picked up the one from the unread box to bring with me.

I started to read it and the stories were familiar. So I thought maybe I’d read some of them, but not finished the book. So I kept reading, and they were still familiar. Now I’ve read them all and I know I’d read them all before. It was published in 2000, so I could have read it before I started making the list.

So now I’ve read it twice, and I have at least two copies. Though I strongly suspect I have three copies. I just have to figure out where the third one is. At least I likely only paid full price for one of them.

In related news, I noticed some typoes, but it wasn’t too bad.

Introducing the creation, finally, of a new category called “Things That Suck”. And first up is why Kellogg’s Raisin Bran sucks.

I admit that Kellogg’s Raisin Bran generally tastes better. Probably at least partially because of the sugar encrusted in the cracks of the raisins. But that is outweighed by its other suckiness.

There are bits of wheat husk or something that occasionally crop up. They’re unchewable, and, one assumes, undigestible. Sometimes they float on the milk, so you can see them and avoid them.

Gritty raisins, so that there’s bits of grit all in my teeth.

So that is why Kellogg’s Raisin Bran sucks. Not that Post Raisin Bran is perfect, mind, but it is much better in the husk and grit department.

I’ve had the link over there on the right for awhile, but time to plug the game.

You won’t find any Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley fanfic, but you can interact with Harry Potter or Ginny Weasley and try to hook them up. It’s not likely to work, since they’re both engaged to other people, but it could be fun to try!

Harry Potter: Alere Flammas MUSH is a free online Harry Potter roleplaying game (rpg). Created and begun in December 2001, it predates Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (Not Pheonix, guys.) We picked up where Goblet of Fire left off and continued the story from there. Harry’s 25th birthday is coming up!

Many things have happened since Harry was a lowly fifth year. Things related to Voldemort, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Sirius Black, the Weasleys, Draco Malfoy, and many, many, many original characters. Hogwarts in particular has been hard-hit by PLOT, but even Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade have seen their share of happenings.

You can play a feature character, such as Percy Weasley or Neville Longbottom, or anyone else from the books who isn’t yet taken. Or an original character of your own creation. You needn’t be just a Hogwarts student. You can be an adult in a limitless variety of professions, a ghost, a house elf, and many other things. If you are interested in being a student, we’re usually looking for Prefects and House Quidditch players. Hufflepuff and Slytherin in particular could use some more students, but if your heart is with Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, then follow your heart!

The school year is days away from ending, so now’s the perfect time to join as an incoming first year. Have the full first year Sorting experience!

Check out the Harry Potter: Alere Flammas website. You may want to read the Game History. When you’re ready, login via Telnet or a MU* client at alereflammas.com, port 9034.

J’s recipe for a fake chicken pocket sandwich thing.

Take some Quorn fake chicken tenders. Perhaps a quarter of a package. Put them on a plate, drizzle a bit of water on top of them so they don’t dry out. Nuke them for a little over 2 minutes.

Take pita bread, squirt some high fat mayonnaise in there. Add some of the chicken and then some leftover Olive Garden salad*. Mm-mm tasty.

Usually I make this with some spinach or sun-dried tomato wrap things, but the pita bread works even better. And mine had flax, so Omega-3-licious.

* Okay, so if you don’t have leftover Olive Garden salad, you can put in lettuce and tomatoes or whatever, with a bit of Italian dressing.

So I was on Epinions and for the first time I saw the graphic for a new sweepstakes. They’re giving away money every weekday, and quite a lot of it. You have to write a review for a product that has no reviews. Submit that and it’s one entry. So after poking around, I found no one had done the Naomi Novik books! Shokku. So, I did. You can read them here. Help me get that 5 cents apiece. And wish me luck on having my entries pulled for the cash prizes!

His Majesty’s Dragon
Throne of Jade
Black Powder War

This is my first time embedding a YouTube video. We’ll see how well it works.

Someone stuck a video camera on a sushi conveyor belt. Enjoy all the intense drama, edge-of-your-seat action, and sparkling dialogue.

I was messing around with my jellyfish pictures. I applied ‘Woodcut’ to one of them in Corel Painter (Essentials). And it turned all freaky!

Here’s the original jellyfish.
Here’s the resultant alien jellyfish.

Let’s get in the spirit of the season. The winter season!

Some of you have seen this before, but it’s worth a revisit.

Make your very own snowflake with Make-a-Flake.

* * * * * 
 * * * *
   *    *  
  *   *   *

(^My lame ascii flakes.)

I’ve read 79 books so far. I read 80 last year. That means I need to read 2 in the next 16 days! As long as one of them is not the other Doctor Who book, I think I can make it.

K leant me a couple of Doctor Who books after I expressed interest in reading some. Well, if this one is any example, I needn’t have bothered. Media tie-ins are like pot luck when you’re vegan and allergic to vegetables. If there’s something edible there, good luck finding it.

More after the break. Mild spoilers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, so there’s this new blog. It’s going to be useful and popular and get all sorts of mad hits, yo. So check out Gogaku Blog for all your Japanese-learning needs.

The design layout may and probably will change in the future. Especially if it acquires a cute little mascot.

So Eefoof posted the money totals for November. I put up 6 images and got 90 hits between them. It got me 34 cents. I started somewhere in the middle of the month though, so otherwise it would have been a bit more.

They also take video, audio, and flash. So if I were to make a simple little flash game or something, it might get me more hits.

So yes, it makes you money. Faster than writing an Epinion review of a book does.

With the caveat that I haven’t yet seen a check from them, because, well, it was only 34 cents.

I’m watching Ripley’s Believe it or Not and they subtitled this British guy. I couldn’t figure out why. He was perfectly understandable. I think he may’ve been Scottish.

I have the most trouble with African accents. Indian can be a bit tricky too.

If you haven’t seen the ads or the show, this is a new game show on ABC. You could almost call it a spinoff of Boston Legal.

You wouldn’t think the world needed more trivia-based game shows, but this one is actually pretty good. Okay, so the host is William Frelling Shatner and there are 13 hot chicks called the ‘Million Dollar Dancers’, but somehow.. it works.

The dancing is fun, even though I could wish half of them were male. William Shatner does a competent job without taking it too seriously. I think, however, that it’s mostly fun to watch because of their contestant selection process. Somehow the contestant and the host together are fun, and funny.

And, unlike the American Deal or No Deal (the UK one and probably other international ones excepted), the contestants can actually lose. They can walk away with nothing. Not because they’re stupid and don’t stop when they should, but because of lack of trivia knowledge and of bad luck.

Actual tension! Instead of Deal or No Deal’s nail-biting suspense.. ‘Will they walk away with 300,000 or only 100,000? Oh no!’

So if you like game shows at all, check out Show Me the Money.

Foxtrot is going to Sunday-only, which means no Foxtrot on January 1st. Or 2nd or 3rd or 4th or 5th or 6th. You can read the press release here.

There is a hopeful bit near the end. If say, it were made into a TV series or a movie…