The Sexiest Station Wagon Ever!

We finally got my new car back from the dealership with the extra options we ordered, and Russ immediately installed my HD radio and the super-cool Magnaflow exhaust daddy gave us. She growls like a lioness now... "rowr!"

Here is the sexiest station wagon ever made. I can't wait for our road-trip to Oklahoma now.... vroom!

Book Report: Kushiel's Justice

Jacqueline Carey is one of those authors who is just so damned good, that every time I read one of her books, it makes me want to go back and re-read everything else she's ever written as well. After Kushiel's Scion was released, I waited with baited breath for the year it took for Kushiel's Justice to come out. Thanks to Amazon and their ability to ignore release dates, even though Justice wasn't slated for release til the 13th, I received it last Friday, and had real difficulty putting it down over the weekend. I just finished it, and it was utterly fantastic.

Kushiel's Justice, the 5th book set in Terre d'Ange, continues Imriel's story - the adventures of a young man who is at once the son of the greatest traitors, and the foster-son to the greatest heroes in the history of his country. Third in line for the crown, living eternally under the shadow of suspicion cast by his parentage, but striving to live up to the example set by his foster-parents, Imriel is driven by one goal: try to be good. But the one law of the land in Terre d'Ange is blessed Elua's precept to 'love as thou wilt,' and when Imriel violates that precept by marrying for politics and duty, rather than following his heart, tragedy so great it threatens the existence of an entire nation strikes. Imriel is plunged into a quest for justice that takes him far from home and the people he loves, the result is an epic tale filled with adventure, intrigue and passion.

Kushiel's Scion was a coming of age novel, and a lot of people didn't like it as much as the first three Kushiel novels - I gather because it wasn't as epic in its scope, and wasn't as ... ah... dirty as the preceding three. I liked it just fine on the first read, and loved it on the second. I thought it was a wonderful bridge to Kushiel's Justice, and Justice definitely dives right back into the sort of grand adventures you came to expect reading Phedre's stories, but without as much ... ah... dirtiness.

But with regards to the smut to be found in any of the novels - Carey isn't LKH. Perhaps it's because LKH's Blake started out as a tough-as-nails, celibate heroine, who over the course of the series turns into the super-slut from hell with a menagerie the size and variety of a zoo, and the original heroine in the Kushiel series is the most famous courtesan in the history of the country who eventually settles down with her one true love. Whatever the reason, while I find LKH's books are pretty much straight smut, I just don't mind it coming from Carey - her writing doesn't seem exploitative. It is, however, pretty graphic.

And Terre d'Ange... Carey has built the most engrossing alternate history I've ever read. The idea of an entire people descended from angels... set in the era of the rise of Christianity, with the attendant split between the original children of Israel and the believers in the Messiah is grand storytelling of the first order. Unless you simply cannot handle a few X-rated scenes, lovers of historical epics should absolutely try the Kushiel series out.

5 out of 5 stars - just like everything Carey has written.

I won something!

So, I know that Heathers is a timeless classic, and that any attempt at a remake would immediately be panned by me and anyone else with taste; however when I saw this contest to recast it . . . I couldn't resist. Guess what? If you haven't already your reading comprehension skills are lacking *cough*thetitleofthepost*cough*. I won!! They picked my new cast! Go here to see who I chose.
I'm eaker, i.e., the winner.

... and one more from Florida

Rusty and Roy developed quite the symbiotic relationship during the visit, with Rusty acting as a human vacuum cleaner for all of Roy's little discards. Roy thought it was cute, so about half of the treats or snacks we gave him were handed directly over to Rusty, with Rusty doing his damnedest to extract the cookie from between chubby little baby fingers without taking any of the fingers with it. Both of the doggoes were generally very sweet and careful around Roy, they were very good boys.

Son of a Beach!

Hopefully, you can tell by the picture that Roy had a pretty good time on his vacation. Once we figured out appropriate drive times and break times for the road trip, he was a perfect little traveler, and we made it down to Florida without a hitch. Roy had a blast hanging out with Rusty and Rover and his aunt and uncle, and was so worn out with all the excitement that he went to sleep each night without any fuss. No baby sunburns. No huge breakdowns. He got to see two different beaches and the aquarium, went shopping, and spent lots of time playing with Lissa and Mike. Roy had so much going on, he didn't even notice that I had weaned him completely, and now he's been off the tit for almost two weeks.

So now he has three weeks to recover, and then it's off on the big road trip to Oklahoma/Texas. Twice as long a drive, but this time we'll be in a new Dodge Magnum R/T instead of a cheesy Toyota 4Runner rental with crappy seats, so hopefully it'll turn out to be as easy.

Baby Steps

Here are a few things Roy has been up to lately:

He now has six teeth. Four top and the two bottom.

He's figured out how to climb down off of the couch on his own, and is learning how to climb down stairs.

He loves to share. If I give him a cookie or offer him his sippy cup, he always insists I take a bite or a drink as well. ... or it could be he's making sure I haven't poisoned him. It's still cute.

He's developed a fascination with the silverware basket in the dishwasher. I have to prop something inside to force the lower rack to stay outwards or he won't leave the basket alone. And boy does it piss him off! He'll brace his chubby little baby fists against the lower rack, plant his feet, and push as hard as he can, making little weight-lifter grunts while he does it. You can see he's really putting his back into it. When he realizes he's not going to get that lower rack to budge, he starts yelling.

He no longer nurses to sleep. We walk him down for his naps, or if he's really tired, we can just put him in his crib and he'll roll over and go to sleep. He's down to just a morning nursing, and that will go away starting with our road trip to Lissa's.

And finally, last night he got a hold of a small peppermint patty. His reach has gotten a lot better lately, and we had him in his exersaucer while Russ was cleaning up downstairs. He'd started gnawing on the foil wrapper, so Russ decided it would be funny to just unwrap it and let him have at it. I came out of the office to find a baby sticky all over with bits of peppermint patty, with palms and face coated dark brown with chocolate, and not a recognizable lump of that piece of candy left anywhere else in sight. I had to give him a bath before he could eat his dinner - which he wouldn't finish since he'd had so much candy.

Not so Fat now!

Woo hoo! Remember how I said when I weaned Roy, I was going to buy a scale and drop all the extra baby-padding?

When the doctor weighed me at Roy's 9-month checkup, I was still over 150lbs. I finally got my scale, and weighed myself yesterday. Drum-roll please...

One hundred and thirty three pounds! Just twelve pounds to go, and I'll be back down to pre-baby size!

Woohoo

So, I've been on the verge of a nervous breakdown for the last three weeks or so trying to find D's replacement. Like seriously, I was a total wreck, completely enraged 24/7 and not pleasant to be around. Thankfully we found a new guy!! He liked us and we liked him and he actually wants to move in. Finally!
That is all.

Just an Update

Me and Anna had a fantastic time visiting Lissa and Mike in FL. I will send out pictures to everyone later today :).

Also, we just went to see Christina Aguilera in concert. She is AWESOME!!!! I had soooo much fun!! Well, worth the $60.00 for the tickets.

I am in my last week of classes for this semester and am pretty busy, but I can't wait for it to be over with. Well, kind of over with anywho. I will get 1 week or so of no school before I start the Summer Semester. But, I will graduate next Spring, so I guess I don't mind a little pain and suffering for the next year, until that goal is achieved.

And...That is about it!!! CHEERS!!

Ad-Free City

São Paulo, Brazil has banned all forms of outdoor advertising in their city. No more billboards, neon signs, ads on taxi cabs, etc.

Here's the article about the ban.

This Boing Boing post has a link to a whole flickr set of images of São Paulo with the ban in effect.

I'd love to see some photos of the city in another year, once folks have had a chance to take the frame-work for the ads down as well. Free speech issues aside, from some of the pictures, I'd say you can already see an improvement.

Time Flies...

And Roy keeps getting cuter!

He's standing on his own, as long as you don't make a big deal out of it. If you deign to notice his amazing balance and progress, he sits back down.

... oh, and we got our driveway paved. Doesn't it make the house look nicer?

Leave My Damn Posts Alone

Some people who seem to think of themselves as the Big Sister even though they're not the oldest, are getting just a wee bit full of themselves. If you don't like the way I categorize a blog, bitch in person. Don't go in and edit my posts to suit yourself. And if you're going to be rigid about labeling, then you'd also better put up a post explaining your arcane rules for how to decide what belongs to what.

UPDATE: this seems a little out of context when the post it references, along with every other post by the author suddenly disappears from the blog. Guess Alicia decided to take her toys and go home. Well, I'd say I'm sorry, but considering the vast majoriy of her posts were just bitching about how the rest of us posts, I'm really not. Way to show your remarkable powers of maturity, Alicia, and good-bye.

UPDATE 2: since it also seems that everyone's admin privileges have also been removed (except I never had any) I fear that the next step will be the blog being deleted. Just in case, I've gone ahead and created Bilby Sisters and issued invites. You're welcome to post whatever the hell you want, using whatever labels you want, however often you want on it. Cheers!

Just a 'Horrible Coincidence'

As I'm sure all you cat and dog owners out there are aware of by now, Menu Foods issued a massive recall of their products after it was revealed that the wheat gluten in them was contaminated and killing off owner's pets.

Menu Foods issued their recall of the products about 3 weeks after they were first notified of the pet deaths.

As a 'horrible coincidence', the CEO for Menu Foods just happened to sell off half of his stock in the company three weeks before the recall was announced.

Just fascinating, eh?

What do you mean there's no fruit in Bubbletape?

I'm not sure this proves advertisers are deceptive or that people are just really fucking dumb.

I personally was not in the least bit surprised to discover that 'foods' like Lifesavers, and Airheads did not contain fruit. *rolls eyes at the idiots who did*

Note: I put foods in quotes because those aren't foods, they are candies.

Book Report - Kitty Takes a Holiday

I just finished Carrie Vaughn's latest, Kitty Takes a Holiday. The 3rd installment of the adventures of our favorite mis-named were-wolf finds her taking an extended leave of absence from her radio show, to get back to nature, work on her memoirs, and try to get her head back together after her recent kidnapping and outing as a were-wolf on national television. Unfortunately, Kitty doesn't need to go looking for trouble. As usual, it arrives on her doorstep, in the form of Cormac the bounty-hunter. This time he's got her lawyer Ben in the back of his jeep, and Ben is badly wounded from a were-wolf attack.

Add to the mix a string of gruesome livestock slaughters in the area, and suddenly Kitty has the law looking at her suspiciously. She's got writer's block, a badly wounded friend, a jealous bounty hunter, legal troubles, and to add insult to injury, a new supernatural talk-radio show has sprung up while she's away to steal her market-share. How is she going to get through it all?

I enjoyed Vaughn's third book as much as I did the first two. Things don't always work out in the way that Kitty or the reader wants, and I find it makes the stories more real for me. You don't know everything will work out all right in the end. You do know Kitty isn't going to suddenly be gifted with additional powers that make a miserable situation suddenly fixable. I'm looking forward to her next installment, coming out near the end of the year.

Big Mistake

This is the face of a baby that is going to be up until past 1am:


There are some disadvantages to feeding your child an all-natural diet. Namely, when you feed him a big fat honking piece of chocolate cake - one made with over a lb of chocolate in the frosting alone - it causes a reaction much like dousing an already lit grill with a gallon of gasoline. He sure did love his cake; after we swept up all the crumbs and dumped him in the tub, we estimate he ate at least half of the entire slice. But he isn't used to anywhere near that amount of sugar, and we had a little mini-cornholio for the next five and a half hours afterwards. I finally gave up and made Russ take over a little after midnight. He says Roy finally collapsed around 1am.

Happy Birthday, little buddy! We're not going to try that again for a whole 'nother year.

Great Moments in American Legislation

Once you've convinced the public that it is reasonable and necessary to register buyers of Sudafed, in the interest of reducing meth production, it's not that far a leap to try and apply it to other products as well.

I present to you HB1189, which would create a registry of baking soda buyers and put Arm & Hammer behind the counter. Because crack cocaine is made with baking soda. The danger of crack cocaine is sufficient to justify creating a register that would encompass nearly every single household in the state of Missouri, and give the police a pretext to visit and search your home if your baking soda purchases become suspicious.

I doubt the bill will actually pass, but it's a shot across the bow; a testing of the waters, if you will, to see just how much bullshit we're willing to put up with. We're willing to give up our names and addresses and risk a visit by the police in order to get our hands on cold medicine that has been legally available without a prescription for years. Why not require the same for any other mundane or beneficial item that can be turned to ill uses? Growing lights, and hydroponic systems for example. These are the primary tools of any small-time domestic marijuana producer. We should require anyone wishing to purchase such equipment to register with the state. Ditto purchasers of blotting paper or stamps. And chemistry sets. And pretty soon we're gonna realize it'd just be a whole lot easier if we could track every person's purchases and run through their records to look out for suspicious behavior. Just because Total Information Awareness was tabled due to public outcry during the Bush administration, doesn't mean it's gone for good. I bet Hilary could sell it.

Britain Turns Into San Angeles

Wow. Just when I think Britain can't get any sillier, they turn around and prove me wrong. Their pervasive public surveillance cameras aren't enough. Now, the cameras are going to start talking if they spot you engaging in uncivil behavior.

"You are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

Adventures In Slow-cooking

As you all know, I accidentally ended up with a very nice 7qt All-Clad slow-cooker, even though I've never had any interest in using one before. Well, after a few gentle nudges, and some not so subtle hints from Russ and I finally set the thing up and tried it out.

Yesterday morning after I got the coffee started, I rubbed a pork butt with 1 tsp hawaiian sea salt, and 1 tsp liquid smoke, and then put it in the slow-cooker for 12 hours on low. I turned it over once after about six hours. When it came out, it was fall-off-the-bone, and pull-apart-with-a-nudge-of-the-fork tender. I even saved the rest of the meat for leftovers, it was that good. I served it with baked plantains and steamed rice, with lime wedges on the side. And as hectic as my day was yesterday, if the meat hadn't already been taken care of, when I got off work we would have eaten out. Maybe slow-cookers aren't that bad after all. I'm going to try barbecued beef tomorrow.

Tornadoes Ruin Lives

So, I have been planning a trip to San Diego for about three months now. I had pretty much every minute of my three day stay mapped out, and was ridiculously excited. When I landed, Leigh and I were going to get sushi on the beach, and then head to the House of Blues to see Lily Allen in concert. The next day was going to include another trip to the beach, a tour of the Palomar Observatory, maybe some hiking, and a visit to a tranny bar called Lips. Then Sunday we would go to the Annie Liebowitz exhibit (which doesn't hit DC until fall I think), a patisserie called Extraordinary Desserts, and then the Farmer's market to buy ingredients to cook a nice dinner. Sounds like fun right?

My flight was cancelled. The string of storms that have been pounding the Central states pretty much shut down DFW. They said they couldn't get me another flight until Sunday, and since I had already been standing in line for an hour and a half I just asked for a refund. So what does a girl do when she has time off work, and $300 worth of vacation money burning a hole in her pocket?

She makes a cake.

I don't have star shaped cookie cutters, and I thought that 2.5 cups of melted white chocolate was a bit too much for one layer, so I split the cake into 4 layers. I also omitted the amaretto liquer, because I was too lazy to go to the liquor store. I still think the end result was really fucking good.