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I made myself a mocha at home in my spiffy espresso maker.

And then I managed to pour the entire thing over my coat, pants, shoes and the kitchen floor when I picked up up without fastening the lid on tight.

Now I have no coffee. I just smell of it.

Check out Emotional Bag Check. Here's an article about it in Wired magazine:

Life sucks, right? But music makes it better. That’s the worldview behind Emotional Bag Check — a site that lets you suggest songs to cheer people up.

It’s simple. Go to Emotional Bag Check, and choose whether you want to offload a problem or help out with someone else’s.

If you want to get something off your chest, all you need to do is type what the problem is, provide an e-mail address, and someone will read it and return a song they think is relevant along with (optionally) a message of support.

If everything’s going pretty well for you, and you just want to help other people out, then you’ll be confronted with someone’s problem and asked to pick a song that’ll make them feel better. Here, a sense of duty suddenly kicks in — you’ve got a direct line to someone’s heart, and you don’t want to waste it. You’ll find yourself taking a substantial amount of time to choose a song that’s just right for the situation, as if this person were a close friend.

The developer, Robyn, answers FAQ questions here. Also on Twitter at @emobagcheck.

This is pretty cool. Look at this knitted shawl straight on, and it looks like this:

But if you look at it from the side, it looks like this:

Read more about how it's done here.

because I like this picture of me.

Yes. I can be vain at times.

I actually think this is the first time I've applied the tag 'omg she's beautiful' to me. Usually it's applied to the girls.

Maybe I'll switch it back in the next twenty-four hours or so...we'll see.

Photographer credit: my sister Betsy.

Poor Mark has learned the awful fate of Boromir, son of Denethor and is totally broken up over it:

How can you do this to Boromir??!??! I THOUGHT SAM AND FRODO ESCAPED ON A BOAT??? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ALL OF MY EMOTIONS, YOU HEARTLESS TELLER OF LIES? YOU’RE LYING TO ME, RIGHT? THIS IS THE ONLY CANON THAT I CAN ACCEPT.
‘You have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace! Minas Tirith shall not fall!’

Boromir smiled.

‘Which way did they go? Was Frodo there?’ said Aragorn.

But Boromir did not speak again.
I just can’t. I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS HAPPENS ON LIKE THE SECOND GODDAMN PAGE. Oh, was breaking up the Fellowship not enough for all of us? Nope. Tolkien had to tease us with a chapter title that I thought referred to Boromir breaking off from the group to go be awesome in Minas Tirith ['The Departure of Boromir']. BUT NO. TOLKIEN KILLS HIM OFF.

fuck. FUCK!!!!!! I AM SERIOUSLY SO UPSET! I know y’all know this by now, but I love morally ambiguous or questionable characters like white people love The Help and THIS IS HURTING ME! I WANT MORE BOROMIR. Also, I am realizing that I am essentially yelling into an empty room because not a word of this is going to change or affect a single thing anywhere. Well, that just made me a whole lot sadder.
He knelt for a while, bent with weeping, still clasping Boromir’s hand.
Done. I’m done. Just bury me right here on the Internet with my laptop and my LEGO sets and just be done with it. Don’t even have a funeral. Just stack some rocks and make my headstone say, “Dear J.R.R. Tolkien, You killed me and I will haunt you in the afterlife even if it’s not possible, you deserve everything awful (only you don’t because oh my god i love you so much but it’s that “hateful” kind of love), and may you be seated on a bed of thumbtacks or something moderately irritating.” Yes, that.

This really made me laugh: someone else in the comments pointed to a Tumblr, saying: "From the inimitable GingerHaze on Tumblr, specifically here: 'After Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, I want to write a medieval fantasy for Sean Bean where he has a nice day and things go well.'" With art:

You will not believe the screamingly vexatious time I am having with trying to do this P90X program. The problem is the computers in the house. I can't do it in Rob's lair, where the TVs live, which is stuffed with Rob's stuff. I can't do it in my computer nook--It's the only reliably working computer in the house, but the floor space is about two feet by three feet: nowhere to exercise. There's a computer in Fiona's room (my old office, where I used to exercise), but the room is, again, overstuffed with her possessions and so there's no room to maneuver. In addition, the chin up bar doesn't fit in the doorway. I've been moving the dining room table out of the way each time and exercising in there, but Rob's laptop, which I've been using, is dying. There is a desktop computer in the dining room, but it continually freezes up. Delia's computer really isn't free for me to use.

I really want to do this. But I can't figure out how to simultaneously have 1) enough room to exercise in a place where I have 2) a reliable computer that will play DVDs. Argh.

We have no money to repair the computers. Rob needs to have a crown replaced, and I need to take my car in this week. It's smelling sickeningly of exhaust every time I use the heater, which seems dangerous to me...I'm afraid I'm breathing carbon monoxide. And it needs a wheel alignment. These two things are going to blow the budget out of the water this month. But I've been so committed to doing this, and I don't want to stop. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Mark has reached the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and thinks that all would not have ended in disaster if the Fellowship had the benefit of the advice from a sassy gay friend.

Poor Mark. He still has no idea yet that Boromir is toast.

Edited to add: Here are his predictions for The Two Towers

Current Mood: amused

This morning was the hour and a half long yoga segment, which was unpleasant at 5:30 in the morning in my house since my living room was so cold (note: it's -10º F right now here in Minneapolis). And Tony Horton is a little too chatty for my taste when doing yoga. But I did it.

Boy, I sure am inflexible. Even more now because I've stopped doing karate. It's hard to get into the mindset that you do what you can and let the rest go.

But hey. I got up and did yoga. I've done fifteen workouts so far. It's a little frustrating: the soreness is gone, but I still have not seen any changes to my body. Yet I'm still faithfully getting up at 5:30...well, except for two workouts I missed last week because I was sick.

(Anyone else on my list done P90x, all ninety days? Your experience?)

especially for science fiction fans.

is now back in her dorm at Augsburg.

I miss her already.

Today was a colorful, mostly vegetarian day, aside from 2 oz. of ground beef on the hoagie at lunch. Lots of stuff here that my family won't eat.

Breakfast (not pictured): barley cooked in the slow cooker, topped with vanilla yogurt and raspberries.

Lunch:

Homemade hoagie, topped with ground beef with sauteed vegetables mixed with tomato paste, red cabbage/orange slaw, and very yummy homemade beet hummus.

Dinner:

Polenta with sheep's milk cheese folded in, topped with braised kale and mushrooms and tomato, sauteed in balsamic vinaigrette.

jimhines (Livejournal link here) Jim Hines mimicks the poses of the women on his fantasy book covers and discovers that striking a pose is not all it's cracked up to be. (Specifically, that the poses made his body, er, crack.)

I deeply, deeply adore him for doing this.

We managed to snatch a half an hour in which we were all in the house at the same time to celebrate the end of the Christmas season. I used the very last of the whipping cream I had bought for our Christmas morning celebration for my cup of Twelfth Night coffee.

Delia helped me get the breakfast ready:

( It was a lovely opportunity to bid farewell to the Christmas season )

Happy Twelfth Night, from my family to yours!

but I'm still wearing the Little Black Dress every Friday.

(Hey,

naomikritzer, here's what I did with the sweater vest you passed on to me.)

I am much hungrier than usual. The nutrition guide said I should up my calories from the range I'd been trying to stay in before I started this, and I was dubious, but oh boy, I've really noticed a difference in my appetite.

Tony Horton seems really kind and encouraging. I certainly appreciate all the modifications he points out, and I feel more confident that I'll be able to keep this up, although I certainly can't do all the exercises yet. Not even close. But I'm confident that I'll get better.

I can tell that my problematic right knee will continue to be a factor.

Tony Horton's personality, on the other hand, really sets my teeth on edge. I can best describe it as, um, 'California Smarmy.' I can tolerate it for now. (I do note that there is an option to turn the sound off. I may resort to that in the future!) The program does seem solid, challenging, and safe.

Still sore, but not unbearably so. I am resorting to painkillers.

but since there will be no point in the next 24 hours that my family will all be under the roof at one time, we have decided to declare this the year of

TWELFTH NIGHT - A BAKER'S DOZEN

and celebrate Twelfth Night on the thirteenth day of Christmas. Accordingly, I will be posting pictures of our celebration a little later than usual, as it will be held on Saturday, rather than Friday.

Deal with it.

are utterly adorable.

That is all.

to be in the depths of winter and not feel depressed.

I got up at 5:20 today to do 90 minutes of yoga.

I used to be better at yoga than I am now.

I used to be better at a LOT of things physically than I am now.

However, I'm on it. I am very curious to see what changes I'll see on the coming months.

So. Tired. And. Sore.

On the third day of P90X (shoulders and arms today) and spent hours moving my work station.

I expect to be even more sore tomorrow, but I know the worst of it will wear off by the beginning of next week. Still intend to stick with it.

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Peg Kerr's Journal

Okay, the day's gotten off to a bad start

Here's a wonderful Decrease Worldsuck idea

This is cool: Harry Potter illusion shawl

I Can Haz New Default Icon

Re: the fate of Boromir

Technology frustrations

A review on Mark Reads to the end of The Fellowship of the Ring

P90X continues

A great Martin Luther King Jr. story I'd never heard before

Fiona

Meals today

I deeply adore Jim Hines for doing this

Twelfth Night - A Baker's Dozen

It's been awhile since I've posted one of these...

Observations after five days of P90X

Tomorrow is twelfth night....

My daughters

It is so weird...

Yoga at 5:30 a.m.

I am...

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January 2012

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