Checking in

I just noticed that my last post was about goals for 2010 (and also that it was from JANUARY, and it is now MARCH), so I thought I'd see how well I've been keeping to those goals. Ahem:

1. I've technically read more than one book a month, but I can (and should) do better. I'm still waiting until the last minute to read my book club selection, which I need to stop doing. However, I'm working on finishing some unfinished books, so that's good. I'll get to the end of you one of these days, Dracula!

2. Working out? Um... yeah. I haven't been as active as I'd like. Now that the weather is warming up, Jared and I are planning to walk/hike more often.

3. I'm working on getting back into Final Fantasy 3 on my DS, so I would consider this as a good start for playing more video games. I honestly don't know what's holding me back from playing Dragon Age, though. I WANT to play it, but when I have free time I never do. What's wrong with me?!

4. I finally finished organizing all of my files, which feels wonderful. I still have plenty of craft projects to finish, but I feel good knowing a big project is completed that has been nagging me for quite some time. Progress!

5. Like I said before, this one's easy. Done! I have my certificate and the bride and I have already met to discuss the ceremony in detail. Now I just need to get a website up and running!

So, plenty still to do if I want to really say that I'm meeting my goals, but at least I haven't ignored them completely. Maybe I should have made a goal to update my blog more!

Speaking of the blog - I haven't decided what the future of Ridiculology is. Maybe I'll keep it going as-is, just updating when I have something interesting to share. Or maybe it will morph into another project. What do you think, loyal readers?

Goals for 2010

Well, I didn't end up making any resolutions for this year - although I do like the idea of picking up a bad habit instead of starting a good one! Instead, I think I'm going to copy Jessica's idea and create a list of goals for 2010. She did ten, but I'm going to be a little less motivated and list five. Perhaps one of them will be a bad habit that I'd like to indulge in!

1. Read more than one book per month. Right now, I'm in a book club that meets about once a month, and I've been good about getting my book read before our meetings (even if that means some marathon reading the day before). However, I'd like to up that a bit, and start really reading for pleasure again. To start, I'm going to try to finish a few books that I've started and forgotten about, like this one and this one.

2. Work out at least once a week. This sounds pathetic, but really - I hardly ever really "work out," even if I am in colorguard part of the year and randomly dance around the house when I'm cleaning or cooking dinner. I know that I should be working out at least three times a week, but let's be honest - I'm not going to leap headfirst into an active lifestyle after being a lazy ass for pretty much my entire adult life. So let's start small and see how things go, shall we?

3. Play more video games. It sounds simple enough, but I'm very much the kind of person that avoids doing fun things at home because I'm too busy worrying about the chores I haven't done yet, and video games usually end up being last on my list of things that are okay to do. But I just got Dragon Age: Origins for Christmas and I have other games I've been meaning to finish, so I need to get playing!

4. Finish some freakin' projects. Be honest - we all have those projects that we've been meaning to finish for YEARS and keep putting off. This year I want to get some of them done and out of my mind. This will also help me feel less guilty about completing goal #3. Specifically, I'd like to finish organizing my files (preferably before tax day) and get a fairly large cross-stitch project done that was supposed to be a gift for a friend, oh, in 2008. Oops.

5. Become a wedding officiant. This one's easy because I already know that I'm doing it - a coworker asked me to officiate her wedding, and I just sent in my paperwork to the Ohio Secretary of State today! Luckily for me and my coworker, I got myself ordained online through the Universal Life Church back in 2004, so I'm totally qualified. Hilarious, right? But I've always been a little wedding obsessed (okay, a LOT wedding obsessed) so this seemed like a fun way to be involved in weddings, help people out, and make a little extra money on the side without trying to become a full-fledged wedding planner. As long as my first wedding goes well this year, I'm going to start advertising myself and try to get a little side business going. My focus will be on non-religious weddings - I would cater to people who, like me, don't want to get married in a church or by a religious official, but also don't want some totally informal courthouse thing either. So if you're in that situation too and need someone to marry you, I'd be glad to do it!

Do you have any goals or resolutions that you've decided on for 2010?

A resolution to resolve

As promised, here's our Christmas photo:

Isn't it awesome?! That's our cardboard cutout of Captain James T. Kirk in the background, and I made the pie and apron myself. Jared's holding a collection of Christmas stories by Charles Dickens, and he added the lens flare for effect. We went all out for this one!

I'm still working on getting everything transferred to the laptop, so no new pictures yet. But soon! I promise!

Also, I wanted to share an update to a previous post. Remember Gueek Bkead Fay? Well, I was telling some friends about it and stumbled upon a sort-of explanation here. So, it sounds like it just means "holiday decoration" in Hindi, and specifically refers to a Christmas decoration. Not as exciting of a meaning as I'd hoped for, but it makes sense. But if I find out anything else I'll be sure to post it here!

So, 2010 is almost upon us! Have you decided on a New Year's resolution yet? I haven't yet, and I'm open to suggestions! Let me know what you think I should resolve to do (or not do) in the coming year, and maybe I'll pick your idea. Or maybe I'll come up with something else. Or... maybe I'll resolve to do nothing, which could be fun. WE'LL SEE!

Autumn is for not blogging

Hello friends! It's been a while, hasn't it? Seems that I decided to take an autumn break from blogging. I've been so busy doing all sorts of fun things, but never took the time to write about them! I have pictures but I haven't been able to upload them yet - we upgraded my laptop to Windows 7 this week, and I'm still in the process of transferring files and downloading programs and all that fun stuff. So hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures soon!

The biggest thing that happened recently was at work - I was transferred to the Hilltop Branch! At first it was very hard to leave my fabulous coworkers at the Main Library, but Hilltop has been wonderful. The staff there have made me feel incredibly welcome, and most of the customers are really friendly and fun to talk to. Even some of the teens come up to the desk and chat with me, which makes me feel cool and hip. Sad but true.

The holidays are fast approaching, and I'm trying to get motivated to start some crafts. I think once we pick out the tree and start decorating, I'll be ready to make things! Jared and I have some great ideas for a Christmas photo this year that I'm sure I'll post for everyone to see - I think it's going to be amazing!

What are you doing to get yourself into the holiday spirit?

Crazy on Twitter

Hey guys, remember back when I posted in January about @astrospace, the guy who freaked on Twitter? Well, he's still around - and still pissing people off! Thanks to an anonymous commenter, I learned of a petition to get the guy removed from Twitter altogether for abusive behavior. Not only is he rude and slanderous, he's actually stalked and purposefully harassed people. He's obsessed with having large amounts of followers, and he deletes the bad things he says to try and cover his tracks.

You can (and should!) read all about him here. He used the name @astronautics for a while, and now goes by @spaceastro.

So what do we do about this idiot? Well, there's the petition, which I tweeted about earlier tonight. I don't know how much it will do since he has so many accounts and aliases, but it certainly can't hurt to try. I hope that the women he called and harassed are seeing legal advice on what (if anything) they can do.

If you're curious, here's a posting that has the text of the blog post he deleted from his site that I mentioned in my first post about him - the one where he goes off about Twitter. You can tell by his writing that there is something seriously wrong with this guy.

I'm all about people trying to make a name for themselves online - but don't do it by pretending that you're an authoritative news source (when you aren't) or by hurting others with the awful things you say and do.

Culinary adventures

I don't cook at home as often as I should (for someone that wants to save money), but lately I've been a little more adventurous than usual in the kitchen. My latest dinner attempt involved imitating a wrap that I like to get at Shane's Gourmet Market downtown. It was pretty simple to make, and it's so, so good!

Ingredients:

Chicken breast (I used the kind in the pouch that you find in the tuna section; any cubed chicken breast will do)
Bacon pieces
Wraps (I used sun dried tomato and basil, yum)
Spinach (lettuce will do if you're not a spinach fan)
Cheese (Shane's uses Swiss, but I prefer provolone or muenster)
Tomatoes
Red onions
Dijon mustard
Ranch (Optional)

Everything is chopped and cubed, and put in the wrap:

Like I said, pretty simple. I put a little too much filling in mine though, and it was hard to roll up. But it was still very yummy!

Since I'd fryed up the bacon, I had some bacon grease left over - and I really didn't want to just get rid of it. So I sliced up some potatoes and fryed them in the grease. Yes, I know, not the healthiest thing in the world. But I've tried this before with butter and always burnt the potatoes, so I wanted to see if this method worked out better - and it was delicious!

A little bit of sour cream made these potatoes a perfect side dish. This ended up being a very filling meal and I'll probably make these things separately next time, but I was glad that everything turned out tasting really good.

I wish I'd taken some pictures of the tortilla crusted fish I made last week as well - Jared said it was really good, and that's saying a lot since he doesn't usually like fish. You'll just have to trust me that it was awesome. It was just some tilapia with lime juice and seasoning, coated in crushed up tortilla chips with a little butter topping. I got the idea from a Lean Cuisine that I really like - but I think my version is better (but probably much more fattening).

Do you have any culinary creations that you're particularly proud of? Any recommendations for meals that a newbie like me should try?

Gueek Bkead Fay

Back in 2004, Jared visited me in New Philadelphia for the first time over winter break. He only stayed one day, so I had limited time to show him what NP had to offer. Naturally, I took him to New Towne Mall, and then to Hog Heaven for dinner. While at the mall, we strolled through a crappy dollar store and found this strange holiday decoration:


Gueek Bkead Fay? What the crap does THAT mean?! Jared and I were at a loss. At first, I thought maybe it was some strange mistranslation of "Greek Bread Day." But if so, then both the U and K would have to be R's, which doesn't make sense. Besides, there does not seem to be any kind of Greek Bread Day that I can find a reference to. And what's with the reindeer? Are they an integral part of Gueek Bkead Fay activities?

So what does it really mean? It seems that we aren't the only ones wondering. Jared recently found this posting on a translation website about the phrase. There are suggestions that it might be Turkish or even Hindi, but nobody seems to agree or know for sure. The only other mention of it is in this blog posting - but again, there seems to be no explanation of what it means. The author of the blog later posted this message, stating that people had tried emailing him about the meaning of the phrase, and that he didn't know what it meant. Of course, it still makes me wonder why he USED the phrase in a post to begin with, if he honestly has no idea what it means. He must have heard it somewhere, right?

So it seems for now that the mystery continues. If anyone has any insights on the origins of Gueek Bkead Fay, please let me know!