Failing twice

In one day last week, I discovered two new things that I'm not very good at doing.
1. Making fudge. I followed the Kraft Fantasy Fudge Recipe to the letter. I didn't have a candy thermometer, so I cooked and stirred constantly during the rolling boil of a hot sticky mess for the prescribed 5 minutes. Then I added the chocolate chips and fluff. Shortly after I poured it into the square pan, it turned hard as a rock. No soft, gooey fudgey-ness. Just straight to the trash can. Boo. So now I've bought a candy thermometer. Maybe the next batch will turn out ok.
Any tips would be much appreciated.

2. Photoshop. I didn't want to do anything fancy like change contrast or make beautiful art. I just wanted to arrange some scientific (boring, I know) figures on a page to insert into a manuscript. It's just not as simple as copying, pasting, pointing, and clicking. You have to make sure all of the figures are the same resolution (who knew?). And you have to know exactly what size they should be (who knows?). Why can't they make these things intuitive? Well, I've spent the better part of 4 days at work, just to make 4 figures. Fun times. I need some fudge.

I wish I had my camera!

I'm sitting in the coffee room at work, looking through the window wall onto the courtyard of cobblestones, taking a short break from paper writing, listening to glorious Classical Christmas music from my iPod. It's been the perfect soundtrack to the Falling Snow! It's absolutely magical outside. I love to watch the snow accumulate in the naked branches of the trees. Just a moment ago I was giggling as the cleaners left and were throwing snow balls at each other. I've never been so happy writing a paper. I never realized that falling snow does make a sound. It sounds exactly like some of the melodies from "The Nutcracker."

Boy am I glad not to have to drive in this, though! I'll take the walk to the bus stop over driving in the snow any day.

Back to the paper now.

What will they think of next?

Imagine my surprise when I read the sign that said this crazy tree was reduced to clear! And another upside down tree. Is there anyone out there who thinks this style is actually a beautiful one?

Redneck Decorating Inspiration

Doesn't that just make you feel all warm inside? You don't even have to water it. How long do you think it took him to drink all of that Mountain Dew?

Deja Vu

I don't get it. I'm really glad I found this channel. But I just don't get it.

What am I talking about? Well, I'm working in France at the moment. I thought that the only TV channels in English were CNN and BBC. But the other day I found a channel that shows movies in that I can understand perfecly. So either my French is getting really good, or I am actually hearing these movies in English.



The weird thing is... for the most part, there are no subtitles- in any language. However, when something is written that's important for the story, such as "U Can Save Her" spelled out in letter magnets on the fridge in "Deja vu" , there is a French subtitle. Or if there are people speaking a language other than English, then there are French subtitles.



So tonight I have the pleasure of watching Matt Damon in "The Bourne Ultimatum."

Now I just wish I had my DVR so that I can pause, fast forward, and rewind.

Bail me out... of this PRIVATE JET?!?

I'm no fancy schmancy economist. I know more about drug metabolism than the law of supply and demand. But I do have the sense that God gave a goose.

Currently the CEO's of Ford, GM, and Chrysler are begging the U.S. Congress to give them $25 billion to prevent collapse of the auto industry. They claim that they have a viable and successful busniness plan, and this is a good and necessary "investment" as the President-elect might call it.

The auto industry claims that it will be bankrupt without this assistance. Here is the rub. They miraculously have enough money to fly the CEO's from Detroit to Washington, D.C. on private corporate jets! They claim it's for security reasons. Yeah. Right.

The Democrats who are in favor of bailing out the auto industry want the money to come from the funds set aside to bail out the banks.

But the Republicans want these funds to come from the already approved government loans aimed at creating more fuel efficient cars. Why the auto industry won't accept this money is beyond me.

The governement's supply of money may be vast, but it's certainly not infinite. Furthermore, the government gets its money from taxpayers.

Now I'm not in favor of bankrupting the auto industry and putting millions of workers on unemployment. Regular people all over the country have been tightening their belts for quite a while now. I think it's about time that these corporate fat cats take a cue from the regular people who are the lifeblood of their industry.

Turkey Day

Next week I'm hosting a Thanksgiving Dinner at work for all of my friends and coworkers in England. This will be the second annual feast for us. I'll be making the turkey for the second year in a row. All of my friends need suggestions for recipes to bring. The traditional stuff that I would usually recommend includes dirty rice, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and sweet potato casserole. Do you have any tasty and simple recipes you'd like to share?