This is my favorite book. Well, one of them, anyway. Certainly in the top ten.

So my THNGVBD:

1. First thing in the morning, have a misunderstanding with a best friend.
2. I spend a few hours in ignorant bliss of what was to come.
3. In my bliss, I decide to start on the major housecleaning we need to do and I go clean out my closet. In my defense, I figured it’d take about thirty minutes.
4. Two and a half hours later, I’m as done as I’ll be for that day.
5. I realize it’s now six p.m. and fencing starts at seven. I’ve yet to eat dinner and assemble the weapon I fixed.
6. I assemble said weapon. Said weapon refuses to work. In diagnosing the problem, I end up having to dis-assemble it entirely. The problem was a bad socket.
7. New socket grabbed from bin. Weapon re-assembled. I go to tighten the nut that holds the grip in place.
8. Nut spins.
9. Mind you, this is the same blade whose tang had to be re-threaded by me the day before, and that re-threading ended up with my screwdriver deciding to stab me in the left thumb.
10. I try another nut. Same thing. Tang is stripped again.
11. Re-rethread tang. Tang still stripped. Realize that I’ve A)at some point during the re-rethreading process, I’ve cut my right thumb and that B) we’re now nearly forty-five minutes late for fencing.
12. Patch up my thumb. Put on my knickers (you brits stop giggling). Go to zip them up and realize I’ve stepped through one of the suspenders. Have to take ‘em off and put ‘em back on again.
13. On the way out the door, fencing back gets caught on the latch and I’m momentarily stuck, tethered to the door.
14. After escaping from the clutches of the door, we go to fencing, now an hour late.
15. At fencing, it’s discovered that it’s wacky weapons week and everyone is fencing saber. Everyone. I’m Not Allowed to Fence Saber, Ever. Like the kid who’s punished for recess, I watch all the other kids play.
16. Finally, nathan says he’ll fence me in epee. We end up getting into an argument. We go home.
17. Now home, I attack the stripped foil tang problem once again, determined to win. As I’m re-re-rethreading the tang, the die-holder snaps in half.
18. Let me repeat that. The die-holder, made of metal, snapped in half.
19. Snapped in half.
20. I then make discovery that I’ve somehow unknowingly injured myself and scraped the skin off the top of my left index finger.
21. At that point, I called it a night.

I’d move to Australia, except they’ve got Huge Spiders.

Categories: distracted
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I’m addicted to these. So’s Nathan. There’s your warning.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup self-rising flour
• 1/2 cup oatmeal
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup skim milk
• chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Heat large pan over medium-high heat on oven range. Spray with non-stick spray. Basically, do whatever you normally do to make normal pancakes.
2. Beat egg in small bowl with whisk.
3. Add the brown sugar. Beat again until sugar is dissolved and mixture is light brown-ish.
4. Add the vanilla extract and the oil. Beat some more!
5. Add the milk. Beat beat beat!
6. Whisk in the flour. Aaaaand… beat.
7. Whisk in the oatmeal. Mix it up.
8. Pour the mixture into a liquid measuring cup of some sort.
9. Make sure the pan/griddle/whatever you’re using is ready by tossing some little water droplets on it. If they skitter around, it’s ready.
10. Pour some of the batter onto it, however big you want your pancake to be.
11. Sprinkle however many chocolate chips you want on it.
12. When some little bubbles break on the top of the pancake, flip it over.
13. When the pancake rises enough that it’s all puffed out on the top, flip it over again.
14. After… um… thirty seconds or so, it should be ready. You can check it out by cutting a bit into the middle and making sure it’s not batter anymore.
15. Wait about a minute until you start eating the pancake. Not sure why, but it tastes better that way (and has an added bonus of not burning your mouth!).

Categories: recipes
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From: Jamie [jamie @ohlookabutterfly.com]
Subject: BSG Season 3 Finale Cliffhanger
To: Ron Moore [ron_moore @ifuckinghateyousometimes.com]

Dear Ron,

2008?

Why can’t you write and/or produce a crappy show? I mean, if you did, sure, we’d all be denied compelling, fantastic storytelling, but then April through December of 2007 wouldn’t feel so long and shitty.

And I thought the summer between the Best of Both Worlds I and II was long.

2008.

Ron, I’m sorry to say, I fucking hate you sometimes.

Best Regards,
Jamie

P.S. At some point in 2008, I won’t hate you anymore.

Enclosed: One of a Kind Cylon Flipoff

Categories: reviews
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I took this shot in a store called The Penguin in North Conway, NH. I highly recommend a visit there, it’s a really neat store.

…the book’s title is How to Shit in the Woods.

And I must say, as someone who wants to go camping in the White Mountains and has not for a few reasons including the subject of the book, I was nearly compelled to buy the book.

Categories: distracted
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Reading and responding to Naraht’s posts on needing some little details got me thinking of eye dominance again. I suppose lots of folks don’t really think about which eye is dominant, certainly not as they do hand-dominance.

Not sure what eye is dominant for you? test it here.

I’m one of those rare-ish people who are right-handed and left-eyed (and for those of you wondering, right-footed). For me, this impacts me in a couple ways. As a photographer, this means I’m looking through the viewfinder with my left eye instead of my right. For me to try and use my right, it feels incredibly uncomfortable. With my dSLR, this eye-orientation hasn’t been much of a problem since I can just shift the camera over a bit and still manipulate the controls with my right hand (this must be a problem for left-handed people though). Apparently (though this has only been googled and not researched by me in journal articles, though I might give that a whirl), photographers have a higher incidence of the cross-dominance. Maybe it’s that left-brained right-brained thing.

Lately, it’s been impacting me because of the dominant hand switch in my fencing. I’m right handed, so the entire time I’ve fenced (over two years), I’ve fenced right handed, with my right hand and right leg leading. Since I’ve torn my right rotator cuff, I’ve had to switch to left handed (left hand leading, left leg leading). I expected that the finger/arm control would be an issue and it hasn’t, aside from needing to build up that thumb muscle. However, leg control has been an issue since my right leg Insists It Really Wants To Be The Leading Leg.

Hmmm.

Categories: distracted
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