Archive for: November, 2006

Space Pen: 11,730 Points of Awesometacular

Nov 30 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Never Off the Record

Space Pen: The Final Battle started early last night at the Hooters out 280, progressed quickly and ended with a teeth-skinning game victory, and a tournament victory so shamingly large, they should have named the restaurant after us.

It was exciting to arrive and find that Skillzy, Batonga, J, and several of Skillzy’s friends, M and K, were already there, ready to go. The combination of people who were totally new to trivia and to the group of us and J, who is an island unto himself (a witty, clever island), made the evening seem strange, and almost surreal.

I tried to start the evening off with a little Harry Potter discussion, which necessitated:

J: They need to speed those up. I’m losing interest.

When I opened That Damn Book to write it down, necessitating an explanation for the new folks.

Skillzy: Sarah writes everything down.
J: It’s really annoying.
M: I ordered by burger medium.

And then, out of nowhere:

J: Justin Timberlake’s trying to ruin my life, didn’t I tell you that?

It’s a cause for concern. We were also concerned that the actual trivia might never start. But eventually it did, after what we can only hope will be one last round of the hostess’s interminable dissertation about upcoming events. The first three or four questions were fairly lowball, so we went like gangbusters straight out the gate.

The first question that gave us pause was what is the largest state in square feet east of the Mississippi River? I didn’t hear the whole debate, but for the most part, Georgia was the consensus and it was right. Christopher did try to convince people the correct answer was “The Dead Sea,” but was shouted down.

The first question we missed was which toy, invented in Denmark, was named the toy of the century. We said the Slinky, but the answer was Legos. Dave did suggest Legos, but Skillzy ignored him.

After that we remained correct for a good long while, mostly because Skillzy seemed to know the answer to every single question, as if he were psychic. We tried to find a pattern, but there didn’t seem to be one. The Space Pen, and its Wielder, Skillzy, were on all kinds of fire.

We came up on the final question in the lead by only 10 points—1010 to the next highest team’s 1000. There was the usual debate about how much to bet on the evening’s game and about how much that would factor into our overall tournament winnings. Skillzy wrote down the bet while I wasn’t paying attention and then hollered for me to look at it. I went a little cross-eyed with the risk taking.

Skillzy: We’re goin’ for it! Don’t be a girl, Sarah!

We confirmed our tournament lead and I had to ask:

Sarah: Is it a fact that it is mathematically impossible to beat us?
Skillzy: Yes. This is our house!

Our house by 2600 points. We clapped politely while they announced the Tournament’s second and third place finishers, who were only separated by five points. Then we waited for the announcement of our win, which ended, it seemed, anticlimactically. The hostess announced, “The first place winners, by… a lot… with 11,730 points, team Space Pen.” I wanted there to be balloons and confetti and We are the Champions or maybe White and Nerdy to play, but that didn’t happen.

We each got a stack of Miller Lite swag: t-shirt, cap, and coozie*, a VIP wing party for 10 of us, which, as Skillzy pointed out, is what they used to give us just for being first place until they realized just how many wings we could eat, and a very nice golf bag, which we set aside for HD, because he’s our leader and the only one who golfs.

After that, we sort of stood around and stared at each other.

Sarah: Have we paid anyone for our food?
J: Oh shit, we gotta pay!

We’ll be back next week, even though there is no tournament. They’re bringing the goofy games back, though, which I’m not thrilled about. First person to make me play a game to see how many dill pickles I can eat in two minutes gets my commemorative coozie shoved in a very uncomfortable place.

*Anybody who wants my swag can have it. Just let me know. It’ll be awesome. Someone will go, “Where’d you get that cheesy coozie?” And you can be like, “The intarweb! Sarah won them it Hooters just me.”

7 responses so far

Typical Tuesday Night

Nov 29 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Gaming, Never Off the Record

Sarah: I like how you flush before you’re done peeing so you don’t waste any time getting back to World of Warcraft.
Christopher: Yeah. Sometimes you time it right, and sometimes you don’t.

8 responses so far

Sylar!

Nov 28 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Fandom

Okay, y’all. Sylar is not, in fact, the Mind Reading Cop under the influence of Eden. He’s super hot evil watch maker man! He’s Simon Tam all hopped up on stolen mitichlorians! He’s evolutionarily inevitable!

Did anybody else feel a total shift in their Heroes perspectives last night? I was watching and really, really into it. Hiro and Charlie make the best couple. And Eden! Was so much prettier with long hair and none of Mr. Bennett’s self-righteousness. And Niki was even tolerable. And there was a near-total lack of Mohinder. And then Gabriel Gray, with his weird watch-maker glasses shows up and I’m like, “Hello, hot nerdy man!” And then he’s Sylar? Something in my head actually moved around to rearrange my Heroes priorities. I will now be rooting for the bad guys. Or at least for the bad guys to get ahold of Claire long enough to get freaky and give her Stockholm Syndrome.

Still need to figure out how Mr. Bennett got his own pet power-sucker, The Haitian, and whether or not he’s using his powers for good or evil. And whether or not Sylar has a crazy sister in a box somewhere, because nothing puts the kibosh on hot loving like a crazy sister in a box who’s got a fascist government after her. And then after that, whether or not he needs my phone number, because I will totally give it to him, especially if he wears his hot glasses on our dates.

16 responses so far

Sunny and 70 in Suburban Nashville

Nov 27 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Uncategorized




gate post

Originally uploaded by Sarah et cetera.

Six of seven failed last week as I was in Brentwood, Tennessee visiting my family. They don’t have the internets, so I wandered off on Friday for what I claimed would be a “short walk.” I wandered home two hours later, filthy and a little sweaty, but with a camera full of what I think are some pretty decent photos.

Then we had filets mignon for dinner and a couple really profoundly excellent bottles of wine and Christopher outed me to my mother. I have no idea what you’re thinking, but I’m thinking, “Crap!” Also, “Hi, Mom!”

4 responses so far

How to Make Wife Soup

Nov 21 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Fandom

In honor of Thanksgiving and Doc, whom I am very thankful for. This is a recipe for Wife Soup, which is what Zoe fixes Wash in the “War Stories” episode of Firefly to help him understand that she’s his woman and even though she had to rescue him for torturers, he’s still her man and she loves him and thinks he’s strong and hot and manly. The secret ingredient isn’t love in this recipe. The secret ingredient is obsession– obsession enough to rename an old and well-loved family recipe for a canceled tv show.

Gather up:

  • A lot of carrots, like one bag should do it1
  • A lot of potatoes, like six maybe. I don’t eat potatoes, so I don’t put them in
  • One or two pounds of good ground beef, depending on how much you like it2
  • Two or three cans of beef broth. Or, you know, a lot of water.
  • A bag of frozen peas
  • Some pasta. Elbow macaroni is traditional, but for those wheat intolerant among you, Tinkyada Pasta Joy is approved by schizophrenic bunny rabbits and guaranteed not mushy3
  • Prepared horseradish4
  • Monterrey jack cheese, shredded
  • Crackers if you dig them. Unfortunately, the crazy bunnies don’t yet make brown rice crackers.
  • Your Firefly DVDs

Mix it like so:

  1. Peel and cut up the carrots and potatoes
  2. Put them in a big pot and cover them with water. Boil the hell out of them
  3. Pour off about 2/3 of the water and add the beef broth. If you’re not into broth, don’t pour off the water, because you’ll need all the carrotty tasting goodness you can get
  4. Bring it back to a low boil and crumble in the raw meat
  5. Turn down the heat and simmer thoroughly for several hours or half an hour or however long you’ve got
  6. After awhile, pour in about two handfuls of pasta
  7. And then about four spoonsful of horseradish, unless you like more and if so, go crazy
  8. I have been known to add the end of a bottle of red wine at this point. Make sure you have enough left to drink!
  9. Dump in the whole bag of peas
  10. Simmer it awhile more if you can

Important Crucial Serving Instructions:

  • Top with so much shredded cheese you can’t hardly stand it
  • Add crackers to taste
  • Place the bowl of steaming, cheese-topped soup lovingly in front of your husband (or wife, nonsexual life partner, or best friend, or whomever) and kiss him or her on the cheek
  • Make the soup recipient say, “Wife Soup. I musta done good.”
  • Then you say, “Yes, dear. You done good.”
  • Enjoy
  • Have sex

1Three point, four hour, should do it.
2We ain’t got much. Protein in all the colors of the rainbow.
3It’s really not mushy!
4Man can live on packaged food forever if he’s got enough rosemary. I have a yard full of rosemary, so I’m into horseradish.

7 responses so far

You Notice How Nobody Ever Says “Occlumens!”?

Nov 20 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Fandom, Speechifying

I said I’d try to post six of seven days. I didn’t promise to make it good or anything. As such, here’s a list of inconsequential nonsense, and a photograph of the sexiest fictional character of all time.

  • My socks are made of several materials. One percent of them is rubber. Rubber! In my socks!
  • I now know that I can, in fact, change a tire all on my own.
  • Yep. Another flat. That’s three in four days!
  • People are starting to avoid me, as I’m obviously giving off rays of evil mojo. I don’t blame them.
  • I love listening to men talk about the women they love.
  • I just love men. Men don’t get enough credit. I’m a man-ist!
  • This weekend was the bootleg of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix trailer and there is a significant amount of Snape. OMFG, the Snape. You can’t even believe how much I adore him. I can’t– I don’t even have the words.
  • Y’all, is Syler the mind-reading cop? I think it might be him. Also, I know everybody thinks Mohinder is hot, but I just don’t see it. I like Hiro. Hiro and Charlie are totally gonna have sex. In my head in the first piece of Heroes fanfic I write, which I predict will happen in about a month, maybe six weeks.
  • I’m back on the six months saddle. I have hope again. It’s going to be okay.

Y’all tell me something, now. How are your tires? You should check their pressure. How are your men? Do you see what I mean about the Snape? Here:

Legilimens!

That’s just stupid hot.

13 responses so far

The End of the Summer

Nov 19 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Confession, Recovering English Major

From The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, by Michael Chabon:

No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything.

I do that. I exaggerate. It helps me find meaning and give myself meaning where I need it but none seems to be available. But I am not exaggerating, when I say that this has been the worst week. Of ever. Of my life, so far. My neck hasn’t stopped hurting for even a minute. My life is on hold, again, until I can gather the courage and fortitude to live without surgery, in a body I hate and would take great pleasure in mangling. I have dreamed that every woman I know is pregnant except me and this has helped me realize no matter what anybody thinks, says, does, or insists, I firmly believe that I am not unconditionally loveable and that eventually I will be marginalized, pitied, and subsequently abandoned for failing to reproduce. Flat tire. Flat spare. And a suicide in my family.

I’d say nowhere to go but up, but every time I do, something worse comes along.

6 responses so far

Give Me One More of that Old Janx Spirit

Nov 16 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Confession, Speechifying

This is Ford:

Ford is white-furred and has two green eyes. He is deaf as a post. He’s slept through yelling, thunder, telephones, hurricanes, and the time a couple months ago when thunder made our house’s panic klaxon go off. That said, he knows an ocean is large body of salt water connected to another large body of saltwater. And that a sea is a small body of usually salt water that connects to an ocean or a large saline lake that lacks a natural outlet.

4 responses so far

We Didn’t Screw Anything Up

Nov 15 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Never Off the Record, Uncategorized

This week’s trivia proved that either we’re not as smart as we thought we were or we’re far too smart to be believing the Hooter Girl Trivia keepers. It goes without saying that without HD, the game is far too fast paced. To say nothing of Skillzy and his Space Pen, which is our mascot, guiding priciple and good luck charm.

We didn’t win this week, but we didn’t win on purpose, which is sort of like winning. We had a rough evening (all the teams did) and decided that we would just take our points and not wager any on increasing our overall total, since we were at or near 2000 points ahead of the second place team in the tournament standings. This turned out to be a good plan– we wouldn’t have answered correctly and would have lost any points we bet, which could have significantly decreased, possibly by more than half, our total tournament points.

In addition to not knowing the final question, which they claimed was about food but was actually an anatomy question, we don’t know much about astronomy, morse code, dogs, or very basic geography.

The evening’s primary kick in the teeth was, “What’s the world’s smallest ocean.” We answered Artic. They claim the correct answer is the Dead Sea. I asked, loudly, for clarification: by area or by volume. I was told hush. When they revealed the answer, there was great protesting. I’ve tried googling and other lazy internet research methods and can’t find anything to corroborate that answer. Seems to me that sort of trick question would be out there, if it were indeed true.

The following question was “Blue-eyed, white-furred cats are commonly affected with what?” Christopher actually hollered, “They can’t tell the difference between an ocean and a sea! They’re bad at geography!” It was uncomfortable for a minute– tensions ran high at Hooters.

So we lost the game, albeit deliberately, in hopes of winning the tournament. We’ll see if our gambit pays off in a couple more weeks.

8 responses so far

Denied

Nov 14 2006 Published by Sarah, etc. under Confession

My application (request? submission? plea?) for gastric bypass surgery has been rejected. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama will not pay for the operation because the paperwork has not be filled out to their specification. They have it all, every single piece, every test, every record, every fax. In fact, they have nine months worth of material instead of just six. But my doctor didn’t include the notes they wanted him to include (and nowhere in the coverage explation does it indicate what exactly should be included).

I’ve already moved on to plan a.1. There’s a form, and if my doctor fills that out and faxes it back to the surgeon’s office and the surgeon’s office faxes back to Blue Cross and Blue Cross decides they might like to look at things (it took them more than six weeks to reject me) then maybe I might possibly be approved. Or not. It’s all far more capricious than it should be, considering I pay all these people vast sums of money to care for my health. The right care at the right time? How about you remove my stomach and you do it now?

If plan a.1 doens’t work, then I need to determine if I follow plan b, which is try again, only this time going to a surgeon specific doctor who knows what to write. I know what you’re thinking– why didn’t I do that in the first place? I have a family doctor, who already had all my records, who assured me I was a good candidate and that I would be no means be rejected. Can you fault me for trusting him? If so, welcome to the club. I’ve been doing nothing else since 2:15 this afternoon. Not just fat, kids– fat and stupid!

Plan c is not worrying about it anymore, living my life, doing my thing, the same way I’ve always done it. The drawback to plan c is that I hate myself, so living my life isn’t much use and doing my thing is getting harder and harder. Plan c.1 is living my life, except this time really really trying hard at losing weight on my own– obviously it’s worked so well in the past. Feel free to suggest a diet in the comments. I’ll bet you a dollar I’ve tried it. I’ve been at this for 27 years.

Plan d is lie down and die. In the spirit of guerilla sincerity, plan d looks very appealing, honestly. I am very, very tired. Mostly of having my life affected drastically by the benign neglect, ineptitude, and/or fastidious persons or entities against which I have little to no recourse.

Plan a.1 for now.

7 responses so far

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