Nov 26

Geeking It Out

I had my cooking extravaganza on Thursday, and yesterday was my first day of my second beta weekend for Star Wars: The Old Republic. We are no longer under gag order so I can write about it. Unfortunately for most of you cats, it means that you have to sit through a blog about a video game. I am excited and it is my blog, so I do what I want.

I wasn’t going to get the game at first because of my fears about it taking over my life and interrupting my writing. I am going to counteract this by only using game cards so if I don’t write enough, I won’t have my game automatically renewed. Also, I started a Face Book group for my beta readers so, even though they never say anything, I feel accountable to a group of people for getting it done. The game is awesome. I am going to educate you as to why.

Questing and Companions:

I thought I was going to skip the game because I heard all of the quests were given in a conversation and cut scene. I thought this would get obnoxious. Turns out, I was wrong. The things I love in an mmo is questing, lore, and professions. The conversations with the quests not only gives you a chance to immerse in the game but it also steeps you in lore. It helps you feel more attached to your toon.

I didn’t really get the companion idea until I started to play. Basically, every body gets helpers. They really change the way you play because they fight with you, do errands, get mad at you if you do stuff they don’t like, and provide an interesting side character. The companion with my smuggler makes the character so much more fun.

Two Sides:

The Republic:

These are the light users like the Jedi. They are the “good guys.” Unlike the other mmos I have played with factions, this side really is good versus versus bad, unlike in Rift and WoW where it was just one different looking group from another.  My max level character is only 14 but so far the focus of the quests have been restoring law and order and fighting corruption.  All of the people on the Republic side aren’t all hippie do-gooders, but most of them don’t have an evil lair, and they fight those that do have an evil lair, if only for monies.

The Empire:

These are the doods on the dark side, or the Sith. I have gotten a toon to 12 on the Sith side, and I really didn’t like it. I know some people really dig being the bad guy, but mostly the pervasive black hat bad guy stuff got on my nerves. Yes, we get that you are evil, will you please stfu now. On the plus side, the second zone for the Sith is freaking stunning.

The Classes:

There are four classes with a different coordinating name depending on if you go hippie or villain. I have played two for any length. I tried to roll a Sith Knight but I freaking hate pure melee classes and the Sith force users starting grounds piss me off, so I think I might have got her to level 3, maybe, but probably not.

Jedi Consular:

This is the first class I played because I love casters, and this is Star Wars real casting class. I only got my first one up to level 11 because I thought I wouldn’t want to get too familiar with the Republic quests so when the game came out, I would still want to play, so I went over to the Sith side. The spell effects are awesome. I love hurling a chunk of rock at bad guys. The Jedi do get on my nerves though. I have never been much for a lawful good character. I was willing to stick through it for the casting abilities though.

The Sith side had a different problem. The class quests were freaking obnoxious because the main Sith Sorcerer dude was so stereotypically “I’m a villain” that I really wanted to kick him in the scrot… hard

Smugglers:

This beta weekend I found my true love, smugglers. You get to play Captain Fucking Mal or, in my case, Zoey. They can either be hide behind stuff and shoot shit or they can be stealthy, shoot shit from behind, and heal. I went for the second option, except I don’t sneak. I throw a grenade into a group and go in blasting and, you know, heal. My character has this move she can do were she kicks the enemy in the nuts and the enemy is stunned while it is bent over in pain. I like to follow this up with a shot to the head. The bonus with the smugglers is that their companion speaks common so you don’t have a strange clicking hissing voice and subtitles like you do with a consular, and the companion’s personality is epic. He isn’t as straight laced as the lizard guy.

 

 

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Nov 24

So Many Lame Cooking Puns

I am at a loss for anything really interesting to write. I blame all the food I have stuffed into my stomach. I have been looking forward to today for weeks because I made my first Thanksgiving meal.

I started this morning with jiggly puffs and bacon for breakfast. I have learned baking helps put me into a good mood into the morning. (I know, freaking bizarre, right?) I danced around my kitchen singing ‘Zombies on Your Lawn’ and baked my happy little heart out.

I was going to use a packaged injector mix but my sister told me it was bad so I had to get creative. I made apple turkey. I cut up and cored the an apple and put it in the cavity then put the turkey in an oven bag. I mixed four tablespoons of melted butter with a cup and a half of apple juice and some poultry seasonings and shot up my turkey like an addict on a bender.  I rubbed the turkey with butter and sprinkled it with poultry seasoning, Tony Chachere’s (it is a cajun seasoning that my family puts on everything), and sea salt and garlic grinder salt. So good. I hear it is hard to screw up a turkey and that I might be over proud of myself.

Then I made a bunch of other stuff that I am proud of for being tricky and awesome.

I went out for a walk with my dad and we did a wienie dog rescue. We found this little red wienie dog running around in the road. We picked him up and called the number on his collar and brought him home. The family had a little six year old boy who was very happy to see his dog.

Food coma recommencing. I can at least say I did a Thursday blog.

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Nov 22

It’s Butter Y’all

I am starting my blog with a side note. I know it doesn’t make sense but I don’t care.

I was laying in bed about 7/15ths (I freaking love fractions) asleep thinking about today’s blog and I either dreamed I sneezed or I actually sneezed. I don’t know which but I do know it woke me all the way up because I tried to find evidence of said sneeze and ended up making fun of myself and decided to write this down. This was so much funnier in my head. It is 2am and my allergies are driving me batshit. GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK people, sheesh.

Anyway, now that I have the lame story done, I realized while I was kind of asleep that I am making a Paula Deen Thanksgiving with hot buttery madness. I don’t know how my turkey will turn out but I am going to make some of my jiggly puffs for breakfast and I would like to share my jiggly puff recipe with you guys.

Not mine

This is OBVIOUSLY not something I cooked but you get the point. They made them look far more delicious than I could.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got the the recipe from my handy dandy Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and adapted it a bit. The original name was ‘Nun’s Puffs’ but I changed them since I adapted the recipe, pokemon is more appropriate for anything I do, and nun’s puffs sound like strange Catholic fetish porn.

The Ingredients:

1 entire stick of butter

3/4 cups of flour

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon plus some more sugar

4 eggs

like a tablespoon of good vanilla (it is okay to have cheap crap but really you should have one thing of good vanilla too for times like these.)

The Steps:

First pre-heat the oven to 350. The recipe said 375 but I have a ghetto oven with a broken knob that only has 350 degrees marked so everything in my house gets cooked at 350. Then Crisco the hell out of a muffin pan. It needs to be a twelve slotter. The recipe said a 12 -2in cupcake pan. I guess that is what I had since it worked out well.

Sift the flour into a separate bowl. I am a big fan of sifting flour. It is supposedly unnecessary with the new hi-tech flour but I take the time to do it anyway since my baking needs any advantage it can get. Also, I spent the six bucks on the sifter and I like the cool sounds it makes when I use the handle trigger thing.

Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan. My first variation from the recipe happened here, mostly because I read the directions badly. I threw in the tablespoon of sugar at this step. I had read the recipe three times and couldn’t figure out where the hell the sugar went and I decided to throw it in right here. On my fourth reading of the recipe, I saw the directions to sprinkle the sugar on top of the dough right before putting them in the oven. You live, you learn. I also poured in some vanilla. I have no real idea how much. More than a teaspoon, less than four tablespoons. I would guess a tablespoon.

Add the cup of milk and stir it until it boils because milk will leave that weird film on your pan if you don’t. I think the recipe specifies using a wooden spoon, I don’t know. I use my wooden spoons anyway because I love them.

Dump the flour in and stir the crap out of it with the heat still on. Try to bust up the pockets of dry flour. You will know the dough is cooked when you can stir it into a ball and it stays that way. Turn off the stove and walk away for five minutes.

Here is the annoying step: the eggs. Add an egg and stir the crap out of the mixture until the egg is fully incorporated and the shine of the egg slime is gone. Do this for all four eggs one at a time. I don’t know why you have to do it for each egg individually. The recipe told me to and I decided not to be a hero and add all of the eggs at once.

Put the dough (which is an odd consistency somewhere between a dough and a batter) into the cupcake pan. It said 2/3 full. Common sense. Oh yeah, make sure you have Crisco’ed the edges around the cups because it will expand and puff over the side, thus having ‘puff’ in the name. Sprinkle more sugar on the tops.

Cook until brown and then flip out of the pan immediately. I suggest topping with something sweetish like jelly or honey. The jiggly puffs taste kind of like custard and are very delicate but not very sweet at all.

So yeah…. That was my attempt at food blogging.

 

 

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Nov 19

The Future

The plan was to write about the future of the site. Here it goes: much the same as it is now. This is working for me so I am going to keep it.

Okay I take that back.

I might be switching hosts. The host I am using right now just charged me almost double what I owe. I have sent in two billing tickets now. I could pay to get my ticket set up as a priority but it will be a cold day in hell when I pay someone to read that they fucked up and charged me double. I have found a better hosting service at the recommendation of the Irish overlord, Paul O’ Flaherty. If anyone knows about good hosts, its Paul and Sara. Go Daddy is charging ten dollars a year more than what I pay for 6 months. Just Host is going to have to pull something wonderful out of their ass if they want to keep me. (Like they would really give a shit, though.)

My future for the next several days will be researching how to migrate hosts without losing everything I have done for the past year.  I am so spitting mad right now. I know there are other more important things going on but I am seriously just annoyed.

The temple will continue on. Let us just hope I don’t break it too bad. I will let folks know when/if I decide to move.

If I happen to have any lurking readers who haven’t ‘liked’ the site on FaceBook or followed me on twitter, you might want to since I will keep those updated. Plus, I swear and say dirty things on twitter a lot.

I am just so pissed.

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Nov 18

Hiiitchaaaaaa

First, a rabbit

Cut a bitch bunny

 

So here’s the deal. I am incredibly fucking hyper and I took two shots of tequila. I am by no means drunk but I have a fine fuzz going on. Hyper for me is far more enjoyable than drunk sometimes. It is also far stranger. (I think, in all honesty, I am always, well drunk, when I am drunk and my judgement of the situation might be a bit skewed.)

Okay, first, I have been actually drunk twice in the past four years. I don’t drink often and I don’t drink enough to get actually drunk drunk ever. I am far too lazy for that.

Anyway, I am very hyper and bored and this is the most dangerous time. This is when I am most likely to make a complete ass out of myself. Naturally, I decided to blog and tell you guys stuff.

Mostly, I was just having a lot of internal conversations. SO many in fact that I was unable to write my book. I have been told by the one person that has read my revisions that my dialogue is too proper. I want to answer “because I talk a little like a crazy person with an odd vocabulary. You should see my tweets.”

My friends made fun of me one time many years ago when I was very drunk and told them that I was having trouble figuring out the logistics of making a rum and root beer. Apparently, normal people don’t use the word “logistics” when they are drunk. People, I work real hard to talk like a normal person when I am not hyper and sober. Cut me a break.

That was going somewhere. I swear.

I don’t remember. Oh well.

Anyway, I was having some very interesting conversations in my head and I thought I would share them. Of course, now that I am writing this I don’t remember them. It’s a bit vexing.

Vexing needs to come back into people’s active vocabulary.

*shiny*

Yeah, just FYI, my dog looks like Doug from ‘UP’ and it really pisses me off that people are freaking out that Ryan Gossling didn’t get voted sexiest man. People are protesting and shit. Fucking really? If you care that much about it then you need some serious priorities check.

MSN fills my mind with this bullshit. I have the stupidest crap shoe horned into my brain.

The term “douchetard” needs to become popular in the media. It could do amazing things.

I wish I could raise one eyebrow. I would randomly look at strangers and raise an eyebrow at them and after they became uncomfortable I would say in a very serious voice, “Imma be famous, you don’t even know.”

Just so you know, this is how the background of my mind ALWAYS sounds. It is why I seem like such an airhead sometimes. There is a lot of shit bouncing around in my head at any given time. It is also why I have to have many things going on for me to focus, if I don’t have stimuli my brain just bounces around.

I think about math and how to figure out problems in my head a lot too. And science. I will be laying in bed trying to figure out how to figure out a problem or be randomly thinking about shit like astronomy and biology. A lot of times I want to call Tina but is is normally 4 am or I am in wal-mart. I also do Punnett squares in my head for fun.

I feel far better about the zombie apocalypse now that Tina told me I would be dead.

Attention makes me feel pretty.

So I am pretty sure everyone like getting attention at times. My problem is that I don’t know how to get attention like normal people. I end up calling my friends and leaving “PAY ATTENTION TO ME” on their voice mail.

I think this is why I think most of my friends are relieved that I only call two people, well, if they aren’t one of those two people.  Feel pity for Tina.

another rabbit

thats a huge btch

hmm seems normal to me

 

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Nov 17

Plans? Silly Woman!

In my mind, I was going to write this epic year in review post that was moving and insightful and summed up every awesome thing I have ever written. Turns out I did that already with my 100th Blog post.

Oh yeah, Kathleen linked this to me and, since this is my damn blog, I am embedding it here even though it has nothing to do with anything.

So I wrote out two paragraphs linking things. I hated those paragraphs. I am struggling with the idea of this blog but I think it is because I am working too hard to present a certain thing. I am not so good at that.

I feel like I have said everything I would say here many times before. The only thing I am going to say again is “Thank You”

My world lately has been so wrapped up in writing. When it comes time to blog, all I want to write about is writing, the things I want to write about, or Star Wars The Old Republic. I worry a lot about being interesting or funny or insightful. Mostly, I think I should stop worrying about that.

I forget sometimes that so much of my happiness comes from accepting myself and being as open and honest as I can be here. I forget sometimes that the reason why this blog works is because I am willing to write boring shit sometimes as an exchange for the honesty.  I forget to accept the crappy posts with the good posts.

I am pisssed right now because I am feeling so insecure. I am hoping that insecurity is a normal human emotion. I am working on the premise that it is cyclical and the only weapon we have against it is to see it and try to see why it is wrong.

The happy news is that I am not insecure about my writing. I finally finished revising my first chapter and I think it will be far easier from here on out. I went back and read a lot of my posts and it turns out that I have some pretty killer posts. I am feeling pretty good with my abilities.

I am feeling ugly. I hate admitting that. I hate admitting that I am feeling insecure about my looks. It feels like a silly thing to be insecure about. Logically, it makes no sense since insecurity makes you even less attractive, but when have I ever been ruled by logic?

I wasn’t going to write about it since it feels like whining and fishing for sympathy and compliments but it is blocking my ability to write about other things. Normally when I try avoid writing about something that is really bugging me, I get frustrated with the fake feel of my blog.

So here it is: I feel ugly and unattractive.

I know it isn’t true. I do really know this. I also think that it is normal for women to feel like this on occasion. It becomes an ugly cycle because we feel less attractive so we start to hide in ourselves and then we get lost in the dullness that we cover ourselves in and then we have to fight even harder to get back to the shiny we had going before something set off the ugly cycle.

I can’t think of anything in particular that set off the ugly cycle. I know I will recover my shiny soon. I think I need to get back to working out like I was before I got the stomach flu.  I like me better when I work out.

On a side note: I found post it notes. I love post it notes. I have an office supply compulsion but post it notes are a particular weakness of mine. I have neon yellow post it notes with my crazy five-year old scrawl covering the sides of my computer screen. Simple things, people, simple things.

Also, Tina is a silly and my site is the right amount of feminine for a site with goddess in the title. Plus, I like purple

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Nov 15

Let the Celebration Begin

 

 

 

So Thursday is the one year anniversary of the first blog post on my site. Back in those days, my blog was what I referred to as a ‘thematic experiment.’ I picked a theme and wrote blogs on that theme on my three blog days.  November was my first month, but I had started it on a random free WordPress site (forever lost in the world of the internet), and then halfway through the month bought my very own website and thus The Temple was born.

I bought the site earlier in the week and reposted all of the stuff from the now lost blog on the 17th and wrote my very first post for Temple on the 18th. It is hard to choose an exact birthday for my site, so I am taking the whole week. Here is the festivity plan: today I am going to ramble a bunch about  my blog’s birthday. Thursday I am going to have a “best of” day where I pick a few blogs and write about why they are important. If any of you guys have a favorite lemme know in comments on on Face Book. I would love to hear from you guys about what you like or dislike. Writers are the neediest sonsabitches around, we need feedback, we thrive on feedback, so if there was ever a time for feedback, it is now.

I am too tired to write coherently, so I am not even going to try and explain why this site means so much to me. I think that is best served Thursday after I have had some time to prepare my thoughts.The idea of starting my celebration today came up five minutes before I started writing, and I had to switch out of Star Wars: The Old Republic thought mode. So I am going to do this today:

Your turn. Tell me. Help me make Thursday and Saturday interactive and meaningful for my loyal readers. (Hey, I am only being a bit lazy,)

 

 

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Nov 10

A Jumble of Thoughts

So I have had about forty-three things run through my head as topics for today’s blog but I am not able to focus well enough to concentrate well enough on one thing. I have decided to say some stuff about some things and let you guys sort it out however you see fit.

I am home now. My dog was so happy that she didn’t let me out of her sight for more than three minutes. Apparently, while I was gone she would scratch at my door every night and go look at my mom like “why the hell won’t you make her come out of there and pet me.” Happiness is a weinie dog.

I went to a beauty supply store with my mom before I came home. At the store, I looked into a mirror and found three grey hairs. I swore profusely about them and whined that I had just turned 30. My mom laughed at me… a lot.

I came home and found an amazing card Kathleen sent me. It reminded me that I am awesome, even with my grey hairs. It made me feel better and I cried. I have it propped up on my CPU right beside a random orange desk lamp that showed up in my room. It makes me happy. (The card, not the lamp. Well, the lamp makes me a bit happy.)

I am on the third book in the Twilight series. I am going to go to the library tomorrow and try to get the fourth. After I read the fourth, I plan on writing a guide to reading the series. It will be informative.

I have a beta invite for Star Wars this weekend. I am stoked.

Tina and I finished The Colony. We continued our conversation about what our role in the post apocalyptic world. Tina finally looked at me and said, “Selina, lets be real here, you don’t need to worry about this. You would be dead. I can’t see any scenario otherwise, especially if it were a biologic outbreak with your kitten like immune system. Even if you did manage to live, you would die quickly after from some bacteria or strange skin allergy.” Two things: 1) she is absolutely correct I am not meant for the post apocalyptic world and 2) I think she is secretly planning to take over the world after while it is weak and her enemies are few.

I realized why writers are all crazy as hell…. If we weren’t we would be good at other jobs.

Not going to lie here. I have completely lost focus. I looked at my facebook and posted something about jiggly man bits and that memory wiped everything.

 

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Nov 08

I Really Did That To Myself

I am still at Tina’s house because I am in quarantine. My stomach is very angry with me.  Tina and her kids are both fine but her mom seems to have something like this too. I can only think it is one of several things:  a virus that doesn’t affect the strong or children under the age 10, I heard her mom was sick and thought myself sick (let us be honest, it IS within the realm of possibility), my body decided it hates me, or I am patient zero for the coming zombie apocalypse.  If it is the last option, Tina has a chainsaw so it is all good.

So this ailment has been here for a few days and I am trying not to whine so much that Tina smothers in my sleep. I tried both not eating and eating only things that would be gentle on my stomach. I learned it really doesn’t make a difference, no matter what I do my stomach is still pissed and I am hungry and pissed that I am not eating my birthday cake. In my standard logical and rational style, I have decided to take the tiny increase in pain and eat when I am hungry.  I handle pain better when I am not also hungry. It also decreases my chance of being such a bitch that Tina poisons me and blame’s my kitten like immune system. Just saying.

Speaking of being a total masochist, I read Twilight. I started last night and finished about an hour ago. Okay, I need to explain some stuff first.

I have this pretentious belief that you shouldn’t judge books, movies, music, etc unless you have heard it. I am generally pretty good at sticking to this unless it is Twilight or Jersey Shore. I still feel okay making fun of Snooki because I feel seeing her terrible tan is enough. Twilight, though, I had only seen internet stuff making fun of it. I hadn’t read the books or watched the movies. I still couldn’t help myself from making fun of it.

When I started to take myself seriously as a writer, people told me that I needed to read the books so I could see what was so popular. I shrugged it off. Secretly, I was a bit resistant to reading it because of an irrational fear that it might not be as bad as everyone thought it was and I would have to eat crow. I decided not to read it.

Two weeks ago, though, that changed. I was in my living room and made a crack about Twilight. My mom (one of the major people trying to get me to read the series) looked at me with an arched eyebrow and asked: “Well, Selina, have you read them?”

“No”

“Then you can’t make fun of them, then can you?”

“Fuck.”

Tina has the books. (It is not her fault, so don’t judge her.) After I ran out of the library books I brought with me, I uttered a phrase I never imagined I would say. “Can I borrow your Twilight books?” I am pretty sure that is actually what brought on the earthquakes.

I have finished the first one. I am going to read all four. Tina only has the first three so I am going to find the fourth somewhere. I know our library has them, but I will have a hard time looking my library friends in the eye while checking it out. I am a book snob, a literary hipster even, I admit it. My shame burns bright. I will probably handle Lanell judging me a lot better than actually spending money on the book.

So, about my secret fear that I would like the book and have to eat crow, it was completely unfounded. I am not going to go on at any length at why the books were bad. People have done it before with far more skill than I ever will. I can see that Stephenie Meyer had some really cool ideas but she just got in the way of them. I do have to make fun of one little thing , though, when Edward is trying to explain why he love Bella to Bella, all he can come up with is that she smells like great food and she is warm. Basically, he loves her because she is the vampire equivalent of chocolate cake.

Holy shit, I have been searching for all the wrong things in men. I just need a man who has a normal body temperature and smells like chocolate and bacon.

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Nov 05

With My Birthday Came Earthquakes

I love Tina

This cake was on the table this morning. How could my day not be great?

I am trying to think of things to write that aren’t kind of sappy and Pollyanna, but the truth is, I am happy. I am very, truly, happy. I am filled with hope and optimism. I feel so blessed that I am tearing up. Of course, I am an emotional person so I cry with every emotion. I think it is one of my blessings. So I am going to just write what is going through my head.

Thank you.  No, really, thank you. Sometimes life is hard and sucks, sometimes it is beautiful like it is today. It is the nature of life. The very, very best thing I have going into my 3rd decade is that I know I have people who I know love and care about me. When I went into my twenties, I didn’t have that knowledge. I had friends, but I would never have guessed that I would have the people in my life that I have now. For someone who always felt strange and somehow wrong, knowing that you have people who love you for exactly who you are is the single greatest thing. My life is full of love and support. All of my happiness, hope, and joy springs directly from that.

I haven’t felt that birthdays were about gifts in a long time. I think they are a time to tell the special people in your life that you are excited that they are on the earth and in your life. I believe my birthday is realizing how many people care about having me in their lives and celebrating their role in my life.

I think birthdays are about being excited about what comes next. I have so much ahead of me. This past year has been a crazy ride but it has been amazing. I wouldn’t have traded a second of it, even the dark painful parts. I discovered myself and I got to see how much love is out there for me if I am willing to accept it. Sometimes I feel like smacking myself on my forehead for not realizing how simple the secret to happiness is. Happiness is simply being open to the good, accepting the bad and allowing yourself to learn from it, accepting yourself, loving people for who they are and allowing them to love you back, and weinie dogs. That’s it. I hope I can remember that.

I love that there was earthquakes today and no one got hurt. I love that I have m first draft done on my first book done and last night the revising went so well. I love that it is Guy Fawkes day. Today, I feel like I can roar into my next chapter of my life. The earth is shaking because it knows I am coming for it.

Again, thank you for being in my life and putting up with my shit. I have learned so much through you guys.

Okay I am all done being all girly and emo.

Tina makes awesome nerd references.

 

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