just what everybody has taking up space

from our locak Freecycle list:

WANTED: SAD light
Full spectrum SAD light - 10,000 lumens preferably. If you have one & it's just taking up space, I'll put it to good use.

Doesn’t everybody have one of these taking up space? I guess this person doesn’t have a clue taking up space in their house.

butternut squash sauce for pasta

I tried something for the first time and it turned out pretty well. Iresearched some similar recipes and came up with my own. It wasn’ t incredible or anything, but it was worth eating.

Anyone ever do anything similar? I’d love to get suggestions for improving this recipe. Obviously, I started with a rather small quantity of squash (didn’t want to waste much in case it was lousy) so many of the ingredients are in pretty small units.

• 1 1/2 cup butternut squash puree
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/8 cup finely minced yellow onion
• 3/8 teaspoon ground sage
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon dark brown sugar

Sautee the garlic and onion in the olive oil in a small pan. Then combine all other ingredients in a sauce pan and cook slowly for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

what file extension are you?

for all the geeks… what file extension are you? Apparently I’m a .ogg.

Which File Extension are You?

upon further review, beggars opt to not be choosers

Isn’t it frustratingly ironic when “beggars” opt to be “choosers” as well?

The Marine Reserves’ Toys For Tots program has announced that it will accept 4,000 “talking Jesus dolls.” They had earlier declined.

“The talking Jesus doll issue has been resolved,” the organization announced on its Web site Wednesday. “Toys for Tots has found appropriate places for these items. We have notified the donor of our willingness to handle this transaction.”

In explaining the initial decision, Bill Grein, vice president of Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, in Quantico, Va., had said the program didn’t want to take the risk of offending a Jewish or Muslim family if they received a Jesus doll.

I’m not sure if I’ve lost what respect I did have for the Toys For Tots program.

here comes leonid

This weekend is the annual Leonid meteor shower. The peak will be at 11:45 EST this Saturday.

oh! gravity

The latest from Switchfoot. And, if you don’t get it, here’s the story behind it.

do I exist?

I found another one of those interesting web “quiz” type things. But, unlike the geek quiz (which I knew I would “ace”), this one troubles me.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

So, does that mean that I don’t exist?

another reason I love working at home

ooooops

In the most recent election, a voter in Broward County in Florida mailed in an absentee ballot. Sounds good, since we know that voters there have a little trouble figuring out how to read the ballots on election day.

What is interesting about the ballot is that the person used a very rare stamp to mail the ballot–rare enough to be worth somewhere in the $500,000 range. Yeah–oops.

But, ready for the ironic part? The person didn’t follow the instructions and the ballot was disqualified. So… there goes $500,000 for nothing. What’s with folks in Florida? Can’t vote correctly at the polls, can’t vote correctly by mail.

and… they’re in

I got all the bulbs planted. That’s 800 daffodils (actually more like 900 since so many were so large and already dividing, I went ahead and divided them and planted them separately) and 100 tulips (yeah, I thought they gave me 50 free but it was actually 100). How long? About 9 hours split up on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Not bad. Now, to the sofa to put a heating pad on my back and dream about how great the front yard is going to look come spring.