renegadeRICEcracker

happy all hallow's eve!

i had a full on zombie nightmare this morning. can you believe that? it was pretty freaking scary. zombies everywhere, killing/eating people, and people turning into zombies all around. it was like a horror movie, too, with music and sound effects when they revealed dreadful things people were doing to protect their children (such as popping an eyeball out and replacing it with a blinking red light that indicated there was some kind of tracking/security system installed. yes, just like a car, except that the pupil would blink. very T2-esque). my mom was in the dream too, toward the end, where we were helping some guy take care of his baby (it was very small, with the signature blinking red eye), but he was already half-zombie, and i think the baby was going too, because i remember his saying something about it already having gotten its wings. i clearly remember this man's heavy, phlegmy, zombie breathing. i was just trying to get my mom outta there, fast. ick.

i then spent an hour half-awake/half-dreaming about the zombies, the entire period of which i kept telling myself to stop thinking about the zombies because i was awake and didn't have to. aiya.

my pumpkin is dead.

mimi looked up pumpkin preservation techniques on the internet (wipe with cold water, spray with lysol), and accordingly sprayed down our pumpkins on saturday night. nonetheless, by yesterday when i got home, my pumpkin's eyes were filled with white and the back of his ears were going green.

by the time i came into the living room area this morning, he had fallen onto his back, and an ear came off. he was filled with white/green mold, and the back of his ears was black.

*sigh*

he never even had a name.

air supply and pumpkins, but not together

last weekend a group of (ex-)co-workers and i went to see AIR SUPPLY in agoura hills. that's right, i said air supply. it was awesome. the venue had a bunch of big round tables -- you have dinner first, and then the show came on; it was like dinner theater but with air supply. props to the straight man (girlfriend hanging on the arm) who was secure enough in his manhood to stand up and bellow, "I LOVE YOU AIR SUPPLY!!!" in the middle of a song. another thing that was awesome was the complete lack of irony or play on cheesiness on part of the performers: "we're all here tonight for one reason... and that reason is romance." it was too good. i took a little video of them playing all out of love (seriously, they sing deeply into each others' eyes far too much to be legitimately married to their wives), and afterward we took a picture with them.

this past weekend i held another pumpkin massacre event. this was great fun, in an entirely different way than seeing air supply. we drank, we ate, we wielded kid-safe knives. fantastic.

oodles of noodles in china

hah! i knew we invented them first. take that, italy!

Oodles of old noodles found in China
By Alexa Olesen, Associated Press
BEIJING — And you thought your leftovers were old. A 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles has been discovered at an archaeological site in western China — possible proof for the argument that China invented pasta before Italy. "These are definitely the earliest noodles ever found," said Lu Houyuan, a researcher with the Institute of Geology in Beijing who studied the ingredients of the pristinely preserved pasta.

The discovery of the delicate yellow noodles in Minhe County in China's western province of Qinghai is reported in this week's edition of Nature magazine.

"Chinese people say Marco Polo brought noodles from China back to Italy and Italians say they had noodles before that," Lu said. "All this has been based on documentary material, on personal accounts and menus. But we've been unable to find any actual material — until now."

The fist-size clump of noodles was found inside an overturned bowl under three meters (10 feet) of sediment from a flood that researchers suspect wiped out the Qijia Culture of the Late Neolithic era.

When researchers lifted up the bowl, they discovered the 50-centimeter-long (20-inch-long) noodles sitting atop an inverted cone of clay that had sealed the bowl, it said.

The noodles were made from a dough of two local varieties of millet — broomcorn and foxtail millet — rather than the more common wheat or rice. The dough was pulled into long strands before being boiled.

Rice noodles are popular in southern China while northerners rely mostly on wheat to make their noodles, dumplings and bread.

The excavation site area is located is now populated mainly by China's Muslim ethnic Hui minority. The region's poorer farmers reportedly still eat millet noodles, said contributing researcher Ye Maoling, though he has yet to try them for himself.

Lu and Ye say they plan to eventually try making millet noodles like those found at the Lajia archaeological site themselves

coffee, golf and strangers, not necessarily in that order

last weekend mimi and i went to sacramento: 1) to attend her 10-year high school reunion, and 2) so i could meet her parents-who-were-not-so-interested-in-meeting-me. while up there, we also hit up davis and visited //k (i'm sorry, i know you post as 'cb', but i'm a big fan of your "that's slash slash k to you" e-mail signature).

friday night we went to club 21, which i guess is normally a lesbian club, but due to some throaty female performer it was a much more mixed crowd. while there, we saw: 1) an interesting "spinning lesbian" who spent her entire time on the dance floor demonstrating different sorts of pivots, 2) a short and squat lesbian get increasingly more aggressive as she approached people on the dance floor, in the end just reaching out and grabbing any hot woman who walked by, and 3) an incredibly drunken frat boy who probably would not be happy to discover that he made out with a trannie for half an hour in the corner. such fun.

saturday we had to get up super early so i could go shopping because i forgot to bring shoes for the reunion. then we drove to davis and had lunch with mimi's parents, brother, sister, brother-in-law, and baby nephew. it was awkward. very very awkward. it seemed like no one knew what to do so instead they all just ignored me (though, this wasn't as much the parents' fault, since they were way on the other end). it was perhaps one of the most painful meals of my life.

afterward, we met up with //k, drank coffee, and then went to a driving range. i had never been to a driving range before, and it was great fun. //k had been earlier that week and served as our golf instructor. i loved it, and //k has volunteered to vouch that she saw me hit some "nice, straight (”forward” just doesn’t work in this sentence) piiinging shots". this was great and therapeutic to clear my head from the aforementioned painful meal. sadly, mimi was not into it (at all), so i will have to find someone else to talk about taking lessons with me until my enthusiasm ebbs and my lazy ass doesn't do a damn thing. here are some exciting action shots:

//k paying for golf balls and dumping them out:

me whacking unceremoniously at the ball:

(yes, the ball is still on the tee in that first shot. i do have to say, though, that i hit the ball on my first swing. just not this one.)

saturday night we went to mimi's high school reunion. it was good. i think a much bigger percentage of her much smaller high school class attended than mine at my reunion. there were definitely some asian mafia people who were all shocked that she brought a woman, and therefore unable to really talk to her. but one woman (married with 4 kids, no less) was able to suck it up and come chat after initially scurrying off nervously. i ended the night playing darts (it was at the sacramento yacht club) with one of mimi's friend's husbands. here are pictures from the night:

sunday we met up with a different one of mimi's friends and saw her new house, which is in the process of being built. all the space this girl is going to have made me very jealous. then we had an early dinner with her family, this time sans brother-in-law. this dinner went much better. her parents are pretty friendly to me, they just seem to completely separate me from the fact that i am dating their daughter. we had good chinese food, including crab. mmm.

then we flew home and were dead beat from the very busy weekend. indeed, this long-ass post has tired me out all over again. bye.

happy national coming out day!

in case you didn't know already, I SLEEP WITH WOMEN (okay, technically, right now i only sleep with one woman). there. i said it.

in honor of ncod, here is a questionnaire mimi sent me today:

HETEROSEXUAL QUESTIONNAIRE
M. Rochlin

1. What do you think caused your heterosexuality?

2. When and how did you first decide you were heterosexual?

3. Is it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?

4. Is it possible your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same gender?

5. If you've never slept with a person of the same gender, is it possible that all you need is a good Lesbian/Gay lover?

6. To whom have you disclosed your heterosexual tendencies? How did they
react?

7. Why do you heterosexuals feel compelled to seduce others into your lifestyle?

8. Why do you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality? Can't you just be what you are and keep it quiet?

9. Would you want your children to be heterosexual, knowing the problems they'd face?

10. A disproportionate majority of child molesters are heterosexuals. Do you consider it safe to expose your children to heterosexual teachers?

11. With all the societal support marriage among heterosexuals receives, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?

12. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?

13. Considering the menace of overpopulation, how could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual like you?

14. Could you trust a heterosexual therapist to be objective? Don't you fear s/he might be inclined to influence you in the direction of her/his leanings?

15. How can you become a whole person if you limit yourself to compulsive, exclusive heterosexuality, and fail to develop your natural, healthy homosexual potential?

16. There seem to be very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed which might enable you to change if you want to. Have you considered trying aversion therapy?

"i earned it!"

this morning on kroq i heard that paris-the-girl broke up with her fiance paris-the-boy (with her new boyfriend listening in on the phone -- classy!). apparently paris-the-boy's close friends are laughing at her because she told us magazine that paris-the-boy told her that she could keep the engagement ring because she "earned" it -- apparently she was too stupid to realize that he was insulting her by saying that she earned the ring through sexual favors like a hooker. ha. hahaha.

(sorry, //k, i am holding off on blogging about the sac trip and the fabulous time you showed us until my lazy ass uploads the pictures to go along with it. tonight. i promise!)

i am an idiot

i have this new camera that i'm excited about, right? and last night i got to see tara and amy for the first time in almost two years, right? (it was great! we went to here for drinks and watched the sceney femmy lesbians.) you would think the natural consequence of these two factors coming together is that i would have taken a picture of all of us hanging out. nope. forgot. i somehow did not take a single photo of us despite the fact that i did in my new buyer excitement take out the camera and show it to them.

aiya. well, if i'd taken a picture of us, it would have gone: HERE.

but there's nothing. sorry.

it's here! yay!

i've been wanting a new digital camera for about half a year now. i dearly love my minolta dimage x (really, i do. it was the first digital camera to be its size for its quality 3 years ago, and it's still pretty damn small for what's out there, too), but i got it when they first came out, it's only 2.0MP, and it's been dropped, well, many times. i spent some time thinking about different brands and what choices might improve on the few qualms i had about my camera (low-light situations, shutter reaction time). then i saw a press release for the new dimage x1. 8.0MP (the highest in MP for a camera its size, actually). anti-shake. HUGE LCD screen. high-resolution video. shiny, sleek, dark metal. and exactly the price for which i purchased my first dimage x.

quite unlike me, i actually did try to do some research before deciding to purchase this magnificent piece of machinery. i called bel-air camera and talked to someone there about the different brands out there, which might be better for what, and in the end she recommended that i buy the dimage x1. and she wasn't even going to make a sale from me in this conversation.

the dimage x1 was released on september 24. despite my having pre-ordered it, unlike my pre-ordered harry potter book 6, it did not arrive on the release day. instead, i got some nebulous e-mail noting a delay of up to a month. so imagine my excitement when it arrived. today. it's beautiful. i love this thing.

(i'm sorry, i know this probably isn't that interesting to you people. but i'm so excited. yay!)

through a father's eyes...

that's supposed to put you in a positive light, no?

on saturday, my dad and his wife came to visit, and went with mimi and me to the king tut exhibit and then my aunt's 65th birthday party. i had styled my hair that day, which i do on occasion when i am not feeling as lazy as usual. this process involves both a hair-dryer and a flat-iron, and is a big pain in the ass. when my dad saw me, the first thing he said was: "did you just wash your hair, or is it supposed to look that way?"

nice. real nice.