Oh my god. Deep-fried macaroni and cheese sounds like The. Best. Ooh, now I’m envisioning a whole dinner party of all deep-fried foods. You could have the mac-and-cheese as appetizer, turkey and waffle fries as the main, and Oreos and Mexican fried ice cream as dessert! And then die. (Link courtesy of my fellow white-trash diet devotee Max.)

Yes, I recognize the irony of posting about eating deep-fried junk food five minutes after urging everyone to follow the Rules for Grown-Ups.

Playtime’s over, kiddies. Sars lays down the law for everyone over the age of 25. Very good advice… Learn it, know it, live it.

Okay, I’ve been cracking myself up for the last half hour reading Go Fug Yourself, a hilariously bitchy look at celebrity fashion faux pas. And I’m going to have nightmares about Daniel Day-Lewis. (Link courtesy of fellow style maven John.)

The Snook and I did some tag-team experimental cooking last night with this recipe from Epicurious: Roasted Butternut Squash, Rosemary, and Garlic Lasagne. We used Japanese Pumpkin instead of the squash (since we had an abundance of it, which was the whole reason we picked the recipe in the first place), doubled the amount of garlic, and crumbled some crispy bacon between the layers so it wasn’t completely vegetarian. Snookums got to show off his “roux” skillz and then made a wonderfully successful rosemary bechamel sauce. Our only mistake was using the full-size roasting pan when we should’ve gone with something smaller (since we reduced the ingredients all by 25%). As a result there wasn’t quite enough sauce/cream to cover the last layer, so the top bits of lasagne were a bit crispier than intended. Still, it was an extremely yummy, sweet, and moreish dish to have on a chilly summer’s night…

Do you see my happy dance? I fixed my computer! Just did an Archive & Reinstall of the OS and everything came good. I then re-downloaded all the updates and patches and applied them all. (I used the combined update to take my system from 10.3.5 to 10.3.7.) Everything works great. The video problems are fixed as well as my Firewire issues with the iPod. I guess my original 10.3.7 was just a bad update!

You know what’s rude? The woman sitting next to me on the bus home tonight was eating sushi. She was eating sushi on the bus! And I know you pescaphiles (I just made that word up!) will argue that good sushi doesn’t have any smell, and you’re right. She wasn’t eating good sushi. She was eating nast, $2.00-take-away sushi and it stank. On such a muggy and oppressively gray day, it was all I could do not to barf from the smell. I actually got up and changed seats (which is, like, the height of confrontation for me). Ick.

What a rip-off. After much finagling and secret-method-employing and American-accomplice-utilizing, I managed to secure an iTunes Music Store account only to discover that the aforementioned thirteen free songs… are from a crappy sampler album that you can’t actually change. Bah, humbug.

Oh, and my computer’s officially not okay. The video started messing up again and “resetting the NVRAM” (as the support guy online showed me the other night) isn’t doing anything. Snookums thinks it’s a hardware problem. Looks like I’ll be doing a full reinstall and calling AppleCare tomorrow!

Equestrian Web-Goddess!
Oh yeah, we did it… The Snook and I tried something new today: horseback riding! We had a coupon for 50% off a park ride at Moore Park Stables so I decided to put my long-standing equinophobia aside for the afternoon. First we had to sign the inevitable indemnity waivers (basically saying that if a horse were to kick me in the head, Snookums would be screwed), and then pick out some nasty boots and smelly helmets so we looked the part. Snookums was given a gray mare by the name of “Christmas,” while I got an white gelding called “Tamiko.” (And when I say old, I mean old. Older than me. My horse was thirty-five.) Our guide was a cheerful teenage girl named “Pip” who displayed some pretty awesome patience in the face of my relentless stupid questions. Once we were all mounted up, we headed out and crossed Lang Road on our way into the park. Pip and Snookums kept up a decent pace, but Tamiko seemed to prefer plodding along a few meters behind. I didn’t mind. Man, riding a horse isn’t easy on the bum! I’m going to need some “gluteal treatment” tomorrow. We spent a nice, leisurely hour going ’round the park, admiring the Sydney skyline, taking in some amateur cricket, and waving at all the families hanging out. Eventually we made it back to the stable and I effected a particularly non-graceful dismount. Tamiko even consented to posing for a picture with me. Isn’t he cute?

   

Breakfast Around the World. For the record, I’ve never seen a single Australian person ever eat toast with tinned spaghetti on top. The Snook assures me, however, that bogans do this. It boggles the mind.

What Animal Would Your Daemon Settle As?
I haven’t done a silly quiz in a long time. Here’s my result:

My MONKEY DAEMON represents a nature that is admired, detail-oriented, and full of curiosity. Some people might call me self-absorbed. I like to plan ahead, and hone my various talents to perfection.

I’m not sure that describes me perfectly, but hey, monkeys are cute and funny! A monkey daemon would rock, as long as it wasn’t a scary evil monkey like Mrs. Coulter’s. (Link courtesy of Marci, who is a hare.)

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, “daemons” are from Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books. Even if you haven’t read them, you’ll learn about them when the movie comes out in a couple years.