i was told there would be punch and pie

I made two pies for this year's Thanksgiving feast:

pumpkin



and apple.



Perhaps next year I shall also provide the punch.

always

I just can't get enough of this Erasure video.

a vegetarian twist

I picked up this brochure on the way out of a branch of the public library. The illustration raises so many questions. Such as:

-Is that turkey exceptionally large, or is that woman exceptionally small?
-If the former is the case, is it to suggest that the woman is a vegetarian because the turkey is a) her lover or b) really fucking scary?
-Are those marijuana leaves at their feet?

I suspect this brochure dates to c. 1980, not only because of the pastoral-maiden-hippie as vegetarian, but because all of the recipes inside ascribe to the "it's not vegetarian unless it has wheat germ or soy in it" philosophy of vegetarian cooking. The North American Vegetarian Society also suggests that you serve your "Holiday Loaf" with "Mashed Potato Balls." Does making them into balls somehow mean less animals die then when you serve them the regular way?

The more I look at this, the more it creeps me out. Note to single men: if the woman invites you back to her secluded island, DO NOT GO.

CMSuck

Not too long ago, us folks at Southern Private University tech organization got a new CMS. Yesterday I got my first hand at what is now, officially, the CMSuck. I'm not a Web designer or any sort of expert, but my job is to take the mess of verbs, nouns, and punctuation marks that passes for writing in the tech world (sorry tech types, I call 'em how I see 'em) and make it more closely resemble written English and more usable to people who are not tech types. Thus, much of my time at work is spent repairing terrible writing and terrible design.

This year we're scrapping the terrible writig and terrible design and getting a new website, which I'm helping to populate using the CMSuck. And the CMSuck sucks hard. It might be fine in the technical functionality and all that, you know, stuff people who know more about software are concerned about. But frankly, that's not the most important thing about a CMS. People get CMS software so that the average user can change website content without mucking around in design or coding. And the problem with the CMSuck is that it's unintuitive and a pain in the ass for an average user like myself to use. It's more infuriating considering SPU tech organization spent literally two years before they picked out a damn CMS. It probably cost them a pretty penny, too, and I sit and ask myself, can we just get Drupal instead?

bitten

Yesterday morning I was bitten by a dog while riding my bike on a local greenway trail. It was with it's owner, and not on a leash, and I guess it thought that my faster-moving self was prey and took a bit at my left leg (yes, the one that was broken).

I spent most of yesterday at the police station filling out a report and at the Urgent Care getting a tetanus shot and a prescription for antibiotics. I'm still rather cranky about the whole thing and mostly want to sit on the couch all day and eat chocolate.

pink elephant cake

I made a pink elephant cake. Enough sugar to give you the DTs.