Melyssa-with-a-Y

I think my DVR is my favorite piece of technology (this week). I couldn't help traveling during premiere week, so I set the machine to record my faves, as well as a few new ones that seemed interesting. (although I realized on Friday night that I forgot to record the season premiere of Numb3rs! Drat!) Here's my take so far: (spoilers! fair warning!) CSI season opener - Wow. They found Sara right at the end of the hour. There are still rumors about Jorja Fox leaving the show, but in the meantime, they showed how the crazy chick kidnapped her, and how Sara got out from under the car and wandered in the desert. And Nick was the one who found her, which I thought fitting. Journeyman - We ( Dan i and I) were sort of hoping that it would be like Quantum Leap (oh that Scott Bakula ... ), but it was *a lot* more confusing, and there were multiple jumps back and forth from current time to the 80's (and the 90's). They made it the 80's by showing a guy in a red leather ja...

It was a looong week. I spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Santa Fe, NM, for work. I gave a quick presentation, and managed to get an invitation to Singapore out of it! (Have to figure out how to fund that one...) Caught up with my former boss, learned a lot about the energy industry and where we need to go, and played hooky for about an hour (part of our lunch hour) to go shopping. :) I could have bought kokopelli EVERYTHING , but I was very well behaved -- I only bought a kokopelli necklace (sort of like this) for myself, and some pistachios to bring back to the office. Came home to a busy Friday at work, got killed by my trainer at the gym, and had dinner and drinks with the girls, which was fun. Saturday was spent making Mediterranean munchies for supper club. I made regular hummus (with extra garlic), roasted red pepper - chipotle hummus, and falafel. (chick peas galore!) I used the box of falafel mix - I'm never sure what that special spice is that makes falafel tast...

like the caterpillar I made for Kelly's baby shower: I crocheted this one, but it's based on Kimberly Chapman's incredible knitted pattern .) I made up the pattern as I went along, trying to get it to look like hers. Turns out I chose the same numbers of stitches for each round (without reading hers first), so it's probably about the same size as the original, although I didn't have any bright orange, so it's one segment short! I wish I had noticed that her pattern called for a squeaky bit in the head and some bells in the tail, though. Oh well. I'm sure the baby will love it. I think the antennae and the smiley face are what make it so cute. ... and then there are the BAD bugs, like this little baby scorpion that appeared in my kitchen the other night, just as I was getting ready for bed. ACK! To be fair, he was only about 2" long, though this pic makes him look HUGE. Let me tell you, with my adrenaline kicking, it didn't matter how big he w...

Jill Greenberg presents a series of fantastic images at the new New Republic. The images are great, but the captions make them hilarious. On the left, "Grrr" and below, "oy vey" I don't know how people could say that man didn't descend from apes when they look at this set of pictures! The animals are SO expressive and human-like, it's uncanny.

Yay! It's college football season again! And the Trojans are #1 again! The game two weeks ago against Idaho (at the Coliseum) was sort of lame, although USC won 38-10. The talk was that the team was holding back to keep Nebraska from seeing what they were capable of. And apparently even the fans in the stands were so bored with the blowout that they started leaving in the 3rd quarter. Then we had a week off. That was really weird, a week 2 bye? I didn't know what to do last Saturday night. [ok, that's just sad.] Yesterday, the Trojans traveled to Nebraska. I have to say, I'm thankful that our team doesn't have the kind of mascot where we (the fans) feel the need to wear goofy things like corn cobs on our heads (or cheese wedges, or any of those other midwestern oddities). ;) I kept thinking I saw cardinal and gold in the stands, when it was actually those giant corn cob hats. Funny. Booty's passing wasn't getting us anywhere (one receiver dropped thr...

I don't know if it's because I'm tired, or if I see a little of my (possibly future) self -- or my friends -- in this line, but it made me laugh out loud: "When Elijah got home from kindergarten yesterday, Regina made him a snack tray and served it to the boy while he, exhausted and numb-eyed from a hard day at school, watched a couple of episodes of The Tick, which I rented for him on Netflix. Counting the number of pretentious Gen-X parenting references in that previous sentence would be like trying to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar. " From the Epicurious.com blog.

I don't know why it took me so long to post this, but we had a speaker at the Austin Forum last month who told us about the World Community Grid -- and we all promptly went and signed up! Remember searching for extra-terrestrials with SETI@Home? (Did anybody ever find the aliens?) I was running United Devices Cancer research bot for a while on my laptop, but that project ended, so we've now moved on to WCG. It's easy! Download the BOINC client from the website, sign up (you can even join the TACC team , if you like) and start using your computer's background cycles for medical research. You even get to accumulate points, so you can "compete" with your friends. (The points aren't really worth anything, but they're fun to track nonetheless.) The newest project is "Discovering Dengue Drugs - Together," and it is based out of the UT Medical Branch in Galveston, TX. (This blue, red and turquoise blob is what the Dengue virus looks like.) ...

"That man [Daniel Craig] should be wet as often as possible." -- Dani, after watching Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Last night Skyrocket played again, this time up at Hanover's in Pflugerville. (and yes, I say Puh-flugerville every time I say it, just because it's funny.) :) The bar was smoky, which was a shock - I haven't been in a place full of smokers since... 2006, I think - but at least it was indoors, so we didn't sweat to death unless we were actually dancing. The dance floor was small, but we didn't care! We took over the spot in front of the band, which also meant that Rebeka caught the eye of the lead singer, whether she liked it or not. They played a good run of 70's classics, and some great 80's tunes - everything from KISS' "Rock n Roll All Night" to Tom Jones' "She's a Lady" to Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" to the Clash's "Rock the Casbah." And we stayed for all three sets, so by the time we got out of there, it was 1am. Apparently it was also "Miller Chill" night... These two...

Catching up... Friday night was the end-of-year party for my office, so we all went to Round Rock to see the Express play. I went last year, too, but I'd only been here a few weeks, and didn't know anybody - and very few people came. This year we had lots of people, little kiddies, and... RAIN! It was hot and muggy, and we saw the dark clouds, but we kept hoping the rain wouldn't bother us. We were mistaken. [At least the girls got a chance to make some chalk flowers before the rain started!] Right around the time that the game was supposed to start (7:05), it started to drizzle. We thought we'd be ok under the tent, but it turns out a shade tent doesn't stop the water coming through.... particularly when the water is coming down in sheets! :( Rebeka and I used her quilt (a lovely American flag quilt that she made herself, btw) as a tent to cover ourselves and Giana and Nic. Lesson learned: four year old girls shriek a lot when they're getting wet! Eventually...