Thursday, July 01, 2004
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Two Cayenne peppers, a semi-ripe Roma that fell off the vine, and a green Better Boy that I picked to make fried green tomatoes with. Mmmmm....
Sunday, June 27, 2004
One of these days I will stop adding things to this day's postings and go to bed.
My Beta is happy and his colours seem to have enhanced since I got him. I was reading up on betas today and found out that they have a general life expectancy of 3-5 years. They were originaly native to the rice paddies (sp?) in Thiland, or at the time, Siam. They have an interesting ability... They have gills, like all fish, but they don't function as efficiently as most, instead they also have the ability to breathe air! So they will come to the top and breathe air, or even jump out of the surface of the water to breathe! Weird!
I always end up with the odd fish! That ropefish I had could live out of water for a while because the waterbladders she used for movement doubled as a "holding tank" for water to "breathe" while out of water.
Also I learned that the layer of bubbles on the surface of water was created by my fish. The male creates a "nest" of bubbles in order to attract a female. The two will do a mating "dance" and then the female will spawn, he will fertalize the eggs and put them in the nest and tend to them until they hatch. This is the extent of contact between the two.
They like to have more room than those silly beta bowls you see, but they will get stressed if they are in overly large tanks, because they feel the must patrole the entire tank. They can survive high amonia levels (amonia is generated through waste, and is only controled through water changes or good filtration and microbes (naturally occuring in a well operating tank) that break down the waste into less harmful chemicles)) which is good because I'm not using a filter.
They like to have something to rest on, mine seems to do fine resting on the bottom of the tank.
They can survive about a week or so without being fed, so thats good for vacations.
Interesting little fish, eh!
I have now migrated away from Platypi007@hotmail.com fully, I will no longer log on to check that account for messages, I'll let it close out and use it only for MSN messanger. I have begun migrating away from nickgosey@hotmail.com as well, but as I have recently had accounts that used that as the primary address (ebay, half.com, etc) I will continue checking it for a month or two, to make sure I have everything changed over before allowing it to lapse into oblivion.
I will now solely use addresses at platypi007.net, so the current address you have for me is still active. I have also migrated away from using Outlook to check this account, as the only reason I was using it was for it's ability to use Hotmail. I have moved over to Thunderbird, the mozilla mail counterpart to Firefox (formerly known as Firebird, formerly known as Phoenix, a much better name IMHO alas legal issues prevented them from keeping it).
Let me say, I love it! It's faster and easier to use than Outlook, and the spam blocking features are just far working great. I have it set up to filter mails into various subfolders, and it catches pretty much all of the junk mail i've been getting to my p007net addy (Billy mentioned when he was here last month that he things his hosting service is being targeted for spam, that being why I have been getting so much lately). Yay for progress. The migration over was simple, for they have made importing the addybook and messages from outlook a snap. I'm happy.
I know most of you use web-based e-mails, but if any of you are using a POP3 service I would encourage you to try out Thunderbird, espically if you're using Outlook.
Oh, about that job I mentioned in my last post: The day after I saw it on the Richmond Co. website said website went down, and is not up as of yet, a week later. When I called the automated job line on Monday of this week the library job was no longer listed. Ah well, it wasn't meant to be. I'll be keeping my eyes and ears opened on that front, though, as I would still very much like to work there. Other than that the only thing I can think of is to find out if they make more than me at one of the bookstore coffeeshops around here and try to get on at one.
Today was a rather good day! Work was hectic, right from the get-go, and we had a hard time getting everything done that needed to be done to be fully functional and in a full state of openness it was so busy! 7:50, someone was there when I got in, Becca told me she had said, "We're not open yet," a couple of times to him, but he kept on coming to the counter and proceeded to order coffee... People are really, really strange creatures with a variety of odd behaviours. Working in the service sector is a great way to observe this. I think that working as a barista, providing one of the major addictions in our society to the masses on their way to work, is an even better opportunity for this observation.
After work I went to the Indian restaurant in town, having found it and never having tried any Indian food (there is this "ham curry" recipe that mom makes, involving curry powder, but you can hardly call this dish Indian, I rather doubt you can actually call it curry. Anyway, it's a buffet place for lunch, regular order your food at night. So I was there for lunch. The food was tasty, though probably not as spicy as actual Indian foods, which is probably good for their business here. It was all really good, nothing I didn't like. I don't have a clue what any of it was, except for some chicken curry that I know was a curry because it tasted like what I know things in curry taste like. There was this REALLY good fresh baked flatbread, I could have eaten that all day, man. The only thing I wish for was a) for the waiter guy to be better at filling my glass. I understand when a place becomes busy, falling behind on this duty, but when I am one of three people in the restaurant, I expect it to be paid a little better attention. Nothing that I'd actually complain about, though. Maybe he was just having an off day, you never know. Secondly, I wish they would take the rout many Chinese buffets take, and label the dishes, especially since it's not a very familiar style of cooking around here. But other than that, man it was good. I'll have to go back sometime. Some night I'll have to go and order things that I know what they are called!
Got home, cleaned up the lair. It needed it. Especially to be sucked clean by the beast on wheels, for I had replaced the insoles of my shoes the other day and black fuzz exploded around the room. It looks rather nice in here now.
We (my sister and I) had planned on going to the lake with our friends the Allens today, but the head of that clan decided that weather was not suitable for such a trip, it being on the verge of thunderstorms. (I disagreed, as for the past three weeks or so it has been on the verge of thunderstorms, and never have we had more than one or two storms a day, those lasting at most 30-45 minutes and that's exactly the sort of weather we had today.) So, instead we went to the house of Clan Allen and hung out with our good friends all the rest of the day playing Apples to Apples, a really cheesy Star Trek game which uses a video, played more for the cheese factor of it than anything else, and went to B&N for coffee.
While at B&N a funny thing happened. While playing Apples to Apples, a game of word associations, we had the combination of Influential and Giant Squid come up. I heartily encouraged the current dealer to choose this one, even though it was not my own, simply because giant squid are quite possibly the most awesome thing ever. He did. Much hilarity ensued. Jump back to the current part of my tale, at the bookstore. As we are in line for coffee Katherine looked at a table of books on sale right there, and what should she find but a book on the biology and myth of the giant squid. It was promptly purchased by one of our group.
My only purchases at the store were a cup of Sumatran (properly a dark roast, while we have only a LIGHT roast sumatran at our shop, oddly) and a book. Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics, second Revised Edition by Arthur H. Benade. It looks to be an interesting, quite indepth, and probably very long read. 575 pages, not including the index. There was a book on the development of temperament that I really had to force myself not to buy and quite a number of other books that I had to restrain myself on as well. One was not too hard to forego, as it was a $67 music history text. I'd love to have it, though. I know where I will go to formulate a birthday and Christmas list. B&N seems to have a much better selection here than boarders. The coffee was good, too.
Klasinc&Loncar Duo (Just trying to help it get picked up by Google spiders, I maintain it for them)