Dinner

Nom Nom Nom!

Arts and Crafts at Terry's Home!

I had the urge to paint again. So I did.

Be honest. You won't hurt my feelings if you think it's hideous.

dumpster diving

On the heels of my totally awesome mirror that I painted on Sunday, today I found a perfectly good coffee table. I had been using a steamer trunk as one before.

Now I have a coffee table. Can you believe someone was going to throw this away? Amazing. There's not a thing wrong with it except for where someone stuck something onto the top--that can be scrubbed off with some soap and water.

Oh well. It's MINE now!

Yes I'm aware of how junky it already is. When you live in 550 square feet, every inch gets used. I've outgrown this place, no matter how much I toss so I think after October all my focus is going to be on putting lots of money away so I can get out of here when my lease is up next July, preferably sooner.

Picture was taken with my new digital camera, which apparently has resolution that's sharper then real life.

Dinner

4 boneless porkchops
1 can of Cream of Celery Soup
a few tbsps of Worchester Sauce
half can of water (use the soup can)

preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put porkchops in baking pan. Pour worchester sauce on porkchops. Then pour can of cream of Celery Soup in pan. Add water. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until done.

then eat. I'll be eating this for a few days.


I served it (to myself) with whole grain linguine, which can be found in the organic section at Giant, although I'm sure Wegmans has the same linguine too. The linguine I made in a microwave rice steamer that has a pasta attachment.

This came about because I wanted to use Cream of Mushroom soup and didn't have any and I was too lazy to ride down to the Sayford Market to get some.

Spore: September 7th!

What do you think?

My afternoon/evening plans were postponed a day so I painted a mirror frame. I found this mirror out by the dumpster about a month ago and was amazed someone was going to toss it. So I snatched it and today I painted it.

What do you think?

Discussion Question Time

If we all move to electric vehicles and alternate fuel vehicles, what will we tax (or how will we tax) to keep the roads paved and the transit running?

I'm beginning to see that a lot of people ( the various "Green" bloggers at Daily Kos like dotcommodity and A Seigel) don't seem to have answered that question when they make their case (sometimes guiltmongering, but hey, do what you gotta do to make a point) for putting solar panels on carports for plug-in electric cars so they don't have to buy electricity generated from a big corporate utility and so on.

My coworkers had an argument from Williamsport well past Selinsgrove as we drove down US 11/15 from Towanda last Thursday about this and it sparked something.

Many Americans hate the gas tax, as we seem to hate all taxes. But I'll tell you what, you know exactly what you're getting with the federal and state gas taxes: paved roads. They may not be the best, as any Pennsylvanian or resident of the upper Midwest/Northeast will tell you, but they get paved when they can. Furthermore, myself included, we expect expanded transit systems. Or we expect the light rails (then called trolleys or interurbans) to come back after we ripped them all out after World War II. The money for that has to come from somewhere.

Gasoline has come down, because people stopped driving. Eventually it will continue its slow rise upward. I am firmly of the belief what's occurring now is an artificial bubble and not the End Of Civilization Due To Peak Oil, although the Peak is approaching if it hasn't passed already. At any rate, people stop driving, revenues to keep the roads paved stop coming in. Revenues stop coming in, roads don't get paved so then your fancy (although very fragile, I mean what's available in electric cars now look like Barbie cars or golf carts, no offense) electric car will be worthless unless they start building them like Hummers.

I'd like to have a cool serious discussion about this because it really should be on people's minds. We can all put solar panels on our carports and garages assuming we live in the suburbs where we can have a carport and/or garage, as most Americans do (and we'll discuss where city dwellers would plug in later.) We can all generate our own power so we don't have to buy from some evil corporate utility that probably isn't green and won't be for at least another 2 or 3 decades. But that doesn't answer the question on how the roads get paved if no one used gas to power their vehicles anymore. We're already seeing our revenues begin to fall and at PennDOT, this is seriously hurting our purchasing power.

I'll throw an idea and note I'm not for or against it. A Transportation Systems Sales Tax that everyone pays, no matter if they drive or not. Everyone enjoys the benefits of a functioning transportation system, otherwise you'd starve. Think about it. Or post your own ideas in the comments thread.

It's either that or we toll just about everything.

i'm a superhero!

Your results:
You are The Flash

The Flash 75% Green Lantern 70% Iron Man 70% Spider-Man 65% Hulk 55% Supergirl 55% Robin 47% Catwoman 45% Batman 45% Superman 45% Wonder Woman 30%

Fast, athletic and flirtatious.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

Which is Better?

1. Having a whole crowd and entourage of friends
   
2. Just having a small close-knit group of friends

Just a hypothetical on a Sunday morning.

Brain Lateralization Test Results

Right Brain (52%) The right hemisphere is the visual, figurative, artistic, and intuitive side of the brain. Left Brain (52%) The left hemisphere is the logical, articulate, assertive, and practical side of the brain

Are You Right or Left Brained?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Things that make you go hmmm

Remember when people were screaming for Marylin Manson and so on to be banned after Columbine because it caused those kids to murder their classmates and then shoot themselves?

hmm

Adkisson targeted the church, [Knoxville Police Department Officer Steve] Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."

Adkisson told Still that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."

Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because "he expected to be killed during the assault."

Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

I can't help but wonder, given what I've read about the guy who shot up a church in Knoxville, TN, screaming about liberals and gays as he murdered two people, will there be calls to ban whatever radio program(s) that likely riled him up? No, of course not. Don't hold your breath and don't be silly.

For the record, I'm not calling for a ban on anything because that would be wrong all around. All around.

And also for the record, let's hate what's evil. What's REALLY evil, and not what some people on the radio decide for their listeners so they can make a buck.

There will be a lot more posts

There will be a lot more posts as soon as I figure out how to blog from my Crackberry.

Some Pics From Austin

The entire gallery can be seen here.

It was a great time, and a blast.

This is Unacceptable

I wanted to write about my vacation, and I will eventually, but I find myself really disturbed by what's coming out of Italy these days.

And this is unacceptable.

Three Years in Harrisburg

Today marks my third year in Harrisburg. On July 5th 2005 I moved up here after graduating from college.

I have to say, I really, really hated this place that first year. I thought the people were unfriendly and I didn't really like my job. But, despite attempts to escape the first year I decided to give it a chance.

The second year wasn't too much better, but it improved. Last year I got a bike, dumped the ex, made some friends and the whole world opened up. My job still sucks though, although the people are quite nice.

Harrisburg is a pretty cool place when you give it a chance. I mean partying on 2nd St. does get old after awhile but you can find a new activity easily. I love the fact that generally I don't have to drive and if I need to get somewhere someone is always willing to give me a ride. We still need a good grocery store in the Midtown neighborhood, preferably not a Giant. Whole Foods or Trader Joe's would rock. I think they could put it somewhere along the 6th Street corridor where all that vacant land is because that would simply make sense. Right?

It has its issues like any place, but it's not bad. There's cool people here too. So, I'll give it a year or two more.