Brainsprain.net

That’s right, suckers!  I won a weekly email promotion, my e-mail was attached to the winning ticket and I’m getting €870,812.79!  All I have to do is contact the lotto authority in Madrid and provide them with my bank account information and they’ll deposit that into my account immediately.  This is so awesome, I bet I can quit my day job and buy a sail boat!  I wonder how much that is in USD?  Hmm… $1,234,567.89!! That’s a lotta money!  Oh wait… Wow.  That’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it??

Seriously, do people actually fall for that??  (Exchange rate as of 9/28  € » $ was 1.4177)

After the great steakhouse adventure, it was definitely time to get home.  We were exhausted, a bit sunburned, and starting to get very sleepy.  I decided I’d be more comfortable driving in my emergency back-up shorts rather than the kilt, so I did that girl trick where you pull on your shorts under your skirt/kilt and then take off the skirt/kilt.  Very sexy.  Very very glad I did it.  We climbed into the car, and started heading home.  It was dark and I was tired, so I was being extra careful watching my heavy foot.  Very very glad I did it.  The cop did a U-Turn out of the blackness by the side of the road, lights flashing.  There wasn’t anybody else on the road, so I was pretty sure I knew who he was pulling over.  I glanced down at my speedometer.  I wasn’t going THAT fast, but I was speeding.  I pulled way off the road, and the officer asked me to step out of the car.  I carefully got my driver’s license and stepped out to speak to the officer.  I’ll spare you the excruciating details of the conversation, but I will tell you that I was nice and polite.  He kindly let me off with a warning, but somehow felt that a clichéd lecture would be just the thing to set me straight.  Despite the fact that I was going a full nine miles over the speed limit.  “This one’s on me,” he said, “But the next one’s on you.”  I tried not to roll my eyes.  I’d almost rather have a ticket than a lecture.  Almost.  Other than that, he was very nice, polite, and efficient.  I felt he performed his duties with respect and decorum.  All in all, a textbook traffic stop.  But come on, you know he speeds.  The cliché only served to make the man look stupid and condescending when he was otherwise very nice.  So, if there are any cops reading this, please take note:  If you’re gonna warn us, warn us.  We get it at that point.  If you can see we don’t, then don’t lecture, just write out the ticket.  It’s your job.  I understand.

We had been at the Texas Ren Fest all day and were tired and more than a little hungry.  Turkey legs are all well and good, but we wanted real food in a place where we could sit down.  Navasota had a McDonald’s.  Blah.  A Pizza Hut.  Would take too long.  And… the world famous Wrangler Steak House.  If you don’t know it, one of the best places in the entire world to eat is at a steakhouse in a small town.  The food is all wonderful without a single thought given by the chef of fat content or cholesterol.  We decided to go there, and pulled into the parking lot.  There were an inordinate number of pickup trucks, even for that tiny Texas town.  We walked in.  All conversations stopped.  I think I heard crickets.    Eyes peered out at us from beneath cowboy hats.  Peered at my kilt.  Peered at Shane’s kilt.  Were agog and April’s gypsy outfit and Colleen’s pants with the slit all the way up each leg.  You’d think they’d be used to it by now, what with the Ren Faire just over the next hill, but you could almost hear people thinking, “DAMNED HIPPIES!“

So here I am in a kilt, just like I went to the Texas Renaissance Festival on Saturday. Click on it for a larger version if you want to waste your bandwidth. We really did have fun. See? I wasn’t the craziest dressed one.

We visited Texas’s finest Freak Show this weekend, and it was awesome.  Aside from the regular renaissance attire, I noted countless slutty Halloween costumes and miscellaneous fairies, five angels, three super heroes, two video game characters, and one Stormtrooper.  Yes, that’s Stormtrooper as in Star Wars.  Awesome.  Pictures of me in a kilt forthcoming.  Stay tuned.

I went and saw this last night.  I expected your standard slasher porn:  blood, gore, haunted house gotchas, and boobies.  While I was not disappointed on any of these points, this was not your ordinary horror flick.  It had a very good, well-thought-out plot.  I was legitimately afraid of Michael Meyers from nearly his first appearance on screen as a ten year old boy.  Rob Zombie is shaping up to be a great director.  He’s come a very long way.  Go see Halloween!  It’s lots of fun.  And there’s boobies.

We just upgraded Brainsprain.net to Wordpress 2.3 which now has tagging support, offering you a fun new way to peruse the archives.  It IS a bit disturbing how large that “rant” tag is, but so be it.  Enjoy!

Last night, I came home tired and with a huge headache, so Colleen kindly allowed me to watch one of the most mindlessly entertaining movies of all time, Terminator 2. The most insane part, though, was Sarah Conner’s mad ramblings about how the world would end on August 29th, 1997. Ten years ago to the day that we watched Terminator 2. I love insane coincidences like that.

Afterwards, I made my robots clean my kitchen and living room, and totally taunted them. I figured, if they’re going to rise up and kill me one day, I should make certain they’re properly motivated.

Okay, pardon me for using this space as my personal notepad for recipes I just made up, but I feel like all 10 of you will forgive me.

Boil until tender:

2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

Mix in a small bowl:

2 T Brown Sugar

2 T Soy Sauce

1/2 t Rice Wine Vinegar

1 t Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce

1/4 t dry mustard

1/2 t lemon juice

It’s gonna be… um… a bit hot.

Let the chicken cool, then shred it up. Put it in a ziplock and dump the sauce on it. Shake it up and put it in the fridge.

Throw 1/2 c rice and ~2/3 c water in a bowl, cook it up.

Mix all this together and refrigerate. 2 servings. Tastes like PF Chang’s Lettuce wraps and I made it up.

Skipping tuna tomorrow!!

(Two pictures are worth 72 pounds):

August 2006

August 2007

Thanks for the old picture, April!