Allow me to introduce myself, my name (formerly Kristy) is (now) Job. If it didn't cost money, I'd look into changing it.

Today I met with a foundation repair company (well... not the whole company, just one friendly representative). My foundation is cracked. I need 12 piers. Piers cost money. I know the cost is 'reasonable,' but what I'm going through right now is not...

You know what else costs money??? A/C units... they cost money. Gutters? Money. Windows cost money. Soffits also cost money. Dryers cost money. Car batteries cost money, as do tires. Fences - not free. Exterminators to kill carpenter ants -  they cost money. And just so I have something else to look forward to, I'm sure that raccoon did some damage in the attic that I have yet to suffer for... probably something expensive and/or dangerous.

Someone out there hates Kristy.

I'm ready to start selling my eggs because I'm out of fucking money. I'm juggling so many credit cards at the moment, that all I need is a kitten and a chainsaw to make it slightly more challenging (and so entertaining that people might be willing to pay to watch the ensuing madness).

So, I will probably never leave my house again. I can't afford to do anything but sit at home eating ramen noodles and drinking chicken broth (the kind made from bouillon cubes). Or can a person live on tap water?

Things aren't quite that bad... but they're not good either. I keep thinking that if I had a nervous breakdown I could go to one of those nice mental health retreats where they let you ride horses and hang out by the pond, and feed you happy purple pills that look like smiling cyclops-es... (I'm doing that scales-of-justice thing with my hands as I consider this)

It's times like these that having ethics really annoys me; I could use a sugar daddy about now...

I just developed a simple flowchart to explain what my day is like:

I think 'no' is a perfect word. One vowel, one consonant. Two letters. Two consecutive letters. However, I don't usually like being told 'no,' especially in the form of a rejection letter.

I haven't received enough of them to temper my enthusiasm, but I noticed that the couple that I have received are pretty vague. In fact, they remind me very much of the old adage, "It's not you... it's me." So I find myself laughing a little (when I should be crying).

The typical letter thanks you for submitting your work, and then politely tells you that they're passing on the opportunity to represent you. Then it usually says that opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one, and they're all different, so keep submitting your work, because someone else may be just the one to champion it. P.S.  Keep writing.

I suspect that I know the reasons behind the formula:
--  If you give specifics, you invite questions
--  If you say that you don't like it, it's personal
--  If you say that you don't like it, because it's personal, people may attempt to argue with you (because some people truly believe that's going to change things)
--  If you tell someone to keep writing, it a) keeps them occupied and b) gives them the impression that their writing doesn't suck, that maybe it is just a preference thing (which is probably pretty true).

Aside from all of that, this is a complete stranger who doesn't owe it to you to be specific, and they get tons of query letters. I'm not really dissing the agents, just poking fun at the rejection letter. And do I have a better idea? No. I don't.

The one thing that I don't appreciate are the websites that say, 'you won't hear back from us unless we're interested.' That's the kind of thing I did when I was in high school; if a guy was interested, and I wasn't, I ignored him and figured he'd eventually get the point. I'm sure on the other side of that equation it was pretty rude (so, my sincere apologes... I've grown a little since then). In the world of querying, it makes me wonder if my email ever arrived at its intended destination, because emails have been known to disappear. It would be nicer to send a form letter... and how much effort does it take... really...

All in all, it's the 'why's in life that eat at me. If something wasn't working, I want to know why. I can't help it. I'm a fixer if things can be fixed (to a point), I like to learn from the situation so that I don't repeat my mistakes. In Kristy's World I get answers to all of my questions, but in the real world I don't (Kristy's World is a really, really cool place--I have this giant cartoon hammer that I bonk people over the head with when they're being idiots AND all the freeways are clear AND I don't have to work for a living).

All this because I ran across a cool blog called The Rejector... the subheading was "I don't hate you. I just hate your query letter." Zzzzt. Reeled in. So, no rejection letters today (yea!), just ramblings based on someone else's (really cool) website.

Final thought (question) for the day: Why do they call them carpenter ants when they don't actually build anything?...

8-oz Gingerale + 3 Tbsp Butterscotch syrup + ReddiWhip = Tummyache

But it was delicious, and looked exactly like the drink Hermione and the boys were enjoying at The Three Broomsticks. I think maybe next time I should cut the recipe in half, because even though my tastebuds wanted more, my stomach definitely had its limits.

Ale + Egg Yolks + Sugar + Nutmeg + Butter = ???

It has sort of a before-taste rather than an aftertaste... when it first goes in your mouth it's definitely unpleasant, but only for a milisecond, and then it's sweet. It was confusing really. Tia said it wasn't disgusting, but it wasn't good either... I think that about sums it up. After a few sips, I decided I wasn't in the mood and poured it down the drain. It wasn't much different than the Egg Beaters version I made earlier except for the funky before-taste and a slightly more golden color.

So... my butterbeer experiment is done. We have a clear winner, and it's got gingerale in it. I'll take the remaining 2 cans of Blonde Bombshell ale to my dad and let him enjoy them.

I keep adding to my website. I wanted to add Google Friend Connect so I could get comments and people could 'join' and 'share' and do all sorts of neat things, but Weebly doesn't support it yet. Other than that though, Weebly has been fantastic. I know nothing about websites or indexing or web crawlers or robots.txt files or root directories, this is all new to me... and FRUSTRATING. Google pretends to make gadgets for the technologically retarded ("no programming required!"), but they're grossly overestimating my abilities. The most frustrating part of the whole thing is that when you go to look for useful help files... they don't exist. They figure they've told you all you need to know in the little video snippets. *laugh*

I still haven't found a search tool for my site that actually works (granted I'm bitching about free stuff), it always comes back telling me that nothing has been found, or it goes out onto the web to look. Not sure it matters right now, but I think I'm eventually going to clutter up my site with so much information that a search tool would be nice to have. Ah well.

Time to go have lunch, hope everyone had a great weekend!

Went to the store to get gingerale and butterscotch syrup for gingerbeer 2.0, and since I was getting ice cream topping, I wandered down the ice cream aisle... OMG, they had ginger ice cream!  Haagen Daas ginger ice cream, some new-fangled marketing scheme, 5-ingredient ice cream and it's lovely... love... ly... Some ice cream tastes good for a couple of bites, until your tongue freezes, and then you may as well stop -- but this -- this was good until the last bite...

I also bought eggs, because I have 4 more cans of ale, and I'm going to try gingerbeer 1.0 with just yolks this time. Not expecting a significantly different outcome, but... I have 4 more cans of ale.

And it's raining!  I went outside and twirled around in it just to make sure, and it was... water was falling from the sky... just like rain. I love rain.

About a week ago, I bought the world's most awesome alarm clock... all I have to do is select my time zone and it does the rest; it even adjusts automatically for daylight savings time. I still say we should fall back 23 hours rather than spring forward one, but no one listens to me... Anyway, this wonder-clock has two alarms which I can set to play my iPod, radio, or my choice of two different ear-shattering buzzers. Best part of the alarm is that I can set it for weekdays, weekends or all seven days.

If that weren't enough, the absolute coolest thing about my clock is the snooze feature -- I don't even have to hit the snooze button -- I just wave my hand (or pillow) in front of the sensor and I get to snooze for nine more minutes. That's what sold me on it. I'm in love with the damn thing. It's like a little robot.

As I write this I'm watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I love old movies, and one of my favorite actors has always been Danny Kaye. He was incredibly talented and I love to watch him go (he's very energetic, that one). He can sing, he can dance, he can talk incredibly fast... he's hilarious. I wish more movies were like old movies and there were more Danny Kayes in the world.

Ah well... my awesome clock is telling me that it's time to have some fun! Have a great weekend! (I hear thunder... sounds like we might get some -- gasp! -- rain) *dance of joy* -- CORRECTION -- *RAIN dance of joy*

So... butterbeer... not the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted...

The guy who magically appeared by the beer cooler at Spec's said this Blonde Bombshell was really good... and the guy at the counter independently verified it, so I'm guessing I started with a good base.

Brought the ale to boil and realized I had Egg Beaters in the fridge... so that's egg white and yolk, so I have a feeling this was supposed to be thicker, but... it's okay--I can drink it. It still tastes a lot like ale, just a little sweeter, and it's warm, so it kind of tingles a little as the carbonation hits my tongue. You have to keep in mind that I don't like the taste of beer or, in this case, ale, so I'm probably not the best judge, but it tasted alright, the eggs aren't as bad as you might think.

I think where I went wrong, is that I assumed a butterbeer was a butterbeer was a butterbeer, and apparently the consensus on butterbeer in the HP universe is that it's more of a cream soda + butterscotch syrup concoction, or sometimes it has milk in it. In fact, there are ten different recipes listed on this website alone: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/333367/harry_potter_top_10_butterbeer_recipes_pg3.html?cat=22


So I can say I tried it out, and it wasn't half bad. Other people might actually like it. And tomorrow I'll try the frou frou version, which is what I think Hermione might have been drinking... and ironically probably has fewer calories even though it looks more decadent...

Played hookey from work today so that I could watch the new Harry Potter movie... so worth it. It was the best one yet... but also the saddest (yes, I cried). It's amazing to see the words of the book translated onto the screen... it's a testament to JK Rowling's descriptive abilities that watching some of it was like deja vu; my imagination and the film were pretty close.

Butterbeer looked so good that I found a recipe online and will add it to my recipe page as soon as I finish writing this. Looks almost like egg nog with beer instead of rum... or maybe hot buttered rum, but with beer and eggs... I don't normally like beer, but I'm willing to try it out. Hopefully I won't like this either, I'm sure it has about a zillion calories... but something about the way it looks just calls to me...

Looks like there are some good movies on the horizon, another tween novel, The Lightning Thief, as well as Robert Downey, Jr in Sherlock Holmes (and though I never would have imagined it, the trailer was really interesting... besides, I love Sherlock Holmes). I feel like there's been a drought of good movies lately, so it's nice to see that there are a few to get excited about.

I always enjoy taking a day off from work. I feel like I get a lot done. If I didn't have to work for a living I could accomplish so much more. There are some people who continue to work well past retirement age because they claim that they have nothing else to do--I don't intend to be one of them. There are about a million things that I could think of to fill my time instead: travel, gardening, writing, reading, learning new things (languages, cooking classes, knitting, brewing mead, etc), hiking, fixing up the house, relaxing (and of course, spending time with friends and family, but that kinda goes without saying).

All in all, I wish I had more time to spend on personal pursuits (and more money, because some of those pursuits require it), but alas, don't we all? It's the human condition.

This weekend I cleaned out a couple of my closets. It's something I've needed to do for a while because I hold onto things that I don't need, want or use, on the off chance that I'll need, want or use them in the future. I'm embarassed to admit that up until about a year ago I still had a couple of shirts I'd worn in high school (and I shudder to add that high school was almost 20 years ago now). I even had my prom dress hanging in a closet until I finally got sick of having to deal with it.

The best way I've found to get rid of clutter is to move... the thought of packing things up and lugging them to another house really puts it all into perspective. It's amazing what becomes expendable. But... I'm not moving this time, so I had to toughen my resolve and just let go of my pack rat tendencies. I made a pretty good dent in things, but I could still do more.

I might try something I saw on How Clean is Your House once: face all your hangers the wrong way, after you wear something, wash it and rehang it, face the hangers the right way. In a few months you can probably toss the stuff on the hangers that were never turned. Pretty cool. But I haven't done it yet...

Baby steps.

So tomorrow is HP and the Half-Blood Prince!  Getting excited! Just re-watched HP and the Order of the Phoenix... it was good... but sad...

Ah well... gotta go --having drinks and catching up with a friend and I need to make sure the wine glasses are clean! That reminds me, I added whisky tasting info on the Scotland page this afternoon, notes I found on the whisky I brought back from Scotland last time; if whisky's your thing, check it out!
 

Every time the commercial for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes on, I freeze, eyes riveted to the television screen... I swear someone could break into my house and I wouldn't bat an eye (okay, that's an exaggeration... I'm a fan, but I'm not crazy). It's really bad if I'm in a theater and I see it on the big screen... I get chills.

I know I'm a dork, and I'm okay with that, because I also know that I'm not alone.

My favorite characters are probably not everyone else's favorites... I like Ron and Snape. I mean, I love them all, but Ron's fun, and Snape is... I don't know what it is that I like about him except that he's an underdog, and there's something about an underdog that I root for... I had faith in him all along even though it always looked like he was the bad guy. I liked him in the books, but it got worse when the movies came along... there's something sexy about Alan Rickman with longish dark hair... I know... I don't understand it either...

Harry Potter opened up a whole new world for me. I stubbornly refused to read any of the books for a couple of years when the craze first started, but I finally broke down and did it. To my surprise, I sat up all night reading the first two. The first book is still my favorite because of the world it created, it was brilliant and new and fascinating. Even the first movie is the one I watch most often... my favorite scene is that cigarette lighter that snuffs out the street lamps (I'm really going to get it for not knowing the name of that doohickey)... it's bloody brilliant, as Ron would say.

When all of the books have been made into movies and there's no more of them to look forward to, that's going to be a sad day for me.

I had mixed emotions about the last book.  I waited for it all day, I was so pissed at UPS because I live 5 minutes from the distribution center, but they had to turn it over to the post office for some reason and my mailperson always comes late... I'd pre-ordered it months ahead of time, and I didn't get my copy until 6 pm. And yet... when it finally arrived I didn't want to crack it open, because opening it meant the end was that much closer. Then I stayed up all night reading it. There's was a passage where Harry looked at the clock and it was 4 am (or whatever time it was), and when I glanced at my clock... it was 4 am... now that's magic.