Holidailies!

God doesn't bless this. God will never bless this. And those that go headlong into mass murder believing that they are blessed and charged by God to do so are wholly deceived.

Kathryn, of Sticky Fingers, an Australian journaller has captured what I feel about this seemingly unstoppably oncoming "war". All fanatics who quote God scare me, whether they're on "my side" or not, many dead are not too far behind

It's great to see her updating again, she's been uploading some wonderful entries about her trip to the US back in October.

This picture reminds me of ghost gums in Western Australia, even though it's oak trees in winter in New Jersey. The same starkness to them, but still lovely.

Usually I wear a fleece, and Adelaide loops inside of that. Today she decided the mousepad and my hand was the place to be, and mewled piteously every time I tried to type.

Until she gave up and went to sleep in a box of computer crap. That black thing she's resting on is my old Palm cradle. She sleeps in the most uncomfortable positions and places and on things that just tweak my back looking at them, then bounces up, fresh as though she's been sleeping on goosedown.

A couple of Spam chuckles for the day, the sort of chuckle at their nerve, without approving of their methods and still heartily wishing them an irrecoverable hard drive meltdown.

Spam #1. I click on it to delete, and it requests through Outlook a receipt read.

Excuse me? That takes cojones and then some. If you use Outlook, and want to make sure receipts aren't automatically sent, go to tools, Options, then receipts. Make sure your settings are either "never send a read receipt" or "notify me for each read receipt request". As I'm a nosey control freaker, I have mine set to notify, which is how I found out this little spammer trick.

Spam #2. I get an email with the following;

Browsing through the CNN website I came across this CNN article which seems to be about you:

http://www.cnn.com:USArticle1840@www.spammerbullshit.org/

Yours,
Jennifer Hawkings

Take careful note of that URL, it's leading you to think it's a CNN URL, but really it'll take you to the website listed after the ampersand "@", which I've replaced with a commentary URL, no free link for you spammer scum. Sneaky little shit. I'm tempted to send them my own URL with a carefuly crafted and customised "Fuck you" page. All set up on a free geocities account with no relation to any of my emails, they can spam away to their hearts content.

I tested it with my own domain, and it works that way too, so you could use it for fun, to make people think they were going to CNN, but send them to a gag page.

Had a nice time in the later afternoon, catching up with first Cameron, then Dreama on ICQ. Both are foodies, and got me hungry, and searching for something hot, but not scratchy, and with lots of flavour, as all the cough lozenges and cold medecines are messing about my sense of taste and smell. I settled on soup, with at least the rice vermicelli noodles that have been knocking abot my kitchen for an age.

Found this recipe online (click here for my mirror if it's not there anymore) for Rice Vermicelli with Bok Choi and Cilantro.

I did an Amanda on the recipe, because I didn't have everything they wanted, and I didn't want to faff about with multiple pots and bowls and folderol.

I did soak the noodles and the dried mushrooms, as that's a must do. While they soaked, I sliced up two small white onions (no green/spring onions on hand) and fried them in the vege oil. Added in the garlic, but sliced into large slivers, and fried for a minute or so, with jarred ginger. Stirred the mushrooms through that, sauted to mix everything together, then deglazed the pan with the stock, and added in the rest of the two (8oz, low salt) cans. Added in some fresh ginger that I forgot I had, peeled and chopped into large chunks. I love fresh ginger, and with a cold, more and bigger bits is better.

I diced the chicken breast and added that into the now simmering water, making sure it was cooked through before adding some sliced on the diagonal celery, a spoonful of chimmichirri (no coriander or bok choi on hand), and the drained vermicelli. Cooked that through for the 10 seconds it needed, then served it up.

A recipe for me, for the most part, is a list of suggestions, i can take it from there.

I'm going to borrow from Dorothy R, with my bulleted list of things I should put in an entry at some point;

• swimming, bathers, and going down a size
• Jeff's birthday and the three cakes
• JournalCon 02
• Syd
• Plin Con
• My birthday
• China Outlet & Garage
• Saving the house next door from burning down
• Debt collectors pissing me off
• Christmas Parades, gallons of hot chocolate and more house fires
• 3 years of photos from Walmart
• My amaazing deals at the Goodwill.