The café this morning was overload. Both of the Haga sisters are training to work there at the moment — This being Marisa “Looks like Mariah Carey” Haga (age 18 and going on 27) and her sister Alicia (age 16, and could pass for 25 with no problem whatsoever), both wearing manipulatively attractive clothing, the sort I find both intriguing and abhorrent.

And on the left, some cute construction worker that I couldn’t help but think “Geez, he’s cute” over. Obviously apprentice-level, but smart. Very soft-spoken. Twinkly eyes. Tousled hair, and nicely trimmed. I think I must have it in for Irish genotypes.

I finally fixed the busted Jabber↔AIM gateway on nbtsc.org this morning. Perhaps now I’ll actually be able to tell when my AIM friends are online reliably. And now I can talk to people @mac.com.

Now if everyone used Jabber, this wouldn’t be a problem.

Now I just have to package up this version for PLD.

Today kicked ass in every way. I got tons done, I wore my wonderful new shirt (and my mother complimented me on it, so it must be either boyish or nice and I know it’s not the first), I ate lunch with my sister. The billing didn’t generate a million phone-calls — just one, in fact. Jem had a good day. Robyn and I talked briefly. I had good conversations this evening. I watered the garden, and made a damn good curry. My kitchen is cleaner than when I started. I got the wireless on my laptop fixed, and checked the fix into PLD’s CVS, so I won’t have to repeat this next time around. I fixed a minor but annoying bug in Ruby relatively neatly, and sent the patch off. I saw a beautiful sunset, I drank enough water, and life is just generally grand today.

Alternately titled “My feet are covered in llama poop and I’m eating weeds, and I like it.”

• two medium chopped onions, gently sauteéd in oil,

• one half teaspoon each of clove, corriander, paprika, red pepper, tumeric, coriander, cinnamon, cumin, fennel, black pepper and allspice,

• sauteé the spices a moment,

• add one tablespoon chopped fresh ginger,

• add eight ounces of water and eight ounces of tomato paste,

• blend and set aside. That’s a basic curry sauce recipe.

• sauteé one chopped onion until translucent,

• add one half cup of whole milk yoghurt and cook until some of the water disappears,

• add ²⁄₃ cup of the sauce,

• add two and a half pounds of garden weeds (I prefer dandelion, lambsquarter and marshmallow) or spinach, and a little water. Put a lid over it and let the greens steam down into a mushy puddle.

This is really delicious.

Quote of the day: “I am just hated by the world (aka my ex-girlfriend)” — vanilla_megami.

It’s a long story, but I’ve got a ton of donated computer equipment that’s supposed to be destined for disabled folks in my area sitting in my office. However, I’ve got a lot of decent things that aren’t suitable for the people they’re destined for. If anyone wants some, just comment and I’d be glad to get rid of it.

• Scanjet IIc scanner — good for robotics projects, full of servo motors. Works, but it’s SCSI, so not many people could make use of it as is.
• A few parallel port scanners — Visioneer, Mustek and HP
• More CRTs than I know what to do with — 13, 14, 15, and 17 inches.
• Some mediocre computer mics.

Have you ever wanted to take your favorite cartoon character and say “Zoë, you’re being a moron!”?

I just realized that I hated pyjamas from the moment I got yellow ones and my sister got pink, until this month, when I realized I could wear girly pyjamas.

God, my brain sucks sometimes.

Best quote ever: “Like some sort of Xerox bordello, catering to those with bad taste in neckties.” — wolftracks

This book-meme thing is on everyone’s minds. Even Peter St. Andre has a book list this week..

Airfare for Italy is damn cheap. $800. I am so planning a trip.

Update: If you actually plan to leave later than a week from now, make that $600.

I remember when I used to hang out on IRC, and a different tone of conversation would happen in every window. My mood would change right along with the window switching — happy, sad, happy, excited, intense. I used to code alongside this, and be able to flip from focused to not. I haven’t been able to do that in a while. I think it comes from not fully connecting online as much as I used to — and I am again, finally, and it feels like an important part of me is back.

The first game of Ultimate was last night. I am so out of shape it’s not even funny, but after twenty minutes of feeling like I was going to die, everything got better, and I played out the whole game. I slept really well afterward, too — eleven to eight thirty is probably the most sleep I’ve had in months.

Mary, the girl who started the game ast summer, then ran off to Guatemala for nine months, showed up last night just after the game as we were headed out, happy that we kept goinng without her. She’s doing well, off to nothern Quebécfor a job guiding rafts, then to Bolivia to meet a guy she met, and bicycle to Tierra del Fuego. She’ll be back, though. People don’t leave Ridgway forever.

Last night, I realized how much I adopt the physical mannerisms of the people around me. Parker, by far the best player we have (since he’s six and a half feet tall, and has a reach to make a basketball player jealous), rubbed off on me. This bothers me more than it should, but for once, I’d love to be me without my subconcious just imitating the most interesting person within a hundred feet.

I really miss Jem tonight.

Conversation on IRC tonight is following the same train of thought that’s been on my mind all evening. What books influenced your view of the world? Especially gender roles came up today — The Berenstein Bears in particular came up negatively, but nightlarke mentioned Dragonsinger, which was overwhelmingly positive for me, as were the characters of Killashandra in Crystal Singer, Sassinak in Sassinak and Generation Warriors and Petra in Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.

Stereotypes are something I’ve always been highly sensitive to, and had my own perceptions of. I definitely grew up in a post-feminist era, but in a house with my dad bringing home the tofu, so to speak, for most of my life. Mom was an at-home mom, perhaps so enlightened as to believe in mothering-as-an-important-job, not the post-feminist we-can-work-too. My sister (whom I’ve looked up to as I might an older sister, despite her being younger) is very much can-do, as well. There’s no notion of “feminine weakness” in my family. I was exposed to a very healthy (in my mind) idea of femininity early on — not sheltered from negative versions, as one might expect of homeschool-socialization.

The characters of Sassinak and Petra were both amazingly strong, wonderful, rich characters without making the characters around them weak — male or female. They didn’t carry the manipulative, nasty stereotypes that female characters have so often in science fiction.