New Blog!

So I know I've neglected this for a while. I got busy at work and with school and was just too tired to think of anything to say. Maybe I'll get back into it again some day, but for now this blog is on hiatus.

I have started a new blog about my struggle with PCOS and my experience with some new medications I'm on. This should only require me to update once or twice a week so I plan to stick with it at least a little while lol.

Feel free to come check that one out of you wish, or not I won't be offended. I really started it as a way to chronicle things for myself and my doctor since my memory sucks. The link is http://pcoswillnotruleme.blogspot.com/ if you're interested. I must warn that it will get a bit TMI as the subject requires.

Bodacious - adj. meaning sexy, remarkable, noteworthy

FLN has a series of shows all about bodacious spaces. This includes 15 Bodacious Backyards (and 15 MORE Bodacious Backyards), Bodacious Outdoor Spaces, Bodacious Hotels, 15 Bodacious Kitchens, Top 15 Bodacious Beach Resorts, etc, etc you get the point. My absolute favorite of these is Bodacious Houses.

Having a bodacious house requires more than just smelling like the vault and having square footage out the wazoo, a big part of it is creativity. Sure some of them are huge, like the person with a walk-in closet bigger than most Manhattan apartments, but mostly the wow factor comes from how they use the space. For example, one house is literally a cave.

This might not be the house, finding pictures of these things are impossible.

It's not a house built inside the cave, it is the cave, with natural cave walls, water features, and bats. The owners did see fit to install plumbing and even electricity if I remember correctly.

A similar but different house is located under the city of Las Vegas.

Picture looks funny because it's scanned from a magazine. More (and bigger) images here.

Yep, it's basically a house and yard built in a basement. They've got astroturf, faux trees, and even a pool. The weather is always nice and you never have to worry about bugs while out for a picnic. Being protected from nuclear fallout is just a bonus.

My absolute favorite house is the last one in the program. It has 13 levels and more wildlife inside than out. It's really just amazing looking with all the different levels, stairways, trees, etc. I really wish I could find a picture of this one. The refrigerator is even on an elevator so you can access it from different floors! How awesome is that? So whether you are down at the 20 something foot long pool (that is on the main floor of the house), watching lightning in the storm room, or spending time in the home theater, food is never more than a button away.

Since apparently I can not find pictures or video of the homes in the program anywhere, you'll just have to watch it yourself. It airs again on FLN the 30th at 10am and 10pm EST, as well as on the 31st at 2am EST for those night owls out there. If you are reading this after the 31st an updated listing of air times should be here.

Do you know where your towel is?

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Every year on May 25th we celebrate Towel Day in honor of the late Douglas Adams. Why May 25th? Well, its two weeks after his death (May 11th, 2001) which is how long it took the first one to be organized.

This year I am not going out and about, but my husband will be taking his first pre-calculus test and you can bet he'll have a towel with him for luck.

Think Geek has some various Towel Day merchandise for sale, including two different towels (Don't Panic and 42) and a "Don't Panic and Carry a Towel" t-shirt.

Daryl Hall has started a petition to get Google to recognize Towel Day on their website with a special logo. As of now there are 1602 signatures, but I think we can do a lot better than that.

Now I must say "So long and thanks for all the fish!" and go do some laundry... gotta keep those towels clean, you know.

In anticipation of the LOST Finale...

Here are some of my favorite LOST inspired videos for your viewing pleasure!

Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies

This is a paper I wrote on the book mentioned in the title of this post for my The Making of Modern England class. I thought it was kind of interesting, maybe you will too! :)

Life in a Medieval Village was very different than life today. Back then there was a distinction between cities, towns, and villages that has since all but disappeared. Each settlement had a Lord that ruled over it, who held distinctive powers over his people. What those powers were varied between the free men and those termed villiens. Their system of justice also varied significantly from ours, although you can see some of it's influence today.

So what is the difference between a village and a town? Well, the easy answer is that a village must have a church, a town, and a market. However, the villagers themselves saw it much differently. You lived your whole life in a village. You worked, you played, you loved, you fought, you were born, and you died, all in the same community. While it might be necessary to venture to a town to get some supplies not abundant in your village, it was usually a very tight-knit band of people who shared resources. There were some instances of private wells, but it was far more common to have a community well shared by the whole village. Mothers in villages were much more likely to nurse children themselves, rather than hiring a wet nurse as was common in towns, cities, and castles. Nor did they employ the services of a doctor, rarely a barber (who in towns or cities combined the services of "bloodletting" and dentistry with shaving). Almost everyone farmed for sustenance. Occasionally you would find someone who was primarily a baker, a miller, a carpenter, but normally people took on these duties along with farming. In a town it was more likely to have specializations and people who did no farming at all.

Something towns and villages had in common was the Lord who ruled over them. The Lord very rarely stayed in the village. It was more common for a Steward or Bailiff to reside in the manor house full time. The Lord was basically the "consumer of the village surplus". One village might even be shared by multiple Lords. Peasants were offered land in exchange for work on the Lord's demesne or for paying a cash rent. He was also in charge of the manor courts, which was the primary judicial house of the area. The Lord had the privilege of holding monopolies on some activities - such as baking bread or grinding grain - which were resented and evaded, but strictly enforced by the manor court. All the villager's sheep were folded by the Lord so their manure would fertilize his demesne. If a villager's house was in disrepair, the Lord saw to it that it was repaired through the manor court. When house or property switched hands, the new owner must pay the Lord an entry fee proportional to the land acquired. One area of life the Lord stayed out of was peasant marriages.

Villagers were primarily separated into two groups, those who were "free" and those who were "villiens". If the Lord's demesne was small, there would be more free men in the village. If it was large, the village would be primarily composed of villiens. While a villien was virtually a slave to the Lord, the villagers themselves made little distinction. Villiens were able to buy, sell, inherit, etc property just as well as their free counterparts. Where they differed was in service to the Lord. Villiens were required to work a certain amount of days on the demesne (depending on how much land they held themselves - either 117 or 58 1/2 days), had to pay more fees, and owed the Lord his "best beast" upon death. All transfers of land had to be approved by the Lord, and when marriages occurred the villien bride or her father was required to pay a merchet. They usually only had contact with the manor court, rarely dealing with the Church or royal courts as might their free neighbors.

In the manor court the steward presided, but the ruling was left up to a jury. Those who were brought to court were ordered to "be at your law six-handed", which meant he must bring along 5 other men to attest that his account was true, or having not witnessed the act in question, that he was a trustworthy person. They were then ordered to find people to guarantee their appearance in court, called pledges, which was a uniquely medieval process. If the plaintiff or defendant did not show up to court, his or her pledge must pay a fine. The parties were allowed to settle out of court, but still had to pay the Lord a fee for a "license to agree". The most common punishment was a fine. Rarely were villagers sentenced to anything but, unless convicted of a felony which belonged in the realm of the royal courts. Along with the fines villagers could be required to pay an additional fee for damages. This was true in the case of personal injury, property damage, or slander. One of the most common fines concerned the brewing of ale. The frequency of these fines leads us to believe that they were being used in lieu of a licensing fee, since the Lord did not hold a monopoly on brewing.

Villagers lived a simple life. Filled with manual labor, they were not plagued by some of the same problems we are today, or even their city or royal counterparts. Although many of their traditions have been lost, one can definitely see the influence village life has had on humanity. We still live in villages, hamlets, towns, and cities even if their distinction is not as strict. We are still tried by a jury of our peers. We still strive to capture that community atmosphere. Gone are the days of Lords, of free men and villeins, but without them we would not be the people we are today.

I may have to start watching Glee now

Seriously, NPH is amazing. His scream > Steven Tyler's.

Apples to Apples and Brownie Earthquake Fun

Last night one of my good friends came over because well, he was bored. Lucky for us my mother had just gotten me Apples to Apples not too long ago.

In Apples to Apples you have a set of green apple cards (adjectives) and red apple cards (nouns). Each player has 7 red apples cards at all times. Each round a judge is picked who chooses a green apple card from the deck. The judges reads it out to the other players, who then must pick the red apple card from their hand that is best described by the green apple card (from the judges point of view! That's very important). The judge then looks at all the cards and picks a winner! The title of judge then moves clockwise to the next player, and it starts again. I can't really remember the specific comparisons we had last night, but I don't think I stopped laughing the whole time. If you've never played you really must look into it.

For some reason after the game was over our guest really wanted a Brownie Earthquake from Dairy Queen. Before I was married we used to go get them all the time. It was like 10:30pm though and all the Dairy Queens were closed. :( So instead we took a trip to walmart to make our own!

We got vanilla ice cream, some Oreo Fudge Rings, hot fudge, and Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies. We passed on the whipped cream because we all usually scrape that off anyway. All told it cost about $9. Brownie Earthquake from Dairy Queen? I don't know but it's probably $3-4 each.

Here's the finished product. I'm not sure why my picture came out blue, probably because I insist on using my phone's camera instead of a real one. I heated the brownies for 45 seconds in the microwave, and the fudge for 30 seconds like it said on the bottle. In hindsight the bottle is full of bullocks and I should have heated it more. I also took some of the Oreos, put them in a ziplock bag, and crushed them up. Brownies on bottom, then a couple scoops of ice creams, crushed up Oreos, hot fudge, and viola! Our very own brownie earthquakes!

They didn't look just like the ones from Dairy Queen (or taste like it for that matter) but it was still delicious and probably worth the money we saved.