[369] they're gonna change it

console

< Piro >

"morning news"

Saturday - February 1, 2003

I imagine most of you who have seen the TV this morning have heard about the apparent disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia over Texas. I don't normally react to news items in my rantspace, but I just felt like typing, for some reason...

In life, depending on your age, there are always events that people remember: disasters or historic events that also become personal points in history. Many older people remember where they where when President Kennedy was assassinated. Most of us remember where we were when the attacks on September 11th happened. When I look back at my own life, the first event of this type that I remember was the Challenger disaster in 1986. I was a senior in high school. I only had classes in the morning that day, so I was on my way home when I heard the news on the radio. The news this morning, heard from the TV which just happened to be on as I went to get a cup of coffee, eerily reminded me of that day so many years ago.

Humans are emotional creatures. We are defined as much by the emotive events in our lives as we are by our own actions. Many times, we have no way of controlling these events, and they can come out of nowhere. Depending on your focus, you can wallow in the sadness that is life, or you can reflect happily in the joy that also is life. It's an odd paradox.

We sit here looking at proceeding into a war based on preemptive principals and 'high moral' goals (I don't think i want to get into my opinion on this potential conflict). We watch this morning as something that normally isn't even newsworthy, the return to earth of a Space Shuttle, as it suddenly bursts into our consciousness as it disintegrated over the clear skies of Texas. We watch the apparent disintegration of the lives of seven people a craft that has symbolism in its own right. Fears of our own mortality that arise when others die within the view of our conscience radars.

Somber thoughts for a quiet, grey, snowy day here in lower Michigan. I could go further with these lines of thought, but for some reason i want to just let them set. My condolences go out not only to the families of those lost in this disaster, but to those who also mourn for things that may not reach so high on the public consciousness.

Maybe thats one of the reasons people need the ability to express themselves in words, music and art. It helps you deal with all shades of things, from the joyous to the tragic.

[previous rant] - [rant archive] - [next rant]

< Natsuki >

"Warm & Fuzzy!"

Wednesday - February 5, 2003

[Natsuki] - 00:00:00 - [link here]

(Yep. Natsuki again. Remember, e-mail her at cellise at yahoo... anything that goes to dom@megatokyo.com addressed to her will be deleted. -Dom)

As promised! (since of everything I mentioned this got the most email O_o...well this and Zardoz, but we all know Sean Connery in thigh-high leather boots is "teh win")

The recipe for keep-you-up-all-night vanilla tea.

I learned this recipe from a lovely young man that once worked at HP (Hewlett Packard). Yes! Tea recipe from a codemonkey, and you know what kind of octane they run on...so it's got to be good.

You'll need:
water
something to boil it in
1 bigelow tea bag (anything from their vanilla family will do...or if you have a vanilla tea you like better, go for it!)
sugar (and lots of it!)
some sort of creamer (powered non-dairy, milk, 1/2&1/2)
BIG thermal mug (so the warmed by the fires of hell water stays that way!)

First a handy little diagram!

I make mine in a 15.9 nissan stainless steel mug, this is not tea for some dainty little teacup...it may evenoverpower some weaker mugs! When you make this tea you're going to want LOTS!

A recent venture to the grocery store led to the discovery that bigelow now makes not just french vanilla, but also vanilla almond, cherry vanilla and vanilla hazelnut. O_o

But in the original recipe we use french vanilla as a default.

Boil your water on the stove, I like to use a teapot that whistles, it's got thislittle turtle head...why a turtle? Who knows, it's cute though.

Prepare your mug ahead of time by dumping at least enough sugar to be an inch or more deep.

Now pour in the water, it'll dissolve the sugar instantly.

Grab the teabag and pop it into the water as well. I usually stand around and absentmindly dip it in the water several times.

Can you see the bottom of the mug anymore? No? Good!

Now it's time to add the white stuff until you achieve a nice light tan color.

Now you can zone out on the steam as it rises from the cup while you wait for it to cool to a tolerable level.

"So yeah, that's great Nats...but how does this keep the sleep demons away?" You might ask yourself, well here's how!

The unholy amount of sugar keeps you just under the vibrating enough to enter a new plane of existance...and if you drink a lot of it before you are "supposed" to go to bed... you'll be up with the ol' full bladder effect. ^_~

This tea always cheers me up if I'm in a snarky "dunwannadoanything" type mood.Also wrapping your hands around a warm drink in cold conditions is always comforting. (Of course, Natsuki always has a nice Wang to comfort her... just saying -Dom)

And perhaps sitting in front of a warm vcr with a few tapes (yes! tapes! bulky vhs, how I love ya!) of Miracle Girls. ^_^

Now with that out of the way, it's been rumored that "Warmth" will soon be renamed "Saeko's Big Fuzzy Adventure!"

So until next time...when we finally find out what happened at APE, this is Nats signing off and hoping you don't scald your throat too badly!

(And just because people seem to need this warning {some genius cut and pasted the entire rant--including the warning at the end--and e-mailed a one-liner. Bah} you should NOT send e-mail to dom@megatokyo.com, send it to her cellise account)