Miscellaneous

NaBloPoMo Day #4 - Blogging Ideas

by Nathan on Nov.04, 2009, under Miscellaneous

This post is kind of a cop out, but if I”m going to stick with this NaBloPoMo thing, I’m going to have to take the easy way out a few times. Since starting NaBloPoMo (a whole 3 days ago), I’ve been frantically trying to think of things to blog about. In my first year of blogging, I wrote 64 post. In the next 26 days, I have to write 26 post. That’s a 571.875% increase in my posting rate. I know what you are thinking. Isn’t it a 570.3125% increase? No! you are forgetting that 2008 was a leap year. Silly you. Anyways, here is my list of ideas so far:

Conversations with Nate Dogg
The Ramblings of a Mad Man
Earl and the Ninja Duck (A Children’s Story)
The History of Earl (Cat Pictures)
Everywhere I have lived via Google Street View
Self Driving Cars and Virtual Bubbles
Staying Positive Amidst all the Crazy
My ~~Obsession~~ ~~Love~~ Fondness of Lily Allen
The Self Aware Universe
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Book Review)
Commentary on some random news article of the day
Christmas in London
Teleportation Thought Experiment
Countries I Would Add to Epcot
The Wine Cube
Remodeling my Bathroom
Tour of My Condo
Places I’d like to go
NaBloPoMo - Looking Back (My last NaBloPoMo post)
???

That is 19 potential posts. I need 7 more. Any ideas? Anything on the list you like? don’t like? Leave a comment. I love comments.

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Stuff I Want To Say

by Nathan on Sep.06, 2009, under About Me, Daily Life, Good Eats, Miscellaneous, Music, Politics, Women's Studies

I got things I want to say. Here they are:

Look! It’s a picture of a cat being all cute! This will probably be your favorite part of this post.

My trip to London and Paris seems to be having a lingering effect on my music taste. I’ve been listening to BBC Radio 1 on my iPhone using the WunderRadio app. I’m probably too old to be listening to Radio 1, but whatever, it’s a good station to get you going in the morning. Radio 1 has managed to firmly wedge a few new songs into my head. The first is Left My Heart In Tokyo by Mini Viva, which you can hear in the video below.

The next song stuck in my head is The Day I Died by Just Jack. The video below is an acoustic version. I love acoustic.

BBC Radio 1 has also reintroduced me to Lily Allen. I love Lily Allen. I might have to add her to my harem of girlfriends (along with Mandy Moore, Reese Witherspoon, Meghan McCain, Natalie Portman, Julia Stiles, and Danica McKellar). I’m not completely sure what it is that I like about Lily Allen’s music. She is a beautiful vocalist and an amazing song writer. Her music has a “real” and authentic quality to it. Plus, she knows how to use the word “Fuck”, and God bless her for it. My favorite Lily Allen song of the moment is The Fear. This song speaks to me in ways I don’t understand. I love the version in the video below. It’s acoustic *and* it has a piano, two things I love.

In my ongoing pursuit of beer cheese (documented here and here) I attempted to make welsh rarebit using Alton Brown’s recipe. I was going to blog about it, but it only turned out okay. I think this technique has promise though, because this is the first time I have have made beer cheese using real cheese without it turning out lumpy. The key seems to be low heat and adding the shredded cheese slowly. While it turned out okay, I was hoping for a stronger beer cheesy flavor. If you want to try welsh rarebit, Dressel’s Pub in the Central West End (St. Louis) has great welsh rarebit that they serve with their homemade bavarian chips (potato chips). Here is a picture of my welsh rarebit on toast.

I still have a lot that I want to say about health care, but I’ll spare you, just kidding. I’m shocked at how some people seem resistant to even the most basic and obviously needed reforms. At a minimum, we must prevent insurance companies from discriminating based on health and in turn require everyone who can afford it to purchase health insurance. This is exactly how most employer provided group insurance plans work, and most people on these plans are very satisfied with their health care. Group insurance works, we just need to make sure everyone can get in the group. This will be good for small businesses and the self employed, why republicans aren’t more supportive of this I will never understand. On the other end of the spectrum, my support for a public plan is waining. A lot of this is because I was watching an episode of NOW on PBS about health care called Gambling With Health Care. In it, the Bush administration official in charge of medicare made the point that subsidies for lower income individuals to purchase private insurance could be just as effective as a public plan. I’m a big fan of the simplest solution that works, so if we can have meaningful health care reform without a public plan, that would be simpler, and I’d be all for it. I’ll probably change my mind on this in a day or two. On another note, why aren’t more moderate republicans making rational suggestions like the former Bush official in the NOW episode? Why do republicans let their craziest voices speak the loudest? Oh, and what about this whole freaking out about Obama talking to kids on the importance of education thing? WTF? When republicans pull these stunts, they allow themselves to be labeled as wingnuts, which causes a lot of people to instantly write off anything they say, even if it might actually make some sense. Ugh! This is why I wish I could register as a non-republican. Here is the NOW episode on health care. You aren’t allowed to comment on the health care portion of this post unless you watch the whole video.

Stylin’

by Nathan on Mar.15, 2009, under Miscellaneous

I’ve got style, I’ve got grace, Rita Hayworth ate my face. Who in the hell is Rita Hayworth, and why does she eat faces? Never mind. Not important. So about a week ago, I figured that I should finally backup my blog and upgrade to Wordpress 2.7. That was easy enough. Then I figured, while I’m at it, why not give my blog a facelift and change my theme? All that gray in my old theme was starting to drive me crazy. I found the Pixeled theme in the Wordpress Theme Directory, and I loved it. Pixeled is by far the most popular theme in the directory right now, so as an added bonus, I will no longer feel the pressure of being original. Now if by chance you have been reading my blog, you may have already figured this out, but let me just come out and say it… I’m anal. I need everything to be just perfect, even things no one will ever notice. So I started the process of modifying the Pixeled theme to fit this here personal blog of mine, and it turned into a nightmare. See the picture above, this is where I stayed up until 1 or 2 am every night for the past week staring at CSS code. Also, those books in the picture, not helpful at all. (continue reading…)

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Nighttime On Pulaski Bridge

by Nathan on Dec.17, 2008, under Miscellaneous

I am ridiculously entranced with this video by a friend from high school. It is so early 80’s. I feel like it’s a short movie that would have been on 3-2-1 Contact or Sesame Street or something. Watch it, but be careful, it sucks you in.

Bunnicula

by Nathan on Aug.21, 2008, under Miscellaneous

I can’t believe I just found this. Bunnicula was my favorite book as a kid, and for some reason, I just got the idea to Google Bunnicula. Then I found this. The ABC Weekend Special version of Bunnicula circa 1982. Apparently there is a new book in the Bunnicula series published in 2006. Crazy. Anyways, enjoy:

Vote For My Next Blog Post

by Nathan on Aug.13, 2008, under Miscellaneous

I’m tired of trying to decide what to blog next. You pick. Also, please let me know if the poll doesn’t work. I’d test it myself, but that would screw up the results.

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Welcome to Roseyland

by Nathan on Feb.02, 2008, under Miscellaneous

To all who come to this happy place: welcome, Roseyland is your land. Except that it is really only my land and it’s not so much a land as it is a blog. Technically this is my second blog, my first blog was a group project with some friends from college, but it has died of apathy. This time, I’m going it alone. Well not completely alone. I am happy to announce that my cat Earl had been named Vice President of Marketing for Roseyland Enterprises. His extensive background as a cat and in depth knowledge of all things Rosey will be invaluable to the growth of our organization. Earl has already done some groundbreaking work, check out the Roseyland advertisement below. I’m sure you will agree that it is highly effective.

Earl Roseyland Advertisment

Originally, I was going to name my blog PondOfScum. However, Earl ran a few focus groups and apparently “Pond Of Scum” registered statistically significant negative emotional feedback among a few key demographics. I’d share more details, but we consider them proprietary. Just a little secret between you, me, and the entire internet: you can also get to this blog by going to pondofscum.com. Cool, huh?

I’m not sure exactly what this blog is going to become. Like most blogs, I’ll share my general thoughts and observations of the world around me. There will probably be a little politics, a little current events, a little discussion of religion/spirituality, a lot of stuff about my cat, and a lot of stuff that defies categorization. My next blog post is either going to be about John McCain, Tom Cruise/Scientology, or my general thoughts on religion. In the mean time, check out my about me page, leave a comment, or email me.

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