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One dollar video sale

Tyler and I went back to the video store this afternoon. I wanted to give him a chance to pick some movies out and I wanted to search a bit more. I didn’t have a lot of time on Monday. I was only able to find one more zombie movie so now my zombie movie collection has grow to two: Dead Snow, and Severed. We’re starting our marathon with Ghosts of Goldfield now, after that Meadowoods.  I think I’ll do a one-post mini review of them as we finish up. I’m really excited for this. I’ll have some lame movies to watch on my period now.

Exhaustion but no arguing

Sadly there were no loud arguments today, only passive aggressions, at today’s meeting. I did see the girl from my rival paper again, she was nice, we didn’t talk long since it was a two minute recess. I was tired during the meeting and made the mistake of getting the coffee there. It was terrible so I dumped it and stuck to water. I was thankful the meeting let out an hour early but that meant I had two hours to kill before I picked up Tyler from work. So I went to visit my boss and we shared some eyerolls over the decisions made. Then I went to the video store, which is the highlight of my post! They were having a dollar movie sale so… I used that chance to grab some new flicks!! I picked up some cheesy looking horror films, a experimental surveillance camera movie, and Casblanca because why the hell not? I hated Casablanca when I watched it at 13. Maybe I’ll like it at 20? It’ll be fun to own more stupid movies. I want a collection of bad zombie movies now, too, my first will be Dead Snow. I also grabbed some candy cigarettes– just as tasty and naughty feeling as they were when I was six.
I only had to sit and wait on Tyler for an hour at work and got a jump start on my article. After I picked him up we got Vietnamese and listening to other people’s conversations. Now I’m fighting the urge to sleep and trying to pick out a movie.

Library Time

I’m a few minutes away from leaving the library to go to the commissioners meeting. Its going to be about three hours but I have a bottle of water and a bag of Doritos so I think I’m ready. My boss called earlier and told me to get all the quotes I can. She thinks there might be arguing today. I hope so. A good fight is just what I want to see today! Plus, that’s more entertaining that budget approvals. I’m excited. Wish me luck!

Work Tomorrow

Tomorrow is going to be exhausting for me. I can already feel it in my bones. My car isn’t up here this week. It isn’t because of lack of gas or funds. I’m just too drive the 25 miles. I’m going to the second commissioners meeting this month. It isn’t that they are boring just incredibly long. I’m actually really excited because I had a good time at the last one and my editor really like the article. However, I have to use Tyler’s car and he works. So I’ll be driving him to work at 1:30 then heading to the library to read and hang out until the meeting at 3:30. The meeting should last about three hours, about 6:30, and Tyler gets off at 7:00. So even if the meeting lets out early I shouldn’t be sitting in the car waiting for long. I guess the theme of tomorrow will be waiting. I’ll get a lot of reading done though!!

Pasticcio Recipe

-2 Cups dried fusilli
-Olive Oil as needed
-4 TBSP Heavy Cream

Sauce:
-2 TBSP Olive Oil
-1 Onion thinly sliced
-1 Zucchini quartered
-4 TBSP Chopped Garlic
-1 LBS Ground Beef
-14 oz can of diced tomato
-1/2 Cup dry white wine
-2 TBSP Parsley
-1 Jar of mushrooms
-Salt and Pepper
-1 bag of 6 cheese Italian blend

1. To make the sauce, heat the oil in a skillet and saute the onion and zucchini until almost tender. Add garlic and cook for additional minute. Add the beef and cook until browned
2. Add the tomatoes and wine to skillet and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes, until thickened. Stir in mushrooms, and parsley.
3. Bring pot of water to a boil and cook pasta as per directions. Drain and transfer to the dish you’ll be baking in. Stir in the heavy cream.
4. Pour pasta and sauce into glass (we used 9×9 inch) baking dish. Mix well and add a good layer of cheese on top.
5. Bake in oven preheated at 375F’ for 10-15 minutes.

Pasticcio night!

Tyler and I tried out a new recipe tonight. With how busy we’ve been lately (and how tight money has been.) we’ve been eating frozen meals more often than cooking. Today was special (but private) occasion so we decided to celebrate with something new. We’ve had a pretty cool pasta cook book for a few years. Rather than waste an hour on the internet we flipped through the book and found a recipe called “pasticcio”. I can’t pin down if its Italian or Greek (The internet can’t seem to decide either.) but since the recipe called for anchovies… I’m leaning towards Greek? We substituted a few of the ingredients and let out some altogether. The recipe called for bell pepper but I’m allergic so we bought a zucchini instead and replaced anchovies with mushrooms. I just don’t want to mess around with weird little fishies. It’s a pasta bake and the topping was supposed to be a mix of eggs, yogurt, and parmesan cheese but we left that out too. Too much experimentation never works out for us. So we did a top coating of a six cheese blend. It was really easy to do! The preparation was short and aside from cooking the pasta and mixing everything together it only took 30 minutes in total to prepare. It was DELICIOUS, very heavy and filling but it was honestly one of the best dishes we’ve made (aside from our lo mein.) It was also the first time I cooked beef, weird I know, but we usually just have chicken. Not many of our recipes call for beef. It wasn’t as bad as I thought and I think I did really well, after a short phone call to daddy to make sure I was doing it right. It tasted great.

Other than cooking we just had a good day in general. For once in my life I wasn’t craving Chinese food so we decided to use our McDonald’s coupons. We had one of those moments where we just looked at each other and rolled our eyes. Some guy was in line and I don’t know his whole order but a bottle of water was a part of it. Somehow that bottle of water was only 00.38$ but they didn’t have an actual bottles of water. He pitched a fit when they (god forbid) gave him a cup to get water. He refused to pay the 00.38$ and had the manager refund him. When basically he was still getting the water he paid for just not in the container he wanted. Then we went shopping for our ingredients. Its always fun going to the store with Tyler. We just have a good time where ever we go. Went we got home we just relaxed until it was time to cook and I’m glad we started early because I was starved. Now we’re just relaxing and playing Persona 3 after doing all the dishes.

Mini Post: I’m back

After a long ass time I finally have a computer again. Which means (hopefully) more blogging. I know I had/have my phone and Ty’s computer to blog from but I prefer blogging on my own computer. Yesterday my wifi adapter came in so I’m piping in the internet hard and fast.

Finally Fantasy XIII

Tyler and I are about 18 hours into Final Fantasy XIII. It isn’t my first RPG (or JRPG, as it were.) But, it is my first Final Fantasy game. Though, I did buy Advent Children when I was around 14 or 15 and fell madly in love with Kadaj. But, at 18 hours in (Thats a little inflated since we roleplay while playing the game and trade off playing) I thought I’d make a post about my thoughts/reactions so far. Most of these reactions are going to be negative or things I’m still getting used too. I’m a tough critic.

I can’t stand Hope. I seriously look at this kid and I get mad. His mother was dumb enough to volunteer to fight with Snow and that’s what got her killed. It wasn’t Snow’s fault he needed civilian back up. Snow didn’t look on without caring as she died, he tried to save her and it does weigh on him. I really hope to see some good development here and I hope he doesn’t end up like Ken from Persona 3 and be a useless plot point used for a strung out revenge arc.

Speaking of Snow…. he gets on my nerves too. He’s dangerously spontaneous and it isn’t cute. I don’t think there was a long term plan to propose to Serah. I really think he did it on a whim after he found out she was a L’Cie. Which isn’t necessarily bad it just isn’t very mature. At 21 he should be making more rational decisions than giving some poor girl false hope and big ideas. If I were Serah his irrational behavior would have caused me to bail long before the events of the game. Then again, I’m not the type of girl who wants a guy calling himself “my hero” all the time.

I wish the areas were more explorable. After games like Skyrim and Ico I like pushing into every corner to see what I can. I’m used to fixed paths because of Eternal Sonata and Tales of Graces but… this is a little ridiculous. In a hallway I want to be able to at least run to the edge of the wall…it feels so confined. But its a beautiful game and the graphics were so painstakingly laid out its easy to see why the paths are so narrow. I just want to explore… (I’ll go back to Skyrim for that.)

I knew that Vanille was from Pulse! It was painfully obvious. I really hope that no one out there was surprised by Fang’s reveal. (I’ll get to Fang in a second.) Vanille was dressed completely different from everyone when she was shown with an outfit of beads and furs. Everyone else was dressed “modernly” or like a weird priest. Her accent was also different, slightly European. She was placed as a mysterious outsider from the moment we saw her. She also seemed right at home in the Fal’Cie and the strange weapon she and Hope found? She didn’t seem the least bit surprised by it or how to use it. Later when we meet Fang she is dressed unusually and has a weird accent aswell. Further confirming my suspicion about them being from Pulse. I was happy and smug when Fang revealed it.

Vanille is a little bit too perky for me. I would think that she would be a little more worried about becoming a L’Cie even if it was her home’s Fal’Cie. (I’m probably spelling the Cie stuff wrong.) Fang is much more my temperament as far as characterization goes.

I like Sazh but there really isn’t much to say about him. He’s funny and has a cute pet. I hope the Chocabo chick doesn’t die but there will need to be a big time skip to see it grow up. I’m perfectly fine with him popping out of the afro to be cute now and then. Also, Sazh is basically a bus driver who got roped into a rebellion. Daj is adorable I wanna kiss his cheeks.

I like the summoning aspect but I think just because I’m a total Persona fan. It makes me wonder if Persona was a bit of a inspiration for the summons. I think its funny that Lightning’s is a horse. I like Snow’s…they scissor when they make the bike. It’s cute.

I think its a totally weird and unnecessary coincidence that Snow’s group is called NORA and Hope’s mother’s name just so happens to be Nora but their might be a weird connection there. I doubt they were both called the same name in Japanese though. I think its purely for the English folks to go “Oooooh spooky” about.

I really have no opinions on any of the other NORA members considering I’ve only seen them together about three times.

I really like Lightning. There isn’t really much to say. She’s a simple woman that doesn’t take shit.

The game is beautiful looking. The graphics are perfect like most Final Fantasy things and I think the world is extremely well developed. The culture of this little world fascinates me. I wish there were some maps in the Codex so I could really see the layout. Its a little hard for me to piece it together. I’m thankful for the Codex. It reminds me of Mass Effect and I loved pouring through the Codex to learn.  The story is very interesting to me and I’m sure once we’re finished I’ll have more positive things to say. I’m very tough on games as I play them. Plus this is a LONG game and it feels like I’m only getting started. Not much of the story has been told.

Camp?

A few months ago I applied to a camp in my area. It incredibly spur of the moment but I decided it would be a fun thing to do. A few weeks ago I received an email saying that all positions were filled but my application would be kept on file of I were needed. Today I received another email saying that my application was reviewed and the request to set up a phone interview! The woman is going to call me a 3:30 pm tomorrow for the interview. I’m both nervous and excited. I hope that it is a paid job– if it’s volunteer I don’t think I can do it but Tyler and I really need the money. So, I’m excited!