Random thing you love right now that doesn't deserve its own thread

Right now I'm browning veal oxtail in bacon drippings. Then I'm going to pour wine in with it. This is officially the best recipe ever.

This thread is making me happy right now. Good things happening to good people = awesome!

Agree on Paranormal, the alternate endings were better.

Still haven't seen any of the sequels. I wonder if they changed it more for that possibility?

We went to Disney[land, world] (the florida one) earlier this summer. My Brother in Law and his wife took the boys to the Star Tours gift shop and did the, build your own light saber thing.

These things have been kicking around the house for about four months now. They're pretty cool. The blade telescoped up when you whip it. The makes startup and shutdown sounds. It makes clashing sounds when you hit them.

So, today the boys are battling and my eldest slips on the tile floor, using his brother's toy, and it clatters to the floor. I hear the sound of small plastic pieces clattering on the floor. I came over to console the youngest, and answer my eldest's apologies for breaking his brother's souvenier.

As I pick up the pieces, I notice that of them still have manufactured edges. Thankfully, only pieces have fallen off, instead of breaking.
As I begin to re-assemble the light sabre, I notice that what I have is, a door, and three coloured crystals. Inside the door are three slots, with switches at one end. I start plugging them back in a realize that the crystals, with which I am familliar from SWOTR games, actually change the sound of the light sabre.

So, instead of breaking a beloved toy and souvenier, we've discovered a feature, and these toys are basically brand new again to the boys.

All kids toys should have a secret feature which the company emails you to tell you about six months after you buy it.

On a horror-movie trip right now.

Saw Noroi (Japanese found-footage horror) two nights ago. The whole thing is available on YouTube with English subtitles. Tonight's features were Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project. Hadn't seen either movie before.

Thoughts on Paranormal Activity:

Spoiler:

Not thrilled with the conclusion, though the rest of the movie was quite good. They shouldn't have blurred her face and done the growl thing, since the whole point of the movie is to present itself as realistically as possible. Using photoshop/cgi and slapping on modified audio ruins the vibe. Ending the film with a simple grimace would have been perfect. I prefer the alternate endings.

The Blair Witch Project:

Spoiler:

Loved the movie, but again, unsatisfied with the ending. They both enter a trance-like state? Is that it? Boo.

A few minutes of internetting later, it makes a wee bit more sense.

The Internet wrote:

I believe one person mentioned the Rustin Par child murders, where Rustin would have two children in the room, and he'd make one stand facing the corner while he tortured and killed the other. Then, when Heather runs into the basement, we see Mike standing facing the wall, just before Heather drops the camera and everything goes silent.

That's awesome! I might have to check and see if Disneyland has one of these shops and pick one up for myself.

"Most Pulp" orange juice. Am I the only one? Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one.

Blind_Evil wrote:

"Most Pulp" orange juice. Am I the only one? Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one.

I hate orange juice with no pulp, give me all of it
They sell this drink called 'Rani Float' out here and it's delicious. It comes in peach, pear, pineapple, and orange from what I've seen. It's basically like a super-pulp/fruit chunk filled drink, where the rest of the drink tastes like the liquid you'd get from draining out a can of said fruit.

IMAGE(http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/106996909/Ice_tea_Lipton_Rani_Soft_Drink.jpg)

Blind_Evil wrote:

"Most Pulp" orange juice. Am I the only one? Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one.

I *love* pulpy OJ. Goes back to when my dad would get my fresh-squeezed as a kid.

Tanglebones wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

"Most Pulp" orange juice. Am I the only one? Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one.

I *love* pulpy OJ. Goes back to when my dad would get my fresh-squeezed as a kid.

Whee!

If you can't chew it, it's not really orange juice.

I've officially crossed 90 pounds lost! The pace of my weight loss is certainly slowing (as expected) but I'm now about 8.5 pounds away from hitting my target weight of 230. I'm hoping if I knuckle down, I can hit the target in time for Christmas. Just in time to pack in the holiday meals.

Congratulations! If you don't mind me asking, when did you start?

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

I've officially crossed 90 pounds lost! The pace of my weight loss is certainly slowing (as expected) but I'm now about 8.5 pounds away from hitting my target weight of 230. I'm hoping if I knuckle down, I can hit the target in time for Christmas. Just in time to pack in the holiday meals. :)

Where did Parallax go? Ah, I see, he's vanishing. Congrats!

Schrensky wrote:

Congratulations! If you don't mind me asking, when did you start?

Well, I started using MyFitnessPal to track calories in late May, 2011 but I still wasn't doing any real exercise to go with that. Last September, I started doing about an hour a day of treadmill speed walking which I've largely kept up since (I usually miss 1 day out of every 5). I've gradually turned up the speed and incline to offset the calorie burn going down as I lose more weight (though I haven't adjusted either in far too long now.) MyFitnessPal has been the biggest help by far. The database of food is entirely user contributed and almost anything you can possibly think of is in there. It has a subconscious impact on your eating habits once you realise how much worse things you thought not that bad for you are and vice versa. It's also good in setting realistic calorie goals for you and adjust them in according with your weight loss. This honestly has taken a lot less time than I thought it would (I was guessing 2 years at a minimum) but the real test is going to be seeing if I can maintain it after, though MyFitnessPal has the ability to track that too. Here's hoping.

Schrensky wrote:

That's awesome! I might have to check and see if Disneyland has one of these shops and pick one up for myself.

Can you even imagine the willpower it took not to march over there and make one for myself after Auntie, Uncle, and the boys showed up with these?

I'm still kind of a closet nerd with my wife's family. It's no secret, but they don't really know how deep is runs.

Auntie and Uncle are, kind of, hipster, social elite, world traveller sorts. I had some appearances to keep up; though the 110 degree heat and a Disney theme park eroded most of my public persona. I may have nothing to lose any longer.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

I've officially crossed 90 pounds lost! The pace of my weight loss is certainly slowing (as expected) but I'm now about 8.5 pounds away from hitting my target weight of 230. I'm hoping if I knuckle down, I can hit the target in time for Christmas. Just in time to pack in the holiday meals. :)

Keep at it. I couldn't believe the difference from when I first met you, to the Dark Souls vid cast. I'm actually having trouble believing 230, except that, I kind of, remember you were probably close to the same height as me.

Bought $100 worth of MSFT Points for $50 on Black Friday at Target. Got a $10 giftcard back for spending more than $49.99 that day. The part that I actually loved, I had the self-restraint to not repeat the transaction.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

Bought $100 worth of MSFT Points for $50 on Black Friday at Target. Got a $10 giftcard back for spending more than $49.99 that day. The part that I actually loved, I had the self-restraint to not repeat the transaction.

Were there other items to qualify you for the gift card? I didn't get one with my points purchase.

I also bought a board-game, Star Trek Catan for $35. A gift for a couple, one loves Catan, the other loves Star Trek. I asked the cashier why I was getting the gift-card, she said it was because I spent more than $49.99. She had to over-ride the MSFT point cards but did so before I even said anything about the price difference.

Hmmm... Ok. I did have some other stuff, Xbox games mostly. Can't really complain though, still got a great deal on the points!

My wife laughing her ass off and giggling like a maniac while she runs over innocent civilians. #GrandTheftAuto4

Getting the Walking Dead on Steam as a gift. This game is chilling, which means it's good. And scary. Thanks again Parallax Abstraction.

Strangeblades wrote:

Getting the Walking Dead on Steam as a gift. This game is chilling, which means it's good. And scary. Thanks again Parallax Abstraction.

My pleasure dude! In reality, it's barely a game and more of an interactive story but it's so, so good.

My sister's bad/awesome day.

Bad: she got "laid off" (the head office of the pool company she works for is full of jerks and they cut her position "because of reasons". These are the same people that called regularly to spew obscenities at her when they screwed stuff up and she pointed out, screwed with her hours and vacation time, cut her off from selling anything that would give her commissions (which is too bad, she was good at that), gave no raises ever and underpaid her while piling on more and more work.

To get out of this cycle of badness, she is in school taking courses to become a law clerk.

Good: She sends in her resume today, about an hour after she was fired, to a law firm near where she lives; 20 mins later she got called for an interview this week.

Getting fired from that crap job was just the fire under her butt that she needed to get out of the dead-end job she's been in for years. If she gets this job at the law firm, I hope she writes a "thank you for doing me the biggest favour ever, jerks" letter to the head office of that pool place.

Mimble wrote:

Good: She sends in her resume today, about an hour after she was fired, to a law firm near where she lives; 20 mins later she got called for an interview this week. :D

Yowza. IMAGE(http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/ab221/Strangeblades/Emoticons/smiley_emoticons_hurra2.gif)

My mom's chili! It's the only chili I've had that has mushrooms and broccoli bits, and it's fantastic. She filled up a couple of empty pasta jars with her chili and sent me home with them after Thanksgiving. Dinner for several days, yay!

Just did the math on how much extra I'm getting paid to be in Korea for a month. Almost makes it worth it.

IMAGE(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_725214_642089_1352520115.jpg)

Puce Moose wrote:

My mom's chili! It's the only chili I've had that has mushrooms and broccoli bits, and it's fantastic. She filled up a couple of empty pasta jars with her chili and sent me home with them after Thanksgiving. Dinner for several days, yay!

Those actually sound like really awesome chilli additions...I may have to try that one day.

I put that in white chilis. I may have to venture into the red with that.