Favorite reference garble of the day: a patron emailed us about a problem in one of our databases, and said that the error message was "a system has occurred."
(I have no doubt that some error messages are actually that unhelpful, or more likely our person was just in a hurry, but either way I love it.)
- Amandadon't
Voicemail is where coherent elegance goes to die.
- Micah
from FFHound(roid)!
WHY I NO LONGER USE THE PHONE, A short story by E. Stephen Mack. "Oh... Hi! Hi, um, this is Stephen, and I'm calling because I, er, I guess I expected you to answer the phone, but now I'm talking as if you could suddenly pick up the phone now that you hear my voice, but this is voice mail, and you can't hear me talking, well, not yet anyway, and, um, the reason I was calling is......
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- Stephen Mack #TeamMomo
This reminds me of a time I did a training session, and said, "I think that went well," after I thought everyone had gone. Then I realized that I was still on the conference call. Oops.
- Laura H.
If I'm in a anxiety-inducing situation where I'm supposed to speak articulately in an extemporaneous manner, (public speaking, phone voice messaging, etc.) I've found it helpful to picture myself in my underwear. It doesn't improve the semi-coherent nature of my message, but hey, at least I'm distracted from the awful reality of my verbal discourse. #helpfulhint
- Jkram|ɯɐɹʞſ
I wish I had stumbled across these options before today. That being said, they look like great things to cook up and freeze and have in the icebox; my decision to embrace veganism is not just about going without animal-based foods, and eating a more plant-based diet, but also to eat less processed food, even if it is vegan. That being said, I’m baking up a mess of hot wings for the game today. #notveganyet
- Derrick
from Bookmarklet
"Recipes often ask us to peel and cube a butternut squash, but actually doing it can be a little puzzling. How does one coax cubes from this wonderfully curvy vegetable? Do we need to deal with the neck differently than the bulbous seed area? And what about the skins and seeds? Read on for a step-by-step guide to breaking down a butternut squash. What's great about the butternut squash is that it's smooth skin and somewhat elongated shape make it one of the easiest squash to work with. While we peel the squash in this post, please also remember that squash skins are actually quite delicious, especially if you are roasting the squash. (The skins will not work so well if you are planning to make a puree or a pureed soup, however, as they remain crunchy.) And save the seeds, too, if you're up for roasting them! The most important thing when working with large, hard vegetables is to be sure that you have the right equipment. This basically means grabbing the largest, sharpest knife you...
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- John (bird whisperer)
from Bookmarklet
"Your other important tool is a peeler, which should also be as sharp as possible. I recommend looking for peelers that have carbon steel blades as these hold a sharp edge longer than stainless steel. I like simple, cheap "Swiss" peelers. They're usually under $5 each and last a long, long time. I think the one pictured above is well over 5 years old and still going strong even though I...
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- John (bird whisperer)
I respectfully, yet emphatically, disagree that butternut is one of the easiest squashes to work with.
- Meg V. Meg
I suppose it's more that I violently hate peeling butternut squash, and other squashes are not used in ways that require peeling.
- Meg V. Meg
Peeling it is a pain, but at least it has smooth skin. FWIW, I hate peeling pretty much anything.
- John (bird whisperer)
I don't mind peeling these or carrots too much, as long as I have a good peeler. This sounds like a pretty straightforward way of going about it. I usually cut the neck portion first, since it is easier to peel when it isn't quite so heavy.
- Jennifer Dittrich
Meg, I totally agree. Cutting up butternut squashes possibly my least favorite kitchen process, especially because I like doing rounds where I leave some of the skin on.
- Lily
I don't think I would ever actually do this. I either bake them whole, or I would buy them pre-cut at Trader Joes.
- Laura Norvig
When my search for a free database that could do what I needed came up dry, I suddenly remembered that Evernote is a database on the back end, and it does what I need. So I created a whole new account just for our strategic planning group. Woo!
I LOVE Evernote. Planning on doing some serious revamp to my account to make it run more efficiently for me soon. :) Hope it works out for you!
- MontglaneChess
"Around this time in the winter, dinners start to become predictable. Soup is in heavy rotation as are whole-grain casseroles or baked pasta with loads of greens. Routines set in and I start to turn to what what's easy, filling and delicious. But lately I've been craving food with a warmer kick—spicy food, food that isn't always in my weekly repertoire. Truthfully, I don't cook much Indian food at home. I love it, and there's a great little spot by our house with a pretty magical (and inexpensive) lunch buffet. But I find that when I'm inspired to actually cook something, I never have the right spices and I start to feel a touch overwhelmed by the thought of it. But we had a dinner party recently and decided to tackle a number of Indian dishes that were new to us. I usually like to test out new recipes before serving them to friends, but this was an exception: I was craving Indian food and there simply wasn't enough time to fully test each one. So I went with recipes from a few...
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- John (bird whisperer)
from Bookmarklet
Ooooh, yum. I can't quite seem to get the hang of lentils, but both of the red lentil recipes look really good.
- Jennifer Dittrich
I've messed up quite a few lentil dishes. Red lentils can be really nice, though.
- John (bird whisperer)
The key to making the lentil dishes is to keep it simple... onion, mustard seeds, cumin, turmeric and chicken bullion as a base. If you try to add all the stuff they list in most recipes you wind up overwhelming the flavor. Oh and the recipes generally way overestimate the amount of spice powders to add.
- Adrian
My screw ups usually involve over/under cooking the lentils themselves :/
- Jennifer Dittrich
Jenn's problem is also my problem, though I've occasionally had flavoring issues.
- John (bird whisperer)
I still struggle with OVER spicing or making it too hot. Yeah lentils cook pretty fast. I sometimes make lentils for my dog when we run out of dogfood too. :D
- Adrian
I can't even imagine what lentil dog farts would be like....
- WoH: Professor MOTHRA
Also, man, I wish my family did not place such emphasis on the TIME you were born. Because all day today I'm going to be looking at the clock and thinking, "Nope, I was still in labor."
- laura x
Apparently somebody kidnapped Bilal the Stapler, put him in jello, and left a ransom note demanding that we revert to our old print management system. Heheheheheh.
Librarianship - from what you can see here it's all about having a personal brand for your freely available, online and mobile, always on,client focussed penis. It's essentially Hung with a tablet.
confession: just a month or so ago I found a package of Eggs i bought at the end of last season and forgot about. HAPPY SURPRISE.
- holly #ravingfangirl
Me too, Christa, except I'm not supposed to have them anymore :-( but these days when I find the Russell Stover sugar free marshmallow eggs I get that old giddy glee.
- Starmama
from FFHound(roid)!
Russell Stover's sugar free candies are spooky good. You almost forget...almost...
- Hookuh Tinypants
Is this one of those, "I'm interested to see who actually reads my wall, so leave a one word comment about me and then post it to your wall so your friends can do the same thing for you" kind of things? Cause ... no.
- Kristin
I thought maybe it was one of those complete-the-sentence thingys. "if you're still on Friendfeed you're ... not too cool for school
- Laura Norvig
from iPod
Beyler it is time for you anglo-americans to embrace your Kurdish, Turkish and Italian fetfirint brethren. both the tire stopper and memişko keps giver kinds. Pliz.
- Alfonker Tapir
(Shabuya, sha, sha, shabuya, ROLL CALL!) My name is Chris (Yeah!). Chris of Spades (Yeah!). And I still lurk here (Yeah!). On Best of Day. (ROLL CALL! Shabuya, sha, sha, shabuya.)
- chrisofspades
Most annoying part of traveling these days is my CPAP machine...I was pretty good about getting through security quickly but that sucker slows me down. :P
- Laura H.
i haven't had to travel by air with mine since 2009. i can only imagine the hassle now.
- Hieronymous Boosh
Oh, it's a competition, and the winners are the people who don't get glared at, shoved, or otherwise yelled at because they're morons about getting their shit back together.
- Jenica
It's not the reassembly that gets me. It's the dumbasses who have so much crap and can't seem to empty their pockets of change, take off their jacket, had to wear hip waders, etc. I'll just shove you out of the way when it's to reassemble.
- Running Slow