glitter pissing

not bad, not bad

2012-02-06T06:46:00.019-06:00

this week i was a bit starry eyed.

no reason really. but it was better than being star struck.

other than that, things were a bit slow. a lot of salad was eaten, um, by me.

i also made moo goo gai pan. yeah, without bok choy or *shudder* baby corn.

and i drank alcoholic fizzy pink drink.

i'm telling you, not much is better than being tipsy in the afternoon while you're painting.

work on the house continues. clouseau seems to find things to be comfortable.

i started the month of mail challenge. here's the first postcard that i sent.

you can see what i wrote and/or included at zip + four.

another place to redirect? why excheckered, of course.

time to get started on super serious trip planning! we'll be in europe in a little less than a month! (i hope that winter is over by then!)

last week was not so bad!

2012-01-30T06:44:00.023-06:00

good news in that last week was not nearly as excruciating as i thought it was going to be. see, peel had lost a tooth just prior to the stupid snow storm and we were unable to get her to the vet. she's an old girl. maybe 14? anyway, i was completely freaked out about it.

i shouldn't have worried quite so much in retrospect, however, as she is now doing fine. okok, she only has one tooth left as she had a mostly complete dental extraction but she's better than she has been in a while.

still, poor old thing. she's really hating the antibiotic that we've been giving her.

what else is new besides a primarily toothless cat? ah! new furniture! we finally got the chair for which we'd been saving.

also the new convertible sofa we've had our eyes on is now in the office.

i know! it's so orange and red!! and it's fucking hot as hell, don't deny.

rhys sent us a winterval present this week! THREE BOXES OF STAR CRUNCH!! he's such a sweetheart! can't wait to see you in march, rhysling!!

excheckered is still posting and it's getting bizarre. well, more bizarre.

new projects might be starting soon. i guess. i have plans, i do. just hang in there, k? i gots to see a man about some meds and we might be back to normal output levels.

some snow and work as usual

2012-01-23T06:04:00.003-06:00

you may have heard that it snowed in the seattle area this past week. * shoulder shrug * all this did was make me wonder why i moved to a place that still hasn't figured out how to deal with inclement weather. oh, and also use it as an excuse to take a picture of my new rainboots.

the other things that comprised last week were also rather shitty. in fact, i'm still dealing with some passive aggressive cold that i caught on thurs? fri? does it matter? i still managed to post at execheckered so whatever.

this week is promising to be extra shitty with a slight chance of improvement on friday. check back next monday to see if my forecast was correct.

house stuff and collages

2012-01-16T06:59:00.011-06:00

i'm making some serious headway on the house. the bedroom is coming along quite nicely.

we'll have even more new furniture in two weeks. i can't wait until that shows up. cb2 4evah!

i've not had much time for adventuring due to the house stuff and work. so make do with some excheckered collages, k?

new work blogs should be starting soon, promise. i have to finish a commission first.

pulp novel covers

2012-01-10T16:49:00.002-06:00

i've been having a crazy clear out lately. surprisingly, books were culled this time. (which, god, it was painful but i am so tired of moving them. (new criteria for EVERYTHING: would i move this around the world? no? IT DOES NOT COME INTO THE HOUSE.))

it was finally time to say goodbye to my pulp novels. but before moving them into the "to be donated" pile, i took photos of their covers. here are three of my favorites.

i really love the red dress on the cover of awake to darkness but i'm baffled as to how she kept everything in place. tape? probably tape.

the eyes have it. "was a hypnotist controlling THE KILLER?"

"when this woman loves, anything can happen!" so true, so true.

the rest of my old books can be seen in this flickr set. if you'd like to own any of them, be on the lookout at western washington goodwill stores. i'm hoping that they all go to appreciative homes.

another monday post

2012-01-09T11:37:00.000-06:00

*yawn, stretch* good morning!

big things are afoot at the casa. not that you'll be able to tell from this post but i'll try to at least clue you in. we're in the middle of rearranging the house. this, of course, means a bit of new furniture. the first of it arrived this week. hooray for new knitted poufs!

fujiko really likes them.

what she will not like though is the fact that leff and i will be heading back to the uk for TWO WEEKS in march!! TWO WEEKS!!!

i mean, fu will be upset, sure but 1) i get to go back to the uk!! 2)i'll get to GO TO PARIS AND POSSIBLY BERLIN THIS TIME!!! 3) RHYS WILL BE HOUSESITTING!!! which means that i'll get to see everyone that i want to see during an intense three weeks and then all those people will be gone (or, i will have left) again and i'll fall into another really horrid depression during which i'm unable to eat. EVERYONE WINS!!!

but that won't be happening for about two months.

have you been watching the new "sherlock" and "downton"?!? HAVE YOU!??! fuji and i are all about both shows.

yes, this is how i watch tv. with a cat invading my space and the xbox controller, my laptop and a bag of popcorn within reach. whatevs, i've got on a grey hoodie so i can play like i finished grad school so, mfa, mofos!

business side of post: i'll be catching up on excheckered starting today. here's an image from, fuck if i remember. it's nice though.

fun times. it's the accent meme on tumblr that will not die

2012-01-03T16:23:00.006-06:00

rhys did an accent meme video today. i recorded the same in response. go listen to us both! or don't!

rules on how to play are on either of our meme things. if you do record yourself, and you should, please leave a link in comments here or on plus or wherever 'cause i like the way you talk.

edit: to date i've got links to...

rhyley who is south carolinian via virginia
ac who is north carolinian with a bit of cali
leff who is from maryland

you know you want to do this. rhyley even found an easy way to record!

happy 2012! have some hoppin john!

2012-01-01T13:02:00.006-06:00

new year's eve was actually fun for a change. instead of trying to find something to do in seattle which, HAHAHAHA! *wiping tears from laughter*, leff and i stayed in and watched buster keaton movies.

buster keaton! who knew he was so funny?

one of my new year's traditions that will never change regardless of where i live is the consumption of hoppin' john.

those of you who have read my blog forever know that i do a tex mex version of it. (easy recipe? lots of garlic, lots of cumin and cayenne, a can of rotel, a can of black eyed peas. simmer til not runny. done.)

where's the green, you ask? green peppers. also a light green bowl.

if you decide to eat this, make sure to leave money under your dish

and don't eat the last three peas. happy 2012!

fuck 2011

2011-12-29T18:09:00.010-06:00

here's my last post of this horrid, horrid year. i will now bid it goodbye with the middle finger that i broke after falling down the stairs. i mean it, fuck you 2011. fuck you kindly. fuck you very much.

such a rancid string of days does not deserve a recap. instead, i will tell you what i'm gonna' do in 2012.

1) learn to curse more effectively. malcolm tucker is my new role model.
2) spend as little time in washington state as possible

that's it. if i keep my expectations low maybe, just maybe, i can break the string of shit years that i've had since moving out to the hinterlands of the pnw.

i do have one request of everyone regarding 2012. can you all PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP about mayan prophecy bullshit?! you're all ruining precolumbian art for me AND I HATE YOU FOR IT!!

see you in the new year! fuckity bye!

last week, huh?

2011-12-26T07:39:00.024-06:00

since i was still on vacation last week, i did a whole lot of not much. i mean, i ate some little sandwiches with leff

and i got a lovely package from groc which contained smarties and racing royals!

but not much else occured other than daleks planning to take over our living room.

oh, and excheckered posting.

that blog will be continuing throughout 2012. not so with pax which finishes today with a bulldog painting.

sometime in january i'll be starting a new daily sort of thing called jessica sketcher. details forthcoming.

hybrid british xmas

2011-12-25T18:11:00.000-06:00

holiday greetings, blah, blah, blah. remember that xmas pudding from earlier this month? here's what it looked like after i unwrapped it today.

it smelled so. good. also satisfactorily scented? the brandy butter.

the pudding required a bit of work before we could eat it. namely, reheating via steam,

and covering with brandy. glug, glug, glug.

brush, brush, brush.

and then?! FIRE!!!

i am going to cover more of my food with alcohol just so i can flame it. doritos? check. i'll use beer or something. maybe tequila!

anyway, back to the pudding. here is a naked slice complete with a soylent green piece.

here it is again covered with brandy butter.

absolutely, wonderfully delicious. i can't believe that i made it! i should get automatic british citizenship for that! (i got a contact buzz offa' it, that's for sure.)

we haven't found the pound coin yet though.

in addition to the pudding, we also had turkey with cranberry sauce and buttered brussels sprouts with bacon and chestnuts.

those sprouts are fucking incredible. (i subbed yogurt for the cream and it was still fantastic.) make them tomorrow. thank me later.

happy some holiday. have a comma splice.

2011-12-24T12:04:00.005-06:00

earlier this week i started thinking. i thought to myself, i thought "you know what this world needs? another gin based drink." and so i set out to create the comma splice.

i'm not sure if you know this but it is difficult to come up with a new drink. it is even more difficult to write about it when you've been hungover for two days. so in the interest of brevity and keeping my breakfast down, i'm not going to show you all of the failed cocktails we imbibed. instead, here are the simple ingredients that you will need to make a comma splice.

i'm not brand endorsing. use whatever. just know that you will need gin, a citrus soda of some sort, a cucumber, some sort of grater so that you can do this to the cucumber

(that video goes on for a bit. apologies. we had had a smidge to drink by this point and i didn't feel like video editing.

result: )

and some paper towels through which to strain the juice from the cuke pulp.

you might want to make that two paper towels instead of just doubling up on the one. or, hell, use a strainer. whatever. just get the cucumber juice over ice. maybe do this before you're semi trashed.

after that, add gin and soda (pick your proportions. i tend to go heavy on the gin. surprise.) stir. garnish with cucumber slices and drink the fuck out of this shit.

ed note: if this is already another named drink somewhere, i don't want to know. i did "due diligence" google research and found similar but not the same recipe.

the post where i finally make brandy butter

2011-12-20T11:48:00.002-06:00

with five days left until i resteam the xmas pudding, douse it with brandy and then LIGHT IT ON FIRE, i thought that it might be a good idea to finally get around to mixing together the very reason i made xmas pud in the first place. yeah, time to make the brandy butter!

i used shed's mum's recipe which goes a little something like this: "unsalted butter, icing sugar, brandy. equal weights icing sugar and butter. brandy to taste. try 5oz each of butter and sugar, 1oz brandy." shed said that his mum doesn't really measure the brandy but added a glug to the sugar and butter mixture.

anyway, ingreds.

that cognac is naaaaasty on its own. there's some cinnamon flavor? whatever, it tastes like college and by that i mean goldschalger shots which is worse than ipecac, if memory serves. STILL! it works well in foodstuffs which is its primary reason for residing in our casa.

here is a puddle (4 tbs?) of it waiting to be stirred into the 8 tbs of butter and, idk, roughly 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar that i mixed.

and this is the result!

i think it will probably look a bit more like the prepacked brandy butter that i google imaged after five days in the fridge. however, if it doesn't I DON'T CARE because it is FUCKING DELICIOUS!! many gazillion thanks to the shreds for getting this recipe!

is it really monday again?

2011-12-19T06:03:00.012-06:00

grrrrrrraaawwwpbbbbbtmugwumps. is it really time for another weekly scheduled post? fine.

last week i...

mailed off four boxes worth of baked goods and stuff,

bought all of the eggs,

repeatedly watched the new "robinson" movie

painted a goofy "tie ger"

collaged a dog,

and gave the land o'lakes lady a pair of tits.

it's what leff has referred to as "the advent calender of boobs". as i said on plus, merry xxxmas.

by next week the worst of the holiday shit should be over. hooray. it will be a titsmas miracle.

mince pies

2011-12-17T15:06:00.002-06:00

since it's, what, less than a week until xmas, i thought that i should get around to making the mince~~meat~~ pies that i've been talking about. so after watching leff play "skryim" for about an hour, i made some dough and filled it with the mincemeat that's been marinating on my counter.

these smell *so good* when they're baking. they also heat the house quite nicely too as they bake in a fairly hot oven. check out how sizzly they were.

my pies didn't end up looking very pretty (let's be kind and call them "rustic".) but they are DELICIOUS! even with the weird green pieces that come in american mixed peel. they would be even tastier with vanilla ice cream. is that heretical? whatever, i live in the new world, right? ice cream it is!

relevant recipes: mincemeat, pies

edit: thanks to shed for the correction.

more baking and other assorted items

2011-12-12T06:16:00.015-06:00

once again i have nothing much to report other than the seasonal baking and such you've been seeing all december. well, ok, i got some new converse.

that's something, right?

but back to baking. this weekend, i made two more kinds of cookies for seasonal gift giving. they aren't as sexy as the shaped ones but they more than make up for it with personality. the two cookies in question are a nutella variety (please ignore the fact that they are called, ugh, "smooches". *eyeroll*)

and a batch of almond butter.

the only other thing that happened in my corner of the internet was autoposting. excheckered

and pax and ak, naturally.

the above painting is, of course, a unicorn. wow, i am terrible with the puns.

i won't be baking this week so i'm not sure if there will be any extra updates. check back? i might surprise us both.

the holiday foodstuff never ends

2011-12-10T12:06:00.000-06:00

perhaps it's been a bit difficult to see how much i hate this time of year what with all of the festive baking and shit that's been occurring at my casa. let me just say this: i am in a weird place. a VERY weird place. it has been a fucking hard year and, for some reason, hybrid british xmas is doing it for me right now.

that's how i ended up making mincemeat. the ingredients were very similar to those used in the xmas pudding from earlier this week.

but instead of being steamed into some flour concoction, all the fruit and stuff gets baked for 2.5 hours in a low temp oven. this is the resulting mess.

it's strangely tasty and it's now in a jar waiting to be turned into mincemeat pies.

know what else i made? fucking mulled wine. ya know what additional booze i added to it? fucking cherry bounce that i made in feb.

that shit was dangaroose. it was also exciting to make as you can see from this video. (warning: camera dancing, possible chance of seasickness at the end)

i even got to crack out my beautiful carafe that wayne gave to me as a housewarming present 8 billion years and 50 zillion houses/apartments ago.

since i was a captain of ~~industry~~ industriousness, i decided to bake a bit as well. i made toll house cookies. (see, this is why we were laughing so hard in front of the toll house in cardiff. because of the chocolate chips and the jet lag. (mainly the jet lag.))

you know that warning about not eating raw cookie dough that came out yesterday? yeah, i ignored it and scooped some out for myself with another spoon.

i am such a bad ass.

anyway, here's a finished toll house cookie stack

and also a batch of crack brownies

both of which will be finding their way to europe and the uk. (i distinguish because of what cameron did on friday. oh. ho. ho. (seriously, brits. *call me about that. i'm interested in your opinion.)

today will probably involve more baking to keep sads at bay. i'm not kidding you, it's 10:03 in the am and the fucking light sensor spot on the garage is still on. fucking hate washington state. grrrrrr.

minifig cookies

2011-12-08T12:42:00.001-06:00

the last of the seasonal geekery baking is upon us. er um, you know, i made the last cookie for my favorite geek boys. of course it's a lego cookie. how could i not?

it's raspberry flavored. the facial features have a bit of dark cocoa in them.

now to package these for shipping. (next monday? so expect parcels the week of the 19th, kittens.) here's hoping that they won't get caught in a clusterfuck of a snowstorm like last year's packages did.

jiji cookies

2011-12-07T07:51:00.010-06:00

the third cookie for seasonal geekery is jiji from "kiki's delivery service".

this is a slightly different flavor than the others as i used dark cocoa powder to make the black. so, uh, they're dark chocolate raspberry.

here're two "behind the scenes" pictures.

extra bonus tueday post: nyan cat cookies

2011-12-06T13:20:00.000-06:00

the second cookie from this year's seasonal geekery is a nyan cat.

yay! nyan, etc. want some behind the scenes pictures? here you go!

tuesday bonus post: xmas pudding

2011-12-06T07:10:00.104-06:00

this past sunday i found out that there was such a thing as brandy butter. can you just imagine? brandy butter?! anyway, upon further investigation (erm, shed told me) i found out that it's eaten with xmas pudding! so i tracked down a recipe (i'm not going to live my life without brandy butter now that i know it exists, am i?) that...wait for it...takes 20 hours and 45 minutes.

i had to make a lot of substitutions 'cause xmas pudding is a british foodstuff. and even though it feels like i live in a wee britain, i don't. (at least not yet.) so when the recipe called for mixed candied peel, i had to use the stuff that goes in fruitcake.

additionally, i swapped sultanas for golden raisins. this was just the tip of the trade out iceberg. what else had to be replaced?

well, we had no brandy in the house so i used bourbon.

suet is a main part of the recipe. i don't even know where to start looking for that in the states so i subbed frozen butter in its place.

btw, this is what frozen butter looks like after it's been grated. cheesy, non?

the last of the ingred subs involved swapping out mixed spice for pumpkin pie spice.

*whew*

once i had the ingredients sorted, it was time to start marinating fruit in booze overnight.

that was 12 of the 20 hours right there. the other 8 had to do with steaming the pudding. before i show you that step, i need to mention that there's a pound coin in this pudding.

tradition, right? it goes into the batter after everything is mixed.

ah! time to mention another substitution! i don't have a pudding bowl so i used my trusty green pyrex bowl that has served me so well in the past. i then placed this into a makeshift steamer that i made using my colander and stock pot.

you see the clock at 10:15? yeah, i didn't take the pudding off the heat until 5:15. this is what it looks like after 8 hours of steaming.

and after a glaze of bourbon.

no, not what you imagine when you think "xmas pudding" but, well, i *am* making this in the colonies. heh.

after the pudding cooled, i wrapped it in wax paper. it now has to rest for 19 more days in a cool, dry place to sort of...meld.

xmas day though, i'm going to eat the hell out of it with SO MUCH BRANDY BUTTER! (i'll post photos of this a bit later, naturally.)

i'm not finished with baking! later this week i'll have more geek cookies to look at. check back soon!

bonus monday post: lsp cookies

2011-12-05T17:17:00.000-06:00

happy the holidays! seasonal geek baking has begun!

i'll be making a few different kinds of cookies for my favorite geeks this week. the first of these can be seen in stencil form here. lumpy space princess. oh my god whatEVAR!

i got some new dyes for this batch of baking. no, they aren't gel 'cause sometimes i can't get the gel kind. again, whatEVAR!

lookit! i carved a pentagram in lsp's head.

they're raspberry flavored sugar cookies in case you were dying to know.

it would've been funny here to say something about sugar lumps but i got nothing besides this video which i guess is how i'm going to end this thing.

vacation!

2011-12-05T10:16:00.000-06:00

i don't have a lot to write about today as last week i was working my butt off so that i could take a vacation this whole month. this is not a picture of me doing that

but these are photos of some of the results.

(all from excheckered, of course.)

TOMORROW however, i should have a fairly good stunt blog. which means that i should stop writing this and get started making ~~content~~ a pudding.

thanksgiving leftovers

2011-11-28T06:25:00.013-06:00

seeing as this is kind of a wrap up of thanksgiving leftovers, this post is mostly about food. basically, what i was eating when i wasn't eating turkey. so, good good eat spicy

and the tiniest pickle you ever did see.

peel ate kibble and fancy feast and played trust games with leff.

she is the freakiest cat i've ever known.

new posts will be up at excheckered shortly. until then, have a pax painting of a "c horse".

bonus sunday post: peri peri chicken

2011-11-27T17:45:00.002-06:00

you know what happens when two brits mention a foodstuff independently on plus, right? yeah, i remember that i have some of it in the fridge and then look up a recipe.

what was the foodstuff in question, you ask? freakin' peri peri sauce.

were you aware that nando's has restaurants?! i had no idea until the other day. (it makes me feel kind of like a lurker but WHATEVER! if there is spicy food involved, i will fucking lurk until the cows come home. (what a weird mixed metaphor.))

anyway, would you just look at this sauce?

and all of this garlic?!

heaven.

according to the recipe, the chicken has to marinate for two hours. you know what can be leisurely consumed in that amount of time? yes! two g&ts!

although there is only one pictured above.

after a bit of frying, voilà! peri peri chicken is ready for consumption!

i'm sure it doesn't look right but I DON'T CARE! use the recipe that i linked to! HERE IT IS AGAIN!! so you don't even have to scroll. there are even recipes for two types of peri peri sauce!

seriously, i'm the best person ever for linking to that. you're very welcome.