cookoorikoo

nerd vs. nerd: part 1

there is an ongoing discussion in the hampton household about which one of us is nerdier...

• i maintain that my love of comic books, sci-fi and horror do not make me a bigger nerd than shawn. he did, after all, read cryptonomicon.
• i tweet randomly about my etsy shop, life and occasional blah blah about tv or movies. he tweets things like this: "Just got an abs-positioned link to behave in IE 6+7+8 by kicking it old-school - 1px transparent gif FTW! (and no, i did not use any tables)"
• i make pretty girly things. he makes things like this and writes descriptions like this one for a pair of mario mystery box cufflinks: Mariö's block, often described as a paradox, is a plumbing experiment devised by Austrian plumber Erwin Mariö around 1935. It attempts to illustrate what he saw as the problems of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics when it is applied with regard to super vs regluar sized Mario. The concept of superposition, one of the strangest in quantum mechanics, helped provoke Mariö's conjecture. Broadly stated, the superposition is the combination of all the possible positions of a Super Mario. The Copenhagen interpretation implies that the superposition only undergoes collapse into a definite state at the exact moment of quantum measurement. Mariö's mind-game was meant to criticize the strangeness of this. Influenced by a suggestion of Albert Einstein, Mariö extrapolated the concept to a larger scale. He proposed a scenario with a sealed box, where fungunius superlia or pseuderanthemum incendia emerging from the smashed block was dependent on the presence of a super or regular sized Mario. Without Mario, the box would just release a coin. According to Mariö, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that all three items exist in the block before the block is smashed. These blocks were subsequently placed all about the word of Super Mario. These super mario cufflinks are made from shrink plastic, sealed with a clear glossy sealer and attached to silver tone cufflinks. the charms measure approximately 3/4"x3/4"

the end.
thank you for joining me for today's episode of nerd vs. nerd.

shawn finds a happy place

shawn lost his job on monday. ultimately, its a blessing. the job was squashing the parts of him that i adore. he was coming home cranky everyday. if he even thought about his job on the weekends, it would transform his mood in a not so good way. so, after the initial freak out, we've gotten to an ok place with all of it. a good place even.

he's already working on freelance projects. he's already made lots of contacts and has already had an interview of sorts. and he's happy. working at home, hanging with the dog, structuring his own day... i'm a little jealous if you want to know the truth.

gush

the jimmy were great. really and truly great. and shawn really is fantastic. he gets better and better. and he seems more and more confident, more comfortable on stage. he makes a girl proud to his groupie  uh wife.

best ice cream man ever

we heard the ice cream truck. shawn disappeared and came back with this:

a frakking banana split. things about this that rock:

1. our ice cream man is pimped out enough to serve up banana splits not just good humor bars!
2. shawn heard the music and thought hmmm, i wonder if they could make a banana split?
3. a banana split!

he still surprises me

shawn does not usually go in for hearts and flowers. now, don't misunderstand me. he gets me a beverage whenever i ask for it. even if he's just gotten comfy. he takes good care of me when i'm sick - which has been the entirety of 2008.  he puts up with my crankiness. he tolerates my love of bad music & tv. he never complains when the house is a mess and i haven't cooked in weeks because i'm busy sewing. i love and adore him for all of these things and a million more. valentine's day gifts, not something i would necessarily expect except this morning i woke up, went to check my email and my desk was covered with bags of all my favorite candies. and then, THIS was in my email. i actually got a little choked up.

he totally rocks.

first thing

ok, so since the holidays i've had the plague. and there's been very little sunlight. so, i haven't been able to take good pictures of the BEST present ever.

every morning when i wake up this is the first thing i see...

shawn ordered 5 gorgeous little needle felted birds from lauren alane and made me a mobile with them. i adore it. i mean come on...

the pink bird is my fave. she's wearing headphones for god's sake!

shawn really is the best husband a girl could ask for.

now that's what i call true love

well, what would you say?

so, i cook dinner last night - chicken, artichoke and garlic pasta from an america's test kitchen magazine. the recipe sounded good. we like chicken, artichokes, garlic and pasta. the combination seemed enticing.  um,  well, no. not even a little actually.  very rarely do i eat something i've cooked and think wow, that's bad. but this time i did. it was too salty and it just wasn't good.

so, as i was having this revelation i glanced over at shawn. he was making a face. i asked him what he thought, what the face was about? he said it wasn't a good face and then he took another bite. it was clear that he too thought this meal was decidedly not good. i was not prepared for what came out of his mouth next. "it tastes like vomit." that's right, vomit. don't adjust your monitors, you read that right. he said vomit. he said my cooking tasted like vomit. in the wide range of descriptive words between not good and vomit, he chose vomit.

vom·it   /ˈvɒmɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[vom-it] (used without object) 

1.	to eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth; regurgitate; throw up.

2.	to belch or spew with force or violence.

–verb (used with object) 

3.	to eject from the stomach through the mouth; spew.

4.	to cast out or eject as if in vomiting; send out forcefully or violently: The volcano vomited flames and molten rock.

5.	to cause (a person) to vomit.

–noun 

6.	the act of vomiting.

7.	the matter ejected in vomiting.

mind you, my dear husband has vomited probably 3 times in his life. so, i don't buy that he actually knows what vomit tastes like. i, however, am a puker. not proud of it but its a fact. i KNOW from puke. and what i was eating was not it. not good, yes. downright bad, yes. but vomit, no.

so, there are two issues here. my husband's poor choice of words and the recipe itself...

i did not deviate from the recipe but a smidge. i put a wee bit less lemon juice in it than it called for because master shawn does not particularly like lemon-y things. but that was the only change. so, wtf? like i said, an enticing combination of ingredients. almost no deviation from the recipe. and yet i produced a meal that my husband called vomit. i'm thinking this is not what america's test kitchen was going for with their mission statement "Our mission is simple: to develop the absolute best recipes for all of your favorite foods. To do this, we test each recipe 30, 40, sometimes as many as 70 times, until we arrive at the combination of ingredients, technique, temperature, cooking time, and equipment that yields the best, most-foolproof recipe {that tastes like vomit.}"

and now back to my husband as his choice of words... this will bite him on the ass for years (probably just weeks) to come. this morning he was eating a chocolate chip cookie with his coffee. he offered me a bite. i looked him in the eye and said, "no thanks. i made it. it might taste like vomit." i turned and walked away. vomit, really? come on now.

vomit?

the one where shawn hijacks my camera

flashback friday

happy birthday shawn - if this picture doesn't make you feel old, i don't know what would...