WELL YOU GOT IT, MISTER.

National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for D.C., effective noon tomorrow to 7PM Wednesday. All parts of the forecast that were just sent remain the same, except the projected snow totals HAVE BEEN INCREASED TO 10-20".

That's on top of what's already here, which you will find many splendid photos of under the cut!

( YOU SAY YOU WANT A SNOWMAGEDDO-O-ON, WELL YOU KNOW, WE ALL WANNA CHANGE THE WORLD... )

*dance dance dance*

And now I go outside again. To continue taunting mother nature's weak attempts to kill me with SCIENCE!!! snow.

By the way, I just totally expertly butchered the hell out of this hunk of flesh that used to be part of a sheep. Now I have a really pretty bone that needs to be part of a soup.


...I am blissing out over poinging through snow that comes half way up my thighs and cutting up dead animals. I'm gonna end up living in Siberia, aren't I? Я люблю русский язык!

Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been outside.

It was a revelation. Like "Observe the Gethenian in its natural habitat..."


Ven: *poings merrily over crevasses formed by tyre tracks and gutters*

Snow: *LOOM*

Ven: *snow graffiti!*

Ice: *MENACE*

Ven: *ninja icewalker like a grizzly bear in ballet slippers* ♪ La la la ♫

Winter: *COLD*

Ven: *icicle paparazzi!*

Nature: Damn. Send that one back to its home planet, it has won.

( Of course they're big ones... )

THIS. IS. SO. CUTE.

This is likely just the first of many upcoming batches over the next few days.

( Click for very large DC snow pictures! )

I just stepped outside to see what the snow was like. I took less than ten steps down the walk and the wind literally knocked me on my ass. Not that I could see where I was going because the snow was blowing too hard.

And this is still the mild portion of the incoming storm.

o.o

Epic.

( 10 large-ish photos of what I've been doing for the past 3 hours in my front yard... )



Sorry the last one is shitty. I didn't notice that until after I'd gone back in and changed my clothes. It's just for size perspective anyway. The whole critter is about 8 feet from the tip of his tail to the ends of his claws. Overall, he took just shy of three hours to build... ultimately maybe more like 2 and a half since I did take a few short breaks to go in and warm up.

I have never, as far as I can remember, built a snowman before. The last time it snowed, I was at Mouse's house and she and her siblings decided I had to do one, but the snow we got was loose and powdery and utterly unpackable. This is the first snow we've had that has been just PERFECT for building stuff. And I was bored, so I figured... time to play in the snow!

I still have never built a snowman, but I think this qualifies as adequate snow-sculpting experience.

Wooo, yeah. Classes were canceled due to forecasted snow, but I'm damn glad they were. I would normally be half way through class by now with another hour and a half to go and then an another hour to drive home and there's already a good half inch or so judging by the buildup on the wall outside the office window. It's heavy snow with big flakes. I learned when it started as I was driving home from the grocery store that I do not particularly like driving in heavy snow with big flakes, because it looks like driving in a tunnel or something and for some reason it freaks me out a little.

But I love watching it from the window, like I'm doing now. (The sky is purple, it's awesome.) There's a pot o' chili on the stove and I have nothing to do for the rest of the night but become acquainted with my new guitar.

Life pretty much doesn't get much better than this. At least not with any reliable regularity.

I love winter.

HELL YES!!! Morrowind, bitchez. I would OWN that place in half that time. 24 hours? Pfft. I'd be running the entire country. As a crime lord. A short, male, cannibalistic crime lord. Because I always play Bosmer. Once you go Bosmer, you never go back. I kill before anyone sees me. I steal shit from the captain of the guard. I hoarde, I barter with talking alcoholic crabs, I know the secrets of the Dwemmer, I screw the system to join two Houses and level up like hell, I know the secret of robbing the House treasuries, and oh my GOD I miss this game so much now Dx

...you know, I just got a year bonus from work. I have it in savings but I think I might just have to spring a little bit of it to see if I can get a used version of this game again. I miss it SO MUCH.

This or a guitar. Or...


Okay, I've done the research and I know that all of these things can be acquired for 1/4 or less of my bonus cash. EBay is a wonderful thing and all.


Poll time:

Poll #1519561
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

What atrociously unnecessary thing should Ven spend a portion of bonus cash on?

So I was reading... some stuff someplace... (not specifying because I'm leaving this unlocked and I don't want some of you fuckers finding my online haunts even though this will be obvious to a lot of you)... and there was this image from a music video on YouTube of some band I'd never heard of.

Picture was cute, so I looked it up.

The music SUCKED but I discovered something fascinating and freaky. I can attribute this to nothing other than divine revelation.

The video is "Gave It All Away" by Boyzone. I want you to click it. But I do not want you to listen to it. (Seriously, don't listen to it.) Or even to play it. Yet.

I want you to turn the video sound off. Then I want you to open a new internet window, go to YouTube (or your music player of choice, if you already have the song) and find an ALBUM RECORDING of "Safe Home" by Anthrax. (It has to be an album recording. This one has shitty sound quality but it'll work if you can't find another one.)

Now play them both at the same time. The song over the video.

IT WILL BLOW YOUR TINY FREAKIN' MIND LIKE THE DARK SIDE OF THE RAINBOW. (Especially when the video goes from color to non at the line "All my fears turn from black to white...")

( Ven might have been watching clips of Shrek The Musical on YouTube to see how Lord Farquad worked... )

I have a Rival.

It is INCREDIBLY fucking pretty.

It makes me VERY fucking happy. I hated that damn FailBerry like anything.

Short entry is short because OH MY GOD SO MUCH SHIT TO DO.

"Will she be safe?"

"Yes... You have made her important."


*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

<3

see more funny facebook stuff!

I TOTALLY JUST HUNG OUT WITH ADAM GREEN.

SDFGKJBALUGHSDLFGJKBHSIDUFGHLAJKFDGHV

Okay. The concert was great. Adam was opening for some band I've never heard of but which is apparently infinitely more popular around here than he is. 45 minutes after opening, there were only like... 50 people there. Maybe. 45 minutes after THAT, when they finally started getting their act on stage, there was maybe 100 tops. And most of them had come to the the Other Guys.

Meaning, of course, I easily got a spot as close to the stage as it gets. Photos will follow.

Adam is very fond of crowd surfing, I must say. So I actually held him over my head three times during his set. Once, I can now proudly say, I was between his legs for about 3 seconds. Lulzzzzzzz. I also totally might have maybe sorta kinda felt up his chest. I have no regrets.

After his bit was done, I decided I was bored of hanging around in there and didn't give a shit about whoever was on next, and it was a warm night tonight so I went outside and just hung around chatting with people and drawing and waiting for Adam to appear. It took... ohh... about two hours. Which gave me ample time to do a pretty good drawing of him AND meet a neat dude from Bolivia AND a hot chick from around here AND get to know one of the place's employees pretty closely.

Oh yeah and then I actually got to hang out with Adam.

See... it's sort of funny and sad, but apparently NO ONE ELSE was actually waiting for him to come out. Seriously. Not one other person. Not even the crazyhyper guy who practically bulldozed his way through the crowd to get closer to Adam. So finally, he showed up and tossed his stuff in his van and we just like... chilled for about 15 minutes.

Anyone who knows Adam's music or is at all familiar with his celebrity reputation might possibly think that he would probably be this superstoner druggie stumbling around drunkenly. I had honestly prepared myself for that. But... no. Absolutely nothing even close. He's just such a totally chill dude. He is not at ALL into his own celebrity rep. He was really interested in talking and really easy to talk to and hang out with. We just lounged against a wall and he asked me to explain the "Taxation without representation" thing on DC plates and we talked about touring and how he sometimes likes to go onto the Other Band's bus and crash there and wake up in another city, which he wasn't doing tonight because he'd done it two nights before and he didn't want the band he was playing with to think he was a snob. He said they had four hours to drive tonight to Raleigh or somewhere he wasn't sure, then to Georgia tomorrow. It was totally just like hanging out and chatting with a friend, not in any way awkward or weird or like "OMFG YOU'RE FAMOUS"... which I guess might be partly because there was no one else there. But he was very friendly and hugged me a few times (:D!!!!!!) and... yeah.

Oh, and yes, he gave an AMAZING fucking show with energy through the roof, playing to the crowd like crazy, totally involving them and totally into it. He is an amazing performer and an awesome guy.

And now you get pictures. First, you get my drawing, without a cut, because I'm evil like that:



( Now you get concert photos! These are really big images, FYI. )

My mother decided she wanted me to cook Indian food tonight.

This has never happened before. However, it makes me VERY VERY VERY happy since my favourite cuisines in the entire world are Indian/Middle-Eastern (especially Lebanese) and Greek. I would eat that kind of food and nothing else for the rest of my life and miss NOTHING (except kosher dill pickles -- I'm addicted to those and have been since I began eating solid foods).

So. Tonight I am making "Indian tomato chicken" (I'm sure this has another name IN INDIA but I can't find it and it still brings up tons of almost identical recipes when googled) and Jeera Pulao, which is rice with cumin and cloves and bay. I actually regard the latter as a greater accomplishment, if it turns out to be palatable, because a year ago, I could not cook rice AT ALL. I literally ruined two pots trying, and every attempt that didn't ruin pots came out dry, caked at the bottom, and gross. So I asked my mom to teach me to do it because I LOVE rice and it drove me crazy not to be able to make it. So now I am proficient at cooking rice but I've never tried a recipe that isn't rice+water+fire.

It all SMELLS amazing right now. It should be done in about half an hour. If it turns out to be as awesome as it smells, I'll post the recipes.

EDIT: Amazingness of food confirmed. Here are the recipes I used:

Indian tomato chicken">
Jeera pualo

I did tweak both of these just a little to serve more people than these are for. I also changed the amount of water and cooking time in the Jeera pualo to match the directions on the brand of rice I used. The cooking time was FLAWLESSLY perfect with nothing burned and no water left, but my rice ended up being a bit oatmeal-textured which makes me think I gave it too much water. Other than that, I didn't change any of the ingredient ratios so I can promise that if you follow these recipes, you will get something fucking amazing. None of it is spicy like hot-pepper spicy -- it's just spicy like "goddamn there are a lot of spices in this" spicy. There's a little bit of a kick to it, but it's very subtle and very pleasant.

I also recommend putting a dollop of sour cream on the chicken. Don't mix it in, just put some on top. It adds an element of flavor that cuts the spices a little with a contrasting coolness and flavor and just makes it all really really excellent.

Late to get the news (I blame the fact that NO ONE POSTED IT TO ANY OF THE COMMS I'M IN OR ANYONE'S JOURNAL) but Rowland S. Howard died on December 30 of 2009.

That is suck.

Rowland wrote this:



He's the guitarist who looks like a stork on heroin.

I wasn't one of his particular followers but the death of anyone associated with the awesome of Nick is suck.

Because there has been some discussion over this in certain places in the past 2 days and I am curious.


Poll #1511270
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22

When you hear the word "yaoi," what do you think it refers to? Answer without looking it up or anything, I want to know WHAT PEOPLE THINK IT MEANS.

Do you know what a lemon is?

Sooooo the details have not been worked out yet, but beginning as soon as they are, yours truly is the National Park Service's new pet intern.

:D!