What do you do when you are planning to have soup for dinner, don’t have a single cracker in the house, and don’t want to go to a store to buy any? Why you make your own, of course! I started with a recipe out of one of my cooking magazines, but I didn’t exactly follow it. I never do. They turned out tasty, though a little too thick. I either need to buy a rolling pin (I use a drinking glass with flat sides now) or try chilling the dough and running it through my pasta machine to get it flattened out a little thinner before cutting. All the same, they went great with the soup and would make a neat snack as well. I wanted more as soon as I ate the last one on my plate.

Recipe and additional commentary behind the cut!
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“Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft … and they did nothing wrong.”

Say what?! I thought if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Isn’t that what my government and its supporters keep telling me every time they institute some new far-reaching program to keep me safe? So what’s this about innocent people ending up on terrorist watchlists?

You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they’re reporting your actions to meet a quota, even though some top officials deny it.

The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.

I’d say it’s unbelievable, but there isn’t much I am not willing to believe anymore, especially where surveillance in the USA is concerned. This really takes the cake though … a quota for reporting suspicious activities (one Surveillance Detection Report a month). Not only will this lead to innocent people being harassed while trying to get on an airplane, it’s going to dilute the database to the point where it is totally useless for its intended purpose of catching real criminals.

Word to the wise: This report is about the Las Vegas area, though I’d suspect it’s a little more widespread than that. For the meantime, if you want to go to Vegas, I’d suggest you drive.

For the iTunes users out there:

This week’s new free songs are up: Pretty Little Thing by Fink (folk) and We Share Our Mother’s Health by The Knife (electronic). Get’m while they’re hot! Also, the premiere TV episodes of Tabloid Wars and Psyche are free for the taking.

Links will open iTunes.

Any suggestions for getting analog High-8 camcorder recordings into digital format? I finally found the charging cable for the camcorder, and well … it’s very nice, and it would be very nice if there was a somewhat easy and somewhat cheap way to use it to make movies that I could edit on my computer.

The outputs on the camera are S-Video and analog AV Out (single plug that splits into audio and video for plugging into TVs/VCRS). Alas, my computer only has S-Video (out), USB, Firewire, and Mini DVI (both out and in, I think). Is there any sort of hardware or adapter that would be helpful at all, or am I stuck having to try to find someone (a company) to do it for me (is it even possible).

I guess the easiest way would be to know someone who has a DVR that burns DVDs and has S-Video input to just record it to a DVD for me, but I don’t know anyone who has such a thing. We want to get one, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon … at least not as soon as I would like (which is right now).

So … suggestions, help, ideas? I did a little googling, but since I have no idea what I am talking about really, it’s hard to find anything.

Some Mondays seem endless. On the one hand, I can’t believe it’s only 4 pm, because I feel as tired as thought it were midnight. On the other hand, I can’t believe it’s already 4 pm, because I have a ton of things to get done yet. Today was Errand Monday, and I hate Errand Monday with all the running around in the heat trying to get things done with the least amount of hassle. Now the errands are done, as soon as my body temperature returns to normal, I get to start on some housework. I have the feeling by dinner time, Lin will be lucky to get a sandwich and bowl of canned soup. I have no desire to stand in a hot and steamy kitchen making a full dinner. I have had my fill of hot and steamy for the day.

The best thing that happened today was Mom’s camera arriving in the mail. I am ever so relieved. It’s perfect and exactly what I ordered. So glad that all worked out OK. I was starting to get worried. It seemed to be taking too long to arrive. Now we can go see her this coming weekend, and I can stop hearing about how old and busted her camera is.

The most annoying thing to happen today was telling the bank I needed a new PIN for my check card. I needed the PIN in order to validate my new one at an ATM, and not having used the PIN since I validated my last one some years ago, I couldn’t remember it. I was less than please to hear it would take several weeks for them to send me a whole new card with a new PIN, and once again it’s going to be some random number I didn’t get to pick out and therefore won’t remember after I use it for validation purposes. So … I am effectively cut off from my bank account until my new card arrives. I guess that’s one way to save money.

The worst thing to happen today was just being out in this heat and humidity. It’s just awful out there. I withered as soon as I stepped out my front door, and by the time I got home again, I felt like the walking dead … and probably looked the part as well. Even though I hate winter, I am almost looking forward to it. You can always put on more clothes, but society dictates that you do have to wear some clothes when outside your home during the summer. I wore the least amount of clothing I could today, and I was still a puddle of sweat in about 5 minutes. This summer has sucked.

Well, if I don’t get up off my butt and get started on the housework, I won’t get moving again at all. What I’d really like is a shower and short nap, but that’s not going to happen. I’m just going to have to keep plugging along until after dinner, at which time I will probably skip the shower and pass out on the couch while watching the Daily Show.

It’s been a long day. Any day that starts before the sun comes up ends up being a LONG day.

Just something that popped into my head while daydreaming in the kitchen. Thought I’d write it down so I don’t forget it, in case it turns out to be the start of the next Great American Novel.

Nurse Ellison walked across the cool linoleum floor of room three-eighteen and pulled back the curtains to let the early morning sun enter the dimly lit room. It was a task she’d performed every weekday morning for the last year and a half. A casual glance at the patient lying still and peaceful in the nearby bed assured her that all was well in room three-eighteen and that nothing had changed overnight. She walked back across the room, exited, and closed the door quietly behind her.

Had Nurse Ellison looked more closely, she might have noticed a slight fluttering of eyelashes, but after so many months without any signs of improvement, few at the hospital were expecting any changes in the patient’s state. Their purpose now was merely to keep the patient comfortable and in as good a state of health as could be expected under the circumstance … and pray it all ended well for everyone concerned.

The sun, as though taking note of the unnoticed flutter of consciousness, moved ever more quickly toward the bed until the first beams touched the patient’s face. The eyelashes fluttered more furiously, the heart-rate increased, the color of life began to return to the long pale skin. Without warning the patient sat upright and screamed.

There’s been a little link dump at Links of Note.

Lin’s playing Resident Evil 4 today, so I have been refreshing my Spanish with Rolling R’s: Free Video Spanish Lessons. I’ve decided I need to use Spanish more, and that means reminding myself of grammar rules and increasing my vocabulary.

I also need to work on my accent. While I have managed to nearly obliterate any trace of my Southern Drawl from my English speaking, when I speak Spanish … well, let’s just say my accent is awful, and there’s no doubt I come from Texas.

They may succeed in my defeat, but they will not get my retreat.”
– Lloyd Dogget, D-TX

Texas redistricting is in the news again. The picture is no prettier this time than it was last time. I’m not even keeping up anymore. I’m just going to go to whatever voting station they tell me to go to and vote, knowing full well that the districts have been so gerrymandered my vote won’t count for anything.