Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Coolest Librarian Ever


Last Thursday was a pretty shit day, having gone to my Grandma's wake, but I did get a little good news - I was accepted into the grad school program at URI to get my Masters in Library Studies and Information Services. I know it's no big deal getting into URI, but for the time being, I'm going to pretend that it is just to boast my ego a bit.

After finding out I was accepted I scheduled my first few classes for this summer, one of which starts at the end of this week - no real time to get my head around the fact that I'm now a grad student but what can you do. My first class is Introduction to Information Science and Technology, which sounds a lot worst than I'm hoping it probably will be. The first class, this Friday will be 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, but then after that the rest of the summer session will be online classes so I'll be able to do them from anywhere at anytime.

I told my boss that I'll have to work remotely on Friday because of my class (I also told him I was accepted to the grad school at the same time :-) ) and he doesn't see any problem with that, just as long as I keep up 40+ hours a week working. It'll be challenging, believe me I know from watching Amanda do it now for the past three years, but I really need a change. Software has it's good points, but the bad moments greatly outnumber the good, at least for me they do. So I'm going back to school to try and do something about my career path. But even if I do have to give up my software job, I'd rather be poor than miserable any day.

And it's not like I'm going to be a poor grad student. I'm going to try and keep my crummy software job for as long as possible while taking classes so as to still be able to contribute to my household without putting any unnecessary burdens on ourselves. And in a few years I'll be that wicked cool guy that works at the library that disproves all the librarian stereotypes.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Because real men have feminine sides

So yeah, I cross stitch. Wanna fight about it?

My latest project has been this Nintendo Sampler that I created half of. The top and the right, middle sides were designed by someone else (stitchin' chicken) but the left, middle and the bottom are all me. I took screen shots and then drew the images in Microsoft's paint program, zooming in as close as possible to be able to see each pixel.


I still have to stitch all of the empty spaces with black thread and I'm almost done with the left, middle side, which is a pattern of Rygar, a character from an original Nintendo game, fighting the first boss. When I'm finished with that section, I'll post more pics.

After this I'm working on a title screen of the original Legend Of Zelda that I didn't design, but oh well. Even if I did design the pattern myself since it's based off of the same image it would look the same so no big difference there.

Not only to I have a completely gay hobby, but I'm also a nerd about it. Isn't everyone jealous of my wife?

Friday, May 9, 2008

In which I eat a booze soaked butterfly larva


The whole "worm in a bottle of tequila" isn't really new to anyone. Anyone who's ever really drank tequila in their lifetimes knows about this but what you might not know is the story behind it.

The worm in the bottle isn't actually a worm at all but a Agave butterfly larva which crawls inside the Agave plant, which is used to make tequila in the first place. Anyway, when brewing his "sore throat in a bottle" drink,a Senior Jacobo Lozano Paez from Mexico City decided to include an Agave larva in his mescal, a sort of tequila, as a marketing ploy.


For one thing, when mescal is created some times those little buggers get into it anyway. Since the drink already has the Agave larva in it, why not go the extra step and actually include a whole one in each bottle? For another thing, since the Agave larva feeds off the Agave plant, Paez believed that putting the bug into the drink actually enhanced it's favor (if I eat a lot of BBQ sauce does that mean I'll have a smoky favor?). I'm not sure how to enhance the favor of tequila anymore than it already is, seeing as how it pretty much tastes like burning to me.


So what's with the history/biology lesson? Last weekend I had the opportunity to eat the worm for a second time in my life. I forget the details of the first time, but since I was probably drinking a large quantity of tequila at the time, it's understandable. Anyway, I asked Amanda to make me a Tequila Sunrise and being the perfect wife that she is, off she went to make my drink. While in the kitchen she called to me saying that we're at the bottom of the bottle and there's the question about what to do with the worm seeing as how there only a single shot left. I abandoned my Tequila Sunrise in favor of just having a shot of the tequila with the little guy in it. You are correct. Amanda thought it was gross.


"Ahh, smooth."