Adventures of a Freelance Murray Slaughter

I was unable to find a card that properly thanked hammercock for making me a Xander to play with, so I made one. ( cut because I love you )

I have been playing a lot of Draw Something of late. I happen to *love* drawing, but I never do it. I tend to draw the way I learn programming languages...when I have something to actually *do*, I do it. But I am very bad about just going, 'Oh, hey. I think I will [draw a flower/learn to program C++ today].'

I have been posting the occasional pic to FB, but I wanted to organize it a little more and also I wanted to show the pics to people here (*cough*browngirl*cough*), so I have posted a gallery of pics on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thespiansmc/sets/72157629702204070/with/7186355638/

There are 25 pics right now; I have 7 more pics to post but I am not posting them until the people who need to guess them have taken their turn ;-)

The regime created an instant pool of such women by the simple tactic of declaring all second marriages and nonmarital liaisons adulterous, arresting the female partners, and, on the grounds that they were morally unfit, confiscating the children they already had, who were adopted by childless couples of the upper echelons who were eager for progeny by any means. (In the middle period, this policy was extended to cover all marriages not contracted within the state church.)

stolen from many people

( wherein I bold things I am, and do not bold things I ain't )

I am thinking of going to the steampunk festival on May 12 or 13th (probably the 13th). Groupon is offering 2 tickets for $20 (they are normally $20 each), and I have the credit to get them. Would anyone like to join me? email me; thespian at sleepingcat, as I am posting this in a couple places.

the timing was not right for a full launch of Pour, because I need to clear a few more things off my deck right now. But I am thinking of offering the Syrup of the Month club thing, anyway; some highly seasonal, like cherry, soon, and some experimental, like thai basil lime, once the thai basil is available in June, etc. $10 a month, 3 or 6 months, 12-oz bottle each month. And first crack at other batches, like more maraschino cherries when they happen, or my new lime chips (thinly sliced lime wheels, cut on my deli slicer, then dipped in simple and oven dried). Any interest?

so I fell asleep earlier, and dreamt that I was in a group of people who were on the Death Star on a suicide mission, placing explosives so that once Luke set off the reactor core, the rest of the ship would blow. The lifts were not, however, working, and so we had 56 levels of stairs to climb. At one point I got stuck placing one of the explosives in a hallway and had to act unnoticeable when Darth Vader stalked by, but I guess his mind was elsewhere and he did not notice me. Then we came across the commissary and decided we had done enough explosive placing, since we were going to die anyway, so we played Settlers of Catan with some low level imperial enlistees.

As dreams go, it was actually pretty awesome.

Just going through the casting and loglines at http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tv-pilots-2012-complete-guide-287221 and I thought I would put them here for my non-fb friends, or for people who do not want to go digging to find all my blather.

• CW Pilot Show (I swear to god): The Selection. Logline: Based on the forthcoming series of books by Kiera Cass, The Selection is an epic romance set 300 years in the future which centers on a poor young woman who is chosen by lottery to participate in a competition to become the next queen of a war-torn nation at a crossroads.
• Based on the novel by Candace Bushnell, a young Carrie Bradshaw comes of age in the 1980s, asking her first questions about love, sex, friendship and family while exploring the worlds of high school and Manhattan.
• Two Beauty & The Beast shows coming out next fall; one based on the 80s show, the other a fantasy with a princess based on the success of this years wave of fantasy/fable/Grimm tales success, I guess.
• Proposed Fox Pilot: Rebounding. Logline: An uplifting comedy about a man recovering from the death of his fiancé with the help of the idiots on his pickup basketball team.
• ok, just found a show that does not interest me at all (Friday Night Dinners), but then I saw the parents/stars of the show are Tony Shaloub and Alison Janney.
• I think that any project starring Roseanne Barr, as a working class manager of a mobile home park, with John Goodman as her co-star, is doomed from the get go.
• Also while I love the idea of John Barrowman in a period show about running a hotel in 1895, I would bet on 6 episodes before hiatus.
• Joel Silver project, already stopped, desced as: An edgy and independent millennial hacker girl teams up with an Oakland police detective to solve crimes.
• there are FIVE proposed pilots for next season (3 on NBC) that have adult children going broke, getting divorced, leaving the army, losing their job, and moving back in with their parents. Hijinks ensue.
• Proposed CBS Pilot, Friend Me: Twentysomething best friends Evan and Rob move from their hometown of Bloomington, Ind., to L.A. to begin their new lives working at Groupon. Really. I wonder what Groupon paid for that.
• A pilot for the fall being shot called The Smart One. Description: A brilliant and successful woman (Portia de Rossi) begrudgingly goes to work for her less-brainy but more popular sister -- a former beauty queen, weather girl and now big-city mayor. Please to consider that. They are casting PORTIA DE ROSSI as the smarter, less pretty of two sisters.

So a couple weeks ago I bought some bacon off an organic meat share seller at a CSA Fair which had 30 or so CSAs trying to sign people up. Hand butchered, maple cured thick cut Vermont cured goodness. Bought some for srakkt, too, as I figured he had not had a lot of access to the good stuff while overseas, and I was meeting him for dinner that week.

It had stayed frozen here until a day ago, and but english muffins were on sale this week at the grocer, so I decided to make an egg and bacon type breakfast sandwich today.

(divergent thought; a friend did not notice this, but the rings of wide mouth mason jars are the size of an english muffin. I put the ring, oiled, down-side-down in the frying pan and then crack an egg into it, let it cook 30s, when put the mason jar over the lid so the top cooks. works as well as the egg circle unitasker things, and I always have a couple widemouth rings around the house)

So when I make bacon, generally I pull it out of the package, and then let ulysses lick the fat off my finger tips before I wash them off. Today it was all I could do to keep him from leaping onto the counter to lay claim to my bacon. When I extended my fingers to him his paw came up and he GRABBED my hand and pinned it to the counter, then started a frenzied attempt to get ALL THE FAT. Then he tried to bite off my fingertip. He forgot the important rule, STEPHANIE IS NOT BACON.

We got over that, and I got my sandwich, which I just ate with a fresh lime juice mojito soda (12 oz seltzer, mint simple syrup, a quarter cup lime juice but I like it tart)

It is very good bacon.