triviageek

A friend introduced me to Rollercoaster Tycoon I.   That game is ADDICTIVE!   It has sapped all my spare time for the past 6 months or so. But it's also a great deal of fun, absorbing interest, and challenging.

If you haven't heard of it, Rollercoaster Tycoon (or RCT I for people in the know) is a rather sophisticated simulation of amusement parks that are either provided or the player "builds" as part of each "scenario" (ie. challenge).

Along the way I learned how to design rollercoasters (not my forte) and layout amusement parks to maximize income and minimize problems with the "peeps" (guests of the amusement park which the game also simulates).

To put it frankly the peeps can be irritating at times since they easily get lost, often complaign, and frustratingly can leave the park in a huff if they're not kept happy. Oh and they barf all over the place (due to the effects of nauseating rides which they seem to prefer).

It has taken me months, and quite a bit of online help from other players who have web sites devoted to the game (including faq's and online Q & A boards), but I have finally won all of the scenarios. :)

My friend keeps asking me if I'm gonna buy RCT II now?   ARGH!!!

Well, what happened to one shopper would indicate that it is. You can read more about her Wal-Mart shopping injuries to find out just how dangerous it can be.

Major Pain has a very funny story about a turkey that got away (in Iraq, no less).

And according to this funny turkey biz article, I'm not only trendy, I'm actually AHEAD of the curve (I ate Tofurkey LAST YEAR)!

The Turducken, however, is a vegetarian's nightmare.

Turducken, a nightmare? No.     Barf? Yes! (And I'm not even a Real Vegetarian.)


 

Update: Here's another unusual Turkey story.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Free the enslaved ... disk drives?   LOL!   I kid you not. One area of California (where else?) is protesting against having master and slave computer disk drives!

The terms 'master' and 'slave' refers to the computer's hardware configuration -- ie. which disk drive is primary or secondary in a pair connected to the same controller. (Yes, I'm a FEMALE computer geek!)

The CANDLES Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute Indiana was apparently firebombed by someone sympathetic with Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City bomber). I think that gives you an idea of what kind of person would destroy this museum. I'm not Jewish but I did live in Terre Haute for a brief period and I can't believe that any local residents were responsible. Wasn't McVeigh's co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, from nearby Michigan? Here's a link to read more about the museum fire.

Tonight after grocery shopping, I drove to the nearby service station to top off my car's gas tank. There's nothing remarkable about doing that except a little over a year ago I wouldn't have dared.

You see I live in the area that was terrorized by John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo during their sniper spree. Today the jury at Muhammad's Virginia trial recommended he receive the death penalty.

While my own feelings on the death penalty generally are mixed, in this case, I have no doubts. Not only do I hope that the judge follows the jury's recommendation, I wish Virginia allowed executions to be carried out by firing squad. Somehow I think that would be even more fitting in this case.

Once upon a time ... no let me preface this by saying I collect recipes and when I do actually cook, I tend to lose weight. Hehe. Yeah, really. Maybe I'm just a bad cook?

Anyway, I collect recipes, mostly in the form of recipe books. And once upon a time I got sick and tired of never having the right spices called for, by the particular recipe I was attempting.

You see when I first moved out of my parents home and into an apartment shared with roommates, I invested in only 3 spices -- Garlic salt, Italian seasoning, and Pumpkin pie spice. Those three worked just fine for years! The latter two are blends of spices often used in combination and of course garlic salt goes well with almost everything. :)

Eventually the day came when I got tired of never having the right spice for a recipe. So feeling at the time rather flush with money, I headed for the supermarket and bought one of every spice they had. In fact, as I recall I hit about 3 different supermarkets, since each carried only some of the various forms (whole versus ground, for example) of the spices. I wound up, after spending about $70. at the time (it would be at least double that now), with a rather large collection and finally I had everything. Or so I thought.

It turns out some of my recipe books were vegetarian ones and THEY often asked for a couple of even more exotic ones -- Spike and Asafoetida. They were not to be found in any local supermarket. I eventually resorted to a health food/herb shop which did have them in stock. Finally my collection was complete. Whichever spice the recipe demanded, I had it!

Somewhere along the way I became something of an expert - if not on the spices themselves, at least an expert on which spices supermarkets normally supply.

So you can imagine my surprise when another blogger began posting recipes calling for Poison Sumac. I mean can you imagine what would happen to your 'innards reacting to that substance? You might as well try eating poison ivy!   NOT!!!!   Don't do it. I think a rather quick but painful death would result.

Riverbend's politics are dubious at best. She said her age is 24 so she's never lived under any government except Saddam Hussain's tyranny. For her that situation must seem normal and she certainly seems to hate the Americans and the Iraq provisional government. Has she ever had a kind or appreciative word to say in her blog about the current efforts in her country?

Now she's started a second blog with recipes. Hey I collect recipes, so I began reading it. Then she started listing Sumac as an ingredient? I know Sumac is NOT AVAILABLE in USA supermarkets!

Please, people, don't try to duplicate her recipes with "locally available ingredients"! Sumac growing in the USA is poisonous. In her part of the world it might be a customary ingredient, but here it's definitely not, for good reason. Either try to find the "spice" she's mentioning, or substitute powdered lemon rind or lemon juice. The life you save could be your own!

I've been watching or at least listening to various TV-shows this evening about President Kennedy's death. Most of the ones I chose were recapping the events and featured film and interviews of people present during those events. Nellie Connally was particularly interesting.

This time around I skipped those going into the various conspiracy theories. I've heard it all before over the past forty years and I've already decided which of them I prefer. I'm one of those who think the mafia really, really, hates the whole Kennedy family. And until the day that there's a definitive answer (which'll probably never happen), I'll just stick with that one and avoid the latest theory-du-jour.

Today is the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Yes, I'm old enough to not only have been born then, but I actually remember where I was when I heard about it. This is a common thing, really. I've heard that older people always remember when they first heard about Pearl Harbor and the current generation will certainly always remember where and how they first learned about the events of 9/ 11. I also remember being on an elevator and someone telling me of the Challenger disaster.

Forty years ago on November 22, I was in school and the principal broke into the class via a pa system (that I'd never noticed before) to announce to the whole school that the president had been assassinated. My classmates and I were young enough to not be sure what that meant. Was the president really dead, or just shot? And why would anyone want to do that anyway? President Kennedy was hugely popular in my view. In fact, I've still never known any president to be as highly regarded as he was.

Our teacher understood though. Just a few days earlier he had pointed out to us the 'zero rule' or whatever it's popularly called. There was an odd coincidence that presidents elected in years ending in a zero always seemed to die in office whether by natural causes or unnatural ones. And President Kennedy had been elected in 1960. After that announcement, our teacher must have realized that he had unwittingly predicted the president's death. I know he looked as if someone had physically struck him.

I thought we'd be sent home at once, but I was wrong. We stayed in school for the rest of the normal day. But it was hardly normal. When I got home, the TV wasn't turned on. So I was the the one who broke the news to my mother. And the next three days was spent in an orgy of TV-viewing, watching the events unfold before us. And the TV showed ONLY the coverage of those events. From Jack Ruby, to the people filing past for one last glimpse of JFK laying-in-state, to the funeral procession, the TV showed it all. And we watched like the rest of America.

Test, test, testing ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 .... This is my first test blog.