I have a dress!

Good news.  After subjecting many people to many emails, I have finally chosen a wedding dress.  It wasn't the one that both Hannah and Sage called "elegant" -- but it was the one that probably inspired the most conversation overall.  Zeb "put all [his] money on it," and also thought it was most likely to make me cry (because it will immobilize me, according to him).  Mombie concurs that I will be unable to move.  Sage calls it "the peacock," and considers me choosing it to be "doing things the hard way."  Krissy calls it "a lot of look."  Hannah and Rachel concur that while they certainly wouldn't do it themselves, it might be just about right for me.  I figure anything that gets that much attention is probably going to be fun.  So I'm doing it the hard way.  We'll see how it works out.  Stay tuned!

LOST

Tomorrow night is the premier of the final season of LOST.  SO excited.  I won’t actually have time to watch it until Wednesday particularly because it takes me like three hours to watch an episode.  I watch it, and then spend another 2+ hours reading articles on Lostpedia and various blogs analyzing it.  Everyone else should watch it, too, so that I can tell everyone all my thoughts and theories about it.

For example, one small thing I’d like to see resolved in a particular way:  The Numbers.  Now, Hurley thinks the numbers are cursed, right, because after he won the lottery using them a lot of bad stuff started happening to him.  But how did he come up with the Numbers to use for the lottery?  By listening to a crazy guy at the hospital repeat them over and over.  Why was the crazy guy repeating them?  Because they had been transmitted to him over and over while he was out stranded on the ocean somewhere near the island radio tower that was broadcasting them.  The way I’d like to see this resolved would be for time-traveling Hurley to be the one who had left them broadcasting from the radio tower to begin with.  That way, the Numbers would truly have been a monster of his own creation.

Unfortunately, it looks like that’s probably not happening since signs say that there will be no more time traveling this season.  Which is too bad, because I feel like that would be a particularly satisfying resolution of the Numbers.

Anyways, I have all sorts of theories and ideas about LOST and am so excited to watch on Wednesday!

Heart of Stupid

This weekend was the Heart of Steel comp, which was pretty overpriced and crowded.  The consensus was that the organizers put a lot of effort into promoting the comp and not enough into setting/organization – all the subsequent problems (I can give you a complete list…) seemed to stem from that.

The finals were more tricksy than satisfying, but people seemed to like watching them.  I was trying to see if anyone was going to lose a finger or a head to the stupid power crystal.  Zeb climbed in a “prefinal superfinal,” which he lost by public opinion (everyone said “aww” when he fell off), but which he actually tied on by standard bouldering competition “control is what matters” rules.  Public opinion won and he didn’t climb in finals.

In other, unrelated news, the wedding invitations are now in sealed, addressed envelopes.  They just need dragging to the post office.  So, if you don’t get yours within the next week or two, quiz me because it might have gotten lost in the mail.

Wexis enters the 21st Century

So, I spotted an article today about how Lexis and Westlaw are finally getting their acts together and offering better search capabilities since so many free competitors are rivaling their services.  The best thing would be if they started charging some sort of flat fee for all-you-can-search the way it works in law school, but that’s probably unlikely.

The article talks about how, I believe, they’re going to improve their “natural language” search capabilities.  Which is good – but I actually hope that they keep their old, complicated Boolean search functionality too.  It gives highly precise results and makes sure you don’t miss anything if every single document within certain parameters comes up.  Sometimes I wish I was better at giving Google more precise search parameters, too.

In unrelated news, I’m probably doing Heart of Steel this Saturday.  But first of all, it’s expensive, and second of all, they keep spamming my Facebook every day…which is annoying.  But I’m probably doing it anyways.

Final piece of news:  I heard a rumor that OUMC and CUMC might finally start offering half-blues to climbers.  Which would be exciting but also extremely frustrating because I competed [and won] for both teams.  I want my two half-blues…then I’ll add them up and make a whole one!

Success

Look at this pot:

Last night, there was about half a centimeter of very burnt rice stuck to the bottom (I didn’t turn down the heat when the water started boiling…).  And it was really stuck.  Letting it soak in water in the sink and then rubbing with a sponge, and then scraping with a spatula, got nowhere.  Occasionally a black fleck would come off – but at that pace it would have taken years of continuous scrubbing to get it clean.

So, after searching on the internet, I tried several approaches.  I boiled water in the pot.  I boiled water, ketchup, salt, and baking soda.  I boiled just salt and baking soda.  I boiled just baking soda.  I let the pot full of baking-soda-boiled-water sit for several hours.  Finally, things were looking uphill, so I boiled more baking soda and water in the pot and then let it sit overnight.  Finally, this morning, with the help of a spatula, I was able to get it clean.  Success!  I used like half a box of baking soda, though.

Cooking and Food

Excitingly, I got a lot of food-making items for Christmas.  From Krissy, I got a set of bowls and measuring cups that I’m excited about.  From Nana and Grampy, I got a Target gift certificate that let me get a wok and a blender (after Daddy and I literally drove around in circles for a while trying to find the Target).  And, from Mom and Dad I got a “24 piece” (12 lids and 12 jars of varying sizes – including some small ones that Mom made fun of) Tupperware set.  (On this I compared notes with Rachel; she got one third of a 40 piece Tupperware set.)  So I’m pretty excited about all of this.

I’ve also been trying to eat a lot of salads for lunch lately, and also trying to run.  One of the “wedding checklists” Nick showed me told me that I’m supposed to be beginning my “health and beauty regime” right about now.  Uh huh.  Meanwhile Zeb has been theorizing that the fatter you are the more committed to the relationship you are.  Anyways, I put lettuce, carrots, peppers (of several colors), cucumbers, apples, sometimes cheese (either cheddar or goat’s), and croutons.  They’ve been coming out pretty good!

Yum yum.

Wedding and Other Updates

So, good news:  After a slow search, Nick and I now have a wedding date and venue!  It’s going to be on Friday, August 13, 2010 (unsurprisingly, you get extra discounts for booking on Friday the 13th) at Harrington Farm.  Invitations are now under works and should hopefully be out in the next month or so.  I’m sure everyone who reads this blog is getting one so if you don’t get one in the next few months check in and make sure that it hasn’t gotten lost!  We’re also working on a website with wedding info, but that is obviously very much under construction.  Check back soon!

In other news, I’m starting work tomorrow at the law school library, doing copyright research and other related tasks.  In preparation, I did six loads of laundry today.  So my room is the main drying area right now.  It was one of my less successful laundry days; I lost two socks (one of mine and one of Nick’s) and broke a pair of flip flops.  Oh well.