Diet update

So, two days in, I seem to be doing okay, diet-wise. I actually stayed below my Points quota yesterday (although above my minimum), mainly due to the fact that Amy's brand foods are damned low in points (the Veggie Loaf dinner I had weighed in at only five). And a big thanks to Melintur for pointing me towards Skinny Cow ; although the ice cream sandwiches I bought (the peanut butter cup ones) are three points instead of two, that's still damned good for a dessert, and they taste amazingly good.

My big weakness, alas, is coffee. Coffee iteself is free, the single-shot flavor creamers I use at home are a point apiece. And on the go, I dump about half a cup of skim milk and one packet of brown sugar in my coffee (along with some Equal). So my caffeine habit has a way of inching my point count up. Of course, there are obvious ways to balance it -- like eating a mostly point-free lunch at the salad bar (although chickpeas, my favorite salad ingredient, aren't free), etc. It's interesting how aware of everything I'm eating I've become, though (and it's not like I didn't obsess over food to begin with). The good news is, I haven't been excessively hungry, which means it's either a smart diet, or I'm cheating and don't realize it. :-)

Anyway, breakfast today was a 2-points bar (they sent two boxes with the at-home kit) and coffee with a creamer shot, so three points down, plenty to go.

(no subject)

Happy birthday, jennywrenn!

survey swiped from shadesong

This one actually puts together some stuff I'd been thinking about, anyway.
( Read more... )

(no subject)

If you mix artificial sweetener and cannabis, do you get Splenda in the Grass?

(no subject)

Yeep. We've got our parent-teacher meeting today. Hope it's a good one. Off to meet shadesong and then head to the meeting.

Jet Cat gets a push!

Dude. Scholastic is adding an indy comic to their book club! http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/pulse.cgi?http%3A//www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi%3Fubb%3Dget_topic%26f%3D36%26t%3D000175 has the details.

Who would have thunk it?

So, we rented two movies yesterday: Orange County, and The New Guy. We rented the former because we thought it could be good (possibly even good enough to buy). We rented the latter because it has Eliza Dushku in a cheerleader outfit, which is always a good thing.

The New Guy was the better movie. By far.

Orange County had no idea how to balance the satire and silliness with the serious message, and it ended up being a jumbled, unbelievable mess of a movie, wasting a damned good cast.

The New Guy, like 10 Things I Hate About You, took high school solidly over the satire line, and it worked. It also had a hell of a cast (which I wasn't aware of going in), including Ileanna Douglas, Lyle Lovett, Henry Rollins, and a bunch of other fun folks. Neither movie is really worth buying on DVD, but The New Guy is at least worth the rental.

As a bonus (for me, at least), the music video on the DVD had the lead singer wearing an Emory shirt the entire time. We may have another musical alum to join Billy Pilgram and The Indigo Girls (since no one wears the shirts because of the football team).

Late-night author survey

So, as some of you may know, one of my favorite authors is Jon Courtnay Grimwood. I don't know why, as I've done minimal drugs, have no interest in DJing, and am thoroughly unimpressed by cyberpunk in general. But for some reason, I like his work.

But I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned how I discovered his work.

A few years ago, I was in the Science Fiction and Mystery Bookshop with my friend Colleen, browsing around before a Neil Gaimain signing. As we're both wont to do, we were grabbing books that we felt the other hand to read and forcing them into each others' hands. One of the novels she foisted upon me was Replay, by Ken Grimwood. It was one of the ones I ended up buying, and I thoroughly enjoyed it -- it's a fun time-travel romp that won the World Fantasy Award sometime in the '80s. It's also partially set at Emory, a nice bonus.

I attempted to seek out other works by Grimwood, but couldn't find any in print.

A couple of years later, I was ordering from amazon.co.uk (back when it was still Bookpages, before Amazon bought them out), and needed to get one more book to get a cheaper shipping rate. Remembering that many authors I enjoy are published in the UK even when they're out of print in the US, I searched for "grimwood." I didn't find Ken, but I found Jon Courtney Grimwood instead, and his stuff sounded interesting, so I ordered a book of his, and was hooked.

So, that's the strangest, most roundabout way I've ever discovered an author. What's yours?