cybergeisha

It’s been a little warm lately.

So, without further ado, I present my recipe for delicious, home-made wine coolers.

Watermelon Wine Cooler

• 1 bottle Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay or Reisling
• 1.5 cans (12 oz. each) club soda or seltzer water (I prefer seltzer)
• As much ripe, fresh, chilled watermelon as you want (I like lots)

1. Cut watermelon into bite-sized chunks. If it is not seedless watermelon, remove black seeds, since they don’t blend well and they don’t taste good.
2. Combine watermelon chunks and entire bottle of wine
3. Blend until smooth with either a hand-blender or regular blender
4. Once watermelon and wine are blended, pour in 1 can of seltzer (or club soda). Stir until mixed.
5. add additional seltzer (or club soda) to taste, and mix well.
6. Pour over ice in a white wine glass

Best enjoyed with friends.

This morning Erik and I left early for work to pick up the keys to our new place. It’s a relief to have the place in our possession two full weeks before our lease at the current flat is up. No last-minute scramble to move everything we own in one night, no bitchy arguments with eachother over stupid things, no unnecessary stress. So we picked up the keys and immediately headed to the apartment to hang out a little before work.

Good lord, the view is amazing. When we visited it wasn’t quite as clear a day, and we didn’t really have time to do much but note that yes, we have a pretty cool view. But today, the sky is a brilliant blue mottled with puffy white clouds, the air is clear and perfect to showcase the amazing view due west of the Space Needle, with Lake Union to the north and the Olympic Mountains in the distance to the west, and downtown Seattle’s skyline rising to the south.

We have the kind of view you would expect someone to have in a TV show or movie set in Seattle. Immediately, the view from Frasier Crane’s fictional condo in the TV series “Frasier” comes to mind as a great example. I can’t wait until New Years Eve – every year there is a spectacular fireworks display at the Space Needle and we will literally have a front row seat.

I couldn’t resist taking a few photos to show everyone. I did take quite a few more with my digital camera,

I found a true gem of a brain teaser this morning that has been driving me batshit crazy, if you’ll pardon my language. But driving me crazy in a good way! n.nfshost.com is a thus far nameless number puzzle in which you have to deduce the next number/phrase/word in the sequence to go on to the next page by typing the answer into the URL as the name of the HTML file.

It sounds a little confusing but it’s pretty easy to figure out what you’re supposed to do. Get ready to hit “back” a lot, because it gets really challenging after about #9. I’ve been stuck on #15 for about 20 minutes. Have fun!

How Far Can You Get? | Found via digg and del.icio.us

A couple months ago, I bought a GameBoy Advance SP. I’d played games on Ian’s a few times and wanted my own. So I headed down to GameStop and picked up a new GBA-SP in “Gunmetal” – a sexy charcoal colour – and a couple of games (Final Fantasy IV and Legend of Zelda: Four Swords).

Mo, a friend of Ian’s and mine, stopped by the house and dropped off two copies of Super Collapse II for the GBA-SP – one for Ian, and one for me. He actually worked on the game, so he was able to score us each a copy of it – for free!

I’ve been hooked ever since. While FF4 and Zelda are great games, they can be a bit involved at times, not so good if you’ve just got some time to kill riding in the car or waiting or at the bus stop. That’s where a game like Super Collapse II reigns supreme. It’s an awesome puzzle game that makes long bus rides, car trips, and boring periods at work FLY by. And the longer you play, the further you go, the harder it gets, so it’s always fun. If you’re a fan of puzzle games, I highly recommend it.

I’m just not sure whether I should thank Mo for snagging me a copy of the game, or tell him it’s his fault I’ve lost the ability to be productive when I’m within 5 feet of my GBA – the urge to play Super Collapse is just too strong!

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On my break, I was sitting outside the building in which I work, sort of clearing my head - when it’s not very busy, like today, I start feeling really “zoned out” and losing the ability to pay attention. I guess that’s the double-edged sword of working a desk job - the plus side is that I don’t have to do anything physically demanding, I can surf the web when it’s not busy, and I don’t come home smelling like coffee beans and milk. The flip side of that, however, is that it’s hard for me to stay focused when it’s dead.

For some reason, this lonesome leaf caught my attention. It seemed special for some reason, the way it was resting, content, on the sidewalk in front of the building. Something about it captured my attention, something I can’t really put my finger on. Almost as if it was taking a break, too, from whatever it is leaves would take a break.

The leaf, and the moment, definately needed to be shared - I love the contrast between the tiny green leaf and the hard, cold pavement. My head is definately clearer, now. There’s something tongue-in-cheek zen about saying I spent my break contemplating a leaf, almost as if I were joking - but I’m not.

So, I’m sharing the leaf. I feel this photograph really captured the “feeling” of the moment. And I think it turned out well, too.