Does anyone have experience with the Roomba? Is it worth it? I have a baby on the way and own two cats. I like the idea of an automatic appliance vacuuming once a day and keeping pet dander & hair down, as well as anything the baby might pick up off the floor. But I am hesitant to spend the money without some reviews by lovely domestics like yourself. Does the Roomba do the job well enough to justify the expense?

Backtracking a little...

On Wednesday my mom treated me to Bosphorous, a Turkish restaurant on Park Avenue, as a reward for signing with my lovely new agent. Park Avenue is the swanky downtown street of Winter Park, and I wanted to eat there because I wanted to feel swank...a preview of my glamorous writing career to come, ya know.

Despite that, you can put the girl on Park Avenue but you can't take the cheapskate out of her:

Mom--"Get whatever you want. Do you want wine? You can be indulgent. What do you want to drink?"
Me--"NO, no, I don't need wine, jeez, it's $8, and I'm not paying $2.50 for herb tea! Or...letting you pay 2.50 for herb tea."

I like water anyway. The food was gorgeous. I had a white bean salad with tomatoes and peppers and parsley, and lamb with carrots and some kind of pickled red cabbage, beets, and red onions on the side. Yum. The white bean salad was kind of like something I'd make, but that was okay, because sometimes I learn technique from eating out. In this case, I realized if I put more lemon juice, more vinegar and more salt in my dressing it would taste like Bosphorous, so I replicated that flavor with endive, Vidalias and good olives the next day.



I took pictures of my mom, too, but she photographs terribly!

moar funny pictures

How to save on money on nearly everything
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Without leaving home (and wasting gas), use your computer to find coupons, discounts and the best deals.

Our shopping expert, Walecia Konrad, uncovers not one, but three ways to be smart, smarter, smartest about things you purchase every day. ( Read more... )

Oh, thank you.  I haven't been inspired to macro in quite a while.  From  ravynstoneabbey 's blanks:

I have oral presentation next week and I choose to talk about Oktoberfest, there’s some word I don’t know how to pronounce and don’t know exactly it means. Can anybody help me please?

1.How to pronounce ‘Theresienwiese’? And in this sentence ‘…Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (namesake of the Theresienwiese festival grounds)’ Is it mean that the festival ground named after her name or something like that? I’m sorry, apart from German, my English is bad too. :(

2.How to pronounce ‘d’Wiesn’? And what does it mean? I found it from this sentence ‘The festival is held on an area named the Theresienwiese (field, or meadow, of Therese), often called d’ Wiesn for short.’

3.How to pronounce ‘käsespätzle’? In this sentence ‘…käsespätzle (cheese noodles)’. I wonder how it looks like and how to cook it.

4.How to pronounce ‘Äpfelpfannenkuchen’?

5.How to pronounce ‘Therese’? In this sentence ‘…Princess Therese’.

6.How to pronounce and where is it in Germany, ‘Saxe-Hildburghausen’?

7.How to pronounce and is there a word in English of ‘Sennerhut’?

Vielen dank!

Source: http://www.oktoberfest.de/en/index.php
               http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest

Hi Hipsters!

There are a couple of communities that I am a member of in which I'd like to keep my membership but I don't really feel like seeing all of the gazillion posts on my friends page every time I get on. Is there a way to do this that you guys know of?

Thanks in advance!


*eh hmm - no, this is not one of those communities ;)


*edit - got it in the first reply!
Join the community, but take it off your friends list.

I am making my brother's favorite cake, a red velvet cake, as his groom's cake in October. I have tested two very different cakes recently for him to try, one from a recipe from a recent Better Homes and Gardens magazine and one recipe from a McCormick clipping (from a coupon circular).
I did not like either. He liked the latter more than the former, but I just didn't like it overall.
The first one lacked cocoa but was super red. The frosting was baked, and it was overall super rich and a bit on the buttery side. It had a lot of the ooohs and aaaahhs but it just didn't taste like it should be at a wedding.
The second was more cocoa-y, and it wasn't as red. It had vanilla cream cheese buttercream frosting (i think that's what it said on the recipe!). This one just didn't taste like it should be at a wedding to me, either.
I would really like to find a tried and true recipe. I would like to make it from scratch, but if I have to use a box, I have to use a box if it means a super awesome cake. I'm really not this picky about desserts in real life! I just want to make it special, you know?
I'm looking for a balance of a very good cake and frosting to match the very good cake.
So, my question to all of you out there:
Does anyone have a recipe or can direct me to a recipe for your favorite red velvet cake?
I appreciate all of your help in advance!

more cat pictures

How do you say "random" in Spanish? Some online dictionary says escogido al azar, but I'm talking about "random" in the sense of something coming from out of the blue, unexpectedly - like a random thought that occurs to you. Aleatorio doesn't seem right, but maybe it is.

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity!

Glenn Haege: You can do it!
Some foundation concrete cracks can be resealed

It is a common problem with almost every home in the United States: cracks in the concrete foundation. Minor cracks can be fixed easily, but larger horizontal cracks can be a sign of structural problems. With a few easy steps, a small fracture in the concrete can be repaired by you.( Read more... )

I just finished reading Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx. Am I the only one who didn't know it was a short story? Having not seen the movie, I knew the story only through what I had heard and I expected the book to be a epic novel. I was very moved by the story and, though a fan of brevity, was surprised that so much power could be packed into such a slender book.

Would anyone here like to discuss the book? I am almost certain it has been discussed here before, but I wondered if maybe some new members and recent readers of the story may benefit from a discussion post. :)

I'm an Australian graduate student, and am about to finish a PhD in Cultural Studies in December. I intend to relocate to the US or Canada next year and want to begin applying for jobs to start next US academic year. I also want to apply for postdoctoral fellowships, but I doubt I'll get one before I've submitted the actual dissertation or (fingers crossed) begun to negotiate a book contract. There's also the chance of a job here in Australia in 2009, but even if that happens, I want to do some applications anyhow for the practice.

In preparation, I've been researching the US/Canadian academic job market: apparently it's tight, and cut-throat. The first hurdle is that I have a PhD but not a Masters -- is this going to be a problem? Are Australian graduate students considered to be at a high enough level to apply for assistant professorships, or should I start by applying for adjunct positions and work up from there? Secondly, the whole lingo -- ABD? job talks? -- is foreign. The third hurdle I anticipate is that my discipline, Cultural Studies, doesn't seem to have heaps of centres or schools in the US. But my dissertation is cross-disciplinary, and I'd fit best in an institution that encourages interdisciplinary research and teaching. If this fails, having acquired an Honours BA in Sociology, and done extensive ethnographic fieldwork in my PhD, would I get anywhere applying for anthropology and sociology positions? I've taught lots (in gender studies, oddly), am building a small but very decent publications list, have done lots of conference presentations and have just been invited to do my first keynote at a US conference. I think I have at least some chance of success. However, I still feel like I'll be jumping into a situation about which I am woefully ignorant.

Has anyone here made this move, and have advice to share? Does anyone have suggestions about how to strategise? Should I start leaning on the mentors and contacts I have in the US to hire me, or should I keep them in reserve for support letters?

I don't even want to think about visa and relocation issues yet, but if anyone has any advice on that, great.

Thanks in advance!

Can I say, "¡Que tengas buen dormido!" if, in the context, I've been talking about sleep with someone and don't want to say "sweet dreams," but rather, "have a good sleep"?

Hi all.  I have a funeral to go to tomorrow for an old neighbor.  Their small daughter died after fighting brain cancer for the past two years.  :(

Does anyone have a good recipe for something casserole related or otherwise that can can be frozen for these poor folks?  I plan on making a bunch of "dinners" that they can just pull out of the freezer and heat up.  There are 4 ppl in the house that need to be fed.  Anything would be great.

TIA
Tracy

Got a couple of cute pics of my kitty and would love for some macros.  Brain is not functioning tonight for the funny.

( Charlie, 2 blanks )