Jay writes that bloggers all seem to share phone phobia as one of their quirks. Yet we're all big email (and to some extent chat) fans.

I think that has to do with the difference in immediacy between a phone call and email/chat. When you're on the phone, you have to interact, you have to respond. Over email or chat, you can choose to respond when you want, if at all. Over email, you can evaluate the message and the sender more carefully than in a phone conversation (this applies more to talking with people you're not comfortable with) and couch your response more appropriately.

What do you think about that? Do you like email or the phone better? What about chat vs the phone?

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:36 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 127 words, total size 1 kb.

Rob of Say Anything blog, and also a guest at Wizbang! has been looking into this story. I first saw this story at Ilyka's, where she asks if these criminals will be charged with a hate crime (3 blacks attacked 2 whites) but guesses not....

Seems 2 OIF veterans (not sure whether this is true, but they are soldiers) were at a bar in Seattle with some dates when 3 black men allegedly groped their girlfriends. Being honorable men, the soldiers stood up for the girls, and a melee broke out. If you clicked the link above, you saw how brutal the beat down was.

In viewing this video, Rob noticed a number of similarities between it and videos for sale at realfight.com (no link, I'm not supporting these bastards), which someone sent him the link to. This website specializes in selling tapes of live ghetto fights, and gee, wouldn't you know, has a contact number in SEATTLE, and an address (which may be fake) near the scene of the fight....

While this is all speculation, Rob has already notified the Seattle PD and KOMO-TV, the station that ran the beating video in hopes of helping to capture suspects, that there may be a connection.

Yeah, it's far-fetched, but like Rob, I have to ask, If this was a random fight, and not a set up, how could the camera guy walk right into the middle of the fight and not get a punch thrown at him? If I was in a fight and somebody started taping me, I sure as hell would knock the crap out of him and get the film or memory stick. And why were there 3 actual video cameras at the scene? Camera phones I can see, but who in hell randomly takes their video camera to the club? Something doesn't add up.

Read the whole thing, and don't miss the comments!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 325 words, total size 2 kb.

Chris Muir's Day by Day honors Project Valour-IT today:

Drop by the URL above, and make a donation, or just hit the Project Valour-IT button on the left!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 01:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 34 words, total size 1 kb.

Welcome to this year's Back-to-School Carnival of the Recipes! A great menu of recipes for kids of all ages!**

** this in no way implies that kids of any particular age will enjoy any particular recipe...

Preschool (Breakfast):
Easy Pain Perdu French Toast from Rob at Easy Eats

Elementary School (sides and sauces):
Kindergarten: Happy Cilantro Sour Cream from Jami Leigh

1st Grade: Yummy Homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette from Heather at Angelweave

2nd Grade: The Best Homemade Fat-Free Caesar Dressing from Shawn of Everything and Nothing

3rd Grade: Spice Mixes from Dave at The Glittering Eye

4th Grade: Salsa the first of two recipes from David of third world county

5th Grade: Fresh Peach Salsa from Marsha of A Weight Lifted

6th Grade: Freezer Coleslaw from Michele of Meanderings

Middle School (Can be either a side or an entree):

7th Grade: Fried Tofu with Spicy Sauce from Romeocat at CatHouse Chat

8th Grade: Hummus from Army Wife, Toddler Mom

High School (Entrees):

9th Grade, Spicy Foods 101:
First up, a holdover from last week, a second recipe from Shawn of Everything and Nothing, Jambalaya Grits

Next, Chicken in Peanut Curry Sauce from Aussie Wife Amanda

Also, Mapo Tofu Done Right from Kevin at Technogypsy

10th grade: Eggs and Cheese
First, Spicy Egg Sandwich from VA Republic Man at Flaming Duck

Next, Quiche from Taleena at Sun Comprehending Glass

Cheese Stuffed Chicken Rolls (for the Microwave, an easy 'A' recipe!) from Owlish of Owlish Mutterings

and finally, for all you cheeseheads who hate that Lasagna involves tomato sauce (duh, it spoils the cheese) Mike of Meeting Ozarkland presents his recipe for White Lasagna

11th Grade: Tomatoes and more Tomatoes
Just two dishes, what a slacker year.....

First, Stuffed Tomatoes from Kevin of Seriously Good, just like Mom used to make!

Next, Miss O'Hara presents Spaghetti Squash with Romas, Sundried Tomato Pesto, and Pine Nuts.

Senior Year: Fish and and Not Fish

First up, Pecan-Crusted Snapper from Allan of Allan Thinks

Next, Perche de Cresson (Perch with Watercress), the first of two submissions from Mensa Barbie

Finally, Couscous meal, a yummy combo of couscous and meat from B Durbin at Booklore.

Did you graduate?? You did? Good. You can have dessert, assuming you get that far.....

But first College, and what would college be without booze? Here are three great recipes GUARANTEED to put you in that festive party mood:

Hurricanes (how time-appropriate!) from Daisy Mae at Dubious Wonder

Making The Perfect Martini from triticale

and last but not least, Death By Chocolate from Two Dogs of Mean Ol' Meany. Definitely one of MY favorites from college!

And finally, Graduate School: Dessert.
Hey, I just finished Grad School, and let me tell you, this is the only way it will EVER be sweet.....

First up, Lemon Cheese Bars from Donna B of Pajama Pundits. So bad yet sooo good.

Next, Easy Maple Cake from Cafe Oregano

For those of you with lots of fruit coming in, Punctilious of Blog O'Ram has a plan to make small batches of preserves. Yum!

The second recipe from third world county: Ice Cream Sandwiches made with Javascript cookies. Appropriately enough, just scroll down....

Aeryk of Geek Can Cook brings you the Perfect Creme Brulee.

From Tinker at The Secret Life of Shoes comes (what else??) Shoe Fly Pie

A second recipe from Mensa Barbie, Raspberry Pomme, which looks to be a yummy fruit tart flavored with Grand Marnier

Cookies from Jay Solo of Accidental Verbosity: Cereal Flake Cakes

From Physics Geek, Pumpkin Pie with Cheese Crust

and finally, not the icing on the cake, but certainly the sauce on the ice cream, Best Ever Hot Fudge from Elisson at Blog d'Elisson

LATE FOR SCHOOL: Laurence Simon has a list of all of his recipes posted here.

That's the lot. You all get your honorary PhD in Yumminess! Thanks to all the authors for submitting recipes and of course, to Beth for keeping the Carnival of the Recipes going!

If you're new to my little corner of the blogosphere, stick around, read a bit, and if you like what you see, drop in again!

UPDATE: Haloscan is giving me hell for too many trackbacks, so if you didn't get one, please hang on, and I'll get to them tomorrow when it will let me try again...

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:13 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 728 words, total size 7 kb.

The posts are longer than the blogroll!

WooHoo!

I'm back!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:19 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 12 words, total size 1 kb.

I now have google talk. Citgirl99 if any of you want to chat....

Problem is, you need a google account, which of course you can only get by invite.

I have several since I have a number of personal gmail accounts, so if you want an invite, drop me a comment**

**if you are a random person that I've never seen on here before, tough luck. Invites go to regular commenters/bloggers first....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:09 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 78 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Cool. Guess I might have to break down and do this.

Posted by: vw bug at August 25, 2005 04:08 PM (coJPb)

2 If you've still got one available, I'll accept an invitation. BTW, I don't talk trash during college football season, for obvious reasons.

Posted by: physics geek at August 25, 2005 08:58 PM (DAgzB)

3 At last count, I had approximatley 150 invitations. If a few hundred of your closests friends need an invite and you're out, lemme know.

Posted by: Margi at August 26, 2005 02:00 AM (nwEQH)

4 I heard that Google was going Alpha?

Posted by: Paladin at August 26, 2005 05:20 PM (6rrD3)

5 I finally succumbed and signed up for a gmail account so I could get Google Talk. I wasn't going to, but a friend sent me an invitation. But I'm an IM addict I think. I've got AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN Messenger, and now Google Talk, all handily run through my Trillian program.

Posted by: songstress7 at August 28, 2005 03:31 PM (ie93s)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Soldier's Angels has managed to raise over $7500 already! That's thanks to all of you who've contributed. But our goal is $600,000 to fully implement Project Valour-IT in ALL military hospitals, so we have a long way to go.

Here's a Project Valour-IT update at Cool Blue Blog....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 01:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 52 words, total size 1 kb.

Carnival of the Recipes will be HERE tomorrow, so get those recipes in!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 01:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 19 words, total size 1 kb.

If you don't you should.

This is a story I'm sure you won't read anywhere else. And every man in it is a hero, except the terrorist scumbags.
(h/t Van der Leun, crossposted to A&C)

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:16 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 45 words, total size 1 kb.

Well, ok this isn't strictly a review, but here goes.

Eldest, the second book in Paolini's Inheritance trilogy just came out and I picked it up yesterday. It took me all day to finish it because the thing was Harry-Potter sized. Almost 700 pages (the book is across the room, or I'd give you the exact number.... but I distinctly remember seeing page 666...).

It's very similar in style and tone to Eragon, it's predecessor. One difference is that since much of the plot of Eldest revolves around Eragon's time in the company of elves MANY MANY new words in the ancient dialect are presented, and although there is a glossary in the back, it's kind of a pain in the ass to have to flip back and forth to figure out what's being said in some cases.

Like Eragon, Eldest is also clearly a product of a modern writer. The influence of Tolkien and Lucas remains strong. In the case of Tolkien, his influence is clear in the races of elves and dwarves, their language and culture, their interaction. Although I must say that it's kind of unnerving to read words in "elvish" that should be "dwarvish" (if you're used to Tolkien). As for the influence of George Lucas, let's just say the kid really SHOULD get out more. More on this below the fold (SPOILERS, mostly from Eragon, but key ones from Eldest, too) more...

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:54 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 1226 words, total size 7 kb.

Hot Sh*t we're back! At least for the time being....

And it doesn't look like I've lost much if anything...

YAAAAAAAAY!

Pixy is a god.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:24 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 29 words, total size 1 kb.

Crap-Master Laurence really hits it out of the park with this piece on having the courage to be a great American.

Comparing certain famous right-wing politicos to the Hollywood Political Intelligentsia, Laurence says:

Barbara Streisand has sold many times more albums than Sonny Bono. She's won Grammys and Oscars for her compositions where Bono had an empty shelf. But Sonny Bono is more of an American, in my opinion, than Barbara Streisand. He complained, he rolled up his sleeves, he got elected, and he did something about it on behalf of the people who elected him.

Barbara Streisand may not have brought in more box office than Arnold, but she's got Emmys and Oscars and Golden Globes out the wazoo for her performances on screen, silver and small, where Arnold only had joke MTV awards. But Arnold is more of an American, in my opinion, than Barbara Streisand. He complained, he rolled up his sleeves, he got elected, and he did something about it on behalf of the people who elected him.

Courage isn't running for office to see how many people who will vote for you. It's having the guts to run even though there's people who will vote against you and still serving the entire public to what you pray is the best of your ability.

Let me know when Barbara runs for something. Let me know when Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Alec Baldwin, and the rest of the celebrity punditsphere run for office.

Read the rest!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 05:04 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 257 words, total size 2 kb.

Dean tells the story of William Ziegenfuss, father of CPT Chuck Ziegenfuss, and an all-around American hero, from his days serving his country in Vietnam to his decades-long battle against non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, almost certainly caused by exposure to Agent Orange.

Bill Ziegenfuss was the inspiration for Project Valour-IT and it is carried out in his memory.

Go read what Dean has to say, then go here to donate to this worthy cause!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 04:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 84 words, total size 1 kb.

Here's Pixy's explanation:

:Crapweasels
A combination of blog-spam, an ineffective denial of service attack, an inadvertant denial of service attack, and possibly other factors, managed to slow the server down to the point that it might as well not have been there for that past few hours.

While I was asleep. The one time each month I'm not logged in, and that's when it has to happen. Mad

Sorry about that, folks. We're back on the air and I'm working to make sure it doesn't happen again."

UPDATE: Trackbacks are off for a while due to the issues we had this morning that appear to be continuing. If you link me, drop me an email or leave a comment!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:21 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 125 words, total size 1 kb.

But somehow I made TTLB's top posts today! Three cheers for quirkiness.

Here's the proof....

Cool.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 22 words, total size 1 kb.

I love my honey. One of the best things about him is that he is the one who is slow to anger, thinks about what he wants to say, and rarely gets into a huff.

He's working up to a fit right about now. After being busy with school and such, he's finally getting caught up on the news.

I know most people are getting tired of the Sheehan story, but what he's going to have to say will probably be worth reading. Look for it in the next couple of days....

I think this has gotten personal.....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 07:58 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 108 words, total size 1 kb.

It's not PMS or wacky hormones. It's full on demon posession!
(h/t Michele and her demon possessor, Leonard)

Posted by: caltechgirl at 05:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 168 words, total size 2 kb.

I'm #4 for "courttv goddess trolls"

Of course XRLQ is #1.....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:31 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

I was inspired to write this by the words of a commenter calling himself File Closer on this post at protein wisdom, in response to a previous comment by someone calling himself "patton". File Closer was there in Iraq, in an artillery unit attached to Casey Sheehan's battery. He has some choice words for the left. Go read his words. I'll wait

As some of you may have noticed, the moonbats have got it under their tin hats that the BEST argument in favor of Cindy Sheehan and her position is this: you have no right to talk if you haven't been there. Put up or shut up.

Basically, these maroons are throwing the word "chickenhawk" around a lot and claiming that supporting a war that you have not fought in is morally bankrupt.

Ahh, the irony there.....

Anyway this is sooo wrong on so MANY fronts, so I apologize if what follows isn't a smooth piece of writing.

First, serving this country in wartime means a HELL of a lot more than calling 1-800-GO-ARMY (as was suggested by commenter patton at protein wisdom). For every young man or woman who raises their hand and swears to defend this country against all enemies, even at the cost of their life, there are dozens of family members, friends, and coworkers who sacrifice their lives and plans because someone they care about is miles away, doing a very important job. Beyond this there are the thousands of folks who volunteer their time to run a USO room at the local airport, make sure soldiers get care packages, or just take a moment to say "Thank you" to a vet of ANY war. All of these people are serving in their own ways, some at more personal risk than others.

I've been there, you know. I know what it's like. Luckily, my own DH was never deployed overseas, but that was sheer luck and timing. DH was a mechanic in a sister unit to Casey Sheehan's. If he hadn't been discharged, he would have been there too. My BIL was in the SAME unit as Casey Sheehan. He was there. As a family, we serve this country together by supporting our loved troops and putting our lives with them on hold until they get back. It's about unselfishness, putting your nation's needs ahead of your own.

Next, it's a logical fallacy to say that someone CAN NOT have a valid opinion on something they haven't experienced. By that same token, moonies, you need to give up your opinions on Gay Rights (unless you are homosexual) or Abortion rights (unless you have had one). Oh wait, that's not fair, huh? I call BS. It's the same argument. Put up or shut up, right? Except that there's no cute phone number to become gay or have an abortion (or tp get a uterus for the guys, for that matter).

I want to close by reminding people about what happened the day Casey Sheehan died. C 1-82 1CD (C battery of the 1st batallion 82nd Field Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division) was on a rescue mission in Sadr City, just 1 week into their time in Iraq. They were new in country, new to real battle, and definitely not trained for this. This platoon from C 1-82 are MECHANICS for God's sake. They spend every day fixing diesel engines on tanks and artillery. Yet these very brave young men went in to do their duty and resuce their comrades, and they were pinned down by RPGs in an ambush attack by insurgents. Seven men died that day, not just Casey Sheehan. It would have been 8, except that my BIL was shot in his Kevlar vest and went home with a nasty bruise instead of a coffin.

When we talk about SPC Casey Sheehan, we need to remember SGT Eddie Chen, SPC Israel Garza, CPL Forest Jostes, SPC Stephen Hiller, SPC Robert Arsiaga, and SPC Ahmed Cason as well.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:24 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 686 words, total size 4 kb.

CPT Chuck Ziegenfuss, who was wounded in Iraq and is a moving force behind Project Valour-IT got a nice mention in the WaPo yesterday. You can also read Chuck's account of the interview on his blog.

You can also read about how Chuck's desire for a voice-activted laptop started the project here and there's a lot more info at the PV-IT blog.

Have you contributed to Project Valour- IT yet? If not, click here or on the button on the left to make a donation. Every little bit helps!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 01:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 97 words, total size 1 kb.