Ca-razy!

Usually I'm not that into fashion design, but this is pretty damn amazing! Toot toot!

Today Is A Day For...

...mundo celebration!

Rejoice, for my computer has finally gotten fixed! After two weeks without my own personal computer, I realise how much I rely on it, and how nice my sister and brother in law are to let me sneak onto theirs when it "looks like" they're not using it. And trekking to school just when I wanted to do some work wasn't too great either. Except now I just realised that I saved my CAD work at school without saving it as an earlier CAD file, so I can't open it on my computer. Oh well, that's life I guess (woohoo).

So in case you were wondering what in the world happened to my beloved computer, one day, the motherboard basically decided "I'm not going to work anymore. So. Ha." The BEST part was that my warranty had expired four days before my computer gave up, which I didn't find out until I called Dell to ask them to please figure out why my computer wasn't charging. I suspected it was the adapter, so I called, they shipped out a new one, courtesy of Dell (which, by the way, I love, their customer service has always been nice to me, ask long as I talk to the right person), and found out that it in fact wasn't the adapter, but the motherboard that konked out.

What were my choices? Pay $248 + $45 re-instatement fee since the end of my warranty had already come and gone, and I get my computer covered for two years. So I had to ask how much it would cost to just replace the motherboard. A whopping $500, which happened to include the labor for installation too. How nice. So for a grand total of $303, I got my warranty until 2009, and had a guy come to my house to replace my motherboard. Which was great. Except that he didn't show up the first day. But he did the second, and was very nice and friendly and showed me all the parts of my laptop that he basically had to strip to put the new motherboard in. Who knew there were so many screws in a laptop?

Anyway, my biggest fear was that all my work and pictures and music were going to get wiped off my laptop and I would have lost all my pictures of my dogs. Funny that those are the pictures I cherish most. I've been seriously considering getting an external harddrive to back all that stuff up. We'll see how that goes down.

My head is spinning so I guess it's time for bed.

Baked Cheesy Deliciousness

So I bought a pound of rigatoni in the bulk bins at Rainbow Grocery because I haven't ever tried cooking creamy pasta with this type of pasta and apparently it's perfect because it's fluted and "picks up that cream so incredibly well". Right, so I needed to try and found a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis on Food Network and here's the delicious results with a few additions and changes:
Ingredients:

• 1 4 oz. stick of butter
• 1/2 c. plus 2 tbsp. flour
• 3/4 qt. whole milk
• 1 c. grated mozzarella
• 2 large carrots, cut into bite-size pieces
• 10 white button mushrooms, sliced
  
• 2 cooked chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 lb. uncooked rigatoni
• Salt and pepper to taste
  

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F
   
2. Melt butter in a large saucepan (enough to fit more than a quart of liquid), add the flour and whisk until smooth.
3. Whisk in the milk and keep stirring until smooth, keep cooking until the cream coats the back of a spoon and you can draw your finger along the back of the spoon and the cream stays separated. Remove from heat.
   
4. Stir in half the cheese and all the chicken, carrots and mushrooms, set aside.
5. Cook rigatoni in boiling water for 5 minutes, the rigatoni should be undercooked as it will continue cooking in the oven.
   
6. Drain pasta and mix in with the cream sauce.
   
7. Pour into a large and deep baking dish (13x9 inch is recommended, or smaller if you want to split them up), sprinkle remaining cheese and bake for 25 minutes.

Serve hot and steaming. Yum.

So I haven't posted anything through-provoking and substantial in quite a while because 1. I'm hardly in the state to provoke my own thoughts, much less other peoples' and 2. My computer's motherboard has given up.

Not much has been happening, but I do wonder how a person who I don't know, and doesn't actually have any effect on me and petrify me to point of inconvenience.

There's this lady, that stands outside Rainbow Grocery, and she asks for signatures to help with the homeless or something like that. I really, really don't like solicitors, they make me very nervous and I really don't like being pressured to contribute to something that I haven't thought through thoroughly (say that fast four times...I did, saliva EVERYWHERE). I mean, send me a pamphlet that I can read, research and make a decision on instead of visually assaulting me in public when I'm pretty much zoned out and already uncomfortable because I'm out in the wild and probably sweaty from walking around. I mean, I've got a frown on my face, and even I have to admit that I have a pretty formidably pissed off looking face when I'm zoning and not thinking of anything. It's just my natural facial expression. You'd think people would leave me alone, but no. Anyway, this lady has perfected her tone of voice so when she asks if I will take the time to sign her petition, when I say no I feel like an absolutely awful person for saying no. I know, I know, it shouldn't affect me, and I've rationalized it to the point where I'm screaming "What are you THINKING?" to myself in my head, but still, that little guilt-ridden voice comes on back in full force.

Eugh, enough complaining, I'm going to eat some mini-corn dogs.

Best Thing Ever...

Honestly the best thing I've seen on the internet in ages, there's a whole line of these videos that combine Eddie Izzard comedy with legos. Perfect combination. This clip is funny even if you don't know Eddie Izzard, and if you don't know the Izzard, you should get yourself a copy of any dvd comedy tour and watch it. He's genius, brilliant, fabulous. Enjoy the clip. I definitely did, I was laughing so hard I almost fell on the floor.