Author Archive for Premee

With all the silliness bouncing around re: Nickelgirl, my daytime alter-ego, I thought I’d personify her a little better.

I found this website a few days ago in an old saved bookmark folder and oh my goodness, I’ve been playing with it so long that my eyes are starting to cross. How am I supposed to finish unpacking now?!

Dang it! I keep forgetting to post to SodaCraze. Somebody come over to my apartment and give me a swift kick in the rear, please.

Anyway, yesterday I had a lunch date on Whyte (yay Da-de-O’s! And judicious use of the toaster oven ensured that my breakfast of leftover oyster po’boy tasted just as good this morning as it did yesterday afternoon) and afterwards we decided to check out that new cupcake place, Flirt Cupcakes.

My only basis of comparison was Crave Cupcakes in Calgary, at which, of course, I used to find myself about once a week buying a measure of comfort in a little plastic clamshell.

They’re both solid cupcake places, in my limited opinion. The cupcake I got at Flirt (above) was the Basic Instinct, which is just buttercream on chocolate – the equivalent of the Crave-o-licious. Flirt’s actual cake was so much better – denser and more satisfying, with a terrific mouthfeel, and I loved the cake-to-frosting ratio. Crave’s chocolate cupcakes are delicious, but a little bit too foofy to hold up the nine feet of frosting they put on it. (In fact, I’ve lost more than one cupcake on the sidewalk right outside the Crave store as the cake deflated under my first bite, toppled over under the weight of the frosting, and collapsed with a sighing noise.)

The frosting on the Basic Instinct could use some work. The texture was pretty good, and I appreciate that they’re not trying to kill us with sweetness, but a buttercream shouldn’t taste like I just swiped a finger across the margarine tub and stuck it in my mouth. With the addition of the cake and the sprinkles, it was decent – maybe that’s what they were going for. Regardless, I’ll probably get a different flavour next time. I saw that they had some with cream-cheese, coconut, mint, and raspberry frosting.

I think we got there around 3:30, and all they seemed to have was empty displays, which was a bit of a psychological blow, it seemed very grim and pre-Glasnost for a minute – especially as the two girls ahead of us ordered a box of twelve and emptied out most of what was left. Luckily they brought out a fresh tray of Wild on Whyte, which my young man is holding above (and I would have asked for a lick of frosting if it hadn’t disappeared by the time I put my camera back into my purse). The store itself is mighty cute, if a bit spartan at the moment – I think they should invest in some cupcake-themed art for the walls.

Anyway, we plan to head back there next time we’re on Whyte and try the other flavours. They’re pricey, but I think of it the same way as Marble Slab ice cream or something – it’s a treat that I would pretty much not ever make at home, so a couple of bucks is a reasonable expense every now and then. Just doin’ my part to stimulate the economy!

After reading the latest Slap guest post, I gotta put in my two cents, and also pimp one of my favourite authors. While I read that post I was banging on my keyboard, laughing, and screaming “Yes! Yes! Vindicated!”

Y’all, the mockery of the Athenians was only one thing that had me clawing out of my seat whilst watching ’300.’ Dramatic historical inaccuracies abound! And Larry Gonick covers them all in ‘The Cartoon History of the Universe.’

Anyway, see below for a partial corroboration of Dr. Jones’ comments and… um, whatever the opposite of a corroboration is of Frank Miller’s position. Apologies for the scan job, I practically had to break the book’s spine in half to get ‘em scanned. May be slightly NSFW, due, surprisingly, to boobies.

My first mp3 player died an ignoble death on a flight of concrete steps, and when I opened it up to check for vital signs it had about a tablespoon of canola seeds inside its little body (don’t ask, I’ve no idea).

My second mp3 player, unmentioned thus far, is an RCA Lyra purchased in late summer 2005, while I was making government-bucks.

At 256 Mb it’s woefully small; I used the SD card from my old camera and brought it up to 768 Mb, which is still only enough for just over a hundred songs.  Yet for years I’ve enjoyed changing the music out every couple of weeks depending on my mood.  What I haven’t enjoyed is changing the batteries.  From an initial $70 investment, I’ve probably spent close to that feeding it triple-A’s.

So one of my New Year’s resolutions (#8) was to buy a new mp3 player when my final package of Duracells ran out for the Lyra.  Which is about to happen!  I have one battery left, and at 26 hours playtime per battery, surely it will pass by the end of January.  Ees exciting!  New things, they excite me.

I’ve decided on a Zune, please don’t leave a thousand comments telling me how much better an iPod or Zen would be, I don’t want one.  My great difficulty now is customization and I’ve been pondering that for weeks.  You can get some gorgeous designs engraved on the back of your Zune for a pittance, about $30 depending on the design… but it’s too hard to choose between the dozen that I like.  You can also get up to five lines of text engraved on the back, I think about 27 characters per line including spaces.

The obvious choice for that option would be my name and a bit of ‘If lost, please contact’ info, but a) Help, serial killers, and b) Why not have something more interesting to look at when I flip it over to check my lipstick?

I haven’t really narrowed it down.  I do love me some poetry (mainly Nabokov, Pasternak, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Larkin) but a lot of that shizz has to be taken in context.  Song lyrics would be perfect but I like too many artists’ lyrics too much to immobilize any permanently on the back of a music player.  (Secondly, since I never look up lyrics, I mostly know them from listening to the song.  This can backfire.  What the hell, for example, is that woman saying in Fluke’s ‘Atom Bomb’?  It sounds like ‘Give me someone’s Passat.’  But if she’s got the head of state, and the president, and destiny, and supremacy, and everything ever from A to Z, what does she want with a subcompact car?)

What should I put on the back of my Zune?  I’m throwing it out to you, dear readers, and I know I can count on your creativity.  If you’ve got song lyrics that particularly inspire you, tell me!  Or some of your favourite poetry.  Or a short, beloved quote… or some words of wisdom.  Or a brilliant haiku, written on the back of a napkin!  Or an underrated life lesson, such as the classic ‘DON’T PANIC.’  Or some Simpsons lines… or a Duckman line, such as his legendary toast “An Indian stick is called a totem/ But underneath is a big swinging…”

So, once upon a while back, I had a great plan.

But then, I spent my Friday night doing what I usually do (drinking Ovaltine and watching nature documentaries) and I have, um, changed my  mind.  Embarrassingly enough.

OK, so, er…

1. We all know these are the biggest lizards in the world, but for some reason I thought they were smaller.  In this documentary they trap an old, malnourished male and he’s ten feet long and a hundred and fifty pounds.  I didn’t know my guard lizard would be bigger than me.  I mean, these are really big, heavy mothers.  The biggest one ever captured was almost 400 pounds.  I’m not at all sure I approve.

2. I had better be damned sure Kool Moe Dee is a male.  Seriously.  Did you know that these bastards are parthenogenetic and they can produce litters of male eggs without fertilization?  Me neither.  I could quite potentially come home from a hard day of ruling Premonia and be killed by a herd (flock? pride? murder?) of freakin’ Komodo dragons that weren’t there when I left in the morning.  Fuck.

3. Secondly, how am I supposed to get close enough to tell if he’s a male or not?  It’s a very intimate process, sexing a Komodo dragon.

4. I thought the whole man-eater thing was just a cruel wilderness urban myth,  you know, like how people say great white sharks kill so many people every year when it turns out it’s tiger sharks and bull sharks that make up most of the numbers?  Um, no.  They are known man-eaters.  They eat people like they’re popcorn.  They especially enjoy graverobbing.  On Komodo Island proper, people with enough money bury their relatives under concrete slabs because even piling rocks on a newly-dug grave isn’t enough to keep out a hungry dragon.  What the hell, people?!

5. They have weak jaws!  Yay!  But their jaws are full of fifty kinds of virulent bacteria and if you get nipped, it’s like literally a matter of hours before you die of septicemia.  Your only hope is to get to a hospital immediately, soak in a bath of bleach, and eat six pounds of antibiotics.  If not, it’s a long gruesome death.

6. Uh, the shock collar?  No.  Their skin is super-thick and full of silica particles.  I might as well try to zap the pyrex casserole dish Dave left at my place.  (Dave?  I still have your casserole dish.  Bring $50,000 in unmarked bills to Railway Park if you ever want to see it again.  Come alone.)  How will I train Kool Moe Dee without the disciplinary powers of electricity?

So all in all, I have reconsidered my plan to establish and defend the Grand Duchy of Premonia.  Maybe I should give up my plans of world domination and concentrate on my hobbies and career.

…Or maybe I should just pick another guard animal.