lisapaitzspindler.com

see more funny graphs

The whole explanation is:

“Your exact moment of the day is always changing, because the sun never sets at exactly the same time. You are the romantic moments just after sunset when it’s still light enough to see your way around outside, and the sky is a blend of reds, pinks, purples, and blues.

At this time of day, the light has a special way of making even rundown buildings looks like works of art. You’re like that, too ? you’re always finding beauty and magic in unexpected places. Not only will you wish on the first star you see, somewhere inside, you actually expect that wish to come true.”

I must have one. Really. I must. Apple’s new Air laptop.

Ding dong. Apple calling. Perhaps in the ongoing quest of companies to maximize marketing to women, Apple has welcomed Avon cosmetics CEO Andrea Jung to its board. WIRED magazine muses on the possibilities. Just please, Apple, don’t make a pink Hello Kitty rhinestone encrusted iMac or iPod. I beg you. I kind of resent the idea that manufacturers seem to think that making something pink is the best way to market their products to women. According to WIRED, “Jung is the first woman to sit on Apple’s board in a decade.”

The new io9 blog is talking about temporary hotels. Kind of reminds me of William Gibson’s coffins in NEUROMANCER.

If you’re looking for new shows to watch during the writer’s strike, and you missed the boat on LOST, ABC is offering all three seasons online, for free, in HD. (By way of SFUpdates.)

There’s a GI Joe movie in the works! Is Barbie going to make a cameo? Seriously, I can’t wait to see what they do with the Shana Mae “Scarlet” O’Hara character, which IMDB says will be played by Rachel Nichols. I have friends who have been trying for years to get me to read comics and I’ve never been able to get into it. I may have to change course on that, since Scarlett would make a great Danger Gal profile, not to mention The Baroness Anastasia.

The Literary Assassin and I have been having a great conversation about female characters in the Star Wars universe in the comments to my recent Danger Gal profile of Princess Leia Organa.

Carole McDonnell over at the Fiction Beyond The Ordinary group blog has a good article “In defense of romance,” about why she writes and reads Romance.

Where I’m from, as is true of many other regions, eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day is considered to be good luck. It’s really the potato dumplings infused with sauerkraut that I crave, as do all the women in my family it seems. Maybe it’s the cold weather that makes us crave the carbs to raise our seratonin levels, I don’t know. The solstice is past, though, and like my friend Kraehe, I’m grousing that Sol seems to be taking her sweet time with all of these gray days we’ve been having lately.

I need one of those clear, bright days, when the sunlight reflects off the snow and the temperature makes your heart beat more quickly. And I need to go play in the snow!

To beat the winter blues, I thought it might be fun to make a Twelfth Night cake, sometimes called a King Cake. Americans are most familiar with this cake as it’s associated with New Orleans Mardi Gras, but it has it’s origins in Christmas celebrations, specifically the Epiphany.

This was never part of my family tradition, but since moving back to the general area where I grew I up, I keep hearing people chanting “pork, sauerkraut…pretzel.” So I looked up this pretzel thing and, wouldn’t you know it, it’s a Twelfth Night cake. Yummy!

Good thing we’ve already eaten all of the vanilla kipfel. I can exercise tomorrow.

Today, December 5, is the Day of the Ninja. So even if you didn’t dress in all black today, you can still get your Ninja Fix from the Ask a Ninja guy. The Underwire is reporting on more events surrounding this day too.

I apologize that there is no Danger Gal post this week. I’ve had a cold all week and, frankly, I’m just plain beat. I promise to get back on track for next week.

So I’m exercising my ability to be a total couch potato tonight channel surfing (and what was I watching? Flipping between the Food Network Challenge, Mythbusters –Diet Coke and Mentos episode yay! — and HGTV Design on a Dime — midcentury modern redo!) when I come across the end of Chasing Liberty on the ABC Family channel.

And I think — gee, that Mandy Moore is kinda classy, this being a salute to Roman Holiday and why don’t more people pay attention to her instead of Brit-Brit’s vajayjay flashing? (– oohhh Who’s Line Is It Anyway is on now — love those funny guys).

And I realize that Jeremy Piven is in this Mandy Moore movie as a Secret Service Agent. Now, I have to admit to a crushing on the Jeremy about as much as I crush on the John Cusack oh ever since Better Off Dead. And then I’m sad. Because first Cusack, king of the dark sarcasm biting wit, makes a movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones (and another about dogs!) and then Piven makes a movie with pop-tarty Moore.

But didn’t I just say she was kind classy? I’m so glad she’s over the geeky Braf guy. He was kinda cute until he turned into a jerk… oohhh Rescue Me is on, what was I saying?

Oh yeah, my dark comedy kings, my cerebral hotties, the Cupid to my Psyche, the Bryce/Roy/Martin to my Debi, why or why oh why? Did you need the money that badly? (Yes, I use adverbs correctly even in the stream of my consciousness.)

Do you see what happens when the SciFi Channel cancels Dresden Files, makes me wait interminably for Battlestar and subjects me to the likes of Flash Gordon and Painkiller Jane? Shame on you SciFi Channel. How dare you use a Queen song for Flash Gordon. There’s not much that might make Freddy roll over in his grave, but this just might. And really, I refuse to watch movies like the Giant Anaconda from Mars or Space Dragons from Planet X. Pu-leeze.

Please do not touch Eureka. I beg you.

“Look kids it’s Big Ben! Parliament!”

Above, Schloss Hohenschwangau, the original seat of King Ludwig II of Bavaria until he went off his rocker (”Crazy Ludwig”) and built Neuschwanstein.

Where have I been? Well, let’s see, I started out in Budapest and made my way east through Vienna, then to Salzburg and finally into Germany. I had a great time, got to tour the Hungarian Parliament, ate lots of wiener schnitzel and took in a Strauss orchestral concert, toured the salt mines just out side of Salzburg, and on my way to Germany stopped at Neuschwanstein Castle, the castle which Cinderella’s Castle is based on. That last stop is evidently a haven for American tourists, and sure enough we ran into someone from Philadelphia who was making the same trip in the opposite direction.

And did I mention that I came back with a whole lot of very dark European chocolate? YUM!

Where have I been? Working, working, working. . . and job hunting. The web design part of my old job came to an end and so I’m updating my resume and looking for the perfect position. So, if you need a web designer or just want some cool stuff to look at, please check out my design web site, Amber Leaf Creative.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.