Blog du Wren

Post-Feast Burrito

Happy Thanksgiving! While the holiday is slightly different for me this year than last year, it will still be great. Instead of being surrounded by palm trees and beaches, I will be surrounded by friends, family, and traditional food. I sincerely hope that you are surrounded with somethings/someones that make you happy as well.

Speaking of food, we all know the standard: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberries, and pie. It is a meal that I look forward to for quite some time, but there is something that occupies the food portion of my brain* more, for which the anticipation is even greater than feast: the post-feast burrito. I claim the invention as my own and this Thanksgiving, I would like to share the recipe with you.

Start with a flour tortilla, preferably the large size*. First lay down stuffing, mashed potatoes, and turkey. Liberally drizzle gravy on top, followed by a layer of cheddar cheese. Zap it all in the microwave for a minute or so, depending upon your portions. Top it off with a little cranberry sauce, fold, and enjoy.

Thursday November 22 2007

File under: holidays, food

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One Angry Man

A screen shot from '12 Angry Men', which I think is about a jury and is the allusion on which the title of this post is based (not because I was overly angry at the whole experience).

Last week, I got called in to serve jury duty. As anyone who has been called in knows, the process between being called in and actually sitting on a jury is somewhat complicated, although very interesting. It turns out I have a lot to say on this, so I've split it into three sections below for your reading convenience. Click to read my blurb on each.

About the process:

About my experience:

Observations:

Sunday November 18 2007

File under: Anacortes, misc

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FC7 - Young Love

This week's comic features the artistic double teaming of Deanna on drawing everything and of me clicking approximately 6 times with the paint fill bucket. (Please, Deanna, don't be mad. At first it was just going to be the tree and then I got carried away.)

As always, don't forget to click on the image to see the whole comic and click on the "File Under:" to see other comics in the series.*

Thursday November 15 2007

File under: comic

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Birdhouse Factory

We all know I am a circus geek, right? (No, not that kind of circus geek, although chicken is pretty tasty. Anyhoo...) Whenever a circus type performance comes to the area, I like to attend. This latest circus, the Birdhouse Factory, particularly piqued my interest.

Its website describes it as acrobatics + machines + theatre + circus. What's not to be piqued about that? Well, that turned out to be a pretty accurate description. The props really added to the shows. Whether it was the unicycle driven stage or the elaborately geared German wheel*, there was always something mechanical going on on stage.

Besides the standard circus fare of juggling, aerialists, and whatnot, this show had something I haven't ever seen before, which is always a pleasant surprise. There was a trampoline act that was among the neatest things I've seen in a while. Performers would jump off a platform, perform various flips, and then land back on the platform as smoothly as if it was a video being played in reverse speed. So neat!

Another really neat aspect of this circus was their schedule. They performed mainly in smaller towns up the west coast (Bellingham as opposed to Seattle), at least for this tour. So often, it seems to me, a chosen denizen of smaller cities/towns, that culture/entertainment sometimes passes us by. To see groups catering to that leaves me with a warm fuzzy feeling.

Tuesday November 13 2007

File under: juggling, events

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Quiz Night - Crisis of Doona

This past Friday was another fun and successful Quiz Night at the Back Porch Cafe. The categories fell in our favor this week (for the most part) and at the end of two rounds, Crisis of Doona* was in a three way tie for first place. The tie breaker question was about Shakespeare. It turns out that wasn't our strongest subject so we again got narrowly edged out for the win. Next time, though. I can feel next time is going to be the time.

Anyway, as has become our habit here, I thought I would go ahead and post the visual round. Category: . How many can you name? (As always, hover for answers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

(Previous Quiz Night posts (with scans of the visual questions): Return of Quiz Night, Filler, and Quiz Night!)

Sunday November 11 2007

File under: Anacortes, games

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FC6 - Another Jeopardy Comic

Harkening back to my very first comic idea (and to go with my latest link blog post), I present you this week's Friday comic. As you can no doubt tell, my first string artist is taking the week off, so I had to do the honors again. I kind of like this new style I've developed: not good enough that anyone would mistake me for an actual artist but good enough that you can tell what's going on*.

Anyway, I hope to have the first stringer back in for next week's comic. In the mean time, enjoy. (Oh, and if you haven't figured out yet, you can click on the image to get the full size.)

Thursday November 8 2007

File under: comic

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World of Blogs

Besides [somewhat obsessively] keeping a blog, I also am an avid follower of blogs. My netvibes has 60 or so feeds on it. Many of them are topic oriented like environmental blogs, tech blogs, or comic blogs. Mostly those are for-profit endeavors that are maintained by a professional staff. They are updated frequently and are a source of really good information (or entertainment). They help me stay current on the latest developments about what interests me.

A quarter or so of the 60 blogs I monitor* are kept by friends. These are friends mostly from high school or college who, like me, have taken to keeping a personal blog. It is a great way for me to keep posted* on what's going on with them and vice versa. What I noticed the other day, however, is the incredible amount of geography covered by my friends. Each day, I check in on friends who are all over the U.S (Boston, Las Vegas, Ohio, North Carolina, NYC, Baltimore) and all over the world (Japan, Norway, South Africa, Argentina). It is a great way to keep the travel fires stoked while stuck behind a desk.

Not so coincidently, I've recently added Dave Senesi to Blogs du Friends. Worth a look for anyone looking for a glimpse of a westerner's impression of living in Japan.

Tuesday November 6 2007

File under: misc

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Public Transportation Excuses

I've had a very public transportation-y week. In all, I've ridden 6, count 'em, 6 public transportation systems (Island Transit, Whatcom Transit, Skagit Transit, Sound Transit*, Community Transit, and Metro Transit). In some of the downtime inevitably provided by traveling while not having to focus on the road, I started thinking about why people choose not to ride the bus. As kind of a response to some of those reasons, I wanted to share this anecdote in hopes of getting people to maybe reconsider their excuses.

A few weeks ago, a friend was in visiting from out of town. Being that I don't have a car, all our motating* was either by foot or bus*. One particular bus trip got me to stop and realize how many of people's usual excuses we were defying. We were on a relatively unfamiliar system (we were in Bellingham, whose bus system I don't have much experience with), we were going shopping at the farmers market so had a couple of bags of groceries, and we were traveling with a 15-month old in a stroller. Even with all that, the trip went splendidly. Extra time provided by the bus schedule allowed us to explore the town more, the 15-month old really enjoyed watching out the window as the bus cruised along, and we got some good exercise walking to and from the bus stop.

(p.s. I love public transportation.)

Saturday November 3 2007

File under: transportation

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FC5 - Memory Foam

Yes, yes, I know October is over. And no, no, I'm not trying to live in the past. It is just that I had so much fun with the October Friday Comic series, I think I will keep it up until the ideas run out (or my drawing staff goes on strike.)

I really like how this one turned out. I esp. like the art. We went back and forth how best to convey this one, and I think Deanna captured everything perfectly.

Anyhoo, I hope you're enjoying reading the comics as much as I am enjoying coming up with them.

Friday November 2 2007

File under: comic

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Happy Halloween!

I'm not a fan of Halloween. Call me a party pooper (most do). But just because I'm not the biggest fan doesn't mean that I don't appreciate others' love of it. I'm also not so anti-Halloween that I can't admit it has its upsides: candy, clever costumes*, and The Simpsons Tree House of Horrors.

This year I got invited to a costume party. The costume I came up with hardly rivaled any of the others there. Hannah had the best costume of the night IMHO with a dead perfect Ugly Betty. (By saying it was dead perfect, I'm not implying that she was looking ugly. Anyone who knows the show and saw her would get it.) Other great costumes were Willy Wonka, Neo (from the Matrix), and a big fat tourist guy. Seeing the costumes, esp. the ones that were homemade, made me appreciate the holiday a little bit more.

So what was I? Well, have a and try to guess. (If you already knew, pre-post, please keep to yourself. Or if you are the one person that correctly guessd (Joe), sit quietly and marvel at how clever you are.) What you can't see is that I am wearing knee high rubber boots, which may or may not help. Need a hint? Hover for a clue or two: hint 1, hint 2, hint 3, and (big) hint 4.

Wednesday October 31 2007

File under: holidays

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