LOL

Since I don't have any hilarious tales to tell at the moment, I'll pass along a couple things that have made me laugh. A blog post consisting solely of links to funny things on the internet!?!?!? Has such a thing ever been attempted before?

First of all, best of craigslist is a reliable source of really funny (and usually X-rated) stuff. Here is a nice G-rated selection: Survival of the Fittest

Have you ever found a site or a blog or something and gotten so engrossed in it that you decide you need to read all the pages/posts/whatever, only there turn out to be about 400 pages/posts/whatever, and it takes you a few hours to get through it all, and then you have kind of an internet hangover? And you swear you're never going to do that again, because there about a billion other things you could have done with those few hours, like interact with your family? But then the internet calls to you again with its siren song of craziness and hilarity, and you end up wasting a perfectly good naptime reading best of craigslist?

Damn you, internet.

Anyway, this site will give you an internet hangover, and it will be totally worth it: Passive-Aggressive Notes Warning to people who don't like swear words: the site features lots of swear words.

What's White and Flaky and Falls on my Shoulders all Day?

Snow, of course. It's snowing again! Snow is so nice when it's the very beginning of the season and it hasn't gotten all dirty and gross. At least it won't get slushy here -- apparently, once it gets below freezing, it pretty much stays there until spring (or, as we hard-core Alaskans call it, "breakup"), so the snow never melts into those astonishingly deep slush puddles that like to hide at the edges of the road in Rhode Island. Instead, it just gets packed down into solid sheets of ice, which I guess is somehow better.

I'm looking forward to getting some snow on the ground so that I can take Soren out sledding -- given how much he likes scooching down hills on his butt, I can only imagine how ecstatic he'd be about actually picking up some speed on the way down.

Chris and I got a night away while Grammy and Grampy were here last week, which was very nice. We went down to Seward and enjoyed the SeaLife Center at a pace much more leisurely than a toddler's, played cribbage in a coffeeshop, and got to see the first decent snowfall of the season.



The above picture was taken in front of the (unfortunately underexposed) signpost marking the historic start of the Iditarod race (the official starting point was moved north to Wasilla, with a preceding ceremonial start in Anchorage).

So, anyway, yay for snow!

Everyone I Know Shares the Same Birthday

OK, not really, but it would be handy if they did.

A hearty happy birthday to my OLD, OLD friends Jennifer and Emily! And a special shout-out to my nephew Brady, who turns one year old today!



Isn't he cute? I wish I could have been at his birthday party, and not just because I love cake.

We're Real Alaskans Now!

Well, we've eaten a lot of halibut, yet some still falls out of the freezer every time I open it. Favorites have included:

Grilled Halibut with lemon/parsley butter
Baked Halibut with lemon/parsley butter
Halibut baked in parchment with peppers, onions and shiitake mushrooms
Halibut tacos
Halibut enchiladas
Panko-crusted Halibut
Halibut-centric Cioppino (kudos to Kirsten)
Halibut-bruised toe (I had that, but didn't eat it)

But last night we did something new, and quintessentially Alaskan, with our halibut: we traded some to our neighbor for some Copper River Red he caught.

We were talking the other day and I was like, "Oy! I have so much halibut!" and he was like, "Oy! I have so much salmon!" Then we realized that since we both have strictly convex utility functions, there was a gain to be had from trading. Then we both said, at the same time, "Hey, let's trade salmon for halibut and enjoy the Pareto improvement!" It was weird....

As an economist, engaging in barter economy is an interesting thing. Specifically, what is the price--the ratio of halibut to salmon--that is appropriate/agreed upon? Do we trade for equal weight, or does the ratio somehow reflect the market prices? And if so, which prices? Right now, halibut can be had at the store for $7/lb (it is Alaska...), but Copper River Reds are out of season and can't be had. At peak season, CRRs are about $5/lb, but most of the time they are available they are substantially more. So here's the question: my neighbor walks in and hands me two CRR fillets, weighing about 5 pounds total. How much halibut do I give him?

Bbbbbbbbbbbr

No, it's not another post about the temperature. This one is about trucks ("Bbbbbbbbbbbr" is Soren's truck noise).

Soren loooooooves trucks. Airplanes? Deserve no more than a passing glance. Trains? Meh. But even the humblest of trucks rates widened eyes, a pointed finger, and some kind of exclamation (ranging from a curious "Das!?" to an awed "Woooooooooow!") (yes, he usually says "Das?" instead of "What's that?" It must be the German in him).

As you might imagine, we have a few toy trucks around the house. Soren likes pushing them around and saying bbbbbbbbr, of course, but lately, he's been spending some quality relaxation time with his trucks. He parks them all neatly on the couch and then climbs up to sit with them.



He also likes to park them on a shelf on my computer desk. The other day, I found them all neatly parallel-parked along the bottom of the bathroom door. He's a funny boy.

Brrrrrrrrr++

Aaaaaand it's snowing.

Brrrrrrrrr

Autumn is over, man. The leaves are pretty much off the trees, the snow line on the mountains moves farther down every day, and the temperature was in the TEENS this morning. It's crazy. On the other hand, it's fun to dress Mr. Baby up in his furry coat and mittens and enjoy the sunshine.





The middle picture shows how long the shadows are already at 2:30 PM. We lose about 5 minutes of light per day at this point.

I've learned that Anchorageites (or whatever they're called) have no idea how to properly celebrate autumn. We went looking for something festive and pumpkin-laden last weekend, got a recommendation from a local to go to a nearby nursery, and found a small pile of pumpkins in a glorified gift shop that smelled like potpourri. We were the only people there.

They've got it all wrong. I can understand being lame about fall in parts of the country where there isn't crisp air and golden foliage (read: L.A.), but they have those things here! And they must be celebrated with hay rides and pick-your-own pumpkin patches and pies and hot cider and corn mazes and hot dogs with curly fries that you eat outside even though it's windy and cold and your napkin keeps blowing away!

But they did none of those things, and now the Autumn Gods are displeased and have sent Winter down upon us. On the other hand, everyone here is pretty sure that's a good thing. The weatherperson on the news the other night said this: "Well, winter's here, and we've got cold temperatures, but we're still waiting for the snow!"

You would never hear that in a weather report in New England. Everyone there is still pretty sure that stuff falling from the sky is worth whining about. But at least they don't take it as a sign of the apocalypse, like the weather people in L.A.

I'll leave you with a shot that combines serene snow-capped mountain scenery with heart-pounding rock-throwing action:

I Know What I Did This Summer

I'm not sure why, but I'm going to tell you all about the slacker goof-off things I've been doing this summer/fall while Soren's been napping. Sure, I'll occasionally work or clean up or do something productive while he's sleeping, but my true joy lies in doing things that have no practical value. Just fun value.

I'll start with reading, just so that I can impress people with my crazy literacy skillz before I start talking about video games. Why is reading better than video games, by the way? A complex game with an intricate plot can be much more intellectually stimulating than a bad book. Even games without interesting plots can exercise the brain, or at least induce a zen-like state; meditation doesn't work for me, but Tetris does. Hey, I love reading and always have, but I think video games get a bad rap. Even when I'm playing Final Fantasy and going around killing monsters, it's not so much a thirst for virtual blood that drives me as a motivation to see which cool treasures the monsters will drop and which new abilities my characters will learn as they level up. Wow, that's really girly, isn't it? I'm not doing it for the fighting and killing; I just like to nurture my characters and gather shiny objects. Math is hard! Let's make cookies for the boys!

Like I said, I'm going to list the books I've read before I talk about video games. Starting now. Earlier in the summer, Soren and I were always bugging visiting Kelsey at the lagoon, and I ended up borrowing a fair number of books from her:

- The Abhorsen trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen) by Garth Nix
- Shade's Children by Garth Nix
- The Wind Singer (book 1 of the Wind on Fire series) by William Nicholson
- Elvenbane (book 1 of the Halfblood Chronicles) by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey
- The Firebringer trilogy (Birth of the Firebringer, Dark Moon, The Son of Summer Stars) by Meredith Ann Pierce

I really enjoyed the Abhorsen books, and would definitely recommend them to anyone who liked His Dark Materials or The Dark is Rising. Shade's Children was all right, as was The Wind Singer, but Elvenbane was pretty bad (sorry, Kelsey) :^) The Firebringer series is A Number One in my book, because it is about kick-ass unicorns who come in pretty colors like blue and go around fighting wyverns and stuff. If you are male, you will not like the series, but that's just due to your unreasonable prejudice against unicorns.

I also read a couple books I didn't borrow from Kelsey: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Sophie's Choice. I was very satisfied with HP, and I'm not sure what I thought about Sophie's Choice. One can't really claim to enjoy it, exactly, but it was an interesting read. I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how it compares.

As you may have already figured out, I also spent some time playing video games while Soren was napping. Games are my motivation to exercise; I fire up the Playstation and start doing step exercises, and before I know it, 40 minutes have passed. It's a great system. I just recently finished Final Fantasy XII after logging about 150 hours (I've had the game for a long time, although I'm not going to say how long because I don't want anyone to do the math). It was a really fun game, with tons of sidequests (things to do in the game that don't advance the plot), but it wasn't my favorite FF. The story was really boring, which is a real shame, because several of the previous FFs had fairly intricate plots, with all kinds of shocking twists and surprises (they usually didn't make a ton of sense, but they were still interesting). I was also disappointed to find that there was no character development, and all the characters were pretty much the same in battle. With previous FFs, you really had to choose the members of your party carefully based on their strengths and weaknesses, but all the FFXII characters have the same stats and the same abilities, so it doesn't matter what you do. In all, though, the game clearly had some merit, because I've never spent quite that much time on one game before. And I didn't even finish all the sidequests (I've learned not to care about the optional ubermonster that has 7 million hit points and takes 5 hours to beat).

I also took a little time and finished up Katamari Damacy (I bought it when I was pregnant, and playing it made me feel ill, so I've had a slight aversion to it ever since). It was fun, but it has zero replay value.

Now that Final Fantasy is over, I've moved on to Kingdom Hearts II. Despite being full of Disney characters, it's a pretty fun game, and the plot is (so far) pretty interesting. The battle system is lame (mainly involves mashing the X button 1000000 times) and I hate the effing Gummi Ship, but the plot makes up for it. Man, a game that combined the gameplay of FFXII with the story quality of Kingdom Hearts would pretty much rule the entire world. Maybe such a game will exist by the time I retire, and then I can spend my golden years doing something I really love. Meanwhile, Chris can feel free to play as much golf as he wants and cook gourmet dinners for me. Sounds like a pretty good retirement to me.

The Marine Scene

So, as I mentioned before, Brian and Edith and I went on a cruise last week, and most of it was not tragic and depressing! So let's talk about the good parts.

It was my second attempt at a Kenai Fjords tour, and the weather was much more cooperative this time around. It was rainy and hideous in Anchorage, but sunny and clear in Seward and out in the gulf, so we got lucky. We saw quite a bit of wildlife -- orcas, various sea birds (no puffins this time, sadly), bald eagles, Dall's porpoises, Steller sea lions, mountain goats, a sea otter, and some awesome jellyfish. I really only managed to get decent shots of the orcas and sea lions:






We stopped at a glacier out in Aialik Bay (can't remember the name of the glacier), and it was really hard to appreciate just how big the ice frontage was -- the captain said it was a half-mile across, and we were a quarter-mile away, but it really seemed like those distances were a few hundred yards. You know, a big slab of snow, sure, but not THAT big. Then a chunk of ice would fall from the glacier, and even though it just looked like a couple chips falling into the water, there would be a pretty impressive rumble and rather large splash, so the chunks were clearly bigger than they seemed. It was impossible to get a good sense of scale, for some reason.



In sum, a good time was had by all! Except when I got hot chocolate and burned the holy hell out of my tongue.