Release your Inner Chef

I have found some truly delicious looking recipes in my stumbles. I keep telling myself I will do some real baking one of these days, and when I do I will make some of these incredible desserts. That day has yet to come, but I thought I might take a step forward and share these dreams of mine with people whom I love. People who just might make me one of my dream desserts when I come to visit them...

Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies

My excuse for not making these little beauties yet is that I will make them in February for either Valentines day or my Birthday. Sometimes I dream about them. Seriously.




Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
One of these days I will put Oreos on my grocery list...

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites

So simple and delicious, why don't I just buy some pretzels already?
I'm pretty sure if we got pretzels, they'd be gone before I had a chance to make anything. Same goes for the Oreo cookies.

Chocolate Cookie Dough Truffles

They just look so pretty. If I made them, they'd probably be a little sloppier, but they would be delicious all the same.

Maybe you will make one of these magical desserts sometime. If you do, invite me over (and make sure I can come). However, I am going to assume that no one is going to make these desserts, and we are all now in the same boat of mouth-watering longing. Don't be surprised if you start dreaming in red velvet from now on.

The Art of Procrastination

As the school year begins to lose some of it's novelty and excitement, students everywhere struggle to stave off their arch nemesis: procrastination.
Procrastination takes many forms, but I would like to take a moment to share with you my personal favorites.

1) The world's top search engine and research tool is also the easiest way to avoid work because it's so similar to real work. For example, I need to find some more music by a specific composer. I google his name, listen to some music on youtube, read his bio, and look up some music books. All of this I need to get done, but it is perhaps not as pressing as writing an analysis of Pre-Classical musical expectations for my history class, because the analysis is due in two days.

2) I never spend more than a few minutes on facebook--social networking is just not very time consuming--but it is always just there. It's a little something to do when you don't want to do your homework. It's a tiny but effective procrastination technique.


3) The greatest lie ever told: "I can do my homework while I watch a movie that I've seen a thousand times." Netflix has made this easier than ever, and if it weren't for my determination to graduate in the spring, I would probably be watching some darn thing right now.

4) I feel that if the tumblr Reasoning with Vampires was updated 20 times daily, it would be more of a time suck. As it is, it can't even eat up more than a minute of my 'study time' each day, much to my own chagrin. But, I thought I might share a hilarious little tidbit that was posted today:

5) My final procrastination tool probably comes as no surprise. I am quite certain that all of you use it for the same reason, and probably just as frequently as I do. It is, of course, blogger.

Now, as the conclusion of this post, I would like to thank all of you for making my procrastinating dream a reality. I will now return to the following productive activities:

Finishing my Caine Ambassador application
Writing my analysis of a Beethoven Trio
Memorizing a Bernstein song cycle
Practicing piano
Cleaning house
Making dinner


...All while watching back to back episodes of Psych!

Satiric Publicity is Good Publicity

I am continually intrigued by the kind of publicity the church gets. Whether it is because of a Tony award winning musical, presidential elections, or a really crappy book series, Mormons and the news are going to be spending a lot of time together in the next little while.

I would like to share my favorite piece of publicity that the church has recieved:

Yaweh or No Way?

I hope you all learned something. Tigers can be Catholic.

Google is Worse than America

Google and it's various products (Gmail, Blogger) are officially more complex that the U.S. Government. Getting a new Social Security card was much easier that getting a new e-mail address. I have spent HOURS trying to delete previous, out of date emails, transfer contacts, and allowing my self to become an administrator on my own blog. I was very tempted to just wipe the slate clean and start all over again, but I persevered. Now, I am successfully posting on my blog as phillips.claire89@gmail.com! The fight isn't over yet, however. Lisa, if you want me to read/comment on your blog, please invite my new e-mail address.

I am toying with the idea of re-designing and re-naming my blog. Does anyone have any suggestions??

Google Yourself.

I googled myself today. Here is what I found:

about 17,600,000 results.

Claire Phillips aka Dorothy Fuentes aka "High Pockets"-- a singer/dancer/housewife turned spy in the Philippines during WWII. She opened a club for Japanese officers and collected intelligence from them for the American troops hiding out nearby. She also raised money to alleviate the suffering of POWs. Phillips got the nickname "High Pockets" because she hid money and valuables in her lingerie.

PBS.ORG

Claire Phillips-- author of the novella "Black Market Babies" and soon to be novel "Ever Chemical" award winning poet and currently teaching at the Southern California Institute for Architecture and the Art Center College of Design.

KQEDARTS.ORG

Claire Louise Phillips-- post doctoral researcher in the field of plant soil and Ecophysiology.

clairelousephillips

Claire Phillips--renown british portrait painter.

clairephillips.com

There is also a singer Claire Phillips on myspace, a producer Claire Phillips on IMDb, and an online obituary for Claire Phillips. She wants her ashes scattered in "the four winds of Nevada." I also found a Claire Elizabeth Yolande Christiana Phillips, but not till page 15. I didn't look through all the results, but I looked through a lot of them. No, I do not think I made it into the top 17 million hits. The question is, of which of these Claire Phillips shall I steal the identity?

Translating made Fun and Easy!!

Today, Lee was trying to help me with my homework. I am in an online Italian 1010 course. Yeah, I know. How are you supposed to learn a spoken language without speaking to anyone, right? Anyway, he was flipping through a phrase book I bought before my trip last Spring and stumbled upon some "fun" phrases.

These are phrases your average tourist needs according to Frommer's Italian Phrasebook and Culture Guide. Copy and paste these into google translate, I dare you.

Some selections from the Nightlife section:

Ti desidero.

Restiamo solo amici.

Prendi la pillola?

Torno a casa domani mattina.

Credo che questo sia stato un errore.

In the Health and Safety section, these are the first four phrases under "Medication"

Mi servono delle pillole del giorno dopo.

Mi servono pillole anticoncezionali.

Mi servono pillole per la disfunzione erettile.

Ho perso gli occhiali da vista e me ne servono di nuovi.

My question is this: What is Mr. Frommer doing when he's in Italy?

Because I am in an Italian class where I pretty much teach myself from a textbook without aid of an instructor, I found it necessary to find a good online translator. There are A LOT of websites that do free translations, but they usually provide sub par translations. It is important to understand that in every language there are words that won't translate, concepts that get lost, and sentence structures are different all over the world. However, with my test you can separate the proverbial wheat from the tares.

Enter the same phrase into every site you go to. It should be a phrase with basic vocabulary, in the present tense, and no structural complexities. As you translate the phrase, copy and paste the translation and translate that to a new language. Do this several times before returning to English.

Free Translation: The big woman dances with the short man tonight.

becomes: kvindenat short-term dans.

(English to Spanish to French to Russian to German to English to Chinese simple to English to Danish to English to Greek to English)

Babel Fish: The big woman dances with the short man tonight.

becomes: Big woman L dances tonight with the short persons

(English to Spanish to French to Dutch to English to Russian to English to Chinese simple to Chinese traditional to English to Greek to English)

Web Translation: The big woman dances with the short man tonight.

becomes: Dance with people long black woman briefly tonight.

(English to Spanish to French to Russian to German to Italian to English to Dutch to English to Chinese simple to English)

Translate Reference: The big woman dances with the short man tonight.

becomes: Fat women dance the night only.

(English to Spanish to French to Russian to German to Danish to Chinese simple to Italian to Greek to Hebrew to Polish to English)

Google Translate: The big woman dances with the short man tonight.

becomes: Dancing with the main man short night.

(English to Spanish to French to Russian to German to Italian to English to Chinese simple to Greek to Hebrew to Danish to English)

And there you have it! None of them are perfect, but in my experience, google translator is the best. Try it for yourself next time you're bored!

Concerns.

I've already ranted about this once, but it was a long time ago. Last time I took a stab at Twilight, I used official looking charts and graphs. I wanted a visual aid to help readers understand the horror. I see now that my graphs, though entertaining, were not backed by any real research and are, therefore, not substantial enough evidence to support the claims I have long been making: That Twilight is a threat to society.

I have found a slightly more reliable source. I intend to prove my point using text from the book series itself. Everything you are about to see that looks like an excerpt from the book, IS! Everything that looks like someone inserted a comment or correction, IS EXACTLY THAT!! This may be a shocking experience for you. If there are children in the room, you may want to ask them to leave...but don't. They'll think this is funny too.

Meet Isabella Swan, our bubbly protagonist:

She is a very happy young lady.

She is also an independent and strong teenager.

She is, of course, very understanding of other people, their feelings, and often goes out of her way to help friends.

She is an astute observer of the world around her...

and she possesses a keen understanding of her own thoughts and feelings...

Meet Bella's boyfriend. His name is Edward. He is a hunk. And a Vampire.

Their first date was an unforgettable evening filled with romance.

They have a healthy respect for each other. Their relationship is built to last!

Edward has lots of hobbies to keep him busy...

Bella and Edward share a love that is true! They love being together.

This fantastical journey was brought to you by millionaire author Stephanie Meyer, and Dana, creator of Reasoning with Vampires. I think this quote more or less sums up this blogger's opinion of The Twilight series: