It seems that Facebook doesn’t want its users to be able to do such a thing, since (a) they do not easily make available a link to get your own status RSS feed, and (b) they continually disable the workarounds that clever users have developed to obtain their status RSS.

My question: WHY don’t they want to allow us such a thing?

Are they worried about advertising exposure and revenue? They shouldn’t be. My argument is: Giving me this ability won’t stop my Facebook visits… on the contrary, I’m more likely to visit so that I can make sure my status is kept up-to-date.

There has to be a way to do it. Back to the search.

Update: Thanks to these excellent instructions from a user named Otto on the wptavern.com forums, I now have what I want. Though it did require implementing the Facebook developer API on this site. (I think the phrase “Using a sledgehammer to kill a fly” might be more than appropriate here…)

Update #2: Ugh. Apparently, it only works if the viewer is currently logged into Facebook. Guess I need to either go back to the drawing board, or hack something together prompting the person to log in. It’s been removed until I have more time to work on it.

Update #3: I found a workaround!

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We moved into the new apartment the first week of September. It doesn’t feel like it’s been over a month already, but it has! I think we finally got the last of the boxes out of the living room / dining room area last weekend, but there are still some lingering in the front “office”.

I’ve been on a kick of “fixing the place up” — shopping for new furniture & fixtures. For example, we now have a sunroom, and I really want to get a long, low shelf of some sort to place below the window to hold plants. We also have a breakfast bar, and we need barstools. (And so on… you get the idea.)

I took photos during the move to try to track the progress, but haven’t really photographed the place since then — I still don’t feel like it’s what I’d consider “presentable”. But here are some nice photos of my sunroom:

Fall semester is halfway over already (!) with some pretty tough classes: Physical Chemistry, Quantitative Analysis, and Biochemistry. In addition, I’m also assisting with the Organic chemistry lab class and also with the lower-level Physics lab class. I’m also tutoring Physics and working on scholarship applications.

I’ve also started trying to research graduate programs. The problem with that is, I’m still not 100% sure on either (a) where I want to go, or (b) what field I want to study.

A while ago I signed up for this online service called Evernote that assists you with keeping virtual “notebooks”. I haven’t really used it to its full potential yet, but I’ve started using it this weekend to try to collect information on different grad schools. I think I may try to see how I can integrate it with this blog… not sure if such a thing is possible, but I’m going to try to remember to do some research on it.

Does it ever seem like there just aren’t enough hours in the day?

I know what my problem is — too much time spent on Facebook / watching TV / surfing the web, and not enough time spent doing productive, useful stuff. I’m just not sure how to change that… I guess I’m an addict.

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*drumroll please*

… I have a new theme! A big thank-you to my sweetie Walt, who took the time to create a beautiful design for this blog, after I lost my motivation to.

*big hugs for Walt — I love you honey!*

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At least the semester’s almost over.

I would like to share with you all the prayer that is heard all around campus during finals week:

“The Student’s Prayer”

Now I lay me down to study
I pray the Lord I don’t go nutty
If I should fail to learn this junk
I pray the Lord I do not flunk
But if I do, don’t pity me at all
Just lay me down in the study hall
Tell my teachers I did my best
And pile my books upon my chest.
Now I lay me down to rest
I pray the Lord I pass my test
If I should die before I wake
Well, that’s one less test I’ll have to take!

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It all started with Walter drawing a smiley face on an egg that had been dyed yellow. He then remarked that the eyes he drew sort of resembled those of one of the Mario characters, maybe Toad or somebody.

Of course, that was all it took for me to try to turn an egg into a Super Mario character.

I started with using a rubber band around the egg to mark the “dividing line” between red and white. Then I dripped candle wax on the shell to create the “spots” on the mushroom. The egg was then half-dunked in red dye until the desired color was obtained. Once dry, the wax was scraped off and the face was drawn on.

After doing three more eggs of various characters, we cheated a bit and “touched up” the white areas with Wite-Out before their photo session.

Going to update Updated! the Valentine’s post below with the cheesecake-brownie recipe (by popular request!)

And with Valentine’s chocolate and Valentine’s cheesecake-brownies comes… the post-Valentine’s diet. (Sigh.) I’ve been trying to track my daily calories using NutritionData.com’s free service, but remembering / finding time to do that proved to be even more challenging than remembering / finding time to update this blog. (And you can see how well that’s been going…)

In other news, the Hyv has added RSS feed reading to its list of features. I might have to see if Walt could adapt the code for this site… then I could more easily find articles of interest and link ‘em here. (Actually, there’s possibly already a WordPress plugin for such things. Time to go on the hunt!)

Spring break is next week (woohoo!)  Walter & I will be in North Carolina for a few days to attend my mom’s wedding.

I have quite a few new recipes that I’ve had some success with that I ought to post soon: biscuits… homemade salsa… pretty good vegetarian chili… barbecue sauce (ketchup + honey + spices)… oh, and a REALLY delicious Mushroom-Barley Soup last night!

I also have some photos that need uploading, but I’m at school and my camera is at home, so that will have to wait.

More details possibly to come as I think of them.

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Possible words (and recipes!) to follow once I’ve recuperated a bit!

Update 3/02/09:  Yeah, it was a long time coming… sorry about that.

Here’s the recipe for the salmon/scallop roulade, courtesy of Alton Brown (Good Eats).

For the cheesecake brownies, I made a half-batch of Alton Brown’s Cocoa Brownies, then I made a half-batch of the cheesecake filling from this recipe, and spread it on top of the brownies. I also mashed up some fresh raspberries in sugar and water in a saucepan to make the raspberry topping. It took a while due to the double cooking time plus the refrigeration time afterwards. In the future, I may try making up the batters at the same time and refrigerating/freezing them for a short while to make them less runny, then put them in the pan at the same time (and hope the layers stay separated!)
]]> http://www.moore-reel.com/20090215/a-totally-sweet-valentines-day/feed 0 http://www.moore-reel.com/20090202/super-supper http://www.moore-reel.com/20090202/super-supper#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:21:02 +0000 jess http://www.moore-reel.com/?p=234 Possibly Related:

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(If you’re interested, click below to read his email, and my somewhat tongue-in-cheek reply.)

Dear JESSICA,

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama sold their $825 billion bill as an economic stimulus package. Instead, this bill was clogged with billions in wasteful spending for new government cars, sod for the National Mall, and more than thirty new government programs.  In my opinion, these things will NOT stimulate our economy; our country cannot afford a trillion dollar mistake.

Now that the Majority passed their $825 billion wish-list, it’s time for Americans to speak out and demand a real stimulus bill that will actually create jobs and end this terrible recession. It’s about time the American people got their own earmark.

With this bill, the national debt is now projected to increase 30% in just the first 4 years. It is irresponsible to place this burden on our children and grandchildren.

If the liberals in Congress are bound and determined to spend $825 billion then we should simply cut a check and return the money back to every hard working taxpayer. That means YOU would receive $9,000 the next time you did your taxes. In fact, I introduced an amendment that would do just that. See what the Athens-Banner Herald says about my amendment HERE.

Fast-acting tax relief for middle-class families, small businesses, job-seekers, and home-buyers are at the heart of the economic recovery proposals that I sponsored.

Middle-class Americans and small businesses are our nation’s economic engine. You know how to spend your own money much more wisely than out-of-touch Washington bureaucrats. I support an affordable and responsible alternative to stimulate our economy, and cosponsored a bill that enacts across-the-board permanent tax cuts and allow tax deductions for business assets, without adding one penny to the national debt.

I am for tax cuts, not growing the debt.  Supporting businesses, not new government programs.  And protecting our children and grandchildren from a crushing national debt that will only be repaid through very high taxes. I voted AGAINST this bill — which I believe is a pork wish-list — and FOR hardworking Americans.

As your public servant, I want to know your opinions and concerns. Please note office locations and contact information below.

Sincerely,

Paul C. Broun, MD
Member of Congress

What a nice letter, right? So of course, I felt like it was my civic duty to answer him.

Dear Congressman Broun:

I am not sure how my email address came to be in your possession, but I appreciate you taking the time out of what I am sure must be your very busy schedule to ask my opinion about the current stimulus bill making its way through Congress. Maybe you can set a trend among our other elected lawmakers to start soliciting the input of their constituents before passing bills with such far-reaching effects!

First and foremost, I feel that this stimulus bill ought to provide both short-term stimulus as well as long-term stimulus to the economy.

I also believe that an ideal stimulus package should include programs that would both stimulate the economy (either short-term or long-term, preferably both) as well as solve other pressing issues. Some examples include:

- Programs for developing alternative, renewable, sustainable energy. This would solve multiple problems by:
—> Creating jobs,
—> Reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil (which would allow us to stop giving money to Middle East countries that harbor terrorists), and
—> Helping to address environmental issues such as global warming.

- Programs for creating a standardized, computerized, national database of medical records. This would also solve multiple problems by:
—> Creating jobs,
—> Making medical administration tasks more efficient and lessening the chance of medical errors, thereby reducing health care costs for all Americans, and
—> This would also help the environment in a small way by reducing the need for paper.

I believe that tax cuts, while nice in theory, won’t do much to directly stimulate the economy. Most economists seem to think that our economy will get worse before it gets better, and that we could be in a recession for the next few years. Based on this, I think that most people are going to be saving any extra money instead of spending it. Also, income tax cuts will have little benefit for the millions of American workers who have already lost their jobs and are unemployed.

Tax rebates are also nice in theory, but again, most Americans are scared to spend right now; we’re all “saving for a rainy day”. Personally, if the government handed me a check for $9,000 right now,
I’d buy some groceries, get a tune-up on my car, possibly pay down some of my student loans, and save the rest for that “just in case” situation that I or my boyfriend lose our job. I wouldn’t exactly provide the best stimulus for our economy, I’m afraid. Were I currently unemployed, the situation would be similar; that $9,000 (plus whatever was already in my bank account) would be my sole source of cash for the next however many months.

If Congress is planning to issue tax rebate checks for the purpose of stimulating the economy, you would do well to issue them on something like pre-paid Visa gift cards. Paper checks are likely to be deposited in bank accounts and left there for rainy day funds. Gift cards can’t be deposited, and so they must be spent… thereby providing the economic stimulus that we need.

I do support the idea of tax breaks for business owners that create new jobs. To some extent, I also support government-issued funding for failing business. However, rather than giving money directly to
businesses, I think that a better idea would be to set up some sort of program where businesses that are strapped for cash and can’t get financing from banks would be able to borrow money from the federal government in order to avoid having to lay off employees. This would help to save jobs. However, such a program ought to have complete transparency, and business owners who request a government loan should be required to provide records of their finances for at least the last year, a statement of how they intend to use the money, and keep records of how the money is spent. Such companies should also be required to implement caps on compensation (salary and bonuses) for their executives. (No repeats of the AIG debacle, please!)

To address some of the points in your email more directly: I’m not sure how I feel about new government cars, or re-sodding the Mall. Sure, it would stimulate the economy by creating jobs, but I don’t like the idea of this country’s elected officials being able to buy new automobiles and do some re-landscaping while so much of the country is struggling just to put gas in our cars and keep a roof over our heads (much less a lawn in our yards!)

Of course, I realize that all this will cost money, and of course, I don’t want to burden my (future) children or grandchildren with a massive national debt. As most of us ordinary middle-class Americans know, for any amount of money that we spend, we also will likely have to cut back on something else. In the government’s case, that of course means reducing government spending. And just like us ordinary middle-class Americans are now being forced to do, the government needs to evaluate
its budget and decide what is a “necessity” and what is a “luxury”. Many Americans have either been laid off or forced to take a pay cut. Why not Congress? It would be a great show of sympathy for the plight of the American people if Congress passed a bill to reduce their own salaries, even by a little bit.

I hope that some of these ideas and sentiments are things that are already in the works. If not, feel free to use them! (But please, do not quote anything in this email out of context.) I look forward to reading and hearing more news of what you guys are cooking up for us, up there in Washington D.C. Good luck to you all!

Sincerely,

Jessica L. Moore

Thanks to my awesome aunt, Tracy, who graciously let me use her Macy’s employee discount.

First run was this morning and the making of the omelettes. They didn’t turn out quite as expected… I need a bit of practice getting the food processor to “dice” onions, peppers, and mushrooms, rather than “mince” them all together into a veggie-mush. Oh, well — I mixed them with the eggs anyway. The end result didn’t look very appetizing but luckily we had some pita bread. It made a pretty good filling for our “breakfast pita pockets”, topped with salsa, cheese, sour cream, and baby spinach. Yum!

I really hope to get a lot of use out of this food processor. I’ve got visions of homemade salsa… veggie burgers… falafel (or hummus for that matter)… super-easy cole slaw or egg-roll filling… the list goes on!

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