Geography Texas Style

I got one of these tee shirts for our foreign exchange student from Paraguay. Imagine my surprise when I got one for myself on Christmas!

I'm almost 52 and my mom is still buying me clothes! (that's a good thing, btw, and I love her for it)

Fun at Nestle Crunch Hotline

Those zany Nestle people! Have some fun and check this out.

1. Call the Nestle Crunch Hotline at 800-295-0051.
2. When asked to press keys for English or Spanish, simply wait for a few seconds without pressing anything.
3. Listen to the additional options and press 4.
4. Listen to this menu of options and press any of the menu options (press * to return one level in the menu). Menu option 7 is especially important.

Click here to go to the Nestle Crunch Website.

Thanks to Katie Warren on facebook for this.

UPDATE: I've been trying to call this number recently and it's always busy.

I'm trying to start a Freebird's Movement

I recently patronized the new Freebird's in Pearland Town Center and received one of their awesome stickers.  Since their motto is "It's not normal," I promptly tried to find a nontraditional place to put the sticker. Here is the end result of my thinking:

Help me turn this modest attempt at nonconformity into an epidemic.

The Y-zero-K Problem

Following is a story that I saved from the Y2K "problem" 10 years ago. I wish I knew who deserves attribution. Here goes:

A BUG IN ROME

While browsing through some dust-covered archival material in the

recesses of the Roman Section of the British Museum, a researcher

recently came across a tattered parchment. After some effort he

translated it and found that it was a letter from a man called Plutonius

with the title of "magister fastorium," or keeper of the calendar, to

one Cassius. It was dated, strangely enough, 1 BC, January 7--or 2010

years ago (remember, there was no year zero). The text of the message

follows:

Dear Cassius,

Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven't much time left. I don't know how people will cope with working the wrong way around. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this last minute.

I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty.  We called in the consulting astronomers, but they simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won't work.  As usual, the consultants charged a fortune for doing nothing useful.  As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing  upwards. We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they won't arrive until it's all over. Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition.

Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K problem and I will send you a parchment if anything further develops.

Vale,

Plutonius

Gift suggestions from Hammacher Schlemmer just in time for my birthday . . .

Hammacher Schlemmer's latest catalog just arrived. If you need some outrageous ideas for a birthday present for me, here is my "must have" list:

The Only Botanical Air Purifier

The Page-to-TV Magnifier

The Astronaut's Powered Recliner

The Desktop V-Twin Engine

The Alkindus Distiller

The Trapdoor Toaster

The Telekinetic Obstacle Course

The H1N1-Destroying UV Wand

The Gyroscopic Dumbbell

The Cat Teepee

The Breathable Wine Glass

The 50-foot Snowball Launcher

A gift card to Starbucks is always appropriate, too.

Cream Cheese Crescent Rolls Recipe

One of our wonderful secretaries brought this sinfully fabulous treat on the last day of school. She graciously shared the recipe, and I'm giving it a try right now. Here's the recipe:

2 pkgs crescent rolls
2 8-oz packaged cream cheese, softened
1 egg yolk (save the egg white separately)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
cinnamon and sugar for sprinkled topping

heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 9X13 baking pan. Spread 1 pkg of crescent rolls flat in the pan. you may have to trim some of the dough.

Mix cream cheese, egg yolk, sugar, and vanilla. (I found out the hard way that starting with softened cream cheese is important). Spread this mixture over the bottom crust.

Layer the other pkg of crescent roll dough over the cream cheese layer.

Beat egg white and spread it over the top crescent roll layer, then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until lightly brown.

Refrigerate and cut when cool.

Texas Winter Weather Pictures

Just a few pictures I snapped this morning. For you folks in the north, I know these are pretty tame, but in Southeast Texas, this is pretty rare. You can click on the pictures to open a larger image.

Brown roof covered with heavy frost:


Front-yard frost:


And my favorite, 3D frost crystals that formed on the hood of my daughter's car:


Also, here's a link to a local news website with viewer-submitted pics of snow(wo)men:
Houston Snow(wo)men Pictures