While the title is something that I’m sure we can relate to I’ll go a little more in depth.
I play World of Warcraft, which is a real time game that lets you interact from people all across the world.  Granted it’s just for fun and games, but sometimes you meet someone that becomes something I call an online friend.  This is someone that you talk to and have a good time with, but wouldn’t likely make efforts to meet in the real world.

I met someone that may have been like that, though they were a little flirty at first, they soon learned that I was married, and knowing that he (that’s what they said they were anyway) laid off.  Within a few days he turned all ‘woe is me I hate my life.’  Having hard rough times myself I gave him an ear and tried to help, but it didn’t really help any.  I was talking to him again today and among several things he was complaining that his life would go no where because he had all of these limitations on him, and among other things he was unemployed.  I said that if he wanted to change things that badly he could enlist in the military.  Considering the things that he’d told me about his life at home I could see him possibly considering it.  Much to my surprise he started ripping into the military.

That I can deal with, there have been a lot of situations that the military has been criticized for lately, so whatever, drop it and move on, to each his own.  Rather than dropping it after I had expressed my opinion he said, and I quote.  “u r crazy”  He then went into the whole America not really being free and how war is an ugly thing.  I will agree that things in America aren’t perfect, but no country is!  I won’t argue that war isn’t an ugly thing, because it is, people get hurt, people die, and people are changed for life, whether for better or for worse.  What I don’t understand is why he continued after I agreed with him, but continue he did.

I consider myself a farily tolerant person most of the time, I didn’t used to be, but I’ve come to realize you really do have to pick your battles, if you do you’ll live longer I’m thinking.  I can tolerate someon saying that they wouldn’t want to go into the military, it’s not for everyone by any means.  I can tolerate people pointing out what they consider to be flaws in the way America is run, I have quite a few I could list myself.  What I WILL NOT tolerate is someone going out of their way to insult the men and women themselves who put on a military uniform everyday not because they have to to get paid like some civilian jobs, but because they are willing to put themselves on the line for the freedoms we do have, reguardless of how we use it.  Not everyone in the military will see combat, not everyone will be on the front lines, end up in a fire fight, or see the results of the war we face first hand.  But to insult the people who are able to, and have the courage to stand up for this country, is something I couldn’t tolerate.  I could have raised hell and I can imagine that some people who read this will wish I had (I kind of wish I had too in a way) but rather than draw it out I said that he was insulting my husband as well as anyone who wears a military unifrom, and that I wouldn’t associate myself with someone like that. I wished for him to find the peace he that he needed in life and called it good at that.

I know there are probably way too many commas, but this happened about twenty minutes ago, so I’ll edit it later.

Any thoughts on if I could have handled the situation better, or if I was right to draw it to a close?

Unfortunately the pics don’t look very good in the worpress default window, and when added in from a url they’re just too big to justify putting them into the blog, but any smaller and you loose detail so I’ve linked them. Thank you photobucket…Anyway there are a couple of things that I’d like to note.  I did put pronunciation with the vowels, but not for the consonants, because well…I got lazy and my hand was starting to cramp (no this wasn’t the only writing I’ve done today) Another note is about the first vowel in the second column, not I wasn’t being sloppy, the vowel sound is actually “ri” though that can change based on area to more of a “ru” like in ruin, or even rut.

Vowels

The only thing I can think to mention about the consonants is that the accented “sa” is pronounced like the “sh” in shell.  The same is true for the dotted “sa” though it’s technically a retoflex sound, fortunately it only shows up in Sanskrit loanwords so it doesn’t show up too much.  Another pronunciation note, though the consonant is transliterated “ca” it’s said like a “ch” sound “cha” is a heavily aspirated version of the sound.

As an afternote, I found a mistake the first “dha” consonant is supposed to be dotted, but the character below it was erased several times and probably took the dot with it >.<

Consonants

I think this part is fairly self explanatory.  They’re dependent signs so I combined them with the consonant “ka” if there’s something about it that is confusing let me know.

Dependent vowel signs

If anyone’s been following my little bloglet I’ve been studying Hindi.  I’ve also been working on a story and found that I’m digitally dyslexic (meaning I type the wrong letters into words or in the wrong order) and yes that was supposed to be a pun.  Is that the actually term for it, probably not, but it’s accurate.

Well in a little exercise I was doing with actually writing Hindi I found that there are two letters I’m swapping around, so it’s not only in English I’m having this problem.  The odd thing is that if I’m writing just the letter I’m fine, throw it into a word and I’m screwed.  I will be adding a picture later ie when I find batteries for my camera, I know they’re around here somewhere >.<  In a way I’m grateful that I’m confusing the two letters that I am, at least they look somewhat alike, much like the classic ‘b’ and ‘d’ in English, although it’s more like ‘b’ and ‘p’ >.> eh you’ll see when I get the picture up….now where’d those batteries go?  *wanders off leaving the post at the mercy of the interweb gremlins*

Pardon the crappy pic, haven’t had cause to use the macro setting too much and bad lighting didn’t help.  Anyhoo those are the two culprits, and to complicate things nag (which would be spelled with just the characters n and g because of an implied vowel) is actually a word D:  Halp!  This does pose an interesting question though, if you’re dyslexic in one language would you have cause to be in all languages?  I didn’t notice it in Spanish or German, then again I wasn’t looking for it either…

I’ve had my desktop for a couple of years now and while it works for it’s original purpose (kind of) the time has come to look at getting a new one rather than adding more bits to this one.  After all the motherboard only registers 2 gigs of RAM…and I do live online gaming, need I say more?  The first place I looked was HP.com because they’re a solid company with good tech support and they’ve got good customization.

I suppose I should mention that I’m not looking for something in the alienwear tier of computers (and I don’t have the knowledge to feel comfortable building my own quite yet)  just something that will run my current programs along with a few others a couple of examples would be Battlefield, World of Warcraft, Dawn of War, etc.  My computer as is runs WoW at about 9-15 fps in instances (I’ve gotten lucky and had 35ish at times) and if I’m in Stormwind or Dalanar it’s more like 4, this is with most of the settings turned almost all the way down, and no, I don’t pvp on this computer.

I suppose that was a bit of a ramble, but back to the point at hand.  I decided to look at the Gateway site just to see what there was available pre-built.  I’m not an uber computer geek but what I found was highly disturbing.  I was honestly hoping it was a misprint at first, but alas if it is then it’s made multiple times.  The main specs that I was looking at are as follows.

Processor Intel Q6600 (2.40GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB cache)

Video NVIDIA GeForce® 8600GS

OS Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit) SP1

Memory 4096MB 667MHz Dual-Channel DDR2 SDRAM (in the form of 4 1 gig chips)

/facepalm

Am I the only one that sees something wrong with this picture?

I kind of don’t want to do this, but I’ll now be screening comments.  If you have something to add about the subject and it’s appropriate, go for it!

If you know me you know what I wouldn’t want on my blog, if you don’t know my mostly what I’m concerned about is trolling/flaming/racial stuff.  As far as cursing is concerned, eh, I’m a big girl I can take it, but keep in mind anyone could stumble across this so if it’s excessive I will remove the comment and inform you via email why I removed it.

As to typos/grammar I’m only human, I’m not going to catch everything, especially it I’m writing at night (which is when I usually do) or if it’s something I’m really excited about.  I tend to do a lot of rewrites and sometimes grammar from two sentences gets mixed up.  If you’d like to correct me I’d appreciate it, but it doesn’t belong in the comments.  If a grammatical/typographical error actually has you confused, feel free to email me and I’ll correct it, and let you know what I was actually trying to say >.<

If you’re going to email me the email address I check most often is nightsong65@gmail.com

Don’t even think about sending me spam, I will send the gremlins on the interwebs to haunt you.

For those who are curious about the turkey it was so good.  The skin was a little dry, and there were some less cooked parts in the center (which I’m still trying to figure out given the thermometer reading of 180) all in all though it was tasty, and the butter and seasoning trick under the skin worked perfectly.  I also decided last minute to toss some onion and garlic in the cavity itself and it gave the meat a nice light flavor to help contract the butteryness of it.

As for the giblets, they were bagged, no fun at all

I didn’t end up doing the gravy, though I was thinking about it, it just didn’t work out right.  Note to self, get gravey packet next year.

Well don’t know how this one got left out :S Anyway, very late, but here’s my turkey blog

Yeah couldn’t think of a better title as this is relating to turkeys. While I’m tempted to rip into the commercialized aspect of this (and almost every other holiday) I’ll restrain myself for the moment and focus on the food. As many of you know, I’ve never had the <sarcasm> pleasure </sarcasm> of reaching my hand up a dead (or live for that matter) turkey’s errm, well anyway, this is going to be my first turkey. It will also be my first turkey cooked in a gas oven. I’ve been looking on the web, the glorious web, and have been bombarded with ideas tips and just plain strange ideas on things to do with a turkey, all in relation to cooking it of course…

In the spirit of things I’ve complied the ideas that seem the most appealing, as well as basic steps in case you’re like me and are doing this for the first time, and am going to share them. Please note I do not have first hand experience with these so if you try them and they suck, dun blame me.

Well first things first, buy the turkey.

I went for a 10-11 pounder because that was the smallest I could find. At first I was discouraged because in the main meat section the smallest I found was about 20 pounds. O_O I’d forgotten how big turkeys were.

Step two defrost the turkey.

There are two schools of thought on the best way to do this, either cold water (which would take about 4-6 hours for my turkey) or in the ‘fridge (which takes 2-3 days) I myself am going for the ‘fridge method mainly because I can’t see not needing to use the sink for hot water in 4-6 hours.

Step three removing the giblets…

This part seems simple enough, especially if they’re bagged well, but on the other hand you just might be thinking about where your hand is going. I’d prefer not to thank you very much… Some people use the giblets. Unless I find a recipe for gravy that uses them I won’t be, not big on organ meat. Unfortunately can’t give you any tips of cooking them because of that.

Step four seasoning the turkey

Some people say salt and pepper are all you need, other I’ve seen lists that were over ten ingredients long O_O I’m going for somewhere in the middle. One trick I’ve seen in several places that I’m going to try is to separate the skin away from the breast, but don’t remove it and place your flavorings there leaving the salt and pepper for the skin to help it crisp. I plan on butter, oregano, garlic and onion for the inside seasonings and salt and pepper for the outer seasonings. I do not plan on stuffing the turkey while it’s cooking. If you know what you’re doing and can get the temperatures to a safe point, good for you. This is my first turkey, and I’d rather not risk making me or my husband sick. Well ok, making me sick, he’s got an iron stomach that can take almost anything.

Stuffing.

Yes I’ll admit I’m cheating on this one, I got it in a box. I’ll let you know how it tastes though, it’s a flavor I’ve never heard of, but it was either that or the sage, chicken, or pork stuffing. the sage could have been good, but I’m not sure how strong it would be so I passed and got the savory herb instead. As I said, I’m making the stuffing separate from the turkey.

Cooking the turkey

Again here I’m cheating, I got one of the toss away foil cooking pans. What can I say, I’m cheap and I don’t roast things that often. Still need to pick up a meat thermometer and make sure not to put it near the bone…I am going to be tempted to make the turkey dance though. If I can get him in on the sillyness you just might see a dancing turkey video on photbucket or some such place, though not youtube. Sorry youtube, but I’m not willing to make a fool of myself for that many people. Back to the seriousish side of things though, make sure the turkey’s done. Overall the consensus for turkeys is 12 minutes per pound un-stuffed. I have found a little tip that if you put the turkey in a 400 degree oven for the first half hour to 40 minutes then lower the temp to 350 for the rest of the time it makes the meat juicer because of a braising effect. I plan on trying this to see what happens.

Eating the turkey

Granted I should maybe put in a section about cutting the turkey, but really it’s going to taste the same either way. I really don’t think that eating the turkey needs explanation, if it does, are you a vegetarian/vegan? If so I suggest tofurkey, I kid you not turkey textured and flavored tofu. Never tired it to my knowledge, but if it helps you celebrate the spirit of the holiday have at it.

I’ll let you guys know how this first experiment into the land of turkey comes out, though it might be a few lazy days later.

Wow and I though Spanish was confusing with conjugations…for holna (to be) there are nine different circumstances that it’s conjugated in it the present tense, but only four individual conjugations. . .at first I was like huh O_o

Example of the fun: (transliterated of course)

I ~ main hun

you (intimate) ~ tu hai

you (familiar) ~ tum ho

you (formal) ~ ap hain

that, he, she, it ~ yah hai

those, he, she, it ~ vah hai

these, they ~ ye hain

those ~ ve hain

we ~ ham hain

It kind of makes sense, but at first glance, it was like. . .exsqueeze me? I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but oh well we’ll see. Will likely have a new update soonish maybe >.> provided my brain doesn’t short circuit/asplode/just go poof