StallNine: Spirit of the blog

The things you don't learn when you're afraid of horses

There is a whole sport that I never knew existed until yesterday. And no, I'm not talking about curling, everyone knows about curling. I spent much of my childhood doing gymnastics so I have always associated vaulting with running down a runway, hitting a board, and doing a bunch of flips over a horse, landing on a mat, preferably on my feet. And the horse of which I speak looks a little something like this:

Okay, I'm old school. The young'ns think a horse looks like this:

Apparently, there are a bunch (10? maybe 20?) of people who think vaulting involves real, live, horse animals! Thanks to YouTube, you can see that I'm not making this up. (The first two minutes are dull but then it gets good -- and if you don't have hi-speed, think of a cross between dance, gymnastics, and horseback riding. I can't believe I'm not making this up.) Enough description, take it away F.A.M.E:

Update: Click here for more videos!

Quote of the day

From my objective friend (after I thanked him for letting me vent):

Hey, if we don't support each other then we're fucked.

Indeed.

Tofurkey love

I got an email thanking me for playing in the ultimate tourney the other day. It was signed "Turkey love, [name]". I think I'm going to start signing all my emails "Tofurkey love". Speaking of which, I bought a tofurkey this year. I got one in LA a few years back but never ate it. This one is sitting in my freezer still. I have no idea why it needs to cook for three hours when tofu is the consistency of pudding and since there is no meat involved there is no need to be extra sure to kill potential bacteria. Seeing as the odds of my cooking anything are inversely related to the amount of time it takes to prepare and/or cook, I'm not all that confident I'll eat tofurkey #2...

Kitchen misadventures

98% fat free clam chowder tastes nothing like real clam chowder. I have no idea what possessed me to buy the (mostly) fake stuff, I haven't gone the low-fat/fat-free route in ages. And I won't be making that mistake again for a long time. And speaking of kitchen mistakes...I figured  out why my pumpkin pies were lacking in flavor (and why at the same time, I had an extra cup of pie filling after filling my pies). It turns out 12 ounces does not equal 3/4 of a cup. Though, it does equal 3/4 of a pound. So my calculation was correct except for the type of measurement part. Moral of the story: 12 ounces of evaporated milk, for example, is equivalent to 1 3/4 cups of evaporated milk. Fine, that's not really the moral. I suppose the moral is to measure ingredients, especially when you have no idea what you're doing in the kitchen. You'll be happy to know I figured this out all on my own by my third pie!

Wish me luck

I'm off to play in a (post-) Turkey Day ultimate tourney! I tried running yesterday to see if I remembered how and after 10 minutes I was huffing and puffing wondering what happened to my lungs. (As far as I know I still have both of them but they didn't seem to work as they used to.) Anyway, I hope to be able to walk tomorrow. If you want to watch me, just drop by Bridgeport and look for team Hot Stuffing.

Update 11/27/06: Well, I played and I can still walk. Just not without pain, sigh. The tourney was fun and our team of leftovers beat the reigning champs in our first game despite not having played toge†her before. And thankfully the weather was ridiculously cooperative for late November!