Jennifer's 365 Project

Yes, that is Contra you see on the TV. The original NES game that I used to play with my childhood friend Melissa. We never got very far but we certainly loved playing that game.

So how were Chris and I playing this? On a very odd device he purchased that has 248 "classic" games on it. It has Dig Dug; Turtles 1, 2, 3; and a bunch of other odd games like Mario 16 (which appears to be Joe and Mac modified so that you play as Mario).

Chris has more information on his blog.

Yesterday the Raspberry Pi arrived and I didn't have a chance to play with it. That means today that's all I'm going to do.
The first project I have in mind for this little credit card size computer is to turn it into a media center. I'm not saying this is a permanent thing, but it's certainly the easiest and most obvious first use. 

I found a tasty-looking lemon garlic slow cooker recipe yesterday that I really wanted to try. So last night I tossed a Cornish hen and the rest of the ingredients in the crock-pot to cook over night. Why not just cook it during the day while at work? I don't have a good reason for that, honestly...

It also probably wasn't a good idea to cook it through the night. At about 4am I woke up super hungry. By 6 I just gave up and ate breakfast.

Now I didn't do everything the recipe said to do.

First off I cooked a cornish hen, not a 4 to 5 pound chicken (there are just two of us, after all). I also didn't have any fresh rosemary or thyme, so I more or less guess on how much to use with the jars of spice I had.

Overall the chicken turned out tasty enough, although I think I actually over cooked it. I had it in on the LOW setting for about 8 hours and it tastes a little burnt, oddly enough. I also think I used a little bit too much thyme. And by little, I mean a lot.

Next time I think I'll try this with fresher spices and a shorter cooking time. I definitely like the lemon flavoring, especially in the gravy you make.
We also received our first Raspberry Pi in the mail today. So. Freaking. Excited.

First off I'm going to slap a media center on it just to play with it, but eventually I will have to come up with something more unique and permanent.

Sometimes a mouse on a string isn't impressive at all.


And other times it is all kinds of fun.

Lots of excited cat noises, even if he won't actually move his sausage body much.

I really do like things pumpkin-flavored so this time of year is an excellent excuse to put pumpkin in everything. Since I no longer live at my parents house, I no longer get treated to Pumpkin pie on my father's birthday.

I have to make up for it somehow.

So I stumbled across a recipe to make pumpkin pie oatmeal this morning and thought I would give it a try.

I already had all of the ingredients on hand (mostly), so that made trying this recipe super easy.
The finished product is pretty tasty (if you like pumpkin of course).

Next I'm going to have to try to make my own pumpkin puree and freeze it. Maybe next weekend...

Today is my dad's birthday so we headed over to spend the day with my parents. My parents are buying a lot of Michigan made things (artwork for their walls, etc) so in the spirit of Michigan we got them a mitten cutting board. Plus tasty food to cut on said cutting board.
Originally we were going to go to the Detroit Zoo, but the weather was kind of cold so we opted to instead have lunch at Maggiano's (where we had our wedding reception) and then walked around Somerset Mall for some indoor exercise.
We even popped in the Apple store, since they have one. My parents have switched pretty much completely over to Macs and Chris will likely get an iPhone at some point. Then it will just be me with my android phone, which I am not giving up because I love my keyboard.

Something I updated at some point on my Android phone was causing an issue with the Mikshifted-G ROM I was running. Basically the phone would reboot at random times. So I decided to try out Cyanogenmod, which is very popular.

It was ok. There wasn't actually anything wrong with it but I hated the UI so much I reflashed back to Mikshifted-G.

Maybe if I continue to have issues I'll give it another go, but I really do like the ROM I've been running for months.

Every year it seems, Artprize has at least one of each of the following:

• an over-sized entry of Gerald R Ford (this year a large bronze-colored bust of Ford)
• religiously themed art
• a dragon.

This year is no exception. There were plenty of dragons around. Don't get me wrong, I do love dragons (I have two dragon tattoos and tons of pewter dragons), but I feel like it's a bit much at this point.

This entry, however, I was more impressed with than past entries. While still a dragon, it's certainly a different take and not crafted of your typical welded metal statue. It's also more in the style of a Chinese dragon as opposed to the European style seen typically here in the United States.

In the evening we watched the debate between the two presidential candidates from the major political parties here in the United States (Democrats and Republicans).

It was pretty lackluster, but I wasn't expecting much either. I'd much prefer if they had more parties out on stage, but I can see why it wouldn't be in the interest of either major party to include anyone else. The debate  is mostly a dog and pony show.

Sometime next week I think I'm going to try to listen to the Democracy Now version where they paused the debate and included responses from two additional candidates (Green Party and Justice Party). It's about 3 hours so I may listen to it in sections rather than straight through.

Anyway, after the debate we fired up Skype on Chris's tablet and talked to Adam and Comfort a bit to discuss politics and life in general. Good times.

I have nothing but love for someone who makes not one but two dinners. One for tonight and one for tomorrow.

Hooray!

Chris finally let me root his android phone, so I spent the better part of the evening backing up his data, rooting, and then restoring his apps.

Things have changed since I first rooted my phone back last July. The process was easier overall, especially since he wanted to keep the stock ROM (what comes with the phone), but it took much longer than I thought it would thanks to the massive amount of data backup and restore time.

Thanks to internet forum tutorials and previous experience/setup with my computer, the phone was rooted with no issues. Now Chris can finally take screenshots on his phone.