Connie, I had the same thing happen once, ages ago. The mechanic I took it to didn't charge me a penny for putting in a new bolt - but he may have been in a generous mood as he had just had my business for a new clutch a couple weeks before. With any luck your mechanic will think it takes longer to fill out the paper work than to fix, and will slide it to you on that basis.

Ok, I volunteered to bring a sugar-substitute dessert to Daniel's family reunion this weekend. I'm leaning toward something cheesecake-ish as it doesn't take that much sugar to begin with, so there's less fake sugar to weird up the flavor. Any suggestions or ideas or recommendations for recipes?

ETA: killed the thread with my last post. Mebbe I'll just shu'p now.

Want: [link]

300 was so far removed from reality it was hard to even link it to Thermopylae...but it was removed from reality across the board. The men were airbrushed and CGId into unrealistic proportions, Xerxes was about 9 feet tall, and somehow the Persians got elephants onto their skinny warships. And a cave troll.

Best luck with the repairs, Connie. And Cashmere, so much ~ma and hope that everything works out for child care.

Lots of good-school~ma to all the teachers and parents and students out there! I am boiling alive in my classroom and hoping against hope that it cools down soon. Dear gods. I've already taught three classes this morning and have two more to teach after lunch. Have I mentioned how much I despise teaching in 45-minute segments? I really hope I can work with other like-minded teachers to get us onto the block (every other day class meetings for longer blocks of time) at some point. I've spent 9 of 11 years in various kinds of block schedules, and it makes me weep that I've ended up back in a more traditional schedule. Hate hate hate hate. Did I mention hate? Even my Vornado is not particularly helping to cool my room. That may have a lot to do with my pissy attitude this morning.

OTOH, my students seem to be lovely overall. Looking forward to working with them this year. Also, I know have a couple of hours until my next class, and I'm seriously considering an iced coffee run.

I kept having to stifle my giggling during 300. Apparently epic battle scenes filled with mostly naked men crack me up. I thought Xerxes was faaaaaaabulous, and spent every time he was on screen playing "Identify the MAC products they used!", with bonus marveling at his eyebrows.

somehow the Persians got elephants onto their skinny warships. And a cave troll.

And a rhinoceros. (Judging from the vid I've seen, not the movie, which I haven't.)

Lots and lots of ~ma for Connie and Cashmere.

America's Test Kitchen just did a low-fat cheesecake recently, but the one thing that they said to do was not to substitute the sugar in it, since in baking, sugar is considered to be a liquid, and Splenda is a solid in baking terms, so the texture ends up all wrong if you use Splenda. They ended up going with a mixture of low-fat cream cheese, yogurt cheese (drained yogurt) and cottage cheese, run through the food processer to get rid of any texture issues.

Apparently epic battle scenes filled with mostly naked men crack me up.

Heh.

When the ads for 300 started coming out I wasn't aware it was based on a non-historic book so I was sitting there going WTF and accumulating anachronisms. Then I found out what the source was and sort of handwaved the whole thing (didn't go see it, but didn't get outraged at the inaccuracies). (And didn't they get a rhinocerous over there as well?)

And Raq, that's a lovely house (drools).