brenda, I am making her cake here: [link]

Both Steph and Jesse have linked to her before.

I love the Pioneer Woman! She revamped her site in the past few months, so that instead of being a straight blog with entries by date, it's in sections now, so if you just want to read the cooking stuff, you can, or her photography stuff, etc. (I love her photography stuff, and I've learned a lot from it.)

Also, I like to look at Pioneer Woman recipes and dream of having a lifestyle where I could use multiple sticks of butter in every meal and have it be OK. Then I make popcorn.

I just want her kitchen. God, the island in the middle? That much counter space? I swoon. (Although in my house, it's just that much more space for pet hair to stick.)

The first paragraph that Kat quoted ("The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception....") has been my view for a while now. It could explain all sorts of things, like, say, some UFO sightings, where what the brain "sees" is the result of it trying to make sense of some very unusual stimuli. Or if you draw a "3 dimensional" box on a two-dimensional surface, it'll look sorta' 3-D, no matter how hard you try to see it as just some lines on a flat surface.

On our drive back from vacation, we went to the Mystery Hole in West Virginia. (We really only went so that I could get a t-shirt. Come on -- Mystery HOLE!!!) Anyway, it claims to be a place where gravity doesn't work the way it does normally.

Basically, the tour guide leads you in down some dark-ish stairs, through a dark hallway with black light and fluorescent paintings, etc., which throws off your perception. And then the main attraction is a room where everything seems to be at an angle, water flows "uphill," etc. (That link is just for the picture, but the text is hysterical because it's so earnest.)

And of course all it is, is that the room was built on an angle, but all the furniture *seems* to be set normally, so your brain is trying to make it all seem normal, so everything seems skewed. (Again, that link is for the picture, but the text is so damned funny.)

And stuff like that, IMO, totally falls into the "brain's best guess" category. The brain *wants* everything to be at a normal angle, on flat ground, so it seems like you're standing at a slant.

(Plus, the tourist trap-y-ness and outright chicanery doesn't hurt, either.)

(And yet? Worth every penny of my 6 bucks. The tour guide was a total showman and really got into explaining all the "gravitational anomalies." Hell, I've paid 10 bucks for movies that SUCKED. The Mystery Hole was WAY better than the new Indiana Jones movie.)

Seriously, Jesse. I usually chicken out of making her recipes for that very reason. But damn, do they look good.

I made her apple dumpling/turnover things that call for TWO sticks of butter and a can of Mountain Dew. Every time I take them to a party, people RAVE over them.

Also, my bus just stopped so the busdriver could buy a red wagon at a garage sale!?!

Oh, in Vancouver I once sat on a bus for 15 minutes while the drover stopped and stood in line at McDonald's.

I didn't read the article and I'm itching. Once on an acid trip I realized I was mindlessy scratching for the entire 12 hour trip. It was February, however.

Whee! I just listed 8 books on Amazon. I swear, if they keep mac out much longer at the park, I may get half the apartment listed for sale. THAT would be awesome.

Instead, I think I will go on and get the laundry started and the recycling out.

Sophia, do you have dollar store in your area? One buck a pre-decorated gift bag at most, if you visit it regularly you can wait and stock up when they have multi-paks, 4 bags for a dollar.

To continue my boring posts of what msbelle gets done, laundry is in, showered, cleared off one kitchen counter.

ION, the vintage furniture store did not want the stuff back that I bought from them (poop). so now that will be listed on craigslist also (done).

Following msbelle to say that I have got on my hands and knees and scrubbed the hell out of the kitchen floor, and the dishes are done.

Now to sweep balcony, do two loads of laundry, vacuum, go to IKEA, clean the bathroom, go to Tim's and dive into the pool, dry off, and try to consolidate the unpacked boxes in the spare room.

You both are making me feel like a slacker. I have done 1 and 1/2 loads of laundry, loaded and started the dishwasher and put away all of two pair of shoes.

What do I win?

slacker shmacker. I'm on the same coast as Allyson and so far I have:

gotten out of bed.

plugged in my dead cellphone.

started watching a TiVo'd ep of SYTYCD.

eaten some breakfast (which didn't involve, like, cooking or anything)

cleanliness smiling back at you?

HA! I just called the mom who took mac to the park. I SWEAR she said they'd be there for an hour. She now said, she'd bring him home at 6! I mean awesome for me and I guess just as well that I didn't plan on that from the get go, I probably would have left the hood to do something and this way I have gotten a LOT done in the house.