She's a professor in the community college system, and they've cut 50% of classes for the Fall semester as a way to start dealing with the problem, so she's much more interested in the budget than MJ.

K-Bug goes to Sonoma State and they just instituted a maximum of 15 credits per semester. She took 19 last semester. To say she is frustrated is putting it mildly.

I can't remember who it was that posted how you could make chicken stock in the crock pot/slow cooker. I think Jessica or megan. Either way - whoever it was is like unto a god in our house. I brined a chicken and then roasted it last night. I took the carcass and the juices and put them in the crockpot with celery bits, onion, and whole peppercorns and let it simmer all night. This produced two things: a fantastic smelling house this morning and very odd dreams about me, a very tall rap singer to whom I became "body man" to, and turkey.

OTOH, I will be making chicken corn chowder when I get home with the leftover corn on the cob and baked potatoes from last night. Nom nom nom.

So, Thank you wonderful Hivemind!!

I was on the road much of yesterday so the only parts I saw of the MJ thing was Sharpton and Brooke Shields (at lunch in an Applebee's), then a constant loop on CNN in the airport of their favorite moments. Brooke Shields sounded like she genuinely understood him and was a real friend. Too bad he didn't have more real friends and fewer leeches. The sad mess will continue to be featured on the news all summer.

I missed it all yesterday.

In exciting to me news, my vacations starts right around the time of Jilli's NYC book signing/tea party, so I'm going. Yay! I just have to do some schedule wrangling to see if I can pull off Friday night. We'll see...

In less exciting news, I have to go get ready for work now.

The Big Picture, Obama's first 167 days.

[link]

I find number 8 hilarious. It looks like a waiting room for, I don't know exactly.

The woman in the foreground of 29 is very cute.

These are the things that I picked up on, I'm shallow today.

From upthread:

Also, I've seen a lot of places that say "no security deposit." Huh. Is it because the supply of places is exceeding demand?

Definitely. A lot of people are turning their flip-houses/condos into renting property (last week, my next-door neighbors moved into a 2BR condo instead of another apartment complex), so apartments are getting creative to attract renters. For the first time since I moved here in 2006, my place didn't raise my rent when I renewed my lease. I've also heard that they are giving new tenants free satellite tv.

catching up ....

the whole MJ thing is making me almost glad I don't have TV these days (once I get my F2F bills paid off, I'm getting cable ... sigh). But I'm finding that I have trouble tracking which day of the week it is without my daily TV shows - oh dear.

and ...

DINAO: Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Karl Rove

I'd say chuck them all and take a vow of celibacy. ick

I managed to avoid MJ news for the most part.

My kid learned to ride her bike!

Awesome!