I boiled for 2 min. on the stove in water only, then let soak in the same water for a few hours. Then rinsed and put in the crock with more water (I put in too much), garlic, salt, pepper, some hot sauce, a couple strips of turkey bacon and a can of tomato sauce. I cooked on low overnight, turned off around 6am, then turned back on around 10am on low again for 2 - 2.5 more hours. I think whole or crushed tomatoes would have been better, but I am using up canned goods I have. a bay leaf or two probably wouldn't have hurt. I should have just let it cook more initially, but was afraid of bean mush. I spooned out quite a bit of the liquid when I got out the beans, enough to cover them in the plastic container - otherwise I know they taste dry and heavy when I eat them rice, still I probably has 2+ cups of liquid in the crock, way too much. It's cause I cook messy and don't consult things ahead of time.

I got 28 out of 28 right on the Census Worker test. No guarantee of a job, of course, but it's a good start....

Biblical scholar's date for rapture: May 21, 2011

Ok, the more that people predict the end of the world, the less funny it is when they're proven wrong, but this one has something that amps up the schadenfreude....

Harold Camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012.

"That date has not one stitch of biblical authority," Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. "It's like a fairy tale."

The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011.

See, he's making fun of those who believe the world will end in 2012, because he knows it will end in 2011 (even though he had incorrectly predict the world would end on Sept. 6, 1994).

Rick LaCasse, who attended the September 1994 service in Alameda, said that 15 years later, his faith in Camping has only strengthened.

"Evidently, he was wrong," LaCasse allowed, "but this time it is going to happen. There was some doubt last time, but we didn't have any proofs. This time we do."

Would his opinion of Camping change if May 21, 2011, ended without incident?

"I can't even think like that," LaCasse said. "Everything is too positive right now. There's too little time to think like that."

Mmm, home made Ethiopian food sounds like yum.

Oh, and Happy Palindrome Day (01-02-2010)!

University of Portland professor sees fun, not meaning, in numbers

There will be 12 palindromic days this century, Inan said, and Saturday is the second. The first was 10-02-2001. (To check out his complete list: faculty.up.edu/ainan/palindrome.html)

What are all these people missing about the whole no one knows the day nor hour thing?

Yeah, I don't get that. They claim the Bible is the inerrant world of God, but then they ignore that passage....

eta: As well as ignore the many previous unsuccessful attempts at predicting the end of the world.

Also this week is an improvement at the second job. I have three students instead of two. Only now I`m done and so is the SO apparently because he`s left. So I am probably here for two hours...oh there he is.

Snowed in? Make the best of it. [link]

msbelle, thank you SO MUCH for the Tim Burton MOMA brochures! They're great, and now I need to figure out how to afford to get to NYC before the exhibit closes.

ION, dear Fluevog, sending me email about a big sale when it's the last week of my current job is mean.