(I also keep a gallery in my cube at work. It brings me joy.)

So last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Jimmy showed special guest Johnny Depp some drawings that people had made of him in the game.

This morning, one of my bosses was watching Good Morning America and saw one of my drawings on a segment THEY did, which talked about Kimmel’s show the night before. Mine wasn’t one of the ones shown to Depp, but GMA is still pretty darned cool.

SO, here’s the segment on GMA, and also a slideshow of the featured drawings on GMA’s Yahoo page. Mine is the first in the slideshow!

What a weird world we live in. And what a strange, localized fame — word passed around my office, and I was given many hearty congratulations.

(Also, if you play Draw Something, I believe you can add me by username [redacted]. I’ll play anyone, anytime!)

Good gravy, I have like 20 new games suddenly! I’ll be rolling in coins in no time! I don’t know if I can take any more right now, but I’ll put my name back up if/when this batch loses interest.

1. Time and Again by Jack Finney: A time-travel slash romance slash adventure, written in 1970. Not sure where I heard about this one (probably someone looking for good books on Ask Metafilter). It scratched the same kind of itch as the movie Somewhere in Time. A decent story, though the characters aren’t all that deep. 7 out of 10.

2. Everneath by Brodi Ashton: A young adult book “loosely based on the Hades & Persephone myth”. A girl is taken to the Everneath for 100 years, to serve as psychic food for an immortal dude. But when those 100 years are up (which is only 6 months or so on the surface), she’s allowed to return to our world for 6 months before she’s sucked back under forever. Despite the fact that her immortal dude is totally hot for her, and wants to make her immortal too, she spends the entire 6 months moping and mooning over another guy. Almost as unrelatable as Bella from Twilight. Apparently there will be sequels. 6 out of 10.

3. Empire of Ruins by Arthur Slade: Third in the Hunchback Assignments series, Modo the shape-shifter goes on another international steampunky adventure to battle the bad guys and yearn for his fellow agent, Octavia. These books are good, lighthearted reads. 7 out of 10.

4. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: This is a really hard book to explain well. But it’s all about magic and illusions and fascinating people and the amazing circus where most of the action happens. And I could barely put it down. 9 out of 10.

5. The Mark of the Golden Dragon by L.A. Meyer: What are we up to, something like number 8 in the Bloody Jack adventure series? Anyhoo, it’s another romp through the world of Jacky Faber, 1800s girl pirate. Some good adventure, but kind of a downer cliffhanger ending. Which will, of course, suck me in to read the next one. Which will probably be out late this year. 8 out of 10.

6 – 12. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling: I finally got the paperback box set at Costco (having sold off the heavy hardbacks when we moved from Seattle), so I figured I’d just sit down and read all seven books in order. Which I’d never done before. It was actually a really cool thing, following the entire story from beginning to end without having to wait a year between installments. I’m still not a huge fan of Order of the Phoenix because of the whole whiny-emo thing, but it was better than I remembered. Also, I wanted to see how fast I could make it through. Turns out exactly three weeks, reading for up to an hour before bed on weeknights and a few hours on the weekends. For the whole damn set, 9 out of 10.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go play a few rounds of Draw Something. Because I’m hopelessly addicted.

First, I tried hominy.

Look, it’s even friends with garbanzo beans!

I used the same methods as garbanzo beans, but the hominy shrunk a crazy amount when toasted. What came out tastes corn-nutty, and looks like itty bitty baby corn nuts.

Seriously, these came out seriously small. Though I guess if you like feeling like a giant, you could use hominy for your corn-nutting needs. And on a side note, I don’t know that the term “corn-nutting needs” has ever been written before.

What to do? Well, if you’re me, you ask Dr. Google. And he’ll tell you that there are a couple of varieties of giant corn out there, and one of those varieties is what corn nuts are made from. So then, if you’re me, you ask Scott (who’s already going to Costco that day, and it’s just a little further to the local Hispanic supermarket) to go on a giant corn scouting mission. Then, if you’re me, you’re delighted at the bounty of giant corn he brings home.

Both bagged and canned! What a bonanza!

I decided to start with the bagged stuff. First off, just like with dry garbanzo beans, you have to soak them. I left my giant corn soaking for 24 hours, but I hear rumors that the people at Planters soak their giant corn for three days. Maybe I’ll try that next time, when I have more patience.

After the soaking comes the rinsing and drying — give them a good swirl in a colander, then pat them with paper towels. They don’t have to be bone-dry, just not soaking wet.

Then, just like the garbanzos, I tossed them with about three tablespoons of coconut oil. I then spread them on my non-stick foil-lined cookie sheet, and salted them.

I put on a glove, so I could thoroughly coat the kernels with oil. I’m also trying to make my way through this box of size-small gloves, because they’re a little TOO small. My hands always feel like sausage.

ANYhoo, spread them out on your non-stick surface, so they’re in a single layer. Again, set your oven to 375°.

This time, I timed my stir-and-mix sessions a bit differently. I started by letting them go for 20 minutes. Stir/mix. Then I set the timer for 15 minutes. Stir/mix. Then I went for 10 minutes. Still 45 minutes total, just divvied up oddly. It didn’t really make much difference, that I could tell.

Once they’re golden brown, put them on paper towels to get rid of the extra oil. Salt them more while they’re hot and oily, if you want more salt.

So how are they? Well, they’re very corn-nut-like. The flavor is a bit different from the packaged stuff, but it’s still really good. And the coconut oil gives them almost a movie-theater-popcorn vibe. There’s definitely more tinkering to be done — longer soaking of the dry corn, trying out the canned corn, maybe different cooking temperatures. But this first attempt is quite satisfactory.

Also, there was hardly any shrinkage. Unlike the hominy. And did you know that the back of the 2012 pennies was so pretty?

One problem is, fishing line isn’t actually all that cheap. Because it’s hard to find it in short lengths. Sure, you could pay a few bucks for a 500-yard spool … but you’ll never use that much line (unless you actually go fishing), and more importantly, you’d have to get four reels, because the strings are all different sizes. So two options seemed feasible: grotesquely cheap fishing line, or better quality fishing line bought by the yard.

My first stop was the Bass Pro Shop, because they’re practically right next door. Unfortunately, despite being huge and intimidating, they didn’t sell any line by the yard, and their cheapest stuff ($5 for a spool) didn’t come in the right sizes. I moved on to Sports Authority, where I found the cheapest of the cheap stuff ($2.50 for that 500-yard spool) in the right sizes. Still, that meant putting down ten bucks for line that didn’t end up sounding all that great. On the plus side, I have fishing line for years now. Anyone want to string some beads?

I used the super-cheap stuff to string my uke (as seen in the previous photodump post, and wasn’t thrilled with the sound, but it was tolerable.

THEN, I happened upon a Dick’s Sporting Goods. Which I’d forgotten about completely, and only noticed because it’s next to the giant new liquor store near our house. So after buying my booze (and sampling a really nice Irish whiskey), I sauntered over to Dick’s.

The fishing stuff is in the same section as the guns. I was especially taken by the little pink one on the top shelf. It’s the kind of weapon Hello Kitty would use.

Not only did they have spools of better-quality fishing line, they also sold it by the yard. For cheap! I totally perplexed the guy behind the counter when I asked for a mere 5 yards in each size, but he was game to go to the back room where they keep the gigantic spools and cut me some.

The four sizes I got are: 30-pound, 40-pound, 50-pound, and 60-pound test. All those mean is that they’re tested to support that heavy of a load without breaking. I did some research and checked the pound-test to the standard measurement of uke strings, which is inches in diameter. And really, having put these strings on and tweaked the tuning a bit, you could probably get away with only two or three weights of line.

Anyhoo, the nice guy at the Dick’s gave me five yards each of 30, 40, 50, and 60, and told me to not even bother stopping by the registers, since it was such a small amount. And truly, going by their price charts, my twenty yards of line would have cost roughly 50¢.

Let’s also take a moment and discuss the material. There appear to be three basic kinds of fishing line. One is more of a braided string, so that’s useless for our purposes. The others are monofilament and fluorocarbon. Monofilament is cheaper, and that’s what I got (although it appears to be a decent quality monofilament). Fluorocarbon is the really good stuff, and will run you $20 or more for a small spool of the really high-quality stuff. So if you can find a place that will sell you fluorocarbon by the yard, jump on it.

Onward! I took off the old strings from my little uke and laid out the various sizes of line.

And yes, that is a cat’s tail in the upper corner.

We had to leave that shelf empty for the cats, so they could saunter between my desk and Scott’s. They love hanging out there, because they can get petted by both of us at the same time.

SO. I used the smallest line for the highest note, and so on down the line. But I started stringing with the second-smallest line (the 40-pound test) because that’s the string at the top of the ukulele. The bottom-most string is the highest note (A), while this topmost string is the G just below that A.

Here you can tell that it’s a cheap ukulele — you put knots in the strings and slot them into holes.

For the sake of comparison, a higher-quality ukulele doesn’t have those knot-holes; you have to feed the strings all the way through and wrap them back over themselves. Here’s my nicest uke, strung with my nicest strings, so you can see the difference.

So, you put the knot in the hole, pull the string over the bridge, lay it in the little groove up on the nut, and then you have to wind the string around the tuning peg. Again, there’s a difference between cheap and not-cheap ukes. On this cheap one, the hole in the tuning peg where you secure your string is in the middle.

While on my nicer ukulele, the hole is nearer to the top.

At any rate, with either one, you want to wrap the string around the peg a few times, then feed it through the hole. With the thinner strings, I then fed it through the hole a second time, for security. But as you can see two photos up, I didn’t wind the string starting at the very base of the peg; I left about a string’s width at the bottom. That’s so when you tighten the string, there’s still a place for that string to go. I did the same thing with the nicer uke, and as you can see, when it’s fully tuned up the string fills the peg all the way down to the bottom.

I finished with the rest of the strings, which went pretty quick. For the record, G=40-lb, C=60-lb, E=50-lb, and A=30-lb. You could probably do the G and A both with either the 40-lb or the 30-lb; one would just feel a little tighter or looser than the other. But I like the feel of the strings using all four sizes.

Now comes the tedious part — the constant stretching and re-tuning as the strings settle in. I’m tuning everything a little sharp, and pulling gently sideways on the strings to stretch them out.

Also, if I had to do this with a pitch pipe, I’d probably go nuts. Thank goodness for my little tuner. As you can see, I tuned a little bit sharp — by the end of a song, the string ended up on the flat side anyway. But since I have a penchant for playing dour and depressing songs on the uke, it’s kind of hilarious as it slowly gets flatter and more sour during a song. “Famous Blue Raincoat” has probably never sounded quite as chipper, yet quite as bleak.

What else has been going on, you may ask? Well, we attended a concert:

Our chums Paul and Storm came to town. Wonderful guys, both. I don’t know what it is about internet celebrity people of Roughly Our Age, but so far every one of them I’ve met has been lovely.

I re-strung my best and my cheapest ukuleles. The best got a new set of Aquilas, including the low-G string. The cheapest got fishing line. For realsies. As an experiment, I strung it with pieces of 25-pound, 40-pound, 50-pound, and 60-pound test. Being me, I got the cheapest fishing line I could find: $2.50 for each spool. It doesn’t sound too awful!

It’s my understanding that some of the really good quality strings are, actually, high-quality fishing line. But we’re talking fishing line that’s $20 per package. I’d have to re-string really frequently to make it cost-effective over the $10 I spend on a pack of high-quality strings.

And when changing, it was totally obvious that I needed to swap out these strings. These are both low-G metal-wound strings. The bottom is the old one, the top is the shiny new one.

Unfortunately, now I have to deal with stretching out the new strings. Which means re-tuning over and over and over. Right now, they don’t even stay in tune through an entire song. But they’ll stretch and settle in soon enough.

I put a new battery in my electronic tuner, since I’ll be using it a lot. Did you know that IKEA now carries size 2032 batteries? Those flat round ones, about the size of a quarter, that seem to be in EVERY little gadget? $1.99 for an eight-pack, which was the highlight find of my most recent IKEA trip.

I don’t know if the Swedish yellow pea would have been a highlight. Just the name gave us the giggles.

I also transplanted my two little lemon trees into bigger pots. They’re both flowering like crazy right now, and the Meyer lemon is still working on a few fruit that it started back in the fall. They stopped growing for a month or so, during the colder times, but they’re totally getting bigger again. Hopefully the Eureka will also bear fruit, now that it’s in its first flowering.

The cats remain grand, as usual. They’re both on my desk right now as I type, trying to duke it out for the coveted spot in front of the keyboard. Which means I may soon have to wrangle my arms up over the top of one of them to type. They’ve been very civil to each other today, including a cheek-to-cheek nap.

To close, things are good. Especially my job, in which things like this happen:

You can either use dry or canned garbanzo beans. This time, I used:

Ooh, I guess for some there’s the third option of “chick peas”.

If you’re using dry garbanzos, soak them in water overnight. Done? Good. Now you’re at the same step as if you’d opened up a can. Then move on to step two:

Rinse those mothers! No matter which kind. But especially the canned kind, because (just like beans) the water they’re packed in is slimy and foamy. (Scott is right, I should totally write catalog copy. Because I can’t stop myself from using words like slimy and foamy.)

Then, add my favorite two roasting friends:

Oh my goodness, I love cooking with coconut oil so much. Not only is it packed with healthy fat, and it has an incredibly high smoke point so it doesn’t go rancid in the heat (like most vegetable and seed oils do), but it also tastes really, really good.

Salt, likewise: delicious, and good for you.

Pat your garbanzo beans dry-ish with paper towels, then toss with … oh, I’ll say three tablespoons of coconut oil. Spread them out on a non-stick cookie sheet (or, if you’re like me, a gnarly mangled baking sheet lined with non-stick foil). Then salt them up.

Put them in a 375° oven and set your timer for 15 minutes. When it goes off, stir everything around. Another 15 minutes, another stir around. One more 15-minute session will probably do it — my garbanzos are golden brown and delicious after about 45 minutes total.

They shrink a bit when roasted, but not as much as I thought they would.

Throw them onto some paper towels, or a brown paper bag — something to soak up the extra oil. Now’s the time to taste one, and hit them with extra salt if you like, while they’re still a little oily so the salt will stick.

They’re tasty, and crunchy, and relatively good for you.

Next up: if I can do this with garbanzo beans, can I use the same method to make corn nuts?

(Hint: you bet your bottom dollar I can!)

You can see the general leaflessness of the Eureka lemon, but a couple of weeks ago I noticed that it was starting to bud like crazy. And those buds are now getting ginormous. Within the next week or so, that sucker will be flowering.

The lemons that were growing on the Meyer lemon tree stopped getting any larger for a while, but they seem to be on the grow again. The Meyer is also budding up, but not as violently as the Eureka. It still has probably a dozen lemons in the works, with the largest ones about the size of a small lime. We’ll see if they continue their journey now that they’ve had a little winter nap.

The other night we attended an awesome concert — They Might Be Giants, with Jonathan Coulton as the opening act. Coulton played the electric guitar (as opposed to the acoustic performance two years ago [and I'm amazed that it's been two years since JoCo visited]), and he was accompanied by a bass player and drummer. A small band, but a band nonetheless. His performance was awesome, as always, and he played many a good song, but it was too darned short.

We hadn’t seen TMBG for years; certainly not since we moved to Florida. They gave a great show, and did some fascinating bits with knit puppets. And we got to see what was probably one of the last public performances of “Marty Beller Mask” ever.

Paul and Storm are also visiting our town this coming Friday. I may have to venture downtown to see them.

I changed the strings on my second-best ukulele, and it sounds much brighter. I think I’ve had this thing for three or four years now, so it was about time for a string change. I’ve special ordered strings for my first-best uke, so I can get the low-g string instead of the high-g. Those should come in later this week. Then I’ll put the used first-best strings on my third-best, littlest uke. Yes, I have three ukuleles. And like cats, I’d have more if I was allowed.

Finally, in the category of tasty things, I made some roasted garbanzo beans (or chickpeas, if you prefer to call them that). I started with the Alton Brown base, then fiddled with the recipe. I ended up soaking the dry beans for at least 16 hours (overnight), then roasting at 375° for about 45 minutes (stirring them around every 15). Instead of his oil-vinegar-spice mix, I just used coconut oil and salt.

With the coconut oil, they smell like movie theater popcorn while they’re cooking. When they’re done, they have the texture of corn nuts, but a flavor similar to roasted pumpkin seeds. Me likey!

I was at the IKEA and saw that they had some cool fabrics for cheap, so I figured I’d throw down a little purse.

The plain yellow and blue were on sale for something crazy like $2.99 per yard. The colorful pattern was $6.99 per yard, which seems about average for the IKEA home decor fabrics. I ended up using a quarter-yard of pattern, a quarter-yard of yellow, and maybe an eighth of a yard of blue. So the total cost of fabrics used was under five bucks.

First, figure out what size you want your bag. I opted for a smaller purse size, but you could use the same methods to make a big ol’ tote bag. Note that these aren’t perfect squares — they get narrower toward the top. That’s because when you pinch the bottom corners (where those cutouts are), it’ll make the bottom less wide. By narrowing as you go up, it makes the bag less top-gappy. I cut these pieces (floral for the outside, yellow for the lining) with the fold of the fabric along the bottom. Makes one less seam to sew, and the bottom will be sturdier as one piece without a seam.

I opted to use the yellow for the lining because it’s bright. Ever have a purse with a black lining? Makes it hard to see things and find things. Although you could use a darker color if that’s how you roll. I’m not here to judge.

Next, I cut a long strip, 5 inches wide, for the strap. I also cut a couple of rectangles for inside pockets. You can do pockets, or not — depends on if you like pockets. I made sure that both pockets are the right size for my cell phone.

I took the strap piece, folded it in half, and pressed. Then I folded the ends inward again and pressed. Stitch along the side, and you have a finished strap. I also stitched along the folded side, so I had a line of stitching down each side. I just like the look. For the pockets, I folded in about a half-inch on every side, and pressed.

Stitch the top fold of the pocket down, then pin the pocket to the inside of your lining. Then stitch along the other three sides. Easy peasy. One of my pockets didn’t need its top edge stitched, because I cut it along the finished edge of the fabric. I wish I’d done that with both — it was a happy accident.

Pin the sides of the bag together, right sides together. Stitch the sides. Do the same with the lining, right sides together.

Now, the corners. Grab the inside points of the cutouts and pull — it’ll flatten out your corners in a kind of fish-mouth-looking way. Then, as you can see on the floral piece, stitch across the fish mouth to make a nice squared corner.

Time to put everything together, which means time to figure out how long you want your strap. I made mine of a length that I could sling it over my shoulder, or I could wear it cross-body. I just binder-clipped the strap in place and checked it out in a mirror until I liked the length.

Stuff the lining (right sides OUT) inside the body (right sides IN, so the right sides of the lining and body are touching). Also, stuff the strap inside, between the two layers. Pin everything securely and stitch around the top, leaving two or three inches open. I like to put two pins really close to each other on either side of the hole, as a reminder to not zone out and end up sewing the whole thing. Saves embarrassment, and time spent with the little seam-ripper.

Gently pulling everything through that two or three inch gap, flip the whole thing right-side-out. You can see the hole I left where the outside and the lining are connected. All this while, you’ll be wondering, Did I get the correct sides together? Is this going to work? This is the weirdest thing ever. Then you pull everything through that little hole, and it’s like magic.

Stuff the lining down inside the bag, make sure your seam is nice and neat, then stitch around the top. This both closes up the hole you used to flip it around, and also makes everything neat and tidy.

And there you go! A handy-dandy purse to carry all of your ladythings. Or your manthings, if that’s how you roll. You could also install a snap at the top, if that makes you feel more secure. And what would be better than using some of the scraps of fabric to create a matching sleeve for your tablet or phone?

On a final note, please don’t ever try to lay out anything crafty without a spotter to make sure everything’s soft, cozy, and thoroughly covered with hair.

I’ve already created a couple, and coerced Scott to fill out his own template so I could process it.

They make it pretty darned easy — download the template, fill out the letters with your favorite pen (I have a clicky Sharpie I’m quite fond of [and for the record, I originally wrote "quite font of"]), scan and upload, and enter the coupon code. Which is: CPN4NHD2012.

Now get on it, people! I want to see your scrawls!

(I’ll most likely update my fonts page with everything I create, after this next couple of days.)

Oh, and I’m still using my sharpest font (the one used in Basic Instructions) on my phone. Along with a new icon set I drew. Which is a craft I see that I’ve forgotten to post about. SOON!

57: The Highest Frontier by Joan Slonczewski: This was on the sci-fi new releases shelf at the library, so I gave it a shot. It’s about a girl from a family of politicians who goes to college in space. The jacket liner refers to this as “hard” science fiction, which just means it’s heavier on the actual science-science. And yeah, you can tell that the author is a microbiologist, because the book weighs heavily in that direction. It was interesting enough to finish, but a little too heavy and humorless to be my cup of tea. 6 out of 10.

58: Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire: Number two in the Wicked series follows Liir, Elphaba’s son, as he grows from boy to man and has many adventures throughout Oz. If you liked Maguire’s original Oz book, you’ll most likely enjoy this one. Thing is, I actually ordered this book for delivery because I saw Out of Oz on the new releases shelf, and figured I should read this first. 7 out of 10.

59: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs: I’d seen this book recommended in more than one place, so I picked it up. It’s a YA novel centering on Jacob, a 16-year-old whose grandfather told him stories of a childhood spent in a mysterious school in Wales where the children all had freaky talents. After his grandfather dies, Jacob travels to Wales to find out more about the school and the children. I wasn’t expecting the turns this book took, first into a time-travel adventure, then into an action-packed chase story. But overall it was quite enjoyable, even if Jacob wasn’t the most sympathetic lead character. Plus, the book has pictures throughout of the peculiar children, which are creepy and fascinating. 8 out of 10.

60: Curse of the Masking Tape Mummy by Scott Meyer: Yes, I’d read all of the comics before. But they’re all two or three years old, so I didn’t remember a lot of them. Plus, the commentaries and special features were new to me. I don’t know that I can fairly rate this book, since I’m married to the author and all. But to me, Scott’s writing is very clever and funny, and many of the comics and commentaries made me laugh out loud. On the minus side, I wish I’d read the commentaries and special features before the book went to print, because the copy editor missed … a few things. But overall, as with books 1 & 2, this one is good, good stuff.

61: 11/22/63 by Stephen King: Another giant, clocking in at just shy of 850 pages in the hardcover version, this is now possibly one of my top 5 Stephen King books. On its face, it’s a simple time-travel story — a man finds a way to go back to 1958, and spends 5 years in the past so he can stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing JFK. But it’s full of interesting characters, creepy places, and lots of surprise left-hooks (as well as the clearly-telegraphed left-hooks that King specializes in ["Little did he know it'd be the last time he saw her alive." END CHAPTER]). It also contains some of the weirdness and mystical other-worldliness that King always includes, but it’s just enough, and not too much. Could it have used some more editing? Of course. What King novel couldn’t? But the five years in the past could have dragged on, and it actually cooked along at a good clip. It’s a great step up from Under the Dome in pacing, characters, and story. 9 out of 10.

62: Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire: This is the book that took me into 2012. There’s actually another book in the Oz series that takes place sort of between Son of a Witch and this one, but I didn’t know that until I picked this book up. Oh well; book 3 is more about the Cowardly Lion, and they gave a brief synopsis at the start of this 4th book, so I figured I’d blaze on ahead. This one is about Liir’s daughter, Rain, and her life and adventures from age 8-ish to 15-ish. Yes, the book is that vague. It was frequently hard to tell how much time was passing in any given circumstance. I’m glad I finished the series, especially for the surprise twist ending, but I’m afraid this one, like #58 before it, will fall under the “good but not great” category. 7 out of 10.