Flufflebutt Express

Portal is an excellent game. I had heard good things about it, and I wasn't getting my hopes up too much, but I really enjoyed it. It was somewhat short; I played it over a couple days, but it was definitely quality over quantity.

I've found a lot of Portal related stuff around; some of it's pretty cool.

The guys who made the flash version of portal created a map pack based on the flash version for Portal. I've played some of it and it seems good.

Victims of Science made a portal remix as a kind of joke and eventually polished it up and released it. It's called The Device Has Been Modified and if you haven't heard it, download it and listen. It's pretty good, although it won't have a lot of meaning if you haven't played Portal.

I also stumbled on someone's arrangement of Still Alive [pdf] for the piano. It's pretty good, not too difficult. There's a video of it being played. Along the way, I also found official sheet music [pdf] that has the melody, chords, and guitar tabs for Still Alive. And now I've got "Still Alive" stuck in my head.

And lastly, the cake I made for my anniversary / my husband's birthday looks like the one in Portal!

Today was my one year anniversary as well as my husband's birthday! It is somewhat surprising that it's already been a year. But it's been a wonderful year. I love my husband and I love being married to him. He truly is my best friend ever. :)

I was super secret and made him the above cake without him knowing. Or rather, he was just not allowed in the kitchen yesterday while I constructed it; he knew something was up. I had the cake out on his desk for him first thing in the morning when he woke up. I think he liked it seeing as he immediately started devouring it (cake for breakfast!).

Chocolate cake, chocolate pudding between the layers, chocolate frosting, chocolate sprinkles, and cherries on top. (Bonus points if you can tell what the cake is from!)

Now I have a huge container of leftover chocolate frosting to do something with!

I had the most wonderful, relaxing vacation last week. Sunday, my husband and I made our way to Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. We spent about a week there with my husband's parents and his sister. It was my first time there and probably one of the most relaxing vacations I've ever had.

We hiked up and down through little canyons and streams. Goofed off in the swimming pool at the lodge (after an emergency run to the store for swimsuits as we had forgotten ours). Spent an hour and a half floating down Sugar Creek river in inner tubes pretending to be pirates and chasing after my husband's dad trying to sink him (he can paddle surprisingly fast when being chased!). The back of my legs got burned and my husband got a pink stripe across his back. It was worth it, though.

The lodge was nice, too. Ate tasty food, sat out on a balcony in the fresh air, watched the Discovery channel on TV in the evening. I had a good bit of time working on the blanket (aka "pot holder") I'm crocheting.

I'd love to visit there again.

Waited out a storm today. I had no idea it was even headed our way until it got quite dark just before leaving the grocery store. The thunder started and as we were about to leave, it began pouring rain.

My husband and I huddled under the awning of the grocery store for twenty-some minutes as the storm barreled through. Wind blew the rain horizontal (we got a bit damp, even in our hiding place). Lightening flashed every few seconds and the thundering cracks that followed were somewhat frightening. I think it set off a few car alarms.

I love storms and I enjoyed watching this one blow by just a few feet away from the angry wind and rain. I counted the seconds between flashes and booms. Three seconds. After a few minutes, four seconds. Then six seconds. The wind calmed down, the rain was less (although we still both got plenty wet getting ourselves and the groceries into the car).

Mmm, thunderstorms.

I love ice cream. My mom used to make homemade ice cream with a loud motorized mixer that you put in a bucket of salt and ice. Cold Stone Creamery has some of my favorite flavors. Coffee, chocolate, and mint are some of mine. There's just something heavenly about a bowl of sweet, tasty, cold, smooth ice cream.

I decided I wanted an ice cream maker. I kept talking about it, mentioning, meaning to buy one. I even knew which one. But I kept not getting around to it until my husband got tired of me talking about it and purchased it for my birthday. Hurray!

In a lot of reviews of the ice cream maker, they mentioned a little Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Book having some great recipes. So, I got that as well.

I tried some chocolate ice cream from the ice cream maker's manual first. It was tasty. But the recipe I tried next out of the Ben & Jerry's book was mouth watering: Mint Oreo Cookie.

It was so tasty; I wanted more after eating a bowl. I'm going to have to restrain myself!

I learned something about mint flavoring, too. Most of the time, you actually want Peppermint flavoring, not Mint flavoring even though the recipes are labeled as "Mint&" something. Mint flavoring is more spearmint flavored than what you think of mint ice cream.

I haven't made any more yet. I'm waiting a little while lest I get tempted to eat too much ice cream.

But man, ice cream is soo tasty. And now I can make it myself!

Wow. I was expecting The Dark Knight to be a good movie, but it was even better than I had expected. I haven't been this impressed with a movie for a while. It's better than the first and definitely one to see in the theaters.

Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was excellent. I admit, from the previews, the Joker seemed a little cheesy and crazy which just didn't seem to fit very well in my idea of a "Batman" movie, especially with all that silly paint on his face. But he is crazy and while creating chaos, occasionally funny. But it all fit into the movie wonderfully. And his laugh gives me the chills.

I had read a complaint that the movie was constantly at a "climax," never letting up. I'd have to agree, but not as a complaint. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the movie, quite captivated. Not being able to anticipate what would happen next made it very interesting to watch. (It might have helped that I haven't read the comics so I had no idea what the story was based off of.) Not at all had I expected the plot to take so many unexpected twists and turns. Very well done.

To sum it up: Brilliant movie.