astrochris

Friday: meh

2012-02-10T20:02:00.000-10:00

Thursday: Today I have stories

2012-02-09T22:26:00.000-10:00

Mind you, it's not that the stories are particularly wonderful or anything. First, let's look at the sandwich I made for lunch.

Turkey, cheddar, lettuce and tomato with some bbq sauce. It was a little bit too big for my mouth. Super tasty though. I'll probably have to do it again tomorrow.

Second, I got a call today that the apartment below mine had water leaking in, and the manager wanted to come inspect my apartment. Oddly enough, this morning I noticed a drip on my bathroom wall coming from a puffed up patch near the ceiling. I decided I would call my manager this afternoon to let them know that I thought that the apartment upstairs was leaking into mine. I guess it's largely skipping my apartment in favor of downstairs. Upstairs just renovated their bathroom a few months ago. Looks like it didn't work right.

Next, as I was leaving work, I decided to stop at Long's to get some soap. As I was walking over, I saw a cat heading into Manoa marketplace. It had a really neat coat, with whorls and spirally patterns. I then did the only sensible thing, and sang a little song to myself: "Meow, meow, kitty, what are you doing? Meow, meow, kitty, doing some shopping?" I had apparently been sneaky ninja walking, because the cat immediately turned around, saw me, freaked out, and ran away. Seems like the shopping wasn't that important.

Finally, as I was checking out at Long's, I got behind an old lady. She refused to put her birthday card on the belt, instead carrying it to the far side of the scanner, making the check out girl bring it back to scan. She then had to be told the price multiple times, each time claiming, "How can it be $28? It's only one card?" C-O girl then replied, "No, two dollars, eight cents. 2-0-8." Old lady then pulled out two ones, and then scavenged her purse trying to find the eight cents. I would normally have started to get annoyed, but instead, found the entire thing hilarious, largely due to the fact that C-O girl was already pissed at this lady. Failing to find the coins, OL switched to trying to pay with a check, causing the price routine to be repeated. Next, she had to go over the date a few times, for some reason convinced it was January 6th (no word as to the year she thought it was). She then had to be told who to make the check out to ("LONGS!"), and then tried to steal the pen she was given. When asked to see her ID, she stood there for a moment, and then flipped open her wallet so COG could write down whatever information they write down. Finally, she asked for the pen back so she could balance the checkbook right there. That was the point where I was pretty sure that COG was going to jump over the counter and kill the old lady. Once she was done, and I had finished checking out (which, since I used a card, took fifteen seconds at most), COG slammed down the "Register Closed" sign and went off to take a break.

Then, dinner time! I had a brilliant idea this afternoon. First, take some waffles and syrup:

Next, add a pile of leftover pulled pork:

Finally, chop up an apple, because there's no way you can convince yourself this is at all a healthy meal:

I thought this was an original idea, but it seems that the food truck people have beaten me to it. Crap. In any case, this was extraordinarily delicious. My thought upon eating it was that my tongue felt like a puppy had just curled up to nap on it (that analogy totally works).

Wednesday: First day back at work, everything breaks

2012-02-08T21:32:00.000-10:00

I need to start cooking more stuff, because I don't have any pictures to post.

So have some hams, instead.

About damn time.
I went here twice with my parents, which is pretty good considering they don't really like fish. My dad even tried some poke. I think I'm going to stop by the market part this weekend, but I guess I don't need to do a big review since this one covers pretty much everything.
I've pretty much hated the last two seasons, even though I haven't watched any of the most recent one (it's recorded on the DVR, but I've not felt like watching any of it). I guess this qualifies as another "about damn time."
Punk squirrel! (via Dan, who still has no blog to link to)
The Delacroix of French cuisine is opening a restaurant in Waikiki? That's a good reason for me to brave the parking and crowds.

Tuesday: Last vacation day

2012-02-07T20:57:00.000-10:00

That also means I need to sort out a menu plan for the rest of the week. I still have leftover pulled pork to get through, so I guess that will be part of the plan.

WTF?
Really?
No, seriously, WTF? Why does anyone support that horrible little troll?
This would be somewhat useful if my phone use didn't consist largely of checking it while avoiding getting out of bed.

Monday: It'd be nice if everyday was a vacation day

2012-02-06T22:46:00.000-10:00

I assume everyone knows Star Trek.

And hates egg nog.

The House of Lords is dumb.
I did think this was the best ad of the afternoon.
I want to remember to make this, so I'm linking it here. It looks tasty.
Congressman John Fleming is an idiot, apparently.
Happy Birthday, Mewtwo!
I think I need a library this big to hold my books.

Sunday: Super Bowl

2012-02-05T23:01:00.000-10:00

I would have had a picture here of a really tasty pulled pork sandwich, but my phone decided that actually taking pictures was too hard to do today. Oh well.

Anyway, since my parents are visiting, and wanted to watch the Super Bowl, that was what we did today. I made pulled pork to eat, along with chips and salad. This also gives me a chance to put up my pulled pork recipe. It's pretty simple. Buy some pork butt at the store (I used two slices, since that's how WF sells it here. It came out to about three pounds). Unwrap, and cover thoroughly with the rub:

1tsp fennel seed (ground)
1tsp cumin seed (ground)
1tsp coriander
1tbs smoked paprika
1tbs onion powder
1tbs chili powder
1tbs brown sugar
1/2tsp cayenne
1/2tsp cinnamon
1tbs salt
1tsp pepper

Wrap the pork in foil, then wrap that foil in more foil, repeating until the pork is encased. Preheat oven to 200ish, and then bake for 6-12+ hours. Once you get past the six hour point, there's not really anything you can do to hurt it. It will render out all the fat and connective tissue, which will combine with the rub and try to leak out of the foil. Once it's done, pull it out, rip open the top of the foil, and use some tongs (or forks, or fingers if you want) to pull out the meat, leaving the fat behind. I then drain out the liquid in the foil over the pork to keep it moist. Today's serving used slider sized buns, with a bit of cheddar cheese and some bbq sauce.

Yes, because I watched the super bowl, I missed the more important sports game today, the Puppy Bowl. I caught it in the continual loop reruns though, plus I recorded it on the DVR, so it's not that big of a deal.
Some highlights.
Mostly posting this because I just found that Foodland still carries the strawberry lilikoi juice. Safeway seems to have dropped it, which sucks, because that's my favorite flavor of Hawaiian fake juices.

Saturday: Posts are easier when you take pictures

2012-02-04T21:03:00.000-10:00

Pretend picture of Queen Emma's Summer Palace.

Pretend picture of the Pali Lookout.

This is fucking stupid. Almost as dumb as flipping through the channels to see Huckabee claiming that the bible doesn't say anything about why rich people should pay more taxes. WTF?
Wow, this is pretty dumb, too.
Everyone likes Pokemon.
Apparently today is just non-stop stupidity.
"The increase in the tuition burden is largely caused by declining state support for higher education in the past three decades." Yes. Exactly.
Cute bunnies!
Cute puppy!

Friday: Volcanoes on the Big Island

2012-02-03T23:16:00.000-10:00

Random pictures because I'm too tired to make panoramas tonight. Also too tired to resize these to not be ginormous.

Observatories on top of Mauna Kea, as seen from the plane.

Steam and gasses rising up from cracks in the ground at Kilauea's summit.

The caldera.

Lava tube.

Restricted area at the end of the lava tube. I liked this picture.

Erosion at the base of Kilauea, where past lava flows have reached the ocean.

You can see a number of different flows here.

The Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory has a chicken. Bawk-ba-gawk!

Hilo doesn't really have many obvious places for dinner. The end result was going to Cafe Pesto, which was pretty tasty. It's actually rather hard to find a place when you have added constraints that eliminate the majority of restaurants in Hawaii.

Thursday: Pearl Harbor

2012-02-02T22:05:00.000-10:00

USS Missouri.

Kaboom! Giant guns!

This plaque marks the location of the table on which the surrender of Japan was signed. It is upside down in this image.

Remnant of one of the turrents of the USS Arizona.

Puppy haet lime!
Pikachu!
Squirrel thief!
This was my actually my first thought as well when I heard about them.

Wednesday: Makapu'u Point

2012-02-01T22:32:00.001-10:00

Pano-tastic!

The Makapu'u hike is much easier than Diamondhead. It's shorter, it's paved the entire way, and there are fewer people to deal with. The main problem is that there's no shade anywhere, so if you forget sun screen, you'll end up sunburnt (like me).

There's a lighthouse there.

I'm pretty sure this is Molokai, Lanai, and Maui.

This is supposed to be the same scene as picture #3 from this trip.

I need to make one of these (thanks to Julie for finding this).
This is fucking stupid.
This is fucking stupid as well, but in a much less important way. At least this covers my main thoughts.
となりのトトロ
See, I'm not crazy, this scene did happen in the Simpson's.

Tuesday: Damn it

2012-01-31T23:06:00.000-10:00

Sir Barkington.

"Steal my nuts will you!"

Another puppy.
Batgirl.
It's funny that a comedian can raise more money than actual legitimate candidates. Also, it kind of shows how rich people are attempting to subvert democracy by buying an election.
I always liked him as captain, because he would always shout everything he said.

Monday: Draw a Dinosaur Day

2012-01-30T20:48:00.001-10:00

Here's mine:

That's the sun being scared.

Unfortunately not much to discuss today. I've felt crappy all day, and I'm somewhat concerned that I brewed an overly spicy and potentially deadly chili yesterday. That would be sucky since it tastes so good.

Via this tweet, a brilliant letter from a former slave to the former owner.
Oh come on, peeling vegetables isn't that hard.
Hockey flavored oops.
Where peanut butter comes from.
No, that's stupid. We named the wizard Shazam.

Sunday: Instead of cleaning, cooking!

2012-01-29T22:48:00.001-10:00

Which is by far the better option. Since my parents are visiting this week, I won't be able to make chili for the ~~Super~~ Puppy Bowl. Because of that, I decided to make it today instead. Ingredient panorama!

Ok, let's start at 6 oclock and spiral around.

Third of a pound of bacon. My actual request at the meat counter was "whatever that pile is," but that's probably a risky suggestion.
Pound of ground beef
Pound of beef chuck roast. They don't sell local stew meat, so this was the next best option.
Can of beef stock.
Can of tomato paste.
Can of chipotle peppers (although I didn't use them all).
Two cans of tomatoes. I went with whole, but then needed to stick blender them a bit. I don't know what the lesson is on this one.
Soy sauce.
Worcestershire sauce.
Spices: paprika, cayenne, chili powder, cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, oregano, dried ancho flakes from last year that I've kept in an old cinnamon jar.
Super dark 88% chocolate.
Onion.
Garlic.
Fresno pepper, because they seem to be on every cooking show I see now a days.
Two jalapenos.
Unpictured: salt, sugar, a half cup of old wine that was hiding in my fridge.

"That seems a little bit involved for chili, don't you think?" Yes. Yes I do. That's why I make it once a year.

Step One: Toast the cumin and ancho flakes in a pan to get the flavors going. I guess you could toast other things if you wanted, but I didn't have anything else to toast. I then ground this all down in my mortar and pestle, and moved on to the next stage of the sauce.

Step 2: Bring halfish of the can of beef stock to a boil and add the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce and a scoop of the tomato paste. Lower the heat and add all the spices (which look really cool, and I should have taken a picture, but I didn't so you'll just have to take my word that it looks really cool. They all pile up on the surface and float there until you stir them in). I also added the sauce from the chipotles, and about 1/2-3/4 of the peppers from the can.

Step 3: Chop up the chocolate and add that to the sauce. I ended up with like almost two ounces here, when I was aiming for closer to one. This made the sauce have a really strong chocolate smell throughout the cooking (it went away in the final product, but just be warned that 2oz is probably too much).

Step 4: Keep the sauce on a low simmer, then stick blender the hell out of the peppers and everything to mix. I didn't take a picture of this because stick blendering is too fun.

Step Whatever: Brown the beef in a bit of olive oil. You can do this while the sauce is cooking, and you probably should, because I think I spent like two hours doing prep and initial cooking, so do these serially would make that even longer. I did the ground beef first, and then sliced up the chuck roast into bite size stew bits.

Step e: Remove the beef from the pan. I pulled the ground beef before putting in the stew meat, as that allowed the stew meat to cook without having to worry about the ground beef getting underneath it.

Step 9: When the beef is browned and removed, chop the bacon, and add it to the pan. The goal here is to render out the fat to use to cook the vegetables more than anything else. I got impatient (as you can see), and added the chopped garlic at this point, instead of waiting for the bacon to crisp up. It doesn't really matter, since all the liquid that gets added later would ruin any crispiness.

Step tree: Dice up the onion, and add to the pan to cook. Once the onions are translucent, add in the minced (or, more so, really small chop) peppers. I minced the fresno, and one of the jalapenos, and then sliced the other jalapeno in half to add in later. I used this strategy last year, and it seemed to work well.

Step "wow, that doesn't look appetizing": Hrm. There's a lot that happened before this picture. First, use the wine to deglaze the pan after the vegetables are cooked, and then add the meat back in. Drain the tomatoes into the sauce, and add the actual tomatoes to the pan. Stick blend the tomato juice into the sauce to thin it out a bit, and then add the sauce to the pan. Stir everything together, and finish by adding the halved jalapeno, the rest of the stock and tomato paste, and cover. Simmer for two-three hours, stirring periodically. I tested it about a half hour before it was finished, and added some salt and some sugar (to cut down on the acidity and spice a bit).

Step: Plated. I was lazy and didn't want to make cornbread, so I just threw some doritos on the plate. Yes, I know. Lazy.

With added cheese, because cheese makes everything better.

The main problem I had with last year's chili was that all the spice seemed to be on the back of the tongue, which felt like something was missing. I don't know if it was the chipotles or the fresno I added this year, but this was fixed this time. It's a bit overly spicy, clearly being on the hot side of the spectra. However, despite the usual mechanics of spicy foods, this one washes away with just water. I don't understand why, but it's really convenient. You can eat as much as you want until your tongue is screaming, and then cool it all down just as fast.

This is probably tomorrow's dinner as well, and then the rest of the week will be whatever, based on my role as tour guide. I made about eight cups, most of which went into the freezer so I'll have enough leftovers to make it through the rest of the year.

Tomorrow is apparently Draw a Dinosaur day. I'll be participating, as will everyone who isn't lame.
Remember how pie charts are almost never the correct way to plot data? This is a wonderful example of why.
Baby squirrel!
Hey, I've been there!

Saturday: Instead of cooking, cleaning!

2012-01-28T20:53:00.000-10:00

Cleaning sucks. I hate cleaning. DIAF, cleaning.

I did get errands done, so if I wanted to, I could cook dinner. Maybe if it cools off a bit more, but given that I need hours of braising/cooking time, I probably should just wait until tomorrow. It's supposed to be cooler then.

This thing was broken at WF again today. I did get a better picture this week.

Since google thinks I like Tanzania, I felt like I should link to this story. I wonder if this is the first sign that google's become sentient. Maybe this is a suggestion, like: "I've examined your web searches and browsing habits, and I think you should look into Tanzania." That'd be kind of cool. Also: one step closer to being destroyed by robot overlords.
See, this is what I'm talking about: I'm innocently browsing my RSS feeds, and this comes up. Normally I'd just say, "puppy haet cat!" but since it's a particular kind of puppy...
Oh give me a break. Again? This video is hilarious too. If your particularly lazy, you can just click through to the gif versions of the best parts.
When I took biology, it was in Indiana. The teacher I had at the time started the section on evolution by saying something to the effect of, "I don't care what you talk about at home, or what church you go to or whatever. We're going to talk about evolution here, because that's science. You can think that god created everyone if you want, but if you don't want to fail this class, you're going to learn about Darwin." Now imagine it being said by a particularly tall version of the old guy from "Up."
And here's the link that I completely forgot to put in that last story. It did have a point.

Friday: lazy day

2012-01-27T22:09:00.000-10:00

Yeah, I like waffles!

Ok, so they're just crappy freezer waffles, but I've been wanting waffles for days. I paired them with crappy deli chicken fingers (with hot sauce) to get the chicken and waffles thing going, and then some fried potatoes because I wanted to do like a breakfast thing. Then I put cheese on them. So that kind of ruined the breakfast for dinner idea.

Whatever.

It was tasty, I enjoyed it, and I don't care what anyone says. Om nom nom.

How about a puppy video?

Beyond that, I only have one link for today. Doctor Cat really doesn't belong in the maternity ward.

Thursday: Math (contains little to no actual math)

2012-01-26T21:03:00.000-10:00

Meatloaf sandwich again today, because I didn't want to bother waiting on a potato to cook. Potatoes are lazy like that. Have I posted these pictures before?

Puppy haet bike!

Do you like my hat?

Buzzy bee (contains little to no actual bee).
Abandoned places in Austin.
I was about to join everyone else in getting all upset about this, but I actually live here, and so I subscribe to the local news twitter accounts. So, you know, not that big of a deal anymore, I guess.
I am Obamacare. Why do people hate good things so much?
Do you know what google thinks about you? Let's see what google thinks about me:

Oh no! Google's discovered my secret love for Tanzania!

Wednesday: baked potatoes take longer than I like

2012-01-25T21:16:00.000-10:00

Basically the same as Sunday's dinner, but with a baked potato instead of mashed. I wish it didn't take an hour and a half to make them caramely and yummy.

Seriously. Not enough time exists to explain.

Invasion!
Maybe this is why I watched Kindergarten Cop a few months ago. I somehow subconsciously noticed these things.
Damn you, Obama! Damn you and your socialist ways!

Tuesday: Sandwich time

2012-01-24T22:06:00.000-10:00

Meatloaf sandwich time!

Cut open:

Super tasty, except I need to go buy new buns again tomorrow, because Safeway fucking sucks at not selling moldy bread. This is what, the third time I've bought bread from them that had mold when I got it home? Fuck you, Safeway.

I missed the state of the union address, but I saw this picture:

"Now who is short? Super-Kucinich will destroy you all!"

Why payday lenders are basically the worst kind of scum.
This may be the first thing I'm really considering buying from etsy.
Puppy haet shoos.
Monkey baby.
This is the most brilliant pie idea ever.

Monday: blarg

2012-01-23T21:34:00.000-10:00

Came home, sat down to do some math stuff, fell asleep, woke up two hours later twisted into an impossible shape, reworked geometry to untwist into a regular shape, made a ham sandwich instead of sticking to the menu plan, since I didn't want to bother cooking things.

This evening clearly defines "full of win."

Here, have a comic that will put you in the same mindset I had when I woke up from that nap.

Seriously? His password was "icecream"?
Squirrels!
How leveraged buyouts work. Specifically, scroll down to read about Harry and David.

Sunday: Meatloaf

2012-01-22T21:27:00.000-10:00

Today was grocery day. The health thingy kiosk at WF was blue-screened-of-death.

My phone was blurried wiggle of speed when I took the picture, though.

So, meatloaf:

Cooked:

Sliced up with asparagus, mashed potatoes, and a bit of sauce:

The menu plan for this week is pretty simple, too:

Monday: Meatloaf
Tuesday: Meatloaf
Wednesday: Meatloaf, but this time in sandwich form
Thursday: Meatloaf?
Friday: Not meatloaf. Let's say neighborhood sushi place.

Links:

This is the cutest thing I've seen in a long time.
Buying a house in Honolulu is impossible.
Yeah, this is where I live (well, the same island, at least).
Angel seal (also Unicorncorn).
What was it I said about Chris Dodd?

Might as well do the rest of them too

2012-01-21T21:44:00.000-10:00

Vote Ron Paul. He supports crudely spray painted signs.

"I transcribe text messages onto paper. I also have no available childcare, because that's socialism."

"No, I always keep one hand in my back pocket to make sure The Gays don't get me."

"I AM THE WHITEST PERSON IN THIS ROOM!"

"This is the piggiest face I can make!" "BEEP BOOP! TARGET ACQUIRED!"

"It's late and past my bedtime. Why am I here?"

"You know what? Fuck you South Carolina. Fuck you and your stupid primary."

"See, if I were a Sith Lord, I'd be killing you all with lightning right now. Vote Romney: I'm not a Sith Lord."

Although:

Oops. That's going to hurt his chances with the evangelicals, I guess.

Saturday 2: Dinner

2012-01-21T21:21:00.000-10:00

Earlier this week I was really craving food from places that don't exist in Hawaii. One of these places was Menna's, which makes really good, really not-so-healthy food. However, they're also super easy to duplicate at home:

This is basically the Buffalo dub, with added marinara. Chicken tender, tossed with hot sauce, topped with blue cheese, shredded cheese, and marinara. I even fried up some potatoes:

Also a cherry coke.

To make it official, I would have had to grill them to seal. Instead I just used toothpicks. Lazy.

Let's make fun of Republican presidential candidates:

"I always look like I'm about to cry."

"Sieg heil!" "I AM A ROBOT BEEP BOOP BEEP!"

I went through all my links earlier today, so I only have this one. It's SUPER EFFECTIVE! though.

Saturday: Bakery tour!

2012-01-21T16:26:00.001-10:00

I think this is stop three on the bakery tour (correction, four):

It was also mentioned in that Honolulu magazine article, and it sounded a lot like Pastry House Hippo in Novi. I went there a number of times when I lived in Michigan, as it was usually a convenient place to stop for a snack on the way to the DIA.

I was lazy, and didn't get there until late, but they still had some good things:

This is oriented wrong, but I didn't want to bother.

Individually:

Cinnamon doughnut.

Derpy eyed panda.

Choco-bear

Cheese croissant. I thought it had ham, but that must have been the one next to it.

Apple bunny. No clue about the brown bar.

I had the cheese croissant and the derpy-eyed panda for a snack, since I didn't want to be super hungry when I made dinner in a bit. D-E panda doesn't have any filling, but was had a sweet lemon-y taste. I'm saving the others for tomorrow (maybe a snack later?).

Did I mention it's squirrel appreciation day?
Oh, I did?
~~FAMILY VALUES!~~ SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!
Buzzy bee!
Squirrels!
SQUIRRELS!
Remember when the government wasn't seen as a horrible monster? Back when it tried to make things better, and told you about it using cool art deco posters?

Today is Squirrel Appreciation Day!

2012-01-21T00:01:00.001-10:00

So appreciate some squirrels from my photo archive!

"I'm a squirrel!"

Girl squirrel!

Dash!

"Om nom nom!"

"Wait, this shell was empty!"

"Food?"

"Food!"

"I have fuzzy red ears!"

Not my video:

Friday: Finally ate that salmon

2012-01-20T21:43:00.000-10:00

I decided to go with a salad instead of tacos, since I wanted to get rid of my produce before getting more tomorrow. (Everyone can sing along now:) I'm going to try to make it to the farmer's market.

The salad base was lettuce, tomato, and macadamia nuts. I salted the salmon and stuck it under the broiler to cook. The ends were a bit overdone, but since fish don't come in rectangles (except ahi. I'll stick an image here tomorrow, after I take a picture of the blocks of sushi grade ahi at the store. The internet didn't point me at one immediately). While that cooked, I made a dressing by thinly slicing some onions, frying them in some oil, adding garlic and ginger, then some mirin and soy sauce, and finished with a bit of the shiso furikake. Yes, that was mostly a "let's throw stuff together" recipe. It worked well, making a dressing that matched the fish and made the salad more exciting. Salmon and onion go together, which was the basis of the whole thing.

Monkeys riding dogs.

Chris Dodd is still a shitbag, and thinks that the president owes him legislation because he donated money. For some reason, that made me think of the second question from this video. Maybe it's just the jowls.
I said this yesterday.
This will be an easy thing to do, since I tend to not buy too much media anymore anyway. I do need to clean out my amazon cart soon though. That's kind of getting out of hand.
I think I tweeted this picture, but it still makes me laugh.
As did this comic. Wonderella is always good, but this one seemed especially funny for some reason.
What time is it?
I'll just put these two links next to each other.
I'm just going to link to things I saw today, and then where I talked about them in the past.
Like this.

I'll forget this by the next time I go back to the conveyor sushi place

2012-01-19T23:18:00.000-10:00

It's kind of long, but if you have eight minutes to kill.

Thursday: adlfkjasoirgal

2012-01-19T22:32:00.000-10:00

I came home after thinking about salmon all day, and then laid down on the couch to check the news.

I then woke up an hour later with both arms completely asleep from being twisted around in a position arms are apparently not supposed to be placed in before sleep. So instead of keeping with the menu plan, I ate a muffin and some nachos, declared that "balanced," and claimed that was fine. I'll have to eat that salmon tomorrow though.

Bunnies are aerodynamic.

Numbers.
I already own them, and have for more than a decade.
I guess Melissa d'Arabian is cool, even though last time I saw her show, it seemed really depressing to me.
Dear DC Comics, logos work when people recognize them. This logo sucks, and I don't associate it with you. I stopped following you on twitter because I skim the list based off of the icons, and kept stopping to read what you'd written.
I haven't played with this yet, but I did install it. Since I almost always have my phone in silent mode, this does the same thing as having different ringtones. Of course, I get like 0.1 calls a year, so it probably isn't that big of a deal.
"By Mr. Dodd’s account, no Washington player can safely assume that a well-wired, heavily financed legislative program is safe from a sudden burst of Web-driven populism." Wait, you're pissed that you can't buy legislation anymore when people notice it's not in their best interest? Why don't you go die in a fire, you shitbag.
Seriously, what a fucking asshole.
FAMILY VALUES!
This is kind of a neat thing, not just because it links to what I'm assuming is the serial killer name most likely to be shared with a horrible steampunk monstrosity.

Wednesday: Too many tacos

2012-01-18T22:25:00.001-10:00

Today's plan was fish tacos. Technically that was also yesterday's plan, but it got delayed. Here is a poorly constructed mosaic image of the ingredients I used for today's tacos:

(off camera) Cheater Mexican rice: 1/3c rice, 1/2c chicken stock, three spoonfuls salsa. Mine came out a little soupy, but that's probably because the salsa was a bit watery.
Tortillas.
Some lettuce, sliced into large sheets (not shreds), and dried super well so that they don't soggy up everything.
A tomato, sliced into moons, with the seeds and core removed. Also shaken dry so that the taco stays dry.
Some avacado slices.
Like a quarter of an onion, thinly sliced, and then cooked in the frying pan before the fish was added.
Cheese.
A nice quarter pound mahi-mahi filet, sprinkled with the taco seasoning, pan fried, chopped roughly about 3/4 of the way cooked, and then seared on the inside chop sides.

The results:

This was way too big, and had way too much stuff crammed into it. It was super tasty, but it was hard to get good bites that had everything in it. I added a bit more salsa as well, as my goal of keeping the veggies from adding soggies worked against me a bit.

Tomorrow will be basically the same thing, but using salmon. I'm thinking about ways to change up the tacos for friday, though.

It is winter someplace today. That someplace probably has squirrels, too.

This basically summed up my thoughts. There's selling out, then there's this. It seems like the conspiracy theory model of drug companies: poison people, and then sell them the antidote.
Yeah, he's pretty much useless. However, without any Pokemon, he never would have left home, so he would have at least had Delia to watch after him.
FAMILY VALUES.
I always thought George took way too much shit for that refrigerator scene. I went to the midnight showing, and when that happened, I immediately thought back to all the old serials while the rest of the theater murmured their disapproval. Buck Rogers was always doing insane things like that, and since the entire Star Wars/Indiana Jones thing calls back to those serials, I didn't have any problems with it. Is it silly, sure, but that's what the point is.
When all else fails, just get up and leave the high school journalism student sitting there. That's the politician way to deal with being a shitbag (links go to the highlights).

I was just going to skip today,

2012-01-17T22:27:00.000-10:00

because this evening has been shit, and I still haven't eaten anything for dinner. However, then I saw this story on the nytimes, specifically this line:

But while a visit to Wikipedia’s English site shows a gloomy black screen with the stark words “Imagine a world without free knowledge,” intrepid users have to imagine no such thing — it is still possible to access Wikipedia’s content via a number of ways.

For example: typing Wikipedia.org in a Web browser (or any of the site’s pages for that matter), and as the page loads, pressing the escape key, circumvents or stops the blackout placeholder page from appearing. Timing the maneuver exactly right, may take a few tries.

I'm curious if the author of this story, or the quoted "intrepid users," discovered this fact because it is a great way to read as many nytimes.com stories you want a month. That's right, the wonderful paywall that the Times spent piles of money and pissed off lots of people over can be defeated by simply pressing the escape key at the right time.

I posted a comment to this effect on the story, but would be surprised if it makes it through the approval process. It's fine to take information that wikipedia would prefer you not see (to make a point), but to do the same thing to the nytimes (who is only trying to make money in a failing industry) is clearly not allowed.

I believe I've mentioned before:

2012-01-16T22:22:00.004-10:00

Everything is a powerlaw.

Everything.

Monday: Holidays are Holifun!

2012-01-16T20:31:00.000-10:00

Yeah, that's a lame title.

Take out sushi means ignoring my menu planning. Oops.

Random picture time:

What are you doing cows? That is a city, not a farm.

I really thought that said "sock of mild barbecue sauce." It doesn't, but I'm not sure it's much better.

No, that's the wrong kind of dog.

It looks so sad to be en-sandwiched.

If only it was that easy.

This is pretty good, and reminds me of a story from a AAS years ago: A group of us had gone to a session thinking it would be interesting. It had some sort of cool name, but after about a minute or two, it clearly became "this guy is going to drone on about some obscure point of science education." Since he was the only speaker, I wasn't going to sit there and listen. I made a quick movement, reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I showed it to the others, and then stood up and left. Previously I'd explained that a fake text was a great way to get out of things without looking so obvious. However, no one else remembered this conversation, and sat there for another half hour, while I wondered what was wrong with them.
Science!
This made me laugh far more than was probably justified.
People who think that science should pay them even though they're just an easily replaceable middleman!
I'd seen the first one of these many times before, but when I saw the second one, I had to track down what I think is the original source.

Dear poor people,

2012-01-15T23:39:00.000-10:00

I'm sorry.

How did I end up with the top google result for that?

Sunday: I probably could have split this into four posts

2012-01-15T22:36:00.001-10:00

Part 1: I go to lunch

I had originally thought about going to Nico's (auto-sound) for lunch today. When I checked online to see what time they closed, I discovered that they weren't open today. Partially because it's a Sunday, and partially because they're not open until the end of the month. They're moving to a bigger place, so there's not much to do about it.

With that option removed, I decided to just be lazy and go back to the Honolulu Burger Company. I went with their mushroom burger, to which I added bacon, because bacon:

One problem that this burger had was that the mushrooms were a bit wet, and combined with the lettuce and tomatoes, the whole thing kind of degenerated into a soppy mess. It still tasted good, even if it was a little bit too big. I also probably shouldn't have gone with the blue cheese fries:

Don't really know why they added tomatoes to them, and I think it had some of their dressing added into the mix as well. These were very good, with the cheese turning into a melty gooey sauce. However, with the burger being huge, and a big pile of fries, I ended up feeling uncomfortably full. I'm still not sure that their burgers are the best on the island, but it is tasty.

Part 2: I regret buying Safeway brand kleenex

Yes, technically if they're Safeway brand, they're not kleenex. Genericized trademarks.

Anyway, I needed kleenex, and when I went to the store, I saw this box:

and immediately thought, "Holy shit, that box looks like Rowlf."

Rowlf.

It turns out that pareidolia isn't the best way to shop for things. Safeway doesn't seem to have the strictest quality standards:

This is totally a great picture.

The individual tissues aren't correctly cut, so when you pull, you end up with just a never ending stream. This means that every time I go to blow my nose, I do so with a giant wad of kleenex.

Part 3: Lots of links to things

Wait, this is the very first holodeck episode and it's already malfunctioning? Why didn't they rip the stupid thing out right there?
The TSA is run by morons. We all knew that. I guess the only response is to obviously mock them.
Corgi does not understand birthday.
Sand People are easily startled but they'll soon be back, and in greater numbers.
I refuse to believe that hats were ever this big of a deal.
Football.
Thank you, Martin Luther King, for giving me a day off tomorrow. Who knew that you hustled pool as well?

Part 4: Menu planning

Monday: I think the plan is to get fish tomorrow, and make fish tacos. I'm thinking mahi mahi.
Tuesday: This would be a continuation of the mahi mahi.
Wednesday: You can do salmon tacos, right? Let's get two kinds of fish, and keep this taco strategy going. Alternate idea: something else with the salmon.
Thursday: Salmon 2: The Revengening.
Friday: Not fish.

Image sums up story

2012-01-15T14:35:00.002-10:00

The story.

The image:

On a related note:

2012-01-14T22:47:00.001-10:00

(06:25:24 PM) Julie: Watching the game?
(06:25:55 PM) me: yeah, for a bit
(06:26:00 PM) me: it's dinner time
(06:26:40 PM) me: plus, now I can say that I was watching when Jesus stopped being Tim Tebow's friend
(06:26:55 PM) Julie: Hahaha

Mark you this, Bassanio,

2012-01-14T22:45:00.000-10:00

I originally saw this story on Fark, and clicked around to get to an archive of the actual quotes. So am I right then that religion doesn't actually mean anything to people anymore, other than clearly denoting whose team you're on? I mean, it's not like your Coach sat down and gave an Wikipedia article worthy speech about how not to be a dick to people, right?

And even if he did, nobody would ever sit down and produce a bunch of commentaries about how even if you don't like the rules, you still have to follow them if you want to be on the team, right? That'd just be crazy talk.

Seriously, does anyone actually sit down and read the damn book they seem to think is so wonderful?

This post was way more work than it is really worth

2012-01-14T19:24:00.001-10:00

Yesterday, I posted this picture, and claimed that that was what I ate for dinner:

Unfortunately, this wasn't as obvious of a pun as I'd thought.

"A...dog...in...winter? Some sort of....iced dog?"

"Ice cream dog..."

"Baby angel princess, Batman?"

"I asked you not to call me that, Robin."

"Gosh, Batman, what can it mean?"

Holy shit, I've become the fucking Riddler by accident.

This is the least creepy picture I could find of the Riddler.

The correct line of thinking was supposed to be:

A dog in the snow.
A cold dog.
A "chilly" dog.

Also, little known fact: finding a picture of Robin punching his hand like in picture #6 is fucking impossible. I had to go to youtube and screen cap it out of an episode. WTF, Internet? You're supposed to have everything easily indexed for me to find and steal without any effort, I mean just listen to Rupert Murdoch. Would an evil billionaire sociopath lie on twitter?

Side note to Rupert: a lot of your movies suck ass. Yet you still seem to have made a pile of money on each of them. Apparently "risky as hell" is equal to "I could shit on a plate and still gross a hundred million dollars." Besides, you probably think that my elaborate Batman joke above is copyright infringement, and I should be paying Time Warner (through their subsidiary DC Entertainment) for the right to make a joke using their characters. This is why no one likes you.

You know that episode of the Simpson's where Mr. Burns is told that he has so many diseases that they fight against each other, making him unable to die? I feel like that, but with jokes, for this story.
This all looks really good, so I may have to try this place out.
Another restaurant that looks really good. I have a Mexican place I usually go to, but it never hurts to try new places.
I'm glad someone made a gif. I found a link to the address yesterday, but by the time I'd gotten there, Google had already blurred out her entire body so you couldn't see.
I also got vaccines yesterday at the doctor. I can now go step on rusty nails all night long.
This is another brilliant pun.
I always think this, but since I don't know the next time I'll be flying, I'll just put it here.
I kind of want to do this homework assignment. Some days I miss not ever having classes again.

Examples:

"I'd bet Perry $10000, but I only carry like $60 on me at a time."
"I'm not buying votes, I'm being helpful."
"Remember, it's class warfare if you ask millionaires to give money to the government to help lots of people."
"Poor people just need to know how to stalk presidential candidates. In front of cameras."
"God doesn't not love no double negatives."
"God told me to pray (to God) for someone else. Isn't this the definition of micromanagement?"
"I'm sorry, did I accidentally fire you?"

Saturday: Delicious Success

2012-01-14T13:17:00.001-10:00

Last month, I attempted to go get doughnuts. I was unsuccessful.

Earlier this month, while on the mainland, we went out and got doughnuts. Unfortunately, this was the day before I flew home, I was kind of sick at the time, and we got doughnuts after eating dinner. I did not eat any of these doughnuts, and so was again, unsuccessful.

Today, however, I woke up early, went back to sleep for three hours, woke up again, and went out on a mission to find doughnuts, eat them, and post about my glorious success.

If you've ever driven to the airport and seen the building with the whales, it's right across the street.

I just realized I never mentioned the name of this place. It's Regal Bakery, right next to/part of Regal Foods.

Conveniently, the door is circled with a doughnut.

They were open today, and the people inside were super helpful. It's kind of hard to make decisions when you're confronted with a giant case of doughnuts. I didn't get one of everything, as they had slightly more than a dozen choices. The other customer was from Connecticut, and was also glad that someone was making proper doughnuts, as Hawaii generally doesn't.

What's in the box?

From top to bottom, left to right:

Maple bacon yeast doughnut.
"Mud?" I don't remember what it's called, but it's like chocolate cookie dust on cream frosting on cake doughnut.
Cinnamon sugar doughnut.
Buttermilk? "One of those." I panicked, what can I say.
Green tea. Where else am I going to find one of those?
Strawberry. The doughnut is still regular cake, but see below. They were sold out of blueberry. :(
Powdered sugar.
Cinnamon streusel.
Coconut.
Chocolate frosted chocolate cake. This one was first to go, and really didn't stand a chance.
Almond chocolate. It was the last in the case, and looked cool.
Chocolate sprinkle.

A dozen doughnuts (of various prices) plus a cup of coffee (they didn't have juice, so it was basically the only option) came out to like $15. "Holy crap, that's super expensive!" Meh. It's Hawaii, so you just have to factor in a 50-100% surcharge on everything.

And now, gratuitous pictures of the strawberry doughnut, half eaten, in the sunshine:

Yeah, that would be cool if I had a fancy camera, but I don't really care.

Powdered sugar doughnuts are messy, although the wind helped blow the mess away.

Pretty much the best thing I can say is "OM NOM NOM!"

On the way home, I stopped at the gas station to get a bottle of juice (I was really looking forward to some OJ). It turns out that's a staging area for the cops, apparently, as there were two of them just parked doing paperwork or something, waiting to roll out. My thoughts as I was getting out of the car:

"Oh, cops, I probably don't even need to lock my doors."

"Wait...cops...doughnuts...."

Clicky-lock.

Friday: Food puns

2012-01-13T21:42:00.000-10:00

I went to the doctor today. Turns out I'm healthier than last year. Woo. Also turns out that I've gone more blind since last time I got glasses. Less woo. However, I did order new glasses, so hopefully those will arrive fairly quickly, so I'll be able to see things that are all fuzzy right now. I was a bit lazy on the frames, and got something close to what I have now. What's up with all the glasses that have super fat ear pieces? Did everyone decide that peripheral vision was overrated?

Anyway, healthier than last year.

So I had this for dinner.

Graffiti squirrel!
I didn't really like the last logo, but at least it didn't look like it was drawn by a soulless corporate marketeer.
I think this is basically the commentary I would have made on Monday about this article, if I was an actual biologist.

Everyone hates powerpoint

2012-01-13T00:16:00.000-10:00

Thursday: random stuff

2012-01-12T23:14:00.000-10:00

Yesterday at the bakery, I also bought a chocolate croissant. I'd thought about eating it for breakfast this morning, but I've neglected buying juice, so I just packed it with my lunch to eat as an afternoon snack.

It could use more chocolate, but that's true of most things.

Then I read this story of a small puppy's birthday, and it made me want tacos for dinner. This led me to stopping at TBell for dinner, despite going to the doctor tomorrow. Probably not the best dinner to have before a checkup. I do think I'll have to make homemade tacos soon. I don't think that's this weekend, but maybe next week sometime.

Lamar Smith is an idiot.
Reading the description of this makes me think going just to eat a cupcake might mean that I'm missing the point.
I think #1 and #17 are my favorites.
I saw this, and wanted to show my support (also: eat lots of cookies). Then I checked the cookie-finder, and discovered that Hawaii gets cookies in March. Fucking March. When that finally arrives, I can't claim "being supportive" anymore, it'll just be "binging on really expensive cookies."

Wednesday: Bakery story time

2012-01-11T23:04:00.000-10:00

I stopped by the bakery to pick up a baguette so I could do bruschetta again tonight for dinner. I asked if they had a short one, since a whole baguette always ends up going stale for me. "I'll check in the back," said the girl behind the counter. While she was gone, the little girl in front of the counter (who was clearly someone's daughter) said, "you should get one of those blueberry things. They're really good!"

Good call, little girl.

Because I'm sure someone is concerned that their feet aren't cute enough.
Mitt Romney is kind of an asshole.
As is this guy.

Tuesday: working late means getting crappy food for dinner

2012-01-10T22:41:00.000-10:00

At least I know that Japan will be there to make me feel better about what I got:

Hrm. Ok then, I guess.

That top entry is the only way to eat skittles/m&ms/gummy bears/etc.
How you know the Republican party hates you. Yes. You specifically.
I posted a link to this story last month, but this links to a follow up. Also that last link. Yoink!
Best. Report. Ever.
More babies need capes and domino masks.
Publishers are basically just thugs at this point.
Dear the 70s, WHY?
I never liked her show, because she always seemed weird. Maybe not this level of stupid, though.

Monday: Bruschetta

2012-01-09T23:22:00.001-10:00

Today while working, I remembered Pizza House, and got a craving for the "portobello al forno garlic bread" they served (and still do, it seems). However, since it'd be dumb to fly for twelve hours to get an appetizer (although I could get a pizza while I'm there, I guess...), I just made something similar myself.

The bread was easy: slice, use brush to paint on oil, toast in the oven for ten minutes at 400, rub with garlic when it's done. It's the other stuff that took the time. I figured that I needed to pre-cook the mushrooms (I used crimini instead of getting a whole portobello) to get the moisture out of them. Once that was done, I added a bit of garlic paste (I'm really lazy with that now), and then added a ball of mozzarella and an equal size chunk of gorgonzola. Next time I do this, I'll have to change that ratio. It probably needs closer to 2:1 gorgonzola to mozzarella. Another thing that didn't work well was that the mozzarella dumped a bunch of liquid, so it was kind of a soupy mess. Still tasted good, just wasn't the smooth spreadable cheesy mushroom dip. I baked this in the oven with the bread, as I needed it to be warm. The tomato sauce wasn't too bad. Chop up tomato, scoop out seeds, chop some cippolini onion, chiffonade basil, dump in bowl with salt, pepper, garlic paste (see?), olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. I actually made this first so that it could mix and draw the moisture out of the tomato. It worked really well, and now I'm tempted to do this again for tomorrow's dinner.

Also, apparently I did meatless monday without really trying.

Corgis!
Stupid NYC gets all the cool stuff. And now I want super thin cheese fries.
I can't tell if this is brilliant or not. I tend to like my syrup to soak into the sausage, because sweet + salty = delicious.
Pasta geometry.
Wow. Just wow.
I'm not really going to defend Monsanto, since they're pretty much shitbags all around. However, I don't really buy the main point of this article. Presumably all food contains this microRNA, so it really can't be fundamentally bad. Therefore, claiming that genetically modified food is more dangerous because of microRNA isn't a valid claim, unless there's some evidence that the microRNA created by genetically modified foods is more likely to cause problems.

Sunday links

2012-01-08T21:49:00.000-10:00

Wait, so this means I won't have to shout at my radio every Friday about how "economics don't work that way, you fucktard"? Good.
Everyone knows about this snow canyon in Japan, right?
Mitt Romney is a shitbag.
More fucking peas in a can from the 1950s. My only question on this one is why you'd ever make this.
Brock!
Cat + baby squirrels = cute.
Finally something happens in Hawaii. Om nom cupcakes.

Panzanella

2012-01-08T20:46:00.002-10:00

The ingredients for panzanella (using my recipe from last time):

First step is to cube the bread, and then toss with olive oil and some of the garlic paste (I was lazy, and didn't feel like mincing garlic).

Spread it out on a baking sheet, and bake at 400 for 8 minutes:

Once the bread is in the oven, make the dressing. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a dash of tomato paste, salt, pepper, some dried basil because the fresh basil at WF looked like crap today:

Dice up the tomatoes, and add some thinly sliced cippolini onion:

Add the bread to the bowl when it's done en-crouton-ifying:

Let it sit for a few minutes, plate, and add some mozzarella chunks and a few slices of prosciutto (or speck, if that's what you decided to get at the store instead):

Sushi sushi sushi bar!

2012-01-08T18:56:00.000-10:00

First thing to remember about sushi:

Wasabi travels in packs.

One thing I like about the ahi here is that the fish is super cold.

And the unagi is super warm, because they just made it in the back.

I knew lobster balls from the belt wasn't a great idea, and these had been sitting out a while, as they were cold. Not a bad flavor, but I really should only get these fresh.

Ditto with the chicken karaage.

"Texas roll." I've never seen this before, but it showed up on the belt right after the guy next to me ordered a kalbi nigiri. That sounded pretty good, so when this arrived, I assumed that they'd made it with leftover kalbi. That was correct, and this was really good. Basically, kalbi strips wrapped in lettuce wrapped in sushi rice. You can see that the kalbi juice is leaking out the bottom.

Random other sushi that was going around. I wasn't going to eat it, but I felt like taking a picture.

Tower of missing noms.

See, I told you they travel in packs.

I did nothing today. I consider that a success.

2012-01-07T23:11:00.001-10:00

To be fair though, he did at least see almost all of them.
One of my favorite episodes, and that's a cool shirt, but I probably would never wear it.
Rick Santorum is never going to be president. Here's a story pointing out that he's inconsistent, too.
Clearly, I should have gone into math instead.
Three different ads about how flying used to be. I wouldn't really feel so bad on a 10 hour flight from HNL to SFO if I could ride in one of those seats. Plus I love the concept of "Midnight snack bar".
Let's count the number of things wrong in this ad. 1) Sandwiches are delicious, so "sandwich lunch" being bad is nonsense. 2) Roy looks to be about 15. WTF is he sliding down stairs on a tea tray for? 3) "Then Mary had to come in..." I assumed that it was 1950's wife narrating this story. Does Jim have two wives, one that stays at home and cooks, and one that goes out and works? Maybe she's like a hired maid or cook? I wouldn't think it'd be proper for a family to eat with servants. 4) Those are just fucking canned peas. Unless "batchelor's" is 1950's slang for "with added drugs," I don't think people are going to be that happy to eat them. 5) 4 out of 6? Did they not reduce ratios in the 50's? Say 2 out of 3. Unless you actually only asked six women. Then you should say, "Four of the six women we asked claimed to enjoy these peas. The other two looked at us like we were crazy when we asked which brand of fucking canned peas they enjoyed. All six of them asked us how badly we failed our statistics classes." 6) Look at those plates. a) those are really skinny chops. b) do they each have three potatoes? c) how many cans of peas do you need to open to fill a giant bowl like that one? Besides, they've already served three servings from it. That means they have something like sixteen servings left. Why make five times the necessary amount of crappy canned peas? 7) "Look at my hand. Look at my fucking hand. I have it resting on this knife, and GOD HELP ME, I will stab you all RIGHT THIS FUCKING MINUTE if you don't sit the fuck down and eat your fucking peas. And you all better fucking SMILE!"

Dear Google, why did you make Fox move?

2012-01-07T17:26:00.006-10:00

Fox lives on the left side of the screen. He always has. That's because his house is there, see:

However, you made me switch to the new look gmail, and now everything is all wrong, and Fox has had his house flipped around all crazy-like:

I'm sure he is sad now, too.

I went to the grocery store today

2012-01-06T21:53:00.000-10:00

This wouldn't usually be something that important to talk about, but I went to the new Safeway that opened near me. It seems like Safeway is very proud of this new store, as they've been sending me things in the mail for weeks:

This is a quick scattering of six of the things I had sitting next to the trash.

Wait, where is this new store located?

Ok, so it's between Pensacola and Piikoi, and between Young and Beretania. Wait, no it isn't:

That's where the old store is located. The new one is at the corner of Beretania and Piikoi, which makes it easier to get to than the old one, as I can just swing by on the way home. Also, it's kind of funny that they built this new store right next door to Times (don't click that link if you don't want to hear a really annoying song). Before you feel bad for the local store being driven out of business by the soulless national brand, that Times is the store where I refuse to buy produce because I've been attacked by swarms of bugs when I tried to get some tomatoes. Gross.

Hey! An actual meat counter! One thing that was unexpected was that they have half tenderloins for sale (five from the left in that picture). They were the butt ends, though, so not really the best cut (yes, I'm being picky, but these aren't like chateaubriands, ready for Welllingtons). Overall, the meat counter selection is definitely better than most other stores, but the majority is still in pre-wrapped packages. They also didn't seem to have any local beef (or anything else), so I guess I'm still going to be getting my meat at WF.

Holy crap! Jumex! IN CARTONS! I fully expect to have this finished by the end of the day. Also, some blueberries are peeking in that picture. I largely skipped the produce section, since I'm going to try for the farmer's market tomorrow.

You can tell we're in Hawaii by the large tiki umbrella (I have no clue why it was there, or what they planned to do with it. Maybe that sample table needed some shade?).

I was clearly too late for the rush that hit the toilet paper/paper towel section. I've kind of forced the perspective here, but there were lots of empty areas to the left side as well. This wasn't an isolated event, either. The salsa section had multiple empty areas, as did something else (that I've completely forgotten now). I'm not sure if this is a transitional thing or not, but I really did think that they'd have the stock issues sorted out three weeks after opening.

Whoa, camera stability issues!

The store is actually on the second floor of the building, and so they have cart escalators to go up and down. I grabbed a cart downstairs, and sent it up with me, only to find that there was a cart pile upstairs as well. I guess I probably should have expected that, but I would have been unhappy to get upstairs, not have a cart, and then have to go back downstairs to get one.

I'm just going to claim that this isn't out of focus or wobbly. It's artistic.

Since the store is upstairs, you park downstairs. So...um...cars.

Yeah.

The trip to the store was largely to get something for dinner. Chips and salsa (salsa is totally a vegetable today), plus a spicy chicken finger sandwich. So I'm probably going to go eat an apple or some berries now, I guess.

Anyway, this Safeway is pretty much the same as any other grocery store, although it's definitely newer looking than the old one (or the one by work). They have self checkout lanes as well, which I really like, because robots. I assume the stock issues aren't permanent, but it's still a bit disheartening to see that that's still not sorted out. Meat counters are better than pre-packaged meats, but locally grown meat is better still. Also, local produce is great, and I didn't see any of that either.

blah

2012-01-06T00:10:00.001-10:00

Conference banquet dinner. Yes, that roll is supposed to be purple.

Kind of a cool map.
Yes, pretty much.
This tastes terrible. I had to try to find some way to not look like I wanted to puke when I tried a sample of the konared at WF a few months ago. This article claims it tastes like "blue and red berry fruits." My tastebuds thought it tasted like "we know where you sleep, and you'll pay for this."
Hrm. I'll have to get groceries tomorrow, I think. I'm pretty much out of food.

I finally caught up with google reader

2012-01-04T23:41:00.000-10:00

A really terrible picture of strawberry conference cake.

I still like flying squirrels.
Also regular squirrels.
Tempura dollar.
That's kind of sad, but when you're clearly managed by idiots, there's not much hope.
Beep beep! Bus!
Pikachu on the beach.
The biggest problem is that it doesn't work if you stand right next to it.
Sometimes you really need elf ears.
Based on those cabinets, I'm pretty sure she has Hansel in the oven already.

Uncle Billy's

2011-12-30T18:59:00.000-10:00

It really wouldn't be a visit to Austin without some barbecue. This time we went to Uncle Billy's. We brought the puppy, so we sat outside (which made things cool off quickly, but wasn't too bad).

Obligatory menu picture.

OMP #2.

Started with chips and queso and salsa. The chips were tasty, I think because they were loaded with salt. Queso was creamier than most, but since we were outside, it congealed a bit. The salsa was spicy, but had a decent fresh flavor.

Someone made a mess with the queso.

I went with the two-meat plate, choosing moist brisket and sausage as my two meats. I thought both were fine, and the burnt edge you can see on the one slice of brisket was super delicious. The sausage had a bit of spice, but nothing overwhelming. The mac and cheese I got was a bit lacking in cheesiness. More cheese is never a bad thing, especially when it's the second ingredient in the name. The onion rings were close to the top of the best I've had, with a light crispy coating and sweet onion insides.

My dinner.

Other people got other things. There was an incident with the one BBQ sauce, but other than some clothes and a certain puppy with an ear covered in sauce, it wasn't a disaster.

Other people's dinners.

Also I miss cider.

I had a Strongbow, since this is pretty much impossible to find in Hawaii.

Pile of links

2011-12-30T16:15:00.000-10:00

A pikachu/snorlax transforming blanket? I really want one of those.
Kitty and Bunny are Friends.
Math joke.
That's sad to hear. I really liked his tv show, and he was fun to read online.
Politics.
Auctioning kids.
Christmas Red Panda
I fucking hate pate, too.
These kind of pictures are really cool.
No, seriously, macadamia nuts really do burn well if you light them on fire. I think other oily nuts do as well, but we had macadamia nuts, and I know I've done that before. Kukui nuts should burn better, but those are kind of rare.

Fucking delicious

2011-12-30T13:49:00.000-10:00

Today's lunch was to be foodcarts at the corner of 6th and Waller. We got there a bit late, so a number of them were already closed for lunch. After a quick tour around, I found this one:

It may be hard to read the sign, so I'll sum it up: chicken tacos, using a waffle as a shell. Best. Idea. Ever.

They were out of drinks, so I picked up a Mexican Coke at the pizza truck next door.

Here's my first taco. "The Brady": swiss cheese, hot sauce, and honey in a bacon waffle.

I should have read the menu closer, as this one has no chicken. :(

Gooey cheese.

I fixed that problem with taco #2: "Ms. M": chicken tender, bacon, and swiss cheese in a regular waffle, to which I added hot sauce and syrup:

Making it basically the previous taco with chicken added.

Om nom nom nom.

This is basically the greatest idea ever in the history of "I want food now, and don't care if it's healthy." I'm going to be craving this as soon as I get home. Also now. I'm still full, and I kind of want another one of these to eat.

I took this picture just to catch this lady in the out-of-season warm weather fur stuff. It was like 68ish out.

Also, I'm Batman

2011-12-30T08:36:00.000-10:00

It is too cold inside

2011-12-30T08:34:00.000-10:00

So I will just sit here in the sun.

Quiche? Quiche.

2011-12-29T19:00:00.000-10:00

It turns out that quiche is remarkably easy, and tastes less like eggs than I always assumed it did. Recipe:

One pie crust
Two eggs
A cup of cream
Whatever crap you have that you want to eat, but don't really feel like just eating plain.

The top-right one is cheddar/bacon/(icky) broccoli, and the lower-left one is gouda/mushrooms/prosciutto.

Definitely an idea I'm going to have to steal and use in the future.

Travelling: part 2

2011-12-28T19:00:00.000-10:00

The flight from IND to IAH wasn't very eventful. I did get the exit row, which was nice, as that plane/route/whatever doesn't really offer the large area of larger leg room seats. I did discover that IND has a Qdoba before security, so now I'm tempted to get a burrito there next time before I fly out. I figure that they must see burritos all the time, right? They know that a burrito is not a bomb?

Also: Note for Future Me: There's a secret "Expert and Frequent Flyers" lane at IND, which you can totally use if you just try. Basically, you skip standing in the line with the regular people, and get to jump immediately to the guy who checks IDs. I wonder if you're an "expert" just by virtue of not standing in line with other people.

Then I got to Houston. Houston has the A/C turned up way too high in the airport. Since I'd seen the burrito place earlier, I had them on my mind, so when I saw the place making these:

I had to stop in and get one. I should probably ask for the salsa on the side next time, though. You get a free tiny bag of chips, and they're not very good plain. Besides that, I got the habenero salsa, which is hotter than I was looking for. It was fine on the top of the burrito, but there was a puddle of salsa at the bottom, which nearly killed me. I had to go to the newsstand to get a bottle of water and bar of chocolate to get rid of the heat. I have no clue what the guy at the counter thought, but given that I could barely see through the tears, I'm sure he knew that something was up.

On the flight from IAH->AUS, I had chosen another exit row, but did get the upgrade. That's totally worth it for the 25 minute flight. Oh well, kind of a #firstworldproblem. The nice thing about this flight was that it had DirectTV for each seat on the plane. I'm not sure if this is a regular thing, but I really hope that the flight next week from IAH->HNL will have this. I spent the flight watching Powerpuff Girls and Teen Titans.

Starfire.

Raven, Cyborg, Robin. In the snow.

Beast Boy. Also in the snow.

I then got to pet a puppy when I arrived:

In her sweatshirt to stay warm.

Completely unrelated other puppy that I had in the queue:

Snow!

2011-12-27T06:28:00.000-10:00

Probably would have been more appropriate yesterday

2011-12-26T21:08:00.000-10:00

cthulhumas

2011-12-25T16:47:00.003-10:00

Saturday: twidroyd is now ubersuck

2011-12-24T10:05:00.002-10:00

I hate when android app developers think that they need to keep expanding and updating their programs until they're piles of shit. I used to use twidroyd, and although it was kind of crappy, it at least let me read all my tweets with only a minimum amount of hassle. However, they updated, and pretty much broke everything.

It now has ads. I'm not against people trying to earn money, but not when you make it as annoying and offensive as possible. Why would I ever want to see an ad that takes up half of my screen? I'm not going to click on it anyway, because a) I already have a mobile phone (duh), and b) if I want pizza, I'm not going to order it from a leeching middleman.
It's now less responsive than using smoke signals to alert a team of turtles that I'd like them to personally deliver my tweets. Which UI genius thought that I wanted to wait for user images to load while scrolling through the timeline? I can read, Captain Slowdown, I don't need to see the picture if I'm in a hurry. If the picture isn't available, keep moving, and cache it for next time.
Looking at it funny makes it reset the timeline to the top. If you have a link and image preview feature, but I can't make any use of it because I'll then have to scroll back down from the very top, then you don't have that feature, because it's useless. There's already a way to jump back to the top (although you move it on the menu every damn version), so why would I want that to happen automatically?

Basically, I wish these developers would try to think up new ideas instead of shitting all over the things they've already made.

Friday: om nom nom

2011-12-23T17:40:00.002-10:00

Thursday: I didn't take any pictures today.

2011-12-22T18:18:00.002-10:00

So I have nothing to post.

I did help work at a community dinner thing, so I guess I'm in the holiday spirit.

Wednesday: cookies

2011-12-21T19:30:00.002-10:00

Just pretend these are in order. The blogger app decided that I wanted them in a random order, instead of the order I added them. The ingredient list is "one stick," "one sleeve," "one can," "one cup of X."

Tuesday: pretzels!

2011-12-20T19:29:00.000-10:00

The blogger app also doesn't mind that the pictures have a defined orientation. It just ignores all that. I'm also wondering where the dithering pattern is coming from. Anyway, pretzels are tasty, especially with cheese and mustard.

Something was happening at gate C9 at ORD. They had at least two firetrucks there trying to sort it out.

Monday: travel

2011-12-19T19:25:00.000-10:00

After putting in a half-ish day of work, I then had to finish up errands and get ready to fly away. This didn't leave much time for food, so I had a banana and then waited until the airport to get something else. Oddly enough, the security line at HNL was longer than I've ever seen. This was the case despite having all three scanners open.
Which brings up the question of why even have the radiation box scanners if people can just choose another lane without them?
I did pick up a margarita pizza at the airport, which made me "that guy who brings a damn pizza on the plane, making everyone else jealous." I didn't care too much, it was a good enough pizza (although it was a bit heavy on the cheese relative to the other toppings).
I also discovered that my phone can take decent enough pictures f the moon from an airplane.

My phone actually took a reasonably nice picture of this crescent moon above some random town.

Sunday: unsuccessful errands

2011-12-18T20:13:00.000-10:00

One of the things I wanted to do today was go see if I could find a mini/micro usb converter. That way, I would only need to bring one cable, and could convert for the devices that take the other cable. Radio Shack claims they have this one in most stores, and list the price as $1.98. Decent enough, given that it's basically four wires and a sheath in a chunk of plastic. However, the actual store was selling it for $17. Dear Radio Shack, this is part of the reason no one wants to buy things from you. If your markup is 750%, then you can go fuck yourself. I'll tack one on to an amazon order in the future and take two cords on this trip.

I did stop in to get lunch at Curry House Coco Ichiban at the mall:

Not bad, although I tend to like my curry full of veggies and meat and stuff. This was basically just a sauce, although it was pretty tasty.

Apparently I only have Pokemon links today:

Puns are funny.
So wait, they're making this game, but this game is just a mock up? The universe is not fair. (In case you don't want to look it up, Nobunaga's Ambition was a decent strategy game I remember playing on the NES. It was reasonably complicated, but still rather fun. Pokemon Snap is one of the greatest games of all time, where you ride a car on a fixed path and take pictures of Pokemon.

Saturday: sick

2011-12-18T00:13:00.000-10:00

woke up early, felt terrible all day. super dehydrated, but kept puking up everything I ate or drank. finally eating a banana, and it's sunday now.

bye bye carefully planned weekend getting ready for travel. hello super rushed cram session tomorrow.

Friday: I regret having to clean up my apartment all weekend

2011-12-16T22:27:00.000-10:00

But it's kind of a mess, and since I'm leaving next week, I need to get that fixed. It is somewhat reassuring to have the motion detecting webcam setup to spy on the place while I'm gone. Hear that, flying ninjas? I'm on to you.

Dinner was another lazy fast food day, because I was lazy, and for some reason I've been extra super hungry this week, and didn't want to wait for food to cook. I need to figure out something to eat for this weekend, but a three-day/no leftover plan is kind of hard to design.

I really like these old filing cabinets that the MSU surplus store is selling, but I have no way to get them, nor do I have anything that needs filing. My current filing cabinet is still full of cable and water bills from a decade ago. I should really throw out more things.

Me Lost Me Cookie At The Disco is such a sad song.
Stupid 2012. You had to be a stupid leap year didn't you?
This would be cool if it had the apache.conf file necessary to configure your webserver to show the appropriate cat.
I suspect that this is another reason that traditional print journalism is going away.

Thursday: Blah

2011-12-16T00:01:00.000-10:00

I was super hungry today after work, and just got some tacos instead of cooking. The fact that I put my chicken in the freezer on Monday and forgot to take it out has nothing to do with this.

I've also gone back and tagged all my past taco posts. That made me think how nice it would be if you could tell blogger to define tag subsets. For example, all "tacos" posts are "food" posts, as are all "nom nom nom" posts. Therefore, it's a bit redundant to need to tag each taco post as a food post, when tacos implies food. If blogger understood this fact, then I would only need to tag this post (and those) with "tacos", and it would still show up when someone clicked "food".

I was going to make an "X, X everywhere" joke today, but totally forgot what it was going to be about. Probably would have been funny, though.
Yay collusion! That's way better than living in reality, isn't it? I'm glad I'm sticking with regular books.
I'm glad I visited London last year, because I'm pretty sure I don't really care to go back anymore.
My legos never had a chalkboard.
Potentially NSFW, but then again, it's also fine art. In any case, I'm with Morbo on this one.
Squirrel!

Wednesday: Not the most appetizing looking dinner ever

2011-12-14T22:15:00.000-10:00

That's my attempt at a crab salad. Had I not been dumb, I would have realized that adding a bit more butter and a bit of egg, and then cranking up the heat would result in "crab cake," which is easy to convert into sandwich form. Also, planning things better would have resulted in plain chips, as that would match better. The pineapple was good, though. The sandwich wasn't bad either, although Safeway seems to think that bread just sometimes molds on the shelf. I had thought about going out for dinner, but decided instead that finishing up the crab would be a good idea. I'm not sure how long that would really keep in the fridge.

Magneto Bunny is safe against your thoughts, Charles.

I'm not sure how many astronomers actually read this, since it's mostly about food and pokemon, but this is kind of an important thing.
Economic logic -or- why your family is not a government.
I just thought this was funny.
Disney movies would be much better with lightsabers. Seems like that would solve a lot of plot points quicker, too.
I wish we lived in the future of the 1950s. The downside is we probably wouldn't have the internet. The upside is we could live in houses like this.

Like no one ever was

2011-12-13T23:29:00.000-10:00

He only wanted to be the very best.
I kind of feel bad for this bear. He's clearly learned that if he waves, sometimes he gets food. I felt really bad for him when about 45 seconds in, when they drive away a bit, and then stop again. :(
Squirrel!
She makes the important point in here: to many people, you have to justify the lack of equality (technically equality of outcome) by assuming that there must be an equality of opportunity. Admitting that this isn't true means that some action actually needs to be taken. It's far easier to simply assume that everyone has the same set of opportunities, and if they don't succeed, it's because they've squandered that opportunity. Therefore, the lack of outcome equality is a natural result which punishes slackers.

Tuesday: Mushrooms and Pokemon

2011-12-13T22:29:00.000-10:00

That's the end result of today's dinner. It wasn't terribly hard to make, but was kind of a time-sensitive meal. I didn't take intermediate steps, mostly because I had to continually do things. Here are the steps though:

Clean asparagus and big portabello mushroom. Preheat oven to 425, set water for pasta to boil.
Oil asparagus, and place it on a baking sheet and set aside.
Pull out mushroom stem, and then scoop out all the gills. Mince a clove of garlic, and a good chunk of green onion, and the removed mushroom bits.
Melt a gob of butter in a pan, and saute the mushroom bits, the onion, and the garlic. When the moisture is largely gone, add half a tub of crab meat (I used the cheaper claw meat, since I don't really need nice lump for this). Sprinkle with some pepper, old bay, and a bit of salt. Quickly cook that until the crab meat is heated throughout (I think pretty much all crab is sold pre-cooked). You should put the pasta on to boil around here, too.
Remove crab mixture to bowl, add some mayo, some dijon, maybe a tablespoon of bread crumbs, and some parmesan. Mix it all together, and scoop it into the mushroom. Add the mushroom to the baking sheet, and place in the oven.
While the aspargus and mushroom bake, mince more garlic and onion, and melt another chunk of butter. Add the garlic and onion, and stir constantly to brown the butter (keeping track to not burn anything). Add some herbs (I used sage and rosemary, since I had that). Add vermouth to thin, and let it reduce slightly. Add fully cooked pasta, and follow with more parmesan, stirring to let the cheese thicken the sauce.
Plate the pasta, and follow with the veggies, which should be done about the same time (the mushroom deflates a bit, and the top is toasted, as shown above).

Here's a cross section as I was eating:

The dark gills have turned the crab mixture a bit purple-y, but the flavor was wonderful. I probably could have added a bit more flavor to the pasta, but it worked ok as a base to dress up with the crabby stuffing. My thought was to do something similar for new year's eve, although almost certainly using regular size mushrooms instead. Still, I wanted to at least try it out first.

And now I have half a tub of crab meat that I need to use. Maybe make something like this stuffing and have a crab roll sandwich for dinner this week?

I then spent the evening watching "Pokemon the Movie 99: Victini Totally Cheats for Ash, and Then Random Shit Happens." Here's Victini:

Wait, what's that he's eating?

Macarons? Seriously Pokemon, now you're doing food trends in the movies? That surprised me a bit:

Me: "Macarons?"

Cilan: "My homemade macarons!"

Me: "WTF?"

Anyway, pretty much the same as previous movies. Pros:

Cute new Pokemon eating desserts.
Reasonably funny.

Cons:

Not enough Team Rocket.
Lack of clear villain.
The second half kind of degenerates into completely opaque set of plot points required to save the world.
Ash almost dies, making this movie #99 where he almost dies.

Dear Open Office,

2011-12-12T22:41:00.000-10:00

This is totally a face.

Monday: And now it's super rainy again

2011-12-12T22:11:00.000-10:00

I probably should have cut the salmon like I did last time, as this was kind of a lot of fish to eat in one sitting. Another thing that I would probably do if I had the hardware would be to burn the top across the entire fish with a brulee torch. That burnt bit was the tastiest part of the entire meal. The honey nicely caramelized, giving those bites a wonderful sweet/salty taste.

The asparagus was just thrown under the broiler with the fish, but it did pick up a bit of the marinade run off. I did the mashed potatoes using the steaming method, and threw in a couple cloves of garlic as well. I finished them with a bit of the shiso furikake, which may now by my favorite thing to put on mashed potatoes. It adds all the salt that's needed to finish them off.

"gimmegimmegimmegimmegimmegimmegimme!"

Panhandler kitty (unfortunately I couldn't find a proper news story).
When in doubt, claim a prior engagement and run away, because otherwise you're going to show everyone that you're basically a bigot. And running for president.
Probably wouldn't post this, except those are two of my favorites (it's still creepy, though).
This was today's Honolulu groupon (link to the actual people). Unfortunately, despite what they claim, none of the "name a star" things are real. That makes it a bit depressing that "over 60" were bought. Sure, it's great that they mail a your name and your fake claim up into space (where it inevitably burns up on re-entry, just like your dreams), but it doesn't really mean anything. So, I'm going to save myself the $14 per star, and claim all 31ish of these stars. Then, I'm going to write that on a piece of paper, and throw it away. See, I just stole $434 from this company, and I used more than one groupon at a time.

Sunday: half planning

2011-12-11T21:06:00.000-10:00

Of course, it's not that I ordered a vegan burrito. That would have probably been super gross. Maybe they just have one burrito button on the burrito-tron.

Anyway, my original plan yesterday was to do fish tonight. I got a nice looking salmon filet, but decided that marinating it overnight would be a better idea. I went with something similar to this recipe, but added some hot chili oil. Also forgot the garlic and ginger. I can probably fix that this evening.

And that's why he's not Dr. Cookie Monster.

Japanese school buses.
Skittle burgers.
It DOES compute!
Executive pup.
It's a bit odd that so many of these things are things you can buy to avoid using a recipe to cook.
The British Psychology Journal has crappy editors. Also a broken peer-review system, apparently.

I don't think that word means what you think it means

2011-12-11T15:31:00.000-10:00

I like how that disclaimer basically means "This can include lots of non-vegan stuff."

Note the cheese and pork.

Saturday: In which not much happens

2011-12-10T19:37:00.000-10:00

I get Honolulu magazine emails every so often. I think I signed up for it last year at the chocolate festival thing, and since it seems to be mostly about food and restaurants here, it's kind of fun to read. A couple of weeks ago, I saw this in their email:

My first thought was "holy fuck, where can I get doughnuts here?" I rushed out to buy an actual paper copy, since I couldn't find the story online. This was harder than I expected, as all the supermarkets I tried had last month's (and the month before as well). Of course, now it's available online, so I can link to it.

So I had the thought to go there today and get a selection of tasty doughnuts to eat this week. However, I spent way too long this afternoon playing this word search game (because I don't know, that's why), and when I finally got there, I discovered that they close at two. Sadness.

While sitting in traffic trying to get back home (while also trying to come up with a nice set of equations to justify how long the exit/entrance ramps should be on H-1 for traffic not to stop), I decided that I wanted to stop and get something else to eat for lunch, since I wasn't going to get any doughnuts this week.

Consolation spicy tuna roll.

Math joke pictures!

I might have posted this one already, maybe.

Then it rained really hard:

This story is just painful to read. Then I tried the "unnecessary math" test. Holy fucking shit. Now sure, I have a fancy degree, and I do math all the time (like while stuck in traffic), but this doesn't seem like it's asking too much. Two basic math questions, two "how to not go out of business because you don't know how numbers work," one "how to fucking read" question, and one "do you know how geometry is drawn" question. This is too hard for a fucking principal? Maybe he should do the honorable thing and resign.
I missed the eclipse last night, partially because I assumed the clouds would win out. Seems I wasn't totally right on that one.
Somebody else who should just quit.
Squirrel!
My first thought was, "wow, that's a really poorly fit continuum level." I was then a little sad.

Ok, now let's see if I can come up with a meal plan for this week.

Sunday: I'm going to say this is another pizza bagel day, although I may switch this with Monday, depending on what I get at the store.
Monday: Yeah, this was going to be fish, but that'd be better to do on Sunday. Let's say either salmon or mahi mahi.
Tuesday: ... Let's say something with chicken. I'll do a two-day chicken thing. I have some sage still, maybe I could do it saltimbocca again?
Wednesday: Leftover whatever tuesday is.
Thursday: This Rachel Ray show I'm watching on the DVR had stuffed eggplant. Maybe something like that? Let's say I'll do a big stuffed portabello instead. Stuffed with what? Stuffing.
Friday: Go out or something. Maybe switch this around with something earlier in the week? I probably shouldn't have assigned these to days, if I was just going to end up moving it all around as I write it.

Friday: pizza bagels

2011-12-09T22:19:00.000-10:00

Because sometimes a day just feels like the day you want to make two tiny personal pizzas.

Yeah. They were tasty. Since I need to get rid of the leftover sauce, I'll probably do these again over the weekend. I don't know what I'm going to do with the leftover soup. I'm thinking about just putting the rest of it in the freezer with the stuff I froze the day I made it. It'd be good next time I'm sick.

I do need to come up with a plan for next week. Something involving fish, I think.

Pretty much.

Font hell.
There's an eclipse tonight that I should be able to see. I'm not sure I'll be able to stay up late enough.
Because I feel bad not having three items.

Thursday: Leftover option 3

2011-12-08T22:54:00.000-10:00

I forgot to take a picture because I was working on something else while eating dinner, and didn't want to be bothered. Today's strategy was to add some sriracha to the soup, and see if that helped make it new. It did a pretty decent job, as once it was mixed in, it didn't overpower anything. It simply added an extra flavor highlight and some spiciness.

I may have posted these before:

Tired!

Angry!

Squirrel!
Wait, didn't robocop already play an evil CEO in Star Trek?
Yes, yes he did. I've only seen like four episodes of that stupid series, and that was one of them.

Wednesday: Leftover option 2: Ignore

2011-12-07T23:01:00.000-10:00

Since I had errands to run and left work late, I figured I'd just pick up a burger on the way home. I was disappointed, but it was at least different. I think tomorrow I'm going to try to spice up the soup, and then use Friday to try a "bread pudding" thing.

I forgot to post a link to the ham I had yesterday for the best lunch sandwich ever.
This is pretty much bullshit.
This week's Castle had Castle needing to get into a combination lock. Storytime: in undergrad, my roommate had a lock that he'd forgotten the combination to. He said I could have it if I could get it unlocked (since it was useless to him as it was in any case). I consulted the intertrons, and found a page similar to this one. Turns out it's far easier than you would expect (provided you have that very common model of lock).
They're not necessarily punk, but it's probably close enough.
I was going to post this, noticed that it had the same joke I was going to make, and then decided against it.
Then I changed my mind again.
Mother has bodies to store.

Tuesday: Leftover option 1

2011-12-06T22:08:00.000-10:00

This afternoon, I remembered that grilled cheese existed. I figured that soup and sandwich was a good idea, so I paired it with the turkey soup. Not as good as someone else's delicious looking dinner, but it was ok. The topic of turkey soup bread pudding came up again, and I'm starting to think about making a pot-pie like filling using some milk and a roux, and use that as the base. That's not going to be "custardy," but I'm somewhat concerned that adding egg to the mix would just make a soupy omelette. How does chrome spellcheck not know the word "omelette?"

No fucking clue.

Oops. I can't wait for that episode to air.
Hey! Congratulations, Belgium, for finally making a government! And for successfully proving that on some level, you can actually get by with a leaderless bureaucracy.
The important point for people who complain about prices of education. It's not that the total cost is increasing, it's that it's been subsidized for a long time, and now morons are cutting that subsidy because they're cheap bastards.
Squirrel 1. The sad one.
Squirrel 2. I like squirrels, but I think keeping them in this thing is worse than just letting them live freely in the yard. Put out some food periodically, name one Walter, and you can live happy knowing you're not running a squirrel prison.

Monday: The leftover desire half-life is pretty short

2011-12-05T22:46:00.000-10:00

Today was leftover turkey soup. I'm trying to come up with ways to make it more exciting this week, although I'm pretty sure that "turkey soup bread pudding" isn't a thing. I've also discovered that my soup is full of gelatin from the connective bits, as it was kind of at the "bizarrely jello" stage when I took it out of the fridge. A short time in the microwave sorted this out, I was just expecting it to be a bit soup-ier.

Squirrel hug!

What are you doing, puppy?

Brunchables.
In the wake of this news story about Siri, the horribly inappropriate parody. Also: really funny.
Depressing story of overequipped thugs.
Depressing story about the problem with trying to be balanced.
Fun reminder of the best part of elementary school gym.
Self poptart shows up so much in my RSS feed that I've spent most of the evening wishing I had poptarts. I will have to fix this problem tomorrow.
Nightmare snowman.
This guy plays one of the 9000 war themed first person shooters. And is basically a hilarious asshole the entire time.

You know how people are always like, "he died so young" and "what a waste"

2011-12-04T23:53:00.000-10:00

Apparently this is what happens when you get clean and stop doing heroin:

Am I a bad person for suggesting that some people would be better off dying young from an overdose? Yes.

Sunday: Cooking all day

2011-12-04T20:41:00.000-10:00

The goal for today was to convert leftover turkey into soup. No real recipe for this.

The start was an onion, two carrots, and about two stalks of celery (and a gob of butter to saute in). That dark spot in the middle of the pan is the remaining two anchovy filets. I added them in the hope of boosting the flavor.

Once the vegetables were done and the anchovy obliterated, I added two boxes of chicken stock and the turkey. I went with a turkey-heavy strategy, included both wings, a thigh/leg combo, another leg, and the chunk of breast I was eating for lunch last week. You can also see the three parmesan rinds I tossed in. I'm not sure how much they helped, since they're also mystery flavor boosters.

That simmered for about two hours, at which point the turkey had fallen apart, and I could fish out the bits and remove the bones. Also those stupid needle bone/cartilage things in the legs. I also shredded the meat into bite size pieces.

To finish things, I added some rosemary and sage (whole, in a bouquet garni idea), salt and pepper, and some sherry. I let it go another half hour or so, during which time I boiled some egg noodles. Plating:

Bowl of turkey soup, a couple slices of speck, a hunk of rye with some brie spread on top. This solved the "haven't eaten anything all day" problem perfectly. One issue that came up is that the soup separates a lot. The top is bland and watery, with the flavor increasing towards the bottom. I'm sure canned soup has lots of chemicals to fix this problem, but I just went with the "stir it before you take a bite."

I have enough soup that I have a pretty good idea what I'm eating for dinners this week. I'll probably have to get more bread at some point, though.

Random picture time:

Asymmetrical corgi.

I like Self-Esteem Bear.

Julie sent it around earlier, but I really like the sad cookie from this entry.
It would be nice if people actually knew that they were dumb. Like the 8% of people who feel "very unfavorable" about "Require easy-to-understand plan summaries." WTF is wrong with those people? They want insurance plans to be more confusing?
Oh the past. You were so delightfully racist. a) Did anyone actually know a southern colonel? b) Why do you need to keep pointing out that pancakes are "digestible?" Did people eat rocks and things back then, and had to be reminded to eat real food? c) I like pancakes as much as anybody, but I don't think that they're really the correct solution to all food problems. d) I'm super full, and still kind of want to eat some pancakes.
Steampunk.

Saturday: Plans change

2011-12-03T21:50:00.000-10:00

The original plan was to make soup today. I then decided that that's more of a Sunday thing, so I postponed it. It helped a bit that I had this:

with plenty of leftovers from yesterday. This was the dinner portion, as I was in a hurry when I ate the lunch portion. You can see the burnt spots, and the lunch part was even worse. That's also WF pizza sauce, because they didn't pack the sauce last night. The sausage they put in this was a bit heavy on the fennel. I'm ok with some fennel, but this was a bit extreme.

Since it's been rainy and windy recently, I posted this:

Admittedly, it's not like this outside:

but when you wake up in the morning and your apartment feels like a wind tunnel, it's still normal to be cold when the temperature is still like 70.

Alabama would almost be funny if they weren't run by racists.
I went shopping today. One they left out was "50ish lady who has to have her groceries sorted just so, even if it takes 5 minutes to pack her stupid food."
It's nice when Fark posts two news stories that go together so well. "Sure sounds like non-Christians ought to move out of Giles County before things get ugly over there." and "nonbelievers are less trustworthy because there’s no fear of damnation keeping them on the straight and narrow". LOL.
Interesting story about jobs. Turns out if you pay less than other people, you will have a hard time filling positions. If only we had some sort of system to predict things like that.
Ross Douthat is still a shitbag.

Because I think they're cute, and it's my blog

2011-12-03T01:26:00.001-10:00

Why didn't I get puppy day in grad school?
Remember how cops suck? And how they hate Occupy protesters? Even if you disagree, you must agree that stealing pizza isn't cool.
This shelf seems like a lot of work. You have to place it in the middle of the room, and I wouldn't think it'd give you the same quantity of shelf space as an equal size regular shelf.
My phone checks out as clean.
I have to admit that Dr. Squirrel isn't really likely to be sanitary. How about Dr. Cat?
Six to eight black men. Or, just one.
Sneezy puppy.
I'll need to read this paper, I think. I've never been totally happy with the thin/thick disk concept.
I'm not posting a link to the saddest comic I've ever read.
But this? This is basically why I don't read comic books anymore.

Friday: I don't think I'm unreasonably picky

2011-12-02T21:15:00.000-10:00

I would have pictures here, but my phone decided it'd be cool to do that thing where it pretends to take a picture, but then doesn't.

Since I've had way too much turkey recently, and plan on having more turkey this weekend, I wanted something different for dinner. I've been kind of in a pizza mood since always, and decided to drive out to the Kona Brewing Company restaurant way over in Hawaii Kai. My thought was to get a calzone, and have leftovers to eat for lunch tomorrow. I arrived, and when I noticed that calzones weren't listed on the menu, asked, and was assured that they still make them, they just don't list them anymore. Odd.

I started with the "Roasted Garlic Pupu," which had a nice half loaf of bread with two heads of roasted garlic and a melted Gorgonzola dip. Very delicious, with the cheese being on the mild side of Gorgonzola, which blended nicely with the garlic. Excellent start to the dinner.

Then things kind of went off track.

I was about halfway through the appetizer when my calzone arrived. The online menu notes that calzones take thirty minutes to prepare. At this point, it'd only been about 15-20 minutes since I ordered, which I thought was a bit odd. I'd ordered the "Honaunau," which included mozzarella, smoked mozzarella, "Parmesan sausage," mushrooms, and just for funsies, more garlic. I could see the sausage pouring out of the cut, which looked very good. I noticed that the top was a bit burnt, but it didn't look too bad. However, I then stabbed a bit of sausage, and discovered that it was cold.

A bit more poking and prodding led me to the conclusion that the reason it came out so fast was that they'd cooked it wrong. Because the heat was too high, the outside started to burn before the inside had had a chance to cook fully. Even the cheese on the inside wasn't melted. I finished the rest of the appetizer, glad that I'd decided to get that in addition to the calzone.

When the waitress returned, I let her know, and she took it back to be boxed up (as it could easily be fixed in the leftovers phase). The manager brought it back, and let me know that "the oven was too hot." Yes, sure, but that's not the actual problem. The kitchen is supposed to have someone checking that they're cooking things correctly. If they can't actually cook something (say, calzones because they have the oven turned up too high all the time), then they shouldn't try. If they do, then they're just going to end up buying me the calzone they can't cook.

In any case, I'm somewhat hesitant to go back. Part of the reason for this visit was to see if it would be the kind of place to take my parents when they visit. I've had good luck with their seafood before, so it's possible that as long as we stay away from the calzones, it'll still work.

Thursday: OMG TOO MUCH SRIRACHA!

2011-12-01T22:40:00.000-10:00

Apparently the only picture I took today.

Dinner was leftovers again. I decided to make a tactical strike, and concentrated on eliminating the mac&cheese, accompanied by some turkey. Since turkey is getting a bit bland, I decided to add a bit of sriracha to the plate to perk up the flavor. I then proceeded to:

stick way too much sriracha onto the first bite of turkey
decide that the dairy in the mac & cheese would solve that
burn my mouth because the m&c was about 9000 degrees

Yay for planning.

On that subject, I'm thinking that saturday I'm going to make turkey soup for dinner, using all the "hard-to-use" bits of the bird I have in my freezer. I don't think I really have too much to get to make that happen, maybe just a bit of crusty bread or something. A bit more veggies wouldn't hurt either. In any case, I'm hoping that that will cover dinner for saturday and sunday (maybe monday?), and then I can just freeze the rest for when I'm sick and want homemade soup instead of canned.

That means I have to sort out something for tomorrow's dinner, but I might just go out or something. Anyway, here's a handful of bunny:

Paging Dr. Squirrel!
I really like these cute kitchen towels.

Wednesday: Lunch and naps

2011-11-30T23:39:00.000-10:00

This was the sandwich I made yesterday for lunch today:

BBQ sauce + thanksgiving turkey breast + braeburn apple slices + Tillamook sharp cheddar. Super tasty, so I made another for tomorrow. I made tonight's dinner at the same time, since it was 9:15, and I'd just woken up from a two hour nap. Oops. That was a similar sandwich, although I warmed the turkey in some of the gravy, and skipped the BBQ sauce. Not quite as good as the BBQ version, but that's probably because the sauce adds more spice than the fatty gravy.

Here are two pictures of creepy carved squirrels:

And one of a Giovanni/Persian cosplay:

I've had this song stuck in my head for a few days.
Ugly renaissance babies.
If I didn't have a pile of bread pudding in my fridge, I'd think about making this as well.

Tuesday: The Continuing Adventures of Lazy

2011-11-29T23:38:00.000-10:00

I woke up today, and went to make a sandwich for lunch using the turkey breast I'd frozen on Thanksgiving, and put into the fridge to defrost on Sunday. However, when I picked up my brand new unopened block of cheddar cheese that I just fucking bought at Safeway, I noticed that the entire bottom end was a decidedly un-cheddar like blue color. So I had pizza for lunch instead.

I went to the other Safeway by work to get new cheese (I'll have to return the other one tomorrow, I think), and then impulse bought a bunch of other stuff:

Like those chips. And the sandwich rolls. And the deli popcorn chicken bites. "Wait, don't you have like 99 pounds of turkey? Why would you want chicken?" Because these are fried and crispier and I can just dump them into a sandwich with some hot sauce and declare that a meal, duh.

That said, I did slice the turkey breast for tomorrow's lunch, and I'm really looking forward to eating that sandwich. I'll probably have pictures.

And then I took a two hour nap on the couch with my arms in the least comfortable positions possible, which in hindsight, was poorly planned.

Paper squirrel!
Squirrel in a jar!
An article about punctuation marks that I was hoping would be longer and more interesting, but kind of seems like it was just knocked out at the end of the day.
Harry Shearer does a pile of voices for the Simpsons, and also was in movies like Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind. He also just wrote this song.

Monday: Lazy and didn't want leftovers.

2011-11-28T23:08:00.000-10:00

So this thing that Julie tweeted made me decide to just get TBell instead. I'm thinking about making turkey soup sometime this week, although I suspect it'll be the weekend, since it'll probably take a while to cook.

Since I don't have anything interesting, here are random pictures:

I like bunnies, but this is just too funny.

Someone is very happy now.

WTF?

Teddy bear. I know it's old, but it popped up in my RSS feeds again today. Source.

Links:

I really should watch the DVDs I bought. Maybe have an old-school MTV night and watch the new Beavis and Butthead, Daria, and Aeon Flux.
It seems hard to imagine a time before pizza was common.
I don't have a third link for today, I guess.

Sunday: Sushi and leftovers

2011-11-27T23:07:00.000-10:00

The sushi:

I went to the local place again for this. Unfortunately, I discovered that the owners are apparently crazy Christian people, as they have a pile of these stupid things next to the trash can. The burger place by work does the same thing. I kind of think this means that they should be taken off the "valid eating spot" list, since I don't really want to support loons.

Dinner was more leftovers:

I thought I had more stuff to comment on today, but I've forgotten what it was. Oh well. How about this: WTF is the Justice League doing?

I guess when you're in the ocean, you let Mera come along too.

Ross Douthat is still a fucking idiot. I mean, it's not like JFK successfully negotiated imminent nuclear war or clearly defined the goal of the space program. Oh wait.
This seems like a lot of work shuffling the turkey around in the oven to make it worthwhile. Mine worked well, although I probably should have let it cook a bit longer at 500 to even out the skin. Then again, I don't really like the skin, so it's not like that makes much difference to me.
Kind of a depressing story, but still cool.
I know that when I want to lose weight, I get rid of crap like grapefruit, and replace it with three teaspoons of raw sugar. Thanks again, the 50s!

Saturday: Cold rainy day

2011-11-26T20:47:00.000-10:00

Ok, so the low was only 65ish today, so that doesn't really count as "cold." It has been raining all day though, and it's pretty windy, so I guess that's as close as I get here. However, it did give me a chance to bake without the kitchen becoming unbearably hot.

I also had to get some stuff at the grocery store, and found this:

It was a bargain at only $8.79!

It doesn't have as much character as the ciders I had in Austin, but it does have proper cider flavor, uncorrupted by stupid spices.

More leftovers for dinner. The baking project was to finally make the dessert I was going to have with Thanksgiving dinner. This delicious looking Nutella bread pudding:

With a slice gone.

The missing slice.

It came out a bit soupier than I wanted, which I think was due to my oven being a liar. If I reheat the next bit in the oven, I'm sure it'll tighten up. It's also not nearly as chocolate-y as I was hoping. Maybe a bit of added chocolate in the leftovers will help.

Maple Caviar.
The Princess Bride.
I'm glad most people aren't psychopaths like Dmitry Medvedev.
I should have posted this on Thanksgiving, but it slipped my mind. It's a bit long, but it's kind of a stunning example of...something. I kind of lost my train of thought there.

Friday: Leftovers!

2011-11-25T19:54:00.001-10:00

First, super cool sunset:

Also, since it's:

Yeah, I mostly just liked the fact that someone remembered Brak.

I went out to make a purchase:

Unfortunately, the vending machine downstairs doesn't have sales, so I had to pay full price for it.

This is what the stuffing was supposed to do yesterday. Greasing the springform worked perfectly, and it popped out nice and clean.

Pretty much identical to yesterday. I cooked the mac and cheese with some milk and covered it with foil, which solved the dryness issue I had yesterday. I'm now completely out of potato sides, but have lots of the other stuff still. Also: thrice baked potatoes aren't quite as good as twice baked potatoes.

I think I missed this balloon when I watched the parade yesterday.

Just a bunny eating tomatoes.

I think this quote sums up my main thought: "WTF are you going to do with 5 waffle makers? Open up a Denny's??"
Were any of the Charlie Brown holiday specials not super depressing?
Turns out people don't actually read books.
I always thought that Thanksgiving was a holiday traditionally steeped in gravy.
26 pound gummy bear with a bowl for a tummy.
Gender inequality statistics.

Damn it, Barry

2011-11-25T02:26:00.000-10:00

"I listened to you, you listen to me"? Really? That's not really the best response there. These are your people, trying to make you do the right damn thing. Get with the movement, and you'll be back on top again.

Of course, if the opposition decides that Newt Fucking Gingrich is the best candidate, you could probably go out and kill somebody, just for funsies. So, that kind of mitigates the "doing the right thing" vibe a bit.

Late night snack

2011-11-25T00:24:00.000-10:00

Now I wish I'd made dessert so I could eat some now. :-/