| Food Pairings were actually a required course when I worked at StarbucksCorp. |
[May. 23rd, 2009|11:48 pm] |
I don't know why I keep doing this. It's something that I experience probably once a year. I always tell myself to make a note of it. I never do, then six months later it happens again and I'm surprised at myself.
Coffee tastes delicious.
Sushi tastes delicious.
Sushi + Coffee. Two great tastes that OH GOD THIS WAS A POOR CHOICE IN FOOD PAIRINGS. |
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| What's this? Update? Preposterous! |
[Dec. 7th, 2008|04:37 pm] |
sorry guys, I've at first been too busy with work to update, and... stuff. I'll catch people up when I head off to Texas for the holidays.
I've been reading Niall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World". It seems like a dry subject to most but it's pretty easy reading for me. I like this sort of thing, and here's why.
Allow me to introduce you to John Law. A Scotsman from the 1700's who has the honor of creating the world's first stock bubble. Con man, fast talker, gambling addict, convicted murderer, and prison breaker. He somehow, after escaping England, went to France and fast talked his way into the Royal Courts and became chief finance minister, where he successfully reformed the economy and set France back on track to being a prosperous nation.
The problem, however, is he's a gambler, and so had no idea when to stop. He kept giving himself more and more economic powers, issued more and more shares of his bank stock at higher and higher prices, and singlehandedly created the world's first stock bubble, which ruined the economy, sent inflation at to ridiculousl rates above what it was two years ago, caused widespread famine and poverty amongsts the peasants. What happened next was a little thing historians like to call "The French Revolution", which was a result of, you know, abject poverty.
Reactions to the event varied, but two are both well documented and hilarous.
A Dutch investor in his company, after seeing his holdings wiped out, spend a large sum of money to have plates specially commisioned in China. They had "By God, all my stock is worthless!" engraved on them in gold. Second best reaction one could have.
http://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/images/niall_ferguson_slide_presentation.pdf Page 19. Bernard Picart painted this in the aftermath and inexplicably this is the best image I can find of it. A naked Goddess of Fortune rains down flaming, explosive stock on an angry, now bloody mob as they flee the rue Ruincampoix (the equivilant of Wall Street). Meanwhile, a juggernaut drawn by Indians (from India) crushes an accountant alive under a huge wheel of fortune and two men duke it out in the corner somewhere.
I'd like to think if I had any sort of artistic talent, this is how I'd react after losing my shirt to a bubble. |
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| Witchcraft of the highest order. |
[May. 28th, 2008|12:17 am] |
[20:22] Ryou Says: ?
[20:22] NezumiChris: So one of the things listed to do to soften blocks of brown sugar is "put some bread on it"
[20:22] NezumiChris: I dismissed this as an old wive's tale.
[20:23] NezumiChris: My brown sugar was so hard it could kill a man. Now? After leaving a slice of bread on it for eight hours, it's soft and fluffy.
[20:23] NezumiChris: It's the devil's work, I tell you!
[20:23] Ryou Says: I KNOW!
[20:23] Ryou Says: I tried it once
[20:23] Ryou Says: That's some kind of crazy magic or something
[20:24] Ryou Says: I refuse to accept that as the work of real science
[20:24] NezumiChris: I don't believe in Bread Gnomes, and neither should anyone else |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 17th, 2008|04:07 pm] |
....did anyone else in Arizona get a flier in the mail for Vemma energy drink? I'd post a picture of it, but the flier is already a screencap of a website which was then printed, then scanned, then copied and scanned again for good measure. You know, in case they missed any pixels the first time around. For god's sake, man, it even has a "click here to see how it compares to the competition!" The attached buisness card is nothing more than poorly cut card stock. And on top of all this? They want me to purchase through my "Back office"
What?
Do they want me to clandestinely purchase energy drinks without my place of employment being aware? This whole ad screams "Someone found a bunch of energy drinks that fell off the back of a truck" |
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| ¡Ay carumba! El panda gigante! |
[May. 4th, 2008|03:17 am] |
Sometime two weeks ago.....
Two Saturdays Ago
So after much prodding and poking by Chinese James I went to the Chino Bandito with Nick and Joyce. We ended up going to the Chandler location, which is kind of hidden in a strip mall in a little hideyhole area. I never would have found it alone. Here's a picture of their mascot.
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd41/nezumichris/img014.jpg
As you can tell, it's a panda with a handlebar mustache, wearing a sombrero and bandoleir of pistols. This was the only time you could take a picture of it, because at any given moment that panda was CRAWLING WITH CHILDREN. It's like there was a kidlet infestation on that thing. Maybe the panda hasn't had his shots recently, I don't know, but that panda has a serious kid problem. Maybe wearing one of those high pitched flea collars will help. It's a stone statue, with hard concrete floors supporting it. And it's not like they were climbing just for the sake of climbing and like sitting quietly on the hat. I could get behind that. Sometimes as a kid you just want a better view. No, they were climbing and screaming and jumping and walking oh so precariously on the rim of that hat they a light breeze could knock them over and they'd loose at least five teeth and you *know* as soon as that happened some soccer mom would initiate a lawsuit even though they sat there watching the kid climb and did nothing other than polietly ask the kid to get down like ten times and ARGH CONTROL YOUR KIDS!
......ok. So, that asides.... to be fair, this was a sort of kid friendly place. I guess. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against kid friendly places, I just sort of wish they'd warn you. There werre lots of little ones running around. Some were unattended, most were not but the ones who were really made up for it on volume. For some reason there were also large prints of kids posted up on the walls, and all in all it gave the impression that this branch was trying to be the next Chuck E. Cheese but wasn't really sure if it could pull it off so was just sort of testing the waters with a "solid rock panda above concrete floor" attraction before fully commiting to buying the ball pen.
As far as food went, I actually enjoyed it. It wasn't a true fusion resteraunt, but instead was either Chinese, or Mexican, or Jamaican. I had the Jerk Chicken on rice and was pleasantly surprised with how spicy it was. Asides from that, there's a surprising lack of information to report. I'd go again, but I'd like to try out the Phoenix location. I'm given to understand that it's more of a true hole in the wall type place, which I tend to enjoy.
Two Sundays Ago
That sunday I worked for a rather long time. However, after work we went to Ranch Market, which... oh god... it's about the size of a Super Wal-Mart, but is filled with nothing, NOTHING But awesome Mexican Goodness. They have in-house cheese makers, butchers, fishmongers, a tortilla assembly line, a juice factory, a homemade ice cream factory, and most importantly, an inhouse bakery that serves gingerbread pigs. As soon as I saw them I jumped back and did a little victory spin. Oh man, those things are so great. I loaded up on about $20.00 worth of mexican pastries. The best part about this place was that they have a roving mariachi band. Seriously. Not only is it roving, but when it's not stationary it goes into Stealth Mode. You heard me. A Stealth Mariachi band. You could be minding your own buisness in the frozen foods section, all is silent, and then out of nowhere a bloodcurdling "AI HI HI HI!" followed with the loudest rendition of La Cucaracha on the planet. Good times. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 30th, 2008|04:38 am] |
The key to making a good grilled cheese sandwich is to not use so much buter that it makes the bread a soggy mess, and also to not have the skillet on so high a setting that the butter and portions of bread fill your apartment with acrid smoke.
Just saying. You know, for future reference. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 11th, 2008|04:56 am] |
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I *was* going to make a pie.... I'd seriously like to know how I managed to lose not one but two cutting boards. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 8th, 2008|12:18 pm] |
Apparently I'm going here this weekend. Chinese James saw it on Food Network and I think he's a little overly impressed with the mascot, but hey, I'll give it a shot.
http://chinobandido.com/about.html
[12:14] James: that was on diners drive ins and dives last night
[12:14] James: you have to go try it out
[12:14] James: it's got a fucking Sombrero mexican nationalist PANDA for a figurehead.
Pro tip: Never, under any circumstances, go into work 8 hours early. It just isn't worth it.
Stories if I'm awake when I get home to post them! |
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| Do it now! |
[Mar. 28th, 2008|04:05 am] |
Everyone who's ever played Mega Man needs to download this
http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00818/ song. While listening to it, imagine that Mega Man is in a 1930's pulp noir film. A detective in a shady office with a cigar in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.
"It was a day like any other day, when out of nowhere, this classy dame with legs a mile long came into my office. I knew she was trouble the moment I saw her. Girl had a case. Mad Doc Wily was up to his old tricks again. Me and Wily tangled a couple of times, but I'm retired now. I don't do that beat. Now if only I could convince her of that... and convince myself. "
And now for an amusing exchange on the way home from work.
(Guessed the amounts. I forgot how much the fines really are)
Nick: So I'm studying the assorted U.S. legal codes. Did you know that Hootie the Owl and Smokey the Bear are federally protected US Trademarks? Using them without the goverment's permission is punishable by $5000 in fines and 6 monthes in prison.
Me: Oh god. Someone better warn Fanfiction.net before the feds crack down on them for all those Hootie the Owl / Sailor Moon crossovers.
Nick: ....goddamnit. I can see that happening too.
Remember peeps. Only YOU can prevent bad fanfiction. |
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| My name is Chris, and I do not approve of this cake. |
[Mar. 18th, 2008|04:49 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | cake~ | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Tempe | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  determined | ] |
| [ | music |
| | K. K. Rock and Roll! | ] |
OK! So here's my latest.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Strawberry-Cake-from-Scratch/Detail.aspx
First off, I would like to say that this recipe LIES. Prep time 10 minutes my ass. It took me at least forty minutes to cream the sugar and gelatin together.
I think the fact that I was working with nothing but a bowl and a spatula instead of, say, an egg beater, is what caused it to take so long. I really need to go and get a hand cranked beater, or better yet an electric one, cause this whole recipe was doomed to fail without a beater. Apparently not making sufficient air bubbles in the batter will make the cake pretty thick. Almost brick like, I'm told. A beater will really help with that. A whisk.... while certainly doable, it's not really effective unless you can beat at 200RPM. I measured, and I can only do 30. So yea, not so much.
These are the berries I used in the cake. I didn't have a blender, so I took fresh berries as opposed to the frozen ones called for in the recipe, put them in a bag, and beat them into submission with a bottle of soy sauce.
Here I either ended up with slightly too shallow pans, or too much batter. End result is the same. The mix rose too much and overflowed the pan. Also, the center didn't cook at the same rate and collapsed when I poked it with a fork. A few extra minutes did the trick, but still the outsides are a little overcooked
Here's the second layer. Turned out a little bette.r not sure why, since they were both cooked at the same time
Here, I tried the following recipe for homemade strawberry frosting.
2 c. heavy cream
1/4 c. confectioners sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. cut up strawberries
Whip together 2 cups heavy cream, 1/4 cup confectioners sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt. Fold in one teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 cup cut up strawberries. Frost cooled cake and refrigerate until serving time
Again, apparently a beater is entirely 100% necessary. According to my good friend Julie...
[01:37] vexingquery: You realize that in order to do this, you need to beat the hell out of cream so thoroughly and so vigorously that it turns from cream into... well.. whipped cream
She couldn't be more right. This frosting did not turn out well at all. I tried adding more sugar to bulk it up, but to no avail. This was entirely too runny to use as frosting, and would most certainly saturate the cake, making it a soggy, sticky mess. Instead, I used a can of Betty Crocker Vanilla with diced berries mixed in.
This is the cake, upside down, after being taken out of the pan. Seriously, how did it burn on one side only?
Finished product right here. Note that I overwhipped the nilla frosting, so now it's super runny and won't stick to the sides properly. It just sort of ....ooozes off.
I haven't really tried this cake yet. I'm almost afraid. I think I may inflict it upon people at work.
As for the homemade frosting, I have waaaaaaay too much of it. I am pleased to say that it makes an excellent dipping sauce for the remaining berries. I'm fairly certain, however, that it is also 9000 calories per bowl on account of it being nothing but pure heavy cream and sugar.
I am a little dissapointed. I really was hoping it would be perfection ten times over, but considering this is my first baked good from scratch, like, using flour and everything, I think I can be forgiven some. Next week I'm going to try something simpler. Maybe something involving apples. I'm not sure yet.
And now some comments from the peanut gallery.
Chinese James: Dude.. you really should start with simple things if your going to bake
Chinese James: Cause if you can't cream butter and sugar quickly, your not gonna be able to whip cream. ....why did you choose the hardest cake and the hardest frosting to make from scratch as your starter project? Might I suggest cookies next time?
Russ: is it supposed to be a whipping cream sort of frosting?
mouse: frosting
Russ: it apparently sounds more like whipping cream
Russ: have you just been stirring it in a bowl?
mouse: Yup
mouse: Well, whisking, but yes. Same thing
Russ: Colleen says she once made butter by shaking whipping cream in a jar
Russ: So she suggests if you put it in a jar and shook it until its thicker but not butter
Russ: she can garuntee nothing with your dark ages technology
Russ: luddite...
Nate: Why did you ask Chinese James for cooking tips on frosting and not me, who actually went to a fancy french cooking academy?
Me: I'm sorry. I don't consider Pierre's Chicken and Waffles Community College to be "fancy"
Nate: CORDON BLEU ACADEMY!
mouse: So, how does one make strawberry frosting?
mouse: And I swear to god if you say anything involving frog legs or snails I'll kill you
Nate:Then I can't help you
Nate was kind enough to provide me with an alternative recipe, however. I'll try it next time.
[02:07] Nate: No, I kid. How I'd do it is make some normal old cream cheese frosting, and toss strawberries into it while you're mixing it
[02:07] mouse: Excellent
[02:08] mouse: how does one make cream cheese frosting?
[02:09] Nate: Ok, lemme go find our recipe. It's essentially cream cheese and powdered sugar, with a touch of vanilla.
[02:10] Nate: 8 ounces cream cheese
5 tablespoons unsalted butter (optional)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
[02:10] Nate:We never add the butter. Toss in about a cup or two of sliced strawberries. Boom. Easy
Don't overbeat the stuff. Make sure the cream cheese is soft, add the sugar about a third of a cup at a time
If you have some liquid strawberry flavoring, that'd be very useful. Help spread out the flavor more.
Otherwise, just put, like, a whole fucking carton of strawberries into it, so the strawberries get spread out and there's a tasty, tasty mouthful of strawberries in every bite |
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| Forbidden Rice! |
[Feb. 15th, 2008|03:28 am] |
So some time last year I made Forbidden Rice Pudding, and this week I felt inclined to do so again, mostly due to prompting by Joyce. I'm not sure how the subject got brought up, but brought up it was, so I tried once again. The problem with making the stuff isn't that it's difficult. It's more that I have abslutely no frame of reference as to if I did it correctly or not. I have never had it professionally made and thus have no clue as to if it's good, or slop. There's a dozen variations on the web, most of which involve tools that I don't own, so I tried to stick to something simple that I can do with just a pot, a spoon, and a timer. This is the best picture I could find on the net.
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/images/rice-pudding.jpg
And this would be the recipe I used.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/233288
The rice was soaked for almost a full day then rinsed prior to cooking. As you can see, light cooking turns the water a lovely shade of purple
http://s227.photobucket.com/albums/dd41/nezumichris/?action=view¤t=DSCI0054.jpg
Boil, boil, toil and trouble!
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd41/nezumichris/DSCI0055.jpg
Now, I ran into a problem because I really don't have a whole lot of experience at cooking. The recipe says I should simmer for half an hour after mixing in the sugar. The problem arises when I mistake "simmer" for just not boiling. I think I kept the heat waaaaay too low, because after looking up the definition of simmer, apparently it's almost but not quite at a boil, which is at the medium dial on the stove. To compensate, I cooked it a little longer on a higher temperature "until mixture is thick and rice is tender but still slightly chewy". How to define thick though? And more importantly, how long could I cook it before my thickness concerns gave way to overcooking the rice? To solve this, I just cooked until the there was a noticable increase in resistance when I stirred.
http://s227.photobucket.com/albums/dd41/nezumichris/?action=view¤t=DSCI0058.jpg
Trust me when I say it will take at least five runs through the dishwasher to get the purple out of the spoon. Another tip. Don't wear white while cooking this.
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd41/nezumichris/DSCI0059.jpg
So while waiting for the pudding to cool, I took a trip to Wal-Mart to buy some strawberries as a garnish. Yes, I know. Wal-Mart has terrible produce, but I needed some printer paper anyway. Well when I got there, they had grapes under the huge "STRAWBERRIES HERE!" sign, only one register open even though there were ten people in line, and the ATM reader had suffered numerous mishaps to the point where a manager had to take off the cover and poke around at the electronic coppery bits. Oh, and the fire alarm went off. I think that was God's way of saying "Don't waste your time. Staples is having a sale tommorow and Sunflower Market carries better fruit with less risk of food poisoning"
So yea. This is the finished product without the recommended berries. The stuff on top is chilled unsweetened coconut milk.
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd41/nezumichris/DSCI0057.jpg
Here's the problem. I like it, but that may be simply because I made it. I want to share with people to get feedback and improve on the next time, but if I give someone a bowl of black gloop and say "Well.... I *think* I got it right..." that may turn them off from the next time I make it, which would hopefully be better. Nick doesn't like coconut though, so my feedback is going to come from Joyce and whoever I can sucker in at work. Personally, I like it and I'm going to have a small bowl for breakfast tommorow, and maybe bring some for lunch dessert. I better get used to it, because it only keeps for five days chilled and one cup of uncooked rice goes a looooooooong way once prepared. . |
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| I hate the French so damn much.... |
[Feb. 9th, 2008|01:35 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | khaaaaaaaaan! | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Hungarian Bell Orchestra | ] |
So in my last post, I was going on about how awesome Brazil was. I ran completly over Bolivia, using them as a training ground for my military and racking up much prestige along the way. I even went so far as to almost completly annex them, stopping at making them a puppet state. They were my ticket to glory. Every victorious war (how can I not be victorious when I have a 30,000 strong army and they have maybe 900 guys?) brought me international fame and recognition, eventually propelling me up to thelikes of Great Britan and the US. The nice thing about South America, I thought, is that it's so far removed from Europe that I'd have no problems with the world at large. The Southern Hemisphere was my playground. I had even expanded upwards, taking apart the United Central American States, which historically should've dissolved into Guatamala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras a long time ago. I conquered it, then released the aforementioned nations as newly formed puppet states, leaving the UCAS with but two provinces to its name. At the time of the last post, I even was considering building a boat and going out to conquer Siam, Luang Prabang, or, if I was feeling really ambitious... Madagascar, Tibet, and Nepal. Nothing could stop me. I mean, i've got the 11th largest army in the world, 30,000 men strong. I may not have researched much (any) military techs because I'm too busy researching the arts and economy, but it's alright! I'm a Great Power by virtue of my prestige gained from all those South American wars! I'm cool, right?
Well as it turns out, sometime after the Papal States took over Ecuador, Two Sicilies took over the Italian peninsula and unitied Italy with the help of France. This of course drew Ecuador into the great Italian Unification War, which caused France to send a couple of guys out to decimate it, taking all of Ecuador's coastal provinces. Not too big a deal. It's Ecuador. Their army is pathetic. It's nothing at all like my awesome 30,000 man force! Right.... so France took a look at me, took a look at what I was doing to South America, and decided to put me in my place. Fine. I've got the 11th strongest army in the world. Victory is assured.
Turns out that once you get past the top 3 militaries in the world, there's a huge dropoff in quality. I guess that's to be expected when France has Machine Guns and Bolt Action Rifles while your guys are still working off Flintlock Rifles. 5000 Troops completly decimated my entire army, probably right before going on their croissant and wine break. Enraged, I mobilesed my population, putting a rifle in the hands of every able bodied man I could find. 500,000 conscripts.... all dead within two months. For every ten men i tossed at them, I took out one of theirs. In the meantime, the remnants of the UCAS were getting uppity and started taking over Guatamala. Since I was the Guatamalan's protector, I was drawn into the fray. Fine. Whatever. The UCAS can't do anything to me anyway.
Four months into it France has completly overrun my eastern half. They've conquered my capital, took everything ov value, and were just sitting around, burning things. Every now and then they'd send some more troops out take another province or kill some rebellious Brazillian partisans.
By six months time, with most of my people either dead or captured, the French offered me a proposition. In exchange for five valuable provinces, I would be free of the French menace. They'd go home, never to bother me again. All I would have to do is have my Prime Minister put on a tutu and sing the "I'm a Little Teapot" song in front of the French Court. Well, maybe not that specific, but they demanded that I "be humiliated in the eyes of the world". Really, I had no choice. Four decades of building a repuation of being a badass in the southern hemisphere, all gone within six months because I got greedy. In the end, the French busted me down from Great Power, on par with Great Britain and Russia (at least on paper) to barely surviving Independent Nation. My much vaunted military now is ranked 85th. Tibet is ranked 42nd. TIBET can, with confidence, make demands upon Brazil and be certain that they have the military might to make sure they stick. Think about that for a minute. So can, for that matter, Siam (ranked 70th) Nepal (53rd) and Hawaii (60th)
Oh. The UCAS have sent 5000 guys to my shore. They're slowly taking one of my western coastal provinces that I stole from Bolivia and I can't do a damn thing to stop them. Looks like they're making short work of my puppet Central American states too. Maybe it's not too late to cut them a deal and apologize? |
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| Should I bring the Pope a welcome basket? |
[Feb. 8th, 2008|03:06 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | victoria | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Tempe | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Jill Sobule - Don't Fuck With Me | ] |
For those who are unaware, Victoria is a fantastic strategy game that spans from 1836 - 1930. Pick a country, any country at all that existed in that time period. Your job is to guide that country to greatness. Mostly the game follows history. Spanish American war happens around the same time as the real one, Opium Wars and Hong Kong occur (I once stopped Britain from taking Hong Kong simply by drowning the british soldiers in wave after wave of poorly armed peasants. I don't think it was so much a victory as it was they suffocated beneath my milions of dead farmers.), etc, but being a game there's going to be some divergence from reality, otherwise it wouldn't be too much fun. In this instance, I'm playing a refresher game of Brazil. It's large, it's out of the way from the European powers, and the Bolivian army is a joke. I tend not to pay much attention to anything north of the equator. This, however... this caught my eye.
.....seriously? When the hell did the Papal States land in my back yard? Was I so engrossed with taking out Chile that I failed to notice the frikkin' Pope's personal army?
Also, I like how at a time when Brazil is on par with Great Britain and the US for popularity, has the 11th strongest military in the world, and has the Pope's summer resort nation as a neighbor, during all this time my scientists are fervently researching Realism. I wonder if the world will revert to normal when they complete it? |
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| Cooking tips |
[Jan. 29th, 2008|11:42 pm] |
http://www.cookinglight.com/cooking/cs/tips/article/0,14415,434754,00.html
Helpful addendum.
When heating, make absolutely certain not to forget about the stove completly. Prolonged heating will cause the bottle to contract like a shrunken head. Since the lid will no longer tightly cover the neck, honey will seep out of the bottle and into the water. While this does ruin the bottle completly, it does create a delightful honey aroma and thus can be used as air freshener in a pinch. |
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| My aching shoulder! |
[Jan. 20th, 2008|04:53 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | power sander! | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Tempe | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  content | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Vera Lynn - When the Lights Go On Again. | ] |
So... alot of stuff has happened, most of it I haven't really bothered to post on here. I just sort of got out of the habit when I originally moved out since I didn't have my own PC for a month, and never really kicked back in. There's the trip up here, my time on Nick's couch, my first day on the job, my soup arguement, my Chinese Food searched, the random dances at the fruit section, the mountain climb... so many things, but I'll get to those later.
I must say... I'm bored out here, and it's my own damn fault. For a long time I was bored because me and Nick worked opposing schedules, then I was bored because I was having to work so much overtime and so didn't have any time to actually do anything, and then I was bored because for a few months I wasn't allowed to work overtime and had no money to go do things with. The past year I've accomplished almost nothing, barely breaking even between all my little emergencies such as my kidneys and car blowing up.
I need to get out more, and I fully intend on doing so this next paycheck. I won't be having a winter bonaza shopping spree or anything, but maybe playing chess while drinking some moderatly overpriced coffee at some fancy pants coffee house, or trying a new resteraunt or movie once a week, or *something* that doesn't end with me spending $30+ on an outing. I may just try walking places other than the store. Point is I need to stop bitching about how bored I am while not doing anything to stop being bored. I finally am at a point where I should be able to afford basic entertainment now that I'm mostly caught up on medical bills. (car payments? Not so much. One thing at a time!) Doing things, meeting people, trying something new once a week. That's the ticket.
Somewhat on the same lines, even though this has been largely an uneventful year, I will say this about my stay. Considering that ever since I left Texas I haven't had to deal with a single drama llama in person, this place has been like a luxury cruise. No people complaining to me about relationship issues, about money issues, about this, about that.... Arizona is remarkably well adjusted, comparatively speaking. I've had two LJ "issues", the obvious one being the vegan thing and the hidden one being someone who damn near threw a fit my lack of comments on their page but, you know what? LJ drama is by far the stupidest of all drama. It's an LJ, read by maybe twenty people worldwide, most of whom will probably not ever physically meet one another. Get over yourself, move on with your life.
Anyway, so that's part one of my New Year's resolution. Get out and do things, damnit. Part two is I'll be writing something once a day. It may be a journal entry. It may be a rp wiki entry. It may be a snail mail letter. Depends on my mood. Point is I'll be doing something other than farming.
On a related note....
The next time a hardware salesman suggests something like "Well yes, you could do it that way, but we've got tools that're cheap and can get the job done in half the time! We've come along way since using a piece of wood and some sandpaper!" take him at his word, spend the twenty extra bucks, and get the damn powered sander. Especially if the salesman is your grandfather's age and sounds like he knows what he's talking about. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 21st, 2007|12:05 am] |
So I bought a book of Russian Fairy Tales. They're interesting but pretty brutal. Some of them aren't really fairy tales though. See below.
NezumiChris: This is a fairy tale?
[23:41] California James: ...what?
[23:42] NezumiChris: "Once a peasant shaved his beard and said to his wife: "look how well I have shaved" "But you haven't shaved, you have only clipped your beard!" "You're lying, you wretch, I have shaved." "No, it's clipped. " The husband thrashed his wife and insisted: "Say it is shaved, or I will drown you!" "Do what you will, it is still clipped." He took her to the river to drown her. "Say it is shaved!" "No, it is clipped" He led her into the water up to her neck and shoved her head in. "Say it is shaved!" The wife could no longer speak, but she raised her hand from the water and showed by moving two fingers like a pair of scissors that his beard was clipped.
[23:42] NezumiChris: ~FIN~
[23:43] California James: Hahaha, that's not a fairy tale.
[23:43] California James: That's a guy five hundred years ago talking about why his uncle went to prison.
Best synopsis ever. |
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