Self-control and a funny picture.

Be proud of me: here is a list of things that I didn't blog about today:

• the putrid throat chunk that dislodged itself while I was eating chocolate. Look at your pinky nail. About that big. One of the few things that actually disgust me is putrid throat chunks.
• almost losing two keys from my keyboard because of overzealous cleaning
• how my left ear finally got unclogged, after at least two years. That, or my left speaker magically started working again after a couple years. I'd be grateful for either.
  

Instead, I'll leave you with this gem, found on a random flickr account:


That would be a pigeon that got stuck trying to eat peanuts meant for the squirrels. And it's totally got that "Oh Shit" look on its poor squashed face.

I did something like that once. I was trying to get something out of a large clothes hamper when I was around 6 or 7. (I could probably still cram into it, it's that big.) And of course I fell in. It's both terrifying and humiliating doing that to yourself. And yet, if I were there watching myself, I'd laugh, for sure.

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Thank You Internets

Thank you for picking up gobs and gobs of websites so that, when you google my name in quotes, there are now two people with my name. Two. Apparently my sister has a common name, so she can be slightly anonymous. (Although her stuff tends to come up first.) PS, please bury that one page about that one group that did that one musical without obtaining the very expensive rights.

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Small Happy Things.

Did you know that the tango song used in True Lies is also in Scent of a Woman? I didn't. I remember the tango scene from True Lies, and murkily remember a tango scene in Scent of a Woman, but I hunted them both down (at the moment, Youtube has clips for both) and it turns out they use the same song. I like it when things click together like that. Even if it's just over a song that's so old it's probably in the public domain.

Bonus trivia: the song's lyrics are about a man's obsessions with horse racing and women. That's the stuff passions are made of, for sure.

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What's it mean when...

...I get all excited when I see famous people that shouldn't be important to me making cameos on TV? Stan Lee was on Heroes. John Hodgman was on Zefrank. I clapped and cheered when I saw both. But I'm not a comic book aficionado, and I haven't seen or read anything by Hodgman except for the Mac commercials, and something about hobo names. But seriously, this stuff is way beyond my brief middle school brush with trekkiness. (Although I did jump up and down clapping when George Takei showed up on Heroes.)

I suppose I got excited because famous people jumped onto a cool thing I like, but it's still odd. I'm not a geek, but I seem to follow the culture. Too much time on the internet, obviously.

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5-7-5 and a raspberry beer.

Back in January, when I went to visit X, we went to a bar and decided to write haiku. I had a pretty awesome beer that mostly tasted like raspberries (a Lambic framboise, for the record). We left them there for the bartenders to enjoy, but I was smart enough to copy them down for later. I don't remember who wrote what, but it was either me, X, or X's dude. The clever ones are probably X's. Enjoy!

X's cleavage wins
Life is better with old friends
Her boyfriend rules.

Commercial divers
work out a lot. That's why N
looks so good topless.

Chubs comes to visit
drunkenness and recalling
"dreamgirls" tomorrow

Tom Brady is hot
I am a football widow
Chargers kill the [can't read it was too drunk]

Now I'll add my scrawl
I'll leave this bar with fuck all
I drink too damn much.

There's a group of boys
behind us. Talking of
their hair. Damn pussies.

In between tonight
and tomorrow we drink late
in a lovely tone

their naked party
will not be co-ed at all
I fuck more than you.

(The boys talking about their hair also talked about having a naked party. They were pretty frat-tastic.)

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Everything on the internet is awesome.

I'm on another "everything is awesome on the internet" binge. (Currently lusting after sneakers in different bright colors.) Luckily, I don't splurge on internet shopping that often. Last week (hat, mixer, cd, books), was an exception. Tonight I found something fitting for Gwynwong:

Pointy!

Clawed ice tongs! Man, I almost think they're funny enough to buy for me. However, $42 is a bit much. Especially since I've only used ice tongs when alcohol was involved. Meh. But still pretty hilarious.

Today I drove back from LA, and stopped at Coronado beach. An excellent way to start a year. My sister's puppy is a-dor-a-ble, I'll post pictures later.

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Well dammit.

Today I got presents! Well, presents from me, and not in celebration of Valentine's day, but still, presents! I got the Cat Empire CD (only 10 bucks! recorded in Cuba!) and my giant kitchenaid mixer. Hooray! It's huge and heavy, and we were totally going to be friends and make molasses cookies, but then it decided to be all shitty.

(Here comes more kitchenaid obsession!)

Well, not that shitty. But the flat beater slightly scraped the bottom of the bowl, scraping the paint off the bottom of the flat beater. I think. I called customer service, and she listened to my mixer over the phone, and made me put a dime in the bowl to prove that it was doing what it was supposed to (all that metal on metal scraping just makes me cringe), and tried to convince me that it probably came that way or it happened at the factory. She was nice though, and eventually gave in and said she'd send me a new flat beater. Whee!

And then I mentioned problem #2, a nick in the electrical cord. The cord's thick enough, right? It's not a big deal, right? Wrong. Dam-mit. Those cords aren't detachable like they are on sunbeam mixers. So that means the whole thing's going back. She was pretty firm about that. I didn't even get to ask if I had a 90-day warranty like amazon.com said, or a year long warranty like the pamphlet says. But it's pretty hassle-free. All I have to do is pack up my old mixer, wait for a new one (a couple more weeks, sigh), and a few days after that, UPS will pick up the first machine for free. For free! Kitchenaid gets an A+ for customer service from me. The only thing I have to worry about is whether the next mixer is the right color and if it's louder than the first one (which, strangely, is an issue). Pretty great.

So, bye bye new mixer, glad we got to spend the afternoon together.

Didn't even get to name it. Bummer.

Edit:
Damn straight that's pistachio. I find it soothing in a retro way. Still don't approve? By the time I found the sale, the only other choices were white on white (no silver band), almond cream (off white), matte dark gray, screaming yellow, or assaulting tangerine. Bleh. I could've gone for the less powerful motor, smaller bowl model in Empire Red (it's beautiful, really), but then I'd have to pay $60 more. Ha. Ha. But that lower model has 24 different colors to choose from, which is pretty great. I'm curious, what color would you want?

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I left the house today!

Today I went downtown to Balboa Park because Tuesdays=free museums (on a rotating schedule). I went to the San Diego History Museum (they had a cute exhibit about Japanese Americans, presented by local student JAs) and the Museum of Photographic Arts (exhibits on women and the narrative in photography). I went to the arboretum and laughed at how huge the stag ferns are. Like half the size of my kei-car. Huge vegetation makes me laugh. Not stuff like trees or corn stalks, but things like pumpkins and, er, stag ferns. Abnormally large things. I guess that includes giant rabbits too. That thing is massive.

I also drove on a street that had a stop sign at this random point of the road. No intersection or crosswalk or anything. And then I pulled up to it, and realized there was a sudden, steep decline right afterwards. Lots of scrape marks at the bottom. It was roller coaster steep. I'm really glad I never came across something like that in Japan--my car would've shat itself.

The arboretum and a random building (museum most likely):

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In the neighborhood.

Up the street, while I was walking the dog, I noticed a well-kept lawn. Deep dark green. It was lush. I bent down to touch it, and noticed the blackness that edged the entire lawn. It's astroturf! Hilarious. It's so surreal. Check it out:

So lush!

And please notice the deep black *soil* edging the lawn...

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Too damn thorough.

It takes me forever to choose books. I don't want to just pick up any book. If I want to waste my time reading, I'll do that on the internet, thanks.) Probably not reading enough book blogs, or talking to enough literary types. (Although I do feel guilty about endlessly borrowing good books, thanks D and L.)

It took me about an hour tonight to find something I wanted to read on Amazon, and I ended up with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dance Dance Dance (Murakami's become crack for me) and a CD (The Cat Empire one). My brain is mush. I kept looking at reviews, feeling no interest, and clicking another poorly written recommendations list.

While I was reading Norwegian Wood, I was pretty paranoid. My grandmother asked about it, and I generalized as much as I could. Plenty of stuff in there not worth sharing with my grandmother. But a good book. I really need to get away from Murakami and his emptiness, but I just keep coming back. I'm reading The Elephant Vanishes right now. So far, seems lighter. The story I'm reading starts with kangaroos. Hopefully that's a good sign.

This is not good blog material, but I'd just like to prove that I'm still alive.

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Hey brain.

Let's keep this one straight:

Spike Jonze produced Jackass, and once dated Karen O.

Spike Lee directed Malcolm X and once tried to sue Spike TV.

Because for awhile, I was trying to imagine the guy who directed Malcolm X dating the girl from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Ack. Wrong.

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Getting fidgety.

Somehow I ended up on home and cooking blogs and I'm getting all itchy to organize things again. This is good. I need to tap this, get to work. Too bad it's 10:30 at night. That means laundry! But first, a quick post:

I made a list of things to do yesterday. I didn't do any of them. I organized my iTunes instead.

I looked at that list today, and finally decided to leave the house and get them done. (I tell you, it's dangerous when you don't have to be anywhere, ever.) I had four places on that list:

1. the bank
2. the pharmacy
3. the mall
4. Target

I even had it all mapped out in my head, how to avoid the traffic, blah blah. I made it to #3 no sweat. I was proud of myself.

And then I parked on the wrong side of the mall, and had to walk across the entire mall to get to the store I needed to go to. Oh window shopping, you're such a tease. I made it halfway and then I noticed that Macy's was having a 40% sale on their clearance shoes. Winter shoe clearance, hooray! Luckily not much was left (less browsing), and I thought I'd get out without buying anything. Ha. Ha. I ended up with a(nother) pair of brown, round-toed heels. I felt guilty because I already have a pair of brown heels I love, I never wear high heels anymore, I rarely leave the house...but then I did some math and said shove it to the rational part of my brain. They were cute, and $40 wasn't bad for a pair of shoes.

Then I went to the register, and got the happy ending:

Final total $26.77, including tax. 40% off clearance! And they were originally $80! (My brain is already scheming to hit up the more upscale Macy's around town.) Hoo-ray New Shoes! I clomped around in them tonight--they've got a small platform, perfect for clomping--and it felt great. Now I just need to find an excuse to wear them.

I never made it to Target (I wanted to walk my not-blind dog before it got dark), but I can always do that tomorrow.

[update: I went to another Macy's the next day, and that clearance sign said 40% off original price. I really hope that the sign was different where I bought my shoes, or that the girl who rang me up doesn't get screwed for giving me something like a 70% discount.]

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Well, I'm back.

Sorry, I thought I posted twice via email, but I guess they didn't make it. Here they are in all their mundane glory:

Feb. 1
I'm up at the grandparents' again, and it's tough thinking of things worth mentioning. I'll be back on Monday, hopefully with a better story. Just know I'm eating a ton of food, as always, and hanging out with family.

Current obsessions include Heroes, Ugly Betty, facebook, and (what I think are) Chinese-style sunflower seeds. Oh, and Betty Crocker chocolate cake. Now that's comfort food.


Feb. 2
So apparently, not only is my sister Ugly Betty, I'm the unemployed older sister. What's next? If I end up as a single mother, I'm suing.

Oh, and not that I've seen it yet, but you know Little Miss Sunshine? I totally had glasses like hers. Except mine were worse. Some of you might've already seen evidence.

And now baby animals are on Jay Leno! Eeeeee!

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Kitchenaid Lust.

[Summary: This post is about obsessing over Kitchenaid mixers. With lots of research links. Just to warn you.]

So I've been baking lately, mostly out of boredom. I've baked molasses cookies (that recipe) five times in the past month, and I'll need to find a new favorite recipe soon, because I'm getting bored with that fantastic spicy flavor. (Say it ain't so!) But since I've been baking, and that recipe makes a pretty sticky dough, I've become very good friends with two stand mixers, a Sunbeam from the 70's (Mom's) and an even older Sunbeam (Grandma's). Lots of coaxing and hand mixing, so the motor doesn't burn out. Grandma's mixer's on/off/speed changer switch no longer works, so you have to plug it into a power strip with a switch to turn it on or off. One speed only. We became very good friends.

So that explains why I've been obsessed with stand mixers. Today as I was procrastinating on the internet (I swear I'll get the car washed tomorrow!), I found a Kitchenaid that's on sale on amazon (sweet sweet amazon!), and told my mother about it. Even though I won't be moving out any time soon, she advised that I buy it. That's probably the longest, most interesting, and most civil conversation I've ever had with her. Over a kitchen appliance. (A lovely, calming, pistachio green one!) It's a step in the right direction, I suppose. I just found the whole exchange bizarre. Here I am, still unemployed, looking at a $250 stand mixer. That I don't need. I guess it's more practical than a pair of shoes, but still.

And just in case anyone else wants to benefit from my research, here you go:

Kitchenaid
Kitchenaid store (they really need both?)
America's Test Kitchen (a pretty good article--18 mixer test.)
Cooks Illustrated review chart (pdf companion to ATK)
Consumer Search reviews
Fanboy account of visiting the Kitchenaid factory

In a nutshell, Kitchenaid wins, hands down. Although they're pretty heavy. If you do bread a lot, a more powerful motor (pro 600) is better. The lower end Kitchenaids (classic, artisan) can handle it, but they kinda jump around, and take longer to knead bread. The artisan has a bajillion colors to choose from (Tangerine. Grape. And then the expensive metallics.) I'll stop there.

But honestly, it's like when you get a new car, or a trendy shirt. You start seeing it everywhere. I was watching Ugly Betty (I dig it), and her family had two Kitchenaid mixers. I always thought their family was supposed to be kind of poor (in one episode they couldn't afford a Christmas tree!), but if Kitchenaid pays for product placement, then I guess a struggling Latino family in the Bronx can afford two of 'em. Maybe they're refurbished. I hear those are a good deal.

Man, I should really look into that LJ-cut hack for blogger.

But wait! Pictures for dessert! I haven't abandoned my picture-a-day thing--although I've missed a handful--but I don't feel like organizing them now. Have some cookie photos instead.

Grandma's mixer. The piece of paper wrapped around the middle informs you that the dial doesn't work.

Batch #1. They're like a soft gingerbread. Or a gingersnap.
But with a big spicy punch.

Batch #3. Look how uniform and puffy!
I wish they always did that. So cute!

Batch #4. Not enough spice! But so pretty.

Grandma's scary old molasses. No one got sick, but still. OLD.

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Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu.

And Happy New Year to everyone else.

I'm back from the land of the dial-up modem and carefully deleted browser history, and doing pretty good. I read a good book (A Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami) and ate like a glutton. I made two batches of molasses cookies on my grandmother's surly mixer, one which turned out pretty and puffy, one which turned out mostly normal but without all the flavor. I really need to get this recipe down for consistency.

Plenty of other stuff happened, but I'll wait until I get my photos organized before I start posting the stories. You can get the other side of things from my sister (you know where she went, right?).

The new goal is to write 30 letters/postcards in the month of January. I haven't started yet, but that's incentive to write thank you notes for once. I stopped writing them because my mother made it torture, but I think I'm ready to behave like an adult (about that) now. Also, I ran across a pretty great how-to written by a respected internetter. It's pretty much the way my mother taught me, but of course it sounds better coming from an outside source.

Ah, right, and I stopped posting because I killed my computer's hard drive, took it in, had all the data recovered (sigh) and got it back. Remarkably easy considering how much it cost. But it was worth it. I hadn't backed up recently (ahem, ever), and there was a lot worth saving (to me). I got a comment about the amount of music I had (15 gigs, probably more), but bah on them. I like my music digital.

Stay warm J-folk, stay sane state-siders.

PS: Might be heading back north in a few days, which means no posts. Sorry for the teaser!

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Let's Celebrate!

I bought another pair of $20 pants! That were originally $80! Oh holiday sales, you're so great.

Other than that, not much has happened. A couple trips to the dentist (stupid inferior J-filling fell out), and some small errands.

Sometime this week I let go all the stress of Figuring Shit Out and just let myself float again. It's nice. Soon I'll feel that halfway terror of floating untethered, and I'll buckle down again. But I just might wait until after New Year's.

Happy Holidays, eat lots for me.

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Dinner at a Japanese Restaurant

Tonight we went out to a Japanese restaurant in town. Nothing fancy. I went there a few months ago with my dad. Here are my thoughts.

Points in their favor:
When we walked in, three asian people, they ask in Japanese how many people. Real Japanese people with a real Japanese kid (exclaiming about the scary goldfish) were eating there. Kirin on tap. Shichimi brought out when necessary. Pretty decent nigiri sushi. They even have natto. Edamame comes with the beer. An actual sushi bar, with the sushi guys making it in front of you.

Points for authenticity, while not in their favor:
They still play American pop music. Acceptable ramen. Japanese menu that I'm afraid to ask for, because I know I won't be able to read it all. The edamame was crap.

Points against them:
Poor ass udon. Lumpy California roll. Dragon roll on the menu. Disappointing gyoza.

I could go on, but in summary, good, but not good enough. Authentic, but the cooking is average. I could take (non-Japan) friends here, kind of order izakaya-style, and have a good time. They can order teriyaki chicken or fried rice.

But during dinner, this lovely topic came up. Here's a (poorly quoted, abridged) snippet of conversation concerning G's hair. I mentioned that it was longer before. My mother doesn't think so, but she never saw his hair in those first few months. Neither has my dad, but he had this to say:

"Yeah, he looks like Mick Jagger."

(Me:) "What? David Bowie, I'll give you that, but Jagger?"

"Yeah, like Mick Jagger" he says.

"Because he's skinny and it looks like he does drugs? Which he doesn't, by the way." I counter.

"He looks English. Is he?"

"His dad is from Seattle, his mom is from Montana!"

"He looks like Mick Jagger."

This whole exchange was hilarious. I even googled to see what Mick Jagger looked like when he was younger. Surprise, he still looks like Mick Jagger. If you squint, he looks like Matt Damon. But his head is still freakishly long. G has a small head! And that's かっこいい！(Really awesome supercool great, according to Japanese people.)

But the only way this photo resembles G is if you put your finger on the face. The hair actually matches, but why my father would know what Mick Jagger looked like in his high school basketball uniform, I don't know.

So thank you, passable Japanese restaurant, for provoking this conversation. Here's your parting shot, decide for yourself.

Can David Bowie even do that with his lips?
Does he even have lips?

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Look at me look at me look at me *TALK* to me.

Oh yeah, and comments are totally okay. The usual rule, no full names. (My name is on some random blog because some other girl asked if that blogger knew me. Good thing it's a clean blog.)

And Happy 1 Year to this blog! Yay! 1 year, two days, 102 posts!

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Rice Post!

My brain is stuck on research mode. After researching apartments and jobs and traffic and weather, my brain just can't let go. I try to distract it with other internet distractions (boingboing! zefrank! gofugyourself!), but it just keeps plunging ahead. I think I started with clothes, and then ended up on food. And the net is full of interesting things about food. For example, someone took the time to explain why fried rice needs to be made with leftover rice. And they even stuck in a few big words. It just struck me as funny, that it needed to be explained. (For once, we hit a topic that I comprehend--fried rice. I guess it's because I've grown up with it. Well, if you tried it, you'd probably consider it bastardized, but it's the way I like.)

On the other hand, I had to look up the difference between salted and unsalted butter, and learned that it all just comes down to control. I'm pretty sure I've looked this up before, back when I loved baking the same cookie recipe over and over and over again. (I'm still certain that recipe was terrible, even though I got requests for it. I guess I'll have to try and replicate it for L some day. She'd tell me if they were horrible, I'm sure.)

The goal for this week? Make molasses cookies. I think I've wanted to make them for a number of years, but I've always been too lazy to figure out what kind of molasses I needed. (Molasses=foreign to me. Back then, I wasn't even sure grocery stores in the suburbs sold it.) Well, thanks to research brain, I'm ready to go. This recipe requires freshly grated ginger and pepper. Awesome. I'll let you know how it goes.

Bonus rice fact! (from the first link)

Apparently, science says rice should be refrigerated an hour after it's cooked! (Or kept above 140F/60C.) One, I don't think my rice cooker kept rice that warm. And two, let's all pause to think of the long journey kyuushoku rice often has to make. No, thank you Mr. Scientist.

And one last thought: I had a Rubio's fish taco combo tonight, and the sodium is killing me. Swollen feet. What the hell? I'm not that old!

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Bake me a cake.*

On relocation: It's really quite baffling to have so much information available to me. Like just now, I wanted to know where the Costco in Seattle was. And two seconds later, I knew. Two seconds! Not 30 minutes of googling and translating and digging through broken Japanese websites. Yes, it'd probably go faster if I were more proficient in the language, but that doesn't help a broken or outdated website.

Current freakout: I can't go back to grad school. I have no letters of recommendation, and no reason for any professors to remember me. I skated by with a letter from my boss that worked in the library. Can google help me there?


*This is post 100. Pardon me for not landmarking it.

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