jazzyfox vox

It's election season again, although I don't really think it should be yet. Hell, it's not even a year out and it already takes over the news.

What really disturbs me is this trend of putting your primary earlier. While I have no problem with states doing their primary when they want, it is the reasons behind the date bumps that really make me wonder what happened to the electoral process (or if it was ever good, really). The latest thing I hear on the radio is that Michigan wants to have their primary two weeks before the usual first run, Iowa. Why? So that politicians will pay more attention to them.

At this point I'm not sure who to be most upset with, the politicians who aren't in it to actually improve the country but just to get the votes, or the states who are essentially saying "me me me, I'm more important". It's a sticky, intertwined situation. I think I lean more towards the politicians.

Aside from this, it was pretty cool to hear that the Democrats did a debate on Univision. But being politics, the dumb side was that even the candidates fluent in Spanish had to answer in English and have things translated.

I haven't really cooked for a while.

The first time I took a rather long break from the kitchen it was due to nearly slicing the tip of my finger off. I think after that incident I stuck to frozen meals with dull edges for a good six months to a year. Currently though, I've just been lazy, tired after work, or I see the complete mess I let the counters become and just say "screw it".

But this week I've cooked, like, twice.

We get frozen pre-prepped meals from one of the meals-to-go places. Fresh ingredients, you just go to the storefront and do all the preparation there. They chop, slice, divide, and cleanup. It's like having a sous-chef. So this week I pulled out the salmon we got and broiled that with the sauce it came with. Something soy, a little sweet. I think there was brown sugar in there.

Anyhow, leftover rice from that. Rather than let it become sake in the fridge I decided I would pick up some protein on the way home and use leftover "salad confetti" consisting of carrots, radishes, cabbage, celery, broccoli all chopped into small pieces. Thus it became fried rice night. The last time I remember making fried rice I was probably 15 and burned my thumb on the fry pan.

So, yeah, it feels good to cook again.

What words make you giggle (no matter how old you are)? 
Submitted by Margurette.  

Not so much a word but a phrase: "wankel rotary engine"

I don't know why, but it always makes me giggle, on the inside, usually. I can't think of many single words that do the same.

Did you order Girl Scout cookies this year?  What kind?

I haven't ordered them in a long time, but this year I got approached by one of the office ladies to buy some from her daughter. Apparently, according to Ash, it's pretty rude to go actively soliciting for something like this versus just putting a signup sheet in a break room. I can really see where that's coming from too; even though I didn't feel pressured at all, it does give that kind of impression.

But, back to the topic at hand, I ordered what has become fairly usual for my cookie orders. Samoas and Thin Mints. Normally I am not a coconut person, but the combination of flavors in Samoas is really really good.

My new knowledge this year is of frozen thin mints. I have never until now even known that people freeze them! At first I was a skeptic, but now I agree with Ash. Frozen thin mints are really really really good.

Book: Show us a book you started reading but never finished.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Douglas R. Hofstadter

Candy Jar

Across the hall from me is one of our QA workers, one who spends most of his down downstairs in the lab. On his desk he keeps a jar of candy with a lid. I'm fairly sure that there are some Jolly Ranchers and other items in there that may interest me. Every time I leave my office during the day I see the jar and I think to myself "I might like one of those". So far I have yet to sneak anything out of the jar, but the thought gnaws at me rather often.

Everyone has their little crimes, the ones they long to commit or the ones they have.

When my mother would take me grocery shopping I would always make sure to lag behind a little bit as we passed the Brach's candy display; the one that has the big buckets of a variety of items from gummy bears to waxy chocolates and gumdrops. I think I must have been no more than 10 at the time, but she did catch me once, it was the last time that I ever swiped candy out of the bins. There is nothing more embarrassing to a young boy than being told at the register by your mother to give the lady a dime for the candy you ate.

I also have a couple of rather big, heft margarita glasses. They are the kind you get at a mainstream Mexican restaurant, full of a lime green frozen margarita swirled with some sort of fruity juice, the rim crusted with salt. These I didn't steal, my friends (who shall remain anonymous) fit them into their purses to bring home. I'm not sure why I ended up with their spoils, perhaps because our apartment had all the liquor. For some reason I'm loathe to get rid of them, even though they are rarely used. Perhaps it's a little bit exciting to say "Why, yes, I did get these from On The Border."

Lastly, my newly enjoyable seasoning is the Melting Pot's offering for your salad; Garlic and Wine. This one I don't feel bad about, not in the least. After all, our server did say "We sell it for $5, but if I forget to pick it up off the table, oh well." Permission, at last! It rode home in the sleeve of my jacket. Still, when I see it with the rest of the spices I have to admit to myself that hey, I cheated a bit for that.

So that's how I've cheated the system, at least, the ones I remember most.

Show us your pet making mischief.
Inspired by cattymcattums.

Cat on a Tightrope

1 comment

What method do you use to prepare your coffee or tea? 
Submitted by AgentBouche.

I hardly drink coffee, and never make it myself. There has never even been a coffee pot in any place I've lived. At work we have this rather expensive, fancy, fully-automatic cappuccino machine. Put cup under dispenser, push button. It makes cappuccino, espresso, cafe au lait, coffee, steamed milk, and I'm sure has some other functions. When I get a drink from it, it is usually a cafe au lait with two shots of the Irish cream syrup. Enough flavor and sweetness for me.

For tea, I have this lovely gadget I got from Adagio Teas that they call an ingenuiTEA pot. Essentially a plastic pot with a hinged lid, you put your loose leaf tea right inside, then add hot water to steep. Once it's done, set the pot on top of your glass or pitcher (for iced tea) and it pushes up a plunger at the bottom, allowing the tea to drain out. There's a filter there to keep the leaves in, so it's as simple as can be.

At one point I had (have, somewhere around here) a "tea for one" mug with an inner liner to contain the leaves. You would pull that out and the tea would remain while the leaves got removed. Unfortunately the little slits at the bottom always got clogged up with leaves and it didn't work very well. I think if it were a whole mesh filter it might be better.

Heeeeeeaaaaalp!

About a month ago I noticed that the carpet around our cat sustenance station was soaked. Thinking it was perhaps a leaky, needing to be cleaned fountain I went and tore it apart, cleaned it up, and set it back down again. Problem solved. Well, no.

Sage seems to have always enjoyed drinking the water by shoving his paw under the falling stream then licking it all off, so I figured it was just gradual build up from that, and there wasn't much to do about it. Then I realized the water resevoir (75oz) was getting emptied in two or three days. Hmm, didn't my friend say hers lasted two weeks between cleanings?

One morning we catch Sasha in the act. She's taken to literally digging in the water bowl, splashing it all out over the edge and making a rather huge mess. I got a new waterbowl, put it on a towel, and just figured it would keep things down. But they still get water all over the place, and we can no longer walk in the kitchen with socks on.

My latest attempt is a giant 2 foot square tub that is meant to go under washing machines. We put the water bowl in the middle, haven't attempted hooking the fountain back up, and last night it seemed to be fine. I don't think we can stop them splashing the water, but might as well contain it.

This morning I find out that on one side of the tub the carpet is really wet. Our cats are managing to splash water from their water bowl, out of a giant plastic tub, and onto the carpet. I told Ash I'd give them a prize if they managed to do it, but I think I may have made too bold a statement there.

Is there anything else to do? Argh.