Wha?

Ming Tsai is a contestant on The Next Iron Chef.  This boggles me as:

a.) He competed on The Iron Chef as a challenger.  (He beat Bobby Flay!  I just learned this via a search on the google.)

b.) He starred in multiple tv shows, since pretty much forever.

I haven eaten at his restaurant, Blue Ginger.  It was delicious.

Five Weak Excuses For My Silence

So, um, I haven’t been posting much lately.  I’ve started a few posts, but haven’t gotten around to finishing them yet.  Here are five poor excuses for my silence, along with their debunktion.

1.) Oh, I am so busy!  I started a new job and it involves all sorts of new job-y stuff.  Yeah, a new part-time job.

2.) I am searching for other jobs AND studying to open educational opportunities. True, but I am doing those things when I’m not frittering my time away.

3.) Oh, but I am so tired!  So tired!  So tired!  LE TIRED.  Sounds like time to better strategize my coffee and soda opportunities.   While I am an eight hours per night person, there are sixteen other hours each day.   I work little more than sixteen hours per work.

4.) Nothing exciting is going on.  This is different from usual how?

5.) I’m hungry.  Great.  How many food-related posts have I started?

Shameless Plug

Like most people, I have friends whose writings are enjoyable to read.  One of them, Sliced Bread, is (back) in the blogosphere and I’m pretty pumped up about it.   She’s a total foodie, by both hobby and profession.  I highly recommend checking out her blog if you are ever hungry and/or bored.  Check out her blog by clicking on her handle above or on my blogroll in the sidebar.

Canine Candidate for Mensa

Along with most of my friends (and a heck of a lot of strangers) I read Hyperbole and a Half.  A couple of days ago the blogger posted regarding some concerns she had about her dog’s, um, intellectual abilities.  She made me laugh – hard. 

Today I visited Not-My-Dog (but wish he was and hope to borrow him again soon) and told my buddy/his owner about some tests to determine dog intelligence.  Obviously we had to test Pup’s capabilities.  Beingst that he (Pup) was THE STAR of Petco Puppy Preschool, we were pretty confident that he’d rock out.  

I wanted to post the video here directly, but that’s $60/year, so yeah…

You can view the brilliance here

Television Viewing

I don’t enjoy not being good at things and I am not good at watching television.  It seems like an odd thing to fail at, but I’m actually good at failing at it.

I invested some free time in practicing watching TV, and as a result am less bad at it.  I mostly watch sports, news, “news,” cartoons, and cooking shows – i.e.  commitment-free TV.   The commitment to a program is where I struggle most.   (I do have a DVR, but it is still a time issue and is also not the same.   Spoilers make me angry too, which does not help.)  In terms of programming that requires a commitment, I’m making progress with ”The Next Food Network Star.”  I definitely have my favorites and sort of wish it was the sort of show that allowed viewers to call in, except for the part where that would change the show.

We’ll see how it goes.   I figure if I don’t make it to the end, eventual commercials (or the internet) will inform me as to whom wins OR I can joyfully live in ignorance where my favorite wins and a bunch of confetti and balloons drop around her.

Bottlecaps Candy “Care” Packages

As referenced here and here, I recently made some packages for a couple of my friends.  The nearly identical packages took me MONTHS to complete.  It required over 100 (beer) bottlecaps, which you know, is a lot of beer – roughly a cap for every pound that I weigh.  I saved my bottlecaps and also collected them at some parties, as though they were favors.  One of my hosts even gave me a Ziploc to bring them home in, as I was wearing a dress which lacked pockets.    

A couple of my friends and I are big fans of Bottlecaps candy, mostly because it is delicious.  Here is what they received:  

Finished Products

  

 Here is the process of their creation:  

Free Rice

I remember when the website Free Rice first launched.  I was prepping for the GREs, and while I am a total whore for flashcards (1/4 of a 3” x 5” index card, definition on the LINED side – I’m not neurotic at all!) it was a good way to shake up my studying and please my inner Lutheran.  At ten grains per correct response (nobody eats when I select the wrong answer) I could spend significant amounts of time “bettering myself and the world”…in a world where scurvy runs rampant.  Anyway, I played on free rice for awhile and then lost interest and momentum – while taking night classes, I discovered my undergraduate major is not my passion.  This realization made re-evaluating things more prudent than taking the GRES.

I recently targeted my career goals and the steps necessary to reach them…returning me to the land of to GRE prep.  We have a family tradition that the “kids” always receive books and to say that my father was thrilled when I asked for GRE prep books this year is an understatement akin to “Santa maybe, sort of, might enjoy a cookie or two.”  He sure received free shipping from Amazon with that order.  In addition to the books, I decided to see if free rice was still in existence.  Holy smokes, not only is it still in existence, but THEY’VE ADDED SUBJECTS!  The chemistry does nothing for me, nor does practicing the German I don’t speak, but world capitals and country placement?  Yipes, stripes – yes, please!  I think I’ve provided a village somewhere with carbs for a month.