everything's coming up millhouse

i hate to tempt the fates, especially so close to the lunar new year of my people, when i'm sure the fates are just WAITING for you to slip up, get comfortable with your situation, actually allow yourself to be taken in, just a little, by the glimmer of hope that is the refuge of the incredibly naive or insane - before BLAM-O! out goes the rug from under your feet and your chin is striking the unforgiving surface of life's parquet flooring.

anyway, in spite of all this, this is what's going well for karl lagerfeld, esquire at the moment:

- i found out today that i'm the recipient of the mr. paul chan po sum & mrs. rose chan memorial scholarship. i think it has something to do with being chinese, getting good grades, and going to library school. i contacted the registrar for information on the family of mr. and mrs. chan so that i might send them a small token of my gratitude, but unfortunately, the registrar doesn't have this information available. thank you very much, mr. and mrs. chan, i appreciate your generosity and wish you and all your family all the best.

- the remainder of my UTAPs money will be arriving in my hot little hands shortly

- i got my grades for last semester: A, A, A+, A+, which is my best showing in library school yet! nary a nasty minus sign marring my lovely alphabet starters to be seen. i probably attended the least amount of class yet last semester, so it must be a winning formula.

- i really really really love my job. i had one of those "gee, i really love doing this" in-the-moment moments today, and i got a little hype, i must say. i love how my job is meaningful, and i love how it's restoring my faith in democracy. you'd be surprised just HOW many people go to their local government representative with their personal concerns. it's pretty effin' awesome. that's what they (the govs) are there for, and i'm here to help them. i feel so useful! and it's so INTERESTING answering the questions. 

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the next morning, young lagerfeld awoke to face the outcome of her peacock preening in blog drafting the night before

well, the fates got me last night. i have to admit, i gave them just cause...i was feeling rather invincible. so invincible that i convinced myself that ordering a medium tuscan sausage (hold the green peppers) stuffed crust pizza was a good idea last night at 10:30pm. that's right. 10:30 PM. eating three slices and going to sleep shortly thereafter plus my happiness at my life was a sure-fire recipe for the fates to gift me with a heart-pounding, fitful-sleep-inducing, nightmare-ridden night, and moreover, to wake up feeling like the proverbial business end of something with a disproportionately large a**. ugh. why does stuffed crust taste so good going down, but makes you feel like death warmed over the next day? ah well, life is too short for regrets. i'll probably make the same mistake in five years (the absolute minimum before i order stuffed crust again).

my nightmare was crazy. my family was being pursued by some deranged serial killer, and we were holed up at my parent's house up in markham, while the serial killer roamed around outside, putting christmas lights up in the evergreen trees that border our backyard (!!!!). he was kind of fat, with lank, chin-length dark hair, and very, very pale...basically like your standard-issue late-high school goth. anyway, we were all freaking out because the christmas tree light-establishment was taken as this horrific portent of impending doom and our grisly demise. we called 911, who informed us that they would be there shortly. while we anxiously waited, i made molotov cocktails (to lob at our attacker, presumably) and attempted to cajole my outlaw bro to come into my mom's room so that we could barricade the door. however, he was being all rambo about stuff, and was sitting in the room he and my sister usually occupy on their visits here, polishing a baseball bat, thinking that he was going to take down the fat goth and be a hero about it. when the police refused to show, i called 911 again, only to find that the line had been TAPPED by fat goth! i looked down on him talking to me in the backyard as the horror at our increasinly desperate situation sank in. then the scene switched to me sitting at a table in the backyard with fat goth and some other dude, and fat goth was basically humouring us and toying with us by making idle chit-chat, knowing full well that soon he would do what fat goth serial killers do - dispatch their victims. somehow the idle chit chat turned to talk of the tv show lost, which gave me an avenue to profess how i gave up after a few episodes of season 1 because i didn't buy the whole polar bear thing and that it was bunk.

then i was awoken with my heart pounding by the insistent pressure of my bladder, full from washing down said stuffed crust pizza with two giant glasses of water in a bid to circumvent the effects of heart burn. i think the dream represents a few things: a) that stuffed crust right before bed isn't a good idea and b) that i really dislike the show lost and fail to understand its' appeal and c) that i associate fat goths with those things i dislike (in this case, the show lost).

tonight for dinner i'm making a mushroom, port and chicken liver spaghetti with a caesar salad. that's provided that my high work load and pms don't conspire to convince me that the better option is really delivery or fast food something or other.

fin.

skunky la rue

another short post as i've got another mother of a day today. and i was informed yesterday that i'm basically not going to be getting any more formal training sessions as we're so insanely busy, and that i'll effectively be "trained on the job". this has pros and cons. pros: no more falling asleep! cons: working on live questions! but i'm not going to bore you with tales of my workplace and how i spent half an hour last night (sneakily waiting until everyone else had left the office, of course) to practice and re-record my voice mail message about 10 dozen times.

in other news: there's a skunk that's taken up residence underneath our back porch. we knew he was there, we tolerated his presence, we had established a mutual policy of ignoring each other, and it was working out rather well (it's analagous to my relationship with geddy lee from rush - we just go our separate ways). then two nights ago, he had to go and drop some stinkbutt on us. and while i don't necessarily find skunk spray overwhelmingly repugnant (less offensive than say, rotten eggs or oysters or too-strong perfume, or b.o), the sheer stink-to-air saturation point and the speed with which this air-colonization occurs is a little off-putting. so i've put in a call to the landlord who will commence eviction proceedings sometime this weekend. serves you right, geddy lee! i mean, skunky la rue.

dinner tonight is more lasagne. i'm quite taken with it. my usual begrudging resentment at eating leftovers isn't coming to the fore as much. but i'm also waging war against captain pms - which means i REALLY want to be eating a wendy's baconator stuffed inside of a burrito made out of popeye's fried chicken skin sauced in packaged gravy.

fin.

ummm...wow

okay, so i didn't actually listen to the aforementioned clip before posting it...i figured a live version of "big empty" would be hot, right? considering that all the other offerings on youtube are either spliced together homages to brandon lee in the crow, or like, someone doing a poorly-edited video mashing up scenes from sin city and the song and posted by "grungelord74", i thought i'd play it safe with the live version.

but damn, son...he's mad pitchy, dog!

suffice it to say, the tune rocks. nuff said.

fin.

big empty

won't have time for a proper post today, but this is my new (again) favorite song.



fin.

this post is brought to you by the letter "p"

tonight i'm having a friend from high school over for dinner. we COMPLETELY lost touch when we both graduated (me a year early because i fast-tracked) and i've probably seen him a total of 2 times (enough for a "hi, how are you" and that's it) in the intervening 10 years. his name is paul, and through the magic of facebook and us having friends in common (there's considerable overlap with his crew and the dotytron's highschool crew), he suggested we get together while he's in town. you'd think that i would meet this prospect with considerable trepidation, but we met up with him when we went to see a movie (the other "p" in the post) on saturday with my friend deena, and i remembered how genial and personable he is. he's really easy to talk to, very engaged and engaging, and all in all, i'm glad that he's kind of come back into my life (although for a brief time, as he works in south america - for the last 3 years in guatamala, and in a few weeks, chile).

that's the big thing i like about my friend deena, too. both her and paul and 99% of the people that i'm drawn to and take onto my limited roster of "friends", all tend to be really confident, self-possessed people, who have a really good sense of "who" they are. i don't like it when people don't have a sense of who they are, because it tends to bleed into other aspects of their personality, and tends to be really palpable. anyway, the point is: i think the fact that paul is so cool and chill and easy-going and down with who he is, means that i can see him being a long-term friend and i'm glad he's back in my life.

we also watched the movie persepolis on saturday. it was fantastic! the drawing style was fluid, evocative, stark, and expressive and supported the narrative beautifully. some of my favorite parts were when marji was a young girl, as the character is spunky, rambunctious, and seems real in a way that dakota fanning only wishes she were. it's a really poignant coming of age tale, made all the more urgent by the historical elements woven throughout. we in the west are so inundated with one dimensional depictions of countries like iran and china that it's very difficult for even the most left-leaning liberal not to construct stereotypical straw men to bolster our political ideals. from our padded, cushion splendour in the decadent north, it's really easy to think that we would never do what others do, or allow to have happen, not understanding the massive upheaval that prolonged war can induce and the myriad factors that allow certain political forces to hold sway.

------

dinner with paul was a success! everything i suspected about how the evening would unfold was true - that is, we spent 3 hours talking like we've been holding weekly salons for the past 10 years...and nothing escaped us...the nature of death, ourselves, politics, travel...it was stimulating, funny, and everything you want good conversation to be.

i made this little BATS salad (Bacon Avocado Tomato Spinach - just kidding...i think all these restaurant attempts to use acronyms to play on the BLT concept is ridculous "BALTA" "BETS" etc)...that consisted of baby spinach, crispy bacon pieces, red onion, chunks of plum tomato, and croutons, dressed with a light, lemon-mayo dressing. delicious. the veggie lasagne also turned out really well. it was made with "fresh" (prefab) pasta sheets layered with a butternut squash and mascarpone layer, then a spinach and gorgonzola layer, topped with a parmesan bechamel.

now i'm doing homework. i'm reading these fabulously catty articles for my sociology of culture. this woman, wendy griswold, used reflection methodology to talk about the differences in "national character" between England and America as reflected in late 19th century novels. then we read a letter to the journal that initially published the work savaging the piece...one of the critics said it [the methodology]: "consigns itself to vacuity and inconsequentiality if it accepts the project that reflection theory recommends. But this is the very theory and project that griswold would like to exhume, tart up, and put back on the streets" (!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ahahahahaahahaha). i LOVE the cattiness and snippiness of academics. "the tenuous of the argument is matched only by the hubristic self-reifying rhetoric that griswold employs in a painfully transparent attempt..." <-- i just made that up on the fly, but that's the general gist, and it also goes to show you that if you could make an academic career out of savaging others, i'd have it MADE.

tomorrow is a long day. i packed leftover lasagne and a crapload of fruit and i have some mixed nuts for dinner. i'm also going to venture into the law library to work on my first assignment. snooze.

fin.

disaster...averted!

but it was a close call. i defrosted the frozen roast overnight and into yesterday afternoon, hoping that that would be sufficient time to let it get to room temperature (i always try to roast from room temperature, or at least warmer than fridge temperature), in time for an expected 2 hour cook (8 lb roast @ 15min/lb for medium rare). at 4:30pm, as i finished rubbing the outside of the roast with salt and pepper (and my new innovation - rosemary that i blitzed in the coffee grinder to a fine dust), i slid in my digital thermometre and hit a chunk of resistance (read: icy centre) in the very middle of the roast. aiiiieeee.

as the read on the thermometre plummeted to -2 (with an expected final temperature of 120[medium rare]), i queasily threw the roast in the oven, hoping for the best. one hour later, and the temperature had climbed to +2. things were NOT looking good (considering that i usually throw a roast in with an internal temp of 20 degrees or so). bwong came over, and we both fretted over the temperature for a while, as i unburdened myself to him and stewed in my eternal shame. we both thought that the roast would start off slow, and then gain momentum - that it wasn't a steady incremental rise in relation to time (this is actually the case, generally). after an hour and a half with bwong there (total time now, 2.5 hours in the oven) - the temperature read 25 degrees. at this rate, we were going to be eating at midnight. our machinations became increasingly frantic. we thought about turning all the clocks in the house back half and hour to an hour to mislead our soon-to-arrive guests; we turned the inexorably, pitilessly stagnant read on the digital thermometre away, to spare it the piercing scrutiny of our pathetic attempts to will it into action; we considered butterflying the roast, deep frying it...anything! our oft-repeated denial-based statements that the roast would be done in time, to leave things to the fates, were a cruel mockery of the reality of the situation. finally, as things were reaching a frantic, fevered pitch of desperation, i screamed, "bwong, what are we going to DO!?!????" and he, equally fevered, pushed to the breaking point by a recalcitrant icicle of a hunk of beef, pointed at the thermometre and blurted out, "i don't know! switch the temperature away from celsius!??!?!!", and as those words fell from his lips, our eyes both moved, aghast, to the smug, indifferent themometre. we were indeed, waiting for the meat to come to 120 CELSIUS, and it was sitting at about 27 celsius, which, when you click the switch on the back to make it read in farenheit, is actually a perfectly respectable 88 degrees farenheit. phew. can you IMAGINE if we had waited for the roast to get to 120 centigrade? it would have been charcoal!

the dinner went off swimmingly. we had a small problem with my oven smoking up (my fan isn't very effective, and my oven has all kinds of gaps and holes in it for some reason, and they release a lot of the smoke from whatever is cooking in there). which meant that we had to open doors and windows and consequently, some of the veggies were cold. boo. and the yorkshire were slightly leaden. but the roast and the sauce were delicious (bwong made the sauce and it napped the meat and potatoes beautifully). my pumpkin cheesecake tasted divine, even if the sour cream topping pooled a little bit in the centre of the cheesecake (i'll have to give the cheesecake a bit longer in the oven next time - before adding the topping).

today is a homework day, and i think i'm going to drag my ass out to the law library (ugh). then dodgeball, then home. for dinnie tonight i think we're going to have roast beef, avocado and swiss melts with salad. and leftover pumpkin cheesecake!

fin.

sensual seduction

oh man. yesterday was a gong show. it started with me coming home, having to bake a cheesecake in an hour, and having like a minor breakdown because when i walked in, the dotytron had left all kinds of lights on, and had gone grocery shopping and hadn't put stuff away properly, and wasn't tidying up after himself. i'm only human, i'm doing a LOT right now, and he only works for like 2 hours on fridays (teaching his class). so i BLEW UP! and left a message on his phone, detailing why i was pissed, as i scrambled around simultaneously making the cheesecake, and cleaning up after a mess that **i** didn't make.

so i figured he would check his messages, come home, say sorry, and all would be forgiven. he steps in the door, and hadn't checked his messages, so i kind of lay into him a little bit (not yelling...more "stern/displeased" voice). then he gets pissed at me, because he doesn't like coming in the door from work and dealing with my shiz. which is valid, but the thing is...THAT'S WHAT I WAS SAYING. i don't like coming in the door, after a full week of job and school, and having to deal with someone else's shiz. so whatever...just a petty little domestic squabble,

dr. rei come over, witnessed some of the tension (she's family now, so it's all like, whatever) and we talk about it, and it's cool. basically, some people JUST DON'T THINK LIKE THAT, and i happen to live with two of them. two people who magically think that the kitchen floor sweeps and mops itself, and that there's ALWAYS SOMEONE THERE IN YOUR LIFE to remind you when our garbage day is (after three years!!!) and WHICH garbage day it is, and think that a home-cooked, constantly varying, balanced meal just APPEARS out of thin air each and every night. there are people EVERYWHERE who blissfully capitalize on the fact that there's people like me and dr. rei who DO these things. it's like the invisible domestic help or something. anyway, so whatever, it's fine.

ANYWAY, before we leave for the night, i know dr. rei is coming over to sleep over after the show, so i tell the dotytron: "can you please get out the blankets and spare pillows and put them on the futon for dr. rei" and he goes, "right now?" and i say, "no it's okay, we gotta go, just make sure you do it before you go to sleep"
SO, when dr. rei and i walk in the door at 2:30am, there's NOTHING on the futon. not only that, but the throw pillows and stuff that are always in the living room on the futon ARE GONE. so not only did he NOT do what i asked him to do, he NEGATIVE did it. there was LESS there than when we left the house!!! (he had taken the pillows downstairs to lie on the floor to watch stuff on his computer). then, when i go into the room, and just kind of exasperatedly tell him (not angry, just rollseyes): "dude, you didn't set up the bed for dr. rei," he says THIS: "you didn't tell me to" !!!!!!!!!!! and ladies and gentlemen, THAT'S why i've got to be a hardass. you give the dotytron an inch, and before you know it, we're living in a flophouse eating beans out of a can warmed over a candle.

hotpot with my mom was awesome. she was on point last night (being really funny) and hotpot is always stupid good...except i forgot my camera! boooo. suffice to say that we ate lots and lots of thinly sliced meat and meat-related products.

the show was also awesome, though not as good as the last time i saw tittsworth. there wasn't as much bmore as when i saw him last winter at crosstown, and he played some banging' house stuff a la the jokers of the scene. however! tittsworth is looking hella fine lately. i think he lost some lbs...he's hotted up bigtime. it was also amazing being there with the k-w-g crew, whom i love. they just radiate good vibes.

i was going to go to the law library today, but i think i'm going to stay home and do homework here, and nap a bit, because i woke up at 8:30 this morn. i'll go to the law library tomorrow and do my tomorrow homework today. i'm having my friend d and bwong over for dinnie and then we're going to see persepolis. in case you're not as detail-oriented as i and didn't notice, i've started notating titles with italics, as per academic style. it's not because i'm putting a stress on the word, even if that's how it looks. it just seemed neater than encapsulating titles in quotation marks. the dotytron's nany and popa do the cutest thing with quotation marks. when you get a birthday card, the hand-written portion will read - "happy birthday" love nany and popa. i'm guessing that they do it like that because that's what they're saying to you, but in written form, but then it always gives us a laugh, because the quotes kinda makes it seem like they're being snarky about it. "happy birthday" "merry christmas". haha.

tonight for dinner we're feasting! we're having prime rib, rubbed with rosemary, jus (aka gravy), smashed baby yukon gold potatoes roasted in duck fat, yorkshire puddings, broccoli, and roasted brussel sprouts. AND the aforementioned, breaking-point cheesecake (pumpking cheesecake with brown sugar sour cream topping) for dessert.

p.s. this is the dotytron's favorite musical thing in the world right now - snoop's sensual seduction. he didn't go to tittsworth with us last night (he hates bmore), and i like to think that he spent the night playing this on repeat. it IS all kinds of fantastico. snoop + voice box/vocoder + 80s production + talking about making sweet love to a woman = AWESOME.



fin.

culture round-up!

i saw juno tonight. in a sense, it's almost a victim of its own success, in that the audience we shared the movie with was laughing at stuff that wasn't funny...because i suspect they knew they were supposed to be laughing, as opposed to the jokes earning it. the beginning of the movie starts poorly, with screenwriter diablo cody (whose presence in the pages of my bible, entertainment weekly i wholeheartedly DO NOT endorse) filling the characters lips with lines like, "honest to blog?" or "phuket, thailand" which are cringe-inducing in their attempts to seem quirky and precocious and teen-y. the thing with diablo cody is (and as her editorial column in entertainment weekly indicates)...she old, son. and like, old in the way that's not as hep and kicky as she'd probably like to be. her frame of reference is old. not unacceptable, parent old. but like, douglas coupland-striving-for-relevance old. and it kind of comes off as forced, like when you see those faux-librarian types with pink hair at 39 competing in roller derby in olympia or some other fog-encased liberal west coast clime, their bust magazine clutched in their retro-revival kittenish hands.

the movie settles down after that point and unfolds quite nicely. it's cute and funny, and i liked it oodles better than little miss sunshine, which tried to pander to every age group's heart and succeeded in being mawkishly sentimental in the nouveau-quirk way that is wes anderson's tragic legacy. nice cameo from the cut chemist, and jason bateman is great. ellen paige deserves the kudos she's getting (certainly more than keira knightley ever has). the supporting cast is fantastic all around, and the chatty self-conscious banter settles down and becomes more normal. here are some things i wish could be changed:

*SPOILER ALERT*


- just once, i'd like to see a character go through with the freakin' abortion. just once. and i also suspect that jason reitman is a neo-liberal conservative in the libertarian kind of sense (bolstered by the individualistic attitude of thank you for not smoking).

- i wish that this film, like knocked up didn't have to rely on the tiresome dichotomy of the "baby crazy, responsible respectable woman" and the "juvenile man-child who's painfully attempting to recapture his youth".

- i also wish that the film hadn't inserted the vague sexual tension between juno and jason bateman's character. it just wasn't called for, and seemed excessive to the story.

- the pete bjorn and john "young folks"y intro should also be scrapped. we get it! you're talking 'bout my generation!

finally, i worry about the longevity of michael cera's career. kid is damn funny...but can you be a 39 year old awkward boy? isn't that kind of gross? i do love him though.

i finished reading david sedaris' naked, which means that with that, barrel fever and holidays on ice i'm officially done his non-fiction oeuvre. i've tried reading his fiction works, but i find they lack the verve and acerbic pucker of his family and menial-job based recollections. i can't recommend david sedaris enough. i've picked up zadie smith's on beauty, but after sedaris, it just doesn't pull you in the same way.

for dinner tonight we went to the bloor street diner (in the manulife centre), where i had a perfectly respectable burger and fries, and calamari. the food is a step up from the average, and i was surprised by the quality.

now i'm beat. tomorrow is a big day: work, then hot pot dinner with my mom, the dotytron, and dr. rei up in markham, then back downtown for the tittsworth show at wrongbar, where i get to dance alongside my k-w-g and toronto crew. fun!!!

fin.

at the office...

ah well. i ate leftover steamed chicken, rice, chinese sausage and dried mushroom stuff from last week. then i have class...i really really REALLY want to leave early, but i'll probably stick it out. it's weird...just as i'm starting to feel like i'm really getting the hang of this school thing - being prepared for class, doing my readings, getting assignments in on time, being organized - in like, 12 weeks, i'm going to be done. it makes me want to keep going, because i feel like i've developed this momentum...like i'm really hitting my academic stride.

tomorrow is another long day, so it'll be pretty quite round these parts. i'm working and then having dinner and seeing juno with some of the peeps from work, and my friend h and her dude. i don't know where we're going for dinner. i suggested cluck, grunt, & low only because i'm a perennial sucker for bbq. but the other option on the table is 7 west cafe. i've never eaten there either. we shall see! maybe i'll pack my camera to take some pics of the food, just to liven up the scene around here.

fin.

answer me that...

last night was predictably hilarious as per usual. this time we all made a concerted effort to remember the funny that transpires when me, the dotytron, dr. rei and bwong are in the same room. notable moments include:

- dr. rei pumping her fist into the air and shouting "IRAN!" when passing reference is made to washed up, former wwf superstar, the iron sheik.

- an extended bit about craft-matic adjustable beds involving lots of pantomiming

- a discussion about how i could fly a plane. this is an extended debate that i've been having with anyone who'll listen for longer than i'd like to admit...basically, i'm of the belief that i can a) do anything i set my mind to b) that flying planes is a learn-able skill (ergo implying that it can't be that hard).

- a spin-off conversation about the olympics and how much they suck. bwong seems to feel that it's because there's no sense of scale. he thinks that if, alongside the olympians, you had a regular, semi-athletic person competing in the same challenge, you'd have a better appreciation for their innate skill. this then turned into me saying that some olympic challenges aren't that hard (substantiated [as per usual] by nothing stronger than my innate belief that nothing is that hard). this then turned into a conversation about how the luge is one of those sports (my opinion) and how you don't train that hard to compete in the luge. the dotytron disagreed, as did the roomie. at which point i referenced, to bolster my argument, that timeless french classic, cool runnings, as well as the fact that people who compete in the luge don't have anywhere to even practice on the regular. which led to me dropping the choice line (delivered with textbook karl lagerfeld, esquire, exasperation and emphatic hubris): "where do lugers practice then??! answer me that......F**KERS."

we narrowly lost to my boyfriend's dodgeball team last night. that's right, i said boyfriend. the captain of this really fun, motley team is my not-so-secret crush. the dotytron doesn't seem to mind. what he DOES seem to mind is the fact that in my giddy boyfriend-induced euphoria, i tend to forget that my boyfriend can catch like a mofo, and i tend to lob balls at him and subsequently get caught out. my boyfriend doesn't look anything like my current paramour, which just goes to show you that i don't really have a "type" per se. he's kind of stout, has a close-trimmed beard, and tasteful-diameter plugs in his ears (like me!). he's like a big teddy bear.

tonight's dinner was effin' bomb. it was spaghetti, with chilis, chives, white anchovies, garlic and toasted breadcrumbs. I LOVE WHITE ANCHOVIES. my campaign to get the cafeteria at work to always stock white chocolate macadamia nut cookies seems to have worked, as they were there today after a 3 day absence (my campaign consists of me standing woefully by where the cookies would be if they hadn't been usurped by less tasty [and considerably less enticing and consequently, revenue-generating] brownies and squares of an indiscriminate flavour, until one of the cashiers notices me, asks if she can help me with anything, and thereby gives me a forum to put my 2 cents in). i LOVE FORUMS FOR MY OPINIONS (see: long-winded and self-involved blog).

tomorrow is a long day. i'm packing the last of the moussaka, some creamed cabbage (we've got a serious leftover backlog in the fridge), and fruits. we're having a staff tea tomorrow, and my old supervisor is doing some baking. whoopee!

fin.

too damn cold (and the WIRE!!! --> AT LAST!!!!!)

it was just too damn cold to contemplate leaving the house last night, so i had the foresight on my brief mission during the day, to go to rogers video and snap up all the dvds for season 1 of the wire. before i begin the now de riguer, pop culture, viral, critic rhapsodizing about how the wire is the best show on television, let's get the food talk out of the way. the chilaquiles turned out crazysexycool good. my dining companions have already put in a request that it be put into the rotation on a more frequent basis (considering i have a rotation of about 3 years' worth of dishes before i have to repeat, this means they want it within the next year or so). instead of simmering the corn chips in the chorizo salsa mixture, i just crumbled them into the bottom of the bowl and spooned the sauce (with the 3/4 cooked egg) on top so that they stayed fairly crisp. i ended up using up these bananas that were on the verge for dessert. i made a banana pudding and topped it with sugared and bruleed banana slices. so on the bottom of the ramekin are nilla wafers, topped with a vanilla-speckled custard, then slices of banana that i dusted with sugar and went at with a torch.

sunday breakkie this morning was based on a clean-out-the-fridge scenario. we had a red pepper, spinach, zucchini, and cheese curd frittata with peameal and toast. and a beet, apple, carrot, ginger, and cucumber juice.

today is homework, dodgeball (where i'm sure everyone is going to be playing extra gingerly) then we're visiting the chief (chris) at his gf's where he's recuperating, then bwong and dr. rei are coming over for dinnie. we're having milk braised pork, mustard spaetzle, oven-roasted broccoli and apple crisp with vanilla custard sauce.

okay...now on to business. the wire is FLIPPIN' AWESOME. i know, i know, you've heard it before. everyone is saying the same g-d thing. but it's true! the gestalt is true! (and by true, i mean, i agree with it, as opposed to the gestalt over say, "csi: poughkeepsie") the characters are so rich, and the paralleling between the legal apparatus and the criminal apparatus is captivating and sociologically dense. it manages to be bleak and instructive at the same time and disperses the audience's sympathies evenly around almost every character (who all rock). current favorites (we're at episode 4 of season 1) are: bubbles (the crackhead), mcnulty, lester, d'angelo, the little drug runner kid in the pit with the braids, avon barksdale, kima...gah!!! there are too many to name! i want to write a paper on surveillance and the show. (according to the dotytron, i'm always just looking for ways to write papers about whatever i'm currently watching on tv - the other contender for my rapier-analysis is a dissection of male machismo and colonial travelogue dialogs in anthony bourdain's show, no reservations).

anyway, the writing on the the wire is just top flight. it shows the cyclical nature of the american war on drugs, the losing battle against entrenched poverty and ghettoization in the states, the co-construction and co-dependence and the diffuseness of power between law enforcement and the elements they're trying to keep in check. everyone has vices, the whole game is deeply political and tied to economic, technological, social and cultural forces beyond the scope of their immediate task. it's also great because i have family working various levels of law enforcement in the states, so it gives us a better idea of the jobs that they do. like, right now, mcnulty is having some kind of torrid fling with rhonda, the baltimore d.a. since there are so many characters, it's hard for us to keep track of names, so it helps us to say stuff like: "mcnulty is the one who's sleeping with ___ (insert my outlaw bro's name here)" or, "see, the fbi, that's where ___ (insert my sister's name here) would come in".

it's also hella revealing about the nature of us, the people watching it. in the first episode, the gang ordered the death of someone who snitched on a dealer. this is how the post-show commentary went down:

dotytron: "i need a beer and i have to go pee"

the roomie: "i really think d'angelo is going to be redeemed and get a conscience and straighten his life out"

me: "if i were avon barksdale i wouldn't kill every snitch. i'd keep it random - let some live and some die - it would be a more effective deterrent because you'd always be living in fear"

i also find that i'm the most likely out of the three of us to sympathize with the way the gang leaders think/operate. i admire their level of organization and their industrious can-do attitude, and lines like this (uttered by avon barksdale) really resonate with me: "if we killed him, we had a reason. and if we didn't kill him, we had a reason, and it's not for you to know" i love the simplicity of the logic!

in less light news, this poor guy who works in one of the grocery stores in chinatown east (just west of where we live) got shot at 6pm, in broad daylight, caught in the crossfire of some stupid shiz. a hard-working chinese man, going about his business. it breaks my heart. ESPECIALLY when it's chinese people, because i have a soft spot for my own people, and like to transpose my experiences onto theirs...somehow, the fact that they're chinese somehow makes it easier to do that (though no less an irrational and impossible attempt to bridge the experiential divide). it's always one of those "there but for the grace of ___" moments. i don't know what's wrong with people, when innocent bystanders get caught at one of the busiest times of day and a highly trafficked corner. if i were in charge of the justice system, when i found the shooter, i'd make them LIVE with the bereaved family and let them stew in that guilt and walk a mile in that poor victim's shoes. we were talking about it the other night, and the roomie suggested that a more fitting punishment would be to make the shooter live with me. I'D PUT HIM TO WORK ALL RIGHT. that guy would be so busy being productive, he wouldn't have time to get himself into that kind of nonsense. he'd be harangued into a state of good behaviour.

fin.

you know what's the worst?

last night's dinner was AMAZING. i took some egg tagliatelle, boiled it up to al dente-ness. meanwhile, in another pan, i shredded (read: my handy-dandy japanese mandoline shredded) two heads of radicchio which i sauteed in some olive oil with some chopped garlic. i added about 3/4 of a cup of bagna cauda, and tossed it with the tagliatelle, a VERY runny fried egg and a shower of parm. hoooooooo. that be some tasty grub. for those of you who don't know, bagna cauda means "warm bath" in italian and it's a sauce made from anchovies. the basic ingredients are like this: 1 stick of butter, 1/4 c - 1/2 c. of olive oil, a crap load of minced garlic (which you heat up in the butter-olive oil mixture over low heat, until fragrant), a crapload of minced anchovies (which you add to the mixture and warm over low heat after the garlic is fragrant), the zest and juice of a couple of lemons, a crapload of freshly ground black pepper. it's delicious. i adore the stuff. it's very versatile.

we've
started working our way through firefly. love it. freakin' love it. joss whedon really sharpened up his game after 7 years of buffy and i don't know how many of angel. it's so good! his characters are so endearing, and it's made me love nathan fillion even more than i did after waitress. i love his voice and it's such a great, noble-but-flawed-but-flawed-in-all-the-best-ways character (it's like spike from buffy but different). i love le whedon because his writing is so funny. funnier than most so-called comedies on tv. it's so dry, acerbic and sarcasmo, which is my family's trade. i'm going to be sad when it ends though.

today is a homework/reading day. i think we're going to try to see the late show of cloverfield tonight. my brother called me from the theatre he was at last night saying that every 20 minutes, someone was leaving the show because they were so dizzy from the hand-held camera action (or as my brother called it - cloverfielded). let's see whether j.j. abrams deserves the hype.

for dinner i'm making chilaquiles. chilaquiles is a traditional dish (usually served in breakfast) using freshly fried (though more often than not leftover) crispy corn tortilla chips, mixed with a some kind of salsa, usually with leftover pork or chicken mixed in and maybe an egg. i'm doing mine with chorizo, and a guajillo sauce (you take a dried guajillo pepper, soak it in boiling water for 10 minutes. when it's softened, blend it with some crushed tomatoes from a can, and maybe a chipotle in adobo, and add it to your onion-garlic-chorizo mix in a saute pan with some cumin, coriander, or other spices to your taste and cook it out), topped with a poached egg, drizzled with sour cream and chunks of avocado. i can't decide if i'm making a dessert or not. maybe i'll make some cookies. the dotytron's class requested gingersnaps. i kind of want to make either a pumpkin cheesecake or an apple crisp with custard sauce.

fin.

taking care of business

wow. my distance course is like a glorified self-help session taught by an amalgam of every susan powter-tony robbins-celestine prophecy-wielding-juice-guzzling-secret that's marched across oprah's lap and bilked poor rubes of thousands of dollars of their hard-earned money. it's about "advocacy and library issues". the professor takes GREAT PAINS to impress upon us that she expects "graduate level" work and that advocacy has to be substantial and researched, otherwise it's just "cheer-leading" and then she has us do "passion" exercises and "courage" exercises and post on this trite little message board a "personal story - what do libraries mean to you?". which for some reason, means that everyone in my class takes this as an opportunity to talk like they're all little orphan dyslexics with half a leg and that by entering the hallowed halls of libraries, they were absolved of their sins (or something to that effect...seriously, one person wrote that the library was "the church of my belief") - i don't even KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! and I'M the one who used the terminology "heavy metal rope chains". gah! it's so banal. at least when a class is in person, i can just not listen. but no, i get marked for participating in the discussion thread and thus have to wade through all this pap.

the good thing is: i cooked myself a nice little dinner tonight. we had chicken breasts, dried shitake mushrooms, and chinese sausage steamed in a flavoured soy sauce, on top of steamed rice with steamed baby shanghai choy in a spicy soy marinade. delicious!

okay, back to advocacy.

fin.

from the mouths of babes

wow. sometimes i ain't so smart. i think (i know) i actually used the terminology "heavy metal rope chains" in the last post. what the crap am i looning on about? how are you people still reading me? although, is it possible to have a metal rope? or does "rope" by definition imply some kind of natural, fibrous
substance?

wikipedia to the rescue! according to them, rope = fibres, which means me = dummy fantastico.

you can't win them all. i'm feel a tsunami of stress starting to take me over. mainly because i was finally granted access to the online material for my distance course and it SEEMS like a lot right now. lots of video lectures and exercises in workbooks and contributions to discussion threads online. yikes. last night, i was at work til 8pm, because i had to participate in a "teleconference" at 7pm, so i figured i might as well stay and do it at work where i run the risk of less temptations in the form of taped episodes of "project runway". teleconferences are DUMB. especially, class-type ones. i'd rather collaborate on a wiki...at least you aren't FORCED to listen to dummies from around the country blather on about something stupid that you don't care about. on a wiki, i can scan and discard. with a teleconference, i HAVE to listen in case my name gets called and i miss out because i'm too distracted watching old hall & oates music videos on youtube. anyway, i'm feeling a little stressed because i have like, 2 hours of video lectures to slog through just to get caught up. but it's manageable...i'm just feeling anxiety because i haven't done it yet, and it's a big thing waiting to be crossed off my list.

i was also a giant dummy in my sociology of culture class this morning because i'm not so up on my sociology, and as faithful readers know, i'm kind of dicey when it comes to actual quantitative analysis of anything. it's not my forte. so we read a bunch of introductory articles that kept talking about how culture is "autonomous" and how it should be "opposed" to the technological, economic, etc (as opposed to marx, who posited that culture lags behind the economic imperative). my thing is this: why should ANYTHING be autonomous? they're all imbricated in each other (society-economics-technology-and all the other isms and ologies), so why try to make a case for separating out any one of those things? anyway, the end result of my poorly phrased and worded questions was that me = dummy fantastico.

it definitely has not been a red letter day.

in other news, why is everyone blathering on about "atonement"? since when is keira knightley considered an actress worth considering? it's such academy-bait that it's sickening. ugh. hoity-toity costume pieces with clipped british accents is NOT my idea of a transportive film experience.

tomorrow i finally get to go home after work and cook. yay!

fin.

my school is effed up, part 688383995062

because i'm doing full time work and full time school, i decided that one of my courses should be a distance course. i signed up for one called "community informatics". i have no idea what it's about, but it was offered by distance, which was the primary stipulation. classes started last week, and i ramped up my school email usage to daily checks to make sure that i wasn't missing the introductory email, getting to know you, syllabus delivery, assignment and grading expectations spiel that usually heralds the beginning of a new course. i was greeted with a resounding silence.

since my life is currently being lived in carefully calibrated and fixed slots of time which are as interrelated and co-dependent as the global stock exchange, or subway traffic in tokyo, any one thing that veers ever-so-slightly off course can mess up my schedule and royally f**k me. THAT WILL NOT BE ALLOWED. when friday rolled around last week, i bit the bullet and contacted my registrar, asking what the deal was, as i hadn't heard a peep from either my faculty OR the professor for the course. the response? "__ has emailed the prof and when she hears from him she'll get back to you" doesn't anyone else think it's ludicrous that the onus is on ME to get the ball rolling?

fine, i can kind of deal with that. even if it does show a startling and appalling lack of organization. on monday (yesterday) i receive an email from the prof that says that the class is now being offered in 2 consecutive weekends of face to face sessions. friday, 1-5pm, saturday and sunday 9-6pm. at this point, having all the ammunition i needed, i unleashed a torrent of outraged, indignant, strident emails that were nonetheless coated in an excruciatingly saccharine, facetious verbosity (my specialty). i emailed the dean! the vice-dean! the registrar! the vice-dean in charge of student affairs! the professor!

it's patently ridiculous though. how could you CHANGE THE COURSE times after the first week of class had already started? the reason people take distance courses tends to be because they don't want/have time for face to face interaction. how could they NOT inform the students until one of the students decided to take matters into their own hands and initiate some kind of dialogue? anyway, i made them switch me into another distance class that was full and had closed enrollment. there was no way i was taking no for an answer, though!

the end result is now i'm taking a class on "advocacy" which means i have to sit around work and skip another class, so that i can be available for a teleconference session. wack!

in other news, i submitted injury reports for my two players online to the committee that hosts our dodgeball league. i received an email from one of the administrators along the lines of this: "hi karl. thanks for submitting the injury report. it seems like you reported a broken arm twice with two different names. can you let me know WHICH player broke their arm for my records? thanks" whereupon i had to sheepishly email back that i had in fact gotten it right and two of my players had broken their arms and that no, i wasn't beating them with heavy metal rope chains and that there were witnesses to attest that i never touched them. i feel the stink of culpability staining my every communication with the league, like how parents must feel when they bring their kid into emergency with some stitches and have to face the accusatory hawk-eyed glares from the broody nursing staff. yikes.

i packed leftover veggie lasagne for dinner, but the moussaka and the giant white chocolate macadamia nut cookie i bought from the cafe in the basement (i've had a weakness lately for white chocolate macadamia nut cookies) has made me quite full. i'll save it for night class tomorrow.

fin.

soljah boy up in it

okay guys, i know something awful, weighty, and terrible that is dampening my spirits and subjugating my usual cheery industriousness under its conscience-busting lead blanket of guilt and recriminations.

*deep breath*

I DID IT. i think i dropped a bomb yesterday during dodgeball that so unhinged the team, it resulted in us losing two of our finest players for the duration of the season. it started maybe a game or two before the fateful incident. me and dr. rei were standing next to each other, waiting for the game to begin, when out of nowhere, unbidden, i started singing to myself. softly, practically a whisper, i uttered the melodious refrain: "convict. music" i should have known that you don't bring akon into a respectable sporting event. and so marked the beginning of my denouement.

the second act of this tragic tale of sordid depravity (to rival the gothic literature of poe himself!), begins in the following game, when dr. rei, perhaps inspired by my pitiful weakness, began singing the enormously popular ditty, "crank dat" by soljah boy. having just learned something terribly true about the song and the genesis of its' chorus, i was compelled - nay, FORCED! - to unburden myself to my fellow teammates. "do you know what 'superman that ho' means?" who could resist such a tantalizing gambit? certainly not my teammates, their fortitude and shining moral character notwithstanding. why, oh why? why did i tell them what i knew about superman-ing that ho? for those curious - and, dear reader, i entreat you to muster the strength to keep your curiosity at bay! - but should you find yourself, as weak as i, then the urban dictionary will have the hideous answer you seek. the reaction was immediately apparent. dr. rei's mouth gaped open, faces blanched, there was confusion and consternation to rival a un general assembly meeting...and i cannot but think that the mass hysteria and destabilization instigated by my revelation resulted in the clouding of the minds of my fellow team-mates, culminating in poorly made (though, given what i have just told you, completely understandable) decisions by minds beset with thoughts a-foul.

on the plus side, irish feast went really well on sunday. the pictures say it all. i'm especially pleased with the turnout on the creamed horseradish cabbage, and the bread pudding.i usually think that the amount of bread called for in a bread pudding is NEVER enough for my projected appetite, so i end up plusing up the bread, and keeping the custard the same. FOOL! this time i followed the proportions exactly, and what emerged from my oven, all golden and burnished and puffed and proud, pimpled with chopped pecans, like a teenager squiring his first girlfriend to the senior dance? this little beauty. which was pushed into the stratosphere by the benediction of some whiskey toffee sauce. soooo tasty.

i foolishly entered into the "great moussaka challenge 2008" against my old supervisor at work. i'm toast. we were supposed to eat my entry last night and the challenge was supposed to take place today at lunch, but because i spent the better part of last night at the hospital (side note: spending time at the hospital with a crew that consists of chris the chief, his lady, bwong, dotytron, dr. rei, aaron, and maria is probably the most enjoyable way of whiling away waiting room eternity there is. we learned about the weather, and geo-science, and dissected the wounds of our compatriots as omens. for good or ill - tbd), dr. rei, the dotytron and i ended up eating dinner at all you can eat korean bbq. which was AWESOME. but put me into a meat stupor. anyway, tonight i cooked the moussaka. here's my entry. ground lamb in a spiced tomato sauce, layered with grilled eggplant, sliced potatoes, and topped with a parmesan bechamel. we'll see.

tomorrow is my long day.  

fin.

dodgeball: season 3 - the aftermath

*** this post is dedicated to my bff chris, and my team-mate, wilson, both of whom are on the injured list as a result of tonight's game ***

tonight's game was F**KED. way more f**ked than anything i've ever witnessed at any sporting event (recreational or otherwise) ever. EVER. it was our first game of the season, we were pumped, we were in prime shape, had a good 15 minute warm up, and we started to play. our opponents were good, but we were playing amazingly well, and were winning from start to finish (final score: 13 to 4 for us). near the end of the game, chris is behind me, throwing a ball, and i heard a terrible, quiet but distinct snap. he IMMEDIATELY walked off the court, holding his arm. we were still in the middle of play, so i played out the game, and on the sidelines, they were figuring stuff out. as the match ended, it had been decided that bwong, our sub for the evening, would take chris to the hospital. it was freaky, but we started the next game. not 10 seconds after bwong and chris had walked out the door, i heard another, terrible snap. this time, it was wilson, who ran off the court holding his arm. NOT TEN SECONDS AFTER. bwong and chris were STILL IN THE PARKING LOT GETTING INTO BWONG'S CAR. i had thought that wilson had just dislocated his shoulder. we finished the game, somehow winning, and then went to the hospital to visit them.

at the hospital, we waited for two hours. chris was called in first. he got an x-ray done, and wilson waited out in the hall. after wilson got called in, we waited for an additional half hour, then i went in to see chris. his x-ray was up on the screen. HE BROKE HIS ARM. BROKE. HIS. ARM. right above the elbow. i could see the horrible fissure, almost all the way through the bone. the doctor was understandably, baffled. apparently he asked just what kind of ball chris had been throwing. was it a medicine ball? oh no. it was a ball that probably weighs half a pound, that's marketed for ELEMENTARY SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN. they might have to put screws in his arm! screws! apparently because it's so close to the elbow, that makes it even more dicey. chris tells us to leave, so as i go to the emergency room waiting room to relate the news, maria, another team-mate who's in there with wilson, comes out and tells us that wilson ALSO BROKE HIS ARM. THE EXACT. SAME. INJURY. less than 30 seconds apart.

if that's not effed up, i don't know WHAT is. later on, as i'm finishing dinner with dr. rei and the dotytron, i get a text message from maria that someone else from dodgeball had just come into the hospital with the same injury. which makes THREE BROKEN ARMS FROM DODGEBALL IN ONE NIGHT.

we're all pretty shook up about it. that's crazy! are you, my interweb audience, appreciating how MESSED UP it is to have 3 exact same injuries from playing recreational dodgeball? i can't impress this upon you enough.

so let's all wish chris and wilson a speedy recovery.

fin.

opposite of bummer!

my class time works out so that i can take it! sweet!!!!! some other poor sociology schlubs got screwed in the process, but really, i wanted it more than them. one poor girl actually piped up in the first class and said something along the lines of, "ummm...i have a question...i'm a little intimidated by this class because i've never had anything to do with culture before" a thousand daggers through mine heart! it was all i could do to restrain myself from exuberantly jumping up and proclaiming, "but you LIVE it!" i didn't want to show all my cards on the first day. my all-consuming love of culture will be revealed in due time. also, i can't feel that badly that i, a sociology interloper can take the course and people who actually need the course for their degree got the shaft, because this is the course that's going to give me the forum to be the next (and better) chuck klosterman. for those who don't know, chuck klosterman (pictured above) is a widely published american journalist whose work frequently focuses on popular culture. he's published several books of his collected works, with such boringly obvious titles as, "sex, drugs, & cocoa puffs" *yawn* MY opus, on the other hand, would probably be entitled, "fatty carmichael strikes again: true tales from the life of an industrious pig" or "lucky buttons ain't what she used to be: true tales from the life of an industrious pig" or "kate bush always sounds like she's naked in a forest reaching out to you: true tales from the life of an industrious pig". i think i deserve his job because MY thoughts on popular culture are ever-so much more insightful and funny than his. he takes cracks at britney spears, and he's probably one of those poor sods who deifies radiohead *yawn*. i'm above such things...and i've proven to be astoundingly adept at predicting trends and nailing cultural analyses before my time. unfortunately, my audience thus far consists of dr. rei, the dotytron, my select few friends, and my family. but they know! i'm first on the ball!

anyway, for my paper for sociology i'm thinking of expanding on my theory of diplo as neo-colonialist cultural thievery corporation, who preys on the "exoticness" of the other. we'll see how far i can take it. this is a pic of me and the dotytron on new year's eve at jack astor's, taken by my friend bwong. look at how good my good side looks! it's a smooth criminal. i wish every pic ever taken of me could look that good. blurry, overexposed, and good side = photogenic me. every other conceivable permutation of lighting/megapixel/camera configuration = good googly moogly me (where googly moogly is considered something bad).

when i picked up my paper from my food course prof yesterday, she handed my paper back and stressed that i have to keep writing. that the world needs my voice, especially when it comes to food writing. i kind of feel the same way. but i don't know that i'm driven enough for large-scale world domination to chase greatness like that. i'm way more into the day-to-day. when i'm done school, i'll probably delve deeper into food scholarship and see whether i can cobble some stuff together for submission. i mentioned that i was looking forward to reading this book on foodies that she and her husband (my soc. of culture prof) are writing to be published by routledge. then she asked me if i would be willing to help on that project! WOULD I? routledge is THE ultimate publisher of cultural studies and theory. THE! so, if it all works out, i'm kind of indirectly being published by routledge! what a feather in my butt! hopefully it works out...i'd love to work on the project in whatever capacity i could.

last night was loads and heaps of fun. i love my k/w (and guelph!) crew...and my friends' apartment on the west side almost makes me consider moving out there. roncesvalles is a sweet neighbourhood. kid sister was hype, but there were some things to mar the evening. number 1 was jokers of the scene (who played just before kid sis). i HATE jokers of the scene. they blow. it's not even good party tunes. check out some samples here. who listens to this crap? seriously? it shows you how bad they are that when they "unexpectedly" dropped some late-era shite jungle tune, i seized upon it like it was a new episode of battlestar galactica, dropped amidst the barren wasteland of network television during the writer's strike. then there was a wee problem with the lack of dancefloor etiquette from the crowd. we had staked a claim for most of the evening, and then, shortly before kid sister came on, a group of kids bum-rushed the stage and i had to deal with sweatosasurus rex and his STUPID KNIT CAP (which i don't need mythbusters to tell me exacerbated his sweatbotness by a factor of ten billion), and his stupid sunglasses-at-night wearing gf doing inappropriate couples swing dancing and bumping me. so i got the sharpie elbows out and was elbowing and pushing back. i told off the guy once, and he left, but he returned later. it all came to a head and culminated in me telling the girl: "you have to get the F**K out of my face"
girl (head tilted back, moonily gazing rapt at some lighting fixture in the ceiling, her voice, a qualudes modified affected drawl): "whhhhhhyyyyyy"
me: "because you're sweaty and disgusting and you've been in my space all night and you need to STAND THE F**K DOWN"

i may be a petit poussin, but i've got the spirit of the world's mightiest game cock, and i think i scared the bejezus out of her, because she made herself scarce and didn't return. i had had ENOUGH!

kid sister was too crowded. it was fun, but i had more fun hanging with my crew, and i think i had witnessed the pinnacle kid sis show at the fool's gold tour in the fall with dr. rei, so this was a little bit of a letdown. i'm SUPER hype for tittsworth in two weeks, because he's a little lower pro, and i don't think it'll be as crowded, and i won't want to stand up close, cuz he's just a dj, so i can find space to dance. listening to the winter mix i linked above is making me so hype!!!

tonight we're having a dr. rei and bwong night. we were going to see "there will be blood" but there aren't any late shows, so we're going to watch "last of the mohicans" instead. in honour of daniel day-lewis (who, according to my bro is morphing into timothy dalton at an exponential rate) and his crazy method acting preparation style, i'm making an irish themed meal. we're having corned beef, horseradish creamed cabbage with breadcrumbs, broccoli, and garlic mashed potatoes. for dessert we're having a pecan bread pudding with whiskey toffee sauce. i might consider altering the irish theme by adding bananas to the bread pudding.

fin.

potential bummer

my courses just refuse to settle down! so i show up at "sociology of culture" at the appointed time yesterday (4pm, class is supposed to run until 6pm), only to find that the prof that is supposed to be teaching it, has taken emergency medical leave. bummer. replacement prof, is the husband of my sociology of food prof i had last term, and he sat in a few times, and i like him. opposite of bummer. then i find out that the course time conflicts with his schedule, so they have to move it to wednesday morning. bummer. i make arrangements with my work to see if i can go to work, leave for a bit to go to class, and then come back. it turns out to work out to me being gone the same amount of time as when i was being let off early to make it to the afternoon class. opposite of bummer. the sociology chair has narrowed down the replacement course time to two potentials: wednesday morning or thursday morning. the ONLY time i'm not allowed to have a class is thursday morning, because we have these super-important reference meetings and if i missed them all, i'd be out of the loop. bummer. the chair is going to hear back from everyone, and whichever slot results in the highest enrollment, they're going to keep. something tells me that i'm going to lose out, which means not only do i not get the course i've been looking forward to more than anything, i also have to scramble to find another course i want to take. bummer!

why can't things just be easy? you know what's easy? clam linguine with pan-roasted grape tomatoes, parsley, onions, garlic and white wine. and a spinach salad with avocado, more grape tomatoes, and red onion in a red wine vinaigrette. very easy. dinner in 30 minutes easy.

you know what else is easy? this scarf from this dude's site. it's a one-skein project, knits up in an hour, and it looks fierce! i love the yarn, and it's cozy and warm and practical and i can use it as an accessory to jazz up my predominantly black, winter wardrobe.

i also finished blocking that baby sweater. it turned out really cute! blocking is a knitting finishing technique where you soak the item in tepid water and a yarn wash, to clean it, and to relax the fibres. then you roll it up in a towel, and squeeze as much moisture as you can out (without twisting and damaging the finished object too much). then you pin it out to the dimensions that you want it to be. so basically, the yarn fibres get all relaxed from the bath, and as they dry in the pinned-out formation, the stitches kind of straighten up and look sharp. it just makes your stitches more even, and wool has "memory" so it'll kind of conform to the shape you pin it out to...it also makes something look more professional.

now i'm going to do a menu plan for the next few weeks coming up. i LOVE LOVE LOVE doing menu planning. i'm going to do this to distract me from the fact that with my rotten luck, the class is going to want it on thursday mornings and i'm effectively screwed, even though i KNOW IN THE DEPTHS OF MY HEART that i will love that class more than anyone. booooooooo.

tomorrow is a fun evening! i'm working, then coming home, and rounding up the dotytron, and we're going to our friend's house, eating dinnie on the west side of town (i'm voting for bacchus roti or the new ghandi's offshoot - also for rotis - ) and then going to this new bar called "wrongbar" which is going to be hipster central, to dance the night away with some of my favorite people to the slammin' sounds of kid sister. fun!!! i CAN'T. WAIT. to dance. brup!

here's the kid sister video for the song "pro nails" featuring kanye, that's storming the charts near you!



fin.

change of heart...

i couldn't sleep last night and got all angsty about my workload, with the outcome being that i've decided that i'm going to drop "the future of objectivity" in favour of "international organizations - their documents and publications".

pros:
a) i know that i don't have to do any readings.
b) i've taken a class with this dude before and know what to expect
c) class attendance can be spotty at best with minimum affect on work quality
d) the buzz in fis is that this class is way better than gov documents, corroborated by the professor himself

cons:
a) the prof is a wiener

at least he's not a n00b wiener and i don't have to deal with my unfunny nemesis. i don't get to pwn n00bs as much as i would have in "the future of objectivity" but i have so many other avenues for that, that i can let this one slide.

so mondays are no longer a long day, and tuesdays and wednesdays are the bad ones, with wednesday having the added bonus of no break for dinner! i have class from 4-6 in sociology, and then have to high-tail it to st. george for my night class, which starts at 6:30. see that? NO DINNER TIME. grrrrrr. so i'm going to have to buy dinner tonight on route to class. luckily, bloor and spadina is a pretty fertile corner for bought food...i think there's a macdonald's, pizza hut, pizza pizza, pho, shwarma/falafel, veggie resto (fresh) and a bunch of other things to get me through (alongside the ever-present hot dog/sausage vendor combo).

so it's take-out tonight and i get to go back to cooking again tomorrow.

the blog has been pretty boring lately, folks...i apologize. i have two finished knitting projects to show off though...so expect some more fun pics to come.

fin.

knackered

okay, folks. i'm willing to know when to call a draw a draw, when to realize my limits and size up the situation, know that when the dealer is showing 20 and i've got 17, that i should probably fold (although this is also the girl who went to vegas, got swept up in the fervor of gamblor and pure oxygen and ended up playing WAR for money...the dotytron had to pull me away from the table, as i lost $50 in about two seconds). so i'm going to 'fess up here, acknowledge the grim reality, and say this pretty baldly:

DOING FULL TIME SCHOOL AND FULL TIME WORK IS F**KING MENTAL.

mid-way through my legal librarianship class tonight, it hit me like a tonne of bricks. the next 12 weeks i'm so getting pwned. PWNED. as in: PURE OWNAGE. i'm not saying that i'm not going to go down fighting...i'm nothing if not small and feisty...but my time is no longer my own. i got home at 9, fixed my lunch, laid out my clothes for tomorrow, got organized, it's 9:45pm, and i still have to read through a giant philosophical article that picks apart the nature of objectivity versus subjectivity (which i think i've signed up to present on for monday. first presentation of the class. yikes.)

there's nothing to do but duck my head down and buck down and do it. straight up. i'll come out the other end one way or another (as poo, more likely than not). (poo is my nemesis).

my "future of objectivity" class is kinda wonky.
pluses:
a) the prof is a noob. some dude doing his post-doc who's never taught at u of t before.
b) most of the peeps are fis students, who aren't used to talky classes like this, so i've got a toe up
c) the work load (minus the big paper) is pretty manageable.

minuses:
a) the prof is a dweeb. he talks in a dweeby voice and is one of those people that instantly kind of grates on me
b) my nemesis is in the class. (not poo. another nemesis. a human version). my nemesis is tres annoying. my nemesis lacks a sense of humour on a level that borders on the criminal. being humourless is a crime against humanity.
c) dweeb + nemesis = karl lagerfeld getting extra obnoxious, lippy, and snarky (this manifests itself when it tumbles from my 5'4" form as less a**hole-y than it would from someone in a different package). i don't have the patience for either one of them.

i think i'm going to stick with it, anyway. i can survive anything, right? right? bueller? bueller?

tonight for dinner i had a bowl of goulash that my supervisor made and brought in for me. it was hella tasty, but i didn't get a picture of it because i was too busy yamming. tomorrow is the sociology of culture class. YES! that's the one i'm looking forward to the most.

fin.

the road is long

these long days are intensity in ten cities. holy crap...it's rough! my eyes are all googly from staring at computer screens all day, and the training is pretty grueling, and at this point, all academic. someone could take you step by step through every nook and cranny of a database, but it's all going to be theoretical until i start working on questions. i'm the kind of person who learns by doing, so getting walked through databases is just overwhelming, especially as it's impossible to hit everything, and everyone has their own personal techniques.

tonight's class is called "the future of objectivity"...i think it's offered as part of the communication and technology department, which in turn is in cahoots with the mcluhan centre, i think. anyway, i think marshall mcluhan is completely boring and utterly uninteresting (based on having never read any of his books, just a hunch) and so i like to disparage and pooh-pooh anything to do with his name. if there's one thing i do well, it's pooh-pooh things based on (amazingly prescient) hunches. i'm excited for this course...but we'll see what the professor and syllabus reveal. it's the kind of course where i think the readings are going to be interesting, and it's going to be labour intensive, in that it's going to be tutorial based and you'll have to come to class really prepared, and the paper will be challenging because it's intellectually engaging material and thus, time consuming in that way. compared against some other courses i'm shopping around, which aren't intellectually engaging, but have final projects that are also time consuming, because you're busy beating your head against your desk as you try to plumb the very depths of your tolerance for the asinine and banal to fulfill the page requirements for busywork. i don't know which side of the fence i want to land on, quite yet, which is what makes this week particularly annoying. i'm probably only going to take 2 night classes, but i'm going to 3 this week to weigh out my options.

i packed my dinner tonight...pictured is an egg salad sammy (with creole mustard, chopped celery and red onion, mayo) in half a toasted pita break pita, with a roasted tomato soup (i add carrots to cut the acidity with some sweetness). the dinnerware belongs to the workplace.

last night's dinnie went okay...i underseasoned the food a bit. it's plaguing me. i'm tortured by it. the last time we had ben and gill over for dinner, i also forgot to season the burgers they ate. that plagued me for ages too (a timelined search of this blog would probably revealed angsty missives to that effect). i don't know how that happens! what rotten luck! it's like, they've probably heard that i'm a good cook, and every time they come over, i disappoint...so they probably think that my reputation as a good cook is entirely unearned (in my fevered, type A, ocd-driven megalomania, i can only think that my friends have nothing better to do than deconstruct the meal i just served them, and besmirch my gastronomical repute). gah! the chai spiced creme brulee was a winner though. no questions. it was extra creamy and luscious, the way i like it (i don't like firm creme brulees...they should ideally be a denser whipped cream-like texture).

i'm already back from school, but i'm tired and cranky and i'll post a review of my class tomorrow.

a demain

fin.

happy happy

i've successfully moved all my files back onto my computer from my old hard drive and this morning, i was happily updating all my excel lists and word documents and organizing everything on my new computer and all is right in the world. it gives me immeasurable pleasure having my life organized, and while i was waiting for everything to transfer, i sorted our linens too. it's a strange kind of sickness i have...it turns out that i've left my youth squandered on drugs aside, and now organization and list-making are my narcotics of choice. it's a victim-less vice!

veggie lasagne turned out alright, but i ultimately prefer a sausage or some other pork-product filled one instead. it's just kind of meh. i also accidentally under-seasoned a bit which wasn't helping my case any. the trifle was delicious, and there's a blurry shot of it for your personal edification. it's the same one i made for the dotytron's christmas dinnie, cobbled together from leftover components i had.

i visited the new yarn store at the bottom of my street. it's called the purple purl, and it's delightful. they have a good amount of stuff that i want to buy, amazing buttons, needles, and books and magazines. i think they're going to start selling baked goods, so i wonder if i can get in there and peddle my wares. apparently they've already lined up a baker who's all organic and fair trade, but i'm willing to go american gladiator styles and bet that my stuff pwns hers. it's a very cozy shop though, and it's nice that it's so close to me. there's lots of comfy seating in there, if you're the type of person who's inclined to sit with random strangers and chat with the underlying assumption that because you share an interest (knitting) you must have other commonalities (i'm not that kind of person). i mean, there's a chance that we might get along, and there's a certain amount of conversation to be generated by the shared topic of interest (knitting) and i'm sure that the people are very nice, but that doesn't mean i want to sit and chief it up there. judging by the snippets of conversation i heard yesterday while i was in the shop, i knew it wasn't going to work out with me and the regular clientele. select lines: "well, i'm fat and fit so i don't see the need to work out" (with all due respect to people's personal health and lifestyle choices and to the pervasive and damaging premium our culture places on thinness, this woman was about 275 pounds on a 5 foot 4 inch frame...i don't know if that qualifies one as "fit" per se); "i don't know what it is about men. there's just something on that y chromosome. don't you just want to take a man and wash his mouth out with soap sometimes?" *insert rolleyesdotbarfdotgif* i should just show up at one and start talking about like, breakcore or something. "so, what do you guys think about the new bong ra?"

last night was fun, although we ended up doing only half of the things we wanted to do. my two brothers came down and ate dinner, and then we were going to watch juno. we went half an hour early, and it was already sold out! so then we trudged back home and watched a ripped copy of "i am legend". i like it when will smith does action-related things that still allow him room to act (ie. cheers to "independence day" jeers to "the legend of bagger vance" or "the pursuit of happyness") . overall, it was pretty solid entertainment. low on the cheese and schmaltz factor, high on the thrills and chills. unfortunately, also high on the cgi monsters, which just blows. i'm uniquely susceptible to apocalyptic, doomsday, last-person-on-earth scenarios though, so i might be giving it more leniency than it deserves.

at that point, it was late, and we were torn. should we go to my friend e's going away party (he's moving to england for a year) at the magpie, or go to the dotytron's good friend's birthday/going away party at the rex? in the end, we were worried about my littlest bro getting carded, so we opted to take the neutral position and stay at home and eat chips and drink (i had a ginger ale, the others had more sturdy libations).

today is a day of futzing and readying for school madness this week. i'm going to block this baby sweater i finished and knit, and we're having people over for dinnie, our friends ben and gill. i'm making an indian feast: samosas (not made by me, by the self-ordained "sultan of samosas"), spinach and onion pakoras with tamarind dipping sauce, steamed rice with pistachios and almonds, eggplant bharta, and chickpea korma. for dessert i made chai-spiced creme brulees.

fin.