Happy Thursday! And happy birthday to you, Mom! A little redundant, but pleasant all the same. Her new laptop came today, so they're down there trying to figure it all out.
Have you seen the "ribbon" thing in the new MS Office programs? Where instead of a functional toolbar you have a bit mess of trash? Windows 7 seems a little too spacey for me. C'mon, Windows. Some people like you because you're not a Mac.
So today I made cake and ice cream, and my mom had a half day for parent teacher conferences which she didn't do any of. We watched Morning Glory which was not half as bad as I expected -- I actually laughed quite a bit. Played around with the new laptop, had dinner at Mimi's. The phone was ringing all day with family calling in. Presents and cake and ice cream just now. A million flowers are sitting on the table, some from the store, some to plant, some from our own yard.
Happy Birthday!
Didn't do too much else this week besides beat Portal (well, Carolyn did, I watched and back-seat portaled) which was A) amazing and B) hilarious. Topped it off by playing a ton of Minecraft where several Portal references took form, to the point where I dreamed about using the Portal Companion Cube as a block in Minecraft. Which I suppose is actually something you CAN do in Minecraft, with a texture pack.
Easter happened. I went to work. I broke my headphones. I met Jacqi at Foster Freeze for lunch.
Pretty good week. Gonna go have a food coma now.
Peace,
-Steph
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Excel-ing
Happy Thursday! I had to wake up at 7 this morning, which was something new. Tomorrow it'll be back to the regular 9:30 if I have any say in the matter.
The early hour was on account of the sort of job interview I had scheduled this morning. Where they said "show up at 9," and I did and they were all "........we were expecting you later. Come in anyway I suppose we can fit you in." It was a good start.
I did some silly tests which included checking a list of number pairs to see if I could recognize whether each pair was identical or not -- actually a little challenging with my late-blooming dyslexic tendencies! Another was choosing between a pair of words from a list of word pairs, which one appealed to me more. A. forest B. trees. A. discuss B. consider.
Then there was the Word test, which was to copy a memo from the paper and format it and insert a picture and all that. Their stupid programs were set up with the menu bars all disjointed and "user friendly" so that slowed things along quite a bit. They were like tabs across the top, the tab for regular tool bar, tab for the drawing tool bar. So I couldn't find anything.
And then Excel. Copy the data table over and format it, find some totals. Make a chart. Too easy, it was tripping me out. You see, my resume implies that I know my Microsoft Office programs, but when they announced to me last week that at this interview thing there would be an exam on Word and Excel, I ran to Youtube only to find that I actually had no idea at all how to use Excel.
For example: it can do math for you!! I didn't know that before.
If you don't know how to use Excel, and would like to, here's the youtube channel that made me a pro in under a week: MotionTraining's Channel. Informational without being dry, each topic is covered at a nice easy pace. He's British, too, if that helps. But seriously, I watched all his tutorials and already feel pretty confident about using that program.
So the test part went alright, I suppose. In the actual interview I got the feeling that I wasn't exactly the person they were looking for as well as that this wasn't exactly thedroids job I was looking for.
But another experience under me belt. And now I know how to use Excel.
After that, at around, say, tennish, I went home and watched non-educational youtube. Then I took a nap. Then I went to Carolyn's and we beat the Portal 2 co-op. Only took two sessions. And only about two of the puzzles were time consuming. And one of those was the final challenge, so that's understandable. But it was really fun, figuring out how to work the playing field and talking each other through the logic maze that is a successful portal deployment.
Earlier in the week my mom's yogurt maker arrived. It's really more of a yogurt incubator, and it has such a cute sciencey pod shape. But it came with a recipe book filled with uses for your shiny new yogurt, and one in particular stood out. They call it "Greek Macaroni and Meat Casserole." Where basically it's meat and macaroni, only the meat is seasoned with oregano, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and the whole thing gets a yogurty white sauce on it before it bakes. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude it's so good. I'll make it for you some time.
Oh yeah. I was looking up the facebook album if you want to see pictures, and I'd already forgotten I made a cake, too! A roll cake, flavored with instant coffee. Coulda used more. The filling was home-made whipped cream with some cocoa powder and cinnamon. Because normally you might have a chocolate thing with a coffee accent, I wanted to switch it around. It came out alright! More coffee next time, and I'll roll it up better.
Come on over and we'll have a food party.
-Steph
The early hour was on account of the sort of job interview I had scheduled this morning. Where they said "show up at 9," and I did and they were all "........we were expecting you later. Come in anyway I suppose we can fit you in." It was a good start.
I did some silly tests which included checking a list of number pairs to see if I could recognize whether each pair was identical or not -- actually a little challenging with my late-blooming dyslexic tendencies! Another was choosing between a pair of words from a list of word pairs, which one appealed to me more. A. forest B. trees. A. discuss B. consider.
Then there was the Word test, which was to copy a memo from the paper and format it and insert a picture and all that. Their stupid programs were set up with the menu bars all disjointed and "user friendly" so that slowed things along quite a bit. They were like tabs across the top, the tab for regular tool bar, tab for the drawing tool bar. So I couldn't find anything.
And then Excel. Copy the data table over and format it, find some totals. Make a chart. Too easy, it was tripping me out. You see, my resume implies that I know my Microsoft Office programs, but when they announced to me last week that at this interview thing there would be an exam on Word and Excel, I ran to Youtube only to find that I actually had no idea at all how to use Excel.
For example: it can do math for you!! I didn't know that before.
If you don't know how to use Excel, and would like to, here's the youtube channel that made me a pro in under a week: MotionTraining's Channel. Informational without being dry, each topic is covered at a nice easy pace. He's British, too, if that helps. But seriously, I watched all his tutorials and already feel pretty confident about using that program.
So the test part went alright, I suppose. In the actual interview I got the feeling that I wasn't exactly the person they were looking for as well as that this wasn't exactly the
But another experience under me belt. And now I know how to use Excel.
After that, at around, say, tennish, I went home and watched non-educational youtube. Then I took a nap. Then I went to Carolyn's and we beat the Portal 2 co-op. Only took two sessions. And only about two of the puzzles were time consuming. And one of those was the final challenge, so that's understandable. But it was really fun, figuring out how to work the playing field and talking each other through the logic maze that is a successful portal deployment.
Earlier in the week my mom's yogurt maker arrived. It's really more of a yogurt incubator, and it has such a cute sciencey pod shape. But it came with a recipe book filled with uses for your shiny new yogurt, and one in particular stood out. They call it "Greek Macaroni and Meat Casserole." Where basically it's meat and macaroni, only the meat is seasoned with oregano, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and the whole thing gets a yogurty white sauce on it before it bakes. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude it's so good. I'll make it for you some time.
Oh yeah. I was looking up the facebook album if you want to see pictures, and I'd already forgotten I made a cake, too! A roll cake, flavored with instant coffee. Coulda used more. The filling was home-made whipped cream with some cocoa powder and cinnamon. Because normally you might have a chocolate thing with a coffee accent, I wanted to switch it around. It came out alright! More coffee next time, and I'll roll it up better.
Come on over and we'll have a food party.
-Steph
Thursday, April 14, 2011
More Village
Happy Thursday! Don't make coffee frozen yogurt with day-old coffee and honey flavored yogurt. :<
On one of the last days Steven was here, we went to this Indian restaurant on Main street I always drive by and want to go to but never do. We just missed the lunch buffet, but we had some pretty delicious stuff. The garlic naan!!! The korma I had!!! Best any sort of food I ever had. You guys, we gotta go there again.
So then I tried to make my own korma, but it came out as a bland curry, really nothing like the korma I expected, which was too bad. Tried some naan, too, but the dough seemed too dry. Looking back, it's probably because I used Greek yogurt, which is way thicker than the yogurt we normally get here. Baked it was alright, but after it cooled it sorta picked up this funny flavor.
Indian food, why you no cooperate?
But you can get frozen naan at Trader Joe's and stick it in the oven for a few minutes, and that's almost as good as you find in a restaurant. They just put in a Trader Joe's up the street, and if it wasn't so crowded with hippies all the time I'd definitely go there and stock up on naan and stuff. But Indian food would be something I'd like to know how to make at home.
Oh, but I did make some pedas, which I had never heard of, but this site taught me how to make a quick version. I don't know how they're supposed to taste, but these are pretty good. Very sweet. I might have over cooked them a tad.
This week I had two days off at the start, and then the full work week to follow....but halfway through Tuesday they called and said the other store needed a shift covered, did I want to do it? 4 til close, 11 PM. Sheeeeeesh. So I did it. What a busy store! What crazy customers. But I survived. Hoorah.
Oh that's what I was doing on Tuesday. So remember several months ago, when AMC showed their miniseries The Prisoner? Remember how I was all "Seriously, when I get it for my birthday, we are all sitting down and watching it." Well I didn't get it for my birthday, but I did get it for Christmas. And just this last week we watched it for the second time.
It was actually worth the wait, because some details were fuzzed, and there's nothing like watching something again for the first time. Especially something really good that had super strange things and mysteries around every corner. So let's watch that again!
Oh, speaking of, I've got to go catch 30 Rock. The shows are new again this week! How do you feel about Will Ferrell on the Office? I don't think he'll last, personally. I don't think he's meant to, I think he's just a gag filler until they finish this arc and get someone permanent. That's just the vibe I got from the episode, I haven't been reading the trades. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.
Be seeing you.
-Steph
On one of the last days Steven was here, we went to this Indian restaurant on Main street I always drive by and want to go to but never do. We just missed the lunch buffet, but we had some pretty delicious stuff. The garlic naan!!! The korma I had!!! Best any sort of food I ever had. You guys, we gotta go there again.
So then I tried to make my own korma, but it came out as a bland curry, really nothing like the korma I expected, which was too bad. Tried some naan, too, but the dough seemed too dry. Looking back, it's probably because I used Greek yogurt, which is way thicker than the yogurt we normally get here. Baked it was alright, but after it cooled it sorta picked up this funny flavor.
Indian food, why you no cooperate?
But you can get frozen naan at Trader Joe's and stick it in the oven for a few minutes, and that's almost as good as you find in a restaurant. They just put in a Trader Joe's up the street, and if it wasn't so crowded with hippies all the time I'd definitely go there and stock up on naan and stuff. But Indian food would be something I'd like to know how to make at home.
Oh, but I did make some pedas, which I had never heard of, but this site taught me how to make a quick version. I don't know how they're supposed to taste, but these are pretty good. Very sweet. I might have over cooked them a tad.
This week I had two days off at the start, and then the full work week to follow....but halfway through Tuesday they called and said the other store needed a shift covered, did I want to do it? 4 til close, 11 PM. Sheeeeeesh. So I did it. What a busy store! What crazy customers. But I survived. Hoorah.
Oh that's what I was doing on Tuesday. So remember several months ago, when AMC showed their miniseries The Prisoner? Remember how I was all "Seriously, when I get it for my birthday, we are all sitting down and watching it." Well I didn't get it for my birthday, but I did get it for Christmas. And just this last week we watched it for the second time.
It was actually worth the wait, because some details were fuzzed, and there's nothing like watching something again for the first time. Especially something really good that had super strange things and mysteries around every corner. So let's watch that again!
Oh, speaking of, I've got to go catch 30 Rock. The shows are new again this week! How do you feel about Will Ferrell on the Office? I don't think he'll last, personally. I don't think he's meant to, I think he's just a gag filler until they finish this arc and get someone permanent. That's just the vibe I got from the episode, I haven't been reading the trades. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.
Be seeing you.
-Steph
Thursday, April 07, 2011
抹茶
Happy Thursday! It got cold, and my phone thinks it's going to thunder tomorrow. What happened to the summer I was waiting for? :<
I had Spring Break this week because Steven is home on his real one. Super time for adventures!
It started over the weekend where we gathered at Carolyn's house and played her giant Risk game. The thing is flippin huge. There was five of us, and it took about three hours for Steven and Carolyn to jointly take over the world before calling a truce. (Jacqi was allowed to keep a bit of Australia) It was pretty epic.
Tuesday we (same peeps minus Jacqi) woke up hecka early and drove with Carolyn to school. Steven and John and I played pool in the student union, a really fun game called cutthroat. Then Steven's friend who actually attends that school came by and we played regular doubles. When that got old we tried some ping pong, and then we took naps.
When Carolyn finally got out of class we booked it on down to Little Tokyo to see Steven and John take on the Special 2 challenge at Orochon ramen. They've got ramen in increasing levels of spicy, starting at 7 and going to 1, then BEYOND 1 there's Special 1 and Special 2. If you can at Special 2 in a half an hour you get your picture on the Wall of Bravery. I had a 6 and that was spicy enough for me. Steven and John's was a brick red and had sliced jalapenos coating the surface. But Steven did it! And lived! It was extremely impressive and entertaining.
Bought an anpan from the supermarket down the stairs from there after, but it wasn't too great.
Today we attempted panda bread again. Tried different yeast and added more water and a bit of sugar to the cocoa powder before mixing it with the dough. The cocoa modification seemed to work, but the yeast didn't seem to activate this time either. We also did all the kneading by hand, so it never got as rubbery as when we left it to the bread machine. So flavor-wise, today was an improvement, but it's still not yet something I'll consider conquered.
Since Carolyn doesn't really like the tea made from her giant canister of matcha (抹茶) powder, I used some to make some other green tea flavored treats. Chucked some in some ice cream, which didn't follow any recipe but still turned out as ice cream.
Also attempted to make my own anpan, with matcha in the bread. I'd already wanted to make a green tea bread, since that was my favorite part of the original panda bread, so when I was looking up recipes I came across the idea of doing the red bean paste bun with green tea bread. IE matcha anpan.
Used this recipe, which was marvelous. Bought some smooth red bean paste from Mama-ya, which is something I also want to use in anman if I can ever not kill yeast again. The tea flavor and color is really subdued, but the bread itself is probably the best bread I've ever made by hand. Even though I almost ruined it because it was sooooo sticky that I think I must have originally put in two cups of flour instead of three. But we fixed it and they turned out great!
When I put the pictures in Facebook just now I realized those hot cross buns have to be from nearly a year ago -- time to make them again!!
I don't know why no pictures from my six weeks as house chef didn't make it into the album. I only took one of St. Patrick's Day green food. I guess because most of it was salads and economical foods rather than neat looking things like soup in a pumpkin. Because according to that album, I only make snacks and desserts! Which is almost not true at all.
Going to make coffee frozen yogurt with honey blended Greek yogurt when the frozen mixing bowl is frozen again. :3
-Steph
I had Spring Break this week because Steven is home on his real one. Super time for adventures!
It started over the weekend where we gathered at Carolyn's house and played her giant Risk game. The thing is flippin huge. There was five of us, and it took about three hours for Steven and Carolyn to jointly take over the world before calling a truce. (Jacqi was allowed to keep a bit of Australia) It was pretty epic.
Tuesday we (same peeps minus Jacqi) woke up hecka early and drove with Carolyn to school. Steven and John and I played pool in the student union, a really fun game called cutthroat. Then Steven's friend who actually attends that school came by and we played regular doubles. When that got old we tried some ping pong, and then we took naps.
When Carolyn finally got out of class we booked it on down to Little Tokyo to see Steven and John take on the Special 2 challenge at Orochon ramen. They've got ramen in increasing levels of spicy, starting at 7 and going to 1, then BEYOND 1 there's Special 1 and Special 2. If you can at Special 2 in a half an hour you get your picture on the Wall of Bravery. I had a 6 and that was spicy enough for me. Steven and John's was a brick red and had sliced jalapenos coating the surface. But Steven did it! And lived! It was extremely impressive and entertaining.
Bought an anpan from the supermarket down the stairs from there after, but it wasn't too great.
Today we attempted panda bread again. Tried different yeast and added more water and a bit of sugar to the cocoa powder before mixing it with the dough. The cocoa modification seemed to work, but the yeast didn't seem to activate this time either. We also did all the kneading by hand, so it never got as rubbery as when we left it to the bread machine. So flavor-wise, today was an improvement, but it's still not yet something I'll consider conquered.
Since Carolyn doesn't really like the tea made from her giant canister of matcha (抹茶) powder, I used some to make some other green tea flavored treats. Chucked some in some ice cream, which didn't follow any recipe but still turned out as ice cream.
Also attempted to make my own anpan, with matcha in the bread. I'd already wanted to make a green tea bread, since that was my favorite part of the original panda bread, so when I was looking up recipes I came across the idea of doing the red bean paste bun with green tea bread. IE matcha anpan.
Used this recipe, which was marvelous. Bought some smooth red bean paste from Mama-ya, which is something I also want to use in anman if I can ever not kill yeast again. The tea flavor and color is really subdued, but the bread itself is probably the best bread I've ever made by hand. Even though I almost ruined it because it was sooooo sticky that I think I must have originally put in two cups of flour instead of three. But we fixed it and they turned out great!
When I put the pictures in Facebook just now I realized those hot cross buns have to be from nearly a year ago -- time to make them again!!
I don't know why no pictures from my six weeks as house chef didn't make it into the album. I only took one of St. Patrick's Day green food. I guess because most of it was salads and economical foods rather than neat looking things like soup in a pumpkin. Because according to that album, I only make snacks and desserts! Which is almost not true at all.
Going to make coffee frozen yogurt with honey blended Greek yogurt when the frozen mixing bowl is frozen again. :3
-Steph
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