It's Monday Well, here's my Monday quick rant. I hate compostable utensils. I mean really, I'm kinda a bull in a china shop with the pressure I put on untensils. I push too hard with pens and pencils. So it's no surprise, that weekly, I have one of those compostable forks break on me. I'm sorry, but you think this wouldn't happen while eating a PANCAKE. But alas, even something that soft is no match for me.
Otherwise, can't complain about how busy I was.
Monday... Napa. Tuesday... Napa and the So You Think You Can Dance Concert Wednesday... Sauces cooking class Thursday... Cable Guy & Dinner with David Friday... Werewolf with Ian Saturday... Work all day Sunday... Castro Street Fair and the House of O
This week looks considerably lighter. The work hell is almost over. Which is good, because there's a lot of things I need to be working on. Like the difference between braising and stewing for the cooking class. I think it's just the amount of water (braising is like, half in liquid half out while stewing is completely covered in liquid).
Oh yeah, cable... not working sadly. It looks like it's an issue larger than my line. Hopefully the "hot gay cable guys around 40" trend will continue.
The Vice Presidential Debate My assessment? They're about evenly matched. I think they actually like each other, it really didn't feel adverserial. It really was nice to see them banter.
Biden:
His projected image: I'm the experienced one. I know what it's REALLY like. His attack: McCain is the same as Bush. His Obama: Obama will get things done.
Palin: Her projected image: I'm just like you. Her attack: Obama is too busy laying blame. Her McCain: He's a Maverick.
For some reason, I always enjoy the VP debate. They both were really solid on their rhetoric...
Oddly enough - Biden's dentures annoyed me, and the way Palin's mouth grinds sideways also annoyed me. Maybe it's when she's nervous? I think it's just me being oversensitive about my teeth. I'm so ready to get my teeth done.
A fun night and 4 dots of Area Knowledge (speciality Bay Bridge) The rest of the offsite in Napa was good - I won the DDR tournament. No surprise, I have a ton of experience. STOMP TO MY BEAT! It looks like the pipeline has products coming out where my background is 100% relevant to it. That makes me more of an asset to keep around... well, maybe I can turn that into something good. We'll see.
After leaving Napa, I had a bit of time to spare. So I went to the Midnight Sun, downed a double martini in 15 minutes, had dinner with some good friends, and headed off to the So You Think You Can Dance Season 4 Tour show. With the exception of the large headed woman in front of me whom I danced around... it was AWESOME! Some dances were very polished since the time they first performed them. Seeing them that close really gave me the ability to connect with them better. You could see all the emotions. One dance got me weepy, but it wasn't until the end where I fully had tears.
Mark was amazing to see live because his motion is so fluid. You can't see that on TV. Will's 12 pack of abs ripples so nicely - he's really the best dancer there. Joshua deserves the win as America's favorite... he performed a lot and was just superb. I would do the bed dance with Twitch any day of the week. His solos were amazing. As for the girls, Chelsea Hightower still remains my personal favorite. Katie was really awesome. Chelsea G was a ton of fun... I think she still has a bit more growing to do, but is already on the path to greatness. Comfort was fun, Kherrington was good - but I finally understood the "dance competition" smile thing that Mia was talking about. During her solo it was a bit too much. Jessica still danced like a corpse. The other Chelsea was there, and she was fun. Oh yeah, Thayne was there - he had some awesome moves in the group numbers that were off to the side. I really wanted to grab him and take him back to the Castro. I'm sure he'd have fun and meet someone nice.
All in all, a great end to a great night. And a had a really hot date with no romantic complications. That is always a great bonus. We talked about a lot of different things, and the whole night felt really chill, and fun. They were doing that awful construction on the Bay Bridge, so I had to get off the bridge and get on at a later ramp. Luckily, I know every single approach, so I did my quick method... get off at 7th, zip down Bryant to 3rd, turn right, and hop on at that approach. Zero Traffic. What used to take 45 minutes now takes 10. I adore knowing the shortcut!
Now I've got a ton of work to finish by Friday. And the crazy WW game is starting next week. I've been spending so much time at home lately doing very little, that I've forgotten how much fun it can be when you're uber busy. A touch of the east coast life :)
The career thoughts Today was the first day of our offsite. On the fun side, the team building activity was DDR. Now, it really did become a team building, because there was encouragement to get up there, explanations on how to do it, shouting of directions to help others, and some people by the end had shown remarkable improvement. It was a ton of fun!
On the personal side, I was hoping there'd be someone else with some skill just so we could do the harder songs... they had the 5th Generation machine which is my favorite one. It has some good long songs (like Britany's Oops I Did it Again), my favorite Stomp to My Beat, and 3 Naoki songs. Plus Da Dee Dee Dum, Butterfly, and a host of others. It's before they added the Freeze steps. After everyone was done, I did a few just to get them out of my system. I was clearly the most experienced and best at it... but Dan was remarkable in his incredible amount of stamina. He and I did a lot of the coaching.
The interesting thing was at the end of the day when I took a quick shower. I didn't want to sleep in a nice bed with the "I've been sweating and am all icky" feeling. I was reflecting on one of the comments someone made about my presenting skills. She said I should do more because I'm entertaining. A lot of times when it comes to presenting, they'll default to me. Big mouth, big voice, some theatrical skills (footnote 1), and simple words to get my point across. She said I'd be great at corporate training, and I told her that it is one of the areas I want to go. It's been one of the things I've talked to my boss about.
The tricky thing with work is that there's a level up management position for it, and a level down position for it. So I kinda have to figure out how to fit in the middle. Given the probable merger in the face of the current economic trend, that may not be the smartest choice to go. It may get reorged or axed... so it's a good time to wait. Plus, I've swallowed my pride this year to just deliver on execution without thought or improvement to any processes just to get a decent rating this year. All this to set up a potential transition.
Part of me still wants to get the pink slip just so I can try something different. An internship in radio, a trip to Japan to visit my mother, maybe even going back to college. In my more aggressive career choices, law seems like a good fit for me... and then going for Intellectual Property, getting my teeth fixed up, and moving to LA to become a talent agent. If I had gone the traditional way, I'd have my MBA now. Business is a place I'm suited for, I just don't have the sheer analytical brain of an MBA. I could go back and get a BA, then MBA in 6 or more years... just to start my career over again, only armed with the letters I'm missing. But I keep wondering, is my personality really suited for it? Is this what I want?
It's always the issue. I have to find within myself what it is that really motivates me, and pursue it. Without that passion, things just always fizzle. And my slow reading abilities never help in the college setting. Ah well, who knows.
Of course, the thoughts ended when I noticed that one of the shower holder thingamagummies wasn't clasped. So I clasped it, and then realized that none of them were clasped. And then realized that one of them was off, and had to redo the entire shower curtain holders until they were all properly matched to the correct hold and clasped. Seriously, I'm not that A.D.D., but boy, do I have my moments.
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Footnote 1: One of my colleagues was talking about using hands, so I explained that Drama happens from the armpits. When you're talking, and people are looking at your face, your hands cannot be below your bust line if you want people to see them. So everything has to be big and high to be seen. That's DRAMA, BABY!
I am not disabled! But today I did! This is the third time my company has put me in a hotel, and that hotel has given me a handicap room. The first time was awful, because it was equipped for those that are deaf as well. When the phone rang, a large buzz and strobe lights (like that in a fire) went off. There was a doorbell, which caused the same effect. The bathtub had these two shower nozzles which really did need to be used in tandem. I dealt with that, because it was a bit of a novelty, albeit annoying.
The second time was at the Best Western... and seriously, there wasn't really any improvement to be had. Southern NJ just wasn't the place to stay... we should have stayed in Philly.
This last time, there was no tub. For a Spa/Resort hotel, I really was looking forward to a girlie girlie lush bomb bath. Instead of a tub was a shower stall with a pull down cushy seat. I immediately called for a room change, but none were available with tubs. There was a balcony, but on the corner, I had zero view and the balcony had no exterior lighting. I had to wait until people checked out to get a different room. I hate to complain, but this one was important enough for me.
Why my potatoes disintegrate. The cooking class last night was a lot of fun. Since it was my first time, I didn't want to do anything too ambitious, and really, I was more concerned with having my potatoes not disintegrate into the soup. You see, every time I make soup, I cannot get the potatoes to just become nothing but mush. I am so good at it, that I decided to make potato-leek soup for the Soup Potluck last year. Very little water. A whole lotta potato. I didn't even have to puree.
So there's two things that I wasn't mindful of. With all the different variety of potatoes, some are more starchy than others. By using a waxy potato, it is more likely to hold its shape and not mush. If you use a starchy potato, it will definitely become mush. The other thing is that when you make soup, it's better to start with cold water (or stock) simply because it will heat the vegetables evenly. Typically, I make the stock and then add the vegetables when the stock is hot. By doing this, it heats the outside too quickly, causing the outside to tatter. Fine for carrots, but not for starchy potatoes.
Mystery solved.
But I didn't know this when I started when I grabbed potatoes to make a simple corn chowder. Lucky for me, some of the potatoes were waxy enough to still exist. But the one Russett I grabbed... gone. Also, the corn took longer to cook than I thought it would. Brianna and I decided we probably should have par boiled it first.
I am looking forward to colder weather just so I can make some curry stew.. with potatoes.
Potentially Explosive Atmospheres The iPhone says to turn off the phone and be extremely careful in Potentially Explosive Atmospheres. "Areas with a potentially explosive atmosphere are often, but not always, marked clearly." While my first instincts tell me that I'm rarely on a different planet or artificially created environment or at the dinner table with my parents, they did give some good examples like a gas station or any area where your car engine should be off. Apple's lawyers must have been in overdrive as they also advise to turn off the iPhone when in a Blasting Area. They must have a huge blue collar demographic.
News Magazines are dead. One of the things I really enjoy is the Advocate magazine. I've been reading it for over 10 years to keep a pulse on what's going on in LGBT politics around the globe. There was some rough spots, as it had to start geting a little less political and a little more pop culturish... but I weathered through that. Then it went from being a weekly to a semi-monthly to a monthly publication... I weathered through that. They've gone through several format changes and all in all, it was fine.
But now so many of their sidebars, articles, and other things basically say, "read the full story/interview on advocate.com." Nothing is really news anymore. It's become too slow, so it compensates by keeping its website current. I like reading magazines over books because of the time it takes to read a magazine. Small bites that you catch here and there. I can read when I'm cooking, during commercials, walking, barting, waiting in the bay bridge toll line... that's what I love about magazines in general.
Basically, if it's not a daily publication, it just seems like it's too slow of a media. So I think I have to give up on the print. With the iPhone and laptops, news should only come from the web.
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Incidentally, while playing some games on BSW, I had a news channel going in the background. There was an interview with Palin... she was either really put together or extremely well rehearsed. Your call. After two hours, I realized it was FOX news. I decided that there's no difference in FOX News and NPR. Both are insanely biased. Both are clear propaganda for right and left agendas. But unlike most of the bay area, I react to NPR they way they do to FOX News.
Art's Crab Shack Restaurant Review huh - I haven't updated in 33 weeks... oops. Well, I emailed this to a few people, but thought it was amusing enough for my journal.
“Vergin, tutto amor,
o madre di bontade,
o madre pia, madre pia,
ascolta, dolce Maria,
la voce del peccator.
Il pianto suo ti muova,
giungano a te i suoi lamenti,
suo duol, suoi tristi accenti,
senti pietoso quel tuo cor.
O madre di bontade,
Vergin, tutto amor.”
Okay, bad phrasing through and through. And I don't know why I keep singing "Virgin" instead of "Vergin" or "tua cor" instead of "tuo cor" but oh well. And well, intonation. Ugh.
The point was to see if I hated my voice via recording, and well, I don't. Makes me smile. It's going in the right direction.
Whenever I sing this, I picture an old Italian women wrapped in her shawl in an empty church. Her daughter is going to marry a man she disapproves of. Just like she did when she was a child... marrying a man she thought would be fun and exciting. But it turned out badly, and she's suffered with the man for many years. She's begged her daughter to leave this man, but her daughter just won't listen. She's distraught and at the end of her wits. So she goes to church and makes the final plea: "Oh Virgin Mother! Please grant her the wisdom to see the error of her ways. Please give her the strength to see she's making a mistake. The same mistake that I made as a child. Please, Virgin Mother, hear my plea!"
I wanted to see how I sounded via recording... just to see how my voice has changed. I kinda like the victrola effect, on how it's very staticky. Sorry about the bad Italian and the flat notes at the end of phrases!
odd sickness This is an odd sickness for me. I'm not craving thick bloody steak and I'm waking up early instead of sleeping long and hard. But thank goodness for Tylenol Sinus, that stuff works wonders for me. I finally got some Sunday, on my way to my sordid love affair with Neo.
Saw Brokeback Mountain last night... my phone rang six times (it was on vibrate). I ran out twice and apologized to the people next to me, telling them I was a doctor. I hope they believed me, but considering they were the sidebar comments during the movie types, people were probably more annoyed by them.
Plans are shaping up for the trip to NJ. Normally I have more time than I know what to do with... this time, it's gonna be a whirlwind tour. Actually a bit disappointing this year that I'm only going to be there for one weekend, and not two.
Questions I've been playing On-line Werewolf, and it's the last installment of LOTR V. I'm being attacked, and got asked a slew of questions that I had to answer within 10 minutes. I think I'm going to die, becuase I can't get all the answers. Those marked with an asterik are ones I knew. Any help is greatly appreciated! Here are the questions:
- Identify all three errors in the above sentence.
7) This one is a classic: You are on a path that splits in two paths. One direction leads to prosperity and happiness, the other path will lead you to torment and death. Guarding the paths are two men, one who always tells the truth, one who always tells a lie. Problem is, you don't know which path is which, or which man lies and which one does not.
You are permitted to ask only one question of one of the men, in order to determine which path you should take. What one question can you ask that will guarantee you find the correct path, regardless of which man you ask?
8) What is the longest word in the English language comprised of only one syllable?
9) We don't usually think of words in English being "masculine" or "feminine" as in Romance languages, but some words definitely indicate male or female (such as man, woman, etc.). We also have singular and plural nouns.
Now... there is a plural "masculine" word in English that, with the addition of only one letter at the end, becomes a singular "feminine" word (also in English). What are these words?
I'll explain why later.. it's the last one I can't remember.
I still bleed Why? Why must it always be a head injury? Can't I do something else? I'm just patched up the area above my right eye... if I had my glasses on I wouldn't have run into the door. But alas, now I'm wide awake and my head is throbbing. I had a hard time finding band-aids, which is odd, considering I bought a ton since I worked for the company. Ugh... at least I found some good ones in my medical kit. The butterfly closures can in handy as well. Ah well.
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arkibet's journal
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