rambling on
Mar. 13th, 2011 09:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
Fringe thoughts
- The two shows this show reminds me of very strongly is The X-Files and Alias. Which, after seeing who the creators are, shouldn't actually be surprising.
- I'm still waiting for it to really distinguish itself from The X-Files; the weekly case episodes thing is pretty much exactly the same, with the weird stuff that goes on and the investigation of it. As for The Pattern, that's the Rambaldi arc from Alias all over again.
- I'm enjoying the show enough to go on, but I don't yet have any strong feelings about the characters. That's hard for me. And I don't feel any sense of urgency or interest about the overarching mytharc, whereas that was already much more strongly established in both XF and Alias, though to be fair I'm not sure that was true of XF only six episodes in. It IS true of Alias, though -- still one of my favorite shows.
- The thing I'm most interested in is Peter's past/origins. We got a brief hint of it when Walter talked to Olivia about knowing the "truth" of Peter's birth or something like that from reading his file... but it hasn't really been touched on since then.
- I don't know if they'll ever Go There with Olivia/Peter, I kind of feel like it's the obvious way to go, but right now I'm not feeling it. I like them both just fine, but have no shipping preferences at the moment (which might account for my general ambivalence).
- Anna Torv, especially when she smiles, reminds me of another actress but I can't pinpoint who. Maybe Renee Zellweger.
- Peter's supposed to be a genius, right? They really haven't written him as such, except for being able to understand scientific concepts that Walter spouts. But his problem-solving capabilities leave something to be desired, and to me that's really what makes genius genius. He just seems like your smarter-than-average guy, not someone with amazing capabilities or anything.
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Dinner with J. Friday night was lovely. We never seem to run out of things to talk about, and at the end it's like, argh, I had 5 other things to tell her! Pair was cute, but the food left something to be desired. The gougeres were terrible and the mussels were way overcooked. They have nothing on The Stone House.
The dinner party last night was really fun. I generally like every member of my team on a personal level; it's just that our work styles sometimes clash.
My attempt at appetizers didn't quite go the way I wanted. I made both drunken chicken and bacon jam, but the chicken did not look good so I didn't bring it. I bought a cleaver to chop it into pieces, as I don't have any knives that can easily go through bone... but damn, it is not as easy as the butchers at Chinese BBQ places make it look. You know that scene in Titanic when Rose is wielding an axe in order to free Jack from his handcuffs? And he asks her to do a practice swing on a cupboard, and then to hit the same spot twice? SO HARD TO DO OMG. The result is that the chicken pretty much looked like it was hacked to pieces. Even though the flavor and texture actually came out well, my vanity could not let me serve it to other people. As for the bacon jam, I worried at the last minute that people would think it was strange and wouldn't want to eat it. So I ended up getting some frozen potstickers, heating them up, and bringing those (in addition to some bacon jam and bread). :/ Lame, I know.
I shouldn't have stressed. There was so. much. food. Appetizers alone included my two contributions, homemade samosas, and a beautiful cheese platter, which had included two of my favorite cheeses ever, both local: Beecher's Flagship, a wonderful sharp white cheddar that every Seattlite knows... and Seastack, a gorgeous soft cheese that makes Brie seem boring and tasteless. I've also finally come to the realization that nothing, absolutely nothing, beats a great cheese platter when it comes to appetizers (and possibly even dessert).
Then there was the Indian-themed entrees... a pork "rogan josh" (except rogan means lamb, so whatever the Indian word is for pork), a sweet potato and carrot coconut curry, a spinach and potato dish, grilled "tandoori" chicken, cucumber and mint raita, an awesome cilantro sauce, grilled bread, and papadums. As for dessert, there was an entire banana custard sheetcake from a bakery I can't remember the name of, and of course the Bakery Nouveau chocolate cake. (There was also a little chocolate cake from Safeway, but we didn't even get to it.)
As I expected, O. (my manager, who was cooking the whole meal for us) was totally running behind and basically used me as his sous chef. It was fun but hectic. I felt like I was on Iron Chef!
Anyway, I KNEW that was going to happen; he had a really ambitious menu and didn't really allow himself enough time to make it all. I mean, it takes a long time to cook! And he was making food for 16 people! Anyway, so I ended up making the raita, the cilantro sauce, and the potato and spinach dish. LOL. Afterward, S. was like, "I don't know WHAT he would have done without you." Apparently she had offered to help the day before, and he had actually SAID, "I don't really like to have help in the kitchen." Except he was totally panicking at how far behind he was falling, even though I was like, "Don't worry about it, people can munch on the appetizers, we're not in a rush." And he was like, "I know, I know... but I'm going to have you make this... and this... and this... you don't mind, do you?" The cool thing is that we've been bonding over being foodies for awhile, so he probably trusted me enough to help. And it's a good thing that I've made Indian food before so I felt comfortable with what I was doing.
BTW... I am so proud of myself that I am mostly over my cilantro aversion. I still find it difficult to eat the stem part, but the leaves don't bother me and I even enjoy them. That is to say that the cilantro sauce was wonderful. I'm definitely going to have to remember how to make it. It was very easy... blend cilantro, stems and all, with garlic, lemon juice, salt, and enough olive oil to make the blender work (even though you'll probably need to keep pressing it down with a spatula until the sauce 'catches'). I'm going to make it just to eat with chips, it doesn't have to be with a whole Indian meal.
S. was desperate to have people take home all the massive amounts of leftovers, especially the cake. I was happy to do my part. So I have a giant piece of chocolate cake in the fridge (the two small pieces of banana custard cake was already eaten by me earlier today >.>), half the potstickers I brought, a jar of bacon jam (the batch made 2 small jars), big portions of all 4 cheeses from the cheese platter, and the drunken chicken. I also had some of the Indian food leftovers, but I ate it for dinner tonight. :D
========
I've just put in a big Amazon order for the Buffy S8 and Angel S6 volumes that I haven't been keeping up with. I'll need to reread everything from the beginning because I suspect it's not going to make any sense if I don't! One thing I regret from Comic Con is that one of the Buffy artists was there signing comics and I didn't even think about bringing mine. D'oh!
I've been rereading the Hot Gimmick manga, and I'm kind of blown away by how adult themed it is. It was the very first manga I ever read, so I just kind of figured they were all like that.
Next on the manga front I'm going to be reading Skip Beat!, which I may or may not actually get into. Apparently it was going to be made into a TW serial called "Extravagant Challenge" starring Ariel Lin, but for some reason it got shelved. I have all 22 volumes except for 2-4 from the library.
It is so ridiculous that you can't put holds on holds. What that means is that you often get things out of order, depending on when your turn comes up, or else you have to keep a separate list of what you want, rather than being able to conveniently use the library system to keep track of it. Which even then might be doable, except if you want things that are high in demand, because then it behooves you to get on the waiting list asap. If you did it one at a time, it could be months in between! I suspect this also delays people getting books, because as there's no late charges, people probably just keep the later books until they get the earlier ones, then read all at once. The good news is that I wrote to Sno-Isle about it, and the response was that they are going to institute the feature I want in the April timeframe. Yay!
========
I saw this onrainpuddle13's LJ and had to share because it is so creepy and COOL! Zombie ants! For real! The fungus that kills the ants takes control of their tiny ant brains and guides them to the ideal location for the fungus's growth. Seriously awesome. I mean, human zombie stories are all so lame and pointless -- all they do is kill with no real purpose.
========
I've had the AeroGarden for 1 week now, and 5/7 herbs have sprouted. It's even possible the other two herbs have sprouted as well, but they're in the back, the light's in the way, and I can't really tell. The thyme is ahead of schedule; I could see little sprouts at 4 days and it was supposed to take a minimum of 7 days. I think I'm going to try and take pictures every week to keep a visual record of the growth!
Check out that thyme, so eager to meet the world! I took off the little domes to take these pics, but I think I'll keep them on for another week yet.
Hello delicious basil! I can't wait to eat you!
- The two shows this show reminds me of very strongly is The X-Files and Alias. Which, after seeing who the creators are, shouldn't actually be surprising.
- I'm still waiting for it to really distinguish itself from The X-Files; the weekly case episodes thing is pretty much exactly the same, with the weird stuff that goes on and the investigation of it. As for The Pattern, that's the Rambaldi arc from Alias all over again.
- I'm enjoying the show enough to go on, but I don't yet have any strong feelings about the characters. That's hard for me. And I don't feel any sense of urgency or interest about the overarching mytharc, whereas that was already much more strongly established in both XF and Alias, though to be fair I'm not sure that was true of XF only six episodes in. It IS true of Alias, though -- still one of my favorite shows.
- The thing I'm most interested in is Peter's past/origins. We got a brief hint of it when Walter talked to Olivia about knowing the "truth" of Peter's birth or something like that from reading his file... but it hasn't really been touched on since then.
- I don't know if they'll ever Go There with Olivia/Peter, I kind of feel like it's the obvious way to go, but right now I'm not feeling it. I like them both just fine, but have no shipping preferences at the moment (which might account for my general ambivalence).
- Anna Torv, especially when she smiles, reminds me of another actress but I can't pinpoint who. Maybe Renee Zellweger.
- Peter's supposed to be a genius, right? They really haven't written him as such, except for being able to understand scientific concepts that Walter spouts. But his problem-solving capabilities leave something to be desired, and to me that's really what makes genius genius. He just seems like your smarter-than-average guy, not someone with amazing capabilities or anything.
========
Dinner with J. Friday night was lovely. We never seem to run out of things to talk about, and at the end it's like, argh, I had 5 other things to tell her! Pair was cute, but the food left something to be desired. The gougeres were terrible and the mussels were way overcooked. They have nothing on The Stone House.
The dinner party last night was really fun. I generally like every member of my team on a personal level; it's just that our work styles sometimes clash.
My attempt at appetizers didn't quite go the way I wanted. I made both drunken chicken and bacon jam, but the chicken did not look good so I didn't bring it. I bought a cleaver to chop it into pieces, as I don't have any knives that can easily go through bone... but damn, it is not as easy as the butchers at Chinese BBQ places make it look. You know that scene in Titanic when Rose is wielding an axe in order to free Jack from his handcuffs? And he asks her to do a practice swing on a cupboard, and then to hit the same spot twice? SO HARD TO DO OMG. The result is that the chicken pretty much looked like it was hacked to pieces. Even though the flavor and texture actually came out well, my vanity could not let me serve it to other people. As for the bacon jam, I worried at the last minute that people would think it was strange and wouldn't want to eat it. So I ended up getting some frozen potstickers, heating them up, and bringing those (in addition to some bacon jam and bread). :/ Lame, I know.
I shouldn't have stressed. There was so. much. food. Appetizers alone included my two contributions, homemade samosas, and a beautiful cheese platter, which had included two of my favorite cheeses ever, both local: Beecher's Flagship, a wonderful sharp white cheddar that every Seattlite knows... and Seastack, a gorgeous soft cheese that makes Brie seem boring and tasteless. I've also finally come to the realization that nothing, absolutely nothing, beats a great cheese platter when it comes to appetizers (and possibly even dessert).
Then there was the Indian-themed entrees... a pork "rogan josh" (except rogan means lamb, so whatever the Indian word is for pork), a sweet potato and carrot coconut curry, a spinach and potato dish, grilled "tandoori" chicken, cucumber and mint raita, an awesome cilantro sauce, grilled bread, and papadums. As for dessert, there was an entire banana custard sheetcake from a bakery I can't remember the name of, and of course the Bakery Nouveau chocolate cake. (There was also a little chocolate cake from Safeway, but we didn't even get to it.)
As I expected, O. (my manager, who was cooking the whole meal for us) was totally running behind and basically used me as his sous chef. It was fun but hectic. I felt like I was on Iron Chef!
Anyway, I KNEW that was going to happen; he had a really ambitious menu and didn't really allow himself enough time to make it all. I mean, it takes a long time to cook! And he was making food for 16 people! Anyway, so I ended up making the raita, the cilantro sauce, and the potato and spinach dish. LOL. Afterward, S. was like, "I don't know WHAT he would have done without you." Apparently she had offered to help the day before, and he had actually SAID, "I don't really like to have help in the kitchen." Except he was totally panicking at how far behind he was falling, even though I was like, "Don't worry about it, people can munch on the appetizers, we're not in a rush." And he was like, "I know, I know... but I'm going to have you make this... and this... and this... you don't mind, do you?" The cool thing is that we've been bonding over being foodies for awhile, so he probably trusted me enough to help. And it's a good thing that I've made Indian food before so I felt comfortable with what I was doing.
BTW... I am so proud of myself that I am mostly over my cilantro aversion. I still find it difficult to eat the stem part, but the leaves don't bother me and I even enjoy them. That is to say that the cilantro sauce was wonderful. I'm definitely going to have to remember how to make it. It was very easy... blend cilantro, stems and all, with garlic, lemon juice, salt, and enough olive oil to make the blender work (even though you'll probably need to keep pressing it down with a spatula until the sauce 'catches'). I'm going to make it just to eat with chips, it doesn't have to be with a whole Indian meal.
S. was desperate to have people take home all the massive amounts of leftovers, especially the cake. I was happy to do my part. So I have a giant piece of chocolate cake in the fridge (the two small pieces of banana custard cake was already eaten by me earlier today >.>), half the potstickers I brought, a jar of bacon jam (the batch made 2 small jars), big portions of all 4 cheeses from the cheese platter, and the drunken chicken. I also had some of the Indian food leftovers, but I ate it for dinner tonight. :D
========
I've just put in a big Amazon order for the Buffy S8 and Angel S6 volumes that I haven't been keeping up with. I'll need to reread everything from the beginning because I suspect it's not going to make any sense if I don't! One thing I regret from Comic Con is that one of the Buffy artists was there signing comics and I didn't even think about bringing mine. D'oh!
I've been rereading the Hot Gimmick manga, and I'm kind of blown away by how adult themed it is. It was the very first manga I ever read, so I just kind of figured they were all like that.
Next on the manga front I'm going to be reading Skip Beat!, which I may or may not actually get into. Apparently it was going to be made into a TW serial called "Extravagant Challenge" starring Ariel Lin, but for some reason it got shelved. I have all 22 volumes except for 2-4 from the library.
It is so ridiculous that you can't put holds on holds. What that means is that you often get things out of order, depending on when your turn comes up, or else you have to keep a separate list of what you want, rather than being able to conveniently use the library system to keep track of it. Which even then might be doable, except if you want things that are high in demand, because then it behooves you to get on the waiting list asap. If you did it one at a time, it could be months in between! I suspect this also delays people getting books, because as there's no late charges, people probably just keep the later books until they get the earlier ones, then read all at once. The good news is that I wrote to Sno-Isle about it, and the response was that they are going to institute the feature I want in the April timeframe. Yay!
========
I saw this on
rainpuddle13's LJ and had to share because it is so creepy and COOL! Zombie ants! For real! The fungus that kills the ants takes control of their tiny ant brains and guides them to the ideal location for the fungus's growth. Seriously awesome. I mean, human zombie stories are all so lame and pointless -- all they do is kill with no real purpose.========
I've had the AeroGarden for 1 week now, and 5/7 herbs have sprouted. It's even possible the other two herbs have sprouted as well, but they're in the back, the light's in the way, and I can't really tell. The thyme is ahead of schedule; I could see little sprouts at 4 days and it was supposed to take a minimum of 7 days. I think I'm going to try and take pictures every week to keep a visual record of the growth!
Check out that thyme, so eager to meet the world! I took off the little domes to take these pics, but I think I'll keep them on for another week yet.
Hello delicious basil! I can't wait to eat you!
