What you did today

[Shryke]

spent the past 2 days chilling out in the sun and drinking

 

was supposed to go do a photo shoot, but the photographer's camera decided to crap out

 

You're a male model? You unforgiveable bastard!

 

calm down Walshie

 

i only do it from time to time. and this one wasn't a professional shoot type thingy anyway

 

it was for a friend's project called "Goths in the Sun"

[Walsingham]

I saw Goths in South Africa. Healthy clean-limbed and smiling children trying desparately to conceal their tans behind white make-up, running off in rivers due to all the black clothing. I always admire tenacity, but they were just being stupid.

[Enoch]

As you may recall, the wife and I moved two weeks ago. We have a cat, who is slowly becoming accustomed to the new digs. She is both a good thing (e.g., she used to get freaked out and hide whenever anyone made the hardwood floors creak) and a bad thing. This morning, just as I get out of the shower, my wife comes upstairs and says that she can hear the cat whining, but can't find her anywhere.

 

It turns out that the enterprising little beast crawled into the intake of the house's air conditioning system. The house was originally built in 1936, and heat is provided via radiators, so, when AC was added decades later, they had to cram the vents into closets and such. The intake is in a coat closet-- the closet door has a screened panel to let the air in, but the vent itself has no grate or screen. The door had been left slightly ajar, and the cat apparently climbed in, and either climbed or fell down into the basement next to the main AC unit. So, once we actually found out where she was, I removed the system filter, pulled a couple screws out of the side of the AC unit, and took a panel off. Luckily, that exposed enough space under the coils for her to climb out. (Otherwise, I probably would've had to mutilate some of the duct work.)

[Trenitay]

I love cats and their tomfoolery

[Enoch]

The edit deadline on my post has passed, but I just noticed that the "She is" in the 3rd sentence of paragraph 1 should be "This is."

 

As you may recall, the wife and I moved two weeks ago. We have a cat, who is slowly becoming accustomed to the new digs. She is both a good thing (e.g., she used to get freaked out and hide whenever anyone made the hardwood floors creak) and a bad thing. This morning, just as I get out of the shower, my wife comes upstairs and says that she can hear the cat whining, but can't find her anywhere.

 

It turns out that the enterprising little beast crawled into the intake of the house's air conditioning system. The house was originally built in 1936, and heat is provided via radiators, so, when AC was added decades later, they had to cram the vents into closets and such. The intake is in a coat closet-- the closet door has a screened panel to let the air in, but the vent itself has no grate or screen. The door had been left slightly ajar, and the cat apparently climbed in, and either climbed or fell down into the basement next to the main AC unit. So, once we actually found out where she was, I removed the system filter, pulled a couple screws out of the side of the AC unit, and took a panel off. Luckily, that exposed enough space under the coils for her to climb out. (Otherwise, I probably would've had to mutilate some of the duct work.)

[Guard Dog]

Just got home, drinking a cup of two day old, microwaved coffee, getting ready to start working on my shed again. The dogs are running around like nuts. The bad news is I'm leaving on Monday for Birmingham, then Montgomery on Wednesday. Fortunately this will be my last road trip for a long time.

[samm]

We built a GTX 260 into my girlfriend's PC so that the new 24" will be usable more or less in its native resolution in games. How cheap those monitors have become! It was a third of the price I paid on my 19" LCD - five years ago. Anyway, the GTX is a huge card, and we had to bend the side of the hard disk cage to be able to use it. Amazingly, nothing broke and it worked right out of the box. Whew...

The card's cool and relatively silent. It was $10 more expensive than the cheapest 260, but is one of the new models with 216 shading "cores" ( ), comes with a 5 year warranty and keeps the warranty when changing to a 3rd party cooler

[taks]

took a xanax last night around 1 am, wife informed me this morning that she was carting the child off to school so i could sleep in, and sleep in i did. got up around noon and struggled my way to the office. my ears started ringing the other day as if i just got back from a loud concert, which leads me to believe that i need to get off the damned drugs (zoloft) for good. i see my doc on monday. ooh, i'm drinking some of mickey dee's sweet tea, which is pretty good. sweet tea is a standard in southern states, which i miss. this is the first offering in CO that i've seen.

 

taks

[Enoch]

ooh, i'm drinking some of mickey dee's sweet tea, which is pretty good. sweet tea is a standard in southern states, which i miss. this is the first offering in CO that i've seen.

Make your own. All you have to do is boil water, add teabags, and sweeten it with a simple syrup (which is anywhere from 1:1 to a 1:2 ratio of water to table sugar, heated until all the sugar dissolves). The either let it cool or pour over ice (if the latter, brew the tea a little stronger). You'll have to experiment a bit to get the little things right, like the amount of tea, the brand of tea (Luzianne is the prototypical southern brand, but may not be available up there), and how sweet you like it. But it's cheap and easy to make in pretty large batches.

[taks]

oh, i know how to make it myself, i just wish more restaurants carried it. i eat out a lot and quite frankly, prefer tea to any other beverage. iced tea just doesn't take up the sweetness properly so you end up putting in way more sugar than necessary to get the same sweetness. totally sucks.

 

taks

[alanschu]

Speaking of Zoloft, an Arts option I am taking is about the Sociology of Health and Illness, and I just had to write a paper about how we as a society have blurred the lines between what we consider to be "normal sadness" and what we consider to be clinical depression.

 

As an interesting fact, in 2000 antidepressants constituted just over 58% of all prescription medication revenue, up like 20% from 1990. Crazy stuff. The two articles I read were pretty interesting about the ideas.

[taks]

not a surprise.

 

i am not taking it for depression, however (anxiety). in fact, i would say that the zoloft is causing depression more than anything. i hate being on drugs and this is the latest evidence that i should kick it sooner rather than later. i'll deal with the anxiety, particularly since i know that my heart really isn't going to explode.

 

i've also stopped taking the PPIs, e.g., prilosec, for my stomach. they weren't helping other than to eliminate heartburn, but i think made the dyspepsia worse. tums and only tums these days (though my belly still hurts a little bit).

 

IMO, the only drugs one should ever take are a) antibiotics for otherwise incurable bacterial infections and b) advil for a headache or hangover.

 

taks

[Walsingham]

I think you're over-reacting, taks. I have several friends who were only able to break their depression through the splint of drugs. The drugs are only dangerous if you think they are the whole stroy.

[Enoch]

The Thanksgiving preparations have begun. Did a load of shopping today, and made the cranberry sauce this evening (3 parts (by volume) whole fresh cranberries, 1 part water, 1 part brown sugar, 1 orange (peeled, seeded, & minced), 1 cinnamon stick, and some freshly grated nutmeg, cooked in a big pot until the berries all popped and it reduced to a good consistency). It can hang out in the fridge until Thursday.

 

Anybody else doing the cooking? I'm only serving 6 (Me, the wife, and her sister, brother-in-law, Mom, & Dad) and I think I have most of the planning done.

Edited November 23, 2008 by Enoch

[Calax]

spent the last part of the day watching the Dr. Who about pompeii and the Ghram Norton show (guest: robin williams)

 

I was happy

[Daaave]

Once again I have no money for the coming week after spaffing away every penny I have on drink in the past two days. I should really stop doing that sometime soon .

[Shryke]

Once again I have no money for the coming week after spaffing away every penny I have on drink in the past two days. I should really stop doing that sometime soon .

 

you too huh?

 

i have about $40 to last me until thursday

[Walsingham]

Sampled the home-brewed beer we've been waiting for. Actually pretty good. Used a basic kit, and replaced the 1 kg of white sugar in the recipe with 300g honey, 700 g molasses, and 200g white sugar. Threw in some coriander seed for fun. 3 weeks in the making, and a solid bitter flavour, with a smooth almost buttery finish.

 

42 bottles of beer for about 18 quid!

[alanschu]

Playing with JSP

[Deraldin]

I didn't do much today, but I know what I'll be doing all night. I completely forgot to even start my master budget for my management accounting class and it's due monday at 1pm.

 

Then I have to finish up my group presentation for another class in which my one of my two group members I haven't even been able to contact since getting the assignment. At least my other partner has been pretty helpful

[Guard Dog]

The Thanksgiving preparations have begun. Did a load of shopping today, and made the cranberry sauce this evening (3 parts (by volume) whole fresh cranberries, 1 part water, 1 part brown sugar, 1 orange (peeled, seeded, & minced), 1 cinnamon stick, and some freshly grated nutmeg, cooked in a big pot until the berries all popped and it reduced to a good consistency). It can hang out in the fridge until Thursday.

 

Anybody else doing the cooking? I'm only serving 6 (Me, the wife, and her sister, brother-in-law, Mom, & Dad) and I think I have most of the planning done.

 

I have a venison backstrap I got from a guy at work who is an avid hunter. I'm going to slow smoke it using this recipe:

 

1 cup non-iodized salt

1 Tbs sage

1 cup sugar

1 Tbs ground cloves

1 Tbs tarragon

1 Tbs soy sauce

4 Tbs black pepper

1 Tbs thyme

1 Tsp white pepper

2 bay leaves

 

Combine the above ingredients in a 2-quart plastic container and add water until full. Cap and shake well to dissolve the salt and sugar. Using a fork or knife, puncture the meat several times to allow the marinade to penetrate more completely. Place the meat in a plastic bowl and cover with the marinade. Marinade in the refrigerator for 3-4 days, turning the meat each day. Remove the meat from the marinade and place back in the refrigerator on a plate for 1 hour, uncovered. Light one half of a gas grill and place a metal container full of hickory chips just above the flame. Once the grill is smoking well, place the meat on the cool side of the grill. The idea is to cook very, very slowly using indirect heat. Smoke with 2-3 pans of hickory chips and allow to continue cooking until a temperature of at least 165

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

LAN Party + Beer = Awesome

 

So that's how it's like being drunk!

[Enoch]

@ GD,

 

Sounds good. I love me some smoked meats. I hear you about the football-- with the QB chaos going on in Philly, I'm not holding out much hope that the Cards-Eagles game will be particularly competitive, and, while I hope that the Seahawks can give Dallas a close game (like they did to the Redskins yesterday), I don't think that it's particularly likely. Detroit is a disaster.

 

I'm planning to give the turkey a nice long brine before cooking (water, salt, brown sugar, veg. stock, and some aromatic spices). However, the vessel in which to do said brining has caused me some concern. At my parents' house last year, I used a giant pot intended for canning. I have no such pot, and doing it in our cooler would require a ridiculous amount of brine to cover the bird (or some method of displacing the extra space). I considered picking up a simple 5-gal. bucket, which should be large enough for a 13 lb. bird, but that type of plastic is hard to properly sanitize, and I'm not very confident in the cleanliness of something I grab off the shelf at the local hardware store. However, I found a perfect answer at the Target yesterday-- a giant ziploc bag (the kind they make to store sweaters and such). I can put the turkey and the brine in the bag, stash it in the cooler, and cover it with ice to discourage any bacteria growth.

[Guard Dog]

However, I found a perfect answer at the Target yesterday-- a giant ziploc bag (the kind they make to store sweaters and such). I can put the turkey and the brine in the bag, stash it in the cooler, and cover it with ice to discourage any bacteria growth.

 

I was just about to suggest that. I got that very idea from a show on HGN called License to Grill. I use ziplocs for all marinating jobs now. Check out their website, they have tons of good and easy to make marinade recipes: http://www.foodtv.ca/ontv/titledetails.aspx?titleid=68771.

 

 

Anyhow, I'm leaving for Alabama in a little bit. I'm working in Montgomery tomorrow and Birmingham on Wednesday. I'm driving this time so no hassle and coming home Wednesday night. To all my American Friends out there Happy Thanksgiving. To everyone else, see you later.

[Enoch]

Yeah, I often use gallon-size ziplocs for marinading cuts of meat. I just didn't know they made 'em big enough for a whole turkey.