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We can HEAR the palm trees swaying and people drinking out of coconuts with umbrellas in the background of your post!
(these ears are not for show)
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We can HEAR the palm trees swaying and people drinking out of coconuts with umbrellas in the background of your post!
(these ears are not for show)
Hey now, hey now! We managed to get down to 39°F just the other night...
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Today just continues to improve: Impus Minor woke up in a fantastic mood. Impus Major is Impus Major. And GothBard just got her formal interview for the higher-cachet job (manager instead of individual contributor) with, "We're bypassing the first-round interview and putting you directly into the second round."
OK. This is funny. Normally I hate it when companies ask for feedback, but the legal support service just send me an email asking, "How's the case proceeding? We don't see any activity! Have you contacted a lawyer yet?" And they provided instructions.
So I got to respond, "Oh, yeah, I've reached out to your 'lawyers'. They haven't responded in a week. And Progressive is closing out the case so I guess you lost out. Too bad."
I'm seriously considering canceling the service considering just how useless it is for getting "real" lawyers. On the other hand, I've gotten to speak with 3 lawyers on the phone for advice just this year, so that breaks down to $45 to ask a lawyer a question. Around here, that's not a bad price.
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Overthinking 101 with the Kiddos
Me: [Kiddo], have you turned in your project yet?
Kiddo: No, but it's almost-
Me: Okay. This is the one you showed me this morning. Did you answer the question?
Kiddo: ...yes.
Me: Did you explain how things have changed about that topic since Shakespeare's day?
Kiddo: ...mostly?
Me: Did you make a prediction about how your topic will be relevant to Othello?
Kiddo: Yes.
Me: Works cited?
Kiddo: Yes.
Me: Did you avoid making your slides look like vomit?
Kiddo: YES.
Me: ...then you're done! Just turn it in and breathe!
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In life, it's important to understand that everything runs in cycles, and there are terrible cycles, and there are good cycles, and if you don't pay attention you'll only remember the terrible ones and life will seem horrible.
As of this morning the Celica is fully repaired (Impus Major got a tire leak fixed yesterday) and de-totaled. GothBard has two solid leads on better-paying, lower-stress jobs than the one she has now. The kids start school next week and their schedules are mostly in order. We've survived our financial nadir for the year (property taxes hit hard) so we'll be building savings for the rest of the year. GothBard's father's cancer was misdiagnosed -- the supposed metastases turned out to be scar tissue and he's actually cancer-free.
All in all, things are going swimmingly for the moment. And it's important to notice that and realize it, because I'm sure in a month or two we'll have something go horrifically wrong again...
...for example, the Cranky Calico might still be alive...
I'm glad GothBard has something better on the horizon. I always thought her main job should be reclining in goth regalia whilst men simply bring her things she accepts or rejects with a curt nod or shake of the head.
And I have heard of the ugly, ugly reality that is property taxes. They turned a family friend into a religious nut.
Thank god your father in law is cancer free. Cancer robbed me of both my in laws. I miss my father in law.
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And I have heard of the ugly, ugly reality that is property taxes. They turned a family friend into a religious nut.
Now THAT is a story I'd like to hear some time. I know all KINDS of arguments about property taxes, but ALL are political -- I've never heard anyone mixing property taxes and religion (except for tax exemptions, of course).
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And I have heard of the ugly, ugly reality that is property taxes. They turned a family friend into a religious nut.Now THAT is a story I'd like to hear some time. I know all KINDS of arguments about property taxes, but ALL are political -- I've never heard anyone mixing property taxes and religion (except for tax exemptions, of course).
Yup, turned his sizeable basement into a church. Started to think he was a pastor. Then became one.
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Speaking of religious nuts!
I was playing Madden and listening to a podcast on YouTube yesterday and the server crashed for the 2nd time (as they apparently do in Madden, I've since switched it to a offline franchise) so I say out loud "Jesus f$~!ing christ!!" So now this morning YouTube is flooding me with ads for religious channels and local churches.
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Speaking of religious nuts!
I was playing Madden and listening to a podcast on YouTube yesterday and the server crashed for the 2nd time (as they apparently do in Madden, I've since switched it to a offline franchise) so I say out loud "Jesus f+$%ing christ!!" So now this morning YouTube is flooding me with ads for religious channels and local churches.
I've carefully cultivated ad clicks so that Google thinks I'm an active woman in her 30s trying to pretend I'm an older man.
The ad streams are pretty hilarious.
EDIT: OK. Maybe Google knows I'm an older man trying to pretend to be an active woman in her 30s, but at least I've reduced the ad stream to stuff I have no interest in whatsoever. Though I do love the daily ads that I could be wearing much more comfy shoes in a rainbow of attractive colors!
At 1 AM alternate side parking kicks in, which means everyone parked on one side of the street gets a ticket if they're parked on the wrong side.
Last night I had to wake up at 1 in case there was a snow run (there was not) and it was amazing watching the amount of cops that flooded the neighborhood putting tickets on windshields.
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At 1 AM alternate side parking kicks in, which means everyone parked on one side of the street gets a ticket if they're parked on the wrong side.
Last night I had to wake up at 1 in case there was a snow run (there was not) and it was amazing watching the amount of cops that flooded the neighborhood putting tickets on windshields.
Berkeley is (in)famous in that every year it issues more parking tickets than it has residents (around 117,000). And as you'd expect, the moment the revenue stops going to the city and starts going to the state, parking tickets vanish.
As with all things, when money is involved, greed is involved.
They canceled alternate side parking today so parking at work wasn't as bad as it normally is.
i've been at the house for just about 48 consecutive hours. i've got power, food, heat, and plenty to do. laundry, dishes, canine care, and so on . . . . i just finished a chuck steak and coffee, and have poured myself two fingers of Evan Williams. i'm rereading World War Z for the nth time, alongside bursts of Stephen King's Just After Sunset. i've got piles of notes on every flat surface within arm's reach, and texts from nine different game systems scattered alongside. Netflix is a wasteland of unwatchability, and YouTube has plenty to see and ponder, but . . . .
i'm beginning to develop a mild case of cabin fever, methinks.
prime time for my procrastination timer to reset to zero. i think it's time to reorganize the future game room, laden down with what my brother didn't take with him to Pittsburgh.
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"Ms. Scint, how do I cite a quote for a Shakespeare play?"
"Ok, since the lines are always consistent when page numbers aren't, you put act, scene, lines."
....apparently one of the random quotes I picked was right from the climax. Whoops.
i've been at the house for just about 48 consecutive hours. i've got power, food, heat, and plenty to do. laundry, dishes, canine care, and so on . . . . i just finished a chuck steak and coffee, and have poured myself two fingers of Evan Williams. i'm rereading World War Z for the nth time, alongside bursts of Stephen King's Just After Sunset. i've got piles of notes on every flat surface within arm's reach, and texts from nine different game systems scattered alongside. Netflix is a wasteland of unwatchability, and YouTube has plenty to see and ponder, but . . . .
i'm beginning to develop a mild case of cabin fever, methinks.
prime time for my procrastination timer to reset to zero. i think it's time to reorganize the future game room, laden down with what my brother didn't take with him to Pittsburgh.
Pluto is pretty good on Netflix.
Ah, the entertainment of having random kids over!
The fridge started smelling, so Impus Major and I started eating all the leftovers, since that seems to be our appointed task. I finally found the culprit: A tub of broccoli beef still in its plastic takeout bag. I had no idea where or when it was from, and Impus Major recalled that a few weeks ago one of his friends brought along a female guest (with the inevitable, "She's not my girlfriend" that everyone under 30 seems to insist on saying), she put the food in our fridge, they had a fight that night, and both stormed off, all fridge food forgotten.
And that is how you find random people's food rotting in your fridge...
As with all things, when money is involved, greed is involved.
"Whats the towns biggest source of income?
"The police department with radar guns at the bottom of the mountain where it changes from 55 to 35...."
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...Impus Major recalled that a few weeks ago one of his friends brought along a female guest (with the inevitable, "She's not my girlfriend" that everyone under 30 seems to insist on saying), she put the food in our fridge, they had a fight that night, and both stormed off, all fridge food forgotten.
Looks likes a duck, quacks like a duck...
...Impus Major recalled that a few weeks ago one of his friends brought along a female guest (with the inevitable, "She's not my girlfriend" that everyone under 30 seems to insist on saying), she put the food in our fridge, they had a fight that night, and both stormed off, all fridge food forgotten.Looks likes a duck, quacks like a duck...
As with all things, when money is involved, greed is involved.
"Whats the towns biggest source of income?
"The police department with radar guns at the bottom of the mountain where it changes from 55 to 35...."
Eastbound Highway 80 going down the grade into Cordelia. If you don't hit the brakes on this loooooong straightaway you'll end up at 80 or even 85 in a 65 zone. And there are cops there every weekday nailing people for it. Because forcing people to hit the brakes on the freeway is somehow safer?
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I'm watching 'The Blade Master'
O dear me.
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But I worked really hard on that soundtrack...
*Melancholy synthesised proot*
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I thought a man wrestling an eight foot sock puppet might be the high point of this film, but, by gosh, here's a Surprise Hang Glider.
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I'm watching 'The Blade Master'
O dear me.
I somehow managed to come by a VHS copy many years ago. It's one of my most prized possessions.
I thought a man wrestling an eight foot sock puppet might be the high point of this film, but, by gosh, here's a Surprise Hang Glider.
Are you sure you're not watching Jon Pertwee?
11 degrees tomorrow and rain by Tuesday! Only 35 degrees, but at least it'll be above freezing. For a few days at least.
What makes winter longer? (it turns out)
Getting wrapped up in the hype for the Elden Ring DLC that isn't out yet.
*sigh*
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There is a ring around the moon tonight.
And in response to BNW’s earlier post I’ve decided to change the name of the little bedroom community where I live, to Five and a Half Palms. What? Of course I have that power.
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I thought a man wrestling an eight foot sock puppet might be the high point of this film, but, by gosh, here's a Surprise Hang Glider.Are you sure you're not watching Jon Pertwee?
There was quite a bit of ropey slow-motion kung-fu, so very possibly.
Also, Ator got got with the old poisoned celebratory wine trick, the chump. I bet someone's successfully pulled that stunt on Pertwee at some point, too.
Aaaand... there goes the streak of "good" days. At 2.
I was doing the dishes, started the garbage disposal, and the clear shot glass that I hadn't noticed in the sink rolled right on in, then shattered oh-so-perfectly to lock up the engine.
I spent about half an hour trying to de-glass and free up the disposal, but it's beyond hope. Gotta get and install a new one. Fortunately, I installed this one so I know it isn't particularly hard to replace one. It's just $150 and a couple of hours down the drain.
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I thought a man wrestling an eight foot sock puppet might be the high point of this film, but, by gosh, here's a Surprise Hang Glider.Are you sure you're not watching Jon Pertwee?
There was quite a bit of ropey slow-motion kung-fu, so very possibly.
Also, Ator got got with the old poisoned celebratory wine trick, the chump. I bet someone's successfully pulled that stunt on Pertwee at some point, too.
PLEASE. What Pertwee did was "Venusian Aikido". (Which, as you can imagine, gets big laughs in our house.) Not kung fu.
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Which reminds me.
When Eve was still studying Jeet Kune Do, WW asked me at one point, *in front of a group of other martial arts people*, the name of the art she was studying and I panicked and said, "Uh... Wu-Tang, I think."
PLEASE. What Pertwee did was "Venusian Aikido". (Which, as you can imagine, gets big laughs in our house.) Not kung fu.I thought a man wrestling an eight foot sock puppet might be the high point of this film, but, by gosh, here's a Surprise Hang Glider.Are you sure you're not watching Jon Pertwee?
There was quite a bit of ropey slow-motion kung-fu, so very possibly.
Also, Ator got got with the old poisoned celebratory wine trick, the chump. I bet someone's successfully pulled that stunt on Pertwee at some point, too.
I'll say that by his final season he was practicing a few moves that remotely resembled Aikido. And they changed the name -- in his first season it was "Venusian Karate" and then it switched to "Venusian Aikido", so I think he spent 3-4 months in an Aikido dojo and they called it good.
Aaaaaaand... beef joins the list of meats that you can only buy from a butcher.
I'm making beef stroganoff tonight. The recipe called for 2.5 pounds of round. I got it from the meat section of the grocery store, thinly sliced it, browned the butter, and tossed it in...
...and watched in horror as 2.5 pounds of beef generated roughly 1.5-2 cups of liquid in my pot. WAY too much to "brown" the beef -- I'm now stuck with boiled beef and I'm going to lose about 15 minutes of cooking time waiting for all the water to boil off (pouring it out would lose a ton of the flavor).
So, beef now joins chicken as, "no longer possible to cook with because they add too much water".
And yet people still buy it because it's cheaper...
EDIT: It's funny -- a local shop called "Mary's Chicken" has popped up around here and everyone buys them. Even restaurants advertise that they use them. And are they the best chicken I've ever had? Nope. They just don't add water to their chicken so it cooks up the way it's supposed to; you don't get chicken soup no matter what you make.
So now all I need is "Mary's beef".
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I don't think anyone is adding water to their ground beef or chicken, in fact, I'm almost certain that is SUPER illegal as it both creates additional opportunities for contamination as well as artificially inflates the weight of the ground. Ground beef in particular just has a lot of water in it naturally so you could have gotten some that was ground with a slightly moister when it was frozen during processing before being ground up or, more likely, most of what you saw was actually just fat as you picked up something like 70/30 ground by mistake or potentially a labeling mistake by the stores meat department which labeled it as a better grade of ground than it actually was... but it could also just be the normal moisture variance that is unavoidable, especially if the ground was only from a single animal rather than a larger batch with meat from multiple animals.
If a producer is injecting your ground beef or chicken with water before, during, or after the grind that is a MUCH bigger problem than it just being a "you thing" and it needs to be investigated by the USDA because that is not only illegal it's dangerous.
I don't think anyone is adding water to their ground beef or chicken, in fact, I'm almost certain that is SUPER illegal as it both creates additional opportunities for contamination as well as artificially inflates the weight of the ground. Ground beef in particular just has a lot of water in it naturally so you could have gotten some that was ground with a slightly moister when it was frozen during processing before being ground up or, more likely, most of what you saw was actually just fat as you picked up something like 70/30 ground by mistake or potentially a labeling mistake by the stores meat department which labeled it as a better grade of ground than it actually was... but it could also just be the normal moisture variance that is unavoidable, especially if the ground was only from a single animal rather than a larger batch with meat from multiple animals.
If a producer is injecting your ground beef or chicken with water before, during, or after the grind that is a MUCH bigger problem than it just being a "you thing" and it needs to be investigated by the USDA because that is not only illegal it's dangerous.
Umm... it's not only NOT illegal, it's become standard practice over the last few years.
In the past five years, this industry process has become the standard. Fresh chicken is injected with a solution of saltwater so it stays juicier and more flavorful (so they say). The solution contains a long list of ingredients that can account for up to 15%, or more, of the chicken’s weight. Some studies have shown up to 30% weight.
That coincides well with the amount of water I'm seeing.
Anybody else getting an unusually high number of 504 gateway timeout errors today?
Yup, I could not peek into the thread for an hour or so.
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That's why I don't go to gyms.
So... after Themetricsystem's comment, I went ahead and went down the rabbit hole trying to find the exact percentage of brine you can add to meat before you have to put it on the package labeling...
...and wow, what a rabbit hole it was!
(1) It's "plumping" for poultry and "enhancing" for meat, and it is indeed "now difficult to purchase poultry or meat that has not been brined."
(2) It turns out it's NOT an industry conspiracy to drive up profits (*gasp*): People have been becoming more and more concerned with healthy eating, so they're purchasing leaner and leaner cuts of meat. A boneless, skinless chicken breast has virtually no juices nor fat; if you don't know what you're doing and you cook it you're going to end up with a chewy piece of chicken jerky...
...and that's what consumers have been doing...
Brining started off with Butterball and their turkeys and it was incredibly profitable, but as people started buying lean cuts of meat the meat industry started getting complaints that their meat was too dry. So they started brining to reduce customer complaints, not from out-and-out greed. This one astonishes me, but I found the same comment in many places and it rings true with me having seen the way some people try to cook chicken breasts.
(3) The USDA labeling standard ("If you have more than xx% brine you have to put it on the label") is impossibly complex; it seems to depend on the type of meat, the cut of meat, and how it was prepared. I found an entire encyclopedia on the topic at Cornell University.
All in all, it was very fascinating research, and I thank Themetricsystem for making me do it, but this wasn't ground beef nor fat. This was a 3-pound round roast that I cut up myself and that then proceeded to excrete nearly 2 cups of liquid, and nowhere on the label did it say it had been "enhanced".
So I need to start taking care when I purchase meat, because I learned to cook in the pre-brining days, and now I have to plan for my meats to leak, or get my cuts from a butcher. (They cut their meat directly and hence don't brine in general.)
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Oh, here I was thinking you talking about ground beef where the actual meat department is throwing ice or pouring water into the grinder when producing logs to sell.
Yeah, brining meat before shipment is indeed a thing for sure, shoot, sorry I didn't understand, hell I had my hand at doing that a bit when I worked for the family deer processing facility when getting the larger roasts ready to be packaged for the cooler or when mixing the trimmings and ground venison with flavoring for use in making jerky. That reminds me... I gotta call my sister to see if they have any surplus jerky or sausage that nobody wanted to pick up...
I do have to wonder how bad your local meat supply and industry where you live is though if all of the larger cuts you get come out with that much water weight.
I swear, why is it so hard for people to be decent?
So, I have no idea whether Google Street View map links work, but here's what I hope is a view of the area around our rental house. It's across the street from Memorial Park, in a "suburb" that was built in the 1920s and 1930s. Stucco houses, front lawns, etc.
Over the summer, our tenants couldn't stand the thought of parking either of their cars on the street, so they started parking one of the cars on the lawn. Unattractive, but whatever. They've continued to do it into the winter, so our neighbor just sent me pictures of the mud pit where our lawn used to be -- the tire tracks run 6"-8" deep in the mud, and the lawn is completely gone.
Parking on your own lawn on your 1-acre lot is your business. Doing it within city limits is frequently worth a citation. Doing it in a rental property and destroying said lawn is just a, "WTF?", moment, especially considering they've contacted us telling us how much they love the house and how much they want to buy it from us when we sell it.
Mmm... if you're constantly generating complaints from the neighbors (one every 6-8 months) and they can't wait to see you gone, why on Earth would I sell to you?
Oh, here I was thinking you talking about ground beef where the actual meat department is throwing ice or pouring water into the grinder when producing logs to sell.
Yeah, brining meat before shipment is indeed a thing for sure, shoot, sorry I didn't understand, hell I had my hand at doing that a bit when I worked for the family deer processing facility when getting the larger roasts ready to be packaged for the cooler or when mixing the trimmings and ground venison with flavoring for use in making jerky. That reminds me... I gotta call my sister to see if they have any surplus jerky or sausage that nobody wanted to pick up...
I do have to wonder how bad your local meat supply and industry where you live is though if all of the larger cuts you get come out with that much water weight.
It was a first time for me, which is why I was tirading. But I typically go through the butcher for my larger amounts of meat ("I need 5 pounds of lamb stew meat for a curry I'm making"), so this is the first time I've bought such a large chunk of beef from off the shelf in a few years.
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we sell it.
Mmm... if you're constantly generating complaints from the neighbors (one every 6-8 months) and they can't wait to see you gone, why on Earth would I sell to you?
because then you won't have to deal with any complaints to the neighbors or free range driveways?
OK. That's kind of funny. It's "pouring" out there and I checked Wunderground and it's raining at... 0.19"/hour, which, believe it or not, *IS* a strong rainstorm for here.
Compare this to living in Sacramento in 1994, where we had a surprising number of days that hit 1"/hour, which is MUCH more what a "hard" rain should be...
...I remember rain so hard that if you were in the right lane of a 4-lane freeway it was hard to see the left lane. This isn't that.
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At the moment, I am envying Goth Bard that codeine works for her as efficient pain-killer. It didn't seem to do much for my tooth ache.
700 hours into Elden Ring and I'm still finding new stuff I've never seen before.
Ah, the tragedy of being 19.
I got up at 3:30 in the morning because the cats wanted food. Impus Minor was *just* going to bed. I said, "Don't you know you have school tomorrow?" and he replied, "It's all good!"
So I just woke him up for school. "What? Why are you doing this to me?"
"School starts today."
"No it doesn't!"
"Yes, it does. It's Monday."
"Oh, you're right."
He should have an "interesting" day at school today, to say the least. At least Impus Major is going in with him and can do all the driving.
I had that happen once or twice. Once was due to printed calendar issue that had me thinking Monday was Sunday.