09.30.08

On temping and RL

Posted in Job tagged at 9:41 am by kyrias

I think I can honestly say I enjoy temping.
I’m not there long enough to get bored with the work and there’s a certain sort of pleasure in being able to whole-heartedly throw myself into the work because of the adrenaline rush. It’s there, amazingly so, because it’s either sinking or swimming and no one can afford getting a bad review from their assignments.

That said, one of the truly sucky bits is that taking time off from work is a touch-and-go, iffy thing.

First off, I sometimes worry that if I turn down one project, then my supervisor will be less likely to want to call me for another. Logic says that if I’m a good worker and she needs someone, then she’s not going to — but there’s always the worry that there’s other people she could pick. After all, they do say unemployment rates are soaring.

Then, there’s the problem with temping — they don’t know me and therefore they wouldn’t know if it was true that I was sick or if I just didnt’t want to go into work.

For example, I’m temping as a receptionist for this week. I’ve also been under the weather for the past month — this Monday it flared up into a cold. I couldn’t just call in sick because they had absolutely no replacements and it would have looked bad on my record because “you shouldn’t have accepted the job if you were not feeling well”. Nor could I just do one day and give notice for this particular job — it turns out that they’ve “scared away” more than one temp, with someone doing three days and not coming in for the remaining two. If I asked for a replacement at this point, I might still get a bad review because they thought that I upped and quit on them.

Decisions, decisions.

Turns out that my supervisor over at OfficeTeam is also trying to line up a temp-to-hire position as an executive assistant for me. They might or might now deign to interview me this week. That’s going to be fun — wonder how she’s going to wrangle things between my current and potential future assignments.

I’m not even sure I want it to go through. Pragmatic concerns for a secure future, 401k and benefits aside, I’m honestly uncertain as to whether I want to be tied down into doing the same things day in and day out.

We’ll see, at any rate. With my lack of experience in the field, I’m not even sure that they’d want to hire me. The job description sounds pretty hardcore.

09.29.08

Eureka! Or: I need to buy more cooking gadgets

Posted in Cooking tagged , at 9:41 am by kyrias

I have to admit: I’ve never really liked baking.

I’m a compulsive improviser and I’ve never met a recipe that I could leave well enough alone. Guess what that does to my baked goods?

I’ve also never been able to take authority or instructions too seriously when it comes to cooking — if I were honest I’d say that not with anything else either.

It doesn’t help that my cookies and cake only turn out marginally better when I do follow instructions. Hardly compelling evidence that I should behave myself.

Now I think I just might have some incentive to follow directions. According to Helen Rennie, she’s never been able to get exactly 4.5 ounces to the cup when she’s measuring with cups — which means that since I also use cups, I’m actually not following directions when I thought I was. Supposedly, with flour you can scoop and pack in as much as 25-30% more if you’re scooping out of the container and leveling it off by scraping along the sides of said container. Even when she sifted the flour first and then spooned the flour into the measuring up, leveling it off with a straight edge — it was still almost an ounce off.

Whoops.

Maybe I’ll have to put a kitchen scale on my wish list before baking anymore - no sense in wasting good material.

09.28.08

Voting system isn’t fair — but is “cheating” justifiable?

Posted in Ethics and morality tagged at 11:38 am by kyrias

I and my flat-mates, all five of us, have recently moved from Wooster, OH to Somerville MA. There was some question as to where they would register to vote.

Zora doesn’t think it’s right to vote absentee for Ohio, whereas Caesura, Kell and Zack were considering it for a brief period

It turns out that some Obama supports are trying to get people to change their registrations from NY to OH because “their vote won’t count for as much” when voting in NY as in OH.

I’m wondering — how “right” is that?

Sure, it isn’t fair that Ohio voter’s votes count for more under the current voting system. In fact, it’s ludicrous that a candidate who carries the popular vote might still lose the election. Is that fair? Is it true democracy for the majority to suffer under McCain and Palin just because the voting system is outdated and broken?

For us, personally, I’d say that I support voting absentee Ohio because we’ve lived there for at least the past 4 years for four of us and Caesura has lived there for most of his life.

But for people who might never have even been to Ohio — is that right? Somehow, this smacks too close to the game of “massaging numbers” that Bush was accused of. Y’know, those “broken” voting machines that keep popping up oh so innocuously. Not that anything has been proven, but those rumors are damn hard to quash. Unlike the “Obama is a muslim” one, which is easily checked via multiple sources.

The more Palin/McCain I see, the more I’m starting to drift towards “the ends definitely justify the means”.

09.27.08

Ultimate showdown of ultimate lame-ness

Posted in On cabbages and kings tagged , , at 10:16 pm by kyrias

Me: Dammit! Now I have the DOTA song stuck in my head because of something someone said.

C: Well, I have the Bumblebee tuna song stuck in my head. Yum yum Bumble, Bumblebee Tuna I Love Bumblebee, Bumblebee Tuna Yum yum Bumble, Bumblebee Tuna I love a sandwich made with Bumblebee tuna.

Me: If you don’t stop singing that, I’ll put DOTA on. *smugly*

C: If you do, I’ll play the Bumblebee tuna song.

Me: You have that song on your computer? What kind of sick fuck are you?

All I can say is — why do people make such catchy songs with such horrible horrible lyrics? Thanks to my beloved comrades, I can’t hear someone say “I…” without having the ditty “I…wanna fuck a dog in the ass…wanna fuck a dog…in the ass…” start up in my head.

College may have taught me many things, one of which is to never form mental images, but sadly, this isn’t one of them. If anything, I only found a lot more songs to get stuck in my head that I never really needed to know in the first place.

If you’re a glutton for punishment, here’s Boten Anna. Enjoy.

09.24.08

Honestly, what does it take to get spice in this town?

Posted in Cooking at 11:34 pm by kyrias

I’ve tried buying red pepper flakes from Whole Foods. Caesura called it “miniature woodchips, for all the taste they give”.

I’ve tried buying it from Harvest Co-op, hoping for better luck. None to be found, sadly.

Not sure I even want to try the McCormick stuff - although if I can’t find any, I just might try them to see if perhaps they can do better. Just have to say, it’s a sad day when the natural food store stuff loses out to McCormick.

Seriously, what does it take to get my red pepper fix in this town?

It’s even difficult to find spicy food. Went to Pepper Sky near Central square the other day - food was very tasty asides from the minor detail of not even being close to spicy. Bought salami from the butcher’s a while ago and it was much blander then what we were used to.

Honestly getting frustrated at this point. If anyone knows where I can find red pepper flakes and salami with a kick — do please tell me.

09.23.08

Cracklin’s … or the perfect solution to a miserable day

Posted in Job tagged , at 8:42 pm by kyrias

It didn’t start out well at all.

First off, MBTA was a tard and didn’t tell me that if I were to take bus 558 out of Boston it’d cost me 2.80, so I was caught entirely by surprise with no cash on the very steps of the bus that would take me to work and the next one would make me late. Thank goodness the bus driver waved me on anyways.

But, regardless, 30 minutes later found me in Newton without an ATM card, no ATM machine near by, no stores selling Charlie card refills, and no cash. In short, screwed to high heaven and on the verge of tears.

I did later scrounge up almost three dollars in change after dumping everything in my bag out, but at that point I was pretty desperate.

Work sucked. As usual. I almost applied for a permanent position there because there was a job opening for a research assistant that looked like I might qualify for, but I decided that if I had to spend 8 hours a day in that office I’d go insane. It was the land of no natural light, decorated in all shades of beige, gray, and sand. I might still apply, just for kicks, since I really have no better prospects and going insane is better than starving anyways.

Then I got home and realized that if I didn’t chop up and freeze the chicken tonight they’d go bad. I opened up the packages to find that the heads were still intact. Caesura took one look at the head, said: “Hell, no.” and escaped. >.> Traitor.

So I had to saw at the neck myself, watching the neck perform an obscene sort of can-can on the cutting board as I hacked at it. By the time I managed to cut it off, I was laughing my head off. It might have been humor, it might have been hysteria, who knows.

The upside of the entire thing was that I got to fry the chicken skins until crispy and had that for dinner. Immensely unhealthy but oh-so-tasty and it almost makes everything right in the world again.

EXCEPT MCCAIN WEASELING OUT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES.

09.22.08

On chickens and rendering fat

Posted in Cooking tagged , , , at 10:07 pm by kyrias

I don’t know why everyone likes chicken breasts.

They take that much less cooking before they dry out and turn into sawdust patties and they’re so much more expensive to boot. I remember saying as a child that I hated the chicken breasts and got roundly chastised for ever saying that I hated food - which I deserved, no doubt, but it demonstrates how much I don’t like that cut of meat. It’s absolutely mind-boggling that people actually are willing to pay a premium for it. In fact it’s actually why I don’t usually order chicken in resturants, because that’s usually what they serve.

I adore chicken thighs, however. The lovely dark meat takes cooking much more gracefully than the breast does and it’s also much cheaper. It’s a pity that the magazine Eating Well had to point that out, I’m worried that chicken thighs are going to go the way of oxtails, upon which I’ll be much saddened.

Speaking of oxtails. It used to be one of the cheapest cuts of meat, because no one wanted to eat it. Now that all the European fine cuisine has pointed out how tasty broth is when made with oxtails, suddenly the price went up at least 5 times. Very, very saddening.

I don’t render my chicken fat the proper way — mostly since that involves cooking just the skin and fat in a pan until the it’s mostly liquefied, and spattered all over the kitchen. I cheat and fry the chicken skin in peanut oil and then use the oil for cooking. Sometimes I re-use the peanut oil, depending on whether I buy chicken again or not before I’ve finished it off. With this, I can also pretend that I’m not being quite that unhealthy.

It’s immensely taste and gives a lovely flavor to fried rice and stir-fried vegetables. I might have to make caramelized onions with it sometime and just kill myself with fat.

09.21.08

Yoshi’s revisted

Posted in Cooking tagged , at 12:05 am by kyrias

Today was one of those days. So I decided to order out for dinner since I’d be getting home around 8:40. Not such a good call, considering that I pretty much spent my entire day’s pay on dinner and it wasn’t that great. If it had been amazing, soul-replenishing food — then it’s one thing. This was quite another.

This time, I ordered spider maki and shrimp tempura udon whilst Caesura ordered Pork Bulgogi.

The shrimp tempura was a bit on the heavy side — it didn’t have that lovely light-as-air crispiness that tempura should have and the shrimp was a bit on the overdone side. Perhaps it was because it didn’t travel well — I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. The noodles — now that was a real let-down. The broth was a bit on the salty side but it was passable if you tried very hard to ignore the insidious whispers of “MSG, MSG!!”. The noodles were a bit on the soft side, but the true crowning irritation was that there was nothing other than two forlorn broccoli florets and some shreds of napa cabbage aside from the noodles in the broth. Now, I don’t think it’s asking for much for maybe some naruto, perhaps some green onion, possibly some fried tofu, mayhaps some more vegetables — but alas, it wasn’t to be. It was decent, but not worth the almost 14 dollars.

The spider maki was tasty. The fried bits were a bit over-fried and heavy, as per my observations of the tempura and the lobster maki last time. But it was tasty. I’d have it again, even though it was somewhat pricy at near 9 dollars.

Note, I’m saying it’s somewhat pricy for the quality of food I got.

The pork bulgogi was ok. Not amazing, but it was decent. It had a faint sweetness to it that tasted really familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was most certainly not worth almost 16 dollars, I might even doubt it was worth 8 dollars. For that quality, I could have made it myself twice over with 16 dollars and had a much better meal. In fact, I wouldn’t have ever ordered something like that which is easily prepared at home except Caesura wasn’t tempted by any of the other stuff that I couldn’t make.

For that sort of “meh” meal, it came to about 55 dollars, including tip. I think I’d have some other variation of their sushi again, but I think we definitely need to find another Japanese resturant, because this one doesn’t cut the mustard.

Not when I suspect I can make better.

09.19.08

How long exactly can meat sit in the fridge?

Posted in Cooking tagged , at 1:36 pm by kyrias

Right now, I have a tendency to leave meat sitting around for a long while before I get to it. This is both a mixture of just being lazy and because I honestly just don’t have the energy or time some days to get around to it.

So my question is, how long exactly, can I keep things kicking around in the fridge before it goes bad? It seems like it really depends on a number of things, whether it’s ground or in chunks, for example, or how long the meat’s been hanging around before they get to packaging it and selling it.

I’m tempted to think that my delivery of meat from Lionette’s Market will be fine for the rest of the week — but then it was delivered last Friday, so I really don’t want to mess with that.

I just called them and they said 3-4 days. About 2 weeks if it’s been cryo-packed. He also said that he didn’t think ground meat had a shorter shelf life, contrary to what I’ve heard before.

Whoops, time’s a ticking — really must get on cooking that tonight. Or at least re-packaging after chopping up and freezing.

I guess they’ll have to go through the old “sniff and poke” test. Meat will let you know, loudly, when it’s gone bad. The thing is, I’ve cooked chicken that smelled off before and lived to tell the tale. Not that I’m advocating doing more of that sort of risky stuff — but when push comes to shove and dinner needs to be served…

Meh. I get off work at 8pm, should be finishing up dinner at Yoshi’s at about 9pm so I don’t know how I’m going to drag my sorry arse around to dissecting whole chickens. I think they sold me the whole chicken, including the head, so it’s not something I’m looking forward to.

The thing is, throwing it all in the freezer would make me cry a lot harder come time to defrost it. We’ll see how it goes tonight. Hopefully a nice, full meal will make up for the long night ahead.

09.18.08

Oh feh, flour in the sugar.

Posted in Cooking tagged , , , , at 11:37 pm by kyrias

Or more appropriately termed: “What happens when you’ve had a little too much booze while baking”.

Long story short, I saw that the sugar jar was depleted and refilled it. Bad move. Well, bad move when you’re just a tad on the tipsy side.

I made cranberry oatmeal cookies.

1 stick butter       3/4 cup sugar                  2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk        2 eggs                             1.5 cups oats
1.5 cups flour      1/2 tsp baking soda        1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt          1 tsp cinnamon               1/2 allspice
1 cup dried cranberries

The cookies turned out to be not sweet enough. I think it might have been because the original recipe called for a full cup of sugar and I only used 3/4 and also because I subbed half a cup of whole wheat flour in the 1.5 cups. Next time I just might add the full cup, but as it is this seems a reasonably “healthy” snack.

Just remember, eating oatmeal lowers your cholestrol! Snerk: not if you add loads of sugar and butter to it.

We also picked up some mint chocolate Baileys and made milkshakes with that and Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. All I can say is, it’s addicitve and a easy way to get drunk if you don’t like the bite of alcohol. Nora makes a mean screwdriver, but I have to admit to lacking her touch with the orange juice.

Kell is making chocolate cake with raspberry jam and liquor filling.

I wonder what all the uppers and downers are going to do to our system. :)

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