06.29.09
Posted in Drama Ilamas tagged drama-ilama, wank at 12:14 am by kyrias
I’m currently feeling rather bitter.
There was a version of this post that got eaten by the Internet, and so there is somewhat more bitterness in this post than there used to be.
I have recently had it drummed into me that my hobbies are rather cheap.
I write and I cook.
Writing? Need anymore be said?
The entire Internet is awash with writing that is at least as good as or better than my own. Asides from those people who have somehow managed to amass what amounts to a cult following, I have not seen that it is worth the time and energy to attempt to self-publish on the Internet. People are reluctant to pay for words, even if they like something. Some even complain about ads that are hosted on blogs that they regularly frequent.
Cooking.
Utterly underrated because:
- Many people see it as fuel and many do not care what exactly they put into themselves.
- Many people either have no taste or have no preference for anything much more than frozen meals or pizza or the local cheap takeout. Some actively prefer the frozen meals or pizza or local cheap takeout.
- There is no concrete evidence of your prowess.
- Even if you have given concrete evidence of your prowess, it is likely that it will have been forgotten before they have gone to the bathroom next.
- If you even care about your food just a little bit more than anyone else in your acquaintance, you will end up cooking because you need to eat and you will therefore likely be feeding other people in that process unless you’re an absolute grinch. The analogous paradigm of “selfish knitter” does not apply.
- If you enjoy cooking, then you almost definitely much needs necessarily give it out because otherwise it’d go bad before you have a chance to finish it — thus rendering a under-valued item that much cheaper.
- If you’re female, then it’s almost a given that you will cook for your family. I know that my brother never appreciated it when my mother or I cooked, yet he was almost pathetically grateful that my father cooked for him whilst the two of us were in Asia.
- Canning might be the only way to impress people because mere cooking is simply too rooted in the area of the mundane.
- It’s relatively cheap to just go out and eat. There’s no value in staying home and cooking, then cleaning, then doing the dishes on top of scrubbing the kitchen when it’s perceived that you can just go out, throw down a couple of tens, and have a decent dinner.
This, as opposed to knitters who apparently have to beat off admirers with a stick. I can’t even begin to recollect the amount of butt-hurt inducing comments from knitters who are tired of people requesting for hand-made items. I think there’s even an entire article on how to butt-hurt people who ask you for stuff by the Yarn Harlot. I could be wrong. The butt-hurtedness is making it hard to think.
Then there’s how Azora managed to get a sweet gig going in college making custom items for people.
…I have really just come to the conclusion that I need to find some other hobbies. I need to stop self-sabotaging this way.
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06.26.09
Posted in Recipes tagged Pork, red wine, rosemary, steak, thyme at 11:59 pm by kyrias
I first heard about this recipe from Zack when he made steak the other day. He very kindly gave me a taste and I really liked the flavor. So I then decided that I wanted to reproduce this for myself.
The funny thing is that I somehow bought pork instead of beef — but the surprising thing is that this turned out very nicely despite that. The upside is that pork is so much cheaper than beef it isn’t even funny, so this was very serendipitous.
Red wine marinade with thyme and rosemary
I mixed it all up and left it in the fridge for two days. It was fine, although I did worry about it a bit. I threw it in the oven at 300 degrees and waited for the meat thermometer to tell me it was done, basting with the leftover marinade as I went.
The meat was wonderfully moist and flavorful. Caesura called it “amazingly good” and “exquisite”. Wondrous praise, that.I liked it quite a bit myself. Now I just need to think about which side dishes could go well with it. Perhaps some rice pilaf out of a box. 
To be serious though, I need to figure out how to make that stuff myself instead of using the box. It’s like that last little dirty secret — like the bit about using cake mix because it turns out so nicely fluffy.
I suppose this will definitely be going into my “keep” folder.
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06.25.09
Posted in Entertainment and hobbies tagged Letterboxing at 11:14 pm by kyrias
Azora and I went letterboxing today.
For the unintiated, a letterbox is a box with a logbook and a stamp in it, and it is hidden in a particular place that is either interesting or scenic. The person who planted the letterbox posts clues to find it online, and people like us can then go and find it. The finders usually carry along a personal stamp to stamp the logbook to show they’ve been there and use the stamp in the letterbox to stamp their own logbook to remind themselves of which ones they’ve found.
Apparently, this activity started in England, where a guide at Dartmoor left his calling card in a bottle out on the moor. Then he encouraged people he took along to participate. The hobby gathered momentum and now there’s an estimated 3,000 letterboxes in Dartmoor National park — which is all of 365 square miles.
We went searching for four letterboxes and only found one. The one we found was Head by the Charles.
The posting for Red Ear Slider was very interesting, as you can see if you go here, but we couldn’t find it. Here’s an excerpt, however:
Walk till you reach the large boulder. Stand facing Otis Grove. You should see steps leading in to the water off in the distance. Look over your right shoulder, you will see a hollow weeping willow. Go see if you can fit in the tree then start to hooting like an owl.
We also tried to find the Boston swan and “This American Life” letterboxes, but those weren’t there either. The “This American Life” one mentioned 73 paces, and that might have contributed to us not finding it. Asides from the more prosaic problem of variances of leg length, then we have the problem that apparently a pace was once a double step, or five feet. This rather changes things — although I really doubt that the person in question meant the Roman derivative.
We had a good time, but 1 out of 4 isn’t a great success rate. The problem, for me, is that not knowing if we’re simply failing to find them — or if it’s because they were mistaken for trash and removed.
This is the problem with a hobby that isn’t sanctioned. Meh.
However, I think the idea of having a postal letterbox which you just mail around sounds like a lot of fun. I think I might have to riff on that and see what comes of it. So, I might decide to mail out a box to Thene, Sunny, idnahc, and others. Sunny, Pheta and I used to have a notebook we’d pass back and forth — which is probably why this concept appeals to me so much.
Or perhaps a personal traveler, which is a letterbox that lives in your backpack and people can only claim to have “found” it if they have passed a sort of test. Say answering a riddle, or singing a song, or perhaps performing a stunt.
The possibilities…
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06.23.09
Posted in Renting with friends tagged 136 Perkins at 12:01 am by kyrias
I was thinking about this. It appears that when we moved in together, none of us really drew up a housemate agreement — which frankly, might have been a serious oversight on our part.
We mostly did manage to muddle through alright, albeit not without a goodly share of drama along the way. However, I’m rather proud that despite many people going “OMG WTF YOU’RE CRAZY AND YOU’LL ALL KILL EACH OTHER”, four of us are still going to continue living with each other with the addition of Mr. P and one of us will be leaving to construct a love nest with his girlfriend. Not bad at all, IMO.
Of course, I’d like to point out that 4 of us had already had 1 year’s experience of living with each other in the same house, so it’s not like we didn’t know what all we were getting into. Sheesh, a little more credit would have been nice.
Anyways. I think that I’m going to start brainstorming a housemate agreement thing to be tentatively brought up. With adding Mr. P into the mix, who is definitely a more “lively” and *cough*neat-freak challenged*cough* person than Kell…
Housemate agreement 0.1 (All points open to negotiation)
- Quiet hours shall be from 12:00 AM to 8:00 Am on weekdays and 1:00 AM to 10:00 AM on weekends. This means no loud music, talking, or clanking in the kitchen unless it’s for breakfast purposes. Guests who are not staying overnight shall be informed of this. People who have classes / work at ungodly hours may ask for further provisions.
- A person defined as “non-objectionable” is someone who is either a friend of everyone in the house or at the very least, someone who no one in the house would object to seeing. Abbreviated as N.O.P hereafter.
- No guests may be invited to stay the night without explicit permission from housemates or if said person is defined as non-objectionable, notification would be adequate. More than one night requires permission, even for N.O.Ps.
- N.O.Ps may be invited over for a visit that doesn’t extend to staying the night at will. Inviting non-N.O.Ps over would require notification in advance.
- Anyone staying longer than 15 days total out of a month or consecutively will be asked to pay a portion of rent and utilities.
- Chores include:
- Kitchen duty: Washing down stove, and clearing sink of gunk, wiping down kitchen surfaces with a soapy cloth. (bi-weekly or as needed)
- Cat box (bi-weekly at least) (two slots)
- Dishes, loading/unloading dishwasher. This will include all dishes, regardless of who made them. Pots will belong to whoever made them. (Every night, cut off date will be 9:00 PM. Everything past this date will be either left for tomorrow or done by person who brought it out.)
- Taking out trash + recyclables. This will include all trash that is personal, like pizza boxes and Amazon boxes.
- Mopping floor, vacuuming. Scrubbing kitchen floor.
- General pick up, sweeping, and neatening of public areas. (Daily or otherwise)
- Bathroom. Including scrubbing tub, toilet, and dusting. Pouring Draino down drain, etc. (Weekly, at least)
- Cleaning out the fridge (Weekly)
Me:
Caesura:
Zack:
Azora:
Mr. P:
- Utilities shall be shared equally amongst all housemates. This means that if you object to someone using something that will take up more electricity, you need to speak up.
- Everything in the fridge that is un-labeled is up for grabs unless you’re finishing someone else’s package of food.
- People shall share in cost of toilet paper, paper towels, and detergent.
- No pets shall be brought in without express permission from all members.
- No shoes in the living room, kitchen, or personal rooms. Only in the hallways.
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06.22.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:01 am by kyrias
Alright. I’m not the best person at following a meal plan. Even when it’s something I’ve drawn up myself.
Life sometimes just gets in the way or I get disinterested in what I thought I’d be interested in and so on.
Now that Azora and Zack have pretty much let me take over the cooking — I think I need to be a little more scientific with what I’m doing.
Right now the set up is that they go shopping with me, I decide what we’re eating, and mostly try to divvy up the food between the two “households” so that the price comes out about equal.
Victory! In that Azora pretty much said the kitchen is mine. *rubs hands gleefully*
However, this might mean that I’ll have to eventually get more smaller containers of Pyrex to make freezing and defrosting portions of food easier. It took me a while to realize that a good potion of yesterday’s groceries went straight to making a huge pot of spaghetti sauce that will be good for a lot of meals. However, it’s really unlikely that we would want to eat variations of marinara sauce for weeks straight. Caesura is a good sport and goes along with that sort of thing but I doubt I could pull that one on Azora and Zack.
Righto.
Back to the drawing board then.
Part of the challenge is that I want to go get our food from farmer’s markets as much as possible. However, that might make coming up with a definitive game plan just a bit more challenging.
Uck. We’ll see how this goes.
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06.21.09
Posted in life tagged home births at 12:11 am by kyrias
I was reading this article and wondering just what it was that was bothering me about it.
I think, I’m not even going to go into her tone, her attitude, or anything else that’s ambiguous.
Here’s the quote:
I was disappointed until I read Tracy Donegan’s The Better Birth Book where she explains how studies have shown home births to be as safe as hospital births and it was then I considered a homebirth. I’m not the tree hugging type (I couldn’t live without lipgloss) but the idea still appealed to me.
Just. What?
For one thing, I don’t think there’s a causation sort of relationship between tree-hugging and desiring home births. I’m not even going to go into how tree-hugger seems to be slightly derogatory from her lips. For the second, I’m pretty positive being a tree-hugger has nothing to do with going without lip gloss.
Then there’s this:
My homebirth was one of the best experiences of my life and if I ever decide to have another baby (my husband will run when he reads this) I would definitely have another homebirth. At first I saw it as a challenge but now I know hospital births are actually more challenging.
Having a baby at home is the easy option!
Where to even begin?
For the record, I am pro-home births and will probably insist on having one. But to simply, blithely assume that all will go well is not at all responsible, amongst other things.
There are many complications that could arise from pregnancy. Hypertension, diabetes, eclampsia, anyone? Or perhaps a breech birth that goes wrong, umbilical cords that pose of a risk of choking the child, hemorrhaging, etc.
Home births can and often are the better, easier, healthier option — if everything goes well. There’s some articles that seem to imply that to give birth in an hospital imply some lacking on the mother’s part and whereas I don’t think the author is saying that, the smugness just rubs against the grain a bit.
I’ve read how some women cried with frustration over not being able to give birth at home as they wished and how some women’s lived were saved because they chose to go to the hospital when things went south.
It’s not always that clean cut and for her to just blithely say that having a birth at home is the easy option is just choking on some level. Not qualifying that it was so for her seems to be silencing to those women who wanted to have their child at home but failed to.
Or maybe I’m still choking on that sentence of hers regarding tree-huggers.
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06.20.09
Posted in Blog admin tagged Statcounter at 12:01 am by kyrias
I was wondering why no hits were showing up on my two other blogs’ Statcounters.I had installed the code properly, so there was no reason the hits were staying at zero — especially when I knew that Thene had been clicking on one of them.
Then, I realized I couldn’t even see the counter on the bottom of the first page, so I changed the theme to see if that would fix things.
Lo and behold, it did.
So now those two blogs have the default wordpress theme, at least until I find another theme that works and see if changing themes will screw things up again.
Very odd that it failed though.
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06.19.09
Posted in Reviews tagged glasses at 12:01 am by kyrias
Alright. So when I had my eyes checked out this time in Taiwan and found that my prescription was off, mom bought me a new pair of glasses.
Then, she was super nice and got me lenses that change colors when exposed to UV light. So - I have like mecha glasses that transform…nvm. Pretend I didn’t say that.
Aside from the fact that they’re huge and dorky looking and that Caesura thinks they look horrid — I like them. Besides, they were chepaer because they were huge and dorky looking. The frames were 800 NT when the cooler, lighter, chic-er ones cost about 4000 NT.
So, like, Caesura, you can complain about them when you’re willing to shell out the money for new, cooler looking ones. As for now, you get to deal with having a dorky looking gf. I feel so badly for you.
Anyways.
It’s true — the lenses don’t block as much light as normal sunglasses. However, in my opinion, it’s sufficient to keep me from squinting from glare and that’s really all that matters to me. I’m pretty light sensitive already, so I really hate to wonder about just how light-sensitive other people are that complain they’re not getting a dark enough shade.
Also, they do take some time to turn darker. I didn’t find this that much of an issue unless I was hopping out from the car and going straight back indoors. I didn’t really notice that they took an obnoxious amount of time to turn light again, but your mileage may vary.
Since the chemical reaction occurs when the lenses are exposed to UV light, they probably won’t turn darker in the car since apparently most cars nowadays have treated glass. This makes them less optimal if you drive a lot. Since I don’t drive, I don’t find this an issue.
The glasses that I have aren’t entirely clear either. They have a very light tint to start off with. Some people might find this obnoxious, but since I stare at a computer screen all day, I find it cuts the glare from the computer screen also — therefore not an issue. True, my computer glare could easily be remedied by turning down the settings, but why bother when I have glasses that do that for me? 
Also? Frankly I’m just lazy. It’s great to not have to worry about carrying an extra pair of glasses around with me. It’s also obnoxious to have to wear contact lenses when I want to wear sunglasses or risk wandering around blind.
Let’s see. Either be myopic, shell out the big bucks for an extra pair of prescription sunglasses, or be tearing up from the sun. Can I choose neither?
Although, I really just might find a cooler pair of frames once I can afford ‘em.
Just to keep the boy happy.
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06.18.09
Posted in On cabbages and kings tagged OkCupid at 12:01 am by kyrias
So.
I joined OkCupid in 2005 for the lulz and to take the quizzes. I have only recently uploaded a picture - partially because Mr P kept asking me to and because I was morbidly curious.
As to what I was morbidly curious about…
Without a photo, I had 2 people view my profile in 2007. One of whom was Azora.
Without a photo, 4 people viewed my profile in 2008. Better, but not that great.
Still without a photo, 2 people viewed my profile in 2009 — one of which was Mr. P.
Since I uploaded a photo at about 10pm, there has been 20 people who viewed my profile. Now I shall have to see who actually messages me.
Keeping in mind I have had less than a handful of people message me without my initiating it since 2005 until now.
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06.17.09
Posted in Beauty tagged long hair at 12:08 am by kyrias
About long hair and all the questions I get…
Keeping in mind, of course, that I have 1bCii hair. Your mileage may vary.
- No, it actually does not take more effort to keep tidy than short hair. In fact, it usually takes less effort because when my hair is long, it doesn’t look that messy uncombed — hence meaning I can get away without a comb touching my head for a full week without anyone noticing. The weight also seems to keep it from drifting around and getting into everything. Also, if I keep it braided at night, which I should because it both protects the hair from rubbing all over each other and getting tangled — it’s simply a matter of unbraiding it in the morning and then I’m good to go.
- No, I don’t use more shampoo. All that should be getting washed is the scalp — the oils that the scalp produces don’t really travel more than 4 inches past the roots. If I have three feet of hair — which I did — then I’m only soaping up the first foot or so, if that. Excess shampooing of the length itself can lead to it being stripped of its natural protection of oils, leading to split ends.
- No, it’s not really that heavy. I don’t notice the weight of it and I didn’t notice the “loss of weight” immediately after cutting it either.
- No, it’s not a pain to deal with. In fact I find it more irritating to have a short ponytail brushing the back of my neck constantly than to have a bun.
- No, I don’t spend ages on my hair. I wash it, put it in a braid to dry, and that’s it. I can finish showering in 5 minutes with 3 foot long hair and have it be clean. I might decide to put it up in a complicated updo, taking all of an hour — or I can twist it up and have it all up within 60 seconds.
- No, I don’t spend oodles of money on it. Properly taken care of, there’s no reason to have to spend oodles of money on having long hair.
- No, I didn’t spend all my life growing my hair. It took about 5 years for it to grow from slightly below the shoulders to past my ass — with regular trims taking off about an inch every half year.
- No, this isn’t an Azn thing. Nor is this an Mainland Chinese thing. Nor is this a Taiwanese aborigine thing. And no, this is not to fuel those Azn doll fetishist’s wet dreams.
- No, I really don’t need commentary on how I should cut my hair and how much easier my life would be. I’ve cut it to shoulder length from butt-length and I have not found my life significantly simplified.
- No, I really don’t care if you think it’s ugly/old-fashioned/hippie-esque or whatever. I do slightly care if it loses me a job but then I don’t think I care to work somewhere that cares if I have waist length hair when it’s kept in a bun.
- No, I don’t prefer shorter hair. If this wasn’t already abundantly clear.
- Yes, I cut my own hair.
- Yes, I trim it myself and I also lopped off two feet of it when I decided to cut it.
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