BSC Headquarters. A must-read if you were ever a fan of The Baby-Sitters Club series. A girl about my age (woman?! I have to come to grips with the fact that I'm a grown-up now) is re-reading the BSC series and blogs about them as she goes. I myself have not had a chance to read much if yet, but Paige says she became so engrossed that, upon finding it, she read the whole thing in a day.
Giant Microbes. Not news to me, but it might be to you. I have the original four, a college graduation gift perfect for a micro major (thanks, Eric!). If you feel like spending $130 on me, feel free to get me the rest. They're so cute! I do have minor nerdy issues with a few of them (like why they decided to include Streptococcus in triplicate), but overall, I can't resist!
Fried Coke a hit at fairs. That's right, folks. I had just heard of fried Oreos and fried Snickers this year, and tried a fried Snickers in August (admittedly good), and now they come up with this. Sounds too bizarre, if you ask me.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
More food
Eric and I have a general rule that we try to eat out at least twice a week but no more than three times. This allows enough freedom for a running-late-so-can't-make-lunch lunch out and a last-minute Qdoba dinner or late-night Taco Bell run, as well as a nice-ish dinner out, without breaking our wallets. Last week, though, we cooked every night, and most of them were either semi-involved or new recipes. I can't remember a couple days, but here are the highlights:
Tuesday: Lasagna. Yum, as always, with Pillsbury crescent rolls to boot.
Wednesday: Jambalaya. I didn't have any celery and we used a Lipton Rice Sides Dirty Rice packet to mix it with instead of making white, but it worked out well (I channeled Sandra Lee's "Semi-Homemade" cooking that night). This week I saw Rachael Ray do "Jambasta" -- jambalaya over pasta instead of rice... interesting concept, may have to try that one sometime.
Friday: Chili -- first batch of the season! Since I was feeling rather meaty from the first part of the week, we made it with ground turkey instead, and added cinnamon, per my friend Paula's recommendation (she won a chili contest by using cinnamon). It was REALLY good, and in a demonstration of how disgusting Eric and I can be with food, the entire pot was gone by midnight.
Saturday: Sausage and corn chowder. Didn't have any potatoes so it wasn't as hearty as it could have been, but it was still really good -- a nice, warm comforting dish on a chilly fall day.
Also on Friday we saw our first Broadway show of the season -- All Shook Up. It was really cute -- basically, an excuse to put a bunch of Elvis songs into a musical. The guy who played Chad, the blue suede shoe-wearing, guitar-playing, jukebox-loving "roustabout," had an iffy voice -- some songs of his were great and others made me clench my fists in the hope he would make his next note -- but he had a really great variety of songs and he played his stereotypical role well. The lead female, who played Natalie, was great, and I thought her best song was her rendition of "A Little Less Conversation" in a deep voice (the plot involves her dressing up as a guy to get closer to Chad -- think "As You Like It," etc). The woman who played Sylvia, Natasha Williams, was absolutely amazing and pretty much stole the show, I thought. The set design was also really fun. Overall, it was a good time, not the greatest musical in the whole wide world, but very enjoyable, and I think it will make a really good high school musical once the copyrights are released -- very "Grease" or "Bye Bye Birdie" -ish.
On Sunday we ventured into the East End and had dim sum at Jade Palace. It was the first time I had been there, although I remember reading reviews by Robin Garr back when I first moved here, but I've had really sub-par experiences with Chinese food in this city, so I had been cautious. You can get pretty much any kind of cuisine you can name in Louisville, completely authentic and delicious, and I thoroughly enjoy having great Vietnamese, Thai, and Mexican places to go to. There are Bosnian restaurants and tons of African restaurants as well, but I haven't tried as many of those yet. But it seems, for the most part, that the only Chinese food is takeout, and even though the people at Wok Express, right across the street from me, are authentically Chinese themselves, they only stock ingredients that allow them to make Chinese-American food (which I can't fault them for at all; even I get a strong hankering for roast pork lo mein, salty wonton soup, and deep-fried egg rolls -- especially during test week!). The other authentic Chinese restaurant, Oriental House, was pretty good for certain dishes, and I was impressed that they had any sort of mien (wheat noodles in soup) at all, but it wasn't the kind I liked best. Plus, they boasted of offering dim sum, but when I ordered it, I could tell it was the pre-frozen kind. If you want Peking duck, though, that's the place to go -- they supply it to every restaurant in town, apparently.
Anyway, I hadn't tried Jade Palace yet, and I took Eric and my friend David for dim sum on Sunday. Results: I can't wait to go back!!! They have the basic dim sum dishes, both pushed around in carts and pictured on a menu for non-speakers (or half-speakers like me) to point at, fresh and delicious and almost as good as most dim sum I've ever had in this country. PLUS, they have congee (rice porridge) and mien -- the kind I like, with shrimp dumplings. We stuffed ourselves silly and brought home leftovers, and I managed to try the congee, but I just didn't have any extra room for noodle soup, so I can't wait until I get to go back and try it. The best thing is, now I have somewhere to bring my mom the next time she visits! Thank goodness for comfort food.
Next week is my next study week -- another big round of tests next Friday, so we get the whole week off to study like mad. Since I need to learn about nematodes -- that's worms to you laypeople -- I thought you might like to read about them as well: Dinosaur fossil spills its guts, out come worms
I was going to post a couple pictures here, one of Eric and me at Cadaver Ball a couple weekends ago (when I got drunk out of my mind and made a very large fool of myself... a good reminder of why I usually don't drink with people from school), and another of my sausage and corn chowder, just for the heck of it -- but I can't find the USB cord for my camera, so I can't download the pictures yet.
Tuesday: Lasagna. Yum, as always, with Pillsbury crescent rolls to boot.
Wednesday: Jambalaya. I didn't have any celery and we used a Lipton Rice Sides Dirty Rice packet to mix it with instead of making white, but it worked out well (I channeled Sandra Lee's "Semi-Homemade" cooking that night). This week I saw Rachael Ray do "Jambasta" -- jambalaya over pasta instead of rice... interesting concept, may have to try that one sometime.
Friday: Chili -- first batch of the season! Since I was feeling rather meaty from the first part of the week, we made it with ground turkey instead, and added cinnamon, per my friend Paula's recommendation (she won a chili contest by using cinnamon). It was REALLY good, and in a demonstration of how disgusting Eric and I can be with food, the entire pot was gone by midnight.
Saturday: Sausage and corn chowder. Didn't have any potatoes so it wasn't as hearty as it could have been, but it was still really good -- a nice, warm comforting dish on a chilly fall day.
Also on Friday we saw our first Broadway show of the season -- All Shook Up. It was really cute -- basically, an excuse to put a bunch of Elvis songs into a musical. The guy who played Chad, the blue suede shoe-wearing, guitar-playing, jukebox-loving "roustabout," had an iffy voice -- some songs of his were great and others made me clench my fists in the hope he would make his next note -- but he had a really great variety of songs and he played his stereotypical role well. The lead female, who played Natalie, was great, and I thought her best song was her rendition of "A Little Less Conversation" in a deep voice (the plot involves her dressing up as a guy to get closer to Chad -- think "As You Like It," etc). The woman who played Sylvia, Natasha Williams, was absolutely amazing and pretty much stole the show, I thought. The set design was also really fun. Overall, it was a good time, not the greatest musical in the whole wide world, but very enjoyable, and I think it will make a really good high school musical once the copyrights are released -- very "Grease" or "Bye Bye Birdie" -ish.
On Sunday we ventured into the East End and had dim sum at Jade Palace. It was the first time I had been there, although I remember reading reviews by Robin Garr back when I first moved here, but I've had really sub-par experiences with Chinese food in this city, so I had been cautious. You can get pretty much any kind of cuisine you can name in Louisville, completely authentic and delicious, and I thoroughly enjoy having great Vietnamese, Thai, and Mexican places to go to. There are Bosnian restaurants and tons of African restaurants as well, but I haven't tried as many of those yet. But it seems, for the most part, that the only Chinese food is takeout, and even though the people at Wok Express, right across the street from me, are authentically Chinese themselves, they only stock ingredients that allow them to make Chinese-American food (which I can't fault them for at all; even I get a strong hankering for roast pork lo mein, salty wonton soup, and deep-fried egg rolls -- especially during test week!). The other authentic Chinese restaurant, Oriental House, was pretty good for certain dishes, and I was impressed that they had any sort of mien (wheat noodles in soup) at all, but it wasn't the kind I liked best. Plus, they boasted of offering dim sum, but when I ordered it, I could tell it was the pre-frozen kind. If you want Peking duck, though, that's the place to go -- they supply it to every restaurant in town, apparently.
Anyway, I hadn't tried Jade Palace yet, and I took Eric and my friend David for dim sum on Sunday. Results: I can't wait to go back!!! They have the basic dim sum dishes, both pushed around in carts and pictured on a menu for non-speakers (or half-speakers like me) to point at, fresh and delicious and almost as good as most dim sum I've ever had in this country. PLUS, they have congee (rice porridge) and mien -- the kind I like, with shrimp dumplings. We stuffed ourselves silly and brought home leftovers, and I managed to try the congee, but I just didn't have any extra room for noodle soup, so I can't wait until I get to go back and try it. The best thing is, now I have somewhere to bring my mom the next time she visits! Thank goodness for comfort food.
Next week is my next study week -- another big round of tests next Friday, so we get the whole week off to study like mad. Since I need to learn about nematodes -- that's worms to you laypeople -- I thought you might like to read about them as well: Dinosaur fossil spills its guts, out come worms
I was going to post a couple pictures here, one of Eric and me at Cadaver Ball a couple weekends ago (when I got drunk out of my mind and made a very large fool of myself... a good reminder of why I usually don't drink with people from school), and another of my sausage and corn chowder, just for the heck of it -- but I can't find the USB cord for my camera, so I can't download the pictures yet.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Snippets
Confident students do worse in math
Interesting. I always hated math, despite being above average in it -- at least, until calculus and the senior slump hit. I took AP BC Calc on a pass/fail basis, relishing the ability to squeak by with what probably amounted to a D- average, since we only needed three years of math to graduate high school. I took the AP test, managed to pull a good enough grade out of my ass to place out of college calc, and haven't touched math since. Thank goodness doctors don't need to know much more than simple arithmetic!
Project Runway -- I can't believe Jeffrey won. What a wacko. I apparently have no fashion sense whatsoever, because I don't see anything innovative, interesting, or appealing about his designs. I was rooting for Michael the whole time, but I agree that his Bryant Park collection fell short. I really liked Laura's collection, and I think she's very marketable, but I suppose for the competition she has a limited range. Uli had a great collection, but I guess they chose Jeffrey because he had a good collection (so they say) and had done well throughout the competition. Too bad he's an ass. Around his family he seems like such a nice guy, but as soon as his son is more than 100 yards away, he turns back into a huge prick. In addition to the $100,000 to start his own line, he won a mentorship with INC, which doesn't seem to fit him at all. INC is a huge line carried by Macys -- I don't see Jeffrey meshing with Macys very well at all. Oh well, at least my Wednesday nights are freed up a little bit -- now I only have to watch one show instead of two while trying to study for my Thursday quizzes.
Speaking of which, Lost was pretty good last night, I thought. I liked that they finally went back to the creepy island storyline, although the sudden, unexplained, and completely accepted appearance of another polar bear seemed odd. I thought Eko was going to have been captured by that weird black smoke monster thing. And another weird thing about the hatch implosion (besides the fact that the three men were not imploded along with it) -- apparently it wiped out any reason for a button to be pushed? Was the electromagnetic force not a natural occurrence to begin with, or was it all created for the purposes of the Dharma Initiative so that the button had a reason to be pushed?
Finally, two videos stolen from my friend Dora's blog. She finds such cool stuff.
First, a video from Harvard showing the inner processes of a white blood cell. So fascinating.
The Inner Life of the Cell
Second, a video by Dove showing the evolution of a model from un-madeup to billboard, in 60 seconds. Crazy. If I had a makeup artist and hair stylist working on me every day, I'm sure I'd look gorgeous, too -- no Photoshop needed, even. Dove Evolution
Interesting. I always hated math, despite being above average in it -- at least, until calculus and the senior slump hit. I took AP BC Calc on a pass/fail basis, relishing the ability to squeak by with what probably amounted to a D- average, since we only needed three years of math to graduate high school. I took the AP test, managed to pull a good enough grade out of my ass to place out of college calc, and haven't touched math since. Thank goodness doctors don't need to know much more than simple arithmetic!
Project Runway -- I can't believe Jeffrey won. What a wacko. I apparently have no fashion sense whatsoever, because I don't see anything innovative, interesting, or appealing about his designs. I was rooting for Michael the whole time, but I agree that his Bryant Park collection fell short. I really liked Laura's collection, and I think she's very marketable, but I suppose for the competition she has a limited range. Uli had a great collection, but I guess they chose Jeffrey because he had a good collection (so they say) and had done well throughout the competition. Too bad he's an ass. Around his family he seems like such a nice guy, but as soon as his son is more than 100 yards away, he turns back into a huge prick. In addition to the $100,000 to start his own line, he won a mentorship with INC, which doesn't seem to fit him at all. INC is a huge line carried by Macys -- I don't see Jeffrey meshing with Macys very well at all. Oh well, at least my Wednesday nights are freed up a little bit -- now I only have to watch one show instead of two while trying to study for my Thursday quizzes.
Speaking of which, Lost was pretty good last night, I thought. I liked that they finally went back to the creepy island storyline, although the sudden, unexplained, and completely accepted appearance of another polar bear seemed odd. I thought Eko was going to have been captured by that weird black smoke monster thing. And another weird thing about the hatch implosion (besides the fact that the three men were not imploded along with it) -- apparently it wiped out any reason for a button to be pushed? Was the electromagnetic force not a natural occurrence to begin with, or was it all created for the purposes of the Dharma Initiative so that the button had a reason to be pushed?
Finally, two videos stolen from my friend Dora's blog. She finds such cool stuff.
First, a video from Harvard showing the inner processes of a white blood cell. So fascinating.
The Inner Life of the Cell
Second, a video by Dove showing the evolution of a model from un-madeup to billboard, in 60 seconds. Crazy. If I had a makeup artist and hair stylist working on me every day, I'm sure I'd look gorgeous, too -- no Photoshop needed, even. Dove Evolution
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Congratulations, Paula and Jeff!
When your best friend calls you and leaves a message saying, "call me back, I really need to talk to you," and her usual voicemails are more along the lines of "just calling to say hi, call me back whenever," it's a safe bet that she has BIG LIFE NEWS to share. In this case, Paula called me on Sunday and left that voicemail, but I was napping on the couch and missed the call. Upon hearing that she "really" needed to talk to me, I immediately grew suspicious. Yesterday, our other friend Jamie, who never calls me, called me, and I refused to pick up, growing more suspicious that I knew what Paula's news was, and afraid that Jamie didn't know that I didn't know and would spoil the surprise. I wanted to hear it from Paula, you know? I even made Eric call into my voicemail to listen to Jamie's message to make sure it was innocuous -- which it was, but that only made me more suspicious...
I finally got to talk to Paula earlier today, for about 2 minutes, and it's confirmed -- she's engaged! I called Jamie back afterward, and we had a nice, long talk about it, among other things, but I don't get to hear the full story from Paula until after 11 tonight, when she gets out of her ER shift. I couldn't be happier for her and Jeff!
I finally got to talk to Paula earlier today, for about 2 minutes, and it's confirmed -- she's engaged! I called Jamie back afterward, and we had a nice, long talk about it, among other things, but I don't get to hear the full story from Paula until after 11 tonight, when she gets out of her ER shift. I couldn't be happier for her and Jeff!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
no amount of vacation is ever enough
Whew!
It's 1.5 weeks post-test, and I'm completely behind again. Last week I took off to recuperate, and then this past weekend I took a trip east to hang out with my friends, and now all of a sudden I have a ton of stuff to learn ASAP and I'm exhausted all over again. Recurring theme for 2006-2007: can't wait until third year begins so this vicious cycle is broken.
Like I said, I went east this weekend, and I had a great time with my friends. We went to a winery in southeastern PA, stayed overnight in Wilmington, DE, and picked apples at an orchard in Media, PA. The only funny thing about the whole trip was that Eric also flew east for the weekend, to his parents' house in Chester Co., PA. Both of our flights left Friday evening at the same time; mine direct to BWI, his to Reagan National for a layover before heading to Philly. On Saturday when we were at the winery, we were actually IN Chester County, less than 30 minutes from his house and from my old place in Philly. When my friend had booked our hotel on Priceline, the next closest hotel they offered her was the Philadelphia airport hotel. Everything about it was so funny -- I flew to Baltimore to drive to the Philly area, and Eric flew to Philly, and we were so close to each other the entire weekend but didn't see each other once.
Apple picking resulted in us bringing home a full bushel of apples -- if you picked a 1/2 bushel, they gave you a 1/2 bushel of red delicious free, so we got roughly 52 pounds of apples for $21, which is quite the bargain. But it meant I had to carry a 15-lb open-top box of apples onto the plane, which elicited many odd looks, from the check-in counter all the way to the plane. It's not as though I can't buy apples in Kentucky, you know? Anyway, last night I made apple-cinnamon muffins, an apple coffee cake, and regular apple cake. I brought a bunch of it all to school today to share, but we still have a significant amount left, and I for once don't intend to eat it all myself. Plus we still have about 10 pounds of apples left. Sheesh.
It's 1.5 weeks post-test, and I'm completely behind again. Last week I took off to recuperate, and then this past weekend I took a trip east to hang out with my friends, and now all of a sudden I have a ton of stuff to learn ASAP and I'm exhausted all over again. Recurring theme for 2006-2007: can't wait until third year begins so this vicious cycle is broken.
Like I said, I went east this weekend, and I had a great time with my friends. We went to a winery in southeastern PA, stayed overnight in Wilmington, DE, and picked apples at an orchard in Media, PA. The only funny thing about the whole trip was that Eric also flew east for the weekend, to his parents' house in Chester Co., PA. Both of our flights left Friday evening at the same time; mine direct to BWI, his to Reagan National for a layover before heading to Philly. On Saturday when we were at the winery, we were actually IN Chester County, less than 30 minutes from his house and from my old place in Philly. When my friend had booked our hotel on Priceline, the next closest hotel they offered her was the Philadelphia airport hotel. Everything about it was so funny -- I flew to Baltimore to drive to the Philly area, and Eric flew to Philly, and we were so close to each other the entire weekend but didn't see each other once.
Apple picking resulted in us bringing home a full bushel of apples -- if you picked a 1/2 bushel, they gave you a 1/2 bushel of red delicious free, so we got roughly 52 pounds of apples for $21, which is quite the bargain. But it meant I had to carry a 15-lb open-top box of apples onto the plane, which elicited many odd looks, from the check-in counter all the way to the plane. It's not as though I can't buy apples in Kentucky, you know? Anyway, last night I made apple-cinnamon muffins, an apple coffee cake, and regular apple cake. I brought a bunch of it all to school today to share, but we still have a significant amount left, and I for once don't intend to eat it all myself. Plus we still have about 10 pounds of apples left. Sheesh.
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