do not want.

so, on a jaunt last week through a local supermarket's "organic and natural" aisle, i found this, which looked rather fascinating. i have, in my time, developed a taste for the more elaborate asian renditions of ramen (which are nothing much like your 10 for $1 Top Ramen specials). so i purchased it.

i have just dumped half of it in the trash. you will notice a reference on that webpage to "delicious Pad Thai" sauce. i did not notice any pad thai sauce. what the package did contain was soy sauce. acidic soy sauce, which is apparently meant to evoke "lime and tamarind" (as it says on the packaging) although they're being smart and saving money, because probably most of the people who patronize the supermarkets in this area wouldn't know what a tamarind was if it came home and announced it had gotten their daughter pregnant.

at least it was on sale.

spontaneity.

this is where i was this morning. yesterday afternoon, we spontaneously decided to go down to the shore. luckily, last night was my aunt and uncle's last night in their rental in barnegat light, so we stayed the night. this morning, they showed us the house they're building down there, and then we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon on the beach.

i don't get to the beach as much as i would like anymore, and i don't think we've ever done anything this spontaneous. surprisingly, it worked out pretty well.

photo was taken with my phone, as we forgot the camera in the rush to pack after work and get down there as fast as possible. for some reason, it has a blue cast. not sure why.

is it so much to ask?

all i want is a job with one of two characteristics:

1. i don't have to keep track of my time

or

2. there's actually enough work to keep me busy for an 8-hour log.

i admit it: i'm over-educated and over-trained, intellectually, academically, and functionally. i work quickly and efficiently. i know my way around a computer. i learn fast. and i spend a lot of my time bored out of my fucking mind.

i'm stuck in this limbo stage... i only have an undergraduate degree, and i'm headed into a field where you need at least one grad degree, 2 are better.

but still. i can't imagine no one else has ever been in this position before. is it really so much to ask to be able to actually do the things i enjoy and that i'm good at? apparently.

fail.

this was supposed to be a citronella candle. i lit it last night while we sat on our patio and watched fireworks. i have, in fact, had positive experiences in the past with the insect-repelling properties of citronella, and so i had hopes for this.

unfortunately, it has also been scented with other things, i assume to mask the scent of citronella, which can be rather pungent. the problem with this idea is that it also masks the smell of citronella to the very insects it is supposed to repel. i'm not sure what that was before it flew into the candle and burned to a crisp last night, but if a bug got that fucking close to the flame, it's obviously not all that abhorrent to them. i've heard of "like a moth to flame" before, but never seen it in action.

damn. now i have to go buy another candle.

national holidays.

yeah, so i'm a couple days late. what can i say, vacation makes me miss deadlines.

it has been spectacularily grey and humid the past couple days. makes for a very sleepy, slow holiday. zzz...

not that summer holidays aren't for relaxing in the first place. what's that? patriotism? yeah, sure. i have the feeling that the "my x (country, spouse, wow guild), right or wrong" sentiment doesn't have much in the way of legs in this new century.

but hey, i'll take the couple days off from work.

happy birthday.

he turned 28 on the 28th. aww.

i have baked him a cheesecake. it is cooling on the kitchen counter.

8 oz cream cheese
8 oz part-skim ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 t vanilla extract
1/4 scant c white sugar

beat the cream cheese and eggs together. scrape down the bowl. beat in the ricotta and vanilla. keep beating until it's as smooth as you can get it. beat in the sugar.

put a layer of berries on the bottom of a prepared crust (he likes the nabisco oreo cookie crusts. this is an 8" crust, so i had some extra batter). pour the batter on top.

bake at 325 F for 1 hour. you can use a water bath if you're worried about it cracking. the neat thing about this cake is that the berries are a surprise. you can't see them until it's cut.

redundant irritation.

i'm sure this had been said before, but it's irritating me.

we recently switched cars. after plugging numbers into excel, it turns out that we actually save abut $20 a month if he drives the diesel and i drive the regular car. the higher miles-per-gallon efficiency of the diesel actually offsets the higher cost in fuel.

this higher efficiency is further enhanced by the fact that most (if not all) gasoline sold today is up to 10% ethanol. now. it's stupid to begin with to turn food into fuel for vehicles. but this stupidity is compounded by the fact that ethanol is actually less energy efficient than pure gasoline, causing your car to actually burn more fuel than it would if they weren't putting ethanol in it. which means more gas in general, as well as more corn going into our cars' engines and not into people's bellies. at least biodiesel doesn't affect the efficiency of diesel engines.

what load of brain surgeons thought this one up?

for discussion.

barak obama's successful call for change would not have succeeded without the howard dean's presidential campaign of 2004.

think about it: both men successfully mobilized a huge mass of internet-enabled young people to start a grassroots swelling.

since dean's seemingly radical campaign, we've had four years of bush, four more years of war, and a tanking economy. obama, wearing a similar claim to being a washington outsider, comes along. he's got a similar message. this time people listen.

besides timing, what is the main difference? obama is much less emotional, he is a better speaker (both of which translate to more media savvy), and in general, a career politician from midwest has more widespread appeal than a doctor turned politician from new england.

discuss.

happy memorial day.

yay, vacation. i took friday off as well.

i know, i haven't been very bloggy this month. i needed the break.

what's for dinner?

this was actually dinner last night. kind of south-of-france meets american grill, i guess. it's one of my favourite marinades. i made it up one night when i had some wine to use up.

extra virgin olive oil
dry white wine
whole-grain mustard
garlic
parsley
salt and pepper

chicken breasts

spinach
pine nuts
grated parmesan

caveat: i almost never measure things.

1. mix the oil, wine, and mustard until you have a fairly uniform but liquidy marinade. add garlic and parsely (fresh is best, dried if you must), salt and pepper. coat the chicken in the marinade and set aside.

2. prepare the grill (i use charcoal, but i am aware there are people who use gas).

3. grill the chicken (about 5 minutes per side), reserving the marinade.

4. toast the pine nuts, in a dry skillet over medium heat, broiler or toaster oven, or over the coals in a metal pie plate, stirring to keep them from buring.

5. pour the reserved marinade into a saucepan and bring to a boil to kill all the raw-chicken germs and thicken it into a sauce.

6. slice the chicken and put it on a bed of spinach. sprinkle on the pine nuts, drizzle with the cooked marinade, and grate the cheese on top.

nomnomnom.