We're famous!

I don't think I ever blogged about it, but Joe may have. Back in January, we went to a taping of the Maury Show. We actually got to see the taping of two shows. One was a paternity test show (you are NOT the father), and the other show was about cheating spouses/significant others (with lie detector tests!). We never bothered to call the Maury people to find out the air dates of the shows, because watching it once was more than enough.

Tonight we were watching t.v., and somehow started looking on the interwebs to see whether we could find the shows anywhere online. I was about ready to give up when I found this clip:

Pause the video at about 2:52, and admire the blue sweater and red sweater. That's us! And no, you can't see our faces. What this video also doesn't show, is that sitting right by our feet was one of the producers. She furiously wrote cue cards for the "guests" on the show, telling them when to be more confrontational, and reminding them to stick to the script. Yes, there is a script. We saw it.

Future tenants?

Joe and I are in our NY apartment for the last day and night, cleaning everything. This is the floor in our NY kitchen. When we moved in, the entire kitchen floor was the gray color. We thought the linoleum was a speckled gray color. We mopped the floor, and it was still the speckled gray color. But then one day, after living in NY for about 6 months, Joe accidentally spilled some concentrated cleaner on the floor, and a white spot appeared. Turns out, our floor was once, a long, long time ago, a speckled white linoleum. Once we realized this, we were pretty disgusted. Unfortunately, regular mopping stuff doesn't do the trick. I had a leftover Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, and I used that on half of the kitchen floor today. You can tell where the magic eraser finally gave up and died.

The broker also came by today to show the apartment to someone while we were here. It was a couple about our age, and they did a quick walk-through while we chatted with the broker. I was trying to figure out a way to corner them to warn them about 6N and tell them to stay far away from this particular apartment. They were ready to leave pretty quickly, but not before they asked Joe a question about the bathtub leak, and the internet. The broker was rushing out the door while they were asking questions, so I mouthed to the potential tenant, "The upstairs neighbors have a drum set in their kitchen!!!" At least if they move in, they can't say no one warned them.

$15 Idea

In my last post, Joe asked for an example of an idea that I could sell. Well, not only do I have a sample idea that he could have bought from me, but it's an idea that could earn me some money too. I already ran the idea by Joe, and we're in agreement that this is a $15 idea, meaning that this is a Really Amazing Idea.

As most of you know, Joe and I are pretty thin people. When I'm stressed out, I forget to eat, and I've been kind of stressed out recently about our big move and starting my Real Job. I may have lost a little weight. However, with the start of my Real Job also comes the "joy" of a more sedentary lifestyle, in which I sit at a desk for about 40 hours per week. In anticipation of my future weight gain, I bought a Wii Fit yesterday. I figure it's cheaper than a gym membership, and I won't have to worry about waiting for the machines I like at a gym. Anyway, when I was inputting my information into the Wii Fit yesterday, it informed me that not only do I have the balance of a 40 year old, but I have the balance of an underweight 40 year old. My Wii Fit proposed that to combat this, I do some strength training in order to build muscle mass. I had a different solution, though, and came home from work and had two brownies and a beer, then nachos and a glass of wine.

This is approximately how many brownies I've eaten today:
Anyway, my money-making idea is to start Mandy and Joe's Fat Camp. For the small price of $5,000 per month, you can find out the secret to staying thin and not depriving yourself. I think $5,000 is a fair price to pay. It's a sleepover camp, so Fat Campers would get to stay in the extra bedroom, and the price also includes the cost of food. We'd discount the price if the Fat Camper was willing to do some housework during the day while we're at work, or run errands. The only drawback to this idea is that it's possible that at the end of the first month, the Fat Camper will find out that Joe and I are just metabolically blessed. That's why there won't be a money-back guarantee.

I still haven't been forgiven, so you get to see a picture of my other cat.

The cat with the shoe fetish. I promise that this is the last cat picture I'll post. Until my next trip to Maine. Tomorrow we move onto more important things, namely how few days left we have living under 6N and how my happiness seems to be correlated to the amount of time left in this apartment. I'm also happy because I checked our new building's website, and as of today, we don't have upstairs neighbors!!

I'm sorry Newtster!

Yes, you GET to see pictures of my cats! X-ray cat!

Possible Tourist Endeavor

There are only a few days left in NY, and Joe and I have been trying to figure out if there are any touristy things left that we should do before the move. We talked about getting up really early on Thursday or Friday and going to the Today Show. I said that if we're going to get up that early, we need to bring a great sign to make sure that we make it on TV. Here are just a couple ideas so far:
I'm not quite satisfied with any of them yet, except maybe the third. So, if you can come up with something spectacular enough to be on TV (I'm looking at you, Justin), I'll turn it into a poster, and I promise we'll get up super early and go try and win Al Roker's heart on Thursday or Friday morning.

I spent a week with the cats in Maine, and I'm not even going to post pictures of the cats. So there, Newton.

Sorry for the absence, I was vacationing for the last time before the big move and the start of my new job.  When Joe told one of his friends that I was in Maine for the week, the friend's comment was, "Oh no, does that mean she's only going to blog about her cats for the entire week?"  I took that as a hint that it would be okay to take a brief vacation from the blog, too.  Instead of showing you pictures of my cats, here's a picture from the top of Mt. Agamenticus, taken on the one sunny day of my trip.

The votes are in (again), and it's almost unanimous that I should turn this blog over to the future residents of apartment 5N.  I'm excited about this result, and I'm hoping that the future 5Ners have a solid grasp of the English language and are good enough sports to at least post and say hi.  The NY lease isn't up for awhile though, so don't expect to hear anything from Future 5N until at least August. In the meantime, expect to hear more about what I've been doing to keep the noise from above from getting on my nerves.

In closing, here is a picture of the NY sky a few minutes ago.
And another:

Reason #2 why it's dumb to put coffee in a bag

Yesterday was another rainy day in NYC, which has been pretty standard for the past couple weeks.  After packing a few boxes for our upcoming move (!!!), I decided to reward my hard work with coffee and a sugary treat, so I headed out to Sugar & Joe, a relatively new Sunnyside establishment that seems to specialize in coffee and sugary things.

It was about a ten minute walk to get there, and I was pretty soaked once I arrived.  I couldn't decide what treat I wanted, so I figured I'd get one for then, and one for later so that I wouldn't have to venture out again in the rain.  I chose a lemon cupcake, and a s'mores bar, in addition to my coffee.  Each sugary confection was placed in an individual plastic container, and then both containers were put in a paper bag.  I managed to stop the woman before she put my coffee in a separate paper bag.

Since it was pouring out, of course the paper bag holding my treats started to get soaked. I wore a raincoat instead of taking an umbrella, which was my own mistake, but the raincoat allows me to use both hands to carry coffee and cupcakes. Anyway, as you can see, I didn't make it all the way home before the paper bag just gave out, and my loot fell to the sidewalk. I was crushed, because the container holding the s'mores bar popped open, and it fell on the sidewalk. I was really glad my coffee made it unscathed, and I learned that it's always better to buy two treats, because if you drop the only cupcake you buy, well, that's even more soul-crushing.

Unfortunately, I probably missed out on the better of the two treats. I assume I did anyway, because the cupcake was really bad. The cake part was vanilla/bland-ish, and very dry. The icing was lemony, but it was kind of hard and unremarkable. I definitely wouldn't buy another cupcake there, and I don't think I'm very difficult to please when it comes to cupcakes.

The band so far

I've only received two responses to my request to start a band.  Not too shabby, considering tons of people post in the musicians section of NYC Craigslist.  When I first posted the ad, I almost included a line about how if the band didn't work out, the person should at least be up for drinking some beer.  Turns out that maybe I should have included that line, because the first response I got was from a girl in high school.  Aside from the age, she does have a knowledge of physics (though she said she doesn't want to be in the class, so protests by reading comic books in the back...not sure that qualifies, but hey, at least she read the ad!).  Unfortunately, she plays the keyboard and sings, and wants to make "truly beautiful music."  I just can't allow a high schooler with true musical aspirations into my new "band," because she's never had to rent her own apartment, so I'm not sure that she quite understands the real purpose of my band.  Plus, it's creepy to hang out with a high schooler that you meet on Craigslist, even if it is to be in a band.

The second response, from Frank, was much more promising although he used a lot of emoticons in his response, which always makes me a bit wary.  He sings, but not very well, and is a beginner on the electric guitar.  His musical inspirations include Three Doors Down and Breaking Benjamin, and he wants to play music like that.  Besides the excessive emoticons, he seems like a keeper for the band, mainly because I think his musical tastes will be recognizable to 6N.  He also included a "p.s. say hello to your neighbors!", which I found amusing.

This cat sits in the hallway in our building a lot.  As soon as it sees you, it starts hissing.  I thought it looked funny sitting under the umbrella, so I took a picture, and even managed to capture the evil in his eyes.  Or I just had the camera on the wrong flash setting.

I'm starting a band!

After figuring out yesterday that our management company has done nothing about the noise problem upstairs, I decided to use my legal research skills to read up on a few NY cases about noisy neighbors. Turns out that tenants in NYC seem to have no right to quiet, and that part of the "price" of living in a big city is dealing with noisy neighbors. And here I thought the price of living in the city was the rent I paid every month. Anyway, it seems that as long as the noise ends by around 11 p.m., courts have found that neighbors can play musical instruments, including drums, as long as their lease doesn't prohibit it. Mine doesn't prohibit it, so we're pretty much screwed in terms of enjoying any quiet in our apartment.

Rather than being upset, this information actually makes me feel a little bit better because now I know that at the very least, I don't have rights that are being violated. As a lawyer (not barred in NY though, and none of what I write is legal advice anyway!), it would really make me angry if I had rights that were being violated. Now I realize that I'm just oppressed, and what better way to rebel against oppression than to start a band? Change things through music, right?

As usual, click to make it bigger and be able to read it, it's easiest to just post Craigslist ads by taking a screenshot.

Does anyone have any good ideas about what I can name my new band?

And the votes are in! All three of them.

I have two votes to turn the blog over to the future residents of 5N (let's hope they can read/write English!), and one vote for "other". The person who chose "other" did not elaborate on what they thought I should do with the blog, though. I'm pretty sure Justin, my most frequent commenter, didn't vote. I extended the time for voting by another week just for Justin, although also because Blogger just randomly decided on the first end date for the poll.

In other news about me, I've been having a pretty bad and boring week, so I tried to turn my frown upside down by taking a walk to the bakery this morning for coffee and a chocolate croissant. The bakery lady put my croissant in one little paper bag, put my coffee in another little paper bag, and then put both paper bags inside a plastic bag. The whole "putting the cup of coffee in a bag" thing is something I've only seen in New York, and frankly, I just don't get it. Since the notion of putting a cup of coffee in a bag to make it easier to carry is so absurd to me, I often forget to speak up in time to stop the person from putting my coffee in a bag. I'm much more paranoid about spilling my coffee when I'm carrying it around in a bag than when I'm just carrying the cup.

Anyway, on my 15 minute walk home from the bakery I was convinced that my coffee was going to spill inside the bag and get my croissant all wet, which would mean that my frown would stay a frown. By the time I got home and took everything out of the plastic bag, this is what my croissant bag looked like:

I started to get a little upset with myself for not taking the coffee out of the bag, but then I realized that the croissant bag wasn't wet. The marks on it are just the butter/grease from the croissant, and for a few minutes this morning, everything was delicious and right with the world again.

State of the Future of My Blog

Dearest Readers,

It's approaching that time. The time I've been waiting for since about two days after I moved to New York. It's almost time to move out from underneath apartment 6N. I am writing this now, because we have an important decision to make in the next few weeks. Namely, what am I supposed to do with a blog that I started because of my obnoxious upstairs neighbors when I no longer have obnoxious upstairs neighbors (as of July 4)?

You will notice that there is now a poll in my sidebar, so that you, the three readers who have been regaled with my tales about the drumming from above, the terrible taste in music that 6Ners have, the six to seven people who live in a one-bedroom apartment above me, as well as my other random thoughts, can choose the fate of this blog. If you have other ideas, please make them known in a comment.

Sincerely,

Mandy

P.S. I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying I won't have obnoxious upstairs neighbors in the new place. It's entirely possible that I will. I was promised by the leasing agent that they'd have to drop something very heavy for me to know they're up there, though. Something heavy like a piano.

Road trip recap

My most loyal reader and commenter, Justin, visited Joe and I in NY this weekend. The three of us rode together from DC to NY, and bad traffic meant that we were in the car together for about six hours. After the first hour, we decided our conversation should be recorded for posterity. Since the entire car ride takes up about three single-spaced pages, I am only including the highlights here.

6:11 p.m.: Justin and Joe discuss where the nearest Sonic is. In the following minute, Cookout, Bojangles, and Quizno’s are mentioned.
6:12 p.m.: Joe bitches about price of Quizno’s sandwich and mentions Butcher Block (Irish deli in NY).
6:14 p.m.: Joe debates stopping at Chik-Fil-A.
6:15 p.m.: Justin mentions Sbarro.
6:16 p.m.: I mention to Justin and Joe that in the past 5 minutes, they’ve mentioned at least 6 food places.
6:17 p.m.: Joe’s foot is warm. Justin offers to blow on it.
6:27 p.m.: Justin wasn’t 5 feet tall until the 10th grade. Joe’s growth spurt was in 9th grade. Mandy was taller in 6th grade than Justin was in 10th.
6:28 p.m.: Justin tells vulgar joke about his college growth spurt.
6:38 p.m.: Joe wants ice cream. Or protein.
6:39 p.m.: Joe wishes he had a banana.
6:57 p.m.: Justin tells us about an idea for an I “sorta kinda like” NY shirt, where the words “sorta kinda like” are in the shape of a heart, and in red letters.
7:07 p.m.: Kevin Smith wanted Superman to battle a giant spider. Giant spider instead appeared in Wild Wild West (and Harry Potter).
7:14 p.m.: See Chik-Fil-A sign.
7:14 p.m.: Joe drives to Chik-Fil-A exit.
7:15 p.m.: Discussion of Chik-Fil-A shakes. Joe likes chocolate. I think it tastes fake.
7:17 p.m.: Justin loves mayonnaise.
7:17 p.m.: Justin tries to convince Joe and I that a peanut butter, banana and mayonnaise sandwich is great. We don’t believe him.
7:43 p.m.: I finish eating, so does Justin. While eating, we discussed Justin getting a picture of himself sitting on Santa’s lap and sending it as a Christmas card.
7:44 p.m.: Joe’s milkshake straw not functioning well. Justin suggests using a chicken nugget to scoop it up.
7:50 p.m.: Observe that traffic is moving much better now, but we’re still in Maryland. Christian fast food places fix traffic problems.
8:04 p.m.: Justin is annoyed by Joe’s milkshake sucking noises.
8:05 p.m.: “Water Shed” is what Justin calls himself in the shower.
8:10 p.m.: Drive by guy driving while wearing a red graduation cap and gown.
8:18 p.m.: Justin may now be an uncle. We are all quieter, possibly in food comas.
8:22 p.m.: Welcome to NJ. We were in Delaware for 16 minutes.
8:24 p.m.: Justin and Joe have discussion about Jeff Teague while I text message a friend. In my mind, no Wake Forest moment will ever top the time Chris Paul punched that guy in the balls.
8:29 p.m.: Joe asks if Riley Skinner’s “skinner” was better. Nope.
8:39 p.m.: C3PO was gay.
8:44 p.m.: Justin makes another vulgar joke, worse than the first. He will be a bad
influence on his new nephew.
9:05 p.m.: Justin goes through a family pack of chicken every few days.
9:38 p.m.: Noticed that I lost my pen.. Joe gave me another one. Oh yay, I can keep being secretary.
9:45 p.m.: Justin tells us about old Winston-Salem slogans.
9:50 p.m.: I try to play anagrams with Winston-Salem. Slam wine snot; slam lots wine
9:56 p.m.: Male won snits
10:02 p.m.: Decide someone should start a “Little Canada”
10:02-10:09 p.m.: Discuss every possible touristy thing to do in NY.
10:22 p.m.: Notice that the boat in front of us is called the “Lusty Squid.”
10:28 p.m.: Wet mans loins
10:35 p.m.: Justin is intrigued by Giovanni’s Pizza, which serves tacos, burritos, tortas, tamales and guaraches.
10:35 p.m.: Joe explains street numbering in Queens to Justin, and explains that it bears no relation to Manhattan street numbering. I don’t think Justin cares.

Now that you've made it to the end of some of the more entertaining snippets of our conversations, let me reward you with a very blurry picture I took when we finally made it onto the Verrazano Bridge.

Don't worry, my first "grown-up job" purchase will be a digital SLR.

I'm too clean for the NY subways

This weekend one of my college friends came to the city for a little visit. She works for a well-known environmental organization, which I'll call Preengeace, and she has some excellent stories to tell about her job. Of all the people I talk to regularly, I think her job and organization are the most fascinating.

While we were riding the subway during her visit, she was approached by a possibly intoxicated man (it was about 3 p.m.), and questioned about a necklace she was wearing. Side story about the necklace-it was given to her as a gift, and is made of coral. She doesn't wear the necklace at home or work but figured she could wear it while visiting, since she knew we weren't about to lecture her, of all people, about sustainability of coral jewelry. I wouldn't have even known what it was made of if she hadn't told me, but I'm more into blood diamonds than coral.

At least it wasn't a necklace made from this poor whale's missing teeth.

Anyway, she admitted to the man that yes, her necklace was made of coral. Then he launched into an incoherent babble about the environment, something about how he used to be a sea man (at this point, his diatribe made me think of the South Park episode with the Sea People and it was hard to keep a straight face), and how "girls like you, with your clean clothes and your detergents, they go in the water....blah blah.....incoherent ramble....fish....another mention of detergent and clean clothes and girls." I expect that this is the only incident where someone on the NY subway will complain that I'm TOO clean.

This incident made me realize that I need to apologize to all of you for being female. I guess I'm slowly killing you all with my clean clothes and laundry detergent, since there are absolutely no environmentally friendly detergents on the market.

Tourist Saturday

On Saturday afternoon Joe and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, to go eat pizza at Grimaldi's, killing two tourist birds with one stone.

While walking across the bridge, we ran into Hobo Gary, who was going to meet us for dinner. It was a moment reminiscent of the Sex and the City movie when Miranda and Steve meet on the Brooklyn Bridge after they decide to stay together, even though Miranda was kind of bitchy to Steve and Steve cheated on her. Our moment was better though, because we haven't cheated on Hobo Gary, and Hobo Gary isn't bitchy.

The wait in line for Grimaldi's was about 1.5 hours. During that time, I decided that it would be a good idea for someone with a lot of money to rent the vacant space next to Grimaldi's and open another pizza place called Grimaldo's. I think it's close enough that at least some tourists would accidentally go to Grimaldo's. Even if they're not confused, after waiting in line at Grimaldi's for an hour, they'll be willing to try Grimaldo's.

Chocolate Delights

Yesterday I alluded to the fact that I was going to do something fabulous with some of the leftover bacon. This morning I went out and acquired the remaining necessary ingredient, and a few minutes ago, I declared Project Bacon to be a smashing success.

I made chocolate covered bacon. I like bacon, but the prospect of eating plain old bacon for a few days in a row wasn't that exciting. I scoured the internets for things that I could do with the bacon, and found a few recipes for chocolate covered bacon. I didn't want a fancy recipe because it sounded like chocolate covered bacon was either going to be a bit hit, or a huge miss, so I didn't want to invest any more money than necessary into the project. In the end, I didn't follow any particular recipe, because it doesn't take a genius to melt chocolate.

So, I went out and bought a plain old Hershey bar, and chopped about half of it into small pieces. While I did that, I threw four pieces of bacon in the oven at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. I know I like my bacon crispy anyway, but it really needs to be crispy for this, because I think chewy chocolate covered bacon is a guaranteed disaster. Anyway, when the bacon was about done, I threw the chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds total (be careful not to burn it if you melt it in the microwave!).


Then I broke the bacon into pieces and dipped it in the chocolate, coating both sides, and then I put it in the fridge to give the chocolate a chance to solidify. This was a good time to do a little sampling of my project, because a few of the pieces broke a little bit in the chocolate since they were so crispy.

Overall, I'm pleased with the results. If you like sweet and salty combinations (chocolate covered pretzels), and if you like chocolate, and you like bacon, there's a chance you'll like chocolate covered bacon.

There's an app for that

Don't take this post the wrong way, because ever since I've been an unhappy AT&T wireless customer, I've wished that I'd just gone ahead and gotten an iphone instead of the one that I bought. But last night I was watching t.v., and an iphone commercial came on:



As the narrator was busy telling me that there's an app that can tell me ski conditions, the amount of calories in my lunch, and print a UPS label for me, all I could think was, "yes, and that app is called the INTERNET." If I'm not mistaken, I believe that "app" is included in the data plan that AT&T requires you to purchase.

Bacon art

Last weekend Joe told me that because I was studying for finals, he'd make me whatever I wanted for dinner. I opted for macaroni and cheese, because we hadn't made it for awhile and it's delicious. When we make it we always throw in about four pieces of bacon. Since Joe is back in DC for the week, and our freezer is on its last legs, this means that I am forced to eat a lot of bacon this week.

I think I'm one of those people who's always stressed out about something, so yesterday when I got home from my last final exam ever, I made myself an enormous "To Do" list. I love making "To Do" lists, and I usually break annoying tasks down into smaller ones on the list, so that I can cross more things off and feel accomplished. Yesterday I almost put "Eat bacon" on my list.

I would like a bacon dispensing machine.

I was telling this tale to Joe tonight, and I also mentioned that I'm going to use some of the remaining bacon for something fantastic, which will be kept secret until I get everything I need for Project Bacon. I expect Project Bacon will take place tomorrow afternoon, and once it is complete, I will promptly photograph it, eat it, and blog about it. Joe asked if my project was a bacon weave. It's not. During our conversation, we somehow decided that I should use the bacon to make bacon animals, and ask our friend (formerly known as) Hobo Gary, who is a curator at a museum, if he would put my bacon animals in an upcoming Very Important Show that he's working on. Well, Hobo Gary, will you put my bacon animals in the show?

Finals are over, this is what I'm doing

Actually, I'm having a beer, not a glass of wine poured into a glass by a barfing chicken. But I do love my barfing chicken pitcher, and I don't really have any other pictures to share with you at the moment.

Expect more posts in the future, now that I've got nothing but time for the next 7 weeks. So, if there's anything in particular that you always wanted to me to blog about, or if you want me to learn about a specific topic and report back to you, just let me know! Because otherwise I'll just be writing the pilot episode of my tax law show. Right now I'm picturing Samuel L. Jackson playing the IRS Special Agent (the one with the gun), but I worry that it will wind up being very similar to Law & Order, except with tax law instead of criminal and Samuel L. Jackson instead of Ice-T.

First NY celebrity sighting!

Joe is a pretty big Law & Order fan. Since he's usually in charge of the remote control, I've wound up watching a fair amount myself, and have gotten to the point where I really enjoy it too. The show does kind of hurt my feelings though, because all of the law television shows tend to focus on criminal defense or prosecution. Where are the shows about tax lawyers? There are criminal tax cases. It's exciting, I swear. Maybe during my month and a half vacation before I start working, I'll write a pilot episode for a tax law program. Did you know that IRS Special Agents carry guns? See, tax law is exciting!!!!

My final exam today was pretty brutal. So brutal that I think the bar exam was easier. When I got home I was exhausted, but one of my good friends was in town for her birthday, so I dragged myself off the couch and went back out to celebrate with her. Once I got there, I was so glad that I went because I saw my favorite Law & Order actor at dinner!

If you want to learn more about the relationship between rap and law, let me direct you to a post on my former blog analyzing the criminal search in Jay-Z's "99 Problems."

She's a lady

And since I'm back in NY, this is the end of my being that girl who only blogs about her cats. Tomorrow I will go back to being that girl who blogs about her upstairs neighbors.

It's pretty uneventful right now, watch my latest movie

I'm still in Maine. There's not much new to report, so I'm going to be "that girl" and post a video of my cats.
The black cat doesn't like the gray cat. The gray cat likes watching herself on the computer screen.

You know what this movie needs? Drums. (When I just typed drums, it came out as 'drunks', which might also make this movie more interesting.)

And in case that doesn't fulfill your need of cats for the day, here's bonus pop art kitty:

I'm in Maine.

I'm in Maine for a few days studying for final exams. It's very relaxing, because there are no upstairs neighbors, and no drum sets. I figured the short study vacation would be a good idea so that I can get a little extra sleep, and have a quiet place to study. The library at school isn't really an option for me because it's more like a dungeon with books than a library; it's always freezing, and it's underground, so it's pretty dark.

It's been a pretty relaxing day here so far. I started out the morning by studying for my tax fraud & prosecutions exam. I even had a study assistant!

After studying for awhile, I took a break to do some laundry. My other assistant helped me fold. She wasn't much help.

Then I went back to studying, and am just taking a break now to update my blog. My assistant says hello. She wanted to guest blog, but she was getting too much fur on my computer.

I kind of forgot that Maine has distractions too, and these ones like to follow me around and try to sit on me.

Fun with Craigslist, part one of a possible series

I love Craigslist. It's been a great website for me over the past five years on which I've found places to live, sold furniture, sold used textbooks, and tried to unload some extra Advent calendar chocolate. I consider myself a fairly savvy, smart user of Craigslist, so the occasional terrible incidents that occur to some users of the website do not deter my use of the website. For example, when I was trying to sell my car on Craigslist, I got an offer from a guy to buy it, but unfortunately, he was only available to look at the car after 10 p.m., and he wanted ME to bring the car to HIM in some parking lot in Silver Spring, MD. His e-mail even mentioned that "if he were a female, he would be suspicious and probably wouldn't go." I have a super active imagination and would have thought of that same scenario on my own, so of course I didn't go, and I wound up selling my car to CarMax. And hey, my car wasn't stolen, I wasn't kidnapped and/or murdered, and I even got to put some money in the bank!

Sometimes when I'm looking for something specific on Craigslist, it's easier to post what I'm looking for and let people respond to me with their offers. When we moved to New York, Joe and I, with the help of the Newtster's father, posted an ad on Craigslist looking for people to help unload our moving truck. Within 5 minutes we had to take the ad down because of the huge response. Now that Joe and I are certain that we're moving back to DC, I posted an ad on Craigslist looking for an apartment in a few specific neighborhoods.

I've posted ads on Craigslist looking for apartments before. In posting these ads, I've found that many people cannot read, do not read, have trouble reading, or in their excitement to be on the internet, just disregard what they've read. In my ads, I'm very specific about my price range, date on which I want the lease to begin, and neighborhoods in which I'm willing to live. The ad I posted today was no different, and in it, I even requested that if the apartment wasn't in one of the three listed neighborhoods, to please not waste their time and my time by responding with an apartment located somewhere else (like fabulous Silver Spring!).

I received this response to my ad from Wendi within about two minutes of posting: "Hi, was wondering if you're still looking for housing." The subject of the e-mail was "Re: $1400-2400 Need apartment starting July 1 (Cleveland Park/Mt. P/Columbia Heights)."
I decided to respond to Wendi's e-mail solely because she used the correct form of "you're." That's right, I discriminate based on spelling. I responded, asking for specifics of the apartment she was offering.

Wendi again responded within two minutes, and said, "Hi there, nice to hear from you. Well that's good because I have many
places available for you in the area. What's your exact price range? How soon were you looking to move? Before I show you any listings I'd like to get a feel of what you'd qualify for, we can do this by getting your credit score. Our office has a relationship with a credit report company to give our clients free credit reports, if you'd like to get one through our partner go to http://creditreport365.net/?clientID=232842 or you can get one through your own means, just please get this to me and we can get you into something. I look forward to speaking with you." Please keep in mind that the subject line of this second e-mail was again, "Re: $1400-2400 Need apartment starting July 1 (Cleveland Park/Mt. P/Columbia Heights)."

Well, well, well, Wendi! Isn't this so helpful of you, trying to expedite the process by getting me to immediately submit my credit report. I'm glad that you also have so many places available for me in the area. It's also nice that you wanted to know my price range and how soon I'm looking to move. It's always smart to triple-check, you can never be too sure.

I figured I'd do Wendi a favor, in order to give her a slightly better chance of drumming up business from people like me in the future, so I sent her this response:
"My exact price range and the time I'm looking to move were actually in the subject line of this e-mail, and were in the ad that you responded to. Based on your not noticing that and/or not bothering to read them, I'm unsure of your level of competency to help me find an apartment. Best of luck to you." I haven't heard back from Wendi, but I'm sure she'll get back to me as soon as she's finished responding to every other "housing wanted" ad on Craigslist.

I do realize that sending snarky responses to people who respond to my ad but haven't read it is a waste of my time, but sometimes I just can't help myself. Besides, I'm fairly certain the person on the receiving end of the e-mail isn't reading it.

Have you seen this show?

I don't have cable television, so I don't get to watch a lot of the new t.v. shows coming out these days, or see the previews for them. Most of my t.v. watching is done on the internet, so I'm often blissfully unaware of the new programs coming out. You can imagine my surprise when I was riding the Metro North train with Joe last weekend and saw a poster for this:
At first I thought it was a joke, because it reminded me of the episode of 30 Rock where there's a Survivor-esque reality show called "MILF Island." Then I realized The Cougar is going to be a real show. And now I'm thinking that I should get a job where all I have to do is come up with absurd television show ideas, because certainly I could come up with something better than The Cougar, right?

Speaking of 30 Rock, every time I hear a commercial for the show "Cold Case," all I hear is "Gold Case."

Throwing around the ol' leather pumpkin

Until last night, I think the last time I played basketball was in seventh grade gym class. On that occasion, I wound up getting the ball smashed down into my face and my nose started bleeding profusely. I was sent to the school nurse because my gym teacher feared that my nose was broken. Luckily, my nose was not broken, but I had to stay in the nurse's office for so long that the school day ended and I missed my bus. Normally that wouldn't have been a huge problem, but my best friend was supposed to come over after school and since she was unaware that I had been battered by a basketball, she just went home when she couldn't find me. I haven't played basketball since then in protest of having my childhood playtime stolen from me.

Sixteen years after that experience, Joe's basketball team required the services of one female so that they wouldn't have to forfeit all four games. I was extremely displeased that they were unable to find another girl, but I grudgingly agreed to play. I am pleased to report that we won one out of four games, which means that my attendance wasn't a total waste. Here are my statistics for the evening:

Games played: 4 (11 minutes apiece)
Points scored: 2 (I was very pleased with this)
Nails broken: 1
Times I almost threw up on another player: 1
Times molested by a girl on the other team: 1-2
Knees skinned: 2

My knees haven't looked like this since I would fall off my bike when I was learning to ride.


I am happy to report that once I got over my nerves and the feeling that I was going to be ill, I had a decent time. I even told Joe that I would be willing to play again, should the team ever require a female.

Finals are coming up, let me tell you about my toothbrush

I've been meaning to blog about this for some time, but it's kept slipping my mind. I wanted to let you all know that I'm a professional toothbrusher now (as opposed to my former amateur status). My parents usually give me money for Christmas, and this year was no exception. Now that I'm all grown-up, I decided that I'd put some of that money to good use on the most ridiculous electric toothbrush I could find. After a great deal of research and reading what other toothbrushers thought of various products, I settled on the Oral B Triumph with SmartGuide. (picture courtesy of OralB website)

I ordered my professional toothbrush, and anxiously awaited its arrival. After several more days of just average toothbrushing, my professional brush arrived. It took me about fifteen minutes to assemble everything and read the instructions. As I was going through the instructions, I was pleased to find that my toothbrush came with four different modes: Normal, Sensitive, Massage, and Polish. Of course after reading these modes, I became extremely excited to try my new toothbrush so that I could find out what this Polish mode of brushing teeth was. I think it was only after I excitedly told Joe that my fancy new electric, computerized toothbrush had a European setting on it that I realized it was actually a "polish" mode, and not "Polish." Oops.

Anyway, I'm fairly pleased with my professional toothbrush, and it does give my teeth that nice, after-the-dentist feel. Given that I immediately sprang for the professional model rather than a cheaper electric toothbrush, I couldn't really tell you the difference, or if it's really worth it. It seems to hold a charge for a long time, and the "computer" component of it is pretty fun. By "computer", OralB really means "timer", in that after you've been brushing your teeth for the recommended minimum 2 minutes, a smiley face appears on the screen to indicate that your teeth are now happy. The computer also flashes an angry red toothbrush at you if you're brushing your teeth too hard. I was most interested in this feature when I ordered it, but it turns out that you have to be pushing really hard to be brushing too hard. This means that if you only have a mild curiosity whether you're brushing your teeth too hard, likely you're doing just fine. Granted, I'm a lawyer (pending admission ceremony to the bar, of course. None of this constitutes legal advice as to which toothbrush you should choose!), not a dentist, though, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt. The computer will also tell you when it's time to replace the brush portion of the toothbrush.

I think this was one of my best uses of Christmas money to date, because I probably wouldn't have spent that much of my own money on a toothbrush (although I'd like to note that I got it for an excellent discount price, but still much more than the typical $3 I'd pay for a manual toothbrush), and I like being able to say that I'm a professional toothbrusher.

A New York weekend

Two of my favorite "New York" foods are pizza and bagels. Joe has blogged about our pizza making attempts, and we're getting closer to making great pizza, but the crust still isn't quite right. With that almost success under our belts, I set out to learn how to make bagels. Joe, who grew up in New York, has a much more refined bagel palette than I do, but my lower standards mean that I'm often more satisfied with my bagels. I think he had his doubts about homemade bagels, but that just made me more determined to try it.

First, I did a lot of reading up on various homemade bagels. I settled on this recipe, which takes two days to make, but most of that time is inactive while your bagels hang out in the fridge. I liked this recipe because I had all the ingredients on hand and it has a longer fermentation period which helps the bagels develop more flavor. Also, it required much less kneading than other recipes, which is always a plus for me, since I do all my breadmaking by hand. In case you decide to make this recipe, I just used honey instead of the barley malt syrup.

Then I made the dough. It took about 15 minutes, then it went in the fridge for a couple hours. Then I got to take the dough out of the fridge and shape it into bagels. There are two methods I've read about for shaping the bagels: divide the dough, roll each piece into a ball, then poke a hole in the middle; or divide the dough, roll it into a rope and then wrap the rope around your hand. I chose the rope method. It required putting a little bit of water on the dough to seal it together. These bagels went back into the fridge and stayed there overnight.

I took the bagels out this morning to do the old boil and bake. They had to come to room temperature for about 90 minutes, then they went into the pot. This was my favorite part of the whole process.
Then they went into the oven and baked for about 16 minutes. I flipped them over a little more than halfway through. If you want to add toppings to your bagels, you do so after you boil them and before you bake them. I tried making a couple of salt bagels for Joe, but with kosher salt instead of sea salt or pretzel salt, since it was all we had on hand.
Mmmmmmm, bagels.
See, they even look like bagels!

Joe said the bagels are "good, but maybe they could be chewier. I thought the outside crust was good." Those of you who know Joe know that this is a glowing review, and I do agree with him about the chewier part. Overall, this recipe was easy to make, and it's sure to impress anyone when you tell them that you made the bagels.

Google Analytics

I forget most of the time that I signed up for Google Analytics on this blog, mostly because I go for long periods where I don't blog, and then I blog a bunch for a few days. Also, I haven't told that many of my friends that I have a blog, because then I might feel real pressure to keep things interesting. So tonight I logged onto Google Analytics for the first time in months, to see what people are searching for when they stumble across my blog. Here's what I found:

1. tales from below apartment 6n This is the most popular combination that makes someone land on my blog. I imagine that most people living in an apartment 6N are pretty wacky. What's your tale?

2. "drums" + "apartment"+ "noise" You too? Pretty terrible, huh?

3. 30 rock asif Are you the guy that was taking up 3 seats on the subway? Or are you just the guy who wound up with the part of Asif and you're trying to Google yourself? If you're the former, please close your legs and keep your voice down next time. New York thanks you.

4. apartment noise upstairs Apparently noisy upstairs neighbors are a common problem. Do yours have a drum set and five people living in a one-bedroom apartment?

5. asif 30 rock Dude, just audition a third time. You said the casting directors really liked you. Hey, I know! The show is set in New York, maybe you can convince the writers to write a character who takes up too much room on the subway.

6. drums noise apartment Maybe I need to get a drum set of my own? Poor apartment 4N.

7. laws against playing drums in upstairs apartment Are you in NYC? If you find any exact statutes against drums in upstairs apartments, please let me know! Or if you're apartment 6N and you happened across this blog, I totally found the noise ordinance and the management company will be sending you a noise complaint shortly!

8. advent calendar chocolate How did this have the fewest hits? I figured my blog was the number one source for all things Advent chocolate. Maybe next year.

Better than an Advent calendar, but barely.

Last weekend, Joe and I went to the Irish deli near us to get sandwiches, and while we were there, I was reminded that there is another chocolate-eating holiday coming up. I love how several religious holidays revolve around Chocolate...I guess you eat it for 24 days at Advent, give it up for 40 at Lent, then eat 40 days' worth of chocolate at Easter. At least that's how I practice Catholicism, aside from the giving up anything for Lent part. Anyway, given that the Irish deli is, well, Irish, they import a lot of candy, chips and other packaged foods from Ireland. Given that this is the same place where I procured my delicious Cadbury Advent calendar, as soon as I saw the shelves of Cadbury Easter candy I knew I had to try some out, because this stuff was just too novel to pass up. I love me some Cadbury mini eggs this time of year, so I opted for the chocolate Cadbury egg that was supposedly filled with mini-eggs.

Here it is out of the box. It was approximately 1/2 beer tall.

What a cute bunny!

This is where the disappointment started to set it. I opened my egg (conveniently I just needed to lift off the top), and found a pathetic package of 8 mini eggs inside.

Fine, whatever, I still like mini eggs, and there was a pretty good amount of chocolate to eat from the big egg anyway. Oh, but wait, what's that? All my mini eggs are cracked and look like rejects from last Easter?

Well, that's just unacceptable, given that this imported Easter treat cost me $3.99 (2.96 Euros or 2.33 obsolete Ireland Pounds). Luckily, the side of the packaging tells me that if I'm not completely satisfied, I should return the product to Birmingham, UK, or Dublin, Ireland. I went ahead and ate the big chocolate egg, because that was just fine (and it tasted remarkably similar to my Cadbury Advent calendar), and I figured that might be kind of messy to mail back. I will, however, be returning the eggs to their Irish home. Hopefully they do not hatch into chocolate chickens by the time they return home! I will of course let you know how the situation resolves itself.

Monday Music Video, featuring 6N

Make sure you have your sound turned on before you check out the awesome music video that I made. This is just the first of many folks, so please excuse the graphics. I was afraid that if I spent more time on them, I'd miss the peak sounds coming from upstairs. I'm calling this one "Meditations on the Ineffectiveness of Soundproofing in Pre-War Buildings in Queens."



I apologize for the poor sound quality, you may have to turn your speakers way up to hear it. I assure you that in the original video, you do not need to turn your speakers up to hear the "music." I guess Blogger hates the sound of the drums as much as I do.

Check out my $10.75

I am an excellent procrastinator. I'm taking a class this semester where throughout the course of the semester, I have to write five papers. I get to choose which weeks I will write the papers, although I am limited to write about the topic we are covering that particular week. I usually put things off until the last minute, and this usually means that I am up very late on Wednesday nights (usually until about 2 a.m. on Thursday mornings) finishing up my papers, which are due Thursday morning. When I am working on these papers, almost anything else seems more interesting to me than what I'm supposed to be doing.

One recent Wednesday night caught me and Joe discussing the state quarters. I was mentioning how although the Maine state quarter came out a few years ago, I have never received one in circulation. In fact, the only one I have seen is the one that I have on my keychain. We have an enormous Stella beer glass where we throw our loose change, and the discussion got us wondering how many different state quarters we had in the glass. Since I didn't have anything better to do, except continue working on my paper, I dumped out the change and began sorting quarters. This is what I found:

It turns out that we had 43 different states. We were missing Maine, Hawaii, Oregon, and four others. I actually made a list of the ones we didn't have, but then I threw it away when I was cleaning. I figure I can always re-check our quarters next Wednesday night.

Things that will kill you if you have a peanut allergy, part 1

About a month ago, The Newtster, his wife, and another friend came to visit Joe and I to attend a concert. While they were here, we walked around some of the touristy areas of NYC, including my personal favorite-Times Square. If I thought there was a hell, I'm pretty sure my picture of it would look a lot like Times Square. Luckily, the day that we walked around was quite cold, so that seemed to keep the tourists in warmer places.

To escape the cold, we ducked into the Hershey's store and browsed for a few minutes. I never realized Reese's was part of the Hershey's family, so I was surprised to see a bottle of Reese's Peanut Butter sauce. I was excited to see the bottle, because I am a big peanut butter fan, especially when it is in the form of a sauce that can be put on ice cream. Growing up, the Friendly's Reese's Pieces sundae was my favorite ice cream confection. When I lived in DC, my roommate (not Joe, he is a peanut butter hater. It's a miracle we're still together) and I mourned the fact that there wasn't a nearby Friendly's, because she also loved the peanut butter sauce. One of our other friends would visit from NC about once a month, and on her drive up she would stop at Friendly's and convince them to sell her a container full of the delicious peanut butter perfection.

Needless to say, I was thrilled at the prospect of being able to easily procure peanut butter sauce on my own, although I wondered whether this peanut butter sauce would stand up to the Friendly's version. I bought a container, and brought it home to try out. After getting home, Joe did a bit of research, and he found that Reese's actually makes the Friendly's peanut butter sauce, although the recipe is a secret, and Reese's isn't allowed to sell the Friendly's sauce. This knowledge made my anticipation that much greater. Then I remembered that Reese's also makes regular peanut butter, and I happened to have a jar of it in the cupboard. Reese's isn't my favorite brand of peanut butter, but I'm too cheap to be a true peanut butter snob, so I just buy whatever's on sale. I took out my jar of peanut butter, and the nutrition information is surprisingly similar between the peanut butter sauce and the peanut butter. The peanut butter has 1g more protein per two TBSP serving, and the sauce has 1g more sugar per two TBSP serving.

Here are some pictures from my tasting:
It may look kind of gross, but it tastes pretty delicious.


Overall rating: pretty good. I haven't had the chance to try it out on ice cream yet, but it's pretty tasty on its own. It's not too sweet, since it's got a makeup similar to regular peanut butter, and I think it's pretty close to the Friendly's version. It's at least a close enough substitute for the times you don't have access to a Friendly's. The only problem is that I've never seen this on the shelf of a grocery store before, so I might prefer to hold out for Friendly's rather than venture back the the Hershey's store in Times Square.

Update on the Man-Sitter, a.k.a. Three Seat Spread

You may remember that I posted about the obnoxious habits of men on the NY subway. That post was inspired by one particularly obnoxious leg-spreader, who also decided to carry on a loud cell phone conversation. If any of you are 30 Rock watchers, you'll know that tonight's episode featured the much anticipated "Asif" character.

Thankfully, the Man-Sitter did not get the part. I also learned that my eavesdropping skills need a little improvement, although I was a forced eavesdropper in that situation, not a voluntary participant. When Man-Sitter was talking about his audition, I thought I heard him say that the role was for a "copy writer (copyrighter?)," so I assumed that Asif would be a new writer on the show, and shortened it to "writer" in my previous blog. Well, what I heard as "copy writer" turned out to be "cab driver."

I wasn't paying close attention to 30 Rock tonight, but I'm also pretty sure they didn't use the Asif/As if joke that Man-Sitter talked about. That's probably a good thing, because although I'm sure it would have been funnier on 30 Rock than it was coming out of Man-Sitter's mouth, it still seemed a little weak.

Hopefully we can all take something away from tonight. 30 Rock should learn to stop calling Man-Sitter back to try out for parts, because he loudly divulges information about the show on the subway. Plus, who wants a nobody actor who feels the necessity to spread out and publicly air out his mangina? Certainly not the small female riders on the NY subway! I have learned that I need to improve my eavesdropping skills if I'm going to accurately report subway happenings on my blog. And I hope that Man-Sitter has learned to shut his legs. Just air it out at home dude.

Noise that doesn't come from 6N

On Saturday, I discovered that it's not only the sounds of apartment 6N that can wake me up and bother me. The apartment doesn't have a great deal of temperature control, so Joe and I usually leave the windows open at night to keep the temperature comfortable. On Friday morning, Joe (who usually sleeps quite late) was woken up by the sound of some pigeons on our fire escape. He got up, closed the window, and left me to sleep for another hour or so, since I can usually sleep through a lot more noise than he can. Unfortunately, on Saturday morning, I woke up to the sound of pigeons on the fire escape. I was worried that they would wake up Joe and make him cranky, so I quickly got out of bed and went to shut the window. Once I got to the window though, I promptly woke up Joe by saying, "Ewwwwwww!!!!", because when I looked out the window, I saw two pigeons having sexy time on our fire escape. As soon as I said, "Ewwwww!", the pigeons promptly separated, like teenagers being caught doing something they're not supposed to be doing.

I could still hear the pigeons on the fire escape after I went back to bed, and I was kind of disappointed that I didn't have my camera near the window to get a video to post on the blog. I'll be ready next time.

That noise upstairs is definitely drums, and we met one guy from 6N

Last night I was sitting in the kitchen trying to finish my homework. It was about 11 p.m., and I kept getting distracted by the drumming coming from upstairs. There was drumming coming from 6N the night before as well, until 1:30 a.m. It might have lasted even later than 1:30, but eventually I fell asleep. As soon as Joe walked in the door last night, I pointed out the drumming, and he decided that he would go upstairs and confront the neighbor. I decided to go with him, just to make sure we all started things off nicely, and to be there to call 911 in case someone from 6N mistook Joe for an extra instrument and started hitting him with drum sticks.

Joe headed out the door pretty fast, so I didn't have a chance to grab my camera to get a picture of 6N, and I also didn't have time to grab the switchblade out of my nightstand. I really do have a switchblade in my nightstand, not for protection or anything, but because one of my friends has a crazy family, and her family mailed her a bunch of knives. She showed me how to flip it out and look like a badass, and every time I've gotten out my knife to play with, it's totally freaked out Joe. He's convinced that when I'm flipping it open, I'm going to let go of the knife and somehow stab him. What this all means is that I have no fun pictures of me standing in front of apartment 6N with my switchblade to post, sorry.

Anyway, the guy took a long time to answer the door, and informed us that he had just gotten his drums that day. Funny that we heard them the night before....maybe he was banging on some pots and pans all night since he couldn't contain his excitement? I asked him to please not play drums after 11:30 or 12 at night. I think that's more than reasonable.

What was most disappointing about the experience though, is that Mr. 6N left the chain lock in place when he opened the door, (because obviously Joe and I are an extremely intimidating pair), so it was impossible to tell whether there really are 18 people living up there. We were pretty sure that there are six people living there, but based on where the drums sound like they're coming from, we're no longer certain of our hypothesis.

All cats are not dicks

I posted a couple weeks ago about adventures in pet-sitting, and how the cat was too much of a dick to ride on the dog's back. I got a comment from a reader that all cats are dicks. As a general rule, I agree with that, but my family has a cat in Maine that is an exception. Her name is Binky (don't remember how we came up with that one, but I was only 12 when we got her), and she doesn't really have much of a personality. She's been very timid her whole life, still is, and is 15 years old now, so that's probably not changing anytime soon.

What wound up to be so endearing about Binky is that she almost died. She suddenly stopped eating and drinking, and had some sort of kitty tumor in her stomach. The vet tried all kinds of crazy stuff for her, but she was just getting more sickly, and finally the vet determined that the answer was to euthanize her. My parents decided that we could keep her at home for one last night. Later that evening, after dinner while my mom was taking my brother to karate, the vet called and told my dad that he thought of one more thing to try for the cat, but that it probably wouldn't work. My dad drove back to the vet, picked up the prednisone, and by the time my brother got back from karate, Binky was eating again and was back to her old self. Yay steroids! So, the cat was on steroids for a few years, we eventually had to wean her off, and she's been in excellent health ever since. She even developed a little bit of a personality after her episode, and she has a shoe fetish now:

If you take your shoes off, within 30 seconds, Binky will sidle up and promptly stuff her head in the shoe. While I was in Maine over Christmas, I was bored one afternoon and thought about taking 12 seasonal photos of Binky with her head in different shoes (slippers in December, boots in January, red shoes for February, etc) to make a calendar. Then I realized that the black lab calendars are way cuter than a calendar featuring a cat with her head stuffed in a shoe, so I went back to watching television.

EDIT: My family does have another cat, Trixie. She is definitely a dick, but an amusing one. When she was a kitten, I got a little kitty leash for her and would try to take her for "walks." She was so well trained at one point that I could just take out the leash, and she would immediately run to the front door and sit and wait for me to put on her little harness. Unfortunately, cat harnesses/leashes are a little different than dog leashes, and don't have any give. So she'd dart out the door really fast, reach the end of the leash in under a second, and since I couldn't shut the door and run after her fast enough, she'd snap to a stop. Sometimes when I go back to Maine and I'm bored, I'll take her out on the leash again, which almost always results in her somehow escaping the leash, numerous scratches on my hands and arms, and her hiding under the deck hissing. Last Christmas, she wouldn't come near me for the whole time I was home, because I found some old Pokemon toy of my brother's that made a noise, and it totally freaked her out. She hid in the basement for days. Wait, maybe I'm the dick?

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Today I decided to switch things up with my bread making and try to make cinnamon swirl bread. The recipe I found was on this blog. The dough turned out to be a lot stickier than other bread that I've made, and it left me with with some unpleasant bread dough dingleberries between my fingers after I was kneading the dough. The bread rose more than others that I've made, but I think I used more yeast than the recipe called for. I need to work on my yeast conversion skills, between packets and out of a jar, or maybe it's all just the same. Alton Brown should do a show on bread baking.

Anyway, once the dough was done rising the first time, I spread a little melted butter on the dough, then sprinkled on a bunch of sugar and cinnamon. I added a little bit of brown sugar to the mix too, because I like it.

The instructions said to bake this loaf at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. I started to become a little suspicious of the recipe at this point, but I'd already made the dough. Normally, bread bakes for about 35 minutes at 350 degrees, at least in my kitchen, with the recipes I've been using. Sure enough, I read a few reviews of the recipe, and one person found the inside of the loaf to be raw and gooey. Reasons for that could be that the person used too much butter, or let it rise too long. I wound up baking it for about 35 or 40 minutes, and I tested for doneness with a thermometer (generally a loaf of bread baked in a loaf pan is done at about 190 degrees F).

This is what it looked like when it was finished:

Although it looks pretty delicious, I don't recommend this recipe, and I wouldn't make it again. I've made this bread the last couple times I baked bread, and I found it to be a much tastier recipe than the current one. The cinnamon swirl part tasted fine, but the bread itself was flavorless and not really worth eating. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the lack of butter/milk/oil (i.e., fat, a.k.a. flavor) in the recipe. In the future, I might try to make the regular white bread and swirl in the cinnamon. Or maybe I'll just try wheat bread next.

AT&T

This will begin a new series on my blog, in which I will write open letters to people/companies/etc. that make me angry.

Dear AT&T Wireless:

I wish I wasn't so easily distracted by shiny things. If the lure of that reflective silver phone hadn't been too much for me to resist, I surely never would have signed any sort of contract with you. I'll admit, the promised (yet never received) 20% student discount was also pretty tempting. It's too bad that the four months of our relationship have been filled with harassment and incompetence.

I would like to apologize though, because I believe while I was on the phone with customer service representative Chuck Hildebrand(t?), I referred to the guy who sold me my cell phone (hereinafter referred to as "salesman") as "an idiot" and "a moron," because I was led to believe that it was he who entered my Social Security number incorrectly into your system, thereby making it impossible for me to sign up for online billing, or to ever make any changes to my account. As the conversation with Chuck progressed, I figured out that when the salesman assigned me my "temporary" New York number to use until my old number could be ported over, he entered my SSN correctly. You see, I received a collection notice for a random New York cell phone number from you, with my name on it. After Chuck informed me that I cannot make any changes to my current account because my Social Security number is not linked to it, I commented that it was a good thing the SSN for the New York number was incorrect, because that way the collection agency could never catch me. Chuck informed me that AT&T actually has the correct SSN on the collection account though, meaning that it was someone further down the line from the salesman who is the idiot and/or moron.

So, I would like to apologize, and I hope you can add a note to my file that the salesman was helpful and nice, and I'm sorry I prematurely called him a moron and an idiot. I'm also pleased to know that should I remain supremely frustrated with you, I can stop paying the phone bill for my real phone number, since I KNOW you do not have the correct SSN on that account. Since you cannot link the correct SSN from my first account with you to my current account with you, I am confident in your incompetence that you will never connect the two should I decide to stop paying. Don't say I didn't give you a hint on this one.

I would have just e-mailed this letter to you, but I can't log in to your website, since I don't know the last four digits of the Social Security number you have on file for me. I hope you understand.

Talk to you soon!

Mandy

Bread and other things

This weekend I baked bread again. I don't think I blogged about the last time I baked bread. Joe and I managed to become the owners of a few packets of rapid rise yeast. After reading up on yeast, apparently rapid rise yeast is not one of the popular varieties used in baking, and it's difficult to find a well-loved bread recipe that uses rapid rise yeast and other ingredients readily available in our kitchen. I finally got some active dry yeast, and tried again. First, I put on my cow apron.

Then I made the dough. When I used rapid rise yeast, the bread did not rise rapidly as promised. This was probably in part due to the recipe telling me to just mash all the ingredients together, in no particular order. The dough for that recipe was really tough, and I had to break it into about 8 pieces just to knead it to the right consistency. This time it worked out much better, and the dough did what it was supposed to.

When it was done, it looked like this:

Joe might have had a piece or two, but otherwise, I ate all of it in about two days. I thought about making more yesterday when it became apparent that there wouldn't be any left for today, but then I had second thoughts about maintaining my all-carb diet for much longer.

On a non-cooking note, now that it's cold in New York, I've been seeing a lot of fur coats out and about, and it reminded me that I think fur coats are just about one of the ugliest types of coats a person can wear. Maybe I haven't seen a nice expensive one, but all the ones I see look really cheap, possibly because it takes multiple pieces of fur to patchwork together into a jacket. My next thought about fur coats is that if it's a nice one, and it's actually soft, wouldn't you rather have the soft fur on the INSIDE of the coat instead of the outside? Seems like it would stay nice longer, be softer and cozier for you instead of for the random hobo sitting next to you on the train, and then it could be your own dirty little secret and no one would know to throw red paint at you. Right?