An inconvenient truth…

My internets are broken again, I think Al Gore needs to stop worrying about global warming and invent me some new ones.

You should call us butter…

So it’s been a good week for transportation intramurals… victories in soccer, flag football, and volleyball. I think it’s because of the matching jerseys.

Edit: You know what I hate? Commercials with “cute” kids. I’m just saying.

Watch your sushi

HEB isn’t exactly the first place you think of to buy sushi, but Hancock Center actually makes theirs fresh and it tastes all right. I saw some similarly-packaged sushi at the Burnet HEB yesterday and bought some, thinking I’d found something just as good at a more convenient location.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It was nasty. As in, I was hungry and couldn’t even finish it. The salmon was mushy, there was this sickly sweet taste to the whole thing, even the rice tasted wrong. I checked the back and saw a list of ingredients including high fructose corn syrup and a host of other preservatives… um, what? Japanese food has subtle flavors, you can’t just add in random chemicals and pretend like it’s the same thing. (You shouldn’t do it with other foods either, but in some cuisines, such as Italian, it’s less noticeable) I don’t even know why they added corn syrup in the first place, it’s not like sushi is supposed to be extra sweet or anything. Bah. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to join the slow food movement even though I disagree with a lot of what they stand for.

Ubuntu, one month on

So I’ve been using Linux for about a month now, and I love it. LOVE IT. I’ve got the driver issues worked out, and can do everything that I want on my system. All of the software is free and works just as well as the $$$ equivalents for Windows (Lilypond for Finale, GIMP for Photoshop, OpenOffice for Office, etc.)… most of those have Windows ports but seem to work better under Ubuntu, less sluggish. I’ll admit there was a bit of a learning curve both on the software and OS side of things, but I can guarantee you I won’t be spending money for an operating system ever again.

22:10 to Vibha

Last Sunday I ran the Vibha 5K, my first race in almost five years, with some of the other transppeeps. I’m looking towards some races in December, and before starting the speedwork I wanted to see where I stood. I figured my time would be kinda slow (I was guessing 22:30) and I was almost exactly right… 22:10 by my watch, 22:14 by the official timer. Yeah, there were a few hills and sure, I hadn’t done any fast running in a long time, and a few other excuses, but I’m really just out of shape. Hopefully the time will start dropping once the tempo runs and trackwork kick in… I’d like to shave at least two minutes off of my time by December.

The ironic thing is that since the race was really small (like less than 100 runners) I ended up 5th or 6th, so in absolute terms this was my best race ever.

Iron Chef Grad Student: Coffee Battle

So last Friday was the inaugural transportation Iron Chef competition, with five teams of two competing for the glory of the department. The list of six possible secret ingredients, circulated an hour before the contest began, were hardly inspiring: Cheerios, beer, plain yogurt, ramen, coffee beans (not coffee, coffee beans), and PB&J (both of which had to be used in all dishes) are not the stuff of most gourmet dishes. When the ingredient was revealed to be coffee beans, we had two hours to purchase, cook, and deliver an appetizer and entree to Rachel and Dave’s house for judging.

The entrants, in order of presentation (thanks Ashley for photos):

Dave and Kogan made shrimp on fried plantains as an appetizer, with bacon-wrapped steak on potatoes and coffee-wine sauce as an entree:

Jeff and Steven made a coffee-infused risotto (delicious but lost some points on appearance), followed by coffee-dusted beef and sweet potato puree:

Mikey and Kristen did a breakfast-for-dinner theme, with a coffee ice cream sandwich and french toast:

Avi and I prepared a small coffee bean/hummus plate and jerk chicken dredged in ground coffee beans on a bed of saffrito rice:

Last but not least, Jen and Patrick brought fufu-and-chive appetizer and a beef/coffee croquette topped with basil, tomatoes, and shaved peaches (delicious):

In the end, Avi and I won best entree, but we finished third overall, with the overall prize going to Jen and Patrick. The whole night was tremendous fun, and this will happen again. I guarantee it.

3 hours to plan, shop, and cook: Tight, but adequate
40 dollars to spend on food: Just about right
5 appetizers and 5 entrees featuring coffee beans: Steve can’t fall asleep until 6 AM
Steve’s caffeine tolerance: Pathetic

Stop. Please.

Any rapper born since January 1, 1990 needs to stop making music. I mean like right now. Soulja Boy, I’m talking to you. Jibbs, you too. Especially you. In fact, 1989 wasn’t that great a year to be born in either. Yes Lil’ Mama, yes Hurricane Chris, I’m talking to the two of you too. You can’t rap. You can’t write. You have sucky production. Yes, that’s true about 90% of Southern hip hop but the fact that you’re 17 doesn’t make it better. In fact it makes it much, much worse. Jibbs, you were 15 when you wrote “Chain Hang Low,” and you couldn’t stop talking about your rims. Excuse me? You can’t even drive. All of you need to take a cue from Jay-Z, read a book, step up your vocab, and grow up.

Speaking of Hov, at least he’s coming out of retirement. And Papoose’s Nacirema Dream should be coming out soon. Hopefully these two can help change the direction of modern hip-hop (and bring it back northeast, where it belongs).

Restoring stale bread

So this morning I discovered a loaf of bread that had gone stale. Not like day old stale, but hard-as-a-brick stale. (No, the loaf hadn’t been there that long, but it was artisan bread that doesn’t have preservatives and only lasts a day or two).

Figuring there was nothing to lose, I stuck the whole thing in the microwave for a minute. Voila, softened bread. Interesting.