Question of the day.

If your reason for attending the event is "not attending", why bother to register in the first place? After all you are not attending.

I don't get it. A rant.

Quite a large number of my classmates are incredibly insecure about professor selection, despite there being many reviews about many of the more common classes posted online. To their credit, a few actually check the posted reviews before asking the list for feedback. Many don't, and I would like to slap them silly.

"Appreciate any feedback about Prof. F, who teaches this entry-level class, and has done so about a million times." Don't you know any classmates whom you could ask in person? Why do you trust the opinion of a total stranger but not the professor, who is also a total stranger?

If the class is a prerequisite, do you really have a choice? Don't you think some of your classmates would have warned you off by now if Prof. F was really bad?

Isn't dealing with the occasional bad professor all part of the schooling experience? Maturity in general? And isn't the point of continuing your education enjoying the experience of learning, regardless of the professor? You only cheapen your experience by demanding "value for your money".

Armchair entertainment.

There is a feud going on between two of my neighbors.

Q: Who has the right to the guest parking space immediately next door to your house, you, your neighbor in the next house, or the neighbor across the alley?
A: None of the above. They are guest parking spaces and not intended for residents.

Q: Where should you park your car?
A: In the guest parking space. If you park your car in your own garage, you are a chump. You are supposed to use your garage for all the crap you can't otherwise fit in the house.

Bonus A, for the record: I am a chump. I don't have enough crap to evict my own car from my garage. Also, I don't like cleaning tree sap from my finish and scraping the ice off the windscreen on certain mornings.

There are two spaces next to my house. Technically one is next to my house, and the other is next to Next Door Neighbor. Across the Alley Neighbor has permanently parked his car in my spot.

The other day, Across the Alley Neighbor was working on one of his cars in the other spot. Across the Alley Neighbor has four cars (for four adults in his house) and two motorcycles. Apparently this pissed off Next Door Neighbor, who technically has two spaces, and who has two cars for four adults in his house but is too lazy to unload the moving boxes from his garage.

So Next Door neighbor has parked his backup car in the spot nearest my house and went away for the weekend in his SUV, leaving the spot right next to his house open.

I am tempted to park my car in that spot just to teach him a lesson. But then I would have to remove the tree sap from my car.

The mango pudding code and lessons learned.

I am getting bolder in my experiments on my friends. Last night marked the first time in which every dish except one was an experiment. (If you has been counting, all of them were experiments in some form or another, but at least I'd made the pasta before.)

Phyllo dough cups: they really are as easy to make as they look, and they turn out nice and light. We discovered that while they are nice filled with tapenade, they are equally nice filled with spinach salad.

Salad: the baby spinach turned out okay, despite the need to wash the greens before using. Julienned basil tastes great in any salad. Everybody seemed receptive to the idea of spooning on their choice of toppings, a nice alternative to tossing the entire salad beforehand. When toasting pecans on the stove, you should watch the pan carefully--if you smell toasted nuts, it's too late (but they make the house smell nice). Bacon is always a hit.

Stuffed chicken breasts: next time, halve the amount of chicken but keep the amount of tomatoes the same. The tomatoes were a hit.

Pasta puttanesca: next time, reduce the amount of red pepper flakes.

Cupcakes: liked the cake mix with its flecks of vanilla, liked the frosting with its rich smoothness, but for some reason they didn't taste very good together. Next time, bake the cake at a lower temperature than specified on the box and make a light lemon glaze.

Mango pudding: terrible. Robertson's brand mix tastes like crayons. Unfortunately, this means the search for the elusive Perfect Mango Pudding Recipe continues.

Question of the day.

Why have people been asking me stupid questions all week?

Q: Do you have a cart so I can haul my machines to the lab?
A: No, I am not the tech. I get paid to do other work.

Q: Can you let me into the lab so I can put my machines there?
A: Yes, but your badge should work too. If it doesn't, we have a tech who can help you.

Q: Can you help me move my machines to the lab?
A: No, I'm not the tech. I have other work to do.

Q: Chassis #2 of 4 never came up. Did you want 12 cpus?
A: No, I want all 16. If I wanted 12, do you think I would have taken out a chassis that way, in the middle?

Q: What is the textbook for the class?
A: It is the one in the bookstore. You can call them yourself, lazy.

Opinion of the day.

Proper carnivores are willing to eat every bit of the animal as long as it's safe to do so (no trichinosis, no sun-baked fish, and no fugu poison bladders), and not just the bits that resemble steak.

Yes, intestines. Deep-fried pork intestines are wonderful, as are fish intestines steamed in egg with tangerine peel.

Question of the day.

A's soon-to-be 3 year old son is having a birthday party tomorrow, and A has invited several of us adults to join in on the fun, mostly because A would like to spend at least part of the time conversing with actual adults. Keeping in mind we have been encouraged to wear socks in case we'd like to climb on the jungle gym.

A's son apparently loves Disney and cars (and probably Cars by inference). I'm not so sure I want to schlep all the way to the mall this evening, which leaves tomorrow morning to obtain a gift. Furthermore, I intend to spend tomorrow morning at several grocery stores because I would really like to eat Chinese vegetables this week instead of pasta. Oh, and it's the Dragon Boat holiday and my only opportunity this year to get the really good, Cantonese-style rice tamales with the fatty pork. They freeze really well. The rest of the year, they tend to sell only the Taiwanese and Shanghainese styles, which are tasty, but not the same.

(The reason for visiting several grocery stores is one sells the Chinese vegetables, another sells frozen phyllo dough, the third is Trader Joe's, and yet another is a new Japanese one and therefore is totally unexplored territory. Well, that's assuming the Japanese one is where I think it is.)

Considering the boy loves cars, would it be inappropriate to buy him an air freshener?

Reasons why I could never voluntarily become a vegetarian.

• Bacon.
• Wine gums. (The really good ones contain gelatin.)
• Mango pudding.
• Steamed spot shrimp, heads on, with a soy and green onion dipping sauce.
• Hainan chicken rice, the proper kind, with the coconutty rice.
• Raw geoduck, sliced paper-thin, eaten after being dunked in hot soup or congee.
• Flash stir-fried geoduck with ginger and green onion.
• Clams in black bean sauce.
• Pork ribs with bitter melon in black bean sauce.
• Oysters steamed with ginger, black beans, and green onion.
• Copper River King salmon.
• Rock cod.
• Char siu. But only the end bit that's just a little fatty and has the burnt edges.
• Real Peking duck, the kind where the fat is perfectly clear, you can read through the pancakes, and all you need is hoisin sauce and not that silly dish of sugar.
• Barbequed goose.
• Chicken feet.
• Fish intestines in egg.

Statement of the day.

"Mythbusters" explosions always cheer me up.

To whoever is pooting next to my cubicle at about this time every afternoon,

Please eat something different for lunch. Please.

Question of the day.

Which is worse--the fact that I had to ask whether today is Monday, or the fact that he had to think about it before replying?

Question of the day.

Which is worse--the fact that I had to ask whether today is Monday, or the fact that he had to think about it before replying?