Above the Law

I got a message this afternoon from one of my colleagues at the Job asking if I had heard the news. Turns out two of our other colleagues had been let go (one of whom was currently working as a team member on a project I am staffed on). Colleauge then suggested I check out Above the Law, as it appeared to have been a bit of a Black Thursday.

Top Chef!

Okay, Yay! for Fabio, he deserved to win this challenge, especially with the broken finger. Carla? Seems nice enough, if not a complete nutball, I have to say though, I can't beleive she's made it this far. Stefan? Talented, glad he made it through. Hosea? I hope Fabio and Stefan kick his butt!

Sudoku

I'm on a conference call for the Job. I've been on since 2pm. Now the client from the other side is trying to explain to the partner I work with how to do a Sudoko puzzle.

Westminster, Day Two!

Today Miss B. and I hit up MSG for day two of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show with Thisbe and the Wee Kraken.

Ring Four... Samoyeds!









Marmaduke....



















Miss B. visiting with Biscuit...

















A Boo-Dog!
Grooming Station!

We assume the Yorkie was just sleeping...


Can anyone identify this handler... the dog looks an awful lot like the one that won Best in Show!!!

Miss B. visiting with Jerry Lee the Golden...

Squidly!

For the Husband...

Tasty Tuesday!

It's that time again it's Tasty Tuesday brought to us by our friends at Forever Wherever! Tonight's meal was from Ina Garten's "Barefoot Contessa Family Style" cookbook and it is her recipe for Five Cheese Penne. Can I just tell you how amazingly simple and fantastically tasty this is??

The gist of the recipe is: Preheat your oven to 500. Then par boil penne pasta. While the pasta is cooking, mix together in a large bowl two cups of heavy cream, one cup of crushed tomatoes (with tomato puree... Ina recommends Redpack), two tablespoons of ricotta, a handful of fresh basil leaves, torn up, and the following cheese (in varied amounts to your liking: gorgonzola, pecorino romano, fontina, fresh mozzarella and/or parmesan) to me it sounds like six cheeses but I'm not going to argue with Ina. (I used half a bag (or so) of Sargento's "Italian Blend" of cheese (which includes fontina, romano, etc.) a good bit of gorgonzola crumbles, Sargento shredded mozzarella and shredded parmesan. I put in a touch of fresh ground black pepper and a bit of salt. Once the pasta is al dente drain it in a collander and add it to your cheese mixture. Then pour out the pasta and cheese sauce into individual oven-proof dishes. Place a touch of butter on top of each and bake for 7-10 minutes (or until the cheese sauce is bubbling and browning a bit).

WOW! It was really, really good and very easy to make. Who doesn't love something that has a 7-10 minute bake time? It's faster than chocolate chip cookies for goodness sake! I took Ina's advice and added more gorgonzola and parmesan than the straight reciepe calls for, but you can play with the cheese amounts. You can also adjust how much cheese sauce you want by placing your boiled pasta into your oven-proof dishes first and then pouring the cheese sauce over each individual serving.

This was a winner and the fresh basil was a nice touch. Woo-Hoo!

iPod Update...

So I looked around on the web last night after both "toggling the hold button" and "pressing down the menu and center button for six seconds, repeated as necessary" didn't work to reset my iPod. Other users suggested letting the battery completely drain and then hooking it back up to my computer again.

This has seemed to work. One caveat? Now there is something wrong with iTunes as it has merged my "Top 25 Most Played" with my "Purchased" music folder. Now the first five songs in the "Purchased" folder are the first five in the top 25 played, incidently, all of which are ones I owned and did not purchase and the first five songs I purchased mysteriously have been deleted from the file yet appear to remain in my music library. To add further confusion, other purchased songs appear to be duplicated within the purchased music directory. I now have duplicates of "Save the Last Dance for Me" (Michael Buble's version), "Can't Get Next to You" by the Temptations and "Let's Get Loud" from "On the 6"(but for the life of me I can't get rid of the "Let's Get Loud" re-mix from J-to the L-O which I mistakenly downloaded years ago).

All of this is doubly odd when considered in light of what started me iPodding last evening to begin with. I had checked my iPod the other night because after the Superbowl performance by Bruce Springsteen I wanted to play "Glory Days" in the car. It is really the only Springsteen song that I like and I thought for sure it was already on my iPod, but alas it was not there. So I uploaded the cd and then all this goofiness started. I swear it had been there before... can the iPod lose music? Do I now have to try and keep a mental directory of all 1440 songs? Like I need that! My brain is already taxed enough as it is!

Bond Unbound....

We've been watching various James Bond flicks all day on Encore. Why don't they show them in order? Unfortunately, at 9pm "For Your Eyes Only" was coming on (and at the same time George Carlin Live at USC was on HBO)... I had been looking forward to FYEO because this is the first James Bond film I actually *remember* seeing in theaters... but due to construction work in the upgraded laundry room we lost cable and internet service... now we're back online and it's time for "Live and Let Die".... meanwhile, in other news of the world it appears that my iPod is no longer, so I'll be trying to unearth my Best Buy receipt and extended warranty.

I guess the tango music I downloaded last night from "The Counterfeiters" soundtrack was just too much for it to take.

Okay...

can anyone explain to me how it is that I just watched "The Counterfeiters" on demand through "Starz on Demand" on my plasma television and the damn thing was not only a) blurry but b) all of the credits were so small you could barely read them and let's not forget c) it not only had subtitles but was also set up for closed captioning.

The quality of this movie was about as good as those DVDs you can buy on the street.

In otherwords-- I hate Verizon!

Food Stuffs!

So I forgot to take pictures and do a post for Tasty Tuesday, but here's what we had for dinner anyway.... three-cheese cheeseburgers with oven baked parmesan and garlic fries! I got great sesame seed rolls at WF and made good sized burgers... topped the burgers with a co-jack/cheddar blend and then put some gorgonzola on top too (because, as you know my mantra-- everything's better with cheese (and/or potatoes!)). We then put fresh tomato slices on the burgers and we had these great oven-baked fries. They're from Ore-Ida and they're kind of like potato wedges. The come pre-seasoned with garlic and parmesan and I added fresh ground black pepper, a bit of kosher salt and tossed the fries in a bit of olive oil before putting them in the oven. It was a very tasty Tuesday!

Then, last night we made Ina Garten's "Parker's Split Pea Soup". It was tasty as usual and such a simple recipe! I also made with it Ina's Parmesan croutons which are a great topper for the soup-- the parmesan gives a nice zing to balance out the almost bacon-y flavor of the soup (which is I guess a function of the split peas as there was no bacon or ham in sight...)

Hat Stuff!

Check this out! I knit this hot pink cable knit hat using Cascade Baby Alpaca and the "Wedding Hat" pattern (with minor modifications for yarn type) from the "Yarn Girl's Beyond the Basics" pattern book!

Whistler's Mother

I think there are two kinds of people. Whistlers and non-whistlers. I come from a long line of incessant whistlers. Once, in the second grade, towards the end of the school day I was whistling while packing up my backpack and was told in no uncertain terms by Mrs. Dyser that whistling in public is generally frowned upon. I guess she was a non-whistler. The Husband can often gauge my mood and/or brain function levels by whether I am and what I am whistling. The other day after being fried by too much loan document drafting he found me whistling the chorus to Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" over and over again. He knew the circuits had overloaded. This evening? When he came in from getting the mail he heard me whistling "The Theme from Bombay Talkie" (aka music used in The Darjeeling Limited). What? I bought the soundtrack and it stuck with me.

25 Random Things About Me...

RafOh posted this article from the NY Times about the latest Facebook craze "25 Random Things About Me" and I think it's pretty accurate. I love the last line regarding having found some of the lists of 25 things fascinating, “But I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t want to be stuck on a bus with [some of these people] telling me these things.”

I love reading them (because I'm nosey), I'm hesitant to post my own (because "Eagle Eye" seemed too close for comfort...) and I never like to be stuck on a bus with anyone.

One More Thing... aka Anger Management

Finally, in our last bit of pop culture brain candy for the evening-- the Christian Bale Rant and Rave... thoughts?

Personally, it didn't seem that bad to me. Based on the description of what was happening (set forth at TMZ.com) it sounded like he kind of had a good reason to yell at the DP. Sure, maybe he went on for a bit and could have used a few less curse words, but overall not that surprising.

If you are surprised by this sort of thing, go work at a New York City law firm for a while.

Some Thoughts....

Okay, so what is with this woman who had the 8 children??? 8 children, on top of an existing brood of six? And she has no job and lives in a 2 or 3 bedroom house with her parents who not long ago lost their own home and had to file for bankruptcy? And now the media is supposed to cannonize this woman and give her some sort of contract to be a "child care expert"? Does the phrase publicity stunt mean anything to you? And to think, people give Angelina Jolie a hard time-- she's at least appropriately financially situated to support her brood, and besides, she's got Brad Pitt, whether married to him or not-- he's nothing if not an extra set of hands!

I know its a slippery slope, but I have to say-- if you can concieve 14 children without the assistance of reproductive technologies and you'd like to take care of them, that's your business. If you want to adopt 14 children a la Mia Farrow and Miss Jolie-- there are agencies and mechanisms in place that will screen you... but is it really appropriate for someone to use donated sperm and IVF to achieve a family of 14? Can one person really properly care for 14 children (most specifically, 14 children under the age of 8, where 8 of them are *infants*?) It seems like Jon & Kate plus 8 have a hard enough time as it is and there are two of them!

I think that this woman has had her fifteen minutes of fame and she deserves no more and certainly not a book deal a movie deal or any other kind of sponsorship.

Then, speaking of sponsorships... Michael Phelps? Okay, I have to say this kid looked like an idiot from the outset so the pot usage really doesn't come as a shock, but note to people who find themselves on a box of Wheaties: try to lay off the illegal substances or otherwise run afoul of the law, at least until your cereal boxes have expired and/or been replaced by the next sports-figure-flavor of the month. Oh, and by the way, when a corporation has hired you to be their spokesperson based on your squeaky clean image as a sports hero... again, could you lay off the illegal activity? Or, alternatively, don't take endorsement money and then you can legitimately claim that you never wanted to be anybody's "role model".

That's all for now!

Man, I don't drop character 'till I done the DVD commentary

Chocolate Chip Muffins...

This afternoon, in anticipation of Miss B's after-nap snack I thought I would make mini chocolate chip muffins. I got out my Reynolds foil mini cupcake cups and was chatting with The Mom... as I'm pulling the white paper cupcake cups out of the foil ones, and am thinking... "do these stay with the foil cups? can I use them on their own? they look too thin to use on their own... what a waste of paper!" I ask the Mom-- "Do you ever use these?" and as I'm saying this I finally actually read the packaging which clearly tells you to REMOVE WHITE PAPER INSERTS. The Mom says: "they're inserts?"

Yes, it looks like "not reading instructions" is one of those genetic things that is passed down from generation to generation.

Things You Don't Want to See at 1:38am

On your computer, when doing work for the Job, a message that says: "If you see this message contact your system administrator".

On your Husband's computer: The phrase: "how to wire an electrical box" typed into the Google search window.

Real Time Superbowl Snacking

For starters we're having home-made guacamole and pigs in blankets!

For the Guac:

2 ripe organic Haas Avocado (possibly from Tom Selleck's farm)
1 small jalepeno pepper (diced, with seeds)
lemon juice
lime juice
dash of cumin (to taste)
1 quarter of a white onion, diced
2 large tablespoons of petite cut diced tomatoes with green chiles
1 clove garlic, minced
1 handfull of fresh cilantro leaves (chopped or torn)

I mixed this all up in my fancy stone molcajete from Williams Sonoma and am serving it with Tostitos organic Yellow Corn tortilla chips (which are surprisingly light!)

Yum!

Also on tap-- pigs in blankets.... they're in the oven.

For later?

Three cheese fondue, mini-meatballs and quesadillas!

Party On!

English French Onion Soup.

Last night I made Jamie's "English" Onion Soup. It was good and easy. Unfortunately, I felt that the recipe as it was was a bit lacking in seasoning. I checked out Epicurious.com for other french onion soup recipes for comparison and I ended up adding into the soup some marsala wine and a little bit of dijon mustard (egads!). End result? It was pretty good. Jamie's got you putting grated cheddar ontop of the soup-- I went with both cheddar and gruyere (because my motto is, everything's better with more cheese... much like "everything's better with potatoes"). Served up with a nice caesar salad and it was a good dinner! (Downside? Even by bedtime my eyes were still watering from the onions... oh, well!)