Get Ready to Ramble!
Mar. 13th, 2002 01:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2I'm going to ramble about everything on my mind now.
In no particular order:
I like the lj-cut html tag. Everyone should learn to use it, just to be courteous. ^_^ Notice that you didn't have to read all of this random gibberish I'm about to spew... you clicked on the link of your own free will! I gave you the option to back out, but still you came! You are my puppet! Muhahahaha!
Today was a crummy day for driving. Rain and more rain. I like it better when it rains at night while I'm going to sleep.
So... Monday I stopped at Office Max in Auburn on my way to work and looked at the corner desk they have for $59.00 Cheap, sturdy, I'll never save up the money to buy a better one, so I should buy it now while it's on sale. Only problem is, I thought I could just grab a package, buy it, and shove it into my car... but NOOOOO, it's not that simple. They don't have the boxed kdf (knocked down flat -- transportation lingo) desks out where you can find them. Instead you need to take a ticket to the counter... and they offer delivery... and anyway, it was too complicated to accomplish in 10 minutes before I had to be at work.
But there's and Office Max just up the street from my house. I need to drop in there this week or weekend.
Saturday is writer's night. I haven't had something to read for writer's night in months (a year? I can't remember). Muyami Academy doesn't count, you have to know two or three dozen anime shows to follow that story. So I really should be working on a Tai-Pan story this week, but what I want to do is keep working on Muyami Academy.
Sigh.
I called my bank to complain that they haven't sent me my statements for January or February. January ones got sent back by my idiot postman, but I confirmed my address the next time I deposited my check, so I should've recieved the February ones by now... for that matter, they should have sent my January ones back. But they say they don't know why I don't have them, everything in the computer is fine. In other words, there's a snag somewhere but they don't realize it. Morons. Well, really, it's my postman I'm angry at.
I took my Hayseed Dixie AC/DC tribute cd to work today to impress (or distress) my co-workers. It only just occured to me (when Tim said their name outloud) that "Hayseed Dixie" is meant to sound like "AC/DC". I'm dense sometimes.
I'm really getting into the other cd I got yesterday though. Blue Mountain. It's alternative rock country, reminds me a little bit of Lynyrd Skynyrd because of the Southern Rock feel, a little bit of REM when they're doing alternative rock with mandolins and such, but mostly it reminds me of The Tragically Hip's cd "Up To Here", which is the one with "New Orleans is Sinking" on it. It's a great alt-rock cd with a lot of countryish leanings and some great songwriting. Too bad the Tragically Hip could never reproduce what they did on that cd... Fully Completely was a good cd too, but most of their other stuff just isn't that good. I could never understand how they wrote such great songs for one cd, and then forgot how to write.
Anyway, Blue Mountain is cool. Good songwriting too, and a nice blues song at the end.
Have I bought enough cds lately? My one-week tally: 3 bluegrass-related cds last Tuesday (2 were free). 3 used cds in the mail (one, by Irish pub rock band the Tossers, was scratched and needs to be sent back -- other two were by Dag, very cheap, fun stuff, I already lent them to Sky). Then I bought 2 more bluegrass cds on payday (Thursday) and ordered the Hayseed Dixie and Blue Mountain cds from Amazon.com. Oh yeah, I also stopped at Half-Price books on Saturday and picked up 3 used cds... the new Enya, a Terem Quartet cd, and a Tea Party cd.
That's only 13 cds in a week. That's not too much is it? ^_^
Well... I hadn't bought very many in the month before that, just... hmmm, 2 FSB cds, Flogging Molly, and 2 others (Dropkick Murphys, yet another Irish Pub rock band, and some other cd at the same time that I can't quite remember what it was). I only go on binges like that a few times a year. And most of them were used or not at full price.
On another note, my keychain fell apart again tonight. It's a piece of you-know-what. I'm throwing it away and looking for a new one.
My Rice Cooker story. Okay, it's probably not good etiquette to discuss shopping for a present for your friend right in front of said friend, but I'm already doing this whole thing bass ackwards anyway, so... so there! Here's the story:
I forgot to get Jeff and Jeri-Lynn a wedding present ahead of time (I was WAAAY too busy the few days leading up to the wedding). So I decided to ask what they needed. I guess they had a registry at Target, I didn't realize that, but anyway, Jeff had said that they had all the kitchen stuff they could use. The only thing that had occured to me that they could both use was a dvd player. Jeff plays dvds on his computer which works okay I suppose. Anyway, dvd players are relatively cheap these days, but still quite a bit more than I probably wanted to spend.
So Jeff said on Sunday that they could use a rice cooker. Cool! I can handle that! ^_^
Digression: my mother or one of my sisters, I forget which, gave me a steamer years ago for Christmas or my birthday, I don't remember. I hadn't asked for one, and at first wasn't sure what to make of it. But as it turns out I use it constantly to make rice, and sometimes to steam vegetables. It's great -- cooks rice perfectly, turns itself off, and it's impossible to burn anything with it. One of my favorite kitchen items!
Anyway, I know what Jeff and Jeri-Lynn want. Rice cookers can be used as steamers too, it turns out, but they have other features my steamer doesn't have, such as keeping the rice warm for several hours (up to 12 hours for some models).
So I thought I had this all figured out. I left early today, and stopped in at Uwajamaya, the oriental grocery store downtown. I was certain I could get a good rice cooker for around $50.00 or less, or maybe a little more. Right? Right?
(Side note: didn't see anything worth grabbing in Kinokuniya, but I didn't have a lot of time to shop. There's a new Neia under 7 out, but I'll wait until next payday I think.)
So... rice cookers. Hmmm. The kind I wanted was the type you typically see in Japanese animation or in teriyaki stores... one with a hinged lid that locks down or flips up. I've seen them at Uwajamaya a lot, and I guess I never looked at the prices before. The smallest one was $105.00, and the prices went up from there.
Gak! Okay, okay, that must be because they're imported or something, right?
So I bought a few other things (Vietnamese sandwiches, yum!) and headed to work.
Oh yeah -- another side note -- I couldn't even find a nifty rice spatula like the one I have at home. Darn. I could use another of those things myself.
At work I asked Ann where she got hers. Ann is Vietnamese, I think. She has a little rice cooker that she sometimes brings to work full of wonderful pork-fried rice or maybe steamed rice to go with home made egg rolls... yum! She also has a really cool thing that clips on the side of the cooker to stick the spatula in. Talk about handy! I have no idea where to get one of those things.
Anyway, Ann wasn't much help. Her mother bought the cooker for her at a store on base at Fort Lewis. She said it was about $60.00, but that was five years ago at least. She did warn me about getting the right kind, that Chinese and Taiwanese cookers wouldn't last long, or something to that effect.
(Actually, I think what she has is something like this model here. Only $90.00 at Amazon, slightly cheaper than I saw elsewhere. It even has the spatula and the spatula holder. ^_^ And a retractable cord -- some reviewers considered that an absolute necessity.
So... I did some research online, and I started learning some things.
First of all, the hinged lid type of rice cooker I like is considered a "deluxe" style. They really do start at about $100.00, and go up from there.
There's a cool web site called epinions.com that provides comparisons and reader feedback on consumer items, and links to where to buy them on the web. For example, Rice Cookers.
Zojurushi makes excellent Asian-style rice cookers. One problem with Asian rice cookers for some people is they don't have an on/off switch, you have to unplug them to turn them off. Apparently in Asia and Australia it's common to have on/off switches for your electrical plugs. Not a problem for me, but maybe for others.
Zojurushi also makes a cheaper "non-luxury" line of rice cookers. These have a glass lid, like a lid for a stove pot. One problem some people have with these is that the lid likes to "dance" and make noise while the rice cooks, and steam escapes, turns to water, and splashes about. It sounds a little messy.
Amazon has the Zojurushi NHS-18 for $49.00, the cheapest I saw on the web. This is a 10-cup model (the cup you get with the cooker is actually equal to 3/4 cup). Minimum you can make in it is 2 cups of rice, so it's too big for one or two people. But there's a NHS-6 that is 3 cups, about the right size I suppose. Actually, the NHS-10 isn't available from Amazon at the moment, but they have a NHS-10AW 6-cup rice cooker available.
Amazon is another good place to research, and read comments left by other users.
There are a lot of other rice cookers priced below $50.00. Some of the really cheap ones go for as little as $15.00, so even a starving student can own a cheapie rice cooker. ^_^
According to Amazon users, avoid products made by Aroma, Salton, Faberware, Krups... their rice cookers generally suck and die horrible deaths. Even Black & Decker makes rice cookers, which get mixed reviews.
Zojirushi and Panasonic seem to get the best reviews at Amazon. Oster makes one listed at epinions.com too, that sounds good, but apparently isn't available online anymore. (I've noticed, reading the reviews, that while it lists online at $34.99, the reviewers say they paid $25.00, $15.00, $10.00 for theirs. Maybe it's discontinued now?)
The Panasonic SR-W18PB looks like a nice one. Generally, the lower-priced ones that don't have the hinged lids don't keep rice warm as long... naturally, they let more steam escape.
At this point, I think the NHS-6 3 cup or NHS-10AW 6 cup are the best choices, or maybe the The Panasonic SR-W18PB (which makes up to 10 cups, but one reviewer said it was fine for a single person). But personally I like the Zojirushi NSRNC-18FC with Floral Imprint best. That's what I'd want to buy for myself, although at 10 cups maybe it's too big.
But hey, if I ordered a cd with it I could get free shipping! ^_^
Anyway, I haven't actually checked to see what I can buy at local stores (besides Uwajamaya) yet, but based on what I've read I'll only look for Zojirushi or Panasonic.
So... did you really read all of this?
Bleah.
Oh... one more story, just because I said I was going to ramble so dammit I'm going to RAMBLE!
I did some shopping Sunday before Jeff showed up (well... he never actually showed up of course). Anyway, I got back home and I thought, damn, I should've bought some potato chips!
At work on Monday, I kept thinking about potato chips and nuts and other forms of salty junk food. I had some microwave popcorn, but it wasn't that good. Normally I get Orville Reddenbacher's Movie-Theater Butter, because I want BUTTER on my popcorn! But people at work have been making the kettle corn flavor, which smells like cookies when someone puts one in the microwave, and it tastes pretty good. So last time I bought some, I got Pop Secret kettle corn flavor. Which turned out to be the kettle corn version that sucks. Well, it's not THAT bad, but the Jolly Time "Kettlemania" type blows the doors off any other version I've tasted (and everyone at work agrees on this!)
So... where was I? Oh yeah... I went to the store Monday night, and I grabbed a package of the butter popcorn, a package of the kettlemania popcorn, a bag of Tim's potato chips... and there was a new flavor out, "cracked peppercorn", so I bought that to take to work for everyone (and everyone like it!)... and then I remembered that my cookie jar needed some cookies, so I grabbed a bag of oreos, then I saw a box of vanilla wafers, which we had at the game on Saturday, and I thought, I haven't bought those in years! and grabbed a box of those... and, let's see, a can of smoked almonds to take to work... a six-pack of Dr. Pepper, for work of course... and nothing else really besides a couple of magazines, because I'd already done grocery shopping on Sunday.
So that was pretty pathetic, going through the check out line with all of that junk food and nothing else. =P
But the cookies are in the jar, I've only eaten one, and the popcorn is in my drawer at work, haven't used any yet, and the smoked almonds are in my drawer at work... I need stuff like that around to keep me from giving the evil vending machine people any money you know... and the bag of chips is at home, should last me a week at least... it's not like I went home and gorged myself on all this junk food you know. ^_^
Anyway if I want junk food, I still have the chocolate cake I made Sunday....
In no particular order:
I like the lj-cut html tag. Everyone should learn to use it, just to be courteous. ^_^ Notice that you didn't have to read all of this random gibberish I'm about to spew... you clicked on the link of your own free will! I gave you the option to back out, but still you came! You are my puppet! Muhahahaha!
Today was a crummy day for driving. Rain and more rain. I like it better when it rains at night while I'm going to sleep.
So... Monday I stopped at Office Max in Auburn on my way to work and looked at the corner desk they have for $59.00 Cheap, sturdy, I'll never save up the money to buy a better one, so I should buy it now while it's on sale. Only problem is, I thought I could just grab a package, buy it, and shove it into my car... but NOOOOO, it's not that simple. They don't have the boxed kdf (knocked down flat -- transportation lingo) desks out where you can find them. Instead you need to take a ticket to the counter... and they offer delivery... and anyway, it was too complicated to accomplish in 10 minutes before I had to be at work.
But there's and Office Max just up the street from my house. I need to drop in there this week or weekend.
Saturday is writer's night. I haven't had something to read for writer's night in months (a year? I can't remember). Muyami Academy doesn't count, you have to know two or three dozen anime shows to follow that story. So I really should be working on a Tai-Pan story this week, but what I want to do is keep working on Muyami Academy.
Sigh.
I called my bank to complain that they haven't sent me my statements for January or February. January ones got sent back by my idiot postman, but I confirmed my address the next time I deposited my check, so I should've recieved the February ones by now... for that matter, they should have sent my January ones back. But they say they don't know why I don't have them, everything in the computer is fine. In other words, there's a snag somewhere but they don't realize it. Morons. Well, really, it's my postman I'm angry at.
I took my Hayseed Dixie AC/DC tribute cd to work today to impress (or distress) my co-workers. It only just occured to me (when Tim said their name outloud) that "Hayseed Dixie" is meant to sound like "AC/DC". I'm dense sometimes.
I'm really getting into the other cd I got yesterday though. Blue Mountain. It's alternative rock country, reminds me a little bit of Lynyrd Skynyrd because of the Southern Rock feel, a little bit of REM when they're doing alternative rock with mandolins and such, but mostly it reminds me of The Tragically Hip's cd "Up To Here", which is the one with "New Orleans is Sinking" on it. It's a great alt-rock cd with a lot of countryish leanings and some great songwriting. Too bad the Tragically Hip could never reproduce what they did on that cd... Fully Completely was a good cd too, but most of their other stuff just isn't that good. I could never understand how they wrote such great songs for one cd, and then forgot how to write.
Anyway, Blue Mountain is cool. Good songwriting too, and a nice blues song at the end.
Have I bought enough cds lately? My one-week tally: 3 bluegrass-related cds last Tuesday (2 were free). 3 used cds in the mail (one, by Irish pub rock band the Tossers, was scratched and needs to be sent back -- other two were by Dag, very cheap, fun stuff, I already lent them to Sky). Then I bought 2 more bluegrass cds on payday (Thursday) and ordered the Hayseed Dixie and Blue Mountain cds from Amazon.com. Oh yeah, I also stopped at Half-Price books on Saturday and picked up 3 used cds... the new Enya, a Terem Quartet cd, and a Tea Party cd.
That's only 13 cds in a week. That's not too much is it? ^_^
Well... I hadn't bought very many in the month before that, just... hmmm, 2 FSB cds, Flogging Molly, and 2 others (Dropkick Murphys, yet another Irish Pub rock band, and some other cd at the same time that I can't quite remember what it was). I only go on binges like that a few times a year. And most of them were used or not at full price.
On another note, my keychain fell apart again tonight. It's a piece of you-know-what. I'm throwing it away and looking for a new one.
My Rice Cooker story. Okay, it's probably not good etiquette to discuss shopping for a present for your friend right in front of said friend, but I'm already doing this whole thing bass ackwards anyway, so... so there! Here's the story:
I forgot to get Jeff and Jeri-Lynn a wedding present ahead of time (I was WAAAY too busy the few days leading up to the wedding). So I decided to ask what they needed. I guess they had a registry at Target, I didn't realize that, but anyway, Jeff had said that they had all the kitchen stuff they could use. The only thing that had occured to me that they could both use was a dvd player. Jeff plays dvds on his computer which works okay I suppose. Anyway, dvd players are relatively cheap these days, but still quite a bit more than I probably wanted to spend.
So Jeff said on Sunday that they could use a rice cooker. Cool! I can handle that! ^_^
Digression: my mother or one of my sisters, I forget which, gave me a steamer years ago for Christmas or my birthday, I don't remember. I hadn't asked for one, and at first wasn't sure what to make of it. But as it turns out I use it constantly to make rice, and sometimes to steam vegetables. It's great -- cooks rice perfectly, turns itself off, and it's impossible to burn anything with it. One of my favorite kitchen items!
Anyway, I know what Jeff and Jeri-Lynn want. Rice cookers can be used as steamers too, it turns out, but they have other features my steamer doesn't have, such as keeping the rice warm for several hours (up to 12 hours for some models).
So I thought I had this all figured out. I left early today, and stopped in at Uwajamaya, the oriental grocery store downtown. I was certain I could get a good rice cooker for around $50.00 or less, or maybe a little more. Right? Right?
(Side note: didn't see anything worth grabbing in Kinokuniya, but I didn't have a lot of time to shop. There's a new Neia under 7 out, but I'll wait until next payday I think.)
So... rice cookers. Hmmm. The kind I wanted was the type you typically see in Japanese animation or in teriyaki stores... one with a hinged lid that locks down or flips up. I've seen them at Uwajamaya a lot, and I guess I never looked at the prices before. The smallest one was $105.00, and the prices went up from there.
Gak! Okay, okay, that must be because they're imported or something, right?
So I bought a few other things (Vietnamese sandwiches, yum!) and headed to work.
Oh yeah -- another side note -- I couldn't even find a nifty rice spatula like the one I have at home. Darn. I could use another of those things myself.
At work I asked Ann where she got hers. Ann is Vietnamese, I think. She has a little rice cooker that she sometimes brings to work full of wonderful pork-fried rice or maybe steamed rice to go with home made egg rolls... yum! She also has a really cool thing that clips on the side of the cooker to stick the spatula in. Talk about handy! I have no idea where to get one of those things.
Anyway, Ann wasn't much help. Her mother bought the cooker for her at a store on base at Fort Lewis. She said it was about $60.00, but that was five years ago at least. She did warn me about getting the right kind, that Chinese and Taiwanese cookers wouldn't last long, or something to that effect.
(Actually, I think what she has is something like this model here. Only $90.00 at Amazon, slightly cheaper than I saw elsewhere. It even has the spatula and the spatula holder. ^_^ And a retractable cord -- some reviewers considered that an absolute necessity.
So... I did some research online, and I started learning some things.
First of all, the hinged lid type of rice cooker I like is considered a "deluxe" style. They really do start at about $100.00, and go up from there.
There's a cool web site called epinions.com that provides comparisons and reader feedback on consumer items, and links to where to buy them on the web. For example, Rice Cookers.
Zojurushi makes excellent Asian-style rice cookers. One problem with Asian rice cookers for some people is they don't have an on/off switch, you have to unplug them to turn them off. Apparently in Asia and Australia it's common to have on/off switches for your electrical plugs. Not a problem for me, but maybe for others.
Zojurushi also makes a cheaper "non-luxury" line of rice cookers. These have a glass lid, like a lid for a stove pot. One problem some people have with these is that the lid likes to "dance" and make noise while the rice cooks, and steam escapes, turns to water, and splashes about. It sounds a little messy.
Amazon has the Zojurushi NHS-18 for $49.00, the cheapest I saw on the web. This is a 10-cup model (the cup you get with the cooker is actually equal to 3/4 cup). Minimum you can make in it is 2 cups of rice, so it's too big for one or two people. But there's a NHS-6 that is 3 cups, about the right size I suppose. Actually, the NHS-10 isn't available from Amazon at the moment, but they have a NHS-10AW 6-cup rice cooker available.
Amazon is another good place to research, and read comments left by other users.
There are a lot of other rice cookers priced below $50.00. Some of the really cheap ones go for as little as $15.00, so even a starving student can own a cheapie rice cooker. ^_^
According to Amazon users, avoid products made by Aroma, Salton, Faberware, Krups... their rice cookers generally suck and die horrible deaths. Even Black & Decker makes rice cookers, which get mixed reviews.
Zojirushi and Panasonic seem to get the best reviews at Amazon. Oster makes one listed at epinions.com too, that sounds good, but apparently isn't available online anymore. (I've noticed, reading the reviews, that while it lists online at $34.99, the reviewers say they paid $25.00, $15.00, $10.00 for theirs. Maybe it's discontinued now?)
The Panasonic SR-W18PB looks like a nice one. Generally, the lower-priced ones that don't have the hinged lids don't keep rice warm as long... naturally, they let more steam escape.
At this point, I think the NHS-6 3 cup or NHS-10AW 6 cup are the best choices, or maybe the The Panasonic SR-W18PB (which makes up to 10 cups, but one reviewer said it was fine for a single person). But personally I like the Zojirushi NSRNC-18FC with Floral Imprint best. That's what I'd want to buy for myself, although at 10 cups maybe it's too big.
But hey, if I ordered a cd with it I could get free shipping! ^_^
Anyway, I haven't actually checked to see what I can buy at local stores (besides Uwajamaya) yet, but based on what I've read I'll only look for Zojirushi or Panasonic.
So... did you really read all of this?
Bleah.
Oh... one more story, just because I said I was going to ramble so dammit I'm going to RAMBLE!
I did some shopping Sunday before Jeff showed up (well... he never actually showed up of course). Anyway, I got back home and I thought, damn, I should've bought some potato chips!
At work on Monday, I kept thinking about potato chips and nuts and other forms of salty junk food. I had some microwave popcorn, but it wasn't that good. Normally I get Orville Reddenbacher's Movie-Theater Butter, because I want BUTTER on my popcorn! But people at work have been making the kettle corn flavor, which smells like cookies when someone puts one in the microwave, and it tastes pretty good. So last time I bought some, I got Pop Secret kettle corn flavor. Which turned out to be the kettle corn version that sucks. Well, it's not THAT bad, but the Jolly Time "Kettlemania" type blows the doors off any other version I've tasted (and everyone at work agrees on this!)
So... where was I? Oh yeah... I went to the store Monday night, and I grabbed a package of the butter popcorn, a package of the kettlemania popcorn, a bag of Tim's potato chips... and there was a new flavor out, "cracked peppercorn", so I bought that to take to work for everyone (and everyone like it!)... and then I remembered that my cookie jar needed some cookies, so I grabbed a bag of oreos, then I saw a box of vanilla wafers, which we had at the game on Saturday, and I thought, I haven't bought those in years! and grabbed a box of those... and, let's see, a can of smoked almonds to take to work... a six-pack of Dr. Pepper, for work of course... and nothing else really besides a couple of magazines, because I'd already done grocery shopping on Sunday.
So that was pretty pathetic, going through the check out line with all of that junk food and nothing else. =P
But the cookies are in the jar, I've only eaten one, and the popcorn is in my drawer at work, haven't used any yet, and the smoked almonds are in my drawer at work... I need stuff like that around to keep me from giving the evil vending machine people any money you know... and the bag of chips is at home, should last me a week at least... it's not like I went home and gorged myself on all this junk food you know. ^_^
Anyway if I want junk food, I still have the chocolate cake I made Sunday....
