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Tinypliny's Journal

tinypliny
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12/15/2011 19:06 #55749

Chocolate anxiety.
Category: eating out
When there is no chocolate on walgreens shelves. Well... there is chocolate but not MY favourite chocolate.

I realize I eat chocolate like it were popcorn or something but still... they are out of *my favourite* chocolate today. They say it will be re-stocked soon. But I want it now, dammit.
paul - 12/16/11 10:45
Maybe we need an intervention. Sounds like you are having drug withdrawal symptoms.
tinypliny - 12/15/11 22:37
I knew it. You are the evil mastermind who wiped out the chocolat! EEEEEEEEEKKS!
uncutsaniflush - 12/15/11 21:56
I think this is karma for complaining that the U.S. does not follow the French spelling of "metre". Just in case you didn't notice, the U.S. does not follow the French spelling of "Chocolat". Since you insist on the purity of language, there is no chocolate for you. And that what is even worse, there is no chocolat for you either.

No Metre, no Chocolat!!!

I feel your pain, I like chocolat(e) no matter how you choose to spell it.
tinypliny - 12/15/11 19:40
There is nothing for you to steal. lol. The stupid shelf is empty. I just checked!
metalpeter - 12/15/11 19:34
Interventions do work... But I think that they are mostly really for the people who where enablers to stop that and in that case they help... In this case we would steal it all and eat it right in front of you ha.... Or maybe we would buy you a case and you can't go anywhere until you eat it all...HA.... You know like people who do that with smoking with there kids that they make them smoke till they get sick..HA
tinypliny - 12/15/11 19:20
I have never had those things. I like the chocolate fairly bitter. So I am guessing the sugar will be too much for me.

Interventions are useless. I think I am into the well-past-remediable-addiction stage!!!
metalpeter - 12/15/11 19:11
Seriously though I know you are a fan of dark and me of Milk... But I saw that Areo Bars have caught on American Style and they now Hershey makes a couple kinds one of them being a Kiss with Air in it.....
metalpeter - 12/15/11 19:10
One Of These days you will eat one of those Bars (ha) and your blood pressure will drop into the negatives (ha) and your blood will run backwards through your body.... HA.... Think I'm going to call I bunch of (e:peeps) you need an Intervention! HA

12/15/2011 16:42 #55748

December Skies
Category: the odes
Ominous plus plus

image
mrmike - 12/16/11 16:32
That's an awesome picture
metalpeter - 12/15/11 19:06
They Where Scary Today... If this was on G+ I would plus it....

12/15/2011 14:12 #55747

Greens techniques
Category: eating in
There are two top-chef attested methods for cooking greens.

Common step: Wash them thoroughly

Method one: Blanch away
  1. Don't chop the greens
  2. Bring a HUGE pot of water to a boil with a VERY generous dusting of salt. ("Shockingly salty": that's how one of the chefs whose name I forgot, describes the level of salt in the blanching water).
  3. Dunk the unchopped greens into the boiling water for a brief span of time till the greens reach the peak of their green colour.
  4. Fish them out as fast as you can and wash them in cold water.

That's it. They are ready for further brief methods of cooking.

Method two: Toss 'em and forget 'em.
  1. Chop the greens very roughly
  2. Heat a pan on high
  3. Drop in some oil and swirl around (add some seasoning to the oil if you want too)
  4. Drop in the chopped greens.
  5. toss till covered in oil. Splash in some water or soy sauce.
  6. Cover with a sturdy lid till the greens are intensely green. They are steamed to crisp-tender at the top and slightly charred/caramelized where they come in contact with the pan.
  7. Take the lid off the pan after around 2 minutes.
  8. Take off heat - don't let the greens sit around in the pan and season with with spices/sauces. Serve hot.


I haven't yet tried either methods. I usually keep stir-frying because I don't want to char them, and I don't blanch them because it seems like such a waste of micronutrients that inevitably leach out in the water.

Maybe this weekend, I will try both.. I am curious about the differences in taste with both methods.

12/15/2011 12:15 #55745

Longpress Longpress
Category: i-tech
All the features I keep looking for in Android are usually found by a...

longpress.

I need to remember this when I go hunting all over the web looking for a solution to some commonplace difficulty on Android.

Longpress Longpress Longpress. Guess that "intuition" that people keep talking about doesn't come that easily to me or maybe I am just not hardwired for a mobile device.

heidi - 12/15/11 16:20
(e:Paul) had to introduce me to longpress - I didn't get it either.

12/15/2011 09:43 #55744

Metric units, non-metric spelling
Category: the odes
US doesn't follow SI or metric units but yet, MS Word and other US spell checkers insist that I spell metres as meters.

A meter is usually a suffix for an instrument that measures something.. like a thermometer, an odometer etc. The SI units of distance is always spelled metre.

Enforcing a blatant misspelling of units you don't even use borders on the ridiculous.

tinypliny - 12/15/11 14:17
OMG!! I want to write in Polish!! Some vowels need to be shown their rightful place... with the eraser or backspace button! :)
uncutsaniflush - 12/15/11 14:09
Thanks for sharing Pat Naughtin's thesis on meter versus metre. I love stuff like that. I've been fascinated by language and linguistics since I was a child. I find English to be a capricious and arbitrary language. Just like Mr. Spock from Star Trek, I find that I am drawn to the illogical; but, unlike him, I think I see beauty in the chaos where others only see confusion.

fwiw, English is my second language and Polish is my first. So I'm no native speaker of any sort of English rising up to defend my native tongue.
uncutsaniflush - 12/15/11 14:02
I suggest that you don't write your Thesis in Polish, the bloody wanker euro-trash Poles don't even have an "e" in the word "metr" So ha!
tinypliny - 12/15/11 13:37
Here is a 15 page thesis that touches a bit on my obvious lack of delight, given my background. :::link:::

Enjoy! :)
tinypliny - 12/15/11 13:34
If you had to make 142 replacements in a document you just slogged through, delight isn't particularly high on the agenda. lol
uncutsaniflush - 12/15/11 12:37
My 1971 compact edition of the Oxford English Dictionary lists meter as an alternate spelling for "metre" and also that "meter" is is the U.S. spelling of "meter". If meter is good enough for the fine folks at Oxford, it's good enough for me.

I suggest you direct your complaints to them using the contact information at :::link::: since many of the world's English speakers view the OED as THE reference for English.

I, for one, delight in the all the regional variations in spoken and written English. I think it is a testament to both the strength of the English language itself as well as a testament to the uniqueness of human beings.

I am saddened that the diversity in the world's Englishs doesn't delight you as it does me.