Flickr News
There’s a new version of Flickr Uploadr out. It allows for a lot more options for labeling and organizing photos before you even sign into flickr. I only tried it once so far, but I’d definitely recommend it to first time users and upgraders, it’s better. I know, I am all ad-like, but I dunno, it’s a good upgrade, makes the uploadr more useful.
Also, pro users can see stats now — I love stats so I’m happy (via Lifehacker), and I never saw the Edit Photo option on top of the photos until today but you can edit photos directly from flickr using picnik now too (more info is available on the Flickr Blog). I don’t know how much I am actually gonna use this though cos I’m used to Picasa now, and I like to edit photos before deciding if I’m going to bother putting it up. But we’ll see. :)
Routine, RESTORED!
Tim’s Take is back! I guess I wasn’t the only one with a ruined routine. But all that’s in the past now, and everything’s all right with Project Runway now. :)
Cold
Yut’s in Vancouver this week (business travel, yuck) and without him even with the space heater, I’m cold cold cold for a long time after I get home and retreat to the bedroom. Who knew having a space heater, 2 computers (or 1 computer and 1 tv) on, and someone with good temperature control makes such a big difference in comfort!? :p
Mission Accomplished
So I finally finished Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn on easy mode last night (well ok, early this morning). It took almost 40 hours according to my save file. But I know of at least one night when Yut realized I fell asleep playing so who knows how many of those hours are for real. On the other hand, I had to reload a bunch cos I killed characters I didn’t want to kill. So ok, like a work week’s worth of play time. On top of my regular work week! And class! I feel accomplished. :)
Thanksgiving Trip, Now With Photos
I think it’s pretty clear from the photos that we spent all our time eating and playing cards. Just the way we like it! :) K, I finally posted up photos! I meant to for days, but you see, I had this little problem called Fire Emblem, which is what I played all weekend. I don’t know why, but I get so addicted to turn-based games, and I end up spending all day in my pjs playing and playing and playing so that nothing gets done. Today I haven’t turned on the Wii yet cos if I did, there’d be no photos. :D
Ready For Winter Break
Okay, so yeah, CT has broadband now (768/128 DSL but I guess for $15 a month, it’ll do), so I technically have no excuse to not post even when I’m visiting her. Especially since she posted a lot. But somehow when I’m there hanging out, playing video games and/or cards, and eating 6 meals a day (no, really, for example during the first day I was there I think I had 5 bowls of rice with meat sauce (and sides) and 3 bowls of green bean (dessert) soup, and this is not counting the V8 and other drinks I drank), the internets, it falls by the way side. And I haven’t posted up photos but CT and K have — I’m a slacker! I haven’t even really been on the computer much at night after work cos I had a math test yesterday so I had to study for that, and I played some Fire Emblem (CT didn’t “lose” the Wii after all), and I was so tired out I slept over 12 hours last night. Somehow the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks is the hardest for concentrating on anything. My mind has checked out already; I really want to have the whole time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s off.
Thanksgiving Hints as best as I know ‘em
Boy oh boy, Thanksgiving is next week and I am having thoughts of turkeys dancing in my head! Delicious, delicious turkey! I can’t wait. :)
YB asked me for turkey cooking tips yesterday, which yay! Someone asking me for cooking advice! Haha:) Anyhows, I thought I’d make a post out of it. (Yay content!)
For the turkey:
Brine brine brine! I use SFGate’s Best Way Brined Turkey Recipe although I’ve heard good things about the Good Eats Roast Turkey. In a way, we combined some ideas from both. We’ve always used turkeys that are 12 lbs -14 lbs, less is ok, but too much smaller and bones start making up a greater and greater percentage of the overall weight of the turkey. Also, I prefer free range! Organic if you can find it, but free range FOR SURE! Although brining makes up for it if you absolutely can’t find free range or free range organic, I actually think that the free range turkeys taste better. The basic stuff that you NEED for the brine is the 1.5 cups of salt, the cup of (light) brown sugar, and the water. Everything else is optional, although since we’re both pro-garlic, I guess the garlic is a yes! Also, we add things like thyme or rosemary (everyone likes rosemary but me so I add a little), or whatever herbs (fresh or dry) we like depending on what we have. I put black pepper in cos I like black pepper.
Adapted ingredients list:
* 1 turkey, about 12 pounds
The brine:
* 1 cup light brown sugar
* 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups (kosher) salt
* 2 1/2 gallons cold water
* 1 head of garlic, cloves separated and peeled
* ground pepper
For roasting:
* 2 tablespoons softened butter + butter for basting
* 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
* 1 cup low-sodium chicken stock, or more as needed
Before roasting, after we rinse and pat the turkey dry, we rub softened/melted butter all over the damn bird (this is actually a bit of a chore). CT doesn’t bother, her philosophy is, there’s fat on the turkey. But I like butter. We like to grind black pepper over it though, and put a couple stalks of celery, a few pieces of carrot, some fresh herbs if there’s something you like/have extras of, a small onion (in strips) maybe, and maybe a couple of apple pieces. It’s just for extra moisture/good smells, so it’s optional. I don’t know if it does anything seriously. Don’t pack the turkey cavity too tight cos you don’t wanna stuff the turkey. No turkey stuffing! This is important! Basting is up to you. Just watch the turkey, it’ll give you cues. Maybe go with the recipe if it’s your first time.
For the gravy:
I use Alton Brown’s Gravy from Roast Drippings recipe (approximately).
I dunno though, I kinda half make it up as I go along. (This is why I believe in having an instant gravy packet or canned gravy around, fail safe.) But it’s nice to use the turkey drippings. Be sure to have low sodium chicken broth for the gravy, cos the turkey is brined, the drippings can be salty. I dunno they’ve been fine before too, so maybe take a quick taste and then decide if you wanna use regular or low sodium. (Is there an actual taste difference between regular and low sodium broth? I’m actually not sure.) If you feel like being swanks, you can use the gibblets and whosiwhatsits to make your own broth. If you don’t have a bay leaf, well no big. I’ve dumped mushrooms in it and called it mushroom gravy too. Maybe I’ll do a garlic gravy this year since I’ve just declared love for garlic.
Cranberry sauce:
Love this stuff. I make it sometimes as a plain cheesecake topping. Or whatever! I like the Homemade Whole Cranberry Sauce recipe by Deb from Smitten Kitchen. It’s delicious! And it solved a problem for me — people seem to think that orange and cran are flavors that go together. Which is fine, except that I lurve cranberry! And when I’m eating cranberry sauce I keep thinking, the orange, it’s distracting me from my cranberries! But what she does with the orange zest and the small squeeze of orange is perfect. And I think she uses less sugar than the regular recipe from the back of the Ocean Spray bag. I like tart. But I’ve also made the sauce with just cranberries, water, and sugar before if I didn’t have the orange. Or used a splash of orange juice. It’s whatevs. (Y’know, this sort of weird thing about orange juice in cranberry sauce and the whole hate rosemary thing may be what my family is talking about when they tell me I’m picky. I’m pretty sure everyone else was fine with the orange juice and cranberries method.)
Anyhows, I think the most important thing is that the recipes are like a starting point. You should edit for your own tastes — like if you like cranberry sauce with orange juice (and I’m not coming to dinner!) never mind about what I said, obviously! :) Etc. Etc.
Routine, Ruined!
I thought I had a Project Runway Routine. Wednesday night, watch the show in bed, make comments to Yut about the designers and designs even though he’s on his computer not really paying any attention, Yut turns my computer on for me part way through the show, then the moment the show ends, I go on the Project Runway website and read Tim’s Take.
But today was the season premiere! And I just watched the show! And I made many comments! And Yut said, “Uh huh” a lot! But he paid enough attention to turn on my computer! SO WHERE IS TIM’S TAKE?!
ZOMG!
Yut’s New Camera
About a month ago, we got another camera, this time a little one that’s easy to stuff in Yut’s pocket. (Or my pocket. Y’know, whatever.) Officially, since the D50 is sorta my camera, although we both use it (Yut snickered here), this new one (a Canon Powershot SD850 IS) is officially Yut’s cos I couldn’t justify owning two cameras. I know, I know, what’s the difference, but I dunno, that’s the kind of logical I am! The good thing about it is that I generally just stick it in my backpack so I have it with me a lot of the time, and we both pick it up to take pictures of like feet (ok that’s more a me thing) and other random photos more often. Obviously, the image quality isn’t at all as nice as the D50, but considering the price/weight difference well… it’s all about the trade-offs I guess. Anyways, we’re both pretty happy with it. You can see my photos and tons of sample photos taken by lots of other people on flickr. We also considered the Canon Powershot SD870 IS which is similar but has a wider angle lens, but it was more expensive and we didn’t think we cared about the differences. (Wide angle is when you zoom farther away (good for scenery, like sunsets, and architecture, like houses, for example), telephoto is when you zoom closer. There’s a better explanation, but I’m not equipped to give it. :p) I think for a small camera at this price range (<$250) it's one of the better ones out there, although I can't help but look at the Sony DSC-T2 with all those colors and 1gb of built in memory for $350 or so with a little gadget lust. (Although I don’t know anything about that camera other than it’s new and colorful.) (And I just like gadgety things anyway, it’s a weakness of mine.)
Candidate Match
misa and I were talking about the presidential candidates the other day, and she mentioned Dennis Kucinich, and lo and behold, like a day later I see this Slate article, Stop lying to yourself. You love Dennis Kucinich (via mingaling). And it’s true, I took USA Today’s Candidate match game and Gravel and Kucinich keep coming on top (some of the questions I’m ok with answering multiple ways). And for all the rest of the quizzes that are mentioned in the article (I like the Candidate Calculator which is similar to Pick Your Candidate), I get Kucinich too. Dang! The top three Democratic candidates (Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) and all the Republican candidates never come out on top. I kinda wish Al Gore would run, except he’s probably right, he can do more good by doing what he’s doing now instead of running for office. Pretty interesting, if slightly disheartening. But try it out, what do y’all think? (Besides that I’ve gone quiz mad:P)
Unrelated, but I’m slightly addicted to FreeRice. I hope they’re really donating rice cos if so, I have donated hecka rice!
