Monthly Archives: June 2009

Low-Carb Diet Survival: My Lunch Today

Posted on by

So, sometimes doing the low-carb diet thing can be rough.  It requires a lot of willpower.  Not just to resist things that aren’t compatible with the diet, but also to alter behaviours that will have you doing things that will upset the diet and knock you way out of ketosis.  Like, oh, a sizable amount of drinking Thursday night.  Followed up by pizza Friday night, and a real, full-blown entirely sugared up soda.  Yeah, when I weighed this weekend, I was very unhappy with myself.  So, from Saturday afternoon on, I’ve been strictly “good” (ok, I did dip my finger in for a teensy bit of incredibly delicious, creamy, chocolate frosting) diet-wise.

Today for lunch, I went to a bit more effort than I usually do.  First, I grilled up some portabella mushroom slices:

[singlepic id=7 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Next up, I’ve been working on some beef shoulder steaks (HEB sale special, I’m not made of money).  Normally, I thaw these out (these have been thawing since Saturday), throw some spices on them, and toss ’em on the grill and call it done.  With these, partly out of lazy last night, and partly out of a fit of fancy, I marinated them overnight.  The marinade was a homebrew concoction, with wine (cabernet sauvignon) and spices (salt, pepper, garlic, soy sauce, tabasco).

[singlepic id=9 w=320 h=240 float=center]

While the first steak was grilling on my trusty Foreman Grill, I broke out some frozen broccoli florets (I’d have preferred fresh broccoli, steamed, but I cooked and ate the last of that last night with my steelhead trout).  Cooked them in the microwave most of the way, then finished up the last bit with butter and slices of colby-jack cheese melting on top of them:

[singlepic id=5 w=320 h=240 float=center]

While they were cooking, my first steak (these are pretty thin, so they grill very quickly) finished:

[singlepic id=8 w=320 h=240 float=center]

I have to say, after tasting the steak (I’ve had some of this shoulder steak before, I bought 4 packages of it when it was on sale) this time, the overnight marinating was definitely worthwhile.  Far more flavorful and tender than before.

Here’s a shot of everything put together, what I actually ate for lunch today:

[singlepic id=6 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Altogether, delicious.  Aside from the prep time on the steaks, this was pretty quick – I went home, grilled and nuked everything, ate, flossed and brushed my teeth, watched twitter blab about Apple at WWDC a bit, in around 45 minutes.  I’ve got more mushrooms grilled and waiting, and steak for another 4 meals easily.

Cancelled Stuff

Posted on by

I simply don’t feel up to a Stuff of the Day today.  I had a fun, bad, fun night last night.  My body was still working on metabolizing the alcohol when I slumped into work this morning.  On time, but I was moving only by force of will this morning, and I felt like hell for a while.

Hung out with Ivy and Peel, and surprisingly, Tomas last night.  Left to go meet a date at Barnes and Noble.  She never showed up.  Oooh, was I pissed.  That led to me meeting back up with Peel and Ivy and Tomas, at a different location (Woofers and Tweeters), and some impulsive decisions on my part as regards my alcohol consumption.  Got the email address of this girl I met at Woofers.  Now ran into the problem I predicted yesterday with conflicting single-letter name-associated psuedonyming.  Already have a J.  Am seriously not in any state right now to come up with a good methodology.  Anyone have any suggestions?

Stuff of the Day

Posted on by

Update: *yawn* If I hadn’t remembered to set my clock-radio alarm last night, I’d probably not have gotten moving in time today.  So tired, so sluggish, and I don’t know why.  I got to sleep at a reasonable time last night.  Bed was the most comfortable it’s been in quite a while, I washed the sheets and finally got the Egyptian Cotton mattress pad put on it (that I bought like 2 weeks ago, and washed this last weekend prior to using it), readjusted the foam pads to not be bunched up.

I’ll confess, yesterday’s Stuff of the Day went up early this morning, backdated.  This is because I had it all set up and ready yesterday, but was running into some significant MySQL issues with my server.  Site5 got them straightened out for me, but not in time enough for me to get it up properly yesterday.

A friend of mine since High School, Anthony Peel, moved back to Midland a couple of months ago.  Haven’t seen him since he moved back.  We were supposed to be out doing something fun and possibly getting into trouble last night, and the next couple of days, because his apparently paranoid controlling wife and kids will be out of town for a couple of days.  Plans must have changed, or something, because he informed me late yesterday afternoon that she wasn’t leaving until today, so we weren’t doing anything last night.  Damn.  I’d been looking forward to some fun on Wednesday night.  So, just before the end of work, I end up with my plans for the night gone.

So, ok, crap – let’s text several folks and see if I can do something anyway.  I ended up hanging out with (and meeting for the first time) someone I’ve been messaging back and forth for about a week.  We’ll dub her S for now.  If I don’t end up finding someone to be with for a while, I’m going to have to come up with some different psuedonyming conventions or something, lest I run out of handy letters (or end up with someone with a name starting with the same letter as another).  Spending the time with her was nice, we had some fun, seem to get along well personality wise, but I just didn’t feel a strong physical attraction.  I’m left wondering, since we seem to get along so well together, should I continue this and see how things might be on a second or later date, and see if physicality and affection may be worthwhile there?

All this is just so complicated and frustrating, since I feel a little bit like I’m just looking for something “for now” until I find out whether or not I’ll have any chance with someone I know I’d like to be with.

Link of the Day: How To Write Unmaintainable Code

Spam of the Day: “Yo yo! Check this out dude”

Funny of the Day: “It was vintage!”

Pic of the Day: “Even Denise Crosby had to tap that”

Quote of the Day: “It’s alcoholic chocolate milk.  I see no issue.” – Rayne Summers, on Bailey’s

Stuff of the Day

Posted on by

Update: So, I got my electricity bills yesterday.  Yes, bills – plural.  My mess with Bounce energy still isn’t resolved.  They sent me two bills.  For two different ESID #s, both, they claim, for my address.  I spent 38 minutes on the phone with them this morning, talking to 3 different people, having to re-explain the entire situation every time, despite the second person saying she was going to take the time to enter detailed notes on the case – so I wouldn’t have to explain it all again. *eyeroll*

It’ll be a couple of days before I hear anything. Or, if is as it has been for them thus far, they never call me back, and I decide to call them Friday and ask what the hell’s up.

Link of the Day: Stem cell contacts cure blindness

Spam of the Day: “Your presence is obligatory”

Funny of the Day: This wouldn’t have been a problem for me.

Pic of the Day: Colorful map of the brain

Quote of the Day: “If you go away, On this summer day, Then you might as well, Take the sun away” – Cyndi Lauper, If You Go Away

Stuff of the Day

Posted on by

Update: I found out yesterday morning, that yesterday, and today (and probably Mondays and Tuesday for a bit to come until our new product is done-ish) get to be work-late days.  An added 2 hours a day.  Plus, we get to have half-days on Saturdays!  Normally, the concept of overtime pay is something I’d not mind so much right now.  But losing my Saturday mornings infringes on nigh-sacred sleep-late time.  Ah well.

I went last night after work and saw Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.  It was Ok.  Fun, light, cute.  Should have been funnier, IMO, but it was entertaining.  Not super though, and I’m glad I decided to see Star Trek again Saturday with K.  After I left the theater, barely out of the parking lot, I got a text from a friend, and went to Starbucks to meet her.  Spent an hour there talking to her.  Very enjoyable.  She’s terribly cute, intelligent, a bit geeky (in a good way).  I’d so be up for dating her, if I had any clear understanding of interest from her.  Which I don’t think I do.  I mentioned it afterwards last night on a text message, and she used something I’d heard before, about her being “an indepdenent person now” (despite seeming to be a serial-dater, churning through boyfriends).  I don’t know what that means.  If she’s just not interested in me, I wish she’d just say it.  I can deal with that, and be ok with being her friend.  Being left vague and confused, and thinking I’d be a far better choice of someone for her to date than what I’ve heard of just about everyone she’s mentioned to me, I don’t deal as well with.  Hrm.  Ok, all done being angsty for the moment.

Link of the Day: Cut the black one!

Spam of the Day: “Live microbes-free!”

Funny of the Day: Hmm.  I’ve been wondering what that beeping was lately.

Pic of the Day: I must try this. The vodka one, of course.

Quote of the Day: “Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.” – Napoleon

Stuff of the Day

Posted on by

Update of the Day: It was a fairly busy weekend.  Added a few checkboxes to the “new experiences” list.  See my earlier post on DanceFAIL for one example.

Saturday, had a frienDate with K.  Dutch on everything.  Not thrilled with going backwards with someone, but I’d rather be friends with her than nothing.  We ate at Cheddars, and it was really surprisingly good.  I had the best Sirloin steak I’ve had easily over a year, the shrimp was decent, and the dressing on their Caesar salad was one of the best I’ve ever had in a restaurant.  I also had a little teensy bit of the Croissant that came with my salad.  ZOMG it was so light, flaky, and delicious.  I wanted to devour the entire thing.  But, trying to stick with the low-carb diet there . . . Not that it seems to have done any good (more on that below).  We killed some time doing some shopping at Barnes & Noble and Pier 1.  She got a gift or two for her niece, and I happened to spot some book she’d been looking for and snatched up immediately as we were in the line up to the cashwrap to check out.  Then we saw Star Trek again, then wrapped up with some mutual grocery shopping at HEB.  I know it all sounds really pedestrian, but I really enjoyed the 8 hours we spent together, regardless.

I weighed this morning, same routine I do every time I weigh.  UP 3.8 pounds.  Not horribly surprised, I had a vague feeling I’d gotten a little heavier.  Definitely unhappy about it, though.  Apparently, despite doing very good on actually being carb-conscious on what I ate this whole weekend, I either drank enough that burning the alcohol for energy continued for so long that all the fat I consumed didn’t get burned at all and just stuck around, or maybe one of the “diet” coke and vodkas I had wasn’t actually diet.  1 single decent glass of regular, fully sugared/HFCS’d coke will easily knock me right out of ketosis.  Almost wishing now I’d gone for some of the really, incredibly tempting scrumptious stuff at Cheddars I didn’t order.  :/

Got another one of the packages in today I was expecting, the PetFoodDirect shipment.  In addition to another bag of Innova dry food for her, got a dozen cans of Evo canned food.  She sort of got accustomed to having it as a treat/supplement a couple times a day in IN and AL, and this is the first time since I’ve moved back to Midland she’s had any.  She definitely seemed to enjoy it.

Link of the Day: Microsoft’s new Bing search engine

Spam of the Day: “Your drawbolt will go deeper in.”

Funny of the Day: “Not just ANY girl porn”

Pic of the Day: “Does he look like a bitch?”

Quote of the Day: “Damn those reckless Amish!” – Me

DanceFAIL

Posted on by

I went to Graham Central Station Saturday night, met a friend there. This is a place I haven’t been to in like, 7 years or so. Granted, some of that is because I was out of state for 6 years.

I had an ok time, had some fun there. I particularly enjoyed Wild Cats, the sort of Coyote Ugly like bar club. Complete with a bubble generator at the very end of the night.

But prior to that, my (female) friend I met there that night, tried to get me hooked up with Random Cute Female Eye Candy. This is where the fail comes in. It took place on the main dance club area, Zazoo or something like that.

Can someone explain to me the basics, guidelines, practicalities, etc. of how this is supposed to work? This is something I have zero familiarity with, and was literally shoved into it without warning. I was unprepared. I didn’t have a damn clue how to go about it, and it pretty much turned my confidence level from Fairly High to Oh Shit in no time – which, such dismal confidence I’m sure could be read by the women and girls there (because, indeed, some of these were merely girls) which helped contribute to my Fail.

How does this whole process, where your introduction to someone (apparently) comes in the form of you thrusting your groin into their ass work? Someone clue me in here, because I just don’t get it.