Category Archives: Wine

Stuff of the Day

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Update:  So, what do I post for an update.  Weekend.  Weekend was the least active one I’ve had in a couple of months.  I stayed at home.  Pretty much all weekend, except for a short trip to Wal-mart Friday evening with Ivy, so I could grab a couple of things (primarily, more cereal.  Apparently, I’ve -really- missed raisin bran more than I knew).  Otherwise, I stayed in all weekend, slept a lot to catch up on not having enough for a while (I slept in WAY late on Saturday), watched a lot of Top Gear (all of Season 1 and a couple of episodes of Season 2), and drank some wine.  I’m pretty much out of Bota Shiraz now.  I -might- be able to get another half-glass or so out of it.  I didn’t really clean much – I did some dishes, tidied up the kitchen a little, but didn’t do much beyond that.  I really need to vacuum, still haven’t done that.

Was I moping?  Maybe I was just being practical, given that my car is sitting in the shop, with still no prognosis (I’m giving Littlefield until 3ish, and if they haven’t called me by then – which they won’t, of course – I’ll call them for a status update), and I needed some sleep and me time.  I had offers for companionship, which I rejected.  Some of it, genuinely because I didn’t really want anyone to intrude (oh, and Saturday, my left shoulder was sore and aching horribly) on my solo veg time.  Some of it, maybe . . . because I just didn’t really think that being with someone else I didn’t really want to be with when the person I wanted to be with was off with someone else for the weekend would make me feel any better.

Some friends had a poker game Saturday night that I’d have really liked to be able to go to, but I lacked transportation, and they couldn’t find anyone willing to give me a ride to and from their place.  Understandable, I guess, but I really would have liked to have been there.  I could have used the companionship and fun.  Does that seem to be a contradiction of the other offers of companionship I mentioned above?  All I can say is, they’re different sorts of things, really.

I’ve already had a couple of texts from one woman hinting that she wants to do something with me tonight.  I haven’t figured out yet how I’m going to decline.

Link of the Day: Jeremy Clarkson Sound Box video

Spam of the Day: “LUKY JUNE ONLINE CASINO PROMO”

Funny of the Day: “How’s the Magma?”

Pic of the Day: Kermit the Frog + Internet Horror

Quote of the Day: “(757): Shark Week may as well be Shark Weed.” – another gem from TFLN

Low-Carb Diet Survival: My Lunch Today

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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:

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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).

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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:

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

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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:

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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.

Stuff of the Day

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Update of the Day: So, yeah, no updates for the last few days, and nothing on the weekend.  Sorry.  Have been really unusually busy lately.  We worked late both Monday and Tuesday getting stuff ready for a software milestone yesterday.  I’ve had the thrilling joy of dealing with and fighting various Cisco applications – their standard IPSec VPN client doesn’t support 64 bit Windows, at all, and they have no plan of doing so, their ADSM remote management app for the firewall for the new server is buggy and breaks in a frustrating manner (just sits there spinning its wheels forever until it’s end-tasked) on any version of Java newer than 1.6 Update 7, and a whole host of minor little things.  All resolved, thus far, but extraordinarily time consuming.  

I also ran my Dad around for various vehicle rodeo tasks Monday and Tuesday as he was getting his truck worked on (mostly annual maintenance stuff) at Jimmy’s shop (World Class Automotive, I highly recommend him for any domestic or Japanese import work).  He sprung for lunch both days, and both Monday and Tuesday I was bad, breaking my diet repeatedly.  2 days of carb devouring, up 2 pounds.  Yeah, so I started back pretty severely limiting my carb intake yesterday.  

Monday night, I had a late, impromptu date with J . . . we went to a strip club, Jaguar’s Gold Club.  I hope their busier days/nights are better than Monday nights, because it was like a parade of some of the skinniest girls I’ve ever seen.  There were maybe 3 or 4 dancers there with honestly attractive bodies – seriously, there were half a dozen girls there that were just scary, like 12 year old heroin user girl, skinny.  They didn’t need to eat a sammich so much as a deli.  Then yesterday, after work, talking J on the phone . . . she tells me a lot of stuff that I probably should have been made aware of a lot earlier.  I’ve come to the conclusion that she has basically been using me for money (not too much, but still, principle involved) and ego boosts (a lot of there).  Rather irritating.

Went and visited Ivy and Kodi last night, we hung out and talked and tried some decent wine, 7 Deadly Zins, which Ivy wants me to write up a “an old-Joe-style review” for.  It might happen.

Link of the Day:  Top 50 Text Acronyms Parents Should Know

Spam of the Day: “Wake up your porkmonster”

Funny of the Day: “Tell all your friends their lunches are non-notable!”

Pic of the Day: I simply don’t have the words . . .

Quote of the Day: “To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography and the dancers hit each other.” – sayings on Sports by Jack Handy

Stuff of the Day

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Update of the Day: I’m dropping the “Brief” portion of this.  Sometimes it’s brief, sometimes, not-so. I’ve not invested the time yet to shove this theme into working like I want (variable-width columns that will adapt automagically to your monitor size/resolution) so when I type in the editor, what looks brief to me (a few lines) ends up appearing 3x as long when shoved into the middle column here.  I’m probably the only person to care about this anyway.  

Not a whole lot to really say other than that here.  I enjoyed Top Gear last night, after a night of new Chuck and Heroes.  Heroes is good, but I’m sort of getting a kind of Robert Jordan-esque sort of impatience with the show.  Baby “Touch and Go (and now Stop)” Parkman is essentially a Deus Ex Machina tool for the show, as he can “Fix” everyone’s powers, and I wish they’d stop fucking with Hiro and give him back his time travel, fix Peter, etc.  Lemme rephrase from above: I really enjoyed Top Gear.  I’ve got the first 10 seasons downloaded, I need to find time to get around to watching all of those.  But my time is finite, and other priorities intrude.  Most of the other things I need/want to do have ended up taking precedence over mere non-interactive entertainment lately.

Oh, and . . . WTFGO Tarheels!

Link of the Day: I almost want this shirt. If the stripe just went all the way around, as it properly should.  (I think.)

Spam of the Day: “Does your child suffer from CP?” – It’s for Cerebral Palsy . . . but the subject is unfortunately (and darkly amusingly) vague.

Pic of the Day: Normal?

Quote of the Day: “A still small voice spake unto me, ‘Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?”’ – Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Two Voices”