| mood: |
 accomplished |
| music: |
Gundam Seed Destiny - Pride |
I've settled into my place surprisingly well over the past three weeks. I've managed to avoid laziness and maintained a strong level of organization in doing what I need to do at home. It's kind of weird how that is with me. It's not the first time I'd noticed it either. There have been times in the past when I was living at home where my parents would go away for a week or so, and I'd suddenly totally switch from being someone who only does the bare minimum to taking over everything that needs to be done for myself.
Some good examples of the odd and sudden behaviour changes in this situation: shaving regularly, showering regularly, making my own meals regularly, eating actual meals regularly rather than snacking on junk food (of which I've made the strategic decision to not have them in my place to ensure that I don't), and getting up at the required time every morning without the assistance of a family member to prod me into getting up.
Haha, I make myself sound like such a lazy slob in my years of living with my folks. Well maybe it's true. ^^;
I think I'm most satisfied with my successfully planning out grocery shopping when I need it and making good meals. I've already done several recipes from the cookbook I have, and many have turned out awesome. I found that I had to alter the contents and/or proportions of most, though. Take the Spanish rice for example. It was originally supposed to only have 3/4 of a teaspoon of chili powder and only 1/8 of a teaspoon of garlic powder. I pulled out the smallest measuring spoon I had which was 1/4 teaspoon, envisioned half of that, and was like, "...what the hell? That's nothing." I might as well have dabbed a tiny amount of garlic powder on my pinky finger and dumped it into the massive amount of rice, ground beef, and other ingredients... which would be pointless since I can't imagine it having much of an impact on the flavour in such a small quantity.
So I went with x4 on the spices! 3 teaspoons of chili powder and 1/2 of one for the garlic powder. I know that spices are expensive and you don't want to be going through them quickly because of that, but c'mon. It tasted GREAT. :D
Then there was the corn chowder and the wild rice soup. Both turned out awesome too but required their own modifications. I don't get how some recipes manage sautéing with such small amounts of water/oil/butter/margarine/whatever. The non-liquid foods start drying out and even burning if the required temperature is insanely high. There's a chowder recipe I've used several times at my parents' place that called for a small amount of water and about 3 or 4 times as much cod, onions, celery, and whatever else was in the sautéing portion of ingredients. Then you're supposed to crank the temp to boiling right off the bat and watch the tiny amount of water evaporate in a matter of minutes while the food burns on the bottom of the pot despite constant stirring. @_@
Anyhow, I've had fun making and eating meals despite the recipe alterations and the amount of time they consume to put together. ^^
As for furniture, I now have two basic lounging chairs as well as the two table chairs I picked up a few weeks ago (three table chairs in total), so I have something to sit in to watch TV.
I also bought a VCR/DVD player, although connecting it up to the 25-30 year old TV my parents gave me turned out to be a bit of a challenge. It has hardly any connections at the back and doesn't have the video and audio slots at all. I mean, it only has one speaker on the right side, so I was expecting that perhaps it would only have one audio slot rather than the two for left and right you normally see on newer TVs. But nope, not even that. It has an RF connection at the front for the antenna, a UHF/(something or other) connection at the back for the other range of channels via antenna, and an "MPX Out" thing at the back. That's it. I looked up the MPX connection, and it seems to be pretty much a dead connection. It was planned to be a major outlet that would be compatible with all sorts of gizmos and gadgets... and then never went anywhere. It was kind of disappointing to learn that because it was the only slot that would fit in a regular video/audio cable (but didn't work of course).
So I wound up getting my DVD player to display on the TV by hooking up the RF through a coaxial cable to the machine. The sound quality seems to be degraded sometimes because of the less than ideal connection and I have to disconnect the actual antenna to use the RF for the DVD player, but it works. I'm not sure what my brother did for all those years when the TV was used with the VCR and other devices at my parents' place because the connection was coming in through the back somehow, not hooked up on the RF at the front. I tried the UHF connection with the coaxial cable, but it doesn't work like the RF one.
The screen is bleeding anyways, so I think I could use a newer TV. XD I have a friend at work who offered one of her mother's extra TVs; I'll probably go with that. Even if the TV isn't ideal, I suspect it'll be better than what I currently have. I hope it's analog too. I have to say I'm not impressed with the new digital flatscreens. The old TV I have now was replaced recently with a new flatscreen at my parents' house. Both my dad and my brother keep commenting on how clear and bright the screen is, but I keep seeing pixelization all over the screen and even grainy-ness in certain spots, often when there is less light. They got one of the higher end ones too - some of the less pricey ones at the store had a brutal amount of blurriness and pixelization.
...Am I making any sense on this? I admit I'm no techie when it comes to electronics. When I say digital versus analog, it's on the basis that I assume the newer screens I was seeing at the store are built more like computer screens than like classic TVs. Many of the TVs at the store that weren't flatscreens had the same pixelization effect, so it doesn't seem to only be a flatscreen trade-off.
I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one concerned about my TV's picture quality being in the range of a compressed Flash video on a computer.
I'd planned on having a house warming this evening with some friends at work, but it was cancelled due to them having a bunch of reports to work on over the weekend for school. As such, I guess I have a little more time to get some furniture and decorative materials, etc.
As it turns out, though, another friend is having a board game night tonight, so I can replace the house warming with that as my social event for the evening. My only regret is that I'll miss the hockey game against Vancouver tonight. I wish I could have watched some of the game against Minnesota on Thursday night - we scored twice in the first few minutes of the game apparently, Iggy (Jarome Iginla, the captain of the Flames) got a hat trick (scored 3 goals in a game), and we won the game. Apparently we also won the game against Minnesota on Tuesday, so that's pretty awesome in that we beat them twice in a row, both on the road. We've been awesome at home this year (best in the league for home games) but awful on the road for the most part.
I went to a friend's birthday party last night. She worked at the place I currently work at up until a few months ago. It was at a bar, so that sets the general picture of the setting right there I think. Despite some of my friends' intentions to get me drunk, I called it quits after four beers. ^^;
You know, I wasn't giving any serious thought about the price of the beers last night; I just put the cash down last night to pay for it. I've been thinking about it ever since I got up this morning, though. It was Kokanee on tap (or supposed to be anyways). The end amount was $31. *pulls out calculator* So that's $29.24 after the GST is hacked off and $7.31 after the division by four. Damn. I mean, seriously. $7.31 for beer on tap? I thought tap was supposed to be cheaper. Hell, I've never had beer in a bottle at a bar that was that expensive. I think the highest price I've had for a beer before that was $4.75 or perhaps $5 (those were bottled).
Maybe it was Kokanee Gold. I noticed that it seemed darker than normal, but I wasn't sure if it was the lighting or something. It didn't taste that great. But then I don't like beer or alcohol period anyways, so... pfft.
Anyhow, it was fun. I had a good time once the alcohol kicked in. And even before that although less so... so it must have been a good party all in all. Some of my friend's friends were rather quirky/fun, which was cool. I think the quirkiness increased steadily as the alcohol consumption increased. XP
EDIT:
I've been informed that I was probably drinking pints at the bar, which isn't the same size as a bottle or can of beer - approximately 1.5 times the size I think. So that may explain the price jump. It was still on tap, though. Perhaps the rest of the priciness is based on the bar being downtown where rent likely costs more.
I guess that also means I actually drank about 6 bottles of beer, which helps to determine why I was fairly wobbly from just four glasses. o_o'
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blah
shocked
restless
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