Off Topic

David Cameron “The more one judges, the less one loves.” — Honore de Balzac substitute gif Spent forever doing a gif that turned out really sh*t.  It's so crap, I'm not going to bother loading it.  Too busy.  Annoying.  Senseless. It didn't turn out anything like I expected.  Gifs work better with images only, no text. Did try to use the video editor program, but it's been about 4 months since I messed with that and I can't remember how to use it. The photo editing thing was annoying me as well.  No patience to do transitions or to try to mess with video editor, almost starting afresh again. Having a really bad day.  Combination of like a big depressive slump and anger, or frustration.  Or just bad mood?  LOL ... Really bad combination, whatever it is.  Felt like crying but I can't cry ... as in I can hardly ever cry and if I do cry, I barely cry at all.  It's really crap. Been keeping stupid hours again, so maybe that's what's put the mood out of whack.  Frustrated that time seems to go at super fast speed, but I'm on super slow speed and I can't do whatever I'd like to do in the time that there is to do anything in (even though I have all the time in the world).  WTF is with that?  I'm still never getting around to doing what I'd like to do and never doing what I'm supposed to do, and I'm super slow at whatever it is that I'm doing, even if it's what I want to do.  LOL It's nothing but frustration here. Kind of hard to keep up with 'static' news - accessing boring mainstream news feed or directly accessing news publications I might want to look at (if I remember & could be bothered), as opposed to having a running feed of what I'm interested in following, set up and constantly on the move (like I had it on Twitter).  That worked much better for me. I don't know what the f*ck's going on anymore. Mainstream news is full of garbage. Prince is dead; prince Philip drives Obama to lunch; the c*nts at Facebook are determining the news feed that gets seen. Bet we've got it worse than North Korea.  It's non-stop propaganda, manipulation, and waste of money social engineering campaigns chasing selling a perfect world dream that's never going to happen.  F*ck off. Wish journalists would stop writing novels, when they could simply give the point-form facts.  Not interested in their opinions. And programmers are such assholes.  If I wanted news site access shaped to the location that I'm in, I'd have gone to the local news, c*nts.  What a f*cking annoying waste of time that is.  F*ck off.

Doing Nothing

Doing the rounds of YouTube hair loss videos, in case my hair doesn't stop coming out. Found the cutest baby ever on this one: https://youtu.be/6e2bUfgzTkM?t=567 Think I need to stock up on vitamins and maybe force myself to spend time outside in sunlight.  Don't know if it will help, but it can't hurt. I'm trying to think back what might have triggered the hair shedding, but I'm not really sure.  I can't even really remember when it first began. But I can sort of identify with the people in the YouTube videos who have felt relief shaving off their hair and no longer finding hair in their food and everywhere else. After years of torturing my hair, I've grown to accept it and kind of like it where it is:  on my head. Had to stop looking at the alopecia videos as they were beginning to freak me out. Then I got sidetracked with videos of someone else's life, including their trip to some Hello Kitty exhibit.  Can't believe I watched that. It's amazing how much time I can spend on here doing nothing.

Annoying Browsers & Creepy Google

Annoying Browsers & Creepy Google I've died and gone to hell. Switched browsers because the Firefox was annoying me, but this is like driving under the influence of some unpleasant chemical. Everything looks different and feels different. I don't know which one I hate more:  Firefox or Opera. And nothing ever works how you would want it to. PC crashed at least 4 times. Notes I made are all gone. Made the switch because I had trouble accessing Blogger to post, after I got rid of my cookies and probably blocked cookies or something. Google wouldn't let me in because I'd blocked the 'cookie rape' option. How?  Who knows?  I cleared up the cookie cache, but I couldn't remember what else I altered and was sort of stuck. Now I've got two sh*tty browsers that I don't like. This browser flips me to 'mobile' mode view when I don't want to view in 'mobile' mode, because I don't have access to the site format I want. The browser is freaking me out.  It's got a Google search box sort of sprawled right across the start page, all menacing.  It had all this e-Bay and Amazon crap which I deleted, but there's no budging that Google search box that's staring at me.  There's no getting away from it anywhere:  I'm pretty sure Blogger's Google, YouTube's Google, even Tor uses Google, and Google's  ... mass surveillance USG.  Maybe a Chinese browser is in order?  LOL  The Tor experience was least problematic (for a while) ... until I tried to hook up to some onion sites.   Just about every site I tried was a dead link.  And it was dead boring.  Pastebin was kind of interesting.  It had a massive list of the Aussie Panama Leaks entities.  I'm not that into financial stuff, but it might interest others out there. This is just a test post.  Wanted to see if I could get in.

Off Topic - Aloha, my lovelies ...

Aloha my lovelies ... It took me about 4 months to finally get around to following up my medical gone awry. Tend to favour being off on a virtual tangent, keeping strange hours, rarely attending to the practical and, when I do focus on something useful, it's mostly a comedy of errors and of bizarre forgetfulness. Looking at my *massive* hair loss the other day -- in probably what is now a couple of years of insane levels of hair loss -- freaked me out enough to get my act together to finally see the doc. The doctor's concern is lining up another pap smear.  Oh, joy. But what about my *hair*, FFS?! I don't think these doctors understand that I am almost more disturbed about the prospect of hair loss, than the prospect of high risk of cancer, heart attack or of stroke associated with any 'hair retention' remedy.   What's the point of a long life, if it's the life of a woman *involuntarily* turning into a man? Even though I sort of feel 'manly' sometimes and probably identify with my 'inner man' or something like that, I like being female and I certainly have no desire to wind up *looking* like a man.  That just horrifies me. How can they not understand that femininity and baldness isn't compatible?  What's *wrong* with these doctors?  Why doesn't anyone give a sh*t that I've been losing my hair for ages? Maybe it's a cultural thing?  I don't think they get my concern -- at all. Instead of the hormone replacement therapy I thought might be a solution, I got lectured about the risks. Blood pressure reading is on the high side, as well. As a highly-strung critter that's in agitated-mode just about by default, I'm almost relieved to at last have a proper reason for the horrible feeling of agitation:  it's probably my blood pressure and not just my natural weirdness. This is soooooo unfair:  how come Bruce gets an OK for an enormous hormonal infusion in the switch from Bruce to Caitlyn, and I can't even get a hormone *boost* without dire warnings of the risk of death or turning into dribbling mess? Lecture scared me almost as much as hair loss scares me, and I left it on the basis that I'll research. But now I'm kind of put off by the prospect of a horrible death and I don't know what's worse:  horrible death or somehow coming to terms with just letting my freaking hair keep shedding, come what may. -------/\/\/

The Kitchen

The Kitchen #KitchenFail Binned ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT We're in hysterics over my improvised donuts or fritters. They were like mini oil sponges and impossible to eat. Disgusting.  Like eating an oil spill disaster. But very funny. Guess desserts need to be precise. Next project:  Beef Rendang This could end badly. Ingredients a pain to get hold of, so it could involve deciding on a few substitutes ... and I've never made this one before. This looks good, but I was hoping to get away with slow cooker method ... which probably won't give the same result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfDJR9wo2Cw This one also looks appealing & somewhat easier ... I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v88CVMgsnNs Well, it looks like I won't be making this unless I can find tumeric leaf and galangal.

Bored

Dye Job in Progress Rear View Mess Hair-dye stains all over looks like a beating or something ... lol ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT The dark brown transformation of some weeks ago (or maybe months ago) began to fade, as it was applied over bleached hair. Bored, so I thought I'd go really dark this time (Black #1.0) ... even though black dye looks really witchy on me.  LOL Tried not to get hair-dye everywhere this time. Think the walls were safe this time around, but there's still impossible to remove bathroom wall splatter from prior hair dying adventures, destined to only be 'shifted' by painting over. Edit:  Walls weren't safe ... more splatter + splatter on bathmat.  Hey, good thing I was being careful.  LOL Today's stains are limited to found on bathroom floor grout, bathtub (over which I was leaning upside-down applying the dye), basin, ears, shoulders & upper back, and palms of hands. Wore the gloves provided (for a change). What's with the tiny size of the gloves they provide?  I could barely get my hands in those tiny gloves that I poked holes through on the way on.  And, no, my hands aren't fat. Think I've also ruined a favourite pair of jeans, that I've tried to rescue with masses of stain remover and a hot water wash. The stench of the chemicals was pretty overpowering while I was leaning upside down (so over the chems, I guess). Rear end photo says:  stay off the planned ricotta & jam donuts, and hang out at the gym with some local kick-boxers. Jesus, hair's still falling out by the bucket-load:  before, during and after shower.  Brushing beforehand doesn't help.  It's everywhere.  *Skin dye stains can be removed with liquid bleach cleaner applied to sponge.  I don't bother diluting, but I have shower ready for immediate rinse.  Helps having someone handy to do back of shoulders etc. *Clean-up's a bastard.  Think going to hairdressers might be an easier option ... but I don't like sitting still making small talk, or ppl messing with my hair, so this is what I do now and then when I get bored. Result: Ugggggggggggly Makes me look pasty and sick.   The only counterbalance is a load of theatrical make-up or something, but I'm over make-up these days. Don't know why I did this.  Temporary insanity? -------/\/\/ Got permanent hair-dye out of jeans by immediately spraying & rubbing in washing powder and machine washing jeans in hot water.  Then repeating again, with a squirt of liquid bleach on the remaining stain.   It worked ... but this is on a faded pair of blue jeans, where any further fading caused by bleach application isn't obvious. Saved my favourite jeans!

Ouch!

Went to sleep at some ungodly hour, having only just adjusted my bodyclock to normal.  Now it's probably disrupted, again. Think the no-sleep thing does me no good. Feel like I'm dying. Eyes sort of burning. Brain burning and sore.  Feel queasy, and even my face is burning hot. I'm trying to read, but it's really hard-going making sense of the article I'm checking out. I'm supposed to prepare a massive Thai green curry, but I don't know how I'm supposed to do that. Think I'm gonna pass out ... after I puke. ---------------------- ---------------------- Still alive ... all's well.  lol  Cheat's Thai green curry mission successfully completed. Served mine with massive portion of yoghurt, as it's on the spicy side.  Not traditional, but tastes good to me. -------/\/\/ [Click image to enlarge]

The Kitchen - No-Sleep Bolognese Sauce

The Kitchen Bolognese Sauce [ Right-Click / Open Link in NEW TAB ] The Kitchen Bolognese Result [ Right-Click / Open Link in NEW TAB ] ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT On a no sleep 'marathon' (don't know how that happened). Cooking up a Bolognese sauce because it needs to be done, and it's a 4-hour simmer for this one. After the first half hour, it smelled sooooo good. The key to this one is (a) the soffritto (fried) 'base' and (b) the 500 ml of wine that's reduced by half  (+ citrus in this one). I've adjusted this one a little.  In addition to the recipe ingredients, I'm going with: lots of fennel seeds (fried in the soffritto thingy); 3 different herbs, incl. basil -- dried rather than fresh; mushrooms; zucchini; passata / water combo; 1 tin diced tomato. Throwing the mushroom & zucchini in on the last stretch. Fresh herbs might be better, but I didn't feel like messing around outdoors, rinsing, chopping etc.  Too much effort at the moment. If you're careful with the quantity of dry herbs, it's not overpowering.  It's only been an hour ... smelling that yummy sauce is torture. -------/\/\/  RESULT Way better than my Bolognese sauces have been getting lately. Might try this again soon, without going overboard with passata & sticking to stock next time, as tampering with passata changes the flavour and adds more acidity, & probably overpowers the flavours a bit ... but there's no complaints. All good.  Fennel seeds a hit. Loads there to freeze for future dinners. *Fresh basil for next time.

The Kitchen: Beef Vindaloo

The Kitchen Beef Vindaloo [Right-click image & select 'Open Link in New Tab' ] *spelling error 'Portuguese' on pic ... I always forget the final 'u'. Beef Vindaloo inspired by:   Sehar Syed - recipe The dish is from Goa.  Portuguese occupation:  1510 to 1961 http://www.lonelyplanet.com/india/goa/history Portuguese Empire History http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab48   ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT Adjusted this a little bit by adding a tin of diced tomato, diced carrots (they go in just about everything ... lol), small diced capsicum, fresh red and green chillies as well as several dried chillies, & I amped up the vinegar content to 5 TBSP total + added 1 TBSP brown sugar. *my 'tablespoons' are dessert-spoons because I like it like that.  Couldn't be bothered with small fiddly measuring spoons. Basic idea here is to fry up a vindaloo spices to a reduced 'paste' in which to coat meat before simmering: seal / lightly brown meat & set aside; fry key (crunchy) spices, bay leaves etc; toss in onion, garlic, ginger; add ground spices (eg tumeric, coriander, chilli); add tomato paste (lots -- key);  add vinegar (key); add liquid; simmer 1 hr; final (garam masala (I think), green chillies, coriander). 'Garam' is 'hot' and 'masala' is 'spice mix'. I threw in my garam masala, along with other ground spices (so as not to forget, & I reduced the amount as I was worried it would be too overpowering for me). DIY garam masala here ... but I've got a massive amount of store-bought right now, so I used that. I added tomato & water to mine, for more flavour & more liquid, as I was worried about sticking & prefer to rapidly reduce things down after a long simmer, than to worry about sticking.  Works out the same, I think.  Flavour eventually gets intensified. I stuffed up that bit -- forgot to reduce it right down before throwing in the beef.  But it worked out fine.  I've made a note, so I'll get it right when I do this again ... I hope.  lol If doing the end stage rapid reduction, watch the base sticking -- it doesn't take much to reduce it & it sticks quickly. With the additional chillies that I've thrown in, it's very hot.  But yoghurt helps.  This is very good.  I'm no Indian food expert, but it tastes really good to me.  Well worth trying. ** Amount of chilli, all up, that I put in is sooooo hot, you've got to puff like you're in labour to take off the edge ... & it breaks a sweat to go with the runny nose and eyes.  lol

The Kitchen

The Kitchen [click image to enlarge] ---------------------- ---------------------- Adapted Manjula's fried yellow rice. Cooked up an insanely huge batch. Having mine with the left over Dal Makhani, while my somewhat pissed (and most annoying) companion is just having a rice snack, before proceeding to polish off the rest of the week's cabbage rolls (yay) ... and the latest batch of 'breakfast' donuts.  Rice is very nice.  Added sultanas, cashews, onion, garlic, chopped tomato.   Worked out fine. Toasted the cashews a little too much (distracted).  But still good. Next time, I might do just under the liquid measurement for the rice prep, as I like a drier rice.

Breaking News

BREAKING NEWS Think I've accidentally discovered Krispy Kreme's secret recipe. Had pouring cream I had to get rid of, as I find it isn't long-lasting once container opened.   Anyway, I did something like 1 cup cream + abt. 1/2 cup milk combined, while preparing a smaller batch of Greek donuts (abt. 2 cups flour).  Yep, donuts again.  The resolution didn't last long. The donuts are super fluffy and melt-in-the-mouth.  Not quite Krispy Kreme, but close.  Reckon if I did 100% cream, I'd have DIY Krispy Kreme donuts.   Did a sugar sauce with rose water essence, but I'm thinking melted chocolate & cream combo with a liqueur would have been nicer for dunking these. ---------------------- ----------------------

The Kitchen

The Kitchen [Click image to enlarge] ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT DIY:  Pakora, Jeera Rice & Dal Makhani. Pakoras were on the lame side, but still tasted good. First time I've used besan (otherwise known as 'gram flour,' or chickpea flour).   Checking out all the mysterious products in the Indian grocery was fun. Henna was tempting.  Had urge to darken my hair.  But I wasn't sure.  Wasn't brave enough to try henna.  Maybe next time I'm down there, as I've got a small list of things I need. Inspired by this pakora recipe, but I otherwise did my own thing ... which might explain why my pakoras aren't 100%. I was just getting rid of the vegies I had on hand:  most of the red cabbage I had went into my mix, along with potato, carrot, parsley, onion.  All grated.  Not sure if that makes a difference, or if it is better to cube things.  Was grating the cabbage in the food processor thingy, so I just kept going with all the ingredients (because I'm lazy). Mine turned out sort of gluggy  :( Obviously the consistency wasn't right.  Maybe cubing would be better? Began with too hot oil but then wound up turning it down too low. They were all eaten, so the pakoras were still good.  But I might need some practice with these. The best was probably the Jeera Rice.  Yuummmm! Think I like stove-top rice better than rice-cooker rice, in terms of the clean-up.  The non-stick rice-cooker pot is a pain to clean without damaging the surface ... so the clean-up is way too fussy for me.  With the stove-top rice, I can scrub the stainless steel pot like a madwoman, and there's no problem.  Also, there's surprising little stuck on the bottom, whereas use of the rice-cooker leaves quite a bit of residue. The Dal Makhani  was quite nice, too.  The lentils I used were what I had lying around, but I'm not sure what kind they were, as I didn't keep the labels.  Took me forever to boil them, as I don't have a pressure cooker.  Kind of irritating, as I didn't know what it was that I was boiling, so I could at least look up the time factor. Pressure cooker's on the wish list.  It would probably pay for itself quickly, as it's not much more than the cost of some take-way food. Caution:  don't eat the cooked whole dried chillies, unless you really like hot food ... lol.  One was enough to bring tears to my eyes and make my nose run.  Felt like it had taken a layer off my tongue.  Meal was a hit.  But the kitchen is a disaster zone that needs cleaning, and I'm wiped out from all that unfamiliar cooking and coordination (plus face stuffing).  Find timing things really stressful.  It's probably my least favourite kitchen thing -- the timing.  If I was on my own, I'd probably eat just one thing, so there's nothing to time. The pakoras are sort of addictive.  Want more.

In the Kitchen

The Kitchen [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] ---------------------- ---------------------- Cabbage Rolls Watching 'food porn' on YouTube was the inspiration for stuffed cabbage - here. I've made stuffed cabbage before, but it's probably been over 2 years since.  As it's not a regularly prepared dish, it's almost like starting over figuring out how to best put it together. There's lots of ways to cook, so I like to watch or read several recipes before sort of plotting what I want to do (which is what I think might be simplest and tastiest, according to my judgement). This seemed simple, but it took me a lot longer than I thought it would.   It's just a 4 step process:  (1) ready the cabbage; (2) prepare the stuffing (3) roll and anchor; (4) pour on sauce; and cook for 1.5 hrs. As I'm without an oven element at the moment, I've had to do this on the stove top.  The cooking pot opening wasn't wide enough for the size of my dinner plates to rest on top of the rolls, so I used two side plates and that worked out fine. Intended to just prep the cabbage and to precook some rice in readiness for the next day, but once I got going I kept going, so this was finally done at about 3am. There goes the body-clock readjustment -- again. Happy with the form of the rolls and the texture etc, but seemed way under-seasoned for my tastes.  So when I do this again, I'll be throwing in loads more paprika, pepper and probably some toasted and ground fennel seeds (although that's not traditional). The version I did was varied by introducing a flour & paprika roux/gravy to the liquid at the very end.  Turned out good. Served cabbage rolls with potato mash.   Loads left over, so it's more of the same next day ... and the next.  Uh-oh, I could get really sick of this.  Not one of those things I'd like to eat constantly.  I think I just get carried away thinking I could eat the same thing all the time, but I can't really. Might have a look online and see if I can freeze this, because there's a lot there. The slow cooker bread was a disaster.    Began as a disaster and ended that way. I forgot that I wasn't to have donuts for a while  and I began whipping up a batch for a mid afternoon 'breakfast'.   Not happy with the mix, so I changed my mind and made it a pancake mix instead.   Bad move.  Results were rubbery.  But I was too hungry to care. Had to figure what to do with the mountain of batter.  Hit on the idea of bread in the slow cooker, which I'd been eyeing off. Too lazy to check the video recipe again.  Seemed simple enough.  Thought I'd just wing it.  LOL ... bad move. Kept waiting for my bread to be 'done' by monitoring the top of the loaf, as I don't have a thermometer to check the heat in the centre.  Planned to just wait till it 'appeared' done. I didn't factor in that the top would never appear done because the loaf is steaming in the slow cooker utensil, creating condensation which moistens the top of the loaf, while the parts that are against the base and sides of the ceramic bowl are receiving more heat with less moisture  and are baking and drying off.  Of course, this means the longer you leave the slow cooker on waiting for the top to somewhat harden, the more hardened and browned the bottom gets.  Oops. The hard burnt bits are like rock, but the soft centre bits are edible (if you're desperate), although they're discoloured & probably a health hazard or something.   Would definitely do this again ... more carefully. Saved by the Ganges On the bright side, I was saved from stuffing my face like I usually do when I'm cooking:  saved by burnt bread and saved by the Ganges. Not long before dinner, got onto some Chinese site with photos of some guy's holiday in India, with bloated corpses floating down the Ganges, skulls lying around, packs of dogs eating corpses, an expanse of space dotted with close together, side-by-side, deposits of nothing but human excrement etc. The memory of the images kept haunting me as I tried to eat the cabbage rolls.  LOL Only got partly through my meal, close to throwing up.   If I'd tried to focus on the memory of images that were sort of haunting me, I think I seriously could have thrown up all over the place. Got told off for looking at sites that are 'bad' for me, but maybe it's not such a bad thing not being able to eat, when you could do with losing a few kilos.  Should run off some 'diet' pics to stick up on the refrigerator door, but I don't think that would go down well.   LOL --- Slow cooker bread should have been roughly 1 hr & 15 minutes ... instead of the 4.5 or whatever I did.  LOL

Korma & things

Chicken Korma [Click on Image to Enlarge] ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT Rollercoaster here last night. No sleep until something like 6am. Back to smoking again.  Coffee & cigarettes. Relaxed a little looking for photos of Joan Crawford for a GIF I felt like doing.  Didn't wind up doing anything with the images, but it was fun at the time and it got me sleepy. Playing with photos and GIFS sort of relaxes and tires me.  Next time I'm wired, I might have a shot at making something random.  Although it was an insanely late 'night'/morning, body-clock seems to be slowly adjusting itself.  Was up before noon, so that's good. Did a bit of spot cleaning here and there.  Got so much crap I'll have to get rid of ... just odds and ends (bangles, books, shoes I don't wear and whatever else produces clutter). Got onto kitchen drawer and cupboard shelf reorganisation and drawer lining with contact paper.  Needed it.  But it's such a pain when space is limited.  Not so good with contact paper or anything that requires patience, so the lining's a bit wonky.  lol Found all sorts of things I'd forgotten about:  bottle stops, dough hooks (that don't fit anything), nut crackers, piping tools.  And food I'd forgotten:  powdered milk (must have another crack at gulab jamun); papadums; pearl barley; flava beans etc). Fried up some papadums for a snack (got oil on standby, so that's really handy and cool). A lot more oily than I remember them.  Maybe my oil wasn't hot enough.  Tasted like pork crackling to me. Haven't caught up with much in the way of news or history.  When I'm not wired and distracted, I'm too tired. Dinner was Chicken Korma. Same recipe that I used recently, only this time around I've used cashew nuts only.  Walnuts weren't a success here.  Made a paste with the caramelised onion and the cashews this time.  Very nice. The only thing I'll need to adjust is to go a little easier on the spices.  Tend to be a bit heavy-handed (especially with chilli ... oops).  This one needs a light touch, because you want it mild enough to taste the cashews.