ninja mode

I feel like blogging, but I have nothing to blog about. Well, nothing huge.

Had S’getti night at my dad’s house with my dad and my brother. Dinner was spaghetti (what else) with cheesecake afterward and then movie-ings.

I drove over, which was best, since Al had been up since some unholy hour of the morning which I refuse to believe exists. Four? Five? Is there such a thing as five in the morning? No. That’s definitely not a time that people should be awake, ever, much less up and doing things. Regardless, he was, and by that time of the evening he was reasonably exhausted.

So we get there, and get settled in; dinner is almost ready, so we’re just hanging around chatting. Al flops down in a comfortable chair. A short time later he’s completely out. Snoring and everything:

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Completely and totally out.

Dad and I laugh and resume getting dinner ready. When the food was about ready, we either called to Al or made some kind of loud noise, I can’t remember, but he woke up for a split second and started yelling:

[something grumbling, sounds like "DAMN"?] CANADIANS!

Dad and I collectively said “Whaaat?” and turned in Al’s direction. He responded with,

THEY LIKE A DIFFERENT KIND OF BACON!

“Al, what are you talking about?”

By this point he was completely awake and had no idea what we (or he) was talking about.

We ate, had cheesecake, and watched Blades of Glory, which was very funny, sort of on the same level as Dodgeball or Talladega Nights. And you know, I’ve only just realized this trend of weird sports-related comedies we seem to watch on Spaghetti Night(s). Hmm. Anyway, good food, good movie, good….stuff.

And now, random filler pictures because I feel the need:

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I have a computer. Go me.

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Digit/Orange is watching you. I have the orangest cat ever.

Also, I love Food Network but at the same time I’m tired of how repetitive it’s gotten lately. I understand Thanksgiving is coming up and that’s like the biggest holiday for food ever, but really, couldn’t there be at least a few more different Thanksgiving episodes of all these shows? I feel like I’ve seen all of them at least three times now. I like turning the channel on while I’m doing other things because it’s interesting to listen to, but I have seen their “All Star Thanksgiving” or whatever it’s called about four times now, and it’s really not that interesting anymore. Maybe I just watch too much Food Network, I don’t know. You’d think the fact that Thanksgiving is such a huge food-related holiday would give them a reason to make an extra episode or two, but apparently not. I’m bored, guys. Bored.

Also, Tyler Florence has got to be my least favorite chef ever. I honestly think they just pulled some jock off the street and told him, “okay, we’re going to show you how to make this thing, and then you’re going to do it in front of a camera. Got it?” Seriously. No personality. I like him even less than I like Sandra Lee or whatever her name is, and I really can’t stand her. The whole concept of her show is a little condescending. Like, “you’re not smart enough to figure out how to make pre-made things yourself, so here’s how.” And then she always makes something with alcohol in it, and then she always has to show off her table decorations. Aaah! It drives me crazy. I don’t want to watch someone cut up paper on the food channel. But I guess I can complain when I have my own show or something, which will never happen. Apparently these people have done something that got them there, I guess I just don’t see it.

And thus ends the least interesting post I’ve ever written.

I’m not a coffee fan, and I’m even less a fan of Starbuck’s, but I got a Dark Chocolate-Peppermint Frappuccino out of the vending machine today and. Oh. Oh yum.

I think if my car tasted like something, this is what my car would taste like.

Yes, her name is Peppermint.

So, for VS 415 (“designed play” – a class on games and play and design and how it all interrelates and good stuff like that) we had this assignment to develop an idea for a product which met several criteria, like merging a work task and a play task, providing streaming information, providing nutrition, etc. Of course, all of these criteria look like one thing on the surface but they’re really open to interpretation. Like streaming information might not be an internet stream like people commonly believe, but something more like feedback – you have an inherent understanding that what you’re doing is working or isn’t working, or some other kind of response from the system. And so on. Anyway, you can read my whole project proposal over on my class blog (which looks pretty much identical to this blog, but it’s really not the same thing) if you’re inclined to know all the odd technical details.

Basically, my design is for a type of cooking device, more specifically a pan that provides you with information about what’s going on in the cooking process to help you along, especially if you aren’t a great cook.

But, you can have a better look at exactly what it is by checking out the little Flash website thing I made for it, since we also had to develop an advertising element as well. It’s a little rough around the edges, but we didn’t need a complete and perfect version for class since we had so little time to do it in. I may polish it up later, just because it’s amusing.

This is probably the second most ridiculous thing I have ever made, following the amazing rocketpants. Also, it proves I watch far, far too much Food Network.

I’ve been really into cooking lately, and for the longest time I couldn’t really figure out why. I like cooking, but really for the most part dislike baking, despite their similarity/interrelatedness. Then today, I decided to make chicken tetrazzini tor dinner, and while I was cooking I think I may have come to some kind of conclusion.

Baking is a lot like science. You have to measure very precisely, get temperatures right, and generally be much more careful than with cooking. When you’re cooking, you can sort of (in some cases) guess at temperatures, selectively measure ingredients, and make up your own techniques as you go. Now I’m sure I’m insulting some culinary types with all this, but that’s what I like about cooking – the ability to completely ignore the rules and still “get away with it.” Not that it’s necessarily a positive, but you can basically come out with really ugly food that tastes really good, and sometimes really pretty food that tastes really good, if you do it right.

The conclusion I finally came to is that cooking is a process that is in many ways very much like design: you’re given a very small margin of space to work in (a specific dish – grilled cheese is fundamentally very different from chicken soup), a set of requirements (a set of constituative ingredients that comprise whatever you’re cooking), and you can do whatever your heart desires within that small space., but it’s what you do (or don’t do) that makes food good (or terrible). In some ways, cooking is a lot like Photoshop. You have an end result that you want to get to, and a collection of assets you can throw into it, and a set of processes to modify those assets – like photos and filters. Gaussian blur + photo = blurry picture. Mushrooms in olive oil + sauteeing over heat = tasty. Something like that.

I suppose this is all okay until I start trying to posterize the chicken or something. Then we have problems.