Thundersnow!

Not to get hung up on the weather, but on Saturday we drove from Chicago to Iowa and we kept seeing warnings about a huge snowstorm that was supposed to hit NE Iowa that day. And apparently, not just any snowstorm, but one that the weatherpeople on the news had started referring to as "Thundersnow." Apparently it was coined because there was supposed to be a crazy snowstorm coming in where they were anticipating as much as an inch of snow an HOUR, accompanied of course by thunder and lightning. T found this new weather-related phrase to be absolutely hysterical. And while I admit that it sounded like kind of a crazy phenomenon, the phrase itself was probably only worth a couple laughs at best. During our 3-hour ride, I think he said it at least a few dozen times, usually followed by girly little giggles. I think I had to threaten his life to make his stop saying it, but even then, he still occasionally started laughing to himself, and I just knew that he was thinking about it.

Well, as predicted, later that afternoon the weather got really really nasty. Sleet, hail, snow, wind...blech. All the things that made me remember why we don't live here. It continued for several hours until, around 11pm, while I was nursing E, I saw a flash of lightning. And of course, a few seconds later, to my dismay, a rumble of thunder. I don't think there was ever any more thunder or lightning than that all night long. But just that one bit was enough to cause T to press his mouth to the door of E's room and loudly whisper "Thundersnow!"

I am a cold weather wuss

It's amazing how, despite the fact that I grew up in Chicago, I acclimated very very quickly to the temperate Texas winters. So much so, that all of last week, as I tried to pack and get ready for our trip to the Midwest to spend the holidays with family, I was pretty much terrified by the weather forecasts. It gets really hard to remember what 20 degrees feel like, especially when just a couple weeks ago, we had a few days in the high 70s.

Well, I made it here, safe and sound and all I can say is...my fears were totally justified. As my mom was driving us from the airport back to her house, she said something like, "oh, you're really lucky because it's actually not that cold today. It's actually 30 degrees." I started laughing as I thought about how cold Dallas has felt lately at 40 degrees, and that's when I realized how wussified I had really become. When we lived in Austin, I used laugh at all the people who were bundled up in hats and scarves when it hit 50 degrees. I won't say I'm quite that bad, but I'm probably not far off.

Needless to say, I am completely lacking in enough warm clothing, and E is only slightly better off. Yesterday, I made a run to Target and probably looked like a crazy person as I loaded my cart up with long sleeve onesies, sweaters, and hats and scarves. Oddly enough though, they had a ton to choose from, much more than what I've seen in Dallas lately.

Ugly Christmas

This is going to sound mean, but I don't care.

What is up with ugly Christmas decorations? I'm not talking about in the mall or anything, but people's front yards. Is this a recent trend that I missed the memo on? Is this everywhere, or just here in Texas? I was driving home the other night and I could not believe how many cheesy, tacky, just plain fugly displays were out there. When I was growing up, Christmas decorations seemed to be mostly limited to lights on your house and bushes. Occassionally, you'd see a yard full of plastic figures of Santa or Jesus or what have you, and sometimes those were even of the light-up variety, but I'd say they were definitely few and far between.

But nowadays, it seems like every other house has one of those giant inflatable light-up dealies, whether it's a giant Santa or maybe some kind of fakey snowglobe. I could probably overlook those if it weren't for the fact that usually, the same houses that have these tend to have one for EVERY freaking occassion. Is a giant, inflated, light-up bunny really a necessity for Easter? I don't think so. Do you need to have a giant turkey in your yard to help you celebrate Thanksgiving? Not so much.

And probably every 4th or 5th house has the weird painted wooden cut-outs. Now this, I cannot abide. There is one house in my neighborhood that has almost their entire lawn taken up by a freaking Precious Moments nativity. Yes, as in the cheesy figurines of big-eyed children which are, if you ask me, only a half step above the Love Is... cartoon characters.

I swear, I'm going to drive through my neighborhood later and take some pictures to post.

Finally!

Project Runway is back! Yay! I've been waiting and waiting for it to start up again, and then of course, last night, I almost forgot that it was on! All I can say is thank god for tivo! We managed to start from the beginning around 20 after, and had totally caught up by the end. Looks like it's going to be a good season. Lots of catty personalities. About 30 seconds in, T declared that he could not stand Christian. I had to laugh. Not that T's homophobic or anything, but I think there's something about people who are so stereotypically "flaming" that really bothers him. Well, and Christian's ridiculous haircut and cocky attitude didn't really help matters.

It's still too early for me to pick a favorite just yet, but I think Rami has a lot of potential.

Why, Snoop, why?

I've always been frank about my obsession with reality tv and my love of Flava Flav as a completely ridiculous reality tv "character" but I just saw an online ad for a new show featuring Snoop Dogg on E! Ugh. I am officially tired of the whole "I'm just a normal celebrity superstar, but here's my wacky homelife" format. Osbournes...ok, it was among the first and the first season was pretty entertaining. But now we have people like Gene Simmons jumping on the bandwagon, and even people of very marginal fame, like Aaron Spelling and Rod Stewart's kids or that Kardashian bimbo, getting their own shows.

Don't get me wrong. I love Snoop. I think he's great. I've always cracked up when he's turned up in a cameo in some random movie, like Starsky & Hutch. But I don't understand this trend of rappers turning themselves into these silly caricatures for the sake of longevity or "expanding their brand." It makes me think of that episode of Entourage where every agency pitching Vince did this montage of name brands ending with his name ("Microsoft. Disney. Coca-Cola. Vincent Chase). Case in point? The aforementioned ad featured a bumper sticker that said "My kid is the Shiznit." I know you can't rap forever, but is this really how you ultimately want to be remembered? What's next man, sitting next to Coolio in the center square?

Happy Halloween!

I am going to stab the next person who rings my doorbell

It's been a long time since I've had a good rant.

So after finally getting the baby down for a nap this morning, she'd been sleeping for maybe half an hour or so when the dog starts going crazy barking. I figured she was just barking at the garbage men or something, but a minute later, the doorbell rings and she really goes nutso. I open the door (because I can never hear the answer to 'who is it?' over all the barking), and it's a random man and woman, and the guy goes, "Is your mom home?" OK...seriously? What the..? I don't know if they thought they were trying to score brownie points or if they were just idiots. I'm leaning towards the latter. I think I must have scowled and said, "Um, NO!" because the guy was all, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you just look so young." Now, I might be willing to delude myself for a moment and concede that I don't look 32, but I know I don't look under 20! My bullshit radar starts officially beeping.

At this point, if I were this guy, I think I would've realized that I f*#ked up bad enough that there's no way in hell I'd sell anything and just said, "Sorry to bother you ma'am, have a nice day" and left. But of course, no, this guy launched into his sorry spiel, asking me if I have any kids ("yeah, I have a baby that you just woke up, jackass"), what I'm going to be for Halloween ("we're going to be salesmen - yar yar yar!") and if I know some random neighbor down the street that he managed to con into buying his crap. Apparently, he's selling some sort of metal cleaner or polish and he proceeds to start polishing the door handle. Did I mention that the dog is still going apeshit in the background and the baby has started wailing as well? After about 15 seconds, I finally handed him back his little brochures and was like, "yeah, my baby is crying, I really don't have time for this" and closed the door.

We usually never get doorknockers, but in the last week or two, I've had some guy claiming to be a high school kid looking to raise money for his baseball team (he looked suspiciously old to be in high school), someone trying to sell me on joining some sort of produce co-op (money up front, of course), and a guy selling stock door-to door. I shit you not. What's next, Jehovah's witnesses? I swear to god, the next yahoo who rings my doorbell trying to hawk some sort of nonsense is really going to get it. We seriously need a "No Solicitors" sign, mainly for their protection.

ETA: I guess this doesn't bode well for Trick or Treaters....

Sad day

I've been on Netflix since 2001 and always loved it and, never even considered switching to Blockbuster. But recently, I've had to face the sad truth that since we had the baby, we really haven't been watching our Netflix in any kind of timely manner. In fact, I think from the beginning of March up to July, we watched all of one movie, and even since then, we've only made it through maybe a half dozen or so. In fact, T's been after me for a while now about cancelling it outright and I kept refusing, but this week, I finally owned up to the fact that we're not exactly getting our money's worth.

Netflix did get a last minute reprieve though when Mee suggested something I hadn't even thought of: downgrading. Duh. I don't know why that didn't even occur to me. So I downgraded our Netflix account to just 1-at-a-time today. I'm still really kind of bummed out about it.

Anyways, just for giggles, I thought I'd list the movies we've had in the last 8 months:

Hot Fuzz - returned 10/30/07
Watched this just the other night. I thought it was really funny. Love Simon Pegg.
Knocked Up - returned 10/22/07
Saw this in the theater, but wanted to see it again
300 -returned 10/10/07
Also saw this in the theater (our first outing after E was born)
Stranger than Fiction - returned 09/20/07
Never made it through this one. T kept falling asleep and I couldn't stay interested so I sent it back half-watched.
Casino Royale - returned 09/20/07
Decent, but not spectacular. In fact, kind of disappointing after all the hype about being the 'best Bond yet.'
Smokin' Aces - returned 07/26/07
Meh. T was initially really excited for this one. We thought it would be a kind of fun, cheesy action flick, a la Crank. There was a lot of build-up, but it never quite paid off.
Babel - returned 07/19/07
Never watched it. It sat in our house for probably close to 6 months and we were just never in the mood to watch something so serious.
Battlestar Galactica: Season 1: Disc 3 (5-Disc Series) - returned 07/19/07
Another one that I had in the house for at least 6 months. I was really into the first two discs, and watched the first episode on this disc. But then I got busy and by the time I got back to it, I couldn't really remember what was going on. I may try again at a later date since I'm kind of a sci-fi nerd.
Children of Men - returned 07/19/07
Troy watched this back in March or April, but I only got through the first half hour before baby duties called and I never made it back. Then it sat around for a few months before I finally gave up. I've only heard good things though, so I'll probably rent it again down the road.
Accepted - returned 04/04/07
Very silly, but it was the perfect thing for us to watch when we were too exhausted to focus on anything else. I kind of have an odd affinity for Justin Long.

Chicken and Dumplings

IMG_2591.JPG
Originally uploaded by craftyasiangirl

This is our dinner from Wednesday night. It's a really terrible picture and you're going to have to trust me that it looked and tasted much better in person. It's adapted from the recipe in The Best Recipes cookbook, which is one of my favorite cookbooks of all time. For those unfamiliar, it's put out by the same people who do the Cook's Illustrated magazine and America's Test Kitchen on PBS. They do tons of testing of variations of a recipe, looking for the "perfect" one. This is damn close.

My main complaint about this recipe is that it's completely from scratch, and thus, very time-consuming. This is one of the few times that I did indeed start with raw chicken parts and make stock, etc., but usually, I cheat big time and use a store-bought rotisserie chicken and some organic chicken broth.

I've been trying to incorporate more veggies into my cooking, so I added fresh green beans and frozen peas this time. I don't think T cared for them, but that's too bad. Oh, and one minor thing: I usually do the dumplings by rolling them out and cutting them into little rectangles, but I was too lazy this time and just took gobs of the dough and rolled them into little balls. I think I like the little rectangular pillows better as they cooked faster and more evenly.

blech

I have a confession to make. Both T & I are obsessed with the McDonald's Monopoly game that is going on right now. In fact, I'm too embarassed to admit how many times we've eaten Mickey D's since the game started a couple weeks ago. Let's just say, way more than is healthy. Which leads me to the title above. I feel disgusting. I think I've totally OD'd on McDonalds. I actually hadn't been eating fast food at all lately, and now every time I drive past McDonalds when I'm even a little bit hungry, I think, hey maybe I should see if I can get some more pieces. It's a sickness, in more ways than one. The saddest part of all this is that while both T & I are equally fixated, we've never really gone there and eaten it together. We've both been stealthily hitting the drive-thru on our own during the course of the day. And we only discovered this when we both coughed up the treasure trove of pieces that had been hiding in our respective cars. I know, we're sad.

However, I will say that yesterday, for the first time ever in my entire life, I won something! And no, not a small fries or a $1 coupon at Toys R Us like a million other people already have won. I peeled the two pieces off my McMuffin yesterday morning and found both Baltic and Mediterranean Aves., which is worth $50! I think that might almost cover how much I've spent eating there. Once I fill out all the requisite paperwork and mail it in, I think I can expect my check sometime around February. I'm only sort of kidding.

So my winning has actually only exacerbated the obsession since now that we've one something, we really want to win more. After I emailed T that I won, he felt compelled to hit McD's for lunch, certain that he could outdo my paltry $50 (yes, we also have a somewhat unhealthy competitive aspect in our marriage). And I had to try again today, thinking that maybe I could have a lucky streak. I even got a Big Mac meal, even though I never eat Big Macs, because the sandwich box has pieces on it, and I supersized it for the extra pieces on the fries. Yes, insert comment about my sanity (or lack thereof) here.

I think today's value meal did me in. The Big Mac was okay, mostly because I don't think I've eaten one in years, but I couldn't even bring myself to finish the fries. And then later, the smell of the stale fries in my car just about made me sick. I don't even care that there's still 10 days left, I'm done. Screw this game.

Net winnings (in descending order of value):

$50 cash

$10 in Toys R Us "bux"

(2) 20% Off coupons at Foot Locker

(2) coupons for free small coffee/soft drink

Coupon for free small fries

Coupon for free small McFlurry

50 points added to my cholesterol

1 bad case of indigestion

A lot of general disgust with my own behavior

ETA: I forgot to mention that I AM still playing the online game, which thankfully, only requires me to enter the codes on the already collected gamepieces. They only let you enter ten per day, so I have a good stockpile to keep me going for a while. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for one of the fat AmEx prepaid cards. I could really use a new iPod.

what's for dinner?

(Not the best picture, but I didn't get a chance to take one of an individual plate.)

Tonight I made Chicken Stew with Onions, Tomatoes, and Dijon from the Simply Recipes site. I had to make a few adjustments to the original recipe since I didn't make it to the store to pick up all the ingredients, but it still turned out really great!

First off, I only used 2 1/2 yellow onions instead of the six red onions called for in the recipe. I also was too lazy to deal with roasting garlic, so I just chunked in about 6-8 whole cloves of garlic with the onions and let them kind of "roast" in the pan. I didn't really miss the extra onions (in fact, I think six would have been excessive), although I do think that using red onions instead of yellow would have added more sweetness. I probably also would've let the onions sweat for a bit longer before chunking everything else in, but I had a crying baby to contend with so there wasn't time today. Oh, I'm not much for measuring so I kind of eyeballed the wine and the dijon.

All in all though, it was a very easy recipe to throw together and I love that it's all done in one pot. I made it early in the afternoon, and turned off the heat and just let it sit on the stove till dinnertime. I waited to reduce the liquid and add the dijon till the last minute (after reheating) though because I was afraid the mustard might break if it boiled. Hmmm, what else to say? I cut up a whole chicken this time because that's what I happened to have on hand, but I will probably just do drums and thighs next time if I find them on sale. I served it over steamed rice.

It got good reviews all around, and both from Meighan, T and myself. In fact, T has declared that it should be added to the regular rotation, which is pretty high praise. I liked that it was tomato-y, but not in a 'red sauce' kind of way. And I also liked that there was a good amount of sauce to mix with the rice. To me, sauciness is a key component of any good comfort food. I was also initially worried that the mustard would be overwhelming, but it really wasn't. Definitely will be good when the weather gets colder.

a new topic?

I know that there are tons of other people out there who do this, but I'm thinking about adding a food aspect to my blog. The only question is whether or not it'd be better served to be on here or the crafty one. I'm thinking that it'd probably mostly be a "what's for dinner" type of thing. I think the shame and embarrassment factor of having to admit we're eating a bucket of KFC or frozen chicken pucks will be good motivation to cook more and cook healthy. Also, I was recently inspired by a friend's cooking blog: http://nomorecreamofmushroom.blogspot.com/

Lately I've been thinking a lot (again) about how much I'd love to pursue the whole food stylist/photography thing. But I feel so far removed and out of the game. I'm thinking that maybe spending more time cooking and taking pictures of food might help alleviate some of that.

So first up will be tonight's dinner, which is Chicken Stew.

Wiiiiiiiii!

Ever since T & I went to California this summer and played my cousin's Wii, we've been dying to get one. I was severely tempted to run out and buy one immediately after we got home, but T put the kibosh on that. Not that he didn't want one, but he just thought we should wait till Christmas. Christmas!! Which was at that point, almost 6 months away! I worked on him a bit, and he conceded that by Christmastime, they might be too hard to find, so we agreed that I would start looking around Halloween.

Inexplicably, last week, T and I were out running errands, and he announces that he thinks we should buy a Wii. Like right now. (I did find out later that there was much discussion about buying and playing Wii's on the message board T is on with his college buddies, so I'm assuming that fueled the sudden change of heart) In any case, I was excited to get the go-ahead to start searching for one.

Well, as it turns out, this is about the time that everyone else in Dallas has also decided to start their Christmas Wii search too. Seriously, these goddamn things are hard to find. I randomly stopped by at least 5-6 places last week (not exactly easy with a baby in tow), and they all looked at me like I was nutso when I asked if they had any. One guy laughed at me. Seriously, like, a 'you've got to be kidding' laugh. A few places gave me a heads up on new shipments coming in this week, so of course the nerd in me compiled a long list of every store in a 5 mile radius that might carry them. Long story short, I got one yesterday! When I called, the guy said the UPS man was walking in with them right now. He had three on his cart and there were two people already there waiting. Luckily, I was already out and about and managed to get over there pretty quickly (again, with an unhappy baby in tow -- am I a bad mommy?), and snag the last one. woohoo!

Of course, as soon as we got the baby to bed, we had to break it in. So far, T has topped me in golf and tennis (although it turned out I had an unfair disadvantage since the sensor was wonky and caused my Mii to not respond properly), but I edged him out in bowling and kicked his ass in baseball and boxing.

summer's end

Yes, it's October, but here in Texas, summer is only just now finally coming to an end. And thank freaking god because I am so sick of 90+ degree weather. But alas, with the end of summer also comes the end of much of the delightfully craptacular summer reality television spectacles. Again, I know I'm a little late with this post (see the previous post for an explanation), but I still wanted to get my two cents in.

First up, Top Chef. Man, this is easily one of the best reality competitions out there. Forget Hell's Kitchen or Design Star or any of that other garbage. This show rocks. My only complaint is the blatant product placement. I think there should be a drinking game where you drink every time they mention the "Glad Family of Products." Or then again, maybe not. You'd probably have alcohol poisoning by the end of the show. Anyways, I'm really glad that Hung won. I know, he came across as kind of a dick, but hey guess what? A lot of real-life chefs are dicks, especially the good ones. I'm just happy to see an Asian brother win for a change. Hung almost makes up for the embarassment of Aaron, from Hell's Kitchen. That guy made me embarassed to be Asian. On a side note, Anthony Bourdain's blog for the show is fantastic. I would say that 90% of the time, he voiced everything I was thinking as I watched the show.

What else? Oh yeah, Rock of Love. After the first few episodes, I sorta lost interest. I mean, I can only watch so many hours of skanky white trash rocker chicks scheming and getting drunk. Meh. I still managed to watch a smattering of most episodes since it was on all the freaking time. Highlights? Crazy red-haired chick turns out to be a trustafarian. Stripper chick gets "Bret" tattoed on the back of her neck. Other stripper chick blows chunks at the dinner table and then tells Bret she loves him as she's puking into a toilet. Classy. The big finale comes down to (as usual) the crazy and/or skanky chick and the nice girl. And just like in the two seasons of Flavor of Love that preceded it, the guy chooses the nice girl, and they break up before the reunion show airs. Whatevs.

I'm just counting down to the new season of Project Runway.

it's been forever

It's been a long time since I last posted, at least on this blog. I know, what's the point of a blog if you're only going to post like, once a month? I have to rely on my fail-safe excuse (baby), but this time it's for real. E spent the better part of September refusing to go to bed at night. At first we chalked it up to disruption from all the travel. But as the weeks passed, things got worse and worse. Finally, I had to do the unthinkable. I can't even believe that I'm telling people this, but I let her cry it out. In my own defense, we really did try a number of other options, before resigning ourselves to CIO, and the method that we ended up using (Sleepeasy Solution) was supposed to be more "gentle" than the Ferber and Weissbluth varieties. Still, I think I probably cried just as much as E did, especially the first night. But I have to admit that for the most part, it worked. I'm still not entirely sold on it since I still feel like it's mean, but I guess results don't lie. After implementing this new system for almost two weeks now (which also includes a more scheduled day and regular naps), I can really see a difference. E is definitely more well-rested and is starting to move forward developmentally too -- crawling!

OK, I'm digressing into baby fever. Long story short, baby is sleeping more, parents are sleeping more, it's a good thing. And if you've been keeping up at all with my other blog, then you'll realize just how well-rested I've been.

i'm tired

I realized today that despite all attempts to pretend that I am Superwoman, I am not. I don't usually like to complain about motherhood or the baby, but today I am so worn down. I spent about half of our vacation last week sick with a terrible head cold, which is still lingering and refusing to completely go away. I haven't been sleeping well lately either, and this is compounded by the fact that E is no longer sleeping through the night. I'm not sure if it's a growth spurt or teething or just adjusting to being back home after so much travelling, but it's starting to take its toll on me. It's days like these that make me wish I was all gestapo about having her on a schedule. Time to revisit the baby books, I think.

a sad goodbye to yahoo

I got the second in what I'm sure will be a series of patronizing emails today from Yahoo's "customer care." Long story short, they assume that I did something to delete some aspect of my account and they're treating me like a moron. So the switch to Gmail is now fully complete. I will likely still keep the Yahoo to use messenger and sign up for junk mail.



I have to say, for all my ranting, I'm actually oddly sad about having to abandon my yahoo account. This was pretty much the first email I ever had, outside of college.

ETA: For some reason I just saw this in my 'drafts' folder but it was never posted. Hmmm.

screw you maytag!

OK, I will admit, this rant is technically about a year too late. But lately, I've been seeing this new series of Maytag commercials, you know, the ones with the younger, better-looking version of the Maytag repairman who still doesn't have anything to fix because Maytags are so reliable? Every time I see one of these commercials, I cannot refrain from screaming "F*#K YOU MAYTAG!" at the television. I think my neighbors think I have Tourettes. I can't help it though, those commercials infuriate me. I hate them with the intensity of a thousand burning suns. This is waaayyyy beyond the Bank One nonsense of several years ago. Maytags are complete garbage. Tell your friends. Spread the word.

So here's the story. Three years ago, when Troy first moved to Dallas, he rented a house which did not come with a refrigerator (apparently, this is common down here). I flew down to check out the place and help him get settled (I was still living in Chicago), and we went to buy a fridge from Home Depot. We bought what we thought was a nice, reasonably-priced side-by-side fridge, took it home that day and hooked it up ourselves. Troy loved this fridge. He loved the filtered water, he loved the icemaker, he loved it with an intensity that I didn't think was possible for him to feel towards a household appliance.

Flash-forward to two years later, we are now living in our own home, and I am about 5 months pregnant. I'd been hearing the fridge make this kind of weird buzzing noise, on and off. I mentioned it to Troy and suggested maybe getting someone to come out and take a look at it. He said that he thought it was just a minor thing and he'd take a look at it when he got a chance. Well, he finally got around to looking at it and realized that it was NOT minor, in fact, he thought it was probably something wrong with the compressor, which was running super hot. We resolved to call someone in to look at it first thing in the morning.

When I got up the next morning, the freezer was dead. When I opened the door, water from the ice bin poured out onto the floor. I started freaking out. I found a local service who sent someone to come take a look at it within the hour and he confirmed that the compressor was totally shot. OK, side note for those of you that don't know anything about refrigerators (and this used to include me), the compressor is like the main component of the fridge. It is what makes your fridge (and freezer) cold. Without it, you just have a big box with some fans and doors. Now, hello, this fridge was only two years old! What the hell kind of fridge breaks in two years?

The service guy was super nice and told me that the compressor should still be under warranty, and that if I called Maytag, they should come fix it for free. Just for kicks, I innocently ask him how much it would cost for him to fix the compressor. I figured if it wasn't too bad, maybe it'd be worth it to have it done on the spot. Well, you know how much it costs to have your compressor replaced? $500. I should add at this point that, brand new, the fridge only cost about $700.

I try to stay optimistic. I call Maytag, tell them my compressor is broken. First, they start by telling me that they cannot accept an outside diagnosis and need to have their own guy come and check it. Fine. I start calling the list of Authorized Maytag Repair places that they give me. Guess what? Most of them no longer service Maytags, and of those that do, NOT A SINGLE ONE SERVICES COMPRESSORS. This is a bad bad sign. This means that A) their refrigerators and compressors are such garbage that no one wants to waste their time on them and/or B) Maytag likely does not take very good care of their service contractors and no one wants to deal with them anymore, probably because they are not getting paid. I call Maytag back. They give me more names. The rep I talk to says that if none of those will come, then they will make an allowance for me to have my own person come out. I call the second list. None of those places service Maytag anymore either. I call Maytag AGAIN and ask about using a non-authorized repairman, like the previous person suggested. This rep basically accuses me of lying, saying that they would never authorize that under any circumstance and they can't believe that anyone would tell me that. I think I hung up on this person.

At this point, I am seriously freaking out. I have food melting and spoiling. Troy has come home from work with bags of ice and we're furiously trying to pack things into coolers. We cook and eat an absurd amount of random frozen food for lunch. There's talk of maybe just going out and buy a brand-new fridge, even though we can't really afford it. Pregnancy hormones are not helping my situation. Troy starts trolling Craigslist for used fridges.

Oh, but it gets worse. I call Maytag back for, I don't know, the fourth or fifth time and tell them that none of the places they gave me will service my fridge and what the hell am I supposed to do now? I don't say this to the rep on the phone, but frankly, I can't understand how their database can be so hopelessly out of date. Half the places I call say they quit Maytag over a year ago. The rep starts naming all these random town, asking me how far they are. Most of them are at least an hour away, which means that even if they do service Maytags, chances are I will never convince them to come all the way out here. This is getting totally ridiculous. So my last option is to have their own certified repairman come out. Supposedly, this is different because this is an independent guy who works directly for Maytag. The only hitch with this is that the first slot they have is in two weeks. Are they f*king serious? At this point, I'm about ready to burst into tears. They tell me that I can have a "rush" appointment for an extra $50. Fine. Whatever. Just send someone. I'll pay. I don't care anymore, I just want it fixed. The first 'rush' slot is in four days. What else can I do at this point? It gets better still. The phone rep tells me that this appointment is only for a diagnosis and he won't have any parts or be able to fix anything. "If the compressor is indeed broken, then he will order the part and make another appointment to return and complete the repair." And how long will that be? "Well, if the part is backordered, it may take up two weeks." I am both fumingly pissed off and openly weeping. I ask them, but what am I supposed to do? I aim for some sympathy. What would you do if you were in this situation? How do you expect anyone to live without a fridge for two weeks? I get nothing. Fine, so I kick into angry mode and I pretty much accuse them of stealing food from the mouth of my unborn child. But those m*therf**king bastards have me. There is absolutely nothing else I can do but accept my fate. For days, I can barely even tell anyone the story without almost crying.

Whew, I'm exhausted just thinking about this again. Long story short? We went without a fridge for almost two weeks. As much as I wanted to rip the repairman a new asshole when he finally showed up, I realized that he was not the one at fault. In fact, he was super nice and very apologetic about the whole situation. We did end up buying a small chest freezer from Home Depot and a used mini-fridge from a friend, in addition to borrowing a gigantic cooler from another friend. I still sort of think that we should have bought a new fridge, gotten the old one fixed by Maytag and then sold it, but Troy thought it would be bad for our karma to pass off the shitty fridge to someone else. My philosophy was that hey, it's got a brand new compressor, so it's almost like a new fridge, right? *sigh* Yes, I know, not really. Now every single little pop and buzz I hear makes me nervous that it's going to crap out again any day now. Stupid Maytag.

I should also mention that Troy also curses Maytag at every opportunity. In fact, if anything, he hates them even more than I do. He not only cusses out the commercials, but also anytime we pass a store (there's several in the Dallas area). There's even been talk of throwing a brick through the store window. I think he feels betrayed by the fridge. He loved that fridge and it let him down in the worst way possible.

stupid yahoo

I've been using Yahoo mail for almost 10 years now. For some reason, when I first signed up for an account, I had an email address that was different from my actual login name. It's been long enough now that I can't quite remember the reason why. It was either because there was some sort of glitch that prevented me from using the same for both, or maybe after signing up for a login, I changed my mind about my email. I don't know. It's not that important. The point is, I've been using Yahoo mail for a long time. It is my primary email account and I rely on it for many things.

Anyways, for the past couple years (give or take a few months), we've had DSL service through AT&T, which is partnered with Yahoo. This allowed me to 'merge' my Yahoo with the AT&T service and gave me access to some of their premium services. I thought nothing of doing this when it was offered, and in fact, had done the same thing when we had DSL in Austin. Well, we recently switched to Verizon's new FIOS service (which, by the way, is super sweet) and cancelled the DSL. That was over a month ago now. The other day, I got a warning that I was no longer subscribed to AT&T and would have to unmerge my account. No biggie, right? Well, yesterday, Troy points out to me that my emails are coming from a different address now, my login name @yahoo. I think, hmm, that's odd, poke around my yahoo settings, and think well, no big deal. Then today, I discover that my original email address has been completely disabled and all emails sent to it are bouncing. What the hell?! I'm guessing that this stems from the 'unmerging' although I really can't figure out why they would do that. I'm still waiting for a response from yahoo's tech support.

In the meantime, my options were to use the login name email (which I hate because it's a random combination of numbers and letters that most would probably interpret as fake/spam), or to just change to something else entirely. Being the bitter and vindictive type that I am, willing to cut off my own nose to spite my face, I opted for the latter. So I got to spend the better part of my afternoon migrating to my shiny new Gmail account, entering contacts, emailing people to let them know I'd switched, and then changing everything else I've ever registered for as well. Ugh. What a pain in the ass!

And can I just say? Gmail is weird. I'm so used to the Yahoo mail format that I think it's really going to take me a while to get used to another format. I'm also annoyed because my name is common enough that I don't think I will ever be able to have an address of myname @whatever without having a long series of numbers after it. I guess I should be glad I married someone with an uncommon and unwieldy name.

On the plus side, I suppose I should mention that sending out a mass email to update contact info is always a nice excuse to get back in touch with people. I heard back from people that I hadn't talked to in a while, and it was really nice to reconnect.

summer reading

Despite all my complaining about how I don't have any time because of the baby, blah, blah, blah, I've actually managed to read a few books (besides Harry Potter) this summer. Even before going to cooking school, I've always been obsessed by food, and I somewhat secretly would love to be a food writer myself (if not a food photographer or stylist). So I recently finished Heat by Bill Buford, and I'm also wrapping up The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten and The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain. I know, it seems crazy that I've been alternating between reading three different books at once, but they are all non-fiction, and both Steingarten's and Bourdain's books are collections of shorter pieces that don't need to be read in any particular order.

You probably best know Jeffrey Steingarten as the occasional judge on Iron Chef America. He's the cranky old white guy who uses a lot of big words. He's otherwise known for being the food critic for Vogue. Anyways, Steingarten's book is actually 10 years old, but considered a "classic" in food writing. I happened to come across it at Half Price Books and thought, I'd give it a whirl. I'm actually not quite done with it yet, but so far, it's pretty good. I think he won me over in the first chapter, which was about how he became obsessed with baking the perfect loaf of bread, going so far as to order 50 lb. sacks of a certain kind of flour, freshly ground and directly from the mill. Sounds like something I would do, if I didn't know that Troy would freak out. The book has chapters covering all sorts of things that I'm sure were new and innovative at the time, but are kind of commonplace now. But I think that's what makes it kind of interesting since it really shows how far attitudes toward food (and particularly, dieting) have come in the last ten years. I think people nowadays are much more open-minded and interested in trying new and/or authentic things, even if they do seem weird or scary.

I have to confess, I am a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain. Kitchen Confidential is one of my all-time favorite books, and I re-read it at least once a year. The Nasty Bits is pretty much what the name implies: it's a collection of random odds and ends that he's written over the years for various magazines. Some of it is definitely repetitive, especially if you're already familiar with his general attitudes toward cooking and the restaurant business. Others are obviously newer and written during the time since he started doing his Travel Channel show, and I think those are the best pieces. I have to say, for an ex-junkie who was really only moderately successful as a chef, he's really hit the jackpot with his travel show. I wish I could convince someone to pay me to travel all over the world and eat. But I digress. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but again, that's because I thoroughly enjoy his aggressively overblown and self-important style. Oddly though, it ended with a short piece of fiction about a talented chef desperate for celebrity status to the detriment of all else. After reading Bourdain's hilarious Top Chef blog, I can't help but wonder if this character is modeled after Rocco DiSpirito.

Last, but not least, Heat, which is subtitled "An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany," was far and away one of the most enjoyable food-related books that I've read in a long time. I read it almost straight through (a rarity for me), and I was almost disappointed when it ended and I had to return it to the library. Heat is kind of starts out as kind of a cross between a biography of Mario Batali and an exploration of what drives people to become so passionate about food that they must share it with the public. But about halfway through, it turns more into a chronicle of the author's own transformation into one of those guys. I pretty much loved every aspect of this book, which is not surprising because again, the author had a certain obsessive quality that I can totally appreciate. For example, at one point, he became obsessed with finding the point in Italian history where people started making pasta with eggs instead of just flour and water. Not only did he scour through numerous medieval era cookbooks (in their original Italian, no less), but he even went so far as to contact Italian scholars and the head of the Pasta Museum (who knew there was such a thing?) trying to find the answer.

I also really liked getting to see another side of Batali other than the jovial, sanitized-for-television version that's on Food Network. Although, from what I could tell, that tv persona really isn't that different from his real life one except for maybe a little more exaggerated and a little less foul-mouthed. I'd say this book is definitely up there with Kitchen Confidential and Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. I'm going to be keeping my eye out for a used copy (or the paperback) and re-reading it soon.

yet another blog

I went ahead and started a separate blog for all my crafty stuff: http://craftyasiangirl.blogspot.com/. I'm going to go ahead and move previous craft-related posts there and will probably just delete them from here eventually.

Wooooowww....

I just saw that there's going to be a Flavor of Love 3. Now, don't get me wrong, because I love me some Flav, but even I think this may be taking it a bit far. I became totally obsessed with the first season of Flavor of Love, unable to look away like a bad trainwreck gaper. I even managed to drag Troy down with me into the morass. I mean, the sheer ridiculousness of watching women fight over a man wearing a viking helmet...awesome.

Second season: also highly entertaining, even though a lot of the girls seemed to much more conscious of their on-camera personae. I Love New York? Eh. Not so much. Granted, "New York" was easily the crazier than all the other b*tches on both seasons of FoL combined, and she made for some excellent drama, but I hated her. In fact, I hated her enough that I couldn't have cared less if she found true love or not. I still sort of watched her show, but somehow watching big burly grown-ass men cry like little girls was more than I could really handle. Where did they find these guys? I did take kind of a perverse glee in the fact that she got dumped at the end in the most humiliating and public manner possible. Heehee. I know, I'm going to hell. I also saw (during the commercials for the FoL3 casting special, of course) a commercial for I Love NY2, coming this October. I don't think I'm going to waste my time on this at all.

Oh, and I almost forgot about Charm School. *Sigh* Against my better judgment, I watched that one too. It was somewhat admirable in its premise of self-improvement. But really, c'mon. The only reason anyone was watching was to see more catfights. And since when is Mo'Nique, star of such hits as Phat Girlz, considered the arbiter of taste and class? But hey, kudos to VH1 for strip-mining the Flavor Flav franchise and extracting every single penny possible. On a side note, Comedy Central had a Roast of Flavor Flav last week that was actually pretty funny, if only for its relentless bashing of Carrot Top, who I didn't even realize was even still alive (wow, what happened to his face?).

So all of this got me thinking about just how much reality garbage is out there right now, especially on basic cable. I've realized that most of the shows come in one of two varieties: celebrity or competition. And I'm assuming that they're all rip-offs or iterations of some of the most successful versions, Project Runway and hmmm, I guess The Osbournes?

So now we have producers scrambling to dig up every half-ass quasi-celebrity has-been (preferably with a history of "outrageous" or "controversial" behavior, give them their own show, throw in as many obstacles as they can engineer, and then let the trainwreck unfold in front of the cameras. OR, they have some sort of competition to become the next "star" of the station's chosen genre, i.e Next Food Network Star or Design Star on HGTV. Just today, I stumbled across "Skating's Next Star" on WE. I kid you not. It's hosted by Kristi Yamaguchi (who I instantly lost almost all respect for) and predictably, features a gaggle of figure skating washouts who compete before a panel of skating celebrity judges (all Olympic medalists, no less). The prize is a moderate wad of cash, a feature article in some ice skating magazine, and management. I'll confess, being the junkie that I am, I watched a couple episodes. It was bad. Almost unwatchable, even for me.

Some of the other reality nonsense that is currently on (most of which I have only seen commercials for):

American Princess - a bunch of American women go to England and compete to earn some sort of princess-y title. I'm assuming that a lot of it involves etiquette and decorum. No, I'm not making this up.

The Two Coreys - Yes, that's right. Corey Haim living with Corey Feldman (and his new wife), trying to recapture their glory days.

Scott Baio is 45 and Single - fairly self-explanatory; Chachi trying to figure out out why he has commitment issues.

Mission: Man Band - A bunch of washed up dudes from 90s boy bands forms their own new 'supergroup,' again, trying to regain former glory. I watched one episode and one of the dudes is the guy from Color Me Badd who kind of looked like George Michael, except that he's gained like, 100 lbs. since then. I actually didn't recognize him and spent most of the episode trying to figure out who the hell he was.

The Pick-Up Artist - OK, this one, I watch and kind of enjoy. Granted, the main guy's name is "Mystery," (ridiculous) and he's usually wearing a giant fuzzy hat and/or goggles on his head (even more ridiculous), but the goal of helping a bunch of geeky guys build their confidence with women is actually kind of admirable. I was initially worried that they would basically be encouraging the geeks to be as amoral as possible, and crushing the ones that fail, but it actually seems to fairly positive so far.

I'm sure there are more. But my IQ has dropped enough points already this summer.

dance fever...actually, more like the dance sniffles

The final ultimate farewell finale of So You Think You Can Dance was on last night and again, I can't say it was all that spectacular or exciting. In fact, this season as a whole was really kind of lackluster. Yes, yes, there were lots of this season's "favorite" numbers (more on that later). But there was also soooooo much ridiculous filler. I audibly groaned when I first turned the show on and realized that it another TWO HOUR droolfest.



So, first things first. Despite my prediction from the other night, Sabra came away the big winner. I was pretty surprised since she kinda had a weak showing on Wednesday, although again, I think it was not so much that she performed poorly and more that she fell victim to bad luck and bad choreography. More surprising to me though was that Lacey was the first one out. I really thought that she would be in the final two, along with either Sabra or Danny. Neil didn't really have a chance, in my opinion. He's got 12-year-old girl appeal, but that's about it. He oddly reminds me of Travis from last year, if only for the fact that he's short and got kind of spikey blond hair.


Last night's perfomances fell into three categories. Off the top of my head, in the "Oooohhh" category: Lacey & Danny's samba, Jesus & Sara's weird bag-lady routine, and Neil & Sabra's 'table' dance. In the "Meh" category: Pasha & Lauren's Skeleton dance (OK, so the entrance is cool, but it is otherwise only an okay routine), Jamie and Hok's bird thingy (what is it with Wade and his routines involving animals?), Neil and Lacey's Mia routine with the flowers (the one that made everyone all weepy), Sabra & Dominic's slow hip hop routine (where Shane ripped off his own routine from last year), Pasha & Sara's west coast swing, the Matrix-y group number (which I probably would've liked better if it didn't feature Lauren). And last, but not least the "Bah" category: the Lion King group routine, Neil & Sara's disco, Danny & Anya's fox trot (Anya kind of irks me).

I'm realizing as I write this that a lot of the dances fell into the Meh category. I don't know if that's just because they really were unspectacular, or if it has more to do with my overall lukewarm feelings toward the show this year. Last year's show just seemed to have more really memorable, show-stopping numbers that I was excited to see again. This year....not so much.

Other random thoughts: Cat's dress was especially heinous last night. Just because you're 8-feet tall does not mean you can wear all sorts of ruffly nonsense and pass it off as fashion. I did think it was cool that they brought back that awesome clogger guy and gave him a chance to perform on his own, as well as that little guy in the hat who popped. Also, the whole "Cat and Nigel dancing" joke was really really dumb. Not that I was dying to see it, but it was dumb to build it up and then have the payoff be a silly little web cartoon. Bah.

That about wraps it up. One last complaint. They announced the winner about 5 seconds before the show ended and then rolled credits. It would have been nice if they could've showed a little more of the happy celebration. I mean, I think they could've sacrificed 10 seconds out of the endless montages (or maybe even the whole Ryan Cabrera "I Will Remember" performance...yeesh).

reality roundup

Let me just preface this whole thing by saying, yes, all these reality shows are crap and I don't care. I don't get out much and there's not much else to watch these days (especially in the summer). I'm a reality junkie. I admit it.

So Hell's Kitchen finally ended this week, and all I can really say is....meh. I think I stopped paying full attention to this show at least 4-5 weeks ago (probably when Top Chef started), and I'll confess that I only half-watched Monday's finale while I did about three other things. All the chef-testants this year were pretty weak (don't even get me started on Aaron), and I think T was the one who declared somewhere around Week 3 that, clearly Rock was the only one worth a damn and if he didn't win, then the whole show is fixed.

I do think it was kind of crap that Bonnie made it to the final two. If I had to watch that chick whine and cry one more time....ugh. This may sound mean, but the first time they mentioned that she was a "nanny/personal chef," I thought to myself, oh, so she's a babysitter who occasionally heats up some Chef Boyardee. How the heck did she get on this show?! I'm beginning to think that Gordon Ramsay has a soft spot for cute girls, especially if they've got a nice rack (*ahem* Virginia). But really, could that ending have been more anti-climactic? They did their best to play up the drama, like oooh, Rock's service was such a disaster, but I think it was fairly obvious from the start that Bonnie had no chance.

Preceding the HK finale, was the annoyingly long and drawn out results show for So You Think You Can Dance. Do results shows really need to be an hour long? Really? I understand the show makes money and there's a certain need for filler, but I'm getting really fed up with all the manufactured drama. I'm not going to say too much else about this show, since, obviously, it's been several days now and I'd rather talk about the finale. But I will say that it's about freaking time they got rid of Lauren. She waaaayyyy overstayed her welcome. And she didn't seem to be a very gracious loser either. I was sad to see Pasha go since he had some great performances last week, although really, I think that Neil and Danny were more deserving of being in the final four.


The finale for SYTYCD was on tonight, and again, I was kind of underwhelmed. It always baffles me when the dancers get criticized for how blah the routine was when the problem is obviously the lame choreography, in which they have no say. It's the same with criticizing their outfits. They're not the costume designers, leave them alone!

I was really expecting a lot more from the finale and instead, got a lame hip hop routine and an inexplicable dance about baby foxes? I didn't get that one at all. As soon as they showed the choreographer creeping around his studio with a scarf in his mouth, I knew we were in trouble. Also, I know the judges raved over it, but I was really disappointed by the Lindy routine. I love the Lindy Hop, and was expecting something much more spectacular. It seemed really stiff and choppy to me, especially all the lifts and twirls. Lacey looked like she tensed up going into each flip. And I really wish they would just retire the Broadway category. I don't understand why they're going to the trouble to come up with new routines for songs from from popular Broadway musicals that are famous for having their own style of choreography. It just sets them up for a bad comparison. I did kind of enjoy the boys' dance though. It was different, and not just in a weird for weird's sake way. Lacey and Danny's waltz was also very lovely.

In any case, going into tonight's show, I was fairly convinced that either Sabra or Lacey was going to take the crown, but after the way the came down on Sabra, I'm not so sure. Danny came on pretty strong, and his solo was amazing just in terms of sheer athletic ability. According to my sister-in-law, who is a hard-core fan, Danny was really unpopular with the fans early on, so I was a little surprised to see him in the final four, but now I think he might have a shot at taking it. Otherwise, I think it's going to be Lacey. I'm sure there'll be plenty more lame, weird and annoying dances in tomorrow's results finale. I am sincerely hoping that Cat Deely was joking about dancing with Nigel. Was there really some sort of groundswell demand for that? Bleh.

the lazy way out

This is what it's come to, using pre-made templates. Yes, I know. I suck. But I'm going to go ahead and hide behind the excuse that I just had a baby and don't have time to do things from scratch anymore. Despite the fact that I finally took down the woefully outdated BitchyAsianGirl site (which I'm hoping to get back up one of these days), and most of my free time goes into updating Evelyn's site, I still have a lot of random thoughts rattling around in my head, so what better way to purge them than to post them here, for the world to see (or ignore)?



So what kind of self-important word vomit do I have to offer? Well, there's the obvious baby-related topics, although I'll save most of the bragging for the blog on Evelyn's site. But more likely, it'll be about whatever crafty nonsense I'm working on, my latest random obsession, bad reality television, what's for dinner....I don't know, whatever is keeping me up at night. I welcome any and all comments, positive and negative, as, at the very least, it lets me know that someone's actually reading this.