am a baking machine!

just baked for 6 hours! man my arms are tired! so this is why the electric mixer was invented; who knew combining sugar and butter could take so much out of you?! the stupid chocolavas nearly killed me.

i wish i had my camera to take pictures of the finished products, but i dont, so i'll steal some instead and comment next to them as little tips from me to you:


Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
everybody has some oatmeal raisin cookie recipe so i wont even bother including a link


but, yay!! i was less greedy this time and scooped out smaller spoonfuls! it didnt spread!!! you have no idea how exciting this is cuz the batter usually spreads to encompass the entire cookie sheet. they were very square cookies.



Raspberry Shortbread Cookies
these are crazy good. mines look better too! i spent 45 fraking minutes painstakingly resealing the cracks after i made the indentations for the jam.
*I* think it makes a difference, but you can just throw the jam on all willy-nilly and be done with the whole process in about 30 min...cracks and all.

DO put in more almond extract though, it tastes better and is a nice alternative to vanilla.



Chocolava Cookies
chocolate bombs! so unbelievably chocolately!

dont forget to roll them in icing sugar otherwise theyll look pooptacular when they come out :P and definately undercook them a bit if youre not sure how long to leave them in for.

im not sure why, but these types of cookies never flatten out for me. mostly they just look like semi deflated balls when theyre done.

i was creaming this sucker for at least 20min, so dont forget to bring those arms of steel




Happy cookie-ing! :D

was listening to The Hush Sound's Goodbye Blues for (almost) the entire time i was baking. on repeat. and still not sick of them. they is good. they is very good.

Green is the new Black

Back! back from a three year hiatus! 3 years just doesnt seem to be that long a time when youre neglecting something, ie, this blog.

ive finally switched over to the new format (now signing into gmail instead of my old hotmail account! tres exciting; seems like gmail/google has slowly but surely taken over everything: i really need to start paying attn to these things). so i wont lie, there was a moment of panic when i thought that i had lost this blogger account and some nogoodnick had taken my name. but luckily, blogger didnt delete me and the transition into The New Format was unbelievably easy - so kudos to them, im impressed.

b/c im a loser who never really paid attn to computer science class in highschool, i have no idea how to adapt my old template and have thus lost it forever. still adjusting to this new layout: it sucks; it's too generic; im tolerating the colour scheme (picked from the scant amount of colours that was offered), but the open format of the page is freaking me out! i need my boxes! the dotted lines arent enough to hold my sanity in. i may have to change the template soon and pick something more structured.

well, c'est tout for now...until something more exciting happens in my life, but at least it wont be 3 years before another post now that im back.

POTD: b/c it's just so funny!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: North Central "North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.
The Midland
The West
The Inland North
Boston
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

yah yeah, update update....

Yep. THAT bored...
but hey, im JAMES BOND! so who cares!

You scored as James Bond, Agent 007. James Bond is MI6's best agent, a suave, sophisticated super spy with charm, cunning, and a license's to kill. He doesn't care about rules or regulations and somewhat amoral. He does care about saving humanity though, as well as the beautiful women who fill his world. Bond has expensive tastes, a wide knowledge of many subjects, and his usually armed with a clever gadget and an appropriate one-liner. James Bond, Agent 007 83% Batman, the Dark Knight 75% Indiana Jones 71% Neo, the "One" 67% Lara Croft 63% Captain Jack Sparrow 50% El Zorro 50% Maximus 46% The Amazing Spider-Man 46% The Terminator 42% William Wallace 38% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

a song-filled apology (for being too lazy to actually update)

The Thievery Corporation:
The Mirror Conspiracy
The Cosmic Game

The Fray: How to Save a Life

The Raconteurs: Broken Boy Soldiers

Architecture in Helsinki: Fingers Crossed

The Killers: Sam's Town

Chantal Kreviazuk: Ghost Stories

Misc. Songs that are currently on repeat in my playlist

you get 7days to download these files...starting today. ready, and, GO!
more songs on the way
Cheers!

so im thinking i should update soon eh?

in the meantime, theres photographic evidence of my existence on facebook if you want to take a look. and since facebook is now open to anyone with an email, come join in on all the stalking fun!

PRIDE Kingston
yep, thats right, kingston had its very own pride parade today and i found out when i was nearly blasted out of my apt by some very effective speakers playing Christina's 'fighter". it was quite tame compared to TO's parade, just a bunch of ppl in colourful outfits walking down the street with ONE police cruiser leading in front and one following behind - yep, very tame. and when i say "colourful", i mean that literally - this is small town kingston afterall. still, it was interesting to see - especially since i dont think it was advertised anywhere - people were coming out of the shops, or stopping in the streets to watch going "oh, its a parade" "oh its a pride parade". the thing i found slightly amusing was that the New NDP came out as well, and held a small banner to bring up the rear of the parade. it was just interesting to see a political party siding with a group - in so far as to march in their parade, i doubt we'd ever see this in the toronto counterpart.


MMVAs
wow those were some sucky performers this year - mostly cuz i dont care for any of them. well, except for Metric but im not sure if they performed. honestly couldnt sit through that show and i just watched the red-carpet event before tuning in every now and again.
what was up with Missari arriving in two lamborghinis? he didnt even drive the second one! it just followed him there, got shown on camera, and then drove off again. um...dood, to date you only have ONE "hit". take it easy with the spending eh? nice cars tho, too bad he was in it to ruin that scenic pic.

i was kinda surprised paris hilton was there, though it may be just to promote her new song. did anybody else find her new single oddly catchy? i know i know, youre probably shocked that i just admitted to watching her new video. in my own defense, it was not planned on and i happened to catch it when flipping through MOD. anyway, the catchiness may not have anything to do with her voice/lyrics so much as it is the typical reggae music for the background tunes?beats? whats the proper term - i have no idea. ya moving on, a warning if youre actually gonna click that link though - you might not want to WATCH the video so much as just listen to it. all her writhing makes for a pretty dizzying video.

nick lachey - nicely done with the salvaging of your career. i wouldnt have paid so much attention to him - but that was before i saw his performance, and the fact that when he turned his mic to the audience and they ACTUALLY KNEW THE WORDS to his dippy little song. way to follow in Justin's "cry me a river" footsteps, seriously, nicely done. i wonder if his conversation with his managers went anything like this:
NL: "ok, so now that ive ridden that whole marriage horse till it dropped dead, what can i do now to get back into the media limelight?"
mngrs: "well, how 'bout you portray a hurt/sensitive side to win back the little girls who worshipped you before you got married?"
NL: "genius. i'll just pull a justin timberlake"

as for nelly furtado...ah how youve fallen from grace. i havnt listened to her whole album yet, but if "promiscuous" is any indicator, im not sure i want to listen to it. her music was interesting before, at least you could hear her voice, the musical instruments, etc, but now everything is synthasized and shes rapping and dancing?? im sorry but thats just something she should NOT do. i'll admit, the song has a catchy tune but it just sounds BAD when performed live - and i keep running into it on tv: letterman, leno, mmva's. its just bad all over. leave the dancing to the dancers, and with her all talent im saddened that she has resorted to such mainstream crap. oh well, whatever sells i suppose - at least she gets a new mp3 phone.


Tis the Year....for canadian artists to sell-out
so far ive seen/heard commercials for:
- nelly furtado (obviously) for rogers? or is it just mp3 phone companies? ya, so theres that
- chantel kreviazuk! awww. so there was one for CIBC, and then an actual commercial for hairdye. uh...garnier i think?
- feist for lacoste - wow she bagged a big fish.
thats all i can remember right now, but let me know if you come across any others. im not sure that i actually care that much about this, afterall, whats the point of becoming famous if youre not gonna make some moola off of it. it cant all be about the music.

now, onto more Important Things...ME

kingston has finally become hot enough for me to wear shorts and tanktops - not that i was looking fwd to it, im just saying. stating. im more of a winter person, when things (like bugs and all things creepy-crawly) are dead. however, its really cool at night and i really want to take a walk outside in the dead middle of the night, but im afraid of the crazy ppl lurking in street corners, otherwise im sure id take nightly trips to A&P (espcially RIGHT NOW cuz im outta cream and my coffee tastes like crap with watered down milk. what a waste...of coffee)

"turkey bacon is NOT bacon!" - grace (from Will & Grace) had it right. that line was from some episode that i cant remember, when she yells at Will for buying turkey bacon instead of the real thing. ANYWAY, i was walking around the supermarket and bought turkey bacon partly cuz of that line (yaya, quiet you), and cuz it really looked interesting. i suppose its one of those things that just taste better in your mind than it does in actual life. im not sure how to describe it, it doesnt taste like turkey, for one, but not quite like real bacon either (which is, apparently, what they were going for. go figure). its KINDA precooked, but it instructs you to cook it anyway - traditional skillet, or MICROWAVE (thats just so gross it needed to be capitalized). heres the disturbing bit, frying it in a skillet actually produces NO fat from the material. this depends on whether or not youve actually prepared your own bacon before, but if not, let me tell you that real bacon produces A LOT of fat; turkey bacon? not so much. kinda disturbing, but at least i know of what im NOT ingesting so i guess thats a sorta comfort in disguise. moral of the story? buy the real thing. but i guess you already knew that, didnt you? (yeah, shaddap)

in search of new, good music.
this summer is proving to be one with craptacular music. im bored with everything i have. send me stuff - to my email, my msn, a link to this blog, whatever. ive resorted to surfing indie blogs and sites in my hunt for some new sounds and while ive come up with some stuff, i cant find it anywhere. forget about torrents (which would be nice) but i mean theyre either so new, or so underground that major cd stores dont even sell them yet. searches on amazon has come up empty! thats quite amazing if even amazon doesnt have it. anyhoozle, so you either have to order the cd off their site, or scour the net looking for singles. a good place to listen, but never own, is myspace.com. i duno how it happened, but suddenly myspace has become the biggest thing in the music world. you can find any band there - but oddly, not always mainstream bands/artists.
anyway, send me music

oh speaking of indie artists, this reminds me of bedouin soundclash. i was watching the show "diary" (you can watch clips of it under "browse shows") and they were following bedouin on the days leading up to/incl. the Juno awards. so it was the day before the awards and the band was onstage doing a soundcheck and were noticing who was sitting where - like the oscars where the chairs were taped with a printout name/pic of the artist sitting there. anyway, they saw michael buble's chair and Jay kept saying over and over "fucking buble..." :D haha and that continued through to the end of the show. they never explained it but it was so funny to hear. just every now and again this contemptuous voice in the background going "fucking buble..." hehe

eh, so i think this blog has gone on long enough. i'll post other random things i notice in another post.
the rest of the world should be waking up in the next 2hrs or so, *I* on the otherhand, will be going to sleep around that time.