bun in the oven…..

May 31, 2008 at 10:24 pm | In baking, reviews | Leave a Comment

You thought that was a pregnancy reference didn’t you? Seriously, let me tell you about my yeast. I got you again, didn’t I?

I have a super bread machine. Not only that, I also have a knack for baking some kick ass bread in my regular, non denominational oven. My bread machine is the Zojirushi Home Bakery X20. It’s pretty damn expensive, but so is driving to the store these days and buying a loaf of chemically laden bread. Ok, honestly I have no clue what is in store bread, but I think that right there is a tip off that it’s probably not the best option as far as bread goes.

I don’t deserve the title of “baker” although I’m no slacker in that area. On second thought, maybe I do deserve the title. I have been baking since I was a kid. I would stay home from school sick, and end up either meticulously cleaning my bedroom, or baking. Weird kid, but now I know my way around a pastry blender.

I can make a pretty decent pie crust from scratch, and I make a respectable chocolate pie. I’ve made a pretty tasty coconut cream pie too, my favorite. But bread is my love. I literally take a loaf out of the oven and ogle it for awhile. I caress it. I contemplate taking pictures. In fact, I will the next time I bake a loaf. I just made a loaf tonight in the bread machine. My bread almost turns me on.

You really can’t beat the convenience factor with bread machines. Toss a few ingredients in the pan, put the pan in the machine, hit a couple buttons and two hours later, you’re in blissfully delicious bread land. And the aroma…. Oh, Em, Gee. I don’t have any qualms with a bread machine. It isn’t like it’s not real bread. Visually, I like my oven baked bread. Although, this bread machine does make a horizontal loaf shaped more like a store bought loaf. I had a machine several years ago that made the vertical dome of bread. Very un-bread like. This machine is, so far, awesome. Some days I just want bread, sans the work.

Briefly, a little about the machine. It makes up to a two pound loaf. It does bread, dough, wheat bread, jam, cake, and meatloaf. Meatloaf? I’m sorry, but that’s not something I want in my bread machine. I have made a delicious banana bread twice using the cake cycle. Yum. Not sure if the jam option excites me or not. I still have hope that I’m going to use my canning supplies some day. I’m ever the optimist.

I’m serious, if you’ve never had a bread machine, and have about an acre of countertop free, get one. Get this one. Or get a Breadman. They’re allegedly good machines too. I just equate high price with quality. Please stop laughing at me. Really, it’s rude. Actually, I chose this one because it received excellent reviews and I liked the horizontal loaf shape. It has nine baking modes and a delay cycle. Nice if you get a tingle waking up to fresh baked bread.

So, yeah this machine is a beast. Luckily I happen to have one of those garage like cabinets on the counter. I can just tuck it in and pull down the door. I think counter space is overrated. Think of the workout you get moving heavy appliances to make room to roll out pie crust or pizza dough. You should see my biceps. I have Kitchen Aid to thank for that. They don’t just make kick ass stand mixers, they build muscle mass.

Now, here’s the secret….. you need to find the recipes that make these heavenly loaves. I have discovered a book that of the recipes I’ve tried they’ve been delicious. Bread and pizza dough. I loved the pizza crust, Man wasn’t in love with it, but he still ate it. He didn’t like the crust part that you hold when you’re eating the pizza. The book, appropriately titled, “The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook”, by Beth Hensperger. Again, great reviews. If you’ve read my blog before you know my feelings on reviewing things.

Unfortunately, the whole wheat recipe I tried, twice, came out like a brick. Now, one of two things could be the cause, and I’m leaning toward my flour. I think it might be a bit out of date. Or, it could just be that even though this machine touts amazing wheat bread abilities, it doesn’t cut the mustard. Sadly, my 300 watt Kitchen Aid likely wouldn’t live through a batch of whole wheat dough, so I will forgo the whole wheat bread for now, or possibly let the Cuisinart have a go at it. Don’t go flooding my inbox with requests for an update on the whole wheat bread crisis. You’ll just have to be patient. *sarcasm meter hits midway*

My next baking adventure is a cake. Now, like any wing nut I can whip up a Betty Crocker special and slap on some chocolate spackle. Voila, cake it is. But what I really want to do, is create a real cake. Glorious tender crumb, light and moist. Complete with buttery, sinfully delicious frosting. Now, I’ve accomplished this feat before, unfortunately, the final result had a not so happy ending.

I’ll recant that tale for you another time. Right now, it’s bedtime.

tell me….

May 28, 2008 at 8:25 pm | In Musings again | 1 Comment

what’s on your iPod?

Since I was fiddling with my iPod and iTunes, here’s what’s on my iPod, (which is the iPod video and I LOOOOOVE it). In no specific order:

The White Stripes; The All-American Rejects; The Bravery; Blue October; Tom Petty; Enya; The Ditty Bops; Phantom Planet; Radiohead; Seether; Nickelback (my favorite); Foo Fighters (other favorite); Nirvana; Nina Simone; Alice in Chains; Green Day; Pink; Puddle of Mudd; The Kinks; some classical music; some new age relaxation stuff; Annie Lennox; Avril Lavigne; The Beatles …. tons more.

I also have a bunch of comedians, Kathleen Madigan, Comedian Bob Marley; Nick Swardson and Paul Tompkins are my favorites.
Right now, I have 576 tracks on my iPod. I’m a music whore.

i’m on a roll…..

May 27, 2008 at 4:25 pm | In Musings again | 1 Comment

and it’s sesame.

Today, I provided the link to this blog to an old friend. When I do that, and it’s rare that I do, I feel like I have to be on my best behavior. I don’t make this blog readily available to those that know me. Why? Well, this is deep insight into my thoughts, mind, heart, soul…… *gags*.

Some people don’t need to know all my business. Some would just be shocked to know I say “bad words”. Either way, I may or may not have a new reader. I prefer to be optimistic and stick with the notion I have a new reader. One that will likely conclude I’m nuts, but oh well.

So everyone say Hi.

And if you’re a new reader, let me take a moment to welcome you.  There’s posts of all kinds here. Surrogacy, friendship drama, banking horrors, product endorsement, customer service nightmares. You name it, I’ve either posted about it, or will eventually.

Stay tuned… my next post, I’m going to dazzle you with the nonsense at my church. By the way, does YOUR pastor want to see your W2’s to verify your tithe is correct???

squeaky wheel…..

May 27, 2008 at 4:05 pm | In banking | Leave a Comment

Ok, basically, it was MY fault because I didn’t tell them sooner. And vacations and the manager being in and out. And the teller just didn’t remember the situation. And blah blah blah. She wasn’t very nice either. I held my ground and kept my cool. I’m so proud of myself.

What the HELL am I talking about? The bank, people… the BANK. I remembered my bank issue was still hanging over my head and when I checked my calender, it’s been nearly TWO FOOKING weeks since that wing nut told me the bank manager would call me back. Sweet Jesus mary and joseph. TWO WEEKS.

I left a lovely message for Juanita. Something to the effect that it’s been nearly two weeks, I’ve called now four times, no call back at all, clearly they don’t give a crap.

The manager herself called me back. Here’s the part I’m rolling my eyes over. I said, “Hello”. (of course, that’s pretty standard phone etiquette.) She says “This is Melody XXXXX, branch manager at XXXX”. Then nothing. She’s all quiet. So I said “Yes”. “I’m returning your call”, she says. “Duh”. Ok not really, but I wanted to say it.

I said “Well I was under the impression you were made aware of the situation…”. What I wanted to say was “Bout damn time jackass.” But I didn’t. Anyway, my main beef was how it took four phone calls and nearly four weeks to get a callback. She apologized, but in that snotty, ‘I hate you and your three dollars’ way. Then made excuses like, well it happened so long ago, (which I explained was because I use the Internet, not my statements to reconcile my bank book). “Must have been a misunderstanding”… Well I don’t see how you can misunderstand ink on a deposit slip. Unless the teller is on the retard employment program. Then, I concede.

She also used vacations and busy schedules to excuse the time it took to call me back. I’m sorry, but does that seriously fly anymore? I even said something to the effect that her apology would have been more effective four weeks ago. “We’re sorry” or “thank you for bringing this to our attention” would have taken all of 2 minutes. She could have called me from the bathroom ffs.

HOWEVER, for the past couple hours I’ve been chatting via email with a friend whose boss just happens to be on the board of directors for said bank. *snicker snicker*

And I quote “Since I now chair the Human Resources committee I have access to the HR Director and will surely let her know. “

Take that, bitches.

you like?

May 17, 2008 at 6:12 pm | In Musings again | Leave a Comment

let me know what you think of this new theme. I’m feeling theme bored lately and need something different to look at.

oh, and by the way…

May 16, 2008 at 2:55 pm | In Musings again | Leave a Comment

for those of you on the edge of your seats…. no, the bank manager did NOT call me back yesterday or today. It’s already 4 o’clock here and nothing.

a bomb in your what?….

May 16, 2008 at 2:53 pm | In credit cards, finances | Leave a Comment

I realize my recent anti credit card nazi behavior is borderline psychotic, but I think I just freaked out a Bank of America (BOA) customer service rep. When the funds were available, I made haste in paying off two BOA accounts that were teetering around 29% interest rate. Yeah, take a minute to swallow that. Needless to say, I payed little attention to the account thereafter. Until today.

I received a darling piece of correspondence letting me know my NINETY FUCKING DOLLAR annual fee was assessed. Now, when I paid off this card some months ago, they then decided to be real buttballs and lowered my credit line to a whopping $500. I couldn’t have cared less, really. But now they’re assessing a $90 annual fee on a credit line of $500. That’s 18% of the entire credit line. If that isn’t paid by the due date, they get to tack on a hefty 29% finance charge. Dude, seriously?

That’s one money making scheme if ever there was one. Let’s see, we’ll slap on an arbitrary fee, and we can do that because we spell it out in all the literature we send out, and hope no one reads, that if we should get a tickle in our bathing suit region and want to change the terms of your credit card agreement, WE CAN!!! WE SUCK!

Now, here’s the twist I hadn’t expected. Jeff, at BOA, was kind enough to remove that charge. I had resigned myself to paying it, because of the handy way they word their “fine print” they could pretty much shove parakeets in my dogs asshole if they chose to do so. MY parakeet at that. Not today folks, Jeff to the rescue.

However, Jeff decided to press me for information and found that I’d much rather stick a bomb in my pants than ever use BOA again. Poor Jeff.

ok, ok…

May 15, 2008 at 8:56 am | In banking | Leave a Comment

I called the bank. First of all, they all need a course on annunciation and using syllables.

So, I asked to speak to the manager. The receptionist either is retarded, lazy, or both. Instead of telling me the Manager is out of the office, she just forwards me to voice mail. So I have to redirect back to lazy retarded receptionist to ask for Juanita. (I spoke to Juanita about the “incident” and she was the one that alleged the manager would call me on Monday.)

So Juanita gets on the phone. Apparently the manager didn’t get back until yesterday or late the day before. (This is where that course would have come in handy, or else she just had a mouthful of shit) She did manage to make Manager aware of the situation and though she was out running around to other branches (I’m assuming she’s super manager and her powers are needed all over), she was going to call me today.

At this point, I’m dismayed. No, it’s not a life threatening emergency. No, it’s not a pressing issue that is going to make or break our financial life. But ffs, a quick call after my very first message saying “I’m just leaving on vacation, I’ll get on it when I’m back, I’m sorry.” The end.

A simple apology for the trouble and a promise to look into it would have been more than enough to satisfy me.

But no. I’m now the customer that makes them roll their eyes. “Oh it’s HER again… ugh.”

The credit union better not suck.

let’s see….

May 15, 2008 at 8:50 am | In banking, finances | Leave a Comment

what crap can I write about today?

Here’s a bit of “customer service” nonsense. The other night I was organizing a pile of papers on my desk. My bank statement from February caught my eye. Rather, a big X caught my eye. Let me back up a bit, I do EVERYTHING online. Including my banking and balancing my bank account. Therefore, I rarely look at my statements. My bank copies all checks presented on my account and deposits and includes that photocopy list with my statement. What caught my eye was an X through the computer generated deposit information on a deposit slip. Then, the AHA moment hit.

Back in February, I went through the drive thru, as usual, with two checks for deposit and a whopping $6 money order to cash. Sent to the teller, back comes my receipt. Only there was no cash. All three items were deposited. When I questioned the teller, she said that was how I had written my deposit ticket out. I was quite perplexed because I had no recollection of having done that, it wasn’t my intention. She agreed to correct it for me. How nice of her…

Now, fast forward to the other night and the copy of the deposit slip. I had, in fact, NOT written it wrong. She had blatantly LIED to me. The deposit slip was showing I had correctly filled it out with that $6 money order not included. It was my handwriting and matched every other copy of deposit slips and checks written. She LIED!!!!!

Now, here’s where I’m getting pissed. I called the bank the next day and asked to speak to the manager. I was sent to her voice mail. The message simply stated her name and to leave a message. This was about 12 pm’ish maybe closer to 1pm. No call back.

I called again the next afternoon, and NOW her message stated she was on vacation from THAT day until the end of the week. So at some point she had to have been in that office to change the recording on her voice mail but didn’t follow up on my call nor did she forward it to anyone that would be covering for her while she was away. Strike one.

So I called back and asked for whoever would be next in line. I got Juanita. I don’t know Juanita’s position there, but she was quite sympathetic to my plight. I’m exaggerating but she did sound genuinely concerned. She agreed to look into it and at the very least the manager would return on Monday and I’d hear something by then.

It’s Thursday. Strike two.

Now, I intentionally did not call on Tues or Wed, and partly because I’m chicken shit and expect the manager to call me a big baby. Mostly because I’ve already opened a checking account at the local credit union and figure F.U. stupid bank that employs LIARS!

I’m going to call today though. I’ve depleted the account down to about 10 bucks. I’ve had enough crap from them lately that they are no longer worthy.

sweet maple syrup…..

May 10, 2008 at 6:50 am | In Musings again, reviews | Leave a Comment

No I did NOT die, although I did just now inhale a large crumb of bagel and may not survive. *accepts applause graciously*.. it’s OK I’m going to be OK. I’m ALIVE!

And now, the news.

  • FOM has officially been kicked to the curb, witnesses say it was tense.
  • I’ve just now realized I’ve misplaced my trashcan.
  • Sears sells pants that FIT ME!
  • Product reviews: Can you call Broadway for me?
  • What the hell is up with all this new stuff on word press?
  • Ritalin: my new wonder drug.
  • and more MINDLESS MUSINGS, coming up next.

This just in, the trashcan has been found. Thanks to a rubbermaid-alert (think amber alert folks, you’ll laugh more easily), the trashcan was found just behind the door. Clearly shaken, the trashcan appears unharmed.

FOM hits the curb. Without boring you to tears, I’ve mentioned in the past about this other alleged friend of FOM’s and her lack of brain cells. She’s the one who her and her husband are retarded and making a public ass of themselves. My biggest beef is this: FOM routinely bitched … er.. confided to me about Alleged Friend U, **(referred from now on as, AFU. {for maximum hilarity, think “A [eh], F [fuck], U [you]“, and do it in a New York accent. It’s the irony, kills em every time!}**

OK, what.. oh oh, so FOM bitched about AFU being a bad friend. Lying to FOM, AFU’s kids are retarded too, FOM’s kids hated playing with them, etc. etc. Now quick interject here, there’s another player in this game and no need to hash that out. Suffice it to say that relationship is nearly identical to the one with AFU. Kids too. OK, got it? good.

However, no matter how bad a friend AFU (and other woman) seemed to be, in almost the very same sentence, FOM would then begin to detail her latest outing with AFU. Or better yet, a get together including the husbands. Yes, I said husbands. AFU and her retarded husband, the very couple making a public ass of themselves.

FOM’s own husband, who I had previously felt had some sense, had on one or two occasions, sternly suggested to FOM that she cease contact with AFU. I guess that was forgotten when there was a game on and someone was bringin wings!

So she has bad judgement. Yeah, and typically I wouldn’t give a bat’s ass, but it was every freakin conversation we had. How she was meddling more and more into AFU’s life. She was pissed with AFU for lying to her. AFU’s kids were freakin her own kids out. But they had lunch at McDonald’s.

I propose a meeting with all the powers that be in this world at McDonald’s. Because apparently, it’s a happy place that makes all prior wrongs just go away. How can Bush and Vladimir Putin not get the giggles over a happy meal? Seriously.

What does piss me off is when I invite FOM and her child over to play with my child, who is excitedly anticipating the fun, we are blown off. No I don’t mean a phone call saying someone lost an eye. I mean a lazy ass text message (which cost me 25 cents thank you fucky much), the NEXT DAY that says little more than “I’m an asshole, sorry you had the misfortune to meet me”.

So, hit the curb dumbass. I can have more stimulating conversation with my dog who has the balls to tell people that shit on him to piss off. OK, technically he doesn’t have balls anymore, and he’s the one pissing on everything and I can’t recall him ever telling anyone anything because he’s a dog and can’t talk. MAYBE the time he rolled in another dog’s shit qualifies as someone shitting on him, but it’s rather indirect, and I don’t know….
I hate Sears. I loathe Sears. Sometime, when you’re bored, NO NOT NOW, google the phrase “Sears Sucks”. I identified with those people. I’m not going to get into that now, but the other day I had fifteen minutes to kill so I hoofed on down to Sears. They had pants by jesus and they FIT! I’m a lucky, lucky girl.

So wordpress appears to have implemented some nifty new features. *nods approvingly*

Got me some Ritalin. Adderall apparently lasts for like 2 months then you’re once again, shit out of luck. Actually that’s not true, but for me personally, it started petering out. So, onto the Ritalin we go. I still think my allergies are playing a much larger role in my mental turbulence, and the new meds I’m on now are freakin AWESOME! So, now I can breath easier, sneeze less, and I’m much more pleasant to be around.

New fancy shit I bought:

Canon Vixia HF10 HD digital camcorder. This thing does a shitload of cool stuff. First, it offers dual flash memory (think SanDisk cards you plug in your digital camera’s ass). 16GB of internal memory. Typically in SP record mode, that’s almost 5 hours of record time. No stupid tapes to lose, or break, or forget to buy.

OR, you can buy some of those small, easy to lose, or easy to stick in your pocket SDHC flash memory cards. They’re now coming out with 32GB so you can record like, forever.

It also has 12X optical zoom, and optical image stabilization. Better, and better still. Digital zoom and electronic or digital stabilization are basically marketing terms which basically means inferior feature. There’s an “Easy” button for stupid people…. *cough cough*… like me.

So far I have shot a couple minutes of my daughter doing her own “web show”. She’s five, and a fan of iCarly, the show on Nickelodeon. I see broadway in our future.

When you click to review what you’ve shot, it’s broken down to each time you started recording. After years of using an old vhs recorder, and having to rewind and hopefully stop it just so, avoiding too much static between shots, this feature is amazing. I can pick whatever “scene” I want to review.

Being all up to date and technologically savvy now, I can connect my camcorder directly to my HD big screen via a mini HDMI cable and see all the action in glorious High Definition.

The camcorder also has other nifty things like cinematic shooting, artsy shooting. You can shoot still images (if you don’t want to lug your digital camera, this may be a rather useful feature. Not something that concerned me in the slightest and it’s just another whistle I’ll likely never use).

The mic is on the front just under the lens. Nice design. One of the other camcorders I looked into had a problem with recording internal noise from the motor. Nay nay on this baby.

If anyone really wants more info, I can post again about it. And no, I don’t work for Canon, I don’t owe anyone money at Canon, I don’t even know Mr. Canon. I just like the camcorder and wanted to tell you folks about it. Go buy one if you want, or not I don’t really care. Doesn’t affect my life at all. All though, I’ll get a little satisfaction just knowing I used my skills of mind control to make you go buy something….

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