Posts made by surreality

Apologies for double post, but new subject for the coffee junkies amongst us: I the AeroPress. Damn, this thing is simple as can be and actually makes pretty damned good (read: strong as hell) coffee.

I could never get my fauxKeurig (which I had already chosen since it produced a stronger brew than the real one on strong) to do this after the good espresso machine died (rest in peace, Bliss the coffeebot, your service will forever be remembered with the utmost fondness), but I can now get plain hot water from said fauxKeurig and with about another minute of time, voila, good strong coffee.

This thing is desk-friendly, folks, and cubicle small (about the size of two standard mugs stacked on each other, a little smaller and frankly a fuckton more effective than a traditional french press), and it's plastic so you needn't be paranoid of thin glass being around•. Also easy to clean and whatnot. Most excellent, do recommend, and I found this one at Bloodbath&Beyond for $30 before one of their ever-present coupons.

Worth it. Cheap, works, and will not explode into shards of glass that could injure or cause someone anal-retentive in management to give you a case of the glares about safety concerns. (Friend of mine ran into this one at a few places, since I work from home it's not a thing, so I have no idea how common this is.)

• Thermal shock is no joke, either. With glass, not only do you need to worry about knocking the thing over, but thermal shock. Thermal shock is the quasi-technical name for that phenomena we're all used to re: putting ice cubes in a glass fresh from the dishwasher and still warm. It cracks all over. Pyrex, which is what most coffee pots and french presses are made from, is borosilicate glass and was engineered to be more resistant to thermal shock. (It also is used to make some seriously incredible beads that are unusually light-reactive. (GUESS WHICH WAY I LEARNED ABOUT THIS GUYS, IT'S COFFEE OR ART SUPPLIES, THIS ONE COULD ACTUALLY BE HARD! <cough>) It still does it, though. It just doesn't always do it right away, and will only happen if lightly nudged/etc. I found this out the hard way when the upstairs coffeemaker died once, and I meandered down to get the one from the kitchen we hadn't used in a year, and so help me gods, the moment I reached toward the old machine, the coffee pot exploded in what I can only assume was pure, huffy spite (and stored thermal shock).

(Exploding glass is no joke, even when it's incredibly funny in hindsight.)

@mietze I didn't end up getting the strips put on (maybe 'cause the staple removal was almost a week later than planned? I dunno!) I was kinda expecting something, but there was nothing, and all the drive home I was like, 'am I going to asplode? Because that would be gross.'

I promptly covered it in active-flex band-aids when I got home on principle, but after a bit, meh, they could go.

They used the strips to secure the fancypants IV, though, and they yanked my skin right off along with them, so I'm pretty glad they did not take that route.

I keep hearing I have 'perfect tattoo skin', which apparently means 'pale as death and can be sanded off by old denim like it was asphalt'. It should be interesting to see how this goes.

@Catsmeow I feel you on this.

I wasn't so bad outside the needles until the clinic, with Ilsa, She-Wolf of the D.D.S., an aging tower of dental assistant with an Eastern European accent so thick you could barely understand a word she said. That bitch could make me bleed with anything -- x-rays, the suction tube thing, a sponge... (not kidding )

@Arkandel said in RL Anger:

Anyway on Monday I got to a dentist and... let's just say the health insurance costs weren't even 20% of the actual money I ended up saving once I saw the bill. Dentistry is insane, man.

As someone with like... $10k minimum in dentistry required and looming (I have the shittiest tooth genes ever), I feel you on this.

And that's not counting the implant I really actually do need.

We tried the 'student clinic' for a lower cost. Every single thing they've done is either wrong, or has needed to be redone. (One filling from there came out the next day for instance.) The crooked grin is also now permanent because they killed a nerve in my lower lip, which after two years has only started to recover.

Good dentist is worthwhile dentist, trust me!

Goddamn, that makes me hungry just looking at it.

@Bobotron There is a crafts board that never gets any love, it would probably fit there nicely, though.

Some day, when I win the lottery and have the kitchen to end all kitchens, I'm inviting everyone over for the MSB Meatloaf-and-Similar-Foods Cookoff. That's just all there is to it.

...though maybe we should start a recipes/nom nom nom thread at this point?

@Ganymede You reminded me of the other thing we used to make with that stuff with the green pepper mention. My grandmother (and then mother, even though that grandmother amusingly was not her mother, but my father's) would cut the top off of a green pepper, hollow it out, fill it with the same meat mix, drizzle her homemade tomato sauce over the top, and throw it in the oven. SO GOOD.

There was a weird tuna variation for Fridays, too, because Catholics, and even not being a huge fan of canned tuna, it came out weirdly delicious.

@Apu Depending on how long ago it was, it may have been a thing with the stitches and wound glue. (It's what they invented super glue for actually, but it's not the kind really used now so much.) I had a creepy line of what looked like a million staples, which... so intellectually creepy. I am scared as hell of Office Depot now.

@Cupcake said in The 100: The Mush:

@TNP: Naw, it was okay. I am, like @surreality, in wait and see mode. But Zack McGowan is now a regular castmember, so that seems like it is all to the good. It's just hard not to watch the show and be filled with a certain level of wistfulness for what could have been, gamewise.

They cut his hair, though! Which is not OK. It's just not! Ahem. <tucks her fangirling back into her pocket and gets a case of the shifty-eyes>

Clearly, most of those bullets just shot his hair off. I'mma go with that theory for the time being.

Creepy battle scar finally being healed up enough, with staples removed, to take a very long bath, not an awkward dance between the raindrops in the world's dinkiest shower trying to avoid the staples getting wet.

Bubbles for the fucking win.

@Roz I think that's what ours is, yeah. I know it has beef and veal, it was the pork I was blanking on. And agreed: it's like... if it was just beef or pork, wouldn't it be beefloaf? Or porkloaf? Which sounded like it should be a thing until I typed 'beefloaf' and instantly and unavoidably read it aloud in my head and realized how strange and wrong 'beefloaf' sounds.

...that we're discussing the best ways to prep meatloaf in the RL Anger thread is one of the reasons I love this forum sometimes.

We always do a mix of meats in ours. I have to wonder if that's normal or something we just picked up from my grandmother, as she'd use the leftovers to make meatballs (or the leftovers from meatballs to make meatloaf, depending). It's usually the meatball mix our local butcher shop has -- and I forget precisely what's in it, but it's beef and a few other things pre-blended from fresh, and it's really, really good, if a bit pricier than just using ground beef.

I am on the fence, wait and see mode.

Also: yay, Black Sails is back. This will help fill the gaping void in my soul for a little while.

But not completely. Not unless we get the best judgy-eyed haunting in the history of ever. (I'm refraining from spoilering anyone who hasn't seen the previous season, but anyone who has doubtless knows precisely what I'm talking about. Most well-deserved judgy-eyed haunting ever.)

@ThatGuyThere Yup. I have the Italian version. (Though it's my euromutt mother who is the most 'church every single day' over the top with it.)

@Ganymede I am a recovering Catholic. (The rest of the family still is.)

You would think this would give me some immunity, but as we both surely know, it works in reverse: being Catholic (even if not presently) is more like a force multiplier.

@Coin <patpat> It's OK. Everybody yells at me when I'm being stupid. I manage to draw a spectacular amount of attention to myself when I do, y'see. It invites comment.

@Coin WELL I KEPT TELLING EVERYBODY I WOULD HAVE SOMEBODY AROUND WHO WAS ALWAYS WILLING TO YELL AT ME WHEN I'M BEING DUMB AND THAT MEANS IT'S YOU OR...

...shit, that is pretty open-ended now that I come to think on it a moment.

...surprise?

@Coin ...they don't know you agreed to co-headwiz things with me if I ever finish one of these things because I officially trust you to yell at me if I am doing or am about to do something profoundly stupid, do they...