Saturday, June 26, 2004

I Guess I'm Sampo
Here's a story that I might or might not end up finishing. (note: I won't post recipes on story posts.)



I walked into the diner and scanned the area for an empty seat. Found a booth in the corner of the building and helped myself to it. A short woman walked up to me, handed me a menu, and asked me what I wanted to drink.

"Coffee, please."

She was wearing black polkadot dress and had a large mole slightly below and in front of her ear. As she walked off to prepare my coffee, I noticed how crowded the diner seemed. There was going to be lots of people on the road today, and there wasn't another place to eat for miles.

When I finished my omlet and biscuits, I left the money on the counter and walked out. I got in my car and noticed that I was rather low on gas. Out across the plain, I could see a dot that might have been a gas station, and headed towards it.

I coasted into the station, and, when I saw how desolate it was, looked through the dirty windows to scan for personell.

I heard a voice behind me:

"Hey there, Sampo!"

I turned around to see a man with a nametag that read 'Dishawn'. Strange name for a Latino.

"You want to get some gas?"

"Well, that's what I came here for."

While he was pumping the gas, he asked me my name.

"Well, I guess my name's Sampo." I could live with that.

I started to walk into the store.

I woke up looking at the metal ceiling of the overhang outside the gas station. I rubbed my head, and looked for my car. It was long gone, of course, along with 'Dishawn'. I lay there on the ground for a few minutes and thought about what I was going to do. I remembered that I couldn't delay, and went inside the store to stock up as much as I could. I got a black duffel bag, five bags of potato chips, some fruit drinks and several bottles of water.

I hesitated as I was walking out the door, and, fool though I be, left about thirty dollars on the counter.
Comments (1) | Permalink

Ehhhhhh......
I've been trying to create a forum, and I found a fairly useful site to do it on. However, this site didn't exactly have top-of-the-line features, even on the premium account.

But recently, I found a forum tool called phpBB that looked fairly good (was it on Semjaza's forum that I found out about it?), and I just downloaded it and a zip program to unzip it. One sad fact that I overlooked, though, was that I also needed a webhost.

Bleghhh...

Finding a webhost has to be the most haggling process on the planet, at least when you want a free one. See, I've got no source of income and no way to create a source (that just may change when I get to Kansas, though. Never know, eh?). So if anyone knows of a (good) free webhost ... please ... I need your help.

Otherwise, I may have to resort to getting some money and using Velegant. EEK!

lol.

------------------------



Pan-Fried Donuts
(I told you guys I'd find you an easy one ^_^)


1 tube of biscuits
Powdered sugar
Water


If you can't get those ingredients, stop reading now and order some take-out. You'll be eating it the rest of your life.

Pour a little bit of grease into a pan, and get it heated up. Poke a hole into the center of each biscuit, and fry them in the pan (I really shouldn't have to say this, but remember to turn them over and get both sides cooked).

Mix the sugar and the water together until it becomes thick enough to coat the doughnuts with. Now, do just that.

There! I've just cheated my way out of a recipe, and it still tastes good. If it doesn't, you screwed something up big time. Once again, get some take-out.
Comments (0) | Permalink

Saturday, June 19, 2004

Meow.
I just found out that my cat had kittens. There was three of them, but turns out one didn't make it. We buried him (or her) in the backyard by the garden. The other two are black and albino. Not sure if we'll end up keeping them or not, but we most likely will at least until we get to Kansas.

In other news, I've decided (boy, you saw this coming) to not post a recipe every time I post. Too much work, and it keeps me from posting. I'll try to throw one in there every three posts or so.

In other other news, my brother got his laptop back and it's fully repaired (there were some motherboard problems). In fact, I'm using it right now. He also got a copy of the ever-addictive Hitman 2 because it turns out that Deus Ex: Invisible War, which he would've stuck with before, has to have that damn Pixelshader to run, and his graphics card can't handle it.

In more other news, yesterday was our last day operating the restaraunt. Now we just have to get it shut down and get all our stuff out of there. What a relief.

In other more other ne -- wait.



...



No, never mind. That's all I've got to say.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Back! Back!
We've got the restaraunt sold, and we have to be out of it by July 1st. Not a problem.

Now we need to get our gigantic house in good shape. And when I say "good shape", I mean that we should hide all signs that would make people think we are not Martha Stewart. That means cramming into a box all the possesions that we own except the clothes on our backs (and we're still toying with that idea). For now, though, we're still seeing if we can fend off our real estate agent with a whip and a stool.

-------------------


King Ranch Chicken
(This recipe makes a few gallons. You'll want to tone it down a bit.)


4 lb. Sliced (or cubed or whatever) chicken
½ gal. Chicken Broth
1 cup Chopped onions
2 can Cream of chicken soup
1 ½ lb. Grated cheddar cheese
2 t Cayenne pepper
2 t Cumin
2 T Chili Powder
2 T Granulated garlic
1(23oz) can Diced tomatoes
1 Bag of tortilla chips
1 pkg Flour Tortillas


Mix together all seasonings, chicken, onion, soups, cheese, chilies, tomatoes and chips in a pan and add a little broth to make it sloppy. Soak flour tortillas in lukewarm broth for a few minutes. Layer the tortillas and soup mix in a pan until pan is full. Finish with soup mix on top. If too dry add more broth. Makes 1- 2” full pan. Bake uncovered 375 for about an hour. Sprinkle with cheese.
Comments (2) | Permalink

Sunday, June 6, 2004

Auntie Em!
Hidey-ho! I may not be posting all too often for a while (woah! Big changes!), because I have to pack up my house to move to Kansas.

Yep, the job offer went through, and we should be moving around July 5 or so. Strangely, though, I'm not sad about moving at all. In fact, I'm quite relieved. My sister and I have been ready to get out of this town, and start over somewhere else. I think it'll end up being pretty fun.

Also, Baron Samedi told me to send him one of Brother John's famous strawberry pies, and although I (sadly) couldn't do that, it gave me an idea. Before, I had posted holidays that occured all over the world on that day at the end of all of my myO posts. Eventually, though, the site that posted those holidays ceased to do so, for reasons yet unknown. Since then, I've been trying to come up with a new daily info-bit to conclude my posts. So with Baron's inspiration, I'm going to start posting a daily recipe! Starting with the requested strawberry pie, I'll try to put these at the end of every post I make. I'll try to keep them fairly simple (moreso than this pie), since I know most of you don't own a restaraunt and consequently don't have a whole bunch of obscure ingredients at your disposal. You people just tell me how you're groovin' with it.

-------------------------

The Brother John's Totally Awesome Strawberry Pie

-1 baked 9-inch pie shell
-2 pt. fresh strawberries
-3/4 c. sugar
-2 Tbsp. cornstarch
-3/4 c. water
-3 Tbsp. Strawberry Jell-O mix
-Cool Whip



Wash the strawberries and cap them (cut off the stems). Cut them up into small slices or chunks (whatever floats your boat).

Mix the sugar with cornstarch in a saucepan. Add the water. Cook the mixture on a stove while stirring it until it becomes thick (two or three minutes). Take it off the stove and stir in the Jell-O mix. Let the whole thing cool until it's lukewarm.

Put the strawberries in the bottom of the pie crust and pour on the filling. Make sure the filling is fairly smoothed out, and top it off with the Cool Whip. Try not to glob it all on at once, or you'll make the filling spill over the edge of the pie. That not good. Instead, put it on a few smaller globs at a time, and spread them around.

If you want to make it look a little prettier, fan a strawberry and put it on the top. To fan a strawberry, cut it in lines toward the stem, but stop before you cut all the way through the strawberry. Now, just fan the pieces out with your fingers. Bam!
Comments (4) | Permalink

Friday, June 4, 2004

Mmm...pie
I just got done making a strawberry pie that someone ordered at the restaraunt. Man, we've got the best strawberry pies in the world. I'm not exaggerating when I say that, either. If everyone on Earth got together and had a strawberry pie contest, our pie would come in first. It's that good.

In other news, my precious Palm got wet, and is now ruined. I plan to sell it on Ebay for parts. Right now, I'm looking at an m505 for only $36 (yes, you read right). There's three hours left on the auction, so we'll see what happens.

In other other news, my cat may be pregnant. We're not sure, but she's gained a lot of weight really fast and has started to get more sensitive to people touching her stomach.

I'm thinking about putting a song on my site, but I'll have to find a good one already on the 'net (I can't find a good song upload site, and the computer that has all my songs on it crashed anyway). Stay tuned; same John channel, same John time.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Friday, May 28, 2004

Crawfish and air guitar twinkies
My family finally celebrated my birthday, March 29, two days ago. We got a 35-pound bag of live crawfish, just like we used to have, and boiled half of them off (the other half was boiled yesterday). They weren't spicy at all, though, because my dad is still recovering from throat cancer and can't eat anything relatively spicy. But they were still good and in plenty. I got a pair of surfing ducky boxers, a hundred dollars from my dad (I think that's the first time he's ever given me money on my birthday), and an Anberlin CD.

I had been wanting their CD ever since I saw Anberlin in concert with Relient K and Don't Look Down. The concert was awesome, especially when the heavy-set guy in the Twinkie suit jumped onstage on Relient K's last song and started playing air guitar on a strange tube-thing, which turned out to be a potatoe gun that shot out a spray of confetti at the end of the song. Wow, that was great. ^_^

Anberlin is incredibly talented, but they couldn't ever make it big just because they're a Christian band. Christian bands, strictly by stereotype, are supposedly untalented, so the big labels like Virgin usually won't give them a try. There have been a few exceptions (DC Talk, P.O.D., Switchfoot), but as a general rule, producers don't go for Christian bands.

I personally think they have much better music (in terms of rock) than secular (with the exception of Creed). There's a ton of variety with Christian rock. Do yourself a favor and look into Blindside or Pax 217.

Of course, Anberlin is more punk than rock, and there's just no debate that Christian punk is better than non-Christan. In fact, I usually hate punk, but I've come to like bands like Ghoti Hook, Anberlin, and Relienk K. No hypocritical "I'm better than the world" lyrics; no scowling, nasal-voiced singers; actual music. Look into those bands, too. They're worth your while.
Comments (4) | Permalink

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

The Health Nazis Knocketh
The health inspectors came to our restaraunt today. If you're a restaraunt owner, you know how it is. A casually dressed man and woman, wearing their best poker faces, enter your facility and slowly stalk around, inspecting everything in the building: grills, sinks, ink pens. Sometimes they'll murmur things quietly to each other, and you just know what they're saying:


INSPECTOR 1: Stop! I think I saw something move.

INSPECTOR 2: Where?

INSPECTOR 1: Over there, by the grill.

INSPECTOR 2: I think that's the owner.

INSPECTOR 1: I think it's another twenty bucks.


You may think I'm exaggerating, and maybe you're right, but I would be a lot less suspicious if they didn't earn commision for pointing out things we do wrong to their bosses.

All in all, it ended up with them leaving quietly, fancy tablet PC's tucked under arm. We'll see how it turned out tomorrow...
Comments (2) | Permalink

Spring Cleaning
As you can see, I redid my layout again. The last one wasn't very consistent and I just didn't like the look of it. This looks much more solid. I was also going to put another painting up, but I was having some troubles with that.

I kind of like not having a table since everyone else has one, but you tell me what you think. Now my sister's bugging me, and I must get off. Have a good one.
Comments (2) | Permalink

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Time for an actual post, just as I promised you all (you all meaning rustym and Baron Samedi). In the latest news of my life, I recently found out from my dad that we may be moving to Kansas (I'm in Louisiana now) early this summer. The restaraunt that we own is floundering, and we have very little money left. In all of my dad's other jobs, he had run the food service at universities. He was excellent at what he did, and so it was very surprising for all of us when he got let go. Of course, we see it as a God thing, because he got to start a restaraunt, something he's been wanting to do for a long time, and we've gotten a good twenty people saved through that.

Mooooving on, he'll be doing the same thing in Kansas for a small university (about two thousand kids). It'll eventually be much, much easier than the other ones, but not at first since he's still recovering from throat cancer. I personally don't have too many objections to moving since I'll be starting highschool, and that's going to be a huge change either way. In fact, I'm about ready to get out of the South. Too much ignorance down here. That's coverage live from the scene.

In anime news, I borrowed the first four episodes of Evangelion from a friend, and it's putting up a strong challenge against Cowboy Bebop for my favorite anime. I even expected it to be somewhat ruined since I've read most of the episode summaries already (curse my impatience), but it really wasn't (the episode two summary was very inaccurate, anyway). The fight scenes are amazing. I can't wait for my friend to buy the rest of the series. ^_^
Comments (2) | Permalink