A post full of unrelated thoughts

Not really much substance in the posts lately. Oh well. Sometimes I'm just happier posting a picture. I'll make up for it now with a gargantuan post.

Anyway.

So, Celebrity Apprentice. Anyone watch it? We DVR it and usually get around to watching it on Tuesday or Wednesday. It's been rough with all the episodes being 2 hours long this season. I was rooting for Jesse the whole time so I was kind of bummed to see him fired this last week. I think they took the easy, exploitative way out to have Joan and Annie in the final. But that's what's "entertaining" I guess. It will be interesting.

The task last week, the whole Chicken of the Sea thing, got me thinking. Is their catch phrase really that great of a marketing plan? "Ask any mermaid you happen to see, what's the best tuna? Chicken of the Sea." Hrm. First of all, how original to rhyme see with sea. Second of all, mermaids are mythological creatures. They don't exist. So it's like having Bigfoot represent Nike or the Loch Ness Monster shill for Guinness. Why would you want to base your whole brand on an endorsement from something that doesn't exist? Then again, I'm a left-brained accounting dork so I guess I don't know anything about that kind of thing.

In other news, I watched Doubt last weekend. Adam lasted about half an hour and got bored. I didn't get bored, necessarily, I just wasn't riveted. Meryl Streep sure had some zingers there though. The overall subject wasn't really interesting to me and I'm generally bothered by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. (I always get the feeling he's overacting...) So, one more down. We've got Bolt on the end table waiting to be watched this weekend.

On an entirely different subject, Cosmo had an article about kitchen must-haves ("what you need to cook, entertain, and look chic".) As Cosmo is my guide for pretty much everything (pause for laughter) I figured I'd see how I stacked up:

Cast Iron Skillet - check
Fondue Set - check. I actually had TWO at one point but I gave one away
Pepper Mill - check
Espresso Machine - nope, but we do have two different coffee makers, including one of those one-cup thingies with the pods. They make espresso pods. Does that count?
Sandwich Press - check. It's one of the interchangeable plate sets on the waffle iron.
Cocktail Shaker - check

And three things every chick should know how to do:
1. Pass off Takeout as a Home-Cooked Meal - Uh, how about you just cook something? If you order Chinese it's obvious you didn't make it. And why lie to your guests? They really don't care how the food got there as long as it's edible...
2. Uncork a Bottle of Wine - I still struggle with this one. I think it's my low center of gravity and wimpy arms. And the overly complicated, scary corkscrew that we have. Seriously. It could probably coordinate a rocket launch it's so high-tech.
3. Make a Quick Bite - It's easy to throw all kinds of things together. I'm partial to pasta, but I can make pretty much anything (as long as it doesn't require cutting in butter or phyllo dough. I draw the line there.)

So, I did pretty well on this one. Whew! I'm not a complete failure!

This weekend looks to be pretty crappy weather wise so we'll probably stay in for the most part. The bells play for the last time tomorrow evening and Adam might try to go see Fast and Furious. Nothing much else going on. We plan to try and head to the drive-in next weekend.

I've been doing a lot better at keeping the cooking blog updated these past few weeks. Some interesting new recipes. I also revamped our personal website last weekend. The wedding thing was a little outdated now. It's totally boring, but I'm still thinking about what else to do there.

It's been a long month-end week and I'd love an uninterrupted night of sleep. Carly seems to go back and forth between waking me up every hour and a half and waking me up just once during the night. Last night it was just once, around 3. The night before it was at least 4 times. It's annoying, but if I try to ignore her she just knocks stuff around and jumps on me. And either Adam is totally oblivious or he's playing dumb. So I'm stuck carrying a cat (who is perfectly capable of walking) to her food bowl multiple times each night. *sigh* Hopefully she'll grow out of this phase eventually.

That's about all I can think of right now. Time for bed.