(no subject)
bored and avoiding packing (how did i end up with so many winter clothes? oh yeah...i live in the frozen tundra, ugh), so i've decided to make a few more 5er lists! :D
As you may or may not know, I go through phases where there will be certain foods that I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF. It's really random, and there's no telling what they will be, but the cravings will hit with a fierceness, causing me to shovel the foods down my gullet 24/7. One memorable example was in college, when I suddenly had to have raw carrots all the time. They had to be plain and unadorned, and I needed a large quantity of them at all times. Didn't think anything of it until that fateful night: I did my business and looked down to see neon orange poops glaring out from within the pristine waters of the porceain bowl. Unfortunately, my roomie TP was not present anywhere in the near vicinity--otherwise she would have been forcedinvited to share in the wonder that was the byproduct of my beta-carotene consumption. I cut back on the carrots a bit after that, until the cravings slowly died away. And now? Can't say I've bought carrots to be eaten on their own in about 4 years or so, though this may also be due to the fact that my Japan has no bags of baby carrots, only monster daikon-sized singles.
ANYWAY
Current 5 food obsessions:
7-11's new choregi salad - Oh man. Oh man. Pretty much the best thing ever, due mostly in part to the derricious garlicky sesame dressing. It's pretty much the same dressing on lettuce you get at Korean BBQ, but this salad includes the wakame, cucumbers, mini tomato AND a packet of seasoned korean seaweed flakes. My only beef is the PRICE! WTF over 300yen for just VEGGIES? and a puny serving of veggies at that? As a result, I am currently experimenting with different choregi dressing recipes so I can make my own at home.
Chikuwa no isobe age - Meat? What meat? It's all about fish paste pounded and shaped into hollow cylindrical tubes battered in some potato starch n dried green seaweed before gettin DEEP FRIED. Ohhhh yeaaaaah. I could make this at home, but I don't wanna deal with actually frying things, plus it's extra cheep from the supermarket's readymade fried goodies corner.
Meiji Burugaria aloe yogurt - No lie, I eat 3 of these a day. Need help! One peeve with this otherwise perfect product is: no matter what I do, every time I open the foil seal, a little yogurt splurts from the opening with a trajectory (if not volume) Peter North would envy. This has earned me many a side eye and disapproving air intake from teachers sitting nearby at the break table at work. :/
Calbee Beji Taberu chips - i c what you did thar Calbee. Beji Taberu = eat veggies, Bejitaberu = vegetable(s). The different colors all have noticeably different flavors, and green is the best. If you disagree, then hand over the green ones! These are super light and airy, and I go through a bag in like 5 minutes. :( Finally, heart shaped chips? Oh, Japan.
House Spicy Blend curry roux - Since I discovered it 2 years ago, it is the only curry roux I will buy to make curry @ home. Recently, I've gone through about 3 packs of this in a month...meaning I've been making it at least once a week. Japanese curry overall is nice, but I really like spicy food, and this is the spiciest roux I've been able to find. Even at LEVEL 5 OH NO!, it's not even that spicy, but you can feel a little tingle of heat, which is more than can be said for level 4. :/ Fair warning to those (poor) intolerant souls of capsaicin: Upon trying anything I deem to be appropriately spiced, Nishipoot has been known to squeal, "WHY DOES IT TASTE LIKE BURNING?" But even she would prolly be fine with this... :D
5 FAVORITE tv shows:
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1st and 2nd seasons only...the 3rd is meh and the 4th is unwatchable) - I literally CRIED and had FITS if there was the possibility of being late and missing even a second of this show when it originally aired. At the end of the first season, my 10 year old self looked up the ABC offices in the yellow pages to call and find out if L&C was being renewed. I was transferred many a time, until I got to the phone number for the office of Deborah Joy Levine, who developed the show. I called weekly, fretful to hear any news. Her assistant would actually talk to me, probably in awe of that fact that I was able to be such a stalker at my tender age. Remember, this was in 1993, when the internets (or the worldwideweb) was still in its infancy, okay? When you still had to stalk the old-fashioned way. Today this info would probably be posted on one of 384793324 lj communities or message boards or something, and some 5 year old can call about what happened to Steve on Blue's Clues. ANYWAY, this was my first and still is my #1 show, though I pretend that the 4th season never existed.
Remington Steele - Didn't catch it when it originally aired, because, hey! Still a twinkle in my father's eye and all that, but I found it in re-runs on A&E and it was love at first sight! Lois & Clark was my number one, but this is totally my number 2, with an added bonus of Pierce Brosnan's chest hair. Like L&C, the first season is my favorite, the second season had an overhaul of 2ndary characters, and the last season is not that great. I totally wanted to be Laura Holt--she was like an older, cooler Nancy Drew, and I still want her VW Rabbit.
Silk Stalkings - AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH this show is my JAM! I remember staying up late with the TV volume turned down low so the sexy noises wouldn't be heard by my parents. Of course my pure eyes and prepubescent hormones were intrigued by the low rent skinemax, but my heart and brain totally loved Detectives Chris and Rita. Like L&C and RS, strong female character somehow involved in crime solving/reporting. And, of course, the WILL YOU TWO JUST DO IT ALREADY? BUT DON'T REALLY DO IT TILL THE END romantic tension. The series died for me at the end when Chris and Rita were replaced by some other people? SO not the same. SPOILER ALERT (because I know you all totally care) Literally the DAY after Chris and Rita get the hitched, he DIES in the line of fire leaving her ALONE and PREGGERS. D: So she leaves the force and the two characters are replaced by some random other actors who are transferred in? Yeah, no. /SPOILER ALERT
The Adventures of Sinbad - Oh. My. God. If you ever wanted the definition of "so bad it's good", this is the show. It was made around the same time as Hercules and Xena, but with much less money involved. Here are the only things you need to know: Zen Gesner(Sinbad)'s foundation is flawless. They used the SAME giant exploding crab scene THREE (3!) different times over the course of the first season (and have a propensity for using giant animals in general, including but not limited to a goat, bird, and tarantula), and Bret "the Hitman" Hart guest starred as a Viking named Eyolf. Oh yes, this show must be seen to be believed. Other highlights include: a RONIN teaching Sinbad the way of the BUSHido, as well as tatami made by laying down noticeably crooked electrical tape on some woven mat, and the quote "My my my. I do so love your firey red hair." said in a monotone. The woman with the hair in question is in the picture below. Yep.
The Golden Girls - The BEST comedy series ever. My personal favorite is Sophia--she always has the best lines. I can and have rewatched all the episodes many times over, and I still love 'em every time.
oh man, adding pics is annoying. SO! Everything else is text only. :D
5 sites I visit daily:
gmail - Who doesn't?
google reader - Only need to visit one site to read 4237897432987489321! Unless people pull that plz visit my site to read the rest of the entry biznax, which is MASSIVELY annoying.
cookpad - This is THE BEST site for Japanese recipes...if you can read Japanese, you're totally golden. Any possible jp dish you can think of, I guarantee you'll find a delicious version written in easy to understand moonspeak! :D It's where I'm getting my choregi recipes, where I learned to make gyudon better than any Yoshinoya or Sukiya, where I learned to make my beloved harusame salad, and where I can go to re-make any deliciousness that I've ever encountered in Japan. I guess it's kind of like a Japanese Recipezaar or Epicurious. It also has Japanese style interpretations of foreign foods, so if you're ever missing JP style Chinese (UGH) or JP style Itarian, this is yr place! I usually visit when I think about what I wanna eat for dindins.
postcrossing - Officially a postcard addict. I love it!
makeupalley - I have been visiting this site since 2000. TEN YEARS! gotdang mang, 10 mothertruckin' years! People who wonder why I know so much about makeup and beauty craps when they never see me wear/use any can thank this place (along with allure magazine). It inspires so many lemmings, and I NEVER buy any western brand beauty product without consulting this shizz first. My main hangout is the product reviews, but sometimes I like poking on their message boards too. I don't do swaps, because, I'm sorry, no thanks to someone's used lipstick. Just my paranoia inherited from mom, but yeah. Happily, more and more Asian brands are being added and reviewed on MUA, but it's nowhere near as comprehensive as the Western stuff. For Japanese/some Korean products I visit cosme, which is pretty much a jp makeupalley, but my Japanese isn't good enough to really be able to decipher the reviews beyond GOOD or BAD. Also, I read a handful of beauty blogs dedicated to Asian cosmetics and skincare (see: google reader).
You'll notice that I did not include the lj on that list...it would have been #6, I swear! :D
aaaand now time to catch up on RuPaul's Drag Race season 2!
As you may or may not know, I go through phases where there will be certain foods that I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF. It's really random, and there's no telling what they will be, but the cravings will hit with a fierceness, causing me to shovel the foods down my gullet 24/7. One memorable example was in college, when I suddenly had to have raw carrots all the time. They had to be plain and unadorned, and I needed a large quantity of them at all times. Didn't think anything of it until that fateful night: I did my business and looked down to see neon orange poops glaring out from within the pristine waters of the porceain bowl. Unfortunately, my roomie TP was not present anywhere in the near vicinity--otherwise she would have been forcedinvited to share in the wonder that was the byproduct of my beta-carotene consumption. I cut back on the carrots a bit after that, until the cravings slowly died away. And now? Can't say I've bought carrots to be eaten on their own in about 4 years or so, though this may also be due to the fact that my Japan has no bags of baby carrots, only monster daikon-sized singles.
ANYWAY
Current 5 food obsessions:
7-11's new choregi salad - Oh man. Oh man. Pretty much the best thing ever, due mostly in part to the derricious garlicky sesame dressing. It's pretty much the same dressing on lettuce you get at Korean BBQ, but this salad includes the wakame, cucumbers, mini tomato AND a packet of seasoned korean seaweed flakes. My only beef is the PRICE! WTF over 300yen for just VEGGIES? and a puny serving of veggies at that? As a result, I am currently experimenting with different choregi dressing recipes so I can make my own at home.
Chikuwa no isobe age - Meat? What meat? It's all about fish paste pounded and shaped into hollow cylindrical tubes battered in some potato starch n dried green seaweed before gettin DEEP FRIED. Ohhhh yeaaaaah. I could make this at home, but I don't wanna deal with actually frying things, plus it's extra cheep from the supermarket's readymade fried goodies corner.
Meiji Burugaria aloe yogurt - No lie, I eat 3 of these a day. Need help! One peeve with this otherwise perfect product is: no matter what I do, every time I open the foil seal, a little yogurt splurts from the opening with a trajectory (if not volume) Peter North would envy. This has earned me many a side eye and disapproving air intake from teachers sitting nearby at the break table at work. :/
Calbee Beji Taberu chips - i c what you did thar Calbee. Beji Taberu = eat veggies, Bejitaberu = vegetable(s). The different colors all have noticeably different flavors, and green is the best. If you disagree, then hand over the green ones! These are super light and airy, and I go through a bag in like 5 minutes. :( Finally, heart shaped chips? Oh, Japan.
House Spicy Blend curry roux - Since I discovered it 2 years ago, it is the only curry roux I will buy to make curry @ home. Recently, I've gone through about 3 packs of this in a month...meaning I've been making it at least once a week. Japanese curry overall is nice, but I really like spicy food, and this is the spiciest roux I've been able to find. Even at LEVEL 5 OH NO!, it's not even that spicy, but you can feel a little tingle of heat, which is more than can be said for level 4. :/ Fair warning to those (poor) intolerant souls of capsaicin: Upon trying anything I deem to be appropriately spiced, Nishipoot has been known to squeal, "WHY DOES IT TASTE LIKE BURNING?" But even she would prolly be fine with this... :D
5 FAVORITE tv shows:
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1st and 2nd seasons only...the 3rd is meh and the 4th is unwatchable) - I literally CRIED and had FITS if there was the possibility of being late and missing even a second of this show when it originally aired. At the end of the first season, my 10 year old self looked up the ABC offices in the yellow pages to call and find out if L&C was being renewed. I was transferred many a time, until I got to the phone number for the office of Deborah Joy Levine, who developed the show. I called weekly, fretful to hear any news. Her assistant would actually talk to me, probably in awe of that fact that I was able to be such a stalker at my tender age. Remember, this was in 1993, when the internets (or the worldwideweb) was still in its infancy, okay? When you still had to stalk the old-fashioned way. Today this info would probably be posted on one of 384793324 lj communities or message boards or something, and some 5 year old can call about what happened to Steve on Blue's Clues. ANYWAY, this was my first and still is my #1 show, though I pretend that the 4th season never existed.
Remington Steele - Didn't catch it when it originally aired, because, hey! Still a twinkle in my father's eye and all that, but I found it in re-runs on A&E and it was love at first sight! Lois & Clark was my number one, but this is totally my number 2, with an added bonus of Pierce Brosnan's chest hair. Like L&C, the first season is my favorite, the second season had an overhaul of 2ndary characters, and the last season is not that great. I totally wanted to be Laura Holt--she was like an older, cooler Nancy Drew, and I still want her VW Rabbit.
Silk Stalkings - AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH this show is my JAM! I remember staying up late with the TV volume turned down low so the sexy noises wouldn't be heard by my parents. Of course my pure eyes and prepubescent hormones were intrigued by the low rent skinemax, but my heart and brain totally loved Detectives Chris and Rita. Like L&C and RS, strong female character somehow involved in crime solving/reporting. And, of course, the WILL YOU TWO JUST DO IT ALREADY? BUT DON'T REALLY DO IT TILL THE END romantic tension. The series died for me at the end when Chris and Rita were replaced by some other people? SO not the same. SPOILER ALERT (because I know you all totally care) Literally the DAY after Chris and Rita get the hitched, he DIES in the line of fire leaving her ALONE and PREGGERS. D: So she leaves the force and the two characters are replaced by some random other actors who are transferred in? Yeah, no. /SPOILER ALERT
The Adventures of Sinbad - Oh. My. God. If you ever wanted the definition of "so bad it's good", this is the show. It was made around the same time as Hercules and Xena, but with much less money involved. Here are the only things you need to know: Zen Gesner(Sinbad)'s foundation is flawless. They used the SAME giant exploding crab scene THREE (3!) different times over the course of the first season (and have a propensity for using giant animals in general, including but not limited to a goat, bird, and tarantula), and Bret "the Hitman" Hart guest starred as a Viking named Eyolf. Oh yes, this show must be seen to be believed. Other highlights include: a RONIN teaching Sinbad the way of the BUSHido, as well as tatami made by laying down noticeably crooked electrical tape on some woven mat, and the quote "My my my. I do so love your firey red hair." said in a monotone. The woman with the hair in question is in the picture below. Yep.
The Golden Girls - The BEST comedy series ever. My personal favorite is Sophia--she always has the best lines. I can and have rewatched all the episodes many times over, and I still love 'em every time.
oh man, adding pics is annoying. SO! Everything else is text only. :D
5 sites I visit daily:
gmail - Who doesn't?
google reader - Only need to visit one site to read 4237897432987489321! Unless people pull that plz visit my site to read the rest of the entry biznax, which is MASSIVELY annoying.
cookpad - This is THE BEST site for Japanese recipes...if you can read Japanese, you're totally golden. Any possible jp dish you can think of, I guarantee you'll find a delicious version written in easy to understand moonspeak! :D It's where I'm getting my choregi recipes, where I learned to make gyudon better than any Yoshinoya or Sukiya, where I learned to make my beloved harusame salad, and where I can go to re-make any deliciousness that I've ever encountered in Japan. I guess it's kind of like a Japanese Recipezaar or Epicurious. It also has Japanese style interpretations of foreign foods, so if you're ever missing JP style Chinese (UGH) or JP style Itarian, this is yr place! I usually visit when I think about what I wanna eat for dindins.
postcrossing - Officially a postcard addict. I love it!
makeupalley - I have been visiting this site since 2000. TEN YEARS! gotdang mang, 10 mothertruckin' years! People who wonder why I know so much about makeup and beauty craps when they never see me wear/use any can thank this place (along with allure magazine). It inspires so many lemmings, and I NEVER buy any western brand beauty product without consulting this shizz first. My main hangout is the product reviews, but sometimes I like poking on their message boards too. I don't do swaps, because, I'm sorry, no thanks to someone's used lipstick. Just my paranoia inherited from mom, but yeah. Happily, more and more Asian brands are being added and reviewed on MUA, but it's nowhere near as comprehensive as the Western stuff. For Japanese/some Korean products I visit cosme, which is pretty much a jp makeupalley, but my Japanese isn't good enough to really be able to decipher the reviews beyond GOOD or BAD. Also, I read a handful of beauty blogs dedicated to Asian cosmetics and skincare (see: google reader).
You'll notice that I did not include the lj on that list...it would have been #6, I swear! :D
aaaand now time to catch up on RuPaul's Drag Race season 2!