12.31.06
Posted in Imported at 11:43 am by coldclimate
I don’t know - first trkey sandwiches and now washing up, I’m becoming too domesticated. Over the last few weeks I have found myself washing up, and it occurs to me quite how bad at it most people are. Now as numerous ex-flatmates will testify, I leave washing up for as long as possible until there is a stack which is both a work of art of construction, and a health hazard. It towers above the sink and wafts in the breeze. However once I start, I belive myself to be a fine washeruper, mostly because I did do it to earn money in a very busy kitchien, partly because it’s just so bloody obvious oif you think about it.
There are 5 keythings to good washing up, which are grading the stuff to be washed, removeing the food detritus, hot water, soap and finally changing the water.
Everything that needs to be washed should be graded before starting. Do no just start with whatever is in the sink, as this will be a mishmash of stuff, and it will go horribly wrong. Sort out stuff that needs soaking (there’s another rant in here about that), stuff thats greesy, stuff thats lightly soiled, and glassware. This is irnoically th reverse order to how things will be washed.
Removing the food detritus before it hits the sink is key, otherwise all out do it float all the shit and manky crap into the lovely hot water, where it floats to the surface and everything you put into the bowl, or pull out of it, gets a nice thin layer coating it. Yak. Professional kitchiens have paintscrapers on hand for KPs and dishers to scrap food off into the shitbox (like a bin, only bigger). Do the same, and use you hands to get into the corners. The more goes in the bin, the less you have to wash off - easy. Washing up bowls should never have pieces of whole food (pasta shapes, veg , I once saw a chicken leg bone) flaoting in the water, it’s just vile.
Hot water is key. Warm water thats nice on your hands does fuck all. It needs to e so hot that it hurts to up you hand in. It’s there to denature proteins and melt fat. Hot - very hot. Use a kettle if needed, but don’t have a huge owl of tepid water - it doesn’t do anything.
Soap is needed, but often over used. It’s there to disolve, embrase and float off the crap on the dishes. People put in loads and as a result have enough bubbles to look like a Fairy advert or some cheap porn. Bubbles don’t clean things, they just look like the adverts. You need a small amount. It’s just there to help hold the crap you rub off in solution/suspension in the hot water.
Changing the water is also important, and what you do with it is also key. If it looks like you’re washing in soup, then get it changed.
How to wash up - a step by step guide.
- Gather everything that needss to be washed. Check all rooms
- Remove everything from the sink, and pour away the fetted water that everything is standing in.
- Wash out the bowl - pointless having a dirty bowl pull of hot water
- Scrape everything into the bin. Everything. Once you’ve delt with a custard pan thats been quietly boiling for a whole day you canface putting your hand in anything.
- Put boiling water into thne things that need to soak. This should only be things like roasting tins.
- Run a bowl of very hot water, add a dash of soap, and wash all the glassware. Di it now before the bowl is full of shit
- Once all the glassware is down, or the water has gone cool, empty the water out using it to slews the pans of clingy bits
- Repeat this process working backwards thought the gradings of stuff. Leave the heaviest stuff till last so you keep the maximum amount of crap out of the bowl for as long as possible.
- You might need to stop and dry up. This is a good change to have a scrape at the stuff soaking too
- Once everything is washed, dried and put away, wipe down the working surfaces, and the bowl. I leave the bowl upside down to draim, proped aainst the taps, though ex housemate once complained I made the taps greasy. Fucker.
That is all. This post was bought to you by the words “frustrated” and “pedantic”, and the number “37″
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12.30.06
Posted in Imported at 8:57 pm by coldclimate
So much to say, so little to write. Damn it.
One cannot help thinking that showing Saddam the noose was not a wise idea. Heating the boiling pan solves no problems.
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12.26.06
Posted in Imported at 9:32 pm by coldclimate
Once again, microshite have proed themselves to be idiots. Vista includes a new hardware based autherication system or as it is being know long term death for windows
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Posted in Imported at 6:00 pm by coldclimate
Its pretty rare read somethign to do with people achiving physical feats that impresses me enough to consider doing anything, however when it appears in Wired.com, I start to listern. Wired 15.01: The Perfect Human makes a really interesting read.
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12.25.06
Posted in Imported at 10:11 pm by coldclimate
Once the roast is done, and the presents have been opened, the Queen has finished, and it is time for…
The Turkey Sandwich
Now there are rules. This is not a Pret special.
- Bread: It can only be sliced white plastic style bread. No crusty buns, no baggettes, no country cobs. Sliced white, possibly lightly toasted.
- Turkey: The best bits are the scrappy greasy bits that cling to the cracess, not the thin sliced breast. A mix of dark and light meat is essecial.
- Stuffing: again - the bits that cling to the inside of the cavity are ideal.
- Sauces: if it was on the table, you have it in the sandwick. Cranberry, apple and bread sauce are all essecial.
- Veg: If it was on the table, it goes into the sandwich. Slices brussels, a handfull of peas, cold roast parsnip is very very good.
- Gravy: cold gravy is virtal for that meaty flavour and slightly slimey texture. It also holds the thing together easily.
- Salt, pepper, mustard and pickles: Add as you wish, but I think only black pepper and a strincle of salt are needed.
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Posted in Imported at 8:08 pm by coldclimate
James Brown has died on Christmas Day. I have to admit I’m not his biggest fan but it is difficult not to admit his influence on the worlds music scene.
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12.22.06
Posted in Imported at 2:56 pm by coldclimate
I’m proud to call John Horton Conway my homeboy. Oh yes.
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Posted in Imported at 11:56 am by coldclimate
Ok, if i used iTunes’s random party mode to control the music at my party, it would suck badly. Just too random, and badly mixed. Check it out:
Fool (If You Think It’s Over)- Chris Rea
Mugwump - Terrorvision
Armageddon - Culture
Bitch - Eminem
Send His Love To Me - PJ Harvey
Retired Colourman - Sherlock Holmes audiobook
Ragga Jam - MC Solaar
Humpty Dance - Digital Underground
1a - Mky
Popcorn - Mad Caddies
the power of bizkit - Bastard popunknown
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Posted in Imported at 10:39 am by coldclimate
I want a blender. I want a really good blender. If these can eat marbles!c i want one.
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12.21.06
Posted in Imported at 5:56 pm by coldclimate
A Brief History of Rhyme: MC Hawking’s Greatest Hits
“You ever drop an egg and on the floor you see it break? You go and get a mop so you can clean up your mistake. But did you ever stop to ponder why we know it’s true, if you drop a broken egg you will not get an egg that’s new?” - From “Entropy”
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Posted in Imported at 2:20 pm by coldclimate
OK - this is odd but someone at 6music just in place a neat little tech-hack to feed whatever is being played on 6music out to last.fm, and it even has it’s own profile. he’s called sekrit.
In other news CNET has released a list of the geekiest creatures, which is a little American centric, and in some cases just plain rubbish (elephant who can fire a pistol and pickpockets - ASBO the fucker I say). However the list ofTop ten animal geeks is here. I’m lvoing the seal who spoke in “a drunken English accent, often hurling abuse at the neighbors”.
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12.19.06
Posted in Imported at 4:15 pm by coldclimate
BBC Programme Catalogue is in beta - it’s a bit like IMDB, but for Tv, and with an open geek development interface. Sweeeeeet.
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12.17.06
Posted in Imported at 2:54 pm by coldclimate
I’m going to fly somewhere, and walk somewhere, stay for a few days, and fly back, then walk from the airport to my house. Hopefully. Will Self’s slow walk into downtown New York looks like fun.
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Posted in Imported at 2:51 pm by coldclimate
Over Heard In New York + Google maps = overplot. Why didn’t I think of this.
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Posted in Imported at 2:50 pm by coldclimate
I stared at the map for ages on Friday night but I could only see the bird and the whale, but then today I ran across a link to animals on the underground on a pirating blog. Amazing how life is connected.
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Posted in Imported at 1:52 pm by coldclimate
I’ve just got back form a Christmas party, somewhere I never imagined I would go, and somewhere that I would have viermently not wanted to go a few years ago. I was invited to a dinner party (with top secret santa present giving), at the house of a friend who is a teacher at Eton. This morning we had a tour of the school, which remains the top private school in the Uk, some would argue the world. I would never have been able to attend, and neither will my children. Princes William and Harry has both been there, and I would imagine numerous other previous kings too.
It’s funny, I carried a chip on my shoulder about private education for years. Before university I hadn’t ever given it a thought, but landing in Durham was like going in at the deepend. I kept meeting people who would fall into the “independently wealthy” catagory. people who really didn’t think it was unusual to have a new car ever year. People who were perfectly at home at Ascot, Glynborne and swanning around Mayfair and the Kings Road. For a rural boy who had always been the posh kid at school (I grew up listerning to Radio4, does your accent no good), this was a hell of a shock. Thats not to say that everybody there was like this (very few in fact), or that there were not numerous people who were not perfectly lovely, but it was all new, and I hated it.
I guess I was jealous. I took great delight in putting myself through the mill. I enjoyed standing on trains because they were full. I enjoyed eating sandwiches that were dirty cheap in Safeways because they were going off. I enjoyed the fact that I took notice of these things, and that I was willing to put up with them. I struggle to understand why now I have to admit. I think I felt that I was proving I could live with anything, and not have to fall back on money to make life easier.
So, wandering the halls and quadrangles of Eton this morning with a teacher, a journalist and her boyfriend (a photographer who was feeling about as out-of-it as I was I imagine), all these feelings fired up again. I don’t understand why it makes me so angry that this was a place I could never come to. It should be the most arrogent and vile place, but when there’s only you there, its just, well, lovely.
NB: Aparently you know have to prove three generations of Eton attendees before youn are allowed to carve your name into the walls. MOst of them are prefessionally craved (which I find a little sad really), Shelley’s being one that looked like he did it himself to me. I wish the prices had done their own in a way.
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12.16.06
Posted in Imported at 4:02 pm by coldclimate
Ok, I have no idea if this is a fake or not (instinct says yes, history says no), but Adding and Subtracting is the most amazing thing I’ve read in ages. Really really do not click on it if you aren’t fairly used to seeing bodymods though (subsisions, nullo’s etc), you will regret it. However, if you are happy enough it some of the wierd (and wonderful) things people do, click away.
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Posted in Imported at 1:40 am by coldclimate
Blooody bloody trains! I leave a perfectly good party to make sure I don’t get the last train home (but the one before it), and it turns out they’ve cancelled the one before that so my crappy stopping train which takes 45 minutes to get me home now takes and hour and 45. and it rammed. Then, between stations theres some sort of cafuffle between the carridges, and next thing I know some bloody women is shoutuing about making a seat for somebbody “who’s seriously ill yeah??”. Pissed more like it. Then theres more shouting and the next thing we know, the train is stopping, and people are pushign and shoving.
Eventually 17 (yes - 17) policemen appear on a platform nex to us, and seem to lead away one bloke, and finally - I get home to my bed, and a cornbeef, cheese and mustard pitta. I’m just going to have to earn enough to have a chauffer if I continue to live down here.
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12.15.06
Posted in Imported at 11:25 am by coldclimate
Rare is the day that I recommend UK hip hop, but we do have a few rising stars out there (and a few people making music like nobody else - I will always enjoy The Streets), but I’m currently listening to Realities Of Life by Life, and it’s tops. None of this “ah nigger, gunz, bitches, hos, keepin’ it real in ma Merc” bollocks - this shit is clever.
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Posted in Imported at 9:02 am by coldclimate
Popular Mechanics yhas an article about the 10 Tech Concepts You Need to Know for 2007 including the very funkyn bendable concrete, printed solar panels and data clouds (meta data and data mining are moving out of the field of artificial intelligence experts at the moment, with things like backstage.bbc and google.api’s kicking ass.)
Thats all your geek needs covered then 
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