StarCraft II Collector's Edition
Mini key lime pies
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Oh shit, did I just spend another Saturday night baking? I don’t even know who I am anymore.
I can already tell that easyJet is going to be my downfall once I’m in Rotterdam (this will be over a year away, so anything can happen between now and then). Excluding the extra €20 or so for the train round trip from R’dam to Schiphol, where can you fly off to over the weekend from Amsterdam? I chose a random cheap weekend date to test: Friday, 1 Oct – Sunday, 3 Oct 2010.
Milan: €109 (€66 if you return Monday)
London (to Luton, the only London airport worth using): €68
Madrid: €121 (€72 if you’re willing to return on Monday at 6am!)
Prague: €131
Rome: €146
Geneva: €70
Add in train destinations and I will never spend a weekend at home. But I will also fail out of school and get kicked out of NL, so there’s that.
P.S. Het gras is groen. I can pronounce my g’s now!
Anyone wanna sublet my apartment through May of next year? I’m spending enough time at Rich’s that this place is nothing but a big walk-in closet at this point. A $1400/month walk-in closet.
Excellent Union Square/East Village location and all that. Not for anyone who values peace and quiet though. Or AC or cable TV or Internet (but you can steal that from the cafe across the street or any of the open wifi access points I get).
In my cooking class last fall we had to whip the heavy cream by hand to make our whipped cream. IT IS A PAIN IN THE ASS. I have the arm strength of a newborn baby, it takes me like 20 minutes because I have to rest every so often. At least for this particular lesson I was switching off with another dude (we worked in groups) so it went faster, but it’s still a pain in the ass.
The first time we over-whipped it so we had to start over again. ARGH! The second time, we asked the chef if it was okay, he said, “It needs a little bit more,” stirred it exactly two times, and gave it back to us. So we kept whipping it again. Then he came back and was like, “You over-whipped it. Why did you do that? It was fine.” Apparently the “more” was his two stirs. Both my group-mate and I misunderstood this. Finally on the third try we got it. PAIN IN THE ASS. X3.
Since then simply seeing the phrases “whipped cream” or “heavy cream” brings back horrible memories.
Tonight, I made key lime pie, and since I had egg whites left over, I decided I’d make a meringue to top it with. Since I don’t have an electric anything in the kitchen, I had to beat the whites by hand. 20 minutes of beating and checking on that mofo, TAKE A WILD GUESS WHAT I STILL MANAGED TO OVER-WHIP (hint: not my boyfriend). It’s amazing how much I obstinately refuse to learn my lesson about anything!
I used it anyway, because screw trying to fix it or start over. We don’t have enough eggs anyway.
#@*% meringue.
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This tastes much better than it looks.
It was my first time making both the pie and meringue. I used the key lime pie recipe from America’s Test Kitchen, which someone kindly posted here. For the meringue, I used the one from Alton Brown’s Lemon Meringue Pie.
It might be ugly when I finally need them…
Also, I figure converting my money to euros will prevent me from spending so much of it.
New York Red Bulls sign Thierry Henry
You know, the guy who pulled the handball that cost Ireland its qualification for the World Cup.
MLS: The place where good international players go to die.
Congratulations to my oldest brother and his wife Amber, just married this Saturday at the Free Library of Philadelphia during a traditional Vietnamese ceremony followed by a lovely rooftop reception. Best wishes for the happy couple!
Taken this morning.
NYSE
Ron Hagen & Pascal M – Riddles in the Sand (Omnia Remix)
(Just music)
Released September of last year, but it’s such a summer song. Thank goodness for DJ Shah who first introduced me to balearic trance with this track during his radio show once upon a time. Love the bit at 3:00. Makes me want to go to Ibiza.
Despite the apparent ubiquity of the song “California Gurls,” which broke airplay records, I didn’t even know that was what I was listening to when Rich and I rented a car and listened to the radio. I just had to look up the song “Tik Tok” as well.
It made me realize the only music I keep up with anymore is trance. I’m woefully clueless about what’s going on today in any other genre. Somehow, though, I’ve heard a bit of Top 40 just by being out and about, but I don’t know what the songs are called or who they’re by and I don’t think I’ve ever heard the whole versions of any of them.
Like the article I referenced yesterday said, a lot of these pop tunes have electronic, dancey elements, which makes me happy. It’s not too far from house music, really. I myself got my start with disco and house, which slowly turned me on to trance. The more people popping E on occasion and spacing out and being totally nice to each other, the better, in my book.
Have we finally made it?
FT’s article, “The world’s biggest music market finds a new groove on the dance floor” (registration required), claims that dance music has become mainstream in the US. It cites this year’s 14th Electric Daisy Carnival in LA with 185,000 attendees, up from only 5,000 in its first year, as evidence, as well as more casinos signing DJs to residencies in Las Vegas (which brings to my mind Paul Oakenfold at Rain), comparing the city to Ibiza. Most of the quotes were from Pete Tong, BBC radio DJ.
“Finally, almost 40 years since the start of disco, dance music is starting to stick,” says Tong. He points to electronic acts like Frenchman David Guetta, who produced The Black Eyed Peas’ hit I Gotta Feeling — the biggest selling track ever on iTunes — and a growing number of dance music festivals and events.
… “Suddenly, US radio has changed its sound and hip-hop acts are releasing dance records. The underground culture is also really embracing it and what started out as raves have turned into real music festivals.”
These sentiments were echoed by EMI president Nick Gatfield who estimates that over 50% of US Top 40 pop chart has “electronic influences.”
Like the rest of the music industry, live performance has become the most lucrative part of the business for dance acts, says Mr Gatfield. Dance music, he adds, is relatively mature in Europe “but still has a lot of growth potential in the US”.
Will Las Vegas be the Ibiza of the US as far as dance music? I don’t know, but I will go where Ferry Corsten goes, and that’s still Ibiza.
