Roseyland

Okay, I need an easy post tonight. How about a bunch of pictures of my cat Earl? Here is Earl right after I adopted him. Notice the giant ears.

I wake up to this view about once a month. I don’t know how he does it, but he loves to throw the cushion off the chair. Notice the duct tape on the chair. That’s because Earl tore the fabric.

Earl is a big fan of nooks and crannies. Here he is in the linen closet.

Earl has a feminine side. He love to accessorize. Here he is in a scarf. He also loves purses. More specifically, he loves digging through purses and removing the contents.

Earl’s arch nemesis is the plastic bag. He love to play with them, but then somehow they get stuck on him. At this point, Earl rationally decides that the bag has come to life and is out to kill him. He runs all over the condo as fast as felinely possible, knocking over everything possible until he becomes trapped under a piece of furniture. Then I rescue him from the evil plastic bag.

In my old kitchen, Earl could get on top of the cabinets. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it a lot.

This is Earl’s most famous picture. I tried to get it posted on one of those cute cat picture sites, but we were rejected. Bastards.

Earl loves to flirt with danger. Here he is getting himself trapped in a bunch of clothes hangers. If I didn’t extract him, I’m pretty sure mass calamity would result.

I don’t know what this is about, but whatever. If you are comfortable, you’re comfortable.

There you have it, a slew of Earl pictures. You know you liked it. You can see more pictures in my Earl Flickr set here.

Awhile ago, like a year ago, I had all these posts planned. I had the pictures all organized, resized, and ready to upload to my blog. Then I never got around to writing the posts. The baked bean post was one of these, and so was the bird nest post. Today is the last of these post. I’m going to show you how I make a tuna fish sandwich. I’m always looking for easy, quick, and reasonably healthy meals. This isn’t meant to be the world’s greatest tuna fish sandwich. I don’t include hard boiled eggs or fancy spices. It’s just quick and tasty enough for me.

Here are the ingredients. Dill pickles, because sweet pickles make me gag. Whole wheat bread, I could write a whole post about how I picked the bread I buy. Of course it has to be whole wheat, but I read somewhere that the bread you eat should have at least 4 grams of fiber per slice. I’ve tried every brand of bread with 4 grams of fiber per slice, and they all suck. I like the bread you see here because it is whole wheat and doesn’t contain any high fructose corn syrup. I don’t believe that HFCS is inherently bad, but it does get added to way to many foods that don’t need it, and bread is one of those foods. Wow, we are really off topic here, why did you let me do that? Mayonnaise, I would go with light Mayonnaise. I like the brand in this picture because it says it contains decent amounts of omega-3 fats. Maybe all mayonnaise does, but this one brags about it, so I buy it. Finally, one can of tuna packed in water. Why you would buy tuna packed in anything other than water, I don’t know. Also, I don’t like the newer tuna in a pouch for tuna fish sandwiches. It’s probably better tuna on it’s own, but it’s too dry to mix well with the mayonnaise.Yeah, I forgot to put the tuna in the picture of ingredients for a tuna fish sandwich. I’m awesome.

These are the tools you will need to make the tuna fish sandwich. Two plates, one bowl, and a fork. The bowl is for mixing the tuna and mayonnaise together with the fork. The first plate is for eating the sandwich off of. I’ll explain the second plate in a second.

Open the can of tuna, but leave the top of the can on so that you can use it to squeeze the excess water out of the tuna. Don’t use a strainer, because then you will have dirtied another dish, and that would be inefficient, thus violating Roseyland’s best practice #17: Thou shall not unnecessarily dirty a dish. If you are reading this blog, Roseyland’s best practices do in fact apply to you.

If you have a cat, yes I’m mentioning the cat AGAIN, deal with it. If you have a cat, once you open the can of tuna, you have about 5 seconds before all hell breaks lose. My advice, don’t fight the cat, just give him what he wants. Take that second plate, put some tuna on it, and provide it to the cat as an offering on the other side of the kitchen. Like so.

Now take the remaining tuna, put it in the bowl and mix with 1 or 2 spoonfuls of mayonnaise.

Put the mixture on top of one slice of the toasted bread. Oh yeah, I forgot, toast two slices of bread, and do it like 3 steps ago. Okay, put the tuna mixture onto a slice of the toasted bread and top with dill pickles.

Finish the sandwich with the remaining slice of toasted bread. Then serve like so.

That’s funny, when I made this, I was in this phase where I had a piece of dark chocolate every night with dinner. I always want something sweet after I eat, and that piece of dark chocolate was perfect. I should start that again. Also, iced tea. I love iced tea. There you have it, now you can safely make a Roseyland brand tuna fish sandwich.

When writing a blog, it’s important to choose timely topics. Nobody wants to read about yesterday’s news. Today, I bring you a story from the recent summer of 2008. One day in June 2008, I came home and noticed that my condo smelled like a wet dog. To the best of my knowledge, I did not own a wet dog. I looked all over the condo and determined that the smell appeared to be coming from the hallway. I looked in the hall utility/laundry closet. Everything looked normal. I looked in the washing machine. Nothing there. I opened the dryer, and the smell almost knocked me over, but still, I didn’t see anything. Here is the cat investigating the situation. You can’t tell from the picture, but he really wanted to find the source of that smell.

The smell was definitely coming from the dryer, but it wasn’t in the dryer. So I went outside to look at the dryer vent. This is what I saw.

I had a closer shot of the dryer vent, but trust me, you don’t want to see it. That’s my dryer vent covered in bird poop. Did you know that bird poop isn’t just white? It also has a reddish component. At first I thought there had been some sort of bird slaughter inside my dryer vent. Then I noticed that a bird would fly into my dryer vent every couple of minutes. Here is a picture of the bird.

The bird kept carrying things into my dryer vent. It appeared that he was feeding something. Great. I had a bird nest in my dryer vent. I called the condo maintenance people to see what they could do. You are probably wondering why I didn’t just take care of this myself. One, I don’t deal with wild animals. They are wild and will peck an eye out without a second thought. Two, it would have required me to spend a decent amount of time on a ladder right in front of my female neighbor’s bedroom window. Nothing good can come from that.

The maintenance guy came out and said that he could remove the nest, but there was a live baby bird in it, and we would have to leave it on the ground to die. He didn’t want to do that, and well, neither did I. Sometimes I think I’m too empathetic for my own good. I mean don’t most baby birds die anyways? Still, I didn’t need that on my conscience. So, I lived with the wet dog smell for 6 more weeks and then had the vent cleaned and covered with wire mesh. I have no idea if the bird lived, but he wasn’t in the nest anymore, so let’s say he lived. I didn’t live in a swampy smelling condo for nothing.

Today I’m going to share with you one of my favorite recipes. My Grandma’s baked beans. These are the greatest baked beans ever. They are a little bit sweet and pasty. I know pasty doesn’t sound like a good word for describing food, but I can’t think of a better one. These baked beans are cooked long and slow, and it causes the beans to break down. You can still see the individual beans, but you don’t feel the individual beans in your mouth, it all mushes together. Plus, they develop this caramelization on top that is delicious. Kind of like the blackened cheese on top of macaroni and cheese, but different. Here are the ingredients:

• 4 pounds canned baked beans, drained
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup light molasses
• 2 tablespoons dried minced onion
• 2 tablespoons dry mustard
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1 jar bacon bits

This is what the ingredients look like on my counter.

This next step is complicated, make sure you pay attention. Combine all the ingredients like so:

Mix together well, and put into a greased casserole dish. I prefer a large shallow dish, because it maximizes the top layer of caramelization.

Now bake in an oven at 300 degrees for 2-3 hours. I lean towards the 3 hour side, again because I like a nice gooey caramelized top layer. This is what it looks like when it’s done.

Notice the dark crustiness on top. That’s the good stuff. Here is what it looks like served on a plate.

My mouth waters just looking at these baked beans. They are great on their own, or as a cold baked bean sandwich the next day. I know the idea of cold baked beans sounds gross, but it’s actually really good. I was kind of disappointed in this recipe once I knew what it was. I wish it wasn’t made from so many pre-processed ingredients. I’d like to try it without using canned beans and with cooked fresh onions and real bacon. That would be a lot more work though, and it probably wouldn’t taste as good. I think I’ll leave a good thing alone. Here is a pdf of the recipe.

Hello everyone. Today is a big day. It’s my 100th blogging anniversary. Well, it’s my 100th post. That’s the same thing right? Regardless, this is a big deal, and I’ve decided to get you something. I know, I know, I shouldn’t have. It’s you who should be showering me with gifts and admiration. If it helps, consider this a gift for all of us to share. Without further ado, here it is:

Do you like it? I do. Boxing day is my new favorite holiday. I have no idea what Boxing day is, but judging from the picture above, it’s awesome. You are probably wondering where I got her, I mean it, the picture. I got it at istockphoto.com. That’s right, I paid for her, I mean it, the picture. Here’s another:

I think this picture is cool, but I can’t remember, are you supposed to walk towards the light or away from it? I was going to do this whole long post on where I find images for my blog, but then I thought that just posting a bunch of images would be more fun. I’ll give you the list version though:

• I feel like every post should have a picture. Pictures help set the mood and convey much more information than words alone.
• You can’t just grab any picture you want from the web and put it on your blog. You have to have permission from the content owner. Don’t steel, it’s bad.
• Whenever possible, I try to use my own images, but shockingly, I don’t have a picture of everything.
• If I can’t use my own picture, I try to find a creative commons licensed image. These are images that people allow you to use for free. There are different licenses, but most commonly the images are free for non-commercial use with attribution to the author. All of the images on my Flickr account are licensed under creative commons. The only thing I don’t like about creative commons is the attribution part. It isn’t exactly clear to me what attribution means. If it was just a link on the photo, that would be cool, but I think you are supposed to put a caption under the image, and captions suck. I’ve yet to find a caption scheme that I’m happy with. Currently I use tables, but the code for that is ugly. I feel like there should be a more elegant solution.
• When it comes to celebrities, or commercial products, or any type of image that is all over the web anyways, I just download the picture and use it. I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but if the image is everywhere anyways, I figure it doesn’t really matter.
• After all that, I’ve started using istockphoto.com. You have to pay for these pictures, but you don’t have to attribute them to anyone. It’s feels weird to pay for a picture, but the photos in this post only cost a $1.50 each. I certainly waste more money on less important things. Plus, I love browsing the images. Its fun. Seriously, you should try it.

Here is another picture. I already have lots of pictures of a cat, but I thought this image was particularly striking.

Here is a political picture for you. It’s a tea party with Alice and the Mad Hatter. Hmm. The Mad Hatter is crazy. A crazy person at a tea party. Interesting.

Just for fun, I thought I’d throw in the meaning of life, which is clearly defined in the equations below. I’d explain it, but it’s so obvious. I don’t want to insult your intelligence.

I both love and hate this next picture. I love Buddhism and the whole complex human relationship with spirituality and suffering and stuff. This image would be an awesome illustration of all that, except that it’s fake. The problem with a lot of istockphoto.com images is that they usually use models. Which is fine for some things, but I can tell that the woman in this photo is striking a pose rather than expressing any real experience. That sucks, because if this was a real picture, it would be amazing.

One more image just because I love you. You’re welcome.

See, sometimes models are good. This post cost me $10.50. I think that makes it my most expensive post ever. I doubt I’ll use istockphoto.com images very often, but it’s a nice option to have, if you can’t find the perfect picture any other way. So, what did you get me?

I bought groceries tonight. Here they are:

Let’s see, we have soy milk. I got the Omega-3 enriched soy milk, so it would be extra healthy. The bowls things are quick frozen meals. They are actually vegetarian. I’m not a vegetarian, but they are good anyways. The TLC granola bars are what I have for breakfast every morning. Then there are tortilla chips, cheese, and bread. The wine is a Whole Foods 365 brand Bordeaux. It was the cheapest Bordeaux they had ($7.99). I’m interested to see how it compares to the other two Bordeauxs I have had. Did I like them because they were Bordeauxs, or were they just nicer wines in general? I got the berries and black beans because I love berries and black beans (not together of course). The spicy thai Kettle chips were a spontaneous purchase. I have to know what spicy thai taste like.

I didn’t just buy groceries for myself. I also agreed to fill up this bag as part of a canned food drive. I had already filled the bag half way with stuff from my kitchen that I knew I was never going to eat. I bought some extra stuff tonight to top off the bag. Part of me thinks Whole Foods wasn’t the right place to shop for a canned food drive, but that’s where I was. I ended up overfilling the bag a little. I’m a saint.

This was my dinner. Whole Foods has the best pizza, and it’s only $5.00 for two slices. Seriously, you should try it. Whole Foods also has good Sushi. It cost more than $5.00 though. Okay, I’m tired. Tomorrow is my 100th blog post. I have nothing planned as of yet, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something fantastic. Good night.

Okay, I need a quick post tonight. This blogging everyday thing is a bit much. How am I supposed to watch TV? I want to watch V tonight, but I also want to get to bed at a reasonable hour. Considering that it’s 9:30 now, that might not be happening. I’ve heard a few people say they don’t like V, but I think it’s been pretty good so far. Mostly I want see the FBI agent’s kid get it on with the blonde lizard girl. That would be hot.

Some guy left the longest comment ever on my blog on the Electoral Vote post I did a few days ago. It’s all about a National Popular Vote plan where a group of states that have at least 270 electoral votes all agree to pledge their votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. It’s a neat idea, and completely constitutional as far as I can tell, but it feels kind of gimmicky. I’d rather fix the problem head on that use a work around. I also heard from a few people who like the electoral college because it prevents mob mentality. I can see this point, but I still don’t like the way presidential candidates spend all their time in a handful of states. Part of me says that electoral votes should be awarded for each house congressional district (plus a few for D.C.), but then we have to worry about gerrymandering. Oh forget it, this is too hard, let’s just appoint a dictator. I’ll do it if nobody else wants to.

I’m currently in this intense internal debate whether or not to take an additional three days off at Christmas. I’m already off from Christmas Eve to January 4th, which is 11 straight days off. Not bad, but if I took 3 vacation days, I could have 16 straight days off. I probably won’t though, I keep thinking of all the trips I’d like to take, and those 3 vacation days might be vital.

Okay, that is all I can manage tonight. I’ll leave you with a Haiku:

Cats Are Not Very Green

Can You Find Me A Blue Cat?

If You Can, You Win!

Yeah, poetry is not my thing.

I’ve decided that I want one of these cameras for Christmas. I’m just not sure which one. Currently, I have a Nikon Coolpix S51, which I’m very happy with. It’s an 8.1 megapixel camera, with a 3x optical zoom, and it shoots 640 x 480 video. I’ve discovered that I really like the video capturing capability of my camera. It’s a nice way to capture an overall scene that won’t fit into a single picture. Initially, this had me thinking that I should step up to a pocket camcorder for videos, and I was almost set on the Kodak Zi8. The Zi8 takes 1080p HD video, but I’m not sure I take enough video to justify carrying around a camcorder in addition to my camera. I like the connivence of being able to switch between videos and still images on one device. I also wouldn’t mind a camera with a larger optical zoom, wider angle lens, and a few extra megapixels.

This has led me to two possible cameras. First, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3:

The ZS3 is a 10 megapixel camera with a 12x optical zoom, and it can capture 720p HD video. I like that this camera can capture HD video and has a large optical zoom. I also like that it is still fairly compact even when the lens is extended. Another nice thing is that this camera has a dedicated video recording button on the back, so you don’t have to switch the camera into video mode to shoot videos.The reviews say this camera is limited in terms of manual controls, like shutter and aperture settings, but I never touch those settings anyway. I’m a little uncomfortable with the the HD video format used by this camera. The ZS3 records HD video in a format called “AVCHD Lite”, which doesn’t look to be a problem, but it could make importing the videos onto my Mac a little painful.

The second option is the Canon PowerShot SX200 IS:

The SX200 is a newer camera that also has a 12x optical zoom and shoots 720p HD video like the ZS3. This camera has 12 megapixels compared to the 10 megapixels of the ZS3, and according to the reviews, the SX200 has several manual controls. I like that this is a 12 megapixel camera, and that makes me want it, but I don’t like that the flash mechanically raises above the camera. I’m also not thrilled with how far the lens extends from the camera and the optical zoom can’t be adjusted while recording a video. This camera does record HD video in H.264 format, which would probably play nicer with my Mac.

I think I’m leaning towards the Lumix. I really like that it has a dedicated video recording button on the back. I think one of the reasons I don’t shoot more videos now is that it’s a pain to navigate through the menu to the video mode on my current camera. Still, the 12 megapixels of the SX200 is tempting. Thoughts anyone?

One of the hardest parts of writing this blog is the guilt that comes from knowing how jealous it must make others of my life. I’m constantly torn between wanting to share the exciting activities of my day to day existance, and yet not wanting to make everyone realize how boring their lives are in comparison. Today, I’ve decided to throw caution to the wind and let you in on one of my recent endeavors. You might want to sit down for this. Ready? Okay here we go. Recently, I had the opportunity to try the Target Wine Cube. I was fortunate enough receive this opportunity when I visited my local Target and purchased a Target Wine Cube. In case you haven’t guessed, the red box in the picture above is the Target Wine Cube. It’s a cube shaped box filled with wine.

I’ve been trying to drink more wine lately for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that red wine has numerous health benefits, or at least the news keeps saying so. I also love buying bottles of wine. If you are ever bored, and you live in the St. Louis area, you should go to Provisions Market and browse the massive selection of wine. I don’t know why, but bottles of wine just look so cool to me. I also like holding them and running my fingers over the labels, but let’s not go there. Other good places to browse wine include, World Market, Whole Foods, and St. Louis Cellars.

When I first started drinking wine, I liked dryer white wines. Sweet wines are good, but I can only have a few sips before the sweetness gets to be too much. Dry white wines are nice because they are not overly sweet, but they still taste like they have a little sweetness in the background, which I found preferable to the bone dry nature of most red wines I had tried. I have grown to like red wines though, and now I pretty much drink red wines exclusively.

The best glass of wine I have ever had was at Les Chefs de France in Epcot. It was a 2003 Bordeaux from Chateau Haut Mondain. You can’t really find this wine in the U.S. (other than Epcot), I’ve looked. The first thing I thought when I tasted this wine was that it was like drinking air. Which doesn’t sound that great, but what I was trying to say is that it was smooth. So smooth. Usually when there is a liquid in your mouth, you know it’s there. There is a boundary of separation between your mouth and the liquid, because they are two different things. With this wine though, it felt like it was a part of my mouth, and when I swallowed, it went down easily, almost too easily. I also bought another Bordeaux when I was in London, and it was almost as good as the Epcot wine. It has the same smoothness to it. I think the technical wine term would be “silky smooth tannins”. What I don’t know though, is if this silky smooth quality is a feature of Bordeaux wines or of the age of the wine. The Epcot and London wines were both Bordeauxs, but they were also aged longer than the wines I usually drink. Hmm…

I seem to have gotten a little off track. Here is a picture of the Target Wine Cube in my wine cooler. Did I mention I have a wine cooler? I got it because I found out that the drinking temperature for most red wines is between 60 and 65 degrees fahrenheit. Before the wine cooler, I had been drinking red wine straight out of the refrigerator at 34 degrees. Oh the travesty!

So what’s the big deal about the wine cube? The recommend amount of red wine to drink for the health benefits is 4 to 8 ounces a day. This means it will take one person 3 to 6 days to finish a bottle of wine, but wine starts to oxidize the second you open the bottle. A little Google research suggest that you probably don’t want to drink a bottle of wine more than 3 or 4 days after it has been opened. For me this is a problem, because once I open a bottle of wine, I feel this pressure to finish it before it goes bad, but I also don’t want to exceed the recommended amount of wine per day. Yes, I really am this anal.

Fortunately, for people like me, Target invented the Wine Cube. Or more accurately, one day, somebody invented boxed wine. Boxed wine has bad rap here in the U.S., but according to the internets, boxed wine is very popular in Europe and Australia. The benefit of boxed wine is that the wine is stored in a plastic bag. When wine is “poured” from the bag, the bag collapses rather than let air in that would oxidize the wine. This lets wine stay fresh for 4 weeks once the cube is first opened. No more pressure to finish off the bottle before it goes bad. Hurray!

Here is the wine cube wine in a glass next to a candle. The candle is there because the wine glass looked lonely by itself. Don’t you love my stemless wine glass? It’s so sexy and fun to hold. It’s also less likely to be knocked over by a cat. You can get your own at Crate & Barrel.

The wine was good. Nothing amazing, but as good as most of the wine I usually drink. I’m not a wine expert, but it probably had hints of some type of berry and oak notes, or something like that. I love the idea of boxed wine, but it does take the fun away from browsing bottles of wine. Still it is nice to be able to have a glass of wine without having to deal with the hassle of opening a bottle. I think the Wine Cube could make a nice complement to the wine drinking experience. The Wine Cube is nice for casual day to day drinking, and then bottles can be used for more special occasions. Then again, what the hell do I know? Salut!

I bought my condo in lovely Brentwood, Missouri four and a half years ago. About a year later, I started to look around and freak out about everything that wasn’t perfect. I became convinced that no one in their right mind would ever buy my condo with it’s outdated bathroom and kitchen. So I decided to do a cosmetic remodel of my bathroom. I had absolutely no remodeling experience. I once painted a wall, but that’s it. This would have been a great experience to blog about, but I didn’t have a blog back then. But I do now, so let’s just pretend that it’s the 4th of July weekend 2006.

Here is a picture of my original bathroom. You have to love the movie star lights. You can’t see it in the picture, but the room had been painted with regular flat paint, and I had the worst time keeping mildew off the walls. Also notice that I have an astringent and facial lotion. Queer Eye for the Straight guy was popular back then, and the queers said that all guys should be using an astringent and facial lotion daily. I listen to them for awhile, but it quickly became too much of a hassle.

Here is a picture of my old medicine cabinet.

This is half of the junk that filled up my spare bedroom while I was working on the bathroom.

First I tore everything out that I wasn’t going to keep. I would have liked to replace the vanity, but that would have required replacing the floor, which was beyond my skill set and the floor looked to be fairly new. So I opted to just replace the top of the vanity, and hope that it would look new. Here is the bathroom with the mirror, light fixture, and old vanity top removed.

This was the scariest part of the remodel. I found a medicine cabinet at Lowe’s that was the same width as my old medicine cabinet, but one and a half inches longer. This meant I had to cut out 1.5 inches of drywall, which was scary, because if I screwed up, I had no idea how to fix it. It took me about half a day to remove the 1.5 inch strip of drywall, but I got it done.

Here is a picture of the bathroom after painting. Painting might have been the worst part of the job. We (I had an assistant) put on one coat of primer (because of the mildew issues), and then two coats of paint. Painting the ceiling was the worst part. It’s a small room, but it’s hard to reach everywhere you need to reach. While painting, Earl was locked in my bedroom, and he meowed as if he was being brutally murdered. Painting a cramped room for hours with a cat howling in the background, awesome.

Speaking of Earl, here he is checking out the new vanity top and paint job.

Here is Earl playing plumber.

Oh what the hell, this is the internet, you can never have too many cat pictures.

Drum roll please. No seriously, I need you to actually do a drumroll… The finished bathroom.

Another picture of the new bathroom. That mirror was the most expensive single item, but I love it. It’s from Pottery Barn, in case you wanted to know. I was a little frightened to hang it, because in order for it to be centered over the sink, I couldn’t attach it to a stud. It came with some pretty heavy duty drywall anchors though, and it has held firm for the past 3 and a half years. Yes, those are pictures of kittens in my bathroom. They are in black and white though, so that makes it cool.

One more picture, with the new medicine cabinet. Also, notice the new brushed nickel towel racks, and the new vent cover, and you can’t see it, but I also put a new cover on the ceiling fan so that it would look new. Go me!

That’s it, my bathroom remodel is complete. I also had my kitchen remodeled a little over a year ago. You can read about that here, here, and here. I think my next home improvement project is going to be new flooring. I want to get laminate wood flooring throughout my condo, including the steps. I don’t want to know how much that is going to cost though, or how it can be done with all my furniture and a cat in the way. Hmm…