I really don't know where this place is, and I could never get back there if I tried. All I know is that it was along a dirt road and it was really windy out there. Like, lean over and have the wind hold you up windy. After snapping a few pics, I decided to head back into San Diego. In fact, I ended up driving to Best Buy in Mission Valley. Amazingly enough, I didn't buy anything while I was there... but I was THIS close to buying the Toy Story DVD box set. But I restrained myself.
After that I went down to Ikea cuz, well, I didn't want to go home. I decided that I never, ever, want to own an Ikea coffee table. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but they just look so... Ikea. I just don't want someone coming into my living room and thinking "did you get that table at Ikea?" Anyway, after browsing around Ikea, I got back in my car and ended up at the San Diego Harbor just in time to see a cruise ship leaving the terminal. And after that, I just headed back home and watched Anatomy of a Murder which I reviewed (among other things) on my DVD Review.

Tuesday, 12 February 2002 5:00pm

I

  have been needing a new printer for a while. My old printer is an HP inkjet, and it's at least five years old. It prints crazy black streaks, yes, even if you clean the cartridge. So I needed a replacement. That's when Zac told me about the Lexmark printer at Target. He recently got one, and it cost less than the replacement cartridge for his HP printer (or whatever he had) so he just got a whole new printer. Or something like that, I don't know the exact story.
Anyway. I went to target to look for it, and there it was, for $29.87. Amazing. I brought it home and hooked it up and well, it's not the greatest printer in the world, but it is certainly functional, and very, very inexpensive. It isn't exactly the best design either. Like if you have a color cartridge and a black cartidge, you have to manually swap out the cartridges if you want to print in color. Of course, the color cartridge also has black in it, and the color one is the only one this printer comes with.
So, despite its shortcomings, I am exceedingly proud of this purchase... a real find indeed. I suspect when the black runs out of this color cartridge I'll just get a plain black one to replace it. I'm not printing any family photos or anything on this, that's not what I got it for. I just needed the ability to make hard copies of some stuff. Like the database column names for the database I use for my dvd review site so I don't have to keep switching screens to look up a name. And resumes. And whatever else. Printers can be useful. Now I guess I should just throw away the old one, it's pretty useless, and it's been sitting there unused for over a year.
Other than that, I dont' have much to say, except that I reviewed Enter the Dragon and will soon review Waking Ned Devine on the dvd review.

11:59pm
Welp, I made fried chicken tonight, and this time it was great, and Cami and Jeff got to share in it. It's good enough for other people to eat now, so ya know, I might as well release the recepie out to the world. So here it is! Yes, the real key ingredient is brown sugar, but it's a subtle sweetness, not in your face sweetness. I think it's great, I hope you do too.

Bryan's Brown Sugar Fried Chicken Legs v1.0
This recepie is for SIX drumsticks, cuz I love drumsticks. Plus you can find packages of six legs for really cheap. It consists of 2 main parts (besides chicken): the buttermilk part, and the flour part. First prepare the buttermilk.

Ingredients for buttermilk mixture:
1.25 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons brown sugar
tabasco sauce

In a tupperware-type container big enough to hold all the chicken (and with a good lid!!!) dissolve the brown sugar into the buttermilk.
Add 10-20 shakes of Tabasco sauce, mix well.

Rinse the chicken and pat dry. Season lightly with pepper.
Place chicken in the buttermilk mixture, seal container and shake it around so that all the chicken surfaces are well coated.
Place in refrigerator and let marinate for 1 to 24 hours

Now for the flour part. Don't bother with this part until you're about ready to actually cook the chicken:
Ingredients for flour mixture:
1.5 cup flour
0.5 tablespoon pepper
0.5 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
0.5 teaspoon thyme
0.5 teaspoon chili powder
0.25 teaspoon dried oregano

Thorougly mix all this shit together in a shallow bowl.

Remove the chicken from the buttermilk container and set aside.

Take each piece, dredge it in the seasoned flour mixture, then back in the buttermilk.
Shake off excess buttermilk then dredge again in the flour, making sure all surfaces are covered.
Set on a rack and let sit for around 10 minutes or more so that the batter can coagulate. This is a good time to start heating up the oil.

Deep fry at 370 degrees F for 15-20 minutes. Make sure the temperature stays up to make sure the batter quickly forms a hard, crispy shell. If it doesn't, you will have soggy, greasy skin. It may help to cook in small batches of three at a time if your fryer is small, as adding six pieces at once may cool the oil down too much.

I find cooking for 16 minutes is just fine for legs.
Drain on paper towel, serve!

Welp, that's it. If you try it out, I hope you like it! My skin is oily and I'm breaking out from making so much chicken to fine tune this recepie hahaha.

Friday, 15 February 2002 11:59pm

E

ven though Valentine's Day is already over, this is going to be my Valentine's Day rant. But it's not going to be the usual "this is a stupid corporate holiday" rant, or the "it really sucks to be reminded you're single on valentine's day" rant. So I don't want any "you're just the usual jealous single guy" responses. Because here's the thing -- I don't have a girlfriend, and I don't want a girlfriend... and I think that this is more or less common knowledge. And you know, I don't hate Valentine's Day, I think it's a great excuse to show the one you love how much you really love them. I don't resent people who are in love for being in love and having a day when they can express just how in love they are. I don't resent that it's a day where people who were on the verge of starting something with a particular love-interest actually get off of there asses and do something about it. I think that's all great.
What I want to know is -- why does everyone have to keep asking me, "What are you doing for Valentine's day?". Because as I already mentioned, I don't have any girlfriend, and I'm not interested in anyone, nor do I even want to be interested in one. It's not a day for me to express my love for that special someone because I don't have that special someone, and it's not the day for me to make known any secret feelings I may have had, since I have no such feelings for anyone. For a guy like me, Valentine's day is a day just like any other day.
It's not like people are asking me if I am doing something for Valentine's day, you know, since I'm single and not interested in anyone, maybe I won't be doing anything, right? But no, they ask me what I will be doing, as if I'm supposed to be doing something. As if there is something wrong with me if I'm not doing something... you might ask a person what they are doing for Christmas, since most westerners do celebrate that holilday, and there's sort of that implied expectation that you do something on that day. But Valentine's day? Maybe there is some kind of expectation that all people should either have someone to love, or want someone to love.
Am I a freak for not fitting into either of those categories? Not that I'm opposed to having someone to love, in fact, I'd love the right person with all my heart and devote everything I have in me to that person -- but I'm not going to just give that (or even a part of that) away to just anybody just because I'm supposed to want someone to love. And you know, I really don't subscribe to the belief that dating a bunch of people will increase my chances of find that person. I think I'll just know. And until that moment, I'm saving my time, my effort, my emotions, and oh yes, my money. Cold (or selfish!) as it may sound, I'd rather not make the emotional (and financial) investment for something that likely isn't going to last more than a few months anyway.
Of course, as with any investment, the size of the return is often related to the degree of risk -- you risk little -- say a fling with someone that "means nothing", you stand to gain only a little. You risk a lot... you could get emotionally clobbered (as often happens)... but if it works out, you can find yourself experiencing ultimiate bliss. But you shouldn't go all-in on the river when you're only holding a low pair when there's four to a flush on the board. Hell, you shouldn't even be there! Ooops, did I just get all poker lingo there?
In poker, there are times when you're holding the best possible cards and can be guaranteed to win. In love, you never can really get to the point where you are guaranteed to win, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'd rather just watch and wait for that one moment when I should bet it all and hope I win... than waste away my emotional bankroll playing all the junk cards while hoping to get lucky in the end.
Ok, that's enough of that stupid poker analogy. For the record, I went with Mimi to see The Royal Tennenbaums *ON* Valentine's Day. But we cerintaly didn't see it for Valentine's day! And I hope you all had yourselves a happy Valentine's Day, even if it was just a day like any other for you.