Poaching Eggs: More Difficult Than Anticipated

Yes! I am back!

I could give a whole big paragraph full of excuses about why I haven't updated in, oh, two months. I could go on and on about the minor existential crisis I've had since graduating, working at a discount liquor store, and attempting to face up to the fact that a) I'm not going back to school and b) I need to figure out What To Do With My Life. And the broken computer (several times...), leading to the sexy, sexy new mac currently sitting on my lap. But I won't. You know why?

Because I'm both lazy and shameless.

Instead I'll just jump right back in. I don't know how much I'll be updating or what I'll be updating about. Let's just take this one day at a time.

For the immediate future, I'd like to talk about eggs. Specifically, poached eggs, which are delicious and possibly my favorite way to eat unborn fetuses.

Now, I've poached an egg before. I swear I have. I used to work with an elderly Scicillian man (re: 92 and still driving) who taught me how to do it. Under his tutelage, I managed to poach quite a few- AND THEY WERE DELICIOUS...if a little vinegary.

When a man that old tells you to keep adding vinegar, you listen. It's just possible that he reached such an age by pickling himself, and hey- if it works, it works!

The point is that I used to be quite good at poaching eggs. This morning, however, I had a little difficulty.

See how it's all white and cloudy? That's wrong. 

Now, I don't know if you've ever made a poached egg before. It's really not that hard. Basically, you heat water with a bit of vinegar until it is almost- but not quite- simmering. Then you stir the water rapidly, creating a whirlpool that will serve to wrap the egg around itself, keeping it together. Slide in your egg, wait a few minutes, and BAM. Eggy-goodness.

And so we try again!

After mourning my first attempt I decided to give it another go. On the second try, I had a lot more luck. The trick? I turned up the heat until it was just about simmering, and added a lot bit more vinegar.

Look! Look! It stayed together HALLELUJAH. 

The delicious final product.

And success! To complete my eggy-masterpiece, I ate it atop buttered sticky rice, as they do in Japan when they feel like a 'Western' breakfast. Yummy yummy in my tummy.



Final note: As I sit writing this, I am listening to Lykke Li's 'I Follow Rivers.' It's a good song- if you haven't heard it, click on my link and listen to it. And if you're very lucky, as I am, there will be a bird outside your window chirping on beat with the song.


Final Note 2: Here we have the screen capture du jour. It comes to us from our friends at Facebook advertising.

I'm pretty sure he'd prefer a sandwich.

Ta ta for now, folks! Braveworldgirl OUT.

QUICK! EVERYBODY PANIC!

The apocalypse is this Saturday.

Oh, but don't worry. Saturday isn't the END end. It's just when all the good people who love Jesus get to go to heaven. The rest of us have five months of earthquakes, fires, and zombie hordes to look forward to before October 21st, when the world will actually be destroyed.

Graduation is gonna be badass.
 
All the recent hullabaloo comes from an octogenarian, Christian radio guru named Harold Camping. You can read about his predictions on the technological dinosaur that is his website.

A product of the AARP's new 'elderly web design' program.

I haven't seen something so ugly since 1992.  I bet he still plays Minesweeper.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you think 2012 was the apocalypse? Well you were wrong. And in case you were confused, he's made it nice and obvious right on the front of his website. Next to the countdown.

Look at that- "The bible guarantees it!" That's interesting, as I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the bible pointing to May 21, 2011 as the End of Times. I guess I'm not in the loop since I'm just a silly Jew. Besides Mr. Camping made a very special mathematical formula that clearly pinpoints 5/21/11 to be the end of the world. You probably wouldn't understand it unless you were really really smart and good at Hard Math like he is.

 

I don't remember this being at the end of the quadratic equation...

How can you not believe what he says? He proved it with math. Math! The world runs on math. It is never, ever wrong, especially when predicting the apocalypse. I mean, okay, there was Y2k, but that was just a glitch. Look the point is that math is always right, especially when it comes from numbers found in a 400+ year old book. And especially when it comes from this guy:

Harold Camping: the product of forbidden love.

He has such conviction, such passion, behind his scientific mathematical formula. This is what he said to New York Magazine:

"God has given sooo much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question....I would be absolutely in rebellion against God if I thought anything other than it is absolutely going to happen without any question."

I wonder if that's what he said in 1994, the last time he predicted the End of Times. That was just a "preliminary study," though. He was just testing it out.


GUYS HE'S TOTALLY CERTAIN THIS TIME. FO REALZ.

But you may not be a believer yet. Dear old Harold is just one man, and maybe his calculator was acting up when he divided 7000 by the year of Noah's Flood. What about God? What does he have to say?

Well don't you worry your pretty little head. We're not down this proverbial coal mine without a canary to warn us of disaster.

Ooh, Papyrus! Haven't seen THAT since 8th grade.

Yes, that's right. God put gays on earth as an End of Times litmus test. Every time an office accepted a gay partner at an office party, or a state validated gay marriage, we were taking one step closer to the apocalypse. No wonder the government is so discriminatory to a segment of the population that has done nothing more than love the people they love. Apparently the US government has been taking Mr. Camping's advice- though not for much longer!

I hope Obama has a wrathful-God contingency plan.

 I could go on. I could tell you why Camping's assertion that "the Bible has every word in the original language — it was written by God..." is ridiculous, especially since he uses the King James bible which wasn't written until 1611 (that's 1,611 years after Jesus was born). I could explain that no, math doesn't work like that, Mr. Camping. I could even make fun of his website some more. Trust me when I say there's plenty of material.

But I think that's enough. The point is that this 'end of times' is no worse than every other 'end of times' that has ever been predicted. And so far, they've all been wrong - even though I'm sure that each prophet was always just as confident in his prediction as Mr. Camping. We need to stop waiting for God to take us away from this planet. We're not going anywhere until we die, people. And if I'm wrong, fine. I'd rather be down here fighting off zombies with the sinners than up there with all the boring saints.

In case you want to learn more, I encourage you to visit Mr. Camping's site. Perhaps you would like to read one of his insightful articles, as sampled below. I, personally, am intrigued by "I Hope God Will Save Me!" I'm pretty sure I know the answer already.

In addition, you can read Mr. Camping's interview with New York magazine here.

Good God I'm Writing About the Weather.

 Today, my friends, may be the beginning of the End of Days.

                                          See what I did there?

The day started out sunny, then quickly switched to grey and rainy. Then back to sunny- while still raining.
Later, hail. Then sun. Then sun AND hail, and rain, and- you get the idea.

Hmm, I thought to myself. Erratic, violent weather? Sounds familiar. Wonder how all the first born males are doing. They have been having problems in Egypt...

Lookin' good, Jesus.

The clincher was the Jehovah's witness pamphlet left on our door inviting us to "celebrate the anniversary of Jesus' death." It came with a large picture of Jesus on the back, painted with lovely, nonthreatening pastels. Just like hospital walls.

Jesus, by the way, got a pretty impressive haircut.

As I write this it is hailing once again. Actually I thought it was rain- pouring rain. However, stepping outside further investigation proves the rain to be tiny balls of ice. I'll let you know when the hail turns to fire and locusts start invading my house. We have had quite the infestation of ants lately. Are ants the locusts of modern America? Do we even have locusts in America?
Are there answers to these questions? Will I look them up? Will this paragraph ever end?
 
According to Weather.com it's supposed to be partly sunny today with 0% chance of precipitation. Haha, Weather.com! You got me with your April Fools joke.

Oh, wait. It's April 2nd.

I have lost faith in you, Weather.com. You provided me with false information one too many times. From now on I'm making my own weather reports.

AND RAINBOWS.