Kim made homemade chicken pot pie for dinner tonight and it was SO good.  The only pot pie I’d ever had before was the frozen kind, in which the chicken and vegetables are just kind of eh: not very fresh, not very nicely textured, not very good.  So I never really liked pot pie before, and had told Kim this, and I went into tonight’s endeavor not expecting to be too crazy about it.  But it was amazing, and now I know I do like pot pie as long as it’s fresh.

...summer, summer, summer-tiiime, oooh the summertime... doot doot pause doot doot...

Anyway, Kim and I had some watermelon yesterday.  If you’re ever not sure what season it is, that’s one good way to check.  If you’re eating fresh watermelon it’s probably summer.

It was delicious too, and that is the main point I’m trying to make.  Other fruits must be so jealous of watermelon.  I like most fruit, but there’s really no comparison.  I mean what other fruit is four times as big as your head, is hard and dry on the outside, and is hiding a cool, juicy, sweet, red paradise on the inside?

I also love raspberries and strawberries, but they are still no match for watermelon.

That’s right, Pgh.

After ranting the other day about not being able to find Crest’s Icy Mint Striped flavor of toothpaste anywhere for a month, I found it at a Shop ’n Save the very next day.  That’s still the only place I’ve seen it in, including two other Shop ’n Save locations, in the past month.

There are two snacks that I really want that I can’t find anywhere though: one is Golden Krackle, which is a Greek/Mediterranean flour-based chip, and is sold at Giant (not to be confused with Giant Eagle) and Wegmans back east.  I love the Garlic and the Cheese & Oregano flavors.  They’re sold in thin white cardboard boxes that are about one foot square and 1.5 inches deep, and they can be hard to find even in stores that do carry them; they’re usually not with normal chips/snacks, but rather by the deli or produce areas.  The second snack is Utz Pub Mix, which I’ve ranted about before, and can’t seem to find anywhere anymore :(

But on a happier note, Kim and I bought an old-fashioned push lawn mower, the kind with no motor, that instead has a set of curved blades that spin when you push the thing.  It’s really fun to use, though probably not as much fun if you have a big yard.  The only drawback is that it doesn’t mulch the clippings, but if you go over the lawn a second time, mowing over the trails of clippings, that mulches them pretty well.

The recipe for toby stew is hilarious!

So it’s now the season of "Lent" in the Catholic church (not that that applies to me, because I’m not Catholic, I’m Christian), and everywhere you go, you can find restaurant signs that say "Lenten Special."  Because the Catholic church forbids eating meat on Fridays during Lent, and because some Catholics abstain from meat completely during Lent, the Lenten specials offered by restaurants are typically fish dishes.  You’ll even see fast food joints offering fish -- as if fast food weren’t gross enough, now you can have fast fish.

Well tonight I drove past a Taco Bell and saw this sign: "Lenten Special: 2 Bean Burritos."

I’m not obsessive about cleanliness or neatness in general, but when it comes to anything that I’m going to ingest, eat off of, or which will TOUCH any such thing (i.e. people’s hands who are preparing things I will eat), I definitely am obsessive about cleanliness.  However I wasn’t always this way, and as a kid, I put a coin in my mouth at least one time.  I have no idea why, really.  But for some reason I distinctly remember the taste and feeling of it even now.  I also have no idea why that is, nor why I thought of it while driving yesterday.

My little sister IMed me this the other day, about our cat CJ:

Maria: hi
Maria: there was a spider on the ceiling and mom wacked it on the floor and CJ batted it around for a while untill it stopped movin (it wasn’t dead, it was just scared) and then he licked it up. a live spider!!!
Maria: eeeeeeeeeeeew!

"A live spider!!!"  That cracks me up  : )

In other news that isn’t funny or random, I fixed a problem on Kim’s notebook yesterday, for which she sent it back to HP twice and they did nothing but wipe the hard drive and leave the problem intact.  The problem was that it would sporadically just shut down for no reason at all, and then refuse to turn back on.  They apparently couldn’t identify the cause of problem, which is strange because it’s a common problem with notebook computers.  It stems from the fact that over time, as the receptacle for the power plug gets jostled and worn, the solder joints connecting it to the motherboard start to weaken and break.  It gets to the point that if you turn the power plug a certain way, it works fine, but bump it just a tad, and it breaks the contact.  Eventually, if it goes long enough without being repaired, there is no contact at all unless you press/hold the plug to one side, or up or down or something, and when you let go, it loses the contact immediately.

We disassembled the whole thing, which with notebooks is always a little tricky, and then I re-soldered the 3 connections for the power jack.  But upon re-assembling and testing, it was no different.  Which was pretty frustrating because the disassembly and re-assembly is quite a process -- not that it’s hard, but it’s sort of tedious because there are so many screws and different pieces which aren’t standard at all from one notebook to the next.  But I ended up doing it 3 times so by now I’m pretty good at it :)

The second time, I removed the jack completely and just soldered two wires directly into the motherboard.  This didn’t work either.  My last resort was to try maybe soldering the top of the board, too; instead of just soldering the pins when they come through the bottom, I now put some on the top too.  This was tough because there’s so little space and so many components right around the jack, in addition to the fact that the jack itself is tall and there isn’t much room to get the tip of the iron into the space around it.  I replaced the crusty old tip on my soldering iron with a nice pointy new one, soldered the tops of the pins, and that fixed the problem.

I’m pretty excited that it finally worked, because the only other source of power is the battery, which charges in the laptop through this power connection.  So basically the computer would be trash, even though the rest of the system is mostly fine, and it’s decently spec’d too -- 700MHz PIII, 384MB memory, 40gig drive, etc.  So I was really glad to be able to save the poor lappy; it’d be such a shame to have to get rid of it over something like this.

These are my top-ten lists for 2004... except that none of them have ten items.

Marcona almonds: these are big spanish almonds.  I get them at Wegmans, they come in a little plastic container with a little bit of canola oil and sea salt.  I guess they’re just nuts, but they are delicious.

UTZ Pub Mix: "A Savory Blend of Crunchy Snacks."  Also known as "Phat Mix" in some quarters.  I didn’t used to like this when my brother Brian would get it by the pound from snack vendor stands at malls etc, but this UTZ version is really good.  Anyway, from the bottom label, it consists of: Honey Mustard & Cheddar Cheese Twistix, Worcestershire Rye Chips, Honey Roasted Sesame Chips, Oriental Rice Crackers, Pretzel Stix, Nacho Bagel Chips.

Wegmans "Famous Chocolate Chip Mini Cookies."  Just what it says -- little chocolate chip cookies that are so good they are (or should be) famous.  They are soft.  (This is actually from 2002 but I didn’t do a best-of list then, so shut it.)

Wegmans Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips.  Sorta soft.  These might be my favorite cookies of all time.  Also a 2002-debuting item.

Moose Munch: carmel popcorn, some of which is chocolate-covered, and also including nuts (cashews and walnuts depending on where you get it).  Quite possibly the overall best sweet snack of all time.

Albums: an asterisk (*) indicates an album that wasn’t actually released in 2004, but I didn’t find out about it or get it till 2004.  These are in no particular order.

Taking Back Sunday / "Where You Want To Be" / indie|screamo

Emery / "The Weak’s End" / hard rock|indie|screamo

Jimmy Eat World / "Futures" / modern rock|indie

Straylight Run / "Straylight Run" / indie|dual-vocals-male+female

Pigeon John / "Pigeon John is Dating Your Sister" * / rap|hip-hop|not gangsta|not evil

The Alpha Conspiracy / "Aura" / ambient|techno|IDM, maybe somewhat dance

Telefon Tel Aviv / "Map of What is Effortless" / ambient|techno|IDM, but not dance

Freemartin / "An Escape Seems Appropriate" / fast pop-punk|indie

My American Heart / "My American Heart" / modern rock|indie|screamo

Rainer Maria / "Long Knives Drawn" * / indie|rock|female vocals

Beth Orton / "Daybreaker" * / semi-folksy pop|female vocals

The Early November / "The Room’s Too Cold" * / indie|pop-punk|acoustic

The Starting Line / "Say it Like You Mean it" * / pop-punk|indie

...is Kim, of course  ( :

I want to like Applebee’s.  I really do.  And it actually has a lot going for it: usually not smoky, usually not too long of a wait, clean bathrooms with automatic paper towels and a trash can behind the door, so you don’t have to touch the handle of the door, which 75% of men touch after using the bathroom and NOT washing their hands...

But I’ve only been to Applebee’s a handful of times in my life, and every single time there is a problem with the order.  I usually get steak when I go out, and the steak here is always overcooked; I order medium-rare and it comes out medium-well.  To be fair many places just can’t seem to get steak right, however a few places like Olive Garden and Outback consistently get it right, i.e. they cook it the way you order it.

Tonight was especially ridiculous, though.  I ordered a steak with mushrooms, and this particular steak comes with peppers and onions, which I asked them to omit.  The waitress noted all this.  But the steak came out -- overcooked but that is no surprise -- without mushrooms.  But at least they correctly omitted the peppers and onions, right?  Until I got to the bottom of my mashed potatoes and discovered that THE PEPPERS AND ONIONS WERE UNDERNEATH THE POTATOES.  You have got to be kidding me.

I also ordered a side-dish of vegetables.  These came out raw.  Not "just a little cooked."  They were not cooked.  I like my vegetables soft, but I had Kim verify because she likes hers crunchy.  She agreed these weren’t merely crunchy, they were raw.

Back to the mushroom situation.  Kim ordered a chicken dish that comes with mushrooms and cheese, but she asked to have it without the mushrooms.  Sure enough, "hidden" underneath a few slices of melted cheese, there were mounds of mushrooms.  Not only that, but literally two of them were sauteed; the other 10-15 or so were just raw mushrooms.

Every time I go to Applebee’s, I think hey, it’s been a while, they’ve probably gotten their act together by now.  I’ll give it a shot.  At some point I’m going to have to stop pretending.