Listening to:

Life – Ricky Martin
09 – This is Good

Anyone who knows me at all will recall that I have notoriously uncool musical taste. By that, I mean, I unabashedly listen to pop music. No, I definitely don’t have that hip, slightly unkempt indie-head look, and while I’d love to be able to enjoy rap, I honestly have no idea what they’re saying 90% of the time. In fact, I am barely able to understand the lyrics to the chorus line of even the most overplayed of ballads. Yes, I admit, I have a problem.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I’m listening to profoundly uncool pop music today. Actually, it may be even less cool than usual, as it’s a combination of teen heartthrobs, then and now, notably Ricky Martin and Justin Bieber, if you can believe it. Of course, I haven’t listening to Mr Martin in ages, save the requisite bad rendition of Livin’ la Vida Loca every time I go to karaoke. So I felt the urge to see what he was up to.

Have you ever noticed that looking celebs up on Google is usually a huge waste of time? Especially when your search ends up on IMDB. Never click on the links unless you have no urge to accomplish anything for hours, or at least that’s what I try to remind myself every time. And actually, I make a special note to never read the boards, because, well… you know, there are lots of nutty people out there, and eventually they drive me insane. But I decided to make an exception this time, hoping for a pleasant surprise, and you know what? It was totally worth it.

Just look at this gem I found!

Poster A: Do you feel very disappointed that he’s revealed himself to be gay?
Poster B: Him being gay doesn’t make me blind. I can still enjoy looking at him.

If I keep finding witicisms like that, I might have to become an IMDb board regular, especially now that I need to fill the hole in my heart that used to be taken by my professors’ quotes.

And in case you also haven’t listened to anything from him since 1999, may I present a poor quality video from a concert. Ah, what would we do without YouTube?

PS: For what it’s worth, I found this album, Life, to be really bright and refreshingly different from his other English albums. Maybe that’s why nobody bought it….

I just wanted to read the news at the New York Times, but alas, it was not meant to be. The Internets wanted to show me the Washington Post instead. What on earth? The weirdest part is, all my friends elsewhere claim that they see the normal website. It’s only my roommate and I. Do we have some crazy internet?

The other day, my roommate gave me a grave look and asked a very surprising question. “What makes someone an addict?” she wondered as we sat in front of the TV. The first thoughts that came to mind were those images of heroin addicts shooting up, or the reenactments of scenes from opiom dens. But thankfully, she quickly followed up her initial mysterious question with, “I think I might be addicted to chocolate.”

You see, my dear roommate is someone who I see consuming chocolate everyday. Usually, it’s a small quantity, perhaps a few squares of a recently discovered organic bar, for instance. Sometimes, it will be ice cream, and rarely in the winter months, it’ll be a cup of hot chocolate.

But as for me, although I would never complain if a bar of Swiss milk chocolate magically appeared before my eyes, I don’t often have intense cravings for it. Actually, I’m much more of a vanilla person. With so many choices of flavors, vanilla is still my favorite ice cream. And from the tender age of 12, I made a point to wear my vanilla-based body splash nearly every day. In fact, it became my signature scent, and my friends would know when I would be walking towards them as the faint sweet scent drifted closer.

Apparently, some things never change. I purchased half a pound of vanilla beans this week, and after making my own vanilla extract and vanilla sugar, I’ll soon be thinking of the most delicious ways of utilizing my new favorite toys.

Any recommendations?

So they didn’t turn out quite as I had hoped. And yes, I got lazy because, as you can see, I didn’t make the cute little ones with a hole in the center. But my excuse will be that I actually own no cookie cutters! Can you believe it? So I rolled out a big sheet of the shortbread dough and just cut everything into little Utah-shaped rectangles. I actually tried for squares first, but apparently my ability to control my knife in sticky caramel is not as great as I thought it would be.

But yum!! Coconut + chocolate + caramel + vanilla sugar cookie = delicious.

Is it the sunshine? The (relatively) warm winters? The beautiful scenery? The actual existence of happy, sandaled people? Actually, I miss Sweet Tomatoes, the salad bar.

Ok, my friends aren’t bad either, especially the one who sent me this photo.

Recently, I’ve felt an unnatural craving for Girl Scout Cookies. Everyone has a favorite and my favorite is definitely the Samoas! I have no idea why they’re named that, but that chocolate coconut caramel deliciousness is really something wonderful to behold. Someone was kind enough to bring an entire case of them into the office last week, and of course, within 3 days, they were all gone. Nobody eats just one at a time, it seems. But now, the true horror of it has set in.

No, I don’t mean the extra inch around the hips (although I’m not sure I can really blame the cookies for that), but rather the fact that the Girl Scouts only sell their cookies once a year, and cookie season in my area is officially over! So now what? Do I live an entire year without more Samoas, knowing each day would be sadder than the next? “No way!” I told myself, with all the determination of a three-year-old seeking to reclaim a toy stolen from him by an evil older brother. That’s right, I’m going to make Knock-off Girl Scout cookies, starting with this recipe, and taking hints from this one too.

I’m quite sure mine won’t turn out as pretty, but hopefully it’ll satisfy my craving. Will be back to report on the results.

Oh, and I almost forgot… I finally got around to adding my twitter feed to the sidebar, in case you needed more of my senseless ramblings, only this time in 140 character form.