Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Worst Timing Ever.

My computer bit the dust on Sunday. And I am le sad. To make it worse, not only am I job-hunting (or failing at doing so), but Omar is too. He left Centro, and went home for a bit last week. He's back here as is my older brother Easa and two cousins, Maher and (another) Isa. Once they leave, today, it's going to be sort of tough. Not only do we need the computer, but I'm not really looking forward to being home with my brother 24/7. While I am keeping busy, and still helping with that small part-time job, still... It's all sort of fail...

Thursday, October 15, 2009

You know I'm bad,

I'm bad, you know it.



So what do Michael Jackson lyrics have to do with Blog Action Day? Eh, I can't say there is any connection, but today is Blog Action Day, and the first time I saw anything about it was a tweet from Shelly with the BAD acronym used and it stuck.

What the hell is this post all about, you ask? Well, BAD is basically just a day of bloggers starting a discussion. This year, it's all about climate change. And the main reason I chose to participate when I heard about this is, well, today! I woke up to a rainy, 40 day in the middle of October. In addition, this summer gave New York a new nickname - NYCeattle. June 2009 had maybe four rainless days. The summer of 2009 in New York was pretty much nonexistant, and this stark entrance to winter is not pleasant to my mild weather loving self.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Pet Peeve

[This post recevies a special co-title of Epic Fail]

So, for anyone (anyone? anyone?) reading this thing with some regularity, you probably remember my mention of a StyleCareers career fair coming up, yeah? Yeaaah, about that. While I should probably not automatically label it as #epicfail, to say it was frustrating and exhausting is an understatement. Over the course of five hours, I spoke with four (yes, four) companies, and spent 97% of that time standing in line. It was the ultimate clusterfuck, and while there were over a dozen, closer to two dozen, companies there, the lines were insane. You could not figure out what line was for which company, where a line ended, how long the line truly was.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Tight Ass Tuesday: October's Bastardization

Because I'm still broke and always up for a challenge, I'm doing another Tight Ass Tuesday for Thursday Night Smackdown. I mean, I won the damn thing last month, I can't leave TNS hanging now! Yep, I won! Woo! So, I got to pick the cooking 'prompt' for October. Feeling incredibly uncreative, here was my idea:

"It’s time to bastardize your two (or more) favorite cuisines! The ever popular, mostly outdated fusion cooking style is the challenge. Be creative or play it safe (Indian-Thai), just don’t be a jackass serving falafel in a taco shell."



So what the hell did I come up with? Err, I'm not even sure, but I'm calling it ConFusion Curry Raviolis. Having quite a bit of leftover lamb curry and cooked basmati rice from the Lamb Takedown, I really wanted to use them up in some creative way. Plus, the lamb was FREE. Making this perfect Smackdown material! And thus, we have the rice and curry ravioli/dumpling/potsticker. I got stuck on the idea of using the rice in the way pierogi and gnocchi dough uses potato, and just winged it along the way. I yoinked Mario Batali's potato ravioli recipe, attempting to puree rice in my measly baby blender. Warning: pureed rice, egg, water is really. Fucking. Sticky. While I only added 3/8th cup to the rice in the bowl, during the course of trying to knead the dough, and then make each little dumpling thing, I used a lot of flour. It sticks to fingers and counters really easily and needed the flour. The curry recipe I used is made from two pounds of lamb, but I probably only used about a cup of filling, if that. That recipe is also really delicious, and I recommend making it next time you're craving curry.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Wait, it's October?

Wait, wait, wait, can someone slow down the clock? Seriously, I've been unemployed for three months now (ugh) and the time is flying. This partially comes from all the good and awesome shit I've been doing, but then again, dude, I want a job. I want to be even busier than I am now. The past few weeks has just been insane, with the Soup Kitchen, the Vendys, and then the second half of this week was jam packed. I've been keeping up with Unemployed Brooklyn, and we had another get together on Wednesday in Greenpoint. It was a surprisingly small turnout, but just a nice afternoon with a cheap beer. Briana (UB) is just a sweet girl, so it makes any event worthwhile. Because I'm crazy, I bought a ticket to the Brooklyn Meatup that was happening Wednesday evening. Briana's friend had surprised her with a ticket (after she sort of made fun of the whole thing) so we ended up going down to the Bell House together. We spent most of the time chilling together with her friend; to be honest, there was a ton of people there. Lots of people + me doesn't = lots of success.

But, I did meet a cute guy towards the end of the night (I was lame and went home around 11:30). It happened actually away from the craziness, outside in the hallway by the 'post-it note personals. I was reading some, and another few girls were as well and we were sort of chatting. A guy was standing by the table and joined the convo, and was like "Hah, yeah I put one up. Pretty corny." While it was, I was intrigued, and we started talking. We probably talked for 15-30 minutes (I didn't keep track of time) and at the end, exchanged numbers. I had a total foot-in-mouth, I'm an awkward motherfucker moment at the end, but oh well, I am an awkward motherfucker. It seems pretty obviously platonic (on his end) but dude, I got a number. Now, um, where to go from here?! (Seriously, this chick is clueless.)