47 posts tagged “qotd”
Which band or artist which is no longer performing or alive would you have loved to have seen?
Submitted by Rev Stan.
Led Zeppelin. NO QUESTION.
What are you going to do with your tax return?
Submitted by KB.
If I HAD a return, I'd use em to fix up the house. However, we just gave good ol Uncle Sam a hefty $1,400, so that's out of the question for the next few months.
What is, or used to be, your SSB (secret single behavior)?
Submitted by Dee.
Okay, first of all, how the hell did this "behavior" earn its own abbreviation/initialism? Is it really so normal in popular culture that it has its own generalized term? I mean geez, it's not like I go around saying I have a secret car habit (SCH) or a special Street Fighter move (SSFM). WTF? Really. Step up the QOTDs people, this is just silly.
And for the record, the only secret single behavior I'll admit to is that I used to have an imaginary boyfriend.
Who taught you how to cook?
Submitted by Donna.
Books, the Internet, and television. I was a rather spoiled kid growing up, and never really cooked or learned any recipes from my family. So when I moved on to college, I had to sort of improvise. First I relied on the bad stuff: Rice-a-roni, Hamburger Helper, Campbell's soups, etc. You name it, I probably tried it. Then I started buying a whole lot of cooking books -- even Cooking for Dummies. From there, I did some research on the Internet, and slowly learned a few sound cooking techniques. I made a lot of casseroles and baked dishes in the beginning, since they seemed to be the easiest. But then I learned about braising, stir-frying, and started to make soups, stews, etc. Oftentimes I had leftovers for a whole week after a day's worth of cooking (I lived by myself for over five years). Then I started watching a lot of Food Network, and I was simply inspired. Sara Moulton was actually pretty helpful in me learning a few simple chopping techniques, and then Alton Brown changed my viewpoint on almost everything food-related. I became a serious foodie then, buying cooking magazines like Cook's Illustrated, waking up early to go to Farmer's Markets, eschewing Albertson's for Whole Foods, etc. I also learned how to bake by myself -- baking cookie after cookie to get the perfect batch, trying my hand at baking bread, etc. Last year I baked my very first pie from scratch -- it was the apple pie I made for Brandon's birthday.
I wonder if that's unusual; that I learned how to cook in college. I'm sure that's a pretty normal phenomenon.
Who taught you how to cook?
Submitted by Donna.
Books, the Internet, and television. I was a rather spoiled kid growing up, and never really cooked or learned any recipes from my family. So when I moved on to college, I had to sort of improvise. First I relied on the bad stuff: Rice-a-roni, Hamburger Helper, Campbell's soups, etc. You name it, I probably tried it. Then I started buying a whole lot of cooking books -- even Cooking for Dummies. From there, I did some research on the Internet, and slowly learned a few sound cooking techniques. I made a lot of casseroles and baked dishes in the beginning, since they seemed to be the easiest. But then I learned about braising, stir-frying, and started to make soups, stews, etc. Oftentimes I had leftovers for a whole week after a day's worth of cooking (I lived by myself for over five years). Then I started watching a lot of Food Network, and I was simply inspired. Sara Moulton was actually pretty helpful in me learning a few simple chopping techniques, and then Alton Brown changed my viewpoint on almost everything food-related. I became a serious foodie then, buying cooking magazines like Cook's Illustrated, waking up early to go to Farmer's Markets, eschewing Albertson's for Whole Foods, etc. I also learned how to bake by myself -- baking cookie after cookie to get the perfect batch, trying my hand at baking bread, etc. Last year I baked my very first pie from scratch -- it was the apple pie I made for Brandon's birthday.
I wonder if that's unusual; that I learned how to cook in college. I'm sure that's a pretty normal phenomenon.
How do you pass the time during a flight? What do you bring in your carry-on?
It's funny, but I always over-worry about being bored on a flight. This is why I bring my laptop, my Nintendo DS Lite, and my iPod. And if this isn't enough, I inevitably buy at least three magazines at the newsstand before the flight (One intellectual/cultural, one science/tech, and one girly/trashy gossip rag). What usually happens -- I read one magazine. That's it. The rest of the time is me trying to sleep.
PS. The reason I try not to use headphones on a flight is because my ears are kinda sensitive to the difference in air pressure. So when I use my earbuds, my ears somehow don't adjust to the air pressure as quickly, and this sometimes results in quite the earache. This seems to be remedied with really bad quality headphones, like the kinds they give you in airplanes. But the problem is... they're really bad quality headphones. And so I don't use my iPod on flights.
And I'm sure that's more than you ever wanted to know about me and my flying habits.
How did you meet your current, or most recent, significant other?
I think I've told this story a few times, once even at FrayCafe at SXSW in Austin. We met on kiss.com. Yeah yeah, I know, cheesy as all hell. But kiss.com has this weird matchy algorithm that matches you to the other person according to interests, location, etc. So I entered in my info for a lark (I was single and not actively looking, but figured it couldn't hurt), and it gave me like a top ten list of people I was most compatible with. Brandon was number 2. I can't remember who Number 1 was, but I think when I saw the number 2 guy was interested in the same sorts of topics I was (comics, cartoons, geek stuff) and he lived in the City, I didn't really think twice about messaging him. Funny thing is, I was number 1 on his list. Also, I had to pay like 5 bucks to email him, and he had to pay the same amount (Weird kiss.com messaging payment thing) to mail me back. Then we had this date a week later, and we hit it off, and.. yeah. We sometimes joke we only paid $10 for each other. Best bargain ever!
Sure, most sequels stink, but what movie really needs a sequel?
The Incredibles, duh.
If you could open a restaurant, any kind you want, what would it look like and what's on the menu?
Submitted by A is for Amy.
It would be red. And white. And there will be pink in strategic places. The floor will be rich mahogany wood. It will be furnished with furniture from Design Within Reach. The kitchen will have Viking ranges and Sub-zero refrigeration.
Food will be Asian comfort food. There will be different kinds of jook/rice porridge. Honest-to-goodness soy water will be on the menu (No, not soy milk in the way you would find it in most megamarts. The real stuff is called tau cheong sui, and it's currently only available in Chinatown and certain specialty stores. It's made by boiling soy beans in water and has a decidedly different taste than westernized soy milk.) There will be a selection of Chinese vegetarian food that tastes GOOD -- so good that it'll make you WANT to be a vegetarian.
There will also be meat. Peking duck, pork in a Chinese medicinal stew (or bah kut teh), pork in this black as sin greasy sauce with a pickled vegetable served with white buns, beef cooked in a dark curry sauce (or rendang), glutinous rice with pork, steamed fish over tea lights, Shanghai dumplings, and dim sum galore. There will be claypot dishes, and dishes cooked with salted fish (or ham yi), and roti canai, and all sorts of dishes with a strong Malaysian background.
Also? We'll have french fries. Because I like french fries. It'll be the really crispy kind, and it'll be served with a side of ketchup and Sri racha sauce. With the option of a cheese sauce. (I had this when I attended a pre-college institution in Malaysia. This little roadside stall outside would serve french fries covered in a cheese sauce and a spicy spicy spicy chilli sauce similar to Sri racha. That was our version of "chili cheese fries" and it was GOOD).
Yeah, my restaurant would so kick your restaurant's ass.
What books did you love as a child?
Submitted by hearts.
Wow, where do I begin? I think I read practically every single Enid Blyton book in existence. I loved Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, and I even read a couple of the Hardy Boys. I read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn when I was 11 (Just picked them out at the local public library). Loved the Encyclopedia Brown series (and pretty much any mystery/problem-solving type of book for children, like the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series). Choose Your Own Adventure books rocked! And, as embarrassing as it is to admit this, I also read a lot of Sweet Valley High as well as Sweet Valley Twins. Read a lot of Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine books when I was a tad older. Also loved all the Roald Dahl books (even read some of his bawdier tales when I was older). I was around 14 or so when I started delving into the Dragonlance series, which then got me into the David Eddings books like the Belgariad. I remember really liking the Rose of the Prophet trilogy by Margaret Weis. And hey, if you count comics, I read a lot of Archie, Tintin, and Asterix too :) Ooh, and I loved the Adrian Mole series (British humor at its most painful)!
Digression: I remember reading a mystery book that actually asked you to utilize BASICA to solve the mystery -- complete with the BASICA answer at the back of the book. It was pretty fucking awesome. If only I can remember the title of the book!!
And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface -- those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. Yeah I didn't read a lot of the "canon" stuff (Dickens, Steinbeck, etc.), but I did read a healthy amount. I should get back into it actually -- maybe pick up a sci-fi book or two.
