A carnival of technology

After a couple of days of oversleeping, and several more of waking up to a backup alarm without any memory of the first, I’ve decided that it’s finally time to retire a trusty companion of mine, that obnoxious battery-powered alarm clock. For those of you who have had the misfortune to live or travel with me in the past four or five years, it was that horrible beeping noise that preceded the swearing in the mornings. I liked it a lot: it was durable, able to survive falls even from those rickety lofted beds at Tech; the batteries meant that it is immune to all those times we threw the breaker in the dorms by running 47 computers, three fridges and a microwave on the same circuit; and, best of all, it had a little switch on one side to control the volume, perennially turned to horribly, horribly loud. I’m not one to take a morning without a fight, and this little clock gave me that fight. Whether it was after a healthy 8-hour sleep or a half-hour nap before returning to a a 36-hour run of last-minute CS homework, that thing would always wake my ass up and demand that I get out of bed. Any failures to get up were always mine, whether I was too tired when setting it to understand the difference between AM and PM or remember enough set theory to figure out that 9 comes after 8, or if I was simply too lazy to take the extra step to roll out of bed. Well, either I’ve adapted to the point that I can consistently turn the alarm off in my sleep, or it’s broken.

In the past I’ve always used a buzzer for an alarm, but this time I decided to try something new. I got a radio alarm clock, and I set it to WREK. All the Atlanta residents just cringed upon reading that, but it’s really different from what you’re thinking. Granted, no human could possibly adapt to WREK’s “challenging” programming, which would make a rather effective alarm, but their morning show is classical music, instead of sledgehammers vs. marimbas. The past couple of days have been met with a rather peaceful awakening. Some violins and piano and whatever fade into my consciousness, I think to myself, “Huh, that’s kind of nice,” and then I go about my morning. Maybe waking up doesn’t have to be so jarring.

My main fear now is that WREK will replace their Classics show with the Morning Gothic Airhorn Extravaganza, or something similar. I’ve stopped fighting the morning, but I don’t know if WREK will start fighting me.

Publix, you need more than one class of “complimentary” coupon. As some of you may know, I recently wrote to Publix over my concern about the reduction in cereal whimsy after Crispy Hexagons was renamed to Crispy Corn and Rice. The box design for the cereals looks nice, but it’s a shame that the name had to become a casualty. Since Publix probably doesn’t really care, they just gave me a standard response of “we’ve forwarded blah blah blah to the store in question” and some shut-up coupons for free cereal. I’m guessing that they gave me the same coupons that they might have given to someone who finds a thumb in their store brand cocoa puffs: they have more an appearance of a check than a coupon, being printed on non-glossy paper with red security patterns printed across the front, lest I attempt to photocopy their appeasement and eat free cereal forever. I used two of them to purchase some Publix-brand honey nut cheerios and cocoa rice crispies. The cashier went to find a manager, having never seen such a thing before, and when she came back, she was very apologetic, since she apparently learned that such a coupon is given to the disgruntled. I don’t want to be an angry customer.

Sometimes I do more than just buy groceries. Sometimes I also get a haircut. I really like what Great Clips is doing by using their hair database to track my preferences, since it’s perfectly suited for someone like me who’s mostly apathetic about hair and gets the same damn cut every time. No more will that conversation occur: “Which guard do you use for the back and sides?” “I don’t know. They have numbers, right?” Now they just can just look that up. Hurray.

I love cast-iron. It’s the most dynamic of all cookware, almost human in its behavior. It’s simple, effective and virtually indestructible, yet it’s also the most fragile of cookware and must be used and cared for carefully. It, too, has feelings, and if kept happy, it’ll keep your food happy. Besides, what other utensil has “fry bacon” as a part of the cleaning process? Whoever invented the cast-iron skillet was truly a culinary poet.

I acquired a handful of skillets from my parents last weekend, since they never used them, and this weekend was my first chance to really try them out. First, I’d like to note that the Lodge cast-iron people left out a few points in their seasoning instructions, so I’ll just include a few handy tips here for anyone thinking of seasoning some cast-iron at home:

• It’s going to produce a buttload of smoke
• Do one item at a time (see above)
• Keep the fire extinguisher handy

I didn’t burn the place down, so I guess everything’s alright. Today I got in touch with the Southern heritage I pretend to be able to claim by making some cornbread and fried chicken. The cornbread came out fairly good, but Aunt Jemima let me down a little. The only cornmeal I could find on the day I went to Publix for cornbread stuff was of the self-rising variety, and I think it has a bit too much salt in it. Also, I need to use a little more sugar next time, because sugar good. As far as the fried chicken went, my fried chicken technique could use a little work, but it was a good start. I think I’ll be able to handle it better next time, so I can spend more energy experimenting with those 11 herbs and spices. If anyone has some suggestions on that front, let me know.

I went to the Cost Plus World Market down the street today in the hopes of finding some Tim Tams, but they had none. The food section of that store looks like they got one person to raid the yuppie section of Publix and another person to hit an Asian grocery. About the only thing I saw in there that is available at neither such place was Vegemite.

For those of you who don’t know, Vegemite is a spread, popular in Australia, and known by Americans mainly through that “Vegemite sandwich” line in that Men at Work song. It’s made by Kraft, and its main ingredient is leftover brewers’ yeast. Marmite is a similarly made yeast-extract product, but it’s supposed to be horrendously foul (according to Australians). I, being a curious American, tried Vegemite once; I knew it went on toast, so I got a nice piece of toast, slathered the dark, brownish goop—the color of lost souls and crushed dreams—onto the bread good and thick, and took a nice, hearty bite. Even were I to eat twenty ramen flavor packets while swimming in the Great Salt Lake and holding a salt lick up my nose, I could not have consumed something that salty. Vegemite is foul! I said. I threw it aside and never looked back.

Well, I was later told that I did it all wrong. Apparently Vegemite, being vastly different from other things that also go on toast, like peanut butter and strawberry jam, should be applied at a vastly different thickness. The “serving size” on the jar is one teaspoon. The advice from human Australians seems to be along the lines of “thinly.” So, I, being incredibly stupid and a little bored, tried Vegemite again. This time, for comparison’s sake, I got two pieces of toast, spread Vegemite as thinly as possible on one, and spread strawberry jam thickly and deliciously on the other. Man, Australia loses. Somehow even the barest hint of that spread transforms harmless toast into a bloodthirsty, gnashing instrument of culinary destruction. How can you people eat this stuff?