Broken Gifts

So yesterday jethereal got me a popcorn popper (air popper this time, yay!) and a crock pot from Target. The person in line behind us told me that 1.5 qts was really small for a crock pot. She also told me what's so awesome about them is you can leave them on all day when you go to work. This morning I opened it and yea, she was right. It was only around the size of ... oh, a medium bowl of soup. So I took it back to Target and upgraded for only seven bucks to a 4 qt, which I think will do me well.

Then I came home and later went to make air popcorn. The thing rattled, the base part of it, this was before I did anything with it, and when I went to look at it I saw a bit of the plastic was cracked, but didn't think much of it. Before the popcorn did anything like popping though, the whole unit was smoking, and it had a plastic smell. :(

I decided to make beef stew overnight, and now I'm hoping that there's nothing wrong with it, and that it doesn't burn the whole house down. Chopping the ingredients takes just as long no matter what I'm cooking it in, but if I really don't have to stir it or anything that'll be nice. How hot does meat have to get internally to be safe to eat? As in killed all the bacteria in it. I'm thinking I've heard 180ºF for chicken, I'm cooking beef. I figure I'll stick a meat thermometer in the pot tomorrow morning when I stagger out of the bedroom and see how it's doing, and quite likely turn up the heat to high for an hour or two just to be sure.

In case you're curious, my special ingredients for beef stew are Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, basalmic vinegarette, and diced garlic. ^_^ This time I'm also trying bacon facon bits. Mmmmmm.... Now I'm hungry. I'm sad I didn't get airpop. :(

Pet Emergency Kit

Sometime lately I read an article by a breeder telling the story of when there was a tornado sighting in her county. She had 30 minutes to get all her birds (plus some cats and dogs) into the storm shelter underground. Among the other things she discovered was that she didn't even have enough travel cages for them all, and was stuffing multiple birds into travel cages built for one bird.

Leaving the crock pot on all night made me wonder what I would do if I wake up to find a fire outside my bedroom. I would have to grabe Gabe in his cage, my car keys, and my cellphone. (Car keys are so I can take him somewhere he won't freeze to death.) I'm going to build an emergency kit I think. I may or may not put a bottle of water in the car again (it'll just freeze), I have some seeds near his cage maybe I want more, maybe keep his travel cage next to it even though his full cage fits in the car. *shrug* It's not as big a deal with just the one bird. Maybe a credit card, that'd be another smart thing to do, though with a car and a cellphone I can always get friends to help out, two hours away at worst. My house keys have a mini-ATM card on them, so maybe grab those too.

I needa get my landlord to replace my smoke detector. Remind me to do that, would you?

25 years ago

On this day 25 years ago, the top article on the BBC was about a mystery outbreak of simultaneous pneumonia and skin cancer in the US. If you aren't already going "ah hah!" then go read the article now.

Don't you love commercials?

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Do you think maybe office workers in the Netherlands really are all this hot? :-P

Socks!

I just made the best damned fleece socks in the world! They better fucking be after I broke two sewing machine needles on the second one, and by golly they are. ^_^

[I was using pins to mark where to sew, and ran the needle right over the plastic head of the pin. The first time the needle broke at the eye and so fell apart, the second time it broke right over the eye, leaving the end of the needle around the thread. Thankgoodness nothing else in the machine broke, and I have a goddess for a mother as she gave me 15 replacement needles with the machine itself.)

I'm awesome. I now have matching fleece socks and scarf, and I'm going to try a hat and gloves soon. It took me around 2 hours to make the socks. :( I'm sure I'll get faster, but I don't know how much faster, or faster enough to be worth it, or how fast I'll get faster... Man, if a half-hour scarf is worth $15, these things shoudl be worth $60 all by themselves!

( ETA: Pictures! )

"Teething Bling"

Yes, that's really the title of a google ad I saw today. It's for jewelry for mothers, who want the jewelry to be baby-safe.