Weekend Plans Post: The Mélange of the Week
There was a funny tweet that said something to the effect of “Remember how we used to laugh at Rebecca Black’s lyric ‘yesterday was Thursday Thursday, today it is Friday Friday… we we we so excited we so excited, we’re gonna have a ball today… tomorrow is Saturday and Sunday comes afterwards…’ and, my gosh, I wish I had that confidence when it came to naming what day it is.”
Well, after a week of wrangling with Excel Worksheets and filling out forms and ticking checks in little boxes every day, the whistle blows and we get off work.
So, this weekend, we’re going to be doing much of the same things we do every weekend. We’re going to be cooking. I’ve made a big batch of spaghetti sauce and it’s really good. We have “pizza dough mix” that seems interesting and so I’m going to whip up some pizza dough and put my spaghetti sauce on it and then some mozza and pepperoni. We also have some lovely mini bell peppers and I’m going to dice those and sprinkle those on the pizza too.
My gaming group has started a Blood Bowl II tournament (review forthcoming!) and so I have a couple of those games scheduled. I’ll want to take a jog this weekend (my leg muscles are starting to come back). Incredibles 2 is on the Netflix and The Big Show has a sitcom? Tell me more! And, holy cow, Jackie Chan has, like, 6 movies on there. There’s a new Spenser movie? And a sequel to Death Race starring Danny Glover.
Oh, and Groundhog Day. Though that’d be a hair on the nose.
And I will be doing laundry, of course. Always with the laundry. But I have been cheating a little… sometimes I do laundry in the middle of the week now. I’m only cheating myself. It means there’s less to do come Friday. And fewer markers for what day it is.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is Tiger, helping Maribou out with her correspondence.)
There was a time in the 1990s when Hollywood was trying like hell to break Jackie Chan, and it never really did work out the way everybody wanted. There were a couple of good movies, a lot of re-dubs of Hong Kong stuff, and some baaaaaad sequels.Report
Also, WHAT DAY IS IT?Report
It dumped your link. Was that The Terminator or Jumanji?Report
eh, I’ll just give you this: https://twitter.com/toddmeany/status/1247131923228626944Report
I saw one of those segments but it was timed to be on or around April Fool’s Day so I assumed that it was a one-time gag.
Maybe that segment ending should be one of our mile markers for where we are on this particular road.Report
phase 1: one news station does it, it’s funny
phase 2: every news station is doing it, it’s sorta funny
phase 3: every news station has been doing it, it’s not funny but now it’s sorta funny how it’s not funny
phase 4: ants
phase 5: every news station has been doing it and it’s not even meta-funny but nobody wants to be the first to stop doing it because that would lead to stories about how we’re all giving up and they’d be the example and nobody wants to be The Example Of How We’re All Giving UpReport
I only have to do a half-day today (typical for me, though). And I’m out of milk, so that means a quick run to the store. Andrew mentioned The Caine Mutiny a couple of days ago on the tweeters so I’m going to give Amazon a couple of bucks and watch that this afternoon. Maybe I’ll try to line up a couple of Blood Bowl games tonight since we’ve got the league rolling–I’ll suggest a training match for our mutual friend so he has a better grasp of the rules for his second game. And maybe I’ll drag the gaggle of teens living here into a game of Agricola–strikes me as the kind of game they’d dig.Report
I would *LOVE* a full report on what the store is like with specific emphasis on:
Pasta Aisle (including name-brand pastas and boxed meals such as Kraft Dinner and Hamburger Helper).
Dairy Section (fancy cheese selection, shredded cheese selection, butter selection).
Bread Section (bagels, English muffins, sandwich breads).
Frozen Section (do they have the good frozen pizzas, how is the ice cream selection).
Produce (I keep hearing that produce is great, how are the fresh herbs? Do they have a normal selection of garlic/pesto products).
And, of course, Paper Products.
I don’t need pictures or anything but just a general idea of whether the store looks like it’d been hit by a bomb or something (I haven’t been to a store since mid-March and, yeah, it looked like it got bombed).Report
I’ll see what I can do. No promises, as I’m only going to Sprouts.Report
Oh, you can skip the paper aisle, then.
“They had a full range of recycled toilet paper available! Also, the Beyond Meat section was fully stocked!”
“…this tells me nothing.”Report
Does Sprouts even HAVE a paper aisle?Report
The stores in Pueblo haven’t been as bombed out. It’s funny–they’ve had areas of emptiness or low stock that vary from week to week. Paper supplies are in–just not full shelves and you can’t be picky with brand choices. Breads have been good as the cheeses and butters. Past is still pretty decimated, but you can get some. Frozen has been good.Report
That’s close to what I saw… I said “bombed out” but that’s not really fair.
I could get the pasta I wanted… just not the name brand I wanted for the variant I wanted. I wanted Barilla Spaghetti. They didn’t have it. I had to get the fancy-schmancy Organic spaghetti… but I could still get spaghetti. (I was able to get the Barilla Rotini, though.)
Hamburger Helper was more or less entirely gone (I got the last couple of boxes of Cheeseburger). There were more than a dozen boxes of Beef Stroganoff Helper though. They were out of the white rice (and jasmine rice) but you could get the fancy schmancy saffron rice.
No white eggs, but you could get the fancy schmancy Organic brown eggs. Land-O-Lakes butter was nowhere to be seen… unless you wanted unsalted. If you wanted salted butter, you had to get Store Brand.
The frozen section was less than half stocked. Might have been less than 75% stocked… but I still got a frozen pizza. Just one of the fancy schmancy four cheese ones. No pepperoni ones to be found. (You could get pepperoni in the deli section, though. Which I did.)
Bread was gone except for the wacky brands that were probably only usually purchased by hippies. (Oh, and naan. I got some naan to go with my saffron rice.)
Produce was great, except all of the chopped garlic was gone. (I bought crushed.)
And the paper aisle was devastated. Like, *NOTHING*.
But the main thing I noticed was that I could get, more or less, what I wanted. I just couldn’t get *EXACTLY* what I wanted. Well, except for the eggs. I love the fancy schmancy organic eggs.Report
The items that are being run on now are supplies for baking: flour, yeast, baking powder and baking soda…stuff like that. Plenty or meat, milk (though I did have to make two stops to find lactose-free milk), paper products, etc. Produce section remains well-stocked, as is bread. Empty spots here and there but folks should be able to find mostly whatever it is they’re looking for.
And stupid me…I bought a modest package of tp only to come home and have youngest boy point out that we had all missed the ginormous package of tp down in the garage (missed because it was slightly separated from the other dry goods and my brain just filtered it out).
Sigh.Report
Awesome! Thank you!Report
I am getting back into my repainting the house schedule. I mean, the weather is perfect, I have paint and brushes and TSP, so why not. It isn’t like I have anything else to do…Report
Well, I’m working. Provided my internet access doesn’t totally cack it. After it being very good, it’s dropped twice this morning. I got it back both times but I don’t even know. Too many people working from home right now? I was trying to listen to some streamed music over YouTube and maybe that was too much for it.
I don’t even know what I’m doing this weekend other than working. It’s gray out again and I am peevish again, after yesterday being a good day, including getting out and mowing the lawn.Report
For listening to music on youtube I use a chrome plug-in called “audio only youtube” – it does what it says on the tin. If I’m just going to leave a youtube window open in the background to listen to a concert or something, I turn that plug-in on so I don’t use a bunch of bandwidth for video I’m not going to look at (video is about 10x as much data as audio)Report
It’s wild how YouTube has low-key turned into a streaming audio provider…Report
Thanks for the tip, dragonfrog. I’m using that extension now.Report
Still picking away at the house renovations. Painting is nearly done inside. The weekend is looking promising for being able to do exterior painting. The plumber has done his bit now, so we can go ahead with the stuff that was waiting on that (some tile, putting the bathroom wainscotting and fixtures back in).
I’m going to have to find time to brew some beer in there somewhere – I’ve been putting all my spare time toward renovations, so that the beer supply is very low. Even if I do get brewing done, I’m going to have to spend a month or more drinking store-bought…Report
Welp, just found out the “weekly maintenance that may take campus services offline” is still happening this evening so I guess right after lunch I record all my lecture material instead of finishing the biostats stuff (which can be done offline), and work on that this evening.
I am someone who does BADLY with loosey-goosey schedules and I HATE making a plan of what I’m doing when and then having to change it because of some externality. I’m not *quite* at punch-a-wall level with all of the crap messing with my schedule, but I am getting dangerously close.
I also hate how obtaining groceries is now this Epic Quest instead of just “ho hum, I wonder if there’s something DIFFERENT I could fix for dinner” or “geez, I need a lemon, i don’t got a lemon.”
Now, it’s: plan on a time when the fewest people are likely to be there (taking into account the fact that everywhere opens later and closes earlier now), suit up, get mask and gloves, be hyperaware of people in your vicinity the whole time, plan on massive substituting, make sure you can pay by credit card (in the past, for few small things? I just handed over cash but figure the cashiers would rather not deal with that now)
Or, if it’s “geez, I need a lemon and I’m out” I’m “okay, is plain rice vinegar close enough? Or do I have some kind of fruit juice on the shelf? Or what about that skanky wine I bought just for cooking with?”
That said? The Green Spray – a small, long-time locally run store – had pretty much everything in stock yesterday. Maybe not the national brands, and maybe not a lot of any one thing (they were limiting how much flour, tp, eggs, and milk a person could buy) but at least they had stuff in stock. I have an extra 5 lbs of flour now and am considering making cinnamon rolls this weekend as a result (yes, I have yeast too).
But a lot of things about the new situation we find ourselves in are EXACTLY the things that mess with exactly the ways I’m a little neuroatypical – the hatred of having my schedule messed with, the hatred of prolonged noise I can’t control (every dude in my neighborhood has mowed multiple times), the managing other people’s emotions (lots of my students seem to think I’m the Wise Adult in this, when I’m probably more freaked out than they are….)
I am considering just not….turning on my campus e-mail tomorrow. I don’t check it some normal weekends in normal times and I am a bit worn down from the barrage of e-mails. I do have to work; I have some editing work I need to do for a small journal I am one of the technical editors on. (Hm. Maybe I even sneak into my office office for that)Report
Today, an essential grocery store run. Saturday, an essential trip to the pharmacy. No weekend events at my local church parking lot, so maybe a long Sunday walk?
My Youtube tastes right now include anything with human beings on camera, talking about anything but the coronavirus. I don’t even want things that interest me, because nothing particularly interests me except people. I’m looking forward to the NFL draft next weekend. I can’t quite bring myself to watch old sporting events, though. I don’t know why.Report
If you could give a store review, I’m sure it would be appreciated.Report
I can’t give much of a review, beyond reporting that my local Shop Rite has been rockin’ the paper towels and toilet paper for more than a month. Is the toilet paper only slightly more comfortable than the paper towels? An irrelevant question.Report
I’ve been watching comic book and movie critics, some of whom had been involved with The Fandom Menace, which was part of the negative reaction to Disney Star Wars. I’ve never read comic books or superhero movies, but some of these critics are extremely entertaining.
Here’s last Friday’s episode of “Friday Night Tights”, which is a weekly get together of some of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTQwSX3iB_sReport
That’s hilarious. I’ve been watching some of those too. I’m a big fan of Red Letter Media, and I think that’s how I ended up getting comics reviews in my “you might like”. And I don’t read comics either.
And who’s that dashing, devil-may-care wordsmith pictured in your video? Is that The Critical Drinker? Anyone who recommends Event Horizon can’t be all bad. (Actually, that’s not true. It’s possible to recommend Event Horizon and be all bad.)Report
Critical Drinker is the guy with the Scottish accent, tossing back a bottle of whisky in the above image.
Tonight’s episode has some minor adjustments in the cast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9_DabHpCp4Report
I just found my plans for the weekend: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/g2w45q/new_quest_make_every_citizen_of_skyrim_a_gourd/Report
Tonight, inspired by CrazyFillyjonk on Twitter, I’m making Indian tacos. Haven’t had them for years, and I’m looking forward to eating them.
Tomorrow, the only thing planned is to watch a couple of friends sing a few tunes on FB.
I have to say, going in to the office every day provides a sense of reality and surreality. It’s nice to get out the house, but traveling down empty streets, and arriving to an empty office everyday is kind of weird. I miss my co-workers.Report
Transitioning from early spring woods/brush clearing (with attendant stump grinding) into bush-hogging the stuff that overgrew at the end of last year, but not yet the pastures which are still establishing the future hay crop. This is the seasonal window when you can clean up the woods because you can still see the ground to avoid the rock outcroppings and large deadwood (and remaining stumps). If you miss this window… then pretty much a disaster of weeds ‘n’ stuff this being Virginia and all.Report
Careful out there – a friend of mine who never gets poison ivy rashes had to go to the emergency room after clearing a section of his woods. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a bad poison ivy year or if he just wandered into the wrong area and got triffided.Report
Thanks… good tip. Its a little early for PI, and that’s one of the reasons we “clean-up” the woods to keep the PI shoots from shooting (not to mention all the other VA vines). But yeah, there are other things besides PI which can irritate and cause allergic reactions, so I keep an eye open for “stuff.”
Fun-fact: Marchmaine is immune to PI (as was my Maternal Grandfather)… alas all my children and wife seem to catch it merely by proximity.Report
I’d love to be doing some of the outdoor work. But 8″ of snow early in the week and another 10″ yesterday sort of put that all on hold. For a while, at least — it’s melting furiously today. Three of the overnight lows were down into the teens (°F). Everything that was blooming will have to start over.Report
I saw that… my sister is in Denver and the pictures are glorious – at least that’s how they look all the way from Virginia. But hey, its a bit nippy here.Report
Forgot to mention we’re also in the woods looking for Morel Mushrooms… I think the cold snap may have sent them away, but around Easter we found 5 on a couple different walks.Report
We had terrible trouble with poison ivy back in the blueberry bushes last year, because it hadn’t been cleared back in many years (the owner died and the field was left to go feral). After some elbow-grease to rip it all out the field is in a much better state, and we’ve learned that if you’re going to go up to your knees in mature poison ivy and then plunge your hands into it past the elbows, you need to wash immediately afterwards instead of kicking back with a beer and admiring your handiwork.Report
my wife has made a terrifying discovery: if you eat Cheetos with chopsticks you do indeed have clean fingers but you also don’t finish your snack because when you eat Cheetos one by one you have enough time to realize they’re kinda grossReport
I eat Cheetos with chopsticks.
Making Cheetos at home is an extreme challenge. I read one recipe in in the multi-volume book “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking”
It’s a long process of mixing starch powder and cheddar cheese sauce, dehydrating it at 122 F for 8 to 12 hours, and then grinding that into a cheese powder, which is set aside for dusting the puffs at the end.
Then two starch powders are dry-blended with a touch of salt and then mixed with cheese water to form a paste. The paste is formed into shapes which are then dehydrated at 150 F for an hour, and those are then fried in 390 F oil for 5 to 10 seconds. The puffs are drained on paper towels and then dusted with the cheese powder made in step 1.
I would think being able to make your own cheese puffs would be essential for any long-term lockdown situation.Report
or you could just:
1) bite of cracker
2) bite of cheese
3) congratulations, you’re eating a cheetoReport