Going sailing this afternoon...

Haven't sailed for ages! Ack. I think it's been almost nine years! I only went on the water once or twice as part of a school trip LONG time ago. Hehehe. I think it's pretty safe to say that I don't remember anything. Heck, I still keep forgetting which side is starboard and which side is port. Blah.

Actually, I do remember manning the rudder. LOL. You're supposed to warn your sailing partner when you turn the boat because, as you turn, the wind can swing the sail across the deck. Hah. I distinctly remember forgetting to shout out a timely warning and the sail smacking my bud on the head. I think it happened four times that day. LOL.

Well, thank goodness I won't be steering today. Actually, I've been assured that I won't need to do much, if any, work.

More reason to believe we won't all drown and die. Hurray!

Ah yes, I've come up with another brilliant idiom to be used in everyday conversation: "Mentos commercial quality cheesiness".

Haven't you seen those old Mentos commercials? You know: Mentos! The Freshmaker!

Heh. I thought that would refresh your memory. You know how the ads are REALLY annoying and stupid yet, at the same time, oddly endearing and memorable? That in itself deserves an award of some kind.

So you're probably wondering...gee Dave...I sure would like to know how to use "Mentos commercial quality cheesiness" in a real sentence. How do I capture the sheer "freshmaking" power of Mentos into everyday conversation? What situation would encapsulate the correct usage of its minty freshness? Don't fret little one! I'll tell yah...

Here's an example of its usage in a sample conversation:

Friend: Man, I was on the bus other day, and the person next to me was reading a X-Files cross-over erotica book.
Me: (Suspicious) So how the heck did you know it was erotica?
Friend: I read the title...
Me: (Laughing) So did you read along? Was Mulder picking up green martians with superb lines like: (in my best Joey Tribiani impersonation) "how YOU doin' "?
Friend: How would I know?
Me: Or maybe he's more like: "You must be really from outer space...'cuz your ass is out of this world!"
Friend: (Laughing) Dude...that's sooooo wrong.
Me: Yeah. I know. Mentos commercial quality cheesiness. Tell me about it.

Mentos should pay me advertising fees.

Ugh. Still problems with my central file for my law school applications.

Been trying to resolve it for the past month and a half, admist screwups, scandals, fiascos, riots, delays and lost mail. After 3 attempts to correct the situation, I'm going to make my last and final attempt by sending out individual letters to the schools. On the bright side, thanks to last month's rejections, I don't have that many letters to send out. Yay.

Meh. Finding solace in the little things of life.

My poor butt! Alack! It's fallen and it can't get up! You know that muscle that links from the back of your quad to your butt? Well trust me...we all have one. I didn't know I had one either until I was playing squash today. It announced it's royal presence by screaming bloody murder.

Oww.

I think I must have have sprained that muscle in my workout yesterday. I remember stretching and my butt being a bit sore afterwards. I didn't give it much thought and I kinda forgot about it. It wasn't until I tried to return a serve on the squash courts that muscle screamed with pain. Now I'm kinda limping around with a sore butt. It's quite pathetic actually.

Boo! What a pain in the ass! Literally. Gee. Hey, what do you know? That darn idiom actually works here.

Anyway, I was driving back home and I decided to stop by 7-11 for some late-night reading material. I wanted to pick up this week's "Economist" or "US News". HAHAHAHA. Something told me I was in the WRONG store. I'm amazed by the selection of magazines they carry: everything from "Biker's Quarterly and their Ladies" to "Lowriders and Lewd Women on the Covers". It's quite amazing how many hick magazines there are. Ugh.

I bought a brainfreeze slurpee instead.

And how did my cooking go tonight? Not bad. Not bad at all, even if I have to say so myself. I went with the mango, lime, honey and ginger salmon recipe. I was suprised because it wasn't so sweet that it completely masked the flavour of the salmon. Rather, it complimented the flavour of the salmon quite nicely. I think the recipe worked well because no one flavour overpowered another. Even the mango added and complimented to the sweetness of the lime and honey, rather than overpowering the tastebuds with its own sweetness. And the glass of white wine added a interesting contrast to the flavours.

Directions? First, what you want to do is put a bottle of dry or semi-dry white wine in the fridge. Nothing worse than having to drink warm white wine. Blech! I don't know much about wines, but I do know the golden rule: never serve red wine with fish. The tannic acid in red wine and the fish oils combines into this really unpleasant metallic flavour. Always used chilled white wine. Nothing too sweet, otherwise that will detract attention away from the sweetness of this dish.

In a bowl squeeze the juice from four limes (you could probably get away with less, unless you want to serve the dish with a salad. In which case, you'll probably want a few extra limes for dressing). Add about a 1/2 cup of honey to the lime juice (using liquid honey will make things easier...but you can use regular paste honey too). Finely chop or grate some ginger (around a teaspoon worth) into this juice mixture. Mix it up with a fork.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees fahrenheit. Set it to broil (that's where the heat is coming from top) and not bake (where the heat is coming from the bottom). If you need to, move the tray up so it's closer up to the heating element. Get a broiling or baking pan (those casserole/lasagna oven pan thingees are good too) and coat it with some olive oil. The recipe calls for nonstick spray, but I prefer olive oil. Place some nice fresh salmon fillets into said pan and spoon a little of the lime and honey mixture (not all of it though...save about half a cup). Make sure to use FRESH salmon--I'd stay away from sockeye salmon because the flesh is too lean for broiling. You probably want something like a spring salmon or Atlantic salmon. I like to make some slits in the fish, along the grain, before I spoon the juice mixture. This will ensure the marinade gets asorbed by the fish. Put the pan into the oven.

In the meantime get some salted water boiling. Get about 12 to 14 spears of fresh asparagus. Cut or snap off the bottoms. Stick the asparagus into the boiling water. Let it cook for a minute or so and drain them out. If you want to add some more taste you could pan fry them in a little extra virgin olive oil. Don't use the cheaper light or regular olive oil when frying fresh vegetables. They suck beans. Extra virgin olive oil just adds another level in taste.

Meanwhile your salmon has probably been broiling for a few minutes. Flip the fillets over. Now would be a good time to spoon some more juice overtop. Broil for a bit more. And flip again. Spoon over some more juice (but make sure to save some for later). Broil until you think it's done. The flesh should be a light pinkish colour and should flake with a fork.

Get some nice clean white plates. Arrange four asparagus spears into a "V" shape for each plate. Use some tongs and place the salmon fillet in the center of the "V". Using the remaining lime and honey mixture, spoon over the salmon and drizzle along the side of the plate. Sprinkle a bit of salt and ground pepper on top of the salmon. Add a bit of mango fruit as a garnish on top of the salmon or along the side.

Serve with the chilled white wine.

Bon appétit!

I was mulling over the teriyaki spring salmon I was having for dinner last night. My mom nearly always cooks salmon in a teriyaki marinade. It's gotten far too old. Blah.

Well, don't get me wrong. The dish still tastes good but mainly because the salmon we get is so fresh, not because the marinade is an explosive delectable delight. Far from actually. So, I issued a challenge à la Iron Chef style. I told her I'd like to try my hand at cooking the salmon.

Oh dear. What have I gotten myself into?

I usually stay away from preparing fish dishes because it's harder to balance the delicate fish flavours, compared to regular meat dishes. Sigh. But when a challenge is issued...

I want to keep things simple, so I've basically narrowed it down to two styles: Mediterranean/Italian or Southeast Asian. What sounds better? Spring salmon in a basic olive oil and basil marinade served with asparagus spears (delicate spring flavours that should enhance the taste of the fish)? Or spring salmon in a mango, lime, honey and ginger marinade (the sweetness of the mango and the zest of the lime should compliment and somewhat mask the taste of the fish)?

I'm leaning towards the mango one, only because we already have a few semi ripe mangos.

Oh and a nice Okanagan or Californian white wine to top it off. Hmm. Hopefully it'll turn out. Wish me luck.

Ah...back from flossing. Now what else to write? Oh...more of my top ten lists? Why not. Hmmm...this time ten little things or situations that make me go buggy:

10. Libraries that don't have after hour book drops. Of course you don't know the library doesn't have a book drop so you end up driving all the way there, late at night. When you find out you can't return any books because they don't have a bloody book drop, you're forced to drive back home without the satisfaction of having completed that "to-do" item. Plus you realize you'll have to come back again tomorrow. Bugger!

09. When you're taking off a half-zip sweater and your hair gets caught in the zipper. You're screaming in pain, but you still can't take the sweater off so it's all wrapped around your head like a massive bandage. Not only are you hurting, but you can't see anything, and you look like a doofus (because you're hopping around in pain). If you manage (somehow) not to scream out obscenities in every tongue under the sun, you should manage to win some extra bonus points. But in all likelihood, admist the temporary blindness and confusion, you'll probably end up banging your head or shin against something. This little magic show can work wonders for first impressions with dates.

08. Oh...that Dell guy on TV who says: "Dude! You're getting a Dell." Boy, I'd like to smack that guy. Boooooo! Go home!

07. That morning song you don't know the name of, but got stuck in your head, because that's the song your clock radio woke you up with. Naturally, you end up humming the tune all day (but only the two lines of the chorus where you actually made out the lyrics). Midway through your day, you can't take it anymore, so you ask your friends to see if they know the name of the song. Unfortunately none of them can recognize it...probably because your humming sucks beans. So you decide to sing the two lines of the chorus you actually remember. They begin to cry tears and their ears start to bleed.

06. When you take a snapshot of this scene. Beautifully lit. Gorgeous background and interesting subject. You KNOW you just captured one of the best photos ever. A few days later you get the film developed and it looks like you took a photo of your ass instead.

05. Female friends who insist that you just HAVE to meet their boyfriends (or worse...ex-boyfriends). And even though you don't want to, they drag you to introduce you to their boyfriend. So you meet each other. And there's that ackward silent moment. Heck...even though you have absolutely no intention of "stealing" his girl, because she's not your type, there is still that air of tension and suspicion while he scopes you out as a "hostile". Then he mentions that he's heard a lot about you. You're not sure how to respond to that. It's a bad thing.

04. The sticky floors in movie theatres. You sure hope it's from split drinks.

03. Finding a web site that does something REALLY neato. And then two weeks later when you REALLY need to use it, you realize that you forgot to bookmark it. Searching for it on Google gives you no hits (or totally irrelevent sites).

02. Getting screamed at for no particular reason. Like when a person calls you and they obviously have the wrong number, but they think you must be joking. When you tell them they must have made a mistake, they go bezerk and tell you that Marcus better pay up or else he's going to face the music. (They tend to make use of more colourful language). You don't know a Marcus, and for that split second you're caught up in the moment so you're not sure whether to just hang up on the guy or just listen him to rant.

01. That wheel on the shopping buggy/cart that has a mind of it's own. When you're pushing this cart you're fine most of the time, until that "rogue" wheel suddenly catches and pulls your cart into a completely different direction. You usually go skidding off into the cereal box display. Or worse off, you crash into an unsuspecting mother of three. Mother falls and hurts her back. She sues you for all you're worth.

Yeah. So there. No matter how sucky life is, look on the bright side! It could always get worse!

Ooooh. I haven't blogged for a week! Yikes. Hmmm. What did I do today? Well I just came back from the Canucks hockey game (we won against Phoenix Coyotes 4-3). Hmmm. Oh and now I'm eating a mango! Ok that's not really blog-worthy, but I'm really scraping for subjects here. Besides, it's been quite awhile since I've eaten a mango. It's so sweet and tarty! Hmmm...mangos.

I save the seed for last. I actually like sucking on the seed because the fruit gets more sour/tarty towards the seed. Hmmm. Why is that?

Ah crap. Now I got mango strings stuck between my teeth. Eck. I can feel it there with my tongue. Blah. I hate that!

Time to go floss.

April Fools people! For those of you who missed it, this April Fools, I made a Google parody by temporarily turning my page into Woogle. Take a look at Chunshek's blog for a list of other April Fool's pages. Boo! Apparently MIT made their page a Google parody too.

*shakes fist* Lousy MIT kids! LoL.

Actually my page was Doogle for half the day, before I changed it to Woogle. Something about those "-oogle" words: choogle, doogle, joogle, moogle, noogle, poogle, woogle. They don't mean anything...but they just sound funny!

Ok, don't mind me. I'm just nuts.