Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Helllloooooo... internet!

Well, crap. It's been quiet around here, hasn't it??

Blame it on all the TV season finales, a buttload of work to do at work, an overheating laptop and a broken cooling fan (not the same as the fan IN the laptop, it's an external thing), trying to get workouts in, and life in general.  Oh, and having one too many brewskies on Saturday night and catching the little tribute to Ronnie James Dio that they did on VH1 Classic and crying my eyes out for about fifteen minutes.

(Long story somewhat shorter.... my friend knew the guys in one of his opening bands when he was swinging thru Chicago many years ago, and I basically got recruited to hang out with them all for the day since I had a car and one of the guys in the band wanted to go visit his grandparent's graves, which were in the city.  While soundchecks were going on, Ronnie noticed us lingering around and called us over to talk to him, and the man was a true gentleman in the way you don't see anymore.  Talking to the chicks hanging with his opening band very respectfully - we ended up chatting about religion and school - I was still in college at the time - and the man could not have been nicer or more well spoken.  Why is it always the good ones that go too early?  The world is a sadder place without him in it)
Oh, and the past few days it's been in my head to get this over-ten-year-old-piece-of-technology working again.....





That, my friends, is the Sharp Mobilon Tripad Handheld PC.  I bought it back in 199-mumblemumble and it just never got used like I intended.  All I remember is that I had busted the screen on my laptop (actually... my dad did... he stepped on it... in his defense I probably shouldn't have had it on the floor of my bedroom...) and this was a cheap replacement as basically a word processor.

It's spent many a year shoved in my closet.  And it's been too long.

When I first saw the iPad... my first thought was "Hey.... I had one of those back in '99!   And it was better.. it had a keyboard!" 

I still love the design of it.. you can flip it to be a tablet or it kinda has it's own stand and keyboard for real typing.  It's got an expansion slot that I never used for anything.  I found out I can probably get a version of Mobipocket to work on it.  Mobipocket AND a basic Word?  Sign me up.  That's mostly what I need anyway.

So... on to the cooking...

Tonight was Chiles Rellenos Casserole.  A million versions of it are out there, this one was pretty basic.  Now, the hubby and I love chiles rellenos.  I've made them quite a few times.  But it is a pain in the BLEEP with all the roasting and stuffing and coating and cooking, and it never turns out quite right.  I thought the casserole form might be a smidge easier.

Pretty basic... I went with some shimp...




Load on the roasted chiles and cheese....




Over the top of it all goes an egg/flour mixture....



And halfway thru baking, I topped it with some canned chopped tomatoes....



And... done!






I do not know why, but I kinda thought it would be cheesy goodness on the bottom and eggy/bready topping on top, when it actually was more eggy thru the whole thing.  Still tasty though.  Yummy on it's own, equally tasty when slapped on a tortilla.

I liked it.

The hubby was grumbly because he's been eating Mexican food off the lunch truck that swings by his work all week (hey... did someone hold a gun to your head to make you eat burritos all week???  I don't think so).

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Welcome back, internet!!!!

Cable & internet out one night.

Cable modem dies another night.

(Why, oh why, did the networking equipment company I worked for not do any cable modems??  I have routers and switches and modems and gateways and probably an ADSL product or two laying around, but I'm screwed when it comes to the cable modems)

And of course, you can just go pick up a cable modem at one of their stores.... which all close at 6pm.

Not very useful.  And even more useful when you've got two people who are getting slammed at work and are lucky to even leave the office by 6pm.

But... today the hubby escaped work early and picked up a new modem.  When I first got home I was really more interested in looking at the casing and trying to figure out if I could decide which vendor it really comes from (bit-o-truth for you out there... no matter what the name on your wireless router, there are really only about 3 or 4 places in China that come up with the basic designs, and then they're slightly re-worked by the company whose name appears on the outside) than listening to the hubby.  Who'd been trying to get the modem working for an hour before he called customer service.... which had him on hold for 45 minutes.

While he fumed and waited... I hopped on one of the unsecured wireless connections around here and did a quick search for the program that wouldn't download (I could go on about DNS servers... but I know I'd bore you).  Then plugged - with a wire - the laptop into the router that is connected - with a wire - to the modem.

Poof.

We has internet.

I do not know WHY... STILL... the first thing they do not tell you to do in instructions or while you're waiting on the customer service line, is to set up a blasted wire connection.  I know, life is fun without wires.  But sometimes, when you want something to work, you need a bleedin' wire.

Grumble.