Posts Tagged "wtf"

Our love language

Posted by Michelle on Sep 20, 2010 in Conversations, Gaming, Life, Media, Pop Culture | 1 comment

Every couple has their own “love language”. Some couples get each other gifts — flowers and jewelry for her, and (… uh, what DO women buy men?…) for him — to show their affection. Other couples leave sweet little notes or text messages to let their partner know they’re thinking about them.

The Hubs ™ and I have our own love language, spoken thusly. Over IM. Because it’s easier that way.

The Hubs ™: So…

Me: ??

The Hubs ™: Want me to suffer through FFXIV for you?

Final Fantasy XIV Online logo

This, folks, is what passes for romance in our household.  The Hubs ™ being ever willing to slog through (yet another) MMO that he knows I am interested even though he has no interest in it whatsoever. Our love language is him rolling up characters and slogging through what we not-so-affectionately term as  “level stupid” where you’re a newbie in the game, with no skills, armor or money, trying to find the best way to level and build up our characters, all during the release week server crunch.

All this so he can help power level my character so I don’t have to slog through level stupid for nearly as long as he had to <3

I love our crazy gamer geek love. I really do.

No, I want CHEESE darnit!!

Posted by Michelle on Apr 7, 2010 in food | 2 comments

So I was randomly checking my GMail when I spied a Google Ads link to a food service ingredients site that sells things like ready made roux, flavor enhancers and what not.

I’m not so naive to think that all restaurants make their own roux or stock. That requires manpower and manpower requires money and let’s face it — restaurants that I can afford to eat at likely can’t afford all that manpower.

I can maybe understand taking certain shortcuts with stock and such. No different than the home cook that uses bullion, really. No, it is not ideal — all that salt! — but not every home cook has the time nor inclination to make their own stock.

However, this particular product just made me go “…”

CheezMaxTM is a revolutionary new dairy product replacing up to15-20% of mozzarella cheese on pizzas. This product is made with whole milk, and has less fat than mozzarella cheese. It is synergistic with cheese, and actually binds with existing cheese to give the appearance of more cheese – while increasing hold time.

It has applications in fresh, refrigerated and frozen pizza, and can be custom formulated to meet specific cheese flavor profiles. It can also be utilized in other applications such as enrobed cheese products.

CheezMaxTM has a potential of up to 30% savings over current cheese cost.

From the CF Chef’s Ingredients website

In two words – “F*ckin’ euw.”

But cheese replacement? Um, no, dammit. I’m paying for cheese on my pizza, stromboli, calzone, whatever. (And I usually get extra cheese!) So guess what I want? I want cheese. I don’t want whatever they’re cutting the damned cheese to improve the damned bottom line.

I’m not so granola minded that I think everyone should eat whole, unprocessed foods. (And certainly not Whole Foods. I can’t afford to even step on their grounds much less afford their food.) Mind you, I try to eat and feed my family as few processed foods as possible, more out of frugality than anything else. But the realization of how overly processed restaurant food is makes me think twice, if not three or four times, about eating out. If I go through so much effort to avoid processed foods at home, why would I go out to eat it and pay a premium to do so? YUCK!

Installation stupidity

Posted by Michelle on Sep 16, 2008 in Life, WAHM | 0 comments

In my previous life, I was an IT support person, specializing in W!ndows desktop support. Am I comfortable and knowlegeable around computers? Certainly. And I do count myself as being an intelligent person. Yet I found myself completely mystified by my shiny new legal copy of Off!ce 2007, ready and waiting to be installed on my computer.

Installation of software difficult? Bah, it’s childs play. Of course, if you’re IT support in a large enough (or at least ORGANIZED enough) organization, installation of software is usually easy peasy. In good organizations (the word being an oxymoron in and of itself too many times when coupled with “IT”), install files are set off on a network share somewhere, product keys tucked into an auto-install script and all your friendly, local neighborhood IT ninja needs to do is double click link to aforementioned install script. On the oft chance that you do deal with actual media, if IT management is aware, that media is on a sign in/sign out/need to have basis and DEAR GOD bring that bad else our inventory is audited.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t know how to install applications from *gasp* actual media. In my experience, most W!ndows applications can be installed with one’s eyes closed and their hands tied behind their back. Of course this would involve opening the DVD tray with your tongue and dropping the DVD in with your teeth (never recommended) but once the DVD’s in, an installation will almost always begin itself.

So why oh why was I having problems installing Off!ce 2007? Because I couldn’t get the damned CASE open. That’s right. A freaking DVD case stood in the way of me installing my Off!ce software.

I’m a late adopter when it comes to Off!ce 2007. I just didn’t have the need for it. But seeing that I’m writing for profit now, I need to have actual legal copies of M!cr0s0f+ programs rather than working off of free alternatives. Bad for my bottom line at the moment but a good investment for future business… or at least, so I keep telling myself.

I consider myself a relatively intelligent human being. And yet, as I stared at the shiny box, I couldn’t even begin to fathom how to open it. A quick Google search revealed that I wasn’t alone! It seems that the marketing geniuses (/sarcasm) at M!cr0s0f+ thought that snazzy new packaging would help the software appeal to more people. And while I can certainly follow that line of thought, it would have been nice if there had been instructions somewhere ON the bloody thing to help otherwise intelligent souls rendered insanely stupid by their packaging.

It finally took a Flickr set to illustrate how to open it. Which, of course, is so simple yet completely unobvious that I am still sitting here, wondering if my decision to freelance or my decision to buy a M!cr0s0ft application that has rendered me completely stupid. I can only hope the effects are temporary.