RICE, I HATE YOU (but not really, I love you, baby!)

Hold your applause, because I KNOW. It really is a whole lot more delicious than it looks, and I'll be the first to say that it looks pretty tasty (but maybe that's just me).

I'm not one of those classy food bloggers that has an awesome camera, and photographs every step, and uses actual amounts instead of guesstimating. Part of that is because I don't have the equipment necessary, and part of it is because who the hell needs actual amounts?

My favorite thing about having volunteered to housesit for the Booms, aside from feeling like I've helped some friends, has been being able to cook some of the stuff that I had in the freezer the way I want to cook it. At home, I can't really cook spicy, or have a whole lot of fun with my cooking. Two days ago? Maple salmon, adapted from this recipe. Tonight, as a before-work meal? Beef, thin-sliced carrots and one diced garlic clove, marinated for five hours in a sweet chili/chili garlic sauce mixture.

As soon as the rice is done (RICE, Y U NO COOK EASY?!), I'll serve this wonderful-tasting steak mixture on top of that. I just have to remind myself to leave some steak to have when the rice is cooked. So I'm going to distract myself with Mythbusters. :)

Peering into the cosmos...

Space is amazing.

Looking through a telescope, seeing Venus and Mars, Saturn and its rings, I can't help but wonder how anyone who has seen that could do anything but want to explore it. The fact that we have ended our space program, and yet haven't ended the unnecessary wars that we're still involved in, baffles me. There is no good rationale for it.

I think that Bill Hicks said it pretty well:

"Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace."