1.06.2011

Bacon

The other day I was inspired to cook a bacon wrapped steak. Mostly because I occasionally enjoy a serving of bacon. I started by making a bacon weave to wrap the steak in.


I then seasoned the steak with a long held secret blend of herbs and spices (it was some store bought steak seasoning) and placed the steak on the bacon.

 
Next, I swaddled the steak with the bacon and placed it in a foil lined pan. I set the oven to broil and placed the monstrosity on the middle rack.


Note: On broil, bacon cooks really fast. After a few minutes, the bacon started smoking so I flipped it over so the other side could cook. I soon had to remove the bacon because it was turning black and the steak was still bloody and uncooked.

 

This was the final result after I added some mashed potatoes and french style green beans. It was edible, but not the best meal I've prepared.



If I've learned anything, and I haven't, it's that I'm still not a very good cook. At least the bacon turned out well, and that's all that really matters.

1.05.2011

Work

Recently I've been reading a lot of year end blogs describing the amazing adventures and events that shaped your lives in 2010. I wanted to do something similar, but:

a.) I'm too lazy to write a year in review
b.) Nobody cares
c.) I can't remember
d.) It wasn't that eventful
e.) All of the above
The correct answer is "e."

So instead, I leave you with these pictures of interesting things I did at work this year while my computer was busy, or I was bored.

 After my co-worker went home, I decorated her desk with a bunch of stuff I found in a plastic bin. This included a few dozen army men, matchbox cars, and ramps. I think the story behind this was that a Nascar race was interrupted by a race war of different colored army men. The pile up of cars at the end was tragic. Many good drivers were lost.
This is a spreadsheet I worked on that describes how to maximize Oreo cream while minimizing Oreo cookie intake. I was inspired by the idea that you could combine two oreos to make a double-stuff, two double-stuffs to make an quadruple-stuff, and so on. The conclusion I came to was that in a box containing 45 Oreo cookies, you could make a single 32-stuff, one octo-stuff, one quadruple stuff, one single stuff, and have 88 outsides left over. I don't remember double checking the math, nor do I care to do so, but feel free to. I also don't remember trying to make such an epic cookie. I strongly encourage you to do so.


We had an internet outage one day, and with a job that depends on the internet, it was very boring. We found a stack of phone books in the hallway to entertain us. What you see here is one of them that I ripped in half with my bare hands.

1.01.2011

Favorite Music - 2010

Personally, this is my most interesting blog entry of the year. I analyzed my iTunes and iPod listening habits of the past year in Excel. You probably won't find it nearly as interesting as I did. Here are the results.


Top Play Counts of 2010

 Rank    Song/Artist  Play Count 
10
  Won't Back Down - Eminem
47
9
  If I Can't Have You - Kelly Clarkson
48
8
  So Bad - Eminem
48
7
  Almost Famous - Eminem
49
6
  25 To Life - Eminem
50
5
  Cinderella Man - Eminem
57
4
  Not Afraid - Eminem
61
3
  Already Gone - Kelly Clarkson
62
2
  Cry - Kelly Clarkson
62
1
  My Life Would Suck Without You - Kelly Clarkson  
64

  No surprises here. Interestingly though, My Life Would Suck Without You was my number two played song of 2009, with an almost identical number of plays.


Top Played Albums of 2010

(This counts how many times songs were played from specific albums, not the count of times an album was listened to in its entirety.)


 Rank    Album/Artist  Play Count 
10
  My December - Kelly Clarkson
135
9
  My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West  
138
8
  Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette
184
7
  The Eminem Show - Eminem
236
6
  Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson
255
5
  Across the Universe - Soundtrack
263
4
  LOVE - The Beatles
266
3
  Life In Cartoon Motion - Mika
308
2
  All I Ever Wanted - Kelly Clarkson
426
1
  Recovery - Eminem
595

If Kanye hadn't released his album so late in the year, it would have been much higher. It will probably be the number two most played in 2011, right behind Kelly Clarkson's new cd. I was very surprised by Mika's Life In Cartoon Motion being ranked so high. I guess I never skip his songs.


Top Play Counts of 2010

(This counts how many times an artist's songs were played. So artists with a large catalog who were played a little, or artists with a small catalog that were played a lot should appear.)

 Rank    Artist  Play Count 
10
  Lady Gaga
219
9
  Kanye West
276
8
  Britney Spears
280
7
  Various (Across the Universe)  
290
6
  Fiona Apple
295
5
  Mika
375
4
  The White Stripes
485
3
  The Beatles
751
2
  Kelly Clarkson
963
1
  Eminem
1267


Weird, I really don't remember listening to Eminem's back catalog that much. It must have happened between the releases of Relapse and Recovery. While Lady Gaga is at number 10, it should be noted that I only have seven of her songs, two of which were added very late in the year. Adjusting the totals, her other five songs had an average of 40 plays each, which is a statistically very high.

Well that's all. 2010, was a year dominated by Eminem and Kelly Clarkson.

Time to reset the play counts.