Curry 101

Okay, I've looked this up WAY too many times. I keep Googling 'Curry 101' and not finding the page that I'm looking for. Just now I changed it to 'Curry 101 basics' and that worked. Anyway, the page I was looking for is The Complete Guide to Making Indian Curries at Home from First We Feast. 

DVD Drive not working on my dad's computer

Yesterday I went to see my dad for Father's day. After going out to eat, we went to see my aunt. He had given her one of his computers. A couple of months before he gave it to her the DVD drive wasn't showing up on the computer. It was present in the device manager, but it wouldn't start, and the error that it showed led me to another blog, Computer Repair Guide. The solution to the error message was to remove certain entries from the registry, specifically from

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

I applied the solution and it worked. But it wasn't working at Jean's house. When I checked, the important entry (LowerFilters) was still gone, but the one that it said really didn't matter (UpperFilter) was there, so I deleted that, and it worked again. 

Race was made by racists?

I saw this somewhere the other day, and I don't have time to look up where at the moment. I think Reddit or something. The comment itself is nonsensical, but the truth that it brought home to me is that race is something that we made up, and it just isn't working out. It definitely isn't working for me, and I can just choose to get off this bus. I've always been confused about race, and now I'm realizing it's because it DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. I'm thinking this is something relatively new. We've got nationalities. That's the big thing. But then there's also the thing I remember hearing about caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid. If that's race, then I guess it's valid, but I don't think it is. Is it ethnicity? I don't think it's that either. Body type? I don't have time to fact check any of this right now, but I wanted to do a brain dump, and that's what this space is for, right?

Just as fundamentalist

Part of this post from Ian Harber really resonated with me. When he said

Progressives had become just as fundamentalist as the fundamentalists they despised.

I felt that. Been there, done that. That's why the video from Neil deGrasse Tyson also resonated with me. I've already been associated with all those labels. I'm in no hurry to do that again.

Thinking more about chili

I went looking for chile pasilla yesterday at Fiesta. They didn't have it. They had a lot of chile ancho, chile california and another chile I don't remember. LOTS of it. I looked at Wikipedia just now and learned that chile ancho is dried poblano. I also went back and looked at the Texas Monthly chili recipe again, and realized that I improvised from the very beginning. I knew I added the idea of one fresh chile, either jalapeno or serrano, whatever I had on hand, but I had forgotten that the recipe only calls for ancho and pasilla. I added chipotle and guajillo, probably just because I saw them in HEB and said why not?

I wanted to learn even more about chile and found this article on Fine Cooking. It said that chili was originally probably about the chiles, not the meat, and I think that's the direction I want to head in. But I'm thinking instead making the chili more diverse in terms of chiles, at least for now, it may be better to go in the other direction. Experiment with two chiles, or even just one. With poblano, I have the advantage of easily being able to put my hands on both the fresh and dried versions. So now I'm thinking instead of reducing the amount of meat, I could just greatly increase the amount of both dried and fresh chile and see what happens.

The writing process

 Now as I'm almost done with what may be the last paper I ever write academically, this morning I found myself looking for information about the writing process. Does that make sense? No it does not. I think partly at this point it was more looking for validation for the process that I was kind of already doing, with tweaks to parts that I might have missed. The one that looks like it fit the most was from the University of Kansas. A lot of the other processes I saw didn't include the research step. And I understand that research is not necessarily a part of writing, but it has been a part of all the writing I've done. So a recap of KU's process:

PREWRITING

•   Make sure you understand your assignment.
•   Decide on a topic to write about. 
•   Consider who will read your work.
•   Brainstorm ideas about the subject.

RESEARCHING

•   List places where you can find information.
•   Make an outline to help organize your research.

DRAFTING

•   Put the information you researched into your own words. 
•   Write sentences and paragraphs even if they are not perfect.
•   Read what you have written and judge if it says what you mean. 
•   Write some more. 
•   Read it again.
•   Write some more.
•   Read it again.
•   Write until you have said everything you want to say about the topic.

REVISING

•   Read what you have written again. 
•   Rearrange words, sentences or paragraphs.
•   Take out or add parts.
•   Do more research if you think you should.
•   Replace overused or unclear words.
•   Read your writing aloud to be sure it flows smoothly.

EDITING AND PROOFREADING

• Be sure all sentences are complete. 
•   Correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
•   Change words that are not used correctly or are unclear.
•   Make sure you are using the appropriate style formatting.   

No bacon and eggs for breakfast?

I am trying to wrap my head around the idea of not eating bacon and eggs for breakfast. I have gotten to the point where I have two breakfasts that I've been going to, but both involve either eggs or pork. The first is huevos a la mexicana. I make it with no meat on the side, only three corn tortillas. The second breakfast is two frozen waffles and turkey sausage. Oh wait, that isn't pork! So I guess I've progressed a little. But it's a pork substitute. I mean, I still want pork.

I've been looking at the DASH diet stuff on and off ever since the dietitian at MacDill told me about it last year. But today before I went to the store I decided to just think through how I do breakfast without eggs and bacon. There are so many alternatives for lunch and dinner, but I just didn't have a whole lot of ways of thinking about breakfast. Now I have a few. For one, I don't have to have what I've considered a meal. I've always had this idea that a meal had to be balanced, as in it had to be three things. I'm letting go of that idea. I can eat one thing. So I can eat porridge for breakfast like in days of old. And by porridge, I mean grits. But I can also eat beans. I can see beans going up in rank. DASH says red meat is a no-no. Of course, I'm still going to eat it, but probably not as much. Although I don't think I eat it all the time now. The big thing is cutting down meat in general, and upping the beans is a good way to do that. 

What else? Yogurt. Yes I'm lactose intolerant, but it doesn't matter during COVID. And it's pretty hit or miss anyway. I guess I can keep some of those pills on hand. Put them on the list. And fruit. And fish has always been in the back of my mind. And eomuk. So I definitely have more options. Let's do this.