Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

My personal Starfleet Museum....

Remember that episode where Geordi turned into a giant teddy bear and rode the Enterprise like a horse? That was awesome.

83 in the house. 😭 If I knew we weren't getting cold later in the next few days, I'd install the A/C.

Damn. ChatGPT has a sense of taste!

It's here....

I ran into Redmond today for a dental appointment, and decided to give Five Guys a second try. My first Five Guys burger was cold and had turned into a solid slab of fat, which didn't exactly enamor me. So I tried it hot.

Actually a fairly good burger! Close to Whataburger in flavor, but not quite there. But it has a problem: it's far too gooey. It's a hamburger paste once you're about halfway through the burger. Also, no way I ccan finish even small fries, and I don't like wasting food.

If it weren't for those two things, it'd probably be my Whataburger surrogate up here.

I look at this crumb structure in the heel of the bread where it didn't collapse and think, yeah, I think it's the oven that caused the bread to collapse. This looks like real bread.

Thirty years after I used my first web browser, Lynx is still useful for getting around paywalls....

The Indian Spiced Watermelon Mint Smoothie makes its first appearance for this year. :9

Tonight's Dr. Who was "School Reunion."

I don't want to say they wasted Anthony Stewart Head for this episode. They didn't. He's ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. But as an alien headmaster? This guy just oozed The Master. I know that when the previews of this episode came out, I was thinking OH, WE'RE GETTING THE MASTER. And we kind of got him. Cause he really had that "refined evil" thing down. Just as an alien headmaster, and not The Master.

Not a fan of the cattiness between Sarah Jane and Rose, especially with Sarah Jane kinda starting it, but the denoument of Sarah Jane willing to help Rose when "her time comes" was really lovely.

"What's the matter, fearless leader? You and Starscream look real geeky."

I was not expecting THAT in the last episode of Picard....

WE HAVE STRUAN BREAD! Yeah, it collapsed, but at the same time, the bread is very very good.

Despite it collapsing, It's not dense and is nicely moist and perfectly chewy. I'm thinking what collapsed the bread was either overworking the dough (the recipe calls for FIVE risings) or the stove being too hot (it's supposed to bake at 350, but even with my oven set to 325, it ended up at 375 and was ready far faster than it should have.

But it's GOOD regardless.

Also, these two loaves are about a month of bread for me, so I'm giving a loaf to the girls. I just didn't want to cut the recipe in half in case that's what killed it last time.

StruanWatch 2K23 - the tops collapsed, but the spongy look from the bottom is promising. Now we wait....

StruanWatch 2K23 - oh, this is looking GOOD.

StruanWatch 2K23 - the instructions at this point day to fridge the dough, which is what I think went wrong last time, so I'm going straight to the bench proof....

StruanWatch 2K23 - We already have a MUCH better dough.

I just made some amazing fried chicken in a completely different way than I normally do.

Basically, threw some chicken thighs into a bowl, and added ten of the Colonel's eleven herbs and spices (I was out of celery salt), an egg and Tapatio sauce for some heat. Mixed it all up so it got all over the chicken.

Then I added flour by the quarter cupful, mixed it up, and did it again until the chicken was white with flour. Deep fried it up and OH MY THAT'S GOOD. Lot less wasted flour, too.

Some of the last things I ordered before the layoff are starting to trickle in. Ironically, as a reward for deciding to stick with Tableau and continue my lease.

THAT WENT WELL.

Movie Hot Rod finally came in. I normally don't buy doubles of toys, but the current "Transformers Retro" line is reissuing some of the toys I didn't have in 84-86, and some I did, but in the animation colors.

What's funny is, I didn't like putting all the stickers on the toys back in the 80s, because I wanted them to look more like the animation models as it is, so I began picking up the reissues.

"He slimed me. I feel so funky."