Any WordPress wizards out there? April 8, 2009

Have started the process of moving all my various blogs and sites over to a more consolidated form on my personal webspace. You know, the space and domains that I’ve been paying for over the past several years but have only been using as a glorified FTP server. Bad me. Anyways, finally decided to sit down and install WordPress instead of just staring at it accusingly like I have been for the past month. I plan to syndicate and keep my old LJs as long as they’ll be hosted, but just want to have it hosted on my servers.

However, it seems I’m run into a slight snag. For some reason, the LJ importer at wordpress.com seems to be having issues with the way some entries are coded? So I went and downloaded LJArchive, figuring I’d download it all that way and convert into XML if I had to. Only LJArchive also told me something weird about converting old entries… which I’ve already done, as far as I can tell. So now I’m getting kinda desperate because having to do 8 years’ worth of posts by hand would really *really* suck.

This only seems to be a problem for this main LJ, which is a bit of a monster since I’ve had it since 2001. The other two smaller LJs I exported yesterday are only a year old and went without a problem. What could I possibly be messing up?

Anybody have ideas? *hopeful look*

UPDATE: Whee! After digging through several screens of LJ options, found the right thing to click. Can now import to wordpress.com account with the API importer, then transfer it to my home server from there. Threaded comments and everything! Am very happy

Sigh. April 1, 2009

Dear Unnamed Mortgage Banking Company,

If you want 3 to 4 years of experience in loans from your paper pushers, you should really mention it in your ad before you start accepting applications, book applicants, and have them drive out to meet you at the height of traffic. Just a thought.

Ugh,

A.

Misu and the Catnip Spray. March 11, 2009

Somebody pointed out that our cat has not had any videos up on her Youtube channel for a while now. Shame on us! I remedied this by spritzing the kitchen floor with catnip spray and letting her go at it. Watch this video with “Because I Got High” playing in the background…

Sneaky Sock Thieves! February 24, 2009

Tommi’s grandmother makes these wonderful hand-knitted wool socks for us every time we go visit her in Finland. They are really soft and warm and made in pretty colors and patterns. Exactly the sort of thing you’d imagine a rosy-cheeked Nordic grandmother sitting at home making on a winter’s night. I think we had collected five or six pairs between us.

So this past Sunday, we had our first cleaning binge of the month and I did 11 loads of laundry while T tackled the bathroom and vacuuming. The laundry room is right next to us, but I have to walk back and forth between our apartment and there several times to get all the clothes and keep the machines rotating. At some point, that load of socks and a couple of my lay-flat-to-dry wool sweaters got hijacked. The sweaters were designer, so I guess that was inevitable. The socks, though? That’s what really pissed me off, because those things had real sentimental value on top of being damn comfy.

I mean, really, who steals somebody’s load of socks?! Yet I remember explicitly going through each machine and checking afterward to make sure I’d collected everything. All my machines were empty. They were all empty. And the socks and sweaters are gone.

Speechless, man. Outraged speechlessness. What more can I say? Somebody stole our socks!

Southern California Cioppino January 27, 2009

The very first time I encountered cioppino was at a high-end restaurant — the sort of place that was located on the top floor of a very tall building and frequented by people in evening wear headed to the opera — and it had soaring menu prices to match. Despite the dent left in my pocketbook, it became an instant addiction. I have since ordered it at several different restaurants with varying levels of affordability and quality, but it has never disappointed my seafood cravings. Like most people in recent times, however, we’ve started cutting back on eating out in an attempt to assuage our much put-upon bank accounts. A good seafood stew became one of the top things on my list of “learn-to-make” items at that point.

Considering that the original cioppino was a working man’s meal (created around the 1800s by the Italian fishermen of San Francisco), it’s suitable that it should be brought back up-to-date as a hearty-but-affordable dish for home cooking. With this in mind, I started putting together a cioppino with more realistic ingredients for the busy and budget-minded, who might not be within convenient range of a local fishmonger. I must say it was very tasty.

Chocolate Cool Whip Pudding-turned-Gelato January 23, 2009

Lactose is the bane of my existence. Well, not the only one, obviously. But a significant one nonetheless when you’re severely intolerant to it, living in a country where it is omnipresent, and not given much choice in avoiding it other than turning to often off-tasting specialty foods or chain-popping expensive enzyme pills. Considering that 60% of the world has some form of lactose sensitivity and America is a country of immigrants, it really is rather silly that more thought isn’t given to this by food manufacturers. I don’t know how many times I’ve come across somebody asking for dairy substitutes only to have some ignorant lactose-consuming “expert” advise them to “use the real thing”, assuming that the person making the request is just being cheap or trying to lose weight. My usual response in these situations is to point out that “quality” is subjective, depending on the consumer. Especially when partaking of one person’s “quality product” will lead another person almost directly to puking and other unpleasant side effects. Leaving soapbox now.

At any rate, rich dairy products are especially hard to avoid when you have a fondness for cream-based desserts. Entirely soy-based ice creams tend to have a bit of a beany aftertaste and the only brand of Lactaid ice cream available in our area is plain vanilla. Born out of all this dietary adversity is my ongoing quest for the perfect lactose-free ice cream recipe. I don’t claim to have found it yet, but I have had quite a few trials that ended up as qualified successes. One of which I will talk about now.

The Gravlax Experiments. January 22, 2009

As most of you may know, I’ve been visiting Finland twice a year for a while now. This has given me plenty of chances to sample Nordic cuisine and of the many things that I’ve become a fan of, their amazing gravlax selection (readily available in little plastic packets in the deli section) is definitely one of the biggest. The cured salmon they have out there is much closer to raw — smooth and buttery — than the stuff we manage to find here. Most of the lox we get here in SoCal is the smoked stuff, which is usually saltier, heavier, and a bit more preserved (it just feels stiffer when you take it out of the bag), even though it’s been cold-cured and not cooked. So with the goal of accessing a more sashimi-like cured salmon at home, I started the gravlax experiments.

I went off of the Cooking For Engineers Gravlax recipe, since it seemed to be one of the simplest available while being close enough to traditional technique without required wooden weights and large drifts of snow. The cook for that page put up great pictures, but I wanted to take my own because I’m contrary that way

Not your everyday sammich. January 19, 2009

Mmm. Brie and capicola on a toasted baguette for breakfast.

A new Fresh and Easy just opened across the street and I might be slightly excited about the convenience with which I can now run out to pick up random ingredients for my culinary experiments. Which, granted, don’t always turn out quite the way I’d expect, but luckily the boy has a strong stomach. Hee.

Misu’s Victoria’s Secret Pose. January 15, 2009

Our cat. Wants to be a model.

The one where I’m happy to be American. November 4, 2008

I have no other words. Just.