Today, I made an attempt at those buns again and they were mildy better, though not nearly as good as I thought they would be. The dough is still kinda soft and spongy, not biscuity like the ones I used to get in China town. I did experiment with different sizes with humongous buns and little tiny buns, each with various amounts of filling. I found it pretty difficult to get just the right medium size. When I was finished, the whole batch looked liked franken-buns laid out on a plate. But nonetheless they tasted pretty good and I saved a good number for the rest of the week. I also made a stirfry with the same ingredients I used for the stuffing, plus chopped garlic and onions. The rice came out perfect. I have to say the improvement in the rice is encouraging because it means I am improving. The rice I used to make would always come out soggy, or occasionally undercooked with hard centers. After I cooked, I played some Yahoo! Pool which was pretty interesting because I played in a tournament and discovered a little underworld of cheaters and vigilantes in the Yahoo games society. The tournaments are run by people who are part of a league that is administrated with various rules and regulations. The host of the tournaments does not play, but organizes the standings and ensures fair play. This is where it got interesting. I made it to the finals in one of the tournaments and played against a dude who kicked my butt. He made an incredible last shot banking the cue ball off a rail to hit the eight straight on and into the corner pocket. I thought it was just a lucky shot, but then the host said that he had detected an auto-aimer, which is a software hack that allows one to calibrate perfect shots in Yahoo pool. Apparently, this program hacks into the Yahoo applet so that the aiming bars can be extended and a mathematically perfect shot can be lined up. I had no idea such a program existed, though I had heard rumors about it. Furthermore, I had no idea that even if such a program did exist, there was another program that could detect it on your computer. I checked the internet and found this entire community of cheaters and boosters (people who use other hacks to artificially increase their ratings) with their own websites, discussion boards, etc. It was pretty amazing. There is some kind of active trade of "rares" and high rating yahoo ids as if they were collectibles. There is also a high demand for "stars". There are also people who are "rippers" which as far as I could tell is a person who rips you off by agreeing to exchange ids but never follows through with his end of the bargain. I still haven't figured out what it is all about. The really curious thing about these websites is that everyone seems to speak like an eight year old. Anyway, getting back to the "auto-aimer" and the "auto-aimer detector" controversy, it is pretty clear that auto-aimers exist, but it is not at all clear whether auto-aimer detectors exist. The most informative website I found on the topic was the website selling one version of the auto-aimer and it vehemently denies the existence of an aimer detector. Even so, there are other discussion boards where people claim to have detectors, but no links to download sites. I doubt they exist as pure auto-aimer detectors but I'm sure there are ways to figure out what software a particular computer is running.

Unbeknownst to me, when I named this blog Grilled Mackerel, the number one draw to my blog would be searches for "grilled mackerel". I think this is the number one or at least one of the top five website hits for "grilled mackerel". Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't know a single thing about grilling mackerel. I do, however, since this afternoon, know how to make steamed chinese buns. I used a recipe I pulled off the web and decided to try to make my own steamed buns for the first time. The recipe I used actually made the dough kind of soft, not the firm white buns I am used to getting in Chinatown, but next time around I will use more flour and less water, or maybe use milk and add an egg. I also used yeast for the first time which was kinda fun. For filling, I cooked up some chinese sausage, bok choy and mushrooms in hoisin sauce. Although they came out pretty tasty I think the next time around they will be a lot better. I will cook up the filling with more sauce so there will be a little steaming hot pocket and so that the cavity wall can suck up some of the juices. I will also use more filling since I realized the bun wall actually increases in thickness during cooking and therefore it is very capable of holding quite a lot. Like I said I will also use a heartier dough, with more flour and milk instead of water. If it is still too soft, I will use an egg yolk. The only technical problem I might have is the size of my steamer which can only hold 2 regular size buns at a time. I may have to get one of those fancy stackable steamers, but I'm not sure it will be worth it. The buns I made didn't quite look like the ones I am used to, mainly because they flattened out during cooking. If the dough is stiffer it will probably keep it's upright shape better.

Well, lets see now. Today was not as productive as yesterday. I brought my bike to the bike shop for a 30 day tune-up and to have the clipless pedals installed. I can pick it up tomorrow. A lady in the store seemed to be eyeing my bike. I made the stirfry for the week, beef and bok choy with mushrooms and onions, and added a couple of slices of fried chinese sausage on top. I marinated the beef in Pilsner beer, soy sauce, thai hot sauce, sesame seed oil, corn starch, crushed sea salt and ground pepper. I added quite a bit of sugar to the sauce to counterbalance the bitterness of the beer. The rice came out especially nice this week probably because I used less water than the package recommended. I also fried up the chinese sausage beforehand and resisted the temptation to throw it in with the stirfry which would have sogged up the crunchy texture. Instead I kept it aside and used it as a garnish, although I ate half of them while cooking. And I still have the steamed pork buns, and half a rack of ribs from yesterday in my fridge, so I should be good for the week. After eating I had another cup of coffee made in my new coffeemaker. I have to remember to set the timer so that I will have a steaming pot of coffee waiting for me in the morning. I also "seasoned" my wok liberally with the sesame seed oil I bought yesterday from the Asian food specialty store. I did the dishes twice, once in the morning, and again after cooking. I played some Yahoo! pool and watched parts of various movies on cable. My plan was to do the laundry as well, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. It shouldn't be a problem since I have the 3 new shirts I bought yesterday. The last few weeks I have been going in to work on Sundays to preview slides for the Monday conference but apparently tomorrow's conference will be a lecture-type deal from a prospective faculty candidate. It's about 4:30 and I plan to spend the rest of the evening reading.

Okey doke. It's time to record yet another eventless day in the endless dramaless continuity of existence I like to call my life. Let's see. In terms of getting things in order I would have to say that today was fairly successful. I headed out to the outlets in Medford to pick up some cheap shirts and ties since my wardrobe is beginning to look drab, and the ties (which are the lynch pins of my wardrobe) have been accumulating some quite nasty, quite obvious, and quite embarrasing stains. I also picked up a pair of burgundy shoes to wear with my non-black/blue/grey slacks. As I was ready to pay for the shoes, the salesgirl told me I could pick out another pair of shoes for half price if I wanted so I also bought a pair of leather sandals, retail priced at 89.99, on sale for 29.99, and so with the 50% discount I got a nice pair of sandals for only 15 bucks. Overall, I bought 3 shirts, 4 ties, 3 pairs of socks, one pair of sandals, and one pair of shoes for $250. Then I drove like a madman back to Rochester for no good reason. When I got back to Rochester I checked out the Asian food store which stocked some nice items. I got some steamed pork buns, chinese sausages, dried pork, baby bok choy, sesame seed oil, and oyster sauce. Then I headed up to the Rochester Target and got me a programmable coffee maker, along with a pound of beef and a pack of mushrooms for my weekly stirfry. Then I got a haircut at a little place across the plaza from Target. Then I came home and cooked up some BBQ baby back ribs which had been sitting in my fridge for a week. Frankly, when I cut open the plastic package of the ribs, they were smelling very putrid, but according to the expiration label they were still good, so I blasted them on broil in the oven for 45 minutes, basting frequently with Dave's Famous BBQ sauce, spiked with some tabasco sauce. In the end they turned out deeee-lish. I chomped on them while watching Iron Chef Japan lose to some chef from the mainland. Let's see, then I played some Yahoo spades and MSN backgammon, watched s'more TV about snake charmers, and read about 2 pages of Catch-22. And now here I am recording and recounting my day's activities as if they had some meaning. Laleela. Whoopdedo. I would have to say my mood is chipper. It is windy outside. Must be some kind of front moving in or out.

Wowee. A whole month has passed since my last blog and what do I have to show for it? Not much. My life has pretty much consisted of going to work and buying stuff on the weekends. This weekend I headed up to the Twin Cities intending to buy an iBook from the Apple store in the Mall of America, but when I got there the salespeople kept ignoring me. I mulled around the store for a good 20 minutes and not a single salesperson asked if I needed help. People to the left and right of me were getting asked multiple times, but I was always skipped over. Don't know why. I think it had something to do with racism. Heh. Seriously, it's that lone Asian male social barrier thing I'm always talking about. But after I had a good look around, I decided I didn't want to buy one anyway. I was thinking about getting the bottom of the line 12" iBook advertised for $999, but as it turns out, that one only comes with a CD-ROM drive, not a CD-RW drive. The one with the CD-RW drive would have cost $1299 in which case I might as well bump up to the 12" Powerbook with the G4 processor and DVD/CD-RW drive standard for $1599. For that price, I could also get the little Sony which caught my eye at Best Buy, or an even better equiped, but less stylish, PC notebook. After feeling kind of down about heading all the way up to Minneapolis for nothing, I bought some folding wooden chairs for my dining table at Target. Then I bought groceries at the Rochester Target on the way home and cooked up 20 chicken wings, half of which I have eaten. Once I got home, I decided to restore my computer to see if I could get my internet connection hooked back up and it did the trick. I still don't know what went wrong, must have been one of those stupid freeware programs I couldn't resist downloading and installing on my computer. You know what I mean, like the mouse odometer, the rolling eyes, the cutesy screen saver, etc. So now that my high speed internet connection is back up I'm feeling better about my desktop even though it is now 3 years old. After restoring it it feels like new. The only thing that would make it perfect is to upgrade to Windows XP. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll also want to buy a drafting desk for my den so I can finally get some work done at home.