You've GOT to be kidding me!

So, i have a whole day ahead of me, but nothing to do. I've played a ton of Bloons Tower Defense 3 (Ninjakiwi.com), but still haven't found anything to keep my attention. Then, in the middle of doing some housework i find a terrific distraction, and think i have found a way to pass the whole day filled with fun and excitement. But, alas, disappointment strikes. I found out that the wonderful new toy i was going to play with, is not actually a toy. :(



So, anyway, work has been fun. I've been conducting studies in human stupidity and laziness, (which is why i started working in customer service to start with) and have found some terrific specimens. Oh where to start? How about the guy who called up mad about the fact that when he is using his remote to change channels, he has to push to "OK" button in the middle to make it change. He was literally mad that he couldn't just push 1 2 3, and it go to channel 123 (the true channel # has been changed to protect the innocent). I just kept thinking back to when i was a kid and we actually had to get up off our butts and go change the channel on the TV, feeling glad that we even had one to begin with. (I know, I'm starting to sound like the old man on Saturday Night Live, "Back in my day! . . . We liked it, we loved it!") But i guess that extra motion of pushing yet another button on the remote with his thumb was just too straining.

Then there was the woman who called with a more desperate problem. She wanted to know how to get both of her TVs in synch with each other. I wasn't sure what she was talking about and spent the next few minutes trying to determine what the problem really was. "Is the sound in time with the picture?" "Yes" "On both TV sets?" "Yes" What it boiled down to was this: they had 2 TVs in 2 different rooms, one had an HD converter on it, the other was a standard cable box. With one being HD, it took a second longer for the box to decode the signal and display the program. For some reason they had 2 TVs on in different rooms with the same programs on, and the delay on the one was causing an echo effect, and she was DEMANDING that i fix it. In an effort to keep my job i refrained from saying: "Are you serious. Here, I'll fix your problem. Go into the other room, and CLOSE THE DOOR! Or maybe turn it down, or even off! Now if you'll kindly stop wasting my time, i have customers who actually have real problems for me to help with." But i just told her there was nothing we could do, and apologized for the inconvenience.


Lastly was the man who called to complain about his bill being too high. I get these all day long, and looked in the normal areas for a sudden bill increase. But his only went up $5, and nothing i found could explain it, until i looked at his billing cycle. Long story short, he got 2 months of programming for the price of 1, the $5 increase was on the taxes. He still complained about the taxes being too high.


Join me next time as i reveal even more findings about that most interesting creature. . . the moron.

Tres Leche Cake

OK, so here is the much sought after recipe to my Tres Leche cake, known and coveted in most parts of the galaxy. It does however have some pro's and con's (like my family). It is very delicious and relatively easy to make, but does require a bit of patience, and time. This cannot just be whipped up on a whim unless your whim will let you wait the requisite 8-10 hours after everything is assembled. Yes, I said 8-10 hours, and if you rush it your cake will just wind up all wet and mushy . . . , OK it's a Tres Leche, so it'll be wet and mushy anyway, but you'd better not rush it or else. So, here it is, broken down into it's various components.


Tres Leche Cake Components:

Cake: Cream 1 stick (4oz) of room temp unsalted butter. When creamed, gradually mix in 8 oz sugar. If this step is rushed, the texture will suffer. Continue beating until mixture resembles mashed potatoes. Now add 5 eggs, one at a time. Wait until you can’t see the egg in the batter before adding another. Then, add 1 ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Now slowly add the dry goods: 6¾ oz flour (cake flour if you have it, if not All Purpose will work), 1 tsp baking powder, & ½ tsp salt, all whisked to combine. Scoop the mixture into a well lubed & floured 9x13 baking pan and bake for 20-25 min @350 degrees, or until cake is lightly golden.
Tres Leche: Combine a 12 oz can of evaporated milk, a 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk, and 1 cup of half and half. After cake has baked, let cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes and then prodigiously perforate, (punch a lot of small holes in it) with skewers or something else, I prefer chopsticks. Next add the Tres Leche by slowly pouring over the cake, and then let the cake rest for 8 hours, in the fridge.
Topping: After the cake has soaked up all the Tres Leche mix, top with whipped cream. OK, if you have to you can use store bought, OR you can whip up 1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream with 1\2 cup sugar. (Just make sure to put your beater(s) and bowl in the freezer at least 15 min before you whip. Trust me!)
From here you can do whatever. One of my favorites is freshly sliced strawberries on top. Doesn't get much better than that! Or you can add some cinnamon to the cake batter. Or instead of the half and half, use a half cup Irish Cream coffee creamer and a half cup milk. Top that with whipped chocolate gnosh (another recipe to come later) and you won't be able to stop eating it. (I'm still in therapy)

So, that's it. Have fun with it!

Curses!

OK, so I'm at work the other day, (I do tech and billing support for a cable TV, internet, and phone company) and I'm trying to explain this guys bill to him. He under no circumstances would get through his thick skull that the price he was given was without taxes and fees. I'm sorry, everybody knows that there are taxes and fees with anything you do. Nobody reads it, but everyone knows that there is fine print on any contract or agreement, especially with a cable company. So, I'm trying to tell him that he's not been paying enough on his bill for several months, and that is why he now has a bill about double what his package rate is. He finally, in a thick Haitian accent, tells me that if I want to pull this kind of stuff, to do it with other Americans, but not to try it on him. "You don't know who I am, you don't know what I can do. I WILL CURSE YOU!!", a threat he repeated a couple more times before I transferred him to the dept. that handles cancellations. I checked a few minutes later and the guy from that other dept left a note saying, "Threatened to curse me. Back-dated bill to avoid being cursed." Curses, schmurses, I don't believe in that crap. Well, gotta go. Gotta take some aspirin, my leg's been killing me for a few days now.

I can't BELIEVE I'm doing this

I never thought that of all people, I would be blogging. I used to scoff at bloggers and all of those other people who thought they HAD to be connected 24/7, and just HAD to tell absolutely everyone every minuscule detail about things they did that nobody even cared about to start with. I used to hate when people would ask me if I Facebooked, or Twittered. NO, NO, NO! If I wanted you to know every little detail about my life, I would have had you there when it happened to start with, or would have voluntarily given the information. So take your Twitter and, well, you know what to do with it.
But alas, things have changed. Not to make it sound like this is something that I'm only grudgingly doing, which I'm not. I, for lack of a better way to describe it, have had an epiphany. I'm not at all, as a man, ashamed to say that I went to see Julie and Julia with my wife, (and loved every second of it!), and it was there that the realization struck me. Blogging isn't necessarily the ulitmate refuge for the hopelessly narcisstistic, or pathetically self absorbed like I thought it was. (Which was a lesson I started learning when I started following some of my Wife's and in-law's blogs) In this forum one can simply express themselves as much or little as they want. Idea's can be shared for anybody, or even nobody, to read.
So, here I am, . . . a blogger. What Has this world come to?