To Do This Week
- Convert VNV Nation shirt to tank top for concert Wed.
- Convert Alabama Crimson Tide shirt for gameday Sat.

In Progress, to Finish
- Chinese embroidered blouse – add grommets, ribbon
- Black Tripp pants to skirt conversion
- Altering corset top to fit

Other Planned Conversions
- Irish fairy girl top to tank/sleeveless corset laced top
- Altering Dropkick Murphys babydoll T to fit

I feel duped because I definitely totally fell for the conveniently located, attractive stand by the energy drinks. I could’ve walked out with a bill that was $6 lighter if I hadn’t seen this attractively designed tube and imagined zesty lemon lime goodness in it. I could’ve just taken my grape Rockstar Recovery and left. But nooooooo. Now I have this stupid tube of Nuun.

This is Nuun, folks:

http://www.nuun.com/

Once you pry the top off, the first thing you smell is… dishwasher tabs. I’m not kidding.

The next thing you have to do with the product: get it into the bottle. I grabbed a standard bottle of water and noticed the pill was too big. I guess it’s expected that you break the tab in half to get it into the bottle, though that isn’t explained on the packaging.

Then, you wait. You watch the pill dissolve. It’s kinda like waiting on an Alka-Seltzer tab to get done doing its thing.

Taste: You wait and wait and … it tastes like you’d imagine a dishwasher tab would taste but without the toxicity (hopefully).

I ended up putting a packet of Raspberry Emergen-C and some sugar into a glass with this, and it still tastes pretty bad. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know who thought this would get popular.

Its smell reminds you of dishwasher tabs. Its appearance reminds you of Alka Seltzer. Its taste and we’re back to the dishwasher tabs. Water additives are supposed to make you want to drink the water MORE, not less. For $6, it looks like I just got a tube of bad sensations.

UPDATE: If you have any kind of internal acid sensitivity, I suggest you avoid this product. I have a somewhat rare, painful abdominal condition. However, due to therapy and treatment, I can drink fruit juices and be okay. I drink beer and don’t have pain as bad as this. This just left me feeling like I swallowed a razorblade and I didn’t even drink a whole bottle of it. Be careful, those of you with acid problems.

It doesn’t work, folks. This is how you can tell I’m relatively new to baking because I didn’t anticipate this.

I ended up with something very crumbly and very hard to make into balls. I was able to make a few balls, so I did bake a few cookies. However, the majority of what I had was too crumbly to use that way. I decided, whatever, this looks like awesome crust for something and I’m creative.

It dawned on me… We have cans of sliced peaches! F’n peach cobbler! I’m from the South. I hadn’t had peach cobbler in AGES. It had to be done.

So:
1/2 cup of brown sugar
4 tbsp vegetable or extra light olive oil
1/2 cup of regular sugar
(Or you can just use 1 cup of regular sugar – that’s what I did)
1 cup of peanut butter, creamy, unless you like random nut chunks… I won’t judge
1 egg

3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup flour

1 can/jar of peaches
1 packet of oatmeal or a reasonable amount of rolled oats (eyeball it; live dangerously (it’s just oats))
cinnamon

Put the oil in with the sugar and stir them together. Then, throw in the rest of the first set of ingredients (so, oil, sugars, egg, peanut butter). Stir them up well until you get something kinda thick and creamy. Sift together the dry ingredients from list 2 (baking soda, baking pwdr, flour). Dump the bowl of list 2 ingredients in with list 1. Stir together and you’ll get something kinda doughy, kinda crumbly.

I’m not sure you have to do this part if you’re making a cobbler, but since I was initially trying to make cookies, I left the dough in the fridge for 3 hrs, as the instructions called for. You could probably just not bother chilling the dough since you don’t need to be able to make balls with it.

So, take the no-balls, crumbly dough. Get out a pan or casserole dish or whatever of choice. Make a thin layer of the peanut butter crumbldough for a bottom crust. Do not use all of the crumbldough. You want a top crust too.

Now, peaches and oatmeal time. I had a bowl of peaches and syrup sitting there, so I just dumped a pack of instant regular flavour oatmeal on top and stirred it all up. I learned in the process that I really like raw oats with peach juice… anyway, so, yeah. You can do it that way, or I guess you could painstakingly roll the peaches with the oats if you have a bushel of oats and REALLY want the peaches thoroughly covered.

Make a thorough layer of peaches. I mean it. Cram as many peach slices in there as you can. I ended up wanting more peaches. In fact, I have some crumb of my cobbler sitting on a plate behind me, and I’m saving it so I can eat it with a few peach slices. TL;DR version: PEACHES!!! Yeah.

Add the remainder of the crumbldough as a top layer. Sprinkle the top layer with cinnamon.

I only had one external judge, but he hoovered it away like it was a real hit, and really seemed to like it. I really liked it too! I wasn’t sure what to expect. I think it’s a pretty tasty alternative to the typical white flour based cobbler crust.

3 parts apple cider vinegar
1 part extra light olive oil
pinch of salt
parsley flakes
oregano
3 dashes of soy sauce
1 dash of worcestershire sauce

Whisked together, it resulted in a tangy but not overpowering vinaigrette that goes very well on raw greens. It’s a light flavour so I don’t recommend using it on anything cooked where you’re looking for a flavour that packs a punch. Best used with raw vegetables.

So, the name of the blog probably isn’t going to change. I came up with “The Rice Paper Crane” after taking “ricepapercrane” as a username elsewhere. It fits me well.

There will just be a much wider variety of content here than before so I’ll be more motivated to maintain the blog.

Today, I’ve been watching the Congressional hearing on the Gulf Oil Spill and have been writing this bullet-point summary. This will expand as the hearing continues.

- It could take 3 months just to get the siphoning process to cover the full depth of the spill.
- Blowout preventers had never before been used at 5,000 ft, the depth of the oil well.
- A dispersal agent is being used to help break up the oil called Correxit. Correxit contains arsenic that is now part of the Gulf food supply.
- BP had other options for what dispersal agents to use and others were less toxic but BP has a business relationship with the manufacturer of Correxit.
- Transocean is a Swiss company and may not have paid US tax dollars.
- The Deepwater Horizon was built in Korea, not in the US.
- Most of Transocean’s vessels are flagged under the Marshal Islands.
- There was mention of the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 which BP could try to use to limit their financial liability at roughly $28 billion, but BP publicly claims to take full economic responsibility.
- Blowout preventers are made out of a rubber agent. An employee reported detached portions of rubber found in the shale shakers, and it was considered to be immaterial to the BP company.
- Possible prevention methods for this disaster would have cost about $12 million.
- BP’s “beyond petroleum” ad campaign cost the company $20 million this year.
- Most of the response protocols for oil spills have been for surface spills, not for deepwater spills like this case.
- The entire BP protocol for safe deepwater oil drilling involves a working blowout preventer, the device that failed in the Gulf Oil Spill.
- BP says the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf is at about 5,000 barrels a day. Other reports suggest it may be at 80,000 barrels a day or more.
- Ecologically, the entire United States will be affected by the oil spill.
- EPA may reconsider allowing the usage of dispersants, finding that they contain carcinogens.
- EPA’s Worst Case Scenario estimate for the Deepwater Horizon was 162,000 barrels a day.
- BP was not required to submit an OSRP (oil spill response protocol).

I played Shiz Toshi Honour, Exploding Crane as Case called it, and went 5-3! I’m so happy as I got next to NO practice before the tournament! I didn’t tell my opponents that though…

I was Top Female player and got some neat courtier figurines! I don’t know what the prize would’ve been for a girl playing a military deck…

Winning Moves:  Taking off my obi in the middle of a game v. Scorpion Dishonour, while my opponent was playing Unfortunate Incident… and later on… changing clothes in Nathan’s car rather than keep wearing my uncomfortable costume all day.  In shortform, I took off my kimono and started winning games.  Lesson Learned: I play better when I don’t wear a costume.  Too much fuss, not enough card concentration.

Matchups and Results:

Scorpion Dishonor – Loss, fracking dishonor. hate hate hate hate hate hatehatehate
Spider Military – Win, yay for Reinforce the Gates. Sad for Chris Braun.
Lion Venerable Plains Honor – Lost, stupid virtue cards. what is that about?
Phoenix Military – Lost, THREE TURNS OF GOLDFRACK. WTH.
Lion Military – Won, Allan and I honestly spent most of the game talking politics. It went to time and I was up in honour, but it was close and he gave me the win.
Crane Honor/Military? – Won, and I took 2 provinces with Jun’ai/Koutetsu Meiyo. I tac’d a Hamstrung! One attack I didn’t tac at all. I just sent Hakuseki in during the inf phase! RARRRRRR! /flex
Scorpion Military – Won, which was redeeming after losing to Scorpion 1st rd.
Crab – Won, very close final game. I crossed 40 with Dist Gov/Ekei/Kitsune Den on my turn and some battle based honor gain on his attack. I held off my last province with 4 defenders, 2 Flash of Steel, and 3 Outer Walls. Yeah, I said 3.

Really fun tournament, not just because I did better than I hoped.

I’m super tired, and I no longer have a voice as the devil cold has eaten me.