Round 2.

Supposedly another bout of snow, possibly another blizzard, is coming into Denver Thursday just as we had cleared out of the last one. The letters to the editor to the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post are right in the thick of the blame throwing. On the front page of one of them we have some city council woman saying that to Hickenlooper, a blizzard means cocoa and sledding. Damn, like it's his fucking fault it snows in Colorado.
The storm was worse than most people probably expected, including me, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what should have been done differently. None of the people bitching has made any suggestions either. And I say this as someone whose car was parked in pile of snow for a couple of days and whose vacation plans have been non trivially snafucated by the blizzard. Shut the fuck up.

Real World Denver.

The MTV show, 'The Real World' finally made it to Denver this year. I haven't been watching the show since it first came out (1. because I didn't have TV for a long time, 2. because it's too fucked up), but I did catch a few episodes set in Our Fair City. It's been pretty much like I guess I'd expected, but I would say they go straight for the drama real quick these days. No filler.

I might have been living Downtown at the time this shit was being filmed. Didn't run into them though, thankfully.

Anyway, Westword, the local Indie newspaper, did a spoof of The Real World in this article. It was too good. They went to different bars with a posse of people who might pass as the cast and crew and acted up. They got a video link in the article so you can see them doing their thing. After seeing a little of the 'real' show, I have to say they did a good job acting like them. They even got some of the dialogue exactly right - 'Fuck You', 'Bitch', etc.

El Blizzard.

After enjoying 2 snow days last week, I went into work on Friday. We got out at 3 cause it was the day before the Xmas weekend and half the people couldn't make it in anyway. Before I went home I got an oil change at Grease Monkey. Leaving Grease Monkey, I drove down a side street cause the traffic on the main road was too busy. This road turned out to be relatively snowy still. I drove along and some woman sort of waved to me from the sidewalk. I stopped to ask her what she needed and she told me that I wouldn't be able to make it past the upcoming intersection. At this point my car was stopped for our little chat, and I had lost the momentum. I wasn't able to get my car going again, even though the woman's son and grandson (I presume that's who they were) tried to help me out. I ended up getting stuck on the side of the road. The woman pointed out to her son that 'I told him he wouldn't make it'.

After some futile efforts I ended up walking home (about a mile). I returned to my car on Sunday afternoon. The snow had melted some but I was still high centered. I was able to rock it back and forth and at one point a guy came and pushed from the front and I got back onto the road and made it home.

On the bright side, at least I wasn't stuck out on 36, or I-25 for days or whatever.

Simple Bagel Recipe.

Makes 6 bagels.
Ingredients:
1. 1.5 cups of water
2. 4 cups of flour
3. 4 tablespoons of gluten (optional)
4. 6 tablespoons of sugar (or honey)
5. 1 teaspoon of salt
6. 2.5 tablespoons of yeast (active)

Steps:
1. Pour the water, half the sugar or honey (3 tablespoons) and yeast in a bowl. Stir and let sit for 10 minutes. (This is called proofing. The yeast should rise and foam, if it doesn't the yeast is bad and you don't want to continue with it, you want some better yeast.)

2. Add the flour, salt and gluten to the yeast/sugar/water mix. Stir/Mix as you add it. Towards the end you will have to knead the flour in because you won't be able to stir/mix it in. Add more or less as the consistency seems right. Let rise for 10-20 minutes in a lightly greased bowl (I just use the original mixing bowl.) BTW - the gluten makes the bagels chewier - some recipes suggest you use high gluten flower. Either/or.

3. Form the dough into a bagel shape and let sit uncovered for about 10 minutes. (I just roll them into balls then punch a hole in the center with my thumb.)

4. Get a large pot of water boiling (just a little under or over) and add the other 3 tablespoons of sugar. Put the bagels in, a couple at a time so you don't get them all jumbled up. Let them boil for a minute or so then turn them over with a spoon and let them boil on the other side for another minute or so. (I think the boiling process makes the bagels crustier, the sugar helps the crust also. It might inhibit the yeast as well so the bagels don't keep rising in the oven.)

5. Take the bagels out of the water and put any poppy/sesame seeds, salt, etc on the top of the bagels at this point. (They may not stick to the top to your satisfaction. To address this issue some people paste the tops with egg whites as a glue.)

6. Put the bagels on a greased pan and bake at ~400 degrees (fahrenheit) for 20-30 minutes. (Basically till they are brown enough. Also, many people coat the pan with corn flour so the bagels don't stick. This is a pretty good idea cause they like to stick.)

Let them cool before eating.

America's Top Chef.

This is my favorite show on TV (the only one I try to catch the latest episodes of). It's another of those reality shows where they have 15 or so people compete, and each week they throw someone off. For some reason I find it more interesting than Survivor, or The Apprentice or any of those others. Guess I like watching them cook.

The show goes like this - at the beginning they have a quick challenge. They'll put all the cooks in a kitchen and tell them to make something in 15 minutes out of ingredients from a can, or a vending machine, or make a mixed drink, etc. Whoever wins this gets 'immunity' from the main 'elimination' challenge of the night. The elimination challenge is where they have to cook real food for people. It might be catering hor'douvres (sp) for a Hollywood party, or create a 'Cutting Edge' Thanksgiving dinner. After the challenge the judges talk amongst themselves about how the dishes went then the cooks come up in front of the 4 or so judges (it varies) and explain what they thought they did right or wrong and the judges tell them who won and who gets to 'pack your knives'. This part is much funnier than it sounds. The judges act like they are on the Supreme Court and a dubiously cooked dish is a felony. 'There is nothing worse that BURNT, BROWN, RUBBERY EGGS!'

My favorite guy right now is Michael, who is kind of a slacker looking dude up against these arty, pretentious types. His cooking seems good enough, but the fact that he comes off as sort of a surfer/skate-boarder - in the way he talks (dudespeak) and his relatively disheveled appearance - must be costing him points with the wine and cheese crowd.

Most of the others are cool too. Ilan, then Sam would be my next choices.

It's beginning to look not unlike Christmas

It's snowing pretty heavily right now. I went into work, figuring that it was just another snowy day, but it's a blizzard (flights cancelled, schools closed, tough driving.), so they sent us home.

Nothing better than a day off in my book. Like the snow too.

Damn. I caught a cold.

Had a cold last week. As far as colds go it was pretty nasty. When I got off work on Friday, I came home and went to sleep for like 16 hours or so. My head was totally stuffed up, had to blow my nose all the time, slight cough and man was I tired. Feel fine now, so all is good. There is no cure for the common cold apparently.

What's happening in Denver right now.

The light rail spur to the tech center is now up and running. It started running on the 17th of November. Duffy's is now closed and Jay Cutler is now the new Bronco's QB and he starts off his career with a 23-20 loss.

Brr!

It's definitely Winter now. It's been butt cold here for the past week or so. I think this is the first time I have really used the heat in my apartment. Very nice.