Cake Me!

I was in the mood for some cake over the weekend, so figured I'd try an oldie but goodie family tradition--the pineapple upside down cake! This is a dessert my grandma used to make for us kids all the time, and was my personal favorite growing up. Problem was I didn't have a big enough cake pan to do the job. I'd always heard that the traditional method of making this classic was in a cast-iron skillet. I don't own a cast-iron-skillet, but I do have a very heavy, 12-inch Cephalon skillet that I thought might do the trick. And so I set to work on what I hoped wouldn't prove a colossal disaster.

First I melted an entire stick of butter in the skillet over a low fire. Then, I mixed in one cup of packed light-brown sugar until the entire bottom of the skillet was covered in the butter/sugar mixture. Atop this I placed around 8 slices of pineapple.

Some people use cherries, halved, to place within each pineapple slice center. My grandma never did this, so I didn't either. Perhaps next time. And like grandma, I decided to use pineapple from out of the can rather than going through the labor of cutting and coring a whole pineapple myself. After all, I didn't even know if I was wasting my time or not. So I wanted to stick as close to what I remembered from childhood as I could.

Next I combined all my dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, granulated sugar, salt . . . box of instant vanilla pudding mix!) with eggs, more butter, oil and a about a cup of pineapple juice from the can the slices came out of. I dug out my trusty old mixer and set it on medium. After around 2 minutes of this, the batter felt like just the right consistency.

Or so I thought. After pouring the batter into the skillet and over the pineapple and brown sugar, the result seemed a little too stiff for my liking. But I hoped beyond hope that this was just my paranoia taking over, and decided to risk it all. I placed the entire skillet in a pre-heated oven set at 350 degrees . . . and crossed my fingers.

Good thing the skillet has a steel handle! I let it bake for an hour, checking every 10 minutes to make sure the cake was rising the way it should be. What I saw each time was promising. It just rose and rose until the top was almost cresting the skillet's rim. Whoa!

But I'm happy to report the cake came out just fine! Take a peek for yourself:

I noticed the pineapple slices migrated quite a bit from the center during the baking process. Hmmm, will have to pack them in closer together next time, methinks. But overall the coloring and consistency came out just as I had hoped. Better yet, the skillet worked out perfectly! I never would have guessed. It does make me wonder what difference a cast-iron one might have made. I dunno.

But anyway, here is the final result:

Mmmmm. Doesn't that look simply scrumptious? Is your mouth watering yet? Maybe you'll want to click on that image to get a closer look? I know I for one can't wait to eat this! :)

I think next week I will try to make a pie for the very first time. Blueberry is my favorite, but I was thinking of going traditional American and making an apple pie as my first try. I will be making everything from scratch, including the crust. *meep* Wish me luck!

Weird Things Abound On Home

Well, I spent last night doing some more exploring on the PlayStation Network's online world, Home. Things are still rather bland during this Beta testing phase, but apparently there are ways to amuse yourself . . . and then there are *ways*. I chose to purchase some new duds so that I can at least tell myself apart in a crowd. The above sweater and pants cost me under $0.50 cents each of my real money. Chump change, and I don't plan on doing this often. But as you can see it's a bit of an improvement from the last look.

Anyway, I was sitting by the pond doing some people watching when a rather curious commotion began to build up near me. An "attractive female avatar" (AFA) was dancing with some dude near me, which immediately caused a bunch of other guys to rush over and surround the AFA while trying to spit game.

Yeah, you read that right. It looked as pathetic as it sounds. Anyway, the AFA strung them along until a rowdy bunch of about 6 or 7 guys started dancing in unison with her, trying to get her to take them home. (yes, you can do that in Home, although the protocol does not yet exist to do anything risque once you get back to your pad.) And then "the trap" was sprung. Oh, it was glorious people! I wish you could have seen it.

Well actually, you can.

Apparently, some people have perfected the art of what is known as "Quincying" on Home. Very quick, Quincying is when a male gamer creates a female avatar to dupe other horny and nerdy male gamers into trying to pick her up -- something they wouldn't have the balls to do in real life. And when you have a bunch of them sufficiently baited . . . well, that's when it's time to do a fast-switch and change into something a little more, um, appealing.

The guys at this site duplicated the feat with textual and video documentation. Click on the link and read all about the setup, then check out the video at the end of the article. Or, you can just skip straight to the same video posted below. I'm telling you, it's well worth your effort to watch. Oh hell yeah!

Stupidity Aggravates Me

I got a letter in the mail Friday from building management telling me that our air-conditioner was not installed properly, and that we had 7 days to comply or else legal action would be taken against us. WTF? This was news to me since our window AC unit was installed exactly according to the instructions, using every part that came in the box.

So I called the woman who sent the letter, which I assumed was sent to everyone who has an AC in my building, and got down to the bottom of this. Good thing I was home that day, or else this would've ended up being dealt with Monday. I would have been pissed all weekend if I had received that letter after coming home from work and when the office had already closed for the day.

Anyway, the woman explained to me that our apartment building was in the process of renewing its liability insurance, and that the inspectors had deemed that our AC was not installed properly. I told her it WAS installed properly, thank you very much. The letter specified illegal items, such as bricks and cans, being used to prop up the AC units in our building. But I told her that I, of course, knew better than to do that. So then she looked it up and told me that I was missing the support brackets. I told her this model of AC did not come with typical angle brackets, but with support-pin brackets. So she said, well the inspectors didn't see any supports from the street.

Excuse me? You mean to tell me these so-called "inspectors" are eye-balling an AC unit 10 stories up from the street? WTF kind of inspection is that? And they have the nerve to say I have no supports, when clearly I do? This woman didn't seem to believe me, telling me that if I didn't have the brackets to just remove the AC since the weather is getting cooler anyway, and to just reinstall it next Spring. By that time the building would have renewed its license and we can do whatever we want after that. Her words exactly.

I'm not even going to touch the stupidity of that last statement.

Anyway, I told her I just went through hell installing this new AC this summer. I wasn't about to remove it now. It's going to stay up there throughout the winter. We finally agreed to have the Superintendent come up and check that my AC was in fact installed properly. He came up, just briefly glanced out the window, and said: "oh yeah, the supports are right there." Then he took a picture with his camera and that was that. Apparently, if you're standing on the street 10 floors below you can't see the supporting brackets. No, duh! Imagine that.

Now, me being me, I'm always thorough. So I took my own pics with my digital cam and emailed this woman at the management office (which is located downtown, btw). I worded a slightly miffed e-mail and attached the following three pics, which I think is quite sufficient to show that my AC is in no danger of falling out of the sky and braining some poor slob walking by our building below.

Argh! I can't stand dealing with stupidity!