coffee and cigarettes

Filipino Barbeque Marinade

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 12:42:28 PST

I am doing this because I have finally decided that I want to have a place to write how I cook certain things. Yes, I usually find them in the internet anyway; but at least these one are the ones I know work. Also, usually available. I don't have good access to the filipino/asian stores. I was debating on making a new blog for it, but I like this blog, and I am way too lazy to design a new one. So here it goes.

Filipino Barbeque Marinade

I have used this for pork and beef barbeque/skewers, and also for tuna steaks. I think it taste awesome with any grilling needs.

You need:

1/2 small clove of smashed garlic (could be fresh, but those minced ones in the jar works too)

a couple of dashes of garlic salt (I like my garlic)

few tablespoons of sugar

few squirts of banana ketshup (or tomatoe as this is the most readily available one)

some sprite

soy sauce

lemon

a few dash of pepper

a lot of Mama Sita's barbeque mix (I like to think this makes up for whatever is lacking in my marinade)

Mix everything. I don't put the measurements cos I hoestly don't know. I put enough to cover everything with the marinade, and I base everything on the smell. If it smells too salty cos of the soy sauce, I would add a few more squeezes of the lemon. Once my hand starts smelling like what a marinade should, then I know it was good. Then, marinade for a few hours. The end.

Top ten annoying drivers

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 06:47:41 PST

While I am definitely not the best driver in the world (not even close to being good), there are some things that drive me absolutely nuts when I'm in the highway. Of course, because of the recent speeding ticket, I'm lying low on the speeding department. It's kinda' funny though, back in the Philippines, I woud never think that I would ever drive, ever. But when I moved here, I can't imagine not driving. Trip to snowy Utica made me miss driving. Crazy, I know. Here is a list of the things people do in the highway that annoys the heck out of me. It's a bit of a rant post.

Top ten things that annoy me on the road:

1. Driving slow in the fast lane. Just pisses me off. The right lane is free, move your ass to the right. Why bother everyone else who is trying to go by faster?

2. Driving too close to me from behind. Makes me want to break check every single time.

3. Drivers who change lanes or turn without signalling. I just think it's rude.

4. Drivers who do not turn off their signal lights when they're done turning. Blinking lights annoy me. I know, it really doesn't take much.

5. Motorcycles in the highway. I'm sorry, this is a prejudice. Whenever I see a motorcycle in front of me, I have this urge to "tap" him, which I have never done by the way.

6. Drivers who can't stay in their lanes. Get away from me! You are very dangerous, and I can't say I will get out of your way. Srsly.

7. Drivers who can't figure out which lane they want to stick to. I mean, everybody's almost going the same speed cos of traffic. So really, switching lanes too much is just annoying to watch.

8. Drivers who block traffic when there's no traffic in front of them. It's a two lane road, why do you have to go the same speed as the person on your right? You're in the freakin' left lane dude, go faster!

9. Rubberneckers. Get on with it. If you want to gawk, go park on the side of the road.

10. Drivers who harass me. Yes, I've had a few of those. Funny, I only met them driving down hwy 54. Do I honestly look like I am looking to race anyone?!

Tell me, what's your annoying driver stories? Hopefully I'm not in it. lulz.

Yey driving me!

Hello world, it's me

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:16:15 PST

Hello world of Tabulas, it's me Cigarette girl.

I have been out of the blogging world loop for so long. Heck, I'm not even active in plurk anymore. I've been trying to keep posting photos in flickr, but my commenting skills are horrible! I have neglected the net world really. I blame this largely with work. The nursing homes have been keeping me busy. When not at work, the real world takes too much of my time. There's all those trip with the bf, trips with friends, and of course shopping (not just of nursing scrubs). I'm so happy we are not required to wear uniforms at work. Don't get me wrong, I like wearing scrub clothing. It takes the pressure off thinking what to wear. And I don't look to bad in scrubs either.

See? Not too bad. heh.

But I digress, the plan for 2011 is to get back to blogging once again. Hopefully this would be easier cos I need to spend quality time with the lappy now. Grad school does that to you. And this will be the year when I take too many trips, and spend way too much. Hopefully, this would be the year when I get to be the most productive (as compared to previous years only of course).

It feels a little strange being all grown up and having all these grown up responsibilities -mortgage, car payment, school, taxes (yes, tax season will be upon us soon), and work. I have been dependent way too long possibly. All I need now is to start a family, and I'll have all the grown-up things-to-do checklist done.

Enough with the rambling. Instead I will leave you with this photo to end my first entry to 2011, because I still ahve a thing for chirstmas ligts:

On Greeks and food

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:36:39 PDT

A few weeks ago, we went to Tarpoon Springs for some yummy Greek lunch. First place we saw was Mykonos. I picked the place cos I saw the restarant was still full at 1 pm. I assume full restaurants mean good food.

I ordered the Papoutsakia having really no idea what it was except its eggplant stuffed with ground beef.

As always, first came the homemade bread, which was pretty good. I wish it was served warm though.

Then came the food.

It looked awesome.

At first I thought it was too um, soft. But the ground beef in the middle made a load of difference. The serving was huge though, so it was really worth the price (which I forgot how much. lol)

Breakfast in pictures

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:26:54 PDT

Sunday morning, we woke up in the apartment with no coffee.

Ok we do have coffee in the can, but breakfast date is a coffee snob, and prefers it brewed. No, I don't own a coffeemaker.

So at 8 in the morning, I was woken up, and harrassed to go out for coffee downtown. Downtown is about 15 minutes from where I live (if we drive like turtles). With $10 between us, we went out to look for decent coffee.

Given this is Florida, on a sunday, and New Port Richey isn't exactly the "city", I wasn't expecting too much on this coffee trip. To be honest, I wasn't even sure if anything is open at 9 am. So, I was pretty surprised when we saw this quaint little place open.

We never got to meet Christine. But we did love the bottomless coffee, yummy french toast, bagels, and bacon all for $10!

I'm starting to like this little town I live in. Hopefully we get to explore this place more on weekends.

On letters that make you rich

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:10:52 PDT

Trying to get this blog back up. Sortof. Guess what? I don't need to work now! Apparently, I'm rich! At least until after I contact a certain Mr. Curtis Hacketti Barr, who can give me £9.8million. Woot-woot.

What? You don't believe me? You think I lie? Read this and weep!

Re: Greetings

Friday, April 23, 2010 9:09 PM

From:"Barr. Curtis Hacketti" <barri.chacketti@hotmail.com>

To:info@update.com

Good Day,

I am contacting you in good faith and this proposal will be of mutual benefit. I am Curtis Hacketti, a solicitor at law. I am the personal attorney/sole executor to the late Mr.Robert, hereinafter referred to as my client. Who died in a car crash with his immediate family in East London on the 5th of November 2002. My late client a formal Sub-Comptroller working with Chevron Texaco Oil here in the United Kingdom and Left behind a deposit of Nine Million Eight Hundred Thousand British Pound Sterling only (£9.8million) with a bank since the death of my client, I have written several letters to the embassy with intent to locate any of his extended relatives whom shall be claimants/beneficiaries of his abandoned personal estate and all such efforts have been to no avail.

Well I have reasons very professional and I can use a legal means to present a next of kin of my deceased client. This is legally possible and would be done in accordance with the laws of the land. On this note I decided to search for a credible person and finding that you bear a similar last name, I was urged to contact you, that I may, with your consent, present you to the "Trustee" as my late client's family members as to enable you put up a claim to the bank in that capacity as a next of kin of my client.GET IN TOUCH WITH ME BY MY ALTERNATIVE EMAIL barri_hacketti@hotmail.com

Regards.

Mr Curtis Hacketti.
London SW9 9RT
Phone: 01144-703-591-0969.

N.B
When calling you dial your country calling code which I think is 011+my number(+44-703-591-0969). That is (01144-703-591-0969). You can also confirm the code from your service provider.

See? See? We bear a similar last name! I am Janine Robert. Yes, I just had it legally chenged like 64 minutes ago.

So anyway, beacause I am rich, I can now blog all the time. After I get done with my hundred thousand pounds worth of shopping.

CGIS on NCIS

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:23:04 PDT

This is an attempt to revive my dying blog (or maybe resurrect my dead blog is more appropriate?).

Watched tuesday's episode of NCIS (BEST. SHOW. EVER.). Two things struck me:

1. There's a CGIS (Coast Guard Investigatory Services)! I didn't know that agency exists. The boyf was a coast guard, so we like hearing about silly things like that.

2. Diane Neal is HOT!

"Jurisdiction" --Guest star Diane Neal as Special Agent Abigail Borin, and Mark Harmon as Leroy Gibbs on NCIS, Tuesday, March 16 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Photo: Richard Foreman/CBS ©2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Now, aside from the word HOT going through my mind, it got me thinking where I saw this CGIS agent before. Then it hits me

Remember this show?

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit! I didn't like her as much there. Ionno why.

Also doesn't she sortof looks like

Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, I hope she comes back to NCIS soon.

Photoshop Tutorial 101: Triplets in photoshop

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:44:13 PST

My sister wants to know how to make multiple images of people in a photo. Kinda like triplets, only clones. And since I'm sending her an email about it anyway for instructions (with PICTURES!), I might as well post a tutorial in the blog.

Step 1: Take the pictures. Very important step. To make the work easier, the camera should be taking shots in one spot (just so lighting and shadows and all those things that make editing complicated simplier).

Now that I have my 3 (have not brushed my hair, obviously still in bed.) shots, copy all three to a new file. I copied all in one of the shots.

Rectangular marquee (click second button on sidebar on left)
ctrl+c
open new file (ctrl+n)
ctrl+v to paste

Step 2: Click on the layer you want to work with (this would be layers 2 and 3 here). Blend mode on the lower right sidebar, click on the box that says Normal, and change it to Multiply. Do this for both layers 2 and 3 (basically, the bottom most shot, need not be in blend mode). Or,

Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options > Blend Mode > Multiply

I like doing this cos it gives me an idea how I'm going to do the erasing. Key step to the multiple images thing.

Step 3: Now we do the erasing. Click on Layer 3 (whatever the topmost layer is anyway). Layer 3 would be the RightMe. So erase on the general area of LeftMe and MiddleMe to bring out those two.

Erase Tool is on the left sidebar, 11th box. You can make the brush size a bit bigger to make this go faster by clicking on arrow beside the number beside brush (yes?).

LeftMe and MiddleMe are spaced quite nicely so nothing tricky with erasing anything. MiddleMe and RightMe however are somewhat closer. RightMe is over MiddleMe's shadow (sortof). So just to make sure, a little more careful with erasing space for MiddleMe.

I hope nobody's getting confused yet.

Step 4: Going back to Blend mode, change the setting from Multiply to Normal on Layer 3 (topmost later, where the erasing happened). This way you can see how the two photos have now sortof merged. Don't worry about LeftMe, she's still there.

It's much easier to erase details that needs erasing now that both can be seen clearly. If there are areas where they really overlap, you may lower the opacity for the upper layer to about 80% just to give you an idea how much more you need to erase.

Step 5: Back to erasing fun. Go to Layer1 (mid-layer), click on Eraser tool on the left sidebar, and erase the space where LeftMe should be.

It looks a little creepy.

And ta-da! A successful triplets!

Now prettify it a little and it then ends up like this:

In retrospect, I should've tried to take prettier pictures but I was/am (still) really lazy.

P.s. Right click to see larger photo. It shows better. really.

Gifts I want under my tree for 2009

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:15:43 PST

Because I feel the need to procrastinate, I am going to write my 2009 Christmas Wishlist. Little things that I should buy soon-ish, or just wish I have. So, 9 gifts for 2009!

Starbucks 2010 Planner. Just because I always get one every single year. Too bad I'm no longer in Pinas.

Flickr Pro account. So I got an email that I need to renew my flickr. Should be doing this soon.

The rest can be seen in my wishlist.

Troubleshooting your Ipod 101

Sat, 16 May 2009 18:58:40 PDT

For the past week, I've been having trouble with my ipod classic, Portia. Fifth gen I think. At first I thought it was a problem with synchronizing it with the laptop, it wasn't. It was more than just sync problems. The problem was laptopwasn't reading ipod at all! There was nothing to open in My Computer, cos it wasn't there. That's a major deal for me cos I use ipod as backup for my files too. After going through troubleshooting assistance in google, I finally found one that works.

First of all, this was my problem (apparently):

iPod is not recognized properly by computer when USB drivers are not installed properly or are out of date

And I almost ignored this at first.

But it did work! All this time it was the USB driver that was the problem. Not my ipod, not my cable, not my itunes.

And now it's all shiny. Weeee!