Living in a Material World

So I whored myself out to market research today. C_ does focus groups a lot, which involves giving your opinion on things in exchange for cash. She got called to do a music one today and they asked her if she knew anyone else who was interested so she handed the phone to me. They were doing programming research for a soft rock/r&b station (not that they said that, but the questions were very leading) and paying $50 for two hours. Okay, so what better things did I have to do (well, spend $10 on a kung fu flick). They played 672 snips of songs that you had to rate from Unfamilliar to Really Dislike to Favorite (with an extra spot for Tired Of which could be used no matter what rating you gave it). It really gave me an insite into why I stopped listening to commercial radio, as well as where my tastes lie. After about 200 songs, I started thinking of each in terms of, "is this better or worse than KC and the Sunshine Band?" Really fucking scary.

It was rather gratifying that I got to rate a whole bunch of Bee Gees songs as Really Dislike. And there was just way too much disco going on over all (Oh, and Mr. Wonder, if your screen reader is reading this off to you, you got top marks)

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The London Trip - LONG POST

The Doc and I had the following email exchange yesterday: The Doc: I just noticed, I can't find your England Report on your blog, you say you will tell people what happened but I can't find the actual info Teru: Hmm, I should put that up, shouldn't I The Doc: Only if you want to go into details about your booty call ;-) Teru: Hmmm, I'm still uncertain about how much information I want to share on the web. It might get me more readers though :) The Doc: Don't mind what you tell people, let them know how badly I was at sex, I don't care... tell them how you got ill and had to be cared for. tell them about the time I ran out of money and had to ask for NTL to put my money back into my account. you have my consent. Anything you want. But most importantly of all you MUST tell people how much I love you, and how much I smiled and how much we kissed in public. Oh and don't forget the meet and the reading bit. Since he said I could tell all, so ...

Squash Blossoms

I haven't planted any squash this year (although some sort of marrow or melon is growing in the compost heap) but I saw some squash blossoms at the farmers' market on Tuesday and thought I'd give them a whirl. We have found that in the summer we consume less milk, but have not actually cut back on our milk order. This has been leaving us with a lot of extra milk at the end of the week and I've been trying to find ways to use it. Last week I made yogurt 1 and a few weeks ago I did a fresh cheese with herbs.The cheese was really yummy and easy so I opted to try that again and make stuffed squash blossoms. I do not have pictures of the cheese-making process, but it was quite easy. Gather random herbs from the garden (I used oregano, basil and sage) Chop said herbs Put milk and herbs into a pot and bring to a boil. Add 1 cup buttermilk (I make it from powder) Add 1/4 cup vinegar - the curds will separate almost instantly. Drain curds in cheesecloth. Ad...

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