What-What?! Week of August 11th

This week, I actually started writing several posts, but they all turned into topics that were more suitable for stand-alone articles than for blogging.  Incidentally, I forgot to mention that I had two articles published last week, this time by Yahoo! Voices:  In Defense of New Grads, and Three Reasons Why the Job Market is Better than You Think – And One Reason it Isn’t.  I have another article that is currently going through the editing process, but should be published within the week, and another article that I’m still developing (featuring Jeremy Clarkson, of all people).

In other news, Netflix is no longer offering Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (UK); I watch that show for both cooking and business inspiration, which it really has in buckets.  I am terribly disappointed, and now I have to go find something else to watch.

Disney Planes Travel Posters via BuzzFeed

As part of the promotions for Planes, Disney developed these brilliant travel posters – however, I believe that the one labeled Japan is actually for China.  Otherwise, these are very visually striking posters.  Click the link above for the other five.

Food:  Cowboy Casserole

In searching for this recipe, I read it described as looking “like dog food”, and another that described it as a lazy man’s shepherd’s pie (which is pretty close, actually).

Overall, this was a winner.  This recipe would be great for large families or groups, as it makes a full 9 x 13 pan of food, and it is quite filling.  One could not mistake it for a healthy meal, however, so a side salad is a must.  The combination of the creamy meat with the crispy potatoes and cheese was delicious, though using two cans of “cream of” soup was too much fake-creaminess, so I would cut it down to one (or even none, and use a basic béchamel sauce instead).  My husband suggested added some chopped mushrooms next time, which I think we’ll definitely try.

News:  5 Reasons Every Job Seeker Should Blog via Careerealism

This is kind of a funny article; when I started this blog, I never did so with the intention of improving my chances of getting a job.  However, I’ve had several interviews where the interviewer commented about it; generally, the reaction has been quite good.  One of the things that this article brings up at the beginning is blogging missteps, like inconsistent timing, walls of text, and inside jokes – I think that a lot of people get grandiose ideas about blogging, but when it comes to actually doing it, it just doesn’t happen.  Blogging is a lot of work, requiring planning, research, writing, and editing.  When I started this blog in January, I decided to post once a week, because I knew, even when I was in the middle of finishing my senior project, it would be manageable.

(Note: That the “5” in the title of that post should actually be written “Five”.  I have a whole handout from one of my classes devoted to the rules of when you should write out the word for a number or the number itself; I don’t believe that many people are formally taught this, though.)

Until next week!

What-What?! Week of May 26th

This week has been pretty slow.  I’ve spent a few days visiting my parents, which has been nice because I lived like a hobbit for the last month or so of school.  Today (Saturday), I managed to get some items ready to be listed on eBay, which is an achievement considering the last few days.  Thursday, my middle son threw up while at my parents (still no idea why), and since that evening, my littlest has had a fever ranging from 101-102+ degrees.  He’s been fussy, but otherwise okay.

I applied to a few jobs locally, and have another possible opportunity in the pipeline, so that’s good.  I am anxious to get some kind of employment, with the hope of being able to leave behind apartment living.  I genuinely, truly hate the thought of moving, but living in this apartment is the pits.

WoW: Pandaland Review

This last Saturday (Sunday?), the husband installed the newest expansion of the World of Warcraft franchise, The Mists of Pandaria, which I’ll refer to as “Pandaland”.  It’s my opinion that Pandaland was old before it was even released, due to the popularity of Kung Fu Panda way back in 2008.  The public has already had martial arts panda characters.  Give us something new.  Along with the expansion of the world setting, the Blizzard team further streamlined talent trees and abilities, which creates less flexibility for a character; it does prevent you from inadvertently breaking your character, though.  Since we’ve only been playing less than a week, the husband and I have yet to get into the new dungeons, challenges and scenarios, as well as the pet battles.  The pet battle thing also makes me sad; it’s like Neopets.  Or Pokemon.  If I wanted to do those things, I would go play Neopets or Pokemon, not WoW.  Why did Blizz do this? Why?  The more I look at Pandaland, the more I think that a bunch of execs got into a room and said “this would be cool, let’s do it!” without really examining the ideas closely.

Also, for whatever reason, the male pandas are quite rotund, while the female pandas are slim.  Mind you, by "slim" I mean "normal person", but compared to most of the other races, she is a plus-sized model.  The male fanbase demands sexy women, thus the female panda is curvy rather than appropriately plump.

So far, I am not so impressed with the newest expansion.  Will update next week.

TV:  Ramsay’s Best Restaurant

I ran out of the British Kitchen Nightmares series on Netflix, so I started on Gordon Ramsay’s other series, in which he searches for Britain’s best restaurant.  I would be watching the U.S. version of Kitchen Nightmares, but it isn’t subtitled, which is a requirement when watching it with children about.  Ramsay’s Best Restaurant is all about pitting one restaurant that serves traditionally styled foods versus one that pushes the envelope; these restaurants serve the same types of foods (Italian, Indian, Thai, etc.), but how they go about it is vastly different.  Each restaurant is put through a series of tests, like feeding 30 diners at once, and being visited by a difficult undercover agent, then one restaurant is allowed in to the semi-final.  Nearly all of these restaurants have service issues, which is pretty staggering considering that these are suppose to be some of the best in the country.  Part of this is because service is hard to measure, while things like quality and taste of food isn’t.

Not much else goin’ on this week.  Next Saturday is my birthday, and I will make sure that I take photos of the special cupcakes I’m making. :D

What-What?! Week of May 19th

Thursday, I completed my final presentation of the strategic analysis of Monterey Language Services.  It went wonderfully!  My team mates were fantastic, totally spot-on with their parts.  After the presentation was over, we didn’t get many questions; I think partly because our presentation was very complete, and partly because of the confidence we expressed while discussing it.

Saturday was the commencement, which I didn’t attend.  But still and yet, I have graduated!  I now have my bachelor’s in business administration.  Now to figure out what I’ll be doing next.

Cooking: LOL, What?

This week, I didn’t do much cooking at all.  Sunday I made a beef, asparagus and mushroom stir-fry.  Monday, we had barbequed try-tip at my parent’s house, and Tuesday we had leftovers of that.  Wednesday, we ate pizza.  Thursday we had dinner out.  Friday, the husband cooked.  Saturday, we ate leftovers and fast food.

But I did make mushrooms on toast, which is a classic British breakfast food.  It’s very simple to make: Just sauté mushrooms with a bit of butter, and then served on toast.  It’s usually topped with a poached egg, but we had ours with fried eggs instead.  I really liked the earthiness of the mushrooms contrasted with the eggs; Peter thought it could use a little something, but he’s not sure what.  Either way, it was a hearty, delicious breakfast.

News: Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and a Social Media Meltdown

This happened about mid-week; a business that Ramsay was working with on the United States version of his Kitchen Nightmares show was so awful and backwards that he refused to work with them.  One of the things that came about was a social media war against their detractors, who had gone onto Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Yelp and trashed the business for their misleading practices.  I bring this up not so much because of the connection to Ramsay, but because I keep seeing this happen to small businesses, even good ones.  I think that the issue here is that these businesses are built by the blood and sweat of the owners, and they are very defensive, even when they are wrong.

I’ve seen this happen to Franklin Goose and Help Remedies; they do something wrong, and rather than admitting that they’ve made a mistake and trying to fix it (or even just apologizing), they blame customers.  It turns into a huge flaming internet war, posts complaining about the company are deleted from Facebook, and so on.  I think one of the most important things to remember in situations like these is that humans are fallible; people make mistakes, and companies make mistakes.  Customers are much more accepting if a company owns up to its mistakes, acting constructively, rather than destructively.  Blaming your customers and acting rudely to them does you no favors, no matter who is wrong.

Forbes even published an article describing lessons that can be learned from the dabacle.  Pretty spot-on.

See you next week! :D