jayseven

I was going to make that tonight but time was tight and I couldn't purchase the veggies. Ended up using my mixed-meat (burgers, sausages, kebabs) in combination with kidney beans, baked beans and mixed beans, throwing in paprika, garam masala, oregano, bay leaves (to fry with the meat), garlic, parsley, chicken stock and some lentils to soak up the sauce (and a dash of balsamic vinegar because fuck yeah). I'll be loading it up in wraps for lunch all week. It tastes... confusing, really. But good! Doubtlessly not as good as it could've been if I had followed the recipe properly. Mind you, I don't like the idea of boiling the chicken and rice together. Did you seal the meat first? I didn't mention it on the comments on your pic, but @Fierce_LiNk "the [meat] might not go with the tomatoes" ... but it's meat!!

bob gets it! Probably the oddest tangent my parentheses have provided, I'll say.

@Animal the aldi job isn't good for you. Aldi is about getting customers in and out as quickly as possible, minimising overheads and keeping staff levels to an absolute minimum. Don't do it!

Yeah everything was up in the air back april-time - been there three months now so off probation and having an appraisal and contract signing next week. ).

Thanks guys that's pretty much what I needed to hear. I was considering doing the month trial that both offer and seeing where that leaves me. If you have a uk netflix account then I guess you can't access US stuff? Gotta subscibe to the US site in order for it to be more beneficiial? @Aneres11 perfect response

All work related; been training my replacement (bimbo barbie who everyone in the office stares at - she can't do the job very efficiently. Boss picked up on the vibes and asked me to write up a How-To guide for the job, essentially for the potential replacement for if/when she leaves/is fired. Boss loves my english-degree-related-skillz and asks me to amend his son's cover letter. Boss points earned. Started my own training for me new job - lots of fiddly things to remember - today and yesterday felt like they lasted an hour. The day goes by really quick, which is great. Work is just generally... going really well! End of this month I'll be on the new pay, and can start looking at moving out! ... Yeah! Not really exciting. Since I dropped my 50 hour weeks I've done 9-5 but been out pretty much every evening, so I've not had much spare time. Feel like I need to focus on seeing friends and keeping the networking alive.

I did a (half-arsed) search and didn't find a previous thread even though I feel like there has been one. I'm considering getting one of these to stream stuff on my laptop and I'm aware that both offer different libraries. Initially, at least, I'm aiming for TV series more than movies so I'm presuming netflix is the right choice but I wanted to hear from people who actually use it (that I trust) to see what they would suggest. I know that netflix have their own show(s) now, too, which would steer my decision a little but ultimately it'd be about which offers the largest library of new stuff. Does anyone have any advice on this?

And now you've set a precedent!

(I don't get why you're posting sarcasm after my sarcasm)

I quite like the new miley cyrus song.

I think I had this. I never had any of the 'cool' toys when tehy were cool, always a few years later... but I think I had this, and it was fucking epic. I can remember the fun I had with this and my star wars toys and a whole bunch of other toys... FUCK YOU'RE TAKING ME BACK NEARLY 20 YEARS! Sitting in my corridor playing good vs evil... and wanting evil to win...

@nightwolf turns out I'm working with Hayden's sister. SMALL WORLD TIMES FIVE. I hope you know who I'm on about Started training my replacement today. CV win. Got a tent and sleeping bag off a mate for my juggling 'festival' tomorrow.

What do you mean she's not posted for a week? Surely she didn't come here JUST for votes!?

Loving these lists! Lots of lovely new music for me to listen to I made a note of my playlist but left it at work so I'll get it on here asap

@Animal I'm glad you approach the situations the way you do. That guy has been hired to do a job and he's not supposed to allow himself to get narked off like he clearly did. If the charity got a warning then he most certainly did.

I thanked you ash but I begrudge youuuu!! I am willing to concoct a youtube playlist of any list of songs people produce, be it spotify or even just a texual list. Looking forward to seeing the tracks boyos!

I actually really, really enjoyed TTAoJdZ... (I don't know what the cool kids are calling it) I never finished Black Swan Green, and I've not found his newest book (I know I have google but I cba to search for it, but waterstones didn't have it), but he's just so... modest in his writing. I used to love China Mievelle but my dad read Perdido Street Station and made me realise that the guy just loved reading his own words. The need to express his wide vocab meant the story itself failed. I've recently purchased a few books - some I've owned/read and others that were recommended. Infinite Jest was heavily recommended by Dan Dare, even though it took him half a year to read (non-stop! It's a big tome of a book), and The 100 year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of A Window. Girlfriend In Aer Coma, by Douglas Coupland (shorty recommended it to me like 5 years ago and I read it back then but want to read again), 100 Years of Solitude (one of my fave books; want a(nother) copy to lend to folk) and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. I was actually given this book to read by a family friend, who got it off his girlfriend who is an editor for books. He insinuated that she edited this book, but I don't think that's the case, I think she was just in the first 'circle' of people to read the book. What I'm basically saying is that I read this book 4 years ago so nyer I'm cool (even though the book is nearly 10 years old, but it's only in the last 2 years it's become a charity shop/waterstones regular featured book). Again, one of my favourite books and I've probably mentioned it several times in this thread, and probably if I did a search I'd find that I actually read it 18 months ago and not 4 years ago BUT WHATEVER MAN. I have to write a list of my 10 favourite books for a friend, who is an insomniac, to read. I have like 4 books on the list but after that I find I'm basically trying to name books that sound cool, rather than books that had a great impact on me. Need more thought on that.

... Ok so in the past we've done some legit real-life mix-tapes that we've sent to each other, and we've had members who have expressed their disagreement in what they deemed to be, essentially, piracy being flaunted, so this year I figured -- while we stll have the sun -- that we should instead do an online version. The idea is that you create a 20-track playlist on youtube to share with the class. Pretty much anything goes, but it would be good if people consider the following; - your favourite track from your favourite bands-that-noone-else-has-heard-of - your summer anthem for this year - your summer anthem for last year - your least favourite song of all time If you can't whittle it down to 20 then that's fine -but really you don't want to have more than one track per artist! No other 'rules', I'd just love to see what people come up with.

Hope things are looking up, diageo.

A friend of mine runs a minor-league comic and he's had years of issue with ISPs somehow automatically deeming many of his pages to be unsuitible for children. This kind of law would certainly affect a lot of art if an ISP's algorithm has deemed the content to be pornographic. Equally, as people have said, there are already standards in place on the internet to make it act akin to a highstreet store; content can only be accessed if you pass a RIGOROUS TEST... ok so access to porn is ridiculously easy, and parents are ridiculously stupid when it comes to "safeguarding" their children... But to veil this whole issue with the idea that the government wants to make it harder for child porn to be accessed? The seriously creepy fucks out there that may prove a danger to society, that may add to the stock of shit out there are going to be operating on 'secure' networks anyway. This is a typical nanny-state situation where the government's easiest and cheapest option is to blanket-ban rather than address the fact that most parents need educating in how to manage the media their children can access. If such a precedent were set then who knows how other laws could roll out afterwards. I wouldn't have a problem with contacting my ISP to say "I WANT PORN FFS" but I'm sure many shrewd dudes would. But what if you have no direct control over your ISP? I'm currently a lodger and I'd have to ask them if it was ok if we could have porn please... I mean that's definitely a position I'd not want to be in. Sure, let's encourage a black market!

MSG, I imagine.

that just-add-water burger meal actually made me feel a bit ill just watching it.

When I learnt to use sugar to try to offset some of the acidity you can get with using tomatoes I did try cinnamon instead for a while -- but not sure I tried it in chillis, just bologneses. Typically I never measured anything! Cinnamon does kinda ruin dishes when you use too much :P I still do go through phases of picking up a new herb/spice and trying it out loads. Bay leaves and marjoram are the new ones. I'm only able to do a big-bowl once a week, and I've just done stews and casseroles and chillis (and one really, really, really good red wine and chorizo tagliatelle bolognese). First stage of cooking I went through was "add this! and this! AND THIS!!" to any recipe. Then I 'minimised' and tried to cook using fewer ingredients. Now I'm just trying to get better with using herbs and spices in terms of quantity, and trying to get better at cooking each ingredient more correctly. Still would consider myself an utter noob, completely self-taught. My aunt's offered a crash-course so we'll see how that goes. I basically have no ability to really believe in what I am tasting, and I worry that I'm shading my opinion with too much hope.

I forgot to add that I also had a segment of lime squeezed into the mix too. Anyway -- my chilli powder's ingredients; chilli pepper cayenne pepper cumin salt oregano garlic Hence why I say there's little point in using it if you have all the other ingredients to hand already. Of course it could be economical to just use this pre-packed mix, but I find I can get the same flavour/better if I combine them myself and leave the chilli powder alone. p.s. I also have a picture on Instagram of the ingredients before I cooked it last week but I couldn't figure out how to link to it here. I had spring onions and stock cubes but never used the stock in the end.

@ReZourceman just to say that you should check the ingredients for your chili powder, and next time make the chili without and see what you think... My chili I made last weekend for a big batch had a lot of ingredients; 750g mince 2 x tins chopped tomatoes 400ml passata two large onions 300g mushrooms large red pepper three large chili peppers three large cloves of garlic tin o' kidney beans tin o' chick peas tin o' mixed beans tin o' baked beans in bbq sauce 4tbsp tomato puree tablespoon sugar red wine vinegar 1 tsp each; oregano cumin coriander marjoram smoked paprika 2 tsp; cayenne pepper! season freely; salt pepper (I think that's it) I never make it the same way twice. Using a massive stock pot, I fry the onions with the beef, then when browned drain it and put it aside, then fry up the veg and chuck in some of the spices and garlic and stirfry for two mins, then pour the beef and onions back in and mix it up, then it's OPEN ALL TINS and chuck everything in - bring to boil then reduce to a simmer, add sugar and the herbs and remainder of spices and red wine vinegar. Leave for 40 mins on low-med heat with lid half-on. Come back, check on liquidity -- I usually chuck in a few squeezes of tomato paste then take the lid off and leave it for another half-hour. If I am impatient after 90 mins of it slow-cooking I'll use a slotted spoon to serve up the chili (in this case put it in a massve tub for the fridge) then have the stuff left over act as a kind of spicy soup - can chuck a dollop of sour cream in there or make up some potato in your favourite form and put it in the soup. ... Through the week I'll make a couple of wraps with the chili, sprinkle cheese on it too of course! I do want to make chili with chocolate... But this weekend I will probably just do big-batch fajitas