Food post, mostly

I was at 99 Ranch today when I saw shao-mai (or "shumai", as wikipedia calls it) and thought, "Huh, I haven't had that in a long time. I wonder why." Then around lunch time I remembered that oh yeah, I don't have the apparatus for steaming things. I mean I figured out a rough estimate using the microwave, but it's not quite the same. The difference (somehow) becomes more pronounced when the food cools, which is a problem for me given that I tend to cook more than I can eat in one meal. Despite of that, the Kimbo shrimp shao-mai was quite good.

I am still sampling different gum. The Trident strawberry one was not very good. It's too sweet for one thing, and has this weird aftertaste like it's thinking about being minty, but never quite got past the thinking stage to the doing stage. To complete the short but very recent dislike of strawberries: one of the ones I got this week had a caterpillar in it. The outside wasn't noticeably marked either. I just took a bite, looked inside the empty space that sometimes form inside the fruit, and saw a very green, very plumb, and no doubt very confused caterpillar.

Now I'm paranoid and don't dare to eat anymore. At least not while I'm occupied with other stuff such as reading.

There was also chayote. One of these days I will remember that one chayote is enough to last me a week, because when I'm buying them I usually think "hmm, vegetable is about the size of my fist. I should get two." Then after I finish cutting one and see the pile of it on the cutting-board I'd think, stupidly, "Oh." And possibly, "Oops. Maybe I can freeze the other one?"
(I also tend to have a similar problem with potatoes, leading usually to a scenario where I'd have one lonely potato sitting in the fridge.)

The darkest red honey stick (there are four reddish ones) is, I think, cinnamon.

And now for something completely different:

Today as I was exiting the store I saw a dog on a car. It was sitting on the roof, over the driver's seat. The car is empty and not moving. The dog (smallish in size) looked kind of bereft -- it'd shuffle around a little, sit down, and stare off into space. I don't think it's tied down, though it was wearing a collar and I didn't get close enough to investigate. But dogs -- even the non-Diefenbaker variety -- should still be able to get off the roof via the hood or the trunk if they wanted to, right?

While walking through downtown PB I also saw, in front of an empty, abandoned store, two TI-83s laying on the ground, side by side. The calculators were off. There was nothing else or anyone else nearby. They were laying face-up in the yin-yang orientation. There were no stores nearby that sold calculators, so I'm at a loss. Besides, those things are pretty expensive so ...I don't know. The little mysteries in life. Or rather, in this case there is only one mystery: people.

Anyone else heard about the window phone 7? I'm actually pretty excited with the policy they're employing to attract developers. Gives the product a lot of potential if it survives the initial debut.