AliThinks

HBT Me!

For my birthday about a month ago, Allan's sister JoAnn gave me a Williams-Sonoma gift card. That was pretty darn cool of her, wasn't it?

Well, this afternoon we went to the W-S store at a nearby mall, and I used my gift card on a stovetop espresso maker. I'm very excited, because I used to have one in France (actually, my ex still has it) and it made the most delicious coffee. Here's a pretty crappy photo of it:

Allan and I also got a very cool new tool for our kitchen. Here's a pretty good photo of it:

Again, I used to have a couple of Le Creuset casseroles when I lived in France (and the ex still has one of them), but they were acquired used, so they were both this bright 70s-era orange. And the handle was broken on the skillet. And the dutch oven had no lid, so...

I am really happy to have this. It makes me want to cook (in fact, we're making a vegetable curry in it right now), plus it goes really well with the mixer.

But First, I Made It Look Like A Flying Saucer.

   

    Mmmm, mmmm, finger-clickin' good.

Irresistible, indeed!

   

     Just click it.

   
We walked to Graeter's after dinner, and we each tried the Black Raspberry Chip ice cream. Next time I'll try the Tangerine Cream, and not just because of the cool name.

Tweaking

After Allan and I went out for Korean food (je yuk bok eum, mmmmm!), we spent the evening doing a little blog rearranging.

I cleaned up my "Other Stuff" list in the sidebar, and then decided that my blogroll was WAY too long. So I've put it on a separate page (created by me! Almost all by myself!); you can access my blogroll(s) by clicking on the link called "Ali's Reads" over there in the sidebar.

I also opened a help ticket to see if someone at Typepad can decipher the IE viewing problem. We'll see what the solutions are. In the meantime, I've made it easier to track how my blog does look in IE by installing this Firefox extension. Right-click, view in IE, and presto! It's a neat tool, so if you have Firefox, why not give it a try?

In the meantime, feedback is welcome. I'm not done with the tweaking yet.

Cocktail, Tea, Me?

What I want to know is, when did the humble coffee table become the "cocktail table"?

We went out browsing today, and at every place we went, those low tables you set in front of a sofa were called "cocktail tables." And even when we asked a sales person about coffee tables, he or she would tell us that the cocktail tables were located all around the store.

Okaaaay. Is this like calling prunes "dried plums"?  Or creme rinse, "conditioner"? Hey, let's sex up the name of this thing so that we can sell it more easily!

Talk To Me, People.

Do you know The Mellow Mushroom? Is there one in your town? Do you like it?

We had dinner there this evening. Pizza and beer, oh, yum. It was my first time there, and I thought the pizza was delish and the atmosphere tip-top.

What did you have for dinner? Are you watching the INXS show on VH1 Classic, too?

What's happening with you?