| Three weeks too late in the bloom |
[Apr. 25th, 2009|07:59 pm] |
For how long haven't I made an entry? Possibly far too long. My absence can be explained by two weeks of working in the froze grocery section. It also involved a 12 hour day too. But it was all necessary to do. We have automatic ordering systems, simply called AutoOrder, that haven't been set right, and the guy who worked in the freezer section before me and my co-worker (we're currently two taking care of the freezer section) didn't do a superb job. This means we have about 3 pallets with lamb chops that nearly nobody buys, a pallet with salmonella contained lamb chops that was supposed to be sent back one and a half year ago, a pallet of chicken that's supposed to be sent back (warnings about glass in the chicken!) and one and a half pallet with ice-cream that melted last year. Gosh! And now they want to remove one section located at the entrance of the mall since nothing there sells very good. But considering that it's location is the worsts in the entire mall I am not surprised. People first walk into the fruit section on the left, while that small freezer section is on their right, as they walk out from the fruit section they only see pre-cooked meals in that freezer section while the shrimps and prawns (that people want) is on the other side. The entire freezer section needs to be renovated anyway! Things are in the way!
Nevermind, I got some news about my gardening. I've set some seeds for bell peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers. The bell peppers haven't shown themselves yet, I think, and the cucumbers just popped right through in one go. Now I am waiting for the Sweet corn and pumpkins to get going (they're just getting started!) and then it is time to prepare my patch. I got some fava beans to plant with the corn and pumpkins too in order to do the Three Sisters practice. I also have kholrabi and Quinoa to experiment with. The first one is the cultivar Superschmelz, known to grow monstrously gigantic (about 2 kilos or so) and Quinoa is an important future crop that should be grown by more countries other than the three who are currently doing it. I've thought about dedicating an entry entirely on the future of agriculture and food sometime touching on Tempeh, Oncom, Nixtamalization, Amaranths, Quinoa and hemp's importances. Just need to settle down and type that entry, that's all.
What else? My album is finally getting along. I did some initial recordings for one track but I thought that it all was a complete train-wreck and abandoned it. Gonna concentrate on the songs that I have a finished idea for. So far one track is kind of done, but it is just a collage and I might tend to improve it a bit more to not make it sound like a filler. Then I might take care of two other tracks that I sort of got the ideas finished for. One is the singer/songwriter-acoustic-guitar type of song I seem to include on every album so far. We'll see what that leads to soon enough. Another thing is that this album is a sort of comeback type of album. I'll include lots of new ideas and as well some older tricks might feature too. Since I had no hopes to get on with recording I almost gave up looking for interesting things to spice up my music with. Though, as always, I work hard to not disappoint. Believe me when I say so. I scrapped so many songs on Spatsiba Mon Amour that I had recorded in the beginning only to replace with newer versions. So, I somewhat work differently on this album compared to, say, Failed Design, where I mostly just recorded and everything fell into it's own place. I am convinced that it was a lot of luck.
|
|
|
| A close far-away wedding |
[Apr. 9th, 2009|09:46 pm] |
I know a girl who is about to get married. What else, she also happen to have her roots in Syria. She mentioned the wedding earlier this week and I asked if I could come. It was quite possible that I could, if I wanted too. Of course I'd like to come to her wedding. There might be about 350 or so other guests to talk with. Plus I hope there will be wonderful music and dance just like in the video above. |
|
|
| Too much cake can lead to death |
[Mar. 28th, 2009|08:05 pm] |
My stomach dislikes me. Or something like that, perhaps it is more like we happen to be out of sync with each other. We've never really been a team through the life but lately I've adapted too a eating pattern that involves eating less and more often that hopefully will help my stomach get back the self-esteem... Or at least for the both of us to understand each other a little better. The problems I've had stomach-wise have both been health and social related. It is quite funny that, since I've lost quite some weight since I saw some people I happen to know most people comment on my weight. To comment on someones look can be, in this case, quite disastrous and a persons weight is possibly the issue about one self that people dislike to bring up during a conversation. Anyway, different from before when I used to just shake that off but comments on other people's looks are not to favour I suppose. But these days there aren't much else to talk about, right? I might be oversensitive.
But other than that and the overall feeling of being on a low I've started and I am going to start on a couple of things:
* My new album as Don Claude which so far involves noting new ideas, scrapping some old ones and keeping what I already liked, sampling single sounds I've recorded myself, making drumbeats and plan when and how to record certain things.
* My sourdough baking is improving and last time I made two loafs I got the best result ever since I started to bake bread. They beat the bread I've done with yeast by miles! The trick was to let the dough rise for a very long time in the fridge. For how long? Well, I estimate it was about 17 hours with one hours pre-rising in room temperature and one hour raising after the fridge rising. A total of 19 hours. Of course, there are possibly more parameters involved but we'll take that another time since now I always log what I put in the bread, hours I let it rise and each step etc etc.
* My gardening plans are currently dormant. The weather is fairly unstable and perhaps it is a good idea to wait until may or so with some pre-cultivation of this years seeds. I thought that a specific entry for my gardening plans would be appropriate so you'll all hear about it later in April I suppose.
That's right, I had planned to talk a bit more about my new album this time, but apparently I haven't worked on it as much as I've wanted. As already revealed I've felt quite low lately since everyone around seem to be on a low. It affects me because I am concerned. Because I care. Stuff like that. Instead of trying to give in to this spiral of madly downess I am trying to keep things up anyway. One thing that have increased is the intake of new and exciting music. I bought Tom Zé's album "Fabrication Defect" which proved to be great although not as experimental as I'd hope it would be. Most of his catalouge is available in Sweden though which won't make me hesitate to try and get more of his music, it is very exciting indeed. I mean, he is in his 70's and still experiments. On his last album he even mocked and saluted (I think) the bossa nova music. Though I agree, it is overused and was already overused in the 90's... Or was it?
So, yeah, instead of working as they do on music these days (heh) I've been sitting around watching trailers, parodies, longplays, speedruns and easter eggs of the Metal Gear Franchise. Not the best kind of occupation to be honest but nevertheless I felt that the movie quality of the plotline (much better than many contemporary action and spy movies of these days) was worth diving into a bit more. To think of it the MGS games are at times more movies than games. Many playable parts are very very short. It is too bad since MGS4 seem to have several kinds of gadgets and gixmos for the player to utilize.
Bit by bit I've vleaned and reorganised in my studio and my room. Shortly I will do the same with my clothes. I need some new clothes and for once I will settle for a jacket that is organic and with good fabrics. Already got the eyes on this 100% organic Hemp with organic cotton stuffing. Looks nice and with a nice price too. I've felt an urge to organize in my rooms lately and more or less renovate myself. Most of the clothes I have are no longer in use. It feels weird to have clothes enogh for an army just hanging around in my closet. Blah, my creativity with clothes happen to be, and have been, on the lower side lately. Oh well, I'll manage I suppose.
|
|
|
| Tones from the scalemanground |
[Mar. 15th, 2009|03:33 pm] |
For the past week I've redirected my short-time obsession with physical work (I am only allowed to work with my real time job three days a week anyway since that's how much my contract says I get to work, etc) and money-making (Yeah, I almost got obsessed with just getting money, not spending it) to fuel it into something that's been missing for more than a year now. What I'm talking about is of course putting on the alias of Don Claude and get back to do some wacky "pop" music. This involved a visit by the computer guru my family knows, his fiddling, me buying two mono-cables in order to record via my mixer table into the creative recording box (which can be viewed in the photos below). All in all I conclude that my current computer is way more complex. The amount of functions, digital knobs, modes and programs needed for one task makes it on a level that is not really cap_scaleman-level. Future confusion will be inevitable it seems.
Currently the situation is like this: I can record but the input levels are considerably low. It makes a bit unhappy but since the earlier problem was easily solved that problem can possibly be solved by unchecking a box or two. Til that moment arrives when I feel for becoming a digital age Sherlock Holmes that goes hunting for a digital solution for this problem I will attempt to: (1) Start programming the beats that will feature on my new album (2) see if I can edit the volume levels in a single sound recording by simply using the good world of Sound Forge (3) I dunno if I got a third.
In the meantime I will be talking about my new album, or at least an essential part of most if not ALL my albums: The beats. This time around I had an evil plan to sample several single sounds from the tons of recordings I've made with my mp3-player. Not that I got tons of recordings, but at least somewhere between 50-60 short-to-longer-to-longest recordings of either me banging on things, people talking, "atmospheres", found sounds that came up by mere chance. What they all have in common, however, is that they often remind me of what I did when sampling them. Recording what you do is better than photographing it. At least if you don't consider the low aesthetic value of a recording. A photograph is more appealing than the high & lows of a recording. Anyway, I just realised while copying/pasting/saving single sounds from various recordings that this was my case. Never been a big fan of digital cameras anyway.
But what is it that I've sampled? So far it is my broken guitar (note by note), my badly tuned ukulele (not by note), plates, forks/knifes, lightly distorted recordings of drums, doors closing, banging on tables among many others. I've also recorded my lame attempts at beatboxing. THey'll make it to the record anyway, yep.
I also need to get myself one or two new instruments since that is what most of my albums have featured lately. There are a couple of newer things added to the mix anyway. While my last record, Spatsiba Mon Amour, was really great and all it lacked a couple of things in the end that (whenever I listen to it again) makes it sound dry and boring halfway through. We'll see about it.
Nevertheless, this is the start of the comeback for Don Claude officially arriving free for download somewhere the autumn of 2009.
|
|
|
| Is the snow prepped? |
[Mar. 4th, 2009|07:27 pm] |
At the moment I find it quite hard to put words to things. One thing especially hard to translate to words is my feeling for this current situation I am in. I was working at the other mall yesterday and believe me when I say this: Even though every mall might look the same, the employed might wear the same clothes and it might be the same groceries... IT IS NOT THE SAME THING! Definitely not the same thing to work in that other mall compared to the one I used to work at. Gosh, whenever I go to another grocery store, or mall, I think of my old work. I greatly disagree with people who use violence to get their own goals through. However, I like the thought of Food Not Bombs.
I got myself a new pair of working shoes. These are not a pain for my feets and legs. Hopefully they'll serve me for a couple of years ahead. I had to pay quite a lot for them plus that special rubber sole (or rubber soul?) that is supposed to be, and really feels, much better for my feets. It is as if I am not wearing them at all.
This years cultivation project will be introduced later this month as soon as reality becomes settled. As I mentioned earlier it is hard to describe what all this is, what is going on outside and inside. Well, I need to digest and work on it through art, writing and perhaps music. As soon as the weather allows it I will even be able to work on it via gardening. It will be wonderful. Until then you can stare at the bags with seeds.
See you as soon as everything becomes clearer.
|
|
|
| Maybe as a scientist |
[Feb. 22nd, 2009|09:15 pm] |
I've worked quite well this entire week. Could've and possibly shoudl've written some during Thursday since I had a day off by then but at that time my grandfather's birthday occured. I went there with my mom early with the dogs, making a small shopping round downtown while at it. My grandfather needed some grocieries and at the same time I bought some organic whole wheat rye flour in order to make a sourdough (which was started today). We also went by the finnish store (still don't remember the name properly) where I bought a tar soap for mom and some potato grains. I think it's like tapioca pearls, albeit not really pearls in the tapioca sense. Getting tapioca pearls is easy, though, since the local Thai shop got some of that. The potato grains make a wonderful porridge that resembles glue. It was supertasty with lingonberry jam.
I am not that much in the mood to write at the moment. I recently finished an article about Café Tacuba for Perfect Sound Forever. During November I had written an article inteded for them but it was rejected more or less. They seemed to like my writing style, which was a bless, and wanted me to write for them about a band I like. Thus I choosed Café Tacuba. The reason they have tons of pages about artists that deserve more attention is, well, because they do I suppose. As soon as the article is online I will link about it of course.
But since I've been writing most of the day I feel kind of drained in that area. Perhaps I will sleep well now that my brain have had some something serious project to bite it's teeth into. That's right, ever since my computer crashed last year and I got a new one my music activity have decreased immensely. It is due to technical trouble and the fact that the guy I asked for help had some hectical periods going on as well. Haven't heard from him since last year but I emailed him earlier today to see if he could continue helping me with this very mystery. Recently I've had quite some ideas for my future albums. Several times I've thought about leaving everything at what it is right now but at the moment it feels very, very bad and irrational to do that. I would feel restless for the rest of my life if I don't continue with this.
Above is the sourdough. One apple, 3 cups of organic whole rye flour and 3 cups of warm water. Okay, it has yet to mature into a sourdough. But that is the fun thing about them. A Sourdough is much better than a tamagotchi or furbee. My personal oppinion nevertheless. Something that sourdoughs like is the music of Frank Zappa in various remakes by other artists. Which is great wether it is Zappa played on Baroque instruments or by an a capella group the sourdough makes the best bread when blended with some part Zappa each day. Make also sure that you read your manga about parasytes who invaded the earth in the early 90's. Sure was scary.
Later this week, on tuesday to be more exact, I will make my own semlor. Even managed to make my cousin join in on the project since he seem to like semlor too. Yeah, it will be a nice experiment, but with no sourdough in it. With the knack for experimental cooking I would actually dare using some sourdough, but only a pinch, in any pastry. Most big bakery does it these days. The bread you buy over at the mall often have either a rye or a wheat sourdough in them along with ordinary yeast and other blablabla. So, why not?
I had to get rid of my whiskers... Ehrr, sideburns. The fact that they turned troublesome to manage with the limited tools I had made it an easy decision. Until this summer I will grow newer ones though that will also be less to manage. An electric shaver would also be an investment in this case. Most of the time when I shave it feels like eeeuuuuuehuhueehe... Especially shaving overgrown and poorly managed sideburns is a drag too. An electric shaver will be the next acquirement. Those who would like to see how far the grew can just post a comment below and I will link to a photo, or look at them over at Facebook. There they accompany a loaf of sourdough bread even.
|
|
|
| Who knows what will be there? |
[Feb. 15th, 2009|07:03 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | bread, customers, expressing myself, food, lunchboxes, microwaving, other artist, other people, rant, slade, straw, thoughts, video, work | ] |
Thought I'd might as well give another report. Not that blogging have been topical lately. No, lately there have been a bit of a longing to comment on other posts that've been awaken. It was sure on time. I don't comment every entry on my friend list. Sometimes I can't bother with the super/hypertexts of some of you.
Ah, so, what have I done then? Good question. Last time my writing was fueled by a very awful mood of various kinds. At that moment I had snapped at the huge amount of dorks that seemed to roam the corridors of my work. Some call them customers, I call them out of this world. Since some customers have an attitude, or approach, towards us who work in the mall it can be very frustrating. To me, however, it is more frustrating that I can't possibly think of any real perfect output for all this frustration. This blog could be one, but since no one here live where I live nor know what is going on lots of misunderstanding would occur. Some horrific missunderstandings too, for that matter. My parents are a good candidate and sometimes I do launch the load at them, albeit in a comic fashion. Since there are many more parameters and feelings that brings to the boil it feels hard to let everything go. My mother would possibly laugh, then ask me to do it differently, which is not what I want to hear. My dad would just come with his far-too-cynical approach of "that's just how it always is". I like to keep some hope. But last week I found an outlet at a co-worker who listened, in my ears and eyes, actively. She have worked at the mall much longer than me and spoke with the kind of experience that I often look up to. It felt like we talked like equals, even though I know that we both are very unsimilar in many ways. So, it was a enlightening experience, really. Her words still echos in my head.
In this photograph I made an enchilada, or "tortilla lasagna" would be the phrase of a swede explaining the dish for anyone of the English sphere. It was vegetarian, but with cheese which didn't make it very well-balanced. A good contribution in the comfort food category though. A little mistep when using potatoes that had been stored in the fridge though. It is not that potatoes goes bad in the fridge, but in the freezer they simply store like goo. They turn into mush and water. Completely impossible to microwave. This gives me the conclusion that trying to extend from the legume mush/quinoa/pan-fried vegetable combination of most meals I freeze for use at work is quite unchallanged so far. Not only is it fast to make, it is fast to get ready to eat during the 15 minute breaks we get. It counts quite a lot when you're stressed. In theory I can, with these type of frozen meals have a lunch or dinner in under 10 minutes, perhaps even 6 minutes counting 2 minutes for the time in the microwave. Yeah, I have some very quick meals sometimes. I probably one of the few who rushes to work, goes in perhaps 30-45 minutes earlier than scheduled time, make use of only 25 to 30 minutes of one hour total of break time and then stays maybe 15 or 20 minutes overtime. Am I a sick person?
Industrial tomato soup with soba noodles. Note the straw. I had some soup and ice-cream with straw once before. But I like brothy soups better than this quite-thick-soup of the industrial kind. To be honest, canned soups like cambell's doesn't taste very good, just salt. Sorry for those who like Cambell's soup but I never really got it. A soup should have an explosion of tastes, not an explosion of salt. Broth might be the future nerdytime food for more. It is not quick to make, which means a break from computerism, and it is very portable. I could put it in a portable coffee mug and just sip on in while eating a banana. Sometimes you do wanna die in an ascetic fashion. Hah!
Look at the holes of this sourdough bread. It is not commonly associated with sourdough bread. But instead of kneading the bread super hard, I did what Alton Brown does. I just "gently restributed the yeast". Perhaps the fact that I used whole rye flour also added to the factor. When smelling the sourdough in the bowl the smell was more sour than my previous sourdough experiment. Conclusion is that I am very close to perfection, now I just need to find the best temperature and time in the oven. If I do the result might well outdo the various breads I've done with ordinary baker's yeast before. With baker's yeast they often go stale quickly, they often are quite dissatisfactory in general. My careless experimental nature might be the blame there though. Hehe, onwards to the bready future!
I've gotten a bit sold on Slade. Yeah, it doesn't have to be superexperimental. My music collection would surprise most people. Hehehe. I need a stupid looking hat too. |
|
|
| Your phone does not feel so good? |
[Jan. 27th, 2009|07:40 pm] |
With little intentions to check out if I really have told about this art show or whatsoever that I've been "involved" in lately, I will update on the current situation of exactly that. Last week I called the one responsible for this event. I hadn't heard anything new for a couple of weeks and it was due until the later part of January. Eventually he sounded stressed, even asked me who I was, as if something bothered him. Then he said that a relative had died and he would call me within two days. Not that this called has occured without my knowledge and not that I have missed tons of phone calls from this person either, my more patient persona is running out of juice. So, if the art show is cancelled because of the circumstances I will eventually continue making some art with the "roll-on's", colour and any scrap lumber I might find only to put up my art somewhere else.
The fun thing about this delicate situation is that somewhat and some-so-often it's like if it always happens to me that something gets decided only to turn into nothing. Wether it has been with friends or business it has always been somewhat this situation for the past few years. I've tried to look between the lines of astrology, look up things to see if there are a higher power that tells me to "wait-with-this-mess-of-your-you-must-do".... Or something! Am I to eager? Maybe I should stop with this, go to Haiti and grow bananas, or coconuts or something else. So, I am not destined to art, nor music it seem. Will there be a chance with my writing ambitions? Oh...
Yesterday we entered the year of the sweet potato, err, I mean Year of the Ox! It will be an interesting year filled with work and work for everyone. Since I worked overtime yesterday, and since overtime was very common last year despite it was the year of the Rat and I happen to be born a Dragon it was up to, well, the usual. Albeit currently many people seem to be so put of by something. People generally leave out an itsy-bitsy part of the general thought out routine that's there, and then I get complaints for not being far-and-behind too perfect during my shifts which makes a bit down. I felt like that yesterday because everything was sort of chaotic, too and from, but still there is not much else to do but to manage. Currently I've asked for taking care of the book section which just means me meeting up with the one who delivers the books, talk to her about where the books should be and let her take care of it. Then I sign a paper and it's all done. In theory. In reality I had to put in a dozen of books into the malls database of which one book is not even supposed to be there. What?
The sweet potato, on the other hand, came in pairs into my house. I bought them last week to try them cooked. Should've baked them or something because sweet potatos taste, well, sweet. A bit too sweet for my taste perhaps. But, if I happen to live in a country where the weather suits growing sweet potatos they will be on my list just like pigeon peas. And other vegetables as well, of course. So, yeah, I was not disappointed but only overwhelmed. The taste was much more sweeter than that of rutabaga casserole, which is a favourite dish of mine, and fits the best with something I don't eat much these days: Meat. Salty and completely oven baked meat. So, yeah, the Good Eats episode that features this interesting little tuber is not available through youtube or so. A bit of a bummer since Alton Brown might've had some good tips for making Sweet potatos a far more less overwhelming eats.
Lots of misery, and a bit of fish sauce and Sesame Oil! Hooray! I went downtown today in order to buy some things such as mentioned stuff. But I also needed to find a belated birthday gift for my mother. She got problems with her stomach during the time her birthday was so it was a bit anti-climatic (is it spelled like that?) and I had worked a bit and thought that I would be able to get myself downtown either shortly after or shortly before her birthday. No chance. There was even this problem of finding out what in the world I should buy her. Since our old thermometar (is it spelled that way?) of the old type i.e. non-digital got broken during some circumstances (though it wasn't me) I thought that a thermometar would be the best thing to get. As I assumed that some of the electronic stores or the knick-knack stores would have something in the line of I wanted the fact that they didn't was a bit disappointing. However, I felt that it was quite fun to just walk around and look at the cups, and pots, and cooking vessels, and other stuffs. Must do that again with some company, perhaps.
So, eventually I bought that fish sauce and sesame oil. Interesting tastes and the owner of the Thai store here is very nice. Might come by some more times. I also bought some noodles. With spinach in them. The best stores to visit in case you like noodles I suppose. There is an entire section dedicated to various kinds of noodles of course. But there are also other interesting things like canned foods with all kinds of interesting stuff. They even have dried turnip, though it looked more in the line of dried Daikon. But who knows, I need to investigate further.
But except for tons of noodles, they don't happen to have soba noodles. I bought that in a different store which belongs to one of the more common merchandise of grocery store chains in Sweden, Ica. Though being the giant on the Swedish grocery store market this store, with it's central place in this town, sports a very good stock of groceries. Either it is very close produce, or it comes far-far away. But I like that, I really do. It makes it fun to go in there only to find something new and intricate each time. But this time I just wanted soba, buckwheat flour and a package of hemp seeds. Yum!
This entry will close with an episode from a food show over at Youtube called Cooking With Dog.
This is a good food show. A dog for a host and nice music.
|
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
cap_scaleman's journal