Bought a new toy: Sony Cybershot dsc-w570 (Review)

I bought this:

Specs: (For $150)

16.1 megapixels

sweeping panorama

720p HD video

smile detection

25 mm wide 5x optical zoom

camera pouch

4 gb memory card

rechargeable Lithium Ion battery

There are some cool settings on here and some lacking, so I'll try my best to touch basis what was a deal breaker for me. 

Pros:

1. soft face setting that I thought was very cool. It really does make you look like you're blessed with a deceptively clear and smooth face

2. panorama sweep mode takes really nice photos.

3. good audio on the video

4. 16.1 whopping megapixels

Cons:

1. The camera heats up if you're using it for a while

2. Processing pictures between takes are quite slow

3. Difficult to shoot very close up photos. I was trying to capture a simple spider but the lens would not focus so I couldn't get a clear shot. It wasn't that tiny, either!

4. Very blurry night shots. I can't get a good focus at all! This is probably a deal breaker for me.

I'm still playing around a bit with the camera until I have the chance to return it. I just don't know what I'll want instead... Here are some test shots:

Food setting

 ISO

For these night shots, I literally tried every single setting and could not find one that consistently took clear shots. I had to prop it on top of a surface and put the timer on. The camera took still objects well enough but when you add people...

 Just try not to breathe

ISO

Scenic background setting

ISO

Defeated for now

This is a bit out of the scope of the topic of my blog. But it's my blog so I can do whatever I want with it, right?

Ever feel like you just don't know what to do anymore? About anything? While there's so much riding on you from people who think you're just so great. "You're so smart, so bright, so full of potential," they say and you just feel like the biggest loser. You don't know how to deal with your first love, if there's even anything salvageable after all these years, you don't feel like you can be very good at school, you wonder your potential anymore, your interests, passions, goals, motivations. What do I do? All of this is my fault, I know... Who else do I have to blame for feeling like this?

I don't even know what I want anymore, ya know? -for ANYthing. You name it: I won't know.

I just feel sooooo....... SOOOOOOO................ defeated. I'm sorry for being a whiny baby. I'm just having a not so good moment.

Honestly, I just want to run away to a foreign country where no one knows me and no one can have pre-judgments upon my character-whether good or bad.
Am I allowed to do that? If I run away now and come back in a few months, could I still get financial aid for school? See this? Always an internal battle with myself. I won't do anything that risks something I fear I won't ever get back. I drive myself crazy, I swear.

Where should I go hypothetically?
Europe?
Asia?
Russia?

Can I just leave and subsist off the land or something...? Does it work like that? I feel like that only happens in movies.

3rd Times the Charm with bread

So remember when I talked about my failure of making bread in my earlier post? The one with the pretzels and what not. After that fail, I tried again. I failed. Now I tried again today. I DIDN'T FAIL!!! :c) It's a great achievement. What happened was probably the dry yeast I was using from my mom's cabinet. Now I should have known not to use it. The instructions in the back were all in a foreign language for goodness sake. Good thing I ran out of milk when I decided to take a crack at making dough again because I bought some American brand yeast, too. So my earlier mistake was in just throwing the yeast in the dry flour without proofing it first which didn't activate the yeast so my bread didn't rise.


I learnt that to proof yeast:
-stir the packet of active dry yeast into a 1/4 c. of warm water, 
-then add a teaspoon of sugar and wait till the yeast grows x2 it's original size so you will see when it has proofed, as people call it. 

Here is the recipe again for the dough.

I made some bread sticks and rolls out of them. The dip is just balsamic and extra virgin olive oil which was what we had. I don't think I like this brand of olive oil though. It kind of made the taste of the dip a little bitter.  I also need to work on a better way to kneed my dough or something because every one of my rolls cracked where the seems were from kneeding. ergh... oh well.
I also put some different seasonings on each one of the breads.
Honestly though... I didn't care for the taste of this recipe. It was kind of bland.
I also don't think 10-15 minutes is enough baking time.
Also, if you're planning to make burger buns, The recipe will make 8 buns, not 12 or else they will be too small. Those are the size in the picture shown when you divide it into 12 portions.
Anywayyyyyssssssss.............. I feel good to have finally gotten the bread to rise, but I'm still disappointed that it didn't come out better tasting and prettier.
:(
):

Lunch box it!

I'm just kidding. I don't have a lunch box... anymore :(. I used to have a bento box. Now parts of it are probably scattered everywhere. But I did make my lunch for tomorrow. I find this to important to prepare at least for a few work days. As I'm currently working at McDonalds for the summer and for the past 3 years, you fall into one of two traps. (Okay, not really). You'll fall into the trap of finding it extremely convenient to get an employee discount on McD food or getting your shift meal than eating anything else. This is obviously dangerous. Okay so that was me in the beginning within the first year or so. Then I began to gain a bit of weight. It was just a TID bit. Maybe 5-10 lbs. Which made me rethink my diet.
Anyways, I'm going off on some tangent.

This one wasn't anything special. I just wanted to take a picture of it and blog. It's just rice, an omelet, and a mushroom stir fry. 

I really have got to invest in a good camera. I want to start taking professional looking pictures :).

Trellis anyone?

FINALLY- a non food related activity!!! Lollll...

Since my parents are really into gardening and slowly renovating our yard, I decide I'd make my mom a trellis.  My day yesterday was very productive, might I add. Very befitting to this blog, yeah? We started off going to Cosco-bought some toothpaste/mouthwash. We were just window shoppin' round Lowes looking at prices for things.

"Mom this is nice. Dangggg, it's like $150!! I could make one. Mom, you want one? I'll make it for you today. Let's go buy some wood." 

Home depot- bought lots of wood.

Man, we spent hours upon hours there! Even until it closed. My mom really likes that place. Finally we're done with the checkout and the guys asks us if we need help loading up the car.

-Nah I got this.

As I load up the car, mom's yellin' at me, "Why aren't you letting them help load the car?!"

-I got this mom. I can do it. I don't need their help!

"They're men, they should do it! And they work here."

-I don't need men to do stuff for me! If I can do it, why do I need to ask for help?!

So she starts to get frustrated with me.

-I don't understand, mom. I can do anything they can do. I don't need their help just cuz they're men.

"I'm not saying anything to you anymore. They're men and it's their job. You can do the heavy lifting when you're at home but let them do it when they're here."

-MOMMMM... I can do it!!!

Well there was that conversation. You'd think any parent would be PROUD to have a self-sufficient daughter who doesn't beg for the aid of men. Pfft... 

Back to the subject, aye.

Firstly, we bought the white boxed trellis already set up like that. So my initial step was to nail it down to the pieces of wood on each side. I will give you a specific price quote at the end to amaze you! Mind you, this was my first time really using a power drill and it was amazing. I have a new favorite toy! I split the wood on my very first attempt to drill a nail. Then my dad gave me a good tip: Drill a smaller whole first and then drill the nail in. DUH moment. Such a good tip and makes sense too. I shoulda thought of it. Anyway, the rest were fine. 

Kind of skipping ahead a little bit but this was the finished product. Two planks on the bottom for stability. There's a side view as well. I think I got this little project done in ~2:30-3:30 hours. And that was probably only because I'm a noobie. Normally, I'm sure it'd take closer to 1-2 hrs! 

Here are the materials and costs: (Everything bought at home depot)

cedar composite white ladder trellis x2 @ $13.98/ea. = $27.96

cedar board x2 @ $6.77/ea. = $13.54 

(Cut to the dimensions of ladder trellis)

cull lumber x4 @ $0.51/ea. = $2.04

Total = $43.54

not including the nails and convenient power drill

compared to this for $49.00 at home depot.

 But honestly, I didn't want to settle for the above. I wanted to do something cooler... Like a bench... Like this for $4.08 more:

It would've been so awesome... You could sit there and everything... Of course I'd have to get some bricks or something to support the bottom of the chair so you don't break it. But that can't be more than $15 depending on the brick you use.

Squash stir fry?

I'm not sure what to call this. I literally just threw this together from what my mom had in the fridge.

She had originally made the chicken and squash. I'm not sure how she marinated either.

She baked the squash, which I would next time keep it plain since I really like the natural sweetness and flavor of it as it is. I don't know what to say about the chicken... Lol :S. I'd probably have cooked it a bit saltier than normal to counter balance the sweet of the squash.

For the noodles, I cooked vermicelli flat rice noodles and threw it in the pan. I seasoned it with some mushroom seasoning, salt and pepper. I wanted this to be a little bit salty as well.

Dough failure turns into dough-licious!!!

Was the title of this kind of lame?? :X At this time I was already home for the summer. It was a clear day and night so I wanted to have a little bbq in my backyard. The guest list was full. Though a couple more staggered in from word of mouth.

So this assortment of deliciousness spouted from a failing pastry moment. Unlike regular cooking, baking is extremely precise in recipe and direction! I probably failed at both when attempting to make this recipe for burger buns. I was planning to have a bbq with homemade buns for a mushroom burger stuffed with cheddar cheese inside the patty. Everything came out well except the one component that makes it a burger: The bun. Instead of baking into a risen fluffy roll, it resembled something like a spherical rock. You could probably skip it in a river. So yeah- that was a fail. To keep it short, my bun failed to rise. I was upset. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell my little sister and ex boyfriend that the event was canceled! But we just settled for store bought bread that night. I'll try to be a bit more patient next time.

A couple days after that devastating moment, I regained my composure and accepted the defeat to come up with something to make out of this left over dough. I had no choice but to face it. Plus my mom would have smacked me if I wasted it. 

My little sister and I managed to come up with quite a few treats. We had a ham and cheese pizza, pretzels, stuffed hotpockets, and cinnamon twisties. Not bad, not bad.

There is no real recipe here. Just the one I linked above. Note: That following the above recipe will NOT get you to this assortment.

This can only be achieved if you:

1) Have never made dough before

2) Ran out of flour

3) Had to substitute a bit of dumpling flour for all purpose flour

4) Did not follow directions well