You know why the middle of the week is really great? Both Make It or Break It and Pretty Little Liars air Tuesday nights. And Lie to Me episodes air Monday night.

That’s right, almost three straight hours of delicious mindless entertainment. Now, you might think that I could have spent that time on more delicious and productive activities, like, I don’t know, eating ten pizzas, or competing in a hot-dog-eating contest, or building a meth lab in my basement (if you work in law enforcement, I’m kidding; if you’re not law enforcement, I’m also kidding).

Oh, and if you’re wondering why I disregard TV show time shots despite my Mt.-Everest-sized pile of free time, it’s ’cause my family still has not switched to digital TV. It’s okay, though; I don’t watch much TV anyway. I only watch bad TV online. I also like teetering on the extreme ends of life’s seesaw, so when it comes to TV, it’s marathons then months of nothing.

Okay, so here’s what I have to say (no spoilers):

Make It or Break It: I. love. Lauren. I get it, no one else agrees, but despite whatever bitch moves she pulls, and despite whatever the writers do to make Kaylie and Emily look like perfect little deserving angels, Lauren’s the best character by far. Her shenanigans entertain me to no end, and her vulnerabilities make me love her. I mean, sure, I wouldn’t be her friend, but you probably shouldn’t be watching TV if all you’re doing is looking for a good friend in one of the characters.

Basically, I agree with what I said when the show first came on. Except Kaylie and Payson are combining more and more into the same person (but I like Payson more), and Emily and her tacky mother have only grown leaps and bounds and roundoffs more obnoxious.

Pretty Little Liars: I don’t really love any of the characters. The pop culture references make me cringe. Every episode seems to follow the same tired formula. I feel like the whole suspense behind “A” could be done better. Somehow, though, all of this makes for an entertaining show, or maybe just an entertaining summer guilty pleasure. It’s like, it’s so bad and so good at the same time that I can’t even tell the difference anymore.

Lie to Me: A few weeks ago, I was completely addicted. I watched an episode or two nearly every day. I couldn’t stop talking about the show, and I couldn’t stop thinking about truth and lies and deception. I don’t know what happened exactly; I’m still not caught up on the show, but now I can’t even watch an entire episode without pausing to do productive things, like maybe the aforementioned pizza binges and hot-dog-eating contests.

The Everyone-Resembles-Tim-Roth Syndrome that I contracted hasn’t subsided, though. Sharlto Copley? Looks like Tim Roth. Dierks Bentley? Looks like Tim Roth. Eminem? Looks like Tim Roth. Paris Hilton? LOOKS LIKE TIM ROTH.

Breakfast yesterday morning, inspired by Jack Johnson. Om nom nom nom.

The Song

Jack Johnson is better live than on his album, in my opinion. I used to think his music only appealed to surfers or people who lie in a hammock drinking coconut juice and getting high in Hawaii — I own neither a surfboard nor a hammock, and I’ve never been to Hawaii — but I’m glad to be proven wrong.

The Phrase

I feel like “banana pancakes” could easily become the most versatile phrase in the English language.

Insult: Your face looks like soggy banana pancakes.

Interjection: Banana pancakes! Or: Holy banana pancakes! (Use it in any situation, from stubbing your toe to falling off your unicycle to winning a thousand million billion dollars to finding out your new boyfriend is actually a 43-year-old hermaphrodite who collects moldy sandwiches — which, no no no, I’m not saying from personal experience. Don’t get the wrong idea.)

Indignation: What the banana pancakes is wrong with you?!

Inquiry: Banana pancakes? (Use as a substitute for “What?” or “Wtf?” or “Capisce?” or maybe even “Would you like a hot dog?” except the last one might confuse people.)

Intensification: That dress is banana pancakes gorgeous. Or: It’s raining banana pancakes.

See? Banana pancakes useful! Now you’re banana pancakes smarter.

Still here? That first paragraph was obviously not a filler for the better introduction that I can’t write…obviously. I don’t use such plebeian tactics. Or maybe the title and intro are brilliant, since I got you reading, didn’t I? And no, I am not a liar. Or a crook. Or Richard Nixon. I’m only temporarily trying out the effectiveness of false advertising.

Still here? You get two different recipes and pictures of the flatbread-making process as a reward (see, reading is good! I’m encouraging literacy!):

I used the recipe from the cooking class my sorority sisters and I attended, but I had to make a few modifications. At the cooking class, we used some premade foreign flatbread dough with a package covered in some language I couldn’t read — maybe Hindi? Maybe it was naan dough? I don’t know, but I couldn’t find flatbread dough anywhere, so for my version, it was easier to just make my own dough from scratch. Also, the recipe called for thyme and basil, but I, unable to find those in an Asian kitchen, substituted with a random herb mix packet (containing thyme and basil, but also rosemary, savory, and tarragon) that I found in my kitchen cupboard behind 4293 pairs of chopsticks and 21319398 bottles of Kikkoman soy sauce.

This is the pre-risen dough. I let it sit for about an hour. It rose to twice this size.

Rolling the dough.

The dough wanted to pose for a picture before it entered the oven.

This is the ricotta mixture that I spread on the freshly baked flatbread.

This is the chopped, blanched asparagus.

The top piece has the ricotta spread, arugula, and asparagus; the bottom piece just has the ricotta spread and arugula.

The finished product was the first picture in this post. Now, recipe time!

Flatbread Dough

(adapted from here)

1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1/2 – 3/4 teaspoon sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon herbs (thyme suggested, but I used the herb mix I described above)
1 teaspoon oil
1 cup water (or more as needed)

Mix the yeast, sugar, flour, salt, and herbs in a mixing bowl. Add water slowly as needed. (Don’t do what I did and dump in too much water at once and have to add in more flour to compensate. That’s actually why I modified the recipe.) Knead the dough into a ball, cover with a damp cloth, and wait an hour for it to double in size.

Flatbread with Ricotta, Arugula, Asparagus, and Prosciutto

(serves 4)

1 ball flatbread dough (from above recipe)
3/4 lb ricotta
1/4 lb prosciutto
1/2 lb asparagus
1 teaspoon herbs (thyme and basil suggested, but I used the herb mix I described above)
1/3 oz. arugula (or more/less depending on preference)
olive oil as needed
salt & pepper to taste

Mix the ricotta with herbs and salt (I used about a teaspoon, maybe less) in a medium bowl. Allow it to sit for at least half an hour (you can do this while you let the dough rise for an hour).

To blanch asparagus, drop it whole into a pot of slightly salted boiling water for 2-3 minutes. It will turn bright green. Strain and let cool. Cut into 1-inch pieces.

Preheat oven to 375º. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into four pieces approximately 1/3-1/2 inch thich, 4 inches wide, and 10-12 inches long. (Beat with palm to help flatten.) Prick with fork and brush with olive oil. Place on sheet pan lined with wax paper or parchment paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden.

Remove from oven and brush lightly again with olive oil. Spread ricotta mixture generously. Add arugula, asparagus, and prosciutto. Sprinkle pepper or additional olive oil to taste (I skipped this last step).

Aww, that makes it sound as if the stories aren’t good enough the way they are. I hope that doesn’t hurt their feelings. Don’t worry, stories, I love you, and please please please don’t ever coat yourself in forty layers of makeup or get bad plastic surgery. Stories at the bottom of the bad story basket are just as good and deserve just as much love as the ones at the top or the overachiever ones that never made it in there.

That last paragraph was a shining example of what insomnia does to poor, undeserving people.

ANYWAY. We all know that “featuring the latest awesome designs/blog posts/funny pictures I’ve come across!!!” posts on personal blogs are the product of boredom or lack of inspiration 103.2% of the time, so I’m not even going to do any pretending here. I’m just going to do a “designs I like” type of thing because I’m not as awesome as some people and my uninspired-ness doesn’t disguise itself as a series of awesome tutorials.

So, yeah, layouts I like as of late (like the unintentional alliteration? I know I do):

I used to read Cy’s blog. I don’t know why I stopped. Stumbling upon Cyniquentially again via someone’s link list after I don’t know how many months really gave me a fresh perspective on the layout. The title font, the Louboutin heel illustration, the cute feed bubble, the style of the link lists, the style and placement of the search bar — why didn’t I come up with any of that?

Even if you don’t love pink like I do, you’ve gotta love this simple, typography-based layout. It’s proof positive that layouts don’t need flashy illustrations and intricate doodads to be awesome. My favorite parts: the hover effects and the blog posts (not part of the layout, but too awesome not to mention). I’m kinda obsessed. With this site and with the word “awesome.”

Owls have only recently (within the last year…that’s recent, right?) started to enthrall me. I know, I was missing out on life before. This particular owl illustration is TOTES ADORBS, as is the way its eyes move when you hover over it. Hovering over the site title is fun, too. AND the person who designed this site just happens to have the best name ever (but it’d be even better without the first “a”).

I believe the owner of this site used to own Angel Kizz the doll site, and I admired her layouts back then, but this one is way better, no question. LOVE the sketched watercolor style and how it matches the site name. The site title, paintbrush, bird, heart, iMac, search box, and social media icons are particularly cute. Actually, no, you know what, everything is cute. Yay pastel colors!

I like the airplane, dolphin tail area, treasure chest, colors, headers, sidebar boxes, textured background, and look of the secondary navigation on the side. Ignore this sentence: Blah, I’m tired now, and I can’t think of anything else to say about this site, so let’s just hope this useless sentence fills up enough space for the format to look okay…hey, didn’t I tell you to ignore this sentence?

This is kind of a bonus. My tumblr sports a lovely bare and simple layout that places the focus on the content, which consists of funny or inspiring tidbits that I didn’t create but wish I had. Am I seizing the opportunity to shamelessly promote at an inopportune moment? You decide. I didn’t make the layout, though, and I legitimately love its simplicity, so I’m not totally tooting my own horn!

Maybe if I stare at these designs long enough, I’ll absorb some of the talent through osmosis? No? Does it not work that way? Way to burst my bubble. Okay, good night.

Sometimes, however, it’s different. Sometimes, something actually comes out of my long list of “things to blog about,” which currently rests in a bloated blue box on the right side of my laptop screen when I open Stickies and has encompassed the same few ideas for months on end. Among those ideas are: my thoughts on curry (which probably doesn’t deserve its own entry, so I’ll just tell you now: curry has held a long-standing animosity with both my taste buds and my sense of smell), my questioning of the idea that anyone still wears watches, and things that confuse me (why people have dubbed Beijing “The Big Cabbage,” why people wear Uggs and shorts in 85-degree weather, why “pescetarian” is spelled the way it is, why I think about weird things like this, etc.).

This is one of those times. This entry has actually been sitting as a bullet-pointed draft since June 16 (so I guess you could say the part of my brain that contains the ideas for this entry has been in labor for almost a month), and the conversation that sparked this entry happened I have no idea how long ago, buuut I’m writing about it now because I like food and I want to talk about food all day and I think all you little monsters (ignore that if you hate Lady Gaga, and I promise I won’t borrow her terms of endearment again) should talk about food with me.

I think every country has its stereotypical meal(s) or type(s) of food — sometimes the stereotype is accurate and describes the food the people of Country X eat most often, and sometimes it’s totally fictitious and the people of Country Y have the right to get offended.

So, here’s what some people and I have come up with as stereotypes or typical meals for several countries:

• United States: French toast or pancakes with eggs and bacon and orange juice for breakfast, burgers or hot dogs and fries for lunch, steak or meat loaf for dinner
• China: Bao zi for breakfast, wonton or some kind of noodle soup or dimsum for lunch, looots of rice and vegetables for dinner
• Italy: Pasta, pizza, gelato, tiramisu
• India: Naan and curry
• Japan: Sushi and tempura
• Spain: Paella
• Canada: Poutine
• Argentina: Good steak
• Korea: Kimchi
• UK: Bland food
• Mexico: Tacos, burritos, quesadillas, churros, anything that ends in -os
• Thailand: Pad thai, curry
• Greece: Gyros
• Turkey: Lentil soup, kebabs, baklava
• France: Croissants, ratatouille, crepes, escargot, anything Americans can’t spell very well
• Germany: Bratwurst, sauerkraut

Do you agree? Disagree? Take offense and think I’m a raging lunatic idiot? Have any other countries to add?

Upon closer inspection, I saw the “FOR SALE” sign in the rear windshield. So I guess it wasn’t really a parking job; it was a “oh, I’m going to randomly sell my car in a random parking lot and take up lots of space so people will notice” job. Still, was it necessary to make use of FOUR parking spots? You don’t steal valuable movie theater parking spots on a Friday night, contributing to the fullness of the lot and making moviegoers park in front of Walmart instead. You just don’t.

Unsurprisingly, my friends and I aren’t the only ones who think so, as evidenced by the note we saw on the front windshield:

Bwahahahaha. “…You hurt my daughter/cousin’s feelings. FUCK YOUR ‘FOR-SALE’ SIGN! I NEED A PARKING SPOT.” Most spectacular note I’ve seen in a while.

If you’re wondering what movie we saw, it was Splice, the most spectacularly disturbing movie I’ve seen in a while. Highlight for spoilers: People playing God? Incest? Abuse? Voyeurism? Bestiality? Killing a poor, innocent, ADORABLE CAT? All in one movie?

Parts of the movie were hilarious, though, I’ll give it that, even if I’m not sure they were hilarious by intention.

The part that keeps infiltrating my thoughts hours after the movie is the part where the protagonists talk about right and wrong and crossing the line between them. Where is that line, and which lines do we not cross? This subject has come up in the books I’ve read (mainly The Little Girl and The Cigarette by Benoit Duteurtre) and the TV shows (mainly Lie to Me) I’ve watched this week, and I just cannot stop thinking about it. Where’s the line between legislation that protects people and laws that exercise excessive control over people’s lives, as the world in Duteurtre’s book perhaps crosses by making cigarettes illegal nearly everywhere? Is there a line between good deception and bad deception, both of which Lie to Me deals with in nearly every episode? Where’s the line between caring and prying? Between learning and finding out information we just shouldn’t know? Between attaining a healthy degree of control and messing with others’ lives? Is it the intentions? Are intentions ever clear?

Mind-boggling.

I’ll leave you all with an important public service announcement (and I hope you know by now that by “public service announcement” I really always mean “my opinions that I think are important but you probably don’t and maybe disagree but shouldn’t because my tastes are far superior to yours but not really”): Rita’s = spectacularly disgusting. Especially the gelati, which is nothing like gelato. Maybe that’s where it goes wrong in the first place. But really, custard that tastes like plastic combined with piña colada slush that tastes like how I imagine window cleaner to taste? No thanks. That really hurts my daughter/cousin’s feelings. In a spectacular way.

In the meantime, I’m going to share with you how to make yummy food with limited resources (because motivation and energy are resources some of us don’t really have):

Breakfast

Mix together plain yogurt (I used Dannon) and granola (I used the Cascadian Farm Organic cinnamon raisin kind). Add blueberries.

Or, if you’re super healthy like I am, eat a few chocolate chip cookies (see the snack section below) and call that breakfast. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.

Lunch

Heat up tortillas (I used some generic kind) and cooked/premade chicken breasts (I used…I forget which kind — I know, so helpful). Put chicken in tortillas. Add lettuce, salsa (I bought a pound from the grocery store deli area where they have premade stuff — it was on sale for $1.00/lb), and cheese (I used Kraft Mexican taco cheese, which is just cheddar and asadero cheese with taco seasoning).

You don’t have to stop at tacos if you’re hungry, like I always am. Add cucumbers and the same salsa and chicken to lettuce for a simple, healthy salad (the one pictured above). Or add cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and your favorite dressing (I use basil parmesan vinaigrette) to lettuce for a slightly less healthy salad.

This time it’s an “or,” not an “and” (i.e., this sushi isn’t from the same day as the tacos and the salad) because c’mon, even I don’t eat that much. Go to your favorite inexpensive sushi place. (I went to the local Japanese supermarket — the same place where I usually get nigiri or spicy shrimp rolls. The picture above is futomaki, which I ate in addition to spicy shrimp rolls that look exactly like the ones I linked and, therefore, aren’t pictured again. Futomaki’s actually the first kind of real sushi I ever tried!)

Dinner

Go to an authentic Szechuan restaurant for lunch and order a dinner-sized portion of spicy fish. Get your (inevitable) leftovers boxed, take them home, and use them to cook more fish. (Optional: Add bamboo shoots and enoki.) Eat the fish in addition to rice and vegetables (not pictured).

Side note and important public service announcement: Szechuan spicy is the best kind of spicy. It’s spicy and numbing at the same time, so you get the flavor, but it doesn’t make your poor little taste buds hurt so badly that you cry. It does make some things taste weird afterward (for example, I thought the spiciness made water taste sweet and sour at the same time, and one of my friends said it made water taste like sand, but he’s just crazy), but you can’t have everything.

Snacks

Use your favorite chocolate chip mix (I used the Nestle kind that comes in a huge box — yes, I know this goes against the golden rule of cookie baking, or whatever, but I’ll make cookies from scratch next time eventually, I promise) and bake cookies. Mmm.

Mmmmm.

Secondly — and this is obviously not as important as the omission of “flabbergastedness” in the dictionary — happy Fourth of July! I bring you the fireworks I saw last night, served with a side of my awesomesauce iMovie skills. Hah. No, seriously, though, I was capable of making an entire documentary in high school with the old version of iMovie, and now… This new version only has, like, 5 buttons. You would think less mess would make things easier, but no. And dragging things around hoping that they’ll achieve the result you want doesn’t really do anything anymore.

You should still watch the video, though. (It’s slow at first, but the finale starts around a minute in.) And link me to other videos featuring fireworks, especially if they’re more exciting than the suburban ones featured in mine. I think fireworks are magical — I mean, I’m hardly willing to spend five minutes watching a boring movie these days, but I can lie on a blanket on cold, lumpy grass just to watch explosions in the sky repeat themselves for half an hour? Okay, so they are explosions, and they are pretty, and I am kinda sorta a pyromaniac, but still. Not many things get past my lack of attention span these days.

Prime example: My friends and I were at our one friend’s house passing away time before the fireworks, and this one friend happens to own a lot of video games. So my guy friends were playing Castle Crashers, and I joined them because, well, as much as I hate video games, playing them is a lot more fun than watching people play them, except that was a really bad decision because a few minutes in, I decided that eating Chex Mix would be much more fun, and then my character kept on dying. Because my love for Chex Mix was distracting me. Obviously not because I hate video games and am a failure at playing them and killed my character every two minutes and had to keep on being resurrected by my friends’ characters. Shut up. That’s not the point.

I swear, though, one day I’m going to get really high and make lots of money by designing a video game that’s even more bizarre and confusing than Castle Crashers with its purple unicorns and monster-y creatures that look like crosses between diseased rhinoceri and Sasquatch.

Anyway, if you aren’t into fireworks, low-quality videos of fireworks, or bad stories about bad video games, I bring you something I heard someone say while I was walking in a horde of people returning from the fireworks:

“I want somebody to shoot me in the shoulder and have it go through so I’ll have a scar and people will think I’m the coolest person ever.”

What? I don’t even. FLABBERGASTEDNESS.

Why yes, I do list Make It or Break It as a TV show I like and, therefore, do get updates from them. No, I haven’t seen the season premiere, but yes, I do plan on watching it as soon as humanly possible. And yes, I love bad TV shows. That’s not the point.

Let’s play a game of Guess the Grammatical Error, shall we?

Here are the answers:

This isn’t really grammatical, but that first sentence can be reduced to half its current length. “Lauren looks fit and fabulous in this black and turquoise tracksuit number” means the same thing. Plus, you’ve got alliteration going on with “fit and fabulous.”

- “Just because your hitting or leaving the gym”

Just no. No, no, no, no, no, no, NO. What a trite mistake.

- “The most flattering cut for workout pants are”

I’m going to give the author much more leeway than he/she deserves and pretend “cut” is a typo.

- “workout pants stretch out overtime”

Like sports games, right? No. Pants stretch out over time. People get old over time. People work overtime, and basketball and football games run into overtime.

In the same vein: Grammatical errors are an everyday occurrence. We make grammatical errors every day. There’s a difference. “Everyday” is usually an adjective.

- “you don’t want to be worrying about your pants falling on during your workout”

Oh, I see. Nobody worries about their pants falling off. They only worry about their pants falling on. Because clothes are super heavy and it’s the end of the world if an article of clothing happens to fall on a person. Also, if people are so worried about their pants falling on them when they work out, does that mean they don’t wear pants in the first place?! Not a sight I want to see.

A quick Google search, in addition to previous knowledge, tells me that some of the most common phobias include: spiders, insects, snakes, enclosed spaces, thunderstorms, driving, flying, needles, and heights.

Here’s what I have to say about things other people are afraid of:

• Spiders are not scary. I just crushed a tiny one that was crawling up my hand.
• I will gladly allow ants, cockroaches, centipedes, etc. to get acquainted with the bottom of my shoe. C’mon, I’m not going to let something that’s a gazillionth of my size defeat me.
• Snakes? I mean, I’m not going to get up close and cuddly with one, but I’m not going to scream and run away. That probably isn’t the best strategy to follow anyway if you encounter a rattlesnake…
• I’ve never been claustrophobic; perhaps it’s because I don’t have any siblings and thus have never been shut in a box, cabinet, or fridge by anyone. Whatever the cause, I actually welcome close and cozy spaces.
• I love thunderstorms and think they’re the only acceptable cause for rain. If you’re going to do something, go all out, right? Mother Nature should follow that rule. None of that wimpy drizzly rain. Okay, maybe I should be more careful about what I say — floods are not okay. But thunderstorms are lovely. When they’re not that dangerous. (Look at me backtracking like a politician.)
• I don’t actually know anyone who’s scared of driving. I love driving and would totally cruise around in my car all the time if the environment wouldn’t suffer the consequences.
• I don’t like flying anymore because of that one time I had to spend the entire day at two different airports because of delays, and I dislike the smell on airplanes, but I’m not afraid. Turbulence is actually kinda fun.
• When I get blood drawn, I watch the needle go in.
• One time, I saw a PostSecret that went along the lines of “I’m not so much afraid of heights as I am of getting the urge to jump.” No worries, I don’t plan on ending my life, but I’m just a thrill seeker who does rash things at times. (You know that game in elementary school where you stand on the landing and see which monkey bar you can jump to? I was playing that game the summer after third grade, this kid dared me to jump to the sixth bar, I did, and then I landed on my back on the mulch and hit my head. Maybe that’s the reason I’m so abnormal, heh.) Point is, I’m not afraid of heights.

If that isn’t enough to make you wonder which other planet I fell off of, I’ll tell you about my phobias. In fact, the incident that inspired this entry happened two nights ago around midnight and involved me screaming and flailing and running away from an orange. I know what you’re thinking right about now, but I’m not that weird. It was a moldy orange that I unwittingly grabbed out of the back of the fridge. It was soft and there was white fuzzy stuff growing on it and I swear my hands itched for half an hour afterward. Even after I scrubbed them for an eternity.

Not only am I afraid of mold, but fuzzy white things in general terrify me. When I was little, I cried when I saw cotton fake snow on Christmas displays. No joke. I’ve since gotten over that, but I go to school in Illinois where apparently “cotton” trees abound, and they get all over the grass and concrete and alskdadlsjkfajksljafkls. I think I’ve even deluded myself into believing I’m actually allergic to them.

My other weird fears? Holes and sometimes clusters without holes. Except I’m not as afraid of clusters as my friend — she can’t even look at poppyseed bagels or used dartboards. Disembodied hands. Just look at this and tell me it’s not scary. Vomit (though college is lessening this phobia). If you ever vomit in my presence, I will hunt you down and empty the contents of my stomach onto your face. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I have babies. Probably accidentally drown them in sympathetic vomit.

I know rampant judgment is passing through your head. It’s okay. I’m judging you too.