catching up

For whatever reason I keep getting behind in watching anime.  I spent the last few hours catching up on Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu.  Luckily I'm only two episodes behind overall.

I haven't caught up on Chu-Bra! yet.  I'm feeling kind of tired (even though I got up at 4 PM...) so I might get some sleep for a while.  I think the hideous amount of light my bedroom now has during the day even with the blinds closed is affecting my sleep.

I'm kind of hesitant to mention Chu-Bra! on my main blog due to its subject matter, but all the same, it's hilarious (except for that PMSing teacher).  The rest of the world could very well prejudge a person if they knew that the person in question watches anime about middle school girls that are obsessed with underwear. Just because I like it in 2D doesn't mean I like it in 3D, and most of the world has trouble differentiating two dimensional fictional characters from reality. Sad, I know.

I also haven't watched Railgun 19 yet.  I have Mazui's subs, but some part of me is hoping that Ayako will release the episode at some point.

Since I normally go out on Thursday mornings around 7:30-8 AM for an hour or so shopping for groceries with my mom, I don't feel like I'll be very cognisant at that point.  I'll probably get some sleep (even just a few hours will help, perhaps I should type up my huge thesis on sleep scheduling and adjustment) so I'll actually be awake.

It fucking pisses me off that both of the frozen convenience items I like have trans fat.  It's not like I have a lot of choice, we shop at Giant (which has been removing products from their shelves for no reason lately) and we live in Charlottesville (where we get everything ten years after the rest of the world).  So I've been getting White Castle burgers and T.G.I. Friday's Chicken Quesadilla rolls.  Both have one gram of trans fat per serving.  One by one I've eliminated all of the T.G.I. Friday's frozen things from contention even though I like them.

• The mozzarella sticks get crumbs everywhere
• The buffalo wings sauce literally tastes like hot sauce mixed with butter, the flavors of the two aren't blended at all
• The honey bbq wings are sticky and I have a finite supply of wetnaps
• Both varieties of wings are with the bones, which is massively not convenient
• The potato skins never have the amount in them that $number_of_servings * $serving_size suggests they should, they're usually one or two servings short
• The quesadillas only come two to a box and while they're good out of the microwave they are a lot better cooked in a skillet with some oil, which takes more effort than I'm usually willing to expend for quick tasties
• The spinach and artichoke dip is another thing that would make me consume my chips faster than I really want to

Giant doesn't carry the rest of T.G.I. Friday's frozen products.  I found a Southwestern Egg Roll one at Harris Teeter, which was basically miniature burritos wrapped in egg roll wrapping instead of a tortilla.  It was good but fuck if I'm going all the way to Harris Teeter for one thing.

My only alternatives are store brand stuff (which isn't so bad, but the portions are tiny), shitty tv meals, or frozen pizzas.

The store brand stuff has the usual takeoffs of national brand things (mozzarella sticks, jalapeño poppers, etc.) and a few extra things including a whole bunch of /(scallop|shrimp|steak) wrapped in bacon/ items that are admittedly delicious.

Shitty tv meals are shitty.  That's all I can really say.  I can never get one of those things heated up evenly.

Frozen pizza is awesome, but since Giant is actively reducing consumer choice, I can't get the varieties of Red Baron pizza that I want.  All they have is cheese and pepperoni, with two different crusts.  I want either the five cheese or the supreme.  But no, they had to remove those so they could put more Freschetta and DiGiorno trash in the freezer case.

Also, how does one heat up a frozen pizza such that the center isn't molten?  I sense a major problem with putting the pizza directly on the rack.  Last I checked, electric stove with heating element in the bottom + pizza grease dripping down onto hot heating element = potential for fire.  Plus even if it doesn't set the house on fire, I don't want to have to clean the burnt grease off of the bottom of the oven.

My last alternative is the "fried frozen stuff" section.  I've had the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets before, but if I eat fried foods regularly I'll probably have a heart attack before I turn 30.

Why are there no good frozen convenience foods?  Every single one is either grossly not nutritious, tiny, impossible to heat correctly, or expensive.  And the serving sizes are so small (presumably, so they can misrepresent the item as being more nutritious than it actually isn't by having lower numbers in the nutrition "facts") that it's a waste of energy to heat up only those few.

Ugh, I'm just going to go get that sleep that I mentioned about four miles up the page.