On Your Radio

2009-06-08 - 12:08 p.m.

Another busy weekend.

We had lots of parties on Saturday, and on Sunday we had one big group that got scheduled for a mini-golf tournament to start two hours before our usual Sunday opening time.

We managed. All is well.

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Last night I did another one of those all-in-one meal thingies. It was a Betty Crocker Mexican-style rice-beef mix that turned out okay.

The cheese sauce that they give you, though, just isn't right. It's a powder that you mix with 1/4 cup of milk. The instructions say to mix it for 30 seconds and then set aside until you pour it on top of the rice-beef thingie.

Well, I mixed for the 30 seconds and the powder still hadn't blended with the milk. So I mixed it for another minute. When I went to pour, the powder/milk mix had floated to the top - there was still unmixed milk in there.

So I let the rice-beef sit for another five minutes to "thicken" and mixed the topping some more. It finally came out okay, but I think next time I'll just skip the cheese mix and use actual shredded cheese. The rice-beef was still good - not spectacular, but good.

I admit to not being a cooking type of guy - when I shop, I tend to go for rip-and-pour items rather than buying all the raw ingredients and cutting/chopping/etc. Fortunately there's enough different items out there that I like, that I buy what's on sale. So some weeks I may get the Contessa shrimp prima vera, some weeks it's Stouffer's mac and cheese.

I do have a secret recipe that I will do all the heavy lifting for...and admittedly, I haven't made it since I was married. It's just a lot of work, but it's really good when I do make it.

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Last night I heard a THUMP in the living room. I went to investigate and found my ionic air cleaner on its side on the floor. I think Laila had knocked it over.

When I set it upright, there was no power to it. It was dead.

Now, I'm not upset with Laila. This particular unit was an old Sharper Image machine, and it was old and indifferently maintained. I also ran it 24/7, which probably wasn't good for it. It's entirely possible that it had died earlier and Laila just knocked over the corpse.

I'll look into getting another at some point.

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Oh, I almost forgot.

An idea occurred to me Saturday night while I was trying to sleep.

If we can do it inexpensively - as in, free - I know I can talk Bob into doing it.

Here it is:

Bob Chance and Dave Murphy - Off The Wall, The Podcast.

We can record the program in Bob's studio. If it's an audio-only podcast, we don't have to worry about cameras - we'll just do it like a radio show. We can promote the band and Bob's other projects, and put the podcasts up on the BobChance.com website, right along with the TV show.

I just don't know how to do subscriptions and such. I've already ordered Podcasting For Dummies.

I think it's worth a try. If it does happen, soon you'll hear us on your radio...er, iPod.

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Oh, speaking of the TV show of Off The Wall...

There's a public access station in Michigan that wants to start running the show.

We're making copies of the show DVDs to send.

Now we can embarrass ourselves on TV in a whole other state!

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Okay, into the day.

Be seeing you.

art - 2009-06-08 23:04:56 -
1/4 cup of milk is far too much for that cheese sauce mix. it is good for higher elevations though. the best mixing method would be to put the milk in the mixer first, then, slowly pour the mix into the milk while its mixing, so you can get it all to dissolve into the milk. when you have the sauce made, turn the heat way on down to simmer and slowly pour and mix into the skillet then cover for 5 minutes, that will do the trick! YUM!!

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