21 July 2008

Things that are annoying...

  1. My Google Reader is acting up. I have deleted it, exported it, and re-imported it and still the darn thing doesn't give me preview (reads as "marked read") and when I actually mark it as read, doesn't update. I know this seems a small thing, but it is annoying me to no end. I may need to switch to a different Reader if this continues.
  2. I want to switch to Wordpress, but I can't bear to give up Feedjit and my WeatherPixies.
  3. We have a new TV (32"LCD, very nice). This is after Karstadt confirmed delivery, did not deliver, would not explain why it would not deliver, citing EU "privacy regulations", would not respond to e-mail questions after stating that it would only respond to e-mail questions, would not confirm that the order had been cancelled by them, and so on. So the German went out this weekend, picked up a great JVC floor model, negotiated a super price and we are watching the Lost season finale (yes, we are really that far behind on it) because he was able to get the correct cables to allow us to watch the computer through the TV. But, we still can't get the TV to recognize our code-free DVD/VHS player and it's making the kids really mad to not be able to watch the DVD of Happy Feet that we bought two weeks ago.
  4. It's rained every day for the last 8 days and the average temperature has been in the high 50s- low 60s.
  5. My refrigerator is a total piece of schlock, as it seems is standard in Germany. In college, I had a 40 year old fridge that was better than the standard German refrigerator, where water customarily runs down the back wall, freezes, and destroys delicate produce. I don't want to store it for the next several years in my basement and doubt that I can get the landlord to split the cost, so I will put up with it for as long as I can. One reason to put up with it is that it seems to be SOP in any case: my in-laws and our prior fridge and all the refrigerators I have seen here operate in this manner. Hard to believe that a 1st world country finds this acceptable.
  6. I made chocolate chip cookies today and they came out very flat. I just can't adjust to all the extra fat in the butter: should I add baking powder to help it rise? There's already soda, of course, as I am using the Tollhouse recipe.
  7. I took Thing1 to camp today and when I went to pick her up, discovered that she had been on a field trip, by bus. This would not be a problem, per se, except that I had been told that the youngest class wouldn't be going on field trips and I was concerned that there would not be car seats in use. Luckily, when the bus arrived I saw that it was a charter and that the seats were safe for the children, rather than the usual small shuttle bus.

And there are a whole lot of other, smaller annoyances. The plumbing problems, which will require another visit from the plumber after he gives warning to the whole building that the mains need to be shut off, the re-keying of the locks as the prior tenant absconded with the internal keys, the co-tenant in my building who has found it amusing to rip my name off the mailbox (we added it while waiting for the landlord to put in a new tag with both our names, and someone pulled it, with all its tape, off three times).... I need to stop and start thinking of more enjoyable things.

I will go watch Dr. Horrible and put myself in a better mood.

6 comments:

Jul said...

Is your baking soda old? I had chocolate chip cookies come out flat the other day, and old baking soda is my only guess as to the culprit...

G in Berlin said...

No, although this time I used German baking soda. I believe it has a different activity level than American baking soda.

Adèle said...

Did you use brown sugar (if so, where did you find it)? I can't get non-flat cookies either, so if you figure out why, please post!

Sweet Bird said...

I've found that in recipes that call for all butter, if you replace half with vegetable shortening they retain some height. It takes much longer for shortening to melt than butter, so they keep a little more form.

Caffienated Cowgirl said...

Try this: use a tad more brown sugar and a tad less white sugar than it calls for...and add another 1/2 cup of flour. I had the same problem when I first moved to England...and this did the trick for me.

Alice said...

My fridge is the SAME here ... and we bought it brand new last year. It's nice to know that someone else's produce is kept frozen in the back too ...