Aussie TV and cat food disasters

We have cable here, for the first time in years. It's so cheap, though - $10 per month! What a nice change from having to deal with Comcast. We're not big TV watchers, though, so we're giving it a try and if it turns out to be interesting but not disruptive (i.e. if the kid doesn't become obsessed with it) then we may keep it.

It is hypothetically a good language-learning tool.

But it can be hard to find something worth watching, nevermind something that specifically has subtitles in Vietnamese, and now I'm watching "Australia TV" which teaches me nothing about my new country or its language. But it's playing biopics of historical figures and thesbians, and it's better than "Gold Diggers" or the local soap operas where they talk too fast.

Today I was trying to boil some chicken to make cat food, and I burned it. This is the third time I've done that. I have a gas range top, and it burns really hot. Ridiculously hot. I can't simmer on it to save my life - everything burns withing 30 minutes.  And I haven't even been cooking our own food on it. I use the rice cooker almost exclusively so far. We bought a 5 lb bag of rice, some fresh vegetables, and some frozen dim sum that, as far as I can read the cooking instructions, needs to be steamed. And besides cookies, that's all the food we have in the house so far.

I've just been advised to buy an induction cooker, though, so I will have to shop around for one. In the meantime, I'm out of dry food - I have about 10 kernels left - and Melody's gotta eat. I saw a bag of Whiskas at the co-op market down the street, so I'll have to buy that tomorrow.

Oh hey, enjoy this mynah bird who lives on my street.

I sure do. Early each morning, the mynahs twitter and sing in a most entertaining way.