Yesterday I finally had the time to set up my new computer, or at least to start setting up my computer. I have all my music in the cloud and even though I can see the files and even play them directly from Windows Explorer I can’t play them on my music players. When I look at Explorer, I can’t see any of the metadata, even the titles. I can on some and those show up on Windows Media Player. I’m trying to get that fixed now. It looks like it is slowly updating. I’ll keep it open and see if progress is made.
This is still an improvement as initially I couldn’t get any sound out of the speakers. I tried all the sound controls, and nothing helped. Then I finally thought to look at the keyboard and saw there is a key with a mute speaker symbol on it and the light by it was lit. I clicked it and there was sound.
I did much better getting word up and running. I saved my normal template in the cloud and put a copy of it in the new computer. I’m starting off with all my macros and preferences. I hate Calibri 11, the default Word font. I now have my beloved Book Antiqua 14, I’m a serif kind of guy.
Firefox makes it very easy to import all your settings to a new computer. That portability is a great feature. I am using one new sync, my phone to my computer. I can now read and respond to my text messages from my laptop.
Good news, Windows Media Player is making progress. This might take a long time. The musical bad news is that Dawes is a guest on Live From Here. There is one great thing about Dawes. Their music never penetrates my brain. I can’t remember any of them. So how do I know that I hate the band? Time after time I’ve heard a song playing, thought, “Yuck” and then when it’s announced I find that it’s Dawes. The last time it happened I didn’t even need the announcement. I know the title of one of their songs, May All Your Favorite Bands Stay Together, or something like that. When I was volunteering at WFUV I heard a song, my first thought was, “yuck.” Then it got to the refrain and realized it was Dawes. Even though I love many musicians, it’s still just small fraction of all the music out there. One more reason to dislike Dawes, many of my favorite bands don’t stay together. The most recent to disband is Harpeth Rising, my very favorite. Now I don’t have a favorite band, at least not off the top of my head. I’m sure that Dawes is somehow responsible for this. It’s their revenge for my criticism. I will not submit to their will. My Gentle Readers rely on my musical recommendations being honest and I will not violate that trust.
I made a culinary discovery last night, the best way of reheating pizza! The odd thing is that I tried it before and was not impressed, this time I made one little change and it made a world a difference. How do you reheat your pizza? Probably in an oven but the crust is never right, and the consistency of the cheese and sauce is altered. It’s pizza, it’s still good, but I prefer it cold to reheated in the oven. The microwave is super-fast and easy, but the crust becomes doughy. I found a third way, heating it in a cast iron skillet. Unless your skillet is large you can only do one at a time but it’s worth it. Here’s how to do it.
- Heat the skillet over a low to medium burner
- Add a few drops of olive oil to the pan
- Heat the slice for one to two minutes.
- Add an ounce of water to the skillet, not on the pizza
- Cover the pan
- Heat for another one to two minutes
The key addition to what I’ve tried before is the ounce of water. It revitalizes the cheese and sauce. They are essentially steamed. The crust doesn’t become hard as it does in an oven, it just gets a thin crisp layer, that if anything makes it better than when fresh. I need to work on the optimum timing. I’m now thinking a minute and a half dry and uncovered then a minute and a half wet and covered. The first slice I made was two then one and the second one then one. They were the two best reheated sliced I’ve ever eaten. This was good enough to count as a revelation.
Wise Madness 