What I Googled Wednesday (2/24)

I am back with another edition of “What I Googled Wednesday” (yesterday)! A pithy window into my life via my Internet history.

I woke up earlier than usual yesterday and decided to start the day off by fixing a corner of a crossword-in-progress. The word that ended up working best for the grid is CURASSOW, which I learned is a *stunning* tropical bird that looks like a cross between a turkey and, uh, a spartan? Apparently, there are a few in the Oakland Zoo, so perhaps a field trip is in order.

I haven’t made sushi/gimbap in a while, but I finally restocked on seaweed so made some rolls for lunch. I’ve finally got my ingredient ratios down (e.g. cups of rice = 5 rolls of sushi) but am still trying to perfect my rolling technique. Yellow pickled radish is really the star of these sushi rolls (which also contain Gardein meat, carrots, avocado, cucumber, egg), and I’ve had some sitting in the fridge for a while. Sources say they keep for 1-3 months.

I’ve developed a weekly ritual of singing along to my favorite Jay Chou songs while/after washing the dishes, and it’s so much fun. Therapy isn’t free, but singing Jay Chou’s deep cuts is. I sometimes feel that I sing better in Chinese than in English. I wonder if that’s a mother tongue thing? 說好不哭 (Don’t Cry) is such a simple song (same verse and chorus, repeated twice, basically), but it’s such a banger.

I’m translating a short story that has parts in it about mixing fertilizer and I had to Google “atomizer mister spray plant” to figure out what a “spray tank” is. It’s often hard to find the most basic name for technical equipment because most Google searches will lead to Amazon, and Amazon usually packs as many technical terms as it can into one line. For example, “Hand held Garden Sprayer Pump Pressure Water Sprayers.” So… is it a “garden sprayer”? “Pump pressure”? “Water Sprayer”?

Kevin and I decided to rewatch the Harry Potter movies (they’re available on Peacock, with infrequent ads) and it’s such a nostalgic experience. We also realize that there’s so many things we’ve forgotten about the books/movies—for example, what is Dumbledore’s “light thing” called? (Deluminator). Watching the first movie as adults, we also keep saying—wow, Harry/Ron/Hermione are so CUTE! I guess when we were younger we didn’t think of them as being “cute.” Now that we’re no longer kids, though, their cuteness is jumping out. We are planning to watch all 8 movies, although did you know the Sorcerer’s Stone is 2h39 mins long?! How on earth did I sit through that as a kid?