I Know What I Googled This Summer
What have I been up to? Let my search history lead the way!
As I look back at my summer, I cannot help but wonder, what have I actually done these past three months? Like everyone else whose life has been uprooted by the pandemic, my summer 2020 roadmap was originally punctuated with weddings and family visits and trips to the pool. Instead, I am left to guesstimate how many times I’ve actually left the house.
What was I so busy with the past three months, other than throwing myself into my work and making meal plans with my boyfriend that we’d scrap last minute for socially-distanced takeout? Loyal Discourse Blog readers will know that I have nary a journal entry to look back on. But luckily for us, my Google search history is readily available for review!
Without further ado, here is a cursory but fun (“fun”) offering of my non-work-related Google searches from Summer 2020, with some explanation provided:
May 15 - heart to break lip sync
May 15 - qatari government budget
May 15 - how to make homemade pizza less soggy
May 18 - karl rove "racist"
May 18 - breast pain 10 months postpartum (I was googling this for a friend who is a mom, OK.)
May 18 - journalism diversity sham
May 19 - ftc Alternative Physical Address Ideas
May 20 - pelosi doggy doo
May 20 - jia tolentino parents Red Scare subreddit site:www.reddit.com
May 21 - ru paul fracking
May 21 - rupaul watched a guy drown buzzdeed
May 21 - ru paul addresses watching a guy drown (RuPaul talked about watching a man’s boat capsize in the context of justifying the closure of gay clubs in NYC? Was this a metaphor? Did he actually just watch this guy maybe drown? Incredibly wild.)
May 21 - filipino diaspora
May 21 - how to get cares act money as self employed
May 21 - ben affleck back tattoo
May 22 - tame impala, frank c. erwin, jr., special events center
May 24 - how to better air fry chicken wings
May 25 - shangela coronavirus meme (For a short time I believed that Cardi B’s “coronavirus” soundbite was said by Shangela. I regret this error.)
May 26 - this is us blind baby eyes "cgi" (The baby in This Is Us isn’t blind, and its eyes are edited, I’m almost entirely sure.)
May 26 - Erin Grau person of color
May 27 - amy cooper munchausen by proxy
June 1 - how to speed up audio in quicktime (Still looking for solutions to this, thanks for your tips in advance.)
June 1 - gwen stefani long way to go (Sorry, sorry, my boyfriend hadn’t heard this wild ride of a song so I had to share it with him.)
June 3 - why is gold jewelry bad (“Bad.” If I recall correctly, it is because of racism.)
June 4 - 20 year old austin critical condition
June 5 - joshua howell
June 5 - bari weiss age
June 6 - mayhem miller meme
June 9 - Brett Hankison sexual assault
June 9 - names that start with c end with n
June 9 - how to shave a cat's matted fur
June 10 - rubber bullet speed miles per hour
June 15 - degrassi dave unexplained departure
June 16 - Levi Ayala update
June 16 - trains flag -paul -ru
June 18 - how many cases of coronavirus before a restaurant must close
June 19 - how to pronounce bipoc (Trust I already knew how to pronounce BIPOC!!! I just wanted to make sure… You know, like the two pronunciations of DACA.)
June 23 - tina fey racist blackface asians
June 24 - good grilled cheese
June 25 - giant golden-crowned flying fox
June 25 - how long to bake personal pizza
June 27 - can you cook ribs with the membrane on
June 29 - "anti-slavery broadsheet"
June 30 - noname dragged for capitalism
June 30 - al gore rhythm kimmy schmidt
July 1 - how to buckle a dog in the car
July 1 - obama's pastor
July 2 - Beto O'Rourke
July 2 - mailchimp werrrk
July 2 - faint sweet smell coming from air vents in house (Jury is still out on this one!!!)
July 6 - "ruka's lawyer"
July 6 - Why did Shion and Tsubasa break up
July 7 - why does a candle pop when you first light. it
July 9 - Lindsay Lohan speak album art
July 13 - therapy vibrating sensors in hands
July 15 - best isaac chotiner interviews
July 16 - history of twitter blue checks verification
July 18 - fig recipes
July 18 - how to save iphone headphones washed
July 18 - journalism story surgeon and wife no coffee (Also still searching for this longform story about a surgeon, please and thank you.)
July 21 - fuck them kids
July 21 - somebody toucha my spaghet
July 22 - jessica williams girls hbo
July 24 - national newsroom layoffs restructuring pandemic
July 24 - two folklore albums taylor swift spotify
July 25 - how to sit on an ergonomic office work stool
July 28 - Diet Prada ripping off masks
July 28 - why do cats shake their tails
July 28 - what happened to my spotify username
July 28 - how republicans became pro life
July 29 - automatic emails breonna taylor filtered
July 30 - tool for opening and. closing air vents
July 30 - camouflage gaiters (Until this search I wasn’t aware of what a “gaiter” was used for, thank you for your patience.)
July 30 - Angela Anaconda
July 30 - please don't make me vote for joe biden tiktok
July 31 - BRAISED LAMB
August 4 - tori brad the challenge
August 5 - community refrigerator near me
August 7 - brie larson alyssa limperis nissan sentra
August 9 - how to wash a visor in washing machine
August 11 - scientists predict mummy's voice
August 11 - cat diet calculator
Screenshots via Google; Remix by Samantha Grasso
how to make homemade pizza less soggy:
This took mea years to figure out and google wasn't particularly helpful with that either, so pizza making at home wasn't really all that fun until I finally found out about Pizza Baker Youtube. There's folks on there who try the weirdest things to get the perfect pizza out of their home oven and some work and some don't, but one technique really does work quite fine.
So basically you obviously need a good dough and creating a good dough isn't exactly rocket science like some make it seem. You don't need fancy stuff like beer and thousands of ingredients. Most people are very secretive about their recipes, but Neapolitan pizza bakers are actually pretty unharbored about their dough and it's pretty easy too! https://www.pizzanapoletana.org/en/ricetta_pizza_napoletana
Usually they recommend Tipo 00 flour, but since you are probably baking in a home oven, you can simply use AP flour. 00 flour is quite inefficient with lower temperatures.
As for the sauce, no need to get fancy. You just need to puree canned tomatoes and salt them to taste. In terms of cheese, I use regular Fior di Latte and mix in some Bufala, you could make it all Bufala if you are feeling fancy, but I usually just stick with a bit because Bufala usually has quite an aggressive flavor. Cheese should be sliced rather than broken down by hand. I usually let the cheese dry a bit for some time depending on its consistency.
Stretching the dough: Don't use a rolling pin! Work from the inside to the outside. No need for throwing the dough into the air and all that, either you know how to or you don't and if you don't it's rather counter-productive. This is a good video about stretching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2Teqs4qc4&
Now we get to the baking part and the part where we figure out the 'soggy' issue. Obviously with a home oven you have longer baking times than in a wood fired oven, so especially the cheese because a problem here because of it's rather fast cooking time. I circumvent that by baking the pizza without the cheese for some time so they dough is properly established before the cheese is added.
So basically: I preheat by oven to the highest possible temperature and then put the pizza (with tomato sauce, so the surface won't burn) on the highest rack. (Directly under the heating elements) I don't have a specific time as to when to add the cheese, so you should check on the pizza from time to time and get it out as soon as you feel like the dough is starting to get crusty. (Usually that's between 5-10 minutes in my oven)
Now you add some more tomato sauce and the cheese. Throw it back into the oven and wait till the cheese has properly melted. Right before you feel like your pizza is ready, add a very generous amount of basil. Let it back for another 20 seconds or so and you are done.
Oh and this works best with a pizza stone.
"May 20 - jia tolentino parents Red Scare subreddit site:www.reddit.com"
The amount of people who were sympathetic to Jia and told her that they were sorry that she "had to go through this" was insane.