Friends

We have made...

- Creme Brulee: A vanilla bean custard base, with burnt caramel chunks.
This was really yummy, but kinda icy - not enough sugar in the base, not frozen enough when we put it in.

- Strawberry Almond: The same base with a strawberry-almond swirl.
Yummy but strawberries are not my style.

- Thai Tea: Startlingly terra-cotta colored! Philly-style base with condensed milk and infused with lots of Thai tea.
mmmm nom nom nom

- Strawberry Shortcake: Sweet cream Philly base with strawberry swirl and pound cake chunks.
The pound cake chunks are simply lovely, they stay firm and fluffy but biteable, not icy at all. Only thing I'd do different is use strawberry chunks rather than a swirl.

- Rum Plum: The same sweet cream with rum-soaked prune bits.
nom nom

Need more ideas now. Kinda want to make a basil/blood orange sorbet. A little tired of the dairy.

...but I get up again.

Period.

For weeks now, I've been ribbing a neighbour (half in jest, full in earnest) about the overgrown weed patch she calls her "garden". The plants on the western edge of our plot are starting to get edged out by the erectilely-challenged monsters in hers. I don't mind that so much--it's mostly the sorrel that seems to be suffering and this is basically inedible to us now because of slug issues. No, what annoys me is that scattered between her sunflowers and sweet william are several noxious weeds, including some (like smartweed) that the other neighbours have been struggling for years to eradicate. After ripping it out of her plot for the third time, I decided a little horticultural lesson was in order, so I brought the bunch up to her and explained that it was really bad news. For my trouble, I got the squirt gun.

She apologised later, of course, and came down to do a little weed-pulling of her own. Later on, as I was disposing of some compost, I saw the fruits of her labours. She hadn't yanked a single smartweed, pokeweed, or wood sorrel, as far as I could see, but she did rip up a splendid borage plant that was just on the cusp of bursting into bloom. Amateur horticulturalist that I am, I can't tell you how this pains me. She managed to overlook dozens of noxious invaders and instead destroy one of the single most attractive and valuable plants she had. The cluelessness is staggering. Okay, so you just tossed out some seed packets instead of carefully selecting your flowers. Would it kill you to spend half an hour on the Internet learning what to slay and what to save?

I request and require Patrick Stewart to portray "Spider Jerusalem" in any Transmetropolitan endeavors.

ANYONE with knowledge of recovering data from dead Macs, email me at chadu AT yahoo DOT com

Thank you.

That did not just happen.

So, I go into the bathroom to, well, take a leak. Thorn, our cat, follows me into the bathroom because, hey, I might put out some more food or something.

So I'm standing there, doing my business and the cat leaps up onto the sink next to the toilet. Now, this isn't terribly unusual, the cat always seems to like watching the process. But tonight, Thorn just reaches out and bats at the stream.

She was not terribly impressed. Considering that this is also the cat who tends to pee in inappropriate places, I'm starting to wonder if Thorn has some golden showers fetish.

Which would be about par for my life...
Tom

birthday cards that play 'i'll be watching you'

or

possibly freebird

postcards that sing willie nelson's 'always on my mind'

There was just an earthquake in Taiwan: it felt like a 5.4-5.7 in Taibei (it lasted a long time, but not very intense, a sort of slow rolling quake). Not sure where the epicenter is, so not sure how big it is.

Everything is fine here. I only lost sleep, and still have power and network (obviously.) No one worry.

Update: It was a 6.4 about 30 miles off the east coast (nearest city was Hualien.) Apparently there's no major damage (my housemate is from Hualien, and called his folks to check in. Nothing fell down there.) So that's a relief.

A whole morning wasted trying to configure programmes and I'm finally close to regaining the functionality I had before "upgrading". Thanks, Microsoft! Oh, well; it's not like I had anything that I absolutely needed to get done today anyhow.

But it gets better: We were warned that the insane security settings would get even more restrictive, but I didn't have a practical idea what that meant until I tried to increase the dpi in order to spare my poor eyes and it asked me for an administrative password. Yes, dear ones, you have to be an administrator TO CHANGE THE SIZE OF THE FUCKING FONT. Just goes to show that there's no MS "feature" so stupid that our local IT can't make it even stupider.

Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies has been nominated for two 2009 ENnie Awards:

Best Setting and Product of the Year!

Other fine product nominees, for each category, include:

Best Setting
* The Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor, Arc Dream Publishing
* Hot War, Contested Ground Studio
* Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, Paizo Publishing
* Slipstream, Studio 2 Publishing

...and...

Product of the Year
* Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods, Fantasy Flight Games
* Don't Lose Your Mind, Evil Hat Productions
* Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Players Handbook, Wizards of the Coast
* Hunter: The Vigil, White Wolf
* Mouse Guard, Kunoichi/Archaia
* Scion: Ragnarok, White Wolf
* A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Green Ronin
* Starblazer Adventures, Cubicle 7 Entertainment, Ltd
* Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Wizards of the Coast

As ever, it is an honor to be nominated.

Full list of nominees in all categories here.

Voting begins on July 24th!

Hi,

So here's something that you ladies might not know about guys. We never talk about it much but I realized yesterday that my wife didn't know and she's pretty knowledgeable. So for the rest of you ladies out there, prepare to have 50% of the battle:

You probably knew that most guys start growing facial hair during puberty. What you probably didn't know is that the hair is actually undergoing "follicle transfer". The facial hair has always been there, but it's been growing on the *inside* of the cheek and mouth area. During puberty, the hair follicles invert and push out to their external facings.

Every pre-pubescent boy you meet has a full, luxurious "inner beard" or "mouth beard" which is mostly invisible. Actually, since the inner beard is caught up in the mastication process, it's naturally controlled and never gets too unruly. There are some boys though where the beard is particularly hirsute and can cause problems.

As a general precaution, Dentists will always include a full cheek and lip shaving as part of their procedures when working on boys. Hence the general distrust most men have of dentists and the medical profession as a whole. This also explains why boys are so eager to being shaving. Once follicle transfer starts, they can handle their own shaving (and eating becomes a more enjoyable experience).

So there you go, a little Sunday Night Science for you
Tom

My roomates have moved out. No new roomates have moved in. The house is distressingly empty; my roomates owned most of the furniture and most of the kitchen. Distressingly also because it makes me think of The Third Roomate, who remains as-yet unfound. If I stay in my room everything looks the same, and I can pretend they are merely away for a few days.

Went to a party on a suburban hobby farm with eight million raspberry bushes, a giant sauna and some Estonians. It reminded me very strongly of childhood vacations, but only in this extremely indeterminate way. People brought tents and camped overnight in a field full of buttercups. It was pretty great, actually, except that as usual I had trouble coping with the sudden appearance of 40+ strangers. Who are all crazy backwoods mountaineers and/or cycling enthusiasts and/or water polo players -- in other words, I felt insufficiently Vancouver-Exercisey. And some French Canadian dude said he didn't eat avacados because their being grown in Mexico meant an unacceptable carbon footprint. That's pretty hardcore: as far as I'm concerned avacados could be delivered by space-rocket and they would still merit an exception.

--

On the bus on the way back from the party, semi-exhausted, I was sitting at the front of the bus with a friend and his two kids (5, 8) and all our tents & bags. And a few stops along we are joined by a middle-aged, gray-at-the-temples biker father and his two alterna-daughters -- they were in the 8-11ish range, one with pink-streaked hair a green sundress and fantastically classy glasses and the other sneakers, a worn military cap, two-colour plaid shorts and a t-shirt full of popular movie spoilers. He asks the driver about these directions he has to get off and transfer to another bus to the ferry, and explains that he recently moved to the suburb and doesn't have a car so he is escorting his daughters to the ferry by bus. (Or something; I got a very strong single/divorced-dad-with-visiting-time vibe.) He has a motorcycle helmet with him and black boots and the way he speaks and his eyes remind me very strongly of one of my father's best friends. Something about the way he talks to the driver seems really up-front and open; nobody seems discouraged.

And the kids are tired and have clearly been on several busses before this one and yet they are totally friendly and uncomplaining and alterna-cute and whether it was the lack of sleep or what I just felt this incredible love for this man and his children -- it seemed like what would have been frustrating and tedious in some other situation was instead totally acceptable for them because it meant they got to spend more time together. Everything about their interaction was wonderful to watch; the way they pointed out the window at random things, the way he spoke to them, quiet and occasionally slightly sarcastic but mostly with great attentiveness; the way the pink-haired girl with the glasses eventually took out a pair of hot-pink shoes and clutched them absentmindedly to her chest while yawning. I often feel this way on busses, this unconditional love for strangers, but not quite like this. I just wanted everything to work out for them, because they seemed to deserve it more than anyone else deserved it. I wanted to cry. And I think I kind of wanted to be that guy.

Love me, love my cat videos. Possibly this new iPhone thing has some downsides in terms of how easy it is to be annoying but LOOK CUTE!

Fig and Proscuitto Sandwiches
These are a great experience in textures: the contrasting chews of the meat and bread, the snap of caramel and the crackle of fig seeds, and cloaking it all, the creamy embrace of cheese.

You need:
- ciabatta, sliced thick
- feta or chèvre
- proscuitto
- figs
- sugar

Trim the stems off the figs, cut them in half, and sprinkle a pinch of sugar in the cavity of each. Lay them cut-side up on a cookie sheet lined with parchment, and roast at 350° until the juices start to drip out and turn golden. You'll smell them caramelizing.

Let them cool.

When the figs are cool, spread cheese on one piece of bread. I used this new 'spreadable feta' product that's pretty mild and simple in flavor, but has a pleasant salty creaminess that works well here. Top with figs, proscuitto, more bread. Eat.

Weird Greek Sliders

You need:

- 1 lb ground beef
- 6-8 oz mushrooms
- some dried mushrooms (like, four?)
- 1 T breadcrumbs
- salt, pepper, and thyme
- olive oil to fry in

Take your dried mushrooms and grind them to a fine powder in your food processor. Add the breadcrumbs for bulk if needed. Add the mushrooms and chop fine. Add the meat and seasonings and pulse to blend, or just mix together by hand.

Make into little patties and pan-fry with olive oil.

Eat on buns with, uh, tzatziki, ajvar, feta, whatever.

Today someone called me "a fucking creepy ass stalker" for referencing something mentioned in their LJ profile in a reply to them on a comm, enjoining me point blank from making use of "information that I didn't give you." I admit, I found this bewildering. After all, what are the data on someone's profile if not information they are giving to you and everyone else on the Internet? I know I don't have anything there that I wouldn't want everyone--from my grandma to my worst enemy--to know about.

So my question to you all is: Who is your LJ Profile for? Who do you expect to read it and what are you comfortable with them doing with the information listed there? What edits have you made because of the uses to which the information there was put on LJ or elsewhere?

I'm going through the laborious process of creating my own set of girih tiles, because the SVGs that Wikipedia has seem to be slightly imprecise about their angles, which makes them fun to play with but not very good for making arts.

the things i do for mathematical beauty.

It's weird getting back to apartment life. And this is not your quirky urban apartment building; this is a full-on apartment complex, with not much of anything you'd call personality. To add to my mild sense of dislocation, Cockeysville is a suburb cut in the classic style. We're right off Cranbrook Road, which wends its way through at least a couple of miles of apartment complexes, mostly identical and many owned by the same management company. Our cross-street is lined with brick ranch houses and a middle school, which is populated in the morning by flocks of SUVs dropping off flocks of kids. I am an urban dweller by choice and inclination, and I have said goodbye to my preferred environment for a while.

On the other hand, it's a nicely spacious apartment, and it's got a dishwasher and a washer/dryer pair in the apartment. Totally hot. I can catch a bus to work right across the lawn, and the bus drops me right in front of my building, so there's that. Also, good food: the Indian place nearby is good, the Chinese place nearby is OK, there's a top-notch comic book store with a good mainstream RPG selection within walking distance...

The weird thing for me is that if I do walk to the comic book store, it's not unusual for me to be the only person in sight who's walking. Suburbs! It's not like there are way fewer of the things I love to do around here. Hm. I miss having indie/art house movies within spitting distance, and I miss having game stores with play space easily accessible. But other than that, I'm totally good for the things I like to have in my life. It's just that most stuff is driving distance rather than walking distance.

It is awfully warm down here. I was mildly horrified to realize that for the first time in my life, I'm living south of the Mason-Dixon line. As a Yankee, I should probably burst into flame or something. I know, hyperbole -- it's not actually all that different. The immediate neighborhood is a tad bland but that's more the suburban than it is the state. Baltimore seems like a pretty cool city.

We have given into temptation and Ikea-fied the apartment. It has a certain style going for it. I should wander around and take videos and post them or something. I am remarkably happy with our dining table; we got a nice one that is just right for a couple but it expands out to be a perfect gaming table for six people. We also have big clunky square bookshelves next to the table, which hold gaming books and michele_blue's collection of glasses. It is a highly pleasing blend of geeky and classy.

There's a walk-in closet. I thought I wouldn't care but it turns out to be the coolest thing in the world, because there is room to hang everything. And T-shirts go up on the shelf. And undergarments go in the dresser next to the bed. Why did nobody tell me about this? Alternately, why did I completely ignore the accoutrements of modern living for so long?

The job looks superb. I actually knew I was in the right sort of place when I walked in the door and there was a seven foot tall character statue in the lobby. Aw yeah, gaming. Working in middleware just wasn't the same.

I think we're sort of open for visitors. We need to get bookshelves. We also need to get a day bed for the guest room. But visits work out, and there's always the couch!

I am trying to get some Living Forgotten Realms kicked off. Little interest so far but we've got a week or so to build. Hrm. I wonder if there's a Baltimore gaming LJ community? I found the Facebook one, I hit the LFR mailing lists... I'll have to look. Possibly I should also hit the usual forums.

Highlight of my job today: Giving a five-cent summary of the Leopold and Loeb case to a teenage visitor. I explained to him that they wanted to kill someone in order to prove that they were "beyond morality". His reaction? "That's disturbing."

Lowlight of my job today: As I type this, my machine is being upgraded to a new one with the Vista operating system installed. Hopefully, it's improved in the years since monshu's organisation attempted to install it and it broke so much of their software they eventually had to go back XP. That's not what the reactions of my colleagues, most of whom have been upgraded already, have led me to believe though.