Fun

So I'm in the line at Safeway this afternoon. I bought two pineapples, 2 bags of cranberries, a small bag of fresh string beans, and a honeydew melon. I had this stuff on the belt. I look behind me, and the lady next in line is loading her stuff on the belt behind my stuff. She had a pineapple, 2 bags of cranberries, a small bag of fresh string beans, and a honeydew melon. Now, I will admit that I had TWO pineapples and she only had one, but.... come on now. Has that EVER happened to you? EVAR?????

Happy F'ing Holydaze!

Brought to you by Peter, whose post Santa the Spy reminded me of yet another Ray Stevens classic:

(direct link to the vid on YouTube)

O’course, Lobo and I never filled the snolfs’ heads with the Santa myth ... and now that they’re old enough, they see the snooping, nannying connection between “Santa” and the state. They don’t care much for either one. :-D

Despite all my whining and complaining here, I do have much to be thankful for. There are now eleven of you regular readers, and you along with the conspirators and others grace this place with your contributions to the conversation. Whenever I start feeling overly sorry for myself, either a snolf comes along and cuddles me or a friend drops a note in my inbox, reminding me that I am not bereft of companionship, nor understanding. Yet, as thankful as I am for the wonderful things in my life, this year I would like to set some intentions ... goals that I plan to be thankful for achieving a year or so from now.

It was twelve years ago—not this date, exactly, but this day, if you follow the distinction I’m drawing—that the Liberty Round Table was born.

Even though I've made bread most of my life, I had a challenge learning how to adapt to a much higher elevation than I was used to. I was having consistent problems with over rising, rising too fast, and large airholes in the bread because of it. I tried lots of things, from reducing the yeast to reducing the temperature, but I couldn't get the slow, steady rise that makes for smooth texture and easy slicing... until now.

I decided to alphabetize by category after all, just to be different. :)

First, let me say that most of my recipes are very simple and plain. I believe strongly in whole foods and natural ingredients, but I do not worry about any particular school of thought as to what foods are "good" or "bad" other than that, and I don't do "organic." If you want to consider that, you just need to find "organic" ingredients or make substitutions where necessary.

For anyone unfamiliar with the acronym FAP, it refers to our satlink provider’s Fair Access Policy—we’re permitted 200MB of data download per “rolling 24 hours”, and if we exceed it, our internet access is severely throttled. As in, below dialup speed throttled.

So yeah, that’s why you didn’t hear from me yesterday. It gave me more space for thinking, however, so I will probably have something somewhat substantive to opine on soon. But not today—in fact, as I type this I am in danger of being left behind. What began as a promise to Snolf the First to take him to a Rush concert has turned into an all-family overnight Rushian adventure. It should be a lot of fun!

Both snolfs like the Asterix and Obelix books, but Snolf the First really enjoys them. He re-reads the books we have regularly, has adopted some of the phrases and mannerisms that run through the books, and has long wanted to have roast boar.

A deceptively simple question, perhaps ... but something I’ve been pondering for quite some time now, actually. It burbled into this question on my recent cross-country drive.

Ignore practical considerations of cost, “relevance”, duplication, etc. What would you focus on in the museum you would love to create?

I’ll provide my answer in the comments, after giving you fine individuals a chance to answer.

With credit (or blame, if you prefer) to MAL for the inspiration, as well as the number one reason.

You know who you are ... and while you may have thought that I wouldn’t say anything publicly because I didn’t ask permission to, you thought wrong. A very happy birthday to you, my dear badger friend, and warm wishes for very many more! I’m sorry I couldn’t bake a cake for the occasion, but I’ve yet to find a cake that travels through the mail well.

[If you’re a regular here, you may well know the individual to whom I am referring. Even if you don’t, what harm can come from wishing another pro-freedom Family member well?]

While I don’t recall ever being this bad, I have come closer to ending up on the floor than perhaps I should admit:



Surely there are some others among y’all who’ll confess to that capturing an element of their being as well ...

Another moment neatly captured by XKCD.

I’ve been so busy making truffles and trying to catch up on other work that I completely forgot to post the obligatory pictures! Here’s the pre-truffle photo, with several of the truffle ingredients shown. Looks like the fun’s about to commence, no?

Each of those big blocks is ten pounds of chocolate. The smaller packs of chocolate, still in their wrappers, are the milk chocolate. Yes, this is the luscious dark milk chocolate I’ve been raving about for a couple of years now—it’s Omanhene chocolate and they do make candy-bar type chocolate and other products. One may browse and buy their goodies online.

Now, what does all this stuff look like when I’m done with it? Peek behind the curtain to see how I decorated each flavor ...

It’s certainly a major victory to be back online after nearly two days! Short story: our satlink company had a regional problem, and when it was “fixed”, that created another problem for a subset of affected customers. Yes, we were among those beset with that second problem. But, after many hours with tech support, our connection was finally restored late yesterday evening ... too late for me to have enough energy to offer my contributions to the party I’d scheduled. But now that I’ve had some time to get things properly set up, I hope it carries on from what was begun on 1/16 ...

Today’s the day Prohibition was overturned ’lo those many years ago. It ain’t much, but in support of Repeal Day, here’s a concoction I’ve been enjoying of late.

In a rocks glass, place a generous pinch of brown sugar; I prefer dark but whatever is on hand will work. Pour a glug of bourbon over it, and swirl to help the sugar dissolve. Then pour in 4-8 oz. of grapefruit juice (not the pink kind), depending on how much bourbon you added and how stiff you want your drink. Add an ice cube or two if desired, and enjoy.