Archive for April, 2008

Missing the Strangest of Things

{ April 22, 2008 @ 3:06 pm } · { Reflexive, Tech, Writing }
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I missed Twitter over the weekend. I’ve barely been using it for two weeks and when it’s not working, I’m sad. It looks like it is finally almost working again, but I don’t want to get too attached or it will go away again. The RSS to the right of this post that has my Tweets in it just started double posting, so things aren’t fully righted quite yet, it seems. This doubling might be Twitter’s fault, or it might be mine because I changed the theme of my blog, but in both cases the services are free to me so I can’t really complain, so I won’t. This is not a complaining post, but rather just an observation of humans interacting.

Tonight is a big night for Barack Obama supporters. I don’t think we actually expect him to win outright in Pennsylvania. We know better than to hope for that, but if he comes close at all to victory, then it should be over for Hillary. She will probably hang on until the end, but I think we all know that this would be one of those blows that results in internal bleeding which really should be looked at by a doctor as opposed to trying to fight on.

How does this apply to Twitter? Well, because events/happenings like tonight or what sounds like happened at SXSW earlier this year are what Twitter seems perfect for. Maybe Twitter was fixed just in time, maybe not. For a site which has no visible business model, we can be thankful it exists at all. Twitter is a strange beast, but even people’s reaction, or lack thereof, to it being wonky, has been the most fascinating part of all.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies Revisited

{ April 18, 2008 @ 12:22 pm } · { Veganism }
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Long ago I mentioned the glory that is a vegan chocolate chip cookie and detailed a very un-detailed, and mostly useless, recipe here. Nowadays, with the amazing cookbooks that are appearing for vegans, it is not hard to find a recipe to try, but this one, which has been posted to the world by the author on her blog, amazed me so much that I had to write about it.

I am here today to tell you, in greater, and hopefully more useful, detail about this recipe that so far has been impossible for me to goof up and with one minor modification makes pretty much the best cookies, eating preferences notwithstanding, I think I have ever eaten, let alone am able to make whenever I want.

Many of you probably already know about this recipe but, for those of you who don’t, the original recipe I have fallen in love with is here, from Dreena Burton’s blog thoughtfully posted from her Vive Le Vegan cookbook.

The variation I have learned to go with, which she mentions later in her post, is to use whole wheat pastry flour, instead of all-purpose, which seems to make all the difference and elevates these cookies to greatness. It gives the overall taste of the cookie that little kick that every good cookie needs to satisfy you, make you want to always come back for more, but so satisfying that eating just one can be soooo good as to keep you from wanting or needing to eat the whole batch in one sitting. Having another cookie to look forward to can become almost zen-like in its motivation with these lovelies. I made a batch with all purpose flour and they just didn’t have that same internal combustion going on.

Besides the whole wheat pastry flour, having molasses (I’ve actually been using bead molasses instead of blackstrap because that’s all I’ve managed to find so far) and pure maple syrup are the only relatively challenging ingredients to acquire.

The only other strange thing I’ve encountered is that the amount of chips in the recipe may be high, because I always have some trying to escape the batter. For a double batch (which is almost mandatory for such a good recipe) the only thing I might change is to use a heaping half cup of chips, rather than 2/3rds of a cup.

What are you waiting for? Bake some of these up now and spread the love.

Run free, little mouse, run free!

{ April 7, 2008 @ 12:27 pm } · { Tech, Veganism }
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The place was infested with mice. What, oh what, to do?

There are several options out there, few of them humane, for trying to deal with little visitors.

A company called Greenfeet has come up with a nifty solution that has worked well for me, at least.

Here is what it looks like in action:

From Flora and Fauna

The little mouse can’t get to the cracker until you let him and ideally you reveal the bait outside far from your home. So far, the mice I have caught haven’t been the smartest ones ever, or were scared out of their minds as mice like to get, and I had to remove the cracker every time before they would leave the green house. They are supposed to chew their way through the cracker when you reveal the exit and run away, or as they seem to around here, hop like miniature kangaroos.  The menagerie gathered so far is up on Picasa.  I sure hope they aren’t all the same mouse!

So, if you don’t like the idea of filling up the landfills with dead mice, then you might want to give this device a try. It takes a little extra work and attention than the other options out there, but the exercise gotten when freeing the little buggers is certainly worth something.

TFTF Resurrection

{ April 7, 2008 @ 12:32 am } · { Reflexive, Tech }
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Took me long enough, but the blog is finally back up.  Perhaps the inevitable springing of spring after the snowiest winter I’ve experienced in a long while has gotten my butt in gear.

I’m just scratching the surface of what is available here on this free hosted solution, but I like what I see so far.  Took less than 5 minutes to sign up and import the old posts.  Certainly wasn’t painful.

Also, went insane the other day and joined twitter for anyone who wants to follow or be followed: my twitter home.