Stupid blogger

seems to be kaput today. I'd planned to post about the baking I did this weekend, but it won't allow me to include photos today (and the editing buttons have completely disappeared too). Well, I'll post the entry and try and edit to add photos tomorrow.

I was in the mood to bake again this Sunday afternoon, and once I got started I just kept going. The good thing is that I have had enough to last me all week, which helps with the last-minute-morning-rush.
I started with the oatmeal bread (again from the More-with-less cookbook), which I'd made a few years ago and tried again. It has a nice flavour, and I've been enjoying it. I was thinking of making some rye bread, but there was no rye flour to be found anywhere in the grocery store (though they do have more unusual stuff like teff or spelt flour. go figure).
I then made the carrot-raisin muffins from VWAV, and while looking for that recipe, saw one for orange-glazed scones that looked good too, so I made those as well. I'm running really low on flour, so unless I buy some brandname stuff (and find some free time in the next week, which is highly unlikely) I won't be doing much baking until I can make it to the city and buy more organic flour (and 57 other ingredients).

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried...

The Stealthy Insect Sensor Project. Methinks someone's been watching a bit too much late-night sci-fi programming.

Yet another reason to be vegetarian

Red Meat link to breast cancers
Of course the meat industry types are quick to play down the risk, or to acknowledge that feeding growth hormones to animals has any impact. This study was done in the US and, as the BBC points out, animals in the US are treated with growth hormones which are not allowed in the UK/Europe. It'd be interesting to see a similar longitudinal study done in Europe to see if the lack of growth hormones has any effect. Of course, what's the chance that the American beef/meat industry would be willing to lose a few cents profit for the sake of their consumers' health?

12 days of Christmas

All you need to prove your affection to your True Love is a measly $85,233.What a bargain.

Christmas cards

In the past few days, I've received a couple of emails/IMs to confirm my current mailing address, presumably for The Great Card-mailing Lists. This has made me wonder where the tradition of sending cards originated (yes, I'm sure I could look it up on wikipedia but where's the fun in that if I can just randomly speculate?). It's nice to hear from people from time to time, and to hear updates from those keen enough to write Annual Letters (I am not one of those people), but what I find interesting is that (other than family) the few cards I receive tend to be from non-believers, who obviously feel that Christmas (or the generic "the holidays") is a time for family/friends (and it is nice to be remembered).

The cynic in me wonders if the whole concept of Christmas cards was invented by the consumer industry, along with the ridiculous pressure associated with Christmas gifts and consumerism and spending!money! that are so far removed from the story of God in human form (and a peasant human who taught a lot more about compassion than about the accumulation of wealth and stuff) that it is really rather absurd.

Mmm, cupcakes

I made the Gingerbread cupcakes (with real crystalized ginger, mind you) with Lemony buttercream frosting (yup, real lemon zest there too) today for an early Christmas get-together hosted by a friend. They were really delicious, and quite the hit. Vegan Cupcakes *will* take over the world, I'm sure of it!
(I forgot to take a pic, though, and now they're all gone - guess I'll have to bake them again...)

Reconnecting

In the spirit of the holiday south of the border, I'm thankful for all the friends I've met online over the years. Even though I've lost touch with some of them, it's still a pleasant surprise to reconnect from time to time. Just this evening, I got an IM from an old friend with whom I hadn't spoken in ages, possibly a couple years, and we ended up chatting for quite a while. Yay, internets.

Since I have so much spare time...

I've been hearing good things about the new TV show Heroes, and decided to check it out. I just watched this week's episode, and was sufficiently intrigued to tune in again next week. Just what I need - another show to watch. Of course, I am so sick of most of the shows that I used to enjoy that have now become repetitive/boring/ridiculous, so maybe I'll finally get around to dropping some of them for good in exchange for a new one.

Yesterday's post

I was working last night and didn't get a chance to blog, but here's an interesting post that caught my eye yesterday.

Rick Mercer (sort of like a Canadian Jon Stewart for the non-Canandians out there) is co-chairing a campaign called Spread the Net with interesting focus - to help prevent the spread of malaria by providing mosquito nets to African families with small children. It's an interesting project, and it's great to see more attention paid to one of the great killers of children worldwide that receives far too little attention from the Western media.

Falling off the bandwagon

I was out of town for nearly a week (work, then a church-related camp weekend with 100 teens) with minimal internet time, so sadly fell behind on the blogging. Maybe I'll extend the streak into December to compensate for that break.

I decided to bake bread yesterday (not sure where that whim came from), and baked a couple loaves of French bread that turned out pretty well, if I may say so myself. I used a recipe from the More with Less cookbook, and the only modification necessary was to use soy milk/canola oil instead of milk/egg for the glaze. As with most breads, it tasted a bit yeast-y yesterday, but has a nice flavour today, as evidenced by the fact that I've had ... a few ... pieces for "supper" (or whatever you call it when you finally eat at 10pm).

earworm

I'm singing with a community choir that will be doing a Christmas concert in a few weeks, and we had a practice earlier this evening. Of course this means that one of the songs ('Twas in the Moon of Wintertime/The Huron Carol) has taken up residence as the earworm du jour since then. Oh well, at least it's a song that I've always liked and am not yet sick of it despite the repetition and practices.

What does it mean to be human?

I came accross this article on from BBCnews the other day (Plan to create human-cow embryos), and am disturbed by the implications. If we as humans are able to create a inter-species chimera, where is the line to be drawn? This team proposes to create (and then destroy) embryos, but how long will it be before another group (legitimate or not) proposes to allow development to continue - what then? It seems as though the creations of science-fiction writers were eerily prescient ... how long until we as a race create a Frankenstein or a Cylon? I'm not able ot full formulate my thoughts on this subject quite yet, but it could certainly lead to some deep contemplation about the Big Questions, couldn't it?

Accomplishments

1) Cupcakes were baked and frosted (for a church potluck tomorrow).

I taste-tested one of the vanilla ones (and some of the batter and icing...) and declare them a success. I just got a new cookbook (Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World) and am excited to try out the various options. I don't have some of the ingredients called for for some of the funkier flavours, so I started with the vanilla and chocolate ones. I'm thinking of making the Chai Latte ones tomorrow.

2) Sunny Corn-Blueberry Muffins were also baked (from Vegan with a Vengeance, the precursor to VCTOTW). Also quite yummy

3) Did dishes after the first few batches. Not so much after the muffins and frosting. Man~ana (not sure how to get the Spanish characters on here, since that's one of about three words that I know in Spanish).

4) Worked on catching up on episodes of TV shows I'd missed that were cluttering up my DVR, including a few eps of Grey's Anatomy, and one each of Gilmore Girls and Lost. Not really loving any of the above this year, which might account for the fact that they hadn't yet been watched. Maybe I'm getting picky, but the only shows I'm really excited about this season are BSG, and maybe TAR. The rest I'm still watching, but not loving.

5) Made progress on a knitting project while watching the above. It's a gift, so once it's finished and delivered to the recipient, I might post photos.

6) Sleep! Slept in, and off to sleep again. Yes, my life is boring.

Success!

Drano 1, Swamp Creature 0

Yeah, I know that's quite possibly the dullest blog post of all time, but that's all I've got for today. That's what a long night/short nap/minimal brainpower day will give you. I have high hopes of actually Accomplishing Things tomorrow.

(Oh, and I'm totally counting the just-after-midnight posts as belonging to the preceding day).

Wishing I had my camera here

I'm stuck at work tonight, but since I'm here posting it's obvious that it's not too busy. This is an building that's seen better decades (to put it mildly), and outside my office window is the flat roof for an extension of the main floor. For the past week or so, various maintenance/contractor-type guys have been working out there trying to fix a leak with minimal success. Tonight, they've got a tarp up, and there's a guy with a blow torch who seems to be melting some sort of tarpaper onto the roof, and there are all kinds of cool flame colours. Probably not quite as exciting as hotair balloons, but it could make for a cool shot. If, you know, I had a camera, which I do not. *sigh*

Swamp Creature

There's something nasty in my sink drain, and it looks like something that could be the subject of a horror film. Let me see ... Attack of the Toothpaste-bound Hairball. Well, maybe not a horror film, but it sounds about right for the next case for Encyclopedia Brown or the Bobbsey Twins. Is either series even being written anymore, or am I revealing my age with those references?
Nope, looks like both are still being published. Guess I can't be that old, then, if at least some of the books I remember from my childhood are still in existence. Of course, I had the oldskool Bobbsey Twins books, the hardcover ones with the purple binding, that I'd inherited from my aunt.

Thinking back to that series as an adult, I'm mildly horrified at the inherent acceptance of racism and social division, with the black maid/servant couple. How exactly did a middle class family get the money for a pair of servants and various exotic trips? The series was one of the first that I really got into as a 7/8-year-old, so much so that I wrote a Bobbsey-style story for a writing assignment in grade 3. I guess I did a good job of imitating the style (the opening chapters were rather formulaic), as one of my classmates tried to convince the teacher that I'd plagiarized the whole thing...

A faint glimmer of hope on the horizon...

...the southern horizon, that is. Not only did both levels of Congress come under Democrat control, but Rummy's out of a job. Maybe it is a democracy afterall, not just a one-party state controlled by a small group of power-mongers, and we all know what happens to them ... Now if only there was some way that this national awakening could have happened 4 or 6 years ago, and the just maybe the rest of us wouldn't have been dragged into these various messes.

Our political system isn't perfect either, but the more I read about this election south of the border, the more I am grateful for a truly multi-party system, limits to campaign financing and special-interest contributions, and a well-organized national elections bureau that has ensured that I've never had to wait in line longer than a minute or two when I've gone to vote. Yup, I'm still proud to be a Canadian.

But I refuse to accept any responsibilty for Celine Dion. Y'all can have her.

Is it possible to penetrate the La-La-land bubble?

Has no one in the TV industry ever set foot outside of LA into the real world? Ever? No one in the real world would be out wandering about (and watching a rugby match) in a lightweight dress without a jacket in New England in November. Yes, Gilmore Girls, I'm looking at you. Not that I've actually ever visited Connecticut, but NOAA tells me that the forecasted low for this Friday is 38degreesF. That is not jacket-free weather.

Of course, I don't know why I've expended the energy to care about that insignificant detail, when the entire episode from beginning to end sucked. I suppose it's easier to rant about something concrete than to admit that the entire show is a tired and forced attempt to recreate what once was, and it's not working. The characters are no longer cute and quirky, they're obnoxious, needy, and if I knew them in real life, I'd be telling them to get over themselves. Except maybe Lane, and she's been sadly MIA this season. I am *this close* to removing the show from my DVR's series recording list.

And on a marginally-related topic, the "shaved head" wig they've been using on Veronica Mars is so horribly fake. It looks like they've used the same one for both the Parker and Claire characters, and it's like a blonde-coloured rug of curly fibres, while the shavees supposedly had straight hair beforehand. I've seen enough shaved heads (including a whole group of people I know who got their heads shaved at a cancer fundraiser this spring) to say that that is the fakest looking hair I've ever seen. Well, at least the storyline doesn't make me want to reach through the TV and throttle each and every character, so at least there's something for the "Pro" column.

Small steps

My list of Things I Should Do is longer than I'd like, and more often than not I find myself lacking the energy or motivation to do something about it. This is only day two of this little project and I already found myself wondering what I was thinking, since my life isn't really that exciting to find something to write about on a daily basis.

So the fact that I actually accomplished something on The List is a step in the right direction. Of course, said step was to finally get around to touching up my hair colour, which should have been done about two weeks ago as some nasty roots were showing, but see above re: motivation. Who needs to put in the effort when you can pretend to hide the evidence by wearing your hair up or wearing a hairscarf? Yeah, I don't know if I was fooling anyone. At least those annoying grey roots are hidden out of sight again for a few more weeks.

NaBloPoMo

I just came upon this, the non-novel-writer's version of NaNoWriMo. I have no particular desire to write a novel, and highly doubt I'd be able to corral my highly honed procrastinating skills for a whole month to do so, but I just might be able to accomplish this. Since I'm starting late, there's no prize other than a personal sense of accomplishment at having finally written something on this blog. I've had vague thoughts from time to time that I should actually write something here, but ... well, y'all can do the math.

With that out of the way, here's my I Wish I Had My Camera moment for the week:
I had just come out of one of the shops in town and was getting into my vehicle when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big black head poking out of the truck parked next to me. I took another look, expecting it to be a dog of some sort. Instead, it was a huge black bird (a raven, I presume) who cocked his head at me, then went back to pecking away at the garbage bag in the truck bed. Moral of the story (other than to never leave home without a camera, that is)? Don't stop on the way to the dump, or a hungry raven will make a big mess in your truck while searching for his dinner.