What a wonderful thing it is after a winter of cold to be outside on a day when it feels like spring is finally here to stay. Today was the first day it was warm enough for us to play bike polo outside. Now, it was nice that during the winter we were down in the Thunderdrome, so we could keep playing throughout the cold season, but, man, it felt good to be outside.
I heard of the calendaring utility remind a while back, and always kept wanting to get around to using it, because my system for remembering when to do things is some combination of scraps of paper, datebooks (used for a while until about March each year), notes taped to the back of the apartment door that I stare at when stumbling out to work each morning, random text files and relying on my leaky and sieve-like mind tends to work about as much as you would expect.
Ever since May of 2005 I've had the habit of designating a local coffeeshop as my "Coffeeshop of Record" — it's the place I always hang out at, and my favorite local caffeine establishment. Or, as I sometimes put it, "my drug dealers". Because I'm also that kind of person, I keep statistics of how much I spend there. Shortly after moving to Ypsilanti I designated the Ugly Mug Cafe as my CHoR.
I posted this in responce to a discussion here, and I just had to preserve it here. Using some rough values I found on the Intertoobes [1], one slice of bacon weighs 29 grams and has 12 grams of fat. Those 12 grams of fat will produce 444 kJ of energy. The specific heat of bacon is 1.51 kJ/( kg deg C ), so those 12 grams of fat, if converted perfectly to heat, could raise 294 kg of bacon 1 degree C.
Back in 1990 Arthur C. Clarke had read about a lot of really neat things and really wanted to have a long chat with someone about them. What he did instead was write a novel, and a not very good one at that. In general, I like Clarke's books — the 2001 and Rama series are some of my favorite sci-fi, and favorite books ever. But this really falls short.
I've long been a fan of good strong ginger beer, and after seeing the Good Eats episode on ginger and the relative simplicity of the recipe for making it, I decided the main project this weekend would be to make up a batch. In a saucepan, add one cup water, two cups sugar, and the zest of one lemon. Grate about four thumbs of ginger (I used a microplane grater and didn't bother to peel the ginger), add that.
At the last Shadow Art Fair fellow zinester and all-around good person Linette Lao mentioned that she is teaching a class a EMU this semester, and that she wanted to use a couple issues of Late Night Thinking in the class. She contacted me a while ago to get the zines and also to suggest that I stop by and meet with the class. The class session was today, and it was a good experience.
At work this morning during the monthly Doughnuts with Directors meeting, co-worker Sgt. Steve mentioned that he had read a publisher's notice for a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is apparently Pride and Prejudice with scenes with zombies inserted. This set us off on thinking of other books and movies that could benefit from having zombies added. My favorite of the ones I thought up was The Great Escape and Zombies: picture it, the greatest escape artists of all World War II finally tunnel out of the camp, only to discover that the forest is overrun with zombies.
I love soup. I love crock pots. And I love beans. What better way to combine all three? If you don't own a crock pot, fix this immediately. My thinking is to buy the largest one you can, at least for this --- most soups freeze very well, and I'm a big fan of making giant batches of soup and putting up portions in the freezer. Cover the bottom of your crock pot with about one to two centimeters of dry navy beans.
Feeling that the day was momenteous enough, I took the day off of work to watch all the Inaguration coverage. Part of me is very fascinated by the mechanics, the personal aspects of the transition of power. Do you think there's a moment where the incumbant says to the new office holder "Here's the keys to the private washroom, the toilet runs, just jiggle the handle. We have no idea what this light switch does, so it's probably best if you don't touch it.