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  • Chocolate Crackles

    This is probably my favorite cookie recipe ever. They are just so addicting once you start eating them.

    Chocolate Crackles

    (Moist, Fudgy Type Cookies)

    • 4 squares unsweetened chocolate
    • 1/2 cup salad oil
    • 2 cups granulated sugar
    • 4 eggs, unbeaten
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla
    • 2 cups sifted flour
    • 2 teaspoons baking powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • (1/2 cup walnuts optional, we’ve never made it with them)
    • 1 cup powdered sugar

    Melt chocolate in top of double boiler. Remove from water and let chocolate cool some. Blend in oil and sugar and add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add vanilla. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Stir into chocolate mixture. Add nuts (ew) and mix thoroughly. Chill soft dough for several hours or overnight. Shape into small balls and roll in powdered sugar. bake on greased baking sheet at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. The powdered sugar coating will crack apart, giving an interesting effect. Makes 6 dozen small cookies.

  • Yes

    Yes, I am still alive. I’ve just been busy. I’ll post more tomorrow.

  • Would You Let Your Kid Go?

    From CNN.com:

    Jackson hosts 200 kids at Neverland party

    LOS OLIVOS, California (AP) — Christmas came early for some 200 children who got to play at Michael Jackson’s amusement park and meet Santa Claus.

    “I hope you have a wonderful day. Merry Christmas. I love you,” the pop singer called out to the children Friday from the driveway of his estate.

    Jackson, who faces trial next year on child molestation charges, appeared happy during the few minutes he spoke to the arriving throng.

    One of the youngsters shouted, “We love you.”

    “I love you more,” Jackson replied before putting an umbrella over his head and walking back toward his house. [cnn.com]

    If I was a parent I’m not sure I’d want my kids going anywhere near him.

  • A Gingerbread Day

    Today we’re making gingerbread houses. It’s a tradition that my mom has some friends over and they make them every year. I’m most likely going to be working on one, but for the moment have been busy taking pictures of the houses as they are constructed and decorated. I’ll be posting to Flickr once they are done.

  • Oh. My. God.

    Okay, someone needs to stop coming up with ideas for reality shows. This is getting ridiculous.

    New Fox Show: Adoptee IDs dad for $100K

    NEW YORK (AP) — The Fox network said Tuesday it will air a special next month, “Who’s Your Daddy?”, where a daughter given up for adoption as an infant attempts to guess the identity of her birth father for a $100,000 prize.

    Activists in the adoption community immediately attacked the special, which will air for 90 minutes on January 3.[cnn.com]

    I don’t even want to think about what will be next.

  • Anime Bread

    So I’ve seen anime with giant robots, anime about baseball, anime about playing Go, and anime about tennis (to name a few). But I never thought I’d see one about baking bread. Yakitate!! Japan is about Kazuma and his quest to make a national bread for Japan. He figures that since many other countries have types of bread they are known for, Japan needs one too. He’s also blessed with ‘Solar Hands’, which are abnormally warm and help make the bread rise faster after kneading.

    Yakitate-1

    This show is just too much fun. They’ve compensated for bread not being the most exciting topic by making it insanely over the top. The main character’s bread seems to be so good that it makes the people tasting it hallucinate. For instance, when tasting a bread he made with goats milk butter one character hallucinated flying through space to the constellation Capricorn. But mixed in with all the over the top antics are little bits of information about baking bread (I think most of it is fairly accurate).

    Now here’s a chance for anime to break a bit more into the mainstream. It could be on FoodTV. It was be a perfect match! And finally a show I can share with my mom (who used to teach a bread baking class).

  • Anime Bread

    So I’ve seen anime with giant robots, anime about baseball, anime about playing Go, and anime about tennis (to name a few). But I never thought I’d see one about baking bread. Yakitate!! Japan is about Kazuma and his quest to make a national bread for Japan. He figures that since many other countries have types of bread they are known for, Japan needs one too. He’s also blessed with ‘Solar Hands’, which are abnormally warm and help make the bread rise faster after kneading.

    Yakitate

    This show is just too much fun. They’ve compensated for bread not being the most exciting topic by making it insanely over the top. The main character’s bread seems to be so good that it makes the people tasting it hallucinate. For instance, when tasting a bread he made with goats milk butter one character hallucinated flying through space to the constellation Capricorn. But mixed in with all the over the top antics are little bits of information about baking bread (I think most of it is fairly accurate).

    Now here’s a chance for anime to break a bit more into the mainstream. It could be on FoodTV. It was be a perfect match!

  • World of Warcraft, First Impressions

    World of WarcraftSo I finally gave into the whole MMORPG craze. I’d played a bit of Asheron’s Call back when it was in Beta and enjoyed it. And even played a tiny bit when it was released, but it never really sucked me in that much. But I have a good number of friends playing World of Warcraft, and it’s one of the few games I can play on the Mac and still be able to play with them.

    First off. Big high-5 to Blizzard for releasing a game that runs on both Mac and PC beautifully. More companies need to do this. I have no idea how much extra effort it requires on their part but they really do a great job. Thank you for giving me something cool to play while all my friends are off playing CoH.

    So, about the game. It’s beautiful. I took some screenshots that are okay, but nothing as nice as some of the ones shown on the World of Warcraft site. The colors are vivid and for the first hour or so that I played the game i just kept looking all around me. I can’t wait to explore more and see what kinds of places I can find.

    World of Warcraft - screenshot 2
    Next, gameplay. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this game was easy to learn. I saw the manual that came with the the game and was a little nervous at first. It’s not huge, but it just looked like there was so much to learn. So, in proper geek form I just dove right into the game. After about 10 min I created my character and was on my first quest.

    So far, I love the game. As I play a bit more and get a little deeper into it I’ll report back with more details. The screenshots are hosted at Flickr, and there is one other up there.

  • Would You?

    Marcus Ranum asks “Would you outsource your data center to Baghdad?“

    As I am writing this, US Marines and Iraqi troops are engaged in pacification operations (the nice word for “blowing the snot out of any resistance”) in the Iraqi town of Falluja. Perhaps by the time you read this Iraq will be a peaceful, stable democracy that offers a great climate for business, so this editorial might go out of date fairly quickly. Somehow, unfortunately, I doubt it. I suspect the climate for business in Iraq is going to be poor for the next few years, at least. So, mister CTO – would you outsource your data center to Baghdad?

    It’s an interesting read and something to think about. What country do you think you’d want to outsource stuff to?

  • QOTD 12/6/2004

    Mark Twain
    “I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.” [via Quotes of the Day]