random Friday thoughts

signs of the times
I missed out on the Cookie Monster becoming politically correct, or more to the point, health conscious. I see how and why he was made to change- role model for children, etc etc but I think it's taking it a bit far. This is a hilarious 'interview' between Cookie and Stephen Colbert.

makes me want to vom
Potted meat, pickled pork rind, fermented soy beans, fungus-infected corn kernels, EEEEEW! I can't believe that people eat this stuff, let alone that one man is crazy enough to try it all. I'm sure as hell not putting up any pics.

skeletal art

Ever wonder what bugs bunny's skeleton would look like? Or other cartoon characters for that matter? Well here is your answer.

link-tastic Tuesday

I've been collecting a veritable smorgasbord of links over the past week or so as I've been stumbling and now that the list has reached almost epic proportions, I've decided it's time to just cut to the chase and blog 'em. Clicking on the images should take you through to the websites.

discworld geek it up

I love geeks, just lovelovelove them.


How amazingly cool are these wooden toys? They're Japanese. I want one. Hell, I want them all.



lego imitates art



I'm very into my doodling at the moment. I'm finding it a great way to switch off my brain when I need a break, it gets the hands moving again and stretches my creative muscles. I like these doodles. Also, for those who haven't noticed that I've updated my links and recommended blogs, check out doodlage. It's fly.

This made me smile:


As did this:


As did these:




And there's plenty more where that came from...

the picture says it all

list-a-mundo

I know I have things in common with my friends, hell I wouldn't be friends with them if we had nothing in common but sometimes the points of commonality surprise me. Like a fondness for lists. I'm all about the list. Over the past year or so I have been fighting it a bit- given my OCD tendencies, I figured some living-life-on-the-edge and sans-list would be good for my spontaneity and on the whole I've lived relatively list-free but now my days in the UK are numbered and I have a lot of things to do so it's all about the list now.

Having returned to 90% full list-ability, I am becoming more aware of fellow list writers around me. Take my boss for instance. If I thought I was all about the list, I have nothing on her. In full-blown times of lots-to-do, this woman has sub-lists. And geek that I am, I don't mock, oh no, I'm in awe.

My sister, her friend, and I will be spending a week traveling around Venice and Rome later this year and I found out totally by accident that Amy-san is also (in retrospect I shouldn't be surprised) all about the list. As is my sister. It's glorious. We may just go list-tastic in Italy.

I have also spent some time this morning catching up on blogs I haven't read in ages and upon skimming Hong Kong Ham I found a tonne of them. You could call it bullet-pointing but the spirit of the list is still there. And as Hamish wrote Um, what do I usually do in these situations? Write a list of favourite things, of course.. Again, there should be no surprise here, I worked with the guy for a year.

I have no real idea why this commonality of pro-list-ness makes me feel comforted but it does. Maybe it's because:
1- I like having something in common with ppl.
2- If other ppl write lists, maybe my list writing isn't OCD*
3- Being organised is good

*I'm starting to think that I mention my OCD tendencies a bit too much on this blog. Some people might think I have a fo' real problem. I don't. I'm normal. Really. Plus I figure if I can fight it, then it isn't a real problem.

the stuff Fridays are made of

I checked my Dad's blog this morning and the entry, Young man stabbed in 'potato peeler game' was all that I could possibly have asked for for a Friday morning. I was laughing out loud (I have a rather warped sense of humour). He's got the full thing on his blog, check it out.

cupcakes on the brain

some people have waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time on their hands.....

This guy has geekishly embellished lots of Mr. PotatoHeads in various sci-fi/comic/fantasy themes. I'm not gonna bother to ask why but if you want to check out a slide show of them all, just click here.

made for me?
At the moment it seems like I don't even have to search for cupcake-related items, they just find me. Click on the images for links to the Etsy pages.


I know these aren't cupcakes but they're just so gosh-darn cute.


also cool...

This skirt is cute. And she has several variations on these theme, all charming. I may appropriate this idea....

procrastination

I'm not entirely sure why it's taking me so long to get my portfolio together. It's about half-way done and the bit that isn't done is the one that involves actually having to narrow down choices of layouts from my time at DIVE (as well as dredging up various marketing bits and pieces that I've done) and maybe that's the bit that's putting me off. So to avoid this but to still feel like I'm doing something, I've pretty much nailed my packing. I've sorted stuff into ship it/keep it/chuck it and this morning I called up the shipping company, put down a deposit and ordered boxes. So one major headache is practically finished. Now I just need to deal with the portfolio. Oh, I remember now- it's not just as simple as making a PDF of my portfolio, ideally I need to update my website HEADACHE and make a hard-copy version as well. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! I imagine I'll be in at work on my bank holiday Monday doing it. I keep bribing myself with the prospect of how much better I'll feel once it's out of the way.

Olympic Fever

How on earth does anyone get any work done with the Olympic on? HOW?!

I have the day off work today. My plan was to sort out stuff in my room to give me an idea of volume and what I need to ship, what I'm keeping until I stay and what goes to friends or charity. Well I did some in the morning, went out and got some groceries, came back and doodled for quite a while (but I consider this productive as it's creative) and then made the mistake of turning on the tele. I was going to watch one of my rental DVDs that had arrived but I saw that the Olympics was on. I haven't caught any of it prior to this. Partially, I was staying away because I remember my tendency to get hooked on it and boy oh boy was I right. I came in at the end of the women's whatever-horrible-distance-run and was actually crying when the lady won. Since then I have spent the last almost 2 hours watching weight lifting, diving prelims, gymnastic and now table tennis. I can't seem to stop myself taking part- I yell at the weight lifters (they're totally listening to me and not their coaches), I hold my breath with the divers and gymnasts- I'm there.

So, unfortunately, is my room. I woudl like to feel by the end of today that I know roughly how much of what I will be keeping/taking/chucking. I may just have to turn off the tele and walk away....

Fort Du Guesclin

So I guess you guys would like to see some pictures from my weekend on an island fort huh? It looked an awful lot like NZ to me and made me a bit I'm-missing-home-ish. But here are the pics:

mocha cupcakes

And this one I did make.


INGREDIENTS
2tbsp instant coffee powder
85g butter
85g cater sugar
1tbsp clear honey
200ml water
225g plain flour
2tbsp cocoa powder
1tsp baking soda
3tbsp milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten

• preheat oven to 180˚C (I put them on 160˚C for my gas oven). Put 20 small paper baking cases in 2 bun trays.

• put coffee powder, butter, sugar, honey and water in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring until sugar has dissloved. Bring to boil, then reduce hear and simmer for 5 mins. Pour into a large heatproof dish and leave to cool.

• when mixture has cooled, sift in flour and cocoa powder. Dossolve the baking soda in the milk, then add to teh mixture with teh egg and beat together until smooth. Spoon mixture into paper cases.

• bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for 15-20 mins (I only needed 10 mins in my fan oven!) until well risen and firm to touch. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

To top these, they recommend whipped cream but I used a chocolate icing from a different recipe:

ICING:
85g butter, softened
175g icing sugar
25g dark choccie, melted

Put butter in a bowl and beat until fluffy. Sift in the icing sugar and beat together until smooth. Add melted chocolate and beat together until well mixed. (I had to add a little bit of water as well to get it to a consistency that was good to drop onto the cupcakes but I did that right at the end.) I then grated some white chocolate and sprinkled that on top.

obsession

*
Those who know me well enough will be well aware of my slight propensity for OCD. Those who know me well enough will also be polite enough to stop laughing at that potentially mild understatement. Well right now my obsessive gaze has turned to that which I had previously scorned- the cupcake.

I can't seem to help myself, I mean they're amazing- it's a mini cake and there is SO much potential for art and beauty and you don't have to commit to the size of a whole cake and can have so many variations in one batch. I'm hooked. So in my spare time, instead of updating my portfolio (must crack on with that, I have started, really I have), I'm scouting the web for cupcake images to get inspiration. The contents of the cupcake are pretty much 2nd priority for me, my obsession is the decoration. And it seems I am not the only one out there. For that matter I'm not the biggest cupcake freak by any stretch of the imagination. There are some total and utter cupcake fruitloops out there. I was looking into the difference between cupcakes and muffins and came across this blog. There is a full blown debate in the comments here about what makes a cupcake or a muffin. I was nearly crying from laughter at one point. Among the more impassioned comments were:

Fuck you. If you put frosting on a muffin it becomes a cupcake. Why is that so fucking difficult. No matter what a frosted muffin is a cupcake. But an unfrosted cupcake, becomes cake.

HILARIOUS! I did however find the answer to please me and put my mind at rest:

Muffins are regularly frosted in Australia, and can be either sweet or savoury, however, they are still muffins.

Generally muffins are larger than cupcakes and will always have a more bread like texture.

The difference is in the making process.

As muffins are not beaten, but rather, ingredients are gently 'folded' during the making, the gluten strand of the flour does not break down and they have a more bread like texture.

Cupcakes are made with a cake mix, beaten until smooth and the gluten strand is ripped to pieces, so you get a smoother crumblier texture.

Either can be dry or moist, frosted or not, big or small.

But generally cupcakes are sweeter, frosted and a great quick bite size treat, making them very popular with children.

And if you want to see a tonne of cupcake pics, check this out.

And on a non-cupcake note, just as I seem to have a knack for finding random pictures of things and weird websites, my father seems to have a knack for weird news stories. His latest post is a mine field of things from interesting to downright surreal. Check it out.

*Again, not cupcakes made by moi.

food art

I'm off to Brittany tomorrow so won't be blogging for a few days but I'll leave you guys with this.

You can find more here or if you want something more science geeky, there are also some earthy ones. Awesome.

bar raising

DISCLAIMER: I DID NOT MAKE THIS CUPCAKE.


Well not yet anyway. But superübermega cool an idea is this. I am going to have to try it, or at least something very similar. I'm wondering if I can utilise this idea to make other types of flowers. Like maybe cutting out pink ice cream wafers and using pink icing to make something like a gerbera or a daisy. And how about just using giant Pebbles/Smarties with black icing to make larger ladybugs? Sooooooooooo many possibilities. I'm away this weekend but I think my Banker (Aug 23-25) may be spent in the kitchen getting creative. I can't wait!

smorgasbord

I have all these drafts kicking around so have decided to tidy up and shove them all together in one entry so it's a bit of a mixed bag for this entry folks. Or, to make it seem more intentional, a little something for everyone.

beaker sings ode to joy
I always had a soft spot for Beaker, I'm not exactly sure why. I think maybe it's the whole speechless and easily frazzled thing. He's so cute when he panics!


This t-shirt design is just cool. Aaah good old subversive-ism.


Geek bling!

So awesome. I'm all about celebrating the inner geek and this stuff even looks pretty.

Ever since coming to the UK and being exposed to a record number of tea drinkers, (many who want a cup at the same time and all have slightly different preferences), I have maintained that they should specify their tea colour in a Pantone manner to ensure accuracy. (I work in publishing, Pantone geek jokes are acceptable.) So when I came across this blog entry, I was pleased to see that I wasn't the only OCD ideas man out there.

This is one of the coolest (I'm using that word a lot this entry.... Hmmmm.....) websites I've come across in a while. Each section has a unique way of merging into the next and it's incredibly well thought out as well as being funny and creative. Can you find all five secrets? I have but can't activate one. Pooey.

And this? Well this I stumbled across and thought it was both sad and cool.


And last but not least, a pic of moi. My friend had a birthday at the Rollerdisco at the weekend. About 10 of us headed along together and everyone embraced the kitsch-arama 70's/80's dress-up spirit. It was enormous fun and being back on rollerskates (I was quite the rollerskater in my youth)was enormous fun. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the dress-up as well. I haven't used that much hairspray in, well, forever. Apart from maybe dance recitals, those were all about the hairspray.

WARNING: this may be offensive to the religious people out there

My friends over here are great ones for forwarded emails of the fluffy variety that are potentially chain letter-esque. I haven't yet gathered up the heart to tell them that I HATE this kind of crap. 10 things that make a great friend, 25 ways to bring warmth and light to someone's day. Blah blah woof woof hatehatehatehatehate. Especially as most of these supposedly altruistic emails usually end in something like, "Forward this to your 10 closest friends, including the person who sent this to you so they will know they are loved and appreciated." Or some such bullshit. It really grates on my nerves. Can you tell?

I also have some friends who are whatever degree of 'religious'. Now this is not an issue amongst us although I highly suspect they might have some issue with existentialism and I don't abuse them when one of these forwarded spam pieces of crap has religious overtones or ends in 'God Bless'. I understand the spirit in which it was sent so that's fine. But this morning I got one which nearly made me go on a rant:

CELL PHONE vs. BIBLE

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone?
What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?
What if we gave it to Kids as gifts?
What if we used it when we travelled?
What if we used it in case of emergency?
This is something to make you go..hmm. Where is my Bible?
Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cell phone, we don't have to worry about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill.
Makes you stop and think "where are my priorities?"
NO REJECTED calls!
NO FLAT BATTERY!!!!
NO "pls call me's" coz He will call on you ALL THE TIME!!!!
P.S. DO WHAT YOU THINK GOD WOULD WANT YOU TO DO WITH THIS E-MAIL.

I'm sorry but WTF?!? Let's ignore my standard grammatical Nazi issues with liberal usage of block caps and exclamation marks. My instant reaction? I'll tell you exactly what God can do with this email.... But it's not God's fault that someone wrote this unbelievably stupid (and is it just me or potentially Evangelically toned message? I mean "we don't have to worry about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill" WTF? Is anyone else laughing?) message and that someone else forwarded it on under the mistaken impression that I might appreciate it.

And if perchance the person who sent this message to me reads this (and the likelihood is VERY LOW) well I'm very sorry for not having the spine to say all this to your face. But I'm sure God will forgive me.