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I wish I could email my crock pot and make sure dinner is still cooking, and not combusting.

Pinewood Derby

Over the last few weeks, Trevor and I have been working on his Pinewood Derby car for the race that is taking place today. Here is a picture of what we have been working on.

The car is pretty solid, although two of the wheels wiggle a little bit no matter how much he and I sanded the axles and cleaned the wheels. I am not worried about him winning or losing, I just want him to have a car that runs well so that he has a good time.

I'll post later tonight or tomorrow and let the thronging masses know how he did.

What the?

In a continuing series that Tara has begun "More Signs of the Upcoming Apocalype", I bring you a more local event that is occuring today. This is a sure sign that the Apocalypse is nearing.

Today, January 21st in South Burlington, Vermont it is 54 degrees, Sunny and there is barely a spot of snow on the ground at all. Someone has clearly made God angry, or sacrificed a virgin somewhere in the Greater Burlington area to cause this to happen.

Dunkin Carbs

Today I am sitting at my desk, sipping away at my huge Dunkin Donuts coffee, and feeling like my blood sugar is screaming through the roof. (I was right, 182 ugh) I thought to myself that the only thing I had today that I wasn't sure how many carbs were contained was the coffee I am drinking, since I didn't prepare it myself.

I know that coffe in general has no carbs, but since I didn't know how much cream they put in, I thought I would check their website to see if they have a standard amount listed, so I could figure it out. I was planning on being dissapointed, but instead was pleasantly surpriused.

Beverage Nutritional Facts

Dunkin Donuts includes nutritional information for all of their products, including coffee. (Which theirs has about 3 grams of carbs per serving - This is the reason my sugar was higher than expected! They sweeten their coffee a bit, and a large coffee is a few servings.)

Not only do they list this information, but they also break it out by how you like your coffee, with cream, with milk, with cream and sugar, etc. You get the idea. It's nice to see a company do something not only the right way, but 100% of the way instead of copping out and putting only one listing up there. This is what the web is about. Content. Content. Content.

Gotta go shoot up.

They just keep a-comin'

Sign number 4,390 (of 33,000) of the impending end of the Universe:

Cy, the One-Eyed Kitten stops by for a (brief) visit.

The Little Things.

You've got to take time to enjoy the little things in life...

— the smell of freshly-ground coffee
— the giggle of a seven-year-old

and..

— earning your official eBay turquoise star certificate.

Imagine what a different world it would be if Keats of Longfellow had received their official eBay turquoise star certificate. Would Joseph Stalin have been a more contented person with an official eBay turquoise star certificate? Can we coax Osama Bin Laden out of hiding with the offer of an official eBay turquoise star certificate?

Too much trying.

I tried very hard to like John's book. It was a Jon Stewart recommendation, a gift from Dave and a leisurely evening read. And John tried very hard to make his book funny. All that trying... I think something was lost in the mix.

The lycanthropic tables started to grate on me each time I started a chapter, which didn't put me into a particularly receptive mood for the several-page list of hobo names or the chart of facial hair.

It wasn't completely unfunny—I was particulary tickled by "A woman lives here who likes triangles."— but I felt like I was wading through filler to get to the amusing bits.

I still gave the book four stars at Amazon, because every time I read either an amusing bit or an example of a tedious part to Dave, he laughed out loud and declared he'd read the book next. So perhaps John and I just don't see eye to eye on humor—and he shouldn't be punished for that. This book is an excellent example of what it is; random fake facts. Maybe you'll like it, but I'll be passing it along.

Two more signs...

You know, getting to the final act of an apocalypse is a long and involved process. Most horror movies (and Dan Brown, I bet, too) would have you believe that opening a vial of some deadly bioweapon or summoning four skeletal horsemen in an ancient temple will do it... not so.

There are over thirty-three thousand universally agreed-upon signs of the apocalypse. (Universally agreed-upon by the large body of apocalypse scholars worldwide at our annual conference: Is It Over Yet? Unfortunately, the 2005 event was slightly marred by a miscommunication in which Tom DeLay was accidentally booked as the keynote speaker; however, after careful consultation of the 33,000 omens of doom, it was deemed, as we say in the business, "just fine", as Rep. DeLay has his own little part to play in the demise of our species.)

I have personally catalogued 1,588 of these omens for my upcoming book: "The Apocalypse and You: Perfect Together" (working title, which may change to "The Apocalypse: We'll win you over," we also toyed with "The Apocalypse is for Lovers" and "Apocalypse: Live Free or Die").

So let's all give a mighty shout-out for the destruction of all civilization as we count down #1,249 and #24,687 on the Rockin' Revelations Eve Chart:

Electronic devices spontaneously turning into flesh.

And the shocking newcomer...

Potty Time Elmo asking children if they would like to die.

Though we of the apocalyptic studies field appreciate the subtlety of the former portent, you'll agree that the latter sign, though heavy-handed and amateurish, shows good potential and taps an entirely new market for apocalypic harbingers—toddlers in diapers. This kind of niche marketing for Doomsday is as-yet untried, and may result in a great word-of-mouth campaign among the 18-24 month demographic.

That concludes this week's installment of Fun with the End of the World. Join us next week when we explore the gravitational effects of meat rocks and the implications of the premature graying of Anderson Cooper's hair.

Third Batch

More notes for me. Ignore at will.

The Ethiopian Wet-Processed Sidamo turned out to be almost as smooth as the first batch, but not quite as "sweet". It had more of a mellow flavor (I think).

After killing two pots of that, I fired up the popper one more time and tried out the Mbaranga - Kenyan AA so that I would have coffee for the week without having to roast during the week. This stuff let off very little smoke and after running one batch outside, we roasted the second batch in the house with better success. It reached first crack in approximately three minutes and then was done by the 9 minute mark. All in all, a solid bean but not my favorite to date.

The big lesson learned for this batch was that I finally started hearing the second crack. This is important because this is a key device in determining what kind of roast the coffee has attained. Once you begin to hear the second crack, you have passed a City or Light City roast and are heading into a Full City roast. After the second crack goes on for 10 seconds or more, you are starting to literally burn the bean and head towards a Vienna or light French roast.

For most people (me included) this is not such a bad thing. That said, as I am spending more time with the coffee, I am finding that the lighter roasts actually allow you to taste more of the bean and less of the roast, which I like.

Sony's Sorry

Someone please tell me how to get in on this settlement, because my Switchfoot CD did all kinds of nasty things to my PC.

And I thought they were Christians...feh.