I should be cooking right now, but I’m not done with my coffee and I have a cat on my lap. So I guess I can be forgiven. Let’s see… I’m thinking maybe cheesecake today, and cookies. Possibly lemon curd if I still have energy after that. I’m sending my husband out for a few last ingredients today as well–some coconut milk and marsala wine.
Okay, thanks(?) to StumbleUpon I came across this disturbingly entertaining little game: Albino Vampire Baby Freaks. I have yet to figure out how half of it works, but it’s just so damn hysterical that I don’t care. I got at least one friend addicted to it already. Make sure to read the little bit of background on it, because it’s really silly and fun.
Now we’re all sitting around and groaning. Every time Bev comes into town we use it as an excuse to go to Outback, so we’re all over-full of dead cow. I should be starting in on some turkey day cooking (we did the last of our grocery shopping this morning, and our fridge is literally stuffed full), but I’m too stuffed.
I expect there won’t be a whole lot appearing from me this week, since I’ll be cooking and hanging out with our visitor. Maybe occasional updates on the flurry of cooking. Have fun!
I have a ton of recipes picked out now, carefully calculated to allow me to review as many cookbooks as possible, naturally! This is going to seem like an awful lot, but we tend to live off of our Thanksgiving menu for the week before and after the event, and we also tend to freeze extras for delicious leftovers during December. Finally, I’m sure we’ll freeze some biscuits, cookies and the like and bring them along to our next D&D run!
I debated whether or not to rewrite this old post from my last blog since I’m not on a pvp server any more, but some folks found it useful, so what the heck. I’m updating it to include a few clarified thoughts and responses to issues people have raised.
In slightly different news, the Thanksgiving cooking has finally begun here. I made white chocolate ice cream from one of those review books. YUM! It’s incredibly good, so I have high hopes for this cookbook now. Of course, admittedly it’s from Chronicle Books. I only recall one or two cookbooks that I ever bought from them that I disliked or found lacking in some way. So far the quality has been surprisingly good.
I have most of my list of recipes constructed, but not the whole thing. I’ve at least picked out the recipes from most of the review books and some of the cookbooks we’ve bought ourselves that I’d like to review for the holidays. Among those books: “Big Fat Cookies,” “Christmas Cookies,” “Luscious Lemon Desserts,” “The Chocolate Deck,” “A Passion for Ice Cream,” “Biscuit Bliss,” and… well I don’t remember the rest just now, and it’s 3 am so the lights are off, which means I can’t see the titles.
That “Biscuit Bliss” cookbook? Wow. I could probably review it already, but I want an excuse to make more out of it.
I swear, when we get together with that friend of ours, ideas fly faster than I can write them down. It’s even worse now that his son has leveled up enough to join us; he takes after his father in the quick wit department! Put the four of us together and I end up scribbling stuff down so fast I can hardly read my own handwriting. I have enough t-shirt ideas to keep us going for months. Eventually I’ll start paring out ones that don’t sell, but I want to give each one a bit of time.
Apparently a lot of the folks who were tricked into appearing in “Borat” by being told they were going to help out with a documentary are displeased with the deception. I think that’s rather understandable, for several reasons:
Several of the folks feel they were represented poorly, in ways that could hurt their business. For example, the movie depicted roaches in a hotel that weren’t actually in the hotel, and now folks think the hotel in question has roaches.
The movie folks did their darndest to make sure these folks didn’t figure out what was going on. It’s understandable given that they needed “realistic” reactions, but there’s no good reason why they couldn’t have gone back afterward and said, “okay, here’s what was really going on, now please sign these other papers.”
Most of these folks got paid on the order of $150-500 for their roles, which is far less than normal for such a high-grossing movie. The least the producers could have done was gone back and made them feel appreciated, perhaps giving them a halfway decent unexpected bonus check.
There have been plenty of movies before where folks weren’t aware of the roles they were playing at the time, but the folks making the movies made it okay because they made those people feel appreciated after the fact. It seems clear the folks making “Borat” did no such thing, so I think these people have a right to feel used and angry. They were used, after all–they were given chump change and laughed at so that the producers could make millions. I’m no fan of spurious lawsuits, and I’m not sure that’s the best way to handle this, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable for these folks to feel they were wronged. It’s said that for a contract to occur there has to be a meeting of the minds–and it’s clear there was no meeting of the minds over these contracts.
I’ve posted my review of Peter Bowerman’s The Well-Fed Self-Publisher. If you’re a talented writer looking to make a profit by publishing your own work in a niche market, this is a fantastic source of detailed information on publishing, marketing, and selling your book. If, however, you plan to publish fiction, gift books, or books aimed primarily at your own friends and family, you might find Jennifer Basye Sander’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Publishing somewhat more useful.
At any rate, I’m posting this tonight because I expect to be busy tomorrow. Have fun!
This video makes me want to get Rollercoaster Tycoon. *grin* They match up the music with the video extremely well:
Also for fun, more than 60 videos by MarkDayComedy. I’d embed them, ’cause they’re hysterical, but there are more than 60…
Anyway, I wanted to get level 70 shirts out in time for the holidays. I know Burning Crusade isn’t coming out until the end of January or something like that, but, it’s the holidays! This means two things. One, I’m gradually rolling out level 70 designs. I think they’re better than the 60s; I’ve learned a few things since I first designed those, but they’re also still very similar. They include a couple of variations this time that they didn’t last time. Here are a few samples for ya:
We’ll discontinue all the level 60 stuff at some point, but we haven’t decided exactly when yet. Probably sometime between Christmas and the release date. In the meantime however, until we discontinue them all level 60 designs have been marked down. (There’s a limited amount I can mark things down because cafepress’ base price makes up much of the price, but there you have it.) So if you want one of the 60s, now’s the time!
I’ve started receiving the rounds of holiday cookbooks (or ‘conceivably related to holidays’ cookbooks) for review, so before too long I’ll start posting my reviews as we get food made and recipes tested. (As if I didn’t have enough to do–who am I kidding, I love this!)
Anyway, I’m making my way nicely through that second book on self-publishing, so I should be able to review both of those books soon. Since it’ll take a few weeks to start reviewing all those cookbooks (in time to make nice Christmas gifts, but not in time for planning Thanksgiving dinner), here are links to my reviews of some of the treasured cookbooks I usually pull out to help me plan feasts:
