In my last post I forgot to include some more pictures from Art Basel. So before I forget again, I will start this post out with something to wrap your minds around!

A whip cracking and look there's even dirt on the ground!

This seems to last forever.

Suspended in air?

These Evan Penny silicone sculptures were so perplexing to the mind and the eye!

Every single person's mind was boggled.

These two pieces were hyper-realistic yet had an illusional twist. Definitely the buzz at this year’s Art Basel in Miami.

I spy a winning fruit combination.

That morning I tried Udi’s Banaberry flavor – for kids! Overall I really liked the granola except the freeze-dried strawberries threw me off. The banana chips were so good though because added a natural sweetness. I had the granola with a sliced banana, and Sunland’s caramel peanut butter.

After my mom and I got our groove on we came home, got ready, and I prepared something to bring to my mom’s friend’s birthday get-together.

My first time trying fava beans.

Mondo-sized beans!

Did you guys know that in Portugal a Christmas Cake called Bolo Rei (“King Cake”) is baked with a “Fava” bean inside. Whoever eats the slice containing it, is supposed to buy next year’s cake.

Favetta

I got this very simple recipe from The Accidental Vegetarian. Then when I was done I just poured in a small pool of olive oil and freshly cracked black peppercorns. Simon Rimmer recommends serving it with coriander seed flatbread but anything dippable will do.

Look at how nicely my mom's friend set the table up!

And someone was proud of the gingerbread house they put together!

Brie!

Mom & Daughter

Then someone kindly offered to take a picture for us so I didn’t have to bust out the stretch armstrong camera move.

A bit blurry but that's okay - my mom looks adorable!

I love this shot! Laughing is such a wonderful thing.

One of the ladies made a very pretty seafood pate decorated with roasted red pepper!

Everyone exclaimed how delicious it was and asked her to share the recipe. Since I don’t eat fish, however, I just took their word for it!

Latinas could talk forever, and I love it.

A group of gorgeous women!

I want a pretty birthday cake like that.

Did I mention that twins were celebrating their birthdays?

They haven’t celebrated together in 10 years! The one in the blue shirt lives in Colombia so it’s not often that they’re together on their special day.

Slicing the cake wedding style!

Of course Colombian coffee was a must.

I loved being around these women. They were so full of life and just enjoyed each other’s company. I’m pretty sure my tummy was sore from laughing at the hilarious stories they shared – lots of funny confessions too!

Greek yogurt!

The kind folks at Oikos offered some freebie coupons to me to try out some of their products. My first choice was the plain 0% tub of Greek yogurt goodness! I really enjoyed the texture of this yogurt because it was thick but still creamy. Sometimes I find that certain ones can have this strange fluffiness to them. Not to mention, this yogurt is organic meaning it’s authentic and just how Greek shepherds made their yogurt. They have other flavors like strawberry, blueberry, vanilla, and honey that I’m looking forward to trying out.

What a bright breakfast!

Yesterday morning I tried Udi’s original flavor made with “Thick-Cut Rolled Oats, Wildflower Honey, Canola Oil, Raisins, Banana Chips, Walnuts, Cashews, Almonds, and Pistachios.” I had it with a sliced banana, papaya and pineapple bites, and Oikos yogurt. Yuuuuum! I loved the variety of nuts and the dried fruits have this sweetness that I love. Oh, did you perhaps notice my little army?

Chocolate-covered gummi bears

I usually munch on these while I make my breakfast but this time I thought I would be polite and invite them to my favorite meal of the day.

I made a quick sandwich since I was going to be on-the-go!

Slice No. 1 = Sunland’s dark chocolate peanut butter. Slice No. 2 = Cherry preserves. Chocolate-covered cherries in sandwich form! I think I’m becoming a chocolate lover too! Actually, I think I already am!!! I just noticed that I have chocolate every single day. And I must say, life is good. My friend picked me up and we were off to some thriftstores!

We found some little treasures.

For the mysterious Elizabeth. Hmm... who could she be?

I tried on someone's old wedding dress.

And I had a reunion with zany little Madeline!

She turned into a Swedish girl and I shared some of my mood-changing lip gloss with her!

Later on I went to the bookstore to flip through magazines for ideas. Cookie ideas! Three-course meal ideas! By the way, I haven’t mentioned this but some time soon I will be hosting my first cooking clinic! It was going to take place this Wednesday but I think that may be too stressful. Anywho, I’m so excited! My mom has also been bugging me about making a Christmas list so I browsed through fashion magazines and fell in love with so many things. I have a feeling my list won’t be so hard to make! I don’t usually ask for presents though because I like to see the thought behind the gift. At some point my mom met up with me at the bookstore and we exchanged magazines and shared some cheesecake and a cappuccino. She always orders a cappuccino and I always steal some sips. But I love that she never minds. We lost track of time and before you know it my belly was telling me “I want dinner!” I was going to prepare something last night but I looked at the recipe and it called for two hours! So I just saved it for another day.

Instead I quickly put this together.

Have any of you tried Mestemacher bread? It’s a brand from Germany that makes all-natural, whole grain bread. Some don’t like it, but my family does! It’s especially delicious with cream cheese and raspberry preserves. Last night I had it with gouda, leftover vegan Caesar dressing, heirloom tomato slices, capers, and small bell peppers. These bell peppers were bursting with flavor!!! Gosh this just made me remember the fresh broetchen that was had every morning when I lived in Germany. German bread is so good! After my dinner I decided to relax and take a bubble bath.

Candles were lit.

The bubbles kept rising!

I poured so much of the bubble bath liquid in before I turned on the jets. So once those were turned on the bubbles went above my head. Santa Claus beard! Sometimes I think we forget about little things like bubble baths, cozy spots, or anything else. A friend of mine takes bubble baths almost everyday, and I think that’s a wonderful idea. Maybe for you it’s not specifically a bubble bath, it could be picking out a delicious recipe, or a morning stretch. Whatever it may be, may it bring you joy!

]]> http://doodleaday.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/doodle-296-gummi-bears/ Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:07:30 +0000 vonholdt http://doodleaday.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/doodle-296-gummi-bears/

Doodle 296 - Gummi Bears

I was trying to think of something to draw and I decided that I would draw all the great Disney cartoons I grew up with this week. Poor Duke Igthorn, he just wants the secrets of their gummi berry juice so he can take over the kingdom. Is that really so wrong? Tomorrow Duck Tales

As I looked at the small, green, plastic coffin in my hand, a joyous smile spread across my face. Inside were the delicious “bones” of a compresses sugar skeleton, just waiting to be pit together… and then eaten.

I hadn’t seen one of these little candy coffins since I was a very young child and holding one now brought me flying back to a mental image of the route I would take to bike to the store when I had managed to get my hands on some money and needed a sugar fix.

My childhood home was in just about the perfect place when it came to possibilities. If I went out the back door, I had only to walk to the back of a dead end road before I was looking at trees to climb, fields to cross, ancient stone walls to follow and abandoned railroad cuts to walk along as I enjoyed the birds, forest and quiet. If I went out the front door, I was in suburbia. Little developments in neat blocks with architecture that told you definitively what decade the construction took place in. It also was a rich environment to find friends in.

The neighborhoods were old enough to still have some charm and life to them. Not like the dead and sprawling house farms they’ve been making since the late eighties. Their weird, arching roads with cliché’ names taken from flowers, states of happiness or saddest of all, the farm they paved over. Here the streets ran in efficient, square blocks and were named, I’m guessing, after some of the various developers or possibly the initial inhabitants. The houses were closer than they would be if built today, but it made for a closer community as well.

What it also had was a good, old fashioned, neighborhood store of the type that is pretty much gone now. It’s name was “Stop and Shop” and as local lore had it, though the much larger grocery store chain had told them that they couldn’t use that name, our little family run corner store had been there first and had all the rights in the world to use that name. For whatever reason, that made us, as the kids of the area, stand in awe. OUR store was first! Cool!

The trip there wasn’t a very long one, unless you were reduced to walking it. On bike, it took perhaps ten minutes and the route its self was pretty enjoyable. Zigzagging though the quiet neighborhoods, it wasn’t uncommon to pick up more friends as we went until a convoy of bicycles driven by candy crazed children finally descended on Stop and Shop with coins jingling in pockets and mouths already salivating. The steps themselves up to the front door were special. The door had been installed at a forty-five degree angle on a corner of the building. The steps were made round and radiated down from the entry, like the layers of a cement wedding cake. I always noticed the steps as I padded up them and wished that my own stairs at home could be so cool.

Inside, it was exactly what you’d expect. This was before the days of scratch tickets and lotto machines and I’m reasonably sure that there were no magazines for sale either. Instead, there were the racks of potato chips, a small meat counter, milk in the back and beer down the side. You could also get ice cream from a cooler, but we had arrived with the candy display in mind and the racks and racks of it never disappointed.

The owner, a bearded and stern looking man by the name of, Homer must have made at least half his money from candy sales. Right in the front, near the register, there was a wonderland of confection. Compressed or liquefied, flavored, sugary treats were abundant in their numbers and diverse in their types.

Necco Wafers
Bottle Caps
Smarties
Sweet Tarts
Wax lips
Jaw Breakers
Big League Chew
Canada mints
Tart N Tinies
Nerds
Hot Balls
Gummi Bears
Juicy Fruit
Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum
Tootsie Rolls

And on, and on, and on….

Homer knew what he was doing when it came to ordering candy and he never, EVER let us down. Most of the hard candy stuff cost five cents each, though the usual candy bars and packs of gun naturally cost more. The best part was that he also kept a good supply of penny candy. That is to say, candy that actually cost one penny per piece. Some years ago I mentioned penny candy to someone a good deal younger than I only to meet with a befuddled look and the question, “What’s penny candy?”

Ok… I feel old now.

The penny candy was naturally at the bottom of the food chain, desirability wise, but still, it was nice to have to round out your pickings for the day and it filled out the little brown bags of hyper-powder that dangled from our handlebars as we zoomed home, shouting.

After paying Homer with our collection of scrounged pocket change, we’d hop back on our mighty steeds, new baseball cards firmly attached to spokes, and ride off into the sunset. Well… actually to the pond that was a little better than half way home. We’d sit in the grass, happily rotting our teeth on Twizzlers and Pixi Stix, arguing the benefits of Star Wars versus Star Trek or what ever else struck our fancy and throwing rocks at anything that disturbed the water’s surface. Hey, we were boys on a sugar high. What else would you expect?

All of this comes back to my little plastic, sugar filled coffin. I had almost forgotten about Homer but this made me recall him and realize that he had not only done a good job with the staples of a sugar addicts desires, but he had been seasonal as well. When Christmas rolled around, he got Christmas themed candy. When Easter came close, Cadbury eggs appeared at the counter. When Halloween was in the air, for one year at least, Homer bought these little coffin candies, and I had bought one.

This year, I took it upon my self to buy my Halloween candy for the night’s festivities and perusing through a catalog I came across them. They came twelve to a box and were not cheap. There was no way I would have bought them for that price when I was a kid, but I’m not a kid anymore… and I’m better at justifying dumb purchases.

I gave them away to kids whom I knew or who had really great and obviously homemade costumes. I like to reward those who put in the effort. By the end of the evening, they were all gone, except one. That one I had grabbed from the full box and set aside. Later that night, I happily put the puzzle like candy skeleton together and laid him to rest in his little coffin and there he lies, slowly loosing body parts as I pass and remember that he’s there. He’s delicious.

The Stop and Shop is gone now and I live far from there anyway. Homer was no spring chicken when I was a kid, so who knows if he’s still around either, but I’m glad for the memory. I’m also in his debt for making me a connoisseur of fine, compressed, flavored sugar, no matter what form it may take.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a grave to rob.

Mode 7 Things I Hate About You

FANTASTIC! ANOTHER BASKETBALL GAME! Man, it’s like Christmas came early this year and I got every single thing I wanted, assuming I wanted to get dizzy watching pixelated dudes throw a poorly-rendered basketball at one another while the screen rotated like I was spinning in a circle. If this game was what real basketball was like, the court floor would be covered with my vomit; I’d try to eat entertaining foods to make this as pleasant as possible for everyone involved. Hey look! Whole Gummi Bears! Bouncing here and there and everywhere! The contents-of-my-stomach-covered adventures beyond compare!

Great, now I’m hungry.

So apparently NCAA stands for National College Athletic Association, which I technically did not know but certainly could have guessed if I’d bothered. That means that I’m not even poorly controlling real basketball players* but merely their yet to evolve incarnations—I’m controlling them in their formative years, and their formative years are leading them to be stumbling, ball-losing motards. I’m sorry dudes, but your scholarships are on the line, and so now you will have to learn a trade. From what I’ve seen welding looks really amazing. Heat! Sparks! Sweet masks! It’s like being a really warm knight.

At some point I need to talk about the game, and this is that point: I never really felt as if I was in control of the players. I was aware that I was moving people around and maybe influencing their actions, but it was influence in the same fashion that Bill O’Reilly is influencing my opinions on anything. Like, I’m aware of what he’s saying, and I recognize them as words in my language, but they make so little sense I have trouble putting them into any meaningful context. My basketball players treat me like a drunk Bill O’Reilly, screaming at them from the sidelines about how I didn’t sort of maybe ok kinda implied they should shoot an “abortion doctor” (or some hoops).

This game makes full use of that POWERFUL TEXTURE MAPPING JUGGERNAUT known as Mode 7; I’ve never liked Mode 7, not even a little. I think it looks like crap now, just like I thought it looked like crap back when I was a kid, and will likely think it looks like crap in the exciting future of SNES games. I’ve no doubt it’s a technical achievement of some sort, I just don’t care. Personally, I’d prefer some nicely rendered static backgrounds; this is my personal opinion, but don’t let that stop you from telling me I’m wrong, since the person who first said “opinions can’t be wrong because they’re opinions” was a complete moron.

I’m the wrong person to review sports games. You probably like this game and think it’s a lot of fun—I don’t. I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you by reviewing a game I enjoy as if I hate it, and then we’ll be even and you can stop sending me death threats that you never bother carrying through since you’re too busy playing Madden or NHL 8K7B/6.

*Dear college basketball players, I totally respect you or whatever so please don’t beat me up for denigrating your game, lives, and general intelligence.

Everyone once in a while someone is nice foolish enough to contact me. Then I have them in my snare. Muhahaha! Once such recent victim was Podthrall Shane, whom I only released after forcing him to answer thirteenquestions, under threat of being fed to my recently painted Lug. Read on, enjoy!

Thirteen Questions with Podthrall Shane

1: Where are you now?
Well right this second hard at work . Still living in Colorado, still working for a brokerage firm.

2: Have you been tuning in to the new breed of WM/H podcasts?
I made it a point to listen to a few episodes of each just to get a feel for them but dont listen to any regularly. Theres something out there for just about everyone nowadays though!

3: Which faction were you rooting for during Summer Rampage ‘09?
I was rooting for Cygnar as it was who i fought for last time and i knew they would have to fight off a coalition. It was fun trying to keep track of the alliances and power shifts.

4: Wildly speculate on one of the new warcasters to be released with the faction books.
A trencher caster would be awesome but im having a hard time imagining what he would have. Obviously trenchers as elite cadre, possible giving them Assault and Battery as an order (wishful thinking) or allow them to stay dug in while engaged. Sorry I don’t have more but that was never my strong point im afraid.

5: What colour scheme would you do Retribution models?
Actually working on them now and stealing someone on Privateer’s boards color scheme. They are a purplish pink. You can see it here - (linky),  the 4th scheme down. Its painter, siridar on the Privateer forums, was kind enough to give me the scheme details and im currently testing it on a hydra.

6: Which of the minion warlocks is your favourite?
Thats tough. I love Rorsch and Brine and would love an army of Farrow to call my own. I mean c’mon they have an ability called Souie! But on the other hand how can you resist an Alligator with a top hat? I want give him a monocle and cane and have him talk like Mr. Peanut. And Snapjaw, yeesh can you imagine being gator rolled by that sucker? Those are my two favorites, i refuse to choose.

7: Lost Hemisphere: Coolest blog, Grooviest blog, or Blog Most Likely to Grow Chest Hair?
Not a big fan of the the word groovy and i find it unlikely that Bobaferret who is on your blog is likely to grow chest hair so im going with the Coolest Blog

8: What’s your favourite Light Warbeast, and why?
Still have to go with the Krea although the Slag Troll has grown on me. The Krea is the ultimate support beast in my estimation and makes whatever i want to happen happen. Need a def/armor boost against those archers/longgunners? Check. Need to hit those Nyss Swordsmen over there? Check. Want to stop that woldwarden from ever using his animus ever again? Check. Wrapped together with Eyeless sight its a tidy little package of (IIRC) 64 pts.

9: What would you do for a Klondike bar?
Not much honestly, not a huge fan of them. I would do things that would find me divorced, friendless, and institutionalized for some awesome ribs though, does that count?

10: How many gummi bears would you sacrifice to get Privateer to make a squad-level skirmish game?
All of them. All of the ones in the factories, stores, mouths, stomachs, and hands of people everywhere. Except children’s, they need gummi bears to mutilate and devour.

11: Battle of the old farts: Nemo vs Severius vs Mohsar vs Old Witch vs Hoarluk. Who wins, and who gets sidelined by their lumbago?
Thats tough, depends on if its fluff or models. E or Regular versions? Im going to say Severius is almost held out on account of bunions, lumbago, and hemroid flare up but it saved by flunkies who carry him on their backs. He is eliminated when everyone realizes they can just shoot the handlers. Mohsar forgets his seeing eye Argus and gets lost on the way. Nemo and Old Witch go at it with Nemo frying Scrap Jack before being introduced to his spleen by the Old Witch before she is incapacitated by the 100,000 volts running through his now exposed suit wires. Hoarluk rants about troll superiority the entire time without actually doing anything and is thus the winner by default.

12: Which faction are you bringing to Templecon? If none, why not, you filthy heathen?
First off I am a very clean heathen, nothing filthy about me. Second, i am still planning to attend Templecon but havent decided for sure on faction. Retribution is calling to me as the new faction but ive been enjoying my trolls so we will just have to see. Guess i should check to see if their tourneys have paint requirements.

13: Who should I sucker into doing the next Where Are They Now?
Im going to say Jim although Mark and Ryan actually read their email so they might be the safer bet.

News

• Armenia and Turkey sign a historic accord to normalize relations.
• Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson win the Nobel Prize in economics, with Ostrom becoming the first woman to win the economics prize.
• Another bomb hits Pakistan.

Miscellaneous

• I just came across this. Enjoy:
• Also … the Gummi Bear gets it:
• And I predict that this will do well:
• Is email on the way out?

I have long wondered what would happen if I dropped a gummi bear into a tube of molten potassium chlorate. Thanks to Saturday Morning Science Experiment on BoingBoing, my curiosity has been satisfied.

Q: Do giant gummy bears have souls?
A: Nope.

Guess what arrived in the office Costco shipment this afternoon.

Haribo Gummi Bears

See all PowerShot A580 Photos

It is very common, in the current world, to intentionally misspell werdz.

Instead of having gummy bears, I have “Gummi Bears.”  And, I rarely get gas at a “Quick Trip”…it’s a “Kwik Trip.”  A couple of summers ago, I worked at a festival helping with a booth that did crafts for kids…”Krafts 4 Kids.”  And, there was even a recent movie that played with misspellings…you know the one I’m thinking about.

So, what is with this?  Did people just have a very bad early education?  Do they think they’re being funny?  Gimmicky?  Attracting more people?  Well, thinking back to that festival…our thought was that, “Hey, everyone else does it.  Why not?  It might catch a few more eyes.”  Nothing wrong with more takers, right?  But then, I have to think about the people who misspell their business names.  How are potential customers supposed to find them in the phone book?  On GoogleMaps???  I definitely don’t know how!  I guess…just a random search.  But, suppose someone was in a random city…no magical iPhone…and they were forced to refer to a hard copy of the phone book.  They flip through the white pages (for some mystical reason)…searching for a good restaurant that someone told them about: FunnyCakes…it’s a pancake place.  But, the owners of this restaurant, for some mystical reason, decided to write the name of their restaurant: PhunyKakes.  How is that poor little soul ever going to find the restaurant that his heart is set on?  He’s going to resort to the “Flapjack Palace.”  How tragic.

Wow.  I have no idea where that came from…I guess it’s the gumi bares that are sitting nxt 2 me.

(Those misspellings were intentional.)

Don’t miss the Labor Day – Back to School Sale at Car Wash

I’ve set three jewelry sets to 10 Lindens:

Only for the time of the sale, and only at the Car Wash sim!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Car%20Wash/140/227/24

Don’t miss the Labor Day – Back to School Sale at Car Wash

I’ve set three jewelry sets to 10 Lindens:

Only for the time of the sale, and only at the Car Wash sim!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Car%20Wash/140/227/24

Yep, it's that freakin' epic.

Welcome to nostalgia heaven!

Cartoons are a part of everyone’s life at some point in time. Saturday morning cartoons are a right of passage for every child and parent, dammit. Being someone who grew up – and let’s be honest with ourselves, continues to grow up – watching animated television religiously, I’ve memorized more than my fair share of theme songs from these beloved shows and am fully capable of railing them off if provoked (so don’t test me, I will do it! In public and everything!).

This list is meant to be a celebration of those magnificent tunes that greeted us to 22 minutes of pure joy (or horrific ass kickings, in some cases). The list spans 5 decades of cartoon glory, and ranges from PBS to Kids WB! to Adult Swim.

Some ground rules and warnings before severe fanboys try and attack me. This is a list of the best THEME SONGS, not the best cartoons OR best cartoon songs. What does that mean? Don’t come whining to me when you don’t see Superman The Animated Series on the list, or Ren and Stimpy’s “Happy Happy Joy Joy” song on the list. Oh and, FOR THE MOST PART, cartoon shows with songs based off movie counterparts were also ignored (Aladdin, Batman TAS, etc.).

…oh yea, one last thing. For a select few of these, I decided to share “alternative” versions of them that further showcase their awesomeness…

Without further adieu, here’s numbers 41-50!

NUMBER 50 – SPIDERMAN

NUMBER 49 – HONG KONG PHOOEY

NUMBER 48 – ANGRY BEAVERS