What-What?! Week of March 31st

This has been a pretty good week; probably the slowest week I’ve had in a while, including over Spring Break.  I’m pretty sure that my capstone class will be a cakewalk for the rest of the semester, now that we’re through the external analysis paper.  My team’s currently working on the internal analysis, which is made up of a lot of educated guesses, but it’s the best we’ve got.

Shopping: Geek Shopping via Amazon

My husband just had his birthday on Thursday, and I got him some geeky things.  One book I bought him is this one, Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure, by Arthur Conan Doyle.  This book is Conan Doyle’s diary from his six month trip in 1880, as ship’s surgeon on an arctic whaling ship.  I first read about this book from a New York Times article back in November, and was planning on buying it for Pete for Christmas, but unfortunately, the book sold out at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Now, though, it’s back in stock and only $25!  :P

 

Interwebs:  Me on FB, also TG and Princess Celestia

The big news this week is that I’ve started a Facebook page for this blog!  I will try to keep it updated, but I really want to limit the amount of time I spend on FB.  Starting that page was pretty interesting, especially when I decided to like some peoples.  So, I liked Epbot, because who doesn’t, and then I got to Princess Celestia, who I didn’t like.  This is why:

 

Then, after you go to the actual Princess Celestia page, it is fanboys and rude humor.  So, I decided not.  I found that the Stig has more likes than Jeremy Clarkson’s fan club page, though Clarkson’s page is much more entertaining to visit.  Clarkson’s real page ("Power Hungry Clarkson", LOLz) is kind of ho-hum, though interesting to see his thoughts on Top Gear episodes.  James May has a fan-run page, and no others.  Richard Hammond has a page, and more than that, his personal official website is www.thehamsterscage.co.uk.  It is brilliant.

Cooking:  Ham and Cheese Scones via Tasty Kitchen 

This week I also made these delish scones.  I left out the onion, and I doubled the amount of ham, and it made for a great lunch along with some apples.  This time, I decided to use my KitchenAid mixer to cut the butter into the flour, and that worked brilliantly.  It was much, much easier than doing it by hand.  The husband liked it, as well as my daughter, though my middle son didn’t much care of it.  All in all, I am definitely making these again.

WTH: Elise Andrew, of “I F###ing Love Science” via The Marie Sue

This woman has been in the news recently, for something that utterly surprised me; Elise Andrew is a science blogger who runs the Facebook page, “I F###ing Love Science”.  When she set up her Twitter page, she let her fans know about it, so they could follow her.  Then everyone found out she’s a woman, and all heck broke loose, with people saying “whoa, you’re a woman?!” and so on.  It just staggers me that our society has yet to recognize that a person’s interest in science has nothing to do with their gender or attractiveness.  As a society, we have spent years trying to get young women and girls interested in science, and now we act surprised when women promote it?

I absolutely recommend checking out her page, or the PG-13 version, “Science is Awesome”.

Oh, this week I also saw this, which is made by Crazy Dog T-Shirts:

Geek trollin', huh?

'Til next week. :)

(images via Amazon, Facebook, Zulilly)

What-What?! Week of January 27th

This last week has been busy; my husband had his wisdom teeth taken out, and school started for me.  Most of this week, I didn't cook real dinners, opting instead to have things like sandwiches, eggs, macaroni and cheese, and so on.  I made spaghetti once.  I need to plan better for next week.

On Writing: Squidoo and School

I had some happenings with Squidoo this week; a few new articles, some squid-likes and comments.  My lowest ranked article is at about #124,000ish, which is a far cry from the 20,000 ranking that is my goal (that's when the money happens), but much better than many of my others, which are in the 300,000 range.

I'll be doing a lot more writing in general now that school has started, but I'm hoping that some of the assignments will lend well to incorporating onto Squidoo.

Food:  Lemon Butter via Tasty Kitchen

This I did do.  I don't have a real double-broiler, so I had a pot of water with a bowl over it, and that worked out okay.  It still came out amazing!  So delicious!

Osric’s Birthday:  Hot Air Balloon Ideas

After making cake bites last week, I decided to go looking for other hot air balloon birthday ideas.  Here's some of what I found:



I found these brilliant woven paper hot air balloons.  They are so cute!  The pattern doesn't look that hard, so I might try them sometime.



This hot air balloon cake is a pretty blah by itself, but I think the idea has potential.  I could see maybe doing a group of them, maybe creating some kind of scene?  Marshmallow clouds could work.


These little cake pop guys on the left have some potential as well. (if you follow that link, beware the million pictures).

News:  Tips for Getting Your Product in Big Box Stores via Entrepreneur
Not much by way of news this week, but I thought this article was worth a read.  It's pretty fantastic that small businesses can get stocked at large chains, but her discussion of the required infastructure you need to have ready is somewhat staggering.  What she doesn't talk about are all the services that help you with that infastructure; you don't have to develop a national warehouse system or worry about shipping your items to stores, because businesses like UPS will do that for you.

Well, that's it for this week.  Hopefully next week I'll something a bit more substantial.

What-What?! Week of January 13th

On Writing: Squidoo

This week has been busy!  I’ve still looking for internships in the area, and so far not coming up with much.  It seems that most of the big companies here in the Silicon Valley only employ interns during the summer, so since I’m looking for something before the summer, I have to look elsewhere.

Other things that I’ve been working on include starting on Squidoo; I posted most of my old articles from eHow (which are no longer available there), and I’ll probably add some new ones as I get time.  Other websites I’m looking at writing for includes Text Broker and Demand Media.

I went ahead and started a page on here with links to the articles I have up on Squidoo and FireHow.  As I expand my article list, and try other websites, I’ll add additional links.

 

Food: Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole via Tasty Kitchen

We tried this recipe a while ago, to much success; everyone very much liked it, though my husband thought that it was too rich.  Because I knew it was going to be a heavy meal, I made it with a simple salad, no other sides.  I highly recommend adding the lemon to this recipe; it gives it a great little zing that really makes the sauce special.

 

Food:  Nutella Chocolate Cake in a Mug

I made this the other day as a special treat for my daughter.  It was so easy and delish!  I admit that I didn’t measure anything properly, but it still came out fine.  I subbed out the cocoa powder for more Nutella, and it was delightfully chocolately and moist.  Like some of the comments say on the recipe page, this is too much for one mug; I am glad that I mixed mine up in a bowl, because even my largest mug would have been too small.  The amount is just right for two people, and worked perfectly for us to share.

Movies: Willow and Common Sense Media

One of the art nouveau heroines I saw last week was Sorsha, from Willow.  This week, the kids and I watched it together; I thought that maybe the baby stealing would be a bit much for them, but overall they did fine.  I keep having to remind myself that my kids aren’t as scared of things as I was at that age.

One website that I’ve started checking pretty regularly is Common Sense Media.  They provide reviews and age recommendations on all kinds of media, though I’ve only read reviews from the movies and TV section.  I’ve been finding that what I think is okay for my kids is just a bit older than their suggestions, but it’s great to have this resource available anyway, so I get an idea of what kinds of things are presented in the movie or show.

The bestest “oh no, I’ve made a terrible mistake” I've seen was probably this one woman’s review I read on Netflix, for a film titled Sleeping Beauty, directed by Catherine Breillat (no longer available on Netflix, but is on Amazon Instant).  This film is unrated, which is the first clue, and just looking at the cover, it looks dark and scary.  The best clue, though, would probably be the nudity.  In her review, this lady actually said “I thought the first flash of nudity was a fluke”.  WHAT?  A fluke?!

Sadly, you can’t see the review anymore, but when it was up, it was pretty good reading.

 

News:  Construction is Complete on Behemoth Airship

This is pretty cool; the maker, Worldwide Aeros Corp, has created this 36,000 pound airship for the U.S. military.  It is a hybrid zeppelin/plane, with a rigid aluminum structure, that can lift straight up; ultimately they hope for it to carry about 66 tons.  When I asked my husband how much a tank weighs, he said about 60 tons.  So, obviously not so much for transporting tanks, but it could carry a lot of smaller vehicles and such.

(Images from Tasty Kitchen, Kirbie's Cravings, IMDB)