Makin’ some serious dough

Posted on December 26, 2005

Among the things I got for Christmas was a bread maker. Actually, someone gave me a check for $100 as a goft, and I bought a breadmaker on Amazon with it. I’ve wanted one for a while, since I like homemade bread, but I hesitated due to price and some of the online comments I read.

Before I got the machine, it was a rare instance when I made homemade bread. Usually, it would be because I forgot how much of a pain it was to make the bread and to cleanup afterwards. Granted the bread was great, but the time involved was 3-4 hours, at least. Now, with the bread maker, it takes about 10-15 minutes (or less) measuring all the ingredients and putting them in the mAfter that it takes the machine about 3.5 hours to mix and bake the bread, although there’s a quick bread setting I haven’t tried yet that is supposed to make a loaf in 59 minutes.

So far, I’ve made two loaves. The first was some sort of herb bread bread machine mix I got at the store. It was pretty good. The second loaf was intended to be a cinnamon raisin bread recipe from the cookbook that came with the mixer. That one wasn’t so good. I knew I had raisins, but when I went to the cabinet to get them out, they were old and dessicated (I know a dessicated raisin is redundant, but these were dryer than usual) and they stuck together like a brick. I tried crumbling them apart, but gave up on it. The recipe also called for walnuts, which I also had. Cinammon, no problem there. Dried milk is something else I didn’t have. I know some bread recipes call for milk, but I didn’t have any (dried or otherwise) and I didn’t think it was crucial. For some reason, I also decided to put in some vanilla and almond flavorings, which is probably why the bread isn’t so good. After the loaf was done, I cut of a nice warm slice and put some margarine on it, and was ultimately disappointed when I took a bite. I finished the slice, but didn’t enjoy it too much. When I went grocery shopping today, I bought some liquid eggs so I can use the rest of the loaf to make french toast. I’m not a big fan of eggs, but I like good french toast, so I think this will be a good way to finish the loaf without getting rid of it.

One issue, if you could call it that, is the size and shape of the loaf. The loaves come out crusty, which I like, but they also come out pretty square and slightly larger than the usual sliced bread I get at the store. The slices are even too tall for my toaster. They stick out of the top by an inch or more. I think the bread will be great for sandwiches, grilled cheeses, and french toast. I guess as long as I don’t have to stick it in a toast, it should be fine.

As I write this, I just finished putting in the ingredients for another loaf of bread, because, I realized I didn’t have any bread – aside from the cinammon-nut loaf destined for french toast – that I could use in sandwiches. I made an Italian herb loaf from the recipe book. I couldn’t help myself and experimented by adding 1/4 tsp of chives and a 1/4 tsp of garlic powder (I love garlic!). I have high hopes, though I guess I will know in a few hours.

When I went grocery shopping today, I spent a bit more than normal, because I ended up buying things I normally wouldn’t buy. I bought maple syrup and liquid eggs so I could make french toast. I also bought a big container of powdered milk (not cheap!), a large container of active dry yeast (ditto), for making bread, although with those two purchases, they will last a long time, and they have better “value” than buying the smaller sizes. I also bought some pineapple chunks with the idea of making a Hawaiian pizza with homemade pizza dough, but I just realized I don’t have any shredded cheese. Maybe I’ll get that next week.

What’s wrong with “Happy Holidays”?

Posted on December 23, 2005

I don’t know if I should be surprised by all this furor about people saying “Happy Holidays” as opposed to “Merry Christmas.” When I was younger, I figured people said “Happy Holidays” because it was shorter than saying “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.” I thought it was a two for one deal on good tidings and wishing people well, especially since I might not see them until after New Year’s Day.

As I grew older and learned about other religions, I found out some of those religions even had holidays around the same time as Christmas. I also found out a bit about Boxing Day and (within the past few years) Festivus. At work, I know people who are Hindu, Moslem, and Jewish. Wishing people “Happy Holidays” seems to cover a lot of ground, not just Christmas.

I think the tempest-in-a-teapot controversy “Merry Christmas” may be more of a reaction to the over-commercialization of Christmas. It’s being commoditized. Many people look at it as a time away from work or school, rather than celebrating the Birth of Christ. (I’m not even going to get into the argument over Christ’s actual birthdate, aside from stating that some Christian religions celebrate the birth of Christ at different times of the year – not December 25th.) It makes sense. Christianity used to have a monopoly on Christmas, but not any more. It’s become more secular in nature. It’s true. I mean, what do Transformers, Barbie, or DVD players have to do with the Son of God? Nothing. They’re just material goods that will bring some pleasure to someone for a while, but not much beyond that.

Personally, I don’t care one way or the other about what a person says. I think we should treat each other well, regardless of the time of year and regardless of our faith, belief, race, creed, etc. Be good to each other. Is that so hard to understand?

Spamalot

Posted on December 17, 2005

Last month I changed my PC from Slackware, which I had been running for a year or more, to the latest stable version of Ubuntu Linux. On Slackware, I used Mozilla Thunderbird to check my gottahavacuppamocha.com email. Being the slacker that I am, I haven’t set up Ubuntu to check that email until last night. Imagine my surprise when I had nearly 10,000 emails in my inbox! It was 9979 to be precise.

I have 5 actual email addesses setup for this domain, and one of them was set as a catchall. What happened is some spammer (calling them an asshole would be an insult to assholes everywhere), affixed my domain name as the REPLY-TO address in these spam emails. The email addresses were completely bogus, but since I have the catchall address, everything got sent to that address. It took Thunderbird over two hours to download all the emails, and it took me nearly another hour to sort through them (separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak). I just hope I didn’t get rid of any legitimate emails.

Anyway, I changed my email setting so there isn’t a catchall address, and any mail to a bogus address gets bounced back to the sender. I hope that does the trick. I’m pretty sure nobody actually cracked one of my email accounts to send spam from.

Fire up the righteous indignation, pt 1

Posted on December 13, 2005

Last Thursday, we got a bunch of snow. It snowed about an inch an hour for six hours or so. It accumulated quickly, and seemed to scare most everybody into leaving work early. Schools closed, activities were cancelled, and so on. No big deal. The traffic eventually cleared so the roads could be plowed, and life returned to somewhat normal.

Today in the Indianpolis Star, there was an article about how the homeowners and businesses in the city are bad about clearing the sidewalks in front of their properties. I knew in most cities and towns in Colorado, there were ordinances that required people to shovel their walks after snow storms, but I always wondered about Indy. Sidewalks that are free of snow here in Indy are so rare, I wondered if it seems like a foreign concept to Hoosiers. I figured that if they weren’t clearing their walks, then maybe the city didn’t have an ordinance that required them to do so. Today, I read an article that said there was a law for this, it was just very low priority, and apparently the city will only do something if someone complains.

I guess I might have to start complaining, since most of the route I walk to work is still piled with snow. I could walk in the street, but this is a dicey situation when it is dark out and it’s approaching rush hour.

Doing the duty

Posted on December 13, 2005

Nothing to post about for a long time, then I have a slew of things to right about, so here goes (over the next 2 or 3 articles):

Back in middle school (or thereabouts) I remembered a teacher explaining about juries, jury duty, etc. One of the main things that sticks in my mind about those lessons was the teacher explained that some people seemed to be called all the time, while others never got called. It’s supposedly random – fate if you will, but I am one of those people who seems to get called every few years.

Originally, I was sort of nomadic, and I would get jury summons’ for places I lived before. The first time I actually got a summons for a place I lived in was in Colorado Springs. I didn’t get called to serve on a jury (we got taken up for questioning, but the defendant pleaded guilty before we went in), I learned some important bits of info. 1) Eat well before hand, since they may not let you go down to get a snack (at the time I was notorious for skipping breakfast). 2) Bring a book, because a lot of waiting is involved.

A couple of years ago, I got a summons to appear for jury duty here in Indianapolis. I went, and waited around awhile, before a group of us were called up to be empanelled for a civil suit. That time, I actually got to the part where they ask us questions. However, they only needed six jurors and one or two alternates, and I was number 13 or something like that, so they had enough jurors before they got to me. I went back down to the meeting room, and we were let go about an hour later.

So tomorrow, I have jury duty again. I’ll probably bring Dune, which I picked up a few weeks ago, but haven’t read, although part of me (a twisted part) is tempted to bring A Confederacy of Dunces. For some reason, I’m thinking I will actually be put on a jury. Actually, I have no basis for that notion, it’s just a hunch. Of course, this week is also very busy at work – Thursday in particular – so I’m guessing (again, no basis whatsoever) that I’ll be put on a jury that sits for more than one day. Murphy’s law I guess. We’ll see how it goes.

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