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Labels: Books, Film

Every morning we take our daily dose of Flintstone's Vitamins. L is always thrilled when she gets her childhood favourite Purple Dino My favorite used to be Orange Bam Bam, but I think there might be a new contender rearing his misguided and often misunderstood head...

White Winston

Ah, yes. When men were men and Winston tasted good - like a cigarette should.

Labels: Advertising

So, we’ve been talking about it, dreaming of it, planning for it, hoping and hoping it would come true, and, as of today, we’ve got our tickets booked.

We’re going to France.

So now, we spend our time till then practicing and (hopefully) improving our sub-par French with a little help from the newly-launched and utterly fantastic French Learning Center from our favorite French friend / instructor Sebastien.

Nous sommes tres content.

Labels: France, Life

You can chalk it up to my love of new gadgets, music, and innovative ways to integrate both, but I’m gonna be honest with you, it’s just a damn good reason to get a Wii, or at least a WiiMote.

The Amazing Rolo has created a great new music looping system that uses the WiiMote as a controller. Through the software, the WiiMote can choose/cue loops, change pitch, velocity, etc through movement, and hopefully more through user enhancements.

Check out this video of Mr. Rolo demonstrating the software. Not too shabby. I like where this is going. Now who wants to buy me a WiiMote?

Labels: Music, Technology

The little cat has been in heat for the last three days, and I just about went absolutely 100% certified crazy last night. I tried to work at home, and she helped by moaning and screaming and pestering me as much as possible. It got so bad I ended up roaming the streets for most of the night so I didn't have to be in the same room with her.

When I got back I figured the only thing to do would be to make our favorite Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies. And it helped. A little. So I'm going to pass on the recipe to you for similar emergencies. Enjoy.

Mouse & the Billionaire's Hot Kitty Double Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup Flour

1/2 cup Cocoa Powder

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 ounces chopped chocolate

1 stick of butter

1 and 1/2 cup Sugar

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

2 eggs

4 ounces chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
2. Mix flour, cocoa, salt and baking soda in medium bowl.
3. Melt butter and chopped chocolate in large heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water on stovetop
4. Remove bowl from heat, mix in sugar and vanilla, then eggs
5. Gradually mix in the flour mixture to the Chocolate mixture.
6. Fold in Chocolate chips.
7. Place teaspoon-sized cookie blobs on greased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. (I like to flatten them out a little bit by placing a chocolate chip in the middle, but it's up to you)
8. Cook those suckers for 15 minutes
9. Cool them on a rack for a few minutes, or until you can't stand it any longer and you shove five of them in your mouth at once.

As for the Scrapper, today she's finally getting spade. Here's hoping the rest of the week is a little more sane. Please?

Labels: Life, Meow, Recipes

Me.

Labels: Life

"Why is it that art - music, for instance - is so living, so popular, and in reality so powerful? Because the musician or the singer affects thousands at once. Precious, precious art!" she went on, looking dreamily at the sky. "Art gives us wings and carries us far, far away! Anyone who is sick of filth, of petty, mercenary interests, anyone who is revolted, wounded, and indignant, can find peace and satisfaction in the beautiful."

- Masha in Anton Chekhov’s My Life

Labels: Music

Labels: Life

An Invisibility Cloak from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering



Via TechBlog and Geto

Labels: Technology

I downloaded the Photoshop CS3 Beta a few days back and have been trying it out.

Let me just say, flat out fantastic. Great job Adobe; it looks beautiful. I was skeptical about losing the floating tool bars (I may be one of the only people in the world who actually liked them), but the new anchored dock tool bars are amazing. you can easily tab between all the old favorites, resulting in tons more screen real estate for designs.

I could keep going on and on about the great new changes, but I’ll try to save my reputation a bit and say this: If you use Photoshop, download the CS3 Beta and see what wonders the world will hold for you in the future. If you don’t use Photoshop, let’s pretend you never read this. How about we go talk about non-nerdy things..

Like beer.

And trains.

Bye.

Labels: Design, We {Heart}...

The Business Meeting: Act 1

Doug: I know it’s about sex, and it’s also about secretaries, but I just can not think up a good title for this new book. Can someone please help me out here?

Hank: Horizontal Secretary?

Doug: By Jove, man. You're a genius.

Well, it was destined to happen. Starbucks has officially launched its own record label.

Los Angeles based Hear Music will now begin signing bands and selling the music in Starbucks stores and on iTunes. Word on the street says Starbucks has already set up a deal importing acts on the cheap from third-world countries and plans to re-package them in a more anglo-friendly way.

Via TUAW.

Labels: Music

I just spent the weekend with the Gloyd’s, and I noticed something interesting.

They talk to everybody.

Stranger on the sand? How’s it going? Person sitting next to you at the ballgame? How long have you been a Dodger fan? Waitress at a restaurant? When did you move down from new Jersey?

I have made a decision. I have concluded that "Kind" is the new "Cool." We all strive to be cool, how about striving to be kind. How much time is wasted trying to impress people, rather than impress on them the reality that they are important? It starts here. If you're reading this, I like you. Tell me something interesting about yourself.

Labels: Life, Rants

On the flight home from sunny Florida last night I had an idea. You know how the airline milks 2 bucks from those sad sacks who don’t own headphones? Well it sounds like a perfect opportunity for a little undercutting. Next time you take a flight, why not swing by your local 99 Cent Only Store, pick up 4 pairs of headphones for a buck and charge those same sad sacks a dollar per headphone. They get the same crappy headphones for half the price and you make a sweet profit. If the flight attendants try to stop you, ask them if they’re afraid of a little competition. If they persist, tell them you won’t abide with their monopolistic business strategies. Cha-Ching. If you could somehow smuggle booze on the fight you could make a killing. I think that may be the real reason they’ve recently outlawed all liquids. We’re on to you Delta!


By the way, make sure to take a gander at The Photo Pool's on Flickr. I quite enjoyed them. That kid's got an eye on him, some of those pictures are marvelous. They quite remind me of another famous bohemian photographer I use to bum around with. Good times.

Labels: Ideas, Life

We are here. We are Happy. Pictures soon.

Labels: Baseball, Life

In 1897 Felix Hoffmann, who had just invented Aspirin for the Bayer pharmaceutical company, followed his success by synthesizing Heroin eleven days later. That's a busy couple of weeks.

Bayer later named the substance "heroin", from the German "heroisch" because people who took it in clinical trials claimed it made them feel "heroic."

Looks like the Hofmann side of my family may be distantly responsible for Heroin. I guess we all have our ups and downs.

Via Charles Hodgson's Podictionary

Read more about Heroin's history at Wikipedia.

Labels: Etymology

Oh, sweet February. What memories you contain. An amazing trip to Big Bear: Ice cream in the ville, which was milled. An Irish pub and an unwatched football game of dubious import. A little too much beer to accompany a (pretty-closed to) all night game of Hand and Foot. Two new friends smoking pipes around a fire, talking of years gone by. A trip up North: Wine. A game of celebrity with inappropriate names, gestures, and outbursts. Wine. A frog on a bench. Wine. The Sasquatch winery and a man with two fists. Wine flavored chocolate. Wine. The Rio Bravo: The restaurant. The band. A day spent with good friends making good sounds. And we moved towards Lent: A change in attitude. A seriousness. A Sadness. A brief moment in time to contemplate the weight of it all, and to properly balance the utter joy to follow.

What a great month. Here's to the next.

February, 2007 Mouse & the Mixtape

Labels: Life, Mixtapes