Falconry AND paragliding? Oh, why oh why aren’t I part of the idle rich 
Nov 122011
Hey everybody, Happy Good Friday to you! I sort of feel weird saying that, considering I’m not particularly religious, and all Easter really means for me is chocolate and bunny rabbits, but I digress.
A time-honoured tradition (in some places) of Easter is having the kiddies go on an Easter egg hunt. You know, they grab their little baskets, and look for the pretty coloured eggs, often hidden in a park or something. I’ve never done it in this way, per se; my mom would hide those little foil-wrapped chocolate eggs around the house for me to find Easter Sunday. She could get pretty clever, so clever that even she would forget where she hid them, and we’d often find eggs some six months later.
But if you want to be traditional, and go with real, hard-boiled eggs for your little ones to find, than this Serious Eats post is perfect for you. It describes (in great detail) just how to get the perfect hard-boiled egg.
Then the trick is painting them. This post, again, goes into great detail about the ways in which you can paint eggs. It also goes into how to blow out the yolks, which will make the eggs keep longer.
Good luck if you’re going to be painting real eggs this weekend! I’ll probably just buy the chocolate ones.
Last year, when I discovered that there was a “holiday” known as National Punctuation Day, I was ecstatic.
This year, I am more sedate. But I am still happy. Please, take the opportunity to think about punctuation and to celebrate its proper use. Like other aspects of good grammar, punctuation helps clarify communication. Have you ever had people misinterpret what you are saying or writing? Punctuation helps mitigate that. It’s essential.
Last year, the folks who run NationalPunctuationDay.com asked you to celebrate with meatloaf. This year, it’s a less-delicious, but more-creative exercise: poetry. Specifically, they are asking for your best punctuation-related haikus.
They’ve even got a bunch to start you off:
Serial comma.
What is your philosophy?
To use or not to?Raised by two parens
I’ve been bracketed since youth.
I’m an inside job.Dot dot ellipses
The yada yada of print.
So on and so forth.Punctuate or die.
What is a writer to do?
Good writers will know.
You, too, can enter: Send your best 5-7-5 (syllables, that is) poetry to Jeff@NationalPunctuationDay.com to enter. Haikus received by Sept. 30 are eligible for prizes.
And again this year, I will take the opportunity to highlight these blogs:
No, go out and celebrate the day with some sort of punctuation goodness.
What a great idea for a birthday cake! A little mocha icing, a little fruit filling, and you’ve got yourself a peanut butter and jam sandwich.
Of course, I suspect you have to cut off the top of the cake — the “crust” — but the result looks fun.
This Cakewich pan is on sale at Heliotrope. They also have a Teacupcake set.
(via BB-blog)
Jul 032010
Watch out for the auto-play ads, but I laughed at Dorkly’s list of 11 Video Game Drinking Games. After all, why should cards, TV shows and movies have all the fun?
Of course, because I’m aging, many of the ones that I enjoyed most were, um, classics. Like these two:
Full list here.
Jul 022010
Time lapse for the win.
(via Gizmodo)
Jun 232010
Maybe at one time, owning a MacBook was a good way to express your individuality, and to show off to the world that you Thought Different. But now they’re everywhere. And, because all Macs look quite a bit alike, it just looks like you’re toting around conformity.
Stick With Me Baby to the rescue, with a series of stickers you can use to adorn that glowing Apple logo:
Now, Apple logo stickers are nothing new — there’s been an Iron Man one (two), a Cinderella one, and a vintage one — but there’s something about the hair that I really dig.
The only thing about the moustaches is that, to me, the apple leaf looks kind of like the stereotypical infant’s topknot.
Idea: soother sticker!
Jun 032010
I just bought a new printer. Although I like it very much, I wish I had the know-how and time (but mostly know-how) to create a printer like this one.
(Thanks to BoingBoing!)
Not only to these guys have pretty swell tricks, I like that they are trying to be creative, and not just trying to do things faster or higher or spinnier than other people have before.
I also appreciate the music — not every skateboard video needs a handcore punk soundtrack.
(via Coudal)
May 092010
Here’s a cool video that shows you how, with a squirt bottle and pancake mix, you can make pancakes that look like giraffes:
If you go to the blog, Jim’s Pancakes, you can find a fuller explanation, including chocolate chips for eyes, as well as a great photo of how it all turned out (spoiler: tasty).
Also, don’t miss a necklace chain made out of pancakes, coloured cartoon pancake flowers, and a three-dimensional building crane that stands up off the plate (wow).
Apr 062010
This is a fantastic way to dress-up a watermelon as a centrepiece. Who said that Jack o’Lanterns were only for Halloween — or only for pumpkins?
Now, dare your kids to stick their hands in there. Use a fork, or you’ll lose a finger!
(From Debbie Forster’s photostream, via TDW and Digg)
Well, I’m definitely going to try this:
I love the fibonacci sequence, and I know I’m not alone. Photographers, if you use the “rule of thirds,” you love the (abbreviated) Fibonacci sequence, too.
But one of the really neat things about Fibonacci is how its elegance can be found in a lot of places throughout nature, either directly, or after some twists and turns (or, asymtotically).
The mathematics can be daunting. So here’s a pretty video.
(thanks, Naomi)
Mar 142010
March 14 — or 3/14 in the notation — is Pi Day. It’s a day to celebrate the mathematical and geometric constant known as pi (or more properly π). And pi, of course, is 3.1415…. (it continues forever).
If you slept through high school geometry, π describes the relation between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. That is, if you have a wheel that’s got a diameter of, say a foot, each full rotation of that wheel will go about 3.14 feet.
Wikipedia has a fuller discussion, and graphics. And the, to really burn your brain, you can wiki-hop on over to their treatment of other irrational and transcendental numbers (π is both).
Some people suggest that you should mark March 14 as Pi Day by memorizing the digits of π — do it here, in a “fun” online game.
Others suggest that you should also mark Albert Einstein’s birthday.
Most popular, of course, is the phonetic celebration — celebrate π by eating pie.
That sounds right to me. Now, hmmm, what kind of pie? I suppose I will have to sample a few. Perhaps three and a bit?
Be honest with yourself — when was the last time you thought about Bosnia and Herzegovina? Was it during the Olympics, upon a casual mention of Sarajevo, host of the ’84 Games? Because if not, I’m willing to bet your last thought about Bosnia and Herzegovina was probably related to either war, “ethnic cleansing” or war crimes, or perhaps the Dayton Accords, if you’re a real wonk.
Not me, though — because I just drank a Bosnian beer.
Yes, in the world brews section of my local liquor mart, I noticed a bright little “New Product” sign, and I can never resist those. So I picked up a bottle of “Nektar” beer. And it turned out to be brewed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since 1873.
Keen-eyed readers will notice not only that Amy has a thing for tulips, but also that I’m using a mug engraved with “Quill” — keepsake and memento that goes back all the way to my student newspaper days. Ah, memories.
Anyway, none of my beer-in-glass pictures turned out, but I can tell you that this was an easy-to-drink, very pleasant lager. It had a nice golden colour, and it wasn’t too hoppy nor too bitter. But, really, I’m easy to please when it comes to beer.
I’m just glad that Bosnia has a beer that gets exported. Go Bosnia! (and Herzegovina!)