Apple (but not that kind)

I hope everyone had a lovely Holiday, welcome back to blog-town!

I couldn't write about this before Christmas, because it involves a gift for That Guy. He needed the new operating system version for his computer, so I had to go to the Apple store.

Back before I was a Mac Owner, I felt awkward going to the Apple store, because I was hiding a dark secret: I was a PC. Now, I still feel awkward, but for different reasons. Whenever there, you are surrounded by employees who know more about computers than you could ever need to, and technology so advanced you are afraid to touch it lest you get your grimy, unwashed fingers all over the shiny surfaces.

There are easily more employees (color-coded by department) than customers in the store at all times, and since there aren't enough customers to occupy them all, they tend to huddle in groups of two or three, probably talking about geek things like iPhone apps and Steve Jobs.

The required software was easy enough to find, so I also browsed iPod cases. What a huge selection! And every single case I looked at was $24.99. Sounds steep, but I was pleased to see that Apple uses the same price-point strategy as the Dollar store.

I made my way over to the central table to find out if there is some sort of checkout line. The guy there asked "Cash or charge?" I said charge, and he proceeded to ring me up right where we were standing. Right there, with his iPhone. He even swiped my card on it. Holy cow, it was crazy. I must be getting used to going there because the strangeness of this didn't even hit me till days later. I worry that there is a guy at the Apple store with my credit card number on a cell phone, and the computer savvy to use it stealthily. Maybe I should stop calling them geeks.

Christmas Cookies

Well, we had Christmas in mind when a friend invited me over to make cookies, but that was two weeks ago, so the cookies are long gone. In memoriam, here are:

Maple Walnut Spice
I got this recipe from Cooking Light, but quickly realized there is nothing "light" about them. I think the only reason they can say that is the recipe makes 30 cookies, which means they would have to be very small, and then are still 98 calories. However, I wolfed them down pretty well. Light schmight.


and





Chocolate Oatmeal Stovetop
Maria made these, but did it before I got there, so I'm not sure what went into them. I think a very pure form of crack was involved. They were so rich and fudgey, it was like eating a brownie (with oatmeal in it). They are "stovetop" because you heat them on the stove and drop onto wax paper to cool; that's it! Nifty.


This is my last post until after Christmas, so have a good one everybody, and see you soon!

Punkin' Candy

I made these pumpkins out of marzipan for my sister-in-law Erin. They are actually chocolate filled: you make small chocolate truffles, and form the tinted marzipan around it. The leaves and stems are also marzipan. Yummy and cute!


Everyone here at i do things (so, me) would like to wish everyone out there in Internetland a Happy Christmas and Merry New Year! And Happy every other holiday which you may or may not celebrate!

Cookies

I am distraught. I have been waiting to get my Grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe. Finally, I was there over the weekend. I geared up to get a great recipe and was excited to come home and make them!

We browsed her recipes, and I wrote down a few I wanted. Then:

"All I need is your cookie recipe now."

::confused look:: "My chocolate chip cookies?"

Mom: "That's just the recipe from the Nestle bag."

::crickets::

Wow. What a downer.

Indubitably Awesome

Here is another cereal commercial I just think is hilarious: Crispy Critters. I remember this cereal being good, actually. I do not remember the whole "indubitably" thing. It also makes me think of "Arrested Development," when Maeby worked on the movie "Love, Indubitably."

Today I Noticed...

The petals on these mums have cute little fluted ends:

An Investigative Investigation of Things

(Previous Investigations: Part One, Part Two)

Cereal: Part Three

Do Crispix Stay Crispy in Milk? A Timed Experiment
You don't hear much about Crispix cereal anymore. After a big push in the 80s and 90s, they have all but disappeared from the airwaves. I guess they aren't considered a "kids" cereal, but they aren't really an "old people" cereal either. The best old commercial I could find was "Flip for the Crisp of Crispix," which has possibly the worst cereal-themed song I have ever heard:

What I really wanted was the commercial that insisted the cereal stays crispy in milk, as it was the inspiration for this investigation. Crispix is the unusually-shaped cereal that has "corn on one side, rice on the other," and a hollow center. I always liked popping them against the roof of my mouth as I ate. Anyone else do that? Anyone at all? Hm.

Figure 1. Crispix

Anyway, because I never let cereal sit long enough to get soggy, I had to use a timer with a bowl of Crispix for this investigation. I set myself up in a photographable manner, poured the bowl, and started timing, taking a bite to test about every minute. Here are the highlights:

Figure 2. Forty-five seconds. Good start. Nice crunch.

Figure 3. Two minutes. A little bit of softness is setting in, but I wouldn't call it mushy at all.

Figure 4. Four minutes. Definitly softening, but has a firmness when you bite down.

Figure 5. By the 8 minute mark, the cereal still had quite a bite to it, like aldente pasta. I wouldn't call it "crispy" though. But, who ever lets cereal sit for that long anyway?

To find out the answer, below is Figure 6, a graph showing how long five survey respondents take to eat a bowl of cereal:
As you can see, all respondents took much less than 8 minutes to eat a bowl, with one person taking only 60 seconds because "I hate soggy cereal." So really, the whole issue of soggy cereal might not be an issue after all. But for the purposes of this investigation, I call it a success, and proof that Crispix stays crispy in milk, at least for the time that it takes to eat it.

Figure 7. Top and side view.

FACT: Crispix are hexagonal, but only in one dimension.