Mario Crossover

From the "Unnecessary But So Great" file:

Super Mario Crossover, where you can play the original Super Mario Brothers as any of a selection of classic Nintendo characters. Plus you can switch characters after each level. Schweet.

Apple Update

So TG and I found ourselves at the Apple Store again. This time, a blue-shirted guy (per usual, one of a myriad of blue shirts hanging around talking) offered to help almost as soon as we entered. He retrieved our item from the back, and pulled out his super-primo-extra-large-edition iPhone to check us out. "Oh, we are paying cash," said TG. "No problem," said the geek*. He led us to a display table in the middle of the store with some iMacs. He hit some buttons on the phone. And then: a cash register drawer popped out of the display table. Right under the iMacs! We started laughing; we couldn't help it. The idea that of all the times we were in the store we never noticed a drawer in the table was just too ridiculous. Better yet, the drawer is full of money. Just hanging out where people play with computers all day. Lesson here is: don't try to steal the computers from the Apple Store, steal the tables.

*Level of geekdom assumed, not officially determined.

Read about my previous Apple experience here.

Fortune

A word on fortunes; as in, from fortune cookies: I love them. Ok that was three words, but I planned to say more anyway. Somehow when I was younger, without even noticing, I had amassed a good pile of them, saved from as long as I can remember. I put them all in a Coke bottle around 1995, and have kept every single one I've gotten since. And they can only be mine (a fact which I myself didn't realize until someone offered to give me his...and I rejected it... bluntly). It's like some strange obsession. They are crunched into the bottle, but there's plenty of room left for all the ones I will get in the future. There are even a couple that went through the wash in my jeans pocket (the little pocket is the designated fortune-holder...I always check it before washing jeans).

Never having given this much thought to my fortune collection, it seems I have some very specific behaviors regarding them that I never put together before--worth noting should I ever need therapy.



But of all these fortunes, I have never seen this*:

A website. What? Since when do ancient Chinese fortune tellers have websites?? So I went there: if I entered my email, zip, gender, and birthday I would get a personalized fortune. I looks legit, like it's the website of the cookie company, but still...I don't usually give out my email that easily.

And, there's a coinciding book, found at a used book sale:

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, Jennifer 8. Lee (the 8 being a Chinese-symbolic-thing)

The writer was promoting the book on the Colbert Report, so it HAS to be good, right??? (so far, it is) And, she seems to be as obsessive about Chinese food as I am about fortunes, so it's really a match made in heaven! In it, she chronicles the history of Chinese food in general and specifically the cookie fortunes that led 110 people to win the Powerball lottery in one day, picking numbers from a fortune...every single one having come from a Chinese restaurant. It's really nice to lend some legitimacy to my bizarre behaviors!

A bird visited us again. I wonder what that means for our fortune?

*After photographing, this fortune went straight into the bottle.

Busy Things

I've spent this past week of my birthday with friends and fiances. Thank you everyone who hung out on Wednesday and Saturday, I had a lovely birthday. And thanks to That Guy that took me to dinner! It's been busy, but things are back to normal now, and postings should continue per usual. A few things from last week:

I received a gorgeous bouquet of flowers from TG:

But can anyone tell me, what the heck is this green stem? (Don't say "awesome", because I already know that)

Fun with macro:


And here is a bird hanging around our building, not a raven thank goodness:


This guy was sitting on that windowsill for a while, even when contractors where throwing appliances and drywall very loudly out the window above him. Then he was on our sill for a few minutes, then the wall. I have not seen him since. They are re-doing the building next to us, so it's been quite the entertainment over there. I just need a wheelchair and binoculars and I'll be set.

Suckered.

Wow, I have not posted in a while. Sucks for you! Back soon! Promise!

Yet Another

With my own birthday coming up, here is a birthday cake: Happy Birthday Jenn! I am really enjoying making cakes for people...it's my little contribution to their birthday, and hey, who doesn't love cake? Plus it's a great way to experiment with techniques. Here I used melted orange chocolate wafers to pipe the words onto wax paper, and transferred it to the cake. It's good to do that in case of mistakes (we don't want any wrecks, do we?).

This particular one is a chocolate chip cake, and sooo delicious. It uses sour cream in the batter, and is very moist. And the hint of cinnamon adds a nice touch. You can grab the recipe here:

Bit of Nutmeg

The only difference of course being that I coated the whole thing in a layer of chocolate instead of frosting. See how it gets all nice and smooth? It's firm but you can still cut through it with a fork. Also I mixed the chips into the batter, not layered like the original recipe.

This picture makes me happy:


Then I took a couple of the sugar on top to see how close I could get:

Answer: very very close.

Cuppy Cakes

I finally had an excuse to make Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake, and boy, I was not disppointed. These cupcakes were moist and rich, and I even left out a little sugar and butter, as I often do (I try). Then I coated them with chocolate ganache and of course, sprinkles. I recommend this recipe highly. Noone should be surprised, really, because everything from that site is good. But I wasn't sure how they would translate to cupcakes; the batter held up very well, except it was the messiest batter I have ever made. It was so runny, and kept dripping all over the pan as I poured the cups. I hate that. I like a nice clean pan so the batter doesn't burn and stick to it forever.

I'm ready for my close-up.

Happy Easter!

We celebrate this Easter weekend with Peeps acting out all sorts of situations, from real life to movies. It's Peep-tacular! (What, no Resurrection Peep? For shame.)

Click here to see them all!