why veganomicon cracks me up

"Broccoli gives polenta a great texture. It just makes it, like, "RAR!" That's the only way we can describe it."

I made the Maple Walnut Cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance this afternoon, and while they are tasty, they weren't very pretty. The first couple of trays, I didn't oil the cookie sheet, as suggested, because I was using my silicone baking mat and our well-seasoned pizza stone. NOTE TO SELF: JUST FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS. Much of the non-prettiness resulted from their reluctance to leave the cookie sheets.

I thought the dough seemed a little thin, and if I was making them again, I would add a bit more flour, and/or crush the walnuts more finely. But, tasty. And when I finished, the kid asked me if he could take a plate to our neighbors who have a very large family. Which was darned sweet.

obama playlist

iTunes doesn't have all the tracks necessary to build this as an iMix, but I burned this CD for my brother-in-law the other day. It's quite good :)

Elect Obama Remix - Big Hit Buda
Clap Your Hands - They Might Be Giants
Supersoulfighter - Lenny Kravitz
Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours - Stevie Wonder
It's a New Day - will.i.am
Sure Hope You Mean It - Raphael Saddiq
Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing - Marvin Gaye
Sweet Potato Pie - Ray Charles & James Taylor
People Get Ready - Aretha Franklin
Beautiful Day - U2
Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End - Phil Collins
Put a Little Love in Your Heart - Al Green & Annie Lennox
Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
Ooh Child - Beth Orton
All That We Let In - Indigo Girls
Down to the River to Pray - Alison Krauss
2004 Democratic National Convention - Barack Obama

'cause I keep forgetting

First snow (no accumulation): November 6, and then some MSAR (my abbreviation for mixed snow and rain) tonight, November 20. Okay with me if it fails to accumulate for awhile, though I should probably have the person who knows the location of the snow shovel bring it out of storage.

(IT CAN'T BE BURIED THAT DEEP, SINCE IT ONLY STOPPED SNOWING IN JUNE.)

in which

the President Elect wears a bicycle helmet. You can too.

too lazy to upload the photo

of my bike computer when I hit 1000 (.1) miles on Saturday, November 2nd. It was the day before the time change, and I rode in to work in conditions I would not have ridden in on a week day (i.e. in more traffic). Dense fog, dark, and really not all that super safe.

I haven't ridden since (sadly) because it's now dark when I come home from work, and while my small-town traffic hardly qualifies, there are a couple of spots on the ride where I don't have much of an alternative, route-wise, and the lack of light just isn't good. Even though I blink A LOT when I ride in the dark. With LED lights, that is, not with my eyelids.

Re: lack of blogging, my laptop had to go see the doctors at Dell. It seems fine now. It was gone during the election, which was a mixed blessing. I couldn't obsess as much, but the obsessing I did do was challenging. Fivethirtyeight.com doesn't format very well for my cell phone screen.

I spotted my choice for all-time oddest vehicle name the other day: the Pontiac Parisienne Safari. Which is a 1970s fake-wood-panel station wagon. I cannot begin to fathom what they were going for with that name.