Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

Author: Jon

  • Eggnog

    Okay, it’s the holidays, who doesn’t love eggnog? Of course you could buy all the eggnog you want from the store, but that’s boring. Searching through the cookbooks we have, I found no fewer than three different eggnog recipes. The one that appeals to me the most is a combination of an egg custard and whipped cream; the others use uncooked eggs and while I know there’s almost a zero chance of getting salmonella from properly handled and stored eggs, the thought of consuming anything that’s mostly raw egg just doesn’t sit well with me.

    Here’s the preferred recipe, from Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook. It says it makes about 10 servings of ½ cup each.

    Ingredients for the egg custard:

    • 3 large eggs, slightly beaten
    • 1/3 cup sugar
    • Dash of salt
    • 2½ cups milk
    • 1 tsp. vanilla

    Mix eggs, sugar and salt in heavy 2-quart saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. Cook over medium heat 10 to 15 minutes, stirring constantly, until mixture just coats a metal spoon; remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Place saucepan in cold water until custard is cool. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours but no longer than 24 hours.

    Ingredients for the whipped cream:

    • 1 cup whipping cream
    • 2 tbsp. powdered sugar
    • ½ tsp. vanilla
    • ½ cup rum (subsitute 1 tsp. vanilla for non-alcoholic)
    • 1 to 2 drops yellow food color, if desired
    • Ground nutmeg

    Beat whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla in chilled medium bowl with electric mixer on high speed until stiff. Gently stir 1 cup of the whipped cream, the rum and the food color into custard. Pour custard mixture into small punch bowl. Drop remaining whipped cream in mounds onto custard mixture. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Serve immediately. Refrigerate any remaining eggnog.

    Sounds pretty good to me. Now, here’s an old recipe for a single serving of eggnog, from the 1956 Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook:

    • Beat together 1 well-beaten egg and 2 tbsp. sugar.
    • Beat in 1 cup chilled rich milk and either ¼ tsp. vanilla or 1½ tsp. sherry flavoring and 1 tbsp. brandy or rum.
    • Serve cold in a tall glass sprinkled lightly with nutmeg.

    Yeah. Not sure about that. Anyway, that’s one variation; the other, from The Joy of Cooking, calls for separating the yolks from the whites, beating the whites to stiff peaks and folding them back into the mixture:

    • Beat until light 12 large egg yolks.
    • Gradually beat in 1 pound powdered sugar.
    • Add very slowly, beating constantly, 2 cups dark rum, brandy, bourbon or rye, or a combination.
    • Let stand, covered, for 1 hour to dispel the eggy taste.
    • Add, beating constantly, 2 to 4 cups chosen liquor(s) and 8 cups heavy cream.
    • Refrigerate, covered, for 3 hours.
    • In another large bowl beat until the peaks are stiff 12 large egg whites.
    • Fold the egg whites gently into the other ingredients.

    The recipe claims this makes 40 servings! My favorite part is the “dispel eggy taste.” That just sounds nasty.

    Otherwise, drink up! And if it tastes too eggy or you get salmonella, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  • Christmas parties galore

    So Thursday evening the kids’ daycare/preschool had their Christmas program, with each class performing two (or more) songs. Before the performances, Santa and his elves had arrived and all the kids waited in line to see them (although when you’re talking about kids ranging in age from 1 to 5, “waiting in line” is relative), and there was a big table full of cookies and treats for everyone. The kids (ours especially) all did great jobs with their respective songs, and while this wasn’t a “big” pageant or anything, it still kind of feels like you’ve “arrived” as a parent when your kids are in a school program on stage.

    Friday (last night) was my company’s holiday party. (“Holiday” as opposed to “Christmas” because we—as a company—didn’t want to offend anyone who might not celebrate Christmas. Have we really gotten so PC and “sensitive” that…? Ah, but that’s another rant.) It was a great party, lots of free beer and wine and excellent food and company. Everyone laughed a lot, and even though I didn’t win any cool prizes like I did last year, that’s all ancillary anyway; it’s just as much fun to dress up for the night and go out.

    Tonight was my wife’s Moms Club Christmas party, so the kids and I had a “night out” of TV dinners (the kids love the frozen kids meals) and Shrek 2. I helped my wife make rum balls earlier in the week for tonight’s party, so you know that sets the stage for a long night.

    And while not quite like a party, all last week we did Secret Santa at work. That’s always fun because getting free stuff is always a great distractor from work itself.

    Next week, my birthday, along with Christmas Eve and Day. Oh, and I have a five-day weekend for it all, too. Gotta love this time of year!

  • Science night

    A bunch of science links tonight. Kind of a year-end thing. First, as reported by the BBC, Science Magazine has compiled their list of ten key scientific advances of 2004. The top three are the Mars rovers finding evidence of water on mars, the discover of the Indonesian “hobbits,” and the South Koreans announcing the cloning of human embryos.

    The next link, via Slashdot, is this New Scientist article about Mt. St. Helens:

    In late September 2004, a series of earthquakes signalled that the volcano was awakening. Since then, enough lava has oozed into the volcano’s crater to build a dome the size of an aircraft carrier. The new dome, standing 275 metres off the crater floor at its highest point, is now taller than a nearby dome built by a previous set of eruptions over the course of six years.

     

    “Something extraordinary is happening at Mount St Helens. We are scratching our heads about it,” says Dan Dzurisin of US Geological Survey’s Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) in Vancouver, Washington, US. The new dome has grown so quickly – almost four cubic metres every second – that it has bulldozed a 180-metres-thick glacier out of its way. If this rapid growth rate continues, there is a growing risk of a dome collapse which could trigger a major eruption, researchers warned at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

    Finally, via Boing Boing, The Top Cryptozoology Stories of 2004. These include the “hobbits” again, Ogopogo in Canada, and (good grief) Chupacabras.

  • Wikipedia amusement

    I love Wikipedia and all, but sometimes I really have to shake my head in amusement/amazement when you compare the amount of content in something like the Doctor Who article (and supporting articles) to the amount in the esotropia article. One of those things that really highlights the weird imbalance of content that critics are always going on about.

  • Why I’ll never be an A-list blogger…

    At least according to this Newsweek article on the subject:

    In order to crack into the upper strata, you have to post frequently to stay on the fickle radar of this ADD-infested crowd. You have to link prodigiously to other blogs, increasing your profile and increasing the chances for inbound links. And you must hold strong opinions about what you’re writing about—passion is required in a good blog.

    Heh.

    Interesting article, if a little odd-sided and basic. More interesting to me is that it’s an honest acknowledgement of the dichotomy between the “haves” and the “have-nots” of the blogging world: all too often I’ve seen many of these same A-listers deny there is any such hierarchy. That’s bullshit, of course. I hardly need to point that out. I’ve never been able to figure out why they do that, though.

    And what’s up with this?

    “If you’re into blogs to make money, you’re into it for the wrong reasons,” says Searls. “Do you ask your back porch what its business plan is?”

    Not only does this notion seem quaintly naive, I have to wonder why Doc Searls—of all people, given his background as one of the original Cluetrain authors—is dictating the reasons for people to be blogging. Jeez, get off the high horse. If someone’s into blogs to make money, that’s as legitimate as someone who’s blogging their lives for a few family and friends.

    (And speaking of Cluetrain, I’ve got to get this off my chest: I recently read The Cluetrain Manifesto, and while I generally found the core ideas and first couple of essays to be good, mostly it’s overrated. Blasphemy! Yes, overrated; one of the things that really bugged me about the last half is that none of it seemed relevant to, well, the real world, and instead just came off as another business book where the rich guys are preaching their brand of success to that percentage of the upper middle class who are office workers for some big corporation.)

    Anyway, the article was via Scoble. Let’s see if I get some link love! :).

  • This week

    Yes, I’m finally back posting. It’s been a week.

    The eye surgery went very well, as good as it could have gone, and except for red eyes, you wouldn’t even know our son had surgery. The only real issue we’ve had is a bit of a struggle when we give him his eye medicine (topical ointment). Other than that, everything went through with flying colors.

    Coming back from Portland Wednesday we ran into some snow and a short delay on the Santiam Pass. Right about at the summit, in the worst of the snow, traffic was backed up on a corner because somewhere up ahead (out of sight) a truck or snowplow or something had apparently spun out. Otherwise it was a fairly uneventful drive.

    Thursday and Friday were catch-up days at work, and it didn’t help that I had my employee review Thursday morning (nearly two hours shot) and the annual company meeting Friday (the entire first half of the day gone). So I’m still behind on some stuff and that won’t go away as I have six more days off this month (three holiday days and three vacation days). Incidentally, my review went fine.

    Did some Christmas shopping today. Picked up a few things, need to get more. We have “Secret Santa” at work next week and I have two of five gifts so far.

    And to top it all off, my right wrist is hurting like a son-of-a-bitch. All going blind jokes aside, it’s been sore all week and since yesterday it’s just killing me; I don’t know if it’s onset carpal tunnel or a pinched nerve or what, but the source of the pain seems to be the base of the thumb joint at the wrist, and I can’t make much of a fist nor grip anything with any strength. Nor is there really a full range of motion without it being painful. Typing is not terrible, but not great. Gah. Must be getting old.

  • Cartoon skeletons

    This is cool yet random and kind of freaky at the same time: Skeletal Systems of Cartoon Characters.

    Animation was the format of choice for children’s television in the 1960s, a decade in which children’s programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities.

     

    I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.

    I like Charlie Brown’s skeleton a lot, but nothing there is quite as alien and disturbing as Buttercup’s (the Powerpuff Girl) skeleton. And this is cool: “Twenty-two of these are currently on show at Stumptown Coffee/Belmont in Portland, Oregon the month of December 2004.” I wish I had time to see them since we’re in Portland right now, but oh well.

    Via Boing Boing.

  • In Portland

    Sitting in the Red Lion Inn at the Convention Center in Portland tonight; we’ll be here for the next couple of days. Not a pleasure or casual visit, though; tomorrow our son (he’s three) has corrective eye surgery for esotropia.

    It’ll be his second such surgery (our daughter, who’s five, has also had two eye surgeries). It’s simultaneously a minor and a major surgery; minor because there’s nothing being transplanted, or amputated, or anything like that, and major because he will still be fully anesthetized and getting the full surgical “treatment.”

    The gory details? The lateral muscles of the eyes—those attached to the sides—are moved forwards or backwards on the wall of the eyeball to correct the respective alignment problem. Yes, this involves removing them from where they attach and sewing them onto a new location. Freaky? You bet, but at the same time utterly amazing at what can be accomplished in this day and age.

    Anyway, that’s the latest in case blogging gets light the next couple of days. (Though tonight I’m blogging a bit.)

  • The messed up world of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

    So, re-watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with the kids this last week, made me realize just how long it had been since I’d last seen this special: not long enough.

    It’s been 40 years since it came out, and this might be blasphemy to say, but it really hasn’t aged well. The animation is terrible! And what a weird-ass story.

    And disturbing. The Island of Misfit Toys was weird enough, but get a load of the talking gun. Or the way Yukon Cornelius licks his pick-axe to check for gold. Or Santa—I get the feeling this version of Santa Claus would have no problem dining on venison.

    But the worst of all is how they deal with the Abominable Snow Monster. What I thought I remembered was that he was only mean because he had a bad tooth, and Hermie the Dental Elf fixed it for him. No! No, what really happens is Hermie pulls every one of his teeth out with pliers and then they all try to kill the newly-defanged Snow Monster. Holy shit!

    I think I preferred my nostalgic version. At least it was messed up in a good way.

  • Book on blogging via blogs…

    Now this is interesting… Robert Scoble announces he’s writing a book on blogging… all on a blog. Well, to be fair, he’s co-writing it, but his plans are, write the book online, on a blog, and then sell the publishing rights on ebay. Wow.

    Q: Why should I buy the book if the entire thing is going to be done online?

     

    A: Easy. You shouldn’t. But you should tell your friends to buy it. We’re figuring that for every blog reader there are three friends out there who don’t know anything about blogs and don’t want to read a book on a computer screen. So, if we give away 100,000 copies (not an unreasonable number because we had more that many show up on Channel 9 in just the first two days in business and Firefox has given away, what, seven million copies of Firefox so far in just a few weeks) that we’ll get a few sales from your friends. So, the people who help us write the book and hype it up get it for free, but their friends have to pay. Plus, if the book is actually good maybe some of you will want it on your bookshelves to show you support good stuff.