blog #341 >> Jedi Force Trainer

I found this advertised in one of the catalogs laying around at my parent's house this evening, and the entire concept just blew me away. It seems hard to believe that they've really invented a way to move objects with your brain. It's suppose to be the most fantastic toy of the year. And I believe they'll be selling a great many of these this Christmas. The Force Trainer comes with a headset that uses brain waves (not Midi-chlorians) to manipulate a ball within a clear tube. It has 15 levels in which Yoda will guide you from Padawan to Jedi Master.

The USA Today states: In the Force Trainer, a wireless headset reads your brain activity, in a simplified version of EEG medical tests, and the circuitry translates it to physical action. If you focus well enough, the training sphere, which looks like a ping-pong ball, will rise in the tower. A state of deep concentration is needed to achieve a Force-full effect. "When you concentrate, it activates the training remote," says Frank Adler of toymaker Uncle Milton Industries, which is creating the Trainer. "There is a flow of air that will move the (ball). You can actually feel like you are in a zone."

Teaching kids to concentrate... BRILLIANT! It's also suppose to be a wonderful stress reliever. It will be one of the first mass-marketed brain-to-computer products. Which makes me wonder what the future of this technology will be?

May the force be with you.
T

blog #340 >> Get a Handle on Chocolate Cake

Somedays all I really want for dinner is chocolate cake. And with this quick and easy 5-minute chocolate cake recipe, chocolate cake dinners are that much easier to obtain. I found this recipe a LONG time ago and finally got around to trying it. What I can't figure out is, why I didn't try it sooner? It's amazing!



5-minute CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

1 large mug (and I mean large, a sissy coffee mug will overflow) {Unfortunately for me "sissy" describes about 99.9% of the mugs and tea cups I own. So I had to choose very carefully. The batter should fill your mug about halfway.}
4 Tbsp. flour
4 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. cocoa
1 large egg
3 Tbsp. milk
3 Tbsp. oil
1/4 cup chocolate chips (plus some extra for sprinkling on top when it comes out of the microwave)
a small splash of vanilla extract

1. Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well.

2. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

3. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.


4. Add the 1/4 cup of chocolate chips and vanilla extract, and mix again. Mix the chocolate chips well, because mine tend to sink to the bottom. {Mine did.} If that happens just flip your cake over when you're ready to eat it.

5. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes on high. The cake will rise over the top of the mug and overflow if your mug is too small. You've been warned. remove from microwave and sprinkle top of cake with chocolate chips.

6. Allow to cool a little, and get closer to diabetes! I just eat it blistering hot, because I have no patience for things like cooling.

{Also, I feel like cakes need frosting, so I spread some microwavable hot fudge over the top.}

I found this on Underdeveloped in the Mind and and copied it nearly verbatim. She got this from La Fuji Mama. But I think it's been around for awhile.

ENJOY!
T

blog #339 >> Almost Needed Stitches

(WARNING: This gets gory, not for those with a week stomach... also unsuitable for young cow creamers and eggs.)



As I'm sitting here typing this with one lonely hand, I ask myself, "Do I need stitches?" I finally finished cleaning up the gore in the kitchen, and the bleeding seems to have subsided for the time being. But the pain is growing, which I'll accept as a good sign, since it didn't hurt at all when I first sliced it open. But the real reason I don't want to brave the emergency room is... (Well, outside the fact that it's late, and it's bound to take until 3am, and the flu is going around, and I am terrified of needles, and I feel like a wimp compared to my dad who lost four fingers and gouges his hand all the time is...) I really don't want to relay the story any more than I need to. I mean, why can't I ever hurt myself like a normal person? You know regular everyday accidents, such as robot attacks and the like. I always end up with these long involved stories, with unbelievable situations, which normally end with me in a cast or all the skin pealed away from the palms of my hands.

This story begins innocently and safely enough... I was baking cookies. Yes, sweet-delectable thumb print cookies with my delicious freshly made mint jelly. I needed to separate an egg, so I reached for a bowl and knocked over my darling cow creamer. I tried to catch it, but I was holding an egg which broke on impact, knocking the cow creamer into the batter bowl, breaking the cow creamer cleanly in half right down the middle of his belly. Poor cow creamer! You will never be able to vomit cream into my tea ever again. Not that I used you very often, but you deserved a better end! Well, my hand was covered in egg, so I picked the cow creamer up put him together. (He looked perfectly fine sitting there on the counter.) And I sat him aside until I had finished baking the cookies. After I finished the cookies I thought, "Oh I'll wash the cow creamer, glue him together, and put him away." I had sort of forgotten "where" he was broken, or even really that the cow creamer was broken at all. When I grabbed the cow creamer he broke apart in my hand slicing my little finger, really, REALLY deep. And after a great deal of bleeding, I got it closed up with a couple of band-aids. I don't think I've ever had a cut bleed THAT much! It was even worse than the time I tried to use a scalpel when I couldn't find an Exacto knife. Anyhow, I suppose it will be fine. After all, I've never heard of a cow creamer killing anyone.
Good night!
T
p.s. This episode was however fatal for the cow creamer. After the cow creamer cut me I was rather cross with it and decided to throw him away instead of fix him. Plus I doubt he would have held cream without leaking after that anyhow.

blog #338 >> Mint Jelly

Today I made a batch of mint jelly. I think this is the easiest thing I've made thus far, in the way of jams and jellies. It's like making jelly out of tea. This is giving me all sort of ideas for making peach tea jelly, and earl grey jelly, and chai tea jelly... mmmm... I will definitely be making this one again sometime. I got the recipe here, and I decided to go with the liquid pectin recipe instead of the boxed. I was all out of pectin anyhow, and since I was buying more, I decided to go with the more common recipe. It turned out very sweet and the lemon juice makes it taste a little bit fruity. It will be perfect for thumbprint cookies. I think I'll make some later this week.
T

blog #337 >> More Garden Goods

More tomatoes and the first half of the carrots.
mmmm...

T

blog #336 >> The Best of "The Bins"

I love "The Bins!"
It's so much fun.
It's like sorting through piles of trash to find treasures.
This week I found lots of vintage fabrics, books and records...
oh and a few doilies too.



The Village Apple Book. Apple recipes from The Salisbury Congregational Community Church in New Hampshire.
Let me tell you those old ladies can cook!





Yet another vintage alarm clock to join my collection. Someday I will find the perfect alarm clock. But I never know if I like one until I try it. And I'm very very picky when it comes to alarm clocks. First off it must, have real numbers, no little dots, or Roman numerals. I need something I can read when I'm half asleep. It also needs a light, or at least light up handles. It's dark in my room at night. And above all it needs to be QUIET! Loud ones simply scare me awake. Once I recognize to wake up at a certain sound, it will wake me up no matter how soft or quite it is. That sound doesn't need to wake up the entire apartment complex. Also I normally wake up naturally about two minutes before it goes off anyhow. Really it's just an insurance policy in case I over sleep.


And the dessert cook book with happy flowers.

Alright, it's getting late now so I'm off to bed with my new alarm clock in hand.
Good Night!
T

(and if I do the math, I figure everything cost me less than seventy cents each.)

blog #335 >> The Adventures of a Macro Box

I will readily confess... I'm not a photographer. I don't know how to use my camera, I can never get decent lighting. And I don't have the patience to arrange or wait for a good composition. Despite all this, I know a good photo when I see one. Which just makes me even more aware of the fact that I'm a terrible photographer.

This week's challenge has been trying to get a photo of these little red owl earrings for etsy. They've proven quite difficult, and in most photos look more like little red blobs than owls. I tried indoor lighting, natural lighting, a spot light, the flash, adjusting the manual exposure, adjusting the levels in Photoshop and a combination of all of the above. At last I tried making a Macro Box. (Thanks Lisa for the link!)


My newly made macro box.

Happily, I had everything I needed to make it on hand, and it came together pretty fast. I used tracing paper to defuse the light, and I put my desk lamp on one side, the bedside lamp on the other side, and my light table on top. (And I tried combinations of one light source and two, as well as with flash and without.) Overall it does a pretty good job for close up images, but it eliminated the shadows on the object, and now they still look like little red blobs. But I think it will work really well for other things. I guess I need to play around with it some more. Or perhaps I'm just being too picky, and in the end I'll probably go back to using plain old natural light.


The owl earrings in the Macro Box.


This is the best picture I took (out of about 1000) it's natural light, with increased light exposure, and adjusted A LOT in Photoshop.

Hopefully, I can finish taking my pictures tonight and get this little guys posted!

T