Well, I guess I didn’t follow Bahrs’ directions for baking, which are to…er…follow directions.
I was flipping through my copy of my grandma’s cookbook the other day and decided to try to make Chocolate Bittersweets. I think this recipe was actually my great grandmother’s, passed down to my grandmother at some point (and that’s not to say it was an original recipe of hers either, as many of the recipes in the book came from other family members, and a couple were even taken from the sides of boxes). I’ll preface this by saying these things are far from bitter, so the name doesn’t really reflect what they are. I’m also not sure what category they belong in. Cookie? Minicake? Something else entirely? Here they are.
In any case, I noticed that I had all of the ingredients to make the cookie/cake part and most of the ingredients for the icing, but I didn’t have the coconut or cream cheese for the filling. I’m not even sure how that works, by the way: how do you put filling and icing in/on a cookie or cake? Well, the problem was solved when I decided to go ahead and make them with just the icing. But I had to improvise on the icing because I didn’t have chocolate chips to make it. So I used…
And it worked wonderfully.
Does anyone else like to cook or bake? I’m certainly no expert, but I do enjoy it, especially when it’s a recipe from my grandma’s book. What problems do you run into? Do you like to improvise? Because I feel like I do it all the time, sometimes because I don’t like what’s included in the recipe (like the nuts in Chocolate Bittersweets) so I leave that particular item out, other times because I feel like I’d like the recipe better with something else added. In this case, I took a risk using Nutella instead of chocolate chips, because while Nutella is fantastic, it is very different from actual chocolate in terms of taste, and in this case, it is also a completely different consistency (a spread) than chocolate chips (which are hard). Luckily, the chocolate had to be melted anyway, so it worked out. In short: Nutella can be used to make a really great icing, if you’re a Nutella fan. You just have to be okay with a hazelnut taste in your chocolate.
*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.
I’ll start this off by admitting that I am a big fan of flashbacks and flashforwards, when they’re done correctly. That said, “Supergirl,” the third episode of Smallville‘s final season, begins with a fantastic reintroduction to Darkseid, the one we first see at the end of the tenth season premier. It’s a very simple “three weeks earlier” kind of flashback, and what really makes it simple is that it is so quick. All we see is Darkseid’s essence revealing itself, just like in the premier, and then its takeover of the radio D.J. Gordon Godfrey. At this point, I start to wonder if Godrey had been anti-hero before now or if it is only since Darkseid came to Earth. If that’s the case, he sure wrote that book fast, didn’t he? I guess you can get away with that when you’re an alien, bodiless menace.
In this episode, Godfrey/Darkseid is holding a rally against the heroes, at which he unveils a billboard designed for his cause. And of course, the billboard breaks and threatens to tumble down into the shocked and, frankly, deserving crowd of haters (okay, kidding), but at the last second, when Clark is trying to figure out how to save everyone, Kara makes her triumphant return. Actually, let’s make that Supergirl, because she’s fully dressed in her own iconic red, yellow, and blue. 🙂 What really makes this moment for me is that Lois immediately recognizes Kara and says, “Isn’t that your cousin, Clark?” More on Lois later.
While the Supergirl photoshoot is amusing and yields such lines as “you’re the woman of tomorrow today” (photographer) and “you didn’t come to Earth to be the first super-powered pinup girl” (Clark), I’m not really sure why it’s here. I know Kara is trying to get her image and status as a superhero out there, but would this really happen? In any case, Kara tells Clark that his father has let him go and Clark is “no longer his son,” and this conversation is probably what Clark needs to jumpstart his superhero…ness. That should be a word. Anyway, Kara reveals that she has a mission to protect Earth and Clark is no longer involved. Clearly, this hurts Clark and, of course, makes him want to be a hero all the more. So he convinces Kara to teach him how to fly, which actually works for a few seconds. There are some beautiful closeups of a butterfly, and then Clark. But then Clark loses it and falls back to Earth. Maybe I was too optimistic to think that Clark would actually learn to fly, for real, in this episode, but at least he’s on his way. This episode is kind of huge, in that regard. Clark actually flies on purpose in this episode, and not as “evil” Kal-El, even if it’s only for a few seconds. Later, though, the awesomeness momentum is dropped a little when we get another one of those ridiculous computer scenes where something impossible happens to serve a plot point: Kara (who is suddenly a computer guru, it seems) sharpens a picture in about half a second and sees that the car driver is Lois. This is never going to happen, with today’s technology, not like that anyway. But that’s okay; Smallville isn’t exactly a show focused on computers, so I’ll allow a little misstep if it makes the episode work. Besides, they make up for it by having Clark realize, just by hearing the phrase “three weeks ago,” how Darkseid got to Earth and, later, who it most likely inhabited. This is the kind of logical thinking that will make Clark a great Superman.
Back to Lois, isn’t her return adorable and sweet? Clark’s smile as he turns around to hug her at the rally, and her smile for him, makes my heart melt. Erica Durance and Tom Welling sure do have chemistry (and I think we’ll really see that next week, but more on that at the end of this blog entry). When danger rears its ugly head, though, the tone changes, and we are launched into the meat of the episode, which has Lois pretending to be Godfrey’s/Darkseid’s driver, as well as a bondage-clad stripper/prostitute (?), in order to help take him down. When Darkseid realizes that it’s Lois, who has taken pictures in order to discredit Godrey/Darkseid and end his crusade against heroes, he tries to inhabit her but figures out that she is pure of heart, so he can’t. And of course she is pure of heart! She’s Lois! The reason she is here now, in fact, is that she believes the heroes are a force of intrinsic good that will keep the world safe, and what’s so wrong with that? But now she knows Clark’s secret, so she is also doing this to help the man she loves keep his cover and stay safe while also saving the world. While she’s doing it for herself, on some level, to keep her boyfriend safe, she is also doing it for the world because she believes in the heroes. In this sense, maybe Lois herself is a kind of hero, a non-caped crusader for justice and peace.
When Clark and Kara realize what’s going on, they come to save Lois and take out Darkseid. This will go down as one of the most important moments for Clark’s journey to becoming Superman, as his face-off with an empathic villain is particularly enlightening. The fears and hopes Clark has come bubbling to the surface, and perhaps now he understands Jor-El’s reasoning for sending Kara to Earth. Clark is not yet ready to be the world’s protector because he has some growing up to do, quickly. For him to be who his father wants him to be, he has to stop this cycle of trying and yet failing to live up to expectations. He has to stop complaining that he doesn’t know how to be a hero and just figure out a way to be a hero on his own terms. As Yoda would say, “there is no try.” Clark must do.
The final few moments of the episode revolve around Clark, Kara, Lois, and Oliver, and I for one am riveted at this point. Lois’ trying to figure out a name for Kara (“…Ubergirl. Powergirl? Megagirl!”) is hilarious, and then we shift gears a little when she tells Clark, “The Blur is different. He’s my hero.” Before this season, this would have seemed cheesy and trite because Lois would have been blissfully unaware of Clark’s status. Now, it is still cheesy and trite, but because Lois knows the truth and is obviously having a bit of fun with Clark, it is sweet. We know they are in love, but what we’ve seen since Lois figured out the truth has been something deeper. Lois not only loves Clark but also admires him, fully adores him with every fiber of her being, because of who he is as a person and who he will be to the world when he is ready. She loves him as Clark and The Blur/Superman – together now, not separately.
This scene comes just after Kara has a heart-to-heart with Lois, in which Kara admits that “even heroes need someone to come home to.” While Kara is too distant from real life (with no real friends to call her own, no lover, etc.), Clark is too attached to it. It is obvious that, somewhere between these two extremes, there is a happy medium for both Clark and Kara to find. I think this is when Lois realizes that it is okay for her to be with Clark because, even though he is a hero to the world, he is also the love of her life, and why shouldn’t they both get to be happy? A power couple.
The next time we see Kara, she is running into Clark on the Metropolis streets, in disguise (yes!), explaining that she still has work to do on Earth. The Darkness (A.K.A. Darkseid) is still lingering, and it is her job to catch it. Does this mean that Kara will be back before the show is over? Personally, I hope so, because I’ve always loved the character, and I like what Laura Vandervoort does with her on Smallville.
Finally, we end the episode on an exciting note, as Oliver comes out of the hero closet, a group of reporters surrounding him in his office: “There’s only one way for me to set the record straight. I am Green Arrow.” What does this mean for the future of heroes on Smallville? Will Supergirl eventually be able to discard the dark wig and glasses she now wears as “Linda” (or the Smallville equivalent name)? What will it mean for Clark? Will the age-old question of why hasn’t Clark been wearing glasses finally be answered? Will Smallville‘s version of Clark/Superman be unique in that Clark will be fully out to the public as Superman by the series’ end? Only time will tell. While that seems like a preposterous notion, I wouldn’t put it past the show’s crew to figure out some way to make it work.
Now for next week, it’s the momentous two hundredth episode on October 15th! Lois convinces Clark to go to back to Smallville High for homecoming and his five-year reunion, at which he meets up with Braniac 5 (that’s right: James Marsters returns to Smallville again) and begins a journey through time. We’ll see flashbacks to Lana and Chloe, to high school, but we’ll also see hints at the future. This may very well be the most important episode of the series, beyond the series premier and finale, so don’t miss it! As you’ll see in the TV Guide exclusive trailer below, the episode looks amazing, and Lois and Clark fans will be happy to see the chemistry explode when the couple finally says the three/four little words we’ve been waiting for (at least I don’t think they’ve said it yet).
Okay, it isn’t exactly Shakespeare, but I think I’ve got about everything on my writer’s website that I wanted to have by the due date on Monday. Of course, I will add more in the future, but this is it for now. Here is a link to the temporary location (my free U.B. webspace); I’m going to work on transferring it to my rogermarket.com domain – and, thus, self-hosting my WordPress blog – at some point, but that’s not a priority right now. We’ll see it on class on Monday, briefly, but I wanted to post the link anyway, especially for those reading this who won’t be in class or aren’t students at U.B.
While searching for the quote for this title, I found a few more that I loved. Here they are:
“Information on the Internet is subject to the same rules and regulations as a conversation at a bar.”
– George Lundberg
“My favorite thing about the Internet is that you get to go into private world of real creeps without having to smell them.”
– Penn Jillet
“Hooked on Internet? Help is just a click away.”
– Author Unknown
“The Internet is the most powerful magnifier of slack ever invented.”
– Author Unknown
“You can’t take something off the Internet – it’s like taking pee out of a pool.”
– Author Unknown
*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.
The Waterfront Promenade was voted Best Place to Run in Baltimore. I had to double-check to make sure I was thinking of the right place, but I was (and maybe the whole of the harbor is considered Waterfront Promenade, but I’m unclear on that). This is the famous Inner Harbor area, where I do, in fact, see a lot of runners. And just last week, I was one of them. I had planned on going to U.B.’s kickboxing class on Saturday but didn’t make it, so I decided to go for a brisk walk/run around the harbor instead.
I had no idea how big the harbor is. The Waterfront Promenade is, apparently, 7 miles long. I don’t know what that includes (is that from the start of the Promenade, at Pratt and Light Streets, all the way around Tide Point Marina and Canton, and back to Pratt and Light?), but anyway, it’s bigger than I had expected. Actually, I didn’t know what to expect.
But when I went for my walk/run, I went up past The Rusty Scupper and into a really nice subdivision area. I don’t know if it’s apartments or condos or what, but they look really nice. I wound up passing the Domino Sugar factory, ending at Tide Point Marina, right by the Baltimore headquarters of world-famous Under Armour. From this marina, there’s an excellent view of the harbor that I can’t even convey with one picture (because it’s so big), but I’ll post one as a teaser.
I wish you could see the whole thing.
*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.
Okay, when bulk trash pick-up is voted Baltimore’s 3rd Best City Service – well, I think we need some new services.
Because how boring and gross is that? We might as well call Baltimore itself the world’s biggest trash can because I think that’s what “bulk trash” says to me: big trash, butt load of trash, Crap City. The world’s dump. It’s no wonder you see couches, tires, etc., on the streets of Baltimore every month.
Just below the #1 Charm City Circulator (which is great, don’t get me wrong, but it has its drawbacks), we have single-stream recycling. Okay, in an increasingly greener world, that’s pretty cool. But #3 needs to be something special to counteract all that boring…ness. How about a Metro subway with more than one line? Granted, the Red Line is all but official, but it won’t be here and ready to use until at least 2016, and even then, it’s only one new line. What do we do in the meantime? Apparently, we throw out our appliances and furniture.
I’m just glad rat eradication didn’t make it into the top 3.
P.S. Why is it that, when I do a Google Image Search for “bulk trash Baltimore,” John Waters appears on the first page?
*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.
Let me ask you something: when “Al Qaeda gives you their word,” which (ironically) happens to be grammatically incorrect, do you believe it?
No sir/mam, you do not fucking believe it! Because it’s Al Qaeda. Look at everything it stands for and everything it’s done. No matter what happens, no matter what we and Europe do, how can we have any confidence that Al Qaeda wouldn’t renege on the deal? “Trust Al Qaeda” is my new favorite oxymoron, right up there with “Microsoft Works.”
That is all.
*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.
According to Urban Dictionary, the phrase “gets on my tits,” which I’d never heard until today, is (1) a “verb used to signify a singular subject that bothers you” or (2) a “verb to describe someone who pisses you off.” It can also be used in the plural (“get on my tits”). The (singular) example sentence is the following: “Senseless violence really gets on my tits.”
Aside from the fact that user “ejito” of Urban Dictionary is technically wrong – it’s a verb phrase, not a verb, and may even have other names as well – I find his/her definition rather intoxicating. It uses the word “tits” in a way that not only evokes the proper mood, tone, and branding of a website called Urban Dictionary but also reminds me that there is a big world out there, with tons and tons of languages, idioms, and slang words/phrases.
Before today, I never would have thought to say or write something like, “He really gets on my tits” – or, to push the definition to its limits, “Geez, would you get off my tits already?” Maybe that’s because I don’t have any literal tits to get on (unlike Michael Moore, apparently), but it’s also because I didn’t grow up with that particular phrase. One reason I love traveling is that I get to see how people talk in different parts of the U.S. and the world. I suppose, in this case, the Internet rendered traveling unnecessary. I was able to sit in the comfort of my own home, on my bed, and read all about how to get on someone’s tits, and then write about it, properly.
Today, I’m a happy writer.
*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.
Yesterday, I found this interview with Mark Coker, Founder and CEO of the electronic publishing company Smashwords. In it, he describes the changing nature of the publishing industry, highlighting his role and understandably praising his own brand of electronic self-publishing. Thisis marketing 101 after all: you do an interview to raise awareness for your product/service, so why not “talk it up”?
Anyway, I love technology. Outside of books and real-life people, my computer and TV are my best friends. However, I’m apprehensive about this shift toward electronic reading. I already do a lot of my news reading online because of all the blogs and Twitter accounts that I follow. So will I want to sit on my futon this winter, next to a roaring fireplace, and cuddle up with a good…LCD-type screen? An iPad, for instance?
Hell no!
But while I love the tactile sensation of having a book in my hands, turning its pages, flipping quickly to a favorite passage, etc., I cannot deny the convenience that electronic publishing affords the reader (we’ll leave the writer out of the equation for now). The simple fact of the matter is that I’m running out of space for books. When I moved to Baltimore in August 2009, I brought with me a small, 3-shelf bookcase and well over 300 books; I quickly bought two 5-shelf bookcases to accomodate the books, as well as my collection of DVDs. Then in late August 2010, I moved from Bolton Hill to Downtown, where my room is actually a little smaller anyway, so it wasn’t too distressing that one of my large shelves collapsed before I even tried to move it. I’m down to a 3-shelfer and a 5-shelfer. As such, many of my books are now stored and, yes, inventoried in boxes in the downstairs closet. I hate that; my books want to be out of the closet, with me, but alas, they aren’t.
With an e-reader, I still wouldn’t be able to display my books – they’d still be in the invisible “closet” of my e-reader’s storage mechanism – but at least I would have room for them. I guess that’s the tradeoff. I can have more books with an e-reader, I can have them almost instantly, and I can have them cheaper in most instances. But they aren’t books. They’re texts, yes, but they aren’t books, per se.
So why, as a writer, would/should I consider using a service like Smashwords? For one thing, Smashwords itself is free. They only take a 15% bite out of the writer’s royalties, when he/she makes money, which is a far cry from the 50-75% that most traditional publishers take. From an economical standpoint, the advantage is clear: if you (self-)publish electronically with Smashwords, you stand to make a lot more money for your work. There’s also the fact that you don’t have to wade through a sea of rejection letters from publishers, because you, my friend, are self-publishing. For “free.” That’s unheard of, isn’t it? We’re talking about guaranteed publication, here, with 85% royalties and coverage on most of the e-book stores out there (even Apple’s iBookstore and Barnes & Noble’s e-book store are included; I don’t think Amazon is one of them, though – not yet, anyway).
That sounds like a sweet deal, and I’ll probably seriously consider it for book-length works because at least I can get my name and my writing out there. But at the end of this M.F.A. program, when I publish my book of short stories, I still want to see my awesome book cover design on a tangible, traditional book in a brick-and-mortar store. And I want the prestige that comes with having my book hand-picked for publication.
Is that so much to ask?
*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.
Having seen the original Swedish movie Let the Right One In (2008) – and knowing that I eventually want to read the 2004 book on which it was based – I was appalled when I realized that there is already an American remake coming out. Today, in fact. It’s called Let Me In.
Having had a little time to calm down a bit, I’m still not sure what I think of this. The original movie was great, and I have little faith that an American remake will do the story justice. Then again, I haven’t read the book, so the only basis for comparison that I’ll have is the Swedish movie. I’m starting to wonder if that’s fair or not.
As a reader/writer, I guess maybe it isn’t fair; maybe I should judge Let Me In on how well it translates the book’s story to video. But as a movie buff/writer, I think it’s completely fair. The American movie scene is saturated with remakes and adaptations, so much so that, whenever a new one comes out, I’m immediately cynical about it.
Why is this? Is it fair? What do others think?
For your viewing pleasure, I’m going to include the trailers for each of the movies now. The first one is the original Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In); the second one is the American Let Me In.
*NOTE: This blog entry is syndicated from a blog I had to start for my Electronic Publishing class at U.B. this semester. I may or may not delete the extraneous blog when the class is over, but I thought I would at least give my readers the opportunity to read the contents of that blog indefinitely.
Until I started reading The Elements of Typographic Style, I never thought about the productivity aspect of why reading from a screen is worse than reading from a printed page. I’ve always thought/heard that the backlighting is killer (and, really, it does harm the reading experience, to an extent, at least any long reading). But it also makes sense what Bringhurst says: when we’re on a computer, we have a different mindset.
With the way technology is advancing, we are constantly looking for speed, speed, speed. For book reading, there is no default speed; it’s whatever your reading speed is. With a computer/iPhone/iPad/etc., there is Internet connection speed and processor speed and RAM and all that junk to worry about. It all affects the speed and enjoyability of the reading experience.
On a computer, we just want to get through as many things as possible, as fast as possible. We want to feel productive. With computers, and technology in general, becoming more and more integrated into our lives, that feeling isn’t going to change any time soon. With each new protocol and website and API and programming language (and so on), technology becomes more useful (or, in some cases, “useful”) and, thus, sucks up more and more of our time. The problem is that some of us (myself included, unfortunately) find ourselves unable to function if we don’t get our fix of political news on Twitter or mass messages on Facebook or TV shows on computer. Or just…whatever.
Technology is amazing, but it’s probably the most frustrating black hole since – well, since the black hole.
On that note, an update on my most recent time sucker: there’s been a bit of a delay on TwitTV, but I’m working on that in the next few days. I’m going with Smallville for the veteran show, and since Lonestar was cancelled (as I predicted elsewhere), my new show to follow will be No Ordinary Family, which premiered to more than 10 million viewers last night, even though the pilot has been online for over a month (I think that’s right, anyway). It may fall like a rock (like FlashForward did last year), but I’ll follow it for the long haul this season, even if that happens to be just a few months (in which case…maybe I could find something new in the spring).
Roger William Market 
