Monthly Archives: March 2005

Mexican casserole

Mexican casserole

Central Market twisted my arm when they sent me coupons. One of the coupons was for $10 off on their selection of prepared foods. So, I bought what they call “Tamal Azteca” and it was good.

Tonight, I decided to get creative and make my version of that dish. I bought: a HEB whole smoked chicken, Timpone’s salsa muy rica, Monterey Jack cheese, Carique Crema Mexicana Agria, corn tortillas, poblano peppers, and tomatillos. I shredded the chicken; roasted the peppers and removed the skins; and roasted the tomatillos and mixed them with the salsa. Once every thing was prepared, I assembled the casserole and baked it.

It turned out pretty good. For the next time, I will add some diced garlic, sliced jalapeños, and more cheese. More cheese!

Overkill

Packaging

I am working at home today (much like I did over Saturday and Sunday, sadly enough) in order to sign for a package. I ordered 200 Tyvek CD/DVD sleeves from All Things CDR. So, on package deliver attempt #1, I find out that I must sign for it. Ok. Like I care if people steal this package. I sign the piece of paper that UPS left on the door and hope that it will be delivered. The next day, I find out that, for some packages you can sign the paper, but for this package, it must be electronic. Gah! I do not want to drive to south Austin to pick it up, so I work from home. Today is day 3 and I signed for it.

When I open it, I find way too much padding. There is the foam for the empty space. And there are two bubble wrapped packages protecting the paper sleeves from damage.

What a waste!

Street sweeper

Street sweeper

I have lived here four years, and this is the first time that I have seen a street sweeper here in Round Rock. What a narrow focus of my home town I have…

links

Life follows quarter-power scaling laws link via

Projections on structures (weiter means next) link via

Katamari Damacy glass beads link via

Martian moons eclipsing the sun link via

Reconfigurable robot link via

Dog condoms link via

How to really confuse your guests link via

Sims-style anti-pregnancy commercial for teen girls link via

I did it, in the parking lot, with the death ray link via

Super fast pizza delivery link via

Acknowledgements link via

Blogging perils link via

Garden gone to seed

Seeded Garden #1

Three years ago, I decided to start a garden. I started out small and each year after that I doubled the length of the garden until it is almost to the edge of the house. Unfortunately, I have a problem. I am pretty good at starting the plants in the garden. But I am not so good at eating all of the fruits of my labor. So, in effect, the garden goes to seed. This is what happens when lettuce plants go to seed and then die off. Now my once bare plot is full of lettuce. This time, I dug them out before they went to seed again.

Seeded Garden #2

My next problem was the fact that I planted a peppermint in the ground. Little did I realize what a problem it has become. Left unchecked, it grew like a weed and took over the entire plot. So, at the end of the year, I would dig up the garden and try to eradicate it. Unfortunately, some survived and resumed its goal to take over the world. Now, during year 3, it is starting to escape under my St. Augustine sod.

My current dilema is what to do with the garden. I should have not put it next to the house as I want to spray for ants and termites. So I am thinking about converting it into a bed for other plants. What I really should have done was to not sod in the back yard. I never use it except for watering, fertilizing, and mowing it. It is just a chore. I should have used the entire back yard as one big garden. Perhaps for the next house…

Spam

I am now getting spam to a email address that I have never publically released. I suppose that it is conceivable that a spammer randomly put together an email based on a domain name. But they have millions of email ids already. I doubt that they would take each doman and brute force search them for new ids?

Another possibility is that I have sent email to this private id and some SMTP server along that route has been comprimised and is logging email addresses.

Or perhaps, my mail system is forwarding all non-valid ids to this primary id. Sigh. This is another problem to investigate. I wish this thing was install once and forget.

links

Toilet paper algorithms link via

Real time dungeon map projection link via

144 Megapixel pictures link via

Instead of cubicles, people work in cottages! link via

The evolution of sushi link via

Self-replicating 3-D printers link via

Craziest link via

Star Wars spoof link via

101 Unuseless Japanese inventions link via

A Guide to Taking Home Online-Casino Bonuses link via

97% of people’s incomes follow the law of energies of atoms in a gas link via

Japan Seldom Asked Questions link via

How many 5 year-olds could you take on at once? link via

Unicode on two 6’x6′ posters link via

Pavement drawings link via

I really hate it when the theory of evolution is presented as fact link via

Someone keeps stealing my letters link via

Curiously strong images link via

Evolution of a programmer link via

Roux hungry?

Roux

After the cooking class, I was finally able to buy some rendered duck fat at Central Market. This is a cup of the fat and one and a half cups of flour after cooking for about twenty minutes. I would say that looks like it is peanut butter colored. Now, I need to wait until it has cooled down.

Mmmmmm, my house smells like heaven! I need to search for some pantone color samples of the different stages of roux.