Le sigh

Lots of stuff has gone on and more will be going on. Overall, good times. Lots of social stuff, not so much with the crafting lately. Minor cooking here and there. Less minor cooking last Sunday when I went to a friend's Science Dinner party. Sous vide fish? Awesome. Sous vide pork? Best ever. Sous vide egg yokes that are then breaded and deep fried? !!!!

A kind co-worker from our far distant office flung (via the US postal service) tasty Amish Friendship Bread starter in my direction. Turns out following a recipe produces optimal bread. Adam was pleased, but I didn't let it sway me from my path towards... something....paved with random experiments! The animated gif above is the starter over a period of 6-7 hours... Good thing I worked from home last Thursday- it was like a baby, needing all that attention and burping...

Lack of crafting is in part due to reading and consumption of media. Some of it has been amazing, some of it has gotten me a little down...

• The Cabin in the Woods? Best film all year. I'm buying the DVD when it comes out. If you did not watch it in the theater I WILL MAKE YOU WATCH IT. So good. Can't summarize a word of it though, for fear of ruining it. Just go see it, if you can.
• Shades of Milk and Honey was fantastic read! I devoured it in nearly one sitting. Grab the Kindle sample- you'll be able to tell from that whether it's meant for you or not. Light fluffly reading material. Jane Austin/Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell mashup (favoring Austin)
• Game Of Mother Fucken' Thrones. Yo.
• The Testament of Jessie Lamb (P.S.) was... depressing. Very very good. And written in such a way that I was really able to relate to it. The author was really able to get inside the head of a confused 16 year old girl... and I get the impression almost anyone with a uterus knows what it's like to be inside the head of a confused 16 year old girl and therefor could find the book moving. Children of Men/YA mashup (favoring CoM)
• God Bless America was, presumably meant to just be a straight comedy as well as, perhaps, a really heavy handed social commentary. It just made me depressed (saw it mid-Jessie Lamb book so there were no doubt outside influences on my opinion). If you catch me in person, I'll go off on a long rant about Jedi Knights and the Dark Side of the force to explain how this movie made me feel. Basically it boils down to "it sucks to be a liberal" and that you can never act out your frustration with others without becoming as bad as they are. Even in escapist fictional works where people go on humorous shooting rampages, the guilt will be there... drives home how truly taxing (and important!) the freedom of speech is. Also- don't let the way other people live their lives get you down.

It also is hard to be crafty when you're far from your crafts! Went camping last weekend! Big Sur! There was camping, there was cooking, there was hiking, there was eating, there were hammocks, there were hookahs (tobacco!), there were waterfalls, there were friend! There was, however, no singing or music. Boo to that.
Turns out Adam is much better then Trisha at holding still for night shots...

Heading to Spiritualized show now with Adam... It will be fun! (except that I've got this song stuck in my head... which doesn't really sound like what I'm in for tonight...)

In closing, I'm still around and doing stuff. I have coding projects to post soon. Just found out I can host web pages from my Dropbox account so expect to see something there. Have been working on my bread calculator-- though it looks massively janky, I've already started to use it and find it to be of great help. See below. No recipe! Tasted just fine! (kinda' spongy- I liked it!) Notes on formula on Flickr page...