Mostly it’s just a convenience thing. Seven wee cupcakes or muffins in about 10 minutes, as opposed to seven wee cupcakes and about two hours of oven-running.

Mom also gave me corn muffin mix, blueberry muffin mix, and chocolate and vanilla cupcake mixes. I started with the corn muffin mix.

I could have made them according to the recipe. I had the eggs and milk. But I decided to be nice to Kitti (the partner-in-crime) and make them vegan.

Milled Flax Seed instead of egg. Bonus? Omega-3!

Coconut milk instead of animal milk, and canola oil.

Ta-da! Batter!

Teeny-tiny cupcake liners, and a teaspoon to fill them two-thirds full. Close the lid on the magic machine and ten minutes later….

Muffins!

Yeah, that’s one with a bite taken out of it. I couldn’t resist. They were GOOD.

The mix made about 22 teeny muffins. The first seven I didn’t fill as full as I should have, mostly because I was experimenting. They baked for 8 minutes. After that round I filled the cups a little more and baked them for ten minutes. Perfection.

We’ve already eaten about half of them.

I’m going to figure out how to make half-a-recipe for cupcakes, because even if they’re vegan and tiny, we don’t really need 22 cupcakes at a time.

I’ll eventually do a whole bunch of cupcakes and take them into work.

Anyhow, speaking of the Clapotis (“Truman”) …. IT IS DONE.

Photos below.

VNV Nation tour schedule

What I like about it is that it’s not really a supernatural show. It’s a cop show. Nick, the cop, doesn’t have super powers. He doesn’t slay vampires. He relies on detective work and research. Wait, okay, maybe it’s supernatural that he can see what people really are. He doesn’t even kill them unless it’s really, really necessary. About the only thing his ability lets him do is make the connections that are otherwise handwaved away in other cop shows. You know, that moment when you’re sitting there going “They knew it was her because of a dog hair? But they never even mentioned she had a dog!” In the case of Grimm, Nick will recognize someone’s true self and then backtrack to find the elusive clue. “Oh, well, I started wondering if she had a dog. She doesn’t, but on the night of the murder she was at her sister’s house and her sister owns a dog and lives next door to where the murder took place.” And then you’re watching it going “Well that’s a lot more sensible than the method of ‘it was a hair from a golden retriever and we narrowed it down to the one that lives with her sister because we can totes do that because we have super computers that can pinpoint the location of where a dog hair was picked up because of DNA and plant pollen’.”

Actually, “she’s really a snake and went through the air vents” is a lot more sensible than “it was a hair from a golden retriever and we narrowed it down to the one that lives with her sister because we can totes do that because we have super computers that can pinpoint the location of where a dog hair was picked up because of DNA and plant pollen”. Or maybe that’s just me.

The writing is good. The names of the killers or sometimes just the extras are usually puns based on what sort of animal they really are. Sometimes the casting (or maybe it’s exceptional makeup) is amazing — the person who is really a rat or a beaver or a snake actually looks vaguely like that animal. And the conversations between Nick and Monroe are … well, they’re adorable. It’s like the writers are trying to make us ‘ship them. I’m ok with that.

And since I mentioned Monroe….

Cutest werewolf, or cutest werewolf ever?

All the episodes are on Hulu.

I am breaking up with House MD.

I should have done this last year (or the year before), but I kept hanging on, living on the little scraps of Wilson that they tossed my way, but I was watching it grudgingly. And there were certainly some good moments early in this season, but they weren’t great moments — no “Moose on a Jew” or “Poker Game” moments. And the medical aspect has been totally lacking. Then last night, when Chase had his “trauma of the season” I decided we were through.

If I hear of any good episodes or any fantastic Wilson moments, I’ll find the episode on Hulu.

I might also be breaking up with Castle. Sorry, Nathan. You personally are still very watchable, but the writing seems to have gone seriously downhill (and let’s face it, it was never the height of great writing to begin with). I was even waiting excitedly for last night’s “1940s” episode and it was… meh.

I’m left with Grimm and I’m afraid that’ll break up with me. The ratings haven’t been great, but I really like it. There’s real potential and a great idea and some really nice writing and acting, but maybe it’s just the timeslot?

Sherlock series 2 will air on PBS in May. And then there’ll be Doctor Who and hopefully series 4 of Being Human… and maybe something good will come around in the Fall?

2012 Reading Challenge

Morgan has

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100 books?

Failure is always an option.

• Great screen. Great color. Great sensitivity. Very fingerprint resistant
• Fast connection. If your WiFi is fast, at least. Although even with the spotty WiFi in my house the Kindle seems to hold the connection better than the notebook.
• It’s an Amazon Kindle, so you get all the books that Amazon has available in Kindle format
• It will display PDFs
• It will run most Android apps
• Third-party apps are supported
• All the Sandman issues are available for it
• It plays music
• It streams movies and TV from Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix.

Con

• It’s heavy. Well, heavier than a regular Kindle.
• There’s no left-handed page advance in books
• The power button is in a bad place for reading books. Too easy to bump it and put the Kindle to sleep while you’re reading. At least you can work around this by turning the Kindle so the button is at the top.
• There’s no built-in way to keep the WiFi from dropping when you’re “inactive” — like streaming music from some services. Some apps have included a “don’t sleep” feature that won’t shut down the Kindle if you’re watching a movie or listening to an audiobook, but (for example) Spotify doesn’t have that. After two minutes the Kindle puts itself to sleep and the WiFi connection is dropped. There’s probably a hack for this, or a way around it if you’ve rooted the Kindle, but if you’re not inclined to do that, it’s a definite drawback. So if anyone out there reading this knows of an app (Amazon or 3rd party) that will keep the WiFi on and/or stop the Kindle from going to sleep, please let me know! I’ve tried PowerWiFi and it doesn’t help.

My shoulder still hurts. I did eventually go to the Prompt Care place and got some extra strength pain killers. They don’t actually kill the pain, but they do bring it down from an 8 or 9 to a 5 or 6. I can sleep at night now and I’m not attempting to gnaw my arm off after a day at work. These are all things in the Win column (and how sad is it that a pain rating of 6 is a good thing?).

My doctor appointment is a week from today. I’ve already told Mim that if they try to push me off or tell me they want to do tests and x-rays before giving me a cortisone injection that she should get bail money ready for me. I might not have been kidding. I still have one good arm, after all.

Anyhow, back to the suffering for arts and crafts. I have made zero progress on the quilt I’m working on (I have 11 out of 1600 hexagons knit). I have most of the foot of the first of a pair of socks for Mim knit. I have barely made a dent in the Clapotis that would have been Mim’s birthday present (Mim is really getting shortchanged here, isn’t she? Go buy her something to help fill the void). It just hurt too much to knit for more than a few minutes at a time and that was frustrating so I just wasn’t doing it at all. So tonight I broke out the knitting tonight for the first time in weeks.

It still hurts. This is going to take a while. But dammit, I missed working on things.

I am not yet ready to try the violin again, though. That will absolutely have to wait until after the doctor appointment.

They played three albums straight through, live: THREE IMAGINARY BOYS (1979), SEVENTEEN SECONDS (1980) and FAITH (1981). There were three encores.

It was at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, which is possibly the best place I’ve ever been to see a band play live. The sound was absolutely flawless. Sometimes when you go to a live show the sound is a little weird — the instruments are too loud or the vocals are too soft or everything sounds muddy, like you’re listening through the wall instead of sitting in the same place. There wasn’t any of that.

The official Beacon website says this: Known for its flawless acoustics, the Beacon has been a favored New York City stop for top acts since the Roaring Twenties. Remarkably, the original sound-system still provides near-perfect acoustics today. Yes. Yes it does.

Robert Smith was weirdly chatty. I’ve seen The Cure before and he’s usually managed a little “Hello, $CityName!” and the occasional “Thank you” (which mostly just comes out sounding like “Q”) after songs. But there he was, chatting away, making jokes, and obviously enjoying himself. It was weird. But nice.

The show was a sell-out and from where I was sitting there didn’t seem to be an empty seat anywhere. There was a pretty broad spread of ages, too — kids who probably hadn’t even been thought of when Faith was released, and people who were probably already adults when Three Imaginary Boys was recorded. Tickets were hard to get, too, so everyone was there because they actually wanted to be there (okay, maybe there were a few kids who were there because a parent really wanted them to see The Cure, or a few parents who weren’t going to let their kid go see some weird, old band, and possibly some disinterested significant others who couldn’t say no, because you get them at every concert, no matter who’s playing). There were no “Bros” or Hipsters who were there just because they were bored on a Friday night. It really wasn’t that kind of a show.

I don’t normally like going to concerts because the crowds are often obnoxious and the sound is usually crap. Often I’m bored after the first 30 minutes no matter how much I love the band — and it’s never because of the band, it’s because of the crowds and the sound and the standing around. By the time this show was over I was amazed that it was almost midnight (how could it be over already?!) and my eyes were burning because I kept forgetting to blink.

The fog machine got a workout and the sound of birds twittering before the show started got annoying pretty fast, but overall it was just absolutely amazing. I have never been to a show like this before. I doubt I’ll get the chance again (Unless The Cure manages to go back to The Beacon Theatre).

At the end of the show Robert Smith said “I’ll see you next year.” Everyone’s taking this to mean they’ll be doing it again.

That’d be nice.