Whomp Power

Finally scored a Wii bundle online, and what was on the shelf at Target today? Not just one Wii. Five of them.

#*@&!$+@$!!!#$!

We needed cheering. I made peanut butter cupcakes.

As if our weekend wasn't mostly shitty enough, what with the power going out for hours at a time for just our neighbors and ourself, a broken pipe spraying water into our bedroom, kids that continue to whine in the face of all logic, and network connections that make the idea of working on the weekend worse than it already is, we watched the first two video podcasts of Barenaked Ladies Ships and Dips tour. You know, the one where you could go on a cruise to the beautiful and warm Bahamas in the middle of winter and hang out with your favorite band, and Guster, and their friends. And hear music. And play Guitar Hero with Ed. And learn about wine from Steve. That one. So depressing. Why can't we do everything we want in life all the time everyday?

*stomp stomp whine pout*

(I learned that logic from the five year old, can you tell?)

I understand they are doing it again next year. We'll gladly take sponsors...

I heard about this site called Whichbook, which is designed to help you find a book to read that will fit your mood. Want a book that is very happy, very disturbing, and filled with sex and lots of twists and turns? Use the sliders to your advantage and you may find yourself enjoying

To Say Nothing of the Dog
by Connie Willis

An enjoyable romp back and forth through a time continuum with the world threatened by incongruity and by the determination of the inimitable Lady Schrapnell to rebuild Coventry Cathedral in Oxford in 2057. Confused? You will be but lie back and enjoy every mad moment.

They have 150 or so people reading, rating and categorizing books published since 1995. Pretty cool idea. I left everything blank and just went and chose China as the setting, and got a ton of interesting sounding things to read.

Stuck inside for two days thanks to the snow. Nothing to do but whine and take pictures. We are out of juice, nearly out of things for breakfast, and perilously close to being out of beer. Ay Carumba!


The kids spent 15 minutes bundling up outside, then cried to come back in after 2 minutes. Good times. :)


The cats don't seem to mind that the pool cover is an ice covered disaster waiting to happen.


I'm sure you will get sick of our cupcake photos, but its my birthday, so indulge me. We made the Mucho Margarita Cupcakes out of the same Vegan Cupcake cookbook. Ours aren't as pretty as hers, but they are so freakin' tasty I can't stand it. Lots of lime and a little tequila go a long way. Yum!

So far, turning five years old seems to be the height of birthday anticipation and enjoyment. Owen got to spend the day with both sets of grandparents and his aunt and uncle. He got some great gifts that he is really enjoying. He wanted a bike, but we ended up getting him a Razor Scooter. He also received a small air hockey/pinball game, a remote control Herbie VW Bus, his own wallet, and a megazooka air cannon. He also wanted a specific cake: a volcano cake with NiNi, one of the Beijing Olympic Mascots.

After much deliberation, we decided to make NiNi out of cookie dough. Derek had purchased some pre-colored cookie dough from a co-worker, so I rolled out some green and cut it into the right shape, then frosted it. For the volcano, we followed a few ideas from Finkbuilt.com. We made a vanilla sheet cake, and two round chocolate cakes, stacking the chocolate cakes in the corner of the sheet and carving it into a volcano shape.



We frosted the "ground" with green frosting, and the volcano with chocolate frosting. I made some lava out of sugar, and decorated the scene with candy rocks.


Plant NiNi on the ground and a #5 candle, and we were good to go. In the over-the-top extravaganza that is the life of one that just turned five, Owen blew out his candle with the megazooka.


I ordered dry ice from the local grocery store, and we chipped of a bit and stuck it in the hole we had formed in the volcano top. After some trial and error Derek determined that we needed to not put in one big chunk of ice, but crush it into little pieces for maximum surface area and maximum smoke.


The volcano's destruction was absolute. And tasty.


Yesterday Owen was able to celebrate his birthday at preschool, so I made the cookies 'n cream cupcakes from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's new book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Three words: Best. Cupcakes. Ever. Oh my goodness, they were so tasty and so darn good looking. The rest of the recipes look so amazing I'm tempted to make a new kind every week, starting with the Mucho Margarita Cupcakes. Tequila! Further inspirado can be found at the cupcake blog.

Derek alluded to the Blendtec Blender site Will it Blend in the last post. If you didn't catch that, go there now. You can watch crazy things get blended in the Don't Try This At Home section. As they say, "Tasks that may be extreme for some machines are, quite frankly, simple tasks for Blendtec blenders." Cassette Tapes? No problem! Toy Cars? Pulverize them! Plus the host (Tom Dickson) is hilarious, and it is a total riff on Letterman's Will it Float segment. After you're done watching it, buy the shirt.

I've also commandeered my inner funk, and pulled out the bass D gave me for Christmas years ago. Once I got it mostly in tune (using the mostly in tune piano as my guide) I got to playing, using tab from BassMasta and playing along with songs on Rhapsody. Oh yeah.

Speaking of music, D got his Sansa mp3 player he won, transferring his iRiver on to me. Unfortunately my mp3 player curse followed me, so now songs that I made into a playlist appear anywhere from 1 - 30 times on the player.

::beats head on desk::

Speaking of more music, Jake Shimabukuro is playing here in February. He is an awesome uke player, check him out in action here. Of course, who is playing in town on the same night? Tenacious D. #!$@#!&$@!!

Best get back to the birthday planning...we are going to attempt the exploding volcano cake seen here. I've got a 10 lb. block of dry ice with my name on it!

If you are a hockey fan but don't subscribe to NHL Center Ice or happen to live in a market where they play hockey on local TV, you are probably going through withdrawals about now.

NBC has the contract to show NHL games on television. The NHL season started on October 4 and on January 13, after more than 3 months of hockey, NBC is showing its first game. NBC gives you a total of 9 chances to watch a game of regular season hockey. Pitiful.

If you don't want to forget to watch one of these games and you use Google Calendar, I have created a public calendar with all of the NBC games. Just click on the following button to import it into your calendar:


Also, DirecTV is having a free preview of their NHL Center Ice package from 1/8 to 1/14.

If you don't have DirecTV and don't have a Google Calendar, you could just watch this.