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Thursday, December 13, 2001

A Little Holiday Cheer

Well, we had our DIT Christmas Luncheon today, and as the new guy I was looking for a way to make a nice sort of "happy to be here" splash, and thankfully the Food Network came to my rescue a little while ago with the 30 Minute Meals show, namely the recipe for the Five Minute Fudge 'Wreath'.

Yes, it really was as decadent as it sounds, and I can vouch for the recipe. Down to the maraschino cherries on top. Five minutes, start to finish, and after the luncheon I'm only going home with a half pound from a two-pound recipe. Considering mine was one of six desserts among twentyish people, I'd call that a success. After all, it's rich, and it only takes a little to give someone that "OMG, I'm so fudged out" feeling. :-D

You never know when a little domesticity will pop up.

You listening, ladies? I'm an experienced chocolate wrangler now!

-Rich

PS. I really wish I'd snapped a picture with my lil' digital camera... It looked really good! Maybe I'll make another for the trip home...

Monday, December 03, 2001

Wow. December. Where the devil did 2001 go?

Debut of the SuperScooter

It seems that IT (also known as "Ginger," and now its commercial name "Segway") has been released to the world, and IT's a scooter.

Well, it's a heavily computerized, self-righting, gyroscope-stabilized, 16-miles-on-a-single-charge, 17-mph-top-speed, really expensive scooter.

But it is, in summary, a scooter. Yes, there's the possibility of it changing the world and making cars useless within cities and saving city-dwellers on gasoline costs and solving the world's energy problems... but it's a scooter. You still get wet when it rains. You still have to dodge people and park it somewhere and fit it into every city's pedestrian ordnances somewhere. And it will cost the average Joe $3,000.00 to own one at the start. Three thousand dollars.

But then again, there's the simple fact that if it had existed while I worked at Virginia Power (a four-mile commute - too long to walk in a timely fashion, but too short to drive PITA-free), I'd have bought one, if only to save the daily wear and tear on the Taurus. I also live less than four miles from all of the following (and less than two miles from most): two grocery stores, at least five gas stations, two movie theaters, two bookstores, the ABC store, Wine & Beer Warehouse, a brew pub, a BBQ restaurant, a Thai restaurant, numerous fast food joints, a car wash, my voting location, two hardware stores, three computer/electronics stores, a Wal-Mart, a Target, and several other spiffy things I'm probably failing to mention. Location, location, location, yes, but more to the point, I could really use one of these things, so long as there was some way to handle parcels, since I usually travel places in order to pick something up. "Scootering" with a forty-pound bag of dog food and two bags of groceries strikes me as no fun.

Update: just checked, and it looks like they're planning some sort of clip-on trolley allowing for 300 lbs. of cargo. Still, seems unwieldy.

Seems like a sort of kooky idea, but then again the telephone itself had a hard time finding a market.

-Rich