Doodle Pad Archive - June, 2008

After posting pictures of my waffle iron plugged in there comes the inevitable question of: How good are the waffles?!

I regret to say the tool exceeds the chef's ability to use it. In fairness, I've only tried maybe 10 times since I inherited it, and 2 of those times were last week. And although my waffles aren't great, they're better than some restaurant waffles I had!

Here are some pictures from my most recent venture. Still working on that batter distribution thing.

My waffles definitely are not of the light and crispy variety, which is how I like them. I suspect I'm either using too much batter or don't have enough air in the batter (is that over mixing, or under mixing?). Or maybe I'm just not cooking them long enough. I thing I have found: a homemade batter recipe (compliments of Greg) better than the store bought mix I was using.

One very cool thing I discovered on the last go around is the waffles are awesome reheated in the toaster! They're actually almost better than fresh, they're crisper! Even frozen, they reheat great. Here I thought there was something special about those pre-frozen toaster waffles. Nope!

I see more research and experimentation in my future. Waffle Quest: Search for Crispiness.

And no, I'm not quitting my day job to become a food photographer!

One of big news items yesterday was a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine stating the coffee habit wasn't going to prematurely kill your average coffee drinker. Good news, to be sure. But how much can we trust the information?

I've been long skeptical of news reports on medical studies. The information typically comes out of a press release from the study authors with no independent scrutiny, but you're almost never told this. If the topic is something I'm interested in, I like to do a little digging.

Here's a sample of some of the Canadian Internet news coverage:
CBC: Coffee drinking not harmful and may help against heart disease: study
canada.com: Coffee not a killer - and may protect women: study
dose.ca: Coffee not a killer - and may protect women: study (Yup, same article as canada.com)

The canada.com/dose.ca article is better than CBC's. CBC's is actually a little bizarre. They chose to highlight "No cancer correlation" in a sub-heading and followed up with precisely one line of text on the topic. It's not the way I was taught to organize with headings.

I thought one of the more interesting bits of information was caffeine not being a factor. Both "leaded" and "unleaded" coffee gave the same results. Given it's a key consumption choice I thought it odd the fact was buried or not mentioned in most reporting.

In spite of my wariness of press releases, the one for this study actually has the best presentation of the information:

Tonight I'm going to a celebration of someone's life. A wake, really. One of the organizers is making a book of memories and asked for contributions. It seemed appropriate to post it here.

I didn't know Ruthie very well. I wish I'd known her better. I wanted to, but somehow we never made that move from casual talk to simpatico conversation.

I loved listening to her gentle Scottish brogue and turn of phrase. I was often lost in the musicality of her voice until I realized she'd just let loose a zinger! Ruthie had the spark. The shock of red hair was your first clue. Her quiet demeanor masked quite a sense of humour and no small amount of clever. When I first met her I took her for twenty something, after talking with her I thought the wisdom bespoke someone older. I'm still not entirely sure how old she was, only that she died far too soon.

Ruthie was on a extended visit to Vancouver and taking in all of the sites she could with her travel buddy Jo. She and I met when her and Jo started coming to the Friday sci-fi/fantasy meetups. They were big, I mean gigantically huge, Stargate fans.

One of my favourite places to take visitors is the train tunnels at Hope, and Ruthie was interested. I was working night shift at the time, so one morning after finishing work at 6am, Ruthie, Jo, someone's UK cousin, and yours truly made the drive to Hope. The early morning didn't phase her at all.

I don't have any great pictures of Ruthie, but I have these. For some reason we started talking about "The Monkees", and I got these photographs of the inevitable outcome:

And the trip produced a bonus. Ruthie and Jo has been location spotting Stargate episodes. There was a particular river they were looking for, and they unexpectedly found it that day.

Good bye, Ruthie. You are remembered fondly.

Sunday was the annual charity screening of the movie Serenity [Wikipedia] and the After the Credits podcast crew (Colleen, Marina and Dale) were there:

Wondering about my fancy chapeau? You'll find your answer here: Jayne Hats ... It's pretty cunning, don't 'cha think? A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything.

Quick back story on the event: There was a short lived but really excellent TV show named Firefly [Wikipedia]. Though it was cancelled it picked up a phenomenal fan base. It sold so well on DVD a follow-on movie named Serenity was made. Sadly, the movie didn't make enough for sequels. But remember the fans (known as Browncoats, explanation here) who bought all the DVDs? Give or take a year after Serenity's theatrical release Browncoats brought together the idea of good works and favourite things: they decided to give Joss a birthday present by putting on a charity screening of Serenity to raise money for Equality Now, a charity with a link to his mother. The event was a success. It subsequently grew out of the birthday present angle and simply became an annual fundraiser: Can't Stop the Serenity. The Vancouver proceeds also benefit the BC Women's Hospital & Health Centre.

Seeing the movie is great. Seeing it with a large group of friends is awesome. Knowing it benefits a good cause: smugsville!

Congratulations and a big thank you to Gayle for making it all happen in Vancouver!

More URLs:
Marina's Photos
Serenity Vancouver Screening Blog
MySpace Serenity Vancouver Screening Site
Vancouver Firefly/Serenity Meetup Group