New Years

Dec 1, 02:04 PM · from the mouth of Jake

Do we all have any plans for this year? I know poor Jimmy is soooo far away, but TyTy might be around, and bring the bass amp (don’t forget), and the rest of us are within a couple hour drive. Could we set something up so Jackie and I aren’t stuck at my rents house watching Pete?

Well actually, if we don’t have another venue there’s always my rents house, and we’d have it all to ourselves, and Pete. Any ideas?

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Leaving Kids Behind at Walmart

Oct 27, 03:32 PM · from the mouth of Jake

I’m sure you guys remember Andy’s aggressive stance on No Child Left Behind. How it’s giving more money to schools who perform better and less money to schools who don’t. So it’s basically ass backward. The kids who need money don’t get any, and the kids who live in towns like Avon get gold cock rings.

Well Jackie has to write a paper on education and she wanted to compare public and catholic/private schools. We stumbled across an interesting web site about catholic schools in CT.

The first thing you notice is that the government is cutting even more funding out of No Child Left Behind.

But then you scroll down and you can see the breakup of how much money the catholic schools in CT get in annual funding from NCLB. Wait a second, do you mean to tell me that St. Catherine Academy in Bridgeport only got $97 this year? While good old Xavier, with all those destitute BMW driving 16 year olds got $3,796.

That seems soooo fair. Oh yeah, and if you were wondering, that’s how much the school gets. Not each student. So even Xavier’s cut looks tiny.

Anyone wanna go dig some money out of our couches and give it to St. Catherine Academy?

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The Fassihi email scandal - what do you think?

Oct 13, 07:45 PM · from the mouth of Jim

Have you guys heard of this little semi-scandal that’s been going on? Some Wall Street Journal correspondent in Iraq writes a personal email to her friends and family, it gets distributed around the internet and now everyone’s got their hands up in the air because she lightly expressed her personal view and opinions.

I mean, a) it was a personal email, so how can she be judged at all and b) I personally don’t find this to be terribly biased in the first place…

When you’re done with the email, follow this link to follow-up information.

You know, I may be fairly ignorant when it comes to this type of thing, unbiased press, freedom of speech, etc., but after reading this email I fail to understand why it’s such a big deal. Why can’t the press express a personal opinion to her friends? Even then, why can’t this type of email be considered main stream reporting? I realize that the press is supposed to maintain nuetrality and an unbiased opion, but isn’t it biased when we ultimately censor certain issues that we don’t particularly “need” to know about?

Anyway, I found this email to be one of the best pieces of reporting to come out of this war and I find it so depressing that someone can’t write something like this w/o having the whole country jump on her for failing her duties as an unbiased journalist. I’d personally like to see more emails like this as part of the main stream news. Even if I do have to deal with a little bit of her own voice coming out.

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And now for a political rant...

Sep 21, 02:49 PM · from the mouth of Jim

<soapbox>

I am so bloody disgusted by the pig-fucking barbaric animals known as Jihad. Humanity is doomed with worthless shit like these assholes wandering around the planet. I know that they’re pissed at our policies, and I can’t blame them for being mad at America, but c’mon folks, terrorism, beheading? Move the fuck out of the 18th century, assholes.

Take the most recent beheading for example. They’re demanding that we release all of their women from prison. Given the vile bullshit that we allowed to happen at Abu Ghraib, I can’t blame them for having their blood boiled. But isn’t there some better way to do it? How about cooperating, becoming civilized and peaceful – what a radical idea… I know this is what terrorism is about, but what if we were to pull the bullshit that they’re pulling, what would that make us?

I mean, if they think we’re evil now, what would happen if we came back and said, “hey mother fuckers, not only aren’t you going to get your women back, but we’re gonna cut their fucking heads off on video instead and send it to you. That’s what you get for fucking with America.”

Anyway, I feel better now. I’m just so troubled to my core when I keep hearing about this stuff. It’s disgusting to me that we’ve put ourselves in this situation and now completely innocent people are dying, and grusomely at that, for such a bullshit war in the first place. I wish we could just get the hell out of there and start saving the lives that matter.

Jihad doesn’t represent Islam and the majority of good human beings over there, but ya know what, why can’t America let them take care of their own trash for once?

</soapbox>

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Bread - Week 2

Sep 14, 06:42 PM · from the mouth of Jim

Well, i’m sure you’re all gettin’ bored of the bread talk, but that’s OK, cuz I know TyTy cares and that’s all the love that my bottom needs.

Here are the fruits of last weekend’s loaf lust…

So yeah, pardon the vile lighting and terrible yellowish green cast… stoopid flourescent light that’s at a different color temperature than normal must die, grumble grumble…

Anyblah, the lighter loaf was a whole wheat and white mix (50/50). The second is effectively a whole wheat loaf (fresh, stone ground organic wonder.)

Here’s what I did with them:

Started my starter starting start start started start~@!!Q@$...

Let’s try that again…

Initiated a proofing of my starter on Friday (pulled half a cup of starter out, fed it half a cup of fresh and let it foam in the oven all day.)
Made my sponges Friday night.
Let the sponges mature for ~42 hours in the fridge.
Made and kneaded the doughs.
Let the doughs rise at about 80 degrees for about three hours.
Let the doughs do a final rise at 110 degrees in their forms for about 1 1/4 hours.
Baked ‘em at 475 degrees for 40 minutes with 4 qt. Pyrex mixing bowls over the tops.

Interestingly enough they were rather different from the first attempt. First of all, I definitely got the final rise time and temp. right since they fluffed to the right height and consistency. I apparently over compensated after last time and made the dough a bit too slack, so they spread more than I would liked… kinda like April when I get her too drunk.

The flavor was great. They were less sour than last time (not what I had expected after nearly doubling the time that the sponge matured.) The flavor was still excellent, of course, but it didn’t have nearly the same souring and complexity. So, I’m beginning to think that a lot of the flavor comes from the first rise.

Next week I’ll make the doughs less slack and let them do the long and hot final rise. I believe that’ll let them fluff the same but should help them keep their form a bit better during the bake. I’m also thinking that next weekend I’ll make two loaves and let one do a first rise of about 3 hours and let the other go for 8 or so as a flavor test.

Anyway, keep up the bread stories TyTy. Now you’ve got me wanting to try some sourdough pancakes… :)

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Speaking of Bry's Head...

Sep 11, 02:21 AM · from the mouth of Jim

It simply inspires me to find a vat of oil and live out my hottest fantasies…

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Reorganization and Styling

Sep 10, 05:12 PM · from the mouth of Jake

So I was talking to my old roommate Brian from college. Who’s pretty darn good at picking apart what I’m working on. He gave me a whole list of things, some of which I haven’t gotten to yet, I’ll add to this when I do get to them.

For starters he wanted me to move around some of the elements, like having the 7 subsequent articles fall below the third one. And naturally label the top three as “The Three Latest…”

Then flip the color coding back to the left. He also wanted these to link to “articles by author” pages to get to a sort of archive based on who you click. This feature is not built into the system, so while I can specify to list off articles by a certain person, I can not do this with a variable and would need to build 6 separate pages, one for each of us. Fuck that. ;)

I also made the pages a bit more sematic, so if you had the outliner extension for Firefox/Mozilla you’d be able to see how the page has a hierarchy. :) Nerdy but not without necessity.

And so, Jim suggested we vote on the current design because it rubs him the wrong way. Personally I find it to be a big deviation from a generic weblog and think that’s a good thing. Brian says “that’s its most endearing feature.”

But naturally he has nothing to do with the site other than commentary, and I’m only one of six. So what does everyone else think about the design and overall layout? Would you tweak it, drop it, keep it? Not as interesting as yeast rising but needs to be discussed. ;)

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My butt stinks like yeast

Sep 9, 01:16 AM · from the mouth of Andy

Yay I finally made it to this thing!

Sorry for the absence. I’ve been engrossed in starting my new teaching job. Yesterday was the first day of school, and boy was it fun! The best part is, I actually get PAID tomorrow!!

Just wanted to let you all know I’m still alive – I haven’t read any of the postings on the site yet, but I should be caught up on those soon.

My cock bleeds for you!

-Mr. Man

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My Yeasty Love-Child

Sep 8, 03:22 PM · from the mouth of Jim

Yay yon-Iakifer. Looks like you fixed the images. I could hug you and love you and call you George all day long. Anyway, so here’s a pic of my little lump of yeasty love that TyTy and I have been talking about.

Iak – Can you explain what the ‘jb_dsimage’ portion of the ‘txp:’ tag is? I couldn’t get my image to work until I copied the syntax off of your image article. The help stuff doesn’t make any sense and I don’t understand what your tag is doing. (Outside of making it work.)

Enjoy!