April 2006 Archives

Mickey's Diner, originally uploaded by timbu.

I've wanted to eat at the St. Paul landmark, Mickey's Diner, since 1988, before I ever moved to Minnesota. Today was my lucky day.

The kids and I sat at the counter and had a complete diner experience. I had a very nice Mulligan Stew and they had pancakes in the shape of a well known mouse with agressive trademark lawyers.

Coconut Cupcakes, originally uploaded by timbu.

I really need some pointers on how to properly frost things.

The recipe for these coconut cupcakes is from 52 cupcakes, again.

BTW, the recipe as originally posted was missing the salt portion of the recipe. It looks like it has been fixed now.

Como Conservatory, originally uploaded by timbu.

Elise and I went to the Como Conservatory yesterday. This is one of the best family bargains in the Twin Cities. For a small suggested donation, ($2 for adults, $1 for children) you can check out a very nice conservatory with knowledgeable staff and a really nice zoo.

I was alone in a sea of women with children in tow.

The banana bread bandit confessed.

For the record the banana bread was delicious.

Banana Bread Mystery, originally uploaded by timbu.

This banana bread was left on my keyboard this morning.

I've interrogated the usual suspects and either one of them is dissembling or I have not yet determined who the culprit is.

Please contact me if you know where this came from.

I have quite a few paper back books I've bought over the years. I need to get rid of some of them since I don't have nearly enough shelf space to house them. In addition, there are plenty of books I own that I just don't feel the need to read again. I'm only too happy to get them into the hands of someone who will enjoy them.

I've tried paperback exchange stores in the past. They seem to work on a store credit scheme, where I get a percentage of the cover price applied towards the next book I buy. That's reasonable but the one in my neighborhood doesn't have the best selection and is open very odd hours. In the end, it seemed like the book ended up being worth exactly 1/2 of a different used book. In my mind one used book (in reasonable condition) is worth one used book, although I'm willing to pay a small transaction fee.

I once tried to sell a few items on Amazon, but I was competing with people selling 49¢ copies. It was hardly worth the bother.

So I mentioned this to my scrabble playing & prolific reader pal, Jennie. She looked around, rejected one site and came back with a solid recommendation for paperbackbookswap.com. I figured I've got nothing to lose, I'll try it. Within 12 hours someone is shipping me two books, "Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass" by Isak Dinesen & "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown. Coincidentally two people want books that I listed, so I'll be shipping those out tomorrow. They even give you a label to print out so that it's super easy to ship.

So what does this cost? Each person involved pays their own shipping, which is about $1.59. The web site indicates that they want to start charging a membership fee in the future to be part of the exchange, but right now it doesn't cost anything. Every book you send allows you to get one book. In addition when you sign up listing 9 books gives you three credits right away.

If you join and list 9 books, I get a credit. So join up and try it. List me or better yet, Jennie, as having referred you.

The Tiger Rising

by Kate Dicamillo

I read 'The Tiger Rising', by Kate DiCamillo a few months back. If you liked the novel, "Because of Winn-Dixie", you'll probably like this book. It is a children's book that deals with topics like bullying, death, and grief without succumbing to cliche, preciousness or preachiness.

According to Esquire, there are 59 Things a Man Should Never Do Past 30

After perusing the list, there are a few I've been known to do.

3. Rank his friends in order of best, second best, and so on.
It's all fine until people start comparing notes.

10. Skip
It has to be warm and sunny but I've done it. There are no known photos.

19 Give shout-outs.
I think I once gave a shout out to my peeps on the blog, iirc. I have no plans for future shout outs.

25. Request extra sprinkles.
I'm not ashamed of this one.

39. Whine.
Isn't this going to be an Olympic sport someday? I'm in training.

54. Read The Fountainhead.
I might have been 29, 30 tops.

[Link Courtesy of Dave's Picks]

The Graduate, originally uploaded by timbu.

There are two things in life that always make me feel better.

• Taking a long walk.
• Reading a book.

This weekend I got to do both when I turned the water on at Uncle R's cabin.

The paperback books at the cabin are mostly books left behind on airplanes, collected by R. during his tenure with Northwest. Given the collection method you can imagine that there is a huge selection of trashy novels from the 70's and early 80's. For instance we have multiple copies of "Airport" & "Coffee, Tea or Me".

This weekend I finished "The Graduate", by Charles Webb and made a start on "The Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison.

I liked "The Graduate". The movie version is such a cultural icon, it was hard to not imagine the main characters as being played by anyone other than Dustin Hoffman & Anne Bancroft.

Loved this parody entitled, "The Lonely Planet Guide To My Apartment" from a recent New Yorker. I need to write one for people brave enough to come to my house or office.

Since my birthday is coming up, the appropos quote is this one.

Azaleas, originally uploaded by timbu.

I love spring in Minnesota.

There is something magical about the first few days when you can walk outside in your shirt sleeves, see the trees budding, and feel a warm breeze. This time of year is mild -- without humidity or mosquitoes. If it was like this all year round -- well I suppose it would be southern California without an ocean.

I wonder if I would still appreciate it the same way if I didn't have to go through a long winter first.

Vanilla Magnolia Cupcakes, originally uploaded by timbu.

This time I made them with cream cheese frosting.

Here are a few back logged links I've been meaning to share.

Waiterrant riffs on Sarte's "Hell is People" in the post "Heaven & Hell".

Super cool knit fender guitar.

The BBC wrote about the change in time standards in Sri Lanka. Arthur Clarke a long-time inhabitat of Sri Lanka, is interviewed and photographed with his t-shirt that says, "I invented the satellite and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

I've heard of travel pillows but this one is a insanely awkward. Serously if my seatmate pulled one of these out and tried to inflate it, I would poke a needle in it as soon as he passed out from trying to blow this thing up.

Craisin Scones, originally uploaded by timbu.

Saturday was my first attempt at scones. They came out pretty good for a first try.

Elise saw her first corpse at a funeral today. When she saw the deceased in repose she asked, "Is that just a sample, so we know what she looked like." Yes, dear it kind of is.

This ukelele rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by Jake Shimabukuro is amazing.

[Link courtesy of via Neatorama.]

What is an ambigram? I ran across a reference to this word on an entry at "The Adventures of Accordion Guy". Check out the "Love/Hate t-shirt".

You really have to see these to understand them. Thats where flickr and filmloop come in handy. If you haven't tried flickr, it is a super cool photo web site where you can upload photos and share them with your friends. Filmloop is a bit of software along with a server that lets you make these little clip/loop like things of photos and then post them on the web.

Here is a loop of ambigramsfound on flickr.

If you want more info on ambigrams check out the Eye Twister web pages hosted at Monash University.

At lunch I heard about a service where you can upload a photo and have the photo printed onto a glossy post card and mailed directly to the address of your choosing. That rawks! I wish I had known about that when I was at Disney World. They will even print and mail one for free. Checkout postCards from the post office, via amazing mail.

If I didn't even know what the post office was doing, maybe there were other things you could do with a picture that I don't know about -- help me google. I then found Photo Cupcakes -- hey, that's cool too!

Hmm, cupcakes, I like cupcakes -- this led me to a blog full of cupcake recipes, which led me to 52 Cupcakes, where there is a new cupcake recipe posted every week.

That is where I found the recipe for Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.

Folk Art - Easter, originally uploaded by timbu.

Just in time for Easter -- the culvert cross.

Unisex Handwashing - Chino Latino, originally uploaded by timbu.

I didn't sneak into the women's room to snap this photo.

Nope, it's a unisex hand washing area outside the restrom proper - thanks Chino Latino, it was a first for us.

Chino Latino Menu, originally uploaded by timbu.

What do you get when you add a dark restaurant and a menu that was painstakingly created to resemble something beaten out of a typewriter that fell off a donkey in darkest Peru -- Chino Latino!

The food was very good, if you can do fusion food like a sushi salmon roll with roasted corn salso on top.

The menu was annoying to read, but the food was fun to eat. I'll be back, hopefully with more people, so I can try more things.

Sebastian Joe's has awesome ice-cream, coffee and wi-fi -- why don't I stop there more often?

MIA - Tibetan Sand Painting, originally uploaded by timbu.

Matthew and I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to celebrate Buddha’s Party.

The number one thing I wanted to see was the Tibetan Sand Painting exhibition. I have seen pictures of sand paintings, but never saw one being painted. I was surprised by how three dimensional the piece was.

Sand paintings like this have always captured my imagination as the are traditionally swept up when complete, making them ephemeral - like life. I also like how utterly fragile the piece is, one sneeze could destroy hours of work.

This even was one of the best events at the MIA I have attended. There were lots of activities for kids of all ages and the special exhibitions were really interesting.

Sushi Class - Coastal Seafood, originally uploaded by timbu.

Last night I went to Coastal Seafoods for a sushi class. I ate so much fresh raw fish, I went home completely buzzed on raw tuna by the time class was over. I was amazed at how easy it was to prepare some of the sushi items. We also made Miso soup, which I have been meaning to make at home for a while. Making it in class cleared up the questions I had about the ingredients - my mother never used kombu, or dried seaweed when I was growing up.

The class was a little short on the theory and lore of sushi, but really made sushi-making seem like something that was simple and easy to do at home.

I can't wait to try it out.

The book I am currently reading, which I find myself thinking about the most, is a collection of poems entitled "Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God", by Ranier Maria Rilke. The poems were originally written in German and translated, loosely in some cases by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy. Some of the poems are completely haunting. Case in point, this one where the writer wonders how God will react to the writers death.

What will you do, God, when I die?
I am your pitcher (when I shatter?)
I am your drink (when I go bitter?)
I, your garment; I, your craft.
Without me what reason have you?

Poetry never translates perfectly -- you can't get meter and rhyme and alliteration to all translate while saving the imagery for a culture who may have no frame of reference. I was really pleasantly surprised when the translators had a somewhat detailed forward where they explain their methologies and the choices they made in order to complete this translation. I wish that more translated books would feature this kind of explanatory material.

I realize reading translations of German poets who write about God is kind of an obscure thing to do for pleasure. It was an unexpected surprise to see that Jan, just yesterday, posted another poem by Rilke from the same collection of verse. Odd ... I promise I didn't pawn my book off on her, beg her to read and it and then browbeat her into discussing it. (I'm sure there are people who will read this, who have had me do that :))

Black Sea Restaurant, originally uploaded by timbu.

I am loving this Turkish restuarant cousin C. took me too. It's called the Black Sea Restaurant. The food is super cheap and really tasty. Pictured above is the four person, "Meze platter". It's got a great vibe, with lots of turkish items posted on the walls. I loved it enough to go on both Friday and Monday.

Bring cash, as they don't accept plastic cards of any kind.

After combing the internet for years I've finally found a toilet/sink combo at a good price available in the U.S.

If you have been wondering what you were going to get me for my birthday, wonder no longer.

[Link courtesy of Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools]

I made hummus at home this weekend. I cannot believe how trivial it was to make, I don't think I will be buying hummus at the store any more. I started with this recipe on Epicurious. Now that I've made it once, I can see how I could improve this and tweak it -- adding more garlic for instance.

Espresso, originally uploaded by timbu.

I'm switching back to plain espresso. I forgot how much I love crema.

(Can't you just tell I have a new camera, I'm taking pictures of everything.)