Who Needs Role Models?

So, I’ve started cooking again. I figure it’s not good karma for me to let Mark do all the cooking forever. ☺ But in order to facilitate this, I’ve started looking at online recipes. And I have two questions:

1. Why does Cooks.com get listed so often when their recipes are all the same?
   I did a search for something the other day, and was excited to see that there were like 20 recipes listed on Cooks.com. Of those 20, there were exactly three different ones. Three!?! I think Cooks.com is one of those user-generated content sites, and it’s obvious in this situation that there are no editors doing anything there. I mean, how many times do I need to read the same recipe? Even if they have slightly different titles, they are the same and once I’ve decided I don’t want the first copy of it, finding it again 10 more times just makes me leave the site without using any of the recipes. Lame!
2. Why do people, when rating recipes, give a recipe a 5 star rating and then proceed to explain how they completely changed the recipe?
   For example: “This was an awesome recipe! My family loved it! I replaced the chicken with tuna, added tomatoes and green onions (for color), and got rid of the garlic and onions (my family doesn’t like them). Oh, and I used cauliflower instead of potatoes.” And this is on a recipe for chicken-potato pie. It sounds to me like she made tuna-cauliflower pie.

Any suggestions for great, easy recipes are welcome! Please comment.

I got this mail series yesterday and today. It’s still not very informative… ——– Original Message ——– Subject: Re: Re: Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:49:30 -0500 From: Noah Hansen xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx To: Jennifer Kyrnin <webdesign.guide@about.com> lol ————————————————– From: “Jennifer Kyrnin” <webdesign.guide@about.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 6:21 PM To: “Noah Hansen” <xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx> Subject: Re: > You’re right. This mail isn’t very informative. ☺ > > Was there something specific you were feeling was not very informative? Or was this a commentary on me in general? > > Jennifer Kyrnin > Guide to Web Design / HTML > http://webdesign.about.com/ > About.com | Need. Know. Accomplish > ———————————————— > About.com is part of the New York Times Company > > http://www.facebook.com/AboutWebDesign > http://www.twitter.com/htmljenn > > On 9/15/10 2:49 PM, Noah Hansen wrote: » not very informative » Noah Hansen

[caption id=“attachment_178” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Buttery Sticks - Margarine is for losers!”][/caption]

Yummy!

It’s sad when marketing has decided that “margarine” isn’t yummy sounding enough.

Psst: Nucoa people… Buttery sticks makes it sound like I’m about to use twigs that have been basted. And, personally, I’m not a huge fan of twigs.

Jaryth saw his first movie last Saturday - Finding Nemo. And he loved it, what he watched of it, that is. He’s known who Nemo is for a while, because he has a Nemo swimming suit. Of course, he calls the fish on his suit “Emo” and “Emo’s Dad. But you can’t have everything. What’s funny to me is that now he wants to watch Nemo every day. We watched it on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now he’s downstairs watching it with Mark. I suspect that even though I like Finding Nemo, I’m going to eventually feel about it the way I feel about Dumbo. Good movie, but I saw it too much. [caption id=“attachment_172” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth got really excited when I asked him to pose in front of Marlin.”][/caption] What’s interesting is watching Jaryth figure out more of the movie every time he watches it. He now understands that the little red balls at the beginning are eggs. But he says “Eggs go?” when the fish knocks Marlin out and eats them (and Coral, Nemo’s mother). We’ve tried to explain to him that they are all gone except for Nemo, but I think that’s still beyond him today. Maybe tomorrow. Yesterday, every scene that didn’t have Nemo in it would generate a “Nemo go?” query from Jaryth. (And if you’re wondering, he hasn’t gotten the concept of interrogative words like “where” yet.) [caption id=“attachment_175” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth Smiling for the Camera”][/caption]

There is this big rock off Highway 9 that we pass when we’re going to the Post Office. And the local high school students regularly paint it with various things. The typical paintings are like “Sarah loves Jesse” and “Panther’s Rule!” but today the rock says: “Get your own rock!” And on the other side it has the icons for Snohomish High School. I don’t know what they were responding too, but I’m guessing that students from another school painted it and SHS students were “taking it back”. I did have a laugh at the “get your own rock” phrase. You tell ‘em, kids! I’m sure that’ll keep them off your rock!

Today I received a comment on my web design blog complaining that a previous comment was “clearly spam”. The post in question talked about web design books I was looking forward to seeing. And the (possibly spammy) commenter linked to an ebook he was looking forward to.

My question is: what makes this spam? The fact that he bolded the title of the book? The fact that he included a link to the ebook’s web page? The fact that he didn’t say “I am not the author, I just like this book” or something equally obsequious?

I have been writing professionally since 1993, but I haven’t spent a lot of time writing for myself. So this space is where I’m allowing myself to write about what interests me. If it interests you as well, well, I’m glad. But if it doesn’t, frankly, I don’t care. Here is the boring info about me: I write about HTML and Web design at About.com I’ve written two books that my mother has read (or at least looked at) but you probably haven’t I’ve worked as a manager, Web designer, Web producer, Webmaster, Web writer, and Tech Support Rep I’ve also herded monkeys and cats, cleaned up after toddlers and library patrons, taught English, translated Uzbek, and bitten baby sheep – all for some sort of remuneration If I could I would spend my days doing three things: playing with my son, reading Science Fiction, and riding my horse If I ruled the world, mean people would be executed, but sarcastic people would be rewarded – as long as it wasn’t mean sarcasm. Rambler, Jennifer, and Jaryth

In the spring of 2010, I took an art class at Everett Community College. In that class I learned about a whole lot of different art techniques including: drawing in graphite and charcoal drawing with pen and ink drawing with color pencils painting with ink and brushes painting with watercolors And I fell in love with watercolor painting. Previously, my efforts at watercolor were ugly at best, but this class showed me different techniques, different paints and brushes, and different papers (Yupo paper is really cool!). And I decided to do my final project as a watercolor painting of the NGPA in our backyard. But our instructor had us do more than just draw something or paint a picture for our final project. She wanted us to write a proposal for the project, and include in it what the purpose and intentions were for the project. Now I could have said something like: “My intention is to create a painting for my final project.” But that would have been weak and somewhat pointless. Then I was looking at my blog, and getting frustrated again that I was using a blog template rather than my own design. And it hit me!…

I’m hot, which is a nice change from the whole of June, where we had fall weather, but still, hot is no fun. Because it’s hot I’m furious that the post office can’t seem to mail my post cards. I’ve sent the below postcard twice already. And yes, i’ve added new stamps to it. And this is one of three that the postal carrier can’t seem to grasp DOESN’T need to go here. I understand that the post office is mostly automated, but where is the brain that my postal carrier is supposed to have. I mean SERIOUSLY, can’t s/he read? It says “TO” next to the to address and “FROM” above the from address. Also, why would I put 98cents worth of stamps on a postcard to myself??? I like the post office, most of the time, but sometimes their complete reliance on machines to the point of idiocy makes me mad. If there were a way to send post cards by UPS I would do it! [caption id=“attachment_155” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“I have already spent $1.96 to send this card twice! Stupid PO.”][/caption]