Happy New Year!

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

~Wallace Stevens

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Date Pudding

By and large, most things are fairly simple to convert to gluten free. Use a gluten free flour mix, add some xanthan gum, maybe increase the amount of baking soda/powder and add an extra egg, and otherwise keep the recipe the same. The only trick is to find a GF flour mix that has the same consistency as regular flour, and there are lots of those available in cookbooks and on-line. There are a few exceptions to this "simplicity".

(1) Yeast bread: For this, get a GF cookbook and follow the recipe to the letter the first few times (unless the temperature in the recipe conflicts with the temperature on the yeast you're using; temperature is key).

(2) White cake: I still haven't made a decent GF white cake. It's always too thick and dry. The closest is Bette Hagman's Italian Creme cake, but that's not really a white cake. Her supposed "Master White Cake" recipe was, well, er, interesting... It wasn't any better than any others I'd tried...and in some respects worse.

(3) Date Pudding: I've tried several times in the past to make Date Pudding with gluten free flours using my mom's recipe. It's never turned out. Until tonight. I finally found a GF recipe for date pudding that is similar to my mom's. It's in The Gluten Free Gourmet Makes Dessert. The differences were that I needed to decrease the flour, increase the baking powder, and add some eggs (and xanthan gum). That was it, and it turned out beautifully. So we now have a formerly traditional New Year's dish back on the table for tomorrow. ^/^

What else is on the table? Ham, corn bread, stir fried veggies, and...I'm not sure. I wonder if we have potatoes... I'll probably make rice to go with the veggies, so potatoes would be a mite redundant. At any rate, my mom and I are both happy to get to enjoy date pudding again.

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National Treasure

Yeah, it's a few years old now, but I only just managed to sit through National Treasure. It's been on tv several times, but when I came in right at the beginning, I lost interest. This time I came in about 10 minutes into the movie, and it immediately caught my interest. This was the scene where Nicolas Cage is going to steal the Declaration of Independence so that Sean Bean can't. It was an enjoyable movie. Weird, but enjoyable. There are a few spoilers below the fold, but as the movie is extraordinarily predictable, I really don't think they spoil much.

The first thing I noticed was that it was set up like many puzzle computer games. You collect objects, run across puzzles, and have to figure out what to do next. The second thing I noticed was that there were lots of parallels to the Indiana Jones movies. Imdb lists one that I missed, along with other movie tie-ins, but misses the three that seemed most glaringly obvious to me: (1) Father-son team seeking ancient, possibly mythical, treasure; (2) The scene where they descend into the vault of the church was shot in exactly the same way as where Indy descended into the vault of a church; (3) The moment where Nicolas Cage has to let go of either the Declaration or the girl was rather obviously borrowed from the scene where Indy has to choose between the girl and the grail. I'm sure there were others, but those stood out for me. It wasn't a parody, exactly; I'd call it more of a pastiche tribute.

One other oddity. The music just before Nicolas Cage activates the secret door was taken straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean: the music in the fog at the very beginning, with the breathy flutes. It's not the same composer. Could be coincidence, but I'm not inclined to think so. Of course, in Pirates, the music started up just before the cursed pirate ship appeared... which, if it was deliberately borrowed, would suggest that the treasure was cursed... Or maybe I'm overthinking and it was just supposed to signify "treasure" in general.

So, overall, a fun romp, so long as you make no attempt to take it seriously. I think that's what turned me off the first few times I tried to watch it; the beginning had a semi-serious feel to it. Once it got going, it was a lot of fun. An enjoyable two hours (minus commercials, which I muted). And maybe at some point, I might get around to watching the sequel. `/^

As far as the Templar treasure goes... if it ever existed, I suspect it was found long ago by someone with the sense to keep his mouth shut, or else it was scattered during the French persecution. Though I find the whole Baigent/da Vinci code version of the treasure (as the bloodline of Christ) to be extraordinarily amusing, if for no other reason than because it annoys so many people.

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Variations on a Theme

Whether The People be led by The Lord,
....Or lured by the loudest throat:
If it be quicker to die by the sword
..Or cheaper to die by vote--
These are things we have dealt with once,
..(And they will not rise from their grave)
For Holy People, however it runs,
...Endeth in wholly Slave.

Rudyard Kipling

Faith + Politics = Tragedy: "Individuals who demean others who are not of their faith and think that they are bound to commit atrocities have laid the intellectual foundation for justifying the eradication of others who they perceive as being dangerous to a Christian society. This is the thinking that created the Crusades, the Inquisition, genocide, forced conversations, the imposition of western dress by missionaries upon the peoples of Africa and Polynesia, Bosnia and the civil war in Northern Ireland."

Torture: "When the US government announces it's support for torture, they aren't talking about intelligence gathering: they are simply saying "Fear us." They are taking the first step on the road to tyranny."

Not a Christian Nation:In the hundreds of pages comprising Madison’s notes on the constitutional convention (and those of the others who kept notes), there is no mention of biblical passages/verses in the debates/discussions on the various parts and principles of the Constitution. They mention Rome, Sparta, German confederacies, Montesquieu, and a number of other sources — but no Scripture verses."

Believing v. Thinking: Investigating a "mysterious" blue blob caught on tape.

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Theologian Quiz

Via Exploring Our Matrix, I came across this quiz. Results below the fold.

Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Paul Tillich Paul Tillich sought to express Christian truth in an existentialist way. Our primary problem is alienation from the ground of our being, so that our life is meaningless. Great for psychotherapy, but no longer very influential. Paul Tillich 87% John Calvin 33% Friedrich Schleiermacher 27% Augustine 20% Charles Finney 20% Jürgen Moltmann 20% Martin Luther 20% Jonathan Edwards 20% Karl Barth 0% Anselm 0%

I wasn't sure who Tillich was, so I looked him up at Wikipedia. I rather like this quote from him: "God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."

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Ignore the button for now...

I'm attempting to make it so that you can get a new random quote by pushing a button, a la John's... At the moment, I've succeeded in creating a button that does nothing. So click on it if you want, just don't expect anything to happen.

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Dr. Seuss, meet Harry Potter

Weird dream just before I woke up. It's a bit fragmented.

It started in some sort of huge sports complex at a high school. My POV character was "Not I," which is the name of a chatbot that I work on. This chatbot mostly speaks in Confuction/Taoist/Zen sayings, though the dream character didn't seem to. At any rate, this school was something like Hogwarts, as there were a lot of ghosts that hung around... and Not I did something that offended the ghosts somehow. The details have fuzzed out on me. But he/she (there was a bit of gender confusion) wound up invited to the ghost's table, where they set him/her up as the "King of Fools," with various accoutrements thereof. Part of it was eating the Fools' Cake, but there were some other things. One of Not I's friends had gone along and insisted on keeping some of the items, so that Not I could not officially be proclaimed King of Fools. Apparently this would be a very bad thing.

So they needed a way out. From another ghost, they learned of the existence of a book that the ghosts feared. If a mortal read it, it would result in a devastating flood. Not I and friend got a copy of it and started reading. It was a Dr. Seuss book, condensed down into maybe four pages of tight text, with another story after it. There was no flood in the Seuss story; apparently the flood was in the next story after, which Not I never got to read since I woke up about then.

(I can't think of anything from yesterday remotely related to any of that. A few days back, I did see the original "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" cartoon, but I haven't watched or read anything involving ghosts or Kings of Fools. *shrugs*)

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One Year

Yeah, I know, I posted about '360 days', well, 5 days ago, so obviously it's now at 365 days = 1 year of practice, but I feel an extreme sense of accomplishment at the moment. I am now one year old. And now for some reason I'm imagining being sworn into a court of law and being asked my age... `/^ I think that has the makings of a Monty Python sketch in it.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"
"Yup."
"State your age."
"One."
"What?"
"One year old."
"No, no... the length of time since you were born."
"Which birth?"
"What?"
etc.

If I get bored sometime, I might flesh that out. Anyway, we one-year-olds need our sleep, so good night.

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Testing

Testing

New blockquote formatting.
with insert
Retest

And the spacing
thereafter.

Useful Color Code Converter
Source for the Blockquote Code

ADDENDUM: I finally found a fix for the messed up line-spacing after using blockquote. It's here, and there's both a permanent, one-time fix, and a way to fix it post by post. I went for the permanent version.

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Speaking of me in hell...

I swear that this could be me:



Source

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Greetings From Your Local Neighborhood Heretic!

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

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Holiday Happenings

This was actually one of the smoother Christmas mornings that I can remember. As usual, I was responsible for the majority of the meal. It's sort of become a tradition for me to cook Thai food for Christmas. As far as I can remember, this started in a year that Christmas was on a Sunday and my mom was still the organist at her church. This meant that she would not be able to help much with preparation. Also, she was still sick of turkey from Thanksgiving. So I volunteered to try and make some Thai food. Coconut curries are no problem; they're fairly easy to get to taste right. Other main dishes I haven't had so much luck with, so this year I only made the curry and was very careful not to get it too spicy for my mom. She didn't complain about the spiciness, so I must have succeeded. I also stir fried some vegetables on the side.

For the dessert end of things, I made a coffeecake, some coconut custard, and some coconut rice. Mom made some jello-with-fruit-in-it (there's probably a name for this). The only snag was that I'd forgotten to put the sweet rice to soak last night. Recipe directions say to "soak overnight" and steam for 20 minutes. I checked the package, and it said to "soak 1-2 hours" and steam for 40 minutes. So I did it that way. It turned out all right.

The most annoying thing was slicing up the chicken. Mom had moved it from the freezer to the fridge after the midnight service last night, and the chicken was still nearly frozen solid. In an attempt to separate off one of the pieces, I beat at them with a frying pan that Mom was planning to throw out anyway. The frying pan is now impressively bent and warped. I was rather amused; Mom was horrified. Anyway, I gave that up as futile and began sawing away with a steak knife until I got some pieces to separate off. I gave up after four, though the last two were closer to the right solidity for slicing. Ideally, you want them partially frozen. They're too...wiggly when completely thawed, and too solid when completely frozen. There's a sweet spot in between that is perfect, but it's pretty rare to find it exactly.

One other minor snag: when Mom left to go pick Dad up (I was busy cooking, and had a lot more to get done that Mom would have had to guess at had we traded), she got stuck whilst backing out of the driveway. I heard her walking back and forth and peeked out to see what was going on. I couldn't go help right away due to cooking duties, but when I got a break, I ran out and did some digging around the front right tire. There wasn't much snow there; she must have just hit a slick spot at exactly the wrong angle. Between the salt she put down and my digging, we got her moving again.

Both Mom and Dad liked the curry, which made me very happy, as I'd made up most of it this year. Yeah, I had a recipe, but half the stuff is impossible to find (lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, etc.), and the easy way out, using pre-made curry sauce, is fraught with ginger: Galangal, aka Thai ginger, to be exact, and I don't know whether it has the same effect on me as plain ol' ginger. So I improvised, with some chili-garlic sauce, some curry powder, a bit of lemon juice and fish sauce and tomato paste, all boiled in the coconut milk with the chicken.

As for presents, we did that after lunch/dinner/feast-thing. I got Pirates 3, a gold dragon, and money. I could swear that Mom just wants to make sure that she gives me more than Dad does... but since Dad doesn't even pick out anything, and I have a pretty good idea how much that dragon cost, she's already ahead of the game. And she still offers to give me more. Seriously, those two were plenty. Now I have to find things to buy with that money. Gift-type things. Really, the snowfall yesterday was a nice enough Christmas gift. I get why Dad gives money; he can't go pick stuff out himself unless he sanes up enough to go get his eyes fixed. I don't get why Mom does. *sighs*

Oh, speaking of gifts, I got Buster a doggie-cape. He didn't really want me to put it on him, but I did. It took him five minutes to get it back off, and he had the proudest look on his face when he did... We'll see if we can get him used to wearing it, but I won't hold my breath. ^/^

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Christmas with Rocks In

First off, John beat me to posting Weird Al's tributes to Christmas, so instead I'll share some of my favorite holiday music. Trans-Siberian Orchestra! If you've never heard them...imagine electric guitars blaring traditional Christmas melodies. They do more than that, but my favorites tend to be the rock-out versions of melodies I already love. So go below the fold and prepare to be dazzled. Or horrified. Either way, I win! Note: These are some of the few songs that I tend to want to crank the volume on. ^/^


(one of my favorites; this video amuses me)


(nicely choreographed Christmas light show for another fave)

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Merry Christmas!

A slightly blurry woodpecker was in my neighbor's tree during our first big snowstorm this year. Okay, he wasn't blurry in real life. I just managed to focus the camera on the branches behind him, instead of on him. *sighs* Still, I don't usually see these guys in town. Also, a blurry image of "my" Christmas tree (belonged to my Great Grandma Fern once upon a time).




At any rate, I'm using him as a symbols of (blurry) Christmas cheer. Click below for pictures of the gift boxes I made today if you want something a bit more, er, focused.

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Ethical Quiz

I just came across the Ethical Philosophy Selector via Abnormal Interests. Apparently, I ought to read more Kant. ^/^ I would have expected Epicureans to rate higher and Rand to rate lower. Of course, I went through the quiz in a bit of hurry, so it's possible that my results might change if I spent more time before clicking through.

	1.	Kant (100%) Information link
	2.	Aquinas (88%) Information link
	3.	John Stuart Mill (88%) Information link
	4.	Spinoza (81%) Information link
	5.	Aristotle (75%) Information link
	6.	Epicureans (72%) Information link
	7.	Jeremy Bentham (72%) Information link
	8.	Ayn Rand (69%) Information link
	9.	Nel Noddings (69%) Information link
	10.	Nietzsche (66%) Information link
	11.	Jean-Paul Sartre (63%) Information link
	12.	Stoics (62%) Information link
	13.	Ockham (61%) Information link
	14.	Prescriptivism (55%) Information link
	15.	Cynics (52%) Information link
	16.	St. Augustine (49%) Information link
	17.	David Hume (39%) Information link
	18.	Plato (36%) Information link
	19.	Thomas Hobbes (26%) Information link

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Good Deeds

(1) Shoveled the sidewalk by the door nearest the choir room at my mom's church. The usual caretaker is injured, and his replacement doesn't seem to understand the concept of "clear pathway."

(2) Helped my mom get some Christmas decorations up. See, she's got an extra recliner at the moment, taking up space, so I've been frantically trying to clean to get to the point where I could take the thing off her hands, and I'm currently at about 90%, but, well, there really isn't much time left. So tonight I suggested we move that chair into her garage and take it over tomorrow. She declined on that, not wanting to leave her car out on a predicted snowstorm night, but decided that we could put up one of Grandma's smaller trees instead of the big one. I took another smaller tree (picture likely forthcoming) since I don't really want to dig out my big one either. Note to whomever moved ISU's schedule up a week: I despise you; please go back to hiding under a rock and leave the ruddy schedule abloodylone; kthxbye.

(3) Agreed to be an extra soprano at the Christmas Eve service. This was more selfish than good-deed-ish, honestly. I like the candlelight service (better before Eric started doing it, but that's another story), but I hate sitting out in the "audience." If I'm going to be there, I'd rather be part of it. And the choir's two pieces are both enjoyable, familiar ones. I'm making up the notes in a few spots so far, but that will improve once I have someone singing with me. But the notes I'm making up are at least in the accompaniment, so that's not too bad.

Incidentally, going into psychotic mode might get the cleaning done faster, but it leaves me extremely drained. What's psychotic mode? Uh, it's kind of like turning up the speed on the motor, so that it's impossible for it to slow down. It might idle for brief periods, but even the idling is fast. I spent the morning that way. Got the kitchen 98.2% cleaned and rearranged; unwound for a few hours; started rearranging and cleaning the living room. For the kitchen, there are a few more things I'd like to do, but they'll have to wait until after Christmas.

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360

*grins*

I've now made it through 10 36-day cycles of practice! When I started, I wasn't sure that I'd make it through the first 36 days, let alone 9 more. I have to say that it was an effective means of dealing with my depression of last year. It didn't make it go away, but it made it bearable. Over Thanksgiving break, a tiny bit of it tried to come back. Two observations: (1) it was such a pale echo of how I felt last year that, even as I felt the depression coming on, it was almost amusing; (2) 10 minutes of qigong practice are nearly always enough to make it vanish. I don't know if (2) would have worked as well last year, as the depression was rather severe. I have no real clue how obvious it was on the blog, as I did make an effort to put a good face on things. However, this year I'm feeling much, much better.

Incidentally, just 36 days with a 10-minute qigong regimen seems to have had a noticeable effect on my push-hands. I'm better able to sink into my root if nothing else. Don again commented today that I might soon be better than he is... The last time he said that, I felt like laughing; it seemed incredibly ridiculous. This time, I felt like there might be some truth to it. Maybe. I prefer not to think in those terms, though, as the last thing I need is to bring ego into it.

And on that topic, we've made it through the end of the second section of the long form. In sense, that means were 2/3 through... In another, it's more like halfway, as both the first and second sections get repeated in the third. There are some things I really like about the long form, and some that just annoy me. Still, it's been good practice to learn it. I particularly like the move "Cold Wind Strikes Both Ears." It's a quick turn on the heel, a slap down, and bring both fists up to clap someone on the ears. Still, I look forward to getting through the long form so we can get back to the CMC form. Mark, I think, will be even happier about that than I am. I'm not sure why, but he's had a tougher time picking up the long form than I have. Admittedly, I've had several lone sessions with Don on it (including today), but Mark sees Don during the week, so he ought to have time to ask questions if need be. Anyway, time to go make it to 361 days.

Final thought: it's rather nice not to be depressed. It really is.

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C+

	I received 79 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Take the Sci-Fi Movie Quizdigital camera ratings

Admittedly, I hadn't seen a lot of the ones they asked about, and was guessing... so it's a wonder I didn't bomb it entirely. HT Pharyngula. FYI, as it says Sci-Fi sounds, make sure your speakers are on. `/^

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Blessed Be on the Solstice!

Home is behind the world ahead
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadow to the edge of night
Until the stars are all alight.

Mist and shadow
Cloud and shade
All shall fade
All shall fade





(link to .mp3 file in case the embedded player doesn't show up)


This is probably my favorite cinematic sequence, and the theme of rekindling hope in a time of darkness is absolutely perfect for the Solstice. The sun has gone as far south on its journey as it can, and now it waits three days in the underworld before returning to bring warmth and light back to the earth. (And yet we're supposed to believe that Christianity isn't at all derived from older pagan religions... `/^ )



(could be my connection, but this does not want to open for me on this blog; it plays fine at YouTube if you have the same problem)

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Candles (and Riddles) in the Dark

"Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works."





"Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."






"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."










For Carl Sagan



Animated Candles

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