Why does cookie dough taste so much nicer than cookies? Answers on a postcard to…

Last week I went to a quiz and tried to guess the year of the Battle of Trafalga basing my decision on whether Sharpe was alive then (yup, Sharpe the character in the Bernard Cornwell books and tv shows), and one of the blokes on my team just invited me to join their historical re-enactment society! :laugh:

The funniest bit about this? I said I would…

Arg – I never thought I’d be a reference advocate! I discovered an error and a contradiction in my notes – the contradiction is that it says “complete albino horses have pink irises and are photophobic” and next sentence it says “complete albinos are reabsorbed – it’s a lethal gene”. :confused: Evidently the people claiming they were photophobic were either psychic or had a very small sun they put in the uterus before the foal was reabsorbed. The error in the note is that there is no such thing as albino in horses. I go to email the lecturer to correct the notes (coz I’m that kinda over-confident wench) and I use UC Davis for backup, only to discover that UC Davis lists the horse genes, complete with W, the dominant white gene – the so-called “albino” gene. It’s quoting a 1980 article! With no subsequent backup. UC Davis offers testing for the Lethal White Overo (LWO – not related to the mythical White gene I’m whinging about) gene among others – surely if they thought the White gene existed they’d develop a test for it…? Or at least mention it…?

Bah. Unfoundedness.

Scandal on the EUR boards – DJ quit. I liked the DJ concerned personally initially but I’ve not been overly impressed with his attitude lately, and certainly not the way he got all his new friends to come and wail and sob and swear at everyone else on the boards. Mature :doze:. No huge loss I suspect.

*mumbly* I have a mouth ulcer.

So they’re banning fox hunting. I was rather angry to read that though I had no doubt it was coming. I was angry not because of some some attachment to traditions or some nostalgia for the dwindling conservatism of this bloody island, but because it’s purely political and a decision pushed by naive townies who really haven’t thought this through.

Foxes aren’t protected – you can kill vermin on your own land and foxes are considered vermin. So, all those farmers who were sparing the foxes to give the hunt something to hunt will now be able to shoot or trap them. Whether or not the hunt actually controlled fox numbers is immaterial – there are definately people who believe it does, and will now believe they have to protect their livestock themselves. The hunt wasn’t always successful – people protecting their livelihood will be much more so. The balance between farmers, foxes and the hunt will be upset and I suspect that foxes will be the worst for it. And it’s this lack of thought into the repercussions of upsetting a balanced system that infuriates me. They can’t even tell us conclusively if hunting has an effect on the fox population – how can they claim this is in any sense an informed decision?! It’s farcical and embarrassing.

That and that the bloody liberals who think that being Labour, atheist, vegetarian and anti-hunting is the only sensible way of life and anyone who either thinks differently or wishes to maintain an open mind is misguided in some way. Stop telling me what to think, bloody hippies.

*A group of empids is an embarrassment. Empids are a type of bird. And by pure coinscidence, 21st Sept (date that webpage is about) is my birthday. Small world.

Phase 3 in The Great Cookie Experiment was rather more successful. Rather than assuming they’d flow into cookie shape I squished them. Also I have no sugar so they are healthy sugar-substitute cookies. They’re are about 20% butter but you can’t have everything. Quite impressed. I shall try phase 4 with smarties or some other chocolate fragment product next.

I’m an achieving socialite this week! I got home today at the very nice hour of 2pm, walked the dogs in the woods again (lovely – there’s a field pass at the bottom where the wind is channelled – gorgeous!), came back by 3pm and “worked” til about 8pm. I say “worked” as really I was colour coding, adding tabs to and highlighting my notes. But hey – it looks nice.

Tomorrow I go home to BS as the bald cat has a vet appointment. Coinscidentally I have a directed learning (problems solving) question for Thurs, namely “Consider allergic diseases of cats and their presentation”. Guess what the bald cat has. Timely! *plans to pick brains of vet suruptitiously* Plus there’s darts in the evening which I might be playing in.

Thursday we have a mentors Quiz Night – we meet up with our “dearies” in the year below, as my fellow mentor calls them, and lose spectacularly at a quiz. But hey, free beer, free pizza and encouragment to be social. Friday I’m going to see Bridget Jones with S around the corner and friends – should be good – again another social webweaving opportunity. Saturday (it goes on!) I hope to be going to a meal around AnM’s flat in London, complete with cinema and sock buying.

It’s all go!

I baked!

They were supposed to be cookies. The first batch came out more like squat biscuits so I added milk to the second batch – and got fake cat sick! Tastes nice and that’s what matters Note – I have made this recipe before successfully – but it’s designed to make 112 cookies and I didn’t really want that many and tried to scale it down, but it’s in cups… and trying to work out a new ratio for 5 cups of oats to 4 eggs doesn’t work.

Eeeeeevil…. they’re waiting for me to let my guard down before they attack.

Later on that evening, evil rests, having got bored of waiting.

Firstly, 11th of the 11th, Armistice Day. I feel rather peeved that I’ve not bought a poppy – seems like the older I get the harder it is to find them. However I have put some work into sigs and stuff. So here is my Armistice Poppy tribute, complete with British Bulldog:

All the older men in my family were involved at some point somewhere, and they’re now gone, so I like to support Armistice, even if I can’t find a poppy. We don’t get many opportunities to be patriot and truly tory-minded in public and we should – reminds us where we came from.

So Hedonism – there was a blokie on the telly last night advertising his new book The Hedonism Handbook: Mastering the Lost Arts of Leisure and Pleasure which apparently encourages the uptake of leisurely “because I can” pursuits, such as walking with no destination in mind, and sitting on park benches. So I have had a hedonistic day, and I must say it was rather fun. It wasn’t truly hedonistic as I did achieve hugely for the first half, did a practical class, went to see a lecturer about rabbit x-rays, bound and handed in my project, tried to find my waterproof trousers, went shopping in a little veg shop for dinner, then went home, had a late lunch and a snooze with a pile of dogs (herith the hedonism begineth) went for a walk with said dogs with no destination in mind and walked for about 1 1/2 hours, finding an excellent new wood to walk in that’s only 15 mins from the house, came back and came online and spend the evening pootling about on forums and mining asteroids in EVE. Am currently upgrading my ship The Rabbit so I have a chance of surviving annhilation as I wander round dangerous space for fun.

This is EVE btw – computer game very much like ELITE, the old BBC/Acorn game. Humans got stuck on the wrong side of the universe and now have a new space community there – you can fight, mine, trade, plot, hunt pirates or be one.

However I love it for the graphics. This is me in my Punisher (called The Rabbit) mining an asteroid in a rather nice (yet quite dangerous) system. Warping is rather fun too. I probably haven’t got the perseverance to stick with the game – not ambitious enough. However I like the unofficial radio station EVE Underground – good music and I know one of the DJs

I should be doing some college work, not mining…

Oh and I killed my fish! Poor little danio – we were commenting on Fri that he was looking a bit worse for wear and was not long for this world (we were looking at him because we’d noticed the other danio had gone). Then I had to clean the filter yesterday – I did so, put it back in but had changed the speed to maximum – not on purpose really, didn’t think about it. Everything got thrown around the aquarium – plants, cucumber (don’t ask) and yes, fish. I did turn it down of course but 2 hours later the danio was not only dead but someone had already eaten most of him.

Fish – don’t get them. They lead to guilt and philosophy. We have the Fish Tank Analogy we use frequently in non-fish related situations, developed in the early days of fish tank ownership. It’s a reminder that if you concentrate on the molly fish saying “oo look at her, she’s ill, she’s gonna die” then the silver shark will drop dead while you aren’t paying attention – i.e. a reminder not to focus on one thing (often animals) at the detriment of the rest as you ain’t psychic.

Both ends of the bunny are functioning within normal parameters. She’s scoffing for England. Turned out to be her teeth, possibly. A tiny spur was taken off and now she’s better so *shrugs*

I have to go back to PB today – am not looking forward to it. I have to talk to my housemates about the mess. Leaving notes apparently doesn’t work – people ignore you unless you tell them direct. So I’m gonna have to go with the “it’s making me ill” tactic.

I hate talking to people *shudders*…