In an effort to maximize bread freshness, I tried dividing a ball of dough in two. The idea being I would bake two small loaves - one earlier in the week, and once that bread was consumed bake a second. That way the bread doesn't last long enough to dry out or go moldy. The loaves turn out so small though that they're more like buns. Instead of a large loaf lasting from Sunday to Saturday, I have two loaves that were eaten in three or four days. What gives? The same volume of dough divided in half should just be the same amount of bread right? Apparently not. It's as though you get twice the crust but half of the bread. I might try this strategy one more time and let the smaller loaves rise longer but I don't hold out much hope for it. One thing's for sure, this isn't how Jesus feed the 5000.

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It is the dawn of a new era. The era of home ownership and endless maintenance. Bernice, Andy and Gina moved into their new house yesterday. The cats were less enthused and may take a few days to recover. They'll be okay, cats always land on their feet, especially after a few days cowering. Cowering has redemptive powers we have yet to understand. We went by when most of the dust had settled (though to be fair, there wasn't much dust - they keep a clean house even in a move) and brought by some take-out from the local Indian food. You can always count on us to eat with you. And eat we did. Unfortunately, I think we forgot to turn off some of our lights on timers when we left home so I'm sure we looked like jerks during Earth Hour. It's my job to mock, not to be mocked. That's what you learn when you have neighbours - you will be judged.

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Damaged Goods

image via The New York Times

We've come a little late to the series "Damages". After watching just a couple of episodes you feel like you better buckle up for a bumpy ride. Glenn Close has playing the matronly villain down to an art. You're never really sure where its going, but you get the feeling it is pretty much a safe bet that we're on the down escalator to Hell (or some approximation thereof).

First Day of Sprinter

Spring + Winter. I guess it could also be Wing (Winter + Spring). Still we must carry on, right, right! Carry on is what I'll attempt to do.

I've had an awful time this weekend with this blog¹. That sounds worse than it is. The service I use to post to this site (longer than saying "Blog Service" I know, but sounds less like some kind of cultish escort/enema practice) changed the way they update their sites. Instead of ye olde fashioned FTP, they asked everyone to switch to their hosted service and just re-direct your domains to them. Sounds simple, and in fairness, posting and managing the site this way is much faster (compare 10-15 minutes to 10-15 seconds especially for sites with over seven years of posts and hundreds of pages. Ie. this one).

Redirecting sounds simple but it just ain't. I suppose the thing is if you redirect something to essentially itself, stars collapse and universes collide. Not to mention that my RSS feeds are not entirely RSS'd up! I'm not sure I've fixed it or if I ever will, but it has motivated me to move this thing entirely to a site of my own making and with that, take responsibility for the software and not rely on a service that may change to "better suit your needs".

FN1. "Blog" is such an awful septic sounding word. Web + Log doesn't equal "Blog" does it? I know it's supposed to be short for "Weblog" but why shorten it? Or why even give it a moniker. It's not even an online journal anymore, it's just a Web site that is updated regularly. Can't we do away with this awkward techie-invented phrase. The people who came up with this word actually suck at coming up with words. I don't suppose it ever occurred to them to not invent an ugly word or to just say online journal or personal site or I don't know "Web Journal = webjo". Well, that's not any better so I'll just refrain from calling it anything.

Seen in February

image via The Auteurs

02 - A Streetcar Named Desire
A classic American melo-drama. These characters are not stereotypes,
they are archetypes. Great performances.

05 - Cold Souls
Paul Giamatti plays an actor who decides to have his tortured soul removed and put in storage while he performs Uncle Vanya using a rented Russian soul. Best moment: Giamatti, without his soul, rehearses Uncle Vanya while channeling William Shatner. A great premise sort of fades to fuzzy blues and grays.

06 - Extract
Mike Judge's misdirected comedy should've been gold but instead is all
over the place and never comes together. Too bad because there are
some funny moments.

07 - Departures
Moving Japanese film about a man who returns to his home town and
takes a non-traditional job which helps him confront his past.

08 - Sugar
Authentic, personal, intimate and understated portrait of a Dominician
baseball player following his dreams of making it to the Big Game
until... Not your usual Field of Dreams.

20 - Funny People
Meh. Not a bad film. Pretty close to my tolerance level for penis jokes. Sandler proves he can be better with better material. Overly long — the movie, I mean, not anyone's penis. By "anyone" I mean Seth Rogen. By "penis" I mean, dick.