all things me

Achievement unlocked: 30 years

Minna — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:10:34 +0000

Last Tuesday, quite appropriately, there was a newspaper article about famous 30-year-olds (and younger) and how much they’ve already achieved despite their young age.

Gee, thanks for cheering me up! I haven’t achieved squat.

I’m only joking; I’m not feeling particularly “age-crisis-y” (well, I’m writing this on Sunday, the day before, so let’s see how I’m thinking tomorrow) and I don’t even think I’m allowed to. 30 is nothing! I’m still a kid!

OK, checklist:
– Wrinkles? I can see two horizontal lines forming on the forehead but no prospective laugh lines (now, that’s weird) or anything like that.
– Greys? No genuine ones but I’ve had both white and black strands since I was a kid.
– Aches and pains? My legs are sore at the moment but that’s from cardio-boxing on Xbox Kinect…
– Skin on the back of my hand? Bounces right back.
– Grouchiness? No signs, I would say. (OK, I don’t seriously think old = grouchy )
– Cats? None.

Let’s see what that list looks like in 5-10 years, but for now, happy 30th birthday me!

To each their own tune

Minna — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:18:50 +0000

Very often when I’m “on the road” by myself and not reading a book I listen to music on my cellphone. And at work if I’m having trouble concentrating I may listen to music quietly on the background.

I pretty much always listen to music on my way back from work because I’m too tired to read. Today when I was sitting on the bus and listening to music (Muse, Milow, and Maroon 5), I was shaking my foot to my tunes. Next I noticed a reflection in the window: the guy sitting in front of me, with earbuds on, was drumming his knee with his hand. I couldn’t help but smile.

I can easily imagine a future where most people walk around with headphones on. I’ve even seen groups of teen girls where everyone is listening to their own music (and trying to chat, ha). Or maybe they are listening to the same song. Social music playing could get popular so wouldn’t one-to-many Bluetooth pairings be great? Or cords with multiple pairs of headphones on the other end? Those would at least be much better than what these groups do now: listen to the songs from the loudspeaker. To the enjoyment of everyone around them.

Finger lickin’ good

Minna — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:55:41 +0000

This morning on the bus a woman sat next to me reading a newspaper. I started watching her from the corner of my eye once I noticed she was one of those people who lick their finger before turning the page (ick! It’s a public newspaper, other people will read it!). I find that habit so baffling.

But then I noticed something else which almost made me chuckle out loud: she licked her right index finger as soon as she started reading the second page of each spread — long before she needed it for page-turning — and half the time she used the other, dry hand!

I usually resort to finger licking when I’ve already struggled for some time trying to open a freezer bag (the ones I have are slippery). And then the saliva will only be transmitted to me after disinfection in the freezer.

What I started thinking is, how much ink will these people swallow in their lifetime? I almost would’ve guessed Mythbusters had done an urban legend test on this but maybe not… (and the hits I got on Google were frankly very weird)

Ha ha, dairy funny

Minna — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 13:05:45 +0000

I feel they were missing a few letters in the packaging so I fixed it.

11-11-11

Have my cake and eat it too

Minna — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 19:27:08 +0000

With a cherry on top. And bottom. And middle.

Made this for my sister’s birthday (shh, don’t tell her, she doesn’t know about this yet). Very yummy and so easy (if you don’t count searching for the correct cherries)! But, I don’t understand why every time there has to be something I don’t realize on my own — until it’s too late: The cherry can warned that there could be some stones left. When I was adding the cherries I thought, “should I really mix these in whole like this?” and I figured yes because the recipe didn’t instruct to mash them with a fork or anything. Just my luck, there were some stones left. Next time — and there will definitely be a next time — I’ll mash the cherries a bit and try to remove any unpleasant surprises.

250 g butter, softened
2 decilitres sugar
3 eggs
3 decilitres flour
1 decilitres potato starch flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar*
100 g white chocolate
about 350 g canned sour cherries, drained (the jar I bought was 680 g, of which there were 350 g of cherries, rest was syrup); not the disgusting unnaturally red candied cherries (maraschino?)!

Whip butter and sugar until fluffy.
Mix in eggs one at a time (mix well after each egg).
Mix dry ingredients and then add them into the batter.

Put 1/3 of the batter in a separate bowl and stir in chocolate (either melted or chopped finely).
Stir cherries into the rest of the batter.

Grease and flour a cake tin (I used a spray for the first time and it worked wonderfully, I didn’t use flour). Put a layer of the cherry batter into the tin, add the white chocolate batter next, and then the rest of the cherry batter. (I actually used two small 1.2-litre tins.)
Bake in 150 degrees Celsius for about an hour.

* Apparently vanilla sugar is not so common outside of certain European countries. You can replace this with vanilla extract: ehow.com suggests 1/2-1 tsp of extract per 1 cup of sugar. There’s less than a cup of sugar used here so 1/2 tsp should do. If in doubt, leave it out.

(Found the recipe here [in Finnish].)