Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts

29 January 2012

Gluten Free Cookies

Just finished up a three mile walk with my dog and figured we deserved a treat. Last week while shopping at WinCo I picked up a box of Hodson Mill Gluten Free Cookie Mix. The mix smelled nice and mixed easily with the real butter, peanut butter, hen house fresh egg and vanilla. The first batch is in the oven now, tasting to follow soon.
Some kitchen notes: New Black and Decker hand mixer works very nicely, use the large end of a melon baller to get that rounded (literally in this case) teaspoon of dough, mix in the sink in case you are like me and a bit messy when mixing.
The first batch has some chocolate sprinkles on half of the batch and green sugar crystal on the other half. It was in for 15 minutes and the cookies came out a bit overdone. The second batch is going in for 13 minutes.
Okay the verdict is in, with my oven 13 minutes was perfect. The cookies are a bit crumbly but for a box mix of gluten free it is rather tasty.


For those persons worried about my diet, I had a bowl full of fresh shrimp stir fry over steamed rice. One item left out of the picture is a jar of Mowse's Special Ginger Stuff, which I added half the jar to the stir fry. So delicious!



08 June 2011

Computing State of the Art

Nintendo unveiled the video game industry's first new major home console since 2006


Not 'A' new console, the sole new console since 2006!


Think about this for a moment, computer games require more horsepower to run than anything else most humans use computers for. Scientists obviously use a lot more power for modelling and crunching data, and the world governments use a crap load of power to watch us and each other. Normal users however browse the web and maybe do a little office work or watch a movie, none of which requires much power at all.


So, 5 years ago was the last real advance in gaming horsepower. Now get a load of this, Nintendo has always used technology that is actually a little out of date. Why? Well it costs less and it gets the job done. They have more units sold than Microsoft and Sony combined.


My thought on this subject though is a bit closer to home. Why does the computer industry try to tell me I need a quad core machine with no less than 4 gigs of RAM when it is running the same basic software I started using in 1995? I use that year because it was my first Windows based system. In reality I have watched video, ran spreadsheets and word processing, plus played high quality games since 1987 on the Amiga 1000 I bought that year. The software has not changed that much but mysteriously it uses a lot more resources to do the same basic job.


Lets compare...

AmigaWindows PC - Toshiba Satellite
Motorola 68000 @ 7.16MHzIntel Core i3 @ 2.3GHz
512KB RAM3GB RAM
July 23,1985Current
These two sets of numbers say a lot.My laptop has more power than an Amiga by several hundred percent! The RAM is no less than 500% more on most systems than an Amiga 1000.


If I could do all those nifty things on the Amiga back in 1987, why does it take so much more power to do it today?! Speedier? Not really. More features? Sure there are more features but do I use them, nope!


Plain and simple it is bloat. If a Word Processor only did its job rather than constantly add code in the background so it can be instantly placed as a web page, or used for video presentation (yeah it can do that too!). Or how about those video playbacks? Back then it was equal to low quality VHS, but today the best you can use is HDR, most people don't, they still use DVD quality or less if streaming across the web.


I am glad prices have fallen on equipment, but I would like my new computer to be as stable as my Amiga was, and actually run everything as smoothly. After all, my Motorola Droid can! (512KB memory and 512MHz processor running Android/Linux)

23 February 2011

Cat Food

Writing this with Floyd on my lap, she is my rockin' little kitty cat. Since she was given to me I have raised her on various kitten branded pet foods. Last night I decided it is time to start moving her up the chain to adult cat food. Since I was in a Walmart there were a decent selection of dry foods. I started my minor quest by looking at the ingredients label of the kitten food I had been feeding her, Purina Kitten Chow. Corn. Yup corn was the main ingredient as I recall. My cat does not eat corn. How do I know this? I like corn, sweet yellow or white with dairy cream butter and fresh cracked pepper, the cat does not. Left on a counter she will lick the butter but not chew on the corn. The dog will eat corn, but he seems to eat almost anything.
At that point I must have looked like a insane person as I started picking up bag after bag of dry food for cats from every company Walmart had, including Iams. Until I hit a tiny section for natural foods all the major labels primary ingredients, including Iams was corn. I even had a brief discussion with a random stranger also buying food for his pet about corn and we both started listing things like our food, pet food, cow feed, car fuel, and plastic food containers all made of corn. He did not know of the food containers.
So I turned my attention to the tiny naturals section of dry cat food. Newman's own had decent ingredients but the price was a premium. There was a name I had never heard of, also a bit pricey. This was starting to remind me of shopping for food for my own consumption, the better the food the higher the price, the junkier and more marketed the cheaper. My eye was drawn to a small card board box of 'Purina One beyOnd' Chicken and Whole Oat Meal. I was impressed to find Chicken listed first, then chicken meal, whole brown rice (which my cat does eat from my plate, always seems to be sneaking nibbles from my plate), soy bean meal and a host of other ingredients including eggs, beets, fish oil, apples, etc. Guess what was missing. CORN! Yay for Purina. I say that here because the 1 lb box was a stunningly low $2. Real food at a decent price.
I purchased the food, took it home and immediately had the opportunity to fill a bowl that was nearly empty. Floyd hopped up and sniffed the small nuggets of her new food. She nosed around in it a second then tested a dark morsel with a tentative crunch. I was sort of expecting her to turn and look at me with a pensive, what is this stuff look, instead she plunged face first into the food and was munching away.
I only endorse products I feel  deserve it and this product I freely (as in not being paid for it, though I won't turn my nose up at a check Purina!) endorse, as I fairly certain does Floyd.