Ooh, ooh, I need you love

    So there's a Led Zep song in which the above line gets repeated a lot. I heard it on the radio the other week and was trying to remember or guess which album it came from. The synths were so heavy that I figured it had to be from "In Through the Out Door," but I had that record and listened to it often and just couldn't remember the number. Turned out that was because it was one of the songs I never played; the song was "In the Evening," indeed from that LP. Yeah, I know, not much of an anecdote, but you'll admit that it allowed me to use the title "Ooh, ooh, I need you love." (Yeah, I also know he must say "your," but it sounds like "you.") And maybe now having shared it I'll be able to purge the earworm that it has become.
    Speaking of Led Zep and what it sounds like, brother Mal and I were trying to come up with a more useful spelling of "D'yer Mak'er," which I'd like to think that everybody knows by now is a pun on "Did you make her?" and "Jamaica." I go with "Jer Make 'Er?" Your mileage may vary.

Spacebook

    When it started, Facebook was, by all reports, the next MySpace. And now that it has started winding down, it looks even more like the next MySpace. Pretty soon, there will be nobody there except Zuckerberg and me, furiously ignoring each other. All the cool kids have left for Twitter, except for the voluble ones, who presumably left for Google+. I don't know why Facebook kept feeling the need to make changes that nobody wanted and that nobody liked. There used to be a proverb about what you do (or don't do) when something isn't broken.
    Granted, Zuckerberg is a few odd billion ahead of me in net worth, so he probably feels that he did a pretty good job. Even if it all goes away, I expect he'll get to keep the money. But I miss the feeling of community, the sense that I had actual friends on Facebook. On the other hand, a new social network called Spacebook would be funny as hell. I wonder if I could sell ads...

Apps that hopefully aren't killer

    I mentioned a while ago to my brother Mal that there ought to be an app to tell you when the speed limit has changed. It seems like Google could manage it with all their vehicles going around for Google Maps. Or some other mapping outfit could. I guess the hard part would be getting the driver to pay attention. After all, there are road signs for this purpose already, yet somehow we seem to manage to fail to notice them perhaps oftener than not. I'm thinking the app would have to repeat aloud the new speed limit until countermanded. The driver would have to say, "I heard you," or something similar to get the phone to stop. (Or maybe "stop": it would need to be pretty simple, because it would be dangerous to put the driver in a situation where s/he would have to handle the phone to get it to stop.)
    The other app idea is probably impossible, or at least of limited utility, but it's a situation that comes up where I live. This would tell you where to park for maximum shade. Phone could take a picture (or several), figure out the time of day and direction you're facing and tell you where to park. I guess your car would have to be in the picture and maybe there would be a shadow image nearby showing you the ideal point to move to. (To which to move? Even I'm not that pretentious!) This comes up because there are a lot of shade trees at this apartment where I live, yet I always manage to park in the wrong place. Hey, it'll be killer!

You can't fire me; I started the band!

    This is a topic with which I've been obsessed for years. I've seen no evidence that anyone else shares my obsession, though. Let's see, there's Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, to start with the big ones. I think Denny Laine of the Moody Blues might qualify. The one time I ran a poll about this on Democratic Underground, the only person to get votes was Peter Gabriel, so I guess he must qualify. There's always Roy Wood for ELO and Billy Zoom for X. I'm not sure about Bernie Leadon and the Eagles, (Wikipedia says he joined late) but he was at least one of the leaders. I don't know if all these guys got fired. (Leadon at least wasn't; he poured a beer on Glenn Frey.) Who else? Stu Sutcliffe? Eric Burdon from War? No in Eric's case it was, "You can't fire me! I took over and renamed the band!" Close, though.
    Did I miss anybody? Let me know!

My ambition

    My ambition, at this moment, is not too hard to fulfill. If I had any common sense, it would be even easier. All I need is a cell phone with a camera, but for whatever reason I'm reluctant to take that step. (Of course, I could always enlist Paul, who has one.)
    My ambition is to take a picture of the rear end of a Lexus IS 300 (as that's where the make and model names are displayed) and caption it, "Is NOT!" I'm so mature, aren't I? Also, Ford in their not noticeably infinite wisdom sells a vehicle called the Ford Edge, which is pretty funny per se considering how many millions the company was hemorrhaging at the time they started selling it. But they have a specific model called the Edge SEL. Young readers might not know that there once was a car called the Ford Edsel which more or less entered the English language as a synonym for "lemon." (By most accounts, it was ahead of its time, but sales were dismal and by that you are judged.) So, I want a picture of a rear end marked Ford Edge SEL so I can caption it: "The Edsel is back!"
    Paltry ambitions, you say? Well, yeah, but they make me smile.

Burning bridges

Those who burn down bridges need to know
Bridges only disappear when they seem to go
They aren't really gone, only hard to see
At least that's how it is with those that lead to me

Keanu cookies

    Kitchen adventures continue. In the quest to make quinoa (which my brain has inexplicably decided is pronounced Keanu instead of keen-wah) cookies, there has been a victory. It was just a matter of making the batter thick enough to be cookie dough.
    First you need your quinoa. Apparently, a quarter cup of quinoa plumbed with a half cup of water yields a cup of cooked quinoa. I'll wait while you do the math. Yes, that's right; in spite of everything taught by physics, 3/4 cup becomes one cup. Regardless, you take the resultant quantity of quinoa, be it a cup or otherwise (I didn't trouble to measure) and you're ready for your cookies.
VERY IMPORTANT: Be sure to get prewashed quinoa, or wash it very, very, very thoroughly. Or you'll get to try out saponin poisoning. I don't think it'll kill you, but I'm pretty sure you won't like it. (It's basically soap.)
    Preheat oven to 350. Mix a tablespoon of (extra virgin) olive oil, two of honey, an egg, your quinoa, a half cup of peanut butter, and a quarter cup of chocolate chips. I use natural (ie, ingredients: peanuts and salt) crunchy peanut butter and Enjoy Life soy-free chocolate chips but, ya know, whatever floats your boat. Stir, mix, mingle, agitate, do what you gotta do.
    I've just discovered parchment paper, but haven't used it yet. I suspect that this will be a good application, though, especially as some of my friends are vegetarian but my pans are not. Regardless, cook on one side for about 12 minutes, then flip and cook on the other for 8. (In the real world, I tried 15 and 5 and the side that was down the longer time got scorched.)
    The results are pretty darned good. They aren't the dessertiest cookies in the history of the world. For that, I could add more chocolate chips, more honey, or maybe just a teaspoon of vanilla. But they're very tasty. Maybe a little burpy, but awful darn nice.
     Update: on the second iteration, I added the teaspoon of vanilla, and used parchment paper. Both went well. One problem is that some of the quinoa comes out hard as birdseed. I suspect that the best idea is to ignore package instructions and try cooking the quinoa for 15 minutes at low heat, then another 5 or 10 at medium low (1.5 clicks on this electric range) until all water is absorbed or evaporated. And be extra careful that all quinoa seeds are in the water.
    Meanwhile, in the dream world (this is brief, I swear!), my Dad and I were driving around and my car air conditioning wasn't working very well. (This during the hottest hot spell EVER in real life.) It turned out that there's a lint trap in my car's A/C (who knew?) right where the CD player is in real life, only wide as the glove compartment. Once we cleaned that out, everything was fine. Gotta hate those linty air conditioners!