I baked some yummy sourdough bread today. This is my second serious
attempt at baking. The last attempt was last weekend and a disaster. I
tried combining two recipies and the loaves ended up balooning into a
giant blancmange shape mid way through the baking. Panicked, I took
the loaves out and in 15 minutes they deflated like the Presidential
campaign of Rudy Guiliani after Super Tuesday.

This time around I used only the recipe from the classic Beard on Bread.

Sourdough bread requires something called a starter. A starter is a
culture of flour, water, yeast and microorganisms from the air. The
sour in the name refers to the practice of souring the entire mixture
over days and days. San Francisco is world renowned for its sourdough
bread. Something about the microorganisms in this part of the world
makes for superb tasting bread. This starter is religiously fed
nutrients (floir and water) often and kept alive. There are bakeries
in the area whose starter is over a hundred years old.

I got my starter from the Off The Grid cafe. It is my favorite cafe at
work and I am friends with the staff there. The pastry chef bakes the
best bread and pastries.

I baked a couple of baguettes, a boule and a normal shaped loaf. I am
visiting some good friends tomorrow. I plan to bring my friends a
couple of loaves and sage, rosemary and mint from my garden.

verybrightred

• Ant Farm macro photography: A colleague at work has tried this before and the his macro photos of ants are inspiring. I bought a 105mm Sigma macro lens earlier this year that should be handy for this.



• A laser tracking Inchworm: At this year's maker faire I was purchased the Mechamo Inchworm Kit. It is a radio controlled contraption that you build yourself with parts from the kit. There are a few videos on You Tube of the Inchworm in action. The kit is superbly made. This is no 'play once and then throw into the attic to come out years later for the garage sale' kind of toy. I intend to get rid of the RC control and make my inchworm move around autonomously following a laser pointer. I will be using an Arduino - an open source microctroller to be the brains of the inchworm.



• Aerial photography/video: As I blogged before, I love flying kites. I also came across (thanks to my friend Mikal) cheap disposable digital still / video cameras that can be hacked into reusable ones. I want to marry a cheap camera to my kite and take aerial photos / videos. I am thinking of the Google campus, Vasona park and Alcatraz as potential locations for the shoot.

The emergency procedures at UC Santa Cruz.

Political Science 106A - Spring 2008 - An inside look at how political campaigns operate from the viewpoint of the media, taught by the people who run them. Class material will be directed towards students who are interested in direct involvement in campaign politics or who are looking for a greater understanding of the political process. Students will be required to develop a complete written campaign strategy document in order to fulfill class requirements. Students will be expected to follow political and campaign news via the media and be prepared to discuss those developments in class.

For reasons unknown to me, indians are fascinated with Hitler. His talk of Aryan supremacy (Many Indians are descendents of a proto-indo-iranian ethno-linguistic group - called aryans -that migrated into the indian sub-continent centuries ago), his rants, the indian hindu right wing's ancestory in 1930's fascism, subhash chandra bose's links to nazi germany... All seem to resonate with a certain sub-section of indians.
One usually finds copies of Mein Kampf sold from pavement pirated book vendors. This large selection of books by or on Hitler i came across in Landmark - possibly the best bookstore in Chennai.
Not to excuse this indian quirk, but i think most people that buy there books do so to exercise their fascination with the authoritarian rather than their reading habit. These books are read far less often than they are purchased.

I went to the Halloween party at work this year dressed as Richard Nixon's head (from Futurama). I went around flashing the two-fisted Victory sign and mouthing "I am not a crook's head". Not many people got my costume. However, i am happy to report that everyone in my group had a long discussion filled with quotes from the cartoon. One was even able to quote lines from Morbo the news monster. I love working with these nerds.

I spent most of today morning puttering in my garden. I am really happy about how the garden is turning out this year.

I made a couple of changes in the garden this year. i planted the seeds in small rectangular plastic pots in the front of the house along the driveway, as opposed to planting them on the ground in the backward as i did last year. The direct sunlight on the plants during the day is doing wonders. I am also regularly using an organic fertilizer (yes! There is such a thing. It is a mixture of chicken bones, bird shit and compost).

There are luscious tomatos, royal purple eggplants (aubergine), italian and thai basil (which i chop into tiny pieces using a food processor and freeze into icecubes adding a litte water so that i can use it all through the year), sunflowers, okra, beans, bell peppers, chili peppers and marigold. I also have a watermelon vine, a couple of lemon trees and a guava tree. But i dont have very much hope of them bearing fruits this year.

Mmmm sprinkles!

A gimmicky promotion that 20th Century Fox is doing ahead of their release of The Simpsons movie due later this month is a tie-in with the 7-11 chain of convenience stores. They have chosen 11 stores in the US (and one in Canada) and redone them completely as Kwik-e-marts. The store fronts are painted in the Simpsons colors. The staff all year green vests like Apu. And they sell items like Krurty-O's cereal, Buzz cola and donuts with pink frosting (with sprinkles). They have even re-dubbed their slushee to 'squishee'. Sadly, they dont sell Duff beer.

One of these 11 stores is in mountain view - walking distance from where i work.On tuesday my team and i walked to the store to check it out. This must be the most brilliant product tie-in ever. The store was selling out their Simpsons stock faster than the could unpack the boxes. The location of the store is sheer marketing genius. It is in the middle of the geekiest place in the world - equidistance from the google and microsoft (bay area) campus and a gnat's crochet from the computer history museum and a theatre where they are going to be playing the movie.

Over the last few days there have even been lines to get into this store. They must have tripled or quadrupled their sales. Easily.