Letters to Myself

In an amusing followup to the other morning, at lunch today a student I didn't recognize greeted me with, "Hey, it's Caffeine Man!"

I think it makes a good argument for going back and getting that doctorate. That way I could be known as Doctor Caffeine. Or Professor Caffeine. Admittedly that sounds more like a supervillain's name.

There's probably a supervillain called that already, some kind of Flash knockoff who's a professor at Evil University. There he teaches classes on getting doomsday devices when you're up against an impossible deadline and plots how he's going to take out the school with giant robots if the tenure committee passes him over.

It's also possible I'm thinking too much about this.

Posted by jon at 08:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I am amused as all get-out that you people actually think I can bake. Well, okay, I can. Banana bread. But that's it. For those of you filled with secret, or not so secret cakey Coca Cola cake desires, I offer you this, so that you will back off, man:

Coca-Cola Cake
15 servings
Hands on: 15 minutes.
Total time: 1 hour.

This is our favorite recipe for the Atlanta classic. The cake gets a nice, light crumb from the bubbly Coke and buttermilk and the secret addition of mini-marshmallows that melt into the batter. It also tastes like Coke. Not lame chocolate cake, but Coke.

For the cake:

• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups mini-marshmallows
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
• 1 cup Coca-Cola
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frosting:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
• 6 tablespoons Coca-Cola
• 1 (16-ounce) box confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped pecans

To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, sift together sugar and flour. Add marshmallows. In saucepan, mix butter, oil, cocoa and cola. Bring to a boil and pour over dry ingredients; blend well. Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk just before adding to batter along with eggs and vanilla extract, mixing well. Pour into a well-greased 9-by-13-inch pan and bake 35 to 45 minutes. Remove from oven and frost immediately.

To make the frosting: Combine butter, cocoa and cola in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and pour over confectioners' sugar, blending well. Add vanilla extract and pecans. Spread over hot cake. When cool, cut into squares and serve.

--- From "Great Cooks of the South Entertain Southern Style," published by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Per serving: 547 calories (percent of calories from fat, 42), 4 grams protein, 28 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber, 26 grams fat (9 grams saturated), 58 milligrams cholesterol, 229 milligrams sodium.

Posted by jon at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Did my first library BI yesterday. An English 1101.

Went pretty ok, mostly.

About twenty minutes into it, a young lady raised her hand and asked how much caffeine I'd had.

For the record, only three glasses of iced tea. That's two shy of causing my molecules to vibrate.

Update: My friend Cheryl reminds me that I also had a piece of her Coca Cola Cake, a cake so lush and overwhelming it could qualify as dark matter. With toasted pecans on top.

Reading: Nobody Gets the Girl, by James Maxey.

Posted by jon at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Thank you all for your kind wishes. And I bet none of you knew that the traditional anniversary gift for fifteen years is a radioactive potato. Did you?

I thought not.

I think year twenty is irradiated ham.

Posted by jon at 10:15 PM | Permalink

Today's Lisa and my fifteenth wedding anniversary. Fifteenth! How'd that happen?

For obvious reasons, I'll be spending time away from the computer this evening. Come back tomorrow.

Posted by jon at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

School starts tomorrow (yay). And with it, a new parking deal. In short, I have volunteered to become one of eight hundred knowledge worker bees that will be parking off campus this year. And next year, most likely, and the year after that. But not the year after that! A man can only take so much.

I agreed to this because it'll be saving me the parking fee. Plus, I also got a free umbrella with the university logo on it, and as we all know, I can be easily bought with something like that. For example, I recently let a bunch of vampires make off with some of my precious bodily fluids and in turn received a handsome pen set with the Red Cross logo on it. So there you go. Offer me a hat or a coffee mug with your logo on it, and I'll come along quietly. But enough about my weaknesses.

I also had fond hopes of getting some exercise, with a twice daily fifteen minute walk to and fro my car. Of course, that was before the temperature decided that this was where it wanted to be today:

To which I say: wah. Fortunately, there is a shuttle service with a reasonably working AC. So I won't have to perform my Lawrence of Arabia imitation unless I want to, and happen to remember my bedouin garb.

Posted by jon at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's hot. Too hot. Too hot to think. Too hot to post. Damn you, global hottening!

Posted by jon at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

(insert glyph of me raising one eyebrow)

Wonder what brought this discussion on?

Posted by jon at 08:33 AM | Permalink

Lisa's home! Lisa's home!

Woot!

Posted by jon at 08:37 PM | Permalink

Ok, so I've got a little bit of MT weirdness going on. In an attempt to battle a particular variant of comment spam, I somehow managed to flip the settings so that every single comment has to be approved. Which is ok, I guess, except that wasn't what I had in mind.

To make it that much more annoying, I can't seem to preapprove any of you, my beloved regular, semi-regular, and irregular commentators (you spammers, go to hell already). So please don't be annoyed/hurt/filled with a murderous rage when you make an innocuous comment and are told it won't show up until I get around to saying it's ok. The machine has a mind of its own, and will continue doing this until I pull enough chips to make it sing "Daisy Bell". I'll be checking the queue a lot more often, to make sure no one is languishing, but apologies in advance.

Thank you, and good day.

Posted by jon at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)