July 2005

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

You’re Probably Here by Mistake

You probably saw a post on BoingBoing or something about something called Fast Fictions by Kevin Spenst.

You can find that at fastfictions.blogspot.com.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:35 pm    

Friday, July 22, 2005

Candy Tour

Last Friday I took a half-day from work. Not the morning off or the afternoon off, but the middle off.

I drove to Irwindale at the invitation of Chris, the founder and president of Candy Warehouse. Why you ask?

Because they sell candy.

Chris gave me the grand tour and it was just as I expected. A warehouse with small office facilities. Pretty much a cubicle farm (two wide and six deep?). He showed me his little photo set up for taking shots of candy (it pretty much looks like mine except he has studio lights and I have to use available light). It was Friday, which is a light shipping day, so it was just him and one of his warehouse workers there.

The warehouse was just as I’d hoped it would be (only a little smaller). Aisles and aisle of warhouse shelving with colorful cases of candy.

He loaded me up with oodles of samples as he showed me around. Some of it was just too weird for reviewing (earwax candy) but I got to take home lots of things I’ve always wanted to try, including: the long stemmed lollipops I saw all over the wholesale district when Crispin came to visit, finger lites (a light up lollipop), gummi sushi, gummi hot peppers and chocolate poker chips and playing cards.

It took me two sessions to take photos of it all and some of it is already gone.

Not the 5lb box of gummi clown fish though. Yet.

(you can read another version of this post a la.foodblogging.com)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:26 pm    

The Mouse is Dead, Long Live the Mouse

Yes, we have another mouse.

I possess a certain amount of shame when I have a mouse. Because it’s a comment on my housekeeping or something.

The reality is that there is an abandoned house across the street from us that seems to be riddled with creatures as witnessed by Robin & Amy’s cat leaving them gifts on the front doorstep. My theory goes like this, the house across the street is experiencing critical mass, so there was a migration and one (or maybe more) got into our basement and eventually came up through the walls to the back of one of our kitchen cabinets.

Luckily, in the redesign of the kitchen, I decided keeping food on bottom shelves was a bad idea and we no longer do that, except for the corner D (a half a lazy susan) where we keep our grains. But they’re mouseproofed and mothproofed so he was probably rather annoyed at smelling food, seeing food but not getting food.

He ventured off under the stove and probably found some choice crumbs there, because the dog can’t get them. And stumbled into one of our traps.

We’re not entirely certain that he was by himself, so we’ll continue to set the traps until we don’t find anything for a week or two.

Some people think that we should do the humane traps. I’m not quite sure what I’d do with a live mouse though. It’s not like I could just let it go in a field nearby ... nope, mice in the house get the axe, or the snaptrap as the case may be.

I will further rid my home of the plague by washing the dog this weekend to drown any fleas that might be amassing (I saw one the other night).

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:09 pm    

Thursday, July 14, 2005

In Honor of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Tomorrow I will take an exciting adventure to the second greatest place on earth for a candy lover.

No, not a candy factory.

A candy warehouse.

Watch this space for more tasty details!

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:22 pm    

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Best use of a Candy Thermometer

Here we go, the ultimate combination of things that interest me.

Candy and Plate Techtonics.

Yes, you heard right.

The story goes like this
: There was a brush fire in the Los Padres National Forest last summer. As they put it out, they noticed a hot spot in the ground with fissures and felt the heat escaping.

Fire investigators went back to the canyon days later and stuck a candy thermometer into the ground. It hit the top of the scale, at 400 degrees.

Being from Pennsylvania I’m accustomed to hearing about fissures because of mine fires. And being in California I’m accustomed to hearing about hot springs. At the moment they think it may be heat from pressure caused by a fault line. That’s a lot of pressure to create that much heat without breaking.

I’m just wondering where they got the candy thermometer. If my spouse took mine and went and used it to test the temp of some rocks, I would NOT want it back.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:20 pm    

Monday, July 11, 2005

LA meets SF Metblogs


  LA meets SF Metblogs 
  Originally uploaded by courtneyp.
Blogging.la is sponsoring a grand get-together tonight at the Golden Gopher.

Great atmosphere and cool peeps (bloggers!).

Catch us this evening (Monday, 7/11) from 7PM on:

Golden Gopher
417 W Eighth St
Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213) 614-8001
Cross Street: Hill Street

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:31 pm    

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Hexod, Makster and Eric Garcetti


  Hexod, Makster and Eric Garcetti 
  Originally uploaded by anniee.
Very cool!

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:42 pm    

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Are you looking for the Candy Blog?

I don’t think my URL made it into the show notes for GOOD FOOD, so if you’ve found your way here, you’re probably looking for the Candy Blog.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 4:10 pm    

Friday, July 08, 2005

Good Times, Good Times

I’ll be on KCRW’s radio show Good Food tomorrow (7/9/05) at 11:00 AM talking about candyblog.net. If you don’t live in Southern California where it airs, you can also catch the show on the web via real player on this page after it airs. KCRW also offers PodCasts of its shows.

I did the interview with Evan Kleinman a couple of weeks ago and was incredibly impressed by her show and the entire experience. I was always fond of the SNL Delicious Dish version of the show, but this was better. Good times.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:02 pm    

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

I Don’t Know LA Like a Tourist

I found this via franklinavenue and posted on b.la, but here goes my personal take on this list.

National Geographic Traveler Magazine published a list of 30 things you should do when in LA (I doubt they meant all in the same trip). In August it’ll be 13 years I’ve lived in Los Angeles. Let’s see how I did on the list. Starred items are ones that I’ve actually visited.

1. Hollywood Entertainment Museum
2. Venice’s Abbot Kinney Blvd. shops
3. Topanga Canyon’s Inn of the Seventh Ray
4. Catalina Island *
5. Downtown’s Flower Market *
6. One spa at Santa Monica’s Shutters on the Beach
7. Pink’s hot dogs
8. Fred Segal’s
9. Free TV tapings *
10. La Brea Tar Pits (from the outside, not the museum) *
11. Chinatown’s Chung King Road galleries
12. Hollywood Forever cemetery (and Cinespia screenings)
13. Museum of Jurassic Technology (in Culver City)
14. Larchmont Blvd. (especially Cafe Chapeau) *
15. Shopping at Robertson and 3rd *
16. Grand Central Market *
17. American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre
18. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
19. Live music at Santa Monica’s McCabe’s
20. Los Angeles River (Los Feliz to downtown) *
21. Beverly Hills Hotel *
22. Venice’s canals
23. Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park *
24. Little Ethiopia restaurants
25. The Grove *
26. Koreatown’s Brass Monkey (for karaoke)
27. Farmer’s Markets in Hollywood and Santa Monica * (not Santa Monica)
28. Melrose’s Urth Caffe *
29. Adamson House
30. Philippe’s french dip sandwiches *

Well, I got 14 out of 30. There are some I’m not terribly interested in like Pink’s hot dogs, as I don’t eat hot dogs (tofu, beef, pork, turkey or otherwise). I have no clue what the Hollywood Entertainment Museum even is, but working on the Paramount lot is like coming to a museum every day, since there are little historical displays all over the place and I’ve had the pleasure of scanning historic photos of not only movies but the lot itself.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:12 am    

Monday, July 04, 2005

Photos, Photos, Photos

Will mentioned last night that I have not yet shared my thousand or so photos from my vacation.

Well, to save you the trouble of looking through what seem like dozens of identical photos of the same subjects, I narrowed it down to a scant 83 photos. That’s 9% of the whole take!

Check out my flickr set (click on the photo to be whisked away ...)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:19 pm    

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Humility from the NYTimes

The NY Times published an obituary today:

William J. Brink, Editor, Is Dead at 89; Credited With Vivid Headline

The editor of New York’s The Daily News, his best known headline was FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD from the seventies during the financial crisis faced by NY.

The obituary ends with the following line “The corresponding headline in The New York Times that day, FORD, CASTIGATING CITY, ASSERTS HE’D VETO FUND GUARANTEE; OFFERS BANKRUPTCY BILL, remains unsung.”

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:39 pm    




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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During November it's all about me writing a novel. Sometimes it's about whalewatching. You know, and then there's other stuff.