Blog & White

© Cirque Arlette Gruss

Aujourd'hui on est allés au cirque Arlette Gruss. Ça doitt bien faire 20 ans que je n'étais plus allé au cirque. Ce qui m'a le plus déplu, c'était les numéros de dressage d'animaux : ces derniers ont l'air de s'ennuyer ferme, en plus de se prendre régulièrement des coups de chambrière sur les fesses. Je veux bien reconnaître qu'il est probablement difficile d'apprendre à un éléphant à faire le beau, ou à un tigre de monter sur un tabouret, mais est-ce que ça vaut bien la peine de jouer de la carotte et du baton avec de pauvres bêtes (qui seraient probablement mieux dans leur habitat naturel) pendant des années juste pour ça ?

Sinon les numéros d'acrobates étaient impresionant (surtout pour moi qui ne me muscle essentiellement que les doigts sur le clavier), mais tout ça ressemblait surtout à de la danse/chorégraphie, et ce n'est pas non plus ma tasse de thé. Finalement, mes numéros préférés étaient ceux des clowns (dont un qui s'appelle Mathieu; ça n'a probablement rien à voir).

Saveurs & Nature Noir 74% : assez doux

Wikipedia

Because of an avalanche, a bunch of people are stuck in a hotel in central Europe (clearly not nazi-controlled Austria), waiting for the train which will arrive the next morning. Iris, a young woman meets Miss Froy, an elderly lady and a governess. Just before getting on the train, Iris is hit on the head by a falling flowerpot (pushed by a mysterious hand). They get on the train together, drink tea together, and then Iris gets asleep. When she wakes up, the Lady has disappeared. All the passengers of the wagon deny having seen her, for various reasons of their own (avoiding scandal, or trying not to get delayed any further). For the surgeon who happens to be on the train, she is hallucinating. The surgeon is receiving a laid down, bandaged-face patient at one station, travelling with him to the next where he's going to operate him at the local hospital. Suddenly, a false Miss Froy reappears. Iris finally manages to convince Gilbert that she is not hallucinating, and that the couple in her compartment (an illusionist and his wife) are involved in the lady's kidnapping. They conclude that the bandaged person is actually Miss Froy. They confront the surgeon who admits the kidnapping, then with the help of his remorseful accomplice, the substitute the fake Miss Froy to the real one. When the surgeon finds out, he gets the local authorities to stop the train in the middle of nowhere. A gunfight follows, where Miss Froy admits to be an English spy. She gives her coded message to Gilbert and Iris, to transmit to the Foreign Office, leaves the train in an attempt to escape on her own. The passengers of the train manage to restart the locomotive, and cross the border. In London, Gilbert and Iris arrive at the foreign office and meet Miss Froy who somehow managed to arrive there before them.

30.4: Määräaikaishuolto, kaikki hyvin, paitsi että äänimerkki ei toimi.

5.5: Mekaanikko sanoo, että äänitorvi on rikki. Varaosa pitää tilata.

11.5: Äänitorvi on vaihdettu uuteen.

12.5: Katsastuksessa: auto on hyväksytty, mutta pakoputki vuotaa, se pitää korjata ennen 22.5. Takaisin korjaamolle. Mekaanikko sanoo että pakoputki pitää vaihtaa, koska siinä on muutama reikä.

13.5: Pakoputken takaosa on vaihdettu, mutta keskiosa pitää tilata.

22.5: Varaosa ei vielä ole saatavilla. Pakoputki on korjattu väliaikaisesti purukumin avulla (oikeasti vanhan näppylähanskan ja letkunkiristimen avulla).

25.5: Pakoputki on vihdoinkin korjattu.

Adapted from the 15 Minutes Microwave Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

• 100g dark chocolate
• 90g butter
• 100g powdered sugar
• 3 eggs
• 70g flour
• 1 half tea spoon baking powder
• 0.9 dL milk

Tools

• salad bowl that goes to the microwave
• (wooden) spoon

Preparation

Put the chocolate broken in pieces into the salad bowl with the butter cut in cubes and 0.5 dL milk. Heat for 1 min in the microwave. Stir well until all the butter has melted. Add the sugar and stir. Add the eggs one by one, and stir well after each egg. Add 0.4 dL milk and stir. Add the flour in a small heap on the top of the preparation, add the baking powder on top of it and stir the preparation in small circles next to the heap of flour. The flour will be incoroporated bit by bit without making lumps. When most of the flour is incorporated, stir by making large circles again.

Put the salad bowl with the preparation in the microwave and cook at maximum power for 5 min at 900 W (or 6 1/2 min at 700 W). The cake is ready when a knife's blade stuck into the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool down. You can alternatively turn the salad bowl upside-down on a plate to unmould it while it's still hot; the cake will come off easily.

Comments

• The cake is more compact than with less liquid, more like the original recipe, without cream
• The “rubberiness” of the cake depends on the water content in the dough.
• Have to try with the same amount of liquid (milk) and more flour, more baking powder, or longer cooking.
• Scientific cooking idea: controling the degree of cooking with an electrical conductivity meter?

Et hop, un micro-blog, parce que je le vaux bien (et le flux RSS correspondant). On verra bien si j'en ai vraiment l'usage. Ça intéresse quelqu'un, d'ailleurs ?

Wikipedia

Three stories combined into one movie:

• That Yellow Bastard: a cop saves a little girl from a rapist who's also the son of a powerful senator. The cop spends eight years in prison because of the senator, and finally confesses the rapist's crimes in order to be released. He then seeks the girl whom he had saved, but is followed by the rapist. He eventually kills him, then commits suicide to protect the girl.

• The Hard Goodbye: Marv finds the prostitute he was sleeping with dead. He finds the killer, a cannibal who eats prostitutes, who was hired by a cardinal of the churh, of the family of the senator in the previous story. Marv is finally taken, forced into confessing the murders of the protsitutes, and executed.

• The Big Fat Kill: Dwight kills the man who is harrassing his girlfriend, with the help of the Old Town's prostitutes. The man turns out to be a cop, and Dwight tries to hide the body in the local tar pit in order to prevent the truce between the police and the protstitutes. Mercenaries (called by one of the prostitutes who's a snitch) shoot at him and take back the head. Dwight manages to take it back and to destroy it.

Les chips au vinaigre sont introuvables à Jyväskylä, et le diacétate de sodium qui permettrait d'en faire soi-même est tout aussi introuvable. Après presque trois ans, j'ai fini par trouver une solution de remplacement : saupoudrer des chips normales avec de l'acide tartrique en poudre, qui se trouve au supermarché. Ça ne donne pas un goût de vinaigre (ce n'est pas le bon acide), mais ça se laisse manger avec une Kilkenny.

Adapted from the 15 Minutes Microwave Chocolate Cake 3

Ingredients

• 100g dark chocolate
• 100g butter
• 100g powdered sugar
• 3 eggs
• 65g flour
• 2.2g (1 half tea spoon ?) baking powder

Tools

• salad bowl that goes to the microwave
• (wooden) spoon

Preparation

Put the chocolate broken in pieces into the salad bowl with the butter cut in cubes. Heat for 1 min in the microwave. Stir well until all the butter has melted. Add the sugar and stir. Add the eggs one by one, and stir well after each egg. Add the flour in a small heap on the top of the preparation, add the baking powder on top of it and stir the preparation in small circles next to the heap of flour. The flour will be incoroporated bit by bit without making lumps. When most of the flour is incorporated, stir by making large circles again.

Put the salad bowl with the preparation in the microwave and cook at maximum power for 5 min at 900 W (or 6 1/2 min at 700 W). The cake is ready when a knife's blade stuck into the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool down. You can alternatively turn the salad bowl upside-down on a plate to unmould it while it's still hot; the cake won't come off easily, but the taste remains the same :)

Comments

• The cake is quite light and not rubbery
• The baking powder was not the ingredient that was influencing the rubberiness, so it must be the cream (probably the water in the cream)

Adapted from the 15 Minutes Microwave Chocolate Cake 2

Ingredients

• 100g dark chocolate
• 3 tbl. spoons water
• 80g butter
• 100g powdered sugar
• 3 eggs
• 75g flour
• 5g (1 big tea spoon ?) baking powder

Tools

• salad bowl that goes to the microwave
• (wooden) spoon

Preparation

Put the chocolate broken in pieces in a salad bowl that goes to the microwave with the water and the butter cut in cubes. Heat for 1 min in the microwave. Stir well until all the butter has melted. Add the sugar, stir. Add the eggs one by one, and stir well after each egg. Add the flour in a small heap on the top of the preparation, add the baking powder on top of it and stir the preparation in small circles next to the heap of flour. The flour will be incoroporated bit by bit without making lumps. When most of the flour is incorporated, stir by making large circles again.

Put the salad bowl with the preparation in the microwave and cook at maximum power for 5 min at 900 W (or 6 1/2 min at 700 W). The cake is ready when a knife's blade stuck into the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool down. You can alternatively turn the salad bowl upside-down on a plate to unmould it while it's still hot; the cake won't come off easily, but the taste remains the same :)

Comments

• It's less dry than the previous iteration, but it still could be even less dry
• I have to try again with cream or with less baking powder (using more accurate measurement?)

C'est la saison des allergies, et je me demandais si je devais refaire le plein de cétirizine, ou de trouver un remplaçant. Parmi les choix on trouve de la lévocétirizine et de la loratadine. La lévocétirizine n'est que l'énantiomère actif de la cétirizine et a exactement les mêmes effets, mais elle coûte simplement plus chère. La loratadine (et son métabolite, la desloratadine) sont aussi disponibles (la desloratadine seulement sur ordonnance), mais elles semblent moins efficace que la cétirizine (Day, Briscoe and Widlitz, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 1998 May;101(5):638-45). Les énantiomères actifs et les métabolites sont censés avoir moins d'effets secondaires que les composés d'origine, mais la cétirizine ayant peu d'effets secondaires (je n'en ai remarqué aucun), il n'y a pas de raison de les utiliser. Je reste donc à la cétirizine.

© aceshowbiz.com

Kirk's father encounters a Romulan ship coming out of a black hole and dies throwing his own ship at the enemy to protect the crew's escape, among who is his wife and newborn son, thus changing history. Kirk's youth is tumultuous, but finally joins the Starfleet Academy and cheats at the final exam (a computer simulation where one cannot win, programmed by Spock, a Starfleet officer half Vulcan, half Human, who has always had a hard time controlling his emotions). But during the hearing for cheating, all the officers are ordered to leave to Vulca without delay to help with a natural catastrophe. Kirk manages to sneak into the Enterprise thanks to his friend, the Dr. McCoy, and manages to convice the captain that they are throwing themselves at warp speed into a trap laid by the same Romulan ship his father faced in the past. The Romulan captain, Nero, coerces the captain of the Enterprise into joining him, while Kirk (promoted first officer), Sulu and ensign Expendable are sent to deactivate the device that jams communications and transporter (a giant drill, drilling a hole into Vulca). Their mission is a success, but Nero nonetheless manages to send Red Matter into the hole, which turns into a black hole and absorbs the whole planet. Spock's mother dies despite Spock's attempt to save her. Disagreements between him (acting captain) and Kirk about the course to take (regroup with the Federation ships or chase Nero heading to Earth) prompt him to strand Kirk on an ice planet near a Federation outpost. On the planet, Kirk meets Spock from 129 years in the future, who tells him that he tried to save Romulus from a supernova, using Red Matter in order to absorb the star, but failed. Both the Romulan ship and Spock's go back in time through the ensuing black/wormhole, but arrives 25 years earlier than Spock. Nero picks Spock up when he appears on the other end of the wormhole and holds him responsible for the destruction of Romulus and condemns him to watch his own planet being destroyed. Spock and Kirk reach the outpost where they find an “exiled” Scott trying to build a long-distance transporter. Thanks to Spock's knowledge, Scott and Kirk transport aboard Enterprise. Kirk forces Spock to punch him, forcing him to resign his his comission. Kirk, acting captain, chases Nero, and with the help of Spock manage to prevent Nero from destroying Earth. Young Spock finally meets Old Spock, who tells him that they need each other, because this his how it had been in the original reality.

Very flowery, not bitter. Contains malt and roast barley.

Guinnes & Co., Dublin, Ireland. 4.3% alcohol.

Deuxième volet de 813: la double vie d'Arsène Lupin.

Arsène Lupin, bien qu'en prison, continue de rechercher l'identité de Pierre Leduc. Assistant la police, il découvre Steinweg dans la demeure d'Altenheim et lui sauve la vie. Ce dernier rend visite à Lupin en prison et lui apprend que Leduc est le dernier descendant du grand-duc Herrmann III, noble Prussien en disgrâce, à qui Bismarck avait confié des documents secrets. Grâce à l'influence du Kaiser, Lupin sort de prison et part avec lui et ses hommes à la recherche des documents, dans le château familial abandonné. Le nombre 813 permet d'ouvrir un cache secrète derrière une horloge, mais la cache est vide. Lupin échappe au Kaiser, et repart à la recherche de l'assassin. Il apprend qu'Altenheim s'appelle en fait Malreich, descendant du domestique de Herrmann III, et qu'il a un frère, Louis de Malreich (L. M.) et une soeur, une folle. Lupin parvient à traquer ses hommes de main (qui ne l'ont jamais vu) et à les faire arrêter, ainsi que Louis de Malreich, résident près du quartier général des hommes de main, sous le nom de Léon Massier. Il installe ensuite son faux Pierre Leduc, Geneviève et Mme Kesselbach au château familial et lance les négociations avec le Kaiser pour faire reconnaître Leduc comme grand-duc. Le but de Lupin est de devenir l'éminence grise derrière le grand-duc et de remodeler la carte de l'Europe, en començant par reprendre l'Alsace-Lorraine. Lupin se rend compte que Leduc est amoureux de Mme Kesselbach, et qu'il ne s'intéresse pas à Geneviève (qui est en fait la fille de Lupin, qui avait promis à la mère de la jeune fille de lui donner une existence de princesse). Lupin découvre ensuite que Dolorès Kesselbach est en fait la soeur de Raoul de Malreich, et que Louis n'existe pas (le certificat de naissance a été modifié par Kesselbach, remplaçant Dolorès par Louis, pour la dissocier de la mauvaise réputation de sa famille, avant de l'épouser). Dans la nuit, l'assassin s'attaque à Lupin, et meurt dans la bataille. Lupin se rend compte qu'il s'agit de Dolorès. Un message de Steiweg trouvé sur elle (et qu'elle avait assassiné après les révélations qu'il a fait à Lupin) révèle que les initiales L.M. se rapportent bien à Dolorès, Kesselbach préférant appeler sa femme Loetitia de Malreich plutôt que Dolorès, et tous les cadeaux qu'il lui faisait portaient ces initiales. Plus tard, Lupin trouve son faux Leduc pendu après avoir découvert que Dolorès était morte. Lupin pense alors à Léon Massier, condamné à mort, mais arrive trop tard à Paris pour empêcher son execution. Pris de remords pour ces trois morts dont il est la cause, il s'engage dans la légion étrangère.

Adapted from the 15 Minutes Microwave Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

• 100g dark chocolate
• 3 tbl. spoons water
• 80g butter
• 1 tbl. spoon hazelnut paste (100% hazelnuts, not the bread-spread kind)
• 120g powdered sugar
• 3 eggs
• 100g flour
• 1 tea spoon baking powder

Tools

• salad bowl that goes to the microwave
• (wooden) spoon

Preparation

Put the chocolate broken in pieces in a salad bowl that goes to the microwave with the water and the butter cut in cubes. Heat for 1 min in the microwave. Stir well until all the butter has melted. Add the hazelnut paste and stir again. Add the sugar, stir. Add the eggs one by one, and stir well after each egg. Add the flour in a small heap on the top of the preparation, add the baking powder on top of it and stir the preparation in small circles next to the heap of flour. The flour will be incoroporated bit by bit without making lumps. When most of the flour is incorporated, stir by making large circles again.

Put the salad bowl with the preparation in the microwave and cook at maximum power for 6 min at 900 W (or 8 min at 700 W). The cake is ready when a knife's blade stuck into the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool down. You can alternatively turn the salad bowl upside-down on a plate to unmould it while it's still hot; the cake won't come off easily, but the taste remains the same :)

Comments

• The cake is quite light and not rubbery at all compared to the previous one
• It's slightly dry, a bit more butter could help, or then a shorter cooking time

© Amazon.fr

Kesslbach, un riche diamantaire, est assassiné dans un hôtel à Paris. On retrouve sur le corps une carte de visite d'Arsène Lupin. Un employé retrouve un étui à cigarettes aux initiales L.M., mais il est assassiné durant l'enquête du chef de la Sûreté, Lenormand. Le secrétaire de Kesselbach et aussi assassiné peu après. Lenormand retrouve aussi deux petites étiquettes portant le numéro 813. On apprend aussi que Kesselbach était à la recherche d'un homme appelé Pierre Leduc. Mme Kesselbach, qui devait rejoindre son mari à Paris, arrive peu après les assassinats. Lupin, sous l'identité du Prince Sernine, mêne l'enquête de son côté pour démasquer celui qui a commis 3 assassinats en son nom (les autorités s'accordent à dire que Lupin est innocent). Il se lie d'amitié avec Mme Kesselbach, qui est la voisine de Geneviève une jeune femme que Lupin protège secrètement depuis des années, et qui vit avec l'ancienne nourrice de Lupin sous la fausse identité de Mme Ernemont. Lupin finit par retrouver Pierre Leduc, mais celui-ci meurt avant d'avoir révélé le secret qui le liait à Kesselbach. Peu après, Lupin intercepte une lettre addressée à Kesselbach, provenant d'un certain Steinweg, et qui mentionne Pierre Leduc. Mais Steinweg se fait enlever par le complice de l'assassin. Lupin trouve alors un jeune homme ruiné, prêt à se suicider, et le transforme en un faux Pierre Leduc, qu'il présente à Geneviève. Pendant ce temps, Lenormand découvre un souterrain entre la maison de Mme Kesselbach et une maison voisine vide, qui permet à un complice de l'assassin de communiquer avec une employée de Mme Kesselbach. Mais Lenormand est fait prisonier et jeté à l'eau dans un sac. Le complice de l'assassin, finalement identifié comme étant le baron Altenheim, contacte Lupin pour lui proposer une assiciation, mais Lupin refuse et livre Altenheim à la police, tandis qu'Altenheim fait de même pour Lupin. Altenheim est assassiné au nez et à la barbe de Lupin qui se fait arrêter et révèle que Lenormand et lui ne sont qu'une seule et même personne.

Inspired by Julie et la Chocolaterie.

Ingredients

• 100g dark chocolate
• 3 tbl. spoons water
• 100g butter
• 2 tbl. spoons crème fraîche
• 100g powdered sugar
• 3 eggs
• 50g flour
• 1/2 tea spoon baking powder

Tools

• salad bowl that goes to the microwave
• (wooden) spoon

Preparation

Put the chocolate broken in pieces in a salad bowl that goes to the microwave with the water. Heat in the microwave at maximum power for 1 min. Add the butter cut in cubes, heat again for 1 min. Stir well until all the butter has melted. Add the crème fraîche and stir again. Add the sugar, stir. Add the eggs one by one, and stir well after each egg. Add the flour in a small heap on the top of the preparation, add the baking powder on top of it and stir the preparation in small circles next to the heap of flour. The flour will be incoroporated bit by bit without making lumps. When most of the flour is incorporated, stir by making large circles again.

Put the salad bowl with the preparation in the microwave and cook at maximum power for 6 – 7 min. The cake is ready when a knife's blade stuck into the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool down. You can alternatively turn the salad bowl upside-down on a plate to unmould it while it's still hot; the cake should come off easily.

Comments

• The cake is quite light and rubbery (a texture you may like or not, I do)
• More flour may make it less rubbery
• Hazelnut paste may be a great addition (with less butter, then)

Many years ago, AOL was providing users with online services, but kept them well isolated from the Internet. It took ages until AOL finally opened itself to the rest of the Internet. Nowadays, such a provider of online services is unthinkable. But this situation still exists for mobile online services (think i-Mode) and social networks. I was about to write something about it, but the Appleseed project did it already. They also propose a solution, which is technically accessible with nowaday's technology (and was also already accessible with yesterday's). If this project (or one of the other distributed social network projects) succeeds, maybe ten years from now we'll have real open social networks.

The next step will then be to find a use for those (other than the “my network is bigger than yours” contests).