Inside Out

Current mood: Frustrated

A song by Emmy Rossum. I really love the lyrics. We all want to be accepted as we are and she has an awesome voice to go with it.



Random bits of stuff
A Recipe

Valentine’s vanilla cookies

* 90g (3 oz) butter
* 1/2 c confectioners sugar (icing/powdered sugar)
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* 1 1/2 c plain flour (all- purpose)
* 1 egg

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF) and line or grease 2 baking trays.

Combine the butter, sugar and vanilla, beating until pale and creamy. Then add the egg and beat again. Add the flour and your mix should form a smooth dough.

Take it from the bowl and refrigerate for just 10 – 20 minutes, then roll out the dough (1/2cm or 1/4in) and cut cookies with any shape cutter you like. Obviously hearts are obvious… ha.

Once you’ve cut out all the dough, pop them onto the baking sheet and into the oven for 10 minutes. We made pretty small ones, bite size, but if you make them bigger just cook for another couple minutes- not long. They should hardly have turned colour at all.

This made about 35 small, thin cookies for us, so double the batch if you’re making BIG hearts this year! These cookies are crisp and sweet, very smooth and durable for decorating so go wild! (We ate most of ours before we could decorate them.)

Here’s a good simple icing recipe for easy piping/writing.
Decorator frosting

* 80 g (2.8 oz) butter
* 2 c confectioners sugar (powdered/icing sugar)
* 1 Tbsp water
* 1/2 tsp flavoring (vanilla extract, lemon, peppermint, coconut, etc)
* a drop or two of food colouring if you like

Beat the butter and half the sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy, then add the water, flavoring and colour and beat again while slowly adding the rest of the sugar until the mixture is creamy.

Pipe onto cookies using a piping bag or cut a tiny tip off a zip-loc bag and squeeze the icing through there onto the cookies.


A few random websites you might enjoy if you are crazy like me

www.jacksonpollock.org

www.tastespotting.com/

www.safenow.org/

www.wambie.com/foto_br-272.html

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2uKXuA/theoatmeal.com/comics/coffee

www.offbeatearth.com/quiet-at-the-library/


And a random video or two




And some pictures to finish us off for the day...

Zombie Brain Cupcakes... YUMMY!! ^^


Apple Butterfly


And that is how the Dinosaurs became extinct...


I actually like Nickelback, but it's funny!


Bad News: It isn't Batman. Good News: Well, actually there isn't any. Sucks to be you!

Fa-la-la-Follow the Yellow Brick Road!

Current mood: Breezy

Okay I couldn't resist that one partially because of the article I'm about to share with you right now!

Get this, in a Mountain Commune in Kunming (Southern China) there is a village where you must be 4'3" tall to get in. I'm not kidding, it's a village made completely of dwarves or "little" people. I don't know which is politically correct anymore. Not only that, but they dress up like fairy tale characters to bring in money from Tourism! "As small people we are used to being pushed around and exploited by big people. But here there aren't any big people and everything we do is for us," said spokesman Fu Tien.
Don't believe me? http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?Chinese_dwarves_set_up_their_own_village&in_article_id=745272&in_page_id=2

Rome, Italy: Mudslide caused by heavy overnight rains flooded the Sicilian city of Messina. At least 20 people were killed during the deluge and several cars and buildings were swept away. Another 40 people were hospitalized due to various injuries caused by the flooding. Several hundred people are seeking shelter in gyms and schools due to sudden homelessness.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33136687/ns/world_news-europe/

My favorite president (besides John Quincy Adams) Barack Obama met with his top Afghan war commander in Copenhagen, Denmark. The meeting took place privately aboard Air Force One on Friday for a talk the White House described as productive. Apparently they are trying to decide whether or not to send more troops to stomp out more Al Qaeda or to send only some to help out in Pakistan. Not only that, but Obama was in Denmark to place the United State's bid to host the 2016 Olympics Games.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33136780/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

So some guy named Enrique Gonzalez and his friend, Travis Gorman, apparently TATTOOED a GANG symbol on the prior's SEVEN YEAR OLD SON! He is not going to get a life sentence for this (under the Mayhem Charge), but does face a few years in jail for Cruel and inhumane treatment of a child.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,559241,00.html

A FIVE year old Texas Boy shot an 800lb. Alligator in the head, thus saving himself from being killed. Apparently he had been trained by his father since he was 4 years old to handle a gun and it came in handy when an 800lb Gator came onto their Texas property.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,559103,00.html

And last, but definitely NOT least, in India there were clusters of unhatched Dinosaurs Eggs found by geologists! The eggs were about 13-20cm in diameter and lying in sandy nests about 1.2m wide, under ash from volcanic eruptions.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,558980,00.html

And now, your song of the day!



And an extra video of Gackt, because it makes me giggle more than anything I've ever seen (well besides Debbie Reynolds being Princess Leia's [Carrie Fisher] mom... That makes me giggle very hard and I don't know why.)! Don't worry, it's subtitled in English so you know what he is saying. ^^