Rate of reproduction!

This may or may not be in your current knowledge, but there's a successful group of lads on Youtube that call themselves "BalloonShop". They perform various comedic sketches on a wide range of topics. I've been enjoying their videos for the past year and a half or so. Yesterday a family friend of mine was getting married and I met 2/3 of BalloonShop at the reception as I was handing out chocolate covered strawberries. I walked up to them, made eye contact with Thomas Gore, and said "Balloon shop?" Mr. Gore and Josh Pursley then confirmed my question. Then they agreed to take a picture with me. I was very EXTREMELY excited! I know that makes me appear to be a cooky-wacky groupie, but I love when I get to meet these Youtube fatcats (I kid. They're not Youtube fatcats. They were very wonderful and friendly gentlemen.) They took the pictures on their camera, and I'm waiting for them to upload it on Facebook so I can post it on here. But until then, enjoy this picture of a guinea pig wearing a Santa hat.



As Ray William Johnson would say:
Cutest furry little bastard, ever.

I'm afraid that's all I have to say for now. This weekend has been very tiring, and this fickle weather gives me headaches. Adieu, for now.

WAIT, I do have something else to say.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

Food for thought.

WORD OF THE DAY: portentous - forbiding; ominous.

try using it in a sentence.

Get excited!

BONJOUR.
So I just finished my morning cup of tea; and it was delicious. Caffeine free, and improves mental performance and concentration. Can't get much better than that, can it? Here's whats up:

Since I take online high school classes through Keystone National HS, I decided not to take a foreign language. My mother said it was extremely difficult to learn a language online. I took her advice and I'm waiting until I'm back onto a real campus to take French: the international Culinary language. Usually, you're supposed to take a foreign language your sophomore year. Seeing as I'm a junior and have had no experience in French, I decided to buy a book that would help me to learn the language. I must say it's coming along fabulously. Ever since I was a child, I could impersonate a French accent very well. I spoke in it a lot because the language fascinated me. That makes the strange nasal sounds heard all throughout the language very accessible for me to achieve. Why, just the other day during my shift at the Bruster's, I said "Bonjour." to a customer. She gave me a confused look and asked me IN FRENCH if I was from France. Being able to make an actual French person think that I was French goes down in my Book Big of Wins. As for getting onto a "real" campus, I'm putting my application in for Gwinnett Tech soon. I filled it out last night, I'm just waiting for my transcripts to arrive in the mail. I'm going to take my core classes there, so that when I get to The Culinary Institute of America I can mainly focus on the culinary classes. To say the least, I'm excited.

Another thing I'm excited for it this Saturday. What's happening this Saturday?! You mean you haven't heard? IT'S PJ DAY!. On PJ Day, the scoopers at the Bruster's get to wear their pajamas while they work, and all of the customers get a free single scoop of ice cream in a waffle cone if they wear their pajamas to the store. How cool is that? I don't know why that excites me so much. Maybe it's because a heckload of my friends are coming to visit me. Hell's bells, it's going to be crazy.


Also, my daffodil garden is blooming, and there's an all white flower. It looks so pretty among all the other yellow daffodils. Daffodils are my favorite flower in the world.

"Daffodils" (1804)

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)


Simultaneously my favorite poem, and flower.. Toodles!

WORD OF THE DAY: cozen - to deceive or to obtain by deceit.

try using it in a sentence.

Oh, fondant.

Really? I know, I'm sorry. I haven't posted in approximately a week. The weekends I go to my Dad's house are usually followed by chaotic and busy week days. But, never fear, for I have returned.
Last Saturday, I completed my Wilton Course 3 cake decorating class, which dealt mostly with ruffle and drop string piping, and using fondant to cover cakes and to sculpt. I have to say, I rather enjoyed this class much more than Courses 1 and 2. Why? Because I don't like buttercream. Icing is way too messy. Fondant is no sugarplum fairy either, but I'm very much a sculptor. I love to sculpt, and the fact that my creations are edible when made with fondant fill me with an overbearing sense of pride. Don't ask me why. This is what the final cake was supposed to look like:

I'm not too sure if you can see the picture that well, but you get the general idea. A ruffle and shell border, both cake layers covered in fondant, and fondant leaves and roses scattered throughout the cake. It's a pretty nice cake to work with for the final lesson of the course.
As I was making my fondant roses, I discovered that the Wilton method for sculpting them was absolutely tedious and barbaric. You have to cut about 5 shapes out of fondant with your flower cutters, and one by one use your flowerball shaper to mold them on a thin piece of foam, so the corners furl, then finish shaping them on a thicker piece of foam by forming the middle into a cup. What? Where dey do dat at? I decided to ditch the Wilton method and see if Youtube had a better way of making roses. I found exactly what I needed. I just tried to look up to video again to post a link, but I couldn't find it. The easier method was to roll fondant into tiny circles, flatten them, and attach them to the rose center. SO EASY. And this is how mine came out. Keep in mind these are only the rosebuds, not the full roses.

Once again, I'm too sure you can see it clearly, but you get there general idea. For the final cake we had to make 20 full sized roses, 11 medium roses, and 8 rosebuds. They recommended pink roses, but I think pink is an ugly color on this kind of flower. Yellow seems sophisticated. Plus, it's my favorite color. We also needed 20 something green leaves, and I achieved a really really pretty green by adding blue color to the remainder of my yellow fondant.
As you saw in the picture of the final cake, there needs to be two tiers. I was shopping at Whole Foods the day before my cake class so I decided to buy a box of all natural cake. It was called Naturally Nora's Cheerful Chocolate Cake. One thing to note when baking with this cake mix: follow the instructions on the box (the measurements for the milk/oil/whatever), but if you want to make your cake extra chocolaty, put about a half a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder into the batter. Yum. I particularly liked this cake mix and I think I'll use it again. Anyways, the two tiers. I forgot that I had bought TWO boxes of cake mix. I thought I only had one. So I halved the batter between my two pans. DON'T DO THAT. I don't know why I put equal amounts in both pans. It turned out so that my cake was top heavy and the poor plastic pillars I used to separate the tiers were trying sooo hard to stay up. Put 2/3 of the batter in the bigger pan, and the rest in the smaller pan. Makes it better. This is what both of my tiers covered in fondant, and set up with the pillars looked like.



Notice how the cake is lopsided? The pillars aren't supposed to be that tall. So a word to the wise, make sure your bottom tier is much bigger than your top tier. Alas, - There's a funeral procession coming out of my neighborhood right now. Never have I ever seen that!- despite my topsy turvy construction, I am very pleased with my final cake.

I'm afraid that's all I have for today. Til next time, be safe, drink water, and eat fruit.



WORD OF THE DAY: erudite - characterized by extensive reading or knowledge.
try using it in a sentence.

Third time's the charm.

It's snowing, AGAIN. Yet again Northeast Georgia is put into a swirling fury of ice and rain, like so which can be compared to the fury of the God of the Old Testament. It's cold, raining frozen ice, and every time I step outside my feet get encrusted by a natural slushie. However, if someone who lives in New York right now, say Jacky, were to see the all the rhubarb I make about 1/2 inch of snow; he'd laugh in my face and proceed to pelt me in the face numerous times with snow balls. I say: bring it on Jacky.

This is the third time it has snowed in Metrosexual Atlanta within a one month period. 3 times in one month! If we're lucky, it usually snows for a few hours around the beginning or March, then it's gone before the sun goes down. For some reason 2010 just feels like snowing a lot. In the end, I can appreciate it. I'm a huge sucker for things that are frozen.

I'm currently in the middle of planning a community event for my Gold Award. I'm thinking something like a teen pregnancy/STD awareness seminar, something like that. I also requested some campaign materials from Peta2 so I could go around and maybe do some tabling with my friend Shelby. I think that'd be fun. But as of now, it's bed time. Keep on trollin'.

WORD OF THE DAY: temporize- to be indecisive or evasive in order to gain time.
try using it in a sentence.

Whoops.

*I meant to post this yesterday, but I felt ill and decided to go to sleep.

Hi forum!

What time is it?

Why, it's Girl Scout cookies time, troll!

Thanks to my little sister, the better half of my living room has been overtaken by cases upon cases of cookies. Samoas are by far the best. BY FAR, and despite everyone's strange addiction, I hate Thin Mints. I don't know what about them I find unappealing. Maybe the fact that they're over minty, not very soft, and kind of remind me of the nasty wafers my grandmother used to make me eat. But (BUT!), today I discovered that if you mix Thin Mints and ice cream; it's no longer disgusting! I have a part time job at Bruster's, and when I went in today the first thing my manager told me about was the Thin Mint ice cream. It was actually, really, really good. So good that I in fact took home a pint of it. Yes indeed.

You know, something really funny happened the other day. I was helping a customer at the drive through, and they wanted a scoop of ice cream in a sugar cone. The ice cream has just been made that morning, and fresh ice cream is much too soft to put on a cone. It's likely to fall and make a huge mess. I told the person that the ice cream was too soft, and I could just put in a bowl for them and put the cone on top of it. They INSISTED that it be in a cone, even though I warned that it would fall. So I gave them the ice cream, rung them up, and they were on their way. As soon as their car pulled out of the drive through lane, the ice cream flipped of the cone, and made a carmely, vanilla mess all over her car. Just something to think about.