Joel Rendall

This morning’s breakfast included a delicious mango. Just as I was about to throw out the mango pit, I glanced over at a bottle of sparkling water / seltzer / club soda (whatever you want to call the stuff).

I put the pit in a glass, then poured the club soda on it. I put it in the fridge with a plate on top (since the bottle was a room temperature).

A few minutes later, I was drinking Mango Pop! It was better than I recall actual soda tasting, and your teeth don’t hate you for it, either.

You can reuse the same mango pit for several glasses. I intend to experiment with different fruit scraps to create different flavours.

At first, when I saw the latest Facebook updates, the larger fonts made me feel more like I was part of a Fisher Price social network. But that was just on the surface, and we all know we should never judge a… website by its fonts.

I was sending a Facebook reply to someone at 2:09 in the morning (don’t judge my sleep habits – I just woke up a few hours ago), and the below screenshot is what I saw.

The logic behind this hurts my brain… maybe I need to go watch Back To The Future again and take notes.

A few weeks ago, I tried a trial of a Mac program called Hazel.

I was tired of looking at a desktop full of random downloaded files, and other pieces of information that I thought I might need, but have no place to file it.

Hazel lets me automatically move files from one folder to another, according to my custom conditions. I set one up that moves all Desktop files that are 24hrs old, to another folder out of sight, called “Desktop Files,” predictably enough.

You can also have it sort files according to file type, which I use for archiving my TV shows after I have watched them.

After the 30 day trial expired, I remember it being pretty cheap to buy – between $15 and $20 (don’t quote me on it). They are obviously a small software company, so it feels good to be supporting them, rather than the big, expensive developers who charge outragous amounts of money (Adobe, cough cough!).

I prefer Mac, but at Joel’s blog, we’re non-OS-denominational, so I’ll Google around for some non-Mac alternatives:

Linux: Ok, I take it back – there aren’t any obvious Linux programs, other than getting geeky with scripting. If anyone with Linux can help (hi Steffi), let me know. Update: Check out Plasma Dashboard, for a solution to keeping your Kubuntu desktop clean. See Steff’s blog post for this, along with additional linux geekery.

Windows: Apparently there’s a built-in desktop cleaner. But if Windows holds true to their reputation, it could be irritating. Try watching this video.

Here is what I had for lunch today – A salad with spinach, sprouts, strawberries, and an improvised salad dressing.

Salad dressing:

- Strawberries

- Balsamic Vinegar, Olive Oil

- Carrot

- Garlic

- Italian Spices

Okay, I guess with a couple of those ingredients, it’s more like 99% raw. Sue me

It looks like I need to work on my raw vegan soup technique. I’ve been getting too cocky with all of my improvised recipes. And it is very hard to mess up a fruit smoothie, so that further increased my confidence.

To make raw soup, the friction from the high-powered blender heats up the mixture so it can be eaten warm, without cooking it and murdering all the enzymes and nutrition in the process.

The blender did it’s job, but unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as reliable. It’s hard to find good help these days…

First of all, you’ll notice the goop spattered across the wall. That’s from opening the lid too quickly.

But the biggest problem was that the final product didn’t taste great. I’m lying – it was gag-worthy. No amount of dried parsley can save this disaster.

In case you want the recipe: I added random vegetables from the fridge, garlic, spices, and water. I also added too much jalapeno, so while I thought I was adding a clever zing, I ended up further reducing the edibility of the already questionable soup.

But my penny-pinching instincts tells me to eat it anyway. And I even have leftovers for tomorrow – yay.

As a reward for injecting mass amounts of this theoretically healthy concoction, I washed it down with some fresh applesauce made from a couple red delicious apples, raw cashews, and cinnamon. Yum. It was almost worth it. Almost.

So the lesson I learned today was…  learn to make better soup, or stop trying.