i’ve left two voice mails today and have noticed a striking similarity. everyone has an “emergency” plan. i’m not here, so leave a message. if this is an emergency…..”

emergency |iˈmərjənsē| noun ( pl. -cies) a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action

a little background. i was calling the IT person at a college and the marketing director at a resort, both at their work lines. what kind of emergencies actually happen that would warrant this alternate emergency plan? it makes it seem as if these emergencies are frequent. thinking back, i’m not sure the last time i encountered an emergency personally. i guess if i’m broken down on the side of the road with somewhere important to go, that might be a minor emergency. but a work-related emergency? i am not sure i’ve ever had one.

i also have recently enjoyed hearing the phrase ASAP, and emails marked as “high priority”. honestly, i can’t even think of what would constitute an online marketing emergency, or dare i say, any kind of marketing emergency?

doctors, EMTs, nurses, firefighters, police officers - these people deal with emergencies at work. and if you need them, there’s no plan A, or if its an emergency, plan B. you just call 911. so unless you want me to call 911 about your website problem, don’t call it an emergency.

disclaimer so as not to offend readers: i think maybe scientists could have an emergency. like if you are on the brink of discovering something extremely beneficial to the world at large, and something goes awry. yes, emergency. you need to have an ad show up on google when someone types in “pet photography”? not so much an emergency.

now, off to take care of some “emergencies” i’ve been notified about…right after i make a sandwich for lunch.

it’s national bundt day. had i known (perhaps if someone who was in a time zone 14 hours ahead, he could have done his job and reminded me about this yesterday?) i’d have made november’s cake a bundt cake. due to a lack of communication, i can only celebrate the bundts of yester-year…or…earlier-this-year via pictures:

cinnamon walnut bundt cake with butter and rum glaze - prob my favorite cake of 2007 so far…

you can’t tell, but this used to be a bundt cake - a jack daniels’ chocolate bundt cake…

maybe the prettiest cake of the year so far - chocolate stout cake, and some chocolate covered cherries…

just a second ago, i realized how funny it was that i just starred an item in my google reader from lifehacker.com (indicating that i want to revisit this post later) and the item i starred is about a firefox extension that is called “read it later” and lets you keep a running list of things you want to read, but can’t right now, in your browser window. why limit my list of things i’ve been meaning to read to just my google reader? why not let the entire internet become part of my to do list?

i am pretty sure my procrastination has hit an all time high (low?) - in essence, i just put off reading a blog post about how to make lists of things to read later. geeze.

i went and saw david bazan (again) last night. i think we decided that it was about my 12th time to see him live which is rather impressive seeing as he spends a lot of time on the west coast. i was expecting a full band, but it was just him, with an electric guitar. he did play probably 5-6 new songs, which is great. with most bands, i hate the new music because i can’t understand the lyrics live. not so with bazan. i think my favorite was curse your branches.

all fallen leaves should curse their branches
for not letting them decide where they should fall
and not letting them refuse to fall at all

have a listen. weeds in the wheat was also quite good.

i get really angry when recipes don’t work the way they should. its mostly because deep down, i know it was my fault and i did something wrong, but i’d rather blame the recipe. anyway, after i found chow’s recipes for homemade halloween candy a few weeks ago, i decided that would be my next cooking challenge. i opted to go for the home made twix. after reading through the recipe, i was feeling ok about my chances of succeeding in this. its a three part recipe: first, shortbread. easy, i thought, as i’ve made these a time or two and had no problems creating shortbread. second, caramel. again, i’ve made caramel on numerous occasions, including the aforementioned recipe. and third, tempering chocolate. this was new for me, and frankly scared me a little. you have to melt the chocloate, get it to 118 degrees (if it gets to 120 its ruined), drop it to 80 degrees, then raise it again to 85-87 degrees while you’re dipping and if you get out of that range, it won’t work. whew. worst case scenario: i’d have delicious shortbread and caramel with some messed up chocolate. i didn’t think i’d get too many complaints about that, so decided to give it a go.

whole foods actually carried the el rey 41% milk chocolate bars that i needed, and at a much better price than what i was finding online. still, the chocolate was $15, but i figured that was a small price to pay for an afternoon of cooking adventures. now there was even more pressure to make this work - $15 is a lot to spend on chocolate.

i started friday afternoon with the shortbread. this is where the disaster ensued. i screwed up the shortbread by using butter that was a little too cool. that’s right, i messed up this 18 step recipe just between steps two and three. needless to say, i was not happy about this and did not have enough time (or butter) to try it again friday.

however, i do have good news to report. after taking some time away from the kitchen (unless you count the delicious mulled cider i made friday night) i was determined to put my pricey chocolate to good use. my second attempt turned out much better, and we actually manage to correctly temper the chocolate - they really look and taste like candy bars! i must admit, in the rush to dip them all and keep the chocolate in the proper temperature range, we did get sloppy, so they might not be the prettiest candy bars, but i think they’ll be better next time, now that i’m not so frightened of tempering chocolate. and, now i know how not to make shortbread.

in case you wanted entirely too much information about what a dork i am, i found a neato little scripty thing (technical term) that displays my most recently starred items in google reader. see the right column.

typically, i star things if i they look interesting but i don’t have time to read them at the moment or if i find a particular post to be insanely useful. so, if you really want to be helpful, go ahead and read the stuff in my starred list and email me a recap. or if its a recipe, you could go ahead and make it and i’ll come critique it for you.

thanks.

oh crud…black bean pumpkin soup just added to the list…