Buy One, Give One

Help light the world - with this great concept, you buy one solar-powered flashlight for yourself, and they will send another one to the developing world to help kids study at night, keep women safe, and make providing or finding health care easier. Check it out.

Food blog recipes

I just made a lemon banana cake because I've got my baking itch. We'll see how it comes out (it's in the oven now), because I got the recipe from a food blog. The recipe seemed to check out okay—a mix between a pound cake and genoise—and I realized she forgot to put the measurement for the melted butter (likely 3/4 cups). No problems there. But, BUT, when I poured the batter into the specified 9" round cake tin, I realized she probably meant a springform pan. Way too much batter. I've baked enough to know this was going to spill over and cause disaster in the oven, so I quickly grabbed my ice scream scoop and a small muffin tin. So now there's 6 little cupcakes waiting it's turn in the oven...

I'll let you all know how it turns out.

We love tag sales

Yesterday I took the High Speed Rail (for the first time!) to Hsinchu to check out a moving sale. We scored some nice stuff, including a lovely mid-century modern walnut china cabinet for about a third to half the price of a particleboard item from IKEA. It's nice getting quality furniture at bargain prices. And infinitely better than having the same IKEA as everyone else, although this site, IKEA Hacker, has some creative ideas for personalizing that ubiquitous and affordable IKEA stuff (much of which I love, btw - design for the masses!).