A different kind of drinking game

Can you name all the beers correctly?

Recipe: Chocolatetown Special Cake

Nothing brings happiness like chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. And sprinkles.

In our family, on your birthday you get to request your favorite cake and the family baker (aka, yours truly) makes it magically appear. This year, Justin asked for his favorite – chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

Now if you’ve never made a cake from scratch before, I recommend you try. It’s really very easy and the results are so much better than what you get when you buy a mix. Plus, there are no wierd additives like hydrogenated soybean oil - just honest, old-fashioned, sugary, moist deliciousness.

One of the best chocolate cakes I’ve made is the Hershey’s Original, however I was looking to try something a little different and ended up with this gem. It’s got buttermilk, which immediately validated it in my mind. The result was a cake even richer and chocolateir (?) than the original famous Hershey recipe. For the frosting, I substituted buttermilk for the milk and the result was a creamy, very spreadable icing that tasted wonderful. Due to the 110+ degree Arizona heat I kept it in the fridge til candle time, but it held up very well on our kitchen counter thereafter.

CHOCOLATOWN SPECIAL CAKE

1/2 cup Hershey’s cocoa
1/2 cup boiling water
2/3 cup shortening
1-3/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2  eggs
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/3 cups buttermilk or sour milk*
  one-bowl buttercream frosting (recipe follows)

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together cocoa and water in small bowl until smooth. Beat
shortening, sugar and vanilla in large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs; beat
well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; add to shortening mixture
alternately with buttermilk, beating until well blended. Add cocoa mixture;
beat well. Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out
clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.
Frost with ONE-BOWL BUTTERCREAM FROSTING. 8 to 10 servings.

* To Sour Milk: Use 4 teaspoons white vinegar plus milk to equal 1-1/3
cups.

ONE-BOWL CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
2-2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa or HERSHEY’S Dutch Processed Cocoa
1/3 cup milk (NOTE: I substituted buttermilk since I had it on hand)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat butter in small bowl. Add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with
milk; beat to spreading consistency (additional milk may be needed). Stir
in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

Justin’s birthday

Yesterday my baby turned 11. His summer birthday usually results in a low turnout so we decided to let him have a few friends sleep over, and we invited our Arizona family – the neighbors – over for pizza and cake. Click here to view the whole album online.

9 things to do online when you’re bored

I’ve found most of these through StumbleUpon, which in and of itself is fun enough to do when you’re bored.

1. Test your reflexes by tranquilizing virtual sheep. Who thinks up these games anyhow?
2. Play spider solitaire I sometimes use this as an outlet for procrastination.
3. Play a quicker version of solitaire (turbo) I think I’ve gotten through the first level twice. And never through the second.
4. See in how few moves you can make the virus spread. Not a computer virus, check it out, you’ll see.
5. Play Sudoku online – and see how your time compares to other Sudokuphiles.
6. Create your own customized online radio station at Pandora Radio. My current fave is the Cranberries station.
7. Get a good laugh at actual photos found in real estate listings enhanced with plenty of snark.
8. Download Windows Virtual Earth and take a virtual trip anywhere in the world. A gazillion times better than the now lame Google Earth – MS VE has 3D building capability that gives you a bird’s eye view – and even lets you navigate around like you’re flying. This could keep me busy for hours. Actually, it has.
9. Start your own blog at WordPress! Or if you have one, write a new post! Don’t forget to send me the link too!

So I guess with StumbleUpon, it’s really 10 things.

A funny video for my IT friends (and everyone else too)

The Medeival help desk.

Reality shows abound this summer

With my regular favorites like The Office, Desperate Housewives and Lipstick Jungle on summer haitus (wasn’t the writer’s strike break enough?) I’ve been indulging in my favorite reality shows.

The season 5 premiere of Project Runway started up on Wednesday, and there are a myriad of interesting new designers with diverse points of view. Watching the show is like eating a big piece of chocolate cake – it’s so delicious and indulgent, you enjoy every moment and can’t wait for the next episode to air next week. This week, we said goodbye to our first designer Jerry. This was no surprise because the first thing he said on camera was “I am already a successful designer and don’t really need to be here.” Well, then, see ya! The winner this week was Kelli who constructed a dress whose skirt was surprisingly beautiful, though composed of vacuum cleaner bags dyed and bleached. The most unusual creation was a vibrant blue strapless dress with a sweetheart neckline – made out of blue Sweetheart plastic cups (you know, the ones you buy for keg parties). By the way, if PR is like chocolate cake, then the Project RunGay blog is the a la mode – a hilarious sarcastic look at all things PR.

My other favorite reality competition is in full swing – Last Comic Standing aired last night with the best episode yet. The comics were set loose in Bed, Bath and Beyond to find props, then performed for Carrot Top and a small local audience. The poorest competitor was without a doubt Papa CJ who clearly didn’t understand the elements of prop comedy, perhaps due to an international disadvantage. Carrot Top chose Jeff Dye as the winner, giving him immunity – and rightfully so. Jeff is a likeable comedian who obviously has great talent. Having never done prop comedy before, he ended up with the best act hands down. While the other comedians just picked up props, said “This is such-and-such” and then went on to the next object, Dye was the only one who actually had a theme (movies).

Last week, we saw Iliza get 2/3 of the audience’s votes and send home Esther Ku (annoying giggly anime girl) and God’s Pottery (who I wish would have stayed in a bit longer). This week Papa CJ and Paul Foot were on the chopping block with tied votes, so they picked Iliza as their on-stage competition, no doubt because they figured she couldn’t pull it off two weeks in a row. This seemingly smart strategic move backfired as Iliza again got 62% of the audience’s vote, proving that traditional stand-up comedy has a much stronger audience appeal than wierd, long-winded diatribes that the audience can’t connect with (Paul Foot) or third-run stand up jokes peppered with a tiny bit of new material (Papa CJ).

By the way, if anyone knows of a good LCS blog, please pass it along – I can’t find one!

They used to be cute… here’s proof!

My sister Danielle uploaded some old video footage from 2001 – Justin was 3, Eric was 8 (though you don’t see much of Eric here, sorry!).

Here’s Justin “reading” his favorite childhood book “Dinosaur Roar”. He wasn’t actually reading of course, he just memorized the lines from the eleven zillion times we had read it to him.

Because it’s Monday after a long weekend and I need a big dose of silly