The Artist

The musical artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (who I believe has returned to simply calling himself Prince) is actually named Prince.  His father, one John L. Nelson, was a jazz pianist who went by the stage name of "Prince Rogers" (leader of the Prince Rogers Trio), and gave that name to his son as some sort of blah blah "he will surpass me" blah¹.  Prince, despite the built-in nickname, apparently went by "Skippy" during his childhood².

Sources :

• ¹Hahn, Alex (2004). Possessed: The Rise And Fall Of Prince. (supposedly)
• ²Gulla, Bob (2008). Icons of R&B and Soul: An Encyclopedia of the Artists who Revolutionized Rhythm. (also supposedly.  Both sources are quoted online, but I haven't seen them myself).

Bear with me, there's a milkshake at the end.

Long time no read!

So, stuff.  First, administrivia.  I've been kinda busy lately, what with dog and work and life and broken refrigerators and, well, stuff.  This blog isn't dead-- I have several partial posts backed up.  But they may come rather sporadically for a few more weeks.

Next-- Exercise!  Penn Jillette, on his podcast (Penn's Sunday School), was talking a couple weeks ago about the "7 minute workout" that's the latest fad.  And he was saying how, you know, he's always felt that he'd exercise if he somehow could only do it in less than 10 minutes.  And so he tried it, because he said he would, after all, and then gave up in horror because it was Teh Hard.

But he's a big fat guy, right, and I'm at least vaguely in shape.  Maybe I can do it!  I downloaded one of the free apps to help you through it, and tried it on Sunday.  And here's a useful tip--

When they say 7 minutes?  That's true-- you're only exercising for about that long, depending on variations.  But that doesn't include setup (minimal, actually), or stretching, or convincing the dog to leave me alone for 7 goddam minutes, or the hour or so I spent after my first session sitting on the floor waiting to die.  Seriously, this is a ROUGH routine.  At least at first.  Allot a bit of extra time.

I've done it a few mornings, now, before my shower.  My legs are killing me, but I'm mostly still making it through (tomorrow may or may not happen, because ow).  We'll see 1) if I can keep it up, and 2) if it actually does me any good.

Oh, and I promised you milkshakes!  So-- boil sugar in white wine to make a syrup.  Add a cup of chopped fresh basil.  Steep, strain, cool-- you now have basil syrup.  Cut the kernels off of 2 ears of fresh corn.  Simmer gently in a little water (or, if you're more like me, accidentally burn) for about 5 minutes.  Combine corn, 6 Tbsp syrup, and 8 scoops of good vanilla ice cream in blender, scraping sides as needed.  Voila-- sweet corn and basil milkshake.  Quite good, really.

ETA: Oh, and milkshake recipe is courtesy of Adam Ried's Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes.

Flying Pringles

Most people realize that Pringles brand potato crisps (not chips) are fairly artificial.  After all, it's hard to find potatoes that grow in such a regular shape.  Although imagine if they did-- they'd look like jelly beans. Huge, potato-y jelly beans.

And now I want jelly beans.  Sigh.

Anyway, it turns out that the shape is not just a marketing decision, to make them look like duck lips when you eat them in pairs.  Proctor and Gamble (former owners of the Pringles brand) studied the shape very carefully, even going so far as to run the chips (sorry, crisps) through a wind tunnel-- at least virtually.  The digital models of the airflow allowed the company to redesign their production line to move the crisps through even faster, while keeping them from achieving full lift and taking off like little airfoils, something that would undoubtedly interfere with the manufacturing process.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=high-powered-computing-heralds-digital-industrial-revolution

Berbere

In other news, one teaspoon (possibly less if it's fresh) of the Ethiopian spice blend berbere added to a box of brownie mix is a very Good Thing.  Like many spice mixes, the exact contents and proportions can vary, but the one I used was (according to the label), "cayenne red pepper, garlic, ginger, fenugreek, cardamom, cumin, black pepper, allspice, turmeric, cloves, Ceylon cinnamon and coriander."  In that order.

Ticked off

The thing that I sort of already knew but learned again just now is that the "bad" ticks, the deer ticks that can carry Lyme disease, are really quite tiny, which means that the slightly larger one I just discovered on my ankle is a wood tick, and even if I didn't get all of it out (I'm pretty sure I did but it's hard to tell), it's probably just icky and not medically dangerous.