Handism is alive and well!

According to the back of a Kellogg's Frosted Flakes box --

"If you [snowboard] with your right forward, you're Regular. If you do it with your left foot forward, you're Goofy. Are you Regular, or Goofy?"

I think a boycott of kellogg's is in order, until they change their slogan to something like:

"If you lead with your left foot, you're super-cool. If you lead with your right foot, you're conformist."

Dangerous Middle Eastern Politicking

I don't know how many of you have been following this, but I have with a fair amount of interest as a little-known champion of spreading awareness of the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks. Basically for the same usual reasons -- they weren't turks, therefore they must be killed. Estimates range from the hundreds of thousands (low end) to well over 1.5 million (high end). Nobody really pays attention to this because the Nazis committed a much worse genocide only a couple decades later...which I think is appalling, really.

Anyway, the news is that Congress finally got around to passing a bill that basically protested this and said that Turkey should apologise.

And Turkey of course told us to basically go .... fill in the blank.

On the one hand, I approve. It's nice to make a protest even if it's like 90 years late. And it's irrational that Turkey should refuse; as I understand it their objection is more to the use of the term 'genocide' rather than denying it happened. Whatev. I guess maybe they're offended that we interfere in their internal affairs? It'd be like if germany passed a resolution condemning our treatment of native americans and demanding we apologise. I suspect many people would think that the germans should mind their own business.

But on the other hand, I can't help but feel this is a democratic trick to make the president look bad. And while I'm generally in favor of making the president look bad, I'm definitely not in favor of using things like this to do it. Turkey's our major ally over there, despite some friction occasionally, and it would be pretty not good for them to be really ticked at us. So the dems pass this bill, because who can NOT sign it? If the president refuses to preserve turkish friendship, then he looks like a supporter of genocide. And if he signs it then Turkey will get all up in arms. My prediction is that he'll refuse to sign it but come up with a sneaky escape hatch...he'll find some completely unrelated thing in the bill (there's always something) and claim that that's what he really objects to.

Le grumble.

bakery competition II

Scoped out the farmer's market again. No scones this time at the baker's corner, but an apple tart instead and then the same stuff they had last time -- doughnuts, flavored bread, some mini-pies, and a bunch of varieties of something I'm not sure of the name. Like your various "dessert breads" (banana bread...zucchini bread) kind of, or at least it was in slices like bread slices, though individually wrapped.

Viva industrial espionage :-)

Quizno's Fraud?

Attention fellow readers, this is a call for an investigation:

The next time you buy a sandwich at Quizno's, please "make it a combo" and save your receipt. Check if it adds to the correct amount ($1.99 for the medium drink and your choice of sides). I ask because it appears that one of our local quizno's does not, in fact coming to 2.29 with chips, or 2.49 with a cookie or side salad. This is, needless to say, false advertising and I am wondering if it's an endemic problem or just restricted to this one establishment.

bakery competition

So I was semi-accidentally dropped off by the bus on Thursday at the site of the Winooski Farmer's Market, alleged to be the future take-off point of my bakery. It was surprisingly smaller than I had expected, only comprising five or six booths.

Unfortunately one of them happened to be a bakery. So...rats to that. They were selling flavored breads, buttermilk donuts (50c apiece), apple danishes, blueberry-cream cheese danishes, and two kinds of scones (apple cinnamon and blueberry). Also some pie type things. The danishes and scones were both for 2$ apiece which was nice to see as that's kind of where I was leaning towards charging after my "research".

I bought a blueberry-cheese danish and I have to say, I was very pleased. Not because the danish was good, but because I felt I could totally out-bake them. It was very heavy and dense, not at all like the airy flakiness I typically associate with danishes. Though, as mum pointed out, there can be a wide variety within the danish field, so maybe that was deliberate and not the sign of an incompetent baker ;-). Still I felt good about competition. Besides they only had two kinds of scones and I would have way more. Blueberry, it's ok that we overlap b/c blueberry's pretty much a staple I think...if you can't make a blueberry scone then you probably don't deserve to open a bakery anyway! The apple cinnamon I'll leave to them.

So we have nitiated phase two, "scope out the competition" :-)

The Unbeliever Believer

Today's random thought is prompted by passing through the living room and seeing a discovery channel program on the Loch Ness Monster and how basically you'll see whatever you want to see; if you believe in the monster, you'll see it even if what you're really seeing is a block of wood. The brief part I saw showed a bunch of tourists on a bus and the tour guide at the front asks how many people believe in the Loch Ness Monster. About 7 people raised their hands (8 if you count me raising my hand in the living room but that is a separate issue).

And that got me thinking about tour guides in general -- I think there must be a standard policy about tour guides and what I'll lump as "supernatural things". Because I saw this clip and I thought, I'd like to ask (and I'll bet somebody probably did) whether the tour guide himself believed in the monster. And then it struck me that I didn't need to ask because I knew what the response would be.

Pause for a moment, think to yourself what you think the answer would be, and then tell me if it meshes with what I'm about to say.



Along the lines of,
"Well, I don't know whether I believe or not. I've seen/heard some strange thigns I can't explain, though [may at this point regale you with said story]. I try to keep an open mind."

I was trying to think because it seems really odd that when I think about it pretty much any time I've gone on a tour of something like that it seems like that's ALWAYS the answer, or something really similar to it anyway. I think it's a standard pat answer so you can play both sides of the believe/disbelieve fence and not subtly antagonise anyone in your tour group who may have the other view. If I went to scotland and my tour guide was all "there is no loch ness monster it's a load of crap", or to roswell and got "it was a weather balloon, people, no matter what a bunch of crazies will tell you" or whatnot, I'd be turned off of the guide personally. Because I'd feel like he'd just quashed me without reason (because you can't really prove these things one way or the other, IMO). And if I didn't believe in a roswell UFO crash I would be highly annoyed if some lunatic tour guide kept talking about a government conspiracy.

So this way they keep everyone on the tour group nice and mellow.

Which raises into question what the tour guide *actually* believes. I'd ask one, if they didn't already have a pat response for it.

Bakery Market Research

So I made a few batches of scones saturday night and took them to move-in at Redstone. Left them out for people to eat, with the request that they fill out a little 3-question survey I had left. Most did so, though a few did not. Mainly I was wondering about prices, what people would pay.

La, results:

Chocolate Chip Scones:
$2
$2.50
3 people didn't respond
2 scones left over
(5/7 eaten, 71%)

Blueberry Scones:
$2
$4.50
$1.75
$2
6 were left
(4/10 eaten, 40%)

Cream Scones:
$1.95-2.50
$5
$2
2 people didn't respond
2 scones were left
(5/7 eaten, 71%)

Now it's impossible to judge what effect word of mouth had because there were so many small, disparate groups of people moving in who wouldn't necessarily turn to the complete stranger moving in next door and say "the cream scone was really good you should try that". So eating percentages may be irrelevant.

On the other hand if you look just at the straight numbers it's about even across. *shrug*. I didn't much care for this blueberry recipe, despite it using both fresh blueberries AND buttermilk. I liked the streusel one I used a few weeks ago for Blueberganza much better.

So discounting the likely-over-exuberant enthusiasm of the two loons who said 4.50 and 5, looks like about 2$. So the next question is...how much would it cost me to make? I'll need to work that out...

And yes, I know it's a small sampling and therefore likely statistically insignificant. Shaddup ;-)

Oh and generally, people were very supportive of the idea of me opening a bakery. Of course the ones who were being informed were my friends anyway so...eh. Useful as moral support but I am not so foolish as to take that as realistic evidence of my chances.