The Lyorn's Den

Yesterday, the cats had their yearly appointment at the vet to get their shots and have a check-up.

Now, getting cats into boxes can be risky and bloody (cats fight tooth and claw), or it can be annoying and stressful (cats diving under furniture), or very time-consuming, or all of the above.

Yesterday evening, I got out of bed from a little cat-nap. Got dressed. Picked up a sleepy Tully from the covers and set him down in front of his box. He got in and I closed the door. Repeated this with Jerry. Both cats boxed in less than two minutes.

Only when I carried the boxes out in the cold, there was a soft "human, what are you doing?"-meow from Jerry.

At the vet, the scary good behaviour continued.

Back home, they carefully left their boxes and looked for a place to nap in peace.

A bit later, mad_freddy and K___ came over for testing lebkuchen. We had nine different kinds, each cut in three and all pieces labelled, notepads and pencils, and very seriously set about to rank them by taste and lebkuchen-ness, or, in my case, just make notes of their distinguishing characteristics. I did that mostly one-handed, as Tully had decided that the best place to nap was right next to me, getting his ears rubbed.

After that, we were as happy and full as expected after finishing the equivalent of a three-course-dinner in lebkuchen.

Other than that, I feel as could be expected, all things considered. I.e. tired and in pain, but generally OK.

Also, dinosaur feathers! (via pallia.net)

siderea on LJ on the Germanwings crash. Quote: "Suicide is when you kill yourself. The term for killing 149 other people is homicide."

Kevin Standlee on LJ on How voting "No award" in the Hugos work. Quote: "In the initial counting of ballots, we count No Award like any other candidate."

(I call it a casserole here, but it's halfway to a soufflé: it rises on beaten egg whites, but it does not use a milk/egg yolk custard as a base.)

I am getting lots of fresh eggs from free-range chickens at the moment (big, strong chickens that chase off the farm cats if the cats happen to be in their way), so I've been looking into recipes that need lots of eggs.

After a less-than-succesful cheesecake where the soft wheat semolina was too al dente, and the whole thing lost all volume overnight, I tried something which would not get the chance to collapse at cooling and would give the semolina sufficient time and heat. So: ( Curd Cheese Casserole )

This serves six. It's medium-sweet, even with the fruit, and considered a main dish in Germany. To balance it somewhat, you might serve a salad as a starter.

Variants: If you can't have wheat, the recipe should work just fine with polenta. If you want to do something savory with curd cheese, replace the seminola pudding with mashed potatoes and the sugar with grated cheese, and the fruit with veggies to taste.

BTW, while I was trying to translate cooking terms, I happened on this: Cooking for Engineers: Dark Chocolate Soufflé.

Title says it all. Life is a game, this is your strategy. I especially like the handling of the willpower stat -- so much that I want to implement it. Someone stop me before house rules again reach a critical mass and collapse into a singularity!

(via A Stitch in Time)

Your electric kettle might be sneaking into your WiFi (and not to be calling pots black on some forum...)
via Charles Stross, who has, of course, more ideas on the topic.

http://themetapicture.com/if-world-war-one-was-a-bar-fight/
(via Making Light)

Social Media, by Roz K. (via Making Light)

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What if we asked male authors the questions that are generally reserved for female ones? What if, instead of questions about books we focused on the character of the writer, his figure and his family?

Interview with Chuck Wendig & Stephen Blackmoore. (via trobadora)

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Also, Mad Freddy reminded me that the Twelfth Doctor was the Angel Islington on Neverwhere. Now I'm scared.

Charles Stross: Bit Rot.