It turns out that the internet contains many treasures, and a few disasters: Goatse, two girls one cup, and the bacon cheese pizza burger.

I found the following horror while looking at some pixelicious Space Invader cookies. (I know I spend too much time online, but it is snowing outside and I’m allergic to things falling from the sky)

Here it is, two frozen pizzas and several pounds of undercooked hamburger. Maybe during next year’s Super Bowl party they’ll tuck a dozen chicken wings in there. And a pack of cigarettes.

To the best of my knowledge, this does not happen in Europe.

Yeah, I haven’t posted since December and this is all I got.

link

If you’ve harbored aspirations of fame and fortune, consider opening a chain of late night taco stands in Prague (start near the dance clubs off of Wenceslaus Square), and become a taco baron. Though if you fancy a future as the Taco Baron of Bohemia, you’ll face a few challenges.

For example, the grocers in Prague do not carry cilantro. No cilantro here nor there, no cilantro anywhere. I met a short bespectacled man from Guatemala this week; he has lived in Prague for three years. Upon shaking hand, the first thing I asked him: “So Humberto, where’s the cilantro?”

“No hay nada”

So unless you have a small plot of arable land or lots of free space left in your marijuana growing closet, you are shitoutofluck.

Next problem: Tortillas

Larger markets will have tortillas in the exotic food section, next to the asian noodles, Skippy peanut butter, and Orville Redenbacher. Unfortunately these rubbery mats are better suited from handling hot pans than actually putting in your mouth and chewing.

So I have taken matters into my own hands. Drastic times call for drastic measures, and I have begun fabricating my own tortillas here at home. It turns out to be incredibly simple to make tortillas and after a bit of practice, they can be more fluffy and delicious than you even dreamed. Dream small, my friend.

Tortillas are basically flour, water, and fat. So you likely have everything you need to make them in your cupboard already. You will also need a rolling pin, which also comes in handy for making pies or chasing cartoon mice out of your kitchen.

Keep in mind that making tortillas (cooking) is not an exact science, play with the amounts until you figure out what works for you. The following ingredient makes about four (4) medium-sized (10″) tortillas.

1 cup of flour

1/8 cup of vegetable shortening (40 g) *
2/5 cup of warm water (more or less)

1/2 teaspoon of baking power
1/2 teaspoon of salt

* you can substitute any kind of fat
* butter, margarine, lard

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, cut in fat until pea-sized chunks, slowly mix in warm water. Do not add too much water, the dough should look pretty dry until you knead it together.

Knead the dough until in becomes smooth.

Separate dough into four balls, cover with plastic or a wet paper towel and let sit for about 30 minutes. The dough will become easier to roll out after it sits.

Lightly flour a surface for rolling. I use the kitchen counter. Use a rolling pin and roll out your tortillas until about 1/8″ thick.

Heat a dry skillet at medium-high heat until hot.

Cook each tortilla less than a minute on each side or until you get a puffy tortilla with a few brown spots in the shape of Jesus. Enjoy.

Some helpful notes:

Working with dough takes practice. If you have not made dough before you might want to watch some YouTube videos on how to make bread, pie crust or puff pastry to learn practices for manipulating dough.

Use a pastry or basting brush to brush off extra rolling flour before cooking.

If the tortilla is flat after cooking, try using more heat.

If tortilla sticks when rolling, you likely added too much water when make your dough.

The following video is of the host of This American Life, Ira Glass, talking about producing creative work and the period where the output does not measure up to the creator’s standards of excellence. I have been at this point for several years now, and have recently decided to combat this syndrome with high volume.

via Lifehacker

DIY instrument pioneer Dennis Havlena has published his plans for the “Hank Drum” (read Hang + Tank) that can be crafted from a propane tank and a few common power tools. Instructables.com has an illustrated tutorial on hank drum construction here.

Below is a short video of Dennis Havlena himself, demonstrating his creation. Dennis is no Manu Delago, but the hank drum has a warm and bright tone which can be heard in the video.

ImageWell is a very lightweight image application that allows you to drag and drog images to make adjustments and then drag and drop the edited image onto your desktop or into another application for use. For example I can drag an iPhoto image directly into ImageWell, add borders, resize for web, and then drag the finished image into my blog software for publication. Scaling the image and setting the file quality are a snap and ImageWell will even generate a random file name to shave seconds off your workflow.

You can save an image as a template to easily apply the same process to a batch of images. Most of my photos that I publish on this site with borders and shadows are done using this technique.

Here is a screen grab of the ImageWell interface that I have summarized using ImageWell.

And here is the Edit Screen.

ImageWell does not do everything and will not replace Pixelmator, VectorDesigner, or Photoshop, but it does a few things very well. For $20 it will quickly pay for itself in time saved.

[UPDATE] I recently checked the memory usage for ImageWell using the Activity Monitor, and this program is a beast for memory usage. Upon launch, the ImageWell consumes 129 MB of system memory, compared to 150 for Adobe Illustrator, and a paltry 22 MB for Vector Designer.

Link: ImageWell