Circular 180-degree rotational symmetry...

... is totally awesome. Wheeee!! And the crater-lake blue, ohhhh. Puurrrrrrr... I heart the rotational symmetry! Like a Julia set. Shiny.

All is fair in food and love... and improvisational recipes

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After more than ten years of dormancy, I have baked again. Cake for a surprise birthday celebration... like more than two months early... LDR, sigh!

I have significantly revised this recipe... this is what I actually used:
(1) 1 pack TJ's Vanilla Cake Mix
(2) 8 (~1" by ~1"by ~0.2") squares of 70% cocoa dark chocolate
(3) About 200ml of assorted nuts
(4) 3 large eggs
(5) ~1 cup (organic?) vanilla soy milk

I crushed the chocolates and nuts (butter substitute) and mixed everything... one ingredient at a time at andante pouring rate. The cake batter felt starchy and thick (like really thick puke, I thought). I added another egg because the cake mix was more than I expected. :-P

Took about 45 minutes at 350 degrees F and 10 more minutes at 250 degrees F. It has the consistency between a cake and a cookie. I think it was the extra egg... maybe I'll call it a cakie. :-P Actually, it's most like a giant muffin. Giant muffin!

No fruits went in the oven because I like to preserve their vitamins. I added them on after the cakie's been completely baked. In lovely geometric patterns. With subtle 90-degree rotational quasi-symmetry (quasi because my makeshift cake pan is not exactly a rectangle...)

Didn't come out too badly I think...

Electric keyboard music synthesizer... and random kindness from strangers

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Went a few stops on the train (extra stop on weekends, which I didn't realize...) to get my synth today. It was not an impulse purchase, but the act of actually going out and getting it had been... somewhat impulsive. I was stupid and got off one stop early, which I promptly realized after I got off the rather crowded (sardine/farmed salmon/or any farmed animal) train... Dodger's game, apparently.

I then proceeded to walk to the next station, which I gave up after about 20 minutes of walking approximately north, because I had no map and the roads were unfamiliar and too confusing. I did pass through a rather nice residential neighborhood just around that station... front gates, large (expensive) houses, expansive yards, sequoia trees... right outside the town limits though was a ghetto-like area, which I decided not to venture into and therefore turned back and waited for the next train.

When I got off (at the right stop this time), I found the main road pretty quickly. However, I had a fake memory that the street number started with a 3 and has four digits... so I walked in one direction and realized the numbers were decreasing... and turned and walked in the other direction... for ~15 minutes... before realizing that I must have remembered the wrong street number. So I turned back... and sure enough, my original path was in fact correct... as the music store was pretty close to the train stop.

The actual process of buying the synth was a lot faster than I expected... because I got the only model that was around my price range ~$300. There were many models that were 3 to 7 times that... seriously professional :-P.

I asked around the AC adapter and the foot pedal, and the store staff recommended the "survivor's kit" that included the adapter, foot pedal, cheap headphones, 2 CD-ROM guides, and 2-year warranty "for free"... the kit was originally about $40, but since I was getting that synth plus the stand (~$20), the store staff essentially gave me a "rebate" of sorts. And I mentioned that I'm a semi-local student, haha.

He asked another store staff to cart everything to the train station. (That was unexpected.) I asked them to tape all the boxes together before that :-P They were quite nice. I think I'm going back there again... if only because in my excitement I forgot to tip the guy for carting my synth...

Shortly before the train came, a random dude asked me if I needed help carrying *that big box* hahah... he looked like a late-undergrad or early-grad student. And yes, he was very familiar with the whole geek-kid-trying-to-relearn-piano deal. That help offer was also unexpected, but very welcomed since after moving it myself... I could definitely use some help... So he and I carried the box on the train and off the train. He had to get back on the train because he was going to a later stop than I was.

After getting off my stop, I carried it by myself for about five minutes and... met another person who offered to help me! Turned out she was also a student at the Farm, and was just going grocery shopping so "had plenty of time to spare" :-P She majored in a science during undergrad (that *other* school), and did some lab work for a few years, and then... decided to major in history/philosophy of science/technology for grad school. Fascinating huh. We had a great convo, and I think I might drop by her research group's office because for some reason she's not in the email system. I do know her full name though. Maybe she goes by a different name... oh well...

Hahaha, quite an adventure for this one today. And it's been a very long time since I was this excited... months? :-P wow that sounds sad, ooops.