I made my first Wikipedia contribution yesterday. I changed a sentence in the entry for the Bahá’í Faith from
Some consider the Bahá’í Faith as the youngest of the world’s independent religions.
to
Some consider the Bahá’í Faith to be the youngest of the world’s independent religions.
Today my edit is still there! Exciting! I am contributing to human knowledge, or at least the pleasantness of its grammar.
We have a venue, a date, a core group of interested people, and a hankering. So the Auckland Comics Workshops will begin on Saturday 5 February 2005.
I’ll be very interested to see how they go, because the Christchurch workshops on which they’re modelled seem very much to revolve around a particular group of friends, but in Auckland we’re bringing together a bunch of people who mostly haven’t had any experience of the Christchurch model. I’m trying not to make too many assumptions from my Christchurch experience, but on the other hand I’d like to carry across some of the atmosphere of friendly collaboration. Basically, I want to bring the love. And the iced animals biscuits. But really, the iced animal biscuits are part of the love.
To the block castle. So obvious when you think about it.
Last week while looking at the IT Maniacs website, I noticed a small advertisement looking for someone to answer their phones for a day while the regular staff all went away for a day’s planning conference. And since I was on holiday, and I wanted to go and meet them anyway, I put my hand up. They didn’t notice, so I used the telephone instead.
Thus on Wednesday, I spent the day in any otherwise empty office on Ponsonby Road, surfing the web, reading about networks, and occasionally fielding phone calls. It was very pleasant and relaxing, and I recommend it as a meditative technique you can get paid for.
In response to many requests for lolly cake pictures, recipes, folklore and fanfic, I hereby present the inaugural incarnation of A Natural History of Lolly Cake.
At the moment it’s fairly simple, but I hope to develop it over time until it is the definitive lolly cake portal site. Any suggestions would be gratefully accepted.
After Budget failed to return a call as promised for the fourth time in a row, I began to get irritated. None of their customer service people are actually unpleasant, they just don’t seem to be highly competent at things like getting addresses right, or remembering to return calls as promised, or not negligently including unexplained $1200 items on your bill. This morning I began to mention the possibility of legal action, whereupon signs of movement were noted. I’m not sure whether there was a direct connection, but I managed to speak to the Australasian Manager to whom my complaint had been escalated without anyone bothering to tell me. She offered to reduce my bill by a thousand dollars, attaining a level that was more reasonable for a three-day van rental.
Later, someone called me back because they had lost my credit card details. I shall withhold belief in this putative refund until I actually see it in my Visa bill.
On Sunday I had a pleasant seaside time with Ruth and Martin and Lily and Lisa and Angelo and Jessica. We were not the only people in the greater Auckland region to have this idea, but everybody seemed to have a very fine time.
Ingredients
Gather the ingredients on the kitchen bench.
Place hand over heart, and sing God Defend New Zealand. This is an essential step, and people can tell if you haven’t done it when they taste the lolly cake.
Scronch up the biscuits real good. I like to use a big bowl and one of those potato smooshing tools. Some people have reported good results with putting the biscuits in a plastic bag and smacking it into the bench, but I find the sharp bits of biscuit tend to rip open the bag, leading to unpleasantness and coughing. I like to leave a bit of texture in the biscuit matrix, with most of it dust but some remaining pieces up to about 5 millimetres long. You can also put some cinnamon in at this point, which is nice
Another ingredient
Now warm the butter and condensed milk in the microwave. It doesn’t matter if the butter melts a bit, the point is not to make too much work for yourself mixing it into the biscuits. One time I was eating some lolly cake that I bought from the school canteen and discovered that a large piece I thought was a yellow fruit puff was actually a great big lump of butter that had carelessly been left unmixed. It is better not to trust Bought Lolly Cake.
Chop up the fruit puffs. Not too small. I reckon cutting each one about in half is about right, but it probably wouldn’t matter if they went in whole. If you were in a hurry, and not really taking things seriously.
Put the fruit puffs in the bowl with the scronched biscuits. Pour in the butter and condensed milk. Stir with a wooden spoon. Continue until well mixed.
Spread some coconut out on the bench, and put the mixture on top. Roll it around until it has coconut all over the outside, then form it into a log. Cubes work too.
Place on a tray in the fridge to congeal. This takes a few hours. After that, it’s a good idea to cover the lolly cake with glad wrap to prevent it drying out too much.
Finally, from the internet, you will certainly want to see the special star wars lolly cake page. It’s a sight to behold, oh my yes.
On Saturday I attended a family gathering, which revolved largely around the siblings of my maternal grandmother. She herself died a few years ago, but many of her sisters were present and all of them were nurses, as were my grandmother and her identical twin sister. My aunty, who happened to be in Auckland, is also a nurse. And so is one of my second cousins. So we talked about nursing, and a jolly good time was had by all.
Another second cousin, Catherine, presented me with some lolly cake, having looked for the recipe on the web and found my site. Apparently I rate very highly in Google lolly cake searches, although the recipe is unfortunately not available on my site. I shall remedy that forthwith.
I design and build websites as Metamorphic Web Design, at metamorphic.co.nz.
A monthly gathering for people who like to talk. Participants bring food and drink and something to talk about — a crazy theory, a half-formed insight, a game, a reading — anything that can be discussed.
