Jen’s Thinkpad

DiGi Charat Cosplayers, originally uploaded by eswiftfire.

Cutest thing evar. Looking at Digi Charat stuff on flickr brought this up. Hilarious.

Mashing the WIN button., originally uploaded by Jen Chan.

For you gamers out there, there is the joke of "Mashing your win button" when we speak of some accomplishment. So I made one for a friend of mine, using the the Easy button from Staples. With some sand paper, a little spray paint and blessedly warm weather for December, I managed to complete this project in a few hours over a week. Mostly, it was letting the spray paint dry and applying enough coats.

The bonus is that when you mash it, the button goes "It's so easy!" We have some thoughts of trying to hack into the electronics so we can record our own voice clips, though I don't think that'll happen at this time. We're lazy that way.

So now I have a ton of spray paint left over, (which, sadly, cost more than the button itself...). Maybe I'll make a couple more for friends. And make a better WIN stencil. And use spray glue for a better seal on the stencil. And really take it apart to spray paint.

Obviously, I have a better idea how to make this for Win Button 2.0. I just have to get unlazy about it.

Check the project out step by step.

So yes, it's been eons since I've posted. I'm alive, but it's crazy busy. I'm moving, I'm launching, I'm eating. Not necessarily in that order. I hope you guys have had a nice holiday and that the new year brings you much warm fuzzies.

So, on to the food porn

Mushrooms at the Market
In Owen Sound, we took a walk at the market and the offerings were tasty....

Japanese French in Canada
La Bamboche, a Japanese bakery chain, has a store in Toronto of all places. To my delight, of course. Here we see a chestnut truffle, (background), and a matcha truffle. Matcha was better, but the cakes there were pretty good! More photos from La Bamboche.

Just Jules
Anyone remember La Tournayere on the Beaches? Well, when they left to return to France, I was very sad. So imagine my joy when I discovered at least one of them returned!! Jules Patisserie opened last year and they heavenly croissants are just south of Celestin. This was a cake that we did not get... ;;_;; More Jules photos.

Toiling in the kitchen with Jen
So I was house sitting for about three weeks and one of my freestyle cooking attempts was this vanilla duck with asian pear on cabbage. Turned out pretty decent!

Kaiseki to you!
Kaiseki is a formal mode of Japanese dining that doesn't actually feature a lot of sushi/sashimi. This is a shot of a dish from one of two places in Toronto that formally serves Kaiseki, Kaseki Sakura. Super fun meal with a great gaggle of friends.

Wii and PS3 impressions at my NOW Magazine blog. Which is semi secret ish for now, but feel free to share. It's just not public, per se.

Fried chili turnip cake. Finally found a place that does it right!


A nice find: Orange caramel creampuff. The orange peel embeded within the carmalized sugar was just so.. ohhhh! Crunchy but soft and squishy - making one tasty cream puff!

Yummy wine poached pears for dessert later on with some homemade ice cream.

Couldn't resist buying this Caramel Apple while walking a street festival. Covered in peanuts.

Swar, swar, how I love thee. Even the guys behind the counter grinned at my glee while ordering these! The crispiness of the buttery pastry, drenched in the delicious honey/sugar syrup... Each bite mingles on the tongue in a mini taste of heaven.

Figs, procuitto, camberzola, walnuts and honey. SO TASTY. Must replicate at home some time.

Smelled and tasted so good! I love heirloom tomatoes! I also love their colours and shapes. So great visually and taste-wise! Used in a Chunky Salsa Salad

Quite a bit in the last while, but there you are! And September isn't even over yet! O_o

What's your favorite song to sing karaoke-style?  If you don't have one, why not?

Hmn. Power ballads are good, I particularly like S Club 7's Never had a dream.

What is your browser's default home page set to?
Submitted by Kelev T. Cat.

Blank!

...for faster load times.

Recent gastronomic exploits, photodocumented for your viewing pleasure.

More on my Flickr food porn set.

Flash forward

A few years back a coworker had bought the same camera I had - the Canon S30 - after I had recommended it. He came to me a couple days ago - well, yesterday, in fact, looking to upgrade. I showed him my recently acquired SD550 and extolled its virtues. Since I had gotten it in hmn... November, I had taken many many photos. It was a big upgrade, 3 to 7MP, bigger view screen, yaddah, yaddah.

Then I went to dpreview.com to look and compare with what else what out there as we were talking, and lo and behold, I spy the SD700 IS. Now, usually Canon upgrades are minimal at best and I'm not overcome with the need to upgrade. After reading the review, I was sold. See, IS stands for Image Stabilization and if you take as many non-flash photos as I do, (food porn, au naturel, is best!), the IS feature is gold.

So I promptly sent off an email to said coworker to enquire if he would, oh, want to buy my SD550, to which he was happy to get. I then ran to craigslist and redflagdeals.com to find out who's selling and for how much and who had it and what they thought. I struck gold when I was able to get the SD700 for about as much as I was selling my old camera, (where I included the case and extra battery).

So after all is said and done, I'm quite pleased with how the financials worked out. I lost maybe $100 in the exchange, which for digital cameras, is nothing, especially after ten months and two models between.

Baggy-eyed wonder, MAKE UP!
So I went to Sephora for the foruth time this week. Also hit the Holt Renfrew makeup counter for the second time, with trip three to be done tomorrow. It's like I've suddenly decided that the bags  under my eyes must be masked or eradicated. It's a total mission, that with the sister, we have undertaken. Some success, but we'll see in the using of the stuff. It's fun to be ultra girly about it. I've got a Bobbi Brown corrector and a Lancome one. We hit the Giorgio Armani (who knew he had makeup!?) booth for a session tomorrow, right in time for a wedding function that evening!

So part of the excessive visitations to the mall was due to dress hunting. See, I've been working out for the last while and now I discover that my dresses don't fit like they used to. I'm not entirely sad, but it makes for a difficult time when you need to dress for an event. I found one. For $1200. Frightening that I actually considered it and technically, I bought it, but it's going right back, I say!

Yay for buying a new camera to make me realize that my money can be spent on better things. Like toys.