Sincerely, MAB

Max Adler, the super adorable actor who plays the utterly confused Dave Karofsky in Glee, about two months ago after the airing of "the kiss" (you know which one I'm talking about!) posted this video for the It Gets Better project.

Learning how to cook eggs is often cited as one of the first things one learns at cooking school. How difficult could boiling some water and throwing an egg in be? Well, getting the perfect hard-boiled egg can be a bit of a challenge, especially if you want to avoid that icky grey-greening around the yolk (which is caused by the interaction of iron in the yolk and hydrogen sulfide in the white through heat, making ferrous sulfide). It may be perfectly safe to eat, but if we eat with our eyes, then the perfect hardboiled yolk is a bit of a holy grail in cookery. (I exagerrate a bit of drama's sake). So here's how to do it:

A friend, after seeing my list of things I'm excited about, pointed me in the direction of a Stardock (of Galactic Civilizations I/II fame) game coming out next week called Elemental: War of Magic. It looks like a really neat RTS cross 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate) game set in a high-fantasy setting. I have to admit, I'm getting pretty high-fantasied-out. But the game itself looks promising.

So, I picked up a few beautiful strip loins tonight and decided to fire up the grill (now that I finally remembered to refill the propane tanks...). While I absolutely love my steaks done rare to medium rare, brushed with olive oil, with salt and pepper, I decided I wanted to try something a little bit different tonight.

I'd seen a bunch of Food Network personalities make compound butter before, and quite frankly, it looked so simple. So, I decided to give it a shot.

It's hot outside. We get that. It's so uncomfortable that turning on the AC seems like a necessity. And in many cases, it is. If you don't have AC, you might find my 12 tips for staying cool without air conditioning to be really useful. But if you're one of the lucky ones with AC, here are a few tips that could save you some pennies. (Source: The IMO)

It was at 5:30 am this morning that I realized just how much I needed to sleep, and just how much I needed to stay cool. We've been enjoying a bit of a heat wave this summer in the National Capital Region, with temperatures reaching the mid thirties and with the humidity, feeling like the mid fourties. It's hot, it's muggy, and it's damned uncomfortable. Of course, sleeping when the inside of your house barely dips below 28 is challenging, but doable. Here are twelve tips, in no particular order, that I've gleaned either from personal experience, or from friends who left me a helpful comment on my facebook to my call for help earlier this morning.

1. Close all your windows and draw the blinds