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The first ever Chocolate & Garlic comment/subscribe/link contest has now officially closed. I appreciated each entry. Things are off to a good start.
To pick a winner, I assigned each unique commenter, subscriber, and/or linker (but two chances only) a number. Then I used Random.org’s random integer generator to select a winner. There were 27 entries in all. In the Pfamily household, the suspense was brief, yet intense. I was rooting for all of you! Thank goodness Random.org is quick.
***
Duncan has inherited Amelia’s love for the grand production. He informed us that we were all invited to “the Silly Show” and then began planning it out. Amelia even received a special invitation to the event–unfortunately, Duncan later had to sacrifice it. (Apparently, the number of pieces of construction paper made available for Silly Show decorations was too low).
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- Silly Show Decorations
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- Silly Show–Other Participants
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- My Handsome Silly Boy
Growing up too fast.
About six weeks ago, I had to put my laptop down. I put it to sleep the way you would a beloved dog. No, its hard drive hadn’t stopped beating, but I needed to put it out of its misery (and mine). I bought another puppy right away–I couldn’t handle the loneliness. Ultimately, I decided on an HP Pavilion dv5t Laptop which I purchased from Costco.com. It has a Core 2 Duo Intel processor, 4 GB RAM, and a 64 bit processor with a 250 GB hard drive. It came with a printer and was only $599 before taxes and shipping.
I’ve been using it for almost two weeks now. I’m thinking about returning it to Costco. Why?
Pumpkin Cheesecake bars are a good alternative to pumpkin cheesecake when you need a simpler recipe (these require no water bath and cool much faster) and have a larger crowd to feed. I’ve written this for an 8×8″ pan but it doubles well in a 9×13 pan. This recipe is based on the more traditional pumpkin cheesecake recipe in Baking Illustrated (by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated) with the shortcake crust from a cheesecake bar recipe that I found elsewhere. I also included Cook’s graham cracker crust recipe, modified to fit this pan size.
Pumpkin Cheesecake Bar
Less than a week left to enter my contest! This contest is open to everyone except Pmom and Pdad. So far the official entrants are:
1. Robin (comment)
2. Robin (subscription)
3. Julie P (comment)
4. Kacy (comment)
5. Rebecca (comment)
6. Christian F (comment)
7. zstitches (link)
8. Rachel (comment)
9. Jim F. (comment)
10. lis (comment)
11. dayna (comment)
12. liz [distinct from lis #10] (comment)
This means your chances of winning the $20 Amazon giftcard are really good! If you still wish to enter, it is possible to have up to two chances to win.
1. Make a comment on any post recent or older on this blog. The comment should not be about the contest and must be relevant to the post you are responding to. Multiple comments still earn you just one chance.
and/or
2. Subscribe to this blog in a feedreader and notify me that you have done so. E-mail me at ChocolateandGarlicatgeemail.com (do the @ and the gmail in the conventional way)
and/or
3. Link to me and notify me that you have done so.
I will use Random.org to choose the winner, January 12, 2009.
One of my intentions for this blog is to have lots of reviews. I suspect that this might not include a high proportion of movie reviews. Pdad loves movies; I am less interested. The other day I was looking at a several year period when I reviewed almost every movie I saw (not that many) for our family website. I noticed a pattern: I would review the movie and pan it saying, “Not very realistic, not believable, I didn’t like it much.” blah, blah, blah, and my brother would respond, “Really?! I loved this movie. We just bought it on DVD. Have you ever heard of suspension of disbelief?”
I like blogs. I like blogs a lot. But I have three children . . . and responsibilies. A husband . . . and responsibilities. A house . . . and responsibilities . . . or at least desires for how it should be kept up. But I still like blogs.
My problem: I have no time!
There is a solution. Well, if not a solution, then an amelioration. [Ameliorate: to make better or more tolerable.]
The feedreader.
Click to add C&G to a feedreader
The feedreader ameliorates my problem by allowing me to read more blogs in less time. It does this by pulling all my feeds into one place. A feed is the new content that a website (often a blog or a news site) makes available. On a blog, this is the new posts or the summary/teaser for those new posts (the owner of the blog chooses which). So, instead of using links, bookmarks, or favorites (or even worse, typing in the address) to go check Rarely Home Mom and then Everyday I Write the Book and then Robin’s Song and then Visual Anarchy, to see if any of them have new posts, I can check all of my favorite blogs at once.