Not quite Willie Wonka...

I may have gone just a teensy bit overboard with my Christmas gifts this year. It’s my tradition to make candy of various sorts; in recent years that’s been limited to fudge, toffee and a couple of types of spiced pecans. This year…

Since I started last Saturday, here’s what I’ve produced:

Toffee—five batches

Fudge—one batch

Garam Masala pecans—three batches

Spiced pecans—four batches

Caramelized chocolate almonds—one batch

Peppermint bark—one batch

Coconut bark—one batch

Truffles—one batch

I’m not exactly sure what happened; like Topsy, it just…growed.

Roughly I’ve used about nine pounds of chocolate, six pounds of sugar, seven pounds of pecans, one pound of walnuts and varying amounts of ancillary stuff. I was already sick of chocolate after the second batch of toffee—I don’t know how I do it, but I get that stuff on every surface of my kitchen and my person and it just becomes revolting.

For the past week, I swear I've become an Oompa-Loompa Lady Macbeth, continually washing chocolate off my hands.

I’m not showing you any photos of my kitchen. I’m never going to win housekeeper of the year awards, but this is seriously beyond the beyond. I actually decided to stop making candy today because I cannot bear the floor any more. (And there’s not much point in mopping while you’re still in production, because the instant you start on the next recipe, you’re crunching sugar and dribbling chocolate over everything.) I've run the dishwasher every single day and lost count of the number of times I've washed the stove top. 

Why? Two words: burnt sugar.

While making those almonds I realized that I was using four bowls and three pans. It was like putting on Thanksgiving dinner, for heaven’s sake.

So, I collected it all and looked at it…and realized I’m made all this stuff for nine people. I, uh, I kind of overproduced. Well, it's not the wildest I've ever got; that would be the year I made 17 kinds of candy for 21 people. That was either the acme or the nadir. Either way, I don't like to think about it.

(Here’s the irony: I started making candy because I calculated that Christmas cookies were too labor intensive. Ha, ha, ha.)

It'll take me a couple of days to package all this stuff up in the little cellophane bags, and then I can bring out the vac and the mop.

Well—I suppose my friends will appreciate it. I know I’ll appreciate having my kitchen back.

And now a word from...

Well, alrighty, then—let’s close out the week with a product advert that reminds me why—occasionally—we should actually pay attention to television commercials:

Yes.

Turning to the Dark Side

Yes. Through the generosity of a friend, I am finally in possession of an Apple product. Viz.: a 64Gb iPad Air 2. I decided that I needed to get my head around iOS so I don’t appear to be so last-century when I speak with with-it thought-leader Ninja-rockstar innovators here in the Valley They Call Silicon.

And—I was getting a bit uneasy that my friend Amy would refuse to speak to me if I didn’t cough up some Apple app-ness. :You might not think it to look at her, but you do not want to get on the wrong side of Amy’s expectations of tech cred.

I actually went looking into iPads in August, and they were fine and all. But when I asked about using Swype (I wouldn’t be able to do anything on a virtual keyboard without Swype capabilities), the Apple-boy told me that iOS 8 would have it, so I told my generous friend that I’d wait for that. And he replied that if I wanted to wait a little longer, the Air 2s would be out in October…

When I saw that those would have anti-glare screens and that totally cool fingerprint access, well…

Yes, I can be as shallow as the next guy.

Naturally, you get this beautifully designed package, containing only the tablet, a power cord and outlet connector. Nothing that in any way might resemble any sort of user manual, no—either you’re meant to pick this stuff up in the air or…I suppose there are YouTube videos.

(And, BTW, Apple—a unique connector for this device, which means I have to use this one specific cable and therefore have to take this one specific cable with me when I travel. To add to all the other connectors I need for MP3 player, cameras, laptop, etc. Thanks so much for non-interoperability; such a great design concept.)

And I got it set up (pretty much), although so far I’ve found their interface pushy and heavily geared towards upselling me on add-ons.

Here’s what I’ve done in the slightly more than 24 hours that I’ve had it:

Been forced to get an Apple ID. (After which they sent me an email congratulating me.)

Been forced to sign up for iCloud. (Email.)

Been forced to sign up for iTunes. (Email.)

Been unable to download Firefox. (Doesn’t support iOS.)

Downloaded Kindle app. (Email.)

Downloaded Twitter app. (Email.)

Downloaded Facebook app. (Email.)

They also heavy-handedly tried to get me to give them all sorts of PII, and credit card information, which activities ought to have a “get stuffed” option.

Okay, I'll confess that the fingerprint unlocking mechanism is really cool; especially the process you go through to set it up. I may have to go through it for all ten fingers, just to watch it populate all the ridges and whorls. Yes, I am easily amused.

I’m going to have to break down and go to one or more of their “how to use our incredibly cool and intuitive devices if you’re not cool and intuitive enough to pick it up through the air” classes.

I’m sure that at some point the device’s capabilities will outweigh the corporation’s capacity for pissing me off.

Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying the exploration process, and I'm massively grateful I have the opportunity to join the cool-kids table, even if it's kind of under false pretenses.

Need for speed

There’s been a bit of a hoo-ha about the Oxford Dictionaries naming “vape” as its word of the year for 2014.

It evidently refers to…something to do with e-cigarettes: the device itself and the vapor it causes. (Color me clueless, because I’ve not experienced this so far.)

I did find this “explanation” of the choice from Casper Grathwohl, president of the dictionaries division at OUP kind of cringeworthy: “I particularly love watching a word like ‘vape’ create linguistic knock-on effects, like hearing the word ‘tobacco’ now used to qualify ‘cigarette. But this year ‘vape’ also served as an insightful window onto how we define ourselves.”

Maybe onto how you define yourself, Casper. I don’t even know what you just said.

And anyhow, for me “vapes” will always refer to the moisture discharge that whooshes off the wings of an F-14 Tomcat as it’s breaking the sound barrier.

The little trendoid e-cig yappers got nothing against that.

Opening the season

Yes, indeed—spammers are warming up with the “undeliverable parcel” scam.

It’s a sure sign that we’re heading into the holidays.

Kind of like the old Salad-Shooter commercials.

Gratitude Monday: Something to revel in

Okay, today my gratitude is a little…well, I’m grateful and I’m not grateful.

You may recall the Eastern European adventures of my friend Dick and his wife—which included the surprise addition of a stay in a Dresden hospital and an aborted break-out plan from those of us who heard about it via clandestine messages tapped furtively and under the influence of pain meds on his iPod.

Really—there does need to be an opera about that.

In my post last June I mentioned that Dick performs in the Washington Revels every year, and he had to work his audition for this year’s Celtic-themed show around the Ostmark trip. But his “Eileen Aroon” did the trick, as witnessed by the Revels’ Facebook frisnic this week about him:

If you’re not able to access the page, here’s the opening graf:

“Dick's only Irish connection is marriage to a direct descendant of Daniel O'Connell (an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century who was known as The Liberator or The Emancipator). It isn’t really the Irish that attracted him to this show—it’s the Revels—Dick performs this year in his 17th show, with his first appearance being 1993. His role this year-- an antique Irish peasant—mirrors his first Christmas Revels appearance as an Irish antiquarian scholar. He has also been a kilted Scot, a Victorian toff, a medieval royal counselor, a sword-wielding Elizabethan yeoman, a French Canadian village elder, an Andalusian rabbi, and as a peasant in various times and climes.”

I’m so grateful that social media enabled me to see this story (and amazing photo) of my friend. What I’m ungrateful about is that I’m 2500 miles across the continent from this show and won’t be able to see him.

But if you’re anywhere in the DC area—if you can still even get tickets—go.