Friday, October 30, 2009

The Daily Meme

Link to TDM The Daily Meme

This week’s questions.

1. Name one bad habit you have in the kitchen.
  • I leave a big MESS for Susan to clean up.

2. Do you have a tv in the kitchen?
  • NO! (I'd rather watch french fries warming in the microwave)

3. What’s one food you can’t stand cold?
  • Beer - it shouldn't be colder than 65 degrees F
    (I forget what food group it's in...)

4. What’s your favorite juice?
  • Cranberry - It rulz!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Books I'm Reading II - Millennium Trilogy



The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

& The Girl Who Played with Fire


The Millennium Trilogy is a series of three novels by Stieg Larsson



Stieg Larsson (1954-2004)



The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, were published posthumously in 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively. I’ve finished reading the first two novels and eagerly await the Kindle version of the third.

The title girl is Lisbeth Salander. She’s described in Wikipedia as “an asocial punk who has been victimized by authorities throughout her whole life.” But that description is superficial. She is much more complicated than that. In Dragon Tattoo she reveals her skills as world-class computer hacker and tireless detective with a photographic memory as she and journalist Mikael Blomkvist solve a 40 year old murder mystery. Lisbeth may be asocial but she has a strict moral compass that has few limits on retribution.

At the end of Dragon Tattoo, Mikael and Lisbeth have a falling out but you just know they will have to work it out somehow.

In Played with Fire, as Mikael investigates sex trafficking in Sweden, another murder throws Salander and Blomkvist together again.

Stieg Larsson web site

Millennium Trilogy on Wikipedia

Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander
in the Swedish movie Män som hatar kvinnor



Sunday, October 11, 2009

Food Crop Fertilizer Features (Gulp!) Human Urine - ABC News

Food Crop Fertilizer Features (Gulp!) Human Urine - ABC News

Shared via AddThis

Wonder what the Ash is for?

Food Crop Fertilizer Features (Gulp!) Human Urine

It's the ultimate in recycling. Take some wood ashes from the fireplace, add a little of your own urine and spread it around your tomato plants. You may get a blockbuster crop.

Scientists in Finland have found that wood ash and human urine perform just as well as more expensive mineral fertilizers, at least for some crops, such as tomato plants.

Scientists in Finland have found that wood ash and human urine perform just as well as more expensive mineral fertilizers, at least for some crops, while doing less damage to the environment. The combination is rich in nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. The researchers raised a healthy crop of tomatoes in a carefully controlled series of laboratory experiments.


Other research has shown that human urine is an effective substitute for synthetic fertilizers, at least for cucumbers, corn, cabbage, wheat and tomatoes. Ash has also been shown to be useful in agriculture.


But the Fins say they are the first ones to combine urine with wood ash, and plants treated with that substitute performed four times as well as unfertilized plants and left the soil less acidic. The scientists insist it's safe and doesn't pose "any microbial or chemical risks."

Story on ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/food-crop-fertilizer-features-gulp-human-urine/story?id=8517396