Jody’s Neighborhood

;)

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So I got laid off of my architecture job and i'm at a loss to find a new one anytime soon as the whole architecture market has taken a huge dump along with the economy...
I'm kicking around the idea of making cakes on the side... but how.. my sister-in-law says there is a vacant space that used to be a cake shop across from the 33rd street bistro in east sac.. killer location.. but i have to decide if I want a major career change or to do a bunch of stuff on the house til I get a new job... I mean I love architecture.. i really really love it.. and i love to create cakes.. but I've done the professional baker/cake decorator thing and unless i'm hugely successful immediately (yeah right in this economy with two other outstanding cake shops in the area)... i'll be working 80-100 hours a week and never see my family or friends...
oh... and just in case you're wondering.. i was dubbed "cake sister" by my sister's boyfriend on the Chomple.com site.. and the name stuck.. it's a great name for a shop...

so what do I do??? I mean the little things you've seen on this site are different than what i've made later.. I love making strawberries & cream, amorula liquor, white-chocolate italian buttercream cakes.. and fresh german chocolate cakes, and carrot cake with pecans, and red velvet with cream cheese, and dark chocolate cake with orange bittersweet chocolate mousse filling and chocolate ganache...

I love to make cookies and brownies and bars of all sorts..

My grandmother's recipe for gingerbread cookies is amazingly delicious...

But as an unemployed person with an unemployed husband (since they laid us off together), it's not like I have capital to start-up... sigh..

guess i'll keep thinking about it...

Funniest song I've heard in a while...

02 F__ Hag

Lily Allen

I spend most of my blogging time over at chomple.com, my food blog. I average about 500 visitors a day. When I get bored, I go check out the sitemeter logs to see what kind of trends I can find.

Days after his inauguration, President Barack Obama signed into effect plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within the next year. What do you think should be done with its remaining detainees?
Sponsored by “Inside Guantanamo” on National Geographic Channel. Premieres Sunday at 9P et/pt.

Send them to the Hague to help the lawyers drawing up war crimes charges against GWB and Cheney, duh. Congratulations Republicans, you've once again managed to turn terrorists into victims. 

So as most of you have read, I bought a Kindle 2. I did this after I realized that I really love reading books but I hate books. I hate their feel, how they smell, everything. Yes, I know that makes me strange. Yes, I know most smart people love the feel of books. Yes, I know that using a Kindle to is to book lovers like going to a wine tasting and getting your booze in a sippy cup. Well I like it, so there!

I guess the challenge is to read 50 or 52 books this year. I'm starting almost three months behind, but I'll catch up. And yes, if you're wondering, this is the first book I've read in three years.

I was in the middle of three other books when I found this one. This book reminded me why I love reading so much.

Snuff

Chuck Palahniuk

From the guy that brought you Fight Club comes a story about a gangbang, told from the perspectives of the people at the event.

Even after I read the free sample chapter that Kindle provides, I was a little concerned. Most reviews of Palahniuk's books are sort of effusive and strange, sort of like reading reviews of a hot video game. About 80% of the reviewers have something to say along the lines of "OMG I WANA HAB YOUR BABIEZ CHUCK I READ THIS BOOK TO MY GUINEE PIGS IT WAS SUCH A LANDMARK WORK IN THE HIZTOREE OF LITERACY U ARE SUCH A VISSIONAREE OMGOMGOMG WAHOO I LUB U" while the other 20% just call him an overrated sensationalist hack. 

I'm not one to usually give a crap about what any reviewer has to say, ever. When I'm picking restaurants for Chomple, I only read reviews to see that more than a dozen people have eaten somewhere and lived to tell the tale. But the reviews for this book were troubling. Why did so many of Palahniuk's psycho fans not like the book? Was it too controversial? Not controversial enough? Did the average Palahniuk fan merely just watch too much internet porn on a daily basis, and the subtleties of this plot weren't enough to overcome their desensitization?

Well then. I'm happy to say the book is ricockulously fantastic.

One of the things that Jody hates the most about me is that I rarely laugh out loud. She says this is because I'm not very emotional or expressive. The true reason is that I don't find very many things that funny. Things that make most people laugh I often find juvenile and not witty enough to deserve an audible laugh. The world just isn't that funny.

This book made me guffaw like a madman every 10 pages or so. Both Jody and the cat had to repeatedly come figure out what the hell I was doing that was actually making me LOL. 

The plot is more than a car accident, it's a 50 car pileup in an iced-over Moscow road tunnel filmed by a homeless drunk using a Disney Princess Movie Maker. This also explains the strange reviews. The differences between this book and some creepy dude's sex stories that he writes about Britney Spears are subtle. You know, things like character development. 

I definitely recommend this book as long as you're not a prude of the "Oh, dearest no!" variety. If you're uptight about porn, the subject matter might ruin your fun. And what a shame that would be.

My roundup from the Fancy Food Show is here.