how i'm skinned

Clockwork Orange w/Vista Substyle by vStyler

Stardock is pleased to officially announce that the beta of WindowBlinds 6 is now available for users of Object Desktop. WindowBlinds 6 represents a whole new generation of Windows skinning with advanced new features such as animation overlays, blur glass effects on both Windows Vista and Windows XP, user created sub-styles, full font control, explorer backgrounds, complete Windows Vista skinning, faster performance, and much more!

[ Stardock News: WindowBlinds 6 Beta Released ]

I haven't used WindowBlinds since I upgraded to Vista, WB5.5 just didn't work well enough for me and I actually was a bit down on the WindowBlinds due to it's poor handling of Vista. Well Stardock, please forgive me, 'cause you guys are back!

WindowBlinds 6 beta works tremendously better than WB5.5 did on my Vista Laptop, and I'm back to messing with the general look and feel of my OS on a regular basis. I'm hoping that soon it will be clear which skins have made sure that they work well on Vista, with all the pretty trimmings I've been used to on Aero, but for now I'm just happy to be able to "paint the walls" whenever I want.

Update: I should mention that it wouldn't install happy-happy at first, and I had to follow the guidelines here and then reboot twice before it would work. But that's what "beta" means, right?

Is Barak Obama "black enough"?

She disputed the notion that Obama's upbringing in Hawaii was much different than hers in Chicago's predominantly black South Side.

"We are not that far apart," she told the Sun-Times. "He was raised in his grandmother's home, and his grandmother is from Kansas, eating tuna with pickles in it. The same conversations that we had around my kitchen table, we have at her house on Christmas. We are not that far apart. It's just that it feels like people have benefitted from us feeling and believing that we are far apart."

[ Forum Puts Obama's Heritage in Focus | The Trail | washingtonpost.com ]

Ah, so you can tell if the childhood tuna has pickles in it. But doesn't everyone put pickels in their tuna fish salad? Or am I "black enough"?

I saw an advert for this last night:

The Pancake Puffs™ pan is made from durable, non-stick cast iron which evenly distributes heat over each of the 7 Pancake Puffs™ wells for golden-perfect puffs every time. Simply pour your favorite batter into the wells of the pan, add your filling, turn and enjoy! Each Pancake Puffs™ pan comes complete with the Quick & Easy Recipe Book to get you started making some of the most delicious pancake puff treats you have ever tasted.

[ Pancake Puff ]

But you can't fool me, that's a Takoyaki pan! I assume that marketing an Octopus Dumpling pan to a western market requires a bit of a change in product claims. I can't find one reference to "Octopus Pancake Puffs" on the Pancake Puff website. In the commercial, and I'm assuming the video on the site, they flip the little cakes exactly how the Japanese flip their Takoyaki at a Takoyaki joint, so I'm sure they know exactly what their selling here.

Tyler Florence is a genius. Witness his Ultimate Steak Sandwich:

Gruyère bechamel:

• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 cups grated Gruyère
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish

Arugula mayonnaise:

• 1 bunch baby arugula
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise

Steak sandwich:

• 12 soft hoagie rolls
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 pound rib-eye, finely sliced
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

[ The Ultimate Steak Sandwich Recipe: Recipes: Food Network ]

And yet no where to be seen on the Applebee's new menu. Personally I've never been a fan of Applebee's, and even less so with the new acquisition, but the Tyler Florence thing did peak my interest, unfortunately what Applebee's has allowed him to style for them leaves much to be desired. If you were smart, Applebee's, you'd get him to give you some of his "Tyler's Ultimate" recipes for your menu.

And welcome to solid foods.

First Meal - Rice Cereal

Second Meal - Peaches!

Windows is certainly not the platform for doing anything with video. The second video needed some cropping, so I converted the video to something I could edit, and cropped it, but in the process it sped up the video, haven't a clue why. I'm sure there is some program I could buy that would make it all easier, but that seems stupid. Score one for Steve Jobs...

Oh, wait that's October 9th, today is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day!

Ice cream sandwiches are handheld desserts consisting of a slice of ice cream (usually vanilla), with a small layer of a soft cake-like pastry (usually chocolate) on the top and bottom.

[ Ice cream sandwich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]

And it looks like this:

Or this:

But not this:

'cause that's just weird... (Sorry Sweetie) Unless that roll is like Hawaiian bread...

...but I didn't know about Ben Franklin:

Ben Franklin, the founding father of many important institutions in Philadelphia, a key diplomat and a framer of the US Constitution, wrote in his Autobiography concerning a non-denominational place of public preaching he helped found "so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service."

[ History News Network ]

Interesting and well stated article, it would seem that much thought was put into freely accepting Muslims in the fabric of America even way back at the beginning.

Newsweek and the Washington Post have a little website thing called "On Faith" where they hope to provide some insight into the worlds religions, in an attempt to help us all better understand each other. This week has been all about clearing up some confusion when it comes to Islam and how the west might be confused about some aspects of it:

"On Faith" and Georgetown University asked dozens of the world's leading scholars to discuss Islam's view of violence, human rights and other religions in "Muslims Speak Out." The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life provided analysis of public opinion surveys.

[ On Faith: Muslims Speak Out ]

The good part is the commentary by Islamic scholars from around the globe. I find most of the experts to be on the mark with my understanding, and the understanding of any of my fellow Muslims that I've ever discussed these things with. If there are a good number of people who read this site, and take these opinions to heart, perhaps we can begin to mend the vast rift of misunderstanding between the communities of the world. However...

The bad part is the threaded discussions that allow any and all make comments, this clearly includes vile, evil, bigoted, hate mongers. It's rather hard for me to read the comment threads without getting quite upset. There appears to be a few people, so filled with hate, that they have nothing better to do than try and spread it through the comments. This was an honest set of questions answered by prominent scholars in an honest way only to have a torrent of hate tossed there way. There are a few who try and dispel this wave of hate, and who praise the scholars for their time and honesty, but I can only hope that those invited to share don't come back to read the comments for it truly shows the worst of us all.

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam originated in the Middle East. As F.E. Peters shows in "The Children of Abraham," the commonalities can be striking. Muslims worship the God of Abraham, as do Christians and Jews. Islam was seen as a continuation of the Abrahamic faith tradition, not a totally new religion. Muslims recognize the biblical prophets and believe in the holiness of God's revelations to Moses (in the Torah) and Jesus (in the Gospels). Indeed, Musa (Moses), Issa (Jesus) and Mariam (Mary) are common Muslim names.

Muslims believe in Islam's five pillars, which are straightforward and simple. To become a Muslim, one need only offer the faith's basic credo, "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the prophet of God." This statement reflects the two main fundamentals of Islamic faith: belief in the one true God, which carries with it a refusal to worship anything else (not money, not career, not ego), and the crucial importance of Muhammad, God's messenger.

«snip»

The three next pillars of Islam are prayer, which is to be performed five times daily; giving alms, in the form of an annual wealth tax that helps support the poor; and fasting during daylight in the holy month of Ramadan. The fifth pillar requires that Muslims perform the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca at least once.

We tend to equate Islam with the Arab world, but the largest Muslim communities are found in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Nigeria. Only about one in five of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are Arabs. Islam is the second-largest religion in Europe and the third-largest in the United States.

[ Want to Understand Islam? Start Here. - washingtonpost.com ]

Greetings from Amazon.com. 

We thought you would like to know that we are preparing your items for shipment. 

«snip»

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Qty      Item                              Price  Shipping  Subtotal
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Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC) :
   1     Harry Potter and the Death...   $39.00      1   $39.00

Not as excited as Kooshmoose, since I ordered super-saver shipping and Yaty gets first crack, but soon I too will know if Snape is Friend or Foe...

[ The Simpsons Movie ]

Props to Alykat

Not just for steaming crabs:

Vinegar is a liquid produced from the fermentation of ethanol in a process that yields its key ingredient, acetic acid. Ninety percent of American Households buy vinegar. The 4 major uses are for salads, as cooking ingredients, pickling and home canning.

[ 62 Little Known Uses Of Vinegar | because you value your body ]

I've been cleaning the house with vinegar for a while now. Ants seem to hate it, it cleans almost as good as those chemical cleaners, but you know it's got to be better for the environment. I add a bit of flavored oil to mask the vinegar smell a bit, since the wife doesn't much like how vinegar smells. Now I've got a few dozen more things to try my vinegar on.

Beyond Good & Evil GameCube Ubisoft Teen A

I might as well make it a threesome and mention an old favorite. If you haven't played BG&E and enjoyed anything even remotely Zelda like, you may agree with me that this could possibly be the best game ever. Engaging story with twists and turns, unique system of providing you the money you need selling photos of fauna to a museum allowing you to earn the money you need without random violence and forcing you to keep your eye out for new critters while you expose the truth. Certainly the best action journalist game I've ever played, and certainly in dire need of a sequel. Until Ubi gets around to providing us with that, you should make sure you play the original. Need I say it again? If you haven't played this one, then get to it. Available for GameCube, PS2, XBox, and PC!

Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer Sony PS2 South Peak Interactive Everyone B

I can't remember where I read about this game, but I'm glad I did. It's no secret that I like the platformers and adventure games, and Brave is a nice example of a decent 3D platformer on the PS2 platform. The characters and story are all inspired by First Nation culture, though I wouldn't expect it's a good way to learn about their culture. The "learning" stage seems almost stupid, as they give you 1/2 a dozen items in real quick succession, and I wonder why they didn't just start you with the items and build into the story reasons why you'd need to use the skills, and thus learn about them, but shortly after that you are into the story and off becoming the warrior that you are destined to be. I'm not sure if South Peak made the money they wanted to on this, but I'm sure you can find a copy cheap. GameFly "keep it" price is about $15 right now, and I don't expect the EB Games/Game Spot price to be much more. Apparently it's budget priced at $24.99 retail, and probably well worth it.

Resident Evil 4 Nintendo Wii Capcom USA Mature B

What a pleasant surprise. I tried to play Resident Evil 4 on the Game cube, but somehow I never got too far. It's a tough game to play in a family house, since I can't play it around the kids, but it was pleasant. Capcom released it for the Wii with what appears to only be a retooling of the controls. I don't think it looks any different than the Game Cube version, or if it does it doesn't stand out as such, however the new controls make all the difference. The game, as pleasant as it was before, now shines on the Wii. I didn't use the knife much in the GameCube version because it is a bit of a pain, now you can use it all of the time and save your precious ammo for when you need it. Will I end up finishing the game on the Wii? I'm not sure there are still the limited hours that I can play it, and most of those are in the evening where I don't much feel like playing a creepy game, but if you never finished this on an older platform, or never got it in the first place, GameFly it and see if you don't just love this game as well.