Continuing Adventures in Tea

Sometime in May, I started thinking that drinking tea at home would be so much easier if I had an electric tea kettle. At work we have hot water spigots both on the coffee machine and the water cooler, so making a hot drink is quick and easy whenever you’d like. But at home I find that if I have to wait five to ten minutes just for the water to heat up, let alone the added time for the tea to steep, I’m probably going to just grab a can of pop instead.

Because I’m at least trying to do a few small things that are healthier, I began investigating my options in electric kettles. It turns out that there are models out there where you can choose different heat settings, perfect for steeping different types of tea at the various temperatures they’re best at. I ended up choosing the Upton Tea Imports Variable Temperature Electric Kettle, which my parents agreed to order for my birthday. However, my mom only got around to ordering it a few days beforehand, and my birthday fell on a Saturday to boot, so I figured I wouldn’t be seeing it for a while. To my surprise, it had shown up in time after all, taking at most four days. I made a cup of Scarlet Cloud white tea to enjoy in the sunroom that morning, and it really did taste better steeped at a lower temperature.

I was so impressed by the shipping speed from Upton Tea Imports, that I decided to put in a small order that following Monday to see how their tea is. I ended up selecting Season’s Pick Earl Grey Crème Vanilla, Assam Zaloni Estate TGFOP, and a few handy clips that make using loose leaf filter bags so much easier. The first pleasant surprise was that all of this arrived in a mere two days for the same $4 standard shipping cost, even though the total order was only about $17. The second very pleasant surprise was just how much tea I received. I hadn’t considered at all how much tea 125 or 250 grams was going to be (if you’re supposed to learn conversions at some point in school, this is probably the greatest failing of my education). I’m used to buying by the ounce at Teavana, and figured that if the prices were comparable, $4.20 for 125 grams of the Assam would probably be about two ounces, and $5.40 for 250 grams of the Earl Grey would be about four ounces (though this one in particular would still be a really good price compared to Teavana). It turns out that 125 grams is nearly 4.5 ounces. This tea is seriously going to last me a while.

And I liked how they tasted so much and found the prices so agreeable that I put in another order on Thursday (I swear, this will be it for a while), and am hoping it will arrive today or tomorrow. It will contain Mélange de Chamonix, New England Harvest Blend, Summer Blend, Scottish Breakfast Blend, a strainer (I’m experimenting with making iced tea from some of my loose leaf teas with the Bodum Ceylon Ice Tea Jug, but having trouble with some tea bits creeping their way into the tea, which I’m not finding appetizing), and an Upton Team Imports mug. Because I need another mug, right?

Miscellany

Thanks to Dawn for mentioning the diet soda popsicles — I finally tried a couple, and they’re fabulous. Except no jokes on mine; maybe next time. I don’t usually go for popsicles of any type — I think it has more to do with having senstive teeth than anything, but thanks to sensitive-teeth toothpaste they don’t bother me as much — but I’m glad I sought these out. Not that it was difficult; I only had to look at Super Target.

Also at Super Target, my favorite everyday ice cream is back: Archer Farms Peanut Butter Fudge. I’m not sure why it was gone (my best guess is that it has been downsized, like I’ve been reading about lots of products lately), but it’s just as peanut buttery as ever, and I think the ice cream is actually being back to being more fudgey and less just chocolatey.

In other news, the 2008 Stampin’ Up Convention — 20th anniversary! — is a mere month away. I really need to figure out what I’m doing for swaps.

Blogging Does a Mind Good

Thanks to my RSS feeds, I ran across a story at Scientific American about a study that suggests that blogging might be therapeutic, even “self-medicating.”

Now, I don’t really have any serious medical issues I’m dealing with, such as cancer (those undergoing cancer treatment were the focus of the study), but it does seem to me like often just writing something down will help me deal with it. I don’t really blog — most of the time — about things I might want to complain about or stressful things, but sometimes venting those concerns in writing (such as by email or IM with a friend, or maybe writing/typing in a personal journal) does help me clear the air or at least clarify my thoughts about something.

The difference for a blog to a single conversation or journal entry, however, is that it can foster more widespread feedback on whatever it is you’re writing about. From the SciAm article:

Unlike a bedside journal, blogging offers the added benefit of receptive readers in similar situations, Morgan explains: “Individuals are connecting to one another and witnessing each other’s expressions—the basis for forming a community.”

What blogger doesn’t like to see a few comments to her post?

Mix CD

I’ve kinda been missing putting together mix CDs for the exchanges over at the Batcave, so when I was putting together a little Minnesota care package/birthday gift a couple of weeks ago for my friend Jessica who moved to New York State a while back, I thought it would be fun to include a mix CD with some of my current favorite music, focusing on things I enjoy listening to while driving. This mostly means that the songs are either upbeat or I enjoy singing along with them…or both.

• Philosophy – Ben Folds Five
• Love Song – Sara Bareilles
• Let Me Go – Sonya Kitchell
• Bubbly – Colbie Caillat
• I Want You – Rachel Yamagata
• Dirty Little Secrets – The All-American Rejects
• Shut Your Eyes – Snow Patrol
• Madly – Tristan Prettyman
• Suddenly I See – KT Tunstall
• Shy That Way – Tristan Prettyman & Jason Mraz
• Myriad Harbour – The New Pornographers
• Kate – Ben Folds Five
• I Turn My Camera On – Spoon
• We Used to Be Friends – The Daddy Warhols
• Down in Mississippi (Up To No Good) – Sugarland
• Beautiful – G. Love & Tristan Prettyman
• 9 Crimes – Damien Rice
• Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s
• Keep Breathing – Ingrid Michaelson
• Did You Get My Message? – Jason Mraz
• Heavenly Day – Patty Griffin

I’m kind of amused that Tristan Prettyman ended up on there three times; I didn’t realize it until I was listening to the playlist.

Video Games I Want

[Note: If you're a Batling who frequents the Batcave, a lot of this is going to seem like déjà vu.]

I think I’ve mentioned the various video gaming devices I own: Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and most recently a Nintendo Wii. (I also own a Nintendo Game Cube…though that’s mostly because I haven’t gotten around to figuring out how best to get rid of it yet.) Lately I’ve been on the lookout for upcoming games that sound decent, particularly for the DS since it’s what I tend to play the most.

Viva Piñata news: It’s coming out for Nintendo DS in the fall. Since I still haven’t figured out what the deal is with the PC version not working properly (probably my graphics and/or video card — I’m really not a hardware person — but it’s the only program I’ve had trouble with and I haven’t had time to investigate much), this might allow me to finally play the game, and a portable edition sounds great.

A couple weeks ago I had an opportunity to try out Rock Band. I have no idea why they tried to put me on drums first, but it was a good deal more difficult than it looked. They switched me to bass, which I started picking up fairly well before the song was over. The sad truth is that if I can figure out where to put all the equipment (a definite problem at the moment) I may end up getting the Wii version eventually (it’s due to be released June 22).

Also due out June 22 is the DS version of Guitar Hero. I’ve watched videos online of kids playing and I’m still not sure how that’s going to work, but I’m seriously intrigued.

One game that I want and will actually have soon is Mario Kart Wii. It and a few extra wheels are due to arrive Monday. I actually played this when I was at Best Buy recently — something I don’t think I’ve ever done, at least in part because the games are usually monopolized by kids — but now I’m looking forward to it even more.

Also due to arrive before the end of the month is the Wii Fit. I preordered that the minute the email from Amazon arrived letting me know it was available.

So, any games you’d like to recommend?

Series Challenge Season 2

I love the series challenge that is being hosted by Kathrin, because I can be really horrible about not keeping up with series. I start lots of new ones, but end up neglecting ones I’ve already started in the process. I didn’t participate in the first season (it’s entirely possible I just didn’t know about it early enough), but I have a few series that I’d like to reconnect with in the next few months so might as well hop on board.

I’m not going to go crazy and think I’m going to catch up with J.D. Robb’s In Death series or anything (at the moment I’ve read 13 of the 27 full-length novels), but instead will focus on a few series where I have just a few books remaining to catch up. I’m also not including those series where I only have one left to catch up, since I’m already trying to keep up with those. Here’s my list:

1. Madelyn Alt – Maggie O’Neill

• #2, A Charmed Death
• #3, Hex Marks the Spot

2. Monica Ferris – Betsy Devonshire

• #9, Embroidered Truths
• #10, Sins and Needles
• #11, Knitting Bones

3. Linda O. Johnston – Kendra Ballantyne

• #2, Nothing to Fear but Ferrets
• #3, Fine-Feathered Death
• #4, Meow is for Murder
• #5, Fright of the Iguana

4. Victoria Laurie – Abby Cooper

• #4, Killer Insight
• #5, Crime Seen

5. Emilie Richards – Aggie Sloan-Wilcox

• #2, Let There Be Suspects
• #3, Beware False Profits

6. Ayelet Waldman – Juliet Applebaum

• #6, The Cradle Robbers
• #7, Bye-Bye, Black Sheep

I hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew! Two to three books a month doesn’t seem unreasonable and still leaves me time to read other books, so I might actually be able to finish this challenge unless something unexpected happens.

Get Thee to an RSS Reader

A few weeks ago my friend/former coworker Linda wrote about Google Reader on her new blog. I had certainly heard of Google Reader before, but had no idea why I’d want to use it until I read this post. It suddenly clicked that it was solution to my problem of not being able to keep up with various friends’ blogs, or at least the problem of remembering to visit them on a regular basis. What could be better than those new posts coming directly to me instead?

I wasn’t really sure how it would all work, but within a few days I decided to give it a try. It was easy and marvelous. I put pretty much my entire blogroll in there, and while it was nice to catch up on recent posts I had missed, it is even better now that they just arrive on their own, no effort on my part at all except to read and enjoy. And if I want to post a comment or there’s content I want to view that doesn’t show up in the reader, I just click on the link for the post and proceed as usual.

It wasn’t long before I realized that I could get all sorts of other things fed to me automatically: all my other favorite blogs, news, baseball blogs and news, my favorite content from EW.com, Dilbert…I just can’t believe how much stuff I want to read is available without me having to go look for it more than once to grab the feed’s URL. It’s sort of like TiVo for the Internet — everything just shows up and I read it when I want to. One other really nice thing is that I’m actually able to unsubscribe from a bunch of things I have been receiving by email and never get around to reading.

One test of the reader was when I went to Las Vegas a couple weeks ago. Vegas was a general test for my iPhone, to see if I really could get by on a short trip without dragging my laptop along and still keep up with important email, fantasy baseball rosters, and the like. But would I enjoy the mobile Google Reader as much as I had been in a browser? Yes and no. All the content was there, and it’s optimized for iPhone a bit so it was easy to read and navigate, but it lacked the organization I had set up in the standard reader and was a little more work than the regular version.

I had intended to try out other web-based readers to see which I liked best, and finally got around to doing so after realizing that one thing I didn’t like about Google Reader was how limited the area for my list of subscriptions was; even after organizing them into just a few tags I was constantly scrolling around this small area. Earlier this week I decided to check out Bloglines, and I fell in love all over again. There is more room for my list of subscriptions (which has grown quite a bit this week as I find more and more sites that have RSS feeds); it has a Clippings area that for some reason I like better than starring them in Google Reader; and the iPhone version, after tweaking my preferences a bit, is everything I could ask for. Plus, for some reason I’ve never been particularly fond of the Google “look,” and Bloglines is just more appealing to me aesthetically.

So now I’m trying out lots of different feeds, trimming them out if they don’t work for me, hopefully ending up with lots of stuff I’ve already been enjoying the hard way, plus new things I otherwise wouldn’t seek out or have time for. If you haven’t already, give an RSS reader a try. If you like it half as much as I do it’ll be worth it.

Bacteriophages

This morning I was listening to the April 4 episode of NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Science Friday (as a podcast on my iPod of course), where one topic discussed was “Using ‘Phage’ Viruses to Help Fight Infection.”

Most of us are probably at least somewhat familiar with the issues of “superbugs,” those bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. I’ve become a bit more interested in the issues concerning these bacteria since my dad had his left leg amputated just above the knee back in June 2005, though in his case it was a combination of diabetes, which he didn’t know he had, and delay in treatment that made it as severe as it was. However, we found out when he broke his hip this past December that he’s now considered a MRSA carrier (an interesting development, since we were under the impression that they thought his infection was caused by a strep bacteria, not a staph one), requiring a private room both at the hospital and transitional care. And requiring, one would think though no one has ever told us so, a bit more care for those of us who have close contact with him if we have cuts or scratches or things of that nature.

I sort of remember learning about bacteriophages in Biology classes, but had completely forgotten about them until listening to this podcast this morning. They’ve been with us all along, but bacteriophages were officially discovered and named in 1917 by Félix d’Hérelle, and work began shortly after to use these to fight infection. They were largely thrown over, however, when antibiotics began to be developed. According to one of those interviewed on the podcast, there were problems figuring out how to utilize bacteriophages properly back in the early days. But work did continue in some places, such as Georgia (the country). Phage therapy is being looked at again in the West to see if it can help with antibiotic-resistant bacterias and in other applications.

The thing that fascinated me is the idea of going back to something that’s already hanging out in the environment and using it to do what it does naturally. I’ll definitely be doing a little more reading about this, probably starting with the book written by one of interviewees I heard this morning, Viruses vs. Superbugs: A Solution to the Antibiotics Crisis? by Thomas Häusler.

If this topic interests you at all, I highly recommend giving the interview a listen. It’s nearly a half-hour long, but it’s a half-hour that I found well worth it.

Sudoku Obsession

I don’t even really remember how it happened. Was it a puzzle in the newspaper? Did someone tell me about it? Did I see something about it on TV? I have no idea, but by sometime in 2005 I was working on my obsession with sudoku.

I’ve always enjoyed logic problems, so this was really just a natural progression, I suppose. But the thing is, I work — or want to work — on sudoku puzzles pretty much every day. I think it might actually be one reason I do so little cross stitch these days; it’s relaxing to me in a very similar way. (One other reason is because I just got burned out on cross stitch, but I keep hoping I’ll feel like picking up the needle, fabric, and thread again one day soon.)

The trouble is, there have been several puzzles I just can’t solve. A friend gave me a 2006 page-a-day sudoku calendar for Christmas in 2005, and I still have about 20 puzzles I haven’t been able to finish. I have another I bought myself this year that has four difficulty levels that rotate each day. So far I’ve solved one of the highest difficulty puzzles. One, of about 25. It’s going to be a long year at this rate.

So when I saw The Sudoku Addict’s Workbook (Paul Stephens) with “gridlock-busting tips and techniques” at the bookstore today, I knew I had to buy it. Where has this book been all this time? Apparently waiting to be released last Tuesday. However, the same fellow has another book published over a year ago, Mastering Sudoku Week by Week, with “52 steps to becoming a sudoku wizard.” Sounds great! So now both have been added to my sudoku collection, and at least Mastering will be coming with me to Vegas Friday.

The problem now is putting it down long enough to get all the stuff done I need to do this week. You know, like pack.

Baseball’s Here!

Once again, this post was started over a week ago as “Opening Day Draws Near” or something to that effect, but I just haven’t felt like doing much of anything for the last few weeks. I’m still getting over this cold or flu I came down with three weeks ago, but it’s finally nearly gone. I’m hopeful that I’ll get back on track with posting more often.

Sure, the signs of Spring are nice and all, but that isn’t what makes this one of my favorite times of year. No, it’s really because baseball season is here.

It seems strange to me now that less than ten years ago, I didn’t really care much about baseball. Sure, I considered myself a Twins fan and I’d attend a game now and then, maybe one or two a year, but I was essentially as casual a fan as they come.

But then eight years ago I made a bit of a fateful decision: I decided to join a fantasy baseball league with (mostly) a bunch of folks I work with. I really had no idea what I was doing or what I was getting myself into, but is was sort of one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It allowed me to get to know some of my coworkers in a more social setting, which has been a great thing, but it also started me on a path to learning more and more about the sport I have come to love.

There have been a lot of things to learn: stats, who the players are, who the good players are, how to handle a fantasy draft, how to manage a fantasy team. There are a lot more things I still need to learn though, because while I feel relatively confident about my fantasy play these days, I don’t feel like I have much to contribute to real baseball discussions.

The main problem is that I just don’t watch enough games. Sure, I know the basics well enough to understand what happened by reading about it, but if I haven’t seen the game, I can’t really say much about what happened during it. And because I don’t watch enough, I don’t know as much as I should about, say, different pitches, or the history of the game.

So my first baseball-related goal for 2008 is to just simply watch more games, even if it means having them playing on my computer (I love having a TV tuner in the desktop I got last August) while I’m doing other things. I hope to have more time over the summer, though, to just sit and watch games, and not just Twins games, but whatever game I happen upon on ESPN or WGN or whatever.

My second goal is to do some more reading. I’ve started reading Watching Baseball Smarter by Zack Hample, which was pretty engaging for the first 50 pages or so, but then I got bogged down in things I can’t help but take issue with, like writing “less than two outs” rather than “fewer than two outs.” I’m taking a break from it, but still intend to finish it. This summer I’m planning to read a book that caught my attention at the bookstore, Crazy ‘08 by Cait Murphy, about the 1908 baseball season.

Any other suggestions?