Last Christmas, my wife bought me a Pampered Chef rice cooker for the microwave. I was a little concerned at first that it might not work all that well. Cooking rice in the microwave seemed a bit dubious to me. Anyway, I tried it and was quite pleasantly surprised at how amazingly well it works. The rice is just as good as when I used to make it on the stove. However, because I now cook it in the microwave, I benefit from the microwave’s timer so there is no way I can burn the rice. (Yep, it has happened a couple of times when I used to cook it on the stove.) Even better, the rice does not stick in the microwave cooker so cleaning is utterly easy. Half of the time, I had to scrub the bottom of the pan when I used to cook rice on the stove since some of the rice would stick.

This product gets a 10/10 from me.

Thoughts regarding the passing away of our cat, Green Ice.

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As I write this, I’m sitting in our living room. My wife has decided that her job this morning is to optimize the Thanksgiving parade broadcast. She keeps switching between NBC, CBS and one other channel which I think is actually broadcasting something from Disneyland, Disneyworld or something like that. It is unfortunate that each channel is just as unentertaining as the others. The choices right now are to watch some Country singer, a guy doing a song from some Broadway musical or a puppet reporting.

The whole exercise is just a platform for advertising…

CNN has a report detailing the content of Brown’s emails around the time Katrina hit Louisiana. What I’m basically getting out of this is that Brown had fingers up both nostrils and was drooling on himself while Louisiana was going to hell.

New Scientist reports that Nestec has a patent for the production method of some hybrid beverage of coffee and beer. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the new creation since I don’t drink alcohol but it is non-alcoholic. Ok, now where do I buy this thing?

In the days leading up to Halloween, I’ve been hearing about and reading about people objecting to any observance of Halloween in public schools. From this article:

Bowing to concerns of a wide range of groups – from Christians who consider Halloween to have pagan or satanic overtones to church-state separatists who object to the holiday’s religious roots – some elementary schools are canceling their customary costume parades and Halloween celebrations.

Nonsense! The Christian objection here would apply just as well to Christmas. What with the tree being a pagan symbol co-opted for Christian purposes… On the other hand, the Church-State separatists should demonstrate how Halloween is religious. As far as I can remember, there is no doctrine associated with Halloween except maybe consumerism: “thou shall consume”. I think the doctrine of separation of Church and State (which is a noble fiction, but still a fiction) is important and should be enforced when there is a clear violation of the doctrine but it is not the case here.

For those who needed another proof, here’s an article that talks about how the increase in average passenger weight has led to transportation disasters.

On another note but from the same article:

For end-of-life considerations, Batesville Caskets last year launched its “Dimensions” line of supersized burial caskets.

Does the funeral home representative ask the client “do you want me to supersize your order?”

Christian Aubry, président du syndicat professionnel des homéopathes du Québec, s’énerve.

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It doesn’t matter how one organizes a room for the first time: the first stab at stetting up the room intelligently is never the final one. I’ve been in my room in C’ville only one day and a half and I already know that tomorrow I’ll have to do some major reorganization. Let the furniture waltz begin!

I took possession of my room in Charlottesville today. I’d take pictures and upload them but the lighting is not good right now and my Zire 72 does not take good pictures in low lighting. So there…

One night in C’ville and the world’s your oyster… or something…