Tag Archive for 'life'

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Have you had your Weetabix?

wstryder November 5, 2006 0 Comments

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My breakfast utilities: A Moccamaster, an espresso machine (nicknamed Mr. Coffee) and several cans of Mad Croc energy drink. Also on the far right a can of Stars&Stripes root beer. I was really surprised to find that stuff in Finland! Europeans just don’t drink root beer. If you’ve never had root beer, grab a can or two from K-Citymarket now! You’ll be surprised – root beer kind of tastes like carbonated toothpaste mixed with mentos. Real American taste. The best thing about root beer is that it’s just crammed with sugar, 13,2g/100ml, while Coke only has 10,6g/100ml. Drink one can of root beer and you have enough calories for one day. So if anyone from the importer His & Hers OY is reading this, please send me a crate or two! What the heck, it worked for DVD John and F-Secure.

10:50 am Tags: .

Low-tech life, pt. 2: no microwave

wstryder August 17, 2006 1 Comment

After realizing we have no TV in our apartment, some guests figure out that we have no microwave either. Oh Horror! How does one make popcorn without a microwave? How do you warm your leftovers? How can you not have a microwave?!? First of all, you don’t have to leave any leftovers ;) But if you do, it’s pretty fast to warm anything on the stove. You don’t need a microwave for that. Really. You don’t need a microwave for anything (unless you want to build a microwave gun). Making popcorn is pretty easy on the stove too, just follow these instructions carefully:

How to make popcorn without a microwave

Buy the right kind of popcorn, ie. non-microwave popcorn. They usually come in semitransparent plastic bags that contain the yellow corn kernels (like this one). Microwave popcorn is always packaged in a folded paperbag that has all the oil and seasoning inside, don’t buy that kind.

  1. Grab a large cooking-pot, pour in enough oil to just cover the base.
  2. Heat the oil until it starts to vapour.
  3. Pour in enough popcorn to just cover the base.
  4. Cover the pot with a lid and wait for the popcorn to pop.
  5. When the popcorn is no longer popping, you may assume that all the kernels have popped. Remove the pot from the stove and you’re ready!
  6. If all of your popcorn turned black or your kitchen was caught on fire, repeat the above but with less heat/smaller flame. You might need to experiment a little with the right temperature and the amount of oil.

For illustration, check out this cool gif-animation (so 1995!).
Next week: how to make pizza without a microwave!

4:06 pm Tags: .

Low-tech life, pt. 1: no TV

wstryder August 17, 2006 0 Comments

Braun HF 1One of the first questions people ask us when they see our apartment is “Where’s your TV?”. We usually explain that we don’t have one, that we feel just fine without one. We still watch DVD’s on our computer and download TV-series, but I hate TV, I don’t want to sit in front of a grey box and just hope there might be something good on. With my computer I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want and that’s not going to change. Who enjoys watching commercials? Maybe you do, but I don’t. I also don’t need to watch the news from TV, I read all the news from RSS-feeds and that way I can skip whatever I think is boooring.

Fact: there is absolutely nothing interesting on television in Finland. All the good TV-series are one or two years behind US, so you’re basically watcing ancient shows. Any good movies that are on you’ve probably already seen (three years ago). Finnish productions suck (just my humble opinion). Now some smart ass Finns think their “digiboxi” (DVB-receiver) will save them, because they can record the shows and watch them later. But they still get commercials and the digital broadcasts are not without errors. And the programs are still not any better.

3:30 pm Tags: .