i dropped off my latest baked creation at the cafe this afternoon, the rosemary feta cheese bread. sliced open, the rosemary bits look like chives. surprisingly, the feta cheese remained in little clumps, didn't dissolve like i thought they would. flavorwise, it was definitely different from plain bread, but i couldn't quite taste the rosemary nor the feta, like the two strong flavors mashed together and cancelled out to form a new bland indefinable taste. my mother and 2nd aunt were raving about this new bread, but after taking just a bite, i couldn't even look at it anymore.

at this point i'm all baked out. i think i'll take a brake from all this breadmaking, now that i've finally figured out the secret to making a successful no-knead bread. for my money though, if i'm ever looking for fresh bread, the fastest way (besides just buying it) is still to use the bread machine, which can turn out good bread in 3 hours, instead of the 15-24 hours it takes to make no-knead bread. no-knead bread is a nice trick, and doesn't require that much work, but it takes some planning since it really requires 2 days to make it.

my house at this point smells like a bakery, but not in a good way, because after i turn off the oven, it still cooks whatever grease and debris is left behind, so my place has an oveny-smell more than a bready-smell.

it's been more than 3 weeks but those cheap brake pads i ordered from hong kong through ebay finally arrived in the mail today. they smell rubbery, like they're fresh from the factory. they're kind of cheap looking, but at $1.85 a pair, you can't beat the price (i bought 2 pairs to try out). they also have convex washers which allows smaller alignment adjustments. compare these with the brake pad blocks i got at the bike shop for $5/pair (and those were just flat washers, nothing fancy). i was going to put them on my road bike, but i re-aligned the rear brakes yesterday when i was tightening the brake handle and now the brakes work fine so i don't need to replace them just yet.

in the late afternoon i went to star market to get some groceries, mostly snacks. last week i consolidated all my store loyalty cards onto a single card that has all their UPC codes. it looks pretty ghetto (especially since it's taped to the back of an expired health insurance card), but if it allows me to carry just a single card instead of 8 (which periodically get lost) that's a good thing. i haven't tried it out until today though, and bought my star market card just in case. it didn't work at first, but the cashier passed it through the scanner a few more times before it finally rang up. success! i think the biggest challenge is convincing store clerks that what i have is in fact a real card and not some sort of scam.

i blame george r.r. martin for the pile of unread magazines in my house. usually i do most of my reading in the bathroom, but ever since i've been on a personal quest to finish all the books of the songs of fire and ice series, almost every single reading moment has been devoted to those books. i'm almost 60% done with the last one of the series (so far). i'll be sad to have to wait until the next one but it'll mean i can go back to my magazines again. that is, if i don't pick up another book (there are dozens of other great reads in my kindle, i don't have enough time to read them all).

my 5-year old macbook pro is just too slow to run bioshock 2. i was fighting off a gang of splicers and the machine chugged so badly i couldn't even tell what was going on. thankfully i died before the game had a change to crash out. i still haven't tried playing with some of the effects turned off, but what's the point if i can't see the cool graphics? it's making me daydream about getting a new desktop machine, building one from scratch on the cheap, and hopefully hackintoshable.

a hurricane is coming our way, due to arrive on sunday. it could be as severe as category 2 (winds up to 110 mph). i can't remember the last time we had a hurricane in new england, so we're definitely due. as bad as it sounds, i'm hoping for the worst just because i want to go out and take photos of the dramatic aftermath. of course my biggest concern is what to do about my motorcycle. i tried finding out some info online as to what wind speed would be required to topple a bike, but there are too many factors (center of gravity, surface area, wind direction, etc). the general consensus however is anything above 50 mph is a recipe for disaster. even if the hurricane arrives as a tropical storm, wind speed could still reach 70 mph. so of course i'm making emergency plans to get the bike stowed away at my parents' garage over the weekend.

for lunch i made myself a simple omelette with feta cheese (i have too much, must use it all) as well as a fruit smoothie. i had an early dinner, some bread with braised beef, then later in the evening when i was feeling hungry again i had more of the bread and beef combo.