Remembering someones birthday

There was a time when you were young and it always happened that your birthday was remembered. Main reason being that you were reminding said people for weeks or months beforehand. But as you got older, you began to approach that sometime sad, lonely era when people do not acknowledge your birthday at all. People do not acknowledge your birthday for a range of reasons: you have scummy friends that do not care about you, your friends are too busy and they simply forgot or maybe you genuinely do not want people to know or they know that you do not want to know about your birthday.

That has changed in recent times with social media. This morning I got a message from Facebook reminding me that one of my friends Katie was a year older today. It was her birthday. That is a great achievement to grow older! Think about the opposite! You should embrace each birthday. If you have a fear of dying then your birthday should mean all the more.

Something that bothers people is how much they have achieved in their lives. As Thomas Kinsella said we "are not made whole that reach the age of Christ". That is 33 by the way. But those issues are not with your birthday, they are to do with your inner peace with yourself. My point is, if you can read this you are alive. Who cares what you have achieved, what your status is in life. If it is your birthday I say,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 

Pancakes : How to make the perfect pancakes.

First off, pancakes might be misleading. I am making really thick pancakes. Some people call these flap jacks. Whatever they are called, here is how to make thick, airy, pancakes.

Step 1:
2 Cups of self raising flour.

Add 2 Cup Measures of Self Raising Flour

Step 2:

Get 3 medium sized eggs. Yes, in case you did not know, eggs come in sizes! I do not like breaking the eggs into the flour directly because I always get egg shell in the flour. 

3 Eggs. 

Step 3: 

Break each egg, throw it in on top of the flour. 

Throw in the eggs....

Step 4: 

Get a measuring jug and measure out 300ml of milk. 

300ml of milk, low fat or regular. 

Step 5:

No hands please... back in the day I remember using a wooden spoon and mixing by hand, it took ages and was horrible. Now, mix the flour, milk, and eggs together for a while until there are no little lumps and make sure to beat it so lots of little air bubbles appear in the mix. The air is good. 

Use an electric mixer people. On high for ages until every single little lump is gone. 

Step 6: 

What is the name of this white thing? It usually comes with the bowl. Before you are finished with the mixer clean down the sides of the bowl because there could be excess flour built up on the sides.

Keep it clean...

Step 7: 

Get some rashers on... make them nice and crispy. Not burnt - crispy. Grill the pancakes, grilling is healthier.

Yum...

Step 8:

Measure out with a ladle is it? 

Have regular size portions or there will be fights for the biggest one.

Step 9:

Have the pan on a low heat at first. The first pancake usually turns out kinda bad, thats the Katie Holmes pancake.... get the movie reference? Hmm? Hmm? So have a bit of oil on the pan. Now, come on. Don't have the pancake literally floating around in oil, I mean don't be scabby. There is a point where you can have too much, experience will tell you that. However if you have too little your pancake will burn. Do not be in a rush with the pancake. Take your time, let them rise. When one side is nice and golden brown like in the image below, flip the pancake and brown the other. 

Nice clean non stick pan. Have a good bit of oil, olive oil if you can.

Step 10:

Finally... you are there. I can get all this done in around 10 - 12 minutes from start to finish. Finished being when I am eating the pancake. So plan. Turn on the grill first. Get things heating up. Really nice with butter and sugar. The one below has maple syrup and bacon obviously. 

I would love one right now. 2 of these by the way is a bit of a meal. 

Conclusion:

There you have it. I have the theory that the less ingredients that go into something the better. And, I am right. These pancakes have 3 ingredients, flour, eggs, milk. Boom. I see people add water, salt, sugar. Stop. Three things only. Without any of the 3 things you simply do not have pancakes, that is how I know I am making pancakes. The mixture above should make 12 portions... like 12 pancakes I think. And remember, presentation is everything when it comes to eating. And if you make the pancakes, clean up after yourself, there is nothing worse than going "mm that was lovely, now let me spend 15 minutes cleaning up your crap". 

And to end on a cheerful note, they are delicious. Sleep in some morning, get up, do these, then look at some good telly. Have tea or coffee too... 

Ever hear of mailinator? It's great - if you need it.

In work I have the situation where I need to create email addresses all the time but then not necessarily use them again afterwards. A colleague told me about Mailinator as a solution to my problem of having to mail my own email accounts for work business.

I tested mailinaor like this, I went into mailinator.com and created a username and then went to my gmail and mailed my new mailinator account. I checked mailinator.com second later and the mail was there.

For my second test I simply mailed myself to a just make up address like carraroeisgreat@mailinator.com using my gmail account and checked mailinator by putting in the name carraroeisgreat and the test mail was there.

Excellent.

Why am I telling you all this? Well you know sometimes you might need a link to be sent to you from a website you are signing up to and you do not want to use your "proper" email address or you know what, there are a million reasons. I suggest you have a look.

http://mailinator.com/

Perfect Frozen Lip Sync

Disneys Frozen is such a fantastic film. Clearly this happy couple love this film too. The kid in the back does not seem too bothered by the whole thing so I think that she has seen her good looking mommy and daddy sing along to this film many time.

Apologies by the way if these people are not the parents of this kid, but in my perfect Disney image they are a happy little family.

bebo.com

It's back! Bebo is back!

Hold on there... hold your horses narrator! Bebo is not "back", bebo is in fact dead...

Hmm you make a good point spooky other voice inside my head. However - and this is the scariest thing considering I am speaking to myself - bebo is in a kind of quantum quark state of being both dead and alive at the same time. Yes this schroedingers cat of a company is actually making a come back! Great!

Here is the story pasted word for word from the bebo website: 

bebo created by Michael and Xochi Birch

"Here’s a short history on the company:

• 2005 - Bebo, an early social network was founded by husband-and-wife team Michael and Xochi Birch in January 2005 at their home in San Francisco.

• 2005 (9 days after launching) - Bebo hits 1 Million Users.

• 2005 - After numerous questions about why the name is Bebo, Michael makes up an answer (Blog Early Blog Often). Real answer? Bebo was short, snappy, and utterly nonsensical.

• 2006 & 2007 - We built Bebo mobile, groups and the infamous whiteboard amongst other features.

• 2008 - Sold to AOL.

• 2010 - Sold to Criterion Capital.

• Today - Bought back by the original Founders.

• Tomorrow - We start re-inventing Bebo."

So I say that I am happy about this, well I am happy about this, now - why? I remember when I first heard of bebo. It was a long time ago at this point. I have fond memories of the "early" internet. Of course I was using the internet for years at that point as was my whole family. I don't know, it is the combination of things. Bebo coming back will be good for the internet. Google and facebook need another player. I love the way that bebo is rising like a phoneix out of the flame in which it crumbled into.

Michael Birch began bebo and ended up selling it for $850 million in 2008 to AOL. Michael bought it back reciently for $1 million.

31 Random Movie Facts that are cool

31 Cool Random Movie Facts!

GLaDOS is working for NASA :)

Funny... have you played the game Portal? Is is a game that developers Valve made. In the game there is an artificial intelligence named GLaDOS. NASA in an attempt to make science more interesting to young folk have make the following video.

Well done NASA I say!