Amazing Safari Video
Ok, I stole this right outta Jaspre’s availability message, so props to her! It really deserves its own post here. Let the whole thing load before you watch.
Videocracy: Battle at Kruger
So this is a video that some random tourist took on safari. It’s a great video. I just have one thing to say to ‘random tourist’: Get a bloody motion correction videocam. The bouncing makes me ill! But anyhow.
Spoilers follow:
So, there’s these lion chicks, right? They’re chillin’. And there’s these buffalo comin’ round the other side of the lake. Buffalo family comes strolling along towards the lions, and the lion gals crouch down to snag lunch as it goes by. Nice. The little one, they decide. It looks tender. Dad buffalo finally sees lions, turns tail, and the chase begins. There’s more lions than we originally thought, there’s 4 or 5 of them, and they pull down the little one pretty quick, but kinda fall into the lake in the process. Sploosh! No problem, they chew on its head a litt
le, and try to drag it up the bank, out of the water. It’s resisting apparently. Good thing, too, because if it hadn’t been resisting, they’d've gotten it out of the water too fast for the crocodile to decide to get in on the sweet buffalo action. The croc almost gets the huge meal, but 3 or 4 of the lions clamp on and win the tug-of-war. Exciting enough for you? Wait, there’s more! They get it up away from the croc’s lake, and we see that Buffalo Dad has rounded up the entire herd, they’re pissed, and they’re here to get the calf back by force! They surround the lions, charge, and he uses his horns to actually throw a lion 6 feet into the air! (see pic) After some more hassling, the lions let go of the calf, and it staggers back into the herd. (!) The herd chases off the lions one by one.
Just stunning. There are some slow bits, but it’s an unforgettable 8.5 minutes.
Sweet Website: del.icio.us
del.icio.us is a web-based bookmark repository that you can make private or public. Many of the blog-hosting sites and other networking places have widgets and tools that integrate directly with your del.icio.us bookmarks, e.g., the column on the right of this blog shows my most recently saved public bookmarks titles.
You can give your entries tags, so you can find them quickly later, or be shown a certain category of things. I can click on “cooking” and get all the links that I’ve tagged with that word shown to me instantly.
There are handy browser quicklinks that you can use to efficiently “tag” websites to make them a bookmark, and you can enter your own custom description, edit the name of the link, and apply your tags right on the spot. Another neat feature, is that if you select some text on the page, before you hit ‘tag this for del.icio.us’, it will place that text into your custom description field, saving you typing time. It’s great.
You can also have a special tag with your friend’s username in it, and that bookmark will also be sent to the “Incoming bookmarks for review” section of their del.icio.us page, so you can quickly and easily share your bookmarks with others. In addition, you can have a ‘network’ where you can view the latest bookmarks of any person you choose, as long as they have their collection marked public.
Since it’s web-based, you’re never without your bookmarks, and because of the tagging system, you can bookmark everything with abandon, without fear of bloating/cluttering up your browser’s bookmark list. del.icio.us deserves a look! ‘guildmistress’ is my username, if you want to look me up/connect to me on del.icio.us!
(check it out, I did that whole post, and not one pun. /flex)
How to make S’mores correctly
First of all, you’ve got to have the right environment.
At home in front of the stove is ok, but really you should be out tent camping. Near your fire, place a rock that’s got a relatively flat surface on it somewhere, and face the flatish surface up, but tilted a bit toward the fire. Ideallly, the rock should be just a little less than 12″ from the fire itself. Pretty close, but not in the fire.
Next, you need a good long marshmallow roasting fork. (The 3 listed here are all awesome. Come on, get serious with your s’mores gear!)
Place your chocolate on one half of a graham cracker. One square if you like the flavor of the marshmallow and cracker, three or four if you don’t care what else is on it, this is CHOCOLATE w
e’re talkin’ about, here. They say the hot marshmallow melts your chocolate. Don’t believe a word of that riff-raff. Carefully (and quickly) place your cracker with chocolate onto your hot rock near the fire. If it’s the correct distance from the flames/coals, then your chocolate should be melted, but your cracker not burned, about the same time as you’re finished roasting your marshmallow.
Roast that marshmallow! I prefer them golden brown and delicious, others like to roast them for a minute, then make them catch on fire, blow them out, then they’re done. Carbon quantities aside, it’s gooey marshmallowy goodness, either way.
Tap the top of your chocolate gently with a roasting fork to test for meltedness. If the chocolate is soft, rescue your graham cracker, using a roasting fork to help you, if you can’t stand the heat (pff!) and get it up and into your hand, or onto a napkin. Smoosh your big puffy marshmallow on the top of it, and then (optionally!) place another cracker on top of that.
I say ‘optionally‘ because, really, if you try to eat it that way, physics dictate that it will googe everywhere. If you eat it ‘open faced’ with only your bottom graham, you’ll have less sugary-goo-fallout. (You want it all in your face, don’t you?)
#1 thing to remember: Melt that chocolate! It’s just not a great S’more, else.
(exceptions are made only for those who grew up eating them with hard crunchy chocolate, and prefer them that way due to fond memories. My condolences. )
S’MORES LINKS
This adventurous person went through considerable pain to make smores in her own home, and documented the process for us, along with instructions! Guppie prospects, picks, and traps her s’mores components.
Some marshmallow and S’mores History Favorite quote from this page: “(Incidentally, people who claim to prefer them black, are covering for their inability to achieve the uniform brown toasting of the perfect marshmallow.)” ….Oh yeah.
Zomigosh lazy: Spinning marshmallow roasting sticks
S’mores at the fair? A s’mores-making machine.
A S’more so gourmet as to be no longer recognizable. Upscale. Elegant. Timeless. Not a S’more.
Definitely the weirdest and most random s’mores related site I found: I think he likes bikes…
Lol patented United States Patent 20060193967
This is rather priceless: A Tesla coil, zapping a marshmallow. Mmm, sparkalicious.
Ok, s’mores are mentioned somewhere in the bowels of this page, but the graphic at the top is just too weird not to share. Ummm, yeah.
S’mores made with peeps?! Sacrilege! ——->
Ok! All done. Wow, that ate up like, a whole evening! Jolly good.
