It’s been a tradition since 1910 that the President throws out the opening day first pitch somewhere in the country. Even you-know-who managed to do it in 2005, albeit to a fairly tepid reception. But for the next two years he skipped it. The rumor was that Karl Rove didn’t want to risk the potential embarrassment.

You-know-who (and no, I don’t mean Voldemort) ventured onto the pitchers mound yesterday in the new National Park stadium for the Washington Senators’ opening game yesterday. Watch what happens (and listen for the boos) when he goes out to the pitcher’s mound:

Roombas may not the best vacuums or floor washers in the world, but they are entertaining. The world’s most successful robot, it’s kind of amazing to watch them running around in circles, not falling off of steps and, finally, just how much dirt they suck up.

There are a bunch of Roomba owners will pre-clean their rooms (known as roomba-rizing), seeing them almost like family pets. We’re not quite at the level of fan-dom, but we do manage to run our Roomba and Scooba a couple of times per week.

So it was kind of cool to find that a kid-started, family-run company is making Roomba costumes:

Here’s what one looks like, ahem, unclothed:

Check out the Roomba costumes at myRoomBud.com

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Yesterday I had a mini-orgy of baking, making some sourdough no-knead bread, trying out Martha Stewart’s lemon bars, and making this gorgeous loaf out of sweet, buttery, eggy dough, known as pain viennois. It’s like brioche, but not as rich.

I was intrigued by a short article in a recent issue of Gourmet magazine about a technique taught by Richard Bertinet at his school in Bath, England. (That’s him over there –>>) There’s a great video about the method he uses for kneading his dough, often called a “french fold”. Basically it involves using your whole body to slam the dough in the work surface and folding it over to incorporate a lot of air. Normally I don’t think it’s a good idea to cook when in a bad mood, but I can see this being very therapeutic and with good results to boot!

For the loaf pictured above, use 1/2 of the ingredients in this recipe over at Gourmet’s website. I’ll add a couple of notes:

• If you don’t have a lot of forearm strength, use a stand mixer with a paddle attachment to mix the ingredients. Then dump the dough out on your work surface for the kneading.
• Rising times are very variable. It’s cool here right now, so instead of the hour or so he talks about, the first rise took about 5 hours. I put it in the fridge overnight and finished it on Friday.

Watch his video to get the slap-and-fold technique down. It’s lots of fun to do! (In the video he’s making a double recipe of the one at the Gourmet website. That means quadruple of what I used to make my single loaf.)

For the second rise, shape the dough into a 9-inch loaf and place it in a buttered 9-inch loaf pan. When it’s risen at least double, heat the oven to 375 degrees. Make a laminate (glaze) from 1 egg yolk slightly beaten with a spoonful of heavy cream. Brush this on the dough, let it dry for a minute, and make shallow slashes in the top with a sharp knife, razor blade or scissors. Put it in the oven and bake it for about 35 minutes. (Doneness tests: hollow sound when thumped or internal temperature of 180 degrees.) Cool the loaf in the pan for 10 minutes or so. Take it out and let it finish cooling on a rack.

This bread is great for sandwiches and french toast. By the way, cooking french toast on a waffle iron is amusing and tasty.

The dough itself is pretty versatile: it’s good for rolls, brioche-shapes, Danish pastries, cinnamon rolls. I’m going to try single-serving mini-loaves with different fillings: ham & cheese, a chocolate bar, etc.

Not quite as easy as the no-knead bread recipe I usually make, but not by much!

Over the past few days, both a weeping cherry and some Chinese wisteria have been coming into full bloom. It’s really something:

After using activated carbon water filters (Brita & Pur) for years, Tom and I recently switched to a four-stage under-sink system. Still, this seems like such a interesting idea, I’m tempted to go out and buy a Brita pitcher just to see if it works.

Basically, you drill a hole in an old filter, dump out the old activated carbon, refill it with carbon you can buy at an aquarium supply store (or ebay), plug it back up, and then proceed as if it were a new filter. How hard is that?

Any check out the Instructable. If you haven’t been around that sight before, wander around for a bit. I’m always impressed with how clever people can be there.

Of course, if you don’t use water filtration (you San Franciscans know who you are), take a pass on this.

Instructables

This might fall into the group of things you might never want to know, but scientists have gained, um, interesting insights into giant squid sex. This post is mildly NSFW, so if you want all the sordid details, read more after the jump…

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My absolute favorite fast food in the world is the Red Beans and Rice at Popeyes. So it was with curiosity that I read of the recent passing of its founder, Al Copland . I had always repeated the rumor that the recipes were developed anonymously by famous New Orleans chefs. Not so according to the obits; they were Copland’s own originals. Hats off to you, Mr. Copland.

Check out the interesting article over at the New York Times which describes some of Copland’s flamboyant life and an interesting aside about a feud with another New Orleans denizen, Anne Rice.

(By the way, Popeyes was never spelled with an apostrophe…Copland said he was too poor to afford one.)

In one of my favorite tech stories of the month, someone set up a comparative listening test of the usually very expensive Monster Cables against…get ready for it…wire coat hangers. You can just imagine where this is headed: In a blindfolded test, audio “aficionados” were not able to tell the difference between a stereo set up with either set of wires.

Check out the entire story at Consumerist.

via Consumerist

So much for an in-like-a-lion,-out-like-a-lamb March this year. For the first time I can remember in many years, the vernal equinox or first day of spring was actually greeted by flowers in the garden. Actually, some of the fruit trees had started their late-winter flowering, but here’s a few of the spring flowers:

New flowers are seem to be making their appearances hourly. It’s going to be a lovely spring.