Great podcasts from NPR
Great podcasts from NPR - Worth a look: This American Life, NOVA, The Writer’s Almanac, etc.
Mappy
Great podcasts from NPR - Worth a look: This American Life, NOVA, The Writer’s Almanac, etc.
Welcome to one of the best recording studios in the world - What do you imagine when you think of a recording studio? A small, soundproof room with ratty carpet and a dilapidated mixing booth? Try this place on for size. Started by George Martin, the producer of the Beatles, AIR Studios has three absolutely world-class recording areas in its facility. Click the photo on the linked page to browse their stunning gallery of pictures.
They’ve recorded the soundtracks for the Harry Potter series, Lord of the Rings, Over the Hedge, V for Vendetta, Pride and Prejudice, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, A History of Violence, Kingdom of Heaven, Shark Tale, Shrek 2, Big Fish, Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean, Chicago, Moulin Rouge, Gladiator, and on and on. Unbelievable.
Oh, and they happen to have my favorite piano in the world there, too.
The Christmas Cactus, instead of blooming March like it did before, is now blooming at a more normal time.
Victorinox Bertrand Wool Cashmere Coat - Most amazing coat I’ve seen in a long time. It looks like the kind of coat that a soldier or night watchman from the early 1900s would wear. Unfortunately, way too expensive.
The hypothesis was as follows: the Binz Refectory would be crazy to keep desserts over the Thanksgiving break, so the desserts set out today should be fresh. Cautiously, I nudged the Rice Crispies bar with some plastic tongs, testing to see whether it would decay into a ball of rice sawdust, or if it was fresh enough that its mallow constitution would impart to it the structural integrity of silly putty. Thankfully (and rarely, at the Binz) the latter was the case. “Mykala!” I eagerly squeaked, “The Rice Crispies are edible!” I handed one to Mykala, carefully chose one for myself, and suddenly all was right in the world. In our eyes shone golden nuggets of a heavenly blend of cereal and marshmallows, renowned the world over for their symbiotic blend of disparate foodstuffs. Christmas music played merrily on the dining room soundsystem as we walked out of the building, cradling delicious nuggets of joy. Little did we know that our happiness was doomed to a transience of incredibly brief duration.
After about 10 seconds of chewing one of the Rice Deathbies, I could tell something was wrong. After another 5 seconds (consisting purely of the firing of pain synapses I didn’t even know I had), my brain figured it out: during the cursed production of these disgusting nuggets of terror, somebody took a bucket of vanilla extract and dumped it in the mix, never realizing that rice crispies bars are never baked. If the significance of this does not sink in, we shall journey to the land of wikipedia, where information and misinformation mix, and where our answer lies:
Vanilla essence comes in two forms: the actual extract of the seedpods, and the far cheaper synthetic essence, basically consisting of a solution of synthetic vanillin in ethanol.
The Binz’s dessert was spiked with ethanol … you know … grain alcohol. Another bite confirmed what I thought to be true - these things were foul beyond belief. Heaven help the other poor souls who fell victim to the siren song of fresh desserts. Mere shells of the real rice crispies bars they immitated, these disgusting piles of filth are doomed to fester in the bowels of hell until the end of the world.
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