Book Review #21

Japanese Cooking
Lulu Grimes

First of all, I'm not even sure "Lulu Grimes" is the author of the book. There's no name listed on the cover. The publisher is Parragon Publishing in UK. Printed in China. Produced by the Bridgewater Book Company, Ltd. With Home Economist Kate Moseley. I really don't know what to think of it. The photography, by David Jordan, seems good enough, but there's no blurbs or anything.

The recipe follows a simple procedure.
1. List the ingredients
2. Show one picture of the process
3. Show the text of the preparation process
4. Show a big picture of the finished product

In some cases, this shows the picture of a knife cutting meat, or ingredients being dumped into a pan. So, not much there. Regarding Japanese cooking, they're mostly pure ingredients. In some cases, one short ingredient list. One short preparation steps. Done.

That's my kind of cooking. It annoys me, though, that I can't find the name of the author of this book. Still, if simply prepared Japanese cooking is what you want, then this book is ideal.

By the way, if you haven't done so, try cutting meat in tiny little slices, and use chopstick to drop them into hot oil in a pan. Wait until cooked, and fish it out with the chopstick. Put it in plate. Simple. Quick. Convenient. Done.

Cooking Journal #21

KFC

Yes, that's KFC, or Kentucky Fried Chicken. I cook my own rice, and I cook my own egg. This dish is brown rice, egg, and fried chicken. It's very quick to prepare since I'm using Success Rice. I fried the egg, while the rice is cooking. The chicken is courtesy of KFC. You're probably wondering why I bothered to cook rice and egg if I'm eating KFC chicken? The answer is that I don't eat chicken as a meal. I eat rice as the main meal, and chicken is just something extra.

In any case, it's too salty. KFC maybe famous for their secret spice, but the current KFC is mostly salt and pepper. Make that various salt and pepper. For some reason, I keep thinking Monosodium glutamate (MSG) every time I eat KFC. But what can I say? It tastes delicious! So, I do take KFC original style chicken from time to time.

I limit myself to just legs and thighs. Dark meat. 10 piece bucket. $14.03. That's enough for five meals. About $3 meal. I think that's a good deal, considering the great taste of KFC. I do know how to cook tender, juicy Leg+Thigh chicken. But the process takes 45 minutes each. For quick meals when I'm tired, KFC makes a good substitute!

There's a caution here, though. Usually KFC features big sized chicken. However, lately, their size is on the smallish side. Considering that, I think $10 is about right. When I found out that they charge $14 for the small chicken size, well, I stopped coming. There's that.

Nintendo Journal #21

Nintendo #21 Mini umbrella

A really compact umbrella. Look how small it is, compared to a quarter! And yet it opens up wide enough to handle rain. Small, lightweight, portable umbrella that you can take "just in case" around town. Good for summer showers. For winter, I have REI Element jacket and doubles as raingear.

Petit Computer Journal #21

A Simple Timer

This here is a simplified version of the timer program. I put it here just to clarify that there are other ways to do this. The previous version was used to show LOOP construct, but this version is an optimized version of it. Notice that duplicate codes are collapsed into one, thus simplifying the whole structure.

1. 'TIMER PROGRAM BY HARRY HARDJONO
2. SPSET 1,156,0,0,0,0
3. SPOFS 1,-50,-50
4. SPANIM 1,4,15
5. SPSCALE 1,200
6. 
   
7. @INIT
8. CLS
9. SPOFS 1,0,96,0
10. SPREAD(1),X,Y
11. ?"HOW MANY SECONDS?"
12. INPUT T
13. IF 0>=T GOTO @END
14. CLS
15. ?"A STARTS TIMER"
16. ?"B SETS NEW TIME"
17. ?"X EXIT"
18. ?"Y PAUSE"
19. 
    
20. @LOOP
21. VSYNC 1:B=BTRIG()
22. IF (SPCHK(1) AND 1) THEN SPOFS 1,X,Y,0 
23. IF (B AND 16) THEN SPOFS 1,224,96,FLOOR((224-X)*T/224)*60:GOTO @TICK
24. IF (B AND 32) GOTO @INIT
25. IF (B AND 64) GOTO @END
26. GOTO @LOOP
27. @TICK
28. IF (BUTTON(0) AND 128) GOTO @LOOP
29. LOCATE 0,8:SPREAD(1),X,Y:?"TIME LEFT: ";FLOOR((224-X)*T/224);"   "
30. IF (SPCHK(1) AND 1) THEN BEEP 28:WAIT 60:GOTO @TICK
31. ?"TIME'S UP!":SPOFS 1,0,96,0:X=0:BEEP 50:WAIT 120
32. GOTO @LOOP
33. 
    
34. @END
35. ?"GOODBYE!"
36. SPCLR 1:WAIT 300

Raspberry Pi Journal #21

Cost of Ownership: Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi has been billed as the low-cost computer. When model A is priced at $25, and Model B is priced at $35, who can blame them? I bought mine at $40, due to mark up, but that's okay.

What I didn't count on, is that I will be getting multiple units. I have in my possesion 3 Model Bs, and 1 Model A. So, I was shopping peripherals last time. I looked at the total: $150. Ouch.

That does not compare with today, though. I actually bought a soldering kit + voltmeter unit because that Adafruit LCD w/ keypad unit comes in a kit!

I'm a dedicated software guy, and I'm buying a soldering kit! Talk about new experiences. So far, I have done back ups, bash scripting, and webcam. I'll be blogging those in the future. But hardware projects? Unthinkable!

Of course, I also purchased Lego Mindstorm EV3 robotic system. That's another $350 down the hatch.

So total purchase? $150+$350+$200, and total is $700! For Raspberry Pi projects. Sigh.

Well, at least that's it. No more hardware that I can think of.

Wait a minute. I have some idea about wiring up some large capacity capacitors so I can have a delayed power off for proper shutdown. Hmmm. I wonder how much those cost? ^_^;