Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Greek Lover Invitation Code...a few more clicks...

Click here and select all (Ctrl A or 2/3 short clicks) then copy & paste it into the comment box of the picture(s) you want to join the pool.
Sorry about the fuzz but Flickr does not not seem to except all html.
In the mean time, thanks for visiting...

Greek Lover - View this group's photos on Flickriver

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Bibi, Gigi & Yoko...














Three friends I 'lost' in Greece...Yoko wandered off to the park one night and never returned...Bibi went to help a blind man somewhere in the outskirts of Athens and the last thing I heard from GG that she was hanging out in the Pelion...But who is Yoko, Bibi or GG here...???

Sunday, October 26, 2008

How to make a Pizza with Mushrooms, when...

You love'm but your table-partner simply hates them ???
For this recipe you need:
Pizza Dough: Make it yourself (lots of recipes on the net) here is an example. If you don't like the mess there are in the supermarket prepared ones refrigerated. Olive oil to spread around a baking form lightly, only if you want your pizza to stay somewhat soft. Extra tip: Spread also some sea salt at the bottom of that form.
Pizza Topping:
* Tomato sauce lightly seasoned with fried shallot, cardamom and cumin for a distinctive taste.
* Fresh Emmenthal cheese, shredded.
* Mushrooms, sliced, baked in olive oil, with some shallot, lots of garlic, black pepper and oregano. Season to your liking.
* Fresh basil leaves, artichoke hearts, good quality sliced ham & anchovies, fresh or canned.
* Black olives (try the best quality you can get, un-pit them if you must)
Let's start to work, the pictures should be self-explanatory...

Notice here that I use two basil leaves to mark the middle of the Pizza (that's it actually! ;)

Add the artichoke hearts and the olives, keeping the "markers" in mind.

Add the baked mushrooms ONLY at the bottom part of the pizza and "sprinkle" the sliced ham and anchovies as you wish.

And top it all generously with the cheese, notice that the two basil leaves still stick out.
Cook for 15-20 minutes (depending your oven) and on your dinner table simply slice it in the middle between your "hidden" little green markers. Your partner will not find one mushroom
while can crunch away the whole lot!
One last note: better put some garlic as well is the tomato sauce too so your partner wont notice your sharp garlic smell afterwards ! ;)

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Great photo from Mr......Aster-oid!

From left to right: Indifference, Concentration & Professionalism, Envy, Admiration. I fell for the last one, althought I spotted also a lot of hesitation there. Couldn't help myself to add one more:
Anticipation (for the little chair in front) reminding the many accidents models have lately...and because little chairs just might have feelings too...

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Hommage...by Cl☼s ... des dunes !


Hommage .....
Originally uploaded by Cl☼s ... des dunes ! à l'oeuvre de Soeur Emmanuelle ...

This picture and comment was posted by Cl☼s ... des dunes ! on Flickr and being Belgian I was at first* a bit ashamed I never heard of her...She died October 20, 2008 at the age of 99. I never understood what really drives these people so I here's a closer look...
Sœur Emmanuelle (November 16, 1908 – October 20, 2008), born Madeleine Cinquin, was a Belgian nun living in France. She was born in Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of a family of lingerie manufacturers. At the age of six she saw her father drown. She was educated at the Sorbonne, earning a degree in philosophy. In 1929, she took her religious vows and became a nun. She worked in Notre-Dame de Sion high school in Istanbul in the 1930s.In 1971, she witnessed the impoverished conditions of the trash collectors in Cairo, Egypt, and decided to live among them. She remained there until 1993, when she returned to France. It was upon her return that she gained the status of a media sensation in France, as she was well received by audiences and talk-show hosts. In addition to her charity work, she is known for her unorthodox religious views, including approval of the use of contraception and favouring the idea of allowing priests to marry. She was voted one of the most popular people in France, and has been compared to Mother Teresa. (She regarded the comparisons with Mother Theresa as "ridiculous"). In 2003, French television broadcast Soeur Emmanuelle: An exceptional woman. In 2005 she ended on the 5th place in the Walloon version of Le plus grand Belge (The Greatest Belgian). She died on October 20, 2008 in Callian, aged 99, in her sleep from natural causes.[2] Les Amis de Soeur Emmanuelle (The Friends of Sister Emmanuelle) is a charitable organization based in Brussels.

*Correction: I did know her and even saw this on the news, I guess working on the computer and watching TV simultaneously does weird things with your memory...

Sources: Cl☼s ... des dunes ! & Wiki of course...

Links:

official site (she really deserves a better one, bad links and stuff)

youtube (her last interview, and other video's: Yalla! pas de stop!)

de morgen (newspaper in Dutch, about the funeral, good picture)

the guardian (review on her memoirs)

la provence (reportage on her funeral, in French)

Courageous, righteous woman, the kind the Church really needs I guess, and It should permit them to marry because : "L'Union fait la Force"! Also, now that I see again that drive it's truly amazing that these kind of persons also always tend to live this long (and in good shape!)

The Power of Belief is a strong medicine...




Wednesday, October 22, 2008

My Blueberry Moon

Seeing Wong-Kar-Wai's excellent My Blueberry Nights the other day there was a song in it I hadn't heard in a long time. Like all the other songs it suited the mood of the movie extremely well, but this one was really outstanding. Here's Cassandra Wilsons version in the film:

Looking up the original from good old Neil on YouTube I've found some surprises: Here's how it should be played (not easy!)

And here how it shouldn't:

Lot's of others (Good One's!) to check out:
Cassandra Wilsons live version

Friday, October 17, 2008

Flickr an everchanging community....

turn-out pete - View my favorites on Flickriver
When Flickr makes changes it's so subtle it takes time before you notice them. Take for instance their homepage and see here what they made of it. In fact, everything you need, now it's all there. But also they've changed the "recent activity tabs" and "comments you've made" into one large tab and there you really have to take a closer look. A complete guide can be found here. Interesting is the function, or the snooze as they call it: "If there is a beautiful capture you commented on a while ago but don't want to see updates on anymore, you can now mute it from Recent Activity. Just mouse over it and click . (you can do this on anything in recent activity) To un-mute something, open your Activity Settings and 'Show previously muted items.' You will then be able to see the item and un-mute ." Excellent for pictures that have an endless list of comments you are tired of but still don't want to loose them. And it works too! Subtle, there's no other word for it, and still free! Also a nice add-on I'll d like to mention here is flickriver, a personal project of Alex Sirota (aka iosart) Check out his badges and tools, they're cool!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Vista's Sniping Tool


Finally I found out that Vista has an easy-to-use Screen shot tool, that is situated under Accessories and with the very promising name Sniping Tool. And it's a snitch, the only thing you have to do is of course to make sure that the screen you want to shoot is already open BEFORE you activate this little program. Much is said about Vista, and yes it is slower than XP but it's these features and the look (not the feel) that makes Vista kinda nice to work with.
(to be continued...Time, Time, Time...)

Forum on new programs built into Vista for instance click here