[Cooking] Quick and Easy Pancakes

Pancakes are everybody's favourite.  I've never heard anybody say, "I don't like pancakes". Ever. You simply won't hear that sentence in your lifetime.

History of the Dish: Originally, pancakes (derived from the latin, "pan" and "cake") was simple a way for poor Scottish farmers to use up a stale cake. Cake is a staple food in Scotland, but after a few days, they would be stale. By simply frying the stale cake in a pan with butter, they became edible again!

Over the years, this recipe evolved to replace the actual "cake" with a simple batter of eggs and flour -- but the name "pan cake" still remains!

What you will need:

- Eggs x2 I think (I've forgotten)
- Flour ... I don't know how much. Just tip some in the bowl with the eggs.
- Milk. Again, I guess about 1 cup. Just tip some in and be done with it.
- Lemon juice from a bottle*
- White sugar

* You could also try fancy fillings like jam, or smoked salmon, but for now we'll keep it simple.

 Step 1 - Prepare Batter

Pretty easy. Just mix the eggs, milk and flour with a fork. You might want to use an electric mixer. Or you might not.

Hello little eggy-weggy! Hello there!! Who's a cute little fella then??

Step 2 - Cook the batter

Chuck some butter in a frying pan, heat it up to MEDIUM, not too hot. Then tip in the batter. The real secret to good pancakes is width -- many morons will simply tip in the batter to fill to the edges of the pan. That's where they go wrong! The trick is to tip in only enough to cover half the pan, then tip the pan from side to side to spread it out. Nice and thin.

Let it cook for about a minute, maybe two, then turn it over with a spatula. No need to "flip" it, that's just wanky, and something that "proper Chef's" do to make themselves look good.

Step 3 - Eat the batter

Slap each pancake on a plate in the oven, set to lowest heat. This is to keep them warm while you cook the rest. When you're all done, take them out of the oven, squeeze lemon juice all over them, and sprinkle copious amounts of sugar on them.

Then simply roll them up, and enjoy!

A lovely Mediterranean breakfast!

-Gray

[Minecraft] Survival Island - Day 2

Back to it then. Dug a staircase down into the caves and explored. Found plenty of iron and loads of coal. Heck I even found some redstone which is pretty much useless at this point but I took it anyway:

So now I've got iron and coal up the yin-yang. I made a bucket and improved my little garden. This wheat better grow soon, I'm so hungry I can't even sprint any more:

Grow, my little prettys .... Grow ..... GROW!!!!

Also I found an Enderman roaming in my caves. What a beautiful specimen! Notice the elongated arms, glowing eyes, and cat-like grace of this mystical creature! But since he was randomly moving around blocks in my cave, I immediately slaughtered him. This is MY CAVE, BITCH!

"Sir put down the stone block, and step away with your overly-long arms in the air!"

In the early morning I opened my cave and fought off some spiders, zombies and skeletons that had spawned on the surface. Lots of string ... If I get some more tomorrow morning I'll have enough to craft wool, and then a bed, so that I can skip the nights if I want. Or just make a picture to hang on my cave wall.

I was also happy to get the bones. I made Bone Meal and used it on my 2 limp, soggy saplings that were just refusing to grow into trees, despite a couple of days of bright sun and heavy rain. Voila!

Wood for me! Yum yum. I love wood.

I cut them down and they gave me 6 new saplings. Now I'd have all the wood I'd ever need! BWAHAHAHAHA!! This is getting almost too easy.

-Gray

[Bike] Modification Chapter 4

Nothing too exciting this time. But when I removed the "WEST COAST HONDA" sticker from the rear fender, it left a nasty glue residue. I'm not really a fan of West Coast Honda -- in fact I advise against buying from them -- but that's a story for another day.

It's time to use our friends over at Tyga to fix this unsightly mess:

A few seconds later:

Beautiful! Now everybody can see that my bike has been modified using genuine Tyga Performance parts.

Special thanks to my good friends at Tyga for sending different sized stickers with my order of $130-odd dollars. It's nice touches like that, which make me want to buy from them again.

-Gray

[Bike] Modification Chapter 3

This time I want to show you how to make a significant change to your bike's handling, by tweaking the suspension. Some people believe that actually getting down and dirty with the front suspension can significantly alter a bike's ability to corner -- I disagree.

The main problem with the front forks is that the caps aren't up to scratch. Observe:

Yes they're nice and shiny, but are they really doing their job? The answer is no. So I immediately unscrewed them.

I didn't expect a strange hollow bar to pop out though:

After struggling to fit the new cap, I eventually gave up and decided the bike was a write-off and would never run again.

After a short break and a cup of tea, I returned, and somehow managed to screw in the replacement "high performance" caps from, you guessed it -- Tyga Performance:

Increased responsiveness, stiffer cornering, and a cockpit view that would make Rossi jealous.

Front fork end cap replacements -- just do it.

[Bike] Modification Chapter 2

Hello fellow road-racers!
This episode, I'll be showing you how to complete a fairly simple mod, but an important one nevertheless ...

What's wrong with this picture? Yes, that's right -- the little black oil cap. Boring design, poor aerodynamics, and probably letting my precious oil evaporate! Time to fix that little problem with the help of our friends at Tyga ...

After just a few seconds using my bare hands and spanner or "socket wrench" as the American's call it .... BEHOLD!

A quick test-ride confirmed my expectations -- improved air flow around the bike and increased handling. Cornering feels sharper and acceleration slightly brisker. And all for less than the cost of a trip to Sizzler.

A shiny red cap with "CBR" stamped on it -- what's not to like?

[Bike] Modification Chapter 1

Well it's time to increase the speed, handling, and sex-appeal of my CBR250. I will present each modification in a bite-sized chunk which you can enjoy reading while you munch on some cereal or such-like.

I'm not a master mechanic by any means, but as you will see as you follow along, some mechanical aptitude is required. These are not going to be the kind of modifications that your little sister can do!

Chapter 1 - Brake Fluid Reservoir Cover

Now there is nothing wrong with the factory item, but it just doesn't scream "I'm a highly-tuned race bike" the way I would like it to:

Ho-hum. Keeping the fluid in, but not much else ...

So it's time to get a little help from my friends over at Tyga Performance in Thailand. Since their name contains the word "performance", that literally guarantees that all their products will increase the real-world performance of your machine.

Here is a little something I had shipped earlier:

Sweet little bag of performance.

I unscrewed the factory cover using a "phillips-head screwdriver" (that's the cross type, not the flat type -- ask at your local hardware store if you're confused) and tried to replace it with the new one. The new one didn't need a screwdriver, it needed an "alan key".

Fortunately, I had a few knocking about in the shed. Unfortunately, none of them fit. Fortunately, I used a combination of Blu Tac and tissue paper to make a smaller key fit! ... Unfortunately, it didn't work. So I zipped off to say hello to my friends at Super Cheap Auto, and purchased a lovely set of alan keys. I tightened the bolts or whatever they are, and VOILA!

GOODBYE BLAND, HELLO RACE-STYLE!

I'm sure you'll agree, this little item looks very sweet and sexy! And this simple mod took me no longer than 30 minutes! (travel time excluded).

So, avoid nasty brake fluid accidents, and replace your own factory cover with one of these fantastic after-market performance parts!

-Gray

[Minecraft] Survival Island - Day 1

I thought I would do a little Let's Play but in Blog form, kind of like I started with Order & Chaos before I got bored of it. I've been playing Minecraft on and off for about a year. This entry won't be of general interest unless you're a Minecraft player, or are just wondering what Minecraft is all about. A YouTube video would probably show you that much more clearly, in about 10 seconds, but why watch a convenient video when you can read my long-winded and boring adventures in excruciating detail, right here?

The seed I used was  -8320668148713193150 which you can copy-and-paste into your own game to try this island for yourself. It's small, with 1 tree, 1 sugar cane, some grass and sand, and a (deep) cave. Perfect!

I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Flat ocean as far as the eye could see.

So first thing's first, I chopped down the tree. It only gave back 1 sapling but that's OK. So I replanted that, harvested all the grass and got 5 seeds, grabbed some sand, and headed into the cave entrance to set up my little base.

Ah my new home! A virginal cave, waiting to be entered and defiled. Or something.

I built a workbench. As opposed to a "normal" game of singleplayer, where you can't walk 5 meters without bumping into a tree, this island made me value every last plank of wood. I made a wooden pick-axe, dug out some cobblestone for a living space, and then used that cobblestone to build a furnace. I burned some wood to make a single piece of charcoal, which I delicately turned into 4 torches. So at least I could stop mobs spawning inside my cave tonight. These torches were worth their weight in gold. They were protection from the darkness, the certain death of sitting in a dark cave waiting for a monster to spawn and slaughter you like a pathetic little lamb. I would treasure each and every one of these 4 torches!!

I carefully climbed down deeper into the cave, and quickly came across a few blocks of coal -- I can tell you, I've never been so relieved to find coal. I made some spare torches, chucked a couple around the place to brighten up the mood, and headed back up to the surface to check where the sun was.

It was just past midday and to my surprise, the sapling had grown into a tree already! Bonus. So I chopped the bastard down and replanted the 2 saplings it gave me. Now we're cooking with gas. I made a stone pick-axe, stone sword, and stone hoe. I carved out a little garden space inside my cave and planted the grass seeds. With the 1.8 update, it's more important than ever to have a steady supply of food to keep your health regenerating. I'm not sure if any cows or sheep are going to spawn on this little island and if they don't, I'll need to bake some bread.

Here is my little cave at the end of the first day:

Home sweet home. Workbench, furnace, indoor wheat farm and a hole leading into the depths of the Earth.

Stay tuned for Day 2 tomorrow.