Sunday, February 12, 2006

French toast pooty style

This morning our twice-weekly brunch ritual was a huge success, as it always is. Instead of going to one of our standard brunch places (Sherwood, Salonike, Hill Diner), we decided to stay in and make it ourselves. This is usually an opportunity for some creativity, and this morning was no exception. So, here is what I made. This is a good recipe for someone who likes french toast and likes to cook, but isn't necessarily the most skilled chef on the block. Ingredients:
4 pieces of bread
4 eggs
1 avocado
1/2 banana
vanilla
PAM or butter

1. Quarter the avocado and cut each quarter into thin slices. Do the same with the half banana.
2. Beat the eggs in a bowl and add a little bit of vanilla. I used 1 egg and 3 egg whites, but any combination will do.
2. The first F.T.P.S is just avocado, so take 2 pieces of bread and put sliced avocado in the middle. Then smush the bread together.
3. Dip the whole thing in the egg, and cook it in an frying pan (sparyed with PAM or buttered) like you would french toast. Smushing frequently. I use a low heat.
4. The 2nd F.T.P.S is avocado and banana, so do steps 2 and 3 with avocado and banana slices in the middle.
5. Eat and enjoy with someone you love!

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Google Dodging

With all of the news about the government requesting access to Google's search results, and general fears about Google's intimate knowledge of all of us, the question of what we can do has been on my mind. There are several possible ways to limit your exposure to Google. Here is what I do:

1. Clear cookies - This is generally a good idea anyway. I set all of my cookies to expire when I close my browser, and sometimes manully clear them.
2. Open gmail in its own browser. (Is there a firefox extension so that tabs don't share cookies? That would be cool...)
3. Use Scroogle, or some other proxy.
4. Use the right search engine for the right search. Google is a good all-purpose search, but if you want to search blogs, why not use technorati? Or if you want to read about something, why not use wikipedia? It is easy to add engines to your firefox search bar. (Scroogle has one.)

Another option that I think might be a fun project would be to create a 'google obfuscator'. The general idea is to create a small script that sends search requests to google periodically using either a dictionary file of some kind, or some other source of random queries. This would flood google's records associated with your IP address with garbage, hopefully hiding your real searches.