The Girl-Geek Anthropologist

I read in the Boston Globe today about these wonderful cookies called Thumbprint Cookies. I actually always liked them, but never actually knew what they were called. So, after reading the recipe, I decided to just go for it.

The recipe is simple enough, but somewhere along the line, it went horribly wrong. I took one bit out of one cookie, and B took another bite out of another one, and I made a horrible looking face. The entire batch ended up in the trash can. I feel defeated. The stuff just had no flavor whatsoever! It was just awful.

I really really would like to learn how to make them, but what happened with mine was that they totally fell apart. I couldn't even make the indentation in the middle to put the jam in! It's so sad.

My SIL's SIL apparently has a good recipe for some decent thumbprint cookies that she's going to inquire about. Hopefully, I will try them, and they will be good.

(PS: Image from Simply Recipes)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first book I read on the nook since I got it about 4 months ago. Now ready for some thoughts on the gadget.

Overall, I like it for fiction books. Non-fiction books that require heavy margin-writing and underlining is just non-existent here.

Pluses so far: It's convenient for purchasing/archiving, and it's easy on the eyes, and you can have thousands of books on there without needing bookshelves. Also, long battery life, you can (awkwardly) browse the web with it, you can listen to music on it, and read .pdfs. No heavy books to try to balance while reading. And, you can adjust the font size. Access to an enormous library.

Negatives: Can't really write in the margins but you can annotate with the virtual keyboard, can't photocopy/scan sections, access to an enormous library in which it's easy to get lost/overwhelmed, you don't get the tactile feeling of turning pages (and seeing how far you still have left or have read so far), can't really lend the book or sell it afterward, and most importantly, no satisfaction of putting a book away on the shelf after reading the whole thing (or no satisfaction of throwing a book across the room in frustration/anger). Also, it's too easy to get carried away with downloading samples of books and whole books, which means that it's harder to limit oneself to one book at a time.

The negatives are not negatives with the gadget, but are more emotional/cognitive.

In summary, I like the nook, but for light fiction readings and not for books that I need to "work" with to any extent.