creative kitchen, the game

Have your own Master Chef competitions! The game, from the good folks who teach cooking skills at the Starfish Cafe here in Savannah, proposes to allow you to get creative and develop your own recipes. Sounds tasty to me!
I look forward to receiving the game, and colorful coasters, in the near future.
What a glorious way to pass time on a new year's eve!

billy brown, in my house!

This has to be some kind of record!
So, I had told you about the project on kickstarter in mid-October.
Of this year.
Then, I shared the updates from the filmmaker, Andrew.
Apparently, before he even made goal on the 18th of October, he had started getting everything lined up for the shoot. Shortly after the very successful end of his kickstarter drive on October 28th, he was in search of extras, having all else in place.
By the 14th of November, all filming for "Billy Brown" was complete and the editing began. Again, that's November of this year.
When the 5th of December - this month, this year - came around, he had finished editing and was getting addresses to ship out the rewards.
Today, I received the film, professionally packaged, as if I had gone to a video store and purchased it.
The T-shirt is fabulous, too.
So, Merry Christmas to me!
And color me very impressed, Mr. Andrew Morgan. You took a film project from dream to reality in just a little over two months.
Very impressive.
Let's hope I soon find some time to watch this gem.

christmas at cafe murder

Merry Christmas, to me, from those sweethearts at Beaver Toad Software. Well, to me and the seventy other backers of their kickstarter project to develop the game "Cafe Murder".
This was simply too good not to share with the world!

christmas with cthulhu

I have just returned home from making a special delivery!
Woohoo!
When I supported this kickstarter project just last month, the creator had proposed delivery of rewards in December. What an absolute delight that his proposed date has become a reality!
After admiring it yesterday, once the postman had delivered it to my waiting hands, I knew what I had to do. This paper needed to find its way around Christmas gifts, ASAP!
Not for me - Cthulhu is a bit too horrific for my tastes.
Not for any of my family members... yet. I do have a niece and a nephew who are gaining interest in the mythology of the psychic oceanic terror.
However, my dear friend Jin-Hi has a brother whose gifts beg to be hidden 'neath these blood-colored waves... as I am sure she will gladly do! She was thrilled to receive the goods this afternoon!
Intrigued?
Check it out here. For a mere $10, you can have thirty square feet of the above Cthulhu-bedecked crimson.
(Look for it at the bottom of the page... just when you thought you were safe... BWAH ha ha!!!)

a "rolling greek temple" of brilliant raconteurs

This project was launched by a group of literary folks - readers, writers, teachers, publishers - right here in Savannah, Georgia. Woohoo! I know of them, even though I have not been to one of their presentations.
They want to bring storytelling back to the front porches of the Southeast.
But no one really sits on front porches and does that anymore. Many folks don't even have front porches on their residences, these days. Oh, sure, nearly everyone in a house or street-level dwelling has some porch-like structure adjacent to the front door, to keep the rain off while they are trying to get the door opened.
But that is not a real porch.
Oh, no.
A genuine porch has room for a few chairs, or a porch swing, and is a place where people can gather and share vignettes of their lives.
Nowadays, the coffeehouses take the place of porches as gathering sites.
To bring more people out of their homes and into the small coffeehouses, Unchained travels around to the smaller towns, bringing stories from life to life.
But their 1975 bus, their rolling Greek temple, called it quits last summer, curtailing their spreading of the joy of tales and tunes. Now, a new motor is needed, as well as a few other odds and ends, to make the Bluebird soar once more.
That's where kickstarter comes in.
Me, too.
I heard about this through a dear friend and immediately sought it out.
I'm really looking forward to seeing a future show - and wearing my new T-shirt, too.
Hope to see you there!

dollops and pinches, oh my!

I arrived home and the cookbooks were here!!!
WOW! Most impressive! I do have them in time for Christmas!

Her inscription in my cookbook reads:
To Faustina -
the only you in the world -
Dea
Isn't that lovely?
As is her handwriting, too
- very nice cursive.

The cookbooks are fabulous! Full of recipes, sure, but also stories about the recipes, and suggested menus for "special events". Oh, like anniversaries and birthdays and such? Oh, my, no!!! We're looking at "A Night in Paris", "Tastings of the Titanic", "St. Paddy's Night". Sure, there's a "Sweetheart Dinner" and that could be for an anniversary...but a menu for those occasions when you might be on a sinking ship? You won't find that anywhere else!
I'm serious about that menu for the Titanic diners. Dea Irby traditionally serves that dinner in April, near the 14th, to commemorate that sad day in shipping history.
Definitely different!
If your appetite is whetted, you can have your own copy of the book, here.
Bon appetit, mon freres!

venturing out on the road to rehab

Yesterday, the thirty-nine backers of this project, received good news!

Update #2
Dec 11, 2011
You backed a fantastic event!
Hello Kickstarter backers,
Just wanted to let you know that the Venturing Out event you funded, "The Castle" -- originally called "Road to Rehabilitation" -- was a fantastic hit when it was performed last Thursday evening. I thought you might like to read a little bit of the publicity the event generated, to see the enthusiastic reception to our cause, namely, to help men and women achieve economic independence after incarceration.
http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/morning/venturing-out
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/editorspick_mobile/x1285894671/True-Stories-The-Castle-tells-of-life-after-prison
Thank you very much for your visionary support of this project. It is greatly appreciated!
Laura Winig, Executive Director, Venturing Out

The presentation at Babson College, of ex-offenders reading the dramatic monologues of other ex-offenders, had been a success for all involved. Venturing Out, the group that, with the aid of the college, educates soon-to-be-released prisoners on how to be entrepreneurs, gained much positive publicity and, hopefully, more financial support to bring their teachings to hundreds of other prisoners in the Massachusetts. The audience, which included some at-risk youth, gained knowledge from the panel discussion after the dramatic readings.
And all viewers, both at the live reading and of these videos posted on vimeo.com, walk away with a more realistic vision of the bad choices which land people like themselves in prison - and how to better accept the proud new taxpayers back into society... and keep them there.