Daily Movement

Mocafe Mexican spiced chocolate, Azteca D’oro 1519

Dagoba Organic Xocolatl Hot Chocolate

• Preparation: 8 ounces 2% milk, 3 tablespoons powder, heated to 140 degrees, residual heat to 160 degrees.
• Sweetness: 2
• Spiciness: 5
• Ingredients: organic evaporated cane juice, organic cacao powder, organic unsweetened chocolate, chiles, cinnamon
• Tasting notes:

  The spiciness surprised me! I would prefer more sweetness and less spiciness. This just goes to show that spiciness and sweetness are personal preferences.

Green & Blacks, Organic Maya Gold

• Preparation: 9 ounces 2% milk, 4 teaspoons powder, heated to 140 degrees, residual heat to 170 degrees.
• Sweetness: 2.5
• Spiciness: 1
• Ingredients: Organic raw cane sugar, Organic fat reduced cocoa powder (31%), Organic chocolate powder (15%), Organic cocoa liquor, Organic cocoa butter, organic powdered orange peel (0.7%), natural orange flavoring (0.7%), organic ground cinnamon (0.1%), organic ground nutmeg (0.1%), organic black pepper (0.09%)
• Tasting notes:

  It is more of essence of spices and flavors rather than a strong mix of spices. The lack of sweetness makes it a more savory drink. I would prefer more sweetness, and would have to do a side by side taste with the Winter Sippers, but I think the sweetness is even slightly less.

I rate the hot chocolate based on two factors: sweetness and spice on a scale of 1-5, 3 being the preferred value for me. E.g. a sweetness of 5 is more sweet than i would like it, sweetness of 1 is more bitter, and 3 is just right.

Of course, both sweetness and spice are individual preferences, but I think the relative comparisons are accurate. If you try one particular chocolate and are looking for something spicier or less sweet, you’ll know how the other chocolate drinks compare.

Coupa Cafe spiced hot chocolate — actually Spicy Maya produced by Chuao

• Preparation: it varies.
• sweetness: 4
• spice: 3
• tasting notes:

  over a number of different days, i’ve had the sweetness be slightly sweeter than desired (4) to very sweet (5) — think those carnation instant chocolate packets where you just add hot water. However even on the bad days, the spiciness rescues the chocolate for me.

The Spice Hunter’s Winter Sippers Spiced Cioccolata

• Preparation: 6 oz cold 2% milk, 3 tablespoons powder, heated to 140 degrees, reaching 160 degrees with residual heat, i.e. milk was not scalded in this experiment.
• sweetness: 3
• spice: 2
• ingredients: sugar, cocoa processed with potassium carbonate, chocolate, corn starch, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, red pepper
• tasting notes:

  sweetness is right on for me. it degree of sweetness makes it more of a savory drink than as a dessert.

Starbuck’s Chantico

• sweetness: 5
• spice: 0
• tasting notes:

  if i can remember back when, Chantico was only served in at most 6 ounce cups and it was so thick that you could only stand 6 ounces at a time. In its form back then, it was basically a 390 calorie melted candy bar. This drink had potential with tuning, but unfortunately it didn’t evolve enough to survive. I ordered the drink once, maybe twice at most and then moved on from that experience. Origins of word Chantico, and a home made recipe for Chantico if you want to re-experience one.

As an update of How to get rid of ants, let me share a technique that seems to be working.

I’ve been trying the Ortho Home Defense Max spray, active ingredient of Bifenthrin. You spray the holes or crevices where you see ants coming out of or going into. A little while later, no ants use those holes any more. Eventually, the ants find a new way to get in and you repeat the process of spraying the deterrent into the crevice.

It is supposed to last for 12 months, and it has actually kept the garage area free of ants for a few days now. The ants did manage to find a new entrance in the last day, but after spraying that too, the trail stopped. Maybe the spray doesn’t actually kill, but as long as it keeps them out of the house, that’s good enough for me.

My wife gave me a project of making a workout music mix for her new iPod Nano for her birthday.

First off, I’m using Mac OSX and iTunes, so keep in mind that a solution using Windows will involve different software, but maybe with same overall limitations.

I tried beaTunes 1.2.1 but found the BPM analysis wasn’t accurate for some songs.

Then I came across Potion Factory’s Tangerine listed on this page. I double checked the results with a free javascript manual-tapping-based BPM analyzer and they were accurate. Sometimes Tangerine picked a twice as fast BPM but I think unfortunately, the numbers will always need to be tweaked before they are used to put together a smooth playlist.

I’m still deciding what to do. I still haven’t shelled out any money for either of these programs yet.

I tried using Ecto v2 on osx — actually purchased it — but the RTF editor has issues such as:

• not being able to get numbered lists to be generated correctly,
• when I switch to HTML mode, the new text i’ve added to the list doesn’t show up,
• when I edit the HTML in an external editor, e.g. textmate, and go back to ecto, the HTML has been rewritten incorrectly.

So, i’m going to have to discontinue my use of this and just use wordpress’s native editor. Hopefully things are improved with Ecto v3.

I don’t know why i rented district B13 originally. Maybe it was because it was a foreign movie (French) or because netflix recommended it.

It is kind of a pleasurable low budget movie, which is light on plot but they make up for it with a couple of good parkour chases…

David Belle, seen here in a documentary, does all his own stunts in the movie. The other main character in the movie is a stuntman too who does all his own sequences.

Shane Nickerson wrote over a year ago about his experience with Sony warranty service. Well, it hasn’t gotten any better as I have been struggling (patiently) with Sony’s outsourced repair service (Precision Camera Repair) for the last 8 weeks. They are doing the repair free of charge, but they just aren’t doing a good job of it. It is going back for repair for the third time in a row.

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7 days later and Roundup is working. In some cases, it killed more than just what was sprayed, in other cases, the greenery survived. In maybe half of the cases, the greenery was killed as expected.

You can read more here.