Pollomania or I how should I decide

…if my dear visitors’ and voice-givers’ opinion is so, lets say well-balanced?
A few days ago, it looked like this:
(for visitors who cannot see the pictures because of their slow modem connection, e.g. Mr. Natey; the votes are: 1-1-0-1-0-1-1)
and since yesterday my poll says this:
(here the votes are: 2-2-0-1-1-2-2)
My sister would say…na na na na naaa, you need to decide by yourself again. I know she would say it with a big smile.
Thanks for everyone who voted yet, but the rest of you, come on people, give me a name! My identity crisis is not over yet.

Democracy or WP-Polls?

I just want to let you know that I test two poll plugins at the moment: The Democracy AJAX Poll by Andrew Sutherland (which I use since quite a while, but which code unfortunately is not XHTML valid) and WP-Polls by Gamerz (Chan Lester), which I use the first time.
Which one is better? I will find it out…but you must help me and vote!

Nur ein kleiner Hinweis: ich teste momentan zwei Umfrage Plugins: das Democracy AJAX Poll von Andrew Sutherland, welches ich schon eine ganze Weile benutze, aber welches leider keinen validen XHTML code produziert, und WP-Polls von Gamerz (Chan Lester), welches ich das erste Mal im Einsatz habe.
Welches der beiden plugins ist besser? Ich werde es herausfinden, aber Du musst mir helfen und mit abstimmen!
Durch Stephan’s Aufreger der Woche kam ich auf die momentane Nerv-Diskussion des NRG (Nichtrauchergesetzes) in D. Da ist man mal für ein paar Monate im Ausland und denkt sich, das Thema ist vorangekommen, aber Pustekuchen…nun frag ich einfach mal, wie ihr euch entscheiden würdet, wenn ich an der Macht wärt…äh, wenn ihr natürlich an der Macht wärt. Grins.

Challenge: Great–Grandma Anna’s crumble cake

My latest baking stories…. I collected a few recipes that I found in magazines, baking books, and online to start my personal challenge to make the best crumble cake (Streuselkuchen). The reason for that is that my grand-grandmother made the best crumble cake I have ever eaten. Unfortunately my family does not have the recipe what is very sad, because everyone misses her perfect crumble cake. My family remembers in every details how great her cake was. Everyone combines Ur-”Oma Anna” (Great-”Grandma Anna”) with crumble cake. Mhhhhh, I still remember the smell of her house, when she made the cake. I live now in this house and it reminds me so often of my Granny and her famous crumble cake.
Last year I made my first crumble cake. The yeast dough was too firm. The taste was fine, but not at all like how I know it from my Granny.
A few days ago I made a new version from a new recipe that I found online and which obviously a lot of people liked. This version was for a spring-form pan:

The dough was much better than the cake from last year, but the taste….was good, but still something was different than her cake. Maybe the crumbles on top need more butter taste…and the dough could be sweeter in general? I don’t know, I will bake the next crumble cake this week. I have two more recipes that sound good and I talked to a baker (my neighbor) today and he gave me tips and told me everything he knows about the secret of a good yeast cake. He also said that yeast cakes are a challenge. Yup, that is something for me; I like challenges.
If you have any tips or great crumble cake recipes, please let me know (comments,email)! I will bake them all!

Hey Yardman, thanks for the ride

May I proudly present my lawn that I mowed yesterday. My dad explained me how to ride our yardman, which is our supersize (well, the German understanding of larger) lawnmower. The following picture shows my dad and Nathan on it last summer: What a fun to ride it! I has a brake and a gas paddle, gears (drive, reverse, and neutral), a lever hold for the mow tools, and the speed shift. On its back you have a handle that you pull to open and empty the box in which you collect the mowed grass.
If you forget to put the mow tools up before you drive backwards, or you mix up the order of start-brake-shift gears-mow tools down-gas-drive-brake-mow tools up-shift reverse-go-and so on…you will hear a loud bang, which means: misfire - BANG! Not good for the engine…and it happened to me once. The neighbors must have heard my shriek, hihi. Very scary when you sit on the yardman and it goes off with a very loud bang. I thought that the whole wagon will explode.
Our garden is a little bit larger than usual gardens, so we have quite a lot lawn that needs to be mowed (~3000 square metres). My dad and I mowed alternately. I hope the grass grows fast, so that I can do it again, because it is fun. Yeah! What was no fun at all is removing the moss that grows all over our lawn. We used a verticulator to spike into the lawn to give it air and to remove the moss. We worked the whole afternoon, bu we still have 80% of mossy grass area. Sigh.

Shame on me

Oops, I forgot that yesterday was shutdown day. What a shame, because I wrote about it here and I really liked the idea. Must be my Spring fatigue…yaaaawn. Well, on the official page they made a list, where people wrote what they did that day while they didn’t use their computer. If you want to know why something like the shutdown day once every quarter a year would be good for the German birth rate, check their page. Smile.
I wonder if Sandra (as she wanted) shut down?