Pastry Comforts

Baking has always been my passion. The word baking itself has femininity in it that makes you want to explore and taste all the possibilities that sugar can do! In my hometown in Oklahoma, I was known in our neighborhood to bake the best pastries. I have two kids who are all addicted to my chunky chocolate chip cookies, which has a tad bit of similarity of Nestlé’s Toll House Cookies. Not boasting or anything, but that is what they all say.

It may sound like a cliché but I bake my pastries with a secret ingredient called love. I met my husband during our culinary days. Yes. He is also a chef. We met at one of the top schools of Le Cordon Bleu. He studied and pursued Asian Culinary while I mastered in Pastry. My husband travels around the Continent because he is a Chef consultant to many five star hotels. As for me, I started my own small pastry shop. Before my pastry shop, I only accepted orders for special occasions but a lot of my friends convinced me to open my own small pastry shop.

Right now, my shop has five tables and a comfy couch. I have a lot of loyal customers who come in for coffee and cookies every morning. I also have students who studies at my pastry shop. And also the businessmen that uses the Free Wi-fi that I offer in my shop. Being in this millennium, I know that internet is an important factor to business and education. I was shocked and amazed that the shop where I order my ingredients just recently launched their website for their clients’ convenience. Being one of the major suppliers for bakeries, they found an easier way for order processing. They told me to check out their website and try ordering online. To my surprise, there was a pop-out chat asking me if I needed assistance! Imagine that! I thought that it was computer generated but when I asked the owner, she told me that they were outsourcing their chat supports. I don’t know where they come from but they were very efficient. It made things a lot easier and faster. Being in a city that has wi-fi everywhere, I know I have to be a part of the internet world.

US appoints Howard Schmidt as cybersecurity chief

The White House has appointed its cyber tsar, following a seven month search.

Howard Schmidt, a former eBay and Microsoft executive who advised President Bush, was appointed after others turned down the job.

Mr Schmidt has been set the task of uniting various disparate agencies and organisations to shore up the country's defence against cyber attack.

In May this year, President Obama pledged to personally appoint someone to the post.

In a letter posted on the White House website, John Brennan, assistant to the President for homeland security and counterterrorism said that protecting the internet was "critical to our national security, public safety and our personal privacy and civil liberties".

"It's also vital to President Obama's efforts to strengthen our country, from the modernisation of our health care system to the high-tech job creation central to our economic recovery."

Mr Schmidt would have "regular access to the President and serve as a key member of his National Security Staff", he said.

The White House's acting cyber-security head, Melissa Hathaway, stood down in August after complaining that the post did not allow her to implement necessary changes.

-- BBC News

Review: 'Avatar' delivers on the hype

(CNN) -- James Cameron has done it again.

For maybe the third time in his career, the immodest Canadian has made "the most expensive movie ever," confident that showmanship never goes out of style.
He was right about "Terminator 2," and he was right about "Titanic," and at this stage it looks more than likely he'll be proved right about "Avatar," too.

Already it feels like an epochal movie, a landmark fantasy film on par with "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Star Wars" and "The Lord of the Rings."

Like those (very different) movies, "Avatar" stretches the bounds of the cinematic imagination. It shows us something we've never seen before: an entire alien world, a new and complex ecosystem rendered in three dimensions with dazzling fluidity and detail. Blog: A geek praises "Avatar"

Welcome to Pandora, a distant planet and one of the most valuable outposts in the solar system. Here, earthlings mine a rare mineral and try to maintain equitable relations with the indigenous people. The Na'vi are 10 feet tall, blue-skinned and increasingly pissed as the humans encroach on their sacred lands.
This being the middle of the 22nd century, Earth's corporate emissaries don't want to come in and take what they want by force (not unless they have to).
Instead they try to win the natives' trust by setting up schools, teaching them English and infiltrating their number with organic avatars, modeled on Na'vi DNA but controlled with a human consciousness -- which is where Jake Sully (Australian actor Sam Worthington) comes in. He's a Marine and just naïve or innocent enough to score a free pass into the most suspicious of the local tribes.
If Jake -- or rather, his avatar -- can talk the Na'vi into leaving their jungle home of their own free will, then everyone will be happy. If not, the military will put his intelligence to more pragmatic use.

Put that way, the movie sounds like a video game (lo and behold, that's exactly how the "Avatar" video game plays out).
Gamers will also feel very much at home with the film's stereoscopic visual texture, a kind of synthetic naturalism, seamlessly folding live action into computer animation and vice versa.

source: CNN

Man leaves Wife after Winning 19 Million Dollars

There was a report on Local 10 on TV about a South Florida man who won the lottery jackpot and left his wife who had their home foreclosed on. Apparently now, the wife now will be put on the streets in less than a week. –source: postchronicle

Arnim Ramdass, the man, reportedly won 19 million dollars in 2007 and had kept it a secret from his wife so that he wouldn’t have to share it with his wife. He is said to have disappeared completely before the foreclosure of their home. The wife is currently looking for him and is allegedly getting legal services to sue him for half the money.

A Kiss in the Moonlight

When his skin touches mine
his soul bores holes into my soul.
His lips,
my hands on his heart.
He whispers his name to my mind,
and I hear no other sound.

So when the morning comes,
in his arms,
I see the stars of promises.

He speaks my name to the universe.
I speak his name to the heavens.

When the silver moon comes
to claim what is ours,
I shall kiss the ground
where we planted our seed,
where we,
in love and life,
made our vows.