For some good news cast a glance at
The Italian epidemic seems to be flattening, but not necessarily slowing down. I doubt itâs halfway, but I hope itâs at least a fourth-way through.
Some are saying that theyâs only had 0.0001% fatalities, or 1 per million people, but so far itâs 0.0124%.
3 Likes
Makes sense, I did pick up the small amount of flour I did with bread in mind, though I havenât had to go find a recipe yet.
Of course, I wonder if the people googling âsourdough starterâ are getting a letdown realizing the time and extra flour theyâll need to go through for it.
7 Likes
I dare you to listen to the entire album.
5 Likes
5 Likes
PICKLES THE PENGUIN!
5 Likes
I love the first track, âEverything I Own,â but Iâm not sitting through the rest. (Sounds awful tinny as well. Gooorn!)
3 Likes
4 Likes
Which is why I left a ziplock bag and instructions on the front steps for my friend to come up and grab on his way home from work (heâs a doctor). Heâs literally building the starter to 100 grams tonight so that he can make the dough tomorrow morning and bake in the evening.
8 Likes
And if I werenât appropriately practicing social distancing and not going near friends (and in a different part of the country), Iâd now wish we were friends so I wouldnât have to go through the trouble of making a sourdough starter. 
Iâm tempted to legit start one, if for no other reason than that sourdough is IMO the best bread to do grilled cheese sandwiches with. But, since I wasnât aiming for unbleached/etc flour and only got two rather small bags, Iâm worried about starting something I canât finish. 
(also, I think in my life Iâve made more alcoholic beverages from scratch than I have loaves of bread, soâŚ)
6 Likes
I got the starter originally from a former poster at The Other Place who came to visit while on a trip through the U.S., so itâs only fair I keep passing it on!
7 Likes
Iâve been utterly humbled by my students retooling thesis projects to work on COVID-19.
The kids are all right.
9 Likes
Yesterday at work, we got a message from one of our customers to let us know that the stuff we had built was helping them in their work on Covid-19, which was a good morale boost. Then this morning we started on requests for new features specifically in support of that work. Those requests jumped the queue over everything else, of course. Today was a release day, so it was a very short timeline, but we got most of them through the QA process and deployed. Makes me happy to see how everyoneâs working together on that and to be a part of it, even if just a small part.
I do kinda envy people getting an extended vacation for this, but donât envy the ones not getting paid, nor having to go back afterward.
Also learned that my neighbor is working long hours managing the volunteers handling the school lunches for a bunch of area schools.
In bad news, waffle house is now over 20% closed, which is a red alert for FEMA. And weâre above China in total cases and deaths per million population. Starting to feel like a global total war scenario, just not the one I pictured when I was a kid.
11 Likes
5 Likes
I have the flu, mild cough, but no fever. About 4 days now.
Fuck.
9 Likes
6 Likes
Are you sure thatâs what it is?
4 Likes
Russian numbers have a whiff of poop about them.
3 Likes
The flu is what it feels like, but who knows. Testing for Covid19 is not easy to get, and Iâm not having shortness of breath so local authorities probably wouldnât give me one. And Iâm not sure I need the extra stress right now.
But itâs scary. Every now and then I panic and that causes tightening of the chest. But it soon goes away (sometimes with a little help from my âfriendsâ).
ThanksâŚ
7 Likes