How to Boil an Egg

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Hey, don’t laugh – I’m just starting to learn all this stuff. Yes, I actually had to ask how to boil an egg. So here’s three approaches to boiling an egg.

Recipe One from Mom

To cook an egg.  Put several eggs in a pan of cold water.  Have the water at least 1/2 inch above the eggs.  Turn heat on high.  As it gets near boiling turn the heat down to medium high (don’t want a too rapid boil).  When the water starts boiling turn to medium heat for a nice simmer.  After 1 1/2 minutes take out the eggs you want to be soft boiled.  Run them under cold water and enjoy.  To get hard boiled eggs – when the water is boiling put the lid on and turn off heat for 12 minutes.  Then run cold water on the eggs to cool them rapidly – now your have boiled eggs.

Recipe Two from Sis

Put eggs in a pan with cold water.  Bring the water to boil in the pan.  Turn it off and let the eggs sit covered in the pan for 25 minutes.  Rinse the eggs with cold water.  The perfect boiled egg!

How to Boil A Perfect Egg – From Victoria

I once knew a man who thought that the longer you boiled an egg the better it would be.  So he boiled it for an hour and a half….and was astounded at the result.  He obviously had no experience in a kitchen.  His wife was a wonderful cook.
I’ve seen involved recipes – too complicated to be able to follow through.  I finally worked out the plan that I now use.  I think you have to consider what your ultimate goal is.  For me — it’s having an egg that is tasty.  If, when I begin to crack the egg, I see that it is going to be too runny, I quickly close the still-hot  shell and let the heat of the shell do a little more cooking.  If the egg is too hard when I eat it — I think oh well, next time I’ll do it a little different.  Bottom line — just remember — you’re a good egg.

For a soft egg — put eggs into cold water on a cold burner.  Turn the heat to medium high and bring the water to a boil.  Cover the pan and turn the burner off.  Let sit for 4 minutes.

For a medium egg — do the same – but let sit for 6 minutes.

For a hard egg — same procedure — but let sit for 9 minutes.

I take my eggs right from the frig and never seem to have any problems with them cracking if I don’t have the heat too high.  It doesn’t matter if they crack anyway, unless you’re coloring them for Easter.  The membrane inside the shell keeps the egg safe.

The Shoulders of Knowledge

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Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous.

There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind. We owe it to a few writers of antiquity (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) that the people in the Middle Ages could slowly extricate themselves from the superstitions and ignorance that had darkened life for more than half a millennium. Nothing is more needed to overcome the modernist’s snobbishness.

– Albert Einstein


Magic Fairies do the dishes

For years magic fairies have been doing my dishes. Sometimes the dishes pile up for a few days but the magic fairies always make their way around. I don’t leave food or money for them because fairies don’t eat food and don’t use money. It never occurred to me that there was something I should do because they were always there and I don’t fix what isn’t broken.

So I’m on the road now sitting in my apartment far away from home and can’t help but notice how the dishes are piling up. I let USPS know I was going on the road but wasn’t aware of any particular protocol to let the magic fairies know. Or are they mad at me? Maybe I was supposed to leave money or food after all and nobody told me.

I asked my family about it and they said they would look into it. I received this photo today detailing the tragic death of the magic fairies. This photo shows in detail how they actually clean the dishes…

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So there really aren’t magic fairies that do the dishes? If someone had told me this a long time ago it could have saved me a lot of confusion.

But just in case their are magic fairies, can you tell them that I’m in Canada and I need my dishes done?

Seussical Sound Effects

headphones-spin.gif Here are sound effects you can use in Seussical the Musical. This is a free download. I have provided the files in .wav format so they are ready to burn. The Seussical FX are a single download as a compressed folder.

These are the same effects I used while conducting Seussical the Musical in 2006. It covers effects for the Act II Overture, last scene egg breaking, bird chirping after the egg hatches, Horton’s frustrated elephant call, wild animal grunts for “Monkey Around”, Thunder for opening of Act II, explosion from Jojo’s military scene. I used the water splash sound for when the Cat in the Hat sneezes on the Who’s in “How Lucky You Are”. It was a pretty funny addition.

If you find these sound effects useful or if there’s any problems with them, please drop a note on this post and let me know. Of course I’d love to hear about your Seussical production and how these sound effects worked for you. This sound effects download is free, if you feel like putting a link on your site to mine that would be much appreciated.

Seussical FX Pack Includes:

  1. bang-wonk
  2. bird-chirp
  3. bugle-cartoon
  4. dog-bark
  5. elephant-single-call
  6. explosion
  7. eggshell-crack
  8. grunt1
  9. grunt2
  10. horn-ahooga
  11. horn-comedy
  12. slide-whistle
  13. thunder
  14. water-splash

7,676 kb download in compressed file. All sound fx are in .wav format ready to be burned to CD. On a fast internet connection this free download should only take a couple seconds.

DOWNLOAD SEUSSICAL SOUND EFFECTS

Click on link above and save this compressed folder to your computer. Once downloaded, right click on the compressed folder and select “extract” to uncompress the folder contents.

Drop a note and let me know how these worked for you. ROCK ON SEUSSICAL!

TECH NOTES:
I ran the sound fx live from a virtual keyboard on a laptop. It allowed me to time the fx exactly where I wanted them. You could also have a sound tech run the effects, but they might need a couple cd players with fast transports (For instance, in the Overture to Act II if you want three distinct “wonk” sounds, this would require fast juggling between the CD players).

I added the slide whistle in a lot more than the score called for – had a great effect especially in the circus scenes.

Update May 2009
“VIRTUAL KEYBOARD” – Had a question as to what that is. I used the software Kontakt to map these sound effects to a keyboard, then triggered the sounds live from a midi keyboard connected to my laptop. This gives easy triggering for keyboardists that can time the sounds to the action, or trigger the sound effects to the exact beat needed in the scores (like in the Entracte to Act II). Kontakt costs several hundred dollars and has a little learning curve to get into. If you’re used to using music software, you should be able to figure out how to drag the sounds to the software, with only a few *minro* headaches (translation: it’s not super dooper easy for a first time user).

Rap – Destruction of Alexandria Library

alexandria-library.jpgT-Stylez, a member of our RapDogs.com hip hop battle forum, said he could write about any subject and wanted people to test him. I gave him the subject of the Destruction of the Library at Alexandria. Here’s what he came up with:

Third century BC, Aristotle student Demetrius of Phaleron
had a idea for a library Which was gonna be so strong
that scribes were so precise that the originals were in the Library
Egypt had the finest library in the world, u gotta agree
Then According to “Plutarch lives” written at the second century
the man known as Caesar, had a conquest a 48 BC
He wanted to burn the library by settin of a fire-in-docks
But it didnt work good so he luckely didnt retire-the-rocks*
But Then there was a emperor named Aurelian with a revolt
It made huge loses but the library still was good controlled
Was it known as the everlasting or as the lucky thing
But in 391 theophilus had something to bring,
Or rather to take cuz he took away alot of the books
Right after that in 641 the muslims took some looks
All the books need to have on of the biggest erases
so Commander Amr bin al’s dilemma then took a big places
Touching the books you mention, if what is written in them agrees with the Book of God,
they are not required; if it disagrees, they are not desired. Destroy them therefore hot.”
Now a days some historians say its just a false tale
If u ask me, this library was unable to fail

Bringing Vocals Forward

The challenging part of vocal coaching is getting singers to understand the feeling of vocal placement for their particular voice. It’s common at some point to show a vocalist an actual anatomy picture of the throat and muscles involved in vocal production. After that, it’s a mind game to have them understand the nuance of their own instrument.

One way to have singers bring the sound forward is to have them push out with their hands slowly while they are singing. It will look something like water aerobics – a bit silly looking and awkward. But I’ve heard this work well with individuals and especially in larger vocal ensembles. Just in bringing the hands forward I would estimate a 30% increase in overall volume without degradation of tone.

With a vocalist recently we tried this excercise but it wasn’t producing the desired effect. So I had them actually walk forward slowly while singing several phrases. For this particular vocalist it did the trick. The lightbulb went off in their head and they were very excited to feel the difference in bringing the sound forward.

Often I have heard a vocalist who is singing individual notes, but not driving through the end of a phrase. It’s as if they are sitting complacently on each note. The hand and walking excersises prove useful in getting a vocalist to visualize the forward motion of a phrase.

When a vocal phrase is “given up on” before it’s completion, it’s not very interesting to listen to. Why should the listener be engaged if the vocalist is not interested in the phrase? By singing through with intent to the very last note of a phrase, the listener is engaged in what is happening.

The walking forward is nothing I have ever read about – but came about because of a related idea I keep in mind. If you are instructing someone and they are not fully grasping the thought then you have two basic approaches: you can keep repeating the same information until they get it, or you can find a new way to explain the concept. I have found that finding a new analogy or explanation is infinitely more productive. I’ve slowly made it a habit. The reward is seeing the lightbulb shine in someone’s eyes; yes, they’ve got it!

And the thought that drives the creation of different examples is this: Know the final outcome you want. Chances are there are many varied roads to get there. Just pick one.

Blog Stats

Someone told me a couple days ago that they enjoyed this website here, especially all the insights into musical theater. Then they asked me “Is that what a blog is?”. I kind of bristled at this being called a blog. I do not write about cats. I write about all the very important issues of art, theology and science. But remembering my recent post on humility, I had to say “Yes, it’s a blog.” Of course with the qualifier that it’s really a repository for all the information I find while working on certain projects. That’s what I like to believe anyway.

What I enjoy most about about dynamic article based sites (web logs, or “blogs”) is the ability to archive information quickly while it’s on my mind. As soon as one project is finished the information is forgotten and I move on to the next. This site has been a great way to make that information available to others.

H. G. Wells, at the end of the 19th century, wrote about the need for a “world brain trust”. A place where all the knowledge in the world would be accessible by everyone at any time. Many consider this the first concept of what the internet is becoming. Blogs are part of the brain trust. When I need specific info on a small niche area, I usually find it now on a blog. And many narrow niche arrows I have written about, others use me as a reference.

I have run thousands of websites in the past and generated a lot of income on the web. But it’s only in the last year (with an active blog) that I have felt part of the global web team. Part of a team in that I now create information for others to an equal degree that I take information FROM others for my own use.

I haven’t heard many people talk about this, but the world is changing at a lightning speed in it’s understanding of many things. A “tipping point” is happening in areas of thought where in the past not all information was available to all people. Many myths are being exposed for what they are; mostly due to more information being available to study and compare.

To me, this is the most important event in my lifetime, and perhaps the most important of the last two thousand years. Do not underestimate the far reaching effects of this. Realize a great portion of the world is being re-educated in many areas all at the same time. I am sad that I will not be around in a hundred years to witness what new generations accomplish with all the global paradigm shifts in thinking currently taking place.

My contribution to further encourage this interchange was to equip my forum communities each with their own blogs on niche subjects. In addition to this website, we currently have about 100 community blogs running so each group can make their own information readily available. I will be expanding more on this in the coming year.

So, blog stats: This blog is currently in the top 60,000 blogs worldwide on technorati, has blocked over 6,000 spam messages and receives around 30,000 page views a month. Most popular subjects on my blog are translations of Latin text to English in classical music, information on Disney’s High School Musical, and some of my posts on how to fix particular problems with computer peripherals.

What the world is interested in hearing from me are not the subject matters I most passionately speak about. But that’s a lesson in itself too. And yes, this is my official self indulgent “bloggy cat-type post”.

Ave Maria Song In Catholic Church Services

I have received many questions about the proper use of various Ave Maria songs during Catholic church services and weddings. Not being Catholic, I am an inappropriate resource to provide specific and accurate information. However, a reader today kindly submitted detailed musical and theological information that applies specifically to the Ave Maria lyrics in a Catholic setting.

You can read my original Ave Maria post on the background of Schubert’s Ave Maria, then follow up and Read the Ave Maria Catholic perspective by clicking here. The original post was specifically about Schubert’s original Ave Maria and the subsequent Latin lyrics that were transposed upon it for use in sacred settings. The follow up comments are about using any version of the Ave Maria in Catholic sacred settings.

Quotes on Humility

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.
~William Temple

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
~Benjamin Franklin

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
–Unknown

From The Art of Being Humble by Gemcee on RapDogs.com