.the gpb kids.

What Does Your Name Mean?

Posted by Jules - November 18, 2008 at 11:11:33 pm

I’ve been slacking on improving my chinese, but I’m determined to get back to that. Today, mike showed me that my macbook had a built in ability to type chinese. Woot. I’ll have to show it to my parents. In the mean time, I used my trusty resources to piece together what Mike’s name means. I used it to figure out the cantonese pronunciation as well, since he always pronounces it in mandarin. Cuz I’m biased like that. I’m pretty happy that I finally got around to figuring out how to pronounce his name though… hehe.. now I can use his chinese name when I’m mad. Right? Right?

The characters in parantheses signify verb, adjective and noun forms, respectively. Cantonese pronunciation is bracketed; mandarin pronunciation is not.  So Mike is a vibrating honor filled person? Or maybe he restores honor and glory? Hmmm.. what a bright and shiny name.

Mortars and Pestles

Posted by Jules - October 4, 2008 at 03:10:22 pm

I’ve had mortars and pestles (m&p) on the brain lately. Probably because I’ve been using them in lab lately. So Coors (yes, the beer company) also makes great ceramic products for laboratory use. The only types of m&p that I’ve used in both academic and industrial laboratory settings have been Coors ceramic mortars. I settled on a marble one for my kitchen years ago because it’s not readily available at your local kitchen store. At least not the one that I wanted. While m&p come in wood, stone, marble, and steel flavors as well, I feel that the ceramic non porous finish is best. It’s durable, non reactive, nonporous (aka stain resistant), and easily sterilizible. I’ve been making do with a marble one these past few years, but soon! I found the 275 ml size that I want being offered on Amazon. Sometimes I feel like they sell everything. Yay Amazon.

Oh, and what do I use it for? Mainly to crush pistachios to mix in with my vanilla ice cream. I guess I crush spices occasionally too. But mainly pistachios. It’s the best way to eat vanilla ice cream. Heavy on the pistachios please. Pre-m&p days, I would smash my pistachios on a cutting board with a hammer. Not so good for the neighbors, and with occasionally explosive results.

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