Meghan 💀

Gul Dukat looks intently at Major Kira. Star Trek DS9.

"That's okay. You can just say yes. That's easier than explaining it. I don't mind."

A silver & white round tin with a snowflake pattern surrounded by packages of sprinkles, cupcake liners, and foil wrappers in shades of lavender, light blue, and mint green

It’s coming together ❄️

Fancy Friday variant!!!

I keep having dreams again where I struggle to speak Japanese. I get out an ”えー、少し話せます…” and then absolutely beef it, so I guess that means I should get back to flashcards.

I know my audience 💜

That means this year I can time track maybe more accurately and see if my estimates are correct or not. That's fun to me! I like it!

This is an aggressive timetable but I want Dec 8 to be my pack & ship day, so here we are. I could back treats out to start Wednesday if I'm feeling nervous.

I've been using Sunsama at work to pull my Asana (dayjob) and Notion (personal & extracurricular) tasks all into one place, and have been using their time-tracking capability for a more detailed breakdown since it's built-in and I don't have to name each session like I do with Toggl. Apps! Data!!

this is chaos - it's a screenshot of 4 days in the Sunsama app, with numerous task cards each day complete with time estimates

I arranged my tasks each day based on experience and vibes - I know what takes longest to dry, so that's first icing task on day 4, for example. I also know that the poinsettia dough is a dick if you chill it overnight, so I don't do that!

it's a table of cookie tasks, written in a way that is likely incomprehensible. Specifics are unimportant, but there are max 4 phases per cookie/treat, and 11 cookies/treats listed.

Screenshot of a planner app's daily headings, with an hour total beneath each. Thursday, Dec 4 - 7 hours Friday, Dec 5 - 8 hours Saturday, Dec 6 - 14 hours 45 minutes Sunday, Dec 7 - 7 hours 45 minutes

I did some rough time tracking as I went, so I used that this year to add time estimates to each task. Same approach - color coded table with same basic tasks per day - but this year I added them to my work tracker to get time totals and shuffle around the orders of things.

Next is timetable. Last year I broke each cookie out into phases and made a task per phase. I had all that in a table that I color-coded to determine which tasks would be on which days. It was loosely: day 1 bagged treats; day 2 make dough & set to chill; day 3 roll, cut, bake; day 4 icing & filling

Notion screenshot of lists, reads: Peppermint Patties x2 - 1 cup sweetened condensed milk - 3 tsp peppermint extract - 6 cups powdered sugar Chocolate Ube Pinwheels x3 Ube - 1 1/8 cup butter, softened - 1.5 cup sugar - 3 eggs

Notion screenshot of ingredients grouped together: - 1 1/2 cup butter, softened - 1 1/2 cup butter, softened Sugars - 3 c sugar - 1.5 cup sugar - 1.5 cup sugar - 1 1/2 cup sugar - 3/4 cup granulated sugar - 6 cups powdered sugar - 3/4 cup packed brown sugar - 9 cups powdered sugar Eggs - 5 eggs - 3 eggs - 3 eggs - 3 egg

Notion screenshot of a list: Grocery List Totalled - [ ] 13.5 C butter (7 boxes) - [ ] 8.25 C sugar (1 more bag) - [ ] .75 C brown sugar (have it) - [ ] 18 C powdered sugar (plus extra for icing) (3 bags) - [ ] 17 eggs (or 1 bag Bob’s replacer) - [ ] 6 egg yolks - [ ] 7-8 TBSP milk (have it) - [ ] .5 C evaporated milk (1 can) - [ ] 1 C sweetened condensed milk (1 can) - [ ] 36 C flour (5 bags measure-for-measure GF flour)

Alright, planning progresses! I make a big list of all the ingredients for the year's cookies, scaled up for how many batches of each I need (usually 3x). Then I copy that, group like ingredients, and math out how much of each I need. That turns into a grocery list!

If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features."

There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.

oh yes I look forward to "Miles Suffers" episodes like the clockwork they are! This is the true strength of an Enlisted Man

I spend a lot of time thinking about Harry Kim not being the *real* Harry Kim (VOY 2x21 Deadlock) but we just got to Miles O'Brien's time-travel bullshit (DS9 3x17 Visionary) and you know what? That might be WORSE. We'll see how it stacks up, but both of these guys need a counselor on staff STAT.

A silly drawing of a cat with the text "I am the opposite of artificial intelligence" at the top and "I am genuine stupidity" at the bottom

meow

yes, I love them!!! I did a test batch a couple weeks ago to see how some of the cookies took to gluten-free flour, and they did GREAT.

cursed to work, born to roll my little ball

I am clapping!!!!!

I seem to be the only one who cares for the matcha cookies! They're a good plan B though if the box mixes really are borked though, you're right, and everyone will have to deal with my whims. 😈

I'm waffling on the chocolate crinkle. They're easy and a favorite, but box mixes got hit by shrinkflation this year and they're a box-based recipe. Plus I had a hard time finding the gluten free cake mix a few years back but maybe it'll be fine?? I don't have a backup cookie in mind yet though.

crude illustration of the cookies described, showing the itended color palette of the cookies and the separating papers

Thoughts! All classics in the lineup, with a few tweaks. Starting at 1oclock it's: peppermint patties, ube-chocolate swirl (not cherry), chocolate crinkle, BLUE raspberry poinsettia, gingerbread lemon sandwich, chocolate mint star, apricot almond linzer

Ok serious question: does blue raspberry generally taste different? I might need to do science about this

crude Illustrator shapes to denote different cookies and the color paper cups they rest in - pink, lime, and turquoise and predominant in the scheme

the finished cookies arranged in a tin to match the plan graphic!

the cookies in a tin with the lid on - a clear window with a snowflake pattern lets the cookies peek through

the tin wrapped up, with a paper in the window listing what the cookies are. the tin is wrapped in ribbon and is stacked on other identical tins.

Ok 2022 was the last snowflake year, and I did a combo of spring-y accent colors for a similarly neutral tin. I need to make a plan graphic, bc I'm deranged, but I wonder if I can play with flavors to match a lavender/mint/blue scheme?? Mint, ube, ??? Would folks hate to lose raspberry & cherry? 🤔

I'm leaning snowflake bc its cheaper and I can buy singles in case I need extras. The go-to accent color for snowflake stuff is blue but I think I'll try a frosty green/purple/blue mix, like for the separator papers and ribbon and candy wraps. Gotta see what's in my stash, but that tin needs COLOR.

round red tin with a colorful plaid pattern on the lid

white round tin with a silvery grey snowflake pattern on the lid and sides

I think I'm down to two choices - a cute red plaid from a company I haven't bought from before, and a white snowflake design from a company I have. I did a plaid last year and I have done snowflakes before but it's been a few years. I think they're both neutral enough? HMMM. Thoughts?

has he considered acting less like a clown???

Last year's tins were $3 each. Before that I usually averaged $5. My usual haunts are asking $15 for wretched designs I wouldn't use in this lifetime. At this point it might be cheaper to buy a pallet of Royal Dansk.

It's mid-November which means it's Cookie Season over here. I can usually start to find good tins after Veteran's Day, but this year between tariffs & boycotts I'm definitely sweating. Paper boxes abound but I find the tins keep & ship a lot nicer, so into the online commerce trenches we go.

Visual Novel Developers: I am once again asking you to add full keyboard navigation to your games. I keep encountering games that have mouse and even controller support, but can't navigate menus with arrow keys or even advance dialogue with space bar. It's a disability accommodation thing, yanno?

[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.] JANET: Ugh... LIZ: What's up? JANET: I am so bored of cooking peas! LIZ: Have you tried... AI peas? JANET: AI peas? LIZ: They're peas with AI! [Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI]. LIZ: Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas JANET: What LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines] Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas? [Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it] LIZ: Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine [Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas] LIZ: With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas! JANET: What LIZ: Shut up LIZ: Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow From opening the bag of peas to boiling the peas to eating the peas To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means. JANET: Is it really necessary to- LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]: THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET [Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan: AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas. [Ends]

Every ad now