BogusRed's Sketchblog

Random musings from the PaperDemon admin.

New Laptop
Got my new laptop! I'm typing this post on it now. The SXGA+ screen has tinier pixels than I was expecting. The picture looks really good, but I can't read a damn thing. I'm getting a headache from it but at least in Firefox I can make the fonts bigger.

I'm having a weird problem with it that I had with the last Fujitsu (that I returned to the store). Everytime I boot it up, I get a message from the Wacom driver saying there's something wrong with the driver and that I should restart the comp or reinstall the driver. I've reinstalled it but it didn't do anything. I also tried uninstalling and reinstalling it on the first computer but it didn't make a difference. The pen works just fine though. So I guess I'll just ignore it until there's a driver update that fixes it.

Google Sites
Google just launched Google Sites for Google Apps. Not sure if you are all aware, but the staff of PD uses Google Apps for our email, calendar, and other stuff. Now we've got sites and I've already created three sites with it. It's really good for collaborating on a project. It's kind of like a wiki. You don't have a lot of control over the site design, but the collaboration features are pretty nifty. Within a couple days I had already copied over almost all of the PD help documentation to the new Help Center on Google Sites, and updated all of the docs. What's cool about it is any of the PD staff members can go in and add a new help doc, or update something that looks outdated.

PaperDemon Profile Skins
I've been thinking about the Premium Feature profile skins a lot. I think I'm going to change the way they work. I'm not satisfied with the quality of the skins I've made. And I think part of the problem is that the skin doesn't take over the whole PD page. I think I'd like to change the premium profiles to not have the standard template. Instead, the skin would take over the whole page. Main nav would be restricted to a thin bar across the top and it would change to match the skin. Or it would be a neutral color. The PD logo would be very small to the left of the nav. This way the PD template does not clash with the skin and I have more flexibility with the skin. This is similar to what Blogger does.

Seeing the new Google Sites is sort of what inspired this. I've become a bit addicted to it with the PD Help Center. And I kind of like how simple some of the designs are, but at the same time I'm thinking, "I could make even better skins than this" but then I look at some of the PD Profile Skins and think they are pretty crappy compared to some of the G Sites skins.

So I'm going to start working on reworking the skin system. It's going to be some time before its ready though.

Cooking - Stuffed Bell Peppers
I figure I should start keeping track of what I cook that Mike and I like so I know how to do it next time. Why not use my blog as a cooking diary?

I made stuffed Bell Peppers based on this recipe, but I changed the ingredients to this:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 small green bell pepper, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4-5 mushrooms, chopped
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1 pound ground beef
• 7 oz (half of a 14oz package) italian seasoned dry bread stuffing mix
• 4 large red bell peppers, halved and seeded
• 1 cup plain bread crumbs

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Heat oil in a large pot over low heat. Saute onion, celery and chopped green pepper for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Increase heat to medium high, and add ground beef. Cook until beef is evenly browned. Stir in mushrooms and garlic, and saute for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in stuffing mix.
3. Stuff each bell pepper half, and lightly sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Place stuffed bell pepper halves on ungreased baking dish. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour.

I left out a lot of stuff from the original recipe, namely the seasoning, shrimp, and ham. I just used Lawry's Seasoned Salt with Black Pepper and relied on the seasoning from the stuffing mix. I also added mushrooms. I think next time I'll try using a smaller onion, less celery, less beef, and more mushrooms. I also used red peppers instead of green ones for a sweeter taste.

Mike said he had had stuffed peppers before and didn't really care for them. But he really liked the ones I made and says he'd like it if I made it again sometime.

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