start with a small container of margarine
(like 7.5oz of promise or smart balance)

blend in some sugar.
i use about 1/3 brown sugar, 1/3 white sugar, and 1/2 a cup of confection [powdered] sugar.

*optional*
you can also use 1 table spoon of honey and/or agave nectar.

stir until creamy.

add 1 tea spoon vanilla and stir.
add flour.
(i like to mix 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour and 1+1/2 cup of white flour.)

*NOTE*
if you used honey / agave nectar you'll need and extra 1/2 cup of flour.

add 1 tea spoon of salt.
add 1 tea spoon of baking soda.
add 1 tea spoon of baking powder.

you want the dough to be stiff not sticky. if necessary, add more flour.

then stir in a small bag of semi-sweet chips. (i use the dark chocolate minis.)

shape the dough into walnut sized balls.
put on a cookie sheet and flatten slightly.
bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes.

getting the dough the right consistency is crucial. if your first batch is coming out too thin or flat, you need to add more flour. the dough shouldn't stick to your hands when rolling then into balls. just keep adding a small amount of flour at a time until they don't feel so sticky.

let cool.
enjoy!

so the other day nina, will, and i went to a pittsburgh penguins hockey pratice. i got to meet TK! (aka #48 tyler kennedy) i couldnt belive that he was only a little bit taller then me, but he's carved out of solid rock! GO PENS!

to kick off the pittsburgh zombie film festival, lloyd kaufman and the troma crew, made the venture down to the iron city to premiere their new film poultrygeist at the andy warhol museum. my buddy smitty and his girlfriend amanda decided that they would accompany nina and i. we didnt want to miss the show, so i preordered our tickets on the internetz. ok, so the other reason i preordered the tix was because i love just walking into a venue, and saying "im on the guestlist..." ++lol. anyway, so the cats that run the warhol's website posted the time wrong :P we misses the first hour of the movie. but for anyone who as ever seen a troma film, we just missed one horrifically bloody death scene. after the movie, we got to listen to lloyd talk about the state of troma, and whats in the works for 2009. after that he just hung out in the hallway and signed autographs, took photos, chatted up the horde, and hit on all the ladies. man, mr. tromavision was a mach and a half! he almost got nina and amanda to make out! ok, im exaggerating... after getting these flix, we just walked around the warhol for a few hours. then met up with my main man mccarthy, and hit the bar. it was a blast!

just another take on a classic piece of code. the pseudo-random number generator. this one is almost the same, just a slightly diffrent algorithm.

actionscript 3 code

private function randomizer(low:Number, high:Number):Number {
	var num:Number = high-low;
	return (Math.random()*num)+low;
}

actionscript 3 code

var x:Number = randomizer(5, 50);

we were discussing recursive algorithms and chaos theory at work yesterday. when the chemistry professor brought up the lorenz attractor. he was trying to draw one on the white board for about 10 minutes until i decided it would be easier to draw in flash, lol!

after a quick conversation w/ andy zupko about the new Line3D object, and my new CanvasView3D component for papervision, i made a sweet Lorenz attractor!

the algor is super simple

pseudo code

  x1 = x0 + h * a * (y0 - x0);
  y1 = y0 + h * (x0 * (b - z0) - y0);
  z1 = z0 + h * (x0 * y0 - c * z0); 

here a nice little one liner. this function returns a random number between a user supplied range.

actionscript 3 code

function randomizer (low:Number, high:Number):Number {
   return Math.floor(low + (Math.random() * (high-low)));
}

var x:Number = randomizer(5, 50);

here is my asp.net randomizer class based on the c R250/512 shift-register sequence random number generator, by kirkpatrick and stoll and published (j. computational physics, vol 40, pp. 517-526) with an added a pseudo-random class redefinition and buffer overflow protection.

asp.net 2.0 class

public sealed class randomizer {
    private int good_index;
    private int evil_index;
    private int[] good_buffer = new int[250];
    private int[] evil_buffer = new int[521];
 
    public randomizer()
    {
        Random r = new Random();
        int i = 521;
        int seed = 1;
        int salt = 999999999;
 
        while (i-- > 250) {
            evil_buffer[i] = r.Next();
        }
        while (i-- > 31) {
            good_buffer[i] = r.Next();
            evil_buffer[i] = r.Next();
        }
        while (i-- > 0) {
            good_buffer[i] = (r.Next() | seed) & salt;
            evil_buffer[i] = (r.Next() | seed) & salt;
            salt ^= seed;
            seed >>= 1;
        }
        good_buffer[0] = seed;
        evil_buffer[0] = salt;
        good_index = 0;
        evil_index = 0;
    }
 
    public int random() {
        int g = good_index;
        int e = evil_index;
 
        int nina = g - (250-103);
        if (nina < 0)
            nina = g + 103;
        int xero = e - (521-168);
        if (xero < 0)
            xero = e + 168;
 
        int x = good_buffer[nina] ^ good_buffer[g];
        good_buffer[g] = x;
        int z = evil_buffer[xero] ^ evil_buffer[e];
        evil_buffer[e] = z;
 
        g = (g != 249) ? (g + 1) : 0;
        good_index = g;
        e = (e != 521) ? (e + 1) : 0;
        evil_index = e;
 
        return x ^ z;
    }
}

randomizer x = new randomizer();
int num = x.random();

i was having some trouble at work creating form buttons with graphics for reset buttons. i just thought someone might be intrested in my non-javascript solution:

html / inline css

<button  name="Reset" value="Reset" type="reset"
	style="background:none;border:none;" >
	<img src="reset.jpg">
</button>

 

"people look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. people look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access..."

banksy

 

x:: what did yew do this weekend?
s:: i gave rumpelstilskins a cauliflower ear.
x:: i should have never axed.

 

i have been working on my c++ final project. since we havnt been working with gui interfaces, our apps are all text based. so what better thing to do than make the app oldskool bbs style. so here's the menu for my airline flight reservation system...

     +---------------------------------------------------- ,--.---.__  
     |       ______ _____ _____ ___ ___              __,--(_,-`    ,-`  
  +--+      |   _  |   __|     |___|___|         _,-`           ,-`  
  |##|      |      |__   |  ---|   |   |      ,-`    ()       ,-  
  |##|      |___|__|_____|_____|___|___|   ,-`    ()       ,-`  
  |##|                                  ,-`  __..--``   ,-`  |  
  |##|                               ,-`.--``   ,-`   -`     |  
  |##|            |`         __..--``        ,-`    -`:      |  
  |##|            | `__..--``     ______  ,-`    _-`  :      |  
  |##|       __..--``         ,-`|_____/-`   _,-`_    :      |  
  |##|_..--``              ,-` ,-`  ,-`  _,-`____/    :      |  
  |##| `---...___       ,-` ,-`  ,-` _,-`    _,-`     :      |  
  |##|           ```-,-` ,-`  ,-`_,-`    _,-`         :      |  
  |##|            |  `,-`___,-`-`` ___,-`-...___      :      |  
  |##|  ______ ___|_.`___   ____   ___ ___ __ __''--..:____  |  
  |##| |   _  |___|   __ ) |    |_|___|   |  |   ___|    __| |  
  |##| |      |   |      < |      |   |      |   ___|__    | |  
  |##| |___|__|___|___|__| |______|___|__|___|______|______| |  
  |##+-------------------------------------------------------+  
  |##|                   M A I N  - M E N U                  |  
  |##| (1) Flight Information           (4) Print Reports    |  
  |##| (2) Reservation Information      (5) Exit System      |  
  |##| (3) Employee Information                              |  
  |##+-------------------------------------------------------+  
  |#######################################################|
  +-------------------------------------------------------+

                    __ __          __         __ __ 
  .---.-.-----.----:__|__|  .---.-:__|----.  |  |__|-----.-----.-----. 
+-|  _  |__ --|  __|  |  |--|  _  |  |   _|--|  |  |     |  -__|__ --|-+ 
| |___._|_____|____|__|__|  |___._|__|__|    |__|__|__|__|_____|_____| |
|                                                         _____        |
|                                                       ,`    /        |
|              _____                                  ,`     /         |
|           __` )   ``=,_                         __,`     _/          |
|          /             `-..,_______________,.--``         ]          |
+-------- (___              ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )           __] ---------+

 _________________________          _____
|                         \          \ U \__       ____
|   Thanks For Using       \__________\   \/_______`___`____________
|   ASCII AIRLINES!        /          < /_/  .....................  `-.
|_________________________/           `-----------,----,--------------'
                                                 /____/

 

"def mostinitely = most definitely"

donovan hubbard

 

x:high?
n:hi.
x:no, are you?
n:are i what?
x:you are.
n:i are what?!

 

the greatest kool-aid mix ever is black cherry, fruit punch, and cherry strawberry. damn thats some sweet aid!

lots has been going on lately. the first thing of notice is lil-spooky.vs.xero.nu. the VS project begins a new with a sweet hr-giger-esc background. their are a few new fonts available. im also working on my professional website. check it out at xero.harrison.nu. skool is really beating me down. ive got no job, but lots of classes. im really confused, because im taking both data structures in c++ as well as vb.net this simester!1!!

so the other night, or weekend that is, my friend pat was back from school. i got seriously fuuuuuuuuukt up, but not like pfunk did. schmitty was drinking the corbys + the ol'e. 'he wasnt ready for the malt & the aged goodlyness'. either way he ended up spewing in eat'n'park, in the bathroom + on the way there. after that we were just drivin' around getting our 5m0k3 on. we caim up to this stop sign + pat said lemmie' get out and stretch. he did some yoga fer a sec, then proceeded to accost this street sign! the next day him, luke, nina + myself tried to go to this sk8 demo, but was missed it. then we went pickin' also w/ no avail. it was a good time-taro. dont ask-aro.

so iv been hanging out w/ 13zeros in #c0d3z on irc, and it's a riot. we were herassing #teens4jesus and they were getting really pissed. /whois NATUS-LIAH but about a week ago we were making fun of 13zeros, and he kept a log of it, he put some java with it, and it's really cool: check it out.

so the funniest thing ever happened last night, pete, nina, and myself were checking out the madness last night and we decided to see what was going down at k-mart. we were in the car talking when out of nowhere we heard insane screaming. we really thought that someone was being raped. but then we saw this little kid with his mom screaming! then out of nowhere he stopped, looked at his mom and said: "what are you doing mom? but... i wanted that game that i wanted!" then continued screaming.... i guess it was funnier at the time.

so this strangest thing ever happened to me today. i was in line at the grocery store and this arabic guy in front of me didnt have enough money to pay for his food. so i did the right thing and gave the cashier a dollar sixth three for the guy. the thanked me, and left. i bought my stuff and he was waiting outside of me. he asked me why i did what i did, and i told his that im a nice guy. he then proceeded to tell me that since i did a favor for his he would do a favor for me. the told me not to drink coke or pepsi products after september 1st, then walked away. i dont think ill be drinking soda anymore.

yes, you read the title correctly.yesterday we went skateboarding naked.

it was me + kaila (naked) and nina + kira (clothed). and i'v got pictures to prove it. but dont worry we're covered by out boards in the pictures.

it was actually a lot of fun. we weren't naked too long though. kaila chickened out, and i didn't wanna' be the only naked one.

well, i guess im now officially insane. yesterday myself, nina, kira, rachel, and geoff all attempted to stay at eat'n park an entire 24 hours.
we got there at around 9:00pm, got a table in the back and started talking to the factor 8 kids. nate + amanda showed up, kiala showed up for a while, and so did rachel's mom. we ate a few times and got a lot of drinks. we were so board... and have been watching fight club "too much", and gave each other chemical burns with ice and salt. but the madness hadn't even started to set in until the manager kicked us out at 4:30. we thin proceeded to go to the air port and try to sneak onto planes. it didn't work. and we went to the eat'n park in robinson twp. after his 3rd or 4th cup of coffee, geoff went to sleep in my car. so the rest of us stayed there until around 5:45. by then i had kira convinced that we were in a "bazarro" eat'n park in siberia, run by robots... and that she was also a robot. she lay laughting so much, and rolling in the aisle. nina was convinced that if we listened to crass on the way home the tumor in my head would explode. ("im glad i don't have a tumor. but if i did, i'd name it marla.") then we went to nina's house and slept...

Sometimes
         i wounder
           if it'll
  EVER
                stop
   raining,
  or         if
               we'll  all
   just     DIE
               in a flood.

if i had a tumor id name it marlia
you know, like that cut on the roof of your mouth, that would heal if you could only stop tounging it.

i cant seem to get enough of that movie. if you dont know im talking about fight club. it's got plot twists, intrigues, sex, violence, the wole thing. it's got to be in my top 5 favorite movies.

#1. the shining
#2. lost highway
#3. fight club
#4. mall rats
#5. gandahar

it's just a great movie. one that really makes you think, and one you really have to dig into, to get the entire thing. i love that about a movie.

the first rule of fight club, dont talk about fight club.the second rule of fight club, DONT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB!!

clinging to you, your arms draped around me. my face buried in your fuzzy sweater. and then it happened. an explosion of emotions erupts from the depths of my consciousness, things repressed longer than i can remember. and the tears, pouring from my eyes like the rain that still hasn't stopped. and there i am, in your arms letting out every bit of sadness iv ever held back, i let go. and iv never felt so safe.

it never seems to stop lately. but that's what i seem to identify with anymore. that never-ending, never changing blissful monotamy that controls my life. things in our lives, nevertheless seems to be chaotic and random, always seems to end in the same systematic endings of every other bit of life we all pretend to have. whether or not we're sitting around, driving, going to shows, or sleeping, it all just seems to be the same. and always the rain. another static in my life. the constant rainfall...

i went to see aus-rotten at the mr roboto project. if you don't know about roboto, it's this little shit hole in wilkensburg (right by oakland, pittsburgh) where the entire towns population is black, and every one stairs at you funny. especially when it's me+nina+kiala+splat+robert (2 white guys, a black guy, and two white chics), but anyways it's really hot in there, and most of the people are all the real political krustys, who i get along w/ somewhat, but when ever they see charge/filth punx like us w/ big green mohalks and painted leathers they seem too look down on us, like you have to have dread locks, and tons of like quadrupled zero gauged piercing to be political punk. it helped to reiterate my feelings for a lot of things about 'punk' culture. weather you a chaos, krust, pop, charge, filth, drunk, etc, punk you can be as political, intelligent, cool, (or visa versa) dumb, drunk, or posure as anyone else. iv decided if you krusty w/ dreads, poppy w/ kakis, charged w/ huge chaos spiked hair, or filth w/ ripped up jeans you can still be cool as hell.

12:19 english class. bordom, just want to get this crap over with. miss c. just babbles along about conjunctive adverbs and the nomitive case.

1:00 public speaking exam. it was probally the most simple exam iv ever taken. now im just doomed to sit here in silent bordom until the bell.
2:30 the end of my history exam. and nearing the end of my junor year of high school. but now just waiting.

2:34 every second just seems to inch by. every second seems like twenty minutes. i cant wate for the...

2:35 the bell rings.
2:37 im out the door.

"today", that has to be one of the most relative terms that has been used ever, especially in my life. days just seem to blend together, yesterday becomes today today becomes tomorrow and i what i think is tomorrow becomes today.

"i miss today," i said.
"...but i dread it tomorrow"

because the today of tomorrow is always going to not be the today of yesterday. the day to day concept of today was described by the yuri indians by pointing up. and by society 'today' as the day you are currently in.
but wouldn't tomorrow be today? just like yesterday was?

well prom was tonight. it was oddly fun. well, actually after prom was the fun part. i convinced me date to pay for everything, because it wasn't a person i really liked all that much, but we both wanted to go.

after all was said and done with the dance thing, i went a picked up nina and kaila, took my date home and went to some parties. they all pretty much sucked and kiala fell a sleep at all of them. so we ended up, unsurprisingly, at eat'n'punk. we were all extremely tired and really strung out on caffeine, so every thing, i mean EVERYTHING was funny. we drank coffee, except kiala with her hot tea <scoff> and drew stuff on the back of the place-mats and/or each other. on the way home at 6:15 we were singing herman's hermits "henry the eight i am" in british accents and laughing hysterically. then all passed out at nina's.

i got lost today. nina and i were driving from empire to... well i actually had no idea where i was going, or why. i just knew i wanted to go.. we drove to empire and then just turned onto a road id never been on. it took us over the river on this old rickety bridge, nina thought for sure that it would collapse on us when we drove over it. but i managed to get across it. it shook really intensly when the wind blew. and it was a particularly windy night. but after that i just kept driving, i had a half a tank of gas and was in a ford festiva, so i figured that i could get to something with out running out of gas anytime soon. i was wrong, dead wrong. the road eventually changed from a four lane into barely a two lane. the lines seemed to dissapear from the road. and in the darkness and quiet of the rural area i had gotten into it was quite hard to see where i was going. yet we pressed on, hoping civilization would come quickly. but it didn't. i just kept driving and driving. i felt like i we on the lost highway. there wasn't another car in sight, i just kept driving and driving.. for what seemed like hours. then the panic started to set in. i just kept thinking that i would run out of gas and they're wouldn't be any other cars, and i would be stuck here and we wouldn't ever... but i was torn back into reality as i car whizzed by me, i was in the wrong lane. but there was another car, and thus a shining glimmer of hope. i just kept driving. the night just crept on and on. until finally right when we had almost ran out of gas i some how magically ended up in imperial. nina found it hysterical.

one again it's raining. but this times it's different. i'm not liking it today. it's dark, damp, cold, and foreboding. iv got that over whelming sense that something is out of place, or it's very wrong. i cant tell. everything is blurred by my new windshield wipers. i liked the old ones better, even though they were broken they still worked. unlike these new ones. just because they're not broken, means they dont need to be fixed. but i still feel like some thing is wrong, and i cant put my finger on it. maybe it's me, maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the hunger in my stomach, maybe it's the thoughts i'm having, maybe the thought's I'm not. it's a very vaught feeling and i don't tend to get those very often. it's comparable to that feeling you get when you first wake up, your eyes are blurry, everything it bright, and it's hard to focuson anything. that's how it is now, except i'm noticing it less and less...

boredom... the same old endless monotony that runs my world. i cant seem to shake this feeling of insecurity. i'm afraid, and I don't know of what. *sigh* maybe it's paranoia, or just existential angst. i'm not sure. i feel lost, i feel alone, i feel empty. and tired. nate and i went to pittsburgh yesterday. i got a new deck for my skate board. it's a 'zero'. hehe, typical i guess. i cut out black flag bars in the grip tape, it's interesting to say the least. i cant wait for summer, but at the same time im secretly dreading it. the summer brings break, relaxation, shows, fun, green mohalks, piercings, and ill be 18 this summer. but i got a job the other day, and i hope it doesn't interfere with all of my summer fun. i also know that is so hot during the summer. but all and all i'm looking for ward to it.

today we went to club laga to see blanks 77 along with sixer + the macarthy commission. 6er was ok, and macarthy sounded like normal, and blanks were really good. they cover my shernoa, but mike blank only knew part of the 1st verse and the chorus, it was still hilarious. i saw lots of old friends, chris watson, drunk mike, pogo, mike doc, bill, etc, etc, etc... but mike doc (amanda's skinhead boy friend) wanted to kill chris watson (the 'punkest man alive') because of some old shit between him and amanda. but drunk mike and i were trying to stop the whole think, so we missed some of sixer. eventually i talked doc out of it, atleast for today. after the show we (me, nate, lukkas, nina) were hanging out side lage with drunk mike. i was bumming for money off all the goth kids the come to see 'ceremony' (aka goth night) after the punk shows. we were running the streets shouting 'BRING OUT YOU UNDEAD!' it was really fun, then some random goth girl kissed us, and nina got kinda jealous. all and all a good show.

just sitting there waiting, nerviously, anxiously, dreading it's arivial, yet at the same time delighted to know that it'll all be over soon. i look over at geoff, his face is pale, expression blank, and his eyes turned inward, as if he was deep in thaught. i laughed, just to break the tention of the forboading silence that incounpased the room. "lemmie' hit that." i asked as geoff handed me his ciggerette. i took a long drag, untill i could feel the paper burning my fingers, and taste the tar dripping down my throught. i handed it back to him. he hit it again, and put it out. my eyes turn and gase out the window. it's dark and pouring. 6:13, the clock read. i sighed. another 47 minutes till the bus gets here i thaught. time crept by, all of us bairly talking, and never about anything important, smoking heavly, and slowing loosing touch with each other. i could feel it coming, 7:05 the clock said. i could hear it's screaching brakes floating around the bend. i stood up, and announced it's arival. "the big grey dog is here," i said with an obviously fake chuckel. we all grabbed a bag, i ended up with the lightest due to my size, and we clammered out into the pouring rain. the man in the dark suit took his ticket, and we threw his bags under the bus. everyone said there good byes except me, he turned, laughed and said to me, "what the fuck am i doing?" "being retarded," is the only answer i could think of. i smacked him in the back of the head, he gave my the steubenvillan hand shake and got on the bus. it drove away, as did we, but in an oppisite direction.

sitting in my car, the windows half down, the smoke slowly rising, dancing, being chased from my sight out the window. the annoying clutter of my broken windshield wipers as they clamor across my glossy window. the rain slowly dripping down and splattering across the window. constantly dripping, and sliding between other drips, and merging with other, only to be swept or smeared away by the totalitarian force of the wipers. every so often though, a drip of two make it between the wipers, where they are broken and continue on their journey down my window. and i think to my self as i take another drag on my cigarette, that's how i feel. like there's always some driving force trying to merge me into someone else, like they want me too, or they'll just obliterate me into void, and toss me onto the abyss of the puddle forming on the ground. how i fight to make it between the wipers, and to escape the length of they're grasp. but the light turn green, and i just drive away...