Cookie success!

I made cookies again, and this time I'm willing to call the whole thing a win. I switched to trying out oatmeal cookies. I'm eating a lot of oatmeal these days, moreso than peanut butter, anyway, so it seemed like a good progression. My mom said that sometimes the best recipes come right from the companies that sell the ingredients, so I tried out a recipe I got right from the Quaker Oats people. (Though I didn't use Quaker oats...I used something generic.) But the results were moist and tasty, definitely more in line with what I wanted than the results I was getting from the peanut butter cookie trials. So, yay! Cookies. I had a couple breakthroughs this time around.

First off, thanks to the oven thermometer my mom lent me, I was able to determine that my oven does indeed run a little hot, so I was able to use a more accurate temperature setting this time. Assuming the thermometer is accurate...but let's not go there just yet. At any rate, I'm assuming that helped things work out better because, astoundingly, I didn't burn any of the cookies. I did, however, manage to burn myself. Right on a finger on my dealing hand, no less...what one of my coworkers calls the "moneymaker." Now I feel like I have to make up a story involving spot welding or something. Somehow I don't feel it'd be manly enough to just say, "Yeah...burnt my finger making oatmeal cookies." But anyway...no burnt cookies. In fact, I may actually have undercooked them. They seem a bit...fragile? But no matter...no one ever complained about cookie dough, methinks.

Secondly, this marked my first time using shortening. Shortening is apparently quite a traditional ingredient, but I find it kind of strange and unsettling. Now, butter...I get butter. I mean, sure, maybe it was squirted out of a cow's nipple, but I at least get the concept of agitated fat blobs. Shortening, though...I mean, you can't beat a soybean and get shortening to come out, know what I'm sayin'? What can I say -- I'm just weirded out by solid plant fats. Regardless, though, if shortening is the key to moist and delicious cookies, then...well, sign me up. The peanut butter cookie recipe my mom gave me is based on shortening, so...I guess I'll give that a try one of these times.

In other news, I tried freestyling something last night involving cheese sauce. I still remain cheese sauce deficient. I may not be totally to blame for this latest fiasco, as it was done basically in an attempt to use up a lot of old cheese I had laying around. So...in that sense, it worked out, but it still wasn't...I dunno. As tasty as I want cheese sauce to be. Research continues.

I'm not bummed about the cheese sauce thing, though. Cookies, son! Cookies.

Synchronicity Foundation

So, as I've mentioned from time to time, pretty much my only exposure to mass media these days is watching CNN in the break room at work. Tonight I caught a bit of Larry King during dinner, and on his show was a woman whose husband and daughter were killed by the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The parents were members of something called the "Synchronicity Foundation." When I heard those words, I figured this was something I'd just have to look up when I got home. (As an aside, I also found it amusing that Larry King apparently has a lot of trouble saying the word "synchronicity." He keeps adding an extra syllable or two.) Anyway, my resolve to research was doubled when I saw that Larry King also had on his show the founder and head of said organization, one Master Charles Cannon. You can check him out here. I know it's a tiny photo, but I picked that one because he was wearing that exact same outfit on the Larry King show. You know I had to look that shit up on the Internet. Their web site is here, but all you really need to know is on the "About" page here. An excerpt: "Its founding intention is Modern Spirituality with High-Tech Meditation and Holistic Lifestyle as the means. Its creation is based upon The Synchronicity Paradigm, originated by Master Charles..."

Oh, he goes by "Master Charles" by the way. Probably because going by "Master Cannon" is a bit...yeah.

So...it bills itself as "New Age Holistic Spirituality." You may be asking yourself about "high-tech meditation." And you'd be glad you did, too, when I explain that "it utilizes precision Holodynamic Vibrational Entrainment Technology." Sorry, that's "Holodynamic®." Registered trade mark, you know. From what I can discern, this technology involves different CDs that "balance" your brain waves for you so that you can have a high-tech meditative experience. I believe this is all done in search of the One Source Consciousness.

Anyway. I hesitate to delve too deeply into this. I just feel unnaturally drawn to this particular facet of the tragedy in Mumbai. I don't know what it is...I mean, aside from my normal bristling at the people who claim to have the answers. And then sell them. I guess...I guess it just sort of speaks to my own twisted, hollow view of things, which rears its ugly head from time to time. There's nothing out there. The faithful sometimes dismiss atheists as being sort of hopeless. Like...lost to despair. Maybe that's true, who knows. I mean, from a certain point of view, sure...atheism can come across as kinda...empty. Spiritually. But reality is reality. I don't care what you believe in. I don't care what you worship. If you're down with the God of Abraham, that's fine with me. Swear off pork, ritually consume the flesh of his avatar...whatever. If you want to listen to brainwave-balancing CDs and plumb the multidimensional synchronicity paradigm in search of the One Source Consciousness, hey...go to it. I don't care who you are or what you believe. The real deal is that sometimes, some places, a complete stranger will, for reasons no one fully understands, blow up someone's hotel and gun down their family. The survivors will discuss it with Larry King. The world will keep turning, and the whole thing will start again the next day.

I'm really interested in the woman (her name is Kia Scherr) and the other members of the Foundation's retreat group that survived the attacks. (In researching this story, I found another interesting bit: one of the members, David Rudder, was an actor from Canada. He credits his survival to his movie experience, saying he made it through by "playing dead.") How will they feel about their spiritual journey after this? Can Master Charles continue to guide them after what they've experienced? Will some perhaps grow more insistent on living within the Synchronicity Paradigm? Will some grow more distant, turning from this path? Will they find another? Will any of their lives be the same?

Probably not.

Mine will.

I guess that's all I had to say about that. The Truth is a pulsar.

Holodynamic® is a registered trademark of the Synchronicity Foundation and is used here without permission. No infringement on the intellectual property of said organization is intended or expr....AHHH OH GOD MY BRAIN WAVES MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP