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this whole wheat bread i made today literally imploded on itself. i'm not sure how it happened, i'm not a CSI investigator of bread so i'm pretty much in the dark. all i know is everything was going well, even up to the 40 minutes remaining mark (the last time i checked the bread), it was still a puffy loaf. however, once the bread finished baking, when i looked through the window of the machine, i actually thought the bread had disappeared because there was a big crater where the bread had been. now a bread is not like a soufflé, where a loud noise could deflate it (although this might be culinary urban legend). a bread is pretty resilient, particularly a whole wheat loaf, which is probably one step above a brick in terms of overall toughness. anyway, if you're curious, here's the list of ingredients: 1 1/3 cup water, 1/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1.5 tsp salt, 3.5 cups whole wheat flour, 4 tbsp dairy creamer, 1 tbsp yeast. no eggs, no butter. since whole wheat is harder to rise, the total bread making time was 3:40. the finished bread had a slightly bitter taste but it was definitely sweet, although you couldn't quite distinguish the syrup flavor. despite the sunken shape, the consistency was surprisingly fluffy.

elsewhere, i still have a bunch of guppy fries. if their numbers are being reduced, i haven't noticed anything. i embedded two ceramic sake cups into the gravel, hoping that maybe the babies could use them as shelters. one thing i've learned though is that fish are pretty stupid and aren't the kind of animal that can figure stuff out, like "if i hide in the cave i won't get eaten." last check, none of them have used the sake cups yet.

in the evening i went over to my parents for dinner. they finally got their new dining room table, an oval compared to the previous circle. the one advantage is it can fold out to accommodate at least 12 people. tonight was also super bowl sunday but for some reason i wasn't very excited about it. i didn't care about the game (although i guess i'm cool with the colts winning, at least the patriots were eliminated by the eventually champions), the commercials were lackluster, and the prince half-time show didn't live up to the hype (maybe because it was raining in miami). when i got back home, an tao still wasn't back: he didn't get home until 10pm, where he cooked and ate dinner in the kitchen.

sent out an e-mail just now, trying to score a 10 gallon fish tank from craig's list. i'm becoming a crazy cat lady, but just with fish. i wish there was some way of neutering those guppies, like you would for dogs or cats. anyway, just got a response, the seller wants me to go pick up the aquarium tomorrow morning (the person lives around tufts). i thought about walking but 1) it'd take too long and 2) the sidewalks are icy and i don't want to be carrying a glass aquarium home. i'll figure something out.