We interrupt this trip report to bring you a regular journal entry.

[rivka]

Bill (wcg) came over last night with my birthday presents. From Skye, a pair of terrifying battery-powered doohickeys. Picture an erratically-wobbling ball with a sort of fuzzy, eyed, raccoon-striped tube attached. It's supposed to be a squirrel, but rather more resembles a squirrel tail with eyes. When you start the little motor going, the ball wobbles around whipping the squirrelly thing about by the nose.

I don't know why anyone would design, make, or sell this thing. That said, I understand exactly why a person would buy it and give it to innocent bystanders. "There, you experienced it too! I'm not crazy!" It's just like the Willy Wonka Xploder bar all over again.

My other present, from Bill, was a cookie press. I'd mentioned wanting one at some point - my favorite Christmas cookies are made in a press - and Bill tends to remember things like that. This, however, is not the cheap aluminum cookie press of my childhood - it's a by-god engineering marvel. It's got a ratcheting pump that delivers precisely the amount of dough per cookie. It's got an ergonomic handle. It's got a removable dough compartment for easy washing. It all screws together like a telescope, including an extra little piece that goes on the bottom to store the template discs. I'm almost frightened of it. It's wonderful.

I'm making cookies this weekend. And they're going to be the most high-tech cookies you've ever seen.

Comments

A by-god engineering marvel

[wcg.livejournal.com]

*grin* I think I chose well.

Re: A by-god engineering marvel

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I think Rivka chose well, too. ;)

Oooooh, cookie press!

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Enjoy your cookie press! They're altogether too much fun. I know from experience.

Oooh! Cookie Press!

[(Anonymous)]

A) I demand to know your recipe.

B) I once got quite carried away and baked 9 or 10 dozen cookies at once. Granted, they're small, but still! (I wanted to have all sorts of different flavors, and making 6 of each just seemed silly...)(Okay, it wasn't just the flavors, it was also the ratchety fun of squeezing out cookies.)

--Trinker, doing a drive-by posting.

Re: Oooh! Cookie Press!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I think it's just the basic cookie press recipe.

1 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 1/4 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp flavoring extract (optional)

Cream shortening and sugar very well. Add egg and dry ingredients, and mix. Press onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

We always made these into Christmas trees and wreaths: Divide the dough in half, before baking, and color each with green or red food coloring. (Green for trees, red or undyed for wreaths.) After pressing them onto the cookie sheet, brush with milk and sprinkle with red or green colored sugar.

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

Put the battery operated squirrel thingy(tm) down in front of any available cat. Step back. Observe the resulting fun. *grin* I love them thingies.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

"Them thingies"? Do you mean to say that you're actually familiar with artificial armless and legless squirrels fastened to plastic balls via the nose? Clearly, the world is a much stranger place than I ever imagined.

Cats, now, that's a problem. I'm allergic, and don't actually like them anyway. I wonder what a schipperke would make of it?

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Dinner, likely. ;P "Those thingies" are not unknown in this part of the world, and are usually called "weasel balls".

Re:

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

I'm a much stranger person...er...nevermind. Turn the fiendish thingie(tm) on, then stand back...WAY back! The reaction of animals to such a highly mobile toy is usually amazing. Be careful to rescue the toy from the jaws of...er...whatever, as it seems to cause even placid animals to want to tear it into small pieces and eat it.

Not in the right places...

[(Anonymous)]

I take it you haven't been by a shopping mall toy store at the right time. Most of the ones around here seem to have a vast menagerie of mechanical silliness tethered to the portable signage (whose name I've forgotten...wow. It *has* been a long time since I worked retail!)

I need to find one of those "smashing glass" stress balls (the sort with a shock sensitive 'crashing glass' sound generator buried within a hard plastic foam ball.) -- my cat is very sad that the last one finally died.

--Trinker

Portable signage thingies.

[peaberry.livejournal.com]

ITYM POP displays? *g*

*wave* Hello, drive-by poster.

[rosefox]

I've seen them before. My favorite thing to do with one--and I believe this is the classic "use"--is to put it in a small empty bag of potato chips, with the tail sticking out but the ball hidden in the bag. It looks like a squirrel is fishing for potato chip crumbs so enthusiastically as to be thrashing all over the place.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Squirrel Ball.

No!

[jodawi.livejournal.com]

Mustn't. add. to.
cart.

Re: No!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The Willy Wonka Xploder bars? But why not? I've bought a case before, myself, and handed them out to a roomfull of people, cautioning them all not to take a bite until everyone had one and could try them at once. It was deeply satisfying, watching all of those expressions of wonderment, alarm, horror, reluctant admiration.

Right, pixel?

Alarm? fooey.

[peaberry.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're talking about the room of people *I* was in that you did this to, not everyone was alarmed. Despite your horrification at 'em, I think Xploder bars are fun. Weird fun, granted, but not alarming, and certainly not an abomination!

:) I admit to being easily entertained, though, and disrespectful of the sanctity of chocolate.

Squirrel Balls? On a stick?

[fernblatt.livejournal.com]

I think Rose said it best with the comment "Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Squirrel Ball" Oh gods. The battery-operated-dead-animal-stapled-to-a-ball thingies. Feh! Feh, I say. *giggle* ahem. Well, having said such, I wish to congratulate you on the cookie press, must have one, must... must... Those things are enough like power tools to actually raise my testoterone level a bit just thinking about them. So, I guess it's a trip to Williams-$onoma soon for me. Sigh.