In which PhysicsGirl, though jet-lagged, tries to find a cream tea

So here I am in London, again. I was very happy, this time, to not be lugging around a huge 26-kg suitcase. I managed to fit everything I need for the next two weeks into a small suitcase. In fact, if it weren't for Air Transat's bizarre carry-on limits to the UK^*, I would have been out of Gatwick in about 10 minutes. As it was, I had to wait about half an hour to claim my oddly-blue bag^** . As soon as I did, I was off to navigate the tube to my hotel.

Beauty is in the eyelet of the beholder

When I bought the pretty white fabric for the white dress I am planning, I at first thought that I would have, as I usually do, a tonne of fabric left over, and I thought that it would be nice to make a sheath dress with the rest. Naturally, when I laid out the pattern, I barely had enough fabric to make the original dress. The idea of having a white sheath was in my head, though, and it wouldn't go away. Then I was reading some back entries of Lladybird's blog and came across this tutorial on underlining an eyelet dress. Here was the answer: I would make the sheath dress of white eyelet underlined in robin's egg blue, left over from lining the green Easter Parade dress.

And here it is! Ignore the horrible picture of me; look at the dress.

Pancake of the Month: Sour Cream

I am rather fond of pancakes. I make them often, and I collect new and interesting recipes. The thing is, I don't make the new and interesting recipes. I tend to make the same three over and over^*. They're excellent, naturally, but I feel the need to expand my culinary horizons. At least on the flapjack front.

And so I am introducing the Pancake of the Month, wherein I will cook a new pancake recipe each month -- without adding blueberries, unless the recipe calls for it.

This should prove to be tasty.

July's pancake of the month is sour cream pancakes, from the March 2007 issue of Chatelaine. I was interested to see if using sour cream instead of buttermilk would make the pancakes more tangy and yet with a creamy texture, like using yogurt.

And there was much rejoicing...

So yesterday, some guys in Switzerland (or France) made a little announcement. It's pretty exciting. Well, less exciting than if they hadn't found a Higgs-like particle, because that would mean that we would have to completely rethink the Standard Model. However, there's still a lot to figure out, so it's a pretty cool time to be a particle physicist. I'm especially happy that they have discovered this particle in Peter Higgs's lifetime.

For those of you saying "What the...?" and "Why did they use Comic Sans in the presentation," here are a few explanatory videos.

First up: Minutephysics. Which is really 3-minutes. Details.


Next,

The Higgs Boson Explained from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

(Bonus Dark Matter video:)

Dark Matters from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

Finally, Vi Hart wrote a sonnet. Which she didn't like, so she improved it.

(The original is the first suggested video. Compare and contrast.)

Happy Higgsapalooza!

June Photo-a-Day

Check me out. I've been officially on holiday for 4 days, and I've already slipped into "eh, I'll get to it later" mode. I'm actually a day behind in my procrastination, because I spent yesterday working^* However, today I lazed around and even managed to get through a fair chunk of the giant Globe crossword -- that I've been saving since last Christmas -- until my delightful temporary tarp-awning became less temporary and more completely unusable due to rippage. I had ordered some Sunbrella fabric to make the permanent awning; now I need it here by yesterday.

I figure it was Nature's way of telling me to update my blog^**. So here, somewhat tardy, are the June Photo-a-Day pictures. You will notice a lack of the Lucycat, since I decided to challenge myself not to take the obvious photos (Something cute and Soft, for example).


July's prompts are here, and I'm quite excited because half of those prompts will be taken in London and Paris. Oh yes, baby. I'm heading back to where it began^***. Sort of. Of course, I should probably catch up on my blog posts from the last trip I took...

Where's that crossword?



^*I really was. I was getting my course website ready for next year, so I don't fall behind in updating it. That's the plan, anyway. Hush, Robert Burns.

^**Or to take a nap. Nature can be capricious with her signs.

^***Everybody sing with me, since it's now stuck in your head too: Sweeeet Caroline! (Bom bom bom)...