Cake Pops--scrumptious little mouthfuls

Tootsie Roll pops®, Dum-Dums®, candy pops in general.  We've all devoured these tasty treats on a stick.

Bakerella--blogging at Bakerella.com--has reinvented this candy favorite in cake format. Her charming book full of recipes--Cake Pops: Tips, Tricks, and Recipes for More Than 40 Irresistible Mini Treats--is brand new at The Urbana Free Library, and is ready for you to taste test.

The construction basics and all the recipes are explained with clear step-by-step instructions and illustrated with close-up color photos. 

Now, my personal favorite mini cakes are the Sugar Sheep. If you follow the sheep link to Bakerella's blog, you'll see the little cuties in full color and get complete instructions on how to make them. They're in the book, too, along with Pastel Bunny Pops, Bride & Groom Cake Pops, and Lovely Little Ladybugs.

Tired of creating the usual iced sheet cakes or the same old cupcakes for a party?  Tired of cutting and plating cake slices?  (And washing plates and forks afterwards?)  Try a different type of presentation! Create a whole bunch of decorative individual cake pops and serve a veritable forest of fun!

For more inspiration, visit the Cake Pop section of Bakerella's blog.

io9's Helpful Scifi Series

P is for Pyew! Pyew! by flickr user Don Solo

I think I may have mentioned the A/V Club's enjoyable Gateways to Geekery series that has featured informational articles on a variety of niche interests people really geek out on, like Lovecraft or the Marx Brothers, as well as helpful suggestions to get newcomers hooked.  They suggest particular gateway titles for beginners, other titles to grab later in one's geeky journey, and frequently a few titles best left to the most entrenched aficionados.

The blog io9 has a similar series of posts tagged scifi101 that are less varied than the Gateways as they all focus on science fiction.  Scifi 101 includes posts with titles like "How to get into 20 classic science fiction shows," which lists suggestions on where to start watching TV series to best get hooked, and "Fictional Science 101: Important scientific ideas that inform science fiction," which lists summaries of some important ideas as well as references to nonfiction works for more information.

Lessons I've learned include that when I finally break down and check out Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I should start with season 2, and that the singularity is...hard to sum up at this point in my sentence given both it's complexity and my choice of sentence structure. 

If you happen to be aware of other sorts of blogs that attempt to attract newcomers to genres, authors, performers, etc., feel free to post a link in the comments.

Find out what your web-stalkers know about you

 Binoculars Portrait by gerlos, http://www.flickr.com/photos/12033805@N00/3119891607

You've heard about advertisers collecting your browsing information.  In a recent MakeUseOf post, they list sites that allow you to search yourself for what information web marketers may be collecting on you.  I also recommend checking out their link at the top of the post to The Wall Street Journal--the infographic they mention is pretty cool.

Bike Snob

I'm not a bike snob, as bicycling hasn't been my major means of transportation for a few years now.  Still, I can empathize with Eben Weiss, blogger and author of Bike Snob, especially in his recent blog post about watching a father endanger himself and his child in New York traffic.

I was a courteous bicyclist, familiar with and follower of the bike laws and common sense--stop at stop signs, ride with the flow of traffic, wear a helmet, and don't ride on sidewalks, in crosswalks, or otherwise mistake oneself for a pedestrian.  Knowing my cycling ethics, you can understand why I hate hate hate driving on the U of I campus, where many cyclists have turned into senseless savages, freely whizzing through stop signs, crossing the path of my Malibu, and giving me dirty looks for attempting to drive in the street.

Okay, maybe I am a bit bike snobbish.

After spending so much of this post on my own complaints, it's only fair to offer a bit of the author's voice.  Flipping to page 123 of Bike Snob at random, I stumbled on this passage that cracked me up:

"So once the bicycle became trendy, the migratory pattern of the hipster changed.  Because the bicycle is by far the simplest and fastest way to cover short distances, cycling hipsters soon explored the often fertile areas surrounding their territory.  These were areas they never noticed on public transportation, or that seemed hopelessly far away by foot.  However, what may be half an hour away by foot is only ten minutes away by bicycle, and even the most feeble hipster can ride a bicycle for ten minutes."

He does enjoy humor at the expense of hipsters, both in the book and the blog.  Weiss writes well and is genuinely funny, however, and cyclists of all sorts, even hipsters, will likely find something to laugh at.

Almost forgot my mom...

That's nothing new. I almost forget about my mom every year, and some years I follow through and actually do forget my mom. While we've got our weekend phone calls, for some reason she never reminds me that Mother's Day is impending. Aren't moms supposed to help you remember stuff? Why do I have to find out about it afterward--not that I want to avoid knowing I've erred, but before I've actually missed Mother's Day would be the productive time for a reminder.

If you've forgotten about mom, and you're lucky enough that she lives here in town, the fantastic Champaign Taste blog can save your day. Sure, you can scramble for a card, rifling through all the leftovers with us other slackers, but wouldn't it be more impressive to surprise your mom with a brunch like you'd been planning it all along?

U Like Ubuntu

We've only got a few books on Ubuntu, the latest Linux Distribution to become king-of-the-mountain (here's the wikipedia entry for the completely bewildered), but relative to other books in the computers section, Ubuntu's well-represented. Hey, we order them because you like them.

And because Ubuntu is popular around here, I thought I'd point out some current links on the topic.

A new Ubuntu release, 10.04, became available on April 29th, and one of my favorite blogs, MakeUseOf, discussed their favorite new features.

Another of my other favorite blogs, Lifehacker, linked me to IT World's 10 minute Ubuntu set up of the new release.

The possibly Ubuntu-biased site OMG! Ubuntu! has a list of 10 things to do after installing Ubuntu 10.04.

There's just truckloads of info online about Ubuntu, which makes sense since that's where it's developed and distributed, but if you're just getting started, consider checking out BeginningUbuntu Linux or Ubuntu for Non-Geeks from out collection.

EDIT: It's like Lifehacker knew I had this post scheduled to go up today, because they've linked a free eBook called Getting Started with Ubuntu 10.04.

Oh, Those Mommies!

Familiar with the local site ChambanaMoms?

Check out Babble.com's year-end list of "Top 50 Mommy Bloggers."

The compilation is divided into subcategories, including "most controversial," featuring women like FreeRangeKids' Lenore Skenazy (aka "America's Worst Mom") and Dooce.com's Heather Armstrong.

Pseudo-scientific trolling--er, polling--suggests that mommy blogs outnumber daddy blogs two to one. But "digital strategist" (i.e. bandwagoneer) Jessica Smith suggests that we'll see a shift in 2010, with more men posting:

As brands leverage social media more and more, the importance of not getting lost in the "noise" will be important if not totally necessary. While women tend to connect with each other emotionally and through story telling, men tend to be more direct and therefore provide instant gratification when providing their information.

(Uh, I think she's referring to the practice of corporations sending products to bloggers for potential review ... or whatever.)

If, like Seth Rogen, you could care less about children or their parents' multitudinous opinions, rest assured ... you are not alone.

Photo courtesy of rutlo.