Betty Crocker Exposed

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I've not been baking much lately but I ran across the Pi Pie at some point yesterday and thought that it was really cute. The last time I thought about Pi was during the boom days, I tagged along with a friend to a party in Cambridge hosted by a dude with a lot of VC cash and a boner for someone known to me only as the "Pi Chick" whose claim to fame was that she memorized a large portion of the digits of Pi. Well, that and having a fairly public affair with the boss, a.k.a. the dude with the VC cash, who just promoted her to head of development or somesuch. It was a lavishly catered affair with cookies, cakes, petit fors, sumptuous desserts and food of all kinds, etc. either in the shape of Pi or adorned with its digits. Pi had nothing to do with the start-up, at least as far as I know. The start-up, of course, failed and the guy would eventually get sued by the investors. Maybe I should try doing a Chicken Mole with Avogadro's number or a round cake in the shape of a mole for Mole Day. I might even try to work in the Co-Fe ring chemist gag for extra nerd points.

More interesting books are being released this spring than in the past year or two although I don't know that anyone needs three different books on the life and times of the honeybee. How is it that when there is one book on some obscure historical topic that there's bound to be one or two more on the same topic from different publishers released about the same time? It makes me wonder if publishers think that if we'll buy one book on some boutique subject that we'll buy all three of them so they all get on the bandwagon and try to cash in. Is there some random topic generating program somewhere that claims to be random but spits out the same topics to all the publishers using it? If only I didn't need sleep, the pile of unread books would be so much smaller.

• Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time π Someone finally puts the smackdown on the perpetuated stupidity that is DST. Revolt and sleep in for a change as we're not living in Victorian times anymore! Damn cheerful morning people punishing us night owls. *grumble*
• Leica M: Advanced Photo School π A new edition of a rather expensive classic that's hard to find. Something every Leicaphile will deny wanting, but go out and buy a copy to hide under their pillow for late night reading. :)
• 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos π Aside from the science and the scientists building the bomb, the small city that sprang up around the project is rarely discussed in much detail and is likely as fascinating as the project. A place like this could never happen today which also adds to the curiosity.
• Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food π At some point when I was a kid, I noticed that two Betty Crocker cake mixes my mother had on the shelf had two different pictures of the famed Ur-Martha and I knew right then that I had been duped, that there was no such cheerful baking homemaker that I secretly wished my mother was like instead of a driven career woman putting her patients first. I need to read this if only to have closure on the feelings of childhood violation at the hands of marketing wanks.
• Freddy and Fredericka π Mark Helprin's upcoming novel that is a satire featuring a, but likely the, royal family. Helprin is one of the few brilliant fiction writers left out there.
• A Long Way Down π A new novel from Nick Hornby that will, hopefully, not make me write him off as a hack still coasting on the success of High Fidelity.